To put things into perspective: over the last twenty years, there have been fewer than 200 fatalities in school shootings (including colleges and universities) in the United States. By way of comparison, during that period in the US there have been about 1000 deaths due to lightning strikes, 25 due to (unprovoked) shark attacks, 3000 due to international terrorism, and 200 due to domestic terrorism. So we really ought to be more concerned about lightning and box cutters than about handguns.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_School_disaster
guy blew up a school over taxes.. no guns

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_City_bombing
169 killed..no guns

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks
3000 killed.. no guns..

Yep.. some more laws will make us safe!!

I can go into a store today and buy everything needed to blow a building to bits. Remember Oklahoma City? If you don't want a big boom, you can always go the bleach and ammonia route. If you want to kill or maim people in mass quantities, you don't need a gun. You can use a car. Or a plane. I suppose banning planes is next?

More guns will solve the problem!
Fewer guns will solve the problem!

When, in reality, each has it's own set of problems, and both sides are more interested in the idea of being right, and having things a certain way, than what is actually best.

Get the fuck over yourselves, people are hurt and you are using it to fucking proselytize. Enough playing devils advocate to a lot of this shit, pointing towards a more moderate view. You're all a bunch of arrogant bastards who don't give a damn who the fuck gets hurt, so long as you can twist it towards your pathetic agenda.

Gun laws are an oxymoron. Criminals, by definition, do not abide by the laws. So it is only the good people that do not have guns in gun free zones. I do have strong feelings about gun laws but I do not think that this is the time to air them.

My thoughts are with those unfortunate parents whose grief must be too hard for anyone to bear

But the 2nd doesn't apply... it's a "Gun Free Zone". Isn't this what you wanted?

It looks like the first few comments have already been about guns and the second amendment, so I want to throw this out there. There have been spree killings all over the world, even in countries with more restrictive gun laws than the USA. Most of these killings were done with firearms, but many were done with other weapons.

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

I think that rather than arguing about gun-rights in general, we would be better served by working to identify the kind of people that feel they need to resort to this type of violence and getting them the help they need before they snap.

Banning stuff is easy. It's utterly ineffective at solving the initial problem

our country makes it too easy to become a nutcase.

this is a social problem. blaming what tool you use to act out is not helpful.

what would be helpful is finding out why so many americans are stressed out and going crazy on the population. I think we should look at why our society is freaking out. the tool the crazies use is NOT the issue!

we have a culture of anger. that's a place to start looking for solutions.

I agree, lets go the Switzerland route and actually require able bodied individuals to own and be trained in firearms. That way, the US too can have one of the lowest firearm crime rates in the world.

Oh, you meant the other direction, didn't you? Right, because the illegality of gun ownership is going to stop someone who walks into an elementary school and opens fire on kids. Dude will be totally scared of breaking that law, right? I mean, the war on drugs worked so well at stopping people from getting drugs...

I don't believe anyone said that they are vaporware.
  The arguments was -- they may either under-deliver on the specs or go above the $99 cost making it. It seemed pretty convincing to me (in the previous slashdot discussions)

Let's see where it goes

There is always a possibility they will run out of money before they ship all of them.

Raise your hand if you have iTunes ...

Raise your hand if you have a FireWire port ...

Raise your hand if you have both ...

Raise your hand if you have $400 to spend on a cute Apple device ...

There is Apple's market. Pretty slim, eh? I don't see many sales in the future of iPod.

The question of whether people have to believe this stuff isn't for the state to decide.

What happens when corporations can no longer exploit global wage differences?