Standup Zone Forum
General => Random => Topic started by: PaddleAnything on April 16, 2013, 02:36:01 PM
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Maybe you shouldn't own a gun if:
-a member of your household has anger management issues and takes several medications to manage it.
-a member of your household cares more about the afterlife of friends than your actual life.
http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/2013/04/15/2465255/police-teen-shot-parents-because.html (http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/2013/04/15/2465255/police-teen-shot-parents-because.html)
It really is scary how many guns are accessible to unstable individuals.
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Blaming the gun thing again, really?
Dude, more people were killed last year by hammer-wielding murders than with "assault weapons".
Murderers use knives, baseball bats, bare hands, strangulation, pressure cookers and so on and so on to kill others.
Guns make it quicker/easier to kill. Eliminate guns and guess what, people will still kill each other, sadly.
My guess, an individual that unstable would have tried to kill his parents one way or another, with or without the guns.
But I do agree with one point, if my kid had anger management issues, the gun would be locked and/or with a trigger lock. But then, I'd have to hide all the knives, 2x4's, rope and so on.
Is it really scary how many other weapons are available to unstable individuals, or just guns? Why do people have to fixate on guns, as if there are no other types of murder weapons?
Ok, kathump, I'm off my soapbox.
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Why do people have to fixate on guns, as if there are no other types of murder weapons?
Well, because:
Guns make it quicker/easier to kill.
Um, it looks like you answered your own question . . .
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You know what would happen if the gov't came for your guns?
Lots of death.
Why does nobody realize that's what would happen?
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I'm not an NRA fan, they seem absurdly reactionary to me, I'm not fond of zealots of any stripe. But they are certainly correct that gun control is letting the camels nose in the tent. People look at it as a solution to violence in our society, which is ridiculous.
Yes, people who own guns should keep them secure. People who drive cars should never drive drunk or distracted. Let's go in order of the bigger danger to everyone. Take the cars away from anyone caught diddling with a cell phone while they are driving. As soon as you get that done, you can have my pistol. Which you'll find locked in my gun safe.
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Diddling with their cell phone? That's me, your paddling partner. I'm trying to stop.
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Newtown has brought to public awareness a multitude of reasonable steps that could be taken to reduce gun violence. Many of these would have widespread support from both sides. States sharing mental illness records, etc.
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Why do people have to fixate on guns, as if there are no other types of murder weapons?
Well, because:
Guns make it quicker/easier to kill.
Um, it looks like you answered your own question . . .
No, that's not "the" answer to my question, that's just one point. Guns are not the leading cause of deaths in this country, so why fixate on them? That's what makes no sense to me.
People have this odd fantasy that oh, if we just outlaw guns, or greatly restrict them, everything will be lovely, kumbaya. I don't recall all the places/facts, but I do seem to recall tens of thousands of murders, by machete wielding tribes in Africa not too long ago.
Sure, guns may make it easier but as I said, without guns people will still kill each other, it just gets more personal without a gun.
As PB said, outlaw cars too, lots more killed by those than guns.
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I'm not having any children.
Think of the deaths I'm preventing.
People die. End of story.
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Newtown has brought to public awareness a multitude of reasonable steps that could be taken to reduce gun violence. Many of these would have widespread support from both sides. States sharing mental illness records, etc.
FYI, I agree with many of those steps, I'm not even a member of the NRA, I just support the 2nd amendment.
I don't agree with banning "assault weapons", as stated more people were murdered by hammers last year than assault weapons.
I also support concealed carry, open carry would be even better.
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I'm not having any children.
Think of the deaths I'm preventing.
People die. End of story.
That's an interesting concept and certainly there are many trials and tribulations with being a parent. Number one is watching out for their safety. Someone told me, "You never draw another free breath once you're a parent." And now as a grandfather I can tell you it's still true.
But on the other hand that tight grip you try to maintain to keep them safe, also serves to keep you grounded and alive. I would have self destructed years ago if I didn't have kids.
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Why do people have to fixate on guns, as if there are no other types of murder weapons?
Well, because:
Guns make it quicker/easier to kill.
Um, it looks like you answered your own question . . .
No, that's not "the" answer to my question, that's just one point. Guns are not the leading cause of deaths in this country, so why fixate on them? That's what makes no sense to me.
People have this odd fantasy that oh, if we just outlaw guns, or greatly restrict them, everything will be lovely, kumbaya. I don't recall all the places/facts, but I do seem to recall tens of thousands of murders, by machete wielding tribes in Africa not too long ago.
Sure, guns may make it easier but as I said, without guns people will still kill each other, it just gets more personal without a gun.
As PB said, outlaw cars too, lots more killed by those than guns.
No, that's not "the" answer to my question, that's just one point. Guns are not the leading cause of deaths in this country, so why fixate on them? That's what makes no sense to me.
Are you saying that there only should be laws about the leading cause of deaths? Only pass sensible gun laws when they become the number one killer???
People have this odd fantasy that oh, if we just outlaw guns, or greatly restrict them, everything will be lovely, kumbaya. I don't recall all the places/facts, but I do seem to recall tens of thousands of murders, by machete wielding tribes in Africa not too long ago.
No, people looking at reasonable gun laws aren't having odd fantasies and think everything will be lovely. They are just saying that they are tired of mass killings at schools, movies, and shopping malls by assault rifles with high capacity magazines.
Sure, guns may make it easier but as I said, without guns people will still kill each other, it just gets more personal without a gun.
Yes, there are many ways to kill people, but a crazy person with automatic rifles is very hard to stop.
As PB said, outlaw cars too, lots more killed by those than guns.
There are a lot of car laws that help to reduce deaths, why not do the same with guns.
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In the country of Indonesia there is absolute gun control. No second amendment. The only people allowed to have guns in the country are the police and army and the army has better ones than the police. The army is the top dog.
Now Indonesia is a fairly screwed up country and corrupt as all get out but the murder rate from guns in the country is zero from what I know... unless it's done by the police or army. There have had a few bombings but the perps were chased down and eliminated. Out in the eastern islands there have been political type killings, like in East Timor. But again the military was responsible for supplying errant militia with weapons to kill civilians, weapons sold to the Indonesian military by the US.
Now people still find ways to kill one another there but they can't do it fast. They have to use a knife or sword... much more grisely and personal.
So on one hand they have a low murder rate with guns but on the other the authorities there have a grip on one of the most populated areas of the world that they might not have if they allowed people to own guns. This may have strayed from the original thrust of gun control at home but just thought I'd give a look at another reality.
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As PB said, outlaw cars too, lots more killed by those than guns.
There are a lot of car laws that help to reduce deaths, why not do the same with guns.
Laws are empty wind unless they are enforced. There are plenty of laws concerning weapons as well--not much enforcement. New York state has the strictest gun laws in the nation and NYC is even stricter. Anyone ready to move there to be safe from gun violence?
My position, not that anyone cares, is that if you wish to curb violence you need to address it at it roots. Owning a gun is not the root. Do you fix drunk driving by taking away the cars from everyone who has never driven drunk?
How about "use a gun to commit any crime, and you go straight to the organ banks"? I'm good with that. I bet the NRA would be too.
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In the country of Indonesia there is absolute gun control. No second amendment. The only people allowed to have guns in the country are the police and army and the army has better ones than the police. The army is the top dog.
Now Indonesia is a fairly screwed up country and corrupt as all get out but the murder rate from guns in the country is zero from what I know... unless it's done by the police or army. There have had a few bombings but the perps were chased down and eliminated. Out in the eastern islands there have been political type killings, like in East Timor. But again the military was responsible for supplying errant militia with weapons to kill civilians, weapons sold to the Indonesian military by the US.
Now people still find ways to kill one another there but they can't do it fast. They have to use a knife or sword... much more grisely and personal.
So on one hand they have a low murder rate with guns but on the other the authorities there have a grip on one of the most populated areas of the world that they might not have if they allowed people to own guns. This may have strayed from the original thrust of gun control at home but just thought I'd give a look at another reality.
It's not even slightly off course. It's why there IS a second amendment.
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As PB said, outlaw cars too, lots more killed by those than guns.
There are a lot of car laws that help to reduce deaths, why not do the same with guns.
Laws are empty wind unless they are enforced. There are plenty of laws concerning weapons as well--not much enforcement. New York state has the strictest gun laws in the nation and NYC is even stricter. Anyone ready to move there to be safe from gun violence?
My position, not that anyone cares, is that if you wish to curb violence you need to address it at it roots. Owning a gun is not the root. Do you fix drunk driving by taking away the cars from everyone who has never driven drunk?
How about "use a gun to commit any crime, and you go straight to the organ banks"? I'm good with that. I bet the NRA would be too.
First, the NRA has made it very difficult to enforce the laws that are in effect today. Second, yes its hard to buy a gun 'legally' in New York, but easy to buy one elsewhere and bring it to New York.
Expanding on your drunk driving statement. There have been very substantial reductions in deaths caused by drunk driving, one by taking away licences of those caught driving drunk, but also by making those responsible for drunk driving. A bar, a bartender, or anyone can be held responsible for letting a person get drunk, drive a car, and kill someone. But I gun dealer can sell assault weapons to anyone, even if he knows they are crazy and are going to go out and shoot someone.
How about, sell a gun to a crazy person that shoots up a school and you go straight to the organ banks.
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It is not in the NRA/gun makers interest to reduce crime, that would hurt sales. Which is the real reason why they are against background checks - its about money. I wish the 2nd amendment would be thrown out. Guns are now toys, not tools, in our urbanized America.
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Why do people have to fixate on guns, as if there are no other types of murder weapons?
Well, because:
Guns make it quicker/easier to kill.
Um, it looks like you answered your own question . . .
No, that's not "the" answer to my question, that's just one point. Guns are not the leading cause of deaths in this country, so why fixate on them? That's what makes no sense to me.
People have this odd fantasy that oh, if we just outlaw guns, or greatly restrict them, everything will be lovely, kumbaya. I don't recall all the places/facts, but I do seem to recall tens of thousands of murders, by machete wielding tribes in Africa not too long ago.
Sure, guns may make it easier but as I said, without guns people will still kill each other, it just gets more personal without a gun.
As PB said, outlaw cars too, lots more killed by those than guns.
No, that's not "the" answer to my question, that's just one point. Guns are not the leading cause of deaths in this country, so why fixate on them? That's what makes no sense to me.
Are you saying that there only should be laws about the leading cause of deaths? Only pass sensible gun laws when they become the number one killer???
People have this odd fantasy that oh, if we just outlaw guns, or greatly restrict them, everything will be lovely, kumbaya. I don't recall all the places/facts, but I do seem to recall tens of thousands of murders, by machete wielding tribes in Africa not too long ago.
No, people looking at reasonable gun laws aren't having odd fantasies and think everything will be lovely. They are just saying that they are tired of mass killings at schools, movies, and shopping malls by assault rifles with high capacity magazines.
Sure, guns may make it easier but as I said, without guns people will still kill each other, it just gets more personal without a gun.
Yes, there are many ways to kill people, but a crazy person with automatic rifles is very hard to stop.
As PB said, outlaw cars too, lots more killed by those than guns.
There are a lot of car laws that help to reduce deaths, why not do the same with guns.
Uggh, I keep getting sucked into this, oh well.
Yes, the mass killings are terrible, they're dramatic and they ruin lives. They also are a very minute amount of the murders that occur in the country. All the other forms of murder dwarf mass killings. Why not worry about the bigger numbers?
Btw, none of the weapons used in those atrocities were "automatic", they were semi-automatic.
We already have TONS of gun laws, they aren't enforced at the federal level. Enforce the laws we already have, lock offenders up for years at the first offense. I live near Chicago, we had the toughest gun laws in the country and the #1 murder rate. Maybe criminals don't care about gun laws, eh? Kind of like the laws against illegal drugs.
Without enforcement, gun laws are meaningless.
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OMG!!!
Yeah, let's punish the gun dealers because they know what someone is going to do when they walk out the door. While we're at it, why don't we punish auto dealers when someone drives drunk and ends up killing somebody. Punish McDonald's for killing people. Punish tobacco companies because people died from smoking. ::) I'd love to ban natural disasters. Think of all the lives that would save. ;D
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Yep, can't believe this horse isn't dead yet. A law without funding for its enforcement is meaningless.
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First, the NRA has made it very difficult to enforce the laws that are in effect today. Second, yes its hard to buy a gun 'legally' in New York, but easy to buy one elsewhere and bring it to New York.
Expanding on your drunk driving statement. There have been very substantial reductions in deaths caused by drunk driving, one by taking away licences of those caught driving drunk, but also by making those responsible for drunk driving. A bar, a bartender, or anyone can be held responsible for letting a person get drunk, drive a car, and kill someone. But I gun dealer can sell assault weapons to anyone, even if he knows they are crazy and are going to go out and shoot someone.
How about, sell a gun to a crazy person that shoots up a school and you go straight to the organ banks.
There's that camel, I was wondering where it went. Too easy to politicize and you've disconnected responsibility from the act itself. If a bartender lets someone leave a bar drunk and they kill someone they are not subject to a murder trial, just fines.
There are LOTS of laws about who a gun dealer can sell to and who they can't. Enforcement is the issue. Most of those laws are actually regulation, and can be modified without some huge debate. They're a criteria for continuing to hold a sales license. If background checks needed to be deeper that tweak could be made at a regulatory level and would only get debated and fiddled with after the fact. The reality is that this is a political position that can be manipulated to garner votes. Given the current ability to tell each block of voters what they want to hear from you, it's gold.
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What is the one common denominator in ALL mass shootings around the WORLD. Every shooter was taking or had recently been on phsycotropic medicine .... Hmmmm anyone looked up side effects of phsycotropic drugs.........??????
Why is it this fact is NEVER mentioned in mainstream media , and if casually mentioned , they never make a connection to it. The media can say they were mentally unstable but heaven forbid they ever mention that Pharmaceutical drugs , specifically phsycotropic drugs have been the ONE common denominator in all mass shootings . Besides the obvious guns that is ??? I wonder who is one of thee biggest clients for advertiser space on tv ??
Look up the side effects of phsycotropic medicine ?? it's insane !!
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They say that states which outlawed texting and driving had a net increase in auto deaths relative to those states which did not institute such laws. The supposed theory is that when its legal to text and drive, the phone is held up, allowing the driver to more easily view the road whilst texting. In ban states the phones a of course hidden below the dash, preventing the driver from viewing the road with his peripheral vision when driving.
Unintended consequences and all that.
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Here on Oahu texting is banned and I see this all day long .... holding phone down to the right of them and looking down at phone swerving, then looking up . I got rear ended by a lady I passed because she was swerving as I passed her by I looked down into her car and she was holding her phone down and looking at it, she had two kids in the back. She later caught up to me and we were in the same lane , I stopped and she was texting .... KABOOM !!!
My Tundra won that contest.... her toyota ?? Not so much !!
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For what its worth, Drunk Driving fatalities have dropped over 60% in the last 30 years with tougher laws and stricter enforcement.
There are always meaningful steps that can be taken, and always those that will stand in the way with countless reasons for why nothing should be done.
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Blue tooth should be installed in every car as a safety device. I drive a three lane road everyday and people always pull out in the middle lane in front of me simply because they cant turn the wheel while talking on the phone.
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An often quoted but faulty statistic that doesn't include the overall decline in fatality over the same timeframe or any other influential associated trends. FWIW the overall decline in traffic fatality (varying according to what you choose for the other axis) is 32%. Even comparing that apple to that orange is an error since drunk driving fatalities is a subset of those. Using handy years, drunk driving fatality in 1994 was 5.1 per 100,000 and in 2011 it was 3.2, a difference of 1.9 per 100K. Over the same period ALL fatalities per 100,000 declined from 15.6 to 10.6, a difference of 5 per 100K. That's raw data, fiddle with those stats as you will, I can get them to do almost anything but cook breakfast.
I DO believe stronger enforcement of drunk driving laws has made a real difference. Oops, there's that enforcement word again. I also believe suing the crap out of sloppy bar owners made a difference. I think changes in business attitudes did too. My boss used to be toasted by 1:00 every day. The drinking, smoking and sexual harassment everyone cringes about on Mad Men was part of my life that I don't miss.
I'm all for meaningful steps, I'm just not up for getting whipsawed by politicians. After a life spent spinning bullshit I've developed an allergy. Like glassers get to epoxy.
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For what its worth, Drunk Driving fatalities have dropped over 60% in the last 30 years with tougher laws and stricter enforcement.
There are always meaningful steps that can be taken, and always those that will stand in the way with countless reasons for why nothing should be done.
I believe the biggest single factor in that drop was raising the drinking age. Restricting access to those most likely to offend. How does that work with guns?
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What is the one common denominator in ALL mass shootings around the WORLD. Every shooter was taking or had recently been on phsycotropic medicine
And your source for this uninformed BS is . . .?
Wait, let me guess - that bastion of integrity known as Alex Jones . . .
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How come weapon sellers and manufactures have no liability and almost every other product sold has? (hint, NR?)
