Richard Martinez said:
Our family has a message for every parent out there: You don’t think it will happen to your child until it does. Why did Chris die? Chris died because of craven, irresponsible politicians and the NRA. They talk about gun rights, what about Chris’ right to live?
When will this insanity stop? When will enough people say: Stop this madness, we don’t have to live like this? Too many have died. We should say to ourselves — not one more.
We can feel Richard Martinez’s anguish. However, There is more to it than craven politicians and the NRA. Is it time to put some limits on who can buy a gun? Right now, pretty much anyone who is in the United States legally who has not been convicted of a felony can buy and own a gun. Should there be more proof of sanity, for lack of a better word? Should there be certification that the potential purchaser at least knows how to shoot the gun and to take proper care of it? We do this for drivers.
There are over 30,000 gun deaths a year–half as many as were killed from 1955-1975 in the Vietnam Conflict over a 20 year period. In fact, death by gunshot is the third leading cause of death in the US. Vehicle related deaths and poisonings are ahead of gunshot wounds. Approximately 65% are from suicides. That leaves a staggering 35% to accidents and manslaughter and murder. Somewhere in this statistic we see that too many deaths are from crazies on a shooting rampage. The answer won’t just come from the gun sector. The answer must come from the mental illness sector also and how we as a society treat those with mental illness. Those advocates are just as vocal at times as gun rights enthusiasts.
Your thoughts?
Sadly, I think guns are with us until the earth stops spinning. Between the NRA and SCOTUS, Americans will continue to suffer gun deaths and I doubt there is any way to reduce the number of guns extant in our nation today. The issue of mental illness and guns is a true Gordian knot. The stigma associated with mental illness clouds the whole issue.
The recent armed standoff between Cliven Bundy and agents from the Bureau of Land Management has given rise to a demand that the government determine just how many guns are in the hands of federal agents. Supporters of Bundy and his ilk claim that the federal government’s response to armed resistance is excessive. Conversely, those who are opposed to folks like Bundy and other gun advocates say that if the government backs down on their response to armed resistance will lead to more armed militia type organizations. This is a lose-lose situation.
In the short term, nothing’s going to happen on gun control. We could blame the left for not taking a more moderate and centered approach. We could blame the right for their fear-mongering and obfuscation. Bottom line the people who buy (and sometimes hoard) guns feel so strongly about the issue that the GOP will oppose any measure, and it’s unlikiely to pass for now.
Long term, the future of gun control involves :
1. Use of “big data” along with current reporting mechanisms to flag psychos and keep them away from guns.
2. Eventual use of “smart gun” technology to preclude non-registered users from firing daddy or mommy’s gun.
Do you think the Gifford/Kelly couple are not moderate? I think they are extremely moderate. I think having half your head blown away gives you talking rights also. I feel the same about Colin Goddard. Their rights trump mine. There but for the grace of God go I.
I’m not saying anything about them; I haven’t watched the clip. But I don’t think grieving parents are really the best argument for gun control.
Personally, I favor meaningful gun control.
And the GOP/NRA position, making it against the law in some cases to even gather or cull data to figure out what’s even going on, is immoral. But such is life. If it’s such a challenge to convince white male America to even accept a few rights in regards to health insurance, to the point that they sputter with rage, I’m pretty sure they won’t facilitate anyone limiting their gun use.
They really do believe, or more accurately WANT to believe and PRETEND to believe, that the government may soon take all their guns away, force them to take a vow towards socialism, turn their kids gay, etc. etc. To one degree or another.
God, Guns, Gynelcology and Gays..the 4 current horsemen of the apocalypse.
@Rick Bentley
Amen. The NRA has done a very good job of selling the whole “black helicopter” idea. As to your comment at #4 regarding “meaningful gun control”, I don’t have any idea what that means. That seems to go counter to the human condition, at least as it applies to many gun owners today. Yes, there are a lot of responsible gun owners but one mass killing tars all the gun owners and the rantings of the NRA simply add fuel to the fire.
Yes Moon, Gabby Gifford and Colin Goddard have street creds but Kelly-not so much. Gifford is fortunate to have him at her side but I sometimes I wonder about his motive. Please don’t bitch at me-it’s just how I feel.
I see them as a team. @ George. I had originally called them the Giffords. Then I decided that was a little unfair. I would imagine that his motive had to do with having his wife’s head half blown off.
