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Again it might surprise you that most people who own guns will never use them to kill schoolchildren. Very few of them will ever take part in a mass shooting.

We're a generation from meaningful gun reform because it will be that long before we manage to put together a liberal supreme court again. Mental health reform and screening might be a more useful tactic at this point and more doable. Educators would flag possible troublemakers, county social workers would track their online activities, and if other red flags appear they'd be put on a "no-buy" list as far as legally buying or possessing firearms. Most of these guys don't come out of nowhere. They've already gotten onto somebody's radar.

It would be subject to appeal of course. But anyone supplying them with arms would also be charged with any crime they committed.

Gun control is another political football. Partisans scream and shout as they get kicked back and forth. I'll side with the gun people who maintain it is a crazy person problem, not intrinsically a firearm problem. I'm pretty sure there is no constitutional amendment preventing some limited control of crazy people.

Here's the problem with your formulation, my friend: crazy Americans are more dangerous than crazies anywhere else, because they have access to guns. You are probably correct that the current Court will prevent any practical solution to the gun problem for our immediate future, but crazies are not the problem.

I've looked at the statistics. Americans are no more prone to mental health problems and no more violent than their G7 counterparts, yet only the US suffers from the mass murder plague. The only variable is the easy access to high capacity firearms. More mental health safeguards, while laudable, will not dent the problem. It simply won't.

I found a source: "According to a CNN review from 2018, there were at least 288 school shootings in the US in the previous 9 years, which was 57 times (not a typo) more than other G7 countries combined. COMBINED." CNN

For those of you who discount the idea of pissed-off women. Enjoy!

There will be WAY more of this if old conservative white men continue to have their way.

I think "high capacity" firearms are the main problem. What purpose is there for a semiautomatic rifle with huge clips, other than shooting lots of people? I think single bullet manual loading rifles are adequate for hunting. If you can't kill on the first shot, you didn't have a clear target or the skill needed. School shootings would be very different if shooters got disarmed and beaten to a pulp after firing a single shot. Or we could limit clips to five rounds, and make it highly illegal to buy more than one clip. That way the Holy 2nd Amendment is unmolested, and we do a lot alleviate the problem.

Antonin Scalia was deadly wrong when he wrote the majority opinion in 2011-ish that individuals have a right to guns per the 2A. The statement says “well regulated militia.” Militia is plural - not singular. You can twist yourself into a pretzel all you want in defending Scalia’s asinine and fool-hardy illogical interpretation, but the fact remains those three words from the entire three sentences of the 2A are written in plain English. This is not rocket science people.

Switzerland has mandatory military service in well-regulated militias. It sounds exactly like what the Founders intended and wrote into the 2nd Amendment. The Swiss are more American than we are!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Armed_Forces

I have no idea what that might have been, you have clearly read it, understand it and are qualified to argue against it. I encourage you to brief us on his opinion and yours.

This is the second amendment in its entirety and my opinion:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

The constitution clearly states that the people have a right to keep and bear arms.

(because the government might need for them to be armed if we are attacked, is the way I always understood the preceding statement.)

Nowhere does it say that the "right" to bear arms is entirely contingent on the government's possible need for its citizens to be armed, just that the security of a free state requires them to be armed.

To my notion the "well-regulated" part puts the lie to any claim that guns can't be regulated out the ying-yang. It only becomes "infringement" if you take away the right entirely.

And you can twist yourself into whatever pretzel shape you want dissenting the SCOTUS decision about firearms but it stands until you can get it reversed.

I'm putting that about two decades away. It took them 50 years to strike down Roe and it will be at least 20 years before we get a liberal supreme court again.

I wish I could be here for that but it doesn't look real promising.

Scalia, like many assign the right of keeping arms to the people and THAT is the wrong interpretation. The correct interpretation is that people have a right to a well regulated militia who keeps and bear arms.

My evidence? The fact that “well regulated militia” is even included into the sentence. Had those three words NOT been included in the 2A, I would agree with you Greger. If the Founders truly wanted individuals to bear arms, there would be no need to mention “well regulated militias.” But there is.

Could the 2A have been written better and more clear? Absolutely!

I will also add that Scalia knew that he was being intellectually dishonest in that opinion.

As more school children are lost to gun violence, Republicans will continue their inaction because dead children is the price to pay for preserving the 2A as individual ownership.

But that's not what it says at all! You've just rearranged the words to suit what you want.

It says that the people have the right to keep and bear arms, and that right shall not be infringed. And it says that pretty clearly. It also says that a well-regulated militia is necessary.

The founders were probably idiots who didn't understand that words have meaning so they totally botched what they were trying to say, but YOU are the only one clever enough to see what they were really trying to say...

They should have random guys come in and re-write the constitution now and then for clarity and consistency. Like Wikipedia where anybody can just go in and correct things to suit themselves....