Bill, did you have to deal with liability when you made and sold paddles? Know anyone who died because of a paddle?
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How come weapon sellers and manufactures have no liability and almost every other product sold has? (hint, NR?)
Bill, did you have to deal with liability when you made and sold paddles? Know anyone who died because of a paddle?
I'd guess if a gun blows up in your face and injures you when you're using it, or goes off on its own, or has any other defect like that, there's just as much liability as with any seller or manufacturer of anything else.
But if you're thinking that a manufacturer should be liable for someone's death if they are shot, that makes no sense. That's the purpose of guns, and it's a legitimate purpose.
For sellers, if there are laws requiring paperwork or any other steps, and the seller ignores that and sells a gun to someone who goes out and kills someone with it, I'd say there's certainly legitimate liability for that.
In regard to the paddles, an accurate analogy would be someone who uses a Ke Nalu paddle to paddle away from the bank he just robbed. I'm sure it's illegal to flee from a robbery, but the paddle manufacturer has no liability for the robbery or the fleeing, even though the robber used the paddle to flee, and used it exactly the way it was made to be used (to paddle).
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I have to be honest and say that some of the posts on this thread are absolutely so ridiculous and far off the mark it's embarrassing to read.
Liability ?? the owner of a product has liability if they where to kill or injure someone with it due do negligence or a willful act (be it a gun, knife, hammer, paddle, flying SUP off their car, etc..) ... seriously if your gonna talk about the holding the maker of a product liable for how someone in possession of the product uses it, there would be NO products produced by anyone or the cost would be so high you couldn't afford it.
I could go on and on with this one... so Crayola should be held liable if I jam a crayon in your eye and kill you with it?... they can be sharp... lol
I think people need to be responsible with any product they own and be held accountable for their own actions .... end of story... oh wait so should the company that made the pressure cooker that was used as a bomb in yesterday's Marathon here in Boston be held liable for all the injuries and dead victims ??? Come on zoners seriously now !!!!
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Some traffic stats:
(http://www.standupzone.com/dd.jpg)
I agree with a lot of what others have added to this. Enforcement played a role. New, common sense regulations played a role, etc.
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Here's a thought, how about enforcing the laws already passed. Hold people accountable their actions. No one has addressed the black market or unregistered guns, guns that come in by the black market. Lots of arguments to go around on this topic. It should start with personal responsibility for one own actions. Dis-arming a law abiding citizens is gona be a hard sell, even the liberal dems voted against todays bill because of that fact. Then there is the lawyer issue.
That differnet topic !
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seriously if your gonna talk about the holding the maker of a product liable for how someone in possession of the product uses it, there would be NO products produced by anyone or the cost would be so high you couldn't afford it.
This does happen. Infants cold medicine is an example.
"Cough and cold products for children under two years old were voluntarily removed from the market because of on-going safety concerns discussed by the FDA in 2007. These safety concerns revealed that there were many reports of harm, and even death, to children who used these products. These reports of harm occurred when the child received too much medication such as in cases as accidental ingestion, unintentional overdose, or after a medication dosing error. "
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I think that we can drop it already.
The Senate today shot down an assault weapon ban, only 40 votes in favor and 60 opposed/abstained in the Democrat controlled body.
In contrast, a bill to expand gun rights got 57 votes in favor today.
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Dis-arming a law abiding citizens is gona be a hard sell, even the liberal dems voted against todays bill because of that fact.
Making background checks mandatory is NOT disarming law abiding citizens and the only dems who voted to block the bill were conservative/moderates from gun-happy states, not liberals. The mental contortions that gun advocates go through to justify their positions never ceases to amaze me.
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27% of Democrat senators voted against the assault weapon ban.
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PDLSFR--If you are going to stab me in the eye, use a Sharpie. A Crayola would just be too embarrassing to explain. It would still hurt, that's for sure.
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I agree with a lot of what others have added to this. Enforcement played a role. New, common sense regulations played a role, etc.
I think the biggest factor in the change in drunk driving statistics is MADD. A very successful organization, very effective. They didn't take a one-dimensional approach to the issue, they worked to change the underlying causes. If all they did was get more laws passed to regulate something that was already illegal, they would have accomplished nothing.
If people want to do something similar with gun violence they certainly could. But looking to politicians to solve the issue is pointless. Gun Control is a valuable political tool for attracting constituency without committing to something significant--it's a flag burning issue. If the administration wanted to control guns better they could instruct BATF and other agencies to do so. Budget limitations? They could mobilize volunteers to police gun shows and dealers. But no, that would anger the federal employee unions. The issue is too important for such pettiness you say? You must be kidding, or at least must not have been watching the cleanup efforts post Sandy or the Gulf Oil Spill.
It could be done, now, today. But it won't be. It's political Jai Alai, making a big show of doing something while nothing changes.
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27% of Democrat senators voted against the assault weapon ban.
Today's vote had nothing to do with assault weapons, it was about background checks. The senators who voted against it were Max Baucus of Montana, Mark Begich of Alaska, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Mark Pryor of Arkansas.
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But on the other hand that tight grip you try to maintain to keep them safe, also serves to keep you grounded and alive. I would have self destructed years ago if I didn't have kids.
Yep. Funny how they change so much about yourself and how different you see things. Walk out of the hospital, that first time especially, with that little thing all wrapped in a blanket....."ohhhh, wow, really, no instructions, now what?"....what a rush.
My, an article about some kid who is obviously and knowingly disturbed and who would have waited with a knife or hatchet or stick or whatever to inflict and direct his anger starts another thread on gun control? Are you kidding me? Of course the parents weren't responsible enough. Of course that gun should have not been there or at the very least locked away but good. Our media, what is considered news, and how it is reported, sensationalized, and all that happy horse shit is beyond control. How could that article that kicked off this thread be considered news? What was the purpose of that sad and disturbing story to be published in the first place beyond their local newspaper?
Of course gun control starts at home, as does responsible driving.......and all else. Worthy and even unworthy outcomes are born from that. Of course all of that won't necessarily make someone not drive drunk or keep from mental illness or make everything rosey but...........apples don't fall far from the tree so to say.
I think reduced drunk driving is about tougher laws that are enforced and education. The last few generations know...."that's no good and you will go to jail." Not like the old days...."walk home and don't let me see you again tonite in this car" kind of thing that often happened. It wasn't taken as seriously until about 30-35 years ago. I didn't study the stats but it probably follows that somewhat.
I saw a headline a week or two ago...."NRA punishes senators". Are you serious? That was supposed to make some outrage at the NRA? I just don't think they have as much influence as some want everyone to think. The......."hardcore/stereotypical" NRA member.....is going to vote Republican if Hillary switches parties for 2016 and is "their" candidate. The....."stereotypical/hardcore" liberal is going to vote for...., I don't know.....Sarah Palin in 2016 if she is "their" candidate. The little blemish on the senators record isn't going to cost as many votes as the media wants one to believe because those people aren't going to research that kind of stuff and the candidates know how their constituants will vote. Romney knew what he was talking about. They are a powerful lobby, no doubt about it, and I think needed to retain our second ammendment but lots of smoke and mirrors and ...... well, that's what politics are, smoke and mirrors.
Legit gun shows are not the big outlet for all these guns on the black market. They just aren't. Most shows and auctions are responsible. Our wonderful country is full of thugs and crazies and people filled with apathy and resentment at whatever you can think of. It is also full of responsible people trying their best. We have tradition, heritage, and common sense and that should prevail. I didn't follow what passed or didn't pass, all or nothing or whatever. Not that some of it wasn't reasonable but I don't think it really would have changed much as it doesn't deal with what really needs dealt with.
You make more laws restricting gun ownership.....the bad guys aren't going to have any less guns. You make more laws about drunk driving......the drunks are still going to drive drunk. We are still going to do what we want to do (hopefully)......just some are more responsible, thoughtful, smart, stupid, thoughtless, hateful, or whatever than others.
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27% of Democrat senators voted against the assault weapon ban.
Today's vote had nothing to do with assault weapons, it was about background checks. The senators who voted against it were Max Baucus of Montana, Mark Begich of Alaska, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Mark Pryor of Arkansas.
Actually, several gun control measures were voted on today.
And yes, 27% of Democrat senators did in fact vote against the Assault Weapon Ban today.
AND, an NRA backed bill, which would have massively increased the number of concealed carry permits around the country, fell just three votes short. Bloomberg derided the proposal as likely to "Turn Time Square into the OK Corral." Yes, this proposal got more votes than did the "compromise gun control bill" to expand background checks.
All in the Senate, which the Democrats control.
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Some traffic stats:
(http://www.standupzone.com/dd.jpg)
This table means very little. You have left out population numbers, miles driven, total number of accidents, etc.
If anything this table proves that airbags, crumple zones, anti lock brakes, etc save lives. You could even use the numbers to show that a crappy economy saves lives as fatalities are lower during recessions.
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But on the other hand that tight grip you try to maintain to keep them safe, also serves to keep you grounded and alive. I would have self destructed years ago if I didn't have kids.
Yep. Funny how they change so much about yourself and how different you see things. Walk out of the hospital, that first time especially, with that little thing all wrapped in a blanket....."ohhhh, wow, really, no instructions, now what?"....what a rush.
My, an article about some kid who is obviously and knowingly disturbed and who would have waited with a knife or hatchet or stick or whatever to inflict and direct his anger starts another thread on gun control? Are you kidding me? Of course the parents weren't responsible enough. Of course that gun should have not been there or at the very least locked away but good. Our media, what is considered news, and how it is reported, sensationalized, and all that happy horse shit is beyond control. How could that article that kicked off this thread be considered news? What was the purpose of that sad and disturbing story to be published in the first place beyond their local newspaper?
Of course gun control starts at home, as does responsible driving.......and all else. Worthy and even unworthy outcomes are born from that. Of course all of that won't necessarily make someone not drive drunk or keep from mental illness or make everything rosey but...........apples don't fall far from the tree so to say.
I think reduced drunk driving is about tougher laws that are enforced and education. The last few generations know...."that's no good and you will go to jail." Not like the old days...."walk home and don't let me see you again tonite in this car" kind of thing that often happened. It wasn't taken as seriously until about 30-35 years ago. I didn't study the stats but it probably follows that somewhat.
I saw a headline a week or two ago...."NRA punishes senators". Are you serious? That was supposed to make some outrage at the NRA? I just don't think they have as much influence as some want everyone to think. The......."hardcore/stereotypical" NRA member.....is going to vote Republican if Hillary switches parties for 2016 and is "their" candidate. The....."stereotypical/hardcore" liberal is going to vote for...., I don't know.....Sarah Palin in 2016 if she is "their" candidate. The little blemish on the senators record isn't going to cost as many votes as the media wants one to believe because those people aren't going to research that kind of stuff and the candidates know how their constituants will vote. Romney knew what he was talking about. They are a powerful lobby, no doubt about it, and I think needed to retain our second ammendment but lots of smoke and mirrors and ...... well, that's what politics are, smoke and mirrors.
Legit gun shows are not the big outlet for all these guns on the black market. They just aren't. Most shows and auctions are responsible. Our wonderful country is full of thugs and crazies and people filled with apathy and resentment at whatever you can think of. It is also full of responsible people trying their best. We have tradition, heritage, and common sense and that should prevail. I didn't follow what passed or didn't pass, all or nothing or whatever. Not that some of it wasn't reasonable but I don't think it really would have changed much as it doesn't deal with what really needs dealt with.
You make more laws restricting gun ownership.....the bad guys aren't going to have any less guns. You make more laws about drunk driving......the drunks are still going to drive drunk. We are still going to do what we want to do (hopefully)......just some are more responsible, thoughtful, smart, stupid, thoughtless, hateful, or whatever than others.
luca, you're a wise man, and you write well, which means you say what you mean and it comes from the heart.
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I think that's what I said, though perhaps I wasn't clear.
I don't know whether the NRA gains or loses with their extreme position. My wishful side says loses, my marketing side says wins. I do know I've never been a member, never did like the obstructive stance, and my late best friend Sam Karamanos ditched his membership after many years because he didn't agree with the continued extreme position.
If we lived in a logical world we could get to a rational place with both sides agreeing on elements that need attention and continuing to battle over fundamentals. That won't happen. It IS true that government never stops trying to intrude into every facet of our lives--they're built that way. That DOES have to be fought. Margret Thatcher, RIP. Well done Ma'am.
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If I can believe the media, gun and ammo sells have greatly increase after Obama was elected and reelected. I don't have any stats to support the idea, but it is widely reported.
Is that a rational decision to go out and stockpile or simply buy a weapon because Obama was elected? If you agree that it is not rational and the increase in sells is true, then there has been a major increase in the number of weapons in the hands of irrational people. I've known many people that really liked their guns and went to church several times a week. They hated Bill Clinton and expressed that if harm came his way they would not be at all upset. These same people hate Obama even more.
It just seems odd to me that I could go in Walmart and buy a cart full of ammo, but I can't buy more than one box of sinus medicine. Furthermore, sells of sinus medicine are tracked through a state computer network to keep me from going to several stores just to buy a couple of boxes.
It just seems odd to me that people I know very well love God and guns while they hate liberals. Some of these same people have had guns stolen from their car or house. Their kids have access to the guns and ammo, and people continue to defend their rights to have access to guns without any requirement for how it is stored or insurance for the harm done with it. It just seems odd to me.
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If I can believe the media, gun and ammo sells have greatly increase after Obama was elected and reelected. I don't have any stats to support the idea, but it is widely reported.
Is that a rational decision to go out and stockpile or simply buy a weapon because Obama was elected? If you agree that it is not rational and the increase in sells is true, then there has been a major increase in the number of weapons in the hands of irrational people. I've known many people that really liked their guns and went to church several times a week. They hated Bill Clinton and expressed that if harm came his way they would not be at all upset. These same people hate Obama even more.
It just seems odd to me that I could go in Walmart and buy a cart full of ammo, but I can't buy more than one box of sinus medicine. Furthermore, sells of sinus medicine are tracked through a state computer network to keep me from going to several stores just to buy a couple of boxes.
It just seems odd to me that people I know very well love God and guns while they hate liberals. Some of these same people have had guns stolen from their car or house. Their kids have access to the guns and ammo, and people continue to defend their rights to have access to guns without any requirement for how it is stored or insurance for the harm done with it. It just seems odd to me.
When someone has the power to greatly impact your life, liberty, and value system you should be concerned. If they also express desires AND have the power to do those things in what you believe is a negative way, then fear is a rational response.
While i love God, I also love liberty, I don't love guns, Some people think that owning a gun protects their liberty, to some degree this is true. Is this rational? Of course it is, just look at history. So if i believe my liberty may be a little more in jeopardy today than yesterday, i may see the need to buy a gun today. Rational?
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Thank you Bill.
I found out last week I couldn't go to the store (local) and buy 22 long rifle ammo. The guy I lost 5 dollars to made it sound like...I couldn't buy 22 bullets anymore. You know, the little ones that are kicking around in every pickup in many places, on the work bench, maybe even pulled out of the clothes dryer. We went back and forth for a minute and I bet him. He didn't really try and mislead me, he just......communicates kind of funny and I wasn't bright enough to question his statement further. Turns out our local little store can not buy it anymore as he is not big enough to be on the list for shipment. Can't keep it on the shelf anywhere I guess. .223 either. Yes, you could argue that is an irrational buying frenzy. Those are the same people who would vote for Hillary if she turned republican. People who vote one way or another just because are not necessarily dummies (many of them) but that is a whole other can of worms.
It is odd that you can buy ammo and not cold medicine. I think that's the whole point you just verified. I would be willing to bet (I don't think I would lose this one) that the cold medicine deal only drove up the price of the evil stuff that is made with it. Yes, it's probably a good thing you can't go into the store and get a basket full of cold medicine but I really doubt it had much impact on the supply or use of the drugs made with it. As the crap has " run its course" people see the horrible effects and what it does to you and more knowledge and education about it runs it's course to help. Making irrational laws and rules for show is odd.
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Several friends are complaining that going to the firing range has become too expensive with ammo selling 3x its normal price, i.e. $1.50 per bullet. They are disgusted by the irrational frenzy - they can't enjoy their hobby anymore.
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Some traffic stats:
(http://www.standupzone.com/dd.jpg)
This table means very little. You have left out population numbers, miles driven, total number of accidents, etc.
If anything this table proves that airbags, crumple zones, anti lock brakes, etc save lives. You could even use the numbers to show that a crappy economy saves lives as fatalities are lower during recessions.
Hi Tex,
Please look at the second column as well. Alcohol related fatlities dropped by 63%, while total driving fatalities dropped by 26%. The Laws and enforcement have worked. I agree that community groups and supporting orinizations have helped motivate (and draft) some of these laws and have helped to change public perceptions there as well.
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If I can believe the media, gun and ammo sells have greatly increase after Obama was elected and reelected. I don't have any stats to support the idea, but it is widely reported.
