Following that logic, any speech in movies, radio or over the internet or anything written by computer, text, or ball point pen are not protected speech since they didn’t exist when the First Amendment was written.
I can hear that you want a gun to protect yourself. But you don’t need an assault weapon. Assault weapons have no place in civilians’ hands, period. They’re specifically designed to mow down as many people as possible, as quickly as possible, in a war zone where you’re being targeted. There’s no freedom to kill as many as you wish with a weapon designed just for that purpose.
So, an easy first step would be to ban the sale of assault weapons to civilians.
Another one should be commonsense: domestic abusers’ guns are confiscated after the first official complaint. NO ifs/buts, no waiting around. If you threaten or hit your spouse or children, you’re not entitled to any gun with which to do more threatening or cause more harm. It usually takes A LOT of violence before that complaint is filed, mostly by women, usually as a last resort.
Another step should be commonsense to: if you’ve been committed to a psychiatric hospital for x number of days, you can’t have or buy a firearm for x months/years and then only if cleared by doctor. [Even for your adult children with severe mental illnesses who are very kind and gentle souls, which would be most, they shouldn’t be given a gun and ammo randomly, right?]
Finally, legal consequences for parents who let their guns unsecured around kids under the age of 13 should be SEVERE. If the child discharges the gun in any way, the parent should face the legal consequences as if it was them who’d committed the crime.
Responsible gun owners should pressure laws against domestic abusers, irresponsible parents, and people committed to psychiatric hospitals, having guns. It doesn’t make sense to me that they don’t.
@vpa2019 I’d like the right to have a gun too. Actually I might like a right to carry a gun when I hike alone. For this, I’d be happy to submit to strict gun licensing and registration rules, waiting period and background checks. There are very reasonable measures we can take without hurting responsible gun owners.
And yes, we’re way overdue for a major public effort to solve mental illness and drug addiction issues. This problem is way bigger than shootings.
@yucca10 I agree with you but note that none of those laws or regulations would have affected the shooter at Sandy Hook for example. The mental illness component is the harder part of the equation IMHO.
If the Thanos Snap were employed to remove every gun from existence, would the world be a better place? For those who answer Yes, what is preventing us from taking any material action to move toward that end in the real world. For those who answer No, I doubt there’s anything else anyone can say that will change your mind.
Amen @MYOS1634
@MYOS1634 I agree with all your examples but you still have the due process problems. Is a domestic abuse complaint enough to restrict someone’s rights? What if the wife or girlfriend lies because she’s angry? Is a complaint sufficient or does the abuser have to be found guilty before losing the gun? What happens to the parent in your 3rd example? Jail time? A fine? What happens to the family while the primary breadwinner is in jail? Are the kids removed from the house? Is the gun owner? All solutions have potential unintended consequences so we as a society have to decide which ones we can live with for the greater good and obtaining consensus is a Herculean task.
As far as banning assault rifles, personally I have no issue with that but it’s a slippery slope. If the government can ban one kind of gun then they can theoretically ban all types so that gets the constitutional problem front and center every time it’s debated.
If the girlfriend or wife lied, then the gun owner can appeal, of course. During the appeal, no access to guns but if the appeal is successful the guns are returned.
In the 3rd example, absolutely, kids removed from the house. A house (or car, as if also common) with an unsecured gun is not safe for children.
But these are my opinions only and I’m not a policy-maker - policy should be designed with these unintended consequences in mind and I’m 100% fine with other consequences if they result in removing weapons from abusers’, irresponsible parents’, and recently committed patients’ hands. It seems common-sense enough.
For domestic abuse, if there is enough evidence for a restraining order, the guns should be removed from the home. If a woman is killed, 85% of the time, it’s someone they were romantically involved with.
Parents should be fined and barred from ever owning a gun again.
IMO, the beta should be skewed towards public safety, not the 2nd amendment.
I’m a woman in my 40’s, college educated, republican and have a concealed carry permit. I don’t feel safe alone at our summer place without it due to a lot of methheads in the remote area. That being said - I completely agree with waiting periods and a national background check being put in place. I have no reason to think it would impact my rights as a legal gun owner, and it may even expand them as some states around us are a “may carry” state or don’t allow concealed carry at all. It would simplify my travels. Lets do that one thing at least.
