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20 comments

  • soop
    I couldn`t read it all .Too stupid.Not me, although I`m sure some would beg to differ. I meant the article.
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  • He Dog
    Let's not.
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  • Mk 19
    No thanks, My blood pressure is normal and I would like to keep it that way
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  • spryor
    quote:Originally posted by He Dog
    Let's not.
    My thoughts also.
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  • fastcarsgofast
    I really feel like puking right now.
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  • Permanently deleted user
    I read the first 2 paragraphs and I allready wanted to punch the guy in the mouth and break his fingers so he could not type that crap anymore![:(!][:(!][:(!][:(!]
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  • Aspen79se
    quote:A near-death experience does focus the mind. We need to get rid of our guns.

    Um, you did not have a "near death" experience. In fact, you were not even hurt. His story about being robbed also reeks of bovine excrement. I ask a question to the officers of the board, how many times have you heard of a mugger using a pistol with a laser sight? I'll bet few, if any. The man's logic on the page represents a flawed view at best, outright denial at worst. I'd be ashamed to put my name on that article.
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  • HeavyBarrel
    The next time he gets robbed I hope he's robbed with a rubber chicken, what a coward.....
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  • TooBig
    I just posted this above but I pulled it off a old email I had sent.
    U.K. School Kids Strap On Stab-Proof Vests As Knife Crime Soars
    - Bloomberg.com
    School kids as young as 10 in the U.K. have resorted to wearing "stab-proof" vests to fend off attacks. Criminals once again prove a gun ban will not stop their violence.
    Read More | Read Other News
    Maybe cnn should study this
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  • 11b6r
    Sorry- before I read anything from ted turner's Commie News Network, I need to take an additional dose of blood pressure medication at least 30 minutes ahead of time. FWIW, some years back, was researching for a paper on crime in England- in the mid 1800s. While handguns (barkers in the slang of the time) WERE scarce, muggers and robbers used a variety of weapons- a variety of striking and cutting weapons that put the physically smaller/weaker person at a major disadvantage. The one I especially recall was the whippler- a one lb iron ball, attached to a cord, carried cupped in the hand with the cord looped over the thumb. Walking past your mark, you throw it into his face. Usually caved the skull in. Point? It ain't the guns. And we seem to know that. It's the talking heads on the 5 oclock news that can't figure it out.
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  • JamesRK
    Well, at least he did say the First Amendment seems to be working out OK.
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  • MosinNagantDisciple
    The author looks like a fruitcake.
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  • FrancF
    Sounds like the Clinton News Network.
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  • JackBwr
    "These students were not killed by a Korean, they were killed by a 9 mm handgun and a .22-caliber handgun."

    I stopped reading at that sentence. [:(!]

    Funny how every journalist thinks they're so smart. They always have every answer. You'd think they'd be NASA engineers instead of simply typing about their views on life. [:o)]

    Another uneducated reject that misses the whole point of it all. This guy's wasting my time.
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  • Captplaid
    Editor's note: Tom Plate, former editor of the editorial pages of the Los Angeles Times, is a professor of communication and policy studies at UCLA. He is author of a new book, "Confessions of an American Media Man."

    Read an opposing take on gun control from Ted Nugent: Gun-free zones are recipe for disaster

    LOS ANGELES (CNN) -- Most days, it is not at all hard to feel proud to be an American. But on days such as this, it is very difficult.

    The pain that the parents of the slain students feel hits deep into everyone's hearts. At the University of California, Los Angeles, students are talking about little else. It is not that they feel especially vulnerable because they are students at a major university, as is Virginia Tech, but because they are (to be blunt) citizens of High Noon America.

    "High Noon" is a famous film. The 1952 Western told the story of a town marshal (played by the superstar actor Gary Cooper) who is forced to eliminate a gang of killers by himself. They are eventually gunned down.

    The use of guns is often the American technique of choice for all kinds of conflict resolution. Our famous Constitution, about which many of us are generally so proud, enshrines -- along with the right to freedom of speech, press, religion and assembly -- the right to own guns. That's an apples and oranges list if there ever was one.

    Not all of us are so proud and triumphant about the gun-guarantee clause. The right to free speech, press, religion and assembly and so on seem to be working well, but the gun part, not so much.

    Let me explain. Some misguided people will focus on the fact that the 23-year-old student who killed his classmates and others at Virginia Tech was ethnically Korean. This is one of those observations that's 99.99 percent irrelevant. What are we to make of the fact that he is Korean? Ban Ki-moon is also Korean! Our brilliant new United Nations secretary general has not only never fired a gun, it looks like he may have just put together a peace formula for civil war-wracked Sudan -- a formula that escaped his predecessor.