@Rick Bentley-agree thar grieving parents/relatives aren’t the best spokes people. The anguished outcries of twenty-six families in Connecticut didn’t make much difference.
The market and tort could reduce the gun risk and put the cost on gun owners instead of everyone. Anyone injured by a gun should be guaranteed free medical care and every gun death should result in a $2M claim to the survivors. This would be funded by a tax on ammo and a requirement that every working gun have a liability insurance policy. The insurance companies through premiums would encourage gun owners to secure their weapons or make them inoperable. Underwriters would price those with a history of irresponsibility in other walks of life (speeding tickets, bankruptcy, etc) out of the gun market . People who didn’t pay their insurance would get repo’d. The registered gun owner would be responsible for any death or injury committed via that gun even if stolen and insurance companies would be on the hook for paying claims even if the insurance had lapsed. Not buying insurance would be a felony and the states would have an uninsured gun pool much like we do for cars. Insurance companies would offer cash award for turning in a gun with a lapsed insurance policy.
Those are some interesting ideas–ones I certainly had never thought of. I wouldn’t hold a gun owner responsible IF the gun had been reported stolen and if it had been insured.
Other than that, I would have to digest.
ed, that’s the path towards smart guns right there I would suppose.
Ed offers some creative ideas, at least some of which strike me as well within the Supreme Court’s recognition that 2A rights are subject to reasonable regulation. If adopted, they would have mitigating effects, but we probably need more extensive measures in addition.
After watching these nutjob killings time after time, I’ve come to the reluctant conclusion that our political class doesn’t have what it takes to deal with the fact that there are enough weapons in this country to provide a personal firearm for about 85% of the entire man, woman, child population of the country. The toothpaste is out of the tube on getting these numbers down.
A common theme of the killings (beyond the preponderant use of guns) is that we have mentally unbalanced people living in a society where there are 300 million guns. That has been our political choice. I think it’s absolutely nuts, but the fact remains that we have made a political decision to permit the wildfire proliferation of weapons and now we must live with the consequences. The best bet is to approach it from the mental health end and invest the billions and billions of dollars that are logically required in an armed camp nation to identify and assist the troubled among us. It’s horrible public policy, fiscally debilitating, but it’s the only practicable way to protect the innocent.
I assume that the NRA and its supporters understand this trade-off and will be in the forefront of lobbying Congress for the taxes and funds necessary to create a national mental health system that can permit us to continue to live as a society where firearms are ubiquitous. The lobbying influence of the NRA and the firearms industry that controls the NRA is formidable and will be essential to getting this structure built and built quickly. I can’t wait to see Wayne LaPierre take to the barricades.
I wouldn’t count on LaPierre’s assistance.
What I see is total selfishness and self-centeredness on the part of the gun rights groups.
@ed myers
Simply…..
NO.
Cargo, you are in the majority at your hangouts, both virtually and in real life. However, you aren’t a majority in the general population. Unfortunately, this issue isn’t top dog priority with the average voter. Until it becomes top priority, your guns are safe.
Joe the Plumber wasn’t exactly the voice of sympathy:
Huffingtonpost.com:
@cargosquid. Irresponsibility and unsympathy to the carnage will over time will lead to the repeal of the 2nd Amendment. Whether it comes as a constitutional change or legislation/ court action there will be regulation because gun rights do not trump personal rights to life. If you can keep the bullets from trespassing you can keep the gun. If you want to keep private guns start working on ways to make guns safer. If you are just going to say no then expect to lose private gun ownership in a couple of generations.
It’s irresponsibility on high-display here on this thread, making firearms the focus of this discussion. The psycho spree-killer used knives and a car to murder or injure more victims, than he did with a gun. He also acquired the guns in a state with some of the strictest controls in the nation, namely 100% background checks, 10-day waiting periods, no multiple purchases, ammunition purchases registered and tracked. His lengthy history of psychological issues was brought to the attention of authorities. His family thought he was a threat to himself and others. He was interviewed by police, and deemed a “wonderful human being”. Nevermind his youtube videos and social media posts, in which he detailed his anger and his plans. Never mind his psycho manifesto, which was known to others. Nope. None of this matters. It’s the GOP/NRA’s fault. Does the AAA bear any responsibility? They lobby for motorists rights, afterall. BMW? They made the car. How about United Cutlery? They manufacture those evil knives. What about the ACLU? They lobby for the privacy rights of the mentally ill? How about the AMA, and their lobbying for psychiatrists? What about the porn industry? How about prostitution laws? The guy was mad about not getting any attention from young women.
