The C word has now been said

We get that here all the time Excuses for Bad Behavior, it is sickening.

For every "sympathy group" that says "poor johny" I can name you someone who had a worse life and became a responsible member of society.

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According to you, weapons never (or only in isolated instances) give people the confidence to commit crimes... Sorry I just can't wrap my head around that.

Well, we will have to agree to disagree as we are beating the proverbial dead horse. You believe that gun possession fosters violence in many cases, and I believe that guns only foster violence only in rare cases, because I believe a person is what thely are - whether or not they happen to own a gun. Neither can be proven, so it's just a difference in opinions...

Yeah, I get sick of the wacko psychiatrists that blame parental abuse or being molested or being disadvantaged or being black or some other factor as some kind of excuse for criminal behavior. If that were the case, probably 99% of us would be crooks. With the exception of those people that mentally are incapable of distinguishing right from wrong, the rest of us know exactly what we are doing, and know that murder, stealing, rape, and so on, are wrong...

I should point out that I believe ANY weapon has the potential to encourage violence.. not just guns. And I never said "many cases"... : )

Weapons certainly make violence easier. It takes much less courage and very little comparable strength for a person to point and shoot a gun and the further away you can be from your victim the braver you become and the less personal it becomes.
A gun turns a coward into a brave person -
The young man in the Sandy Hook shooting was so puny that a couple of those kids could have taken him out, his mother was a wealthy intelligent person and yet ignored any signs she should have seen and was totally irresponsible in that she failed to keep the weapons in a secure safe that he couldnt get access too - which means that anyone breaking into their home when they were out could have done the same - a friend of ours demonstrated how easy it was to open his safe with just a paper clip after being shown by a local State Trooper friend - he has now changed it to a biometric one
I would say that a huge percentage of typical UK Saturday night drunken pub brawls that currently end up with no more than some bruises and bloody noses would end up in death if the idiots had guns in their hands - yet many of these people when sober are perfectly sane & responsible and any criminal record checks would come up blank.
Many people can snap under certain circumstances and enough pressure has a strong impact on rational thought - towards the end of my first marriage I handed all of our guns (kept for game, clay pigeon and rough shooting) into the local police station as I was actually beginning to get plans forming in my head to shoot him - in fact at one point the only thing that was stopping me was something really silly.
If all households were to own guns would that make a lot of easy targets for the 'bad guys' to break in and steal them when we went out?

Wealthy...yes. Intelligent...not in my opinion. An intelligent person does not keep guns in the same house as a mentally challenged person. Neither does one teach a menetally challenged person how to handle and shoot guns. There are a million things one can do to spend quality time with mentally challenged children - there is no need to make guns one of their activities. I realize one shouldn't speak ill of the dead, but IMO the mother was as much at fault as the son - in some ways moreso...

Weapons can't "give" anything ..

If a person get's more confidence to commit a crime .. with or without a weapon .. it is something INSIDE that person that is broken ...

I can't wrap my head around the thought that inanimate objects are "blamed" for something ...

It's PEOPLE .. it's a lack of morality, character, control ... PEOPLE.

They use cars, guns, knives, baseball bats, fire, water, ropes, pantyhose, their bare hands ... since the beginning of time.

Imo

I would agree that is the case most of the time (crimes of passion perhaps being the exception to something being broken inside). But I believe the weapon can be the "tipping" point for some people.

I never "blamed" guns or other weapons: just pointed out that they can contribute. Ultimately it is the person that pulls the trigger or jabs the knife... but I still believe weapons can help turn bad thoughts into reality.

In hindsight she wasnt at all smart but you would compare that more to being 'streetwise' than to actually IQ related intelligence
How would someone assessing her as a responsible person to hold a gun have seen her? She was well educated, wealthy and had held a professional job that required a high level of intelligence and she evidently didnt view her son as a dangerous person - but many trained psychiatrists arent able to do that in similar cases. There is no confirmation that he actually had any apparent disturbing mental disorder at all - he was described as 'weird' and introvert but never violent or aggressive - many people fit that description.
The fact is on the surface as an applicant to hold a gun licence she would have seemed ideal.
According to people who knew her (and we have friends that knew her) though she held the guns for target shooting she also - as a woman living virtually alone - had become increasingly nervous about home invasions - despite living in an area that was one of the safest towns in the US - and having easy access to the guns was likely why she didnt keep them locked away when she was in the house.