How can we prevent people like Hole purchasing weapons?

Well, there’s one very obvious (and simple) answer: stop selling guns altogether.
Still leaves dozens of millions of guns on the street and in the houses (and holsters), but it would at least make it more difficult to come by, if some confused mind wants to get one.

You can’t.
If he can’t purchase guns legally, he will purchase guns illegally.
Like the old adage: “When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.”
As well as:
“Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.”
And if it wasn’t for guns, they’d find another way to kill.

@rebbel You know as well as I that the chances of that happening are between slim and none. I should have included the word realistic in the question.

@kritiper I agree with you. Yet the Democrats keep insisting that their proposed laws and Biden’s executive orders will help solve the problem. Do you understand their position?

@crazyguy I understand that their position is hopeful but not possible. Everybody wants to have their cake and eat it, too. And that is reality.

Hole was investigated by the FBI because he had serious issues. They should have been taken more seriously. His mother had called the FBI in because she feared that he “might try suicide by cop”. Sounds to me like a good reason to deny gun purchases.

@LostInParadise Yes, I knew that. The question is that since Hole was able t buy guns in spite of a background check, what good would closing the loophole on background checks accomplish?

The best way to stop people purchasing weapons is to stop selling them.

If the rules for buying guns are tightened up, it will only help prevent a percentage of the tragedies that happen by gunfire. We can always cherry pick scenarios where new laws won’t help. It’s still worth preventing some of the tragedies.

We need more than enforcement of laws regarding gun purchases to make a big dent, we need to have a societal shift, but that happens more slowly.

@crazyguy , The obvious answer to your question is that “closing the loophole on background checks” would prevent people like Hole from being able to buy guns.

@LostInParadise Please indulge me and explain. You may want to look at the stuff required in current background checks. The loophole I was referring to is the leeway given to gun shows.

@JLeslie Please name just ONE!

@crazyguy , You are right that this case would not have been prevented by closing the loophole on gun shows, but it might have been prevented by disallowing gun sales to people with certain psychological symptoms. Even your hero Trump talked about not allowing “crazy people” to own guns.

@LostInParadise How long before crazy and how long after crazy would your proposed ban last? Legislation requires precision, that is one reason it takes so long.

The ban should be kept unless and until it can be shown that the person no longer has the psychological disorder that required the ban. To be on the safe side, maybe add an additional year or two, but this is not worth arguing over. The timeframe can always be adjusted afterwards if it is proving to be too short or too long.

@LostInParadise So not only do you want to pass a law through both the House and Senate once, but you want it reviewed later! Wow, how about adding winning the Lotto to your wish list?

So it would be better not to pass a law and to continues allow mentally ill people to commit murders? Even a less than perfect law is better than none. And government bodies do sometimes review and modify previous legislation.

@LostInParadise Bro or Sis, like you I hate the fact that the US has so many guns in civilian hands. However, I am a realist. What you are suggesting is almost impossible to achieve. And even if it were, miraculously, it will not solve the problem.

How do you know what is possible? The Second Amendment can’t be used to permit gun sales to the mentally ill. And keeping guns away from them will certainly be an improvement.

@LostInParadise I believe the current law on background checks includes digging into a person’s mental illness, if any.

That is good news. Now we just need to make sure that the current law is enforced.