    So let's just disregard all the hoopla about the race of the student responsible for the slayings. These students were not killed by a Korean, they were killed by a 9 mm handgun and a .22-caliber handgun.

    In the nineties, the Los Angeles Times courageously endorsed an all-but-complete ban on privately owned guns, in an effort to greatly reduce their availability. By the time the series of editorials had concluded, the newspaper had received more angry letters and fiery faxes from the well-armed U.S. gun lobby than on any other issue during my privileged six-year tenure as the newspaper's editorial page editor.

    But the paper, by the way, also received more supportive letters than on any other issue about which it editorialized during that era. The common sense of ordinary citizens told them that whatever Americans were and are good for, carrying around guns like costume jewelry was not on our Mature List of Notable Cultural Accomplishments.

    "Guns don't kill people," goes the gun lobby's absurd mantra. Far fewer guns in America would logically result in far fewer deaths from people pulling the trigger. The probability of the Virginia Tech gun massacre happening would have been greatly reduced if guns weren't so easily available to ordinary citizens.

    Foreigners sometimes believe that celebrities in America are more often the targets of gun violence than the rest of us. Not true. Celebrity shootings just make better news stories, so perhaps they seem common. They're not. All of us are targets because with so many guns swishing around our culture, no one is immune -- not even us non-celebrities.

    When the great pop composer and legendary member of the Beatles John Lennon was shot in 1980 in New York, many in the foreign press tabbed it a war on celebrities. Now, some in the media will declare a war on students or some-such. This is all misplaced. The correct target of our concern needs to be guns. America has more than it can possibly handle. How many can our society handle? My opinion is: as close to zero as possible.

    Last month, I was robbed at 10 in the evening in the alley behind my home. As I was carrying groceries inside, a man with a gun approached me where my car was parked. The gun he carried featured one of those red-dot laser beams, which he pointed right at my head.

    Because I'm anything but a James Bond type, I quickly complied with all of his requests. Perhaps because of my rapid response (it is called surrender), he chose not to shoot me; but he just as easily could have. What was to stop him?

    This occurred in Beverly Hills, a low-crime area dotted with upscale boutiques, restaurants and businesses -- a city best known perhaps for its glamour and celebrity sightings.

    Oh, and police tell me the armed robber definitely was not Korean. Not that I would have known one way or the other: Basically the only thing I saw or can remember was the gun, with the red dot, pointed right at my head.

    A near-death experience does focus the mind. We need to get rid of our guns.

    What is your take on this commentary? E-mail us

    The opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the writer. This is part of an occasional series of commentaries on CNN.com that offers a broad range of perspectives, thoughts and points of view.

    Read Ted Nugent's take on gun control here: Gun-free zones are recipe for disaster
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  • Captplaid
    Our famous Constitution, about which many of us are generally so proud, enshrines -- along with the right to freedom of speech, press, religion and assembly -- the right to own guns. That's an apples and oranges list if there ever was one.


    I disagree! There are far too many Americans that cannot properly and reasonable use the alleged right to freedom of speech, press and assembly. These rights are a myth from an improperly interpreted Constitution.
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  • ElMuertoMonkey
    I'd like to see the police report on his supposed mugging.

    I'm willing to bet it's a load of crap.
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  • sandwarrior
    Difficult as it was to read onward with this cowardly little know-it-all, I did. And when I came to the end I could paragraph by paragraph say what he said was a lie. Either outright or by ommision. I say ommission because in a court of law ommission of known facts is considered a lie. ALWAYS remember that if you ever get the double statement question. The whole thing boils down to how someone irresponsibly used a constitutional right. When it happens on a highway we don't ban cars.... When it happens in print, we don't ban free speech...

    I hope you get my point. I didn't like what he had to say.
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  • Permanently deleted user
    quote:Originally posted by Mk 19
    No thanks, My blood pressure is normal and I would like to keep it that way



    me too...I'm not even going to click on it.
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  • allen griggs
    I agree EMM. That mugging story is bs, I bet a hundred bucks.

    This story by a California Man reminds me of a story I read in Esquire about 20 years ago. It was written by a guy who was a young novelist. He and his wife moved to LA, where he was going to write a novel. He said that he and his wife were liberals, and disliked guns.
    In a year, both he and his wife had been mugged in separate incidents.
    The guy started carrying a pistol. One day he was walking home, in broad daylight, and 4 guys came up to rob him. One guy pulled a knife, and told him "Ain't no problem, man, just give me your wallet."
    The guy pulled his pistol and shot that guy right in the thigh. He hit the ground, screaming. The other three guys ran like the wind.
    The budding novelist put the pistol back in the holster, and walked the half mile to his house. He never called police.
    Anyway, it is the story of an anti gun liberal who started to like the idea of concealed carry.
    Wish I could put this article on the forum but I bet it is too old to be available on the internet.
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