Why does everyone blame the firearm whenever there is a horrific firearm crime?

Oh come on, we’re supposed to hold people responsible for their actions? What are you, a commie.~

That campus in Oregon had a strict no weapons rule,look how well that worked.

We do strictly regulate the use of automobiles.
You have to pass a written and usage test to get a license, and only then after a certain age.
You have to carry your license whenever operating a motor vehicle.
You have to carry insurance.
You’re prohibited from using a vehicle while impaired.

We also regulate the use of alcohol similarly, and a server can be held responsible for allowing a customer to become impaired.

Without these restrictions, we’d just blame the cars and the booze. Like we do with guns.

Disclaimer: yes, I’m still struggling with my position re: guns. Bear with me…

@SQUEEKY2 – First of all, I don’t think many people are blaming the guns themselves. But I see all kinds of people picking up their cause and using this shooting as another opportunity to make unreasonable connections between this event and their cause (there have even been people of questionable intelligence and morals who have blamed the event on atheism).

But regarding your question about blaming the firearm – what if we try to figure this out by taking an extreme position and reeling it in until we find where the line is. For example, I don’t think there would be much support for people who want to make owning anti-aircraft missiles legal. Would there be a desire to make sure that we protect peoples’ access to such things, making it easier for the mentally ill to get ahold of one? Probably not. So, let’s step back and try to figure out what level of weapon we would find some level of support for. And when we find that level, what is it about it that make it acceptable? In other words, specifically, what is it about a particular weapon that makes it something we need the mentally ill to have access to that differentiates it from, say an anti-aircraft missile launcher or a nuclear weapon?

Once we’ve found an answer to this, I suspect that we’ll still have the issue of how easy we want it to be to obtain these accepted weapons. We know that dangerous people will continue to go shoot up a school. But wait – we’re getting close to blaming the weapon again, right? Some people will cry that we can’t blame the weapon for being used by crazy people to kill other people. But if we can’t, why would we make any limitation at all to the type of weapon we allow people to own? If I just want to own large amounts of bombs and missiles, can’t I? I’m a law-abiding citizen with a hobby? Why would I get penalized because there are those who wish to use such things to harm people? Go after them.

See where I’m going here? I hope so, because I can’t some of the time. I struggle with this issue because it’s pretty clear that what we have with guns is an issue that is awash in grays, yet constantly portayed as one that is strictly black and white. I obviously lean towards making it nearly impossible to own a gun. But I get caught up when trying to work out the details.

That said, I don’t think it’s a matter of blaming the firearm or the person doing the killing. If either didn’t exist, there would likely be 10 less dead people today. Sure, the guy was psychologically confused. But give a crazy guy a tool to quickly end lives, and…well…

Teetotalers did call for a ban on alcohol. They even got it, for a while (q.v. Prohibition).

I’d like to see a lot of cutting back on cars, not because they mow down people, but because they result is soulless suburbs malls and scattered communities and pollution and fewer cool places where you can walk around and have a nice town-like place.

Not to be too conspiracist about it, but the news media which creates a lot of the “everyone is saying X” is corporate-owned, and corporations are probably rightly afraid, to some degree, of lots of guns in the population…

On the other hand, the “real” main answer that comes to mind is that of course many people don’t have any guns at all, and so are naturally scared and it feels horrible and unnecessary to people that there are others, especially crazy people, with guns, especially high-capacity guns, going on sudden rampages. Also because such weapons make it relatively easy for even a crazy untrained person to suddenly unleash a lot of violence in ways that people can’t do a lot about.

It’s not blaming the guns. It is blaming the easy accessibility of guns.

If that guy couldn’t have gotten ahold of firearms, there would be a lot less grief today.

Guns are designed to kill. They may be used for other reasons, but that is their design and the reason they are made.

Because
PEOPLE
IS
STUPID
!

They don’t put the guns in jail. They put the insane people, who should never have been cleared for a gun, in jail.

I am so with you on this. No one in the White House will call this a religious hate crime either. It will be labeled that he wasn’t hugged enough by his mommie crime and we should ban all guns again.

I heard on the radio that 22 military veterans commit suicide EVERY DAY and no one is making a stink over this. Trump is the only one coming out and making better support and VA treatment for our Vets a campaign issue.

That aside the stuff on the news about this kid ranting, raving and posting that he is going to kill kill kill and no one stepped up to the authorities that someone should go pay a visit to this nut job. This kid IMO could have and should have been stopped.

You guys are disappointing me. No one has ever said anything about banning ALL guns.
They have suggested banning assault rifles. They have suggested having stricter back ground checks. Those suggestions I am behind.

Easier access to guns = more gun deaths. A statistical fact.
Your third world country has so many shooting sprees, regularly, that a new one is no longer a tragedy, but “Oh, another one. Meh.”

This is rather a leading question. Most people I know don’t blame a weapon for inflicting harm upon someone; they blame the person wielding the weapon. They type of weapon only assists in the assailants efficiency at killing and maiming and most rational people understand this.
Someone intent upon murder will use whatever is at hand; a rock, a stick, a knife, a gun, a bomb. As a society, and to protect all members of that society, we place limits and restrictions on the availability of these things. You and I can’t own a tank; we can’t carry bombs or grenades, we are restricted from certain types of firearms; we can’t carry swords, spears are right out and our knives cannot exceed a certain length. All done to try to minimize the damage a person can inflict wielding one as a weapon.
I am not for taking away guns from the general public but it is obvious to all except the most die hard zealots that what we are doing now is not working so the question is do we try a different tack or do we just throw up our hands and say “Well, nothing could have prevented this from happening”?
.

Yep, I’m with @zenvelo it’s an all you can shoot shooters smorgasbord out there with millions of illegal and black market guns to be had. Oregon also has a CC policy and it is up to the discretion of the individual educational entity to allow or disallow CC.
After years of being a pretty staunch anti-gun type I am starting to change my mind in light of these shooting sprees. I’d welcome a responsible CC carrier like a friend of mine to be on hand in the event of being in the middle of some horrific unfolding like we have seen so much of in the last handful of years.

It really is about the good guys vs. the bad guys these days and I never thought I’d say this but….IF we are to continue to be subject to these lunatics out there I’d sure welcome a responsible CC citizen to be around when the shit goes down.

Despite how strictly auto’s are regulated it still manages to be one of the most fatal objects we use as humans. There will always be idiots and crazies. Further regulating those who don’t fall into one of those categories is not the answer. Idiots and crazies live by their own rules anyhow.

SAT TEST: Guns kill people is to spoons made me fat.

@Cruiser Many of us deplore the lack of support for veterans. The Republican Congress doesn’t think veterans need any more help than they get at present, and won’t fund it despite being asked.

