A gunman opened fire on a movie theater in Lafayette, La. Thursday night, killing at least two people and injuring at least seven before killing himself, police said.
Police Chief Jim Craft said at a news conference around 11 p.m. that police received reports of a shooting at the Grand Theatre 16 around 7:30 p.m. Four officers entered the theater to confront the shooter and found him dead of a self inflicted gunshot wound. Two other people have been confirmed dead.
Police said there are at least seven other injured victims, with injuries ranging from minor to critical and life-threatening. Louisiana State Police Sgt. David Brooks told CNN that all injured victims have been taken to local hospitals.
The shooter has been described as white and 58 years old. Police know his identity.
At what point do gun rights advocates start coming up with real solutions about what to do about these weekly occurences? Too many Americans are dying from shooting rampages.
I think I am going to barf if I hear any more platitudes and slogans. Too many guns are getting into the hands of those not competent or responsible to own them. I want to know solutions. Come on, A2 advocates, pony up some REAL solutions. No bumper sticker slogans allowed.
At some point the American people are going to rebel and demand changes. It seems to me that strong 2A folks would guard their rights more by thinking up solutions for this epidemic rather than telling us why they have rights.
Another mass shooting in America. I guess this is just threw normal. Hope you gun huggers are proud.
I did some quick research to compare Canada with the US. Canada has a gun related death rate of 2.2 gun related deaths per 100,000 people. The US has a rate of 10.64 gun related deaths per 100,000 folks. Canada has 30.8 guns per 100 people where the US has 88.8 guns per 100 of us (We are number 1).
I would propose legislation that would reduce the guns in the hands of all US residents to where we are at or below the Canadian level. That way, at least, fewer guns would be in the hands of the mentally ill and the criminally inclined. It would also ease the fear that responsible gun owners have regarding their personal safety.
I agree but the gun huggers say that the solution to gun violence is more guns.
Well, that obviously isn’t the answer. I think we are trying that and it is just getting worse.
Closing the gun show loophole is a good start. The 2A will continue to exist, so it is important to ensure RESPONSIBLE gun ownership. No sane person wants guns in the hands of criminals, terrorists, or the insane.
Devil’s advocate here…what mass killings have been a result of guns purchased at guns shows that escaped through the loophole? I don’t know of any. Doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened though. Just asking.
Details emerge:
The shooter had both a criminal record, and was previously committed by a judge for psychological reasons. Thus, he was prohibited by law from posessing, purchasing or transporting a firearm.
It is not known where he obtained his firearms. We do know that when he shared a marital home with a spouse, she had all firearms removed, when his psychological problems
He was known to call into radio shows, and espouse bizzare behavior.
His car was rigged with “trick” license plates, and his hotel room contained wigs and disguises.
So, in light of what was shared at an official press conference, nothing being espoused here would have prevented this shooting. He was evil. Evil exists.
Please explain the “gun-show” loophole. Also, please describe how this will keep a criminal from posessing a gun, or using it to murder someone.
I’m all about making criminals obey the law. I just opposed to layering more laws and restrictions on the law-abiding, especially when even the gun-grabbers admit the restrictions they propose wouldn’t have prevented a single spree-killing.
Might be nice if the DOJ would aggressively prosecute felons who attempt to purchase, possess or tranport firearms. Then again, the DOJ has refused to prosecute those at BATFE who facilitated illegal straw-purchases and arms smuggling by Mexican drug cartels, which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of mexican nationals, and a US Border Patrol Agent.
So just get used to this sh**, I guess. How come Canada doesn’t have these massacres?
@Starryflights
Starry,
I seem to recall a “missionary of the religon of peace” engaging in a spree-killing in Ottawa, just last year. They happen in Canada (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Spree_shootings_in_Canada). They happen in Australia. They happen in France. They happen in Norway. They happen because evil exists, not because guns exist. You cannot legislate away evil.
