Gun Control, who's for it?

I'd just like to remind everyone what happened last fall on a university campus. Basically the same thing occurred when a student fired on other students killing one and injuring 19. Now I ask everyone, just where was that? That would be Montreal Canada. Yes. Canada whos gun laws are far more stringent. However the gunman still got a hold of a gun and still managed to kill one and attempt to kill others.
The day after the shooting a student at VT was interviewed on a radio show and to me said probably the most intelligent thing I've heard yet. He said, in so many words, despite this horrible tragedy and loosing a few good friends, he still thinks we live in the greatest country in the world. We are not the only country to suffer a meaningless massacre of innocence. It happens in a lot of other places a lot more often.

I forgot to add something. I do agree that someone mentally unstable and is a risk to his or her self or others, has no business with a gun. In Florida, if you has a history of mental illness, ie. You're a threat to yourself or others, you arn't suppose to be sold a gun nor are you eligible for a CCW permit. I think if someone has a history of a backer act, it's on his or her record. I don't know for sure. Florida has a 3 day waiting period when purchasing a gun and a required background check.

Yes he did, and those warnings were noted and reported to the "proper authorities". One of those authorities, allegedly a mental health professional, chose to talk Mr. Cho into accepting a voluntary placement rather than dealing with the inconvenience of paperwork and exposure to legal issues that are an inherent part of forcing an involuntary admission. Thus Mr. Cho was allowed to by-pass the system already in place to prevent mentally unstable individuals from legally purchasing firearms.

Perhaps rather than trying to enact more stringent gun laws, we should be looking at ensuring those who claim to be "professionals" make more appropriate decisions that take in consideration the need for public safety as well as the rights of their nut-case patients. Perhaps we should make it illegal for a mental health professional to recommend a voluntary placement in cases where a patient represents a potential threat to himself or others.

Once Mr. Cho chose to voluntarily admit himself into the "system", HIPAA regulations prohibited his care takers from sharing information, in this case potentially life saving information, with the other "proper authorities".

Now, I can't really blame a psychologist or psychiatrist from choosing the easy route. The more difficult route of involuntary placement does indeed require a headache inducing mass of paperwork and legal hassle. It truly IS inconvenient. It truly is difficult to show reasonable grounds to believe that a patient may be a danger to himself or others, and it really sucks to have the courts second-guessing your decisions. On the other hand, had this alleged "professional" accepted the inconvenience of his or her profession and admitted Mr. Cho involuntarily, we wouldn't be having this argument today.

Thank you for your generosity, but stroking my ego isn't likely to make me change my position.

Had the system that is already in place actually worked, there wouldn't be a need for "heroes ready to save the day". This situation created heroes who not only risked, but GAVE their lives to do their part to try to save the day. Had any of those heroes had the ability to return fire, maybe their efforts would not have been in vain.

You are assuming that the store owner only saw dollar signs, when in fact we don't really know what he saw. He reported that it was a routine transaction in every way.
I just learned that in 2005 Mr. Cho was was declared mentally ill by a Virginia special justice, who found he was "an imminent danger" to himself. That ruling made Mr. Cho ineligible to purchase a firearm, and should have been reflected in his Federally required instant background check. Why didn't it? Maybe we need very stringent laws to require "authorities" to do the jobs they are already expected to do, rather than further restrict the rights of law abiding Americans.

Whether or not I might have seen something suspicious in Mr. Cho's behavior or affect is immaterial. I'm an emergency services worker with over 30 years experience in law enforcement, fire service and emergency medical services. I am trained and experienced in detecting nuances that I would not expect a store clerk to observe.

Once the bullets start flying that truly IS the best case scenario. There is no better possible outcome. When the system fails, the last resort is the ability of individuals to protect their own safety.

Of course you wouldn't endorse a system that might create inconvenience and headaches for you. It's much easier to contemplate the abolishment of a long established civil right than it is to accept personal inconvenience. If disarming me makes means you don't have to go through a metal detector to get to your office then my safety is clearly less important than your inconvenience.

Interesting that you chose to use the word "overkill" in this context. Having an unarmed student body and no significant security at all obviously contributed to a true "overkill" scenario at Virginia Tech.

