Yet another school shooting.

[miami_fan]

The national cameras have gone. The national political back and forth has gone. The pain remains. Hope everyone involved get the help they need before it's too late.

Second Parkland shooting survivor commits suicide, cops confirm | Miami Herald

[Izulde]

At least seven injured, possibly more, in shooting at STEM School Highlands Ranch; 2 suspects in custody – The Colorado Sun

Another one. 7 or 8 students injured, two suspects arrested (they were initially looking for a third suspect, but aren't now).

[RainMaker]

The two suspects is certainly new. Such a weird time. This stuff never crossed my mind when I was a kid.

[Ryche]

A couple miles from my house. Odd target, one of the least obvious schools ever in a business park. Good time to be out of town

[panerd]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

The two suspects is certainly new. Such a weird time. This stuff never crossed my mind when I was a kid.

It was two of the first ones in Arkansas and Columbine that started the craze in the 90s. But you're right hasn't happened in a while.

[RainMaker]

It has now been upgraded to a fatal school shooting. There is one confirmed death.

[tarcone]

There were 13 shootings in St Louis last weekend. Anyone here about those?

[panerd]

Originally Posted by tarcone

There were 13 shootings in St Louis last weekend. Anyone here about those?

On one hand I hear you but on the other you understnad why right? Wouldn't a mass shooting in pacific or eureka shake your world while ones after midnight in high drug crime areas just make you feel sad?

I mean this is middle upper class Denver at a school not Haydens rectangle between rival drug gangs.

[RainMaker]

Yeah a mass shooting inside of a school, a place that is supposed to be safe for children, is going to be viewed differently than a drive-by in a gang infested neighborhood.

Heck, it'd be viewed differently to me than a domestic murder between a married couple. Schools are sacred.

[RainMaker]

America

[JPhillips]

The God of Freedom demands constant sacrifices.

[thesloppy]

Those pictures are heartbreaking.

It seems worth mentioning that AFAIK 9 out of 10 of the last American mass shootings were perpetrated entirely with handguns.

[RainMaker]

Very normal country

[tarcone]

I get that, and its horrible. But what do we do? Now we will have 5 pages of debate over the right to bear arms. While we have that debate St Louis will see a bunch more people killed. As will Chicago and Detroit, etc.

Why does it take a school shooting to raise peoples ire? Schools are public spaces. And are good for shock value. And are sacred. i get that. But where is the discussion of how to stop a generations of young people dying by violence every year in our cities?

Shoot, there is an alderman in St Louis that wants the national guard to patrol the streets. Is that the answer? Do we put a tank outside of every school?

What the hell.

[thesloppy]

Originally Posted by tarcone

Shoot, there is an alderman in St Louis that wants the national guard to patrol the streets. Is that the answer? Do we put a tank outside of every school?

It seems like maybe we could try just once, for just a little bit of time, to curb gun culture in even the slightest degree? Or armed patrols in the schools. That's the rational choice.

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by tarcone

I get that, and its horrible. But what do we do? Now we will have 5 pages of debate over the right to bear arms. While we have that debate St Louis will see a bunch more people killed. As will Chicago and Detroit, etc.

Why does it take a school shooting to raise peoples ire? Schools are public spaces. And are good for shock value. And are sacred. i get that. But where is the discussion of how to stop a generations of young people dying by violence every year in our cities?

Shoot, there is an alderman in St Louis that wants the national guard to patrol the streets. Is that the answer? Do we put a tank outside of every school?

What the hell.

The answer probably lies within all the other developed nations that have a fraction of these killings taking place. But we don't want that. This is the country we want.

[Edward64]

FWIW, a little more on the named shooter.

Devon Erickson: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know | Heavy.com

[PilotMan]

Originally Posted by tarcone

But where is the discussion of how to stop a generations of young people dying by violence every year in our cities?

If that's the conversation you want to have I'm right here, and I think that any number of us would love to have it.

Should we start with banks? Should we talk about aggressive police tactics that harass residents of specific races? Should we talk about judicial punishments being handed out differently? Mandatory sentencing? How white collar crime is punished with money and criminals get off with big fines?