But don’t use that as smoke screen for not acknowledging that people are dying by gun violence every single day and have for years.

@Apparently_Im_The_Grumpy_One poor analogy. Spoons are not designed to make anyone fat. Guns are designed to kill.

Your question can be boiled down to kneejerk reaction to cultural bamboozling. It can be said the easy and prolific access to booze and a culture that lionizes it can be a catalyst to the many drunken driving deaths. The same can be said of vehicles. You can regulate and legislate all you want, you can’t control the access to everyone getting access to them, legally or certainly illegally. Wasn’t that one of the complaints, illegal immigrants driving with no license, insurance in vehicles that were not registered? Most people do not own or like guns, so it is the low fruit, attacking it they never feel they will ever get caught by the shrapnel, it will be ”those people”. But most people love driving, or owning a vehicle, and drinking (often both together), to save lives by curtailing use of driving or access to booze is a no-no because those who love it might not be out of the blast radius and thus affected, can’t have that, can we? Besides, vehicles and booze are larger money makers, and we know how in the US Uncle Sam likes his cash cows.

Blaming the people would imply that there was something wrong with people, and people don’t like being told that. The flaws of our society are the elephant in the room. Looking at a lot of other numbers like our highway fatality rates, health statistics, and many more, it’s blatantly obvious that we are not “the best country in the history of everything”, but our egos are so opposed to acknowledging that we must find a scapegoat. As one who has played both D&D and heavy metal music, I myself have fallen victim to the quest for a “fall guy”.

So basically, we cannot admit that we are fucked in the head and thus blame inanimate objects for our misdeeds; after all, we are totally innocent, blameless creatures.

@Cruiser If it were labeled as a hate crime and/or terrorism, then Christians and Conservatives would be the ones to suffer. Putting either of those groups in the same company as the KKK and/or Al Qaeda would cause more problems than it solved. As it stands, we have enough radicals claiming persecution without throwing gas on the fire.
(Also, Sanders also supports our vets, but given the other issues that are out there, it’s a little lower on his agenda and doesn’t get publicized as much.)

That’s right @zenvelo. Guns are made for no other reason than to kill. Some guns are made for nothing other than killing other humans.

10 dead and 7 injured in Oregon.

Had a gun not been available, he would, no doubt, have inflicted similar damage with a…spoon.

Compare that with the 17 known vehicular rampage killings in the US..

I have never seen anyone blame the gun. I have seen people cite lax gun laws as a factor, however. Failing to recognize the difference negates any possibility of having a rational discussion on the matter of gun violence. There is also virtually no support for banning all guns. There is support for universal gun regulation and for the banning of certain guns, but these are again importantly different.

@Apparently_Im_The_Grumpy_One A better SAT analogy: Guns don’t kill people. Ovens don’t cook food. Umbrellas don’t keep people dry.

A firearm is just designed to send a projectile/s out at a cetain velocity. It’s inaminate, it does aim itself or decide what to fire on.

@SavoirFaire I have, but they tend to be a minority. Most who have anti-gun feelings are moderate enough to favor registration; it’s only the delusionally idealistic that actually call for total bans.

@zenvelo I am certainly not using the lack of treatment and support as a “smokescreen” over this tragedy. Even the President said we all have gotten numb to these kind of mass shootings yet we will still get 2 weeks of 24 hour news coverage of this event. When IMO bigger tragedies like the send them to war and then practically forget about the vets well-being is a tragedy of greater proportion and importance. You say many of “us” deplore this reality yet I do not see much of anything being said or done about it.

This shooting could have had much different outcome if one of three things were done.

Parents, relatives and friends live and online, psychiatrist/therapist/psychologists, clergy, counselors and co-workers are often witness to changing erratic and even threatening behavior. In and around each and everyone of these tragedies someone saw trouble brewing and said and did nothing.

Adam Lanza’s mother knew how unbalanced her son was yet she kept an AR 15 in the house. The school knew he was unhinged as he had an altercation with 2 school administrators the day before. This event had so many openings towards intervening Adams attack. Also, if you are or have been diagnosed as having a mental disorder….no guns for you! If you are on psychotropic medicines….no guns for you either.

Second, arm the fricking Securty Guards! Even Barney Fife had one bullet!

Third, Conceal and carry….it works.
One
Two
Three
Four
Many many more happy ending stories like these the media never reports.

@Cruiser Your contradict yourself. If having a mental disorder would disqualify you from gun ownership, you can’t reasonably expect people to get treated and leave a paper trail that infringes on their freedoms. I see the diagnosis of mental illness among Conservatives dropping precipitously. I mean, many of them reject a lot of other science, so why not avoid medical science as well?

Also, it would lead to a bit of collateral damage as not only would people that shouldn’t have guns get them because they avoided doctors so as to thwart the Socialist Muslim Fascist Liberal agenda, but some that pose no real danger would lose their rights. Many of them veterans who are fully trained in safe gun handling (unlike most civilians) but have PTSD. Think it through a little more carefully; you may be disqualifying the people best suited to own guns from ever being allowed to even be near one.

I agree with you that this nation doesn’t handle mental illness very well, but treating the mentally ill is also one of those things where our nation is literally centuries behind many other nations. We’ve managed to advance ourselves to an understanding on par with where some enlightened parts of Europe were mere decades ago, but societal attitudes haven’t really changed about the time European settlers set foot on the North American continent.

Guns are bought to harm people, cars aren’t. Even if a gun is bought for self defense, it’s bought to be able to inflict harm, that’s why it’s psychologically different when we hear a story about a shooting.

In terms of grass root efforts, political efforts, and the media getting loud right after a mass shooting; well that’s just seizing the moment to take advantage of emotions running high to push through their agenda. We do that with a lot of things.

To address what was said above about the administration not addressing this was religious, from what I understand, the shooter asked people if they were Christian, or something along that line, because they were about to meet their maker. If that is the case trying to twist this into a Christian hate crime is reaching; although, I understand the perspective that identifying as a Christian put the person at a higher risk, but because of the totally bullshit claim immediately following the shooting at the black church by Christian right wingers and politicians, people have less tolerance for such claims.

@JLeslie I’ve had a few Thanksgiving turkeys wind up in my kitchen due to a shotgun, and I’ve been badly hurt by cars. I’ve known a few people that died in accidents as well.

Many gun owners would agree with me that if you are even in a position where you must use your gun to harm a human being then things have already gone horribly wrong. Some would also argue that merely displaying the ability to do harm and letting a perp gamble on the gun owner’s willingness to use force to defend themselves serves as a deterrent.

As for the Christian angle, well, I haven’t heard enough concrete facts on that to say much, but I can say with confidence that whatever is made of it, it will probably be more sensationalized than the actual truth. Coming from me, that’s a pretty hefty benefit of a doubt.

