1. The waiting period is long enough.

2. The background check already includes checking health records (as far as I know).

3. This would make it very difficult to enforce. As an example, when my grandfather passed away I got his gun collection. For what it's worth, included in that collection are a lot of "vintage" firearms that I'll probably never use, but do display.

4. There are already negligence laws on the books.


Limiting the number and/or types of weapons is not an option. Again, you are targeting innocent individuals, the vast majority of them legal and law abiding citizens. I personally happen to own a pretty good sized gun collection, and I have ammunition for a lot of them.


You also want to cuff and limit capabilities of law enforcement, and I disagree with that as well.


Banning concealed carry is not really a good idea. What you are doing is placing law abiding citizens in harm's way. I get your point, but being "open carry" would take us back to the days of the "wild west" that so many "anti gun" people bring up. Open carry works in more rural areas, but it certainly wouldn't work in a place like Washington DC or New York City.

Well said all the way around.


Gun reform is an easy target, however it isn't a solution.


You can't stop bad guys from having a gun.

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What do you mean when you say that mental illness is a bigger problem than guns, exactly?

 

Not trying to but in, but I thought it was pretty obvious.  I'm not sure what the question is.

 

I own a gun, but I wouldn't be against making it more difficult to get a gun.  I know people that have guns that probably shouldn't be allowed to own them.  The problem is, how do you weed those people out and where do you draw the line?  With the way our government is now, if you give an inch they will take a mile.

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What's so hard to enforce about #3? Why couldn't you take them to get registered?

 

Others have already answered this, but again, I'll go back to my original question.  How would this rule specifically address what happened in SC?  Would having to register a gun have prevented something like this?

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world.  Those who understand binary and those who don't.

Mental illness is a bigger problem than guns.

What do you mean when you say that mental illness is a bigger problem than guns, exactly?

I'd appreciate an answer.

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What do you mean when you say that mental illness is a bigger problem than guns, exactly?

I'm not sure what more needs to be said.


I don't have time to explain further (time for work) but I'll try to explain more later.

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I don't have time to explain further (time for work) but I'll try to explain more later.

Please do. I'm curious to see you defend a comment as awful as that.

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Please do. I'm curious to see you defend a comment as awful as that.

 

Why is that an awful comment?  I think you're confusing it.

 

I'm pretty sure he is saying that the amount of people that have mental illnesses in the US that need to be addressed is a bigger problem than the gun violence.  I may not be 100% spot on, but I think I'm in the general area.

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Please do. I'm curious to see you defend a comment as awful as that.

 

Not sure why his comment is so "awful".  Mental illness is a serious problem.  Guns, not so much.

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world.  Those who understand binary and those who don't.

Please do. I'm curious to see you defend a comment as awful as that.

It's a lengthy debate and I'm already spending more time on it than I should currently but it is what it is.


What makes the comment awful?


We had a shooting here a couple of weeks ago.


He had a permit to carry, did everything right with his gun in how he obtained it. No prior criminal record that I'm aware of.


I'm of the belief that there was something mentally wrong with him that caused him to shoot a person. I'm of the belief that the Charleston killer also has mental problems that likely played a large role in the events inside that church.


Do you disagree? I can tell you restricting guns would not have prevented either incident. Do you know where this local shooting took place? At a mall, where they do not allow guns.


You can't keep a gun out of a mentally ill person's hand.

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It's a lengthy debate and I'm already spending more time on it than I should currently but it is what it is.


What makes the comment awful?


We had a shooting here a couple of weeks ago.


He had a permit to carry, did everything right with his gun in how he obtained it. No prior criminal record that I'm aware of.


I'm of the belief that there was something mentally wrong with him that caused him to shoot a person. I'm of the belief that the Charleston killer also has mental problems that likely played a large role in the events inside that church.


Do you disagree? I can tell you restricting guns would not have prevented either incident. Do you know where this local shooting took place? At a mall, where they do not allow guns.


You can't keep a gun out of a mentally ill person's hand.

I misunderstood your context, and apologize for jumping down your throat like that. I took your comment to mean that you believed that a person who is mentally ill (we're talking about 40 million+ Americans), armed or unarmed, is inherently more of a threat to society than a "sane" person with a gun.

 

Mental illness and guns is a touchy subject for me. I lost a cousin, who was deeply depressed (but undiagnosed) to suicide by firearm. There were details surrounding the suicide that led family members to believe that he might have killed himself to prevent himself from killing someone else. I'm strongly in favor of denying the right to purchase firearms to anyone with a history of mental illness, including clinical depression, and forcibly "buying back" (confiscating with payment) any weapons they may currently own, then making it a felony punishable by a guaranteed prison term for them to possess a firearm on their person, in their house, in their car, whatever, for the remainder of their life.

