Saying "today is not the day" is, in fact, politicizing the tragedy. You are saying the status quo is ok.
It is not.
Columbine was 13 and 1/2 years ago. Can we talk about the need for sensible gun laws now?
My support for the victims families is full and complete. Strangely, I still have support and prayers left for the victims of the next tragedy.

When is a good time to bring it up? We are having murders at the hands of people holding guns several times a week? There will never be a good time to bring it up. The rights of gun owners outweighed the rights of those twenty children today... today is the day to start the talks of stricter gun control.

Nikki, when are you going to out law cars? More people are killed with cars! Criminals and insane people will carry out their deeds no matter what law you pass!

Patriot, people do not buy cars to kill other people.

Steve from NH, I am sure the mother of this individual did not but the guns to kill children.
The top five leading causes of injury-related deaths were:
Suicide
Motor vehicle crashes
Poisoning
Falls
Homicide
Researchers say the findings demonstrate that suicide is now a global public health issue.
"Our finding that suicide now accounts for more deaths than do traffic crashes echoes similar findings for the European Union, Canada, and China,” they write.

*How did the murderer die? Suicide!

So Patriot, why do we make it so easy for insane people to get guns?

And DLC, now is the time to talk about, to prevent another tragedy from happening.

The problem is that too many people have too many guns, not that there aren't enough guns out there, so much so, that, as Patriot pointed out, they are getting in the hands of the wrng people.

Ray Guarino, one little bottle of chemicals could kill more than a gun. From everything I have read, he was very intelligent. The family was respected and loved. There is no quick solution, no easy answer. We have closed down most mental health institutions. De funded many programs that deal with these problems. ""Timothy James "Tim" McVeigh (April 23, 1968 – June 11, 2001) was an American domestic terrorist who detonated a truck bomb."" No guns!
We need to be more vigilant and proactive. Communities cannot afford to hire protection from all the ills of the world. We as a people need to take an active role in our own protection!

Patriot,
I ask again, why do we make it so easy for people with mental health problems to get guns?

There are answers to the problem, first you must admit the problem, that is our country is awash in guns. All of us have easy access to guns. That's the problem, not the solution. States with stricter gun control have the least amount of gun deaths.

I refuse to believe that "there are no easy answers." The answers are right in front of us.

Ray Guarino, you are right, why don't we take care of our mental health issues? In a free society most everything is easy to get. And for that I thank God.

So Patriot, again you avoid the question, why is it so easy for people with mental problems to get guns?

You avoid the question to avoid the obvious, that is it's so easy to get guns in America that people who shouldn't have them can easily get them, yet, neoconservatives are so paranoid about their so-called "Second Amendment Rights", that they don't care if dangerous people get guns. Neocoservatives put us all in danger.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservatism

Ray Guarino, you have asked the same question over and over. I don't know if Nancy Lanza was mentally disturbed. Guns are as plentiful as used cars so how you keep something like a gun from anyone is hard to answer.
Politicians are in the process of taking our right to protest. Freedom of speech, right to bare arms, purchase health care are just some of the issues we are having tremendous restrictions on.
Oh and by the way, what the heck did "neoconservatives" mean?

Patriot,
you say "Guns are as plentiful as used cars so how you keep something like a gun from anyone is hard to answer."

Not hard to answer at all, Massachusetts does it, New York does it. The bad guys have a difficult time getting their hands on guns, so they have to go to states such as Virginia, where the laws are lax an bring them back to NY or Boston. Or they can walk into a gun show and walk out with a gun.

A neoconservative is an extremist, most people who currently populate the leadership of the Republican Party. People who spout nonsense such as Huckabee as he explain the reason for the Newtown massacre is that there is no school prayer. People who never met a regulation they liked, people who think that cutting taxes for the wealthy creates jobs. People who are deluded in thinking progressives are communists. People who think that there is no separation of church and state. Neoconservatives are race baiters, using the southern strategy in every presidential election since Nixon's time.

People who are very different from Dwight D. Eisenhower.

In short, Patriot, neoconservatives are not real conservatives.

Sad news Ray
The increase in Class A permits - the largest and broadest category of gun license - amounted to a jump of more than 28,000 statewide to about 224,000 as of last month, according to data provided by the state Executive Office of Public Safety and Security.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/12/20/gun_permits_surge_in_state/

There were over 600,000 hunters
this season in the state of Wisconsin ..
Allow me to restate that number:
600,000
These men deployed to
the woods of a single American state, Wisconsin, to hunt with
firearms, and no one was killed.
And then add in the total number of hunters in the other 46 states.
It's millions more.

Patriot,
the increase in permits in Massachusetts over the last two years should just about dispell the notion that strict gun control in states like Massachusetts will "take away your guns".

So then maybe you'd be for national laws like that of Massachsuesetts, after all, your stats prove that despite Massachsuetts' strict gun control, people can and do get gun permits.

Thank you Patriot for showing how little you have to fear over over stricter gun control laws, such as those in Massachusetts.

And we are not talking about hunting, plenty of people hunt, even urbanites hunt.

The 600,000 Wisconsin hunters are not the issue.

