Tennesseer
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Post by Tennesseer on Dec 15, 2012 13:32:24 GMT -5
We need to treat mental health issues and make it more difficult for crazy people to get guns. Gun advocates don't seem to want to compromise on anything - they should be able to buy all the guns they want, not have to secure have them, and shoot people they consider dangerous anywhere under the stand your ground law. A recent series of articles pointed out that the NRA is a paper tiger - it has no effect on congressional elections at all. Their current stance on gun laws makes them more and more irrelevant every day. Annie-I believe you know in the Connecticut 'incident' the owner of the legally bought guns was the mother of the shooter. Her son, whether he was mentally ill or not, did not purchase them. But this then raises the question of how secure the weapons were in this woman's home. If the son was mentally ill, and his mother did not secure the weapons knowing her son was mentally ill, then there was a problem. I would be interested to learn in which manner the mother was murdered. By her own handgun? Maybe. Families who own handguns and semi-automatics and who store them at home, and who also have mentally ill friends and family members, need to be doubly sure these weapons can not be accessed by these individuals.
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Post by The Walk of the Penguin Mich on Dec 15, 2012 13:34:30 GMT -5
A gun is designed to..........destroy things. What those things are varies, but the point of a gun is destruction. It provides no other utility.
Umm, entertainment? If you look at something solely for utility, then you can get rid of a whole host of other things that cause death.
Shooting guns is fun and it's a challenge to see how well you can get at it. Changing up the firearm changes a variable.
Just because you think that destruction is the only purpose doesn't mean that it's so.
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Pants
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Post by Pants on Dec 15, 2012 14:10:48 GMT -5
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Dec 15, 2012 14:14:40 GMT -5
My rights to own a gun have nothing to do with an insane person who should not have been able to access weapons. His parents made a mistake and paid for it with their lives. Unfortunately, others also paid for it.
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doxieluvr
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Post by doxieluvr on Dec 15, 2012 14:17:03 GMT -5
I recently visited a house where the owner had so many guns, I seriously doubt her would even know if 5 or even 10 guns disappeared. I am talking hundreds. He is a prepper. Many gun owners own multiple guns, so they might not notice if one goes missing. We have a safe that only DH and I have the code. But your right. My brother has 5 or so of the same gun. All are set up for if for different purposes, so unless he is going turkey hunting, he may never realize the turkey gun is gone. In the safe it looks similar to 4 other guns.
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doxieluvr
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Post by doxieluvr on Dec 15, 2012 14:19:25 GMT -5
I was agreeing with you until you said this: Hunting is not necessary for population control. Nature has a way of controlling the populations just fine. All we do, in our high and mighty assumption that we are in control, is to make a big mess of the whole thing. Without hunting in this area, we get overrun with deer. So much so that DNR released coyotes to kill deer. Hunters taking them out for food is way better than introducing coyotes to the area. Hunting also helps with having a lot of dead deer along the roads. When food is scarce they travel distance in attempt to find food. I do not like hunting, do not eat meat but I did grow up on a farm and get the necessity of controlling populations.
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Post by The Walk of the Penguin Mich on Dec 15, 2012 14:21:05 GMT -5
Who refuses to put restrictions on firearms? I think that you are being naive if you believe that if you take all guns away that you will solve mass murders. Timothy McVeigh killed more people with a truck full of fertilizer.....do you want to ban trucks and fertilizer? If someone is so unhinged that they are set to destroy a kindergarten class, lack of a gun is not going to stop them. As this person was reported to be quite intelligent, it would have been nothing for him to rig up something even more destructive.
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doxieluvr
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Post by doxieluvr on Dec 15, 2012 14:28:07 GMT -5
While we do need to address child abuse, as a society, where did this come from and how does it relate to gun control? Stopping child abuse has been an objective I've had for many years, so just thought I'd throw it in there. And in regards to guns being nothing more than a means of destruction, I disagree 100%. Shooting competitions are great entertainment in my neck of the woods. Great prize money to be had. Those guns didn't grow legs and walk into that school and kill all those kids. I am not at all into hunting. But I love to go to the gun range or shoot clay pigeons in a field.
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doxieluvr
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Post by doxieluvr on Dec 15, 2012 14:57:32 GMT -5
Without hunting in this area, we get overrun with deer. So much so that DNR released coyotes to kill deer. Hunters taking them out for food is way better than introducing coyotes to the area. Hunting also helps with having a lot of dead deer along the roads. When food is scarce they travel distance in attempt to find food. I do not like hunting, do not eat meat but I did grow up on a farm and get the necessity of controlling populations. But you see my point in that we are the ones who causing the problem. We shoot the cougars and then when the deer population explodes we shoot them, too. We do not have cougars and big game animals in this area. Coyotes were not common until they released them. Animals are part of the life cycle. They are a food source to many people. If none were ever killed we would be overrun as they do not use any form of birth control. Every crop a farmer planted would be consumed by wild animals.