While you are looking for someone or something to blame, how about we blame the angry, sex-deprived, nut-job that stabbed, shot, and ran-down the victims, instead of firearms, the NRA, and a political party that actually cares about the bill-of-rights.
Steve, I think it is irresponsible of the NRA to respond to these mass killings with platitudes (which I haven’t heard yet) and to not throw in behind what can be done to reduce the incidence of rampages using guns.
Guns can kill a hell of a lot more people than knives. Knives you gotta get up close and personal.
Its the NRA attitude that makes people like me, a gun owner, just see red when these things happen. I always grew up around NRA literature, magazines, etc. Back then it didn’t have a political agenda that I think is irresponsible. The NRA used to promote gun safety and was the definitive source for responsible gun ownership.
“Irresponsibility and unsympathy to the carnage will over time will lead to the repeal of the 2nd Amendment.”
This statement ignores the fact that gun-rights are expanding nationally. The last bans to ownership have been struck-down (DC and IL), and while there will be some testing of the Heller decision, gun ownership is expanding. Women are the fastest growing segment of new gun-owners, and they have demonstrated an ability to vote their interests. As far as your predictions of an appeal of the 2A, I ask, when has one of the original BoR amendments been repealed? Probably be easier to repeal the 1st, 4th, or 10th, heck any of them other than the 2nd. Why? Because only the 2nd actually provides the direct means to preserve itself. Think about it.
He wasn’t considered to be so out of control that he should be institutionalized against his will. That doesn’t mean that we should allow him to buy guns. Or knives, for that matter.
I understand the right to bear arms. I am suggesting that long-term we should mitigate it, so that those likely to hurt others have that right constrained.
In point of fact we are entering the age of Big Data and effective predictive analysis. If we can figure out that a woman is pregnant before she knows it herself, we can surely figure out who is likely to go on a killing spree.
And, yes, constrain their right to bear arms based on psychological profile. This may be a political non-starter in the current climate, when a preponderance of American males want to and choose to believe that their government is evil in some way, but eventually common sense will win out and we’ll agree to start working to keep crazy people away from guns.
I have to agree with Rick.
The problem seems to be that those of us who are normal don’t want our normalcy questioned and anything that profiles or screens for abberations to normalcy stomps on our rights. I think we are going to have to get over it.
Meanwhile, duck and cover.
Do we let people who speed repeatedly keep a drivers license for a car, even if no one was hurt yet by their speeding? No.
Do we let pedohiles walk the street after they are caught posessing child pornography, even if no one has yet been hurt by them? No.
Would we let a wildly misogynyst man adopt a female child? Or a woman who publishes poems about hating men adopt a boy? No.
Should we let anyone who has rage issues buy a gun? I say no.
Rick,
So you want to make the premise of the “minority report” real? So, perhaps we should revoke the drivers licenses of every AA attendee, because predictive analysis indicates an alcoholic can relapse, drive drunk, and kill someone?
And the reason why he wasn’t considered “out of control” is because the local sheriff dept. did a crap-lousy job of investigating. The killer wrote that had they searched his room, his whole plan would have been discovered. Heck, his youtube videos were up for weeks before they interviewed him.
What we need are stricter standards for reporting by mental health officials, and for Law Enforcement when engaged in determining whether an individual presents an immediate danger to themselves or others, and judges to actually adjudicate mental defectives.
No I don’t want the AA attendees’ licenses revoked.
Yes I do want someone who posts (or mails, or publishes) hate speech to be unable to legally buy a gun.
No I don’t want it to be especially easy to institutionalize someone for hate speech.
As to searching his room … we have a constitutional provision about that, too. I don’t think that’s a solution here to the issue of crazy people planning kills. It’d be nice though for law enforcement to know if someone’s stockpiling weapons … and the NRA fights against this, don’t they?
