Opponents Protest in Face of NRA Silence on Sandy Hook Shooting

[SamH]

This seems if anything to be an argument for MORE stringent standards on what is considered an assault weapon, not less standards on all guns…evil people can do evil things, Tim McVeigh was evil and meticulous, I’d still take, if required, one OK bombing rather than a dozen Columbine-like shootings…wouldn’t you?

As pointed out by Prodigal Son1, criminals don’t obey the law.

 

[Blacksword]

I agree with most of what you’ve said here, especially about people not needing that kind of machine. That said, the government should not have the right to ban someone from owning any type of firearm. I will agree that thee need to be strict regulations in place, and for those more dangerous weapons I would even suggest a mental health screening; but people should still be able to obtain them if they chose to.

As others have pointed out, banning them isn’t really going to keep people from obtaining them; so instead it’ll just create a large backlog for the people who are seeking them for legitimate reasons (i.e. not the killing of their fellow man), while the people who are seeking them for illicit reasons will have about as much difficulty as they’ve always had, nothing will change on their end.

Why? Please articulate a rational reason why you think people should have access to, essentially, any and every kind of killing tool. Something beyond just saying “the 2nd Amendment”. The founding fathers never dreamed of the kinds of killing technology we have today, they were thinking of simple firearm for hunting or, more specifically, for “a well-regulated militia”. People stockpiling arsenals that would make Rambo blush is clearly not meeting that standard. The government has the authority, and responsibility, to make reasonable judgments in the interests in furthering public safety, surely you agree? Should I be able to own a rocket launcher? What about a private missile silo? Can I buy my own nuclear missile? If not, why not?

 

[SamH]

The founding fathers never dreamed of the kinds of killing technology we have today, they were thinking of simple firearm for hunting or, more specifically, for “a well-regulated militia”.

Actually when the Founding fathers wrote the second amendment civilians had better weapons in general than the army. Why do you think they would want this to change?

 

[Blacksword]

It was his mother’s weapons she purchased them legally she had no mental problems.

The problem with an assault weapon ban it depends who decides what an assault weapon is. During the so-called Assault Weapons Ban during the Clinton administration on the list was some .223 weapons.

When I was a kid growing up in Michigan I had a .22 semi automatic hunting rifle it could shoot 20 rounds just keep pulling the trigger it was not on the ban list. Because it didn’t look like an assault weapon even though it had the same capabilities as some of the weapons that were on the ban list i.e. civilian AR-15.

Another one was the Mac-10 on the ban list all the company did was take-off the flash suppressor rename it AB-10 for After Ban and resold it.

You had a bunch of non gun owning politicians make up the ban list and they didn’t know what they’re doing—but they felt good about it.

There are already enough laws on the books and I’m sure all those gang bangers obey the laws?

Oh I do know people that uses Bushmaster .223 and AR-15 for deer hunting.

You’re making a great argument for smarter, more carefully crafted restrictions, not a case for doing away with restrictions, you know that, right? I’m all for having firearms experts help in crafting effective legislation on this, definitely! And let me know the next time gang bangers shoot up a school or church or movie theater in a non-crime ridden inner city location. Inner city crime is clearly much more complex an issue and requires much more than banning certain weapons to meaningfully address it. However that doesn’t mean that making such bans doesn’t also have a depressing effect on such violence: making such weapons illegal makes it harder for petty and low-level criminals to get them too. And professional criminals don’t randomly slaughter innocents in schools.

 

[Prodigal_Son1]

On older models. Newer models have been redesigned. Accuracy goes down considerably with full auto and even rapidly firing a semi automatic. Rate of fire is really irrelevant when no one can stop the shooter because they themselves are unarmed. The guy could have used a pump shotgun and been just as deadly taking minimal time to reload.

I agree that a pump shotgun could have been as devastating. The problem is, the majority of these killers are not drawn to the pump shotgun. They seem to have an attraction to the military replicas.

As people discuss mental illnesses, no one has said anything about the psyche that draws one to a military replica as a choice of mass shootings. Is that psyche something that should be investigated?

 

[scipio337]

This seems if anything to be an argument for MORE stringent standards on what is considered an assault weapon, not less standards on all guns…evil people can do evil things, Tim McVeigh was evil and meticulous, I’d still take, if required, one OK bombing rather than a dozen Columbine-like shootings…wouldn’t you?

What is your definition? Do you know anything about weapons? The definition used by Feinstein and co is entirely arbitrary. You’d have to consider everything outside of a bolt action rifle (with no magazine, please!) as an assault weapon.