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Tennesseer
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Post by Tennesseer on Dec 15, 2012 15:17:29 GMT -5
Lonewolf-I am not a fan of hunting animals for sport but I also realize it is sometimes necessary for animal overpopulation-deer in particular.
I used to live in New Jersey and drive on I-287 to work. All the towns I drove through while on my way to work via I-287 were bedroom communities for NYC. It was sad to see a dead deer hit by a car laying on the side of the interstate every half mile. Every single day there were dead deer on the highway. There were/are no natural predators in that area to prey on the deer and keep their numbers in check. Sadly, the deer had readily adapted to living in the suburbs. Only hunting was able to reduce their numbers.
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Post by The Walk of the Penguin Mich on Dec 15, 2012 15:21:13 GMT -5
A couple years ago, TD and I were driving to NY on I90, through PA. There was a part of the road that was an utter bloodbath. I am not sure how many animals were hit because there was only parts scattered along the side of the road.....and massive quantities of blood. Damn deer didn't pay attention to the deer crossing signs 3 miles back.
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DVM gone riding
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Post by DVM gone riding on Dec 15, 2012 16:44:13 GMT -5
Yes. It should be in a high quality safe that you can't move. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I317 using proboards What the F?? good does my gun do me in a "unmovable" locked save? If my dad's guns had been hidden throughout the house the thieves never would have gotten them, having them in a save is what got them stolen.
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Sum Dum Gai
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Post by Sum Dum Gai on Dec 15, 2012 17:02:57 GMT -5
You used too, before we killed them all. Wolves, coyotes, mountain lions, and bears used to exist all over north America. We destroyed most of the predator populations, which is why there's no checks on the prey populations anymore. Well, other than us going out and killing some of the prey too.
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DVM gone riding
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Post by DVM gone riding on Dec 15, 2012 17:03:38 GMT -5
Do you think alcohol should be outlawed (again) because many people use it irresponsibly? You don't like the car argument because it is necessary to our lives but alcohol serves NO purpose . It causes 1000's of deaths every year it destroys lives and tears families apart--we should outlaw it cause it has no purpose and everyone who insists on drinking is an irresponsible asshole... You do realize you sound ignorant and illogical right?!?
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 15, 2012 17:13:20 GMT -5
What the F?? good does my gun do me in a "unmovable" locked save? What is your solution then? What laws would you support restricting gun ownership? So far on this thread what I've read is that people should be able to buy whatever guns they want, whatever ammunition they want, they shouldn't have to keep them in a safe, and they shouldn't be prosecuted if they are stolen and used in a crime. The guns that killed these children legally purchased. The mother of the shooter owned five guns and taught her children to shoot. I'm sure she thought it was a fun hobby until her mentally ill child turned around, shot her in the face with her gun, and then killed 25 more people. By your definition the mother did nothing wrong.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 15, 2012 17:21:28 GMT -5
Here's a list of the dead. Each was shot between 3-11 times. Only two made it to the hospital before they died. The shooting was over and 24 people were dead in less than 22 minutes. But hey, being able to fire bullets rapidly is not a problem. CHILDREN: Charlotte Bacon, 6 Daniel Barden, 7 Olivia Engel, 6 Josephine Gay, 7 Ana Marquez-Greene, 6 Dylan Hockley, 6 Madeleine Hsu, 6 Catherine Hubbard, 6 Chase Kowalski, 7 Jesse Lewis, 6 James Mattioli, 6 Grace McDonnell, 7 Emilie Parker, 6 Jack Pinto, 6 Noah Pozner, 6 Caroline Previdi, 6 Jessica Rekos, 6 Avielle Richman, 6 Benjamin Wheeler, 6 Allison N. Wyatt, 6 ADULTS: Rachel Davino, 29 Dawn Hochsprung, 47 Anne Marie Murphy, 52 Lauren Russeau, 20 Mary Sherlach, 56 Victoria Soto, 27 Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2248651/Connecticut-school-shooting-Massacre-gunman-shot-child-11-times.html#ixzz2FA5Qhpg9Follow us: @mailonline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
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Tennesseer
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Post by Tennesseer on Dec 15, 2012 17:31:08 GMT -5
I know. We see the deer dead on the highways here, too. I still can't help feeling bad, because it was us who first invaded their territory. If it matters, I too have empathy for the animals just as you do. Hunting is what I call a necessary evil to manage the herds and keep them healthy.
