Two gang members arrested for Chiara Levin murder

It looks like I've just met the biggest jerk I've ever met online--you. Look, buddy, you're entitled to your opinion, but your insults are disgusting and unnecessary. To be honest with you, I think that you're offensively judgemental....and....I will not be responding to your posts in the future. Shame on your attitude! It's people with attitudes like yours who've been responsible for more people getting killed in gun violence.

Sure, store owners do occasionally fend off armed assailants. They also get shot with their own guns, shoot their selves/wives/husbands/children/friends with their guns. They also have to explain why their kid or their clerk used that gun to commit suicide, or why they had a loaded gun where their young child could reach it and shoot themself/their friend/other family member.

If any of you shahpshootahs can explain to me how Canada has legal hunting weapons and the occasional massacre like the US, but does not appear to have the urban gun crime problem without factoring in their different gun control laws in your explanation, I think it would be interesting.

First of all, as I've said before, the illegal flow of weapons from neighboring New Hampshire into Massachusetts present a real problem. Legislators up in NH should make a serious, all-out effort to stop that. Secondly, very few handguns, if any, are used in self-defense. Mostly, they're used to kill another person, which, more often than not, does happen.

Also, the fact that the Gun Lobby/NRA has rejected the most simple measures, such as background checks, waiting periods, and the requirement of gun manufacturers to install safety locks on guns to prevent unauthorized use of the firearm in the event that it's lost or stolen and so that kids can't get access to it and use it that're necessary to ensure some sort of gun control and safety, is also quite dangerous and has helped produce disaastrous results. People who have a history of being a felon, mental illness, and substance/alcohol abuse and alcoholism, for instance, are people who really shouldn't have access to firearms at all, and, because of the laxness in implementing and enforcing gun laws, criminals and people with a history of mental illness/substance abuse have been able to get access to firearms.

Come to think of it, I know a guy my own age who lives in a rural town roughly an hour west of Boston, and lives in Florida for six months of the year. He's an ordinary private citizen, who, to my knowledge, has never served in the mililtary, or any other branch of the services. He owns a guns so that he can shoot beavers in his back yard, and...he has a fairly long history of alcoholism. Given this particular guy's history of alcoholism, the fact that he was able to get access to firearms at all boggles my mind.

The guys that got into the dispute which resulted in Chiara Levin's untimely and horrible death both had histories of being career criminals. The presence of handguns caused the dispute that they had to turn deadly.

Most people who get murdered are murdered by people they know, be they friends, neighbors, acquaintences and even family members. Most murders also occur in the home, in barroom brawls, and on street corners. While it's true that a person who's really hell-bent on murder could beat, bludgeon, stab or strangle his victim to death, the advent of handguns makes murder much, much easier....and much more likely, to boot. All it takes is the squeeze of the trigger and the crack of a pistol and a life is abruptly ended or irrevocably altered as a consequence.

To go by the adage: An angry person with no gun is just angry, while an angry person with a gun shoots his/her neighbor, friend, family member, etc. All too often, the presence of handguns has made volatile situations much, much worse. Disputes among friends, acquaintences, family members, etc, often turn deadly, and, like the recent Virginia Tech shooting, the Columbine High School shooting, not to mention countless of other incidents like those and simple disputes between neighbors, etc., confrontations have been made much, much worse due to the presence of handguns.

First of all, BrucemB, you're definitely another person who needs to learn to disagree with people in a respectful manner, without resorting to the kind of insults that you've been resorting to in your replies to my posts, which give a different opinion than yours when it comes to guns and gun control.

While I agree that this thug really does belong behind bars, this does not change the fact is that gun ownership by an average, ordinary run of the mill private citizen, regardless of race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status and demographic location does not make a city, town and/or society at large any safer.

As I've pointed out before, all too often, the Gun Lobby has deliberately stymied and thwarted efforts to strengthen existing gun laws and pass more stringent ones to prevent people who really and truly have no business getting access to firearms. Unfortunately, as yet another poster here on UniversalHub has correctly put it, far, far too many law-abiding citizens who own guns end up getting shot with their own pistols, and people end up being maimed or killed because a dispute over simple matters was rendered deadly due to the presence of guns, resulting in either a murder, a suicide, or both.

pfft!

MS.Levin would of still been alive today if she did'nt get into a car with a bunch of so called "thugs" she just met.I'am sorry about the way she died but did'nt her mother teach her not to get in cars with strangers.I live in Boston and I admit it has it's problems but I also have common sense.

however, I don't appreciate being called a "political jackass' for having a different opinion(s) than you regarding handguns and gun control. Imo, the fact that the crime rate is as high where you live, not to mention many other places here in the United States has been made far, far worse by the presence of handguns.

Handguns owned by the average, ordinary private citizens who claim that the Constitution's 2nd Amendment on the Right to Bear Arms are sadly mistaken if they think that it applies to them. The fact is, that this Amendment only applies to security personnel, law-enforcement personnel such as police, secret service people, and soldiers who're serving in our military (what a well-organized militia is, under the Constitution). The average, ordinary private citizen doesn't have the proper training and education for the use of guns, which is why the indiscriminate ownership and use of guns presents such a dangerous situation.