General Mass Shooting Thread (originally Las Vegas Strip)

[PleaseBlitz]

5 minutes ago, DogofWar1 said:

 

I see NY and Cali are still "May-Issue."

 

As such liberals are still ruining everything.

 

If only more states were required to issue handgun permits to people with no idea how to use them, we'd all be much safer.  

 

- Someone's actual position.  

[MartinC]

4 minutes ago, DC9 said:

 

I'm trying to be fair to both sides but everyone is just flinging crap out there.

 

Given there is nothing actually going to be done - what else is there for us to do?

[Popeman38]

11 minutes ago, AsburySkinsFan said:

Until we as gun owners can accept that gun ownership is a priviledge to be well regulated as opposed to an absolute and unicumbeted right, then suvstantive change will not take place.  

Gun ownership is not a privilege, it is a right. 

 

We agree it needs to be well regulated.

[MartinC]

1 minute ago, Popeman38 said:

We agree it needs to be well regulated.

 

In a militia perhaps?

[NoCalMike]

The "well-regulated" part seems to be a sticking point. A "well-regulated militia" seems to be a bigger sticking point.

 

I had a conversation with my friend once, who is a gun owner. I asked him about that part of the 2nd amendment and his interpretation was that the "well-regulated militia" merely meant the American people in general.  

For me, that just seems crazy.  Perhaps in a nation of thousands of people I could buy that interpretation, but "well-regulated" militia seems to be pretty specific in that it seems to be referring to the militia itself being regulated, not just the regulation of weapons purchasing itself.

 

I am also no constitutional scholar or great historian, but I thought I remember learning in school that part of the wording was put there specifically because the founders did not believe in a standing army in times of peace...(does that even exist anymore?) and that the well-regulated militia, not the military, would be the folks who protected the country from foreign invasion.   Does that national guard now qualify as that well-regulated militia?

 

 

Edited February 15, 2018 by NoCalMike

[Llevron]

3 minutes ago, Popeman38 said:

Gun ownership is not a privilege, it is a right. 

 

Correct me if Im wrong but freedom is a right and you can lose that. Whats the difference? 

[Popeman38]

Just now, MartinC said:

In a militia perhaps?

No. Because society has redefined militia to be right wing nut jobs looking to overthrow the government. Close your eyes and tell me what you see when you think 'militia'.

 

When the 2nd was written, a militia was every able bodied man (like 18-65).  They had to provide their own weapons, because it was against the law to have a standing army.

 

Cue the "well you can have muskets then, in 3, 2, 1...

1 minute ago, Llevron said:

Correct me if Im wrong but freedom is a right and you can lose that. Whats the difference? 

Serious?

 

To lose your freedom, you have to (are supposed to have had to) commit a crime.

[MartinC]

Just now, Popeman38 said:

Cue the "well you can have muskets then, in 3, 2, 1...

 

I WAS joking - but now you mention it ...

[Popeman38]

4 minutes ago, NoCalMike said:

The "well-regulated" part seems to be a sticking point. 

Politics, money, and lobby get in the way of well regulated.

[LD0506]

1 hour ago, Bang said:

Hey @LD0506...    maybe this is it?

 

~Bang

 

I don't know, I doubt it.......

 

What I DO know is that we have a 14 yr old son, and as I watched parents being held at bay while the school was cleared and the situation stabilized, worrying, dying a little at a time from not knowing if their child was dead or alive something within me twisted and bled. I watch today and hear an anguished mother tearfully pleading for something to be done, then see McConnell burbling "We can't politicize this incident" and "This isn't the time to talk about legislation" and that piece of me flares with rage. I see the kids walking home from the HS right across the street from our neighborhood and realize it could happen right here as easily as anywhere and I am furious.

 

I want to see the NRA sued the way the Klan was for church bombings, the way the Aryan Brotherhood was ground into oblivion.

 

Don't tell me nothing can be done, don't you dare.............

Edited February 15, 2018 by LD0506

[Elessar78]

Everyone calm down. All the pro-gun posts are just bots sent by Putin.

[Popeman38]

Just now, MartinC said:

 

I WAS joking - but now you mention it ...

My bad, we need a sarcasm font (Comic sans).

[Llevron]

1 minute ago, Popeman38 said:

Serious?

 

To lose your freedom, you have to (are supposed to have had to) commit a crime.