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doxieluvr
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Post by doxieluvr on Dec 15, 2012 17:32:07 GMT -5
What the F?? good does my gun do me in a "unmovable" locked save? What is your solution then? What laws would you support restricting gun ownership? So far on this thread what I've read is that people should be able to buy whatever guns they want, whatever ammunition they want, they shouldn't have to keep them in a safe, and they shouldn't be prosecuted if they are stolen and used in a crime. The guns that killed these children legally purchased. The mother of the shooter owned five guns and taught her children to shoot. I'm sure she thought it was a fun hobby until her mentally ill child turned around, shot her in the face with her gun, and then killed 25 more people. By your definition the mother did nothing wrong. She did wrong but not getting her nut bag son help and not keeping the guns locked away from him. How would you like to punish her? Is death not sufficient? When my brother was going through those crazy, hormonal years he had no access to our safe. He grew up to be a responsible gun owner. He was a normal, healthy teenager, however I still took precaution even though he was a good kid.
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violagirl
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Post by violagirl on Dec 15, 2012 18:30:54 GMT -5
I'm not an American and I do not own any guns, so this is definitely from an outside point of view. The only guns I know that people own are maybe rifles or shotguns for hunting. I do not know a single person in my entire life who has ever had a handgun.
Is not the essence of the problem, not the guns, but the issue of individual rights or community rights? As i understand it, correct me if wrong, the reasons most Americans cite for owning a handgun would be protection or shooting for fun? In that case, why not have guns restricted to shooting ranges. And as for protection, does anyone have statistics on justified self-defense killings vs. accidental? I guess the question is, does YOUR right to protect yourself in the unlikely event your life is threatened (assuming most posters are lawabiding citizens not involved in anything nefarious) trump my right to go to a mall and not worry about some crazy person with a gun? What is the more likely scenario?
Like i said, I don't really have any statistics on the subject. It is an interesting moral dilemma.
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DVM gone riding
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Post by DVM gone riding on Dec 15, 2012 18:39:44 GMT -5
Anne There is a HUGE difference between safe/logical gun laws and complete outlaw of all fire arms. Just as there is a large different between prohibition that did little good and reasonable alcohol laws with penalties for breaking them. Just like if you over-serve someone and then allow them to drive there ARE penalties for allowing criminals and the mentally ill/children access to your guns. HOWEVER that is not the same as punishing an innocent law abiding citizen for having their weapon stolen from them.
I agree full auto weapons should NOT be legal (in many states they aren't incl Conn.), clips exceeding 30 rounds shouldn't be legal. CPL laws should probably involve some degree of mental status check--at very least some law enforcement actually talking with the applicant. I like shooting I like getting better at it. But I won't lie I bought my gun for protection and to euthanize if needed. There is little need for assault style weapons and despite its classification as a "rifle" the bushmaster in question in this shooting probably should be illegal. BUT ALL of the weapons in question where legal.
I personally think the NUMBER one cause of these escalations is failure in our mental health laws AND the increase in first person shooting games that we consistently show these people play in large numbers--I think we would see MORE of a decrease in these horrible tragedies attacking THOSE two then any gun law is going to stop.
I also think that the gun laws already in place need to be enforced. When the feds enforce their own laws and put illegal carriers in federal prison crime drops. I am much more concerned about drug dealers and rapists and the trauma they cause then the relatively rare incidences of school shootings.
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Tennesseer
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Post by Tennesseer on Dec 15, 2012 18:54:29 GMT -5
"I personally think the NUMBER one cause of these escalations is failure in our mental health laws..."
The other problem related to this are families in denial regarding the mental health of their family members and failure to call authorities when their family member becomes a menace within their own homes and to society in general.
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nalto
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Post by nalto on Dec 15, 2012 18:55:58 GMT -5
I've always seen guns as an instrument than COULD be used for violence. Then again, I've seen hammers as an instrument that COULD be used for violence. Along with fire, forks, pens, sticks of wood, toasters, Drain-O, etc.
The countries with the highest percent of the population that are gun owners are Israel and Switzerland. They also have the lowest criminal rate.
To me, the question we should be asking is not: "What can we do to make these weapons safer?" but "What's wrong with America, at the very core?"
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milee
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Post by milee on Dec 15, 2012 19:28:39 GMT -5
"I personally think the NUMBER one cause of these escalations is failure in our mental health laws..." The other problem related to this are families in denial regarding the mental health of their family members and failure to call authorities when their family member becomes a menace within their own homes and to society in general. Very true on the denial part. As for the failure to call authorities, I'm not sure that's always a great solution, though. In many areas, the public mental health services are either greatly lacking or just plain awful. It's not like a parent can call 911 and know that her son is going to get help, unfortunately. Having seen the mental health services in a few states, I can understand that parents may not view the authorities as a source of help.
