tchgtr said:
I'll answer some of John's questions with a story.
I had a friend years ago who stopped a rape one morning in a downtown area while doing his job delivering newspapers. It obviously affected him deeply, and because he wasn't armed he immediately decided to become so. He did it in the right way IMHO by joining the National Guard (a well-regulated militia), and receiving proper weapons training. As he completed his voluntary service he amassed quite an armory. About 9 guns if I remember correctly.
Back when I was drafted, we called the NG draft dodgers because many joined to avoid serving in Viet Nam. These days NG and Reserves are in the real fight, so respect.
The military training I received was manly about learning how kill and stay alive, not much about public gun safety (like don't carry a handgun in your sweatpants), while they discouraged us from shooting each other. A collection of 9 weapons does not seem to be about personal self-defense, and not securing them more robustly is irresponsible. Another issue is having a weapon in a home with children. They will find them so they need to be well secured. I know one guy with a hidden gun safe in his house.
My roommate with an AR-15, lost it when our house was broken into (back in the '70s), while most of the high profile crazies, bought their weapons legally. Perhaps stricter psychological screening might help eliminate a few of them.
One night while he and his wife were enjoying some local theater, their apt. was broken into, and the entire gun collection was stolen. Now who has the guns?
Not the crazy guy, but not exactly upstanding citizens either.
[edit] looks like I need to correct myself here. The AR-15 used in a recent shooting was in fact stolen, from somebody he knew, so lete lock em up folks.. [/edit]
I like the idea of futuristic gun safeties that can be programmed to only work for one person. BUT THIS IS NOT A TECHNOLOGY PROBLEM IMO.
Somebody made this point in an earlier post: being armed will likely not help you. In CT, the shooters mother was apparently killed with her own gun, by a member of her family. Anyone armed in the CO theater would likely have hurt someone besides the shooter in the rush of folks trying to escape. One armed person in AZ admitted to almost shooting a bystander who was holding the gun to keep it away from the shooter in the Giffords incident.
There are even more anecdotes of crimes prevented by armed civilians. Like that guy in VA who prevented an armed robbery in the car parts store where he worked, by getting his gun out of his car. He was fired because it was against company policy, but his boss and coworkers were personally thankful that he broke that company rule.
I AM NOT MAKING THIS ARGUMENT EITHER.
In the Zimmerman case in FL, the person with the gun had more rights than the unarmed person, who apparently is not allowed to defend themselves unless they take the step of buying a gun. The shooter was not even taken to jail until it was proven he had lied about his funding and having a 2nd passport. Fortunately, the FL man who recently shot a kid for having his music too loud couldn't convince the judge he was standing his ground.
I though the Martin/Zimmerman case was still being adjudicated? The media circus has distorted what few facts are in the public record surrounding this case. The amping up of different agendas surrounding such events makes it hard to really know the truth. I am not smart enough to decide from biased news reports. Hopefully our justice system is up to the task. While the racial and immigration climate has not been calmed very much by our leadership in recent years.
I will say I do not like the idea of private citizens performing what police are supposed to do. This strikes me as evidence the police were not exactly keeping sufficient order and maintaining public safety.
And now it's time to blame the media. I see even Morgan Freeman is making this case now. Don't get me wrong, I think the media is way over the top on this, and agree that they are trying to make an emotional impact for advertising dollar gain, but this is what they always do. The media lost me when they failed (and still fail) to look at our reasons for the Iraq war, but let's not get into that.
I always dismiss when people try to use their celebrity to promote some personal opinions. Ideas should rise or fall based on their own merit, not who "friends" them on facebook.
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OK with me... I would rather wait a few decades for historians to look at Iraq with some perspective of time, and without partisan agendas.
Interesting perhaps that chemical weapons are back in the news (Syria). One of the popular theories was that Saddam moved a cache of his across the border to Syria where there was a sympathetic Bath'ist community. But this is yet another unproved theory. Syria is another mess under-reported in the media, who prefer more sensational matters.
But there are facts in amongst the emotional angst. It seems that maybe the CT shooter was turned down for a rifle recently, but still had no trouble arming himself to the teeth...
Since these incidents are coming almost every day (over 50 gunshots in a ritzy mall in Newport Beach last night-no one hurt thankfully) when are we suppose to deal with this? Google a list of recent incidents like this, and you'll see that there isn't much time between these things these days.
And still every day 20,000 children die... But the media won't get good ratings from talking about that... they need to make viewers feel some uncommon tragedy personally. Not the numerous killed in common car accidents or whatever.
If we were to closely inspect the fate of the tens of thousands of children who die every day the news would be too depressing to watch. Now it's just too superficial to care about.
There's a post not too far down the Brewery offering condolences to the Portland shooting victims from just a week ago.
If you think everyone being armed and no government is a good idea, take a good look at Somalia. I hear things are great there...
Maybe we could outlaw weapons in Afghanistan... ? Do you think that would work?
While I always think about technology solutions, I think a gun powder sniffer, or RF frequency that heats up gun powder and makes it explode when nearby as an interesting barrier defense. No ammo, weapons can't hurt you...
One comedian had an interesting idea, a $5,000 tax on bullets, That would cut down on unintentional shootings.
I'm not advocating the removal of guns from our society. But the whole time I hear people complaining that our evil, socialist, Muslim president is trying to take away our gun rights, I can plainly see that it has become easier to buy guns and ammo thru the mail and at shows, and gun ownership is increasing, as are these senseless shootings.
I try not to introduce such obvious straw men. It distracts from thoughtful discussion.
I personally don't think our president is evil or muslim. Rev Wright where he attended church for many years before he became more widely known, was baptist, but a different flavor of baptist, than those around me. That said I don't consider him much of an economist or leader. Whether he qualifies as a socialist may be a matter of degree, he seems to be pressing class warfare beyond any practical ability to raise revenue, and has undoubtably expanded government's largess.
Ironically perhaps the discussion of withdrawing gun ownership rights is exactly what has driven the increase of gun ownership by many who don't trust government as the answer for all societal ills. Gun sales routinely increase under Democratic administrations (like under Clinton), and under Obama is no exception to that old pattern.
Gun purchases are dominated by state and local laws and right now that varies quite a lot between different jurisdictions. I am more concerned lately about weapons being purchased in the US and used in Mexico by the illegal drug cartels to kill many innocents and some not so innocent peers.
Your guns will not be taken away by bleeding heart liberals. They will be taken away when irresponsible gun ownership creates more and more incidents like the CT shootings, and the public outcry becomes too great.
How many more times?
Again I do not mean to diminish the tragedy, but if anything I see this as evidence we need to do more work on promoting mental health, and getting help for disturbed individuals, than stopping private gun ownership by private citizens.
Private citizens are already culpable for injuries they may cause with firearms. In fact there are many examples of homeowners sued for shooting miscreants in their own homes. MS has a castle law, but we are all well advised to know local laws where we live. I think the local law in in FL is a factor in the Martin/Zimmerman case, but no need to go there, again.
In China recently a deranged man lurked outside a school with a knife and stabbed 22 people as they entered the school. The injuries were not as lethal as our better armed whack jobs. I would like to see stabbing school children prevented too.
IMO the real problem is the mental health of these individuals not their choice of weapon.
JR
PS: this is not a new conversation and falling into familiar patterns. It is not really different this time unless you fixate on the body count/per shooter. No doubt highlighted by media to make this current event more special. I hope that data doesn't encourage some future whack job to go for a new record.
