Just read this exchange between Marquez and a 911 dispatcher on the day of the shootings.
These are the cretins and killers that we, as a society, are enabling by allowing the sale of assault weapons to civilians. The mentally disturbed, the dimwitted, the murderous jihadist can obtain cheaply and legally a rapid-fire assault weapon armed with military grade ammunition. Idiocy.
For some reason there are people who have such misplaced faith in themselves and/or their families that they severely miscalculate risks - in this case, of gun ownership. These are people who are positive that their child isn’t depressed, will never become depressed, if he/she were to become depressed they would obviously know, and if their child became depressed, that child would surely reach out before he chose to end his life or someone else’s. These are people who are similarly certain about about their spouse or partner. These are people who believe that their children would never touch a gun because they have been teaching gun safety to that child all his life. And the list goes on.
But the reality is that mental illness knows no boundaries. It happens to good families as well as bad families, rich families as well as poor, people from all walks of life and all colors and creeds. And the reality is that we as a country still stigmatize those with mental illness and not infrequently the same families that believe firmly in arming themselves, are also families who don’t talk openly with one another about mental illness, and sexual preference, and gender orientation, and so members of those families may keep an onset of depression or other mental illness to themselves. The reality is that teens’ brains are not fully developed and so they are more impulsive than adults. Even a really horrible day combined with access to a gun can be a recipe for disaster. How many suicides have happened in your town in the past year? Compare that with the number of home invasions resulting in death and do the risk assessment.
The reality is that all too many men abuse their girlfriends, wives or children. Guns in those homes radically increase the risk of death to those women.
The reality is that children don’t stay away from guns regardless of what they have been taught. There have been studies on this, using hidden cameras, and parents are shocked to see how their “well-trained” children act in the presence of a weapon.
The reality is that children know where the guns and ammunition are kept and how to access them. Parents think they don’t know. The data shows they do. If the child wants to show off to friends, is angry, etc., that gun comes out.
The reality is that gun owners take more care keeping their children from accessing poisonous household cleaners than they do keeping their children from guns. Specifically, in households with guns and children, you will find more cabinet locks than gun locks. So “responsible gun ownership” is not the predominant practice.
The reality is that if you do keep your guns locked, and unloaded, as is required for safety from accidents and suicide, these weapons will offer you little protection during a home invasion as you won’t have time to get to them. Get a dog. You will statistically be much safer.
The DHS gave only a cursory look at the fiancee visa application for Tashfeen Malik.
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-tashfeen-malik-visa-application-20151218-story.html
There needs to be a lot more scrutiny of all those entering this country and government workers need to actually do their jobs.
They “have the tools” - and those tools are from the 20th century. Dinosaurs had the tools, but forgot to evolve and went extinct! Evolve. Hire a bunch of fresh college grads with open minds and social media skills to do real background checks on visa applicants… Move to the 21st century.
This ex-terrorist recruiter makes a similar point about why we are losing in the war on ISIS propaganda:
http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/18/health/al-quaeda-recruiter-fight-isis-online/index.html
Fiorina at the debate the other night said "Every parent checks his kids social media, but the government doesn’t for visa applicants?. It makes zero sense. They didn’t check whether Farook and Malik had even been in Saudi at the same time so that they had actually met. They didn’t translate the visas.
I think “sloppy” was the word used by a congressman on how this visa application was processed.
Once again, TatinG, the social media posts were private. They were private. The government had no access to the private posts by Tashfeen, because they were private.
The issue is whether the government adequately checked whether this was a sham marriage. But in fact it wasn’t a sham marriage: the couple had a child together.
"They “have the tools” - and those tools are from the 20th century. Dinosaurs had the tools, but forgot to evolve and went extinct! Evolve. Hire a bunch of fresh college grads with open minds and social media skills to do real background checks on visa applicants… Move to the 21st century.