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Dec 16, 2012 7:35:28 GMT -5
Trouble is, crazy people have RIGHTS and once they are 18, you can do nothing. We don't have mental institutions anymore where crazy people are locked up. They roam the streets freely.
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aliciar6
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Post by aliciar6 on Dec 17, 2012 12:41:45 GMT -5
And it's a hell of a lot easier to inflict damage when you can fire off 200 rounds without having to stop and reload. Do you realize how HEAVY and unwieldy even an AR-15 with a 200 round drum magazine is? (ammo is not light weight) And depending on the state, mags like that are illegal. You're more likely to have the weapon jam on you even if it's only semi-auto putting that many rounds down range on it. Most people also don’t want to spend the time it takes to load 100 or 200 rounds into a drum mag either. I can’t imagine anything less fun andI don’t think firing off 100 rounds on an AR-15 without re-loading or on full auto is going to be fun enough to have warranted the time spent to load the darn thing, but maybe that’s because I’ve played with high capacity enough weapons. Other machine guns (which are considered crew serve weapons) that can handle 200 rounds are extremely hard to get, expensive, big, and heavy. Also they are best used for suppressing fire as they are not exactly accurate and not meant to be fired "from the hip" (ie the M249, M240, MK46, MK48). The ammo you are buying for these is not cheap either, found it on one site for 100 rounds 5.56 linked for $80 with restrictions on where it can be sold and shipped to. I do believe this horrid and unspeakable school shooting, the psychopath had an AR-15 with 20 round mags, so he did have to re-load. He also brought handguns that were semi-auto as well. Depending on the state laws, you can get handgun mags that hold 30 rounds. Yes, AR's do come in full auto and are legal depending on what state you live and if you have the correct permits and licenses, and go through all the fun paperwork with the ATF to get them, but most likely at most you have a 30 round mag and again on full auto, your aim pretty much sucks unless you have shot and trained on full auto weapons for quite a while to know how to handle them to ensure you’re hitting where you want to be. It’s not just assault rifles and machine guns/sub-machine guns that are heavily regulated either, a family member owns a shotgun that required all kinds of paperwork through the ATF to own and took forever to purchase and pick up (I’m thinking it was over 4 months). There are a few full auto handguns out there and there are sub-machine guns that fire 9mm rounds or 45 on full auto such as the MAC 10 (and yes I have shot one and my family owns one) though the clip holds 30 rounds. It’s not very accurate either and neither is a person firing something that is full auto. For most normal people who own fully auto and semi auto weapons they do it to collect and because they find them fun to shoot when at the RANGE at paper targets and they are well secured. Trust me, you aren’t getting the safes my family has that are full of weapons out of the basement, it was hard enough to get the empty safe down there (it requires both a key and a combination to open). It’s fine if you don’t get it, but it’s not bad to own them. Some of them are actually very good investments. Had my father bought the FN Minimi years ago, it would now be worth 10 times what he would have paid for it. Something does need to be done though. But banning weapons or certain ones because there are psychopaths out there that misuse them isn’t going to end or solve the problem. If they couldn’t get a gun, they could just as easily mow children down with a car, make homemade explosives and take out even more people, they will find a way to enact violence and terror on innocent people because they have issues. As a whole our society is an issue. When people think it’s ok to solve whatever problem or frustration they have with violence, we have a societal problem. Laws make it harder for those of us who follow them to obtain weapons legally, granted I would personally have no problem having to fill out the paperwork required to get a secret clearance in order to buy weapons like the Minimi or fully auto AR-15’s or AK-47’s (heck I have done it and have one of the highest clearances you can get). But you don’t see someone shooting up the mall with a belt fed machine gun either because of the cost, size, and weight. More laws don’t make it harder for someone who is going to break them anyway one way or another. While what happened at the school made me break down and cry for those children, their families, and friends, we need to do more as a society to fix this “violence is the answer” problem. I'm not saying that there isn't futher gun control out there that wouldn't be helpful, I don't necissarily think it's bans though. Psychological testing sounds good in theory but who decides if you are sane enough to responsible own weapons and what kind and what is that judgement based on?
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Tennesseer
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Post by Tennesseer on Dec 17, 2012 12:51:44 GMT -5
What this country needs to do is never, ever mention again the name(s) of the perpetrators of such crimes as happened in Newtown. Most if not all of these killers want to go out in blazing glory and to be remembered forever. Failures in life-infamously remembered in death or destruction.
Taking away what these future killers desperately seek (notoriety) may reduce the numbers of these mass killings.
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