<p>Dick Cheney might be able to answer that question for you. ;)</p>
<p>Referring to Texaspg’s post</p>
<p>I keep seeing this.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Legitimate online sales from a licensed dealer require a local FFL dealer to receive the gun and verify the identity of the buyer. The gun will not be shipped to any other location. </p>
<p>The ATF only allows private party sales between residents of the same state. In all other cases the firearm must be transferred via a FFL dealer.</p>
<p>bl4ke, her son was not deemed dangerous. He had no criminal record and was not someone who went after people. The statistics of someone with his particular diagnosis doing this sort of thing is about zilch. There are people out on the gun range with their kids who are in Rambo mode and really pysched up about shooting that I would have cringed at the though of putting weapons in their hands, and those at the range have often even quietly intervened. Adam was not in that category at all. Highly intelligent, there was hopes that the right job and situation could get him self sufficient. He could program, do academics, statisitical analysis–he was quite employalbe and educable to a high degree. He was not anyone’s definition of dangerous or psychotic. He had autism. A pretty clear case of it, but was intellectually high funcitoning. Not a category that is considered dangerous at all. The press really had to scrape the bottom of the barrel to get anything about him as most people who knew him did not consider him a danger at all, and as a child the fear at school was that he would be harmed. Not a single report of him ever being threatening to others, zero. He spent most of his waking time on the computer or on video games, and taking him to the shooting range was a rare outside activity he could enjoy, and one of the few things Nancy Lanza could do with him, as he didn’t like to do anything. Hated to leave the house, rarely left the house. I don’t think there was a soul who thought he was a threat. </p>
<p>You see, I know those shooting ranges, and people up there. I know people who go up there regualrly. I’ve been up there. Not far from where I live, but worlds away as my state is one of the strictest in gun control, so NYers go there to shoot. Many own second homes in that area. And Adam Lanza raised absolutely zero red flags from those who own ranges and saw him shooting and saw him around which was rare since he did not go out much. He was one of the last persons anyone would have suspected to do this sort of thing, Last. There are some yahoos out there do worry those who are in the gun business, But not Nancy or Adam Lanza. So Bl4ke, you really think you are wiser and more presient than those who were there, and wh have been around people with guns a lot? I don’t think so. What happened is a complete and total mystery, and the scary part of this is if someone as stoic and retireing as that young man with autism could do something like that, anyone can. It makes no sense to anyone who knows about the condition, who knew Adam, who knew guns.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Just to put these numbers in perspective, around 360 people per year in the US are struck by lightning.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Actually his mom knew he was mentally ill, and is why she was planning on sending him to a facility that would treat him. Knowing this, there’s no reason why she should have given him access to her guns.</p>
<p>i know. that was the first time i even knew some thing called birdshot existed. I was wondering how any one could live after being shot in the face.</p>
<p>texaspg, now you’re pulling my leg, right? Hunting accidents which involve bird shot tend to occur when you’re hunting … birds. And deer get buckshot. When you’re hunting different game, you use different equipment. But you have to be kidding, because I can’t believe a good Texan would ask that! </p>
<p>Eastcoascrazy, great answer. Cheney’s a perfect example of someone thinking they’re responsible, knowledgeable hunters and still being capable of a total screw up.</p>
<p>Dragonflygarden, that’s very helpful information. Thanks for posting. </p>
<p>By the way, bl4ke360, I shouldn’t respond since you lost many of us when you couldn’t see why the president’s children would need more protection than most people’s kids. But I will say one thing: you said the little children in Newton were assassinated. They were murdered. There is a big difference.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This is the first time I’ve ever seen Cheney being referred to as “responsible”.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>So since they were only murdered and not assassinated it means they shouldn’t have had protection to prevent it from happening in the first place? Great logic there.</p>
<p>He was not considered mentally ill. She was looking at colleges for him and for some sort of facility that could help him become more independent. He was withdrawing more and refusing to do things. But there was absolutely no sign of any kind of mental conditon that was a danger sign.</p>
<p>In fact the NY state gun law that is being pushed through or that they are trying to pass, wouldn’t do anything to prevent what happened. Adam was not someone who would be meet the danger definition. I don’t think she should have taken him out shooting either, but really, he was probably less dangerous than a lot of young men his age with a gun in his hands. Something snapped. No one would have predicted this one. Some of the other shooters like the Virginia Tech shooter and the the Aurora theater shooter had danger signs all over the place, but even then trying to lock them up before they did their dastardly deeds was probably not possible. A lot of eratic folks out there. But this Adam Lanza was not anyone that made the A, B or C list as a dangerous possibility. That’s one of the scary things about this.</p>
