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I recently read a quote I found to be quite true. "Laws define a criminal act. They do not prevent them." Simple and on target. No pun intended. These recent mass shootings and all others before them were committed with complete disregard for every single law regarding the use of a firearm and a slew of other laws against committing murder and mayhem whether a firearm is used or not.
OK, I understand we are a nation of laws, but obeying of those laws is up to the citizens to carry out. Which 99.9 % of citizens do. Certainly we citizens who own and use firearms. OK my percentage number is off the cuff and not "scientifically proven" but it's the point not the actual math I am trying to convey. Far more firearms owners obey the law than not.
Yet legal and legitimate firearms owners are the focus of all the hoopla surrounding the call for more and more laws restricting firearms rights in light of recent events. Using logic and "common sense" does that dog actually hunt? Or is it just feel good reactionary leftist emotion driven tempt at "doing something." Something, anything even if it harms more than it helps.
We already know that there is no such thing as rational discourse with the left anymore and the far right is just as immutable in their position. This makes coming up with some sort of action that can mitigate the situation in question rather ...problematic. I am of the opinion that more armed, ready willing and able citizens who are proficient in defensive tactics will help a lot. No, this won't stop criminal misuse of firearms but I think it will slow things down greatly and help prevent casualties that result from shooting events.
Total reliance on the police gives a shooter far more time and opportunity to keep shooting at helpless targets. If those targets were not so helpless how can that be a bad thing? Even if return fire were put over the shooters head so as not to it innocents it serves to distract him and covers peoples retreat. Till the cops get there and fire directly whether there are civilians in the line of fire or not. that is my answer to those who will tell e armed citizens will cause more casualties. OK, they MIGHT but the odds will be that the police WILL.
More and more laws regarding firearms will not be proactive. More armed and ready as can be citizens will be. Disarming citizens, folks like me, will do nothing but increase the number of totally helpless potential victims. I am under no delusion of being some sort of "hero" in a shooting event and actually being able to kill an active shooter. As an armed citizen I have to operate under constraints that don't apply to LE. However I can and probably will be limited to covering the retreat of would be victims.
If I and others like me can distract a shooter and make him duck that at least gets his finger off the trigger. Time he spends on the trigger being a critical factor that can count for a lot. At any rate I am open for civil and productive discussion. My opinions are just that. Opinions. I have formed them from a lot of training and experience as well but that does not mean I see them a graven in stone by the hand of God.
I am open to other points of view and am not taking an immutable stance. I am completely wiling to move should a truly productive and proactive idea for any sort of solution to at least curb acts by violent madmen be put out there. Again, my opinion, is that there is nothing that can actually totally stop such acts. Evil is shrewd and calculating and nobody can see everything coming, nor can any written law preempt acts of evil. Since evil has no regard for law.
Nevertheless I am open to actual rational discussion about this. Something that is severely lacking. Things always seem to degenerate into insults and name calling which accomplishes nothing and makes things worse. Please no "gun nut/humper" or "sheeple" commentary. Lets use our words and actually put some thought into discussion an debate shall we? It's really not that hard to do.
While I would love to see an honest discussion on the topic, my prediction is that it will take less than 10 posts for this thread to devolve into insults.
Blaming guns is the easy out, and it’s the argument that has been chosen by the anti gun crowd. They’ve dug their trenches on the beach of gun control, and they’re not going to give ground. No amount of logic is going to shake them loose. They will continue to point to countries that could be lost in the wilderness of Alaska as models of what we should strive for, while ignoring the ongoing violence in those countries simply because that violence doesn’t involve firearms.
In some aspects I don’t blame them, because to admit that guns aren’t the problem would be to admit that the majority of policies which they support are wrong. It wasn’t the pro gun crowd that created the current societal situation, it was the anti gun crowd supporting the destruction of the family, the dumbing down of our education system, and the idiocy of the participation trophy atmosphere which teaches children that life is fair. It’s no wonder that unstable young men who were never taught any sort of ethical values snap out in rage. They’ve been lied to all their lives, did anyone expect them to react favorably when they figured out the truth?
