If this had happened in California, the parents would be criminally and civally liable for not properly locking up their weapons and ammunition. I'd say that felony charges would have acted as something of a disincentive to giving your dumbass kids unsupervised access to fucking weapons and ammunition.

Guns don't kill people, giving stupid and/or crazy people easy access to guns kills people.

Better ban assault rifles.

Why? It would be better to ban assault WEAPONS.

Watch out for those assault knives! They look way more scary than regular knives! Who needs a creepy black knife anyway?

I have a buddy who forgets the definition of legal terms when he argues about gun control with me also.

He's all "Isn't every weapon that you use in an assault an Assault Weapon? Better ban cigarettes because they assault more people than a gun ever would!"

Needless to say, he wins every argument by acting stupid in an attempt to make me look stupid.

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

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

I have learned from poeTV and other places that every single gun argument comes down to "my guns are more valuable than a thousand dead kids."

There is no reason to argue, or express any humanity towards those people.

@memedumpster Nah, the argument usually boils down to "X wouldn't do any good against Y so it's better to just let Y happen and not try doing anything about it."

Most modern "weapons of war" are already illegal or highly controlled: Tank cannons, ballistic warheads, hand grenades, machine guns, rocket launchers, ect. Extending that list to include "simiautomatic rifles with a removable magazine" doesn't sound like a breach of legal precedent to me. Going further off-topic, what has having an armed militia gotten us? Near defeat in the war of 1812, the KKK, heavily-armed right wing militias, heavily-armed street gangs, a militarization of law enforcement, a political strengthening of the arms manufacturers that help keep up in a state of constant war, etc...

Not to mention that it's getting to the point where handguns are just as dangerous as heavier armaments. The Fort Hood shooting used a handgun that's used in the military and law enforcement and (surprise, surprise) does a brisk business in private sales, especially when it's pointed out that these guns can carry bullets that can pierce some kevlar body armor.

The NRA responded that the bullets designed to go through kevlar are illegal, but the Brady Foundation said they'd been able to breach armor with it as-is. The NRA poo-poo'ed their tests, and they replied that they'd be happy to let LaPierre put on a kevlar vest and test it for himself, which (naturally) he hasn't done.