"If it saves one life"

southernbubby

Sun, Feb 18 2018, 2:40 pm

sushilover wrote:

Just to clarify, your position is that all guns should be banned, but we should start with semi-automatic rifles, even if they are used for only 3 percent of homicides.

If you are pushing to end the second amendment, then you should know about all the risks involved.

No, I don't think that all guns should be banned but without restrictions of any kind, these weapons of mass destruction are finding their way into the wrong hands. I feel that even if we prevent 3% of gun related homicides, we have saved countless lives and I don't think it is reasonable to expect to be able to save more, as much as every life has value.

I don't think that it is reasonable to end the 2nd amendment, basically because most Americans don't want it to end. I think that saying that we want to overturn the 2nd amendment is dangerous rhetoric but I don't think that we have to allow every person to own any type of firearm that he pleases.

marina

Sun, Feb 18 2018, 2:55 pm

FranticFrummie wrote:

There is no public motivation to stop most handgun deaths, because honestly most people think that drug dealers killing each other is a GOOD thing.

Not saying I agree, just saying that seems to be the general sentiment. People do pick and choose based on their personal values. People riot in the streets when a white cop shoots a Black man, but when both parties are Black, it's just another day in Chicago/Baltimore/Detroit.

Personally, I don't think we should ban all guns, but I think we should ban the ones designed for maximum kill shots per second. I also think that background checks should be 1,000% tighter.

When I lived in Washington State, I was appalled at how easy it was for me to get a handgun for home protection. I take antidepressants, and no one asked me about my medical history. They handed me the license after a few days, and there was no requirement to take safety or marksmanship courses. Not even a one day course on how to store a gun safely. It was so easy it was STUPID.

Of course I got myself to a safety course run by off duty police officers and did training with them - all on my own dime. Not many people will do that if they don't have to.

If Trump really wants to create jobs, make gun safety and target practice mandatory. Teach instructors how to profile students for problematic behavior, the way Israeli airport screeners do. Make the instructors mandadory reporters.

And most of all, make them provide a letter from a psychiatrist that proves them mentally stable before applying for a permit or purchase. Every. Single. Time.

This is not going to fix everything, not by a longshot, but it's what I can come up with right now. I'm open to hearing better ideas.

this is a great start and I appreciate it all the more so coming from a staunch conservative poster

dancingqueen

Sun, Feb 18 2018, 3:19 pm

FranticFrummie wrote:

Totally agree about majorly stepping up the requirements to being a gun owner. See how Israel does it:
https://www.haaretz.com/jewish.....06039

The Menéndez brothers were not adopted they killed their biological parents.

Sushi lover so what do you suggest?

southernbubby

Sun, Feb 18 2018, 3:28 pm

there has to be a clear path forward and those asking for change need to be specific:

http://thehill.com/homenews/su.....47659

One teacher who posted a viral post calls for parents to teach right from wrong but that skirts the issue that a 19 year old with mental health issues and a history of school expulsion should not be able to buy an AR-15 and all the paraphernalia that makes it a more efficient weapon.

viral post:

Until we, as a country, are willing to get serious and talk about mental health issues, lack of available care for the mental health issues, lack of discipline in the home, horrendous lack of parental support when the schools are trying to control horrible behavior at school (oh no! Not MY KID. What did YOU do to cause my kid to react that way?), lack of moral values, and yes, I’ll say it-violent video games that take away all sensitivity to ANY compassion for others’ lives, as well as reality TV that makes it commonplace for people to constantly scream up in each others’ faces and not value any other person but themselves, we will have a gun problem in school. Our kids don’t understand the permanency of death anymore!!!

33055

Sun, Feb 18 2018, 3:53 pm

dancingqueen wrote:

Sorry. Maybe it was during the Martin Tankleff publicity that I read about adopted children being high risk.

Here's 22 adopted serial killers.
https://m.ranker.com/list/seri.....crime

southernbubby

Sun, Feb 18 2018, 4:12 pm

Squishy wrote:

Sorry. Maybe it was during the Martin Tankleff publicity that I read about adopted children being high risk.

Here's 22 adopted serial killers.
https://m.ranker.com/list/seri.....crime

But then what do we do with adopted serial killers? Should they be jailed or put in mental asylums for the rest of their lives?

Is there a way to prevent adopted children from becoming menaces to society? Obviously some people have figured out a way to do that.

Alternative

Sun, Feb 18 2018, 4:24 pm

I doubt it's the just act of being adopted that makes these kids high risk. Rather, parents who give up their children often have a host of problems - unstable/drug addicted/alcohol/mental issues, which could influence a kid genetically or in the womb.

Of course it doesn't help, on top of that, to deal with the knowledge that you were abandoned by your biological parents. The fact most adopted kids are well-adjusted and happy is due to luck and their adoptive parents' love and parenting. But the few that fail to thrive - it's not the parents' fault.

southernbubby

Sun, Feb 18 2018, 4:31 pm

Alternative wrote:

It is hard to say that it is not the parent's fault when it may or may not be the parent's fault. Some behaviors can be guided and changed by the parents. Humans are supposed to be guided by parents, while animals are self-sufficient shortly after birth or hatching. If you turned out well, it is probably that your parents did something right, even if they were not the best parents. If a person turns out to be evil, while there is a possibility that the parents did everything possible to raise him right and were blameless, there is also the possibility that the parents did nothing or did not do enough to guide the child in the proper path.

33055

Sun, Feb 18 2018, 4:35 pm

southernbubby wrote:

There is an important student led march on March 24. They are saying that any politician that has been put in office by the NRA is putting money and politics ahead of children's lives and the students will do what they can to put a stop to that.