Should we talk about the cost of inner city schools, and how money pours into new suburban, private magnet schools (and expanding public), but landlocked schools that depend on the local tax base are forever poor because of poor home values and low incomes? Should we talk about the over 30 years of stripping away of the social-security net that allowed families the chance to have food on the table? Lack of fair, low income housing?

The fabric of culture that allows racism to exist in a more palatable form so it's not noticed or dealt with? Turning a blind eye to obvious tactics meant to neutralize a group. Voter suppression, or gerrymandering come to mind.

Violence happens because of a conflict over resources. Resources can be everything from money, to power, to social influence and property. When there's a lack of lopsided allocation of any one of those things in a community there's going to be violence.

Looks at Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Start at the bottom, deal with that first. Not just throwing money at it and expecting success, but truly looking at what is failing and why, and addressing the root cause of it. Like gun violence it's not a short, simply solution. It's complex, multi-faceted, and demands more than just a cursory, nothing will make it perfect so let's ignore it, mentality.

[PilotMan]

Originally Posted by Edward64

FWIW, a little more on the named shooter.

Devon Erickson: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know | Heavy.com

Why are we so obsessed with who did the deed? I get the need to find out what caused this person to do one thing or another, but then we turn around and do fuck all about the next one. We can't even decide if someone who is a danger to other people because of mental illness, like PTSD, should be able to have a gun legally, even if they are a threat, because .....why again? They haven't actually committed a crime yet?

So if a plane falls out of the sky, and people die, we go back and try and resolve that issue, via manufacturing or training or what have you. Even if the next plane didn't crash because of the same reason. If a 747 full of people crashed every single month, we'd be doing something about it, not just saying it's ok. And....if a 747 full of people crashed every month for 5 years it would still be less than the number of people killed from firearms every year.

[albionmoonlight]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

Schools are sacred.

Schools were sacred. Then Sandy Hook happened, and we all got ready to do something, but then a couple guys pointed out that they like hunting. And now schools aren’t sacred anymore.

[miami_fan]

Originally Posted by tarcone

I get that, and its horrible. But what do we do?

What we do best. Absolutely nothing.

[Radii]

Originally Posted by tarcone

I get that, and its horrible. But what do we do? Now we will have 5 pages of debate over the right to bear arms. While we have that debate St Louis will see a bunch more people killed. As will Chicago and Detroit, etc.

There are tons of reasonable solutions that can improve things and they come up repeatedly any time a thread about gun violence becomes active, but the truth of the matter is that enough people have been convinced that its worth a few mass shootings and countless murders and suicides to block even the idea of background checks at gun shows or private sales of guns, or additional efforts to prevent the mentally ill from obtaining guns. None of those things impede on the right to bear arms of any individual that has one today, and while they may not stop the specific shooting we are discussing right now, they would reduce the overall amount of gun violence in the nation. But any sort of actual discussion just gets ignored in favor of the far more extreme arguments.


As for what to do, arguing here isn't getting me anywhere, though if the discussions we have here change a single person's mind if they read through these threads, then its worth it. For me though, Everytown For Gun Safety - the org that digamma participated in an interview for awhile back and shared with all of us here - that organization gets a decent bit of my "giving/donating/supporting" budget (behind a music charity that I personally help organize events for twice a year).

[CU Tiger]

Originally Posted by Radii

There are tons of reasonable solutions that can improve things and they come up repeatedly any time a thread about gun violence becomes active, but the truth of the matter is that enough people have been convinced that its worth a few mass shootings and countless murders and suicides to block even the idea of background checks at gun shows or private sales of guns, or additional efforts to prevent the mentally ill from obtaining guns. None of those things impede on the right to bear arms of any individual that has one today, and while they may not stop the specific shooting we are discussing right now, they would reduce the overall amount of gun violence in the nation. But any sort of actual discussion just gets ignored in favor of the far more extreme arguments.

You and I will never change the other's views on guns. I think that's a given.
I do recognize that we are both some where centric of the extreme, yet still not a lot of middle ground.


