Right...and that provision would've likely been passed by Adam Lanza. And it seems likely he would've been able to inflict such a massacre with lesser weapons; the VT killer caused more casualties with handguns.

The point is, the logical reasoning used to single AR-15s is so flimsy that the argument should be about regulating a much wider category of firearms. To single out AR-15s is just pandering.

Expecting an 80-hour course to somehow deter a psychopath from shooting up a bunch of people strikes me as rather naive.

I agree with your claim, but it's also my understanding that the CT killer (and many murderers in general) stole the gun from a friend or relative.

So a killer wouldn't need to attend the 80 hour course if he had access to a gun purchased by someone who did attend the course.

The CT killer used his mother's legally owned rifle and it is said she took him shooting with her on many occasions.

This proposal assumes 2 things: 1) insane people are incapable of passing 80 hour courses; 2) sane people will not go insane in the future. Both of these assumptions are incorrect.

Bobble, you've hit on the core problem. While most, if not all, mass murders involved a mentally unstable perpetrator, being mentally unstable has nothing to do with being too incompetent to kill lots of people. In fact, many of the mass murderers that the US has seen over the last decade were very intelligent individuals.

Also, ex-military are (probably) statistically more unstable than the average citizen due to conditions like PTSD. Keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of the mentally unfit is a really complex problem to solve without either trampling over rights altogether (frequent invasive psych evals that have the potential of being biased or politically charged) or banning them altogether.

Banning these weapons altogether isn't a good solution (sorry Obama) because too much of America considers them a core part of their society and have shown that they really are mostly safe, historically speaking. However, I think there's enough evidence that the trend is shifting toward guns being statistically more dangerous than they used to be. Even if that evidence doesn't exist, there is a public perception that needs to be addressed. This is a problem with politics in general - if there's a public outcry against _X_, you have to ban or regulate _X_, even if there's no statistics to validate the public outcry; politicians have a need to be reelected (or in the case of a 2nd term president, the need to maintain a legacy or to get another Democrat voted into office after his term is up).

This article tries to walk a line somewhere between "ban guns entirely" and "give everyone a gun". I admit, there's a ton of problems with almost all parts of it (and yes, I am the author). But it is an attempt to invent a compromise that could add to society (by strengthening the police/protection agencies) instead of take away (ban guns, cultural norms) while still addressing the problem.

If you've been following Congress in recent years like I have you've probably become sick at what their idea a compromise has become. It seems like the Congressional culture has shifted toward a self-serving Armageddon between Good and Evil. Obviously that's a much (much much much) bigger problem that I want to address here, but introducing constructive compromises where both parties gain is where it starts.

Yes, I think this has gains for both sides. The "Gun people" also tend to be pro-military, so we're letting both sides "win" by giving enlisted and veterans some rights that are not widely available to the general public. Honestly, I don't think it's possible to have either side "win". I can't think of a way to address public concerns without taking things away. If someone can think of a way, please tell them to write to their Congressmen immediately.