The same people supporting #BLM and complaining about overmilitarized police being heavy handed, are the same people wanting to restrict private gun ownership.
2000 rounds is nothing, check out this guy. Story is from 2007
I saw a man on CNN tonight. He was trapped in the bathroom. He said he wished he had a gun on him then for protection.
CNN is also reporting that the terrorists cell phones were smashed. The hard drive of the computer was missing. The terrorists here obviously did not want their contacts to be found out.
There were several people in the Aurora theater shooting who had guns with them but they couldn’t see to shoot so didn’t. The theater is near a pretty large AF base, and many people in Colorado have carry permits.
I haven’t heard if there were any security guards in these buildings. I worked in a federal building and there were always armed guards, not always at the doors but in the building. We, as federal employees, could not bring guns to work even if we had permits, but in my last position we shared the floor (and thus the elevators and bathrooms) with a state wildlife agency, and those guys had guns. Lots of guns. And mace, and night sticks, and other weapons - to shoot the alligators! Our guards walked through our floor several times a day, but they weren’t stationed on our floor.
It would surprise me if there wasn’t some kind of security on the campus. Somehow these two drove up to the building, unloaded themselves, their weapons, and it sounds like several bombs, and walked into the building. I don’t get the logistics.
No security guards, not even cameras in that building. Very soft target.
Fair enough - I understand your point given you sound like you do not associate with people who shoot a lot, and you have this erroneous view that people who shoot a lot are dangerous.
The issue is that there are millions of people who get than amount of ammo and guns and when you start presuming then there are major civil rights issues. Should we do the same of people who buy lots of alcohol and presume that hey might be driving drunk at some point and be danger to others? I could think of several other things like that. All which are legal every day activities.
Don’t you think to some degree it’s a bit of an “arms race” between the American populace and the police force? The public has more weapons, including assault weapons (not talking hunting rifles here), and the police have to respond by ramping up their own armaments. In the UK, police are able to contain without the weaponry because they don’t have to worry about showing up at call - even a domestic violence call - where the person they need to control has more weapons at their disposal than the police force does.
There's something ironic about saying that it's becoming increasingly dangerous to "pretend we are safe in this country" and be referring only to the threat of ISIS-inspired terrorism. IMO, a lot of Americans lost the illusion they and their kids are "safe" after Columbine, and Newtown, and Virginia Tech and after the Bible study slaughter in Charleston, and the theater shooting in Aurora and the *other* theater shooting in Lafayette....and so on. It's obviously dangerous to pretend we are safe from "active shooters" yet we see no progress in doing anything about it.
And now, it’s also obvious that the terrorists among us have no problem obtaining weapons for mass killing. Heck, even being on a no-fly watch list is no obstacle to buying guns. Increasingly dangerous to pretend we’re safe? You bet.
I believe it’s a mistake to succumb to generalized anti-Muslim fervor, but even if we do, as a nation, what will that accomplish? We’re not going to close down mosques, we’re not going to expel Muslim-Americans, we’re not going to conduct house-to-house warrantless searches…the constitutional rights of people practicing a minority religion are going to be defended as zealously as 2nd Amendment rights, and they should be.
I’ve been crying about this on and off all day. For some reason, the teenager who was shot 16 times by police keeps popping into my head too. We need to stop shooting, just stop thinking that using guns is normal, unless the situation is extraordinary.
I need some cat videos now.
Anyone who is more afraid of Daesh than homegrown terrorism is playing right into the terrorists’, politicians’, and the media’s hand. They want it that way and they’re doing a darn good job.
“Pay attention to this boogeyman over here so you won’t notice all the real issues we have right here at home.”
I’m never afraid of Daesh but you can bet your bottom dollar that I look over my shoulder when I’m working with PP or other reproductive health places. I’m way more afraid that some lunatic is going to shoot up a Pride event where I’m HIV testing than someone from Daesh is going to come bomb my campus or something.
Why? Because I understand statistics and don’t generally watch the news.
Yes, I think you state it quite well. but, that is not an issue for the 95%+ of those who own these guns. The part of the populace that the police are concerned with are criminals and that is just part of the terrain.
Yes, and an English military officer was beaten and beheaded in the street over a 30 min period because no one had a gun to stop the perpetrator and it took that long for police with guns to get there. There are many examples of assaults in the UK where people had to sit around and wait for police and were extremely hurt in the process. I highly doubt that Americans can be convinced to be “wait while being hurt” people. Just not in our blood.