<p>When I live in Western PA, every year when deer hunting season opened, someone would shoot himself or another hunter. That was fine by me as long as they didn’t get someone not involved in the hunting scene. By the end of the first week, the press stopped reporting the incidents because they weren’t even news anymore. A woman who worked for me had all the men in her family shot or having shot someone during the hunting season, along with most of her neighbors. Was considered part of the sport.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That is not a valid comparison. Getting struck by lightning and being killed by lightening are two different things. To make it valid, you’d have to include the people who are shot/injured by guns but do not die.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>But the fact is, that they don’t. This set of facts was an anomaly. It has never happened just this way before, and the chances of it happening just this way again are so exceedingly remote that people should not waste energy worrying about it.</p>
<p>hayden - What can I say, I don’t hunt and I am for my fellow Texans’ right to do whatever the heck they can currently do and not have their rights infringed.</p>
<p><a href=“New York Lawmakers Reach Deal on New Gun Curbs - The New York Times”>New York Lawmakers Reach Deal on New Gun Curbs - The New York Times;
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and lawmakers agreed on Monday to a broad package of changes to gun laws that would expand the state’s ban on assault weapons and would include new measures to keep guns away from the mentally ill.</p>
<p>The state Senate, controlled by a coalition of Republicans and a handful of Democrats, approved the legislative package around 11 p.m. by a vote of 43 to 18. The Assembly, controlled by Democrats, has been strongly supportive of gun control. It planned to vote on the measure on Tuesday.</p>
<p>Approval of the legislation would make New York the first state to act in response to the mass shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., la</p>
<p>Bl4ke, and others, I hope that there is some opening, some thought processes stimulated by this discussion. I don’t know the answer to preventing more of these incidents. I don’t think the NRA’s idea makes sense at all and the sheer expense of doing it is just impossible We do need to do a lot more for those who are mentally ill, yes, but I don’t think Adam Lanza would have been caught in that dragent. I don’t think we will be banning guns and I do support the second amendment. There are those who are safer with the added proetection of guns–I do not deny that. Registering guns, required training of guns–Nancy Lanza’s guns were registered, the training was there. It was a perfect storm of events that I don’t see any safeguards preventing. I think that the death toll would have been lower if those guns could not be jury rigged to shoot the way they did. Lanza was able to massacre those children in a matter of seconds. He could have done a lot more damage had he not stopped and killed himself, with the fire power he had. Is there any way to somehow restrict that kind of fire power? You have some chance with a gun, not with one that shoots like that.</p>
<p>25 years ago, I lived in Chicago and a friend of mine had a first grader at Hubbard Woods Elementary School where a woman entered with a gun and shot some kids. But the the guns involved did not have the shooting capacity as that rifle that Lanza used, and one kid died, and those other shot survived. You still have the danger but you can rush someone with a regular gun and have a chance. Not with the fire power of the weapon used at Sandy Hook. What can we do to make it safer from those who snap and go on a shooting barrage? And I really believe there will be more with the publicity blitz these shootings have been getting. Fortunately most peopel do not know how to use those weapon and don’t have ready access to get them.</p>
<p>Remind me never to go hunting in Pennsylvania!!! First and best rule of guns is that if it never points at somebody, than it can’t shoot anybody. Even on a misfire. I have been around a few irresponsible hunters/shooters and it is the last time I go with them. I was five or six when my father would let me shoot my bb gun at grasshoppers whenever he would go shooting in the hills. I swung the gun around and pointed it at him a few times early on, and got a serious butt chewing for it every time. I soon learned that you have to be completely aware of where the muzzle is pointed and that is your’ first responsibility when carrying a gun. A few years later I started shooting a .22 rifle, and went hunting with him as soon as I could at 13. I think a huge part of the problem is when you have people not used to guns teaching themselves about them after they move out on there own. It would be like starting shop class in junior high and just letting the kids go unsupervised their’ first day.</p>
<p>edit: I think I was a couple years older when I started shooting the bb gun, maybe 8 or 9.</p>
<p>texaspg, LOL. Fair enough. </p>
<p>By the way, there is also rabbit shot. Just fyi… But seriously, about the only thing that doesn’t have its own shot is frogs. Frogs get gigged. </p>
<p>bi4e360, I made the mistake of responding to you, but I’m going to rectify that major error because your points are neither logical nor insightful.</p>
<p>Don’t hunt in Virginia either - lots of irresponsible hunters there. My dad was shot by his brother in law while rabbit hunting. Don’t hunt in Maryland either - sad stories there about fathers killing sons and vice versa. Don’t hunt in …</p>
<p>I guess if you own a gun and don’t hunt, you can subtract from 851, the chances of being accidentally killed while hunting, because that will not pertain to you.</p>
<p>Where I go hunting we get mad if we see another person all day, and we can cover several square miles. They have too many people hunting per square mile, but more than that those people aren’t checking to see what their shooting at before they pull the trigger. That’s absurd. Those people shouldn’t be allowed to hunt or own a gun if their that stupid.</p>