Is that a rational decision to go out and stockpile or simply buy a weapon because Obama was elected? If you agree that it is not rational and the increase in sells is true, then there has been a major increase in the number of weapons in the hands of irrational people. I've known many people that really liked their guns and went to church several times a week. They hated Bill Clinton and expressed that if harm came his way they would not be at all upset. These same people hate Obama even more.
It just seems odd to me that I could go in Walmart and buy a cart full of ammo, but I can't buy more than one box of sinus medicine. Furthermore, sells of sinus medicine are tracked through a state computer network to keep me from going to several stores just to buy a couple of boxes.
It just seems odd to me that people I know very well love God and guns while they hate liberals. Some of these same people have had guns stolen from their car or house. Their kids have access to the guns and ammo, and people continue to defend their rights to have access to guns without any requirement for how it is stored or insurance for the harm done with it. It just seems odd to me.
Is it irrational to think that ordered society is in danger if someone you think is the antithesis of what makes society ordered is elected to the highest office in the society? It actually seems pretty rational to me. As a hobby builder, I have set priority on building receivers , the part that constitutes the gun to BATFE, for the guns I want to build eventually, because most proposed laws grandfather in existing ownership. The driving force for most of the extra gun sales is that, "get it while you can", not prep for SHTF. The people that worry about that, already have their guns. Ammo is pretty much the same thing, there is fear that it will be restricted.
It seems to me there is plenty of hate on both sides. as usually it is a matter of "know your enemy well, for he is who will most resemble". As long as "you" call "them" paranoid, "they" will call you "Pollyanna". Looking back, I would say it started with Goldwater's defeat in 1964, so that is a lot of history to try to overcome is someone wants to actually try.
In case anyone wonders, I hate the NRA for their hardass extremism. I am a shooter, so gun owner, but my guns will peacefully go where gun laws take them. I see a threads of wisdom in both sides. As long as we have a second amendment, then truth will be somewhere between the extremes
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Some traffic stats:
(http://www.standupzone.com/dd.jpg)
This table means very little. You have left out population numbers, miles driven, total number of accidents, etc.
If anything this table proves that airbags, crumple zones, anti lock brakes, etc save lives. You could even use the numbers to show that a crappy economy saves lives as fatalities are lower during recessions.
Hi Tex,
Please look at the second column as well. Alcohol related fatlities dropped by 63%, while total driving fatalities dropped by 26%. The Laws and enforcement have worked. I agree that community groups and supporting orinizations have helped motivate (and draft) some of these laws and have helped to change public perceptions there as well.
I did, it says nothing.
If you had shown traffic fatalities from 1945 till now it would have shown the same downward trend. Cars have gotten safer with seat belts, padded dashboards, steering wheels that don't impale you, airbags, crumple zones, etc.
You might as well show the last two hundred years worth of statistics on horse related fatalities, I bet fewer people die on horses now than in 1875.
Gun control doesn't stop criminals. Guns are illegal in Chicago and they have a horribly high murder rate.
Are you going to propose laws restricting pressure cookers now that some nutjob attacked innocent people in Boston?
Focus on criminals if you want to have any positive effect. Outlawing cars or alcohol isn't the answer to drunk driving and neither is outlawing guns or ammo.
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Gun control is an emotional issue that is a fantastic distraction to things like this that happened recently. The bill that limit congressional insider trading was put forth last year in the wake of some obvious excesses. Rather than kill that bill, congress recently killed the bill about record keeping that essentially gutted any teeth the insider trading bill had.
So business as usual for them while the gun control issue governs the spotlight.
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Some traffic stats:
(http://www.standupzone.com/dd.jpg)
The chart looks pretty clear to me. Al
This table means very little. You have left out population numbers, miles driven, total number of accidents, etc.
If anything this table proves that airbags, crumple zones, anti lock brakes, etc save lives. You could even use the numbers to show that a crappy economy saves lives as fatalities are lower during recessions.
Hi Tex,
Please look at the second column as well. Alcohol related fatlities dropped by 63%, while total driving fatalities dropped by 26%. The Laws and enforcement have worked. I agree that community groups and supporting orinizations have helped motivate (and draft) some of these laws and have helped to change public perceptions there as well.
I did, it says nothing.
If you had shown traffic fatalities from 1945 till now it would have shown the same downward trend. Cars have gotten safer with seat belts, padded dashboards, steering wheels that don't impale you, airbags, crumple zones, etc.
You might as well show the last two hundred years worth of statistics on horse related fatalities, I bet fewer people die on horses now than in 1875.
Gun control doesn't stop criminals. Guns are illegal in Chicago and they have a horribly high murder rate.
Are you going to propose laws restricting pressure cookers now that some nutjob attacked innocent people in Boston?
Focus on criminals if you want to have any positive effect. Outlawing cars or alcohol isn't the answer to drunk driving and neither is outlawing guns or ammo.
The chart looks clear to me, and it does say something. Alcohol-related fatalities are dropping much faster than overall fatalities.
That doesn't prove anti-drunk driving efforts (laws plus other efforts) are working, since there could be alternative explanations. But any I can think of would be awfully weak. Cars are getting less safe, so it used to be you had to be drunk to kill yourself in one, and now you don't? Drinking has dropped off so much that there just aren't that many people drinking, so that means fewer drunk drivers? (That one could be partially true, but then again part of the reason for dropping in drinking could be the campaigns to show the negative effects of drinking, including the consequences of drunk driving.)
So the only explanation that makes sense is that efforts against drunk driving have been working.
And even without statistics, anyone who's a few decades old knows the social pressures against drunk driving are massively greater now than in say the 60s. If you're not that old, watch a couple episodes of Mad Men. Drunk driving is absolutely unacceptable in general society now. It didn't used to be. This all happened without outlawing cars or alcohol.
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That doesn't prove anti-drunk driving efforts (laws plus other efforts) are working, since there could be alternative explanations. But any I can think of would be awfully weak.
The explanations are anything BUT weak. The social change, brought on mostly by MADD efforts, is a much stronger explanation than that some convoluted change to an existing law made people behave differently. MADD focused on enforcement of existing laws and increased penalties, and insisting that judges apply maximum penalties permitted vs. wrist slaps. They publicly exposed and embarrassed judges that failed to enforce the laws.
The chart is a nice illustration of what I was referring to. Since drunk driving fatalities are a subset of driving fatalities, and all fatalities declined, saying that drunk driving fatalities declined by 62 percent is technically true, but misleading. The decline in drunk driving as a percentage of all fatalities was 22 percent over the period. Still an outstanding outcome, but not as dramatic in a quote.
62% is exactly the kind of quote I would have used, but I would have surrounded it with more distracting fazzaaza. But then I'm a professional liar, and Admin is an amateur.
About ten or so years ago I was in the Veritable Quandary in Portland when a bartender cut off a guy who was barely tipsy. I complimented the bartender on his perspicacity and he replied "yeah, well if I didn't cut him off the goddam MADD mothers would get me fined". Job well done. So where's the MAAD mothers for gun violence?
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DO you all see how this issue can be debated forever? It's the perfect venue for congress to appear like they're doing something. PBill pointed this out to me yesterday as we drove up the coast to paddle. Just like all the discussion we have here on the zone, congress can do the same but... they're getting paid and using this charade as a smoke screen.
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DO you all see how this issue can be debated forever? It's the perfect venue for congress to appear like they're doing something. PBill pointed this out to me yesterday as we drove up the coast to paddle. Just like all the discussion we have here on the zone, congress can do the same but... they're getting paid and using this charade as a smoke screen.
Yep, that's why they are all grandstanding. It gets them votes from their hardcore supporters.
How about this:
Law abiding citizen = no new restrictions.
Nutjob = no dangerous items allowed.
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I does do some good to talk this stuff out. I do have an idea of an effective approach to curbing gun violence. I think trying to change gun laws in a country where ownership is a constitutional right is tilting at windmills. And it is indeed like taking everyone's cars away because some idiots drive drunk. But getting existing laws enforced, and stiffening the penalties by making sure offenders face the maximum, not the minimum--that could be effective and it's dealing with the right population.
Maybe even moreso, changing the public opinion of people who sell guns to nut jobs from good ol' boys trying to make an honest buck to uncaring criminals directly responsible for the death of innocents. I know how to do that.
I'm going to find some smart people that are trying to do all that and help them. Got to be out there.
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That doesn't prove anti-drunk driving efforts (laws plus other efforts) are working, since there could be alternative explanations. But any I can think of would be awfully weak.
The explanations are anything BUT weak. The social change, brought on mostly by MADD efforts, is a much stronger explanation than that some convoluted change to an existing law made people behave differently. MADD focused on enforcement of existing laws and increased penalties, and insisting that judges apply maximum penalties permitted vs. wrist slaps. They publicly exposed and embarrassed judges that failed to enforce the laws.
The chart is a nice illustration of what I was referring to. Since drunk driving fatalities are a subset of driving fatalities, and all fatalities declined, saying that drunk driving fatalities declined by 62 percent is technically true, but misleading. The decline in drunk driving as a percentage of all fatalities was 22 percent over the period. Still an outstanding outcome, but not as dramatic in a quote.
62% is exactly the kind of quote I would have used, but I would have surrounded it with more distracting fazzaaza. But then I'm a professional liar, and Admin is an amateur.
About ten or so years ago I was in the Veritable Quandary in Portland when a bartender cut off a guy who was barely tipsy. I complimented the bartender on his perspicacity and he replied "yeah, well if I didn't cut him off the goddam MADD mothers would get me fined". Job well done. So where's the MAAD mothers for gun violence?
I think we agree on everything. The MADD efforts are why I wrote "efforts" instead of just "laws". And I agree that's what been effective, not changes in laws. The weak explanations I was referring to were reasons OTHER than those for explaining the drop in numbers.
I agree about the chart, too--progress but not as dramatic as if you just took the raw drunk driving death numbers, and ignored that total fatalities are also declining.
The wild thing to me is how often people interpret statistics to come to exactly the opposite conclusion from what they show. With such a strong decline in total deaths, the drunk driving deaths could have dropped significantly even if they rose as a percentage of total deaths. But you'd still have people touting the total drop, and ignoring the rise in percentage.
The one I remember most was a study a few years ago that "proved" discrimination in lending to minorities because more were turned down for loans than whites. It was national news. But the same study showed the default rate was exactly the same regardless of race. In other words, the process worked. If there had been discrimination, the minority default rate would have been less than for whites. I only saw one news source that mentioned that.
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[/quote]
And your source for this uninformed BS is . . .?
Wait, let me guess - that bastion of integrity known as Alex Jones . . .
[/quote]
Who the hell is Alex Jones ??
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Cars have gotten safer with seat belts, padded dashboards, steering wheels that don't impale you, airbags, crumple zones, etc.
Yes sir, and those elements (among other common factors) explain why traffic fatalities have gone down. They do not explain why alocohol related fatalities have gone down nearly 3 times as much in the same period. Bill argues that it is primarily MADD, Better enforcemnet of existing laws, etc., Celeste that Dinking Age was the primary, and myself that a combination of new laws, better enforcement of old laws, organizations and communities grouping to write law and promote enforcement of existing law all factored in. Complex problems rarely have simple answers.
Focus on criminals if you want to have any positive effect. Outlawing cars or alcohol isn't the answer to drunk driving and neither is outlawing guns or ammo.
Criminals, those with mental issues, yes. Congress just voted down backround check legislation (this will obviously take more time :)). Neither cars nor alcohol needed to be outlawed to achieve the enormous decrease in alcohol related driving fatalities that I mentioned above, although numerous laws do exist which limit/define sale, use, training, age, place, mechanical capabilities, etc . Much more can and should be done in the case of guns, but it is a process.
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I would just like to mention that the NRA is not the only gun rights group in the US, and the others are not necessarily in lockstep with them. The Citizen's Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms was strongly in favour of Manchin/Toomey compromise amendment for universal background checks that was voted down yesterday. As with most laws, how they actually get enforced is a matter of regulation written after the law is passed, not a matter of how the law was written, in other words, the devil is in the details. The fear about background checks is that they will form a defacto gun registration list, something that could later be used to identify gun owners for confiscation. As long as there is a vocal group trying to ban guns all together, there are going to be law abiding gun owners who will never trust the government with that information, after all our government has a long history of using gathered information for purposes contrary to what it was gathered for, they have reasons to fear. You want to render the NRA and gun rights groups even more extreme superfluous? calm the anti gun rhetoric and come up with ideas that address the gun owners fears.
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Celeste just put this argument in a nutshell. Get rid of the idea of banning guns all together from being such a central part of the argument for so many on the left, including much of the leadership. If that wasn't feared the idea of background checks and more would be much more acceptable.
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Gun registration is the first step to gun confiscation. Why do you think the gov't wants to know where all the guns are? Because their curious? Because they're worried about a few kids?
Stalin, Hitler, Mao and a host of other socialist/communist/fascist leaders knew that in order to impose their will on the people, they had to first get the guns. And what did they do once the populace was unarmed? How about genocide on a massive scale. Were talking millions upon millions of innocent people being slaughtered by their own government.
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
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Need I say more?
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Celeste just put this argument in a nutshell. Get rid of the idea of banning guns all together from being such a central part of the argument for so many on the left, including much of the leadership. If that wasn't feared the idea of background checks and more would be much more acceptable.
Is a complete ban really percieved as a central part of the argument that is /was being put forth? I did not see that, even from the Newtown families who it might have been expected from. I definitely get that there is a great deal of mistrust of motives and there is the thought that any potential concessions, even those that might otherwise be agreeable, are viewed as future liabilities and are summarily rejected.
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Given that Bloomberg is a leading voice amongst gun control advocates, and given that he and his predecessors have instituted de facto bans firearms in the areas which they "control," then yes, it is reasonable to presume a total ban is part of the mainstream gun control agenda.
Additionally, the rhetoric coming from the gun control camps is almost entirely in line with "blanket bans": 'Guns are the cause of the elevated US homicide rate relative to Canada / UK / Aus / EU.' 'Guns have no legitimate purpose outside of hunting and home defense - only those guns should be legal, just like in the UK.' So on and so forth.
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Lots of ways around the confiscation issue. An escrow of the data makes more sense than leaving it with dealers, and background checks are expensive on a piecemeal basis. Creating a non-governmental escrow agency responsible for rapidly clearing individuals for purchase according to straightforward requirements would do it. Government could access data by subpoena which interposes judges in the process. It similar to current law which requires dealers to keep the purchase records and execute a Federal Form 4473, which the dealer retains but the ATF can query on an individual basis.
the requirements could simply be pulled straight from the Brady Bill, which prohibits the following people from owning or transporting firearms:
--Those convicted of felonies and certain misdemeanors except where state law reinstates rights, or removes disability.
--Fugitives from justice
--Unlawful users of certain depressant, narcotic, or stimulant drugs
--Those adjudicated as mental defectives or incompetents or those committed to any mental institution and currently containing a dangerous mental illness.
--Non-US citizens, unless permanently immigrating into the U.S. or in possession of a hunting license legally issued in the U.S.
--Undocumented Immigrants
--Those who have renounced U.S. citizenship
--Minors defined as under the age of eighteen for long guns and the age of twenty-one for handguns, with the exception of Vermont, eligible at age sixteen.
--Persons convicted in any court of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence (an addition)
--Persons under indictment for a crime punishable by imprisonment for more than one year are ineligible to receive, transport, or ship any firearm or ammunition
As always, the applicable CFR could be expanded to include people legally on psychotropic medication, antidepressants, and other stuff that might make them particularly dangerous. They could be required to have a doctor's clearance to retain their guns, and their property could be held for them until the get it.
There could also be a concerned citizen element that could prompt investigation. Yes, there would be a lot of "Bubba's crazy and he's got a house full of guns". fire drills. I'm talking about what is possible.
People who already own firearms would normally be required to relinquish them upon conviction. A well managed escrow database combined with background check updates would kick out the names of people unqualified to own a firearm and the firearms they own.
While the ATF is specifically prohibited from building a database of gun owners they are NOT prohibited from requiring proof that a background check has been done. They could simply require use of the escrow agency instead of relying on the dealers to keep records and do the checks. Dealers face fines of $1000 per incident and up to one year in prison if they don't execute all sales according to the law. These fines are rare, even with repeat offenders. Toss them in jail for a year and it will get the attention of "les autres".
Legal now. Feasible now. We don't need no stinkin' senators.
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Is a complete ban really percieved as a central part of the argument that is /was being put forth?
I've certainly seen enough from many politicians and pundits to make me believe that it is the end goal for more than just the fringe.
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Additionally, the rhetoric coming from the gun control camps is almost entirely in line with "blanket bans": 'Guns are the cause of the elevated US homicide rate relative to Canada / UK / Aus / EU.' 'Guns have no legitimate purpose outside of hunting and home defense - only those guns should be legal, just like in the UK.' So on and so forth.
A variety of thoughts there. It is very possible to hold the position that 'Guns are the cause of the elevated US homicide rate relative to Canada / UK / Aus / EU' without supporting a 'blanket ban'. That is the position of most of those (us) who support gun reform.
As for, 'Guns have no legitimate purpose outside of hunting and home defense - only those guns should be legal, just like in the UK.', more on the nay side do agree with that. This is still not in the realm of a no guns, blanket ban.