I have no reason to trust the "authorities". Especially the "authorities" who have so consistently proven their ineffectiveness. The "proper authorities" had ample opportunity to prevent this massacre yet through a combination of incompetence, old fashioned laziness and maybe a dash of human error they failed to do so. 32 students and faculty trusted the "authorities" to look out for their safety, and we can see just how trustworthy those "authorities" proved to be.

Having served as an "authority" most of my working life, I can say with certainty that "authorities" make mistakes, sometimes those mistakes cost people their freedom unfairly. I can also say with certainty that some "authorities" are very much untrustworthy, just as some "mental health professional" are untrustworthy.

I have nothing at all against preventing gun purchases by a person with mental instabilities. The current gun laws in place are supposed to do just that. Mr. Cho's previous ruling should have been reflected in his Federally mandated instant background check. Creating new laws won't help solve the problem of FBI incompetence in maintaining their database.

Had everyone involved in this situation done their jobs a bit better, the current laws would have been, certainly should have been, more than sufficient to prevent Mr. Cho from purchasing the firearms he used in his horrific crime. Making new laws won't change that fact that the system only works when everyone involved, including those "authorities" you seem to think we such trust with our very lives, actually do the jobs they are paid to do.

No human system can be created that will prevent all violent people from acquiring weapons with which to express their rage. No new laws can possibly prevent all future massacres. In fact, there is a very good chance that the media attention focused on the VT massacre will incite other sociopaths to attempt to break the new record, and kill even more.

I don't have a totally closed mind. Show me a proposal that will actually prevent these types of crimes while ensuring that law abiding citizens can freely obtain and confidently keep and bear firearms, and I'll jump right up on the bandwagon. So far though, the only thing I've seen are proposals that restrict the rights of law abiding citizens but have no discernible impact on the rate or severity of violent crimes.

It is a fact, well documented, that the only gun laws that have had a measurable impact on violent crimes in the United States have been "shall issue" concealed carry laws that have liberalized the right of the people to freely bear arms.

Prevention should always be our first line of defense, but it should never be our only line of defense. In this particular case there were many opportunities to prevent the tragedy, yet apparently no one was willing to accept responsibility for doing so. Had Mr. Cho been convicted of stalking, he would have been ineligible to purchase a firearm. Had Mr. Cho's mental health worker followed up with an involuntary placement or sought a legal ruling of mental incompetence he would not have been eligible to purchase a firearm. Had the police officers who initially contacted Mr. Cho been able to show reasonable grounds to believe that a crime had been committed and Mr. Cho committed the crime, he would have been ineligible to purchase a firearm. Heck, had any of the students who felt threatened by Mr. Cho sought a protective court order (restraining order), Mr. Cho would have been ineligible to purchase a firearm. Had the "authorities" responsible for maintaining the FBI's database used to conduct firearms purchase background checks done so, Mr. Cho would not have been able to purchase his firearm.

The legal means to prevent Mr. Cho's massacre are already in place. That they didn't work is because people don't always work and new restrictions on firearms ownership won't do anything to prevent laziness or incompetence.

So long as there are lazy or incompetent "proper authorities" in "the system", that last line of defense must remain an armed populace.

Swanny

HUZZAH Swanny!!!! Could not have said it better myself!

What ever the circumstances, the ability to “return fire” says it all.

JC

I wasn't aware until today, but back in January a bill was introduced in the house to address some of the issues I discussed above. HR 297, short title NICS Improvement Act of 2007. You can read the full bill at http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?c110...10qek49c:e1997:

Commentary from the Gun Owners of America on this, and several other firearms related bills, can be seen at their website at http://www.gunowners.org/110anatb.htm. Below is the GOA commentary on this specific bill.

Swanny

I just want to add my two cents here, for what it's worth!