@jerv I’m not talking about killing animals. Most people who wanted stricter gun control consider hunting animals, and protection from animals, to be in a different category. I do anyway.

I agree the gun can be a useful deterrent. It doesn’t change that our gun oriented society probably causes more harm than good overall.

@jerv Sigh….why do you always have to whip politics into your answers. I enjoy discussing politics with you but this topic and many others do not have to have an our side vs your side take on matter such as these. Mass shootings affect all of us and the reasons this happened that are on the surface reflect equally badly on the gun legislation Congress has passed to date and IMO have epically failed to enforce as to why these types of tragedies continue to happen.

I cannot cite chapter and verse of all the laws and changes to the 2nd Amendment of our Constitution…that said I am dismayed and continually saddened that our laws in place that AFAICT SHOULD stop most of this shit from happening. And I am sure there are gun dealers cut from both liberal and conservative values that are more than willing to take green backs from anyone including wide eyed people that are unhinged all because we/the Government are sorely lax on enforcing the massive amount of 2nd Amendment regulations we already have in place. It IMO is pretty f’n simple and start s with stop handing out FOID cards to the mentally unhinged!! DO A THOROUGH BACKGROUND CHECK AND THROW THE IDIOTS WHO SELL THESE GUNS TO LUNATICS IN JAIL FOR A VERY VERY LONG TIME! How hard is that!?!

Of course guns don’t just jump up by themselves and kill people. But on the other hand, there’s no epidemic of people utilizing either automobiles or alcohol as preferred weapons for mass murder. The argument can be made that it isn’t that the United States has a surplus of weaponry, but rather that we have a surplus of psychopaths. But honest answers to a couple of questions puts things in perspective. Question 1. Is the firearms homicide rate in the United States completely unrelated to the numbers of guns in the country? And 2. Is there some theoretical number of guns that the majority of us would agree is excessive?

@stanleybmanly Your #2 brings to the surface as to why and how did this kid in the most recent mass murder and pretty much all of the mass murder perps have a shitload of guns and ammo on them and in their cars and the gun dealers never bat an eye?? WHY I ask? Because enforcement of our gun laws is sorely lax. Until we enforce the gun laws, (of which there are more than plenty) people will again and again lose their lives to unhinged whack jobs.

You can take away all the guns, knives, sling shots and pea shooters and the mentally unstable will find away to take out their rage upon innocents. Time to stop waving our hands when shit like this happens and focus our attention on the root sources of these mass murders.

@zenvelo
The point is clear. Guns.. no matter how sentient they want to be.. aren’t. Neither are spoons. You got the point.. so why tear apart the analogy?

@ibstubro
The perp was shot and killed preventing more murder.. Should the cops have spoons as well?

All the guns this Oregon moron had were legally obtained. That process (the one where we slow everything down… and do background checks.. and add more paperwork to the mix) doesn’t work.

You can ban all the guns you want. Guys like this will make their own.

Because without the gun, mass murders could not be committed.

@marinelife
Knives
Bricks

“2028 UK Tribune: British Parliament considering law banning cinderblocks”‘In reaction to a shocking home invasion where a criminal gang murdered a family with bricks, the British government has promised a legislative response. Since knives were outlawed in 2014, murders with bricks and stones have increased 40% over the last 14 years. The English Bricklayers Union has promised to fight the law’s enactment. If the bill is signed, buildings made of stone will require annual inspection to ensure they aren’t being turned into weapons”

@Cruiser how come one never hears about a mass knifing on campus? Because a knife can kill, i the perp is skillful or lucky, but that is not its intended purpose. And a knifer can be overwhelmed by a large group.

Guns are designed for killing. A gun that can’t kill is considered a toy (unless a cop sees you and then the only person killed is the little kid playing with it).

There really should be no dispute over guns. The fact is that it is almost certainly too late to remedy the accelerating massacres. What’s the most effective method of quickly slaughtering the largest number of people in the shortest possible time? Who reading this can’t locate and get their hands on a gun with about the same ease as acquiring a flashlight? I suppose the one hope is that as these incidents grow ever more routine, like traffic accidents, they might lose their appeal to the demented as a means of attracting attention.

@zenvelo Bows and arrows where designed to kill, but are used by sports enthusiasts around the world, same as Javelins ,and other such things used in sporting events.
Yes the main reason firearms were invented was to kill, but haven’t we evolved beyond that why can’t we use them for sport, example target, skeet, long rang ,and not to mention hunting.
You can’t believe what I have to go through just to obtain a gun and keep it, yes there needs to be strict enforcement to try and regulate sick people from obtaining a firearm, but will that really work,or just make it more cumbersome for a normal law abiding citizen to get one for legal purposes?

@SQUEEKY2
It works in all other western nations.

I think the US needs to wake up, and offer real help for the mentally ill,so they can get help and not feel the need to go on wild killing sprees.
Another sign that their wonderful health care system is failing those who need it the worst.
And another sign that a universal health care system would do a far better job, than just screaming ban the gun.

At the very least, gun control would eliminate the cases of children shooting (often killing) their friends, siblings, or parents. The Guardian says there are 500 children killed by other kids, every year. Yes, that number is comparatively low – but for every dead child, there are a lot of ruined lives.

And still, there are pink rifles for sale. To give to little girls.

Europe is pretty much in disbelief.

@SQUEEKY2 You are in Canada. Does Canada have a monthly mass school shooting?

Yes, bows and arrows are designed to kill, but I don’t read of anyone taking out a school classroom with one.

Not monthly but we have had them, but we also have a universal health care system where the mentally ill can get help, without facing financial ruin.
One thing I can blame the states for is glorifying violence for entertainment like in the movies and things like ultimate fighting, mentally ill seem to feed on that shit, and have a hard time telling make believe (the movies) and real life and want to imitate it and people always get hurt when that happens.
Yes we have stricter gun laws, with background checks, and we have to follow the law about safe storage.
As for the other weapons used in murders they happen all the time but the media doesn’t jump on them as much because they can’t sensationalize it, like they can with firearm murders thus improving sales or ratings.

There is definately something wrong with how the US handles gun control. So far this year (2015), and it isn’t over yet, there have been 265 mass shootings. That is out of 276 days so far. A “mass shooting” is defined as multiple people wounded/killed from gunfire.

Another mass shooting occurred today in Baltimore. If you haven’t heard about it yet, it might be because it is new news. Or maybe because only one person was killed and four were injured.~

So far this year in the good ol’ US of A, over 10,000 people have been killed by gunfire and an additional 30,000+ have been injured. Something needs to change. IMO, it boils down to two things: stricter gun control and the convincing the US citizens who fight it that they are wrong.