This ex-terrorist recruiter makes a similar point about why we are losing in the war on ISIS propaganda:"
Yes! I saw part of that on CNN today. So the people they have working on this are so clueless, and unable to put out halfway decent counter propaganda of their own, that they can’t counter the ISIS online propaganda. My God, hire some computer savvy teenage kids to work with people who know about the culture, and they could put something better together on their own.
re Post #1361 - Thanks for your post.
It lays out the issues well from your perspective (and others as well, I presume, given the number of likes). However, I do wonder if you even realize how presumptive and implicitly accusative it is. Somehow, I suspect you (and others) do not.
Additionally, it is a complete non-sequitur when you attempt to draw conclusions. It is not that I disagree with you. I am not even critiquing the specifics of what you wrote, as you are also correct in that, as your first sentence states, it [your post] applies to “some people.”
Where you err, in my opinion, is in your conclusions that automatically paint everyone with your negative view of humanity. I flatly reject your basement view of humanity, and your implicitly accusatory conclusions of people, people who you know nothing substantive about. It is as if you live and decide your life based on the lower margins of society.
Allow me to illustrate why I differ with your conclusions:
What you say is inarguable; there are many men who beat their significant others (and in approx. 10% of cases, it is women who beat the men). However, from my Dad to my 5 uncles and 6 aunts and their husbands who all have guns and shoot, I have never seen or heard a hint of wife beating. That goes for my sister, as well. I am sure I speak for many others who have and had have a similar family experiences as mine.
However, according to your deduction, because some men beat their girlfriend and wives, your advice at the end of your post for me and others is, “to get a dog,” But, I (and many other men) do not beat our wives, yet you see fit to treat us as if we do.
The only logical conclusion is you are implicitly accusing us men of eventually being wife beaters and killers since you say we should not have guns. If that is your view of men in general, then your experiences are vastly different than of many other families, my family for one. Additionally, my wife grew up in a house with a cabinet full of guns and five sisters, That is six women under the roof with a man with many guns (and he taught them all to shoot, as each had their own). They are all alive and well and love him dearly. And the same goes for their husbands - and they are all still alive and well at the hands of their husbands and their guns - well, the women have guns too.
Therefore, given your extremely negative view of men, you are really in no position judge other men who are good and decent people and upon which you project only the negative. That is a depressing world-view of all men - and obviously very wrong to apply to all men. Thus, wanting to deny all men (myself included) the value and right of firearm ownership is based on your erroneous logic that all men are not to be trusted to not beat and kill women. My conclusion is hang out with better men and you will see that not all men are like that and no need to treat all men as if they beat and kill women.
Continuation of Post 1367:
How in the world do you get to the conclusion that this applies to all children? Well, I guess I know how - you project the behavior of the lowest denominator onto other kids who may be good to exceptional.
As with your broad brush of since some men beat and kill their wives, then no man should have a gun, you also project because some kids do not listen and follow the rules, then all kids and all families are like that.
Seeing that I grew up with two other siblings and all of us knew where the guns were and knew how to use them, but, as per house rules, never touched any of them without parental permission, your premise that friends being over and arguing and the gun automatically comes out is just plain wrong. My wife had the same experience and rules and with proper parental guidance kids do follow the rules. Our families prove that and we are all here in one piece still - and yes, we, like any other family, argue from time-to-time and a gun has yet to be brandished. I am also sure I speak for millions of other families as well.
You only take the worst in people and their children then seek to assume all people, children, and families are like that. That is a sad commentary in itself.
This is interesting in that it is not even a projection, it is essentially making a decision living in the world of extreme “what ifs.” I am not saying not to take pre-cautions, but this forgets a lot of family units.
Of course, families with someone who is mentally-ill should not have guns readily accessible. I say easily accessible because, as you state, mental illness is an equal opportunity disease. While it seems to run in families, such as cancer, anyone in any family can be struck by a mental illness.
