This, plus those two animals who stamped all over that girl in Peckham and killed her unborn child make me despair of the human race...

As far as the rules go, it's a website not a democracy - Hambo 3/6/2014

Domestic policy.... You naughty apologist you...

"One Nation Under God, has turned into One Nation Under the Influence of One Drug"
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I really shouldn't need a constitutional amendment; it just needs to be interpreted differently. People focus on this:

"the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed"

But forget that the above phrase is (I believe) controlled by what comes before it. The full phrase is this:

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed"

The authors clearly intended for the populace - in the 18th century - to be armed in lieu of a standing army. That need has long since passed, and therefore so has the right for the people to bear arms, in my humble opinion.

Also, multiple restrictions on this right have been approved and upheld as constitutional over the years: fully automatic weapons; military-spec weapons; nukes; etc. etc. etc. are all banned. So what we're talking about is moving the line on what's allowed and what's not, rather than repealing the 2nd Amendment.

The politics around this really are insane. Pro-gun activists gin up gun owners (mostly responsible hunters and the like) that Clinton W. / Obmama / Clinton H. is coming for your guns, and scream about ever tightening limitations on gun rights. The truth is that, since Clinton passed the assault weapons ban in 1994, there hasn't been a single restriction on gun "rights". And that ban was allowed to expire in 2004. The very things that were banned by that law - assault rifles and over-sized mags - have been used in multiple mass shootings since, including for the Aurora movie theatre shooting and, ever more heinously, in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.

In the meantime, in the absence of any actual resistance to expansion of gun rights, gun laws have been pushed ever further and further. Concealed carry laws, to open carry laws, to "stand your ground", to open carry on school campus; all these are real things in America in 2015.

I seriously doubt that a Republican will win the Presidency in 2016. Also, it's very possible that the Deomocrats can take back control of the Senate because Republicans are defending the majority of the 1/3rd of the seats in play than are Democrats (the House is gerrymandered to such a ridiculous extent that power cannot shift there until after the 2020 census at least).

Regardless, gun laws will only change if there is a strong and consistent demand for change from the public. Politicians are mostly immune to public opinion, but every once in a while they are forced by the sheer will of public pressure to get something done. Gay rights have been sweeping across the states like a wildfire because they have 70+% support of the public. So do gun control restrictions (a simple background check requirement has about 97% approval) so, with the right amount of pressure, gun control regulations can be passed too.

The timing of this horrific crime may actually serve to make this finally happen.

We don't do possession; we do defense and attack. Everything else is just wa**ing with a football.

So have I got this right? When an outrage involves a white Christian, religion is central to them doing it, but when it is a non-white Muslim, religion has got nothing to do with it?

According to the Independent it's racism leading to him being declared mentally ill while a black attacker would be branded a 'thug' and a Muslim a 'terrorist'.

Specious nonsense in light of the fact that these people are usually tried in court as mentally ill and the existence of white terrorists who are happily presented as such in the (UK) press.

Not that I've even seen any outlet denouncing him as just some mental bloke anyway so heaven knows what they're basing that on.

Or perhaps the point is more this: no religion has a monopoly or exclusivity when it comes to nutters carrying out fiendish acts of violence, claiming they were motivated,in part or in full,by their religious beliefs.

The other point perhaps to be drawn is the essential evil of racism and those who would perpetuate the views from which such evils arise by basing much of their world view around supposed negative inherent differences between people of different race,ethnicity or religion to them.