 

Of course, that would deny the right to bear arms to more than 40 million Americans, which I'm sure the far right and the NRA would jump all over as a Second Amendment violation. It's fun to kick around hypothetical solutions to a very real problem right up until someone tries to implement one, isn't it? And what about the undiagnosed? I wouldn't be opposed to requiring a psychiatric evaluation before a license to purchase a firearm (yes, I believe firearm owners should have to acquire and carry a license for their weapons, and weapons should be registered under that license) is granted, but that would be costly and almost certainly result in the NRA kicking and screaming about how you're taking the right to bear arms away from the middle class. It would certainly help us identify the sociopaths (even given that being a sociopath does not necessarily make you mentally ill) who aren't caught by medical records, though.

 

Not to pick on you directly, Scarecrow, but something I've seen a lot of that drives me nuts is the association of mental illness with white terrorists. News outlets--left and right--like to talk about the "troubled past" and "mental factors" that drive white terrorists to do these things. If the Charleston shooter's name had been Mohammad al-Roof, I promise you that those same news networks would be decrying his "radical views" and fully demonizing him. To the networks' credit, they're not sugar-coating his radical views at all, just using the unfair stigma of mental illness to mitigate them some. Either all terrorists are radical or all terrorists are mentally ill; take your pick, MSNBC. Don't tell me that a guy who picks up a gun is mentally ill, but a guy who straps a bomb to himself and walks into a cafe is motivated only by religious fervor. I can see what you're doing on my leg. It's not rain.

 

Given the nature of my personal experience with mental illness, and with what happens when mental illness and guns meet, I get jumpy when someone suggests that mental illness makes one more prone to violence. My apologies for that, Scarecrow. Do I really think anything I've just suggested will be written into law? No. The gun lobby would never support it, and the NRA has so many Congresspeople in the chamber of their gun that measures taking guns off the street would never pass. Would any of what I said above prevent someone who is so motivated from getting their hands on a gun and committing an act of terrorism with it? Probably not, and you pro-gun guys can quote me on that over and over again until you're blue in the face. What it would do is make it that much harder for that one person in ten million who has the perfect blend of mental illness/sociopathic tendencies and intent to get their hands on a gun, and it makes it that much more likely that they're taken off the streets before they can use said gun.

 

Ok, right-wing. Tear me apart. Tell me how everything I've said is stupid and doesn't address any issues, just takes away the right of 'Murricans to own guns. I don't know if I can be any more clear on my position on keeping guns out of the hands of those with mental illness, those with intent and motivation, and sociopaths.

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I'm focused on the fact that someone who should not have had a gun got his hands on one. The system failed. Why did it fail? What needs to be done to keep it from failing like that again? Changing laws and/or adding new ones is a valid part of the discussion. Saying that there's no point in revisiting existing laws because a law wouldn't have stopped the shooter is the ultimate cop-out, and I think you know that.

It's not a cop out at all.  It's simply fact.  Revisiting the laws that are currently on the books isn't going to do anything that would have prevented what happened in SC.  All it would do is placate folks such as yourself who demand that government do something, even if it's just revisiting laws (aka paying you lip service). 

 

There were multiple laws broken in the shooting in Charleston.  Laws didn't prevent it from happening, but I'll guarantee you that if someone was in that church carrying a legally permitted firearm (assuming they were willing to defy a law their pastor voted for preventing them from doing so), the casualty count more than likely would have been significantly less, and one name among those would have been the shooter. 

 

At the end of the day, there were laws on the books that should have prevented this and many other mass shootings from happening, yet it didn't make a bit of difference, did it?  If someone is determined to commit a crime like this, I'm pretty sure revisiting the laws on the books won't have any impact on their intentions.  They'll get a weapon and carry out their plan, especially if they've spent 6 months preparing. 

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Never argue with idiots. They drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.

Lol @ straw man. You are talking about digging up corpses, you hypocrite.


Get over yourself and your stupid flag. It shouldn't be flown by any state of this union. It represents treason and an ugly past. Quite frankly I'd question the allegiance of any one shilling for it. And if you don't like America then you can GET OUT!

 

Yeah, suggesting they might dig up Confederate graves is just nonsense, right?  That would never be suggested by the same idiots who are howling the loudest about the Confederate flag, right?

 

Oops.

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Never argue with idiots. They drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.

It's not a cop out at all. It's simply fact. Revisiting the laws that are currently on the books isn't going to do anything that would have prevented what happened in SC. All it would do is placate folks such as yourself who demand that government do something, even if it's just revisiting laws (aka paying you lip service).


There were multiple laws broken in the shooting in Charleston. Laws didn't prevent it from happening, but I'll guarantee you that if someone was in that church carrying a legally permitted firearm (assuming they were willing to defy a law their pastor voted for preventing them from doing so), the casualty count more than likely would have been significantly less, and one name among those would have been the shooter.


At the end of the day, there were laws on the books that should have prevented this and many other mass shootings from happening, yet it didn't make a bit of difference, did it? If someone is determined to commit a crime like this, I'm pretty sure revisiting the laws on the books won't have any impact on their intentions. They'll get a weapon and carry out their plan, especially if they've spent 6 months preparing.

