Shoot The Kids

[njlauren]

You seem to know everything so give us YOUR official report.

I am so fucking tired of "journalists" giving reports on every fucking thing while nothing official has been said. You can play along with the bullshit and read the nonsense. Anyone with common sense would not be bothered.

Anyone with common sense would look at the reported facts on the shooter, and look at someone who could cold bloodedly kill 20 young kids like killing ants with a can of Raid, and come to the conclusion that something was seriously wrong with him, and that the mother was either in severe denial and/or had shit for brains or was mentally not right herself (among other things, she shared something with her son, she seemed to be extremely anti social, didn't socialize, and seemed to be rooted to her house)

 

[Boxlicker101]

I agree with DeeZire. Also the assumption implicit in the second amendment, that a well-regulated militia is necessary for the security of a free state, is no longer a valid one. We have the military for that (the most expensive one in the world that no one dares to mess with). To say that civilians are justified in carrying guns in spite of having this gargantuan army is nothing short of stupid paranoia. The second amendment should be amended. It will be hard, but it's not complex.

Yes, the kid may be wacko, but if there were no guns he could not have caused this level of destruction. Don't just make guns illegal, make them disappear from cold, dead civilian hands.

What kind of gun did Timothy McVeigh use?

 

[sr71plt]

What kind of gun did Timothy McVeigh use?

Good point. But what McVeigh assembled is now illegal, and how many repeats do you know of? I can guarantee you that there have been plenty of attempts to repeat what he did. But what he used is so closely controlled and scrutinized now that pretty much everyone who tries it is cut off at the knees before they can deliver.

Which is rather the point here.

 

[Boxlicker101]

Good point. But what McVeigh assembled is now illegal, and how many repeats do you know of? I can guarantee you that there have been plenty of attempts to repeat what he did. But what he used is so closely controlled and scrutinized now that pretty much everyone who tries it is cut off at the knees before they can deliver.

Which is rather the point here.

As I recall, he used gasline and fertilizer and a fuse.

 

[sr71plt]

As I recall, he used gasline and fertilizer and a fuse.

Well, yes. And fertilizer is controlled and purchases of large quantities are reported to the police and checked out. I guess you didn't know that.

 

[njlauren]

I will re-iterate, the original post is not true, there is no evidence the mother was trying to get legal control of her son to get him committed, the report fox news put out was based on what the son of a local pastor was saying, there is absolutely no facts backing this up but scuttlebutt, but of course Fox News never let facts get in the way of a story. It was on the NY Times website this morning, and the only news sites reporting that she was going to have him committed are all News Corp tabloids (aka the parent company of Fox News).

Another interesting tidbit, the mother apparently was a 'prepper', she was paranoid that the economy and country were going to collapse and she was stockpiling water, food and weapons..so could be she wasn't all that sane either.

 

[nonfictional]

Timothy McVeigh of course did not use a gun and I am not suggesting that getting rid of guns will make *all* mass killings magically disappear, but even if it helps a significant fraction of them disappear, it's worth it. And again, both the mom and the son were probably wacko but without guns this extent of destruction does'nt happen. One life taken by use of a gun is one life too many.

What amazes me in this discussion is that these rabid gun-owners or their supporters want to put the weaponless people on the spot, whereas it is really they who should be on the defensive about keeping devices at home that serve only one purpose. Don't you get it? No other civilized democracy allows people to carry guns as freely as the US, and all of these places are a lot safer.

 

[sr71plt]

Oh, I'm not the least confused on who is on the defensive here and who is spinning in the wind trying to defend the indefensible. The gunslingers just throw flak up in the air whenever they are pinned down to respond to the most basic common sense. I'm heartened by the news of people who actually can do something about this situation moving closer to actually doing it.

 

[JustaSCOUNDREL]

I agree with DeeZire. Also the assumption implicit in the second amendment, that a well-regulated militia is necessary for the security of a free state, is no longer a valid one. We have the military for that (the most expensive one in the world that no one dares to mess with). To say that civilians are justified in carrying guns in spite of having this gargantuan army is nothing short of stupid paranoia. The second amendment should be amended. It will be hard, but it's not complex.

Yes, the kid may be wacko, but if there were no guns he could not have caused this level of destruction. Don't just make guns illegal, make them disappear from cold, dead civilian hands.

You are totally free to believe what you wish, but within the last few years the Supreme Court of the United States has affirmed the right of an individual to own and in some places carry fire arms. The latter depends on the state.