 

[Prodigal_Son1]

As pointed out by Prodigal Son1, criminals don’t obey the law.

Criminals are not the majority of our population, hopefully. A more concentrated effort of enforcement is logistically realistic on a smaller percentage.

 

[Cavman]

That really doesn’t address the point you raised, and the points in my response. It also appears to be biased towards one view.

We can either find real recommendations, with open minds, or lawmakers will impose what they feel is real.

Let’s be for real passing one more anti-gun law is not going to do a thing! The laws are already on the books now. My real recommendation is to get rid of Gun Free Zones.

 

[Blacksword]

When you say ‘no one’ I don’t think you really mean that. You mean no one who is not in the police or military (especially this since these ‘killing machines’ were designed for them). So you really mean some people need it and others do not. So why do some people need it? I’m sure you’d say for defense and law and order. I would point out the US was founded with the notion you did not need standing armies or police forces. The citizens were to a large degree responsible for necessary defense and police actions. So was that an insane, unworkable system? Clearly not. It also had many advantages.

Clearly the police and migrate as I’ve said elsewhere. But the rest of your post is a myth…places with largely vigilante law were horrible…unless you think the Old West was a great model for a civilized society!. The Revolutionary War was won largely by a professional and trained army helped by mercenaries and professional French soldiers, NOT by farmers with their rifles. The unregulated militias of volunteers in the Mexican American War were such a disaster that they were sent home…you’ve been watching too many movies like “Red Dawn” if you believe this stuff.

 

[Prodigal_Son1]

Let’s be for real passing one more anti-gun law is not going to do a thing! The laws are already on the books now. My real recommendation is to get rid of Gun Free Zones.

Then more enforcement of preventing murder, robbery, rape, etc. is not going to do a thing. The laws are already on the books now.

I’m not trying to advocate a ban, but a control. Through a control, rights are maintained, but with certain responsibilities. Strict gun registrations, with strict transfer recording requirements. Strict laws on securing weapons, to prevent them from being taken by others. Possible insurance requirements. Training and licensing requirements. Mental evaluations requirements, which could be based on other actions, or concerns voiced by others. Ammo purchasing restrictions. Any of this objectionable to the law abiding citizens?

 

[styrgwillidar]

Minor changes to an AR15 can result in a M16, for all practical purposes.

No they can’t. If they can they are considered to be full-auto and fall under the NFA which bans new production full auto weapons. And the legal definition of a full auto weapon includes, as I posted before, any weapon which can be easily modified to full-auto (more than one round fired with a single pull of the trigger), or the components to make it fire full auto.

 

[Blacksword]

The average follower of Jim Jones wasn’t allowed to have a gun. But his guards carried machine guns to make sure no one escaped from his liberal utopia. Whenever liberals start talking about their ideas for a utopia on earth it always reminds me of Jim Jones.

Hmm, I must say I find it a little ironic that evidently Bella’s post was deleted in which she compared rather fringe gun rights advocates to Gollum, a fictional character from The Lord of the Rings, but this post, which compares liberals to Jim Jones, a lunatic and mass murderer, goes unchecked…very interesting.

 

[Prodigal_Son1]

No they can’t. If they can they are considered to be full-auto and fall under the NFA which bans new production full auto weapons. And the legal definition of a full auto weapon includes, as I posted before, any weapon which can be easily modified to full-auto (more than one round fired with a single pull of the trigger), or the components to make it fire full auto.

Do a search online and you’ll see they can. Only now, a semi-automatic is more accurate; more accurate is more deadly.

As for the mention of current laws, not specifically the ones you mentioned, it seems criminals are circumventing, or ignoring, them to enact their crimes on society.

What kind of deer hunter needs a 30 round clip to kill a deer? Does the deer stand still for a second shot, much less 29 more shots?

 

[exnihilo]

I agree that a pump shotgun could have been as devastating. The problem is, the majority of these killers are not drawn to the pump shotgun. They seem to have an attraction to the military replicas.

Right but if we ban a weapon because it is used in a crime we keep going until we ban all weapons since I’m sure any given weapon will eventually be used in a crime.

But the rest of your post is a myth…places with largely vigilante law were horrible…unless you think the Old West was a great model for a civilized society!.