Israel one of the u.s closest friends encourages their citizens to train and get licensed and carry ,maybe they should go that way, it might turn into a wild west,but then again most times it is cowards who do these horrific crimes,maybe if they knew there was a great chance someone would shoot back other than the police who show up, way after the fact might not go in with guns a blazing so to speak.
Stricter gun control only works on LAW abiding citizens, and the last time I looked it was illegal to shoot someone,so do you really think these killers are going to care about stricter gun control.

Stricter gun control is about keeping guns out of the hands of people who should not have them in the first place.

The challenge is that it takes time and effort to do so. England is a prime example. Most guns are illegal there now. This didn’t occur overnight but over decades. The country has reached a point where regular police officers don’t carry one; an elite group of officers have access to them. There is still the occasional gun that is used by some disturbed individual that obtains access to one, but they are few and far between. And yes, England still has their share of violence, but one is still more likely to survive from a knife injury (and knives are fairly controlled there) or a pub brawl. These are the types of news reports that hit the front page and linger as follow-up stories compared to where I live in the US. An individual shooting is lucky to garner a 5-minute message on the evening news because they are so common. The US needs to take a leaf out of England’s book, as well as other countries where gun control is successful, and figure out what would work in this country.

And @SQUEEKY2, please stop throwing out strawmen when it comes to gun control.
* No one blames the gun. It is a weapon designed to cause harm. Everyone knows that with the exception of some children who haven’t grasped the concept.
* Not everyone who uses a gun to harm another human is an idiot. There are plenty of people who use one and get away with it. Some are never caught. Others win their case in court due to a variety of circumstances.
* While it may be possible that everyone who inflicts these mass killings has some sort of mental illness, without extensive research into each case, it is unfair to make a blanket statement that they all do not receive or have access to proper treatment. I grew up in a home were Dad’s shotguns were easily accessible, as well as the ammunition. How many of these shooters were in a similar situation?
* Have you been to Israel? I have. Citizens, both male and female, are required to go through military training (with some exceptions, like a criminal record) which includes how to use a gun. How many own a gun after their service is unknown to me. Do you know? All I can tell you after talking to a few locals is that they would prefer that the Israeli/Palestine issue be resolved once and for all.

…do you really think these killers are going to care about stricter gun control.(?) Of course not. Where there is a will, there is a way. It doesn’t take a whole lot of effort to obtain instructions on how to build a bomb and the ingredients to do so.

If the US regulates gun control which today is easily accessible, then it will surely make a difference on the number of people injured and murdered from a weapon that is unnecessary to the vast majority of citizens.

@SQUEEKY2 I just don’t think you can compare mini-small countries like Israel to a huge, diverse, country like America. I doubt Israel trains the Arab-Israelis (I don’t know) the Arabs aren’t allowed to be in their army as far as I know. I don’t know much about it though.

@SQUEEKY2 you have, maintain, and use a firearm. What’s your beef? You’re in Canada that has high gun ownership and “a low gun crime rate.

The majority of Americans aren’t favoring a complete ban on guns, we just want to be more like Canada. Buying a gun shouldn’t be easy. Owning numerous guns should require some sort of ‘expert’ or ‘collector’ hurdle.

For those that don’t like to open links:

Canada
The U.S.‘s neighbor to the north also has outstandingly low gun casualty statistics. In 2009, there were 0.5 deaths per 100,000 from gun homicide — only 173 people. Still, the ownership is comparatively high — there are 23.8 firearms per 100 people in the country.
There is no legal right to possess arms in Canada. It takes sixty days to buy a gun there, and there is mandatory licensing for gun owners. Gun owners pursuing a license must have third-party references, take a safety training course and pass a background check with a focus on mental, criminal and addiction histories.
Licensing agents are required to advise an applicant’s spouse or next-of-kin prior to granting a license, and licenses are denied to applicants with any past history of domestic violence. Buyers in private sales of weapons must pass official background checks.
Canadian civilians aren’t allowed to possess automatic weapons, handguns with a barrel shorter than 10.5 cm or any modified handgun, rifle or shotgun. Most semi-automatic assault weapons are also banned. As a result of exemptions, several kinds of assault weapons are still legal in Canada, although this has been the source of some controversy.

Yeah, buddy, I can live with something like that in the US.

Ah, that short barrel hand gun law came into affect a few years ago, and I do have one that falls in that category but since I owned it before the law, I have been Grandfathered with it I can keep it, but that is it, I can sell it to other owners that have been Grandfathered but then I lose my statis on it and can’t own another one like it.

About Israel and gun laws

@JLeslie I think we largely agree then; the problem isn’t so much the availability of guns so much as it is what makes people want to use them against other people. But it’s easier to blame guns than it is to admit society is flawed.

@Cruiser Mass shootings do affect us all, but the reactions of others to such events also effect us. Public opinion affects legislation as well as exerting peer pressure, thus affecting both de facto and de jure law. No matter what your opinion on an issue is, the opinions of others will have some effect on your life.
And politics mirrors society. In this country, the two-party system is fairly firmly entrenched so that those who have an opinion on an issue will mostly fall into one of only two camps, though fairly recently there have been a growing number of people who feel neither is doing it right and have their own opinions, often a compromise position between the other two groups, sometimes something different from either.
Guns just happen to be one those things where public opinion shows a definite partisan divide, though the truth is that both one’s political leanings and one’s opinions are linked to one’s personality. But when speaking naturally, it’s easier to use “Conservative” than type out “person of the opinion that Barack Obama is part of a conspiracy to weaken America and allow his Muslim friends to enslave our women and kill our children who stockpiles guns for when Jade Helm comes for them” longhand every single time.
It’s just a coincidence that the majority of such people tend to lean the same way politically, but I will concede that it was a bit lazy of me to address the sub-set by using the much shorter title of the super-set and given the appearance of being more about politics than merely about different categories of people, and a bit unfair to those who are part of the super-set without being part of that particular subset. Mea culpa.

Can’t you see, @SQUEEKY2, that the Canadian laws are largely effective?

Do you want people less than yourself owning unregistered guns? What’s the point in an arsenal?

@zenvelo I guess it would be because mass knife attacks are not worthy of breaking news like mass shootings are?? I think they should get the same 2 weeks 24/7 coverage that gun shoot em ups get. So not fair.
Slasher
Mass Stabbings(2010%E2%80%9312)
14 stabbed at college

Fact Check:
“The United States is 3rd in murders throughout the World. If you take out Chicago, Detroit, Washington D.C. and New Orleans than the US is 4th from the bottom for murders. These four cities have the toughest gun control laws in the US.”

@Apparently_Im_The_Grumpy_One Source?

