Laws, Shrinks, Neither?
In the wake of the Aurora movie theater massacre, do you:
1. Think that we need to strengthen and expand some sort of gun control;
2. Think that someone should have pulled a concealed gun on the shooter and stopped his rampage;
3. Think that this isn’t about guns, it’s about the stigma and poor funding/coverage for mental health care;
4. None of the above – we demand answers and reaction to tragedies like this, but they are exceedingly rare, despite our ridiculously overviolent gun culture, and sometimes motivated psychopaths will engage in this type of behavior, regardless of medical or legal intervention.
We need to revisit our current gun policies. It isn’t necessarily that we need more. What we have fails us. The permitting process for handguns is clunky and cumbersome. We need a single database that is accessible by all the states when they are doing their permitting. Maybe we need to look at the size of magazines people can have, but I think more helpful would be a single national database that registered firearms and offenses/disqualifications of persons from owning guns. The last handful of these tragedies involved people who purchased handguns legally. Perhaps a single source database would have flagged these guys as they stockpiled ammo and guns.
The Founders cemented the right of citizens to keep and bear arms. I, in no way believe that a functional registration system infringes on that.
#4, without a doubt. Even the most insanely restrictive form of registration or gun control is not going to prevent the next maniac from acting out on his murderous fantasies. There is no evidence that he ever displayed any form of mental illness before this either. Sometimes, people just snap.
If you want change, you need to think about gun elimination, not control. Amend the Constitution to eliminate the Second Amendment, make gun ownership illegal and gradually destroy every firearm in the country. When guns become rare, violence like this will also decrease, because no one is going to walk into a theater and strangle or stab a dozen people.
Not saying I agree with this idea, but this is about all that you can do. Otherwise, consider it the price we pay for this particular form of freedom.
#4. Recall that nut job in Norway who pulled off a much worse event.
Brains like to find patterns where there really aren’t any, and hearts demand that someone do something!!
And that’s how horrible laws get written.
95% #4.
5% #1. I shouldn’t be able to walk into a gun show and purchase an AR-15 assault rifle from someone with no background check, or verification that I’m competent to own that weapon. The gun show loopholes need to be fixed.
(I don’t personally see the need for common citizens to own assault rifles either, but that’s just a personal opinion.)
An interesting aside, I found the first section of this was thought provoking.
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In a world where Amazon can track your next book purchase and you must register to buy allergy medicine, James Holmes spent months stockpiling thousands of bullets and head-to-toe ballistic gear without raising any red flags with authorities. “http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/23/james-holmes-weapons-internet_n_1694451.html
“We demand answers and reaction to tragedies like this, but they are exceedingly rare”, true but gun violence is not rare. There are in excess of 30,000 gun deaths each year, or about 82 per day. There are 341,000 guns stolen each year of the 223 million estimated firearms in this country. The cost of gun carnage to our society is too complex to quanify but should be part of the discussion, too often the “rights” of gun owners seems to trump the right of public safety. The NRA is nothing more than a criminals lobby, time for our elected representatives to grow a set and stand up to these thugs. Number 1 is the only route to some balance.
The NRA has bullied every elected representative to a level which precludes even the most basic, rational and sane discussion of the issue for fear that it will effectively emasculate their membership. They’ll likely be sending Ted Nugent on the road to rally the troops and close the ranks of any ‘non-believers.’
I like Chris Rock’s solution: sell ammunition for $5,000 @ box. I suppose that makes me #1.
4.
Unfortunately the 2nd ammendment can be interpreted quite broadly. I in no way would seek to get rid of the 2nd ammendment or private gun ownership be it considered militia or not, but before anyone claims that the founding fathers intended for them to have 30 round clips, they should remember that when that ammendment was written, firearm technology revolved around muzzleloaders. The best riflemen could get off 3 shots per minute max. The bill of rights and laws related to them need to evolve to meet the needs of our society’s progress (or decline).