I am so glad for this student lead March. I couldn't get behind one tainted by the by the Women's March and the anti-Semitism encountered there.

https://nypost.com/2018/02/18/.....n-dc/

sushilover

Sun, Feb 18 2018, 5:51 pm

dancingqueen wrote:

Sushi lover so what do you suggest?

1) Let's acknowledge that our problem is gang and drug related gun violence. Not mass shootings.

2) Let's take care of enforcing the legislations we already have before rushing to legislate some more unenforceable laws just to feel like we are doing something.
There are major loopholes when it comes to people with mental illness owning guns. For example, there are state laws restricting gun ownership for people with mental illness, but they have no real means of enforcing that.

another example, states are not supplying the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) with up to date warrant records, letting criminals slip through the cracks.

3) Perhaps it's time to revisit our treatment of the mentally ill. Reagan passed the "patient's bill of rights" law in California which restricted the ability of the state to institutionalize mentally ill people against their will. This led to the drastic increase in the number of mentally ill people in prison.

4) There should be a red flag system to give NICS a few days to look into a person who doesn't have a record, but does have a history of violence.

5) regulation of bump stocks, obviously (It won't prevent many deaths, but there if automatic weapons are banned, so should bump stocks be)

southernbubby

Sun, Feb 18 2018, 6:55 pm

sushilover wrote:

Although my son was mugged at gunpoint by a gang in Crown Heights when he was 18 and in yeshiva, my bigger fear is a mass shooting in a crowded public place.

Gabby Gifford's website advocates expanding the categories of those who can't legally own guns. Under that expansion, or if the age at which a person could by a gun was raised, Cruz might have been prevented from obtaining a gun.

The same people who don't want to address the gun issue for fear of offending the NRA, also don't want to spend more on treatment of mental illness.

Obviously no law is worthwhile if it is not enforced.

Maybe massive lawsuits would drive gun manufacturers or stores out of business.

I did read once of a store owner who refused to sell a gun to a customer who appeared to be angry. Maybe the gun stores have certain responsibilities like bartenders do and could be held accountable.

marina

Sun, Feb 18 2018, 7:22 pm

sushilover wrote:

What are your thoughts on the recent Trump administration decisions in rolling back Obama era regulations that limited people who could not manage their own social security funding because of a mental impairment from owning guns?

It's not really an easy issue. Should all people with depression automatically be barred from owning guns? All people whose cognitive abilities are below a certain threshold?

sushilover

Sun, Feb 18 2018, 7:34 pm

marina wrote:

The ACLU opposed the Obama regulations . It's tricky, it really is. That's why gun violence cannot be fixed by slogans or emotional reactions.

Fox

Sun, Feb 18 2018, 8:33 pm

marina wrote:

The regulations that would have prevented people who received disability payments from Social Security and had a designated financial conservator would have been repealed even if Flynn the Bichon Frise had been elected President.

They posed a 4th Amendment due process problem, and the ACLU and virtually every disability rights organization was stridently opposed.

Perhaps I'm wandering a bit here, but I think the most immediate action (and one that is hopefully taking place) is a thorough review of how the FBI handles tips regarding potential threats. I don't necessarily blame the FBI -- they probably get thousands of useless reports every year.

However, virtually every mass shooter is known to his family and community as "the guy most likely to be a mass shooter." Obviously you can't just lock people up for being weird and creepy. It seems as if there's a huge chasm between "weird and creepy" and "cause to detain as a danger to himself or others" that these guys fall into.

Weapon removal; mandated mental health check-ins; GPS monitoring . . . if Martin Shkreli can have bail revoked and be in jail for threatening to clone Hillary Clinton, surely someone who announces his intentions to shoot up a school can be detained in some way, shape, or form.

FranticFrummie

Sun, Feb 18 2018, 9:01 pm

marina wrote:

this is a great start and I appreciate it all the more so coming from a staunch conservative poster

I'm actually much more of a Moderate. I'm quite liberal socially, don't vote party line, and vote on issues on a case by case basis. Fiscally conservative, though.

Instead of banning all people who have some form of mental disabiltliy, I suggest making the person pass a psyciatric test and getting a letter from a doctor saying that they have been stable and med compliant for X amount of years, etc.

It's a pretty narrow hoop to jump through. Potential gun owners who are on meds will hate it (too bad), psychiatrists will hate it, and lawyers will love it either way. That's the price of living in a society that gives a certain amount of freedoms.

If you have to take a driver's test to get a car, if you are on medication you should have to show proof of responsibility.

My dad grew up on a farm, and he and his brothers all had hunting rifles by the time they were around 9 years old. My dad used to work in a gun shop, but he quit because he got tired of denying guns to crazy people, and then being yelled at for not meeting sales quotas. He now teaches gun safety courses, and just got certified in active shooter training.

I grew up with a healthy respect for guns, and being very aware of the responsibility involved.

dancingqueen

Sun, Feb 18 2018, 11:46 pm

sushilover wrote:

1. I can't get behind this one. There have been 208 school shootings since Columbine, and that's just school shootings. Why can't we have both drug/gang shootings, and mass shootings as major issues? Right now 17 children have just been killed and failed by our country, so lets focus on that. Im ein achshav, aimatai?

2-4. Mental illness is part of the issue, sure. And I am all for making it harder for people with violent backgrounds and mental illness to get guns. And lets get rid of the gun show loophole. But Trump despite his recent rhetoric is cutting funding for mental illness through the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration by $665 million and the National Institute of Mental Health would see a 30 percent reduction in funding. Plus, he repealed Obama's legislation to prevent gun sales to the mentally ill.

But mental illness is not the whole story here. It's just too d@mn easy to get multiple powerful guns here. And becoming a mass shooter has a kind of dark glory in our culture, in our era of fame-seekers.

5. I agree!