Hillary and Obama on guns? Nothing but the sounds of crickets.

I don't know call me crazy, but I think we might have a slight problem with guns in this country. In the past two days, in rapid succession, there have been three mass shootings resulting in the deaths of three police officers, ten civilians with several people seriously wounded in the aftermath.

In LA on Wednesday night/Thursday morning a hostage taker was shot after killing a SWAT officer, wounding another and killing most of his hostages [NYT];

In Kirkwood, Mo. a disgruntled citizen mad about several hundred parking tickets shot-up a city council meeting killing two police officers, two council members and seriously wounding the Mayor before being killed himself by the police [AP];

Hours later, the same day, a nursing student in Baton Rouge killed two fellow students before turning the gun on herself [UPI].

And then there was the everyday, run of the mill type domestic attempted murder where a man first shot at his wife, later stabbed her in front of her fifth grade class and then went home to shot himself in his garage. [houmatoday.com]

Of course, here in Philly a shooting or two a day is par for the course, but even by Philly standards what’s gone in the last two days is unbelievable. I'm thinking, though, if those city council members in Kirkwood had just been armed or if that teacher in Portsmouth, Ohio, had had a concealed weapons permit like High School English teacher Shirley Katz in Medford Oregon none of this would have happened. [See this blog 10/11/07]

[Note: 1/15/08 "A Medford English teacher has appealed a court decision blocking her from carrying a gun at school. Shirley Katz, who teaches at South Medford High School, is seeking to overturn last year's Circuit Court ruling upholding a school district policy that forbids employees from carrying guns on campus." Oregonlive.com]

Of course, the police officers were armed and they still got shot, but that must have been because some liberal politician had made them use 22s instead of Glocks like that pistol packing teacher in Medford has.

What I'm wondering is what either Barack Obama or Hillary has to say about all this mayhem?

From On The Issues:

Question for Obama . . .

"When you were in the state senate, you talked about licensing and registering gun owners. Would you do that as president?

A: I don't think that we can get that done. But what we can do is to provide just some common-sense enforcement."

Sounds like the NRA's got another potential friend in the White House.

And Hillary?

"Hillary Rodham Clinton offered her support for a legislative proposal to license hand guns. The legislation, sponsored by Sen. Charles Schumer, would require anyone who wants to purchase a gun to obtain a state-issued photo gun license. “I stand in support of this common sense legislation to license everyone who wishes to purchase a gun,” Clinton said. “I also believe that every new handgun sale or transfer should be registered in a national registry, such as Chuck is proposing.”

That sounds a little less NRA friendly but I haven't heard anything from her lately about gun control. You'd think after the last two day one of the two leading candidates for the Democratic nomination would address the shooting deaths of three police officers and ten innocent Americans gunned down in cold blood.

I did find a press release at her offical web site expressing her condolences for the victims at Louisiana Technical College, but that was it. I couldn't even get into Obama's website to check out his press releases without first signing up for spam from niow until November.

Way to go you two. That's real change!