Moon,
Not a “Devils Advocate” question. That is intellectually honest question. And the answer is: Less than 1%. 0.07% to be precise, if DOJ figures are accurate.
Most guns used in crimes were stolen, or obtained through a straw-purchase.
As horrific as the spree-killing is, they are actually pretty rare. Most gun-related murders are in the comission of some other felony. Chicago has the highest murder-rate of any city (but New York is catching up), and yet still has very strict gun-laws. But every weekend, there are shootings and murders. More deaths in a year than all of the spree-killings of the last 5 years.
These murders are committed by felons, gang-members, drug-dealers, and other bad-guys, few of which obtained their firearms through legal means.
Don’t focus on an inanimate object. Focus on the actions of the perpetrator. Commit a crime with a gun, prosecute vigorously. Commit a crime, with a gun, while also being a prohibited person, hammer the crap out of them.
The bottom line here is that if this nut had only a knife he would have, maybe, killed one person, not two and wounded 13.
Contrary to what Steve says, don’t wait until a nut kills dozens of school children to prosecute the killer… take his weapons of mass destruction away from him today so that he CANNOT kill tomorrow.
If most of these guns used by felons are stolen, why not prosecute the owner who obviously didn’t secure the weapon? The owner should share some responsibility. If his weapons are stolen, perhaps he’s too irresponsible to own guns.
I suppose that the gun shop owner in Florida who banned Muslims from his shop after the Chattanooga shootings will now ban white male non-muslim americans.
Steve – what’s the problem focussing on guns? Surely there is a great deal of reasonable regulation that could occur that would not restrict the right of competent, trained, responsible people like you to own a weapon.
That’s what I am thinking. There are sieves that protect the responsible and exclude the crazy, vtiminal. As carelesd.
I just don’t buy that every person has a right to bear arms.
@BSinVA
“don’t wait until a nut kills dozens of school children to prosecute the killer… take his weapons of mass destruction away from him today so that he CANNOT kill tomorrow.”
Sure…let’s make it illegal for a certified nut or convicted felon to purchase, possess or transport a firearm…wait…it’s already illegal, so let’s try something else.
Let’s outlaw possession of firearms in places like government buildings, churchs, schools, and other places where these mass shootings seem to take place….whaddayamean these places already outlaw firearms! You don’t mean to tell me that these places are specifically targeted because they are declared “gun free”? That is INSANE!
Ok…Ok…we gotta do SOMETHING, no matter how ineffectual! Ok, we’ll ban the possession of black rifles…everyone knows that they are more deadly, because they are black…and have plastic. Let’s ban magazines that hold more than 5 rounds. Let’s make it illegal for someone to inherit a gun or sell a gun, without filling out a form 4470. Everyone knows that this his how criminals get their guns, and criminals obey the laws. Yep…it won’t do anything to change things, but at least we’ll feel better knowing we’ve done SOMETHING.
Wouldn’t want to do something like if you are on a federal watchlist for terror ties, put that in the Instacheck system. I mean that would have stopped 4 spree shooters that I can think of, right off the top of my head…but we don’t want to offend practitioners of the religon of peace and brotherhood. Wouldn’t want to actually federally prosecute those found in posession of illegal guns. That’d require an honest DOJ, and they want to avoid the appearence of over-presecution of certain demographic groups.
Nope…better for the Hoplophobes and their “progressive ilk to target law-abiding White Males, even better if they’re also southern, christian, and BONUS if they vote Republican. Keep trying to make that connection.
Here’s the problem: that pesky 2nd Ammendment. I don’t need to fight for a right I already have, and I certainly don’t need to justify the excercise of this right to any of you. Here’s a suggestion for you progressive hoplophobes that keep calling for law-abiding Americans to accept “reasonable” restrictions on our rights: Figure out a “less crunchy” way to approach this. In the meantime I say: Molon Labe.
Steve, you touched on at least one hood idea but it got lost in the politics of labeling
No one on a terrorist list should be buying a weapon. It doesn’t have to be a Muslim terrorist lust. Domestic will do just fine.