For the rest of you that want "Gun Control" just so we all are on the same page please define exactly what gun control is in your mind.

For those of you who are curious about that SCOTUS says about your right to keep and bear arms. It is a Wikipedia article.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller

For those of you who would like to change the Bill of Rights which other of your rights would you like to do away with? I ask that question since some of you pretty willing to do away with some of mine.

Respectfully

Mike

 

[sr71plt]

You are totally free to believe what you wish, but within the last few years the Supreme Court of the United States has affirmed the right of an individual to own and in some places carry fire arms. The latter depends on the state.

For the rest of you that want "Gun Control" just so we all are on the same page please define exactly what gun control is in your mind.

For those of you who are curious about that SCOTUS says about your right to keep and bear arms. It is a Wikipedia article.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller

For those of you who would like to change the Bill of Rights which other of your rights would you like to do away with? I ask that question since some of you pretty willing to do away with some of mine.

Respectfully

Mike

I and others have defined what we think is needed several times on the forum of late. The gunslingers just don't want to hear it. And you apparently aren't reading in before weighing in.

You also haven't been paying attention to the responses on the D.C. v. Heller ruling either. The ruling doesn't say you can own semiautomatic or automatic guns. It specifies for protection home use. A blast from an Ak-47 would tear up your home and probably your neighbors's too when you got it going. There's plenty of room to restrict private gun ownership to single-shot weapons. You can't legally privately own a Stinger Missile, a howizer, or Big Bertha in the United States already.

I'll ask you the same questions others are asking every other gunslinger--and not getting an answer.

What is any private citizen's need to have access to a gun that shots more than one round per delayed-action triggering?

And the corollary question that the gunslingers aren't answering either. In what universe is your right to have access to a rapid-fire gun superseding the next person's right to live when you can't guarantee control of that gun?--which quite obviously people owning guns aren't doing now because the government controls on them aren't tight enough. The right to live is specified in the Constitution much before any right in the 2nd Amendment is (which, by the way was ruled to be more than the National Guard carrying muskets by a single SC justice vote--which could be reversed on any day a new case is brought before the Supreme Court).

The president set up preparation today for legislation on gun control. Go read that and see the administration's position from the horse's mouth. He doesn't support the position you've voiced either.

All of your points have been addressed ad nauseum on this board over the last few days. You just aren't reading in before reinventing the gunslingers' broken wheel. You're not owed a remedial discussion of this. Catch up to what's already been posted.

 

[nonfictional]

You are totally free to believe what you wish, but within the last few years the Supreme Court of the United States has affirmed the right of an individual to own and in some places carry fire arms. The latter depends on the state.

For the rest of you that want "Gun Control" just so we all are on the same page please define exactly what gun control is in your mind.

For those of you who are curious about that SCOTUS says about your right to keep and bear arms. It is a Wikipedia article.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller

For those of you who would like to change the Bill of Rights which other of your rights would you like to do away with? I ask that question since some of you pretty willing to do away with some of mine.

Respectfully

Mike

Of course I am free to believe what I wish; that goes without your saying it. The point I am making is that the constitution needs to be modified so that the Supreme Court will then not be put in the awkward position of defending the indefensible just because it is in the constitution. IMHO, the constitution is inconsistent as applied to modern society: the right to life is now at odds
with the right to bear arms, and I'd much rather take away your right to bear arms in exchange for my (and perhaps yours too) right to life, which is more fundamental anyway. Ask the dead children which right they would prefer.

 

[sr71plt]

Of course I am free to believe what I wish; that goes without your saying it. The point I am making is that the constitution needs to be modified so that the Supreme Court will then not be put in the awkward position of defending the indefensible just because it is in the constitution. IMHO, the constitution is inconsistent as applied to modern society: the right to life is now at odds
with the right to bear arms, and I'd much rather take away your right to bear arms in exchange for my (and perhaps yours too) right to life, which is more fundamental anyway. Ask the dead children which right they would prefer.

I don't think the Constitution needs to be changed. The SC ruling was on a total ban in D.C. on all guns, not on a private-access ban on rapid-fire weapons only. These can just be added to the other military hardware private citizens aren't permitted to own and hold. There's nothing in the SC ruling that says it is an AK-47 that you have a right to own.

Time for some folks to wake up.

 

[Weird Harold]

Ask the dead children which right they would prefer.