This leads to the question of what about the millions of families that live in rural areas where a gun is not only useful, but necessary? Considering my wife and her family have witnessed up close and very personal wolf packs, brown bears (grizzlies) and their young, black bears and their young, and cougars, if there were a person with mental illness in her family, that illness is not a reason to give up their guns. It is a reason to make the guns not accessible to the mentally-ill person. However, a mentally-ill person in a family is not a reason to then endanger the rest of the family. And while they never experienced this, there is also the possibility of the human criminal attack. Rare out there, but still possible and police are not close by. A dead dog is a useless dog, as all criminals in rural areas know to shoot the dog first.
A similar logic applies to high crime areas where police are in short supply, and where no dogs allowed.
But, back to the “What if” and the unknown mentally-ill person. The negative outlook on life in general of all your assumptions is just biting. This one reads like this - because there is a chance in the future that someone in someone’s family may become depressed or may be diagnosed with a mental illness, then no one in any family should have a gun just in case that event occurs. I cannot even understand the number of hoops needed to jump through to get to that conclusion and take a decision based on that. I cannot imagine living life taking decisions based on so many “what ifs.” Life would definitely be a lot more boring and limited. Most things based on purely negative constructs tend to be boring and limited anyway.
Continuation of Post 1368:
This comparison illustrates the major flaw in your “get a dog” conclusion. How does it illustrate? By highlighting that people do not have the same concerns as you and thus your argument really is not even valid to their lives. Why does it illustrate? Simply because the vast majority of families do not have suicidal people in them.
Interesting your need to tell others what their risk is, as if they do not know it. I can tell you all gun owners know the stats and numbers that you cite, probably better than you do. But, even more so, crime is working against your comparison on a daily basis.
Based on my conceal carry class, I can tell you that people who have had their home invaded and people, in general, who defended their lives with a gun have lived through a risk factor of 100%, so your comparison is meaningless to them. And for you to tell them because of suicides in the area that they should not have a gun is a non-sequitur of ultimate proportions. It is a non-sequitur because the vast majority of families do not have suicidal people in them, so most families hear that and go “Huh? You want us to give up our guns because of people in our area who committed suicide. What do strangers’ suicides have to do with my personal guns inside my house?” And thus, people quickly reach the conclusion that your solution is a non-sequitur and irrelevant to their lives.
So yes, the reality IS that children, especially boys, can’t stay away from guns they find even if they have been instructed to leave them alone.
I’m deeply unpersuaded that people need guns in the backcountry. I’ve witnessed grizzlies up close and personal too. I spent the summer traveling down the spine of the Rockies, encountering a few grizzlies along the way, and black bears too. I was in bear habitat the entire way. And I live in cougar (mountain lion) habitat, and ride my bikes through the local mountain roads several times a week. I’ve only seen a cougar once, but cougars have famously good camouflage; undoubtedly cougars have seen me hundreds of times. I don’t carry a gun and don’t need one.
And fear of wild animals is certainly no justification for a handgun. You don’t want to shoot a grizzly with a handgun-- it’ll just make her mad.
So you are saying that for grizzly you need AK-47M?
For a grizzly you need bear spray. If you are hunting grizzly bears, you need a rifle, although there may be some people who bowhunt for grizzly bears, I’m not sure.
@awcntdb, I think you misunderstood the point I was trying to make. My point is that one of the arguments that gun proponents espouse is that they want guns for safety purposes. However, the risk analysis that they make is inaccurate because you are statistically less safe in a home with a gun. That is proven. To get around that data, gun proponents argue that: their children are trained in gun safety, they store their guns appropriately, they don’t have abusers or mentally ill people in their homes, they live in rural areas without quick police response time, etc. etc. What I was trying to point out is that nobody believes that they are the ones who might accidentally leave a gun in the wrong place; that it is their child who might make a tragic, impulsive choice to end his life or take another’s; that their young child might pick up a gun in his own home or another’s (I remember watching a TV news segment many years ago where a person who taught gun safety watched through a hidden camera as her own young child picked up a gun despite her having told him repeatedly to never never touch a gun); that a gun is more likely to be used against a home owner than in a home owner’s defense; that women are much less safe in a home with guns, etc.