 

Whats the issue then with making it so people who have committed a violent crime cant buy a gun. Ever. Taking that right away from them (or losing that privilege) 

 

1 minute ago, Popeman38 said:

My bad, we need a sarcasm font (Comic sans).

 

Definitely a need. 

[Sticksboi05]

33 minutes ago, crabbypatty said:

 

That statement is based on what, your opinion?

What constitutes a "trained professional"? A cop who goes to the range once a year to qualify?

Military, swat??

 

That whole paragraph sounds like you're just talking out of your ass, with zero basis in fact, just your opinion. Because we all know that all gun owners are paranoid cowards apparently. There are stories every day about how people who ccw stop robberies, carjackings, home invasions, etc.

The reason you don't read about that more often is twofold:

1. it doesn't fit the "guns are evil" narrative, plus is not very sensationalist so coverage is minimal

2. a very small percentage of the population are actually licensed to carry, due to gun laws being what they are.

 

If more states had shall issue ccw or constitutional carry (like here in wv) we'd probably see a bunch more stories about people defending themselves and their families with guns, as opposed to the 24/7 stories you see about people being victimized with guns.

 

1. Stories of people stopping robberies are extremely newsworthy and any outlet would absolutely cover; there's a reason those stories come out less than people killed or injured (hint: it's because that happens way more often)

 

2. Instead of handing a gun to everyone and making us safer through mutually assured destruction, why don't we try to actually evolve and solve the problems leading to the crimes you mentioned. The essential war on poor people, and the continual transfer of wealth from the lower class to the 1% doesn't help, and making it harder to start creating generational wealth for your own family doesn't help; not that that will stop the GOP from pretending trickle down economics works whatsoever; many crimes are crimes of survival and desperation - when you don't need to worry about money, the odds of you committing violent crime is much much lower (not including true sociopaths of course)

 

 

[Popeman38]

Just now, Llevron said:

Whats the issue then with making it so people who have committed a violent crime cant buy a gun. Ever. Taking that right away from them (or losing that privilege) 

That already exists.  Felons are prohibited from purchasing a firearm, unless they appeal to the state and are regranted that right.  

 

[Warhead36]

I don't want to hear "thoughts and prayers" from our lawmakers.

 

Repeal the 2nd amendment. This isn't 1776 anymore.

[Fresh8686]

Thought this was interesting from the title, but haven't watched it yet and judged it's merits. Found it in a Vox article https://www.vox.com/2015/10/3/9444417/gun-violence-united-states-america

 

[Llevron]

Just now, Popeman38 said:

That already exists.  Felons are prohibited from purchasing a firearm, unless they appeal to the state and are regranted that right.  

 

 

I feel like that doesn't cover all violent crimes. Again correct me if Im wrong (im known to be). 

 

Even so, we need to effectively regulate that. I know thats a whole other ball of wax though.  

[AsburySkinsFan]

21 minutes ago, Popeman38 said:

Gun ownership is not a privilege, it is a right. 

 

We agree it needs to be well regulated.

It needs to be well regulated.

But rights cannot be denied without due process, gun ownership should be at least as difficult to acheive as a driver’s license. Thus it should be a privilege. 

I wrote what I wrote deliberately and specifically.

[crabbypatty]

Bare with me, this will be a long one, but I think I'm one of the uniquely qualified to speak on the subject of mass school shootings since I experienced one when I was in high school (Lindhurst, CA, Eric Houston was the bad guy, 1992)

Anyway, I normally sat next to one of the kids who was killed (Beamon Hill) me and him didn't get along, so I used any excuse to leave my seat. That particular day, I left my seat to talk to a girl I liked when the shooting started. Classrooms in that building didn't have regular doors, they were big opened doorways.

so if you can imagine this, the X being the doorway, the Y being my seat, and the Z being beamon's seat, it went like this, with the dashes representing about a foot for each dash

X---------Y-Z

I literally sat between Beamon and the doorway. Like I said, that day I wasn't in my seat, I was up front talking to a girl I liked when the shooting started.

Houston shot from the hallway in through the doorway (X) through where I would have been sitting (Y) and into Beamon's head (Z).

