Gun Control, who's for it?

Actually JC I do. I pack quite often and I actually forget I have it on me alot of times. Except when I go to the airport or other pla ces where I consider more dangerious because guns are prohibited. I learned in martial arts years ago to expect the unexpected so I try to remember that. I know it sounds extreme but I was actually indirectly involved with a violent crime envolving a disgruntled employee and it occurred in a place where you'd never think it to be. Several people were killed that day. Just look at what happened in Salt Lake City at the mall. I thank God that doesn't happen often but when it does and I happen to be around, I want to be safe. I'm sure those around me, if that situation were to occur, would be grateful if I were able to stop the attack.

Also, when I go to the grocery store, I do go to "pack" up on groceries.

Good answer… Nova.

JC

While we are on the topic of gun rights, did you all hear about the land mark decision in Washington DC today? A federal court ruled that the ban on hand guns was unconstitutional! The last time that issue was brought up was I think in the 1930s. I think it's great! I'm sure a lot of others do as well.

You know Nova, you make me laugh... Like there’s any other subject...

This is an interesting fact about the shall issue of conceled carry permit in Florida. In 1987, when Florida enacted such legislation, critics warned that the "Sunshine State" would become the "Gunshine State." Contrary to their predictions, homicide rates dropped faster than the national average. Further, through 1997, only one permit holder out of the over 350,000 permits issued, was convicted of homicide.
Very interesting to see. Still there are those who think guns are the problem and they need to be banned or controlled even more then they already are.

Remarkably quiet over here, in light of the disaster at Virginia Tech. Any thoughts?

I was thinking the same thing at first Stoirmeil, how strangely silent this thread was considering.....particularly in contrast to the amount of attention the Imus thread received. But frankly I think all the arguments have been made before (see those made at time of Amish shootings) and I'm not sure any new arguments are forthcoming. I'm not sure I want to participate in a new wave of endless reiterations personally.

Since you asked, I do have a thought. If any single person other than the perpetrator had been armed, the killing spree would have ended with only one or two victims, max.

You're right, the arguments have been made before. They can and will be repeated as often as necessary.

Swanny

Thank You Swanny! That was my thought exactally!

How very arrogant. All the arguments have been made, lady, so the hell with it. I presume you believe there's nothing more to say, or this case is just routine and why make it worse by thinking about how it could have been prevented? You bet your a$$ those kids' mothers want to know how.

The young man fit a profile that has been pretty much established, and he emitted several warning signs. I take your point, Swanny, and probably that is a correct assessment if the best way to handle it were to wait until after he armed himself and went postal. My best instinct is to respect you for a very intelligent and humane guy, so this is a little bit of a wrench, but it whiffs a little bit of you having a sense of yourself or other gun owners as heroes ready to save a day that might have been prevented in a completely different way. I still think it would have to be better yet if there had been controls in place that made it necessary for some kind of a check on that kid to be run before he walked into the store and dropped all that money on the weapons and ammunition, utterly unchallenged. Your way, at the very least the boy himself would have to be taken out, and that's the best case scenario, which must include a hero from among the standing population of that environment -- some proportion of male and female college students and professors being perpetually armed in the university setting, and/or a very large and prohibitively expensive security force at all times, covering all classrooms. (Expensive enough to prevent many, many more kids than there are now from going to school for money reasons, I dare say.) Since I work and teach and counsel in a University environment, I can't endorse that. It's enormous overkill, huge headaches for any security system, and it sets up far more potential risk than it averts in a setting where high stress is common and most of the population is coming out of late adolescence.

As it is, I don't believe there was no way to prevent Cho from getting hold of the guns in the first place. Would you have sold them to him if you were the owner of that store? Might you not have smelled that there was something mighty fishy about the way he carried himself, or wondered what he was going to do with them? He was badly screwed up in his affect -- the consensus on that in sanctimonious hindsight is overwhelming -- and he did not suddenly become Joe Congenial and totally deceive the store owner that he was just fine and not at the very least suicidal. Or would you, like the store owner, only have seen the dollar signs and made your sale?

Now -- to protect the rights of good, law abiding citizens like yourselves to go buy yourselves a gun unchallenged, and not be required to make it known to legal authorities that you own it and prove you can use it with appropriate skill, and are moreover of sound mind and have no criminal record -- we as a population must remain open to risk like this. What do you have against owning open and aboveboard, with knowledge of the authorities, and the requirement to prove you are skilled in its use? I've yet to hear an unselfcentered answer to that that makes any sense.

Wake up, guys. The population does not cut clearly and evenly into good and bad, criminal and noncriminal, normal and nutso. This kid was not a criminal until he committed his first murder, but he was seriously ill and had no previous experience that we know of with firearms, nor was he ever asked what he intended to own them for. He could have been filtered out of the candidate pool to just go buy one and use it, with controls in place. At least the probability could have been lowered a great deal if he had been balked at the kind of legal sales venue that was the most likely to be available to him as a college kid. It's all reduction of probability, like any disease.

You know something? I had a very spongy take on this whole issue before I began to see this thread develop. It's a lot sharper now, just from having heard all these arguments. I think I'm ready to put some of the steam I've been wasting here into our local lobby.

He was determined to be "not of sound mind" after he was accused of stalking.
However, since he was ordered to out patient treatment, instead of being committed to a facility, the State felt they did not need to tell the Feds of his condition, even though the ruling SHOULD have barred him from owning guns.
Just one more example of gun control laws that DO NOT work!

The first American I've heard admit that the US does in fact have Gun Control. Just not very much.

I would also like to hear an answer to Stoirmeil's question:

"What do you have against owning open and aboveboard, with knowledge of the authorities, and the requirement to prove you are skilled in its use?"

But I'd ask also, what do you have against preventing gun purchases by a person with mental instabilities, who'd been determined by a court to be a dangerous stalker? Even if the police had a list of gun owners skilled in their use, they didn't know who the shooter was beforehand. All the more reason to limit access to guns in the first place, as Stoirmeil says:

He could have been filtered out of the candidate pool to just go buy one and use it, with controls in place.

Taking steps to prevent mentally unstable people from buying firearms is no more of an infringement on freedom of gun ownership than the prevention of five year old children from buying them is. In both cases you have enough indication that gun use has a high probability of being irresponsible, although for different reasons. In this case, you even had a restraining order on Cho and a court opinion concerning his mental instability to go on. Why wouldn't this be enough?

By the way, good for you Stoirmeil for choosing to take the energy spent here and putting it to better use (getting involved with your local lobby). Perhaps I spoke too soon and there is more to say. Guess we'll see. I'm unsure how arrogant it is however to be tired of endless reiterations, or how thinking about how this tragedy could have been prevented will not conjure them. I'm also unsure of the connection between our discussion and the solace of the mothers of those slaughtered kids. Do they read this board?