@Cruiser I agree knife,club,assaults, are not sensationalized by the media like shootings are, and they are just as bad an innocent killed by a idiot drunk driving, is just as tragic as someone shot with a gun.

@Cruiser Until we enforce the gun laws, (of which there are more than plenty) people will again and again lose their lives to unhinged whack jobs.
How effective would that be? Those who want weapons illegally will get them, more than likely the cartels will ship some with their next kilos of drugs, and not only will they be more expensive, but they will come full auto out the box, no going to the Net to learn how to make it so.

@Hypocrisy_Central Of course that would still be the case…but in each and every one of these “crazies” mass shootings the weapons used were either easily purchased or readily had from a parents cache. Unfortunately there is a paucity of after action reporting on who what where when and how these perps got these weapons and the missed opportunities for the person who provided the guns to say hey wait a minute…you are not right in the head and should not be getting these guns from me. I think the gun store owner/parent/friend etc. where these guns came from need to be held accountable and in some cases responsible for what carnage those guns caused.

It’s the large number rationalization hamsters blaming the implement and not the motivation of the user behind it. That would mean we have to face up to the fact that our society has issues. WAAYY easier to simply demand even more gun laws that will make even less sense (because they don’t really know anything about them) than it is to look at mental health and god forbid deal with things on a case by case basis. Let us make this even worse by publicising it all over the news letting any nutjob know that they will be forever immortalized if they go on a rampage.

Slasher: 14 wounded
Mass stabbings: 24 injured at Chenpeng Village Primary School vs. 26 dead at Sandy Hook Elementary School, hours later.
14 stabbed at college: 14 wounded.

In fact, a spate of knife weilding School attacks in China left fewer dead than Sandy Hook alone. That guns were not available to the nuts in China likely saved dozens of kids lives.

I can’t stay in this conversation. Believing that making more laws will affect those who break the current laws is madness (because the other words I’m thinking are too mean). Believing that treatment of the “symptom” instead of the “disease” is good practice… madness. Believing that removing firearms from law abiding citizens to prevent the use of them by criminals… madness. Refusing to look at history (such as how they treated guns in the UK.. which did not reduce murder rates) .. madness.

Let’s go ahead.. ban all the guns you want.. it will probably work out like the 18th amendment worked out in the 20’s. Let’s go ahead and crap on the foundations of this country. Let’s ignore that serial killers throughout history didn’t use AK-47’s, or M-4’s.. they used power and control. Let’s go ahead and ignore justifiable killings by trained law enforcement over the years that prevented further crime (such as how armed citizens aided law enforcement with their personal weapons.. taking down a tower shooter in 66). Let’s completely ignore that in Obama’s hometown, murders are commonplace.. and they are committed with “cheap handguns” ... not assault weapons. Let’s completely ignore that box cutters lead to one of the most devastating events in the past few years.. not guns. Hell, let’s take weapons out of the hands of our military.. why not? The rules of engagement are already such that you basically need to have a bullet hole in your body in order to fire back.. for fear of being sent to Leavenworth… Let’s go ahead and completely ignore history again by shrugging off what people have said over the years on this very topic:

“Laws that forbid the carrying of arms…disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed one.”
Cesare Beccaria

“Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote”
Ben Franklin

“If violent crime is to be curbed, it is only the intended victim who can do it. The felon does not fear the police, and he fears neither judge nor jury. Therefore what he must be taught is to fear his victim.”
Lt. Col. Jeff Cooper

Let’s go ahead and ignore everything I just typed out here.. picking at one small part of it (like how my spoon analogy was fielded). Ignore the point.. just as you’ve (whoever) ignored history.

You are the one that ignores the statistical reality that in western societies, lax gun laws equals more gun crimes.
You are the one that flees into ideology to escape facts.
You might as well make theft and murder legal, because clearly no one follows laws.
And the claim that you need guns to protect yourself from tyranny is a fantasy, if not an outright lie.
Your self proclaimed country is the best proof of that.
Führer Bush enacts patriot act – _gun nuts cheer.__
Innocents tortured and treated like animals in the Guantanamo concentration campst – _gun nuts cheer.__
Mass surveillance that would make the Stasi instantly cum in its own mouth- _gun nuts cheer.__
Racist Gestapo pig cops murdering defenseless blacks – _gun nuts cheer.__
Christian theocrats working to destroy/prevent equal rights for women/gays – _gun nuts cheer.__

Gun nuts are supporters of tyranny.

@ragingloli Ironically, if you look just at the US, you will find that the relationship between gun ownership rates, strictness of gun laws, and number of firearm related deaths are only marginally correlated.
While it is true that other nations have some sort of link between the three, more often the rates of violence (gun-related or not) correlates FAR more closely with poverty rates. Take a look at Vermont; lax gun laws, above-average gun ownership rates, yet (according to some sources) a lower per capita gun death rate than Japan or the UK.
If you want to play that card, then you must speak of the US as fifty separate nations.

@jerv I am not an American and I totally agree with you on that.

”SPOON” @Apparently_Im_The_Grumpy_One

Boogety, boogety, boogety.

@JLeslie Thank you so much for the insightful article on how gun control is handled in Israel. Since is working in that country, it should be worthy of consideration in the US.

@jerv Isn’t that part of the problem? The US is one nation, yet gun laws vary from state-to-state. If the US across the board were eventually restricted to the laws that Israel has, surely there wouldn’t be so many casualties.

@Apparently_Im_The_Grumpy_One It’s not about taking away the right to bear arms. It’s about controlling who owns one based upon passing a series of tests, getting re-tested on a regular basis, monitoring how secure the weapon is kept, and the type of gun.

@All While most US citizens don’t own a firearm, those that do need to be kept in check. Just look at the statistics for the US so far in 2015.

It is time for repeal of the Second Amendment.

@Pied_Pfeffer Yes, and many other things vary from state to state as well. Would you care to explain Vermont?

The US has never really been “one nation” except for purposes of administration. Part of the price one pays for being a geographically large nation is that different regions will have cultures far more different than some neighboring nations elsewhere in the world.

@zenvelo No need. If we just define “well regulated militia” better, the problem will largely take care of itself.

The problem is that our founding fathers predicted that it was at least possible for the government to become a danger to society and thus need something to keep it in check. That prediction isn’t entirely baseless as, throughout the course of human history, there have been some pretty nasty tyrants that needed overthrowing, and letting the hoi polloi have guns to defend themselves against the military might of the government tends to make those revolutions shorter affairs with a commensurate drop in overall human suffering compared to the years-long struggle that would happen if a bunch of peasants with pitchforks tried to stab tanks.