The extemes positions? They will always exist. We need to be able to hear over them and navigate around them to get anything done.
The Brady bill check blocks 120,000 gun purchases, 50% of the blocked attempts by felons with 16% being fugitives. The NRA biiterly fought the Brady bill.
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The Brady bill check blocks 120,000 gun purchases, 50% of the blocked attempts by felons with 16% being fugitives. The NRA biiterly fought the Brady bill.
You can't re-write history, no matter what the left leaning blogs claim about the brady bill.
The original brady bill mandated 7 day waiting periods during which local authorities were supposed to conduct background checks. After 7 days the gun purchaser could pick up the gun.
This would have been ineffective at blocking sales to criminals and an infringement of the right to bear arms.
-local authorities didn't have the resources to conduct background checks within 7 days.
-national registry of criminals wasn't properly developed even if the locals had the resources.
The NRA fought the brady bill and had the 7 day wait removed, they also set in place the national instant criminal background check (NICS).
The NICS actually works (the 7 day wait for local authorities wouldn't have) and it doesn't infringe on law abiding citizens rights.
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TXSUPs recollection is accurate. Of course the seven day wait was partly caused by the fact that ATF is forbidden to keep a registry and so could not act as a clearing house for the information, And the NRA would have fought long and hard against any such bill, no matter how workable or unworkable elements of it were. It's also accurate that slightly over 90 percent of Americans favor background checks for gun purchase, and that a little more than 50 percent think a comprehensive background check is already required for any gun sale
TX, you make it sound like the NRA instituted the NCIS--it's an FBI database, required by the Brady Bill. Also, I understood that there have been more than 700,000 denied 4473 applications. The NCIS database is for criminal background check only. There is really no effective system for enforcing the rest of Brady requirements. Ironic that the Brady Bill would not have prevented John Hinckley from buying guns.
The seven day requirement was supposed to address the remaining criteria and the fact that no central criminal registration database existed.
Its obvious that current gun control regulation and law is ineffective at preventing mass murder tragedies. I don't think any regulation can do that. But I do think we should make some attempt to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people without infringing on the constitutional rights of responsible gun owners.
Incidentally, under Brady, the Marathon bombers could, and probably did legally buy firearms and black powder.
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What I am trying to get across is that the original brady bill was both impotent and an infringement on law abiding citizen's rights.
Due to NRA opposition a compromise was agreed.
This comprise (NICS) actually prevents criminals from legally purchasing firearms while still allowing you and me and any other law abiding citizen to purchase a gun without any infringements.
I don't think the NRA should get all the credit, but I definitely don't think the grand standing creators of feel good but do nothing legislation like the brady bill should get any credit.
As for extending the instant background check to cover the mentally deranged, I am all for it. However, I think focusing on people would be more effective than focusing on guns. We could lock up all the guns but that wouldn't stop someone from turning pressure cookers into bombs.
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Not to drag out the argument, especially since we are pretty much in violent agreement, but ALL laws are impotent and an infringement on law abiding citizens rights. It's probably part of the definition. The effective element comes in how good the regulation that flows from the law is, and how well it's enforced. I'm not being philosophical, that's how it works. And absolutely by definition ANY law is an infringement of citizens rights. You can call it a redefinition of those rights, but that's just wordplay.
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True, although I don't mind the laws that infringe on criminals.
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The Brady bill check blocks 120,000 gun purchases, 50% of the blocked attempts by felons with 16% being fugitives. The NRA biiterly fought the Brady bill.
You can't re-write history, no matter what the left leaning blogs claim about the brady bill.
Without the impetus of the Brady Bill (over prolonged resistance by the NRA), nothing would have been done. The stats are from the ATF (no leftist blogs involved).
It is great that you are for expanded background checks, but support for the NRA is a vote against that.
You can look backwards or straight at this week for proof of this. Common sense legislation that would have saved lives was just fought down. That is a centrist opinion.
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The Brady bill check blocks 120,000 gun purchases, 50% of the blocked attempts by felons with 16% being fugitives. The NRA biiterly fought the Brady bill.
You can't re-write history, no matter what the left leaning blogs claim about the brady bill.
Without the impetus of the Brady Bill (over plonged resistance by the NRA), nothing would have been done. The stats are from the ATF (no leftist blogs involved).
It is great that you are for expanded background checks, but support for the NRA is a vote against that.
Negative. The brady bill was impotent and did NOT have workable, instant background checks.
Yes the NRA fought the brady bill. They fought it because it sucked.
The compromise was no waiting period, a national database of criminals, and instantaneous checks.
We now have instant checks at point of purchase that have stopped 700,000 gun sales to convicted criminals. Law abiding citizens get to purchase their gun without delay.
That is win-win and it is thanks to the NRA.
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Framing the NRA as an advocate for background checks is imaginative at best. Brady was created without them, and succeeded around them. These more recent (and even more common sense) measures did not. These too would have saved lives and would have had no impact on law abiding, non mentally impaired gun ownership. It certainly is a shame that this most recent oppotunity was missed and I imagine that there are a number of moderate gun owners that recognize that as well.
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the recent bill's failure had a lot more to do with politics and how strange the political system has become than any other factor. A MADD-type organization would have those senators in fear for their plushy job and it's outrageous perks. While attention was focused on gun control a bill to expose their excesses was gutted.
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My original post was simply that gun control needs to start in the home of the gun owner. I've never advocated for a ban or confiscation of guns. I have no problem with people owning or carrying guns. I simply believe if you do own one, you need to be completely responsible to make sure it is secure. A nightstand or locked car in not enough.
I don't have a problem with people owning any type of gun. I don't see a need for it, but I really don't care if they own it. I would like to see greater liability and insurance requirements. Insurance companies are uniquely qualified at assessing risk.
I've known and currently know a lot of young people similar to the 15 year old in the article I linked. It is alarming that they may have access to a weapon in their home just like that kid along with the kid in Newtown.
It would go a long way if the NRA advocated for the safe storage of weapons as much as they advocate for unrestricted access to weapons. There is a major social stigma toward drinking and driving due to advocacy groups. LBJ was captured on film driving with a beer in his hand and no one thought twice about it. Social pressure from families harmed changed the view of our society. There is little or no social stigma to a gun sitting in your car truck, under the seat of your car or beside your bed with kids in the house.
I keep my important documents in a locked fireproof secured box in an alarmed house. Why should a gun be any less secure? If gun owners were more responsible to keep them out of the hands of mentally unstable kids or from being stolen, then there wouldn't be a national debate about gun control.
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the recent bill's failure had a lot more to do with politics and how strange the political system has become than any other factor. A MADD-type organization would have those senators in fear for their plushy job and it's outrageous perks. While attention was focused on gun control a bill to expose their excesses was gutted.
The politics of re-election. Lobbies are so engrained in politics that it is impossible to consider one without the other. Newtown parents were there. You don't get a better community organized opportunity at shame then that. It failed. The NRA succeeded in convincing enough of the public that any gun control is really a cloaked 1st step for a future gun grab. It is the underlying reason why even the most sensible and reasonable measures (that a huge majority from both sides support) cannot succeed.
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Framing the NRA as an advocate for background checks is imaginative at best. Brady was created without them, and succeeded around them. These more recent (and even more common sense) measures did not. These too would have saved lives and would have had no impact on law abiding, non mentally impaired gun ownership. It certainly is a shame that this most recent oppotunity was missed and I imagine that there are a number of moderate gun owners that recognize that as well.
It is well documented, no matter what the left spins it to be.
Without the NRA the brady bill would have imposed 7 day waits on everyone but the background checks would have been ineffectively conducted by local cops, without access to a national database, and without any funding to carry out the checks.
After the compromise there is now a national criminal database, funding for it, a quick and easy method for gun retailers to have law enforcement conduct instant checks, and stringent enforcement against retailers just for making a minor paperwork error let alone actually selling a firearm to a prohibited person.
Would you rather have a feel good do nothing law, or one that actually stops criminals from purchasing guns?
The law works now because of the NRA.
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My original post was simply that gun control needs to start in the home of the gun owner. I've never advocated for a ban or confiscation of guns. I have no problem with people owning or carrying guns. I simply believe if you do own one, you need to be completely responsible to make sure it is secure. A nightstand or locked car in not enough.
It would go a long way if the NRA advocated for the safe storage of weapons as much as they advocate for unrestricted access to weapons.
I keep my important documents in a locked fireproof secured box in an alarmed house. Why should a gun be any less secure? If gun owners were more responsible to keep them out of the hands of mentally unstable kids or from being stolen, then there wouldn't be a national debate about gun control.
I agree with the first part but disagree with the last part.
One of the few laws in California I support is the gun safe law. I don't have the exact wording but basically if you don't lock your guns up and they are used for a crime you are in trouble. There are even safes "certified" as meeting some standard, so as long as you use one of those safes you are protected from whatever the crime or liability is.
As to your lumping all gun owners into the same boat of irresponsibility I take offense. Mine are all locked up and the majority of gun owners I know do the same.
On your last comment about mentally unstable people, well....they are unstable. Guns, poison, pressure cookers.....doesn't matter, they are still going to do whacked out stuff. Are you saying we need to outlaw castor oil to prevent Ricin attacks or pressure cookers to prevent bombings?
How about focusing on all the deranged people out there? They are the true cause for these crimes not the inanimate object they decide to use.
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It is well documented, no matter what the left spins it to be.
The left? Do you consider background checks for criminals and the mentally impaired of the left?
The radical position is fighting such efforts, which the NRA has again succesfully done this week.
The conservative position was opposed and defeated by the NRA this week. This is their mode. Recognize it. Learn from it.
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The politics of re-election. Lobbies are so engrained in politics that it is impossible to consider one without the other. Newtown parents were there. You don't get a better community organized opportunity at shame then that. It failed. The NRA succeeded in convincing enough of the public that any gun control is really a cloaked 1st step for a future gun grab. It is the underlying reason why even the most sensible and reasonable measures (that a huge majority from both sides support) cannot succeed.
Actually, the NRA hasn't convinced the public of that, if they had, how could an overwhelming majority be in favor of background checks?
A guy I don't like very much told me once that politicians only care about votes and money, and money is fungible as votes. He was right. I'd say our system has become corrupted, but really it was always so. Whether it's the NRA waving money and votes or public employee unions waving blocks of voters, the process is for sale. It's hard to expect good laws to emerge from a process like that.
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Actually, the NRA hasn't convinced the public of that, if they had, how could an overwhelming majority be in favor of background checks?
Ahhh, but the majority is not required. That is their blade.
I was careful to write, "enough".
I completely agree with the rest of what you wrote. Joe Biden (go ahead, I opened myself to it) had a great quote on the news last night. He mentioned speaking to colleagues on both sides about how this recent measure could have failed when the majority of their constituants supported it. The jist was that even the small minority who opposed this legislation could thwart reelection. Unfortunately in this political climate, that is all that is required.
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It is well documented, no matter what the left spins it to be.
The left? Do you consider background checks for criminals and the mentally impaired of the left?
The radical position is fighting such efforts, which the NRA has again succesfully done this week.
The conservative position was opposed and defeated by the NRA this week. This is their mode. Recognize it. Learn from it.
The NRA is the reason that the brady bill actually stops criminals from purchasing guns. The original brady bill would have done nothing but make people feel good and get politicians elected.
Without the NRA compromise there would have been no instant checks. With the NRA compromise we now have instant criminal record checks.
As to the recent defeat of what some term as a "national firearms registry" you could see that coming a mile away. Only the foolish were surprised since this has already been blocked, struck down, etc many times before.
The NRA actually proposed an alternative in which more funding would go into the existing criminal record check system to make it better. Some states still don't report everything or don't report often enough because that takes money.
The best way to keep criminals and mentally deranged persons from purchasing guns is to strengthen the existing database and expand it to include mental health issues. That is actually what the NRA and most Republicans are in favor of. I would pay higher taxes for that!
Actually I would rather taxes get shifted from wasteful stuff to pay for a better system, but you get my point.
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My original post was simply that gun control needs to start in the home of the gun owner. I've never advocated for a ban or confiscation of guns. I have no problem with people owning or carrying guns. I simply believe if you do own one, you need to be completely responsible to make sure it is secure. A nightstand or locked car in not enough.
It would go a long way if the NRA advocated for the safe storage of weapons as much as they advocate for unrestricted access to weapons.
I keep my important documents in a locked fireproof secured box in an alarmed house. Why should a gun be any less secure? If gun owners were more responsible to keep them out of the hands of mentally unstable kids or from being stolen, then there wouldn't be a national debate about gun control.
I agree with the first part but disagree with the last part.
One of the few laws in California I support is the gun safe law. I don't have the exact wording but basically if you don't lock your guns up and they are used for a crime you are in trouble. There are even safes "certified" as meeting some standard, so as long as you use one of those safes you are protected from whatever the crime or liability is.
As to your lumping all gun owners into the same boat of irresponsibility I take offense. Mine are all locked up and the majority of gun owners I know do the same.
On your last comment about mentally unstable people, well....they are unstable. Guns, poison, pressure cookers.....doesn't matter, they are still going to do whacked out stuff. Are you saying we need to outlaw castor oil to prevent Ricin attacks or pressure cookers to prevent bombings?
How about focusing on all the deranged people out there? They are the true cause for these crimes not the inanimate object they decide to use.
I've spent about 15 years focusing on young people with mental illnesses. I get to know them and their families very well. Culturally, guns are the weapon of choice and they are glorified in movies, music and video games. You should watch kids play. When given legos or connecting blocks, they don't build razors or pipebombs; they construct guns. It doesn't freak me out because in America, guns are culturally promoted and not just for hunting and sports. They are prompted through movies, music and video games for all types of reasons.
I didn't mean to lump all gun owners in one group as being irresponsible. Sorry, that was not my intent. I'm simply speaking from experience growing up in a house with unsecured rifles, friends that have had guns stolen, along with mentally unstable people that I know carry/own guns that shouldn't carry them in the trunk or under the front seat. I'm glad you and your friends are more secure. I just happen to know more reckless people.
The numbers support a focus on guns used in crime or violent actions. It only took one bombing in Oklahoma City for the sell of fertilizer to be monitored. If pressure cookers begin to be used by criminals, then I'll bet the sell of every pressure cooker will be monitored by a state/national database much the same way sinus medicine is monitored.
I don't blame the guns for the harm done with them. I blame the individuals with access to them. We as a society can do something about the access. We can't really fix mental illness or criminals. We can only manage it as best we can.
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It is well documented, no matter what the left spins it to be.
The left? Do you consider background checks for criminals and the mentally impaired of the left?
The radical position is fighting such efforts, which the NRA has again succesfully done this week.
The conservative position was opposed and defeated by the NRA this week. This is their mode. Recognize it. Learn from it.
a gauche?
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If 90% of Americans think something is a good idea, then it's probably actually a bad idea.
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a gauche?
Talk to the (left) hand.
Wow. It is hard to stop.
On topic:
Patrick Leahy Spars With NRA's Wayne LaPierre Over Background Checks (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlqvzETVbWM#)
The NRA's Wayne Lapierre on Mandatory Background Checks in 1999 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zI6FnSytSYg#)
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Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) on Monday introduced two gun bills, one of which is co-sponsored by a group of 10 Republicans.....
Cruz introduced a bill to “protect law abiding citizens by preventing criminals from obtaining firearms.” Among the 10 GOP co-sponsors are Sens. Marco Rubio (Fla.), Rand Paul (Ky.), and Mike Lee (Utah)..........
A source close to negotiations told The Hill that Republicans are working on further legislation that would focus on enforcing the current background-check system and a bill that aims to improve mental health record-keeping.
So there you have it. The mean nasty Republicans proposed toughening enforcement of criminal record checks and expanding them to include mental health but the Democrats voted against the bill.
The sponsor of the bill Sen Cruz is rated A+ by the NRA and they refer to him as a "leading advocate of the second amendment".
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And your source for this uninformed BS is . . .?
Wait, let me guess - that bastion of integrity known as Alex Jones . . .
Who the hell is Alex Jones ??
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaDIEJlkt2o
So, again I'd love to hear the source for your earlier comment about how all mass shootings are a result of psychotropic drugs. . . ?
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I completely agree with the rest of what you wrote. Joe Biden (go ahead, I opened myself to it) had a great quote on the news last night.
Biden speaks the truth.
http://youtu.be/8FPMBvvmlm4 (http://youtu.be/8FPMBvvmlm4)
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So, again I'd love to hear the source for your earlier comment about how all mass shootings are a result of psychotropic drugs. . . ?
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Never said mass shootings or murder are a result of Phsycotropics just said they are the one common denominator other than guns . I should not have said ALL just MOST. Go back and look at my post.
here are a few names that might ring a bell who were on phsycotropic drugs.
John Hinckley (1981) John Hinckley, age 25, took four Valium two hours before shooting and almost killing President Ronald Reagan in 1981. In the assassination attempt, Hinckley also wounded press secretary James Brady, Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy and policeman Thomas Delahanty.