Well Rick, in this case, law enforcement would have known that the kook was stockpiling weapons, or at least the ammo. California, remember. Waiting periods (he went through three of them). State checks (they have their own system, along with the FBI instacheck), AND registration of ammo purchases by quantity and caliber (for forensics dontcha know). Also, remember this was Kalifornia, bastion of free thought and free expression, “it’s all good” lifestyle. ACLU “due process” ….. Here’s the thing: We go through this cycle after every spree killing. These are different from the murder that happens during an armed robbery, or a crime of passion where a spouse shoots a cheating partner in the heat of the moment. Spree killers are uniformly crazy. Crazy exists. It has always existed. It will always exist. Whenever this happens, the mistake society makes is limiting rights of the sane, because of the existence of the crazed. Here we are debating guns. Just as many victims died from stab wounds and blunt force trauma, as did from gunshots. So, what’s your plan to address and prevent this? Short of outlawing crazy, locking up every crazy person, what’s to stop the crazy person from building a bomb? Using a sword? A vehicle? Poison?
I haven’t seen any indication that just as many people die from stab wounds and blunt force trauma unless we include automobile accidents to get the blunt force trauma.
I agree that crazy exists. However, this country is so in love with guns that even the crazies love them. I honestly don’t care if my rights are limited if it saves lives. Define limited. So I have to wait a few days to own a hand gun. So what. I also had to wait a while before I could drive alone. I had to wait a few days to get married. I don’t expect to live in a world of immediate self gratification.
I have had issues with the mental health system for years. Now I have issues with gun laws too. Why must everything be all or nothing. We are a smart enough people to come at this problem from all sides.
So your argument is that it is not worth doing this, because it makes no difference?
I’m not arguing for some reactionary measures. I’m just saying, we can do better with gun control, and probably should.
Living in a nation where we have 300 million people increasingly out of touch with reality, and a generation steeped in video-game violence, I think that things are going to get worse not better over time in terms of these incidents.
Guns have distance. People who get physically close to crazy people have made their choice and accept the risk of violence. Random violence is different. Guns allow violence from a distance without provocation or warning preventing us from doing risk assessment.
If handgun ammo could be designed to stop only those within a 10 foot radius I would have more tolerance for those who want a gun for protection. Heavy bullets that open up like a flower after exiting the barrel to add lots of aerodynamic drag might work. Warning shots would hurt, but not kill since the bullet would slow rapidly and the surface area of the bullet would become big enough that it wouldn’t penetrate. In the under 10 feet range the bullet wouldn’t have expanded yet and and would behave like a typical bullet and penetrate the body. If we can’t have smart guns can we have smart ammo?
I like that idea ed. It seems inevitable that things will eventually move in that direction.
Excellent article here at http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/12/how-big-data-can-solve-americas-gun-problem/266633/
“Though we call this kind of thing big data, a database tracking ammunition and gun purchases would be, in fact, tiny. As someone who deals daily with the deluge of data currently inundating the marketing world, I can say based on experience that this kind of record-keeping would be an inconsequential task to set up, and the data science to analyze it trivial. Massive efforts are going into far smaller things, such as which TV program is most engaging for soap buyers who have DVRs, and which pitcher/batter combinations lead to better baseball. ”
“After all, flying on a plane, buying cold medicine, and using your cell phone are much more common (so more people are tracked) than purchasing a weapon, and much less dangerous. To keep us safe, our government has decided they need the brightest mathematical minds to analyze records on the former and not the latter.”
“Just look at the gun-acquiring backgrounds of some of our more recent mass killers to see what I mean. James Holmes, the Aurora shooting suspect, went to three different locations spread out over 30 miles to legally buy his four weapons. All three were reputable outdoors retail chain stores. He then went online, and bought thousands of rounds of ammunition along with assault gear. UPS delivered around 90 packages to Holmes at his medical campus in that short period. It doesn’t take a PhD in statistics to see that a quick, massive buildup of arms like this by a private individual — especially one, like Holmes, who was known in his community for having growing mental health issues — should raise a red flag. “
Rick, and your point is what? He was also reported to mental health officials who did squat.
http://m.cnsnews.com/mrctv-blog/matt-vespa/data-suggest-gun-violence-epidemic-actually-mental-illness-scourge-shootings?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=Marketing&utm_term=Facebook&utm_content=Facebook&utm_campaign=B-gunviolence
The problem is I don’t trust law enforcement with “big data” since they have no responsibility to fix things they destroy when busting into someone’s house on suspicions.
Insurance companies are more likely to be responsible. That is why making the gun’s insurance company responsible for maintaining a profile on their gun owners would more accurately identify high risk gun owners without getting the government involved. Auto insurers do a background check on policy holders and flag the high risk drivers. High risk drivers can’t afford high powered cars. High risk gun owners would not afford multiple guns and lots of ammo.