In Israel, “well regulated militia” is nearly synonymous with “adult citizen”, at least insofar as most are trained with firearms during their compulsory hitch with the IDF. To the best of my knowledge, there is no state in the US with laws mandating that such training or any other proof of competence is required to purchase a firearm. The closest we get to “well regulated militia” are those like the Oath Keepers.

@jerv
Unless you have nation-level border control between the “states”, meaning every car is stopped and its owners questioned if they are trying to bring anything across the border, no, it would be asinine to treat your states as separate nations.

The problem is indeed that laws regarding firearms vary to such an extent between individual states that it’s impossible to control the illicit distribution of anything. This is true for cigarettes, undocumented immigrants, firearms, etc. The one characteristic common to all of these is that the demand and trafficking in them had gotten well out of hand by the time meaningful Federal regulation appeared, and powerful constituencies arose and were in place to shoestring effective measures countering the flood.

@ragingloli @stanleybmanly But there is a correlation between fewer gun laws and more gun deaths.

@ragingloli I don’t think you really grasp how the whole concept of “culture” works. Or are you saying that there is no difference between a Bible-thumping secessionist gun nut like you’ll find pretty often in the South, and Bernie Sanders, a fairly average Vermonter?

I think missed my point by a wide enough margin that I won’t even try typing slower to see if you get it the second time around.

“This was about whether you want to have a loaded handgun in a house with a curious 5-year-old, or an angry spouse, or a depressed grandparent who may be contemplating suicide,” Kellermann, a Tennessee native who says he learned to shoot a gun at the age of 10 and now directs the RAND Corporation’s health research division, told msnbc.com in an interview. Link

Rand, of course, being a bastion of liberal thinking.

@ibstubro I wonder how much time and money was invested to have “ten credential experts” merely state the obvious…

“Our data indicate that keeping a gun in the home is independently associated with an increase in the risk of homicide in the home.””

That is like saying being a passenger in a car increases your risk of being in a car accident! DUH!

Studies like these and claims made in these studies do a disservice towards furthering a better understanding of not how people commit suicide but why. You shouldn’t have to bear witness to the aftermath of a person taking their life or going through the harrowing ordeal of a loved one wanting to end their life like I went through with my son to better appreciate just how serious the subject of suicide is and should not be relegated to being a political football in the debate of gun control.

The first time my son wanted to end his life, despite having 2 shotguns in the house and lots of really sharp cutlery….he is alive today because he could not find his Boy Scout knife that he was bent on using to kill himself. The second time he wanted to end his life there were no guns in the house nor sharp knives and he is alive today because we heard his cries while he was attempting to remove the screen from his upstairs bedroom so he could jump.

I am no expert on suicide by any means…but knowing my son and his situation that when things get so bad in your head and the noise is deafening and life appears not worth living that having or not having a gun won’t stop a person from taking their life. IMHO ‘credentialed experts should be doing studies on stress and depression…..the precursors to suicidal tendencies than studies that state the obvious and do nothing to help “policymakers who are hampered by a lack of objective, scientific information on one of the country’s major public health threats”

Yeah, blame the real culprit the lack of accessibility, to real health care programs in your country for these mentally ill people,blaming the firearm is just a cop out.

Remember this Hitler said banning all firearms in civilian hands would make Germany a more peaceful, law abiding, gentler nation, and see how well that worked out.

^ re: Hitler – not so much

Sigh. Nobody, but nobody, blames the firearm, @SQUEEKY2.

Oh really people get up on their soapboxes and scream if all guns were gone we would all get along and peace and love would rule.

@SQUEEKY2 That’s not blaming the firearm, though. At most, it’s blaming access to firearms.

No, @SQUEEKY2 at most what they say is that it would prevent mass killings of innocent members of society, not that we would all live in peace and love. You are just putting words into the mouths of others in such a manner as to inflame the situation.

There is a problem here whether or not you care to admit it and we are in need of a solution to stop this wanton killing. If the NRA had any balls whatsoever they would propose finding a solution to solve it instead of screaming in fear.

If they don’t want to have their guns taken away (and btw I don’t want mine taken away either) then Instead of just opposing whatever solution others present, they need to come up with a way to solve the problem themselves and thereby negate the perceived threat of gun confiscation.

Ya know this problem could be easily solved,instead of targeting the gun,which meets a ton of opposition, go after and regulate the crap out of ammunition, sure the gun people say they have a right to have their guns,but do they have that same right when it comes to ammo?
Think about it.

@SQUEEKY2 Did you happen to read the link that @JLeslie posted regarding gun laws in Israel? Restricting ammo is part of Israel’s gun control laws. The article is quite interesting.

@SQUEEKY2 You’ve never seen muzzleloaders, have you? How about those that keep their spent brass and reload it? I fail to see how you could effectively stop people from doing what our ancestors did around a campfire centuries ago.

Are you proposing to ban lead, anything capable of exceeding a temperature of ~500F (hot enough to melt lead), wood, manure and sulfur springs? If so, are you positive that people won’t find a workaround/substitute?

I don’t buy the “supply side” argument towards guns any more than I buy it when discussing economics. It’s simply not practical for us to go after guns or ammo while leaving the root cause unaddressed.

There are other nations that have plenty of guns but don’t have the problems with gun violence that we do. We do happen to have an issue with mental health though, as well as a fast-paced “all work, no play” attitude that other nations don’t have. There are some pretty dramatic social differences between us and other nations, and it’s those differences that make more Americans run amok than you see abroad.

But that would imply that American people are something other than pure, innocent, blameless creatures, therefore we must shift the blame in order to avoid culpability at all costs.

Good answer @jerv your right of course.

Chris Rock says if bullets cost $5,000 each, there’d be nobody killed by a stray bullet.

@jca If bullets were $5,000 each, some people would make a killing by selling black market bullets while others would merely work on their marksmanship.

Sorta like black market guns????

@SQUEEKY2 Actually, the guns are considerably cheaper on the black market. Demand is high enough that dealers can more than make up the loss of per-unit profit on sheer volume. And that is with guns being as legal as they currently are. If there were a ban that dried up the supply of legal guns, I suspect that black market volume would increase enough that gun prices would barely even go up.

@jerv: It’s a joke!

@marinelife Not true. They’d have to have more preparation, but that wouldn’t stop them. There have been mass stabbings. Also, any unbalanced dickwad can figure out how to build a bomb. Or how to spread poison through the mail system.

Without guns, there wouldn’t be mass shootings, but there would still be mass stabbings, bombings, etc… If you want to kill a large number of people, not having a gun is not going to stop you. You just figure out what else you can use to do maximum damage.

And don’t even get me started on honor killings where the victim is beheaded. With a sword. My husband and I collect cool looking swords. If I went apeshit, I could kill multiple people before someone unarmed could take me down. If a civilian was trained and licensed to carry, they’d stop me.

