They most certainly are part of American culture now. Something "radical leftists" like  myself find abhorrent and want to stop at all costs. We hear the same excuses over and over, and not surprsingly the same result is yielded. Why is this so difficult to understand?

Right now we do nothing. Nothing = more deaths.

The pro gun lobby argues that if we did something, anything, it would still yield the same results as doing nothing. Which of course is ridiculous.

When you're this entrenched in ideology, kids getting their brains blown out in school doesn't mean anything, then we're fucked.

Awwwww, poor lyin' Randy. I almost feel sorry for you dude.

Are you going to post my home address again? Put out my full name? Lie some more about me?

Solutions have been given, but gun apologists like you always poo poo them. Say they won't work. The same old tired right wing talking points as our children get massacred every day. But you could care less about that. All you care about is sticking to your "side", all while accusing others of  bias.

Imagine when this country was formed, if it were full of "men" like you. Do-nothings and excuse makers, unable to solve problems even as its own citizens were being murdered. I'd Imagine we'd be one of those "Shithole" countries you like to talk about by now. Unfortunately that's the problem today. This once great country, built by intellectuals, is now run by do-nothings and corporate whores, supported with the full support of apathetic angry dolts just like you.

Project much?

Edit: Also Miami News Times is now a "fringe" website? You sure are a moron Flagg. Just as stupid as they come.

A maddening story ^^^

Nikolas Cruz, Who Was Too Disturbed to Carry a Backpack, Legally Bought AR-15

Everyone knew Nikolas Cruz was deeply disturbed. He'd been in and out of mental health treatment. He'd been kicked out of school. His Instagram page was full of photos of dead animals and weapons. He was so frightening to teachers that he'd been banned from even carrying a backpack into school.

So how does a guy like that get his hands on a military-style weapon capable of pumping dozens of rounds into innocent victims without even reloading? Well, this is Florida, so he just walks into a gun shop and buys one.

Jim Lewis, an attorney for Cruz's family, tells reporters this morning that the 19-year-old had legally purchased the weapon of mass destruction that killed 17 people yesterday at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

“It was his gun,” family lawyer Jim Lewis said. “The family made him keep it in a locked gun cabinet in the house, but he had a key.”

Because this is America and NRA-funded stooges such as Marco Rubio and Donald Trump run the country, nothing will change after yesterday's massacre. But if we lived in a sane nation, the details emerging about Cruz would inspire a strong debate about how to tighten access to weapons for the mentally ill — not to mention a realistic move to renew the ban on assault rifles like the AR-15 and on high-capacity magazines.

Cruz had been scaring classmates and teachers for years.

"The kid that shot used to break the toilets and bathrooms and was crazy," writes one Reddit user who says Cruz was a classmate. "I remember two years ago he broke a rooms glass."

Cruz — who was adopted by a New York couple that later moved to Broward — was a member of the U.S. Army Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps (JROTC) at Stoneman Douglas High, where he freaked out his classmates by shooting rats. He “was into some weird stuff,” classmate Joshua Charo told the Miami Herald.

It's not clear exactly why Cruz was booted from school, but classmates say it was for fighting and bringing bullets and knives to school. A teacher said the faculty had been warned not to let him on campus with a backpack.

And a quick search through his since-deleted Instagram accounts shows they were right to worry. Cruz posed with animals he had killed.

He also posted numerous photos of himself wearing face masks as well as piles of weapons:

Again, this was not a teenager secretly stewing and tricking everyone into thinking he was not a violent threat. Cruz made it abundantly clear that he wanted to harm people and that he was obsessed with getting the weapons to do so.

Yet nothing in Florida's gun laws — which have been loosened by decades of NRA-funded Republican control to the point they barely exist — would prevent him not only from buying guns but also from buying the most deadly military-style weapons available on the market.

Gov. Rick Scott's avowed position on preventing mass shootings is to pray about them. Sen. Marco Rubio is a gun-lobby gremlin. Attorney General Pam Bondi will promise to pay for funerals but not to stop killings. And President Donald Trump revoked an executive order mandating tighter background checks for the mentally ill before they can buy weapons.

So Nikolas Cruz, who was not allowed to carry a backpack to class, could legally walk into any gun shop in Florida and walk out with the firepower to do what everyone at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High had feared for years that he might do.

Rubio won't do shit. He's a whore for the NRA.

We've had opportunity after opportunity (if you can call it that) for these failures to stand up and do something...they do nothing instead.

Total inaction as our children get slaughtered daily.

We can't do anything about gun violence, it's just the way it is!

pew pew pew....Murica!

Earlier this morning, @NRA re-tweeted a tweet from a gun maker encouraging people to buy their loved ones guns for #ValentinesDay

Since the #schoolshooting in Florida they've deleted that tweet and have gone silent.

Thankfully, I took a screenshot. pic.twitter.com/cC4A835n0a

— igorvolsky (@igorvolsky) February 14, 2018