Rick, I think you are right that big data can fix the mass murder problem but only if government removes itself from the enforcement side by making gun insurance mandatory and letting gun groups like the NRA run the insurance programs.
I’m not talking about busting into a house. I’m talking about saying “no you can’t buy a gun today”.
I like the idea of holding gun owners associated for damages when their gun is used in a crime.
We can’t solve or obliterate a problem. But we can make the world safer than it is currently.
Steve, what is it that you think should have happened here, ideally? Given that Rodgers was crazy, but hadn’t committed crimes and wasn’t completely out of control?
In my ideal world, gun ownership is a privilege reserved for people who aren’t likely to berk out.
Rick,
I would have law enforcement treat a reported threat a bit more seriously, and not let a superficial examination of the individual suffice. But here’s the rub: You all are focusing on the gun, ignoring the fact that he also used a knife, and a car. Absent the gun, he still would have killed people.
Recall, a few months back when a driver went nuts and ran a bunch of folks down at a music festival in Austin? Where were all the calls for a “national conversation on sensible car control”? What about when a crazed driver plowed into a farmers market in Venice CA? What about when the same thing occurred at the Santa Monica pier? Did people blame the car, the car manufacturer, or the head of the Triple A? No, they blamed the driver.
Was the media constantly asking, “why was this individual allowed access to a car?” No again. Rodgers used a car during his rampage. Yet all anyone is talking about is the gun. It was a BMW, a high performance car. Are their calls to restrict access to “assault cars”, cars over a certain horse power? Black cars? Ridiculous? But he used this as a weapon, same as the gun. The FBI reports that 44,000 people were killed due to criminal vehicle misuse.
What about the knife? Rodgers used a knife to kill the same number of people as he did with a gun, yet the discussion here has pretty much ignored this fact. Just last month, a kid went on a stabbing spree in a school in PA. He stabbed 21 people with two 8-inch kitchen knives. I don’t recall you, Ed, or anyone for that matter twisting themselves in knots trying to come up with ways to limit access to kitchen knives. I don’t recall the media trying to pin the blame on knife manufacturers or Ed Clemence, the president of the American Edged Products Manufacturing Association. And yet, according to FBI crime statistics, 1,604 people were killed last year from stabbing.
Should a person who has been diagnosed with mental profound illness, who exhibits a propensity for violence be able to purchase a firearm? No, absolutely not, for the same reason persons with certain medical conditions are not permitted to drive a car: They are a potential danger to themselves and others. That said, if society is going to permit those with profound mental illness to live in the community, and is so worried about “patient privacy” “patient rights” etc. etc. then society is going to have to accept the risk. Furthermore, before I will even begin to accept infringement of my constitutional right to keep and bear arms, society had better have done everything it can to keep me safe from the crazies and the criminals. Since it can’t, quit trying to “sensibly regulate” the sane, and law-abiding. None of the “reasonable restrictions” can stop a crazy from killing someone. No gun? They’ll use a knife, a club, an electrical cord, a car, a brick, a machete, a car, a bomb, poison, etc.
A gun is a unique tool that really does one thing. Fire ammunition. That ammunition is used to kill. We don’t shoot at people because we want them to live.
I don’t want crazies to get knives either or to misuse cars or electrical cords. The problem is when crazies get guns, they have the capability of killing multiple people. I totally agree that the entire mental health system needs to be scrubbed and reinvented. No one seems to ever get it right. there is always overkill (no pun intended) in the wrong direction. People are so afraid of being sued over patient rights that they err in the wrong direction. Its a problem but so are guns getting in the wrong hands.
I don’t think any of my rights are total and without some restraints. Speech, religion, gun ownership, birth/citizenship, etc. All of those issues carried in the bill of rights have some common sense restrictions.
Again, part of the problem is that gun rights people just burn everyone else up with their rhetoric. Perfectly normal people who don’t want to come to your house to round up all your weapons for confiscation become incensed by good guy/bad guy answers to horrible tragic events. People like Gabby Giffords who had half her head shot off, or Colin Goddard who was shot 4 times and left for dead by that Tech crazy, Cho, have become the enemy of the people who are more interested in their rights than they are about the fact that these people barely escaped with their lives because some crazy got hold of a multiple-round gun and turned it into a weapon of mass destruction.
