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Mr. Kinnunen, 43, had been arrested a number of times in the Fort Worth area for charges that included aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Then in 2016, he was arrested in Linden, N.J., after police found him with a 12-gauge shotgun and rounds in the area of a Phillips 66 refinery, according to a news report in mycentraljersey.com at the time.
Mr. Kinnunen told the Linden police that he was traveling from Texas but was homeless, and was taking photos of interesting sites, the report said. At the time, he was wanted on a court warrant in Oklahoma for felony aggravated assault.
Mr. Kinnunen faced charges of speeding, theft, assault and disorderly conduct in Pima County, Ariz., between 2003 and 2014, petit larceny in Las Vegas in 2011, theft in San Luis Obispo County, Calif., in 2010, and aggravated assault and battery in 2011 and arson in 2012 in Grady County, Okla.
Maybe I did not word my previous question correctly - why was this person not in jail?
Ask the courts. People get arrested, they get out on bail or do their time.
That's gun death rates, not murder rates. Suicides make up at least 6 out of 10 gun deaths.
According to your source, the homicide rate for Maryland is about double that of Texas. Most homicides are committed with a firearm. Also, most homicides are gang related. https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/htus8008.pdf
You solution is hardly a solution. Its not realistic any more they saying because I despise cancer, were we to pass a law making it illegal, no one would ever have it again.
Reporting of mental illness by the states is anemic, lack of time to do background checks all add to the problem. No other country has this type of problem, why is that?
Reporting of mental illness by the states is anemic, lack of time to do background checks all add to the problem. No other country has this type of problem, why is that?
Apart from cultural differences, most other countries also have better control of their gun stock than the US does (I'd imagine that there are many millions of illegal guns in the US, making it easy to get your hands on a firearm if you want to). In the US, we are at the point of no return and any attempt to get a better grasp on the gun stock here via, say, confiscation (as other countries have done) would do nothing more than disarm the law abiding. It would be like trying to re-institute prohibition. Not to mention, it would be grossly unconstitutional.
Still, the fundamental flaw with your approach is that you're only mentally ill for purposes of gun ownership if you've been adjudicated as such by a court or other legal process. Thus, apart from reporting issues (and most states report just fine), you'd still have plenty of mentally ill people who aren't legally "mentally ill" who would be able to gain access to firearms under the most stringent of background checks law.
In any event, I'm still waiting for leftists to provide examples of where stronger background checks would have stopped the mass shootings that have happened in this country. These shooters have either stolen weapons or generally passed background checks (and were not mentally adjudicated as being ill). The approach may sound good to you, but I'm looking for solutions that will actually make a difference (as judged by actual evidence on the need for such).
As I've stated, my brother is seriously mentally ill and this will show up on a background check, but that really doesn't do much to keep him from possession of firearms.
He knows it's illegal. Hey, murder is illegal, drug abuse is illegal, gang activity is often illegal, hate crimes are illegal, heck adultery is illegal - does something being ILLEGAL stop people from doing it?
As long as the mentally ill (even with long criminal records) are allowed to run wild, this is what we get.
Frankly, with that guy's mental and menacing looking outfit, he should not have been allowed to enter that service.
Oh, but lest ye judge.... ok then. Too much non-judgement has gotten us here and will get us to much darker places in the future as we continue to empty out the prisons, ignore mental illness, encourage drug use, etc.
Interesting! Your map shows that the red states have by far the highest gun violence in our country!
Here are the top ten states for homicide rates:
Louisiana - swing state
Missouri - Currently red but historically blue (all recent years from 1993 through 2016 except for 2005-2008)
Alaska - generally red
Maryland - Blue - but hey, they do have the Bread and Roses Party! Woohoo!
New Mexico - Blue
Alabama - Red
South Carolina - Red
Tennessee - Red
Arkansas - Red
Illinois - Blue
So five "red" states, two swing states, and three "blue" states. Seems like a mixed bag to me. And one of "red" states has a very mixed bag and is basically a swing state but I was feeling magnanimous since I know that most violent crime happens in major cities and most major cities vote blue.
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