Maybe, instead of arguing over who should or shouldn't be allowed to carry firearms, concealed or otherwise, we should be questioning why there aren't better security measures on college campuses. For instance, why aren't there metal detectors at every entrance to every building? Because of the cost? As a current college student I truly wouldn't mind, (overmuch), having to pay a higher tuition in order to see my college experience safer and at least somewhat less stressful. How many college students, in these days after the VT massacre, are constantly looking over their shoulders or putting thier classmates under close scrutiny? If you heard a fellow student bitching (I'm talking ranting, raving, screaming, things I hear many students do when they don't get what they think they deserved) about the grade a professor did or did not give them would you spend the rest of the day wondering if they might show up with a gun and shot the professor in question and anyone else who got in the way? Now, if you knew that an incredibly loud alarm would sound if that student entered any building giving you precious seconds to barracade yourself into your room and/or get out a window wouldn't you feel a bit safer? It's not like us students don't have enough to worry about and stress over we also have to worry about other students shooting us and our classmates and professors. I find it detestable that people bitch and moan about how the government and college administration should do more to protect us and enforce the laws that are already in place rather than create knew ones but yet refuse to help fund the very things that would ensure that protection. The issue isn't (or shouldn't be) about gun laws but about what we as a populace are willing, or not willing, to do and sacrifice to ensure our protection. (protection doesn't just mean guns, there are many, many other ways to protect ourselves from things like the VT massacre.)

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. Gun control is not about protecting us from each other, as much as it’s about the rich protecting the status quo. You know, that greedy run away train that we‘re living on.

JC

That was kind of my point. Every time there is a school shooting or any kind of mass shooting the issue of gun control rears its ugly head. No amount of gun control is truly going to protect us from each other. If a person is determined to acquire a gun they will find a way no matter how stringent the laws are or how many 'safeguards' are in place. There is also the fact that if guns become 'too hard' to acquire the 'bad guys' will just switch to a different weapon. Imagine the amount of damage someone like Cho would have done had he used explosives instead of guns. Getting rid of guns or making them harder for the average citizen to get is not going to eliminate the threat that guns pose. Enforcing the existing safeguards and creating new safety measures are the only way that these types of tragedies can be reduced or even eliminated. If people were more concerned with 'how can I make my immediate environment safer' and less concerned with 'how many of my neighbors have guns' perhaps there would be less shootings in general.

Well said Sonee. Hey! Where’s Nova, I miss him.

JC

Here is a longish blurb by Elayne Boosler about the hypocricy of the gun toting right: ( http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elayne-boosl...-p_b_46196.html )

If 33 people were killed by apples instead of guns at Virginia Tech, there wouldn't be an apple left on the shelves or in the homes of this country until apples could be made safe. Screw your "constitutional right" to have an apple, there is something called the "greater good", and the good of the country takes precedence over your "interpretation" of any amendment in the now defunct anyway constitution. Just ask the spinach growers, and the people who love to yell "fire" in a crowded theater. And why do you always forget the words, "well regulated militia"?

2500 Children Left Behind

If 2500 children under the age of 17 were felled by apples instead of guns every year in America, there wouldn't be a congressman or senator left serving who took one penny from the National Apple Association. The shame and admonishment would be too great. And if there were even incremental steps to take to make apples safer, and even they were fought tooth and nail by your blood money National Apple Association, claiming the straw man of the "slippery slope" to "regulation", America might better see you for the mercenary and shameful organization you truly are.

We are getting tired of prying your guns out of your cold dead hands.

Here's a news flash for you gun waving "real Americans": It's not about guns. It's about money. Follow the money. The NRA raises hundreds of millions of dollars by convincing you they are fighting for your "rights". Wake up. It's a business. Just like any other business, except with the help of their bought off representatives, they are the only UNREGULATED consumer product in America. What do they sell? FEAR. Fear, fake patriotism, and fake bravado, just like their commander in chief, President Custer. You're being played.

With their hundreds of millions of dollars raised on the blood of murdered Americans, they pay themselves, they keep their product manufacturers flush, and they buy their government officials. They exist to convince you you need their product. And when sales slow, they target new markets. They market fear to women, then sell them "feminine little purse guns". They market to children. The cartoon character Joe Camel is banned, but sure shootin' Eddie Eagle is alive and well to pooh again on Friday. (He teaches children "gun safety", meaning, he teaches children to use guns.)

We're Number One!!

