The main thing that needs to change is for background checks be more than a white washing for doing something. They actually need to work, given the shooter’s background, there should have been no reason for him to ever be able to get a firearm of any kind ever.
Outside of that, it’s just noise. Guns have always been easily accessible and people didn’t, for the most part, do horrific shootings. The guns haven’t changed, the people have changed.
I can write a diatribe on what I think has gone wrong that would be a mile long. But in the end the silly answer is that people hate more than they love and its worse than ever before. It’s the mirror we need to look at, not the government to come in on it’s white horse to save us from ourselves…
Yes, among other things. Owning a gun should be a responsibility, not a fun activity. I’m sure the FFs didn’t write the 2A to ensure that a fun pastime stays unregulated.
Register each new weapon in person, fill out some really dumb forms, spend a day waiting in line in some DMV-like monstrosity - yes, tyranny and whatnot, but it would help that prospective owners pass the eyeball test and put some mildly inconvenient hurdles in the way, to dissuade depressed 19 year olds.
Now if the leadership of the NRA was actually a National Rifle Association and not a bunch of fringe psychopaths, they could work with relevant agencies to educate the public (and schoolchildren) about gun safety, hold courses for new gun owners, promote positive gun culture and help self police the community of responsible gun owners.
Would be be really so unusual to expect an organization nominally called the NRA to tour schools, explain to kids to never fucking touch a handgun if their parents/grandparents leave one unattended, demonstrate basic gun safety and in general demystify the concept of the gun, that it’s not a killing machine and explain the realities of gun self-defense and the legislative framework in which gun owners exist in easy-to-understand terms.
But it seems that this Wayne LaPierre guy in his most recent speech used the adjective Trotskyte, as in pertaining to Lev Trotsky and mentioned Karl Marx and the Communist Manifesto. Twice. That’s beyond deranged.
I’m not a member of the NRA, but I believe they do have a gun safety education program for children. I doubt they actually go to the schools much. If they tried to do a program at a public school all it would take is one parent (out of hundreds) complaining that they didn’t feel safe with the NRA coming to their school and it would be cancelled.
I was listening to local radio this morning. In 2014, after the Isla Vista shooting, CA passed a Gun Violence Protective Order law. WA and OR have similar laws.
Gun violence protective order laws, also known as gun violence restraining orders and extreme risk protection orders, allow families and household members, as well as law enforcement officers, to petition a court to remove a person’s access to guns if he or she poses an imminent danger to self or others.
Also if any of you want to poke around here, there are more policy suggestions for mental illness, disturbed individuals.
From the link above - I didn’t look up the studies for the stats.
“…80% of people considering suicide give some sign of their intentions and 38 out of the 62 mass shooters in the last 20 years were reported as displaying signs of dangerous mental health problems prior to the killings. In many of these shootings, people who knew the shooter observed these signs, but federal and state laws provided no clear legal process to restrict his or her access to guns, even temporarily.”
All due respect. You know jack shit about the NRA. They train boyscouts, hunter’s safety, Appleseed shoots etc… Every firearms trainer and range safety officer in the US is NRA certified. They push for harsher sentences for people convicted of violent crimes with guns.
They also fight tooth and nail to protect the rights of law abiding citizens. They fight to not give ground to the anti’s. If only we had such organizations for privacy, or due process.
Yep. Though I am referring to the possible creation of a new agency that provides security in schools nationwide, just like after 9/11 with the creation of the TSA. I’m sure there are plenty in D.C that already have it in mind. With the all the clamoring to “do something!” Congress will do what it does best, piss away money.
A soldier can go most of his military career without being in a firefight, but we still expect them to act accordingly when the time arises. There are cowards, this is true. But if having armed security doesn’t offer the best possible benefit, why is everyone so mad at the Parkland deputy for not engaging the shooter?
Nothing. But it is a definite deterrent. If you see a guy in a bar with a pistol strapped to his waist are you more or less likely to pick a fight with him?
About gun safety, the NRA has traditionally been known for safety courses and education.
My husband drives most of these decisions, but he began supporting the CRPA (CA Rifle and Pistol Assoc.) instead, maybe 15 years ago. The NRA’s rhetoric began to turn us off.
To the thread.
@ Age limit of 25? No. If we want to say adults, then twenty-one is already an accepted standard for some things. If we’re looking at policy that saves lives, you’d have to ask yourself how many 19-year-old young men are killed in motorcycle accidents. When we go to my parent’s ranch, I’m far more worried that the kids would get hurt in an ATV accident, or a horseback riding accident, than get hurt standing between their dad and their grandpa being supervised shooting aluminum cans. I’m not sure how many people are up in arms about kids getting hurt in a 3-wheeler or 4-wheeler accident, but I’d guess these are far more reasonable worries.
