It was an armed civilian who chased him from the area and they are not sure if he shot himself or if the civilian shot him.
Open carry doesn’t mean that the person doesn’t have permit or that the gun can be openly worn in every area of the state. Texas has some regulations.
I am glad this armed individual chased him off - but only after 27+ desths and dozens of injuries.
My point is that more guns does not solve gun violence. The NRA perpetuates a myth of the armed citizen defending himself and others - suggesting the solution is more guns, not less.
In the Colorado shooting the other day - there were accounts of chaos when law enforcement arrived as a number of shoppers had their own guns out.
I don’t want to live/shop/work with armed individuals who may or may not know how to handle their firearms. My father was a gun collector - so I am not anti-gun. I am anti-lunacy, which is where we are on this issue presently.
This was a tweet form the governor last year
“I’m EMBARRASSED: Texas #2 in nation for new gun purchases, behind CALIFORNIA. Let’s pick up the pace Texans. @NRA”
SMDH
Makes me sick. Absolutely sick.
2 year old child was killed along with at least one pregnant woman.
Last year there was a large pro gun rally at the Massachusetts State House. Very surprising.
Much like Kim inflames North Korea by perpetuating a threat from the US, the NRA inflames gun owners with baseless rhetoric that Obama, Hilary, etc are going to take your guns away. Yet as someone mentioned upthread, many NRA members do support some gun control measures. My father is a lifetime NRA member and I grew up in a household with guns. Yet we agree on the following:
Mentally ill people should not own or have access to guns.
A private citizen might want a pistol for defense or a rifle for hunting, but no private citizen needs a semi-automatic rifle.
Gun safety classes, gun licensing and permits, and background checks should be mandatory in all situations - close the loopholes.
http://abcn.ws/2xVmiv1 Church shooting in rural Texas now among top 5 deadliest gun massacres in US history
This violence is escalating, and nothing is being done to stop it.
Just keep repeating the (NRA) mantra: No price is too high…no price is too high…no price is too high…
Don’t forget about Gun Owners of America. They are even more strident than the NRA.
Nothing will change the right to bear arms is in the constitution there are more guns than people in the US. The gunmen was a antifa idiot trying to incite a civil war purposefully targeting conservative Christian churches.
Can’t we PLEASE have a separate section for “Parent Cafe - Mass Shootings” ???
While I completely believe that mental health awareness and treatment in the US is as major an issue as gun control and that both need tackling, the fact is that sometimes, stable humans with no mental health issues in their background or on record, sometimes snap and perpetuate gun violence. And characterizing people who commit a gun crime as crazy or mentally unstable is a disservice. There are times that perfectly rational people obtain guns, sometimes that are not their own or illegally. Gun violence is a multi-prong issue. When you unravel many of these incidents you find whole other cans of worms, domestic violence, economics motives, mental health, firearm accessibility, religious indoctrination, political extremism and so many other reasons. I think it is simplistic to think that gun control laws are going to magically solve the problem, yes gun laws can alleviate some of the issues and I am in no way saying that we shouldn’t start there, but it is my fear that we will make a band aid effort at gun control and never address the underlying diseases.
@Intparent…I think I said “yes gun laws can alleviate some of the issues and I am in no way saying that we shouldn’t start there…”
Sure we can make laws as strict as we want increase waiting periods, yearly psyche evals, but look at the last few shootings everyone had their guns legally and with more guns than people you could always access them.
When crazies can’t get a gun they just grab a vehicle and mow over people, right? The root is the crazy people not their weapon of choice.
I prefer Japan and their gun laws, but that will NEVER BE implemented here.
1- No one thinks gun control laws will solve every problem in this country.
2- We don’t know how well real, comprehensive, NATIONAL gun control would work because we’ve never tried it.
3- Other countries have and it’s done wonders.
See: https://academic.oup.com/epirev/article/38/1/140/2754868/What-Do-We-Know-About-the-Association-Between
4- We do know gun control works on a state level.
Before anyone brings up Chicago as an example, read this: http://www.npr.org/2017/10/05/555580598/fact-check-is-chicago-proof-that-gun-laws-don-t-work
Yeah, we need mental health reform but 1- no one’s doing that either (and, in fact, the government right now is fighting like hell to take away funding and protections that require insurance to cover mental health) and 2- why the hell do we only bring it up when someone goes on a shooting spree?
I’m just so tired of the scripts. They’re all the same. I can basically verbatim tell you what every single regular poster and every major politician is going to say after these things. Why? Because they happen so often and it ALWAYS plays out the same. ALWAYS.
But hey, what’s tens of thousands of lives over the course of your political career as long as you keep getting that sweet, sweet NRA blood money.
I see extreme positions taken by both sides. On one side, I see people refusing to see the need for meaningful reforms and any form of gun control. On the other side, I see people refusing to acknowledge acts of terror motivated primarily by religious beliefs.
I have never seen or heard people who refuse to acknowledge acts of terror motivated primarily by religious beliefs. I see many, many people refusing to acknowledge acts of terror enabled by widespread availability of guns.
I see it all the time @rosered55 You just have to listen to Noam Chomsky and see the crowd that endorses his views.
They characterize acts of terror as acts of desperation. That is a code phrase to imply that it is not their fault and they are merely reacting to western imperialism out of desperation.
I sometimes wonder what it would take to actually make a difference in this country, as we endure more and more of these atrocities. No amount of fatalities or injuries, however large the casualty count, is ever enough. No demographic of victim, no matter how heart-rending, makes a difference - elementary school, high school, college, church, concert, night club, movie theater, workplace, restaurant, Amish schoolroom, NOTHING.
Maybe money would make a difference. Maybe one day the effect on people in other countries will be so severe that virtually no one will come to the US as a tourist and the cost will be such that it will actually cause some poor oxygen-deprived politician to sit up and say “enough”. Right now I see that as the only hope, however slim. What if we spread it to any and all oversees friends that the US is a Wild West where everyone carries assault riffles and guns down his fellow citizens for sport?
So disillusioned.
A five-year-old boy had five bullets removed. His seven-year-old sister apparently dead. This is a Parents thread. Try to imagine that.