<p>The fact remains that a straight laced, upstanding, religious, well trained in firearms safety kid took military weapons to school that were stored IN HIS BEDROOM and killed a fellow student and had the intent to kill many more. More than any other recent case this isn’t about identified mental health issues, or bullying or whatever else. It is about a kid who grew up in a “gun culture” where that’s how problems are solved, and a kid who had the means to do what he thought was appropriate in the face of the den of “sinners” which he seemed to think his HS had become. People who don’t buy into that gun culture and don’t have weapons stored under every bed in the house don’t think that it’s normal and OK to have an automatic weapon kept in the bedroom of a teenager. I get hunting. I live in a family of hunters. This is different.</p>
<p>That claim is wrong as others have cited.</p>
<p>Two people saying" nuh uh". Doesn’t make a researchable source. But thanks for playing!</p>
<p>One of the interesting things is I read the washington post article about the 40% of guns bought without a background check being bogus (which I suspect probably is true, for a lot of reasons…). However, the same article pointed out something else, and it is troubling, that basically, the reason no one knows is that the government has laws forbidding government agencies to study gun deaths and see what the facts are. Basically, it is the oldest dodge in town, the gun lobby has effectively, through the GOP, cut off getting solid statistical data on gun violence, gun trafficking and so forth, so when someone makes a claim, they can basically laugh and say “prove it”, knowing they have made sure the facts aren’t out there…it is telling that the gun lobby refuses realistic studies of the facts, it tells me they are scared that the facts will back up what many are saying, that guns are too easily available…</p>
<p>The other issue is that state gun laws in some places are so loose it is very, very easy to buy guns that then are used in crimes. I was talking to folks in our Atlanta office, these are people who own guns, who shoot and hunt, and they said the laws down there are ridiculous, that you can walk into a gun store, and fill up your car with weapons, and it is perfectly legal. And that from that point on, what you do with them is your business, and that even if you sell them illegally, there is nothing the law can do to you, because the law has no penalties for losing a gun or having it stolen and not reporting it as such. Thus, someone can walk into a gun store, fill up their car with guns, drive north, sell them into the black market, and go home and do it again, and there is zero that will happen to them. Statistical fact, 65-70% of the guns taken off the streets of big cities, in NYC, Washington DC and Chicago, were purchased legally when traced, and they are generally traced to a couple of states with porous gun laws…and guess what? If they find a gun on a crook in NYC, trace it back to some gun shop, and the person who bought it, he/she can say “Oh, I lost it” or “Oh, it was stolen from my car”, and that is that…btw, try doing that with a car, if you don’t report a car stolen, and it is used in a crime, you are going to be in deep trouble if you say “oh, it was stolen” and you never reported it. </p>
<p>I think the biggest problem is that with guns, in many places there isn’t the accountability there are with other potentially harmful things.Put it this way, if you have a blaster’s license and can buy dynamite, and explosives used in a crime are traced back to you via forensics, and you said “oh, that went missing” or ‘oh, that was stolen’ they will bust you faster then you can blink an eye, and so forth. The real problem is there needs to be accountability, maybe one answer to the kid in Oregon is those whose kids were killed file massive lawsuits against the parents; if in Connecticut if Nancy Lanza had lived, maybe the prospect of financial ruin would make some people think more about owning guns and responsibility. If you own a car, you need liability insurance at the very least, and the cost of insurance influences how people drive and what kind of cars they drive, maybe if they were required to have insurance it would change attitudes. I think people should be able to own guns, but I also think we need accountability and also methods to make people realize consequences of gun ownership, which we do with many other things. I especially think we need to fight against the idea that guns should be as easily purchased as buying a hammer and nails, and stop pleasing the extremist idiots who think they are going to stockpile weapons and ‘fight the government’, which is one of the reasons the lax gun laws exist in the first place. </p>
<p>As if a semi-automatic could stop a chemical weapon or an armored tank division. If the government wanted to “take over” or impose tyranny or herd us all into FEMA camps, it could easily do so. Apparently it doesn’t want to. </p>
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<p>This is a good point. Your insurance company can charge you more if you have a trampoline, that lurking killer, in your background but they can not even ASK you if you have any guns. I’m not allowed to buy a new washing machine with a lid that doesn’t lock as soon as the water starts flowing because, oh goodness, it’s too dangerous and I might stick my head in and drown or something, but I can buy guns and leave them loaded all over the laundry room or anywhere else. </p>
<p>I miss those old washing machines! And please don’t quote some study all about how trampolines are more dangerous than guns. Just don’t be that ridiculous. </p>