Ask "the dead children" whether they would prefer a simple, effective ban on the number of bullets that can legally be loaded (magazine capacity limits) that can feasibly be the law of the land in 90 days or less, or a decades long struggle to muster the super-majority in congress AND State Legislatures required to amend the Constitution followed by an equally long and bitter fight over which, when, and how the existing guns in the US are to be confiscated?

You want guns banned. That is your right.

I prefer to make it far more difficult to use ANY firearm in the way they have been used in recent shootings -- Newtown, several recent murder suicides, WVU, Columbine, etc -- and to do it with the least amount of knee-jerk resistance and/or conflict with the existing legal and cultural climate.

You want a decades long fight, I want a quick, effective, solution.

 

[RjThoughts]

Anyone with common sense would look at the reported facts on the shooter, and look at someone who could cold bloodedly kill 20 young kids like killing ants with a can of Raid, and come to the conclusion that something was seriously wrong with him, and that the mother was either in severe denial and/or had shit for brains or was mentally not right herself (among other things, she shared something with her son, she seemed to be extremely anti social, didn't socialize, and seemed to be rooted to her house)

I'm not saying that there were no problems, there had to be, but what I'm saying that, in this day and age, there are FAR TOO MANY "journalists" and cable news outlets that are "getting the story out first" and not doing any checks on whether or not the story is true.

 

[sr71plt]

in this day and age, there are FAR TOO MANY "journalists" and cable news outlets that are "getting the story out first" and not doing any checks on whether or not the story is true.

The issue is a bit broader than that, I think. The journalists, in most instance, are taking "the story" from authoritative sources--but it's the authoritative sources that don't have a good picture before they start giving details. In the current issue, I think both the wrong name of the shooter and that the mother was a substitute teacher at the school came directly from the police on the ground.

The base issue, I think, is the public's "need" to "know everything right now." If the authorities are slow or incomplete in giving answers, they are accused of footdragging or incompetence. So, I think, perhaps, that at the base, the authorities need to hold their cards closer to their chests and, yes, that the TV journalists need to hold off as well. The public will howl at not getting to hear/see all of the grizzly details "right now!" but that should be just tough for them.

What the authorities did hold back for hours was that there was a pile of dead children in the school. Can you imagine the how much higher the decibel rating would have been in the public close to the event, if that got floated first as a maybe?

 

[RjThoughts]

The issue is a bit broader than that, I think. The journalists, in most instance, are taking "the story" from authoritative sources--but it's the authoritative sources that don't have a good picture before they start giving details. In the current issue, I think both the wrong name of the shooter and that the mother was a substitute teacher at the school came directly from the police on the ground.

The base issue, I think, is the public's "need" to "know everything right now." If the authorities are slow or incomplete in giving answers, they are accused of footdragging or incompetence. So, I think, perhaps, that at the base, the authorities need to hold their cards closer to their chests and, yes, that the TV journalists need to hold off as well. The public will howl at not getting to hear/see all of the grizzly details "right now!" but that should be just tough for them.

What the authorities did hold back for hours was that there was a pile of dead children in the school. Can you imagine the how much higher the decibel rating would have been in the public close to the event, if that got floated first as a maybe?

That's the problem right there, the public right to know. We don't, never did.

 

[sr71plt]

That's the problem right there, the public right to know. We don't, never did.

Not as quickly and/or fully, no. That was the nub of the Benghazi issue. What folks needed to know and when they needed to know it. It was in the throes of a presidential election, so there was pressure to give information before the situation was fully clear. The previous eight attacks on U.S. diplomatic posts (most involving deaths of Americans; some of more deaths than at Benghazi) didn't come at a contentious "can I make ah hah! points off of what you said/did?" time, so the wasn't the yammering going on that has gone on with Benghazi.

 

[ishtat]

The fact that Harold and Pilot, despite their different viewpoints can both see ways forward is encouraging.

Just a scoundrel like so many of his ilk is totally reactive, without a single idea of how to prevent these types of incidents.

I'm not in the US but have observed some interesting responses on a short business trip I am just finishing in Thailand, Vietnam, South China, and Indonesia. The response of people everywhere is very sympathetic whether from Buddhists, Moslems, Communists or whatever. Their various media is less so, blaming government inaction and the pernicious prevalence of money politics in the US - tho' most of them shouldn't throw stones.