This is an overlapping Venn diagram. It can’t all be on mental health or gun owners.
Moon,
Since you mentioned Cho, the VA Tech Shooter:
“Seung-Hui Cho, the Virginia Tech shooter who killed 32 people, turned in paper after paper that depicted gruesome killings and gun violence. He had a history of mental health issues and had been reported to the campus police four times for aggressive and antisocial behavior, particularly towards women. One of his professors went so far as to tell the board that she would rather resign than teach another class with him in it.”-Mark Manson “How We Miss The Point On School Shootings”
I don’t disagree at all with you. All the red flags were up and waving on that crazy. (yes, I have grown disrespectful about this subject)
That professor was poet and author Niki Giovanni. She refused to teach him and he got pawned off on some associate professor in the English department for one on one instruction. She wrote a book about her experiences.
Why didn’t Fairfax County transfer their records showing his emotional difficulties? Why didn’t Tech simply drop him from their roles and send him home? Patient/student rights seem to trump our safety also, along with gun rights.
Cho is a perfect example of where the Venn diagram overlaps. Apparently voluntary vs involuntary commitment is an issue. I don’t remember all the details but he sure should have been on the “do not sell to” list. This was a preventable massacre in so many ways.
It is pretty simple Steve. It is crazy for people to buy (multiple) working handguns. It is a sign of mental illness. Irrational objection to common sense regulation is a sign of more severe mental illness. Most people can function in society with these mental illness without going into a homicidal rage, but each gun purchase feeds that urge to be ready to kill someone. An employer might not want to hire someone who is ready to bring a gun to a confrontation.
So be careful about blaming gun tragedies on the mentally ill while standing on your stockpile of guns. Will you agree to publish the names and addresses of all concealed weapon permit holders like we do for sex offenders to protect the community? See how quickly your no-privacy-for-mentally-ill line of thinking will boomerang on gun owners?
I want privacy for the mentally ill in that only those with a need to know should have any information. However, that doesn’t mean that receiving schools and various local agencies should not have critical information. For example, local law enforcement and social services might need to know that Johnny Jones is emotionally impaired and has been diagnosed with a psychosis. they also might need to know that Johnny has an obsession with shotguns and edged weapons. However, they don’t need to know that he has been treated for thinking he is talking to tree elves unless the tree elves are telling him to chop up his grandparents.
I don’t feel the need to know that Ralph Rivers has guns or a concealed permit unless Ralph has been identified as mentally ill. In other words I don’t approve of putting out gun registry lists for the public. Gun owners aren’t sex offenders.
Ed,
Well Ed, I have managed to engage in a debate without resorting to ad hominem attacks, but it appears that you have retreated to the redoubt of the weak argument.
Yes, I will blame the mentally-ill murderer for their actions. I don’t ascribe morality or affix blame to inanimate objects, like guns. I believe in holding individuals accountable. That’s what rational people do.
Please show me where in the DSM-V that purchasing multiple handguns is a sign of mental disorder? And you defines “irrational” and “common sense”? You? You state that I am harbor homicidal tendencies because I own firearms? Please give me the address of your psychiatric practice, and the year that you graduated medical school.
I was all proud of us. No one has dropped their adult manners.
I am having trouble following you all with all the initials/acronyms.
Steve, I would agree with you that you aren’t a homicidal maniac. I own firearms also. I guess I have homicidal tendencies also. Today, I do have them but I have never acted on them. Now I will probably have the NSA swat team at my door.
“I don’t feel the need to know that Ralph Rivers has guns or a concealed permit unless Ralph has been identified as mentally ill. In other words I don’t approve of putting out gun registry lists for the public. Gun owners aren’t sex offenders.”
Ed seems to think gun owners are criminally insane, especially those paranoid Concealed Carry Permit holders. You know, people like rape survivors who want the ability to defend themselves against a physically superior assailant. Those women who have escaped abusive relationships, who don’t want to stake their lives on a restraining order. Of course, it’s always a good idea to advertise to potential thieves exactly where the guns are, so they can steal them and use them or sell them. This is the thinking of a rational person….
”A fear of weapons is a sign of retarded sexual and emotional maturity” -Sigmund Freud
That Freud quote, which doesn’t sound real, is apparently not real. http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talk:Sigmund_Freud
Steve do you really want to keep going down the path of trying to prove my tongue in cheek hypothesis by being paranoid?
