Idiots please post in here

so we deny the rights of the people to self defense because we can't discuss mental health?

Bobcougarzillameister said:

There will always be those people that ignore laws and rules. I won't sell or purchase from someone without the appropriate "papers" present and valid. I mean, Illinois requires an FFL for all purchases yet they have rampant gun crime with illegal guns. 

From what I can tell, that means you're going beyond the call of duty, which I thank you for. But from what I can read online, there is no nationwide legal requirement to check those "papers" in a private sale, so the people who don't are acting within the law, not ignoring it. Which is not a good situation IMO.

Illinois is bordered by states with loose gun laws.

Thought this was pretty apt after what happened yesterday. While a comedy bit, it still rings of some truth. Language warning, he's Australian, so he likes the c-word.

Worth the 15 minutes and if you have Netflix worth the whole watch.

Bobcougarzillameister said:

Fueled by Caffeine said:

General comment. The thing that bothers me the most is that we, the whole damn country, can’t discuss things without everyone people attacking those who have dissenting views.  Someone who disagrees with you isn’t your enemy. Maybe you should take some time to understand the issue from all sides. 

amen. It's not just this but everything. Anti-fa? They're the worst at this point. They are using actual facism techinques to promote their anti-facism message? Hypocrisy much?

You’ve fallen into the trap.  Take a step back and think about what you’ve written. It’s fairly biased. 

Fueled by Caffeine said:

You’ve fallen into the trap. 

Bobcougarzillameister said:

so we deny the rights of the people to self defense because we can't discuss mental health?

What do you want to discuss?

What is your suggestion that is a decent method of detecting mental health issues that will lead to not allowing Evil Doers to have arms?  And how do we make sure that there isn't some kind of a loophole that will let that person be armed?  And how are we going to address mental health when we struggle to address physical health of the general public?

BTW, I'd like to note- my suggestion doesn't mean you can't have self defense.  It means your magazine is of limited size and that you can only fire it at a relatively slow rate.  Both will reduce the number of rounds a person can get off, which will reduce the severity of mass killings.  To me, that seems a lot more effective solution than making everyone pass some kind of mental health check.

I would have thought by now the Columbine shooters would have disproved that hi-capacity magazines are needed for mass violence, murder and mayhem.  

Folks, the grab for guns is just that, a grab for control of the populace. I do not believe in disarming the populace. History has show the error in that. 

The discussion on mental health is hard. That's why we haven't had it. Anyone know what it takes to actually have someone committed? What about tht person's rights? Should they be held? Is there an appeals process? Violent criminals, should we let them back out? Why? Why not? etc etc etc. I know I DON'T have the answers, but I'm pretty certain niether do our corrupt elected officials. 

EDIT: magazine limits etc don't really concern me. I have/carry/use 1911's for self protection and a Mossberg 500 for home. None carry more than 8 rounds.

In reply to alfadriver :

RE Discussion: "relatively slow rate"

That AR15, my Glock, and a double action revolver fire at the same rate. 

I'm certain that there are quite a few things that can be blamed from a lack of mental health access to coddling by parents to neglect from parents to FD&C Yellow #5. 

Others might include first person shooter video games.  Desensitization to violence in movies and TV. 

Even the mental block of being the first person to do something hard (the first guy to run a 4 minute mile was amazing, the 500th person to do so was an average collegiate athlete) where there is even a perception of competition among the people who perpetrate mass killing where they want to achieve a greater body count.

In reply to tuna55 :

Oddly enough though - if you were to be given a choice of which of those you would want someone to attack the theater you were in I can guess which one you would choose.  Can we not say that some are more dangerous than others in a crowded room? Why don't infantrymen just all run around with wheel guns in combat? 

The constitution protects our right to arm ourselves. We don't really need to be afraid of disarmament until someone mounts a challenge to the amendment. But, there might be some room to say as a society it's reasonable to keep limits on public access to things like dynamite, grenades and other weaponry designed to kill. Like we do for all non-firearms that aren't protected by the constitution. Not no access - limited access. Like, for instance, the SWAT team in any large city isn't running around with live ammo in machine guns until they have permission. Because that would be dangerous to the public. There needs to be a situation to unlock that cabinet.

Maybe the answer really is no! but we can discuss it honestly right?

Also, while there have been far too many of the horrible "mass shootings", the numbers are reported in a slightly wonky way where any event in which 4 people are shot in a single event is a "mass" event.  The majority of which are revolvers and other "saturdaynight specials"

In reply to The Artist Formerly Known as Giant Purple Snorklewacker :

in a crowded room, the AR15 is actually a dramatically worse weapon. It's too long, the second anyone gets the barrel in their hands it's over. Likewise, proponets of revolvers as self defense weapons will point out that they are better at firing under duress because nothing has to move, whereas a semiautomatic pistol like my Glock can get jammed if it's up against something when firing. Anyway, as you can see, it's not really that simple.