Oh, so that is why europe has so many mass stabbings and bombings.

We seem to have more mentally unbalanced people in America who don’t get the real help they need. It’s not a gun problem, it’s a people problem.

Doctors use pills to bandaid things instead of locking a lot of people away for the good of society. In almost every mass shooting, the perp either was on psychotropic drugs, or had been just prior to the event.

When there are telltale signs of being dangerously unbalanced, (and there are always signs) the person in question needs to be remanded to a facility in which they can’t hurt themselves or anyone else.

Most criminals are lazy, and stupid, and cowardly.
Building a bomb takes effort and intelligence.
Training to be proficient with a knife, takes effort.
Getting close for a stabbing, takes courage.
Take away the easy way, and you foiled the majority already, who are like “ah, fuck it”, when they find out that www.theblackmarket.com is not what they wanted it to be.

Take one brief anatomy class, and you know exactly where and how to shank someone. No real effort, there. Hell you could watch a particular episode of the Starz show Outlander and know precisely how to quickly kill someone with a knife. And if you really want them dead, that’s all the courage you need.

The man who sexually assaulted my daughter early this year? He could have been dead in less than ten seconds had I felt like abandoning my kids and going to prison. No gun necessary.

@WillWorkForChocolate Knowing where to stab someone and actually doing it are not quite the same thing. Knife training is part of the martial art I study, and proficiency with it—especially against multiple opponents—is not automatic. It’s certainly easier than punching someone to death. That’s the whole point of a weapon. But proper targeting in the heat of the moment is harder than you might think. This is true of guns as well, of course. Just look at the “good guy with a gun” who shot a carjacking victim instead of the actual carjackers. But guns do more damage more quickly, and almost any gunshot can be fatal if not treated promptly—which was @ragingloli‘s point: while there may be other weapons in the world, we kill with guns so often because they make it so easy.

Yes, I get that, and I saw the story on that carjacking idiot. My only point is that it’s not the guns that are the real problem. Yeah, they can be purchased too easily, and yeah, we really do need stricter regulations and more thorough background checks, because that’s just smart. (I was shocked at how easily I was able to obtain a handgun for when my husband is out of town. I think I filled out two papers, paid my money, and left.)

But it’s not really the guns that are the issue. It’s the sheer number of criminals and psychopaths running around that is the real issue. And those people would still kill, regardless of stricter regulations and background checks on the Average Joe.

True thugs are their own entity, and usually come from poverty-stricken communities. They’re the gang-bangers, robbers, carjackers, etc… They will get guns from anywhere they can, and regulating the holy hell out of guns will not change that. Ever. The psychopaths who shoot up schools are created by middle and upper class morons.

If parents will grow the balls to really LOOK at their children and see that they’re unhinged, instead of mollycoddling them and thinking it will go away, we wouldn’t have the number of young psychopaths stealing their parents’ gun to go shoot people.

And directly related to that, if we didn’t have the huge levels of bullying that we have, that cause pediatricians to prescribe antidepressants (which totally alter a child’s perception of reality), instead of the actual bullying issue being taken care of, we wouldn’t have the number of kids who turn into warped little psychos who feel the desire to take their parents’ gun and shoot people.

I know it seems like twisty logic to follow, but I blame the whole mess on schools taking away student rights to self-defense, and bad parenting.

At roughly the same time, parents stopped actually parenting, and the school zero tolerance rule went into effect. Parents started reading those stupid “how to parent your child without making them angry” books and became their kids’ friend instead of their parent. Kids lost the right to defend themselves at school, forcing them to either take the punishment for fighting back, or forcing them to suffer in silence and let their rage and depression build up.

The mollycoddling parents caused the bullying by not truly disciplining Little Asshole Johnny and the school allowed it to get out of control by showing Little Asshole Johnny that his victims would also be punished or continue to take the beatings, so it’s kind of a win-win for him. Hence, Little Victim Bobby has finally had enough, one day, whatever his “stresser” might be, and goes apeshit.

@WillWorkForChocolate People are unwilling to admit that there are problems with society though. Easier to ban guns than show any sign of being anything other than an innocent, blameless creature corrupted by an inanimate hunk of metal.

@ragingloli How many decades have you spent in the US? If the answer is less than two, then I think anything you have to say here should have an asterisk and a disclaimer that you’re an outsider looking in. Everything you’ve said so far seems to be from the viewpoint of someone who got most of their information on America from watching bad TV, utterly devoid of any inkling of how our society really works. Not stupid, not wrong, but DEFINITELY with a certain naive quality.
I think you also may want to look at individual states rather than overall national figures. There are a few places where gun laws are lax that have lower gun violence rates than places where guns are banned, and the place that had the highest gun violence rate was a place where guns were banned. Not that that fact will affect your opinion in anyways, but I’m just throwing that out there.

I have never, not once, heard anyone scream to take all the guns. We are just begging for stricter laws to reduce the access to guns.

The NRA started that “take all the guns” nonsense to get the rednecks all excited and buy even more guns.

@Dutchess_III If not for that sort of overreaction though, they would never do a damn thing. Remember, we are talking about a demographic who not only thinks that the WWE is real/unscripted, but also believes that that sort of over-the-top stuff should be how we live our daily lives. Lot’s of testosterone-laden smack-talk and very little reality.

You speak truly @jerv.

You know those hysterical and paranoid people are the same ones who are convinced the government is going to declare war on the citizens…and those sumbitches actually VOTE! The irony is mind boggling.

@jerv How much time have you spent in a country where a mass shooting rarely occurs in a year vs. the US where it is almost a daily occurrence like it is this year (2015)? Those countries are clearly doing something right that the US isn’t.
——
@All: Instead of bickering and taking a stance that is based upon individualistic experiences and desires, how about working as a team to brain-storm on the ideal scenario to stop the madness of mass shootings in the US?

@Pied_Pfeffer I’ve lived in areas that didn’t have a single one in decades, and that have lax gun laws and high gun ownership rates. Places that have low murder rates in general and the majority of those are not committed with firearms. The funny part? Those places I speak of are in the US.

Are you arguing that we truly are fifty separate countries as opposed to an actual nation? If not then you are doing some serious ignorance to not see that there is far more to this than anything related to legislation or the prevalence of firearms. There are some societal issues in play here that have gone ignored and unaddressed by those seeking to close Pandora’s Box who think restricting gun ownership will solve a damn thing out of some misguided notion that other cultures who coincidentally have stricter gun laws having lower violence rates somehow means that our culture and mindset is similar enough for the same thing to work here, those thinking that the solution is more guns, and by many in between.