Wrell, the goal is not to actually stop or reduce these mass shootings...the ultimate goal is to change public opinion on guns in general, (to demonize them in other words).
It's not the fault of guns, they are inanimate objects that require a human to decide on how they will be used. The problem today is that we have some deranged people that for some reason view a mass shooting a their way out of a sad miserable life. We have to ask ourselves how these people become so angry, so disillusioned with life that they are willing to pick up a gun and shoot innocent people. I think we can all understand how a person can be bullied, a victim of a criminal act and they then seek revenge on the person that hurt them but how can a sane person possibly understand murdering innocent people?
We need to determine what pushes people to that extreme. What causes them to become so disconnected from society, from life itself that the only thing they can do is shoot people.
We have so many suicides everyday in America for all sorts of reasons but that is not it because a mass shooter expects to die which is referred to as suicide by cop but the difference is they want to take as many people with them as possible.
We need to find the cause of this disconnect so we can stop it from happening. Banning guns will have these deranged people turn to other means of murder such as knives, cars, gasoline bombs, arson or forcing their way onto a bus loaded with little kids armed with a machete and moving seat to seat.
Will they then ban machetes? How about axes or large kitchen knives? Will buses be fortified? Will bus drivers be armed to prevent a horrific scene like that from happening?
No matter what side of the gun debate you are on I think anyone would take comfort in having a gun in hand if they are black and the KKK is lighting a cross on their lawn, a battered womans ex is violating a restraining order and is kicking in her door in a drunken rage or your child is huddled in a locked down classroom while an armed lunatic is roaming the halls.
While I would love to see an honest discussion on the topic, my prediction is that it will take less than 10 posts for this thread to devolve into insults.
Blaming guns is the easy out, and it’s the argument that has been chosen by the anti gun crowd. They’ve dug their trenches on the beach of gun control, and they’re not going to give ground. No amount of logic is going to shake them loose. They will continue to point to countries that could be lost in the wilderness of Alaska as models of what we should strive for, while ignoring the ongoing violence in those countries simply because that violence doesn’t involve firearms.
In some aspects I don’t blame them, because to admit that guns aren’t the problem would be to admit that the majority of policies which they support are wrong. It wasn’t the pro gun crowd that created the current societal situation, it was the anti gun crowd supporting the destruction of the family, the dumbing down of our education system, and the idiocy of the participation trophy atmosphere which teaches children that life is fair. It’s no wonder that unstable young men who were never taught any sort of ethical values snap out in rage. They’ve been lied to all their lives, did anyone expect them to react favorably when they figured out the truth?
OK. Well so far with the couple replies I've gotten here the majority opinion is that the problem is the breakdown of our family dynamic, our children being indoctrinated more than educated in our schools who have assumed the role of raising children, and our whole societal situation in general swinging away from the value of hard work, personal accountability, self sufficiency and all the things we seem to have lost as the wacko left wormed it's way into our lives and planted the idea of dependency on the state being our future.
All this and other factors causing the youth, who make up the majority of these mass shootings, to form a disconnect as the reality of becoming an adult hits. Mental illness? I suppose it could be called that but it seems to be more of a lack of basic life and coping skills that those of us who came of age 30 to 40 years ago took for granted.
To a young person, young men especially it seems, I reckon life would look pretty scary when you don't have enough basic life skill to use a stove to make Mac and Cheese for dinner let alone seek work and actually learn a trade skill of some kind. Unless Mom and Dad have saved for a college tuition and even then that has just become an extension of more of the same as life at home. Continued higher level indoctrination and advocacy of state power over our lives. Certainly not independence and self reliance.
And now there is this pervasive view that violence is the way to achieve the desired results of everyone being taught to think the same. So the better off kids get indoctrinated and radicalized to the left in college and the poorer kids wind up reaching out to the Hitler humpers or some other group and get radicalized to the far right. In many cases they are just loners who get their radical ideas online.
Interesting. So, what to do about this? Things have been firmly planted in this manner for quite a while. Change certainly won't come easy.
While I support gun control, I did hear a pundit the other day tick off the red flags, laws flouted, etc. in the case of the Parkland school shooter. One after another law and rule was brushed aside until the dam finally broke.