Laurie Dann (1988) In 1988, 31-year-old Laurie Dann went on a shooting rampage in a second-grade classroom in Winnetka, IL, killing one child and wounding six. She had been taking the anti-depressant Anafranil as well as Lithium, long used to treat mania.
Patrick Purdy (1989) Patrick Purdy went on a schoolyard shooting rampage in Stockton, CA, in 1989, which became the catalyst for the original legislative frenzy to ban "semiautomatic assault weapons" in California and the nation. The 25-year-old Purdy, who murdered five children and wounded 30, had been on Amitriptvine, an anti-depressant, as well as the antipsychotic drug Thorazine.
Joseph T. Wesbecker (1989) In another famous case, 47-year-old Joseph T. Wesbecker, just a month after he began taking Prozac in 1989, shot 20 workers at Standard Gravure Corp. in Louisville, Ky., killing nine. Prozac maker Eli Lilly later settled a lawsuit brought by survivors.
Kurt Danysh (1996) Kurt Danysh, 18, shot his own father to death in 1996, a little more than two weeks after starting on Prozac. Danvsh's description of own his mental-emotional state at the time of the murder is chilling: "I didn't realize I did it until after it was done." Danysh said. "This might sound weird, but it felt like I had no control of what I was doing, like I was left there just holding a gun."
Michael Carneal (1997) In Paducah, KY, in late 1997, 14-year-old Michael Carneal, son of a prominent attorney, traveled to Heath High School and started shooting students in a prayer meeting taking place in the school's lobby, killing three and leaving another paralyzed. Carneal reportedly was on Ritalin.
Kip Kinkel (1998) Kip Kinkel, 15, murdered his parents in 1998 and the next day went to his school, Thurston High in Springfield, Ore., and opened fire on his classmates, killing two and wounding 22 others. He had been prescribed both Prozac and Ritalin.
Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold (1999) Columbine mass-killer Eric Harris was taking Luvox. Like Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Effexor and many others, a modern and widely prescribed type of anti-depressant drug called Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors, or SSRIs. Harris and fellow student Dylan Klebold went on a hellish school shooting rampage in 1999, during which they killed 12 students and a teacher and wounded 24 others before turning their guns on themselves. Luvox manufacturer Solvav Pharmaceuticals concedes that during short-term controlled clinical trials, 4 percent of children and youth taking Luvox - that's one in 25 - developed mania, a dangerous and violence-prone mental derangement characterized by extreme excitement and delusion.
Larry Gene Ashbrook (1999) On Sept. 15, 1999, Larry Gene Ashbrook murdered seven people and injured a further seven at a concert by Christian Rock group Forty Days at Wedgwood Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas. Ashbrook then committed suicide. A doctor had prescribed the anti-depressant drug Prozac for Larry Gene Ashbrook, but investigators are unsure whether he was taking it when he killed seven people and then himself in a Fort Worth church last week, police said on Monday. Fort Worth's Lt. Mark Krey, who is heading the investigation into the largest mass shooting in the city's history, said police have found a Prozac vial in Ashbrook's name and want to ask doctors why it was prescribed.
Michael McDermott (2000) The hulking computer technician accused of gunning down seven of his co-workers at a Wakefield high tech firm this week suffered from a host of mental illnesses - including schizophrenia - for which he was taking a trio of anti-depressants, a source told the Herald yesterday. "He's got some serious psychological issues and a long (psychiatric) history," the source said of 42-year-old Michael "Mucko" McDermott. McDermott, a divorced Navy veteran from Marshfield who lived most recently in Haverhill, suffered from severe depression, paranoia and schizophrenia, and had been in psychiatric treatment for some time, according to the source who spoke on condition of anonymity. To cope with his mental disorders, McDermott was prescribed several Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors, or SSRIs are designed to increase brain serotonin. Low levels of brain serotonin can lead to depression and anxiety disorders.
Christopher Pittman (2001) 12-year-old Christopher Pittman struggled in court to explain why he murdered his grandparents, who had provided the only love and stability he'd ever known in his turbulent life. "When I was lying in my bed that night,' he testified, "I couldn't sleep because my voice in my head kept echoing through my mind telling me to kill them." Christopher had been angry with his grandfather, who had disciplined him earlier that day for hurting another student during a fight on the school bus. So later that night, he shot both of his grandparents in the head with a .410 shotgun as they slept and then burned down their South Carolina home, where he had lived with them. "I got up, got the gun, and I went upstairs and I pulled the trigger," he recalled. "Through the whole thing, it was like watching your favorite TV show. You know what is going to happen, but you can't do anything to stop it." Pittman's lawyers would later argue that the boy had been a victim of "involuntary intoxication" since his doctors had him taking the antidepressants Paxil and Zoloft just prior to the murders. Paxil's known adverse drug reactions according to the drug's FDA approved label include mania, insomnia, anxiety, agitation, confusion, amnesia, depression, paranoid reaction, psychosis, hostility, delirium, hallucinations, abnormal thinking, depersonalization and lack of emotion, among others.
Andrea Yates (2001) Andrea Yates, in one of the most heartrending crimes in modern history, drowned all five of her children - aged 7 years down to 6 months - in a bathtub. Insisting inner voices commanded her to kill her children. She had become increasingly psychotic over the course of several years. At her 2006 murder re-trial (after a 2002 guilty verdict was overturned on appeal), Yates' longtime friend Debbie Holmes testified: "She asked me if I thought Satan could read her mind and if I believed in demon possession?” And Dr. George Ringhoiz, after evaluating Yates for two days, recounted an experience she had after the birth of her first child: ''What she described was feeling a presence ... Satan ... telling her to take a knife and stab her son Noah," Ringhoiz said, adding that Yates' delusion at the time of the bathtub murders was not only that she had to kill her children to save them, but that Satan had entered her and that she had to be executed in order to kill Satan. Yates had been taking the anti-depressant Effexor.
In November 2005, more than four years after Yates drowned her children, Effexor manufacturer Wyeth Pharmaceuticals quietly added "homicidal ideation" to the drug's list of "rare adverse events." The Medical Accountability Network, a private nonprofit focused on medical ethics issues, publicly criticized Wyeth, saying Effexor's "homicidal ideation" risk wasn't well-publicized and that Wyeth failed to send letters to doctors or issue warning labels announcing the change. And what exactly does "rare" mean in the phrase "rare adverse events?" The FDA defines it as occurring in less than one in 1.000 people. But since that same year 19.2 million prescriptions for Effexor were filled in the U.S., statistically that means thousands of Americans might experience "homicidal ideation" - murderous thoughts -as a result of taking just this one brand of anti-depressant drug. Effexor is Wyeth's best-selling drug, by the way, which in one recent year brought in over $3 billion in sales, accounting for almost a fifth of the company's annual revenues.
Jeff Weise (2005) In 2005, 16-year-old Native American Jeff Weise, living on Minnesota's Red Lake Indian Reservation, shot and killed nine people and wounded five others before killing himself. Weise had been taking Prozac.
Terry Michael Ratzmann (2005) Terry Michael Ratzmann killed seven members of the Living Church of God (LCG) before committing suicide at a Sheraton Hotel in Brookfield, WI in 2005. On the verge of losing his job as a computer technician with a placement firm, Ratzmann was known to suffer from bouts of depression, and was reportedly infuriated by a sermon the minister had given two weeks earlier. Ratzmann's autopsy revealed that he was suffering from Hashimoto's thyroiditis. Hashimoto's thyroiditis very often results in hypothyroidism with bouts of hyperthyroidism. Symptoms of Hashimoto's thyroiditis include Myxedematous psychosis, weight gain, depression, mania, sensitivity to heat and cold, paresthesia, fatigue, panic attacks, bradycardia, tachycardia, high cholesterol, reactive hypoglycemia, constipation, migraines, muscle weakness, cramps, memory loss, infertility and hair loss.
Seung-Hui Cho (2007) Seung-Hui Cho was a Korean spree killer who killed 32 people and wounded 17 others on April 16, 2007, at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia. He was a senior-level undergraduate student at the university. The shooting rampage came to be known as the "Virginia Tech massacre." Cho later committed suicide after law enforcement officers breached the doors of the building where the majority of the shooting had taken place. His body is buried in Fairfax, Va., In middle school, he was diagnosed with a severe anxiety disorder known as Selective Mutism, as well as major depressive disorder. After this diagnosis he began receiving treatment and continued to receive therapy and special education support until his junior year of high school. During Cho's last two years at Virginia Tech, several instances of his abnormal behavior, as well as plays and other writings he submitted containing references to violence, caused concern among teachers and classmates. In the aftermath of the Virginia Tech massacre, Virginia Governor Tim Kaine convened a panel consisting of various officials and experts to investigate and examine the response and handling of issues related to the shootings. The panel released its final report in August 2007, devoting more than 30 pages to detailing Cho's troubled history. In the report, the panel criticized the failure of the educators and mental health professionals who came into contact with Cho during his college years to notice his deteriorating condition and help him. Like the perpetrators of both the Columbine and Jokela school massacres, Cho was prescribed the anti-depressant drug Prozac prior to his rampage, a substance suspected by Peter Breggin and David Healy of leading to suicidal behaviors.
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Robert Hawkins (2007) Robert Hawkins also had problems controlling his temper, as outcast-types with no anchor tying them to the rest of society sometimes do. Robert Hawkins had a prescription for and was taking anti-depressants. Maribel Rodriguez said her son's life had been a challenge from the start. She divorced Hawkins' father when the boy was 3-years-old, she said, and by 5 he was taking prescription Ritalin and Zoloft. He became a ward of the state in 2002 after apparently threatening his stepmother. He was moved through facilities and foster homes for several years, until he was released in 2005. Two weeks before the shooting rampage, Hawkins parted ways with his girlfriend. Hawkins killed eight people before turning a gun on himself and committing suicide.
Steven Kazmierczak (2008) Steven Kazmierczak, 27, opened fire in a lecture hall at Northern Illinois University, killing six and wounding 21. The gunman shot and killed himself before police arrived. Jessica Baty said that her boyfriend of two years had been taking Xanax, used to treat anxiety and Ambien, a sleep agent, as well as the anti-depressant Prozac. Baty said the psychiatrist prescribed the medications, a fact that made her so "nervous" that she tried to persuade Kazmierczak to stop taking one of the drugs. She said he had stopped taking the anti-depressant three weeks before the Valentine's Day rampage on the NIU campus in DeKalb, Illinois, which left five students dead and 16 wounded. He then killed himself. Kazmierczak told her he had stopped taking the anti-depressant "because it made him feel like a zombie," she said during the interview Sunday at her parents' house in Wonder Lake, Il. "He wasn't acting erratic. He was just a little quicker to get annoyed." Kazmierczak had a history of mental illness and revered figures like Adolf Hitler and Ted Bundy. Steven Kazmierczak even wore a tattoo depicting Jigsaw, the Saw films' sadistic narrator, and had a history of attempted suicide. NIU police say they never got wind of such warnings. "How could it be a red flag if it never came to us?" said the university's police chief. But David Vann, who culled the information on Kazmierczak for a book about the shootings said the writing was on the wall. Kazmierczak had been hospitalized several times for mental illness and was known as "Strange Steve" by roommates. "What does a mass murderer have to do to get noticed?" asked Vann.
Robert Stewart (2009) Eight people died in a shooting at the Pinelake Health and Rehab nursing home in Carthage, NC. The gunman, 45-year-old Robert Stewart, was targeting his estranged wife who worked at the home and survived. Stewart was sentenced to life in prison. Richard Wagner, a toxicologist with the State Bureau of Investigations, testified that blood samples taken from Robert Stewart hours after the shooting show he had several prescription drugs in his system. Wagner told jurors Stewart was reported to have the antidepressant Lexipro, sleep-aid Ambien, Benadryl, and possibly Xanax in his blood system on March 29, 2009. Wagner said he was unable to determine the amount of each drug that was found in Stewart's blood stream because the time these drugs can stay in a person's system can vary.
Jared Loughner (2011) Former Rep. Gabby Giffords, D-Ariz., was shot in the head when 22-year-old Jared Loughner opened fire on an event she was holding at a Safeway market in Tucson, AZ. Six people died, including Arizona District Court Chief Judge John Roll, one of Giffords' staffers, and a 9-year-old girl. 19 people were shot. Loughner has been sentenced to seven life terms plus 140 years, without parole. Loughner's plea spares him the death penalty and came soon after a federal judge found that months of forcibly medicating him to treat his schizophrenia had made the 23-year-old college dropout competent to understand the gravity of the charges and assist in his defense.
Eduardo Sencion (2011) Eduardo Sencion entered an IHOP restaurant in Carson City, Nev., and shot 12 people. Five died, including three National Guard members. According to CBS affiliate KTVN, the shooter's motive was unclear, but family members said he had mental issues. He had never been in the military and had no known affiliation with anyone inside the restaurant. Investigators said his family first became aware of mental health issues when Sencion complained about being harassed by co-workers. He sought treatment when his employer told the family he was becoming increasing paranoid. Family members said Sencion took his medication, and all but one of his mental health commitments were voluntary. The report did not say how many times Sencion was hospitalized. But Sencion told his family he avoided intimate relationships because he feared "he would father a child and pass along his illness." He immersed himself in the Bible, and gave his mother keys to his gun safe, warning her he was "getting sick."He thought people were demons trying to hurt him, and began hearing voices telling him to do "bad things" to people. Sencion's medications were changed this summer. About a month later, he approached a priest in the street and asked him for help, telling the priest, "They're telling me to do bad things." The night before the shootings, Sencion, who lived with family members, took his medication at 10 p.m. Everything appeared normal the next morning. His last comment to his family was, "I should have gone to work today."
Scott Evans Dekraai (2012) Eight people died in a shooting at Salon Meritage hair salon in Seal Beach, Calif. The gunman, 41-year-old Scott Evans Dekraai, killed six women and two men dead, while just one woman survived. It was Orange County's deadliest mass killing. At Dekraai's Oct. 14 arraignment hearing, which at the request of defense attorney Robert Curtis was continued to Nov. 29 so he would have more time to prepare, the lawyer asked Judge Erick L. Larsh to order jail officials to give his client a prescribed anti-psychotic medicine and access to a "spinal cord stimulator" he has needed since his 2007 boat accident. Larsh instead ordered a medical evaluation of Dekraai to see what medicine he might need, leaving it up to the Orange County Sheriff's Department jailers to decide what was appropriate.
Thomas "TJ" Lane (2012) Three students were killed by Thomas "TJ" Lane, another student, in a rampage at Chardon High School in Chardon, Ohio. Three others were injured. In hindsight, it is also easy to see how violence was part of his family. During his infancy, his parents Thomas Lane Jr. and Sara Nolan were reportedly each charged with domestic abuse against each other. Later arrest charges for Thomas Lane Jr. include assaulting a police officer, domestic abuse against another woman who fathered his children and attempted murder. The attempted-murder charge was dropped, but in 2002-03 he served eight months of a four-year sentence for strangling a woman until she lost consciousness, holding her face under running water and bashing her head against a wall. By the time TJ Lane was in elementary school, he was living with his maternal grandparents, Jack and Carol Nolan, who had also taken in his older brother Adam Nolan and a sister. But violence followed him there too. Records indicate that police arrested Adam, 19, multiple times for disorderly conduct, theft and other crimes related to his abuse of prescription drugs and heroin, including several overdoses. (Adam apparently was released into the custody of his grandparents who reportedly said they would try to get him treatment.) On Dec. 9, 2009, during his parents' divorce proceedings, Lane and Nolan, then 15 and 16, were arrested for assault, after getting into a fight with an uncle who had gone to the house.
Ian Stawicki (2012) Ian Stawicki opened fire on Cafe Racer Espresso in Seattle, Wash., killing five and himself after a citywide manhunt. The father of the sole surviving victim, the cafe's chef, told Reuters that police detectives had said the gunman was known to have had "psychiatric problems" and caused a disturbance at the coffee house a few days earlier. The sole surviving victim was identified as Leonard Meuse, 46, the cafe chef, who was hit by at least one bullet that pierced a lung, grazed his liver and a kidney but missed his heart, his father, Raymond Meuse, told Reuters. The gunman, he said, "was a person who has psychiatric problems and had been disruptive there (at the cafe) a few days earlier, detectives told me."
James Holmes (2012) During the midnight premiere of The Dark Knight Rises in Aurora, Colo., 24-year-old James Holmes killed 12 people and wounded 58. Holmes was arrested outside the theater. The Denver Post reported Jan. 7 that, according to newly released court papers, police removed a number of prescription medication bottles - four, to be exact - from Holmes' apartment shortly after clearing it of explosives in the days following the July 20 shootings. They also seized immunization records. "The disclosures come in a back-and-forth between prosecutors and defense attorneys over whether those items should be subject to doctor-patient confidentiality. The judge ultimately ruled in October that prosecutors could keep the items," the paper said, adding that the names of the medications had been redacted from court documents. This shouldn't come as a huge surprise to anyone who's been following the correlation between these dangerous psychotropic drugs and mass murder. After all, earlier reports confirmed that Holmes was indeed being seen by a psychiatrist [http://www.nytimes.com], so there's a better-than-average chance that he, too was on one of these dangerous medications. With a fix for "altering his state of mind," the 'Batman shooter' was heavily hooked on the prescription painkiller Vicodin. Holmes even reportedly dosed up on a pharmaceutical cocktail just before the shooting. Side effects of Vicodin use, even at 'recommended' levels which Holmes likely far exceeded, include 'altered mental states' and 'unusual thoughts or behavior.'