I am not speaking of vigilante justice. What I am saying is that in the past we did not have professional police forces. We had sheriffs and deputies. And when they needed extra hands they would get the local townsmen to help participate. Also the Common Law empowered the citizen with powers of arrest or detention for crime. The idea from which this sprung was that we all participate in the governing of society. This is true democracy. The modern notion is we have professionals who take care of it. This leads to a degraded society as we pass by trouble figuring it is the police’s job to take care of it. And of course the police eventually become like a criminal gang living above the law and protecting themselves from it.

It is a myth that the western US was wild and lawless. It actually did not have a high rate of gun crime according to research.

 

[Prodigal_Son1]

Have you noticed the gun rights advocates have included limitations of weapons on law enforcement with their right to bear arms? No one seeking controls, or bans for that matter, is seeking an inclusion of military or law enforcement to be limited in doing their job. In fact, most seeking controls want the law enforcement to have better weapons than the criminals they encounter.

 

[scipio337]

The second question is silly, obviously the Constitution does not. For the first question: have a look en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushmaster_M4_Type_Carbine

I’d say the fact that it is a semi-automatic gun even in the non-automatic versions, capable of firing off huge amounts of rounds in a super short amount of time, and has been used in numerous military conflicts and by tons of countries’ militaries, makes it a “military-grade assault rifle”. It’s based on an AR-15! There is no reason a civilian needs something like this, and if the crazy who murdred those kinds had been armed with a handgun or simple hunting rifle we’d have 4 or 5 dead children at most instead of 20, plain and simple. Killing capacity MATTERS when we’re talking about a deranged person with a firearm. How many successive shots can you squeeze off before you have to reload? How quickly can you fire those shots? How long does it take to reload? The answer to these questions in the case of weapons like this is, respectively: inexcusably too many for a civilian non-law enforcement officer to have access to, way too quickly, super quick in fact, and, lastly, a few seconds to reload: just remove one clip and stick in the new one.

Do you know what “Semi automatic” means?

Where does the 2nd Amendment state “so long as you get what you need”?

This is a knee jerk reaction not based on fact, but emotion. The killer could have used any number of weapons (some look even less scary than an AR, but are more deadly). Less dead with a handgun? False. Seung-Hui Cho shot and killed 32 people with 2 handguns, one of which was a .22 caliber (only slightly smaller than a .223 in the AR).

Again, this definition is entirely arbitrary.

 

[philial]

Let’s be for real passing one more anti-gun law is not going to do a thing! The laws are already on the books now. My real recommendation is to get rid of Gun Free Zones.

Just curious - are churches gun - free zones? If not, how many on this forum carry a gun to mass? And if not, why not?

 

[scipio337]

We can, if those measures don’t include bans.

Because bans eliminate a means for me to defend myself, and more importantly remove one of the checks and balances and separation of powers from our system of government, and provide no commesurate benefit that justifies those risks.

They also lead to more crime not less, they don’t address the problem. You never reduce crime by disarming the victims, you’ve simply created more attractive victims for the criminal.

The problem is two pronged. First, how do we keep people from wanting to do this in the first place? How do we eliminate the motive- it’s not money, it’s a desire for wanton destruction. Eliminate that, and the shootings/bombings/poisonings/gassings stop.

Second. How do we best protect the public in those cases where someone gets this idea?

I like the idea of insurance for gun owners, however, the poor in lousy neighborhoods are the ones who have the greatest need for access to weapons. I live in a pretty good neighborhood, I don’t have loaded weapons in my home. Well, unless a butcher knife on the counter is a loaded weapon. I can afford another type of insurace, or combine it with my homeowner’s (BTW, homeowner’s policies do require a declaration of firearm and there is some liability coverage) But others don’t have my advantages, I won’t be look Bloomberg and insist others make my same choices and accept my same risks. That’s tyranny. (And hyocrisy, he’s not disarming his security detail. But then, he thinks its the governments job to tell you how big a soda you can order/serve).

We do have to do a better job about the mentally ill. I don’t see a problem with banning weapons from a home with a dangerous person, even if it affects everyone there. If that person is an adult, they can live somewhere else. If a minor, than it is more important for the parent to address the mental issues than have a weapon around (basically insurance for the low-odds event of robbery/assault). US courts do this all the time. A man who worked for me had his wife pull a gun on him in their home. He disarmed her, but the court put a condition that for them to continue to live together, no firearms could be in the home.

We absolutely have to eliminate gun-free zones. This is a cosmetic, feel-good measure that has proven to be disastrous in practise. With the exception of the shooting of Rep Gifford, every public shooting in the US with more than 3 deaths since 1950 has occurred where the public couldn’t have firearms.

