Palin = FAIL. Unfortunately she is just not the best spokesperson for any cause. She ought to not be in the spotlight in any form.

Reasonable regulations, including waiting periods, are fine. There is a 10 day waiting period in California and I am fine with that. I have something in that period now. There is an additional rule that a person cannot then purchase another handgun within 30 days. That is a rule I don't quite understand. If the 10 days is intended to do background checks and to allow for a "cooling down" period then 30 additional days does nothing. If the extra days is to act also as a cooling down period that is nonsensical because the person already has a gun. Making the person wait another 30 days doesn't make anyone any safer.

I still don't think that banning or restricting high capacity magazines will help. Theoretically an unskilled shooter could inflict more damage but that same unskilled shooter would necessarily not be an expert shot. An unskilled shooter with 33 rounds can "spray and pray" and still hit people but guns are not like in the movies where spraying a submachine gun from the hip mows down a row of people. I've done that at the range and spraying 30 rounds fully automatic from the hip results in very few hits. Likewise, an unskilled shooter with 33 rounds does not mean they are endowed with special skills that results in being able to hit targets effectively. One need only look at police shootings whee hit percentages with 15 or 17 round magazines are woefully low - with trained shooters!

As far as Viper's comment about lesser threat situations, he mentioned a running from a knife. One would be shocked to see how quickly a knife can be deployed and how much more damage an edged weapon can do versus a gun. People generally don't miss with a thrust of a knife but a shot fired from a gun can easily miss its intended target.

My point is that dangers exist in one form or another. There are always going to be people bent on hurting others. We are a society that reacts extremely to isolated incidents. Think about any major disaster or dramatic high profile event and there is probably some sort of new law or regulation that follows. I think it's partly driven by human nature but it's primary driven by politicians. The shooting is absolutely tragic but I think that reacting by restricting the rights and lives of millions of law abiding people because of the actions of one person is wrong.

There are regulations in place to prevent those who have had prior mental health issues from obtaining guns. The problem is that guys like Loughner never had that documented and the Virginia Tech shooter who did have some documented history of mental health treatment still got a gun. It is just too difficult to document and classify what mental health issues are and which ones should restrict a person's rights. It is a more fundamental question when it comes to mental health. That question is about how we treat mental health issues and how far we go in things like involuntary civil commitments. If you know that someone is mentally ill and needs help, even if they are potentially dangerous but have yet to do anything dangerous, should we be allowed to incarcerate them or civilly commit them? That poses are question more fundamental than how to prevent such people from getting guns.

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