I remember everyone crowding up into the front corners of the classroom, stacked on top of each other like a big pile of leaves. I remember the guy walking into the room and looking around, and looking at his eyes, then he turned around and walked out. I didn't know beamon was dead until Houston walked away and our teacher came in yelling for everyone to gtfo. I saw his desk toppled over and his feet sticking up in the air and knew he was dead, but didn't realize the significance at the time. Had I been in my seat that day, I'd be dead and he'd probably be alive.

Houston took hostages that day, my cousin was one of them, she was held for around 4 hours I believe before he surrendered (I don't remember how long exactly)

Anyway, that experience did not scare me away from guns, and turn me into a raving "guns should be banned" type. I realized that ****ed up people will do ****ed up things, and no amount of laws or hand wringing or demonizing will stop them from doing what they want if their brain is that twisted.

Yes, banning guns from everyone will probably save lives and make these types of terroristic attacks less frequent, but there's that pesky thing called the 2nd amendment and the slippery slope you start down once you start banning rights that this country was founded on. Not to mention the sheer number of guns that are out there already. Everyone likes to point to Australia, but they're a small Island (population wise) fairly isolated from the rest of the world.

Drugs are illegal here, and they come over in record numbers...

 

Bad guys will never follow the law. The only ones the laws hurt/inconvenience is the law abiding citizens.

[Llevron]

I still wonder why we are more worried about what happens if we mess with the second amendment than people killing our own children. Its especially shocking that a survivor would feel the same way. 

[Popeman38]

8 minutes ago, AsburySkinsFan said:

It needs to be well regulated.

But rights cannot be denied without due process, gun ownership should be at least as difficult to acheive as a driver’s license. Thus it should be a privilege. 

I wrote what I wrote deliberately and specifically.

Understood.  We will agree to disagree on that one point, and agree we need good regulations on firearms.

[bobandweave]

Criminals don't clear any hurdles or obey the laws when they want guns. They just go get them.

 

Who follows the rules and jumps over the hurdles with obtaining guns? The law abiding citizen.

 

Who commits these terrible mass shooting crimes?

 

Criminals.

 

That's the issue with guns in the USA. People don't want to admit that criminals break the law. Only good people follow the law. Gun laws only hurt the people who wouldn't break them anyway. 

 

If the government rounds up guns and takes them from the people then the only people who will turn in guns are the law abiding citizens. The criminals would never turn them in. 

 

The answer to stopping the senseless massacres like yesterday is honestly having guns in the schools. Put an armory in a school and the criminals wouldn't even think about entering that place to commit murder.

 

The reason our government put the right to bare arms in the bill of rights was because those guys had just led a revolt against the existing government. They over threw the government. The new government needed to protect  itself back then, How better to protect yourself then to give everyone the right to own a gun? They knew the British could come back with other mercenaries at any time. They knew that guns are a detracting force. Guns stop mass murderers. That's a fact. Why else is the senseless murders always stopped when a gun is turned on the bad guy?

 

There is absolutely no reason to try and take away any guns. In fact if the field was leveled with who had guns and who didn't then a lot of the crime would stop. Its not going to stop in poor areas like Chicago because guns aren't the answer for everything. Guns are the answer for some questions. Put the guns in the schools. Put guns everywhere. We already have a ratio of 101 guns to 100 resident ratio the largest in the globe but the problem is while we have that everyone knows where the guns are not. Guns are not in schools. So schools make a target for mass killings. Put guns in schools and these would stop. 

 

We've been seeing criminals do this forever. In Iraq the Taliban knew that America would not bomb or raid the churches. So where did they hide their armory's? In the churches. When everyone knows where guns aren't those places become targets for criminals. 

 

The answer is regular training of school administrators on gun safety and gun storage, and then putting the guns in the schools. Same with churches. Same with sporting events. Same with any where that currently doesn't have guns permitted. Then you take the power away from the criminals. 

 

Of course this idea will be ignored and the politicians will only try and make rules that hurt the innocent law abiding citizens and tell us all its for our own good

 

 

[PleaseBlitz]

30 minutes ago, NoCalMike said:

The "well-regulated" part seems to be a sticking point. A "well-regulated militia" seems to be a bigger sticking point.

 

 

 

The other sticking point is the definition of "arms."  Nobody thinks that every American citizen should have access to an F-22.  But the Constitution does not define the term further.  So this is really just a line-drawing exercise.  

[Llevron]

I almost want them to start arming high schools and see how many it takes for them to realize its a bad idea.