Steve: What’s all this about targeting “law-abiding White Males” who are southern, Christian and Republican? I have never heard anyone argue that gun regulation should be limited to those demographics. The concern is far more general than that. I have a great deal of respect for much of what you say here, but that last comment just seems borderline demented. Nobody is arguing that you, I or anyone else should have to “fight for a right” you already have. But we know full well that it’s a right subject to reasonable regulation. It’s the content and efficacy of these regulations that we are discussing in a nation that has thousands of gun deaths every year.
I hope that you will calm down now that the weekend is here and will be able to engage us in meaningful discussion on this subject.
I just went to MoveOn.Org and signed their petition to repeal the 2nd amendment.
The numbers speak. The NRA should act.
@BSinVA
The gun show loophole doesn’t require full background. There that’s in English and should be clear. You don’t know what could be deterred by these requirements. Prevention is not measurable. The SC shooter got a gun because the FBI process failed and the law says if the check takes more than three days just give them the gun. Insane.
And remember I don’t support abortion.
@Steve Thomas
They happen / Yes, but not with the frequency as in the US. I don’t believe it has ever
happened in Norway before the crazed Nazi lover went on a rampage.
Shootings in movie theaters seem to be in vogue at present.
@Scout
” it’s a right subject to reasonable regulation.”
Define reasonable. I guarantee your definition will not be mine.
Rights are not subject to “reasonable regulation.”
Rights are limited by other rights.
@BSinVA
Great! Good luck with that.
Of course, repealing the 2nd does not repeal a right. It merely repeals the recognized protections and allows infringement of an inalienable right. If such infringement became commonplace, there will be blood shed.
@Lyssa
There is no gun show loophole. All commercial sales require a background check
There are private sales. These are possible throughout the state. Private sales do not fall under the NICS because registration would be required to enforce it and the federal government has no authority over the private sale of private property.
The SC Shooter took FIVE days to pick up the gun
The three day limit was agreed upon by the leading gun control organizations when it was proposed. The three day limit is reasonable, because you are restricting a right. If the government can extend it, then they can infringe upon the the right. Roof was not in the system. He could have waited forever and the system would still pass him.
That is why it is called the INSTANT Check system.
As for a background check process for private sales, you will have to ask the gun control politicians why they defeated the ONLY actual universal background check bill that covered private sales. NOT the pro-gun people.
@Lyssa
“The numbers speak. The NRA should act.”
And do…..what, exactly?
And what numbers are speaking?
Sorry, Cargo, even in Heller and all the post Heller dispositions, the federal courts have either emphasized expressly or have tacitly let stand in place various local restrictions on firearms ownership, use, or carriage. Heller itself made a point of emphasizing that the right to bear arms is subject to regulation. While various individual programs are, of course, like everything else in this country, potentially subject to litigation, the courts can sort that out on a case-by-case basis. What is clear is that the Second Amendment does not require that governments not regulate the right.
The question (at least for me) comes back to the one I posed to Steve: Why not regulate the weapons themselves (recognizing that we need to regulate crazy people and criminals also)? How would such regulations in any way prevent responsible, capable gun owners like Steve from purchasing his shootin’ irons.
And Cargo fades into the woodwork.
Yes….the court did let some laws stand in place. They were not in question in either Heller or McDonald.
Heller stated that some “traditional” restrictions were not affected. Basically, we haven’t had the court cases that overturn those infringements.
The 2nd amendment is a limitation on government power. We are overturning 200 hears of restrictions because the 2nd had not been incorporated. We’ll get to it.
Regulated the weapons? In what way? Even registration is an infringement, giving the government gun control bigots too much power.
@BSinVA
Say what?
Fade into the woodwork?
How’s that attempt to repeal a civil liberty coming? Got any other inherent rights you find inconvenient?
My question now is: does a convicted felon heading to prison have the unalienable right to carry a rocket launcher with him to the lock up?