Andrew Engeldinger (2012) Five were shot to death by 36-year-old Andrew Engeldinger at Accent Signage Systems in Minneapolis, Minn. Three others were wounded. Engeldinger went on a rampage after losing his job, ultimately killing himself. A police search of the home of Accent Signage Systems shooter Andrew Engeldinger found medications commonly prescribed for depression and insomnia, according to a Minneapolis Police Department report. Police found prescription bottles for two anti-depressant medications. Mirtazapine and Trazodone, and for Temazepam, a medication used to treat insomnia, in Engeldinger's home. They also found many empty prescription bottles, including 18 empty prescription bottles for a generic form of the anti-depressant drug Wellbutrin. According to the police report, all of the prescriptions bottles bore Engeldinger's name.
Adam Lanza (2012) On Friday morning, 27 people were reportedly shot and killed at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Conn. According to sources, 18 of these casualties were children. New York Magazine wrote a piece about shooter Adam Lanza's supposed "aspergers" syndrome. Inside the piece though, they report Adam Lanza's uncle said the boy was prescribed Fanapt, a controversial anti-psychotic medicine.
_______________________________________________________________
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Not all of these involved guns or mass murder but you get the drift ???
Eric Harris age 17 (first on Zoloft then Luvox) and Dylan Klebold aged 18 (Columbine school shooting in Littleton, Colorado), killed 12 students and 1 teacher, and wounded 23 others, before killing themselves. Klebold’s medical records have never been made available to the public.
Jeff Weise, age 16, had been prescribed 60 mg/day of Prozac (three times the average starting dose for adults!) when he shot his grandfather, his grandfather’s girlfriend and many fellow students at Red Lake, Minnesota. He then shot himself. 10 dead, 12 wounded.
Cory Baadsgaard, age 16, Wahluke (Washington state) High School, was on Paxil (which caused him to have hallucinations) when he took a rifle to his high school and held 23 classmates hostage. He has no memory of the event.
Chris Fetters, age 13, killed his favorite aunt while taking Prozac.
Christopher Pittman, age 12, murdered both his grandparents while taking Zoloft.
Mathew Miller, age 13, hung himself in his bedroom closet after taking Zoloft for 6 days.
Kip Kinkel, age 15, (on Prozac and Ritalin) shot his parents while they slept then went to school and opened fire killing 2 classmates and injuring 22 shortly after beginning Prozac treatment.
Luke Woodham, age 16 (Prozac) killed his mother and then killed two students, wounding six others.
A boy in Pocatello, ID (Zoloft) in 1998 had a Zoloft-induced seizure that caused an armed stand off at his school.
Michael Carneal (Ritalin), age 14, opened fire on students at a high school prayer meeting in West Paducah, Kentucky. Three teenagers were killed, five others were wounded..
A young man in Huntsville, Alabama (Ritalin) went psychotic chopping up his parents with an ax and also killing one sibling and almost murdering another.
Andrew Golden, age 11, (Ritalin) and Mitchell Johnson, aged 14, (Ritalin) shot 15 people, killing four students, one teacher, and wounding 10 others.
TJ Solomon, age 15, (Ritalin) high school student in Conyers, Georgia opened fire on and wounded six of his class mates.
Rod Mathews, age 14, (Ritalin) beat a classmate to death with a bat.
James Wilson, age 19, (various psychiatric drugs) from Breenwood, South Carolina, took a .22 caliber revolver into an elementary school killing two young girls, and wounding seven other children and two teachers.
Elizabeth Bush, age 13, (Paxil) was responsible for a school shooting in Pennsylvania
Jason Hoffman (Effexor and Celexa) – school shooting in El Cajon, California
Jarred Viktor, age 15, (Paxil), after five days on Paxil he stabbed his grandmother 61 times.
Chris Shanahan, age 15 (Paxil) in Rigby, ID who out of the blue killed a woman.
Jeff Franklin (Prozac and Ritalin), Huntsville, AL, killed his parents as they came home from work using a sledge hammer, hatchet, butcher knife and mechanic’s file, then attacked his younger brothers and sister.
Neal Furrow (Prozac) in LA Jewish school shooting reported to have been court-ordered to be on Prozac along with several other medications.
Kevin Rider, age 14, was withdrawing from Prozac when he died from a gunshot wound to his head. Initially it was ruled a suicide, but two years later, the investigation into his death was opened as a possible homicide. The prime suspect, also age 14, had been taking Zoloft and other SSRI antidepressants.
Alex Kim, age 13, hung himself shortly after his Lexapro prescription had been doubled.
Diane Routhier was prescribed Welbutrin for gallstone problems. Six days later, after suffering many adverse effects of the drug, she shot herself.
Billy Willkomm, an accomplished wrestler and a University of Florida student, was prescribed Prozac at the age of 17. His family found him dead of suicide – hanging from a tall ladder at the family’s Gulf Shore Boulevard home in July 2002.
Kara Jaye Anne Fuller-Otter, age 12, was on Paxil when she hung herself from a hook in her closet. Kara’s parents said “…. the damn doctor wouldn’t take her off it and I asked him to when we went in on the second visit. I told him I thought she was having some sort of reaction to Paxil…”)
Gareth Christian, Vancouver, age 18, was on Paxil when he committed suicide in 2002,
(Gareth’s father could not accept his son’s death and killed himself.)
Julie Woodward, age 17, was on Zoloft when she hung herself in her family’s detached garage.
Matthew Miller was 13 when he saw a psychiatrist because he was having difficulty at school. The psychiatrist gave him samples of Zoloft. Seven days later his mother found him dead, hanging by a belt from a laundry hook in his closet.
Kurt Danysh, age 18, and on Prozac, killed his father with a shotgun. He is now behind prison bars, and writes letters, trying to warn the world that SSRI drugs can kill.
Woody ____, age 37, committed suicide while in his 5th week of taking Zoloft. Shortly before his death his physician suggested doubling the dose of the drug. He had seen his physician only for insomnia. He had never been depressed, nor did he have any history of any mental illness symptoms.
A boy from Houston, age 10, shot and killed his father after his Prozac dosage was increased.
Hammad Memon, age 15, shot and killed a fellow middle school student. He had been diagnosed with ADHD and depression and was taking Zoloft and “other drugs for the conditions.”
Matti Saari, a 22-year-old culinary student, shot and killed 9 students and a teacher, and wounded another student, before killing himself. Saari was taking an SSRI and a benzodiazapine.
Steven Kazmierczak, age 27, shot and killed five people and wounded 21 others before killing himself in a Northern Illinois University auditorium. According to his girlfriend, he had recently been taking Prozac, Xanax and Ambien. Toxicology results showed that he still had trace amounts of Xanax in his system.
Finnish gunman Pekka-Eric Auvinen, age 18, had been taking antidepressants before he killed eight people and wounded a dozen more at Jokela High School – then he committed suicide.
Asa Coon from Cleveland, age 14, shot and wounded four before taking his own life. Court records show Coon was on Trazodone.
Jon Romano, age 16, on medication for depression, fired a shotgun at a teacher in his
New York high school.
Missing from list… 3 of 4 known to have taken these same meds…
.
What drugs was Jared Lee Loughner on, age 21…… killed 6 people and injuring 14 others in Tuscon, Az
What drugs was James Eagan Holmes on, age 24….. killed 12 people and injuring 59 others in Aurora Colorado
What drugs was Jacob Tyler Roberts on, age 22, killed 2 injured 1, Clackamas Or
What drugs was Adam Peter Lanza on, age 20, Killed 26 and wounded 2 in Newtown Ct
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Another Mass Shooting, Another Psychiatric Drug? Federal Investigation Long Overdue
http://www.cchrint.org/2012/07/20/the-aurora-colorado-tragedy-another-senseless-shooting-another-psychotropic-drug/ (http://www.cchrint.org/2012/07/20/the-aurora-colorado-tragedy-another-senseless-shooting-another-psychotropic-drug/)
Antidepressants—Addiction and Withdrawal
www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Mpex0n0DXuc (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Mpex0n0DXuc#ws)
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Black powder would have been on any logical background check.
If FBI's interview of older Boston bomber had been in an appropriate
data base, the bombing preparation could have been derailed.
Many things here that went wrong are still broken.
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I completely agree with the rest of what you wrote. Joe Biden (go ahead, I opened myself to it) had a great quote on the news last night.
Biden speaks the truth.
http://youtu.be/8FPMBvvmlm4 (http://youtu.be/8FPMBvvmlm4)
What he said in the two clips is accurate and they are consistant with each other. Those measures would reduce the occurances of mass shootings thereby saving lives. They are not going to eliminate them and are not the whole answer. As with Lapierre above, this is a favorite logical fallacy of the NRA. If would not be not a complete fix, it would be a complete failure, therefore take no action.
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Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) on Monday introduced two gun bills, one of which is co-sponsored by a group of 10 Republicans.....
Cruz introduced a bill to “protect law abiding citizens by preventing criminals from obtaining firearms.” Among the 10 GOP co-sponsors are Sens. Marco Rubio (Fla.), Rand Paul (Ky.), and Mike Lee (Utah)..........
A source close to negotiations told The Hill that Republicans are working on further legislation that would focus on enforcing the current background-check system and a bill that aims to improve mental health record-keeping.
So there you have it. The mean nasty Republicans proposed toughening enforcement of criminal record checks and expanding them to include mental health but the Democrats voted against the bill.
The sponsor of the bill Sen Cruz is rated A+ by the NRA and they refer to him as a "leading advocate of the second amendment".
This is the only article I can find on that. Is this what you were referring to from the 16th of this month? "The text of the bills is not yet available."
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) on Monday introduced two gun bills, one of which is co-sponsored by a group of 10 Republicans, many of whom signed a pledge earlier this month to filibuster attempts to pass gun control.
The measures provide an alternative to the gun control bill the Senate will begin debate on this week, which would expand background checks on gun purchases, crack down on gun trafficking and beef up security in schools. GOP senators have vowed to block that bill, claiming it goes too far and infringes on the rights of gun owners.
Cruz introduced a bill to “protect law abiding citizens by preventing criminals from obtaining firearms.” Among the 10 GOP co-sponsors are Sens. Marco Rubio (Fla.), Rand Paul (Ky.), and Mike Lee (Utah), all signers of the filibuster pledge. Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.) is also a co-sponsor.
Cruz also introduced an alternative bill aimed at preventing the trafficking and straw purchasing of firearms that does not presently have any co-sponsors.
The text of the bills is not yet available.
A source close to negotiations told The Hill that Republicans are working on further legislation that would focus on enforcing, rather than expanding, the current background-check system and a bill that aims to improve mental health record-keeping.
A focused lobbying effort by families of the victims of the Newtown massacre last week and a background-check deal between Sen. Joe Manchin (W.Va.), a centrist Democrat who has an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association, and conservative Republican Sen. Pat Toomey (Pa.) created momentum for gun control legislation last week.
The Senate voted on Thursday to begin debate on the original bill and amendments despite filibuster threats, but the measure still faces an uphill climb. Democrats will need a handful of Republicans to vote in favor of a final bill to send it to the House, but the party can’t count on all of its members to support a final bill.
Cruz spokeswoman Catherine Frazier pointed to the NRA’s decision to grade lawmakers' votes on a procedural motion for the bill — a move that deviates from the group's standard protocol — as evidence the effort “to prevent such legislation is gaining momentum."
Sens. Manchin and Toomey are working to rally support for their background-check provision, and other senators are working on alternative gun bills, including Sens. Chuck Grassley (Iowa) and Graham.
Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/294065-sen-cruz-introduces-competing-gun-bills#ixzz2R6hUkaCV (http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/294065-sen-cruz-introduces-competing-gun-bills#ixzz2R6hUkaCV)
Follow us: @thehill on Twitter | TheHill on Facebook
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Supposedly it was the same week that the other bill was defeated.
A fully funded and regulary updated database of criminal and mental records would be the best way to prevent gun sales to those who shouldn't possess them.
I am interested to see what the full bill had in it, whenever it gets released.
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I am interested to see what the full bill had in it, whenever it gets released.
You had written:
"So there you have it. The mean nasty Republicans proposed toughening enforcement of criminal record checks and expanding them to include mental health but the Democrats voted against the bill."
Do you want to recant what you wrote, for the sake of an accurate argument?
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I completely agree with the rest of what you wrote. Joe Biden (go ahead, I opened myself to it) had a great quote on the news last night.
Biden speaks the truth.
http://youtu.be/8FPMBvvmlm4 (http://youtu.be/8FPMBvvmlm4)
What he said in the two clips is accurate and they are consistant with each other. Those measures would reduce the occurances of mass shootings thereby saving lives. They are not going to eliminate them and are not the whole answer. As with Lapierre above, this is a favorite logical fallacy of the NRA. If would not be not a complete fix, it would be a complete failure, therefore take no action.
If the President reacts to a massacre of 20 children by putting you in charge and the best you can come up with is Biden's "Nothing we’re going to do is going to fundamentally alter or eliminate the possibility of another mass shooting or guarantee that we will bring gun deaths down to 1,000 a year from what it is now” then yes it is a failure.
I'm not saying take no action, but how about taking EFFECTIVE action?
Sen Cruz proposed a bill that would strengthen criminal record checks and add mental health checks as a requirement for gun purchases but the DEMOCRATS voted it down.
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Another Mass Shooting, Another Psychiatric Drug? Federal Investigation Long Overdue
http://www.cchrint.org/2012/07/20/the-aurora-colorado-tragedy-another-senseless-shooting-another-psychotropic-drug/ (http://www.cchrint.org/2012/07/20/the-aurora-colorado-tragedy-another-senseless-shooting-another-psychotropic-drug/)
was it the drugs....or the fact these people were mentally deranged?
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More details on Sen Cruz's bill:
http://www.cruz.senate.gov/record.cfm?id=341424 (http://www.cruz.senate.gov/record.cfm?id=341424)
The summary is 83 pages but the highlights are:
This legislation will:
• Improve and reauthorize grants for NICS database;
• Require federal courts to submit relevant information to NICS;
• Ensure that relevant mental health records are submitted by states to NICS;
• Condition federal grant money for states on their submission of mental health records to NICS;
• Increase federal prosecution of gun violence by establishing the Nationwide Project Exile Program and establishing a high level federal taskforce;
• Study of the causes of mass shootings;
• Responsibly addresses gun violence by criminalizing straw purchasing of firearms and gun trafficking;
• Second Amendment Protections for Veterans;
• Require the Department of Justice to explain to Congress why it has or has not been prosecuting gun cases;
• Place Limitations on Fast & Furious type operations by DOJ;
• Authorize FFL’s to utilize the NICS database to for voluntary background checks of employees;
• Authorize FFL’s to access the FBI’s National Crime Information Center stolen gun database to ensure that a firearm is not stolen prior to acquisition;
• Reauthorize the Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Act (MIOTCRA) with amendments;
• Address school safety by Reauthorizes the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) Secure our Schools Program through 2023.
The first five are the most interesting:
1) They actually fund their proposal
2) They force everyone to report in to the criminal database
3) They include mental health records in the database
4) They cut off funding if states don't submit mental health records into the database
5) They increase enforcement against those who use guns to commit crimes
-
More details on Sen Cruz's bill:
http://www.cruz.senate.gov/record.cfm?id=341424 (http://www.cruz.senate.gov/record.cfm?id=341424)
The summary is 83 pages but the highlights are:
This legislation will:
• Improve and reauthorize grants for NICS database;
• Require federal courts to submit relevant information to NICS;
• Ensure that relevant mental health records are submitted by states to NICS;
• Condition federal grant money for states on their submission of mental health records to NICS;
• Increase federal prosecution of gun violence by establishing the Nationwide Project Exile Program and establishing a high level federal taskforce;
• Study of the causes of mass shootings;
• Responsibly addresses gun violence by criminalizing straw purchasing of firearms and gun trafficking;
• Second Amendment Protections for Veterans;
• Require the Department of Justice to explain to Congress why it has or has not been prosecuting gun cases;
• Place Limitations on Fast & Furious type operations by DOJ;
• Authorize FFL’s to utilize the NICS database to for voluntary background checks of employees;
• Authorize FFL’s to access the FBI’s National Crime Information Center stolen gun database to ensure that a firearm is not stolen prior to acquisition;
• Reauthorize the Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Act (MIOTCRA) with amendments;
• Address school safety by Reauthorizes the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) Secure our Schools Program through 2023.