Correlation is not causation. Even those who are not me who look at the data in a more detailed way than glancing at overall national averages will see that the issue is FFFFFAAAAAARRRRRR more complex than a simple, “Gun laws stop shootings!” conclusion. More accurately, they will notice enough counter-examples and statistical outliers to raise some serious questions about the truth of that hypothesis. I mean, if thinks like per-capita crime rates and the strictness of gun laws have even the least bit of relevance in this issue then empirical evidence raises more questions than it answers unless you admit that you’ve been looking at it wrong because you started with a desired conclusion rather than an objective query.

If you sincerely want us to brainstorm about how to stop this, how about if we determine the REAL cause before enacting some drastic measure that addresses the cause so indirectly as to be ineffective and lead us to try another dramatic-yet-still-halfassed idea that also doesn’t work?

@jerv Apparently, I’ve hit a hot button. Like you, I have lived in areas of the US where gun control is lax. The majority of my family members either own or know how to use one, including me, albeit limited to shot guns.

With that said, no, I don’t consider the US 50 separate states. The US is a nation with a problem concerning mass murders by firearms. Is the accessibility to firearms the real issue? Of course not. It is only one factor out of more than a dozen. This is why I suggest that we brain-storm on the real causes and how to resolve it.

Several people have suggested that many of the people behind these mass killings have mental problems. Wouldn’t it make sense to conduct a study to find out if this is the truth? And if so, why not come up with a solution to identifying and treating those suffering from it in a way that is more successful than what is offered today?

One of my nephews was residing in a room in a Va. Tech dorm next to Seung-Hui Cho’s when Cho went on his rampage killing 32 people and wounding 17 others. The psychological impact of that community and others was more than people reading the headline can imagine. In this particular case, could something have been done to prevent it? The answer is yes.

So why not look at all of these mass shootings individually and conclude on what could have been done to prevent them? If there are common threads, why not address them as priorities? This is where brain-storming comes into play.

@Pied_Pfeffer ” The US is a nation with a problem concerning mass murders by firearms. Is the accessibility to firearms the real issue? Of course not. It is only one factor out of more than a dozen.”

It seems that we at least mostly agree then. Moving on…

I concur that mental health is a common theme here… in a nation where the least little deviation from “normal” is unacceptable. Many who suffer from things like Depression who would get adequate treatment elsewhere around the world decide to go untreated rather than deal with both the social stigma of being “defective” and the considerable financial cost of treatment. When you have that much untreated mental illness going around, you’re going to run into problems. A lot of problems. Some of them severe.

Of course, any discussion of mental health leads to economic matters such as our spending priorities when we draw up a budget, and I’m just not up for jumping down that particular rabbit hole at the moment. Suffice it to say that the fact that economics and healthcare are linked means that healthcare is an issue of highly divided opinion that has prompted many a heated argument above and beyond anything directly related to firearms which are themselves rather divisive.

Good thing we have no firearms here, I running gun battle could break out at any moment. Got you Glock cocked?

Most of the folks who do these shootings planned them for weeks, if not months. You can blame access to guns or mental health but we need to look at what is really happening. If the media started focusing on bombing schools and idolized bombers while telling the public exactly what to do and how to do it I think we’ll get more takers. All it would probably take is for the news to start dropping what-if scenarios and showcasing how easy it is to build explosives. They would report on anything “bomb related,” talk about banning certain materials etc. It would not be long until they start reporting on actual events. I really blame the media for this spat of shootings. Shame shame shame.

@Pied_Pfeffer I will use your example of Mr. Cho as a centerpiece to the argument we are just not doing enough to recognize the growing threat of mentally unhinged persons who are behind a vast majority of these rampage shootings.

__In middle school, he was diagnosed with a severe anxiety disorder known as selective mutism, as well as major depressive disorder.[11] After this diagnosis he began receiving treatment and continued to receive therapy and special education support until his junior year of high school. During Cho’s last two years at Virginia Tech, several instances of his abnormal behavior, as well as plays and other writings he submitted containing references to violence, caused concern among teachers and classmates.__

__In the aftermath of the shootings, Virginian governor Tim Kaine convened a panel consisting of various officials and experts to investigate and examine the response and handling of issues related to the shootings. The panel released its final report in August 2007, devoting more than 30 pages to detailing Cho’s troubled history. In the report, the panel criticized the failure of the educators and mental health professionals who came into contact with Cho during his college years to notice his deteriorating condition and help him. The panel also criticized misinterpretations of privacy laws and gaps in Virginia’s mental health system and gun laws.__

Here is where it all went wrong….

__Cho was able to pass both background checks and successfully complete both handgun purchases after he presented to the gun dealers his U.S. permanent residency card, his Virginia driver’s permit to prove legal age and length of Virginia residence and a checkbook showing his Virginia address, in addition to waiting the required 30-day period between each gun purchase. He was successful at completing both handgun purchases because he did not disclose on the background questionnaire that a Virginia court had ordered him to undergo outpatient treatment at a mental health facility.__

Mr. Cho’s story above is a mirror image of most of the other shooters who were clearly growing more unstable by the day….people knew this and some how they were able to buy guns or grab their parents gun from the very people closest to these deranged killers. Time to stop all the hand waving and take a long hard look not just at our gun laws and restrictions…but us as a society that fail to do more for the mentally unstable and IMHO many if not all of these whack job mass shootings could be averted.

Thanks @Cruiser. Yeah, I was already familiar with the background info. on Cho.

What I’m not sure about is if all of the mass shootings that have occurred in the US this year alone (almost 700 so far) were caused by someone with a mental health concern. Even if they were, then yes, we need to figure out how to assist them better and ensure that a gun is not made available. That’s asking for some pretty hefty changes to current practices, but if other countries have been able to pull it off, surely the US can as well.

Since gun control laws vary from state-to-state, surely there are ones that are working better than others. Might that not be another opportunity worth researching?

@Cruiser Bravo! GA!

@Pied_Pfeffer “Since gun control laws vary from state-to-state, surely there are ones that are working better than others. Might that not be another opportunity worth researching?”

There are more variables to the equation than that. I love bringing up Vermont in discussions about gun control because it has the odd mix of lax gun laws and low gun crime rates that definitively show that you don’t need gun laws to have a safe society. The gun violence rates in DC during their handgun ban is another fun one to bring up.

Background checks are effective, but they work better when there are no cracks to fall through (like in the case of Cho’s mental health) or loopholes to exploit (gun shows and private sales that circumvent checks). Aside from that, you’ll find that gun violence rates are more closely linked to poverty rates and population density than to strictness of gun laws. Then again, Vermont society is more like the EU than like mainstream ‘Murica; laid-back instead of intense, and generally more liberal across the board. It could be argued that the key to low gun death rates is Liberalism, and that argument would have just as much provable fact behind it as the notion that strict gun laws reduce gun deaths.