I'm ok with tougher regulations on acquisition, to a point. Admittedly a point far right of your preferred point...but so far left of the NRA that Im labeled a traitor.


But I want to try and ask a different question.

One point that does open my eyes is the disparity between our gun violence and the rest of the civilized world. Its startling in numbers no doubt.


But one question that I have, that Ive never heard anyone even discuss, is 'What changed?'
I mean 2A isnt new. Access to guns isnt new. If anything their fanaticism has increased their entry cost. Yet I'm early 40s. In my childhood shooting at a school was unheard of. Now its not.
Why?
The guns were here then, but we weren't having mass shootings and school shootings.

Why now?


Again Im not saying gun access doesnt play a role, I concede that point, but it isnt the sole cause either. So any thoughts on the why the change?

[thesloppy]

I don't know if there's ever going to be an easy answer to what changed, as it's probably a cultural result of many, many factors rather than just one thing we can point to.

Some of what come to mind to me are the rise of internet culture & social media which is much harsher and more negative than how face-to-face or phone communication use to be. Likewise internet technology has allowed many mentally ill folks to effectively isolate themselves to a degree that didn't used to be possible. There's also millions of folks these days on anti-depressants that are labeled with an FDA warning that they may cause suicidal or homicidal urges.

[NobodyHere]

And yet with the rise of internet culture there has been a decrease in crime. Go figure.

[JPhillips]

Originally Posted by CU Tiger

You and I will never change the other's views on guns. I think that's a given.
I do recognize that we are both some where centric of the extreme, yet still not a lot of middle ground.


I'm ok with tougher regulations on acquisition, to a point. Admittedly a point far right of your preferred point...but so far left of the NRA that Im labeled a traitor.


But I want to try and ask a different question.

One point that does open my eyes is the disparity between our gun violence and the rest of the civilized world. Its startling in numbers no doubt.


But one question that I have, that Ive never heard anyone even discuss, is 'What changed?'
I mean 2A isnt new. Access to guns isnt new. If anything their fanaticism has increased their entry cost. Yet I'm early 40s. In my childhood shooting at a school was unheard of. Now its not.
Why?
The guns were here then, but we weren't having mass shootings and school shootings.

Why now?


Again Im not saying gun access doesnt play a role, I concede that point, but it isnt the sole cause either. So any thoughts on the why the change?

Our society worships violence in a way we didn't before. You see it in the endless wars, the hero worship of cops, MMA, video games, movies, even pictures of a muscle bound Jesus. More and more we measure people by their ability to inflict violence on others.

[PilotMan]

You know CU, those are valid questions. A big part of why there are no answers to them is that it's actually against the law for the government to do those studies. When you change the law, to prohibit research into questions you don't want answers to, it's clear that there's some reason why, and it's probably not for the greater good.

[NobodyHere]

Originally Posted by CU Tiger

I mean 2A isnt new. Access to guns isnt new. If anything their fanaticism has increased their entry cost. Yet I'm early 40s. In my childhood shooting at a school was unheard of. Now its not.
Why?

Wall to wall media coverage complete with pictures and video followed by days of talking heads pontificating on TV.

[digamma]

That's not really playing out in the statistics. Many other cultures have a fascination with violence, video games, movies, war, etc.

What typically changes the game for us is access to guns. We've seen gun sales increase steadily since 2000 (with a slight dip in 2017). The NRA has become big business because it increasingly depends on gun manufacturers to fund its operations. And the gun manufacturers need to sell more guns.

There are some regulatory factors and some strategies the NRA pursued over the 80s and 90s that allowed for ease of permits, which ironically they've spent the last ten years tearing down. The result, however, is a general ease of access to guns, compared to most other developed nations.

So, when you combine the same types of cultural influences that other nations see (violence, etc., mental health issues, etc.) with an ease of access to guns, you have more shootings than compared to those developed nations.

As I think I've posted in this thread before, violent crime is down in the last 25+ years, but gun deaths are relatively flat to slightly up. On a relative basis, we're doing a poor job combating gun violence.