Anyway, to the point, to think that reglating any of that would make any difference is silly. Even if it did, it still couldn't be done. Anyone can make any capacity magazine they want with some spare time and some creativity. It's like legisating nuclear weapons away. Once someone has solved the problem of how to build one, it's impossible to pretend that it doesn't exist anymore. 

In reply to tuna55 :

As an owner of two out of three of the weapons you named I'm playing something of a devil's advocate here - and everyone who knows anything about weapons would choose the Glock because they are plastic junk and the most likely to shoot the shooter in his own leg.  :)

It's all well and good to call the idea of regulating things silly but we do regulate most dangerous things that can be regulated without violating the constitution and no one thinks it's silly. It's just good sense in many cases. For instance - VX gas exists but go ahead and suggest it would be a great idea to make it available for self defense. I mean, the genie is out of the bottle! It would certainly be effective. No doubt about that - but what responsible citizenry would advocate for it? It could hurt hundreds of people in minutes and seemingly serves no other purpose. Trusting the individual to the responsible use of something with that much destructive capacity and no other beneficial purpose would be crazy right?

Is there really no room for sensible oversight?

Guns are not the cause of these incidents, but I dont think you can disagree that they are an aggravating factor.  

I have more guns than I have dinner plates, but I have to agree that guns and access to guns is problematic from a public health aspect.  I have the self control to know that if I am angry, it is no time to even think about accessing my firearms. That all a gun can do in many (most likely the majority) of situations is escalate and skew the situation to have worse outcomes when a gun is introduced. 

Gun culture, especially the "mall ninja" side of it is really disturbing if you pause and think about it. There are those that fanaticize about being a soldier, but lack any semblance of the discipline that would be required to actually be IN the military. An unhealthy focus that results in unhealthy outlets for aggressions.  If you focus on something to a certain extent, it seems like the tool for resolving all problems at some point.  I think this may be the primary difference between guns and other factors regarding mass casualty events.

Even if you take guns out of the equation, we likely do have a culture problem regarding overall aggression and how we deal with anger as a society.  In movies, literature, and to a lesser extent music, how often is war / death / violence a theme? It would be interesting to do a study comparing the rates of such across different cultures.  USA vs Asia vs Europe vs Australia...  

I think the primary problem is one of culture, but good luck solving it. 

You will never get people to agree with giving up guns, you will never stem the cultural fascination with guns and violence in our society.

Individually, likely all of us here can be trusted with firearms, all of us can be responsible.  But we all likely know at least a few people that have no business being allowed access to a gun. 

Case in point. I have a relative with borderline personality disorder, they fly into fits of rage that you can't see coming and dont really make sense. Thrown plates, broken things, physical fights, etc.  A decision was made (agreement of multiple parties) when someone passed away that they not inherit any firearms as it was just a bad idea.  

How as a society could we fairly determine that someone fits the category that they just shouldn't have a gun?  Perhaps something akin to a jury of peers?  It is hard to say, but SOMETHING is becoming an increasing need. It may not prevent all cases, but it could likely reduce the rates of such incidents. Implementation is so problematic though, I have doubts that anything will ever happen. 

tuna55 said:

In reply to alfadriver :

RE Discussion: "relatively slow rate"

 

That AR15, my Glock, and a double action revolver fire at the same rate. 

and they're all inaccurate as hell firing at that "high rate" as well. I've done enough mag dumps over the years, that while it's fun it's also extremely inaccurate and wasteful.

EDIT: Also have "fanned" the slowest firing repeater in the world, a Colt SAA. Same thing, all six shots are gone quickly but did little damage to the "target" because they were everywhere.

Bobcougarzillameister said:

so we deny the rights of the people to self defense because we can't discuss mental health?

Really, that's what you got from my post? Despite me saying the exact opposite. Or you're upset and lashing out? I think your response is a good example of not listening to the other person and just reacting instead of thinking and respecting other people's input.

Woody said:

tuna55 said:

Woody said:

The Artist Formerly Known as Giant Purple Snorklewacker said:

I know right? Weird that it was a 16yr old girl, Brenda Spencer, that started it all.

 

 

From Brenda Spencer's Wiki Page:

After her parents separated, she lived with her father, Wallace Spencer, in virtual poverty; they slept on a single mattress on the living room floor, with empty alcohol bottles throughout the house.

Possibly interesting sidenote:

At every fatal house fire that I have been to, there was a mattress on the living room floor.

Every?

 

Really? That's wild! What's the implied causation? Bad decision making skills?

Yup, every single one over the past 20 years, though fortunately, fatal fires are no longer as common as they once were.  And not in every house fire, but in all the ones that resulted in fatalities.