You are right Sarah, Drudge reported the murderer was autistic. ""Ryan Lanza, 24, the brother of gunman Adam Lanza is taken into custody for questioning.
The shooter was found with an ID that bore his brother’s name, a law-enforcement source said, but there is no indication that it was stolen. A source told The Post Ryan has told investigators he last saw Adam in 2010 and that Adam is autistic.""

Nope - eventually there will be far fewer guns. NYC is taking guns away from people on the street, and the murder by handgun rate has gone down 75%.
This tragedy is absolutely the result of poor gun control. If we had very good gun control (and right now we have 0, none, nada, zilch, thank you NRA) he would not have had assault weapons.

"Lock up people". And who would that be ? Lock them up before a crime is committed because they exhibit "abnormal" behaviors ? NH budgets have been cut for social services that may help children, and adults too, with difficulties. Identifying people who display serious coping issues, anger, and other poor stress management behaviors and getting the help that they need may prevent another tragedy. Of course, keeping guns out of the equation is essential.

B.E. Baines, ""Instead of locking up guns lock up people. I know it is crazy""
Are you going to bring in the UN to collect the guns?

I sit here almost in tears listening to the news. And I have also spent the day reading post. Amazing, this blame game :(

Guns are meant for killing.
Cars aren't.
With the NRA propaganda and lobbying machine causing grown politicians to quake in their loafers, we are 'forbidden' from trying to limit the proliferation of guns. That's BS.
It's time to stand up to bullies like Wayne LaPierre and the NRA. They want it all - any kind of gun for anybody with no background check, and explosive ammo while you're at it. And right now, in reality, that's the way it is. If you want a gun, no matter who you are, you can go get one - especially if you live in NH. And the NRA wants those people to be able to carry those guns, hidden, anywhere they feel like carrying them, without any permit at all. Schools, libraries - you can bring your gun into the Bedford Public Library today - there's nothing they can do about it. Same with the State House. Playgrounds, sports fields, stadiums, malls, everywhere and anywhere you want, the NRA wants you to bring a gun, and wants to take away any power to prohibit. See HB334 , passed by the house. Andrew Manuse, State Rep. from Derry and a member of the Free State Project wants felons to be able to carry too, and he introduced HB1375 to do so.
And we are supposed to stand by and do nothing, because "cars kill too". That's BS.

I couldn't agree more. There always has been and always will be insanity. Research, treatment or confinement are the answer. Guns or no guns.

Don't bathe the baby in filthy bathwater.

Constitutionals rights are valuable, don't discard them in haste.

Don't pervert our constitutional rights.

Supreme Court ruling in DC vs. Heller:

Held:

1. The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home. Pp. 2–53.

(a) The Amendment’s prefatory clause announces a purpose, but does not limit or expand the scope of the second part, the operative clause. The operative clause’s text and history demonstrate that it connotes an individual right to keep and bear arms. Pp. 2–22.

(b) The prefatory clause comports with the Court’s interpretation of the operative clause. The “militia” comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense. The Antifederalists feared that the Federal Government would disarm the people in order to disable this citizens’ militia, enabling a politicized standing army or a select militia to rule. The response was to deny Congress power to abridge the ancient right of individuals to keep and bear arms, so that the ideal of a citizens’ militia would be preserved. Pp. 22–28.

etc.

and in the majority opinion of the court supporting the Heller ruling:

“Right of the People.” The first salient feature of the operative clause is that it codifies a “right of the peo­ple.” The unamended Constitution and the Bill of Rights use the phrase “right of the people” two other times, in the First Amendment’s Assembly-and-Petition Clause and in the Fourth Amendment’s Search-and-Seizure Clause. The Ninth Amendment uses very similar terminology (“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people”). All three of these instances unambiguously
refer to individual rights, not “collective” rights, or rights that may be exercised only through participation in some corporate body.

Right, you shouldn't trust the government by the people, you don't trust the people.

And for the record, what I said was that we should go by what the constitution states, which is that the people with arms must be part of a well regulate militia.

Are you sure, Ray? Have you seen the militias around the nation lately? These are- at best- gun clubs, and at worst extremist bigots. Sometimes both. They don't protect anything.

FTP,
I'm talking about real militias, or as we like to call it "The National Guard".

Doesn't the National Guard serve the federal government as well, as reserves? I agree they may have started out as a militia, but I think they are beneath the United States Army now. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

Ray - the second amendment was written before the National Guard existed as a national body. The National Guard was established as a federally funded body in 1910 and exists as a subset of the militia as defined by Title 10 section 311 of the United States Code:

(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.
(b) The classes of the militia are—
(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and
(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.

In other words under US law the National Guard is a subset of the Militia, but this is irrelevant as I detailed earlier that the Supreme Court ruled membership of the Militia is not required to exercise the individual right to keep and bear arms.

"Government by the media" You must be talking about Fox.

In addition 26 children died last year getting on and off their School Bus and 800+ were killed while being driven to or from school.

So why does any of that mean that we should allow easy access to these weapons? If we follow your argument all the way to the end, everybody dies of something, so let's just make murder legal?