It does seem nonsensical that the solution to this mess should be to pass yet another new law.
Why should responsible gun owners be opposed to background checks, training requirements, licensing, and denying firearms to the mentally unstable? In states moving toward requiring none or most of those things being required, I hope something will be learned if shooting deaths go up, rather than down. What if suicides by gun go up? Will gun rights supporters simply not care? That is simply the price society must pay to keep the 2nd Amendment preserved.
While I support gun control, I did hear a pundit the other day tick off the red flags, laws flouted, etc. in the case of the Parkland school shooter. One after another law and rule was brushed aside until the dam finally broke.
It does seem nonsensical that the solution to this mess should be to pass yet another new law.
It wasn’t just the Parkland shooter that was allowed to pass under the radar. Many of the young men who snap this way show warning signs that are ignored. The Parkland shooter was probably the most egregious example, but far from the only one who was able to carry out his plan because the authorities didn’t take the situation seriously enough.
I recently read a quote I found to be quite true. "Laws define a criminal act. They do not prevent them." Simple and on target. No pun intended. These recent mass shootings and all others before them were committed with complete disregard for every single law regarding the use of a firearm and a slew of other laws against committing murder and mayhem whether a firearm is used or not.
OK, I understand we are a nation of laws, but obeying of those laws is up to the citizens to carry out. Which 99.9 % of citizens do. Certainly we citizens who own and use firearms. OK my percentage number is off the cuff and not "scientifically proven" but it's the point not the actual math I am trying to convey. Far more firearms owners obey the law than not.
Yet legal and legitimate firearms owners are the focus of all the hoopla surrounding the call for more and more laws restricting firearms rights in light of recent events. Using logic and "common sense" does that dog actually hunt? Or is it just feel good reactionary leftist emotion driven tempt at "doing something." Something, anything even if it harms more than it helps.
We already know that there is no such thing as rational discourse with the left anymore and the far right is just as immutable in their position. This makes coming up with some sort of action that can mitigate the situation in question rather ...problematic. I am of the opinion that more armed, ready willing and able citizens who are proficient in defensive tactics will help a lot. No, this won't stop criminal misuse of firearms but I think it will slow things down greatly and help prevent casualties that result from shooting events.
Total reliance on the police gives a shooter far more time and opportunity to keep shooting at helpless targets. If those targets were not so helpless how can that be a bad thing? Even if return fire were put over the shooters head so as not to it innocents it serves to distract him and covers peoples retreat. Till the cops get there and fire directly whether there are civilians in the line of fire or not. that is my answer to those who will tell e armed citizens will cause more casualties. OK, they MIGHT but the odds will be that the police WILL.
More and more laws regarding firearms will not be proactive. More armed and ready as can be citizens will be. Disarming citizens, folks like me, will do nothing but increase the number of totally helpless potential victims. I am under no delusion of being some sort of "hero" in a shooting event and actually being able to kill an active shooter. As an armed citizen I have to operate under constraints that don't apply to LE. However I can and probably will be limited to covering the retreat of would be victims.
If I and others like me can distract a shooter and make him duck that at least gets his finger off the trigger. Time he spends on the trigger being a critical factor that can count for a lot. At any rate I am open for civil and productive discussion. My opinions are just that. Opinions. I have formed them from a lot of training and experience as well but that does not mean I see them a graven in stone by the hand of God.
I am open to other points of view and am not taking an immutable stance. I am completely wiling to move should a truly productive and proactive idea for any sort of solution to at least curb acts by violent madmen be put out there. Again, my opinion, is that there is nothing that can actually totally stop such acts. Evil is shrewd and calculating and nobody can see everything coming, nor can any written law preempt acts of evil. Since evil has no regard for law.
Nevertheless I am open to actual rational discussion about this. Something that is severely lacking. Things always seem to degenerate into insults and name calling which accomplishes nothing and makes things worse. Please no "gun nut/humper" or "sheeple" commentary. Lets use our words and actually put some thought into discussion an debate shall we? It's really not that hard to do.
Well joe Biden introduced gun free zones in 1990
How is that working out
Let's ask Chicago PD
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