I'm going to again sound like a broken record, but we do see meaningful results with gun regulations. Background checks have been shown to reduce all forms of gun deaths. There's really promising initial results from red flag laws. Enforcing safe storage laws reduces unintentional shootings. Buy backs do tend to show some results. Eliminating stand your ground laws and permitless carry laws have been shown to reduce gun deaths.

I can go on here, but one of the points is that there hasn't been an effective countervailing influence to the NRA until after Sandy Hook. Now there are two national organizations (Everytown (which includes Moms Demand Action) and Giffords) making significant strides and showing up in a variety of ways. Gun issues were a voting issue in 2018 and they will be in 2020. That's new as well. This is not an overnight issue, it's one that will take time to solve.

[JPhillips]

Originally Posted by digamma

That's not really playing out in the statistics. Many other cultures have a fascination with violence, video games, movies, war, etc.

What typically changes the game for us is access to guns. We've seen gun sales increase steadily since 2000 (with a slight dip in 2017). The NRA has become big business because it increasingly depends on gun manufacturers to fund its operations. And the gun manufacturers need to sell more guns.

There are some regulatory factors and some strategies the NRA pursued over the 80s and 90s that allowed for ease of permits, which ironically they've spent the last ten years tearing down. The result, however, is a general ease of access to guns, compared to most other developed nations.

So, when you combine the same types of cultural influences that other nations see (violence, etc., mental health issues, etc.) with an ease of access to guns, you have more shootings than compared to those developed nations.

As I think I've posted in this thread before, violent crime is down in the last 25+ years, but gun deaths are relatively flat to slightly up. On a relative basis, we're doing a poor job combating gun violence.

I'm going to again sound like a broken record, but we do see meaningful results with gun regulations. Background checks have been shown to reduce all forms of gun deaths. There's really promising initial results from red flag laws. Enforcing safe storage laws reduces unintentional shootings. Buy backs do tend to show some results. Eliminating stand your ground laws and permitless carry laws have been shown to reduce gun deaths.

I can go on here, but one of the points is that there hasn't been an effective countervailing influence to the NRA until after Sandy Hook. Now there are two national organizations (Everytown (which includes Moms Demand Action) and Giffords) making significant strides and showing up in a variety of ways. Gun issues were a voting issue in 2018 and they will be in 2020. That's new as well. This is not an overnight issue, it's one that will take time to solve.

Yeah, I think it's the combination of our obsession with violence and the easy access to guns. I do think that compared to when I was a kid, violence from individuals to our government is far more accepted as a way to resolve problems.

[Lathum]

Something certainly has changed, yet whenever someone suggests changing 2A to combat the cultural shift, gun nuts lose their minds, dig in their heels, claim they are losing their rights, etc...

[panerd]

There were mass shootings when you guys were kids. If you are my age there was the Luby's cafteria, the mcdonalds shooter, hell the term going postal was due to deranged postal workers shooting up the post office. Older would have the Texas tower etc... The difference really is wall to wall coverage and "fame" these losers get with cnn/fox showing their picture and publishing manifestos. Before a lot.of them just offed themselves now they take people with them.

[tarcone]

Lost in this whole discussion is all the illegally obtained firearms. The 2A is what gun owners are using to protect themselves.
Is it too far to collect the guns? If not, how would you do it. You go to the registered gun owners first. Now you have a bunch of illegal gun owners continuing to shoot up themselves. And the legal owners feeling unprotected.

I think we have gone too far to have a sensible solution. There is nothing that can be done. It seems like it will continue forever.

[Lathum]

Originally Posted by tarcone

Lost in this whole discussion is all the illegally obtained firearms. The 2A is what gun owners are using to protect themselves.
Is it too far to collect the guns? If not, how would you do it. You go to the registered gun owners first. Now you have a bunch of illegal gun owners continuing to shoot up themselves. And the legal owners feeling unprotected.

I think we have gone too far to have a sensible solution. There is nothing that can be done. It seems like it will continue forever.

No one except maybe some very far left people are suggesting collecting all the guns.

This is the typical fear mongering that gets the gun rights people all fired up.

[tarcone]

Originally Posted by Lathum

No one except maybe some very far left people are suggesting collecting all the guns.