In no way am I suggesting that all gun owners are abusers of women. In no way am I arguing that all families will suffer from mental illness. In no way am I contending that all young children would touch a gun despite being taught not to. What I am saying is that statistically these things happen. And they happen more frequently than someone getting killed in his own home by a stranger during a home invasion. People who choose to think they are safer with a gun are assuming that their family is immune from all of the negative risks of gun ownership and that’s an assumption that is disproven on a daily basis. I’m sure the families grieving the loss of loved ones killed accidentally by toddlers and those grieving the loss of teenagers who ended their life with a parent’s handgun and the families of those who took another’s life in a moment of impulsive or drug induced rage or mental illness all wish that they had not assumed that their families somehow were exempt from these risks.
In my opinion, keep your rifles locked up in a case without ammunition and if you want/need them for hunting or to protect against bears, they are there at the ready. But if you are keeping handguns, or assault weapons, in your home because you think that your family is safer that way, your love for guns is keeping you from assessing the risk appropriately.
Nancy Lanza believed she was a responsible gun owner, making sure her son had gun safety training and experience…right up to the moment he walked into her bedroom and shot her in the head with a .22-caliber rifle. Then he drove to Sandy Hook Elementary with mom’s Bushmaster XM15 assault rifle, which he also had been instructed on how to handle with “respect.”
My own take on our gun culture is that we’re stuck with it, despite the horrific collateral damage, in regards to handguns, hunting guns, shotguns.
When a mom dies while shopping because her toddler found the handgun she kept in her purse…when someone absentmindedly leaves a loaded handgun on the nightstand where a child finds it and shoots himself…when an angry 11-year-old can go right to his dad’s shotgun and blow holes in his 8-year-old neighbor…when road rage erupts in gunfire…when “responsible” citizens start shooting at shoplifters in a parking lot…these are the consequences of mixing humans and guns and personally I don’t think we’re ever going to get to a point where these terrible and stupid events don’t happen.
But I do think we can take a stand against assault rifles and the collateral damage they cause in the hands of the mentally disturbed and the deliberate mass murderer. Sandy Hook. Aurora. San Bernardino. It’s not hypothetical. These guns are the tools of mass killers and they should be severely restricted and also the ammo they use. I wonder how many more incidents it’s going to take…
The guys at The Truth about Guns believed they’d be able to take out mass shooters. So they repeated re-enacted the Charlie Hebdo massacre, with paintball guns. They held twelve re-enactments, with their own “armed civilians” to react to the two “mass shooters.” It didn’t go as they thought it would.
No “armed civilian” was able to take out both “mass shooters.” All of the “armed civilians” died, except for one who sensibly ran away. In two cases the civilian was able to take out one of the shooters before dying, but in all the other cases both shooters survived.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/paris-terror-attack-simulation-conducted-in-texas-by-gun-group/
I know it’s a cherished belief that armed civilians can take out mass shooters. Sorry, they can’t.
Also, as musicprnt mentioned above, it’s a cherished belief that kids who are instructed to leave their parents’ guns alone will in fact leave the guns alone. But, as musicprnt explained, when sons of these very parents, the ones who are sure their kids will leave the guns alone, are tested, it turns out the boys are unable to resist picking up guns.
But Cardinal Fang, thousands of crimes are stopped by gun owners every day! It’s true; people said so on the telephone!
The National Institute of Mental Health says that about 18% of adults aged 18 or older and 13% of children age 8 to 15 had some kind of mental illness in 2014 (the last year for which statistics are available), and this doesn’t include people with substance abuse disorders, for whom data is collected separately.
But of course none of these people are in YOUR family. Of course not.
If you look at the percentage who said they’d stopped a crime with a gun, it was 1.3% of respondents. That’s well below the Personally Abducted By Space Aliens area, and down into Pearl Harbor Never Happened or My Cancer Was Cured By the Laying On of Hands territory.