Mental illness has always been a fuzzy thing. The most accurate diagnosis is those conditions that have a cure. Because mental illness is very fluid, it is ripe for political manipulation. For that reason we want to be careful how much blame is placed on the “crazy” versus the societal institutions that allow “crazy” to become mass murder. A society that allows nearly anyone to have access to easily concealed multi-shot weapons is going to have carnage. And that is crazy. And the medicine to reduce mass murder by guns is to reduce the number of guns especially in the hands of unstable children under the age of 25.
Only non-lethal devices are valid for self defense. Anything else is legal homicide. Society grandfathers in the idea of killing another to protect ones own life or that of another’s. In today’s society, outside combat zones, there are multiple ways to stop an assault that doesn’t require killing the assailant and therefore we should be less tolerant of killing in the name of self defense. Having guns at the ready allows people to skip over those non-lethal self defense choices and prematurely engage their inner desire to kill an opponent. Indulging the demons with easy access to guns makes society less safe especially since it also provides successful suicides and accidents.
If it comes down to someone else or me, someone else will have to die. I can’t assume someone will have to be wounded.
I can’t think of a better reason to kill someone than in defense of one’s own life (or the life of friends or family). I also believe it is human nature.
Ok, now you guys can attack me.
Ed,
I do not need to be lectured about mental illness. I have an immediate family member who has dealt with profound mental illness for my entire lifetime. I understand the ramifications that resulted from the decision to move from institutional to community-based mental-health treatment, because it had a tremendously negative impact on my life.
And as far as your opinions on firearms, spree-killings, self-defense, gun-owners, etc. I have come to a conclusion: In the Marines we had a term for when a round of ammunition goes off without any external cause. We also used the term for when someone throws out opinions that have little basis in fact, or little historical basis for the opinion. We called it “popping-off”. You sir, are popping-off.
I think that what Ed says may be true someday, but is not true today. It seems to me that you do need a gun to stop a gun.
“You know what happens to [people] who carry knives [in a dangerous environment]? They get shot!” – Deathproof, Quentin Tarantino
Good quote. Then there’s the old bringing a butter knife to a gun fight.
Rick,
People wanting to hurt other people. This has existed since Cain bashed Abel’s head in with a rock, or if you will, some Australopithecus whacked another over the head with a stick, to take their mango. What Ed desires would require the elimination of evil, selfishness, covetousness, jealousy, anger, greed….so it ain’t ever going to happen.
Since it won’t happen, it would be immoral to only permit people to defend themselves with “less-than-lethal” weapons. I laugh at this euphemism.. A stick with a pointy-end can be pretty darn lethal. Maybe Ed would be gracious enough to permit me to keep and bear a pointy stick to defend me and my family against a criminal with a firearm, because in his world, only criminals will have them.
To people who think this way, I say: Molon Labe.
Lots of things have greatly reduced the need for a gun as a (hopefully you’ll agreed) last resort defense (although with Steve, a gun seems the first resort.) Home electronic security with direct connection to law enforcement. Stun guns and mace. Plexiglass that makes home intrusion even with a gun very difficult. Automobiles with electric locks and windows and air conditioning that makes it near impossible for a pedestrian to car jack. Surveillance cameras everywhere. Automobiles that make fleeing easy and safe and the option to run over and kill the attacker. Cellphones with GPS tracking and constant communication with friends.
I think it immoral to forgo all of these options and instead buy a gun and consider it the first line of defense. Stand your ground epitomizes this kind of depraved thinking. It is not a pro-life position.
In a nearby neighborhood we had a kid stay out late and get high. On return to his house he snuck in an open basement window and up to his room. Except it wasn’t his house, it was the neighbor’s house and the neighbor shot and killed him. For lack of basic security of locking windows and an over reliance on lethal force, a life was needlessly lost.
I understand your point, Ed. I just think it is futuristic. Also, there are people who don’t have guns as a line of defense. There are sports enthusiasts who shoot and use guns without ever thinking about defense. My mother shot tin cans and snakes, for example. My father went quail hunting.
Furthermore, a gun is much less expensive than many of the things you described. I hate the idiots who march around with AK-whatevers in their local Starbucks. I just think those people have problems. There is no need to do that. However, I don’t begrudge anyone the right to own a weapon and to carry it concealed with the proper permitting. Different people have different reasons to carry concealed.