This is the typical fear mongering that gets the gun rights people all fired up.

Im not promoting this or fear mongering. But other countries have done this and successfully. Im saying that we have gone to far and there is no turning back.

Please try not to get too defensive. This has been a very civil and sensible discussion. Thanks.

[Lathum]

Originally Posted by tarcone

Im saying that we have gone to far and there is no turning back.
.

This kind of attitude gets us nowhere. I guess we should just accept several mass shootings a year?

I'm not getting defensive about anything. Not even sure how you interpreted my comments as such

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by panerd

There were mass shootings when you guys were kids. If you are my age there was the Luby's cafteria, the mcdonalds shooter, hell the term going postal was due to deranged postal workers shooting up the post office. Older would have the Texas tower etc... The difference really is wall to wall coverage and "fame" these losers get with cnn/fox showing their picture and publishing manifestos. Before a lot.of them just offed themselves now they take people with them.

But they are much more common now. And the death tolls are much higher. You're right that the coverage might be a reason for their rise. But now that they've become so common, maybe the trend will go down. A kid getting slaughtered at his school is out of the news cycle in a day. This would have been something talked about for weeks in the past.

[PilotMan]

Originally Posted by tarcone

Im saying that we have gone to far and there is no turning back.

I fear that you're correct. We have a volume of guns in the country that are impossible to diminish under current regulations. For example there's a guy in my neighborhood who actually assembles custom AR15's that are totally unregistered with no SN's under some sort of assembler and private sale rules. He sells a bunch. The cat is out of the bag. But that doesn't mean that we should close these loopholes and go after guys like this, without grandfathering in this stuff. I can't build a plane without the FAA telling me how it has to be assembled and maintained. Why can't he place regs on guns?

[panerd]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

But they are much more common now. And the death tolls are much higher. You're right that the coverage might be a reason for their rise. But now that they've become so common, maybe the trend will go down. A kid getting slaughtered at his school is out of the news cycle in a day. This would have been something talked about for weeks in the past.

I think that last part is the good and the bad. Maybe some will stop, I cant remember that Florida psychos name but Dylan klebold sticks with me to this day. But the scary part is maybe some are now inspired to be #1. Hell look at the list of mass shootings and like 3 of the top 4 were in the past 5 years. It was probably deranged psychopaths before just shooting people but now they also have a number in mind they want to top.

[Johnny93g]

Originally Posted by tarcone

I get that, and its horrible. But what do we do? Now we will have 5 pages of debate over the right to bear arms. While we have that debate St Louis will see a bunch more people killed. As will Chicago and Detroit, etc.

Why does it take a school shooting to raise peoples ire? Schools are public spaces. And are good for shock value. And are sacred. i get that. But where is the discussion of how to stop a generations of young people dying by violence every year in our cities?

Shoot, there is an alderman in St Louis that wants the national guard to patrol the streets. Is that the answer? Do we put a tank outside of every school?

What the hell.

You either look at what other developed nations do that don't have this level mass shootings, and make sacrifice's to try and stop them, or you do nothing....

[digamma]

Originally Posted by tarcone

Lost in this whole discussion is all the illegally obtained firearms. The 2A is what gun owners are using to protect themselves.
Is it too far to collect the guns? If not, how would you do it. You go to the registered gun owners first. Now you have a bunch of illegal gun owners continuing to shoot up themselves. And the legal owners feeling unprotected.

I think we have gone too far to have a sensible solution. There is nothing that can be done. It seems like it will continue forever.

You know what is kind of weird when we look into data about guns recovered in crimes. We see that gun laws matter.

In Illinois for instance, we find that more than half of guns recovered in crimes come from out of state, typically from states with less restrictive gun laws. Indiana is the chief exporter--in 2014 21% of guns recovered in Chicago crimes came from Indiana. Indiana is also a representation of the flip side of this argument. About 70% of guns recovered in Indiana crimes were Indiana guns.

Similarly, in NY a relatively small portion of guns recovered in NY crimes were sold in NY. By contrast, you look at less restrictive states and again it is typically 60-70% in state guns used in crimes.