Once someone convicted of a felony has been out of prison for years, he cannot be in possession of a gun unless there is a special dispensation by the governor.
I would say that is taking away someone’s inalienable rights.
inalienable!
Cargo: if you read the cases closely and consistently, I very much doubt that the federal courts at any level would find registration, licensing, requirements that weapons be carried conspicuously (i.e., a ban on concealed carry) or competence requirements to be infringements unless the requirements were so onerous that, somewhat like in Heller, the requirements were tantamount to a ban. By the way, as we discuss this, remember that the right to “bear arms” is not just or even primarily about firearms, it also applies to commonly known 18th century weapons such as swords, knives, tomahawks, combat axes, etc. The firearms that were known in that day were muzzle-loading, flintlock long rifles, muskets, and single shot pistols. The strict constructionists among us who feel that original intent is important might be expected to be very vocal that those are the weapons that we are talking about. These were not carried concealed, so concealed carry has no constitutional roots, I would think. It is something that started happening much later when technology permitted concealment.
The discussion of gun control always reminds me of the relationship between a teacher and an elementary school class. If someone in the class misbehaves, some teachers take it out on the entire class by suspending privileges or assigning punishment that equally affects well-behaved students and miscreants. It is this paternalistic approach that would allow government to “protect” society by restricting the ability of ordinary citizens to obtain weapons.
How do we screen and sift out the miscreants?
We are not talking about “well-behaved students”… we are talking about slaughtered children.
Good grief – a bad teacher is your reference point? Good grief.
@Scout
I’ve read many of the documents and cases. Those issues have not yet been addressed. As for the other weapons…no problem. As for concealment…. concealment was not forbidden then, either. Many pistols were made to go into pockets.
@BSinVA
Did you forget that due process allows the government to restrict even inalienable rights?
I’m sorry that you wish to infringe upon the rights of others.
Kelly’s analogy is quite apt. Gun control affects no criminals.
@Scout
http://www.gunsinternational.com/guns-for-sale-online/pistols/antique-pistols-1500-1850.cfm?cat_id=127
Some examples.
Concealed carry is not new.
Guns attract the crazy. Or if you prefer, the crazy are attracted to guns and the glory and exhilaration of using them to kill. Guns are not very good at preventing death or protecting oneself from violent crime so I’d like the well regulated clause of the 2nd amendment to be interpreted to prohibit handgun ammunition that can kill someone more than 20 feet away. Gun owners that want more powerful ammo would have to use it at a regulated shooting range. I’ll keep a 20 foot buffer between me and anyone who carries a gun so they have no reason to fear me. Like smoking, we could have a “guns section” at restaurants and designated spaces in public spaces for people with guns to congregate so gun owners can safely exercise their rights 20 feet from others who might frighten them. In exchange we will not have mass shootings since it is hard to kill many people when all the targets quickly run away.
Inalienable means that which cannot be taken away. If due process can take away your right to carry a rocket launcher into prison, that right is not inalienable. It therefore becomes a right given to you by the government and subject to government controls.
A question for all gun rights defenders, since it is pretty obvious that more guns doesn’t reduce slaughter, and the current laws and enforcement thereof don’t reduce slaughter… what is the answer?
That was pretty much the original question. I keep hearing what rights people have. I am not hearing solutions. Perhaps that is because there are none.
At some point, I don’t give a rat’s ass what rights people have. We know that these rights can be taken away or abridged.
I am a gun owner. I also don’t care if I have restrictions. I think I should have some restrictions. At some point people are going to have to either come up with solutions or society will do it for them.
@BSinVA
No. We are talking about the vast majority of gun owners, which is a civic-minded, well-behaved group that exercises its 2nd Amendment rights in a responsible fashion. Your logic seems to be that the right of self defense should be restricted in the “hope” that it will somehow reduce mass murders.