Police can not respond in time. Legally, it is not their job or responsibility to protect an individual or prevent crime. They enforce the laws.

Facebook and public/social media. Most of these folks post things, they are after noteriety, can we monitor for key phrases? Can we do a better job of people reporting their friends or relatives who post threateing/disturbing things?

A parent/friend/psychiatrist/teacher- anyone- should be able to swear out a statement that an individual may present a mental health threat citing a specific rational. That should lead to the person having a hearing/evaluation within 2 weeks. That hearing should result in a treatment including confinement or out-patient and access to weapons recommendation to be imposed by a court. That would include removing all firearms from their home.

I’m a big First Amendment/Free Speech supporter as well. But,

• If they truly are being influenced by violence in the media, or video games— Is it time to eliminate them? Including the serial killer horror movies? Ok, millions watch or play without doing this, just like the vast majority of folks with access to guns don’t do this. But where is the idea coming from? And an idea is far more dangerous than a weapon. Given the idea, you’ll find the tool and there are far more deadly tools than guns.
• Publicity. Is it time to stop publicizing all the info about the shooters? Do we invoke the ancient tradition of eliminating any reference to the person whatsoever. If they’re after noteriety, that eliminates it. Instead of being famous and known, their actions result in being wiped entirely from the historical record. Every photo, e-mail, letter, or trace right down to the birth certificate.

Shall issue concealed carry. In these spree shootings, the person stops when confronted by an armed opponent. Usually they kill themselves, as did the Oregon mall shooter when confronted by a CCW holder, ending the rampage. The earlier they’re confronted, the sooner the shooting stops. Allowing those law abiding US citizens the option to carry a weapon in self defense in combination with the elimination of gun-free zones distinctly reduces the incentive for the mentally ill person who wants publicity through a big body count. Note the lack of publicity in the cases which occur every day where no-one, or ‘only’ one or two people are killed when promptly confronted.

This ^

 

[Prodigal_Son1]

Right but if we ban a weapon because it is used in a crime we keep going until we ban all weapons since I’m sure any given weapon will eventually be used in a crime.

We are crossing bridges as we come to them, and not envisioning how to get across before we get there. As I pointed out, these gunmen are attracted to the military replicas.

Also, gun right advocates continue to revert to ‘bans’. I have proposed stricter controls on certain weapons, and even listed some suggestions. It seems they get overlooked and leave me with the impression that gun right advocates are not willing to endure more controls personally, even in an attempt to lower the number of attacks we now live under from within.

 

[styrgwillidar]

Then more enforcement of preventing murder, robbery, rape, etc. is not going to do a thing. The laws are already on the books now.

I’m not trying to advocate a ban, but a control. Through a control, rights are maintained, but with certain responsibilities. Strict gun registrations, with strict transfer recording requirements. Strict laws on securing weapons, to prevent them from being taken by others. Possible insurance requirements. Training and licensing requirements. Mental evaluations requirements, which could be based on other actions, or concerns voiced by others. Ammo purchasing restrictions. Any of this objectionable to the law abiding citizens?

Well it really depends on how those regulations are implemented. And it doesn’t improve the situation at gun-free zones at all. It does not address how to better protect people from the mentally ill or just plain evil. Again, all your proposals will be followed by the law-abiding, who aren’t the problem now.

Are some people going to be more equal than others?
Under CAs CCW process, it’s up to the local sheriff whether you get a CCW. It’s called discretionary issue. Some women after being almost killed, with restraining orders in place, and the offender threatening to kill them after getting out of prison – have been denied permits. Yet celebrities, the wealthy, and politicians seem to have no problem getting them. Some jurisdictions see self-defense as a legitimate reason, other interpert folks showing good judgment or justification as eliminating anyone other than someone who demonstrates their good judgement by donating to the sheriff’s re-election fund.

Yet, at my kids school the law abiding can’t even carry a knife. Not an adult, not a kid, no one. Someone reasonably proficient with a simple pump shotgun can wreak havoc. Nothing or no-one there to stop them. Help us all if they start googling how to create more destructive devices.

You say you want a solution but you avoid the core issue. Why would someone do this? How do you stop folks from wanting to do this? That is far more important than the weapon. If you have the desire, you will find the tool and opportunity.

You realize the Aurora shooter decided to bypass theaters closer to him than the one he chose. The one he chose was the only one with signs posted stating they prohibited legal CCW holders from carrying firearms onto the premises.