The first five are the most interesting:
1) They actually fund their proposal
2) They force everyone to report in to the criminal database
3) They include mental health records in the database
4) They cut off funding if states don't submit mental health records into the database
5) They increase enforcement against those who use guns to commit crimes
Classic. An easing of current restrictions passed off as gun reform. Sale and transport across state lines. Super. What more should be expected from the filibuster group?
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I completely agree with the rest of what you wrote. Joe Biden (go ahead, I opened myself to it) had a great quote on the news last night.
Biden speaks the truth.
http://youtu.be/8FPMBvvmlm4 (http://youtu.be/8FPMBvvmlm4)
What he said in the two clips is accurate and they are consistant with each other. Those measures would reduce the occurances of mass shootings thereby saving lives. They are not going to eliminate them and are not the whole answer. As with Lapierre above, this is a favorite logical fallacy of the NRA. If would not be not a complete fix, it would be a complete failure, therefore take no action.
If the President reacts to a massacre of 20 children by putting you in charge and the best you can come up with is Biden's "Nothing we’re going to do is going to fundamentally alter or eliminate the possibility of another mass shooting or guarantee that we will bring gun deaths down to 1,000 a year from what it is now” then yes it is a failure.
I'm no Biden fan, but I agree with Admin. What he said is completely true, and it doesn't conflict with his other statement about moral obligation. Just because you can't eliminate a problem doesn't mean you shouldn't try to reduce it, or that you're failing.
Why attack a politician for being honest, and candid? Especially when he's putting himself at some political risk (the news clip is proof of that) by eschewing the typical political strategy of making empty promises. And even further, why attack him for a statement that in a sense is very pro-gun rights? After all, he basically just said that any gun-regulation zealot who says regulations can stop mass shootings, or drastically cut gun deaths, is wrong. In other words, he's using exactly the same argument that reasonable pro-gun-rights people are using. In fact, it's the same argument you've been using (and I've been agreeing with) in many earlier posts.
Statements like Biden's are exactly what is needed to make any progress.
-
I completely agree with the rest of what you wrote. Joe Biden (go ahead, I opened myself to it) had a great quote on the news last night.
Biden speaks the truth.
http://youtu.be/8FPMBvvmlm4 (http://youtu.be/8FPMBvvmlm4)
What he said in the two clips is accurate and they are consistant with each other. Those measures would reduce the occurances of mass shootings thereby saving lives. They are not going to eliminate them and are not the whole answer. As with Lapierre above, this is a favorite logical fallacy of the NRA. If would not be not a complete fix, it would be a complete failure, therefore take no action.
If the President reacts to a massacre of 20 children by putting you in charge and the best you can come up with is Biden's "Nothing we’re going to do is going to fundamentally alter or eliminate the possibility of another mass shooting or guarantee that we will bring gun deaths down to 1,000 a year from what it is now” then yes it is a failure.
I'm no Biden fan, but I agree with Admin. What he said is completely true, and it doesn't conflict with his other statement about moral obligation. Just because you can't eliminate a problem doesn't mean you shouldn't try to reduce it, or that you're failing.
Why attack a politician for being honest, and candid? Especially when he's putting himself at some political risk (the news clip is proof of that) by eschewing the typical political strategy of making empty promises. And even further, why attack him for a statement that in a sense is very pro-gun rights? After all, he basically just said that any gun-regulation zealot who says regulations can stop mass shootings, or drastically cut gun deaths, is wrong. In other words, he's using exactly the same argument that reasonable pro-gun-rights people are using. In fact, it's the same argument you've been using (and I've been agreeing with) in many earlier posts.
Statements like Biden's are exactly what is needed to make any progress.
Because while he is saying that his bill won't reduce crime or stop mass shootings he is trying to infringe on law abiding citizens rights. It's not his words, it's his actions.
-
More details on Sen Cruz's bill:
http://www.cruz.senate.gov/record.cfm?id=341424 (http://www.cruz.senate.gov/record.cfm?id=341424)
The summary is 83 pages but the highlights are:
This legislation will:
• Improve and reauthorize grants for NICS database;
• Require federal courts to submit relevant information to NICS;
• Ensure that relevant mental health records are submitted by states to NICS;
• Condition federal grant money for states on their submission of mental health records to NICS;
• Increase federal prosecution of gun violence by establishing the Nationwide Project Exile Program and establishing a high level federal taskforce;
• Study of the causes of mass shootings;
• Responsibly addresses gun violence by criminalizing straw purchasing of firearms and gun trafficking;
• Second Amendment Protections for Veterans;
• Require the Department of Justice to explain to Congress why it has or has not been prosecuting gun cases;
• Place Limitations on Fast & Furious type operations by DOJ;
• Authorize FFL’s to utilize the NICS database to for voluntary background checks of employees;
• Authorize FFL’s to access the FBI’s National Crime Information Center stolen gun database to ensure that a firearm is not stolen prior to acquisition;
• Reauthorize the Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Act (MIOTCRA) with amendments;
• Address school safety by Reauthorizes the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) Secure our Schools Program through 2023.
The first five are the most interesting:
1) They actually fund their proposal
2) They force everyone to report in to the criminal database
3) They include mental health records in the database
4) They cut off funding if states don't submit mental health records into the database
5) They increase enforcement against those who use guns to commit crimes
Classic. An easing of current restrictions passed off as gun reform. Sale and transport across state lines. Super. What more should be expected from the filibuster group?
This bill tightens restrictions against those who should be prohibited from purchasing guns. It adds mental health checks to the already in place criminal record check and provides funding to accomplish that. That is what the majority of America is asking for.
By the way, gun sales across state lines are already legal. Not sure where you get your facts from but you are often wrong. I bought a rifle a few years ago over the internet.
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*cough cough*
At the same time that investigators were in the midst of a high-profile manhunt for the marathon bombers that ended on Friday evening, 38 more Americans – with little fanfare – died from gun violence. One was a 22-year old resident of Boston. They are a tiny percentage of the 3,531 Americans killed by guns in the past four months – a total that surpasses the number of Americans who died on 9/11 and is one fewer than the number of US soldiers who lost their lives in combat operations in Iraq. Yet, none of this daily violence was considered urgent enough to motivate Congress to impose a mild, commonsense restriction on gun purchasers.
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Not sure where you get your facts from but you are often wrong. I bought a rifle a few years ago over the internet.
The facts will always be wrong if you change the words to suit your needs. I wrote easing of restrictions and that is precisely what was proposed and rejected.
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Not sure where you get your facts from but you are often wrong. I bought a rifle a few years ago over the internet.
The facts will always be wrong if you change the words to suit your needs. I wrote easing of restrictions and that is precisely what was proposed and rejected.
Sen Cruz's bill proposed to tighten restrictions by adding mental health checks to gun purchases, that is a TIGHTENING of restrictions.
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Not sure where you get your facts from but you are often wrong. I bought a rifle a few years ago over the internet.
The facts will always be wrong if you change the words to suit your needs. I wrote easing of restrictions and that is precisely what was proposed and rejected.
Sen Cruz's bill proposed to tighten restrictions by adding mental health checks to gun purchases, that is a TIGHTENING of restrictions.
Again, all of the new language about crossing state lines would have eased restrictions. Plus, of course, the pro-gun additions. They knew this was unpassable, and they lobbed it out there at the last minute to claim exactly what you are now claiming, "look at the Dem's fighting Gun Control". Pure politics. We clearly disagree on this.
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Just tossing in my situation on this latest State Line issue....I live right on the boarder in Mass and RI, I frequently travel into RI (family lives there, I SUP surf there, paddle there, etc), and I am not allowed to Carry my firearm into RI which makes things extremely difficult for me. I am licensed in MA Concealed Carry and MA has one of the toughest licensing requirements in the country (RI being even tougher). The new Federal regs regarding state lines would allow my license to be recognized in RI and I could then carry into RI as I do in MA (making life much easier for me).
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Not sure where you get your facts from but you are often wrong. I bought a rifle a few years ago over the internet.
The facts will always be wrong if you change the words to suit your needs. I wrote easing of restrictions and that is precisely what was proposed and rejected.
Sen Cruz's bill proposed to tighten restrictions by adding mental health checks to gun purchases, that is a TIGHTENING of restrictions.
Again, all of the new language about crossing state lines would have eased restrictions. Plus, of course, the pro-gun additions. They knew this was unpassable, and they lobbed it out there at the last minute to claim exactly what you are now claiming, "look at the Dem's fighting Gun Control". Pure politics. We clearly disagree on this.
From the Grassley-Cruz proposal:
-Ensure that relevant mental health records are submitted by states to NICS;
-Condition federal grant money for states on their submission of mental health records to NICS;
-Increase federal prosecution of gun violence by establishing the Nationwide Project Exile Program and establishing a high level federal taskforce;
So you have:
1) tighten firearm restrictions by adding mental health checks to purchase requirements
2) put money where there mouth is to fund the mental health system
3) prosecute those prohibited individuals who try to purchase firearms
Sounds like an effective bill....too bad the democrats voted it down.
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So I read the bill, it's 81 pages in the form I read: Grassley-Cruz Substitute Gun Bill & Summary (http://www.scribd.com/doc/136484906/Grassley-Cruz-Substitute-Gun-Bill-Summary#) It's obviously not passable as is. Some of the wording makes me believe that it was never intended to be passed. But as a framework of elements that would actually accomplish something, it's pretty good. Ditch the nonsense and it would work fairly well. It sounds more useful than the general bill that was also not passed, which I have only read in summary, but which also seems designed not to be passed.
Incidentally, the vote included two republicans and two independents that voted no, and yes included nine democrats. Obviously a split primarily along party lines, and it's clear the bill was larded with crap to make it NOT pass, so the democrat/repub line is meaningless.
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Not only not passable, but if passed, not enforceable. How can they define mental conditions to restrict gun sales? Are there any other laws where you have to take a mental health test to purchase something? Who and how does someone determine if someone is mentally capable of owning a gun?
I would like to be on the panel to decide who gets a gun. My test would be that if you think you need an assault weapon, you're to crazy to own one.
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That's actually one part of the bill that's well written. And it appears to rely on a federal code that I didn't cross reference. but which appears to have already defined the term "mental health". If you think about it, there's a long history of assessing mental competence for transactions, it's not a new issue. What's new in this case is that elements of determining competence would be required to be submitted to the NCIS.
And yes, there are many other laws that require mental competence to complete transactions. You have to be mentally competent to enter into any contract.
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Mental 'competence' is not mental 'stability', or what ever mental state they would use to deny a gun sale. I'm sure all the latest mass killers would have passed a competence test. But, I really don't know, but off hand I can't think of any place where mental stability is a requirement to buy something.
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In Honolulu Hawaii when you fill out an application for a permit to buy a gun , you have to give them the name and number of your primary physician. They get a hold of the doctor and he has to sign a form basically stating that you have not been treated for depression or are taking any medication (phsycotropic) and that you are stable in his opinion. Last time I applied for a permit I had to make an appointment with my doctor just so he could say he saw me in the last 6 months ( I had not seen him in years) and he then filled out the police form as part of my application.
I asked the guys at the police department gun registration and they said if you have been treated just for depression or even told the doctor your depressed , the doctor must diclose this and you will be denied a permit here on Oahu. Don't see how doctors can do that and still keep the doctor / patient privacy privilege that they take an oath to keep, but what do I know.
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My guess is the mental requirement sounds much better in theory than it will be in practice.
If it does become part of gun law, it's certainly going to expose a lot of flaws in the mental health system--why so few people who could benefit from treatment seek it (once the next several post-law nutcase shootings occur, and it's shown that most had never been evaluated or treated), why there is such a stigma about treatment (which will get raised as soon as people who have been treated get turned down for gun ownership because they DID seek treatment), how inexact evaluation is (after the new rules don't stop a few future shootings)....
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Republicans don't believe in science, they don't believe in evolution or global warming, so do you think they are going to let a guy with a psychology degree tell people who can and can't own a gun.
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Tom, when you take a discussion into politics you simply make it irrational. I'm a republican--do you really think I don't understand evolution, or that my opinions about global warming are poorly informed? Did you read the bill? Even glance at it? My guess is you're shooting from the hip. I gave the link to the full text above. Take a look at section 103 (I think, quoting from memory).
I just edited my comment because it used the word Believe in connection to science. I don't "believe" in science, I understand science.
PDX, there's a substantial mental health aspect to the bill. It might have been designed to fail, and just be a political document, but there's some good thinking in it nonetheless.
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Republicans don't believe in science, they don't believe in evolution or global warming, so do you think they are going to let a guy with a psychology degree tell people who can and can't own a gun.
Actually, if you put it that way--"let a guy with a psychology degree tell people who can and can't own a gun"--it sounds crazy regardless of what party anyone belongs to.
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PDX, there's a substantial mental health aspect to the bill. It might have been designed to fail, and just be a political document, but there's some good thinking in it nonetheless.
That's good to hear. My comments weren't about any failings in the bill, but about the backwards state of mental health treatment here, and the fact that it's just a complex subject to begin with, and one people often want to sweep under the rug.
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Tom, when you take a discussion into politics you simply make it irrational. I'm a republican--do you really think I don't understand evolution, or that my opinions about global warming are poorly informed? Did you read the bill? Even glance at it? My guess is you're shooting from the hip. I gave the link to the full text above. Take a look at section 103 (I think, quoting from memory).
I just edited my comment because it used the word Believe in connection to science. I don't "believe" in science, I understand science.
PDX, there's a substantial mental health aspect to the bill. It might have been designed to fail, and just be a political document, but there's some good thinking in it nonetheless.
Bill, Sorry if I offended you, I was trying to make a point with a bit of humor, which obviously fell flat. I actually have voted Republican more than Democratic and certainly know that most Republicans understand science. The point I was trying to make is that it will be very difficult to create a law using nebulous terms such as mental health.
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My guess is the mental requirement sounds much better in theory than it will be in practice.
If it does become part of gun law, it's certainly going to expose a lot of flaws in the mental health system--why so few people who could benefit from treatment seek it (once the next several post-law nutcase shootings occur, and it's shown that most had never been evaluated or treated), why there is such a stigma about treatment (which will get raised as soon as people who have been treated get turned down for gun ownership because they DID seek treatment), how inexact evaluation is (after the new rules don't stop a few future shootings)....
The joker nutjob who shot up the theater in Colorado would likely have been stopped. His shrink actually told the police he was dangerous before the attack.
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My guess is the mental requirement sounds much better in theory than it will be in practice.
If it does become part of gun law, it's certainly going to expose a lot of flaws in the mental health system--why so few people who could benefit from treatment seek it (once the next several post-law nutcase shootings occur, and it's shown that most had never been evaluated or treated), why there is such a stigma about treatment (which will get raised as soon as people who have been treated get turned down for gun ownership because they DID seek treatment), how inexact evaluation is (after the new rules don't stop a few future shootings)....
The joker nutjob who shot up the theater in Colorado would likely have been stopped. His shrink actually told the police he was dangerous before the attack.
I agree, at least in the sense that he would have been stopped from buying a gun if he'd tried to under laws requiring some sort of mental review. (It's a whole other issue if he would have been stopped from getting a gun anyway, or building a bomb, etc.)
But that was an extreme case. Even among extremely nutty people, I bet the number who've been to a psychiatrist or got any mental health treatment is low, and the number that have something in a file saying they're dangerous is even smaller.
I guess it's a good thing that many shooters seem to be college students or even children of wealthy parents. That makes it more likely that they have access to treatment, so more likely they would be identified somewhere along they way as non-gunworthy.
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Bill, Sorry if I offended you, I was trying to make a point with a bit of humor, which obviously fell flat. I actually have voted Republican more than Democratic and certainly know that most Republicans understand science. The point I was trying to make is that it will be very difficult to create a law using nebulous terms such as mental health.
Take a lot more than that to offend me Tom, no problem. I agree that it's a difficult thing to do, but I think it's at the core of doing anything really effective. People seem fixated on what the regulations should be as applied to guns, and if they don't see something in complete agreement then it's wrong. I think we're a lot more likely to make some headway paying attention to the act rather than the tool.
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But that was an extreme case. Even among extremely nutty people, I bet the number who've been to a psychiatrist or got any mental health treatment is low, and the number that have something in a file saying they're dangerous is even smaller.
I guess it's a good thing that many shooters seem to be college students or even children of wealthy parents. That makes it more likely that they have access to treatment, so more likely they would be identified somewhere along they way as non-gunworthy.
True but we have to start somewhere, it doesn't have to be that they paid money to see a shrink.
For instance, current restrictions are that felons can't purchase guns. Misdemeanors don't count...unless it is for domestic violence then it restricts you from purchasing a gun (not sure if that is nationwide but it is in California).
While medical providers have confidentialty that does NOT apply to some things. For instance domestic violence or sexual assault. Medical personnel are mandatory reporters, if someone comes in to get treatment after they are assaulted the doctors have to call the police even if they don't know who the perp is. So something similar could be created for shrinks. There will be opposition because of confidentiality issues but there is precendence for these exceptions.
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It's already in place. There are many cases where a counselor, psychiatrist, etc. is required to report the state of mind of a patient.