Actually, Americans seem to be always fearful that crime is rising, even when crime is falling. See http://www.gallup.com/poll/179546/americans-crime-last-year.aspx .
Mass shooting homicides are about 11% of firearm homicides in the US and 8% of all homicides in the US (firearm homicides are about 70% of all homicides in the US). See http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/mass-shootings-have-become-more-common-in-the-u-s/
The US homicide rate of 3.8 per 100,000 people is significantly higher than that of other rich countries (e.g. Japan 0.3, Switzerland 0.6, Poland/Spain/Germany 0.8, Italy/New Zealand 0.9, UK 1.0, Australia 1.1, Ireland 1.2, France probably 1.2 including the recent mass shooting, Canada 1.4, Belgium 1.6, Israel 1.8, Norway 2.2), according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate .
I am in favor of gun control: background checks, no sales to anyone on the terror watch, no one with a history of domestic violence, mental illness (not sure how this could be done though). None of these controls would have prevented any of the recent mass killings. So I don’t think gun control is the answer. Only those closest to the perpetrators are in any position to stop them be noticing bizarre behavior and getting some type of intervention.
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According to “Gift of Fear,” the huge issue is domestic violence, even though these horrific cases grab the headlines, those cases are ongoing and continue to kill more and more.
@awcntdb - actually, I associate quite a bit with my husband who is a gun owner and used to shoot a lot. Now he bow hunts instead except when bird hunting with my BIL. He is in favor of universal background checks and some of the other “common sense” measures that have been proposed. His hunting / fishing partner is a very nice guy and also what many would call a “gun nut” who deeply believes in the idea that they will come door to door and take his guns. So far as I know he is law abiding and I’m not concerned about him. DH also works with a lot of people who own a lot of guns and like to talk about them. He IS worried about some of them. There are a lot of preppers and “black helicopter” types and people who you wouldn’t want to be married to or get on the wrong side of who have some pretty impressive stockpiles. After every election they run out and buy more.
But see, this is just the problem. Everyone is law abiding until they’re not. (I’m not saying your H’s friend is going off or anything.)
How often do we hear after a mass shooting: “Oh, he was so normal! I can’t believe he’d ever do something like this!”
I have no problem with strengthening background checks to help to better keep firearms away from those with a criminal
history and those who are mentally ill. Just a few thoughts/questions on that:
- Does the state have the right to know who has undergone psychological, psychiatric or LCSW treatment? How strong is the patient's right to privacy and, if strong, how difficult would it be to overturn that and allow the state to keep tabs? Is this a constitutional issue that would require a virtual act of God to get reversed?
- In terms of prosecuting those who engage in interstate black market firearm trade, I'm thinking examples need to be made -- throw the book at them. No ore "oops, I had no idea he would get one of my firearms...". It might be difficult to take away the guns that criminals already own; but if we could obliterate the black market, that would at least limit the guns coming in.
- Accidents (and Sandy Hook...) happen when otherwise legal, responsible gun owners fail to secure their firearms. That's a safeguard we don't need a constitutional amendment or vice/ATF crackdown to implement immediately: don't tell anyone where your guns are and secure them so that only you can ever fire them. This would prevent most, if not all, of the accidental shootings and even some heinous/criminal acts from occurring (like the aforementioned Sandy Hook tragedy).
So: Mental history (if legal) checks and obviously more robust criminal background checks; black market/interstate trade crackdown; and greater gun security on the part of gun owners… are, I’m thinking, three ways we can start to decrease gun violence while keeping intact the 2nd Amendment liberty to own firearms.
Right now you can’t prosecute interstate gun running because it’s not illegal. If you own a gun, prezbucky, you can legally sell it to anyone. Anyone, even a serial killer, even someone who tells you he’s planning to shoot fifteen people.
The names of the victims have been released (again sorry if I missed this):
http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/03/us/san-bernardino-shootings-victims/index.html
Almost all county employees. I assume most of them were public health people. People don’t go into public health for the money… these were probably very much what we would call “do gooders” (or at least that’s what they probably set out to do.)
But in the end, for those of us who didn’t know them, it’s just more names we’ll forget by tomorrow morning. More casualties in the paranoid war against the guv’ment.
And yes, I’m still angry and bitter and probably will be for a long time. I’m going to call this crap exactly what it is from now on.