Assuming the 2nd amendment is interpreted to mean that the public has the right to own weapons, it certainly doesn’t provide for the right to own “any” and “every” weapon. It’s not a slippery slope in deciding which weapons are reasonable to allow. There’s no reason to not prohibit assault rifles, other than fear, paranoia, or laziness.
Colorado just passed the red flag warning law, but I’m not sure it is in place yet (most laws go into effect on July 1, not immediately). There is also no evidence that the 18 year old would have been prevented from buying guns under the red flag law - we don’t know the extent of his counseling or if his counselor would have put him on a red flag list. Of course there is no evidence that the students bought the guns at all. They may be parent owned, stolen, or borrowed.
There have been several legal experts on the news here explaining that ‘juvenile’ is anyone under 17, that the 17 year old may be only days or weeks younger than the ‘adult’ shooter, and just because Devon (18 year old) already had his 18th birthday makes him an adult and the other a juvenile. However, the juvenile can be tried as an adult.
The initial reports @twoinanddone are that handguns were used - no one under 21 can purchase, so they did not legally purchase the weapons. Early reports are that they were owned by the parent(s) of Devon Erickson, but I haven’t seen confirmation by the police.
@RandyErika if it were as easy and incontrovertible as you state we wouldn’t be having these discussions. And if Thanos destroyed all guns he better destroy the knowledge of how to produce one as well. And you don’t need to assume, the right of an individual to own a gun was found by the Supreme Court in District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008). And on that note I’m bowing out.
The slippery slope argument seems to never apply to being killed by someone else’s, or maybe even your own gun. That seems like the slipperiest slope to me.
And that 4800+ number of gun deaths is a bit misleading - it doesn’t include suicide, which has historically been more than half of gun deaths.
Fed law is:
Unlicensed persons may not sell, deliver or otherwise transfer a handgun or handgun ammunition to any person the transferor knows or has reasonable cause to believe is under age 18, with certain exceptions*
Colorado also has ‘under age 18’ as the qualifier.
No licensed gun dealer can sell a handgun to someone under 21, but it is not illegal for a private party to sell or give a gun to an 18 year old.
Honestly don’t think these kids cared about the law. They took the guns, used the guns, and now will be punished for a lot of things, including having the guns in a school building no matter what their ages.
I don’t understand. Are you asking if I am spreading misinformation, or telling me the link you provided is misinformation?
MODERATOR’S NOTE:
In order to keep this thread open, let’s move on from discussing 2nd amendment, what the Founding Fathers meant, current/proposed laws, etc.
I did not realize there is a lock down nursery rhyme. I suppose it is necessary, for the youngest children. And perhaps we need hand to hand combat training for our slightly older children, who apparently will need to be prepared to defend against criminals directly themselves. We could start giving out medals to the young hero, like the military does. Two of the dead lads have been given military honors (from Parkland and UNC, they were in ROTC and JROTC), but maybe this poor Denver lad too. We seem unable to do anything more constructive as a society.
@Publisher It’s the anonymous tips to the police part, added to the fact that most people still believe the standard tropes for school shooters, and popular media continue to reinforce those tropes.
If the only result from a tip was that a student was called into a trained counselor to have a talk, that would be great. In reality that is not how these things always play out.
Who are these “analysts” who triage the calls? What is their training? How do they decide whether to notify the police or just the school administration. etc. I do not know what the protocols are, and how things like the nature of the behavior, income, and race feed into decisions as to whether to send police. There is also a huge issue regarding how the police behave when they arrive. The fact that it is being run out of the Attorney General’s office indicates that it will be run with a law enforcement focus, not with a focus on students’ mental health.
That means that their entire focus is catching shooters before they act. Of course that means that, if you are not a potential shooter, you are not considered as an important issue and ignored. Or, worse, as the adage goes about how having a hammer making everything look like a nail, focusing on catching shooters creates the danger of treating every teen who is reported, as though they were a potential shooter.
Moreover, all you need is one case like the recent Hazelton incident to put kids, especially minority kids, off of actually sending in tips which may cause the police to come to school. A “two hour training session” will not change the way that police behave with teenagers.
That is also a great demonstration of what happens when you train police to have a very narrow set of responses to any situation. You treat a hysterical teen as though they were a violent criminal. My fear is of situations such as treating a depressed teen who is considering harming themselves as though they were a potential mass shooter.