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Robert Winner

TEDCRED 50+

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Media breaking news reports.

The United States has just had a school shooting incident at a elementary school. As in the case of the Colorado shooting the media made initial assessments, some right and some wrong, that went on for hours and interviews with students and those in the know. Links to the Tea Party, and all sorts of claims went on the air with absolutely no proof or even foundation.

There is one station in our area that says ... we have a report that XXX has occured and we will get back to you when we have a full and accurate report.

So the question is: Should the media wait for facts, stop making the news, and return to reporting the event. A interview with anyone who is involved is more emotional than factual and will be used by lawyers later. Should these people be protected from the media until debriefing has occured and a full picture is available and evidence obtained.

How do you view this?

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    Lori de Wet

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    Dec 15 2012: GUNS KILL.
    That is where my head is at only hours after this tragedy. I can't even begin thinking about the media...

    Edited~ I am not going to respond to all the comments this is apparently going to elicit. Your "reasoning" is wasted on me and angers/sickens/frightens/confuses me deeply. I'm not interested in disputing your ridiculous arguments as I fully know where it will go. Nowhere.

    PS...
    GUNS KILL
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      Linda Taylor 50+

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      Dec 15 2012: So tired of the "guns kill" mantra.

      Based on hunting licenses, there were over 600,000 hunters
      this season in the state of Wisconsin ..

      Over the last several months, Wisconsin's hunters became the eighth largest army in
      the world.

      More persons under arms than in Iran.
      More than France and Germany combined.

      These men and women deployed to the woods of a single American state, Wisconsin, to hunt with firearms, and no one was killed.

      That number pales in comparison to the 750,000 who hunted the woods of Pennsylvania and
      Michigan's 700,000 hunters, all of whom have now returned home safely.
      Toss in a quarter million hunters in West Virginia and it literally establishes the fact that the
      hunters of those four states alone would comprise the largest army in the world.
      And then add in the total number of hunters in the other 46 states. It's millions more.

      That's why all enemies, foreign and domestic, want to see us disarmed.

      Maybe we should be treating the mentally ill instead of talking about guns. This young man was the age where schizophrenia manifests symptoms. Anybody talking about that?
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        Lori de Wet

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        Dec 15 2012: Just because 1000's of hunters use LONG GUNS safely in hunting does mean that the general public should have easy access to HANDGUNS. This argument does not hold any weight.

        (On a separate note...I sign off wondering how there are any animals even left in America if this info. is accurate)
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          Linda Taylor 50+

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          Dec 15 2012: Oh I see, it's not ALL guns that kill, only the ones that you decide. Animals are left in America because we have a lot of people working really hard to make sure the population is sustainable for the environment in which they live.

          Why are we still talking guns? This was NOT about guns but about mental illness, lack of recognition, access and treatment. I hate when people deflect from the real problem for their own unsubstantiated agendas.
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        Ken brown 30+

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        Dec 15 2012: I wonder how many shoot each other by accident. For some unknown reason our hunters have been killing each other by mistake and the public that venture into the deep bush in the last 5 years but we don't view this as deliberate, our bush can turn you around, many a young tourist has gone missing in it and have never been found. Even in today's communication soaked world, no ones going to put a tower in the middle of no where.
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          Linda Taylor 50+

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          Dec 15 2012: Those statistics are available here and no one was hurt this year. Our state mandates hunter safety classes to issue licenses and they cover safety in hunting including not going out by yourself. no matter if you are going out with long guns, handguns, or bow. I had to smile about the tower though, we use tree stands.
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        Ken brown 30+

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        Dec 18 2012: Some bright sparks out there should develop a few apps that can be downed but once installed upon the installee's permission links the searcher to private and confidential services outside of ones own doctors. The services must be free and could be mostly online, Patient confidentiality in today's facebook world still has weight, if people can use these app's that are heavily guarded against hacking then we might find people might use them.
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        Ken brown 30+

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        Dec 18 2012: I think Obama has been backed into a corner over the guns issue, if i was him i would of used an executive order and shutdown all media reporting of his visit to newtown until he made his speech out of respect to the families, maybe this time a small part of your country could have had him to themselves just for a bit.
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      edward long 100+

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      Dec 15 2012: People Kill! Sometimes they use guns, or knives, or poison, or stones, or bombs, or their bare hands, but the killing is ALWAYS done by PEOPLE.
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        Lori de Wet

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        Dec 15 2012: If that mentally ill man did not have access to a handgun, I wonder how many people he would have been able to murder yesterday.

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ushomicidesbyweapon.svg

        http://mobile.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/human_nature/2012/12/connecticut_school_shooting_semi_automatic_weapons_and_other_high_speed.html
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          edward long 100+

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          Dec 15 2012: No doubt there might well have been fewer losses if he had used Molotov Cocktails, or machetes. Not much comfort there. Sometimes the low-hanging fruit is not the best choice. A ban on guns is the low-hanging fruit in this issue. Guns are a more efficient way to kill, after all, that's what they are made for. However, a tiny, almost immeasurably small fraction of all those who possess guns use them to commit evil deeds. (See Ms. Taylor's comment above). The root cause of these horrid crimes is not guns. Would we feel better if the body counts were only 10% of what they are? Would the problem be less devastating? It's the people doing the killing that are the problem, not how they kill. I grieve with you, Ms. deWet, for the untold pain and suffering resulting from this tragedy. But let me keep my gun so I can protect my children against such acts. Thank you!

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