NUTS WITH GUNS

[Bill Gulley]

I'm all for gun ownership, I own several myself, but do we have any responsibility to inform authorities of those you are clearly having mental stresses or conditions that could lead to the Batman shooting this morning? It was reported that when James Holmes mother was contacted, she replied that they had the right person.

This leads me to believe that she knew he had the potential of going off the deep end with his weapons.

As landlords, you qualify your tenants, but who knows who you may rent to. Do you keep your eye on traits of people that could go off the deep end?

[James H.]

This, in my opinion, has little to do with guns. There is no regulation that stop crazy people from being crazy. If not guns, bombs. If not bombs, poison. If not poison, something else. Most of these crazies turn out to have also been really smart and have made elaborate plans, so they will find a way.

How many times a year does something like this happen, anyways? About once a year? Let's say 100 die in the US every year due to some similar occurrence (which it's probably less). That is 100 out of 350,000,000, so less than 0.00003 % of the population. Do we really need some kind of sweeping nationwide policy or awareness campaign, or has the media once again appealed to our frothy emotional nature? I know I sound insensitive, but there are a lot of other causes of death that have far greater impact on loss of lives than this, but they don't appeal to our emotions nearly as much, so are rarely even discussed.