The most interesting observation was from a well educated lawyer in Indonesia. He observed that after 9/11, many if not most countries (like the USA) passed legislation to improve security. He further added that in most countries the NRA would be examined as a potentially terrorist organization. He cited their secrecy, the opacity of their sources of finance, their reluctance to reveal where they spent their money, particularly in political bribes, (his words) and their activity in arming the populace (fermenting revolution).

Those observations might seem outrageous at first but they are the genuinely held views of a lawyer closely involved in the successful prosecution of terrorists in his own country.

 

[njlauren]

You are totally free to believe what you wish, but within the last few years the Supreme Court of the United States has affirmed the right of an individual to own and in some places carry fire arms. The latter depends on the state.

For the rest of you that want "Gun Control" just so we all are on the same page please define exactly what gun control is in your mind.

For those of you who are curious about that SCOTUS says about your right to keep and bear arms. It is a Wikipedia article.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller

For those of you who would like to change the Bill of Rights which other of your rights would you like to do away with? I ask that question since some of you pretty willing to do away with some of mine.

Respectfully

Mike

The bill of rights says people have the right to own guns, but it does not specify what that means. The problem with the 2nd amendment is that the gun nuts, like the religious nuts with the 1st amendment, try to make it into a blanket "you have the right to do what you want' and no right is that. The Catholic Church has tried to argue, for example, that its religious beliefs trump employment law, and they do not,Catholic Affiliated institutions, that employ non catholics and also are funded primarily outside the church, cannot claim an exemption, for example, for a law that mandates covering contraception, the rights of those working for those institutions trump the 1st amendment. Likewise, the RC complained that their rights were violated in Mass because the law there doesn't allow adoption providers who take state contracts to discriminate against same sex couples, the church argued it violated their religious beliefs, but because they took state money they cannot claim an exemption, when Mass has laws protecting the rigths of same sex couples. All rights are tempered by things, they are tempered where those rights conflict with other rights, and where there are concepts of the public good. The law severely restricts access to automatic weapons, and joe billy bob can't buy stinger missiles or rpg's legally, and they should not be able to buy weapons with large magazines and rapid fire capability because of the threat to public safety. Likewise, the right to bear arms does not mean the right to bear arms without them being registered and controlled, and the federal government could quite easily issue regulations that control the registration and sale of firearms that superceded state regulations, in part because guns are a multi state threat, guns bought in virginia often end up on the street in DC and NYC used in crimes.

 

[njlauren]

I'm not saying that there were no problems, there had to be, but what I'm saying that, in this day and age, there are FAR TOO MANY "journalists" and cable news outlets that are "getting the story out first" and not doing any checks on whether or not the story is true.

I am not arguing that, one of the benefits of newspapers in the old days was they actually had time to do fact checking, so we wouldn't hear it was ryan lanza, we wouldn't hear his mother was a teacher and so forth, the way we did. On the other hand, speculating that he was mentally ill in some way wasn't exactly out there, and has been proven out, last thing I read said that the divorce filings for the Lanza's mentions that Adam had problems, including Asperger's, and specified the parents roles and so forth. BTW it is also likely the mother has screws loose, which might be an argument against her being able to buy guns, apparently she is a horder type who had paranoid fantasies about civilization ending and such.

 

[bronzeage]

The whako used an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle, which is not an assault rifle. The military M-16 rifle is a full automatic assault rifle version of the AR-15. The AR-15 is legal for civilian possession, the M-16 is not legal for civilian possession.

The civilian possession of an M-16 rifle is illegal. The civilian possession of a son with severe mental problems is, alas, not illegal. People tend to worry about a civilian who posesses an assault rifle. People tend to not worry about the maniac next door. Don't ask me why, I have no idea.

I have never suspected you of having ideas and would not ask for any.

You can quibble about the the difference between an M-16 and an AR-15, but the AR-15 is and assault rifle. Assault is as assault does. The only useful purpose of an AR-15 is to kill a lot of people in a hurry. While it can't kill as fast as an M-16, it will get the job done. It could be a hunting rifle, if the game limits on large game are ever raised to 23 a day.

People tend to worry about a civilian with an assault rifle because people with assault rifles are the people who use them to kill a lot of people in a hurry. When a person decides to kill a lot of people in a hurry, an AK-15 is first on his shopping list. Since it is perfectly legal to own an AK-15, we have to wait until he has actually killed enough people to attract attention, before we can take it away from him.

People don't worry about the maniac next door, because until the maniac buys an AK-15, they are pretty much harmless.