@ Gun Culture. We have families who like to take their kids into the woods during hunting season. Families enjoy target and trap shooting. I find it very unlikely that these activities are correlated with likelihood to become a school shooter. Kids don’t have to have the rifle registered in their name, but the need safety education. With over 300 million guns in the US, everyone should know basic safety guidelines. This is a family activity for a lot of people. I don’t think it’s an undesirable aspect of our culture, that needs to change. My husband grew up shooting clay pigeons with his dad. That time spent together probably makes him less likely to grow up to be a disturbed and violent person.
@ Policy regarding limiting the number of rounds people can own. The media will report that someone had 1,000 rounds of ammunition, because it sounds extreme to people with no experience with firearms. It sounds a lot more scary than saying, “the guy has a couple of different kinds of guns, and has a couple of boxes of ammo for each.” Oh, well that sounds pretty normal. Nothing to see here.
Hell, I have well over a thousand rounds of various calibers right now. I buy based on opportunity a good deal and I buy. 90% are FMJ rounds used for practice. Typically, you need to fire 10,000 rounds in practice to compitently use them in a life or death situation. 1000 rounds is nothing. You can easily go through half that in an afternoon of target practice.
It’s all bullshit. You squeeze one side of a balloon you create a weak spot in another. Which means assholes will find another way, perhaps more deadly.
Contrary to popular belief, I’d rather have my local maniac with an AR15 over most hand gun rounds. Almost all AR15 rounds are .22 caliber and FMJ. If it doesn’t hit you in a vital area, it goes right through and chances of survival are higher. I hit you with a .45 hollow point I can miss a vital organ and still kill you. It’s a big heavy slow round that can leave an exit hole 3 times larger than the entrance hole. And if it doesn’t exit, you’re screwed.
That doesn’t mean an AR15 cannot kill, of course it can. But there are survivors of the Orlando shooting who were shot 4 times and made a full recovery, physically. That wouldn’t happen with larger caliber slower rounds.
If you are going to get shot, you want a round traveling 2400 ft/sec that is .22 of an inch. The entrance and exit hole will be the same size. If it hits nothing vital, you will make a full recovery.
I also have well over a 1000 rounds of ammo. I try to shoot often, and it only makes sense to buy in bulk. When they start talking abput limiting how many rounds of ammo an individual can own I immediately want to give money to the NRA. It would be intolerable to me have to live at the mercy of the fear and ignorance of the lowest common denominator.
What has this got to do with 2A? Or did I miss how net neutrality “will take away your guns”. If anything, they’re doing gun owners a disservice by conflating gun ownership with a very specific set of political opinions.
Actually, you’d be surprised. I live in a small town where the major employer is a weapons manufacturer. As a consequence, we (unfortunately) have US tactical bros come over occasionally over as well some higher-ups in the NRA.
Let’s just say that the 2A is not their primary focus.
There’s a fairly steady stream of US tactical bros and NRA types coming throughout the year, but I’m always perplexed by the occasional middle-aged Texan woman who for some reason wants to do the full factory tour.
For those downplaying the lethality of the AR15 because of the round it uses I think you are forgetting something very important: range. How close was Adam Lanza to the children at Sandy Hook when he KILLED, not wounded, them?
A soldier WILL go most of his career without firing or being fired at in combat. And no one would expect soldiers in many MOSs to be effective let alone competent in combat. Marines would be an exception because all of them are trained to fight.
It was a deputy at Parkland, not an armed guard, and there was actually more than one. People are holding them to a higher standard than they would some rent a cop.
Openly carrying is not a definite deterrent. It might just be giving a potential assailant a tool to beat you over the head with. It is a lot easier than people think to disarm someone while their weapon is still holstered. How many people who carry are trained in weapon retention?
It’s funny how people will say that guns don’t kill people, people kill people, then turn around and think just the mere possession of a gun will suddenly give one magic crime fighting powers. It’s all about the person even when it’s the good guy.
I think many would also be surprised at the actual scores required for weapons’ qualification in the Army. And it isn’t unheard of for really poor shooters to get a little help, from extra rounds to even having another shooter on the range hit some of their targets. If you aren’t cheating, you aren’t trying.
From the article:
“According to CNN, which obtained documentation, police responded 39 times to emergency calls at Cruz’s home over a seven-year period. The codes included “mentally ill person,” “child/elderly abuse,” “domestic disturbance,” “missing person,” among others, CNN reports.”
If I were the emperor of the world, I wouldn’t want to hear about a gunshow loophole or anything else, until this broken system was fixed. Then we can talk about other measures.