Not an implication, just an observation.  

I may be going out on a limb here, but I'm going to guess a home with a mattress on the floor in the living room is less likely to have a functioning smoke detector.

Gun control, mental health/social issues...

I mean, given that about the only thing there's a modicum of agreement on is that there isn't one easy answer.

All the observations that "that one change won't fix everything" may be true, but they're not really meaningful in the context of requiring multiple changes. Each of these things is a giant can of worms unto itself, but we won't start untangling any worms until the conversation gets past "well, *that* one won't do it"...

In reply to Ian F :

I literally bought two smoke detectors for a poor family yesterday. 

In reply to Bobcougarzillameister :

I think we agree. It's trivial to make a gun shoot faster than someone can aim.

Bobcougarzillameister said:

tuna55 said:

In reply to alfadriver :

RE Discussion: "relatively slow rate"

 

That AR15, my Glock, and a double action revolver fire at the same rate. 

and they're all inaccurate as hell firing at that "high rate" as well. I've done enough mag dumps over the years, that while it's fun it's also extremely inaccurate and wasteful.

EDIT: Also have "fanned" the slowest firing repeater in the world, a Colt SAA. Same thing, all six shots are gone quickly but did little damage to the "target" because they were everywhere.

How much does accuracy matter when you are firing into a large grouping of targets?

BTW, if the shooter has a Colt- that's 6 shots per hand, after which they are pretty done.  Damage can be done, yes, but the number would be at worst less than 1/2 of what happened yesterday.  

As far as the mental health discussion- if you really think that can be the solution, I would have expected that you have an idea to address it.  

As opposed to reasonable and legal gun restrictions, similar to the assault weapons ban (but written better), where the time that law span had the lowest amount of mass shootings in recent history.  If you can come up with a mental health solution that is more effective than that, bring it on.

sIn reply to Apexcarver :

I had a similar discussion with my mother when her husband passed and left her with a house full of guns (seriously - she was finding them in weird places for weeks). His son got all of them. She pondered keeping one of them, but I asked her, "Have you ever fired a gun? Do you really think you could shoot someone?"  She answered No to both questions.  Now she may very well decide to take shooting lessons and get a gun, but until then having one in the house has as much potential to cause her harm than to protect her.

My one criticism about using the Second Amendment as a defense of firearm ownership is we as a country are  proving inadequate in the "well regulated" part of the text.  The text was written during a different time. A time when an armed duel was still considered an honorable (although socially fading) method of settling a dispute between gentlemen of stature.

In the end, arguing about this on the web won't change anything. Posting "thoughts and prayers" on Facebook won't change anything. Just stating "How many have to die??" won't change anything. If you want change, it will require hard work and patience. It will take time. The current situation was developed over decades. It will likely take decades of work to change it.

tuna55 said:

In reply to Bobcougarzillameister :

I think we agree. It's trivial to make a gun shoot faster than someone can aim.

Do you really think that the shooter aimed?  For sure, the shooter in Vegas didn't.  He was just spraying down on a a large group of people.  And the last time I was in a church, people sat together in a group.  There's no aiming required to hit that.

Ian F said:

In reply to Apexcarver :

I had a similar discussion with my mother when her husband passed and left her with a house full of guns (seriously - she was finding them in weird places for weeks). His son got all of them. She pondered keeping one of them, but I asked her, "Have you ever fired a gun? Do you really think you could shoot someone?"  She answered No to both questions.  Now she may very well decide to take shooting lessons and get a gun, but until then having one in the house has a much potential to cause her harm than to protect her.

My one criticism about using the Second Amendment as a defense of firearm ownership is we as a country are  proving inadequate in the "well regulated" part of the text.  The text was written during a different time. A time when an armed duel was still considered an honorable (although socially fading) method of settling a dispute between gentlemen of stature.

In the end, arguing about this on the web won't change anything. Posting "thoughts and prayers" on Facebook won't change anything. Just stating "How many have to die??" won't change anything. If you want change, it will require hard work and patience. It will take time. The current situation was developed over decades. It will likely take decades of work to change it.

Which is exactly why I suggest that we should just get used to this happening, over and over.

Wow, yeah, lots to ponder. For instance, why would men repeatedly disrespect the rules of the forum that is extending its hospitality to them? What drives men to seek out an opportunity to create and extend conflict? Why, in a nutshell, are some men such dicks? Indeed, lots to debate here. Lots to ban, also.

One more pass to you guys--this thread is a nice compendium of the most deserving offenders--before we just clean house. Because yes, action is needed.

I'm not locking this, because it will serve as a handy tool: Anyone who keeps posting political posts in here (or, wink wink, moves the discussion to another thread "oh my I didn't know") will be gone. In their place will be silence, like the cool, cool tundra.

Margie