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But that was an extreme case. Even among extremely nutty people, I bet the number who've been to a psychiatrist or got any mental health treatment is low, and the number that have something in a file saying they're dangerous is even smaller.
I guess it's a good thing that many shooters seem to be college students or even children of wealthy parents. That makes it more likely that they have access to treatment, so more likely they would be identified somewhere along they way as non-gunworthy.
True but we have to start somewhere, it doesn't have to be that they paid money to see a shrink.
For instance, current restrictions are that felons can't purchase guns. Misdemeanors don't count...unless it is for domestic violence then it restricts you from purchasing a gun (not sure if that is nationwide but it is in California).
While medical providers have confidentialty that does NOT apply to some things. For instance domestic violence or sexual assault. Medical personnel are mandatory reporters, if someone comes in to get treatment after they are assaulted the doctors have to call the police even if they don't know who the perp is. So something similar could be created for shrinks. There will be opposition because of confidentiality issues but there is precendence for these exceptions.
I agree with all that--don't need any convincing that some sort of mental requirement for gun purchase makes sense, as do many other small steps short of taking guns from people. There are a lot of middle-ground steps that make sense. The complications like what I was mentioning, or the fact that none are guarantees of safety, don't mean I still don't think they're worth doing.
One more complication with mental health I can see coming--all the returning soldiers with post-battle stress problems who may want to own guns. Their treatment is already poor, and there's still a stigma for seeking treatment. Even if the mental review laws for gun ownership are well written, so that having been treated for that doesn't mean any sort of automatic disqualification for gun ownership, I'd hate to see veterans thinking that seeking treatment could jeopardize their options for gun ownership in the future. That would be one more barrier--even if only perceived--for them to get help.
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One more complication with mental health I can see coming--all the returning soldiers with post-battle stress problems who may want to own guns. Their treatment is already poor, and there's still a stigma for seeking treatment. Even if the mental review laws for gun ownership are well written, so that having been treated for that doesn't mean any sort of automatic disqualification for gun ownership, I'd hate to see veterans thinking that seeking treatment could jeopardize their options for gun ownership in the future. That would be one more barrier--even if only perceived--for them to get help.
You're right. I think that's what they mean by:
-Second Amendment Protections for Veterans
Although that is an extremely vague statement.
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Yes, there's quite a long section on that in the bill. It's fairly specific and seems kind of weird. I should reread it--I didn't understand the purpose of it the first time, so I skimmed it.
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One more complication with mental health I can see coming--all the returning soldiers with post-battle stress problems who may want to own guns. Their treatment is already poor, and there's still a stigma for seeking treatment. Even if the mental review laws for gun ownership are well written, so that having been treated for that doesn't mean any sort of automatic disqualification for gun ownership, I'd hate to see veterans thinking that seeking treatment could jeopardize their options for gun ownership in the future. That would be one more barrier--even if only perceived--for them to get help.
You're right. I think that's what they mean by:
-Second Amendment Protections for Veterans
Although that is an extremely vague statement.
That sounds like good news for me (the protection for veterans, not the sarcastic comment about it being vague).
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It is a very vague statement in the summary, I had no idea what it was about. Of course we're talking about a dead bill, but I thought it had some pretty good stuff in it. The vetrans stuff is in the Mental Health section. I reread it and still don't get what it's about.
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One more complication with mental health I can see coming--all the returning soldiers with post-battle stress problems who may want to own guns. Their treatment is already poor, and there's still a stigma for seeking treatment. Even if the mental review laws for gun ownership are well written, so that having been treated for that doesn't mean any sort of automatic disqualification for gun ownership, I'd hate to see veterans thinking that seeking treatment could jeopardize their options for gun ownership in the future. That would be one more barrier--even if only perceived--for them to get help.
You're right. I think that's what they mean by:
-Second Amendment Protections for Veterans
Although that is an extremely vague statement.
That sounds like good news for me (the protection for veterans, not the sarcastic comment about it being vague).
I mean the summary is a vague statement, but then again it's a summary.
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That's right, gun homicides are down 39% since 1993. I bet we won't hear that on the alphabet news shows, or from the president.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_GUN_VIOLENCE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-05-07-19-27-18 (http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_GUN_VIOLENCE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-05-07-19-27-18)
The Pew study shows a drop of 49% per 100,000 individuals.
Yet, hear we are asking for more gun control.
A more worrisome stat:
"Fifty-five percent of gun homicide victims in 2010 were black, far beyond their 13 percent share of the population."
And I wonder what % of those guns were purchased legally? I'm guessing, very few.
I know, facts won't get in the way of the hysterical far left, gun-hating crowd, such a pity. We might actually improve society if we really focused on the actual problems.
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I think legal gun owners buy them because they don't trust their government. They don't trust the police to protect them or provide security, and they don't trust the motivations and goals of politicians. Can't say they're wrong.
For some people the response to violence is a notion that eliminating the tool used to perpetrate it will eliminate the violence. People like the murderer at Newton go after people who can not protect themselves. To people who do not trust the police or the government to provide real protection the only answer to a bastard with a gun is to have your own. And in fact, if no external protection is available, that IS the only solution. I've faced a gun without a gun. When you find yourself in that position all you have is hope. You can't run, you can't fight. You just have to wait and hope. Hope sucks.
I've also held a gun on a guy that kicked my door down in the middle of the night. Still scary, but I was a lot happier about my likelihood of survival.
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Damn Bill, I half expect to see credits roll when your life is over. ;D
I agree completely with your view. Police take reports, guns protect.
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I know, facts won't get in the way of the hysterical far left, gun-hating crowd, such a pity. We might actually improve society if we really focused on the actual problems.
Yes, This whole gun control issue is a smoke screen for congress while they pass laws (and Obama signed) to allow them to do insider trading. Keep your eyes on gun control while they rob the market. Isn't it remarkable how this insider trading bill was the one area where congress and the president were on the same page? When it comes to their dough they slide things through quicker than you can blink. And you were blinking because you had your eyes on gun control BS.
PBill is right. The cops will always show after it's too late. As county budgets shrink, the police are gutted in their ability to respond in a timely matter.
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According to another article, the same study found that a tiny percentage (2% I think) of gun crime criminals got their guns at gun shows.
Another statistic separate from that study--of people killed by guns, if you're black you're far more likely to have been killed by a handgun by a criminal. If you're white, you're far more likely to have committed suicide. And the number of deaths in both cases, even if down from highs, is still staggering vs. the number from mass shootings.
So, a lot of the attention has been on shutting down the "gun show loophole" so mass killers can't get their guns that way, but based on the statistics, focusing on those isn't a good use of resources.
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According to another article, the same study found that a tiny percentage (2% I think) of gun crime criminals got their guns at gun shows.
If guns from gun shows aren't registered, how do they know that? Does that 2% include guns bought by someone else and then sold to the criminal?
You can make statistics support anything you want.
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According to another article, the same study found that a tiny percentage (2% I think) of gun crime criminals got their guns at gun shows.
If guns from gun shows aren't registered, how do they know that? Does that 2% include guns bought by someone else and then sold to the criminal?
You can make statistics support anything you want.
Here's the statistics I read:
"In 2004 (the most recent year of data available), among state prison inmates who possessed a gun at the time of the offense, fewer than two percent bought their firearm at a flea market or gun show," according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. "About 10 percent of state prison inmates said they purchased it from a retail store or pawnshop, 37 percent obtained it from family or friends, and another 40 percent obtained it from an illegal source."
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/05/07/181998015/rate-of-u-s-gun-violence-has-fallen-since-1993-study-says (http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/05/07/181998015/rate-of-u-s-gun-violence-has-fallen-since-1993-study-says)
I'm sure some or perhaps many were obtained by others at gun shows and then sold to the criminals. I don't know that the group coming up with those statistics were intending to support any particular viewpoint.
The deaths in mass shootings vs. other gun deaths is clearer. We know how many of each there were. I don't know those statistics, but I'd bet non-mass-shooting gun deaths are at least 100x greater.
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According to another article, the same study found that a tiny percentage (2% I think) of gun crime criminals got their guns at gun shows.
If guns from gun shows aren't registered, how do they know that? Does that 2% include guns bought by someone else and then sold to the criminal?
You can make statistics support anything you want.
Here's the statistics I read:
"In 2004 (the most recent year of data available), among state prison inmates who possessed a gun at the time of the offense, fewer than two percent bought their firearm at a flea market or gun show," according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. "About 10 percent of state prison inmates said they purchased it from a retail store or pawnshop, 37 percent obtained it from family or friends, and another 40 percent obtained it from an illegal source."
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/05/07/181998015/rate-of-u-s-gun-violence-has-fallen-since-1993-study-says (http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/05/07/181998015/rate-of-u-s-gun-violence-has-fallen-since-1993-study-says)
I'm sure some or perhaps many were obtained by others at gun shows and then sold to the criminals. I don't know that the group coming up with those statistics were intending to support any particular viewpoint.
The deaths in mass shootings vs. other gun deaths is clearer. We know how many of each there were. I don't know those statistics, but I'd bet non-mass-shooting gun deaths are at least 100x greater.
Since non-mass-shooting deaths are such a small percentage, I guess we can just ignore them.
(I swore i'd not get sucked back into the gun debates. Now see what you've done. ;))
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Well, with the news that an anarchist has been able to print a working handgun out of plastic with a 3D printer and plans from the internet, the idea of gun control is a little bit laughable. Technology is one step ahead of any legislation. Now the only thing between Gumby down the block and a loaded weapon is the $$$ required for an industrial 3D printer.
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Since non-mass-shooting deaths are such a small percentage, I guess we can just ignore them.
Yes, that was exactly the point I was struggling to make.
Seriously, though, many times more lives would be saved by putting a fraction of the effort going into gun control--especially in regard to mass shootings--into much more mundane things like lifeguards, crosswalks, smoke alarms, CPR training, etc.
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How about if the NRA a put fraction of the the money they spend buying off politicians to stop what 90% of what the US citizens want into much more mundane things like lifeguards, crosswalks, smoke alarms, CPR training, etc.
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How about if the NRA a put fraction of the the money they spend buying off politicians to stop what 90% of what the US citizens want into much more mundane things like lifeguards, crosswalks, smoke alarms, CPR training, etc.
Only if the Obama admin does the same with the trillions they'll spend on Obamacare that over 70% of the Americans don't want.
The reason that law needed to go down was because of the fine print. Say you inherited a gun from your grandfather. There was no paperwork done you just keep it in your safe and shoot it once I in a while. Say times as are tough so you decide to sell that gun and being a law abiding citizen do the background check like you're supposed to. Congratulations! By getting into the system with a gun that isn't registered to you, you are now guilty of a federal crime and are now not able to own a gun ever again. Nice law.
Sent from my SPH-L900 using Tapatalk 2
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How about if the NRA a put fraction of the the money they spend buying off politicians to stop what 90% of what the US citizens want into much more mundane things like lifeguards, crosswalks, smoke alarms, CPR training, etc.
You expect the National Rifle Association to put the desires of 90% of US citizens (your number, not mine) ahead of what 100% of their membership wants? Don't hold your breath. You may not like what the NRA is dedicated to, but as a nonprofit organization it sticks to its core principles and serves its members faithfully. I wish I could say that about ANY elected official.
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How about if the NRA a put fraction of the the money they spend buying off politicians to stop what 90% of what the US citizens want into much more mundane things like lifeguards, crosswalks, smoke alarms, CPR training, etc.
I think you're giving the NRA too much credit. If 90% of the public agreed on something--and it was legal--politicians aren't going to ignore them based on one group's desires.
And once you get beyond very general ideas about gun control, I don't think there's anything close to 90% agreement on anything.
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So these two new studies, both showing a dramatic decrease in gun murders and crimes, got me thinking.
If the previously perceived increase in gun deaths/violence were the direct result of more guns in America, isn't it now reasonable to agree that the dramatic decrease in gun murders/violence is a direct result of more guns in America?
Gun ownership in America has increased over the past 10 years, dramatically since Obama took office. Yet, gun murders/violence has gone down, dramatically.
BTW, mass shooting have also gone down, they are just much more publicized now than ever before.
It's clear, the media has been manipulating public perception on this, for years. The majority of folks polled still think gun murders/violence is on the rise, yet it's seen a big decrease. Perception is reality, indeed.
Even more intriguing of course, is where gun violence is still alive and well, in the urban cities, which also have the toughest, most stringent gun control laws. Pity lawmakers still haven't figured out that criminals don't give a rats ass about laws.
So I'm curious, for those gun hating, gun control lovers out there, how do you rationalize your opinions on this now? Or perhaps, rational is the key word, much of the gun hating, gun control crowd is informed by emotions, not facts.
I was quite amazed/please to see the AP and even CNN for heaven's sake, reporting on this. Maybe public opinion will start to mirror reality a bit closer, maybe.
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Gun ownership in America has increased over the past 10 years, dramatically since Obama took office. Yet, gun murders/violence has gone down, dramatically.
From the link you posted:
The Justice report found that since 1999, the number of firearm homicides increased from 10,828 to 12,791 in 2006 before declining to 11,101 in 2011.
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The Justice report found that since 1999, the number of firearm homicides increased from 10,828 to 12,791 in 2006 before declining to 11,101 in 2011.
Well by golly, there you got it. Looks like the current administration has effectively reduced firearm homicides. I am sure credit will be taken for doing so by all of the wonderful elected individuals doing good for all of us. How can this not be show stopping headlines from all of the wonderful media outlets?
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Gun ownership in America has increased over the past 10 years, dramatically since Obama took office. Yet, gun murders/violence has gone down, dramatically.
From the link you posted:
The Justice report found that since 1999, the number of firearm homicides increased from 10,828 to 12,791 in 2006 before declining to 11,101 in 2011.
How do you counting increase in gun ownership? Is it the person that owned 2 guns now owns 10, or are you counting new people that own guns?
And since you don't have to register most gun purchases or divulge the gun buying numbers, how can you come up with these numbers?
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What would be better? If everyone owned a gun or if no one owned a gun?
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What would be better? If everyone owned a gun or if no one owned a gun?
IMO, everyone. That's kind of how this country got started.
If not guns, it's knives, swords, hammers, hatchets, the handy rock, bare hands and so on, and so on. Guns are just a really nice deterrent for someone coming at you with any of the above mentioned "weapons". All of which, btw, are not "controlled".
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And since you don't have to register most gun purchases or divulge the gun buying numbers, how can you come up with these numbers?
Where do you get the information that states most gun purchases go unregistered?
The tally would come from the reported sales of registered guns I would guess, which has increased. Stores, gun shows, auctions, for the most part I would think. New or existing owners...what does it matter?
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What would be better? If everyone owned a gun or if no one owned a gun?
IMO, everyone. That's kind of how this country got started.
If not guns, it's knives, swords, hammers, hatchets, the handy rock, bare hands and so on, and so on. Guns are just a really nice deterrent for someone coming at you with any of the above mentioned "weapons". All of which, btw, are not "controlled".
Or, if in Australia, Vegemite sandwiches.
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Actually I was just reading that Australia is going to confiscate all the Vegemite sandwiches and burn them before any more can be used as weapons. Those sandwiches are going to be toast.
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What would be better? If everyone owned a gun or if no one owned a gun?
IMO, everyone. That's kind of how this country got started.
If not guns, it's knives, swords, hammers, hatchets, the handy rock, bare hands and so on, and so on. Guns are just a really nice deterrent for someone coming at you with any of the above mentioned "weapons". All of which, btw, are not "controlled".
Or, if in Australia, Vegemite sandwiches.
Ahhh, going way back to Men At work! Whatever happened to those guys anyway?
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The Justice report found that since 1999, the number of firearm homicides increased from 10,828 to 12,791 in 2006 before declining to 11,101 in 2011.
Well by golly, there you got it. Looks like the current administration has effectively reduced firearm homicides. I am sure credit will be taken for doing so by all of the wonderful elected individuals doing good for all of us. How can this not be show stopping headlines from all of the wonderful media outlets?
Alt Title: Gun homicides increase 3 percent since 1999.
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Lies, damned lies, and statistics.
I may have to start a new agency. the name Lying Liars is just too good.
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Too bad the statistics are just overall numbers, not per capita. Otherwise we could argue about whether you should count the "capita" before or after the shooting.
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What would be better? If everyone owned a gun or if no one owned a gun?
IMO, everyone. That's kind of how this country got started.
If not guns, it's knives, swords, hammers, hatchets, the handy rock, bare hands and so on, and so on. Guns are just a really nice deterrent for someone coming at you with any of the above mentioned "weapons". All of which, btw, are not "controlled".
Or, if in Australia, Vegemite sandwiches.
Ahhh, going way back to Men At work! Whatever happened to those guys anyway?
Wow--you're as old as me! But I actually wasn't thinking of them. I was referring to the Vegemite sandwich assassination attempt on the Prime Minister earlier this week. I understand there may have been two sandwiches involved. I'm not making this up.
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Now I have the fricken' song stuck in my head. Just kill me with a vegamite sandwich.