Guns flow from less restrictive states into more restrictive states.

Imagine if we had uniformity? I realize that is a tough proposition, given different legitimate hunting and other differences, but this is exactly what you see the NRA pushing towards on the other side of things--reciprocity laws, pre-emption arguments, etc. These shouldn't be one way streets.

[RainMaker]

There's probably a lot of reasons why things have changed.

The media likely plays a role. But I think that's a result of what the public wants. People love digging through the killers life. Seeing what his political affiliations are, scouring his manifesto, etc.

Weapons are more powerful and have been pushed harder. The NRA shifted toward anti-government and white nationalist rhetoric trying to persuade people that they need to stockpile weapons for the impending purge or black family moving into the neighborhood.

I don't really believe TV or movies plays much of a role, but I do think society glorifies guns and violence to a point that it does. Your neighborhood police officer is playing army man and putting Punisher logos on their weapons. There's a weird fetish some people have with militarizing everything. I saw a commercial for "tactical" sunglasses the other night. There's an entire industry built around selling weapons and gear to fat losers so they can feel manly.

And lastly, I think there are people who just like it. It's an event. As seen by the fact some of these recent shooters are livestreaming their sprees. The Romans had Gladiators as part of their culture. We have school shootings.

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by panerd

There were mass shootings when you guys were kids. If you are my age there was the Luby's cafteria, the mcdonalds shooter, hell the term going postal was due to deranged postal workers shooting up the post office. Older would have the Texas tower etc... The difference really is wall to wall coverage and "fame" these losers get with cnn/fox showing their picture and publishing manifestos. Before a lot.of them just offed themselves now they take people with them.

Mass shooting have gone up since (let's say) the 1980's.

Mass shootings in the United States - Wikipedia

400 Bad Request

I don't know why its different now and don't think there is a single root cause but many (media coverage, increased bullying, increased use of medications, increased guns, fluoride in water etc.) but as a non-NRA, multiple gun owner, I believe there is more room for gun control for sure.

From what I remember, most on this board that are pro-gun control are not for total-or-near-total ban and I'm good with that. Perfectly reasonable to close loopholes, require registration of all gun transfers (e.g. even as a gift within family members), require real training (bi)annually, 6 month wait periods etc.

For those that are for total-or-near-total ban, I'll ask the question - why penalize the law abiding, presumably sound of mind citizens from owning weapons after we enact more rigorous controls? Why put the effort on restricting the 'good guys', put the effort on taking guns away from criminals and mentally unstable.

[thesloppy]

Originally Posted by Edward64

For those that are for total-or-near-total ban, I'll ask the question - why penalize the law abiding, presumably sound of mind citizens from owning weapons after we enact more rigorous controls? Why put the effort on restricting the 'good guys', put the effort on taking guns away from criminals and mentally unstable.

Because the walls separating those two groups are formed out of thin air, and plenty of bad guys have committed mass murder with a gun that was legally purchased and owned by an adjacent and/or directly related good guy. There's also a significant number of bad guys that spent the entirety of their lives as good guys, until they snapped.

Secondarily we are also already crucially and purposely failing how we handle the mentally ill and have intentionally and systematically dedicated less and less of our resources to supporting them, pushing gun control into that arena would most likely result in significantly less attention and resources for both issues, rather than more. Any 'fix' for firearms that invokes the collective mental health of America has to begin with (or at least acknowledge the necessity of) an absolute overhaul of the American mental health system & culture and the lack of resources involved, before we can even begin talking about some sort of focused, incidental firearm legislation.

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by thesloppy

Because the walls separating those two groups are formed out of air, and plenty of bad guys have committed mass murder with a gun that was legally purchased and owned by an adjacent and/or directly related good guy.

Secondarily we are also already crucially and intentionally failing how we handle the mentally ill and have dedicated less and less of our resources to how we manage them, and pushing gun control into that arena would most likely result in significantly less attention and resources for both issues, rather than more.

I'm assuming you fall under total-or-near-total-ban camp.

Go after the criminals that steal the guns, spend the effort on taking guns away from the criminals. Do a 3 strikes and you are out, toss the key away.