I can think of one instance where I was with someone who is a regular contributor to this blog. A potentially questionable situation came up with a stranger who seemed a little too eager to be friendly, fairly late in the evening in a neighbhood that had a few problem sites. I assumed he/she was carrying and wasn’t too worried about an ugly situation going bad. I also knew that person knew how to handle himself (giving up on hiding the gender) in those types of situations. Another reassurance.
Then there are hot-heads and I would not have felt good about the situation. Its the hot-heads that can be problematic. (thinking of the Zimmerman situation) I don’t know what to do about the hot-heads. I don’t know how we can screen for safe, level-headed, smart gun owners and reject the jackasses. I sure don’t want to take away from the smart gun owners just to fix the jackass problem either.
Ed, one more thing…if someone is coming at you with a weapon of some sort and you have every reason to think that person will do you harm, would you think it was immoral, after warning them to stop, to blow a hole in that person?
Tazers can kill also.
@ed myers
“It is crazy for people to buy (multiple) working handguns. It is a sign of mental illness. Irrational objection to common sense regulation is a sign of more severe mental illness.”
And it is this attitude and bigotry that prevents any compromise. I don’t trust you to act fairly or objectively when you make irrational statements like this. This is the type of attitude that leads to infringements on inalienable rights.
@Moon-howler
I support your position.
Home electronic security with direct connection to law enforcement. – When seconds count, the cops are only minutes away.
Stun guns and mace. – Stun guns are actually illegal in many places….not protected by the 2nd. Mace is not as effective as you think. I’ve been maced and tear gassed.
Plexiglass that makes home intrusion even with a gun very difficult. – Expensive to refit a home that way.
Automobiles with electric locks and windows and air conditioning that makes it near impossible for a pedestrian to car jack. – http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/c02.pdf 38,000 carjackings per year.
Surveillance cameras everywhere.- Cameras record crimes. Also, do you really want MORE surveillance.
Automobiles that make fleeing easy and safe and the option to run over and kill the attacker. – yes…. but if you run over a car jacker on purpose and the prosecutor thinks that you could have avoided him….. possible charges. No SYG with cars.
Cellphones with GPS tracking and constant communication with friends. – Again…how does this prevent or stop a crime in progress?
Guns are like fire extinguishers. When you need one, it is the ONLY tool that is appropriate.
@Moon-howler
I’ve had more than one female self defense trainer tell me….”If you can pull out and blow on a “rape whistle, you can pull a weapon and defend yourself.”
@Cargosquid
Bet you never thought you would utter those words and bet I never thought I would hear them.
I do consider myself a moderate on gun ownership/possession.
Reproductive choice…oh I confess. Glow in the dark liberal.
Education–old school. Does that make me a conservative? (I don’t mean a today’s Republican, I mean real conservative)
I’m not against gun ownership or even the use of guns to defend oneself. Yes, I make allowances for one to defend by killing an attacker. I just think the needle has swung so far in the direction of advocating fighting violence with violence instead of advocating finding alternatives to violence, including requiring people to attempt to flee before using deadly force. We have made it too easy to kill someone and claim self defense.
If you are in a date rape situation, do you really think a gun is going to make things better or is it likely the gun will be used against you? And how do we sort it out in the end? Was the survivor the innocent one protecting themselves or were they the perpetrator? Expect sexism to play a key role.
@Cargo,”Guns are like fire extinguishers. When you need one, it is the ONLY tool that is appropriate”.
This is as silly as your other comments, but I’ll respond to this one. I can use a blanket, a pail of water, a shovel or dirt to put out a fire. But better than a fire extinguisher is some common sense not to create fire hazard in the first place. That is what is missing from the pro gun side: common sense interest and creativity in preventing gun violence.
“Home electronic security with direct connection to law enforcement. Stun guns and mace. Plexiglass that makes home intrusion even with a gun very difficult. Automobiles with electric locks and windows and air conditioning that makes it near impossible for a pedestrian to car jack. Surveillance cameras everywhere. Automobiles that make fleeing easy and safe and the option to run over and kill the attacker. Cellphones with GPS tracking and constant communication with friends.”
Compare the costs. Who can afford these? Certainly not the honest, hardworking, low-income person who lives in an urban environment. So I guess only the rich folks should have the means to defend themselves.
As far as your comment regarding “my first choice”, you couldn’t be more wrong. Deadly force is the last resort. Always. Avoidance is the first, best-option.