<p>One problem with gun death statistics and that they often seemingly randomly categorized as either homicides or accidents - at least where the victim and shooter are both children. Technically, it is a homicide if someone shoots someone else to death, even if it is also an accident. The New York Times did an investigation about this a few months ago - in the places where they were allowed to comb through death certificates - and found that this discrepancy causes a great underreporting in the numbers of children killed due to gun accidents. </p>
<p>This just in our paper today. The SPU shooting could have been much, much worse if the heroin addicted brother or friend hadn’t emptied out the family gun safe and sold them for drugs. They had an AK-47 and an SKS plus a semi-automatic hand gun, 2 rifles and 3 shotguns. It turns out that one has to be involuntarily committed for 14 days to warrant removal of weapons from the home. There is some discussion in the comment section of the article about whether it could really have been an AK-47. I have no idea but one would assume that it was something very similar if not. Unfortunately those stolen weapons are still out there even though it was fortunate that in this case he didn’t have access to them.</p>
<p><a href=“http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2024041234_spushootinggunsxml.html”>http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2024041234_spushootinggunsxml.html</a></p>
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<p>If he was fine with breaking the law by trying to kill someone what makes you think he would comply with a magazine law? There are already hundreds of millions of “high capacity” magazines, what makes you think they would disappear with a new law? Not to mention they are incredibly easy to make, after all they’re only a metal box with a spring in it. I’ll do without the liberal nanny state, thanks.</p>
<p>LOL. “Liberal nanny state.” So original.</p>
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<p>If you’ve ever read the US constitution, you’d know you don’t have any rights “not” to do something, you have rights to do things not dependent on other people. It doesn’t make any sense for you to have a right for someone else not to kill you because you can’t control someone else, but you do have a right to defend your life against someone else which is dependent on you and not that other person. So quit using perverse logic to attack guns, it clearly hasn’t worked out for you guys.</p>
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<p>What else should I call it when someone wants a piece of metal to be banned?</p>
<p>Why does anyone need a high-capacity magazine for any purpose other than killing a lot of people fast?</p>
<p>Why does anyone need a high-speed car that travels faster than the speed limit for a purpose other than mowing down pedestrians? </p>
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<p>On the contrary, I do have the right for someone not to kill me. That’s why murder is illegal in every single state. I do have a constitutional right to bear arms (which is not absolute and is subject to certain conditions), but there is no constitutional right to own any particular kind of gun or ammunition. Laws which restrict certain types of guns or ammunition are not unconstitutional.</p>
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<p>That’s some good logic right there.</p>
<p>There are roads in the world with no speed limit so that logic doesn’t really work. A car also has a purpose other than mowing down pedestrians. You can get somewhere faster if it goes faster. A gun’s purpose is to shoot things so being able to shoot more things faster is the only reason for larger magazines. You would NOT want to shoot the same animal target multiple times if you intended to use it for food so shooting people seems to be the only reason. </p>
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<p>That means 99% of gun owners are planning to kill people since they have “large capacity magazines”. Except this isn’t the case which proves you wrong instantly. When you’re at the gun range it’s much more convenient to not have to reload every 3 shots, which makes larger magazines more popular since there’s no reason not to want one if you know you’re going to use them responsibly. It would be analogous to not wanting to buy a truck since it can cause more damage running someone over compared to a car, but if you know you’re not going to run someone over, then that increased damage capability is irrelevant. The “purpose” of an object is irrelevant since the owner of the object will decide what it’s going to be used for. Someone can use a sharp dagger to butter their bread, or to stab someone in self defense, it makes no difference to me. </p>
<p>Ok, so we now have two purposes for high capacity clips: shooting lots of people fast, and “practicing” at shooting lots of people fast.</p>
<p>First of all they’re magazines not clips (not that you’d ever know the difference), and just because people don’t want to have to reload every 2 seconds at the gun range doesn’t mean they want to “shoot people really fast”. And you wonder why your side is losing the gun debate. It’s because the majority of Americans don’t buy into your BS arguments like the ones you’re giving. </p>
<p>Oh, well, all the lives that have been lost to those things certainly are less important than your desire for convenience at the shooting range. </p>
<p>So you think mass murderers are going to abide by a magazine limit while they illegally kill people? Makes perfect sense. And if you’re saying the magazines are killing people and should be limited to 10 bullets, then you’re saying it’s okay for someone to kill 9 people, but not any more than that. Very weak argument there.</p>