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Gun Control

IMO, there should be some sort of background check that includes the "candidate's" (mental) health records and that should then be piggybacked with a licensed mental health professional's interview and evaluation and/or references that include prior bosses and/or teachers.
 
IMO, there should be some sort of background check that includes the "candidate's" (mental) health records and that should then be piggybacked with a licensed mental health professional's interview and evaluation and/or references that include prior bosses and/or teachers.

most profesionals in security wont pass the test then.
 
Here in Utah, where "everyone" packs, we had a shooting just a few years ago up at Trolley Square. I don't recall any ordinary citizen blowing away the shooter. Perhaps all the packers ran away to save their own skins? Maybe they all missed? The shooter was eventually taken down by professionals. So if packing actually makes you "safer" why hasn't any "packer" stopped/minimized (any) of these shootings?

Here's at least one example of concealed carry stopping a shooter/saving lives:

Kenneth K. Hammond, who was at the mall for an early Valentine’s Day dinner with his wife, said he first thought the sound of gunfire was construction noise but drew his gun and told his wife to call 911 when he realized what was happening.
“I’ve been in situations before where I’ve had to chase a guy who was pointing a gun at me,” Hammond, 33, said Tuesday from the Ogden police headquarters where he works.
Hammond, who fired on Talovic, is being credited with drawing the gunman’s attention until other officers could reach the scene. Talovic was killed, although it was unclear which officer fired the fatal shot, police said.
“I feel like I was there and did what I had to do,” Hammond said.

Oh wait...that example was the Trolley Square shooting. Huh.
 
Dude works at the police station. I doubt he's a secretary. Not exactly just some Joe Schmoe off the streets.

Exactly.

You'd think with the amount of opportunity right now packers would be out there saving lives. Perhaps this is just a myth? I'm still not seeing any evidence to support the NRA's claim.
 
Seems like we have already tried the "more guns" approach. (there are more guns in this country than ever before) That doesn't seem to be working.

We have already tried the "figure out and help mental health issues" approach. (There are more people on paxil, prozac, zanex, etc etc, and also more people seeing psychiatrists/counselors than ever before).

So maybe we should try the "less guns approach". Maybe it wouldn't work but its worth a try.

I wonder if it was a proven fact and guarantee that getting rid of guns would save lots of lives, if gun owners would even be willing to give them up.... it seems like most gun owners love thier guns so much that even if they knew losing thier guns would save lives, they still would choose to hold on to them.
 
Again, not a very strong example.

It wasn't meant as much to be the strongest example as I could find as it was to make Thriller look like the moron that he is. 20 years ago, most states wouldn't have allowed the guy to carry.

And I think you are being far too confident in the ability to use testing, training, and examinations to determine whether people would be safe or unsafe gun carriers. If you think mental exams would have stopped any of the school shooters from owning, I'll bet you're wrong -- most of these people are quite mentally sound. On the other side of the coin, many cops have frozen or acted unpredictably when situations arose, despite extensive training. The lines between "professional" and "joe schmoe" aren't as clear as you're making them out to be.

As far the off-duty officer in this example, he later served 90 days for failing to control his "gun" with two separate minors, and resigned amid harassment claims from others at work as well as "use of excessive force" in on-duty situations. So if "makes good decisions" or "uses good judgment" or "exhibits control" or "doesn't lose temper" or "good guy" is among your criteria for ownership or carrying, he probably should have been eliminated.

As for other "strong" examples, use the internets. There are plenty. They don't get as much pub or don't stick in your memory as much because generally dozens of people don't die. It's impossible to know what would have happened at Trolley Square had Hammond not been there, but reports indicate between a minute and 1:15 between the time he got involved and the time help arrived. Not too hard to imagine what an armed man in a crowded mall could do in that time.
 
Also, off topic: Anyone know why i can no longer put spaces between my sentences/paragraphs? Like when i hit enter a few times to make a gap between paragraphs then i post the reply, everything is bunched together.
 
We could call it "the War on Guns".

Lol... good point.
That sentence alone pretty much destroys my "less guns arguement".
Seems that we are all just ****ed.
 
A few thoughts:
1. What an awful tragedy. I am just numb. I think my mind is in protection mode because I cant even begin to fathom the pain of the victims or those close to them.
2. The guy used his mothers guns.
3. Gun rights date back to the founding of our country and it is ammendment #2. #1 covers religeon, press and speech. I think it is interesting to note what their thought process was.

deterring tyrannical government;
repelling invasion;
suppressing insurrection;
facilitating a natural right of self-defense;
participating in law enforcement;
enabling the people to organize a militia system.

Blackstone in his Commentaries alluded to this right to rebel as the natural right of resistance and self preservation, to be used only as a last resort, exercisable when "the sanctions of society and laws are found insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression".

The above is info from this wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
I am not a scholar on the subject and would welcome additional insight others have to offer.

I also think the article in the link that Duck posted was especially interesting because Harvard is an institution that I would expect to be pro gun control.

For me the second amendment is much deeper than recreation or even the day to day crime and street battles. It is related to freedom from oppression. I hope it is rarely needed for that purpose, but I would never do away with it if it gives a chance to preserve freedom. I understand that position comes at a very grim price at times. I stand with those that framed the amendment as the last hope we have when all else has failed in ending oppression.

My interpretation of history is that power and freedom are continuously challenged. I think that it's hard to imagine that it could be challenged in the US. I hope it never is, but history says someday it will. If that happens again, I hope that the right to bear arms is still around and once again by some miracle the citizens of the United States can somehow defeat an oppressive ruler(s) and their much better equipped military.
 
speaking of prohibition
how many people die due to school shooting related deaths a year? a 100? 200? a 1000?
heck not even a 100 a year.

yet the alcohol related traffic deaths are around 10.000 a year.

so yeah **** gun control
 
C'mon Dutch. This is America.

It's more often the willing statist ideologues/ zombies who are the drunks, and the shooters. But they won't admit it, and if you study their rhetoric they are trying to exorcise the demons of their own accidental mental evolutionary soup by regulating others. It's the night of the living empty heads chanting "there ought ta be a law". . . . .

after all, without top-down governance, what can you expect of people with absolute disbelief in personal self-regulation? With absolute contempt for other humans who might do things out of the ordinary fashion. . . ?

I wouldn't support legislation providing for police protection in the indoctrination camps, even if you call them schools with armed "teachers",and put mere children in them. Probably can't expect the kids to carry their own "final solution" personal protection equipment, though. I say close the camps and end the tax supported education and just replace it with private education. Private owners of schools where the parents voluntarily enroll their kids would make damn sure nobody got into the campus armed like the crazies do in the public schools. The reason? You can't sue the government for negligence, but you damn sure can sue the private educators.
 
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