Your logic is poor for two reasons. First, even if there was a total ban on new weapons, I have seen estimates that there are 300 million guns in the US–a person intent on mass murder most likely could still get a gun. History shows that mass murderers always choose a location in which his potential victims are guaranteed to be defenseless, i.e. schools, theaters, government buildings. So it is not “obvious” that more guns do not reduce the slaughter. If we as a society are going to stick with arms-free zones, then we need a lot more heavily armed police (or teachers) that are stationed in such places, schools particularly.
Second, are there not laws in place that could have allowed weapons purchases to be denied to the last two mass murderers? If this is the case, then the local governments already had all the authority needed to prevent this from happening. Why is there no outrage directed at these government authorities? A reasonable action should be to make sure that government officials at all levels have the necessary databases to identify people with disqualifying mental issues and/or felony convictions. Then they should be held accountable if they fail to disqualify such people from purchasing weapons.
” It therefore becomes a right given to you by the government and subject to government controls.”
Rights are inherent. The people give the government power to restrict certain rights, as was stated earlier in this thread. They are not a gift from our beneficent government.
There, I fixed it for you. Another thought—will you also be signing the petition to repeal the 9th Amendment?
@Lyssa
A simple example so that infantile thinking can be exposed.
It doesn’t matter where rights originate from. A person could claim a dog gave them the right to take a walk on the beach every morning. If the right conflicts with someone else’s declared right then government is needed to arbitrate. Or, I guess we could use the law of the jungle and the most powerful person wins and their right is preserved and the other person’s right is infringed. That is a uncivilized Darwinistic approach, though.
Bringing up phrases like “God-given” is just an attempt to avoid recognizing that rights require compromise for a civil society. I can just declare that My God gave me the right to kill all infidels and people with green eyes. See how using religion as a foundation for rights end in violence?
The energy of the bullet is what harms the target. If the bullet is heavy but travels slowly it is short range while a smaller but faster bullet can impact the target with the same energy from a longer distance.
If a heavy bullet with slow speed is fired from a gun and the bullet has a design the increased air friction then that bullet would still be lethal at short ranges but slow so quickly that it would not be lethal at a distance. No one needs a handgun for self defense that kills at a distance and anyone who wants one has criminal intent. Misfired guns with safety bullets will not go through walls and harm neighbors or be used for drive-by shootings or mass murder.
Another design is a bullet that explodes into tiny fragment shortly after exit from a barrel. If that bullet is lodged in a perp, good. If it missed the perp and is headed towards innocents, good too as tiny fragments slow down quickly and are not lethal.
We have so many guns that it is impossible to keep them out of the hands of evil but we could phase out ammo designed for killing the enemy at a distance and replace it with ammo designed only for self defense.
Do you imagine that after you do this phaseout that the technology and know-how just go away? That people aren’t capable of producing/reloading their own ammo? Remind me again how Prohibition worked out. Who suffered because of it, and who profited?
Let me know how you plan to legislate evil away, too, making the earth 100 percent safe.
Why don’t we analyze the gun laws of Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain and the UK to see what they are doing right? They are all majority Christian, they all have minorities residents, all have immigration issues, they all have crazy people and all have terrorists. They all have drastically fewer gun death rates than our great country.
Let’s add a few more for comparison: Argentina, Azerbaijan, Barbados, Belarus, Bulgaria, Chile, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, Estonia, Georgia, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Nicaragua, Norway, Paraguay, Peru, Phillippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Ukraine, Zimbabwe. These too have a lower gun related death rate than we do.
In fairness, some countries are even more dangerous than our own such as: Brazil, Columbia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Panama, South Africa, Swaziland, Uruguay, and Venezuela. I may be biased but it looks as if those countries with the weakest governments, are the ones where you have a greater chance of having your children killed in kindergarten by mad men than those governments that are in control.
