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Kate Jones

Partner, Institute for the Advancement of Service

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The time is NOW for people to stand up and say 'No More Assault Weapons" and not wait for the government to legislate the change.

Change starts when people change, not when governments legislate change. Think back to the days when driving drunk was socially acceptable, no matter who died in the process. Then Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) formed. The rest is history.

The time is 'now o'clock'. We will change our resopnse to violence and stop purchasing violence video games as gifts for our children, and stop patronizing films that promote violence, mayhem and murder. Glorifying the horrific has become the norm.

What happened in Newtown, CT should never happen again.

Remember Mahatma Ghandi's words: "Be the change you want to see in the world". The time is now o'clock!

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    Haley Goranson

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    Dec 19 2012: Timothy McVeigh was an American domestic terrorist who detonated a truck bomb in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995. Commonly referred to as the Oklahoma City Bombing, the attack killed 168 people and injured over 800. It was the deadliest act of terrorism within the United States prior to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

    No assault weapons used here. My point is just that even though I wish that we could just ban assault weapons and violence would end, it won't!
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      Krisztián Pintér 200+

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      TED Translator
      Dec 19 2012: Mothers Against Fertilizers
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        peter lindsay 30+

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        Dec 20 2012: It's funny you should mention fertilizers. In Australia bulk fertilizer is a controlled substance for that exact reason. We have lots of laws that tell me I'm not allowed to own something but we don't mind cause we're too busy surfing in the sunshine to want a gun or a 100kg bag of ammonium nitrate or a concealable knife. Maybe paranoid kids would be less paranoid if they didn't think everyone had a gun and was going to shoot them.
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        peter lindsay 30+

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        Dec 20 2012: No I'm suggesting he feared people, the guns just make people more scarey.
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          pat gilbert 100+

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          Dec 21 2012: And you would be wrong. The drugs bring out the worst in people. Literally millions of stories that make this ABUNDANTLY clear to anyone without an agenda.
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        peter lindsay 30+

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        Dec 21 2012: I'm scared of people with guns. Also I don't doubt the fact that drug use is involved but you can't deny that it would be impossible for someone to shoot people if they can't get a gun. Sorry Krisztián for hijacking your thread

    • John Smith 30+

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      Dec 20 2012: After seat belts became widely adopted about 70.000 people still die each year in car crashes in the United States and European Union, so seat belts have not eliminated traffic deaths.

      Well, that's one way to look at it, here's another:

      Seat belts lower traffic deaths by around 30%, all other things equal, and a disproportionate percentage of people who died in car crashes were not wearing a seat belt. The NHSTA estimates 15.400 lives were saved by seat belts in 2006 in the US alone.


      Arguing that something is not worth it if it doesn't solve 100% of the problem is the oldest trick in the book used when people have run out of real arguments, it's a fallacy.

      • Ian Gruber

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        Dec 20 2012: Exactly. I don't think we can hope to eliminate mass murders, I would like to hope we could limit the frequency and number of casualties caused by easy access to rapid-fire weapons. While a bomb is potentially more destructive, it seems to me it is more difficult to implement and the risk of being caught beforehand is much higher than taking your mother's AR-15 assault rifle and driving down to a school and pulling the trigger as fast as you can. There is no time to react, no time to intervene. Even if there was a armed defender in the school, by the time he/she would have gotten there the damage would have been done. The novelty of owning a rapid fire killing tool is not important enought (or shouldn't be) for the risk of it being used to kill kids in our own schools. I am sure we can find a secure place to stockpile the hundreds of thousands of these weapons in case Russia invades or you need to overthrow the government. Statistically, Joe America is not doing a good enough job keeping these tools out of the hands of the crazy people who will shoot their kids.
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      Morgan Barnes

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      Dec 21 2012: The Oklahoma bombing was a planned and well thoughout attack and the fertilizer and diesel was bought by different people with different IID's.

      This is a kid who snapped picked up an assault rifle left unsecured and sitting around the house and went and killed 25 people and himself we have kids killing kids with firearms that should only be used by armies.
      Held by irresponsible owners who believe they need a cache of weapons for self defence. You can't shoot that many weapons at once why do you need them?? what bogey man are you so afraid of??? What are you defending yourself from have you ever needed to????

      Can you honestly point a firearm at another human being and pull the trigger????

      Have any of you ever seen the aftermath of a multiple shooting???? if not I hope you never do because there is no such thing as a dignified death.
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        Gary Taylor

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        Dec 24 2012: One reason to have all those guns may be the same as for the military, for protection. Certain people, me being one, do not like the thought of our safety being completely out of our hands. ...

        The snapped kid that came across an unsecured weapon is tragic. The irresponsibility of the owner is tragic. But regardless of the weapon used, lets look at society, whats going on? What is causing people to want to channel their emotions through an assault rifle to kill or whatever? Is it something we can circumvent?

        Your last line is fear mongering; it conjures up obvious horrific images, and when people are scared they make irrational and poor decisions not best for choosing definite and long term possible changes to peoples rights for one
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          Morgan Barnes

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          Dec 24 2012: No it is not fear mongering it is a question which the majority of gun owners can't answer because they never have and hopefully they will never be put in that kind of position

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