So don't do anything and continue just as if nothing has happened?

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"Before you criticize a man, walk a mile in his shoes. That way, if he gets angry, he's a mile away and barefoot."

Yeah, suggesting they might dig up Confederate graves is just nonsense, right?  That would never be suggested by the same idiots who are howling the loudest about the Confederate flag, right?

 

Oops.

 

The lunacy goes on.  First it's a flag.  Now video games and crazy politicians wanting to remove monuments that tell our history.

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world.  Those who understand binary and those who don't.

So don't do anything and continue just as if nothing has happened?

That's not what I'm saying at all, but if that's how you interpreted it, then there are bigger issues for you.

 

You want them to do something for the sake of doing something.  Create a law so you feel like they care.  I simply want them to do a better job of enforcing the laws already on the books.  Somehow I doubt you'll recognize the difference.

 

The lunacy goes on.  First it's a flag.  Now video games and crazy politicians wanting to remove monuments that tell our history.

 

As long as they're doing the politically correct thing, erasing this country's history, both good and bad, is perfectly acceptable. It's not like they're teaching it in government indoctrination centers any way.

 

I bet if you went and talked to half the people who are desecrating these monuments, or protesting the fact that these Confederate memorials exist, and asked them what they know about the Civil War, what they offered up would barely fill a thimble.  You'll just get the same old spoon fed drivel that their masters spoon feed to the drones.

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Never argue with idiots. They drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.

That's not what I'm saying at all, but if that's how you interpreted it, then there are bigger issues for you.


You want them to do something for the sake of doing something. Create a law so you feel like they care. I simply want them to do a better job of enforcing the laws already on the books. Somehow I doubt you'll recognize the difference.

Oh I definitely recognize the difference. All I was hinting on is for you to provide a solution to the problem like the other poster did. So you suggest better enforcement of the laws already in place? Thats a fair point.

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"Before you criticize a man, walk a mile in his shoes. That way, if he gets angry, he's a mile away and barefoot."

Oh I definitely recognize the difference. All I was hinting on is for you to provide a solution to the problem like the other poster did. So you suggest better enforcement of the laws already in place? Thats a fair point.

The other poster didn't provide any solution.  They simply want more laws.  More laws wouldn't have done a thing here. The laws that were already on the books didn't have any effect, so more laws wouldn't have done a thing.

 

Enforcing the ones on the book effectively would have.  If anything, fewer laws could have saved lives, like the one that prevents SC residents from legally carrying in a church.  Had someone with a concealed carry permit been armed and in that church on the night of the shooting, the death toll probably would have been much lower than it was, and the shooter would have most likely been among the casualties.

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Never argue with idiots. They drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.

That's not what I'm saying at all, but if that's how you interpreted it, then there are bigger issues for you.

 

You want them to do something for the sake of doing something.  Create a law so you feel like they care.  I simply want them to do a better job of enforcing the laws already on the books.  Somehow I doubt you'll recognize the difference.

 

 

As long as they're doing the politically correct thing, erasing this country's history, both good and bad, is perfectly acceptable. It's not like they're teaching it in government indoctrination centers any way.

 

I bet if you went and talked to half the people who are desecrating these monuments, or protesting the fact that these Confederate memorials exist, and asked them what they know about the Civil War, what they offered up would barely fill a thimble.  You'll just get the same old spoon fed drivel that their masters spoon feed to the drones.

 

Here is a sad but true example of that.  These are high school graduates of our government indoctrination centers.  Simple questions that we should be teaching our children, yet they don't really grasp.

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world.  Those who understand binary and those who don't.

<a class="bbc_url" href='http://www.mrctv.org/blog/videonew-high-school-grads-fail-basic-history-quiz'>Here is a sad but true example of that</a>. These are high school graduates of our government indoctrination centers. Simple questions that we should be teaching our children, yet they don't really grasp.

That fact is relevant how? You claim you dislike "government indoctrination centers" but lament that graduates don't know this useless bit of government indoctrination. Who cares what the year was. How is knowing that useless piece of information a litmus test on any level whatsoever?

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That fact is relevant how? You claim you dislike "government indoctrination centers" but lament that graduates don't know this useless bit of government indoctrination. Who cares what the year was. How is knowing that useless piece of information a litmus test on any level whatsoever?

Sure the year might be irrelevant, but if it's so basic to everyone, then everyone should have answered the question correctly in less than two seconds. We're talking about high school and college undergrads who don't have a basic knowledge and appreciation for history and historical events. That's very disturbing. As the iconic phrase from George Santayana goes: "Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it."

 

If we can't educate kids about the basics of the American Revolution, why it was fought, and the triumphs and failures of that period, how can we possibly expect later generations to comprehend the mistakes that we've made in the War on Terror, the Great