More research just in …. gun related injuries are down significantly from 1993… from about 14,000 per year in 1993 to around 9,000 per year in 2004. One theory is that most gun related injuries are caused by 15 to 20 year old males. Since Roe v. Wade was issued in 1973, more women were able to control their family size which resulted in fewer births. Fewer births in the 1970’s meant fewer 15 to 20 year old males in the 1990’s hence fewer gun related deaths.
Supporting a woman’s right to choose means fewer killings tomorrow.
@BSinVA
Inalienable DOES mean that it cannot be taken away.
As a society we cannot take away rights.
As a society, we have restricted rights through due process, either for felonies or mental incompetence.
More guns do not increase the slaughter……gun ownership is up. Gun crime is down. Defensive gun use always decreases the slaughter.
Rights cannot be given by the government. The constitution gives no rights. The Bill of Rights is a limit on government action, protecting existing rights.
@BSinVA That was an astoundingly Olympian leap you just made there.
Statistics are great, aren’t they? You can make a case both for and against just about anything you want, using the exact same set of numbers. You can even just make stuff up, and find the numbers to support a fairy tale.
Emma: what fault in logic can you see in that theory?
Probably most posters here own guns but only a few seem to live in fear of some bogey-man coming to take them away. Why? What has happened that creates this fear – or the fear of stepping outside one’s home unarmed?
I don’t know, Censored. I often wonder if I am missing something.
@Kelly_3406
Very deep.
@Censored bybvbl
Most of the posters here, live in the free state of Virginia. If I lived in NY, I would be in fear of confiscation, thus I would be one of the 9%% that refuse to comply with the SAFE Act registration scheme.
As for the “fear” of not carrying, people carry for a variety of reasons, but most carry for the same reasons you have a fire extinguisher in your home. For safety. If you need it and don’t have it…..
@Cargosquid I didn’t say it was “new”. I said that weapons carried at the time of the writing of the Second Amendment were single shot, muzzle loaders. Swords, long, rifles, muskets and the cumbersome pistols of the day did not lend themselves to concealed carry. It was decades after the Constitution was first ratified that technology made it possible to begin to carry a reliable concealed firearm. You’ll note that most (perhaps all – they aren’t all dated) of the smaller weapons in your link are 19th century or later. Those that are earlier than that tend to have long barrels.
But, not to lose the point: there is no constitutional right to carry concealed free of government regulation. Justice Scalia in Heller used concealed carry as an example of precisely the kind of situation in which local regulation would be permissible.
@Cargosquid
Why are you less safe than my husband, friends, family, and I who never carry a gun outside our homes? Common sense says to avoid certain situations or areas where there may be more crime.
Carrying daily outside my home seems to me to be the equivalent of walking around my house with my fire extinguisher strapped to my hip in the hope that I’ll be able to respond quickly in case someone is smoking a cigarette or if I accidentally forgot to empty the lint tray in my clothes dryer. I’d probably just end up with a worse case of arthritis. Whether Obama, McCain, Bush, or Hillary is in office, I’m no more likely to need the fire extinguisher. I might spontaneously combust if Trump makes it there though.
Hahahahaha! What a horrible thought…re Trump.
I think the honest answer, Censored, to your question is those who carry deadly weapons to the dry cleaners and Home Depot are not safer, but they like the feel of it. There is a psychological need that is fulfilled somehow. Under my mandatory open carry regime, they could still carry their weapons on the outside in conspicuous day-glo pink holsters, but the rest of us would know who they were, and put some distance between us and them if we feel that the combination of poor risk evaluation and deadly weapons is one that we would just as soon avoid.
But back to a variant of a question I previously asked Steve, I don’t understand why Kelly and others feel that some kind of pre-screening, competence testing, periodic re-testing etc, in some way “punishes” law-abiding gun wielders. I would think that the responsible gun toters would have no problem meeting those kinds of requirements.
What is more essential to get along in this modern world? To drive or to be able to carry a gun?
Yes, I am aware there are no amendments guaranteeing me the right to drive. Cars hadn
t been invented. I would venture to say some things have changed since the second amendment was written also.