If a gun-owner has been found negligent, fine him and/or do a 3 strikes and you are out also. Plenty of options to explore before you take away the right to own weapons.

Regarding mentally ill, I assume majority/many of mass killers are mentally unstable? Why wouldn't we put effort here to restrict gun access?

[RainMaker]

Most of these mass shootings are committed by people who legally purchased the weapon. It's incredibly easy to get your hands on a high powered gun in this country. No need to do it illegally.

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

Most of these mass shootings are committed by people who legally purchased the weapon. It's incredibly easy to get your hands on a high powered gun in this country. No need to do it illegally.

Assuming you agree that majority/most mass shootings (including suicides) are done by mentally unstable, then sure, put the effort into restricting their "right" to own weapons.

[thesloppy]

Originally Posted by Edward64

I'm assuming you fall under total-or-near-total-ban camp.

Go after the criminals that steal the guns, spend the effort on taking guns away from the criminals. Do a 3 strikes and you are out, toss the key away.

For whatever it's worth to you, if a gun-owner has been found negligent, fine him and/or do a 3 strikes and you are out also. Plenty of options to explore before you take away the right to own weapons.

I'm not entirely sure where I stand on a ban....it seems like such an unlikely prospect that I don't/haven't put that much energy towards the prospect. I think I'm simply in the 'do something/anything' camp like pretty much everybody else right now. That said if it came up on a ballot, sure I'd vote for a total ban, but I am certainly not exactly excited by the thought of indirectly pouring more money into institutional law enforcement/prisons either.

Originally Posted by Edward64

Regarding mentally ill, I assume majority/many of mass killers are mentally unstable? Why wouldn't we put effort here to restrict gun access?

Because we put very little effort into identifying or supporting the mentally ill in the first place, and to start doing some slight oversight (and further demonization) for the explicit purpose of upsetting firearm culture as little as possible, while children are dying in droves, would be ridiculous, entirely tone-deaf and practically insulting to the victims of gun violence let alone the mentally ill.

For the record, and full transparency my life has been affected by gun violence pretty significantly. I've said it plenty before but I wouldn't expect y'all to memorize my personal history, and I don't mean it as an argument trump card, or conversation stopper, so much as I hope it better explains where my perspective/passion comes from: My dad killed himself with a shotgun, my cousin was murdered by a mentally ill co-worker with a hunting rifle, and my friend works for the school system up here and had to clean children's brains off the wall after the Roseburg massacre. Your mileage may vary.

I do think it says something about our gun culture that, even entirely discounting the nearly constant barrage of dead folks in the news, we've also got multiple folks in here who have lost loved ones to gun violence and mass murders, friends and family that they will never see again, and yet this discussion (just like the national one) still somehow ends up being framed as if it's gun owners who are in danger of potentially losing access to something they value.

[thesloppy]

I also don't want this to necessarily sound too condescending or judgmental towards individual people/voters, but I think that the fact that the GOP has spent the last 30-40 years openly courting gun owners & raking in NRA money with one hand, while pushing a policy based almost entirely around stubborn self-interest & collapsing the social safety net with the other, might have something to do with with our current situation as well as all of the related issues.

[digamma]

Originally Posted by thesloppy

For the record, and full transparency my life has been affected by gun violence pretty significantly. I've said it plenty before but I wouldn't expect y'all to memorize my personal history, and I don't mean it as an argument trump card, or conversation stopper, so much as I hope it better explains where my perspective/passion comes from: My dad killed himself with a shotgun, my cousin was murdered by a mentally ill co-worker with a hunting rifle, and my friend works for the school system up here and had to clean children's brains off the wall after the Roseburg massacre. Your mileage may vary.

I do think it says something about our gun culture that, even entirely discounting the nearly constant barrage of dead folks in the news, we've also got multiple folks in here who have lost loved ones to gun violence and mass murders, friends and family that they will never see again, and yet this discussion (just like the national one) still somehow ends up being framed as if it's gun owners who are in danger of potentially losing access to something they value.

Thanks for sharing your story again. It matters.