The number of children under the age of 17 shot by guns in America every year is greater than the gun-related deaths of children in all the industrialized nations of the world COMBINED.

Here is the population of Japan: 127,463,611.

Here is the number of children killed by guns in Japan every year: 0.

A 2001 Centers for Disease Control (CDC) study found that in homicides among intimate partners, women are murdered more with guns than with all other means COMBINED.

In 2004, guns were most commonly used by males to murder their female partners.

A 2003 study found women living with a gun in the home were almost three times more likely to be murdered than women with no gun in the home.

"If we ban handguns only criminals will have guns." Well then let's not have any laws in America at all. No drug laws, no traffic laws, no laws at all, right? Duh.

"Cars kill people!!" Yes, cars kill people when something goes wrong. Guns are MADE to kill people. Handguns have one purpose, to kill people.

Stage Rule: If There is a Gun on the Wall in Act I, It Will Go Off in Act II.

Bush's Unmitigated Gall

I watched President Custer speak at the Virginia Tech memorial yesterday. How dare he "express condolences". How DARE he. Here is how his administration helped kill 33 people at Virginia Tech:

Passage of gun industry immunity bill. That's right, you can sue every industry in America, except gun manufacturers and dealers. Your family gets murdered by a madman? Tough.

Refusal to aid in renewal of federal assault weapons ban, even though the law had already been eviscerated by the gun industry. Get it? INDUSTRY.

Fighting background checks. The Virginia shooter had been committed to a mental institution. In Virginia that means you can't buy a gun. Oh yeah? Thank goodness the gun shop owner who sold it to him can't be sued.

The president does not support the police when citizens can have assault weapons.

The president does not support the police when citizens can have armor piercing bullets.

The president helps the terrorists when anyone can have a shoulder rocket launcher that can take a plane out of the sky. And I'm taking my shoes off at the airport?

The president helps the terrorists when he supports a ban on release of federal crime tracing data necessary to identify patterns in illegal gun trafficking.

The president helps the terrorists when he requires the ATF to immediately destroy gun sales records previously allowed to be kept for 90 days under Brady Bill background check.

We Found the WMD. They Are Here.


Guns are for cowards. You can kill from a distance. You are detached, removed. You don't get your hands dirty. You don't feel the life draining out of another human being in an eye to eye struggle, face to face, with your hands squeezing or beating soft, human, flesh, one on one. We had just as many disturbed, sick citizens in America in the last century as we do in this. The difference now is access to weapons of mass destruction. Anyone can have a gun. Anyone. It did not used to be like this. It's easy to kill now.

The Gang that Couldn't Shoot Straight

"Two Secret Service officers were injured yesterday after a gun held by another Secret Service officer accidentally fired inside the White House gate. The officers received wounds to face and leg."

"Vice President Cheney shoots hunting companion in the face."

So really, what chance do thousands of children a year have?

3,300 Americans have died in Iraq and Afghanistan in the last four years. 120,000 Americans have been shot to death in America in the last four years. Where is the outrage? If we can elect a new congress based on its commitment to end the war overseas, we can elect a congress committed to end the war here at home. End both wars.

Here's the Punchline

Today the supreme court overturned thirty years of supreme court precedent, and overturned the findings of six federal courts, to declare war on women, their health, their privacy, and their lives, by upholding a ban on dilation and curettage abortion that contains NO exception to preserve the health or SAVE THE LIFE of the woman. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, writing for the four dissenting justices, called the decision "alarming".

Wait for it...

President Custer - "Today's decision affirms that the Constitution does not stand in the way of the people's representatives enacting laws reflecting the compassion and humanity of America. This affirms the progress my administration has made to defend the "sanctity of life".

Here's the mentality of the gun-nut right: If they don't agree with us, shoot 'em down.

As much as I agree with pretty much everything Maisky has said here, I must say, that is very good news Swanny. Change is good, no matter how slight.

You'd probably be the one shot since you'd be the one unarmed and wouldn't have the ability to return fire.


Hey JC! I havn't gone anywhere.

Well I'm sure glad guns arn't apples in the case you've copied and posted. We'd have a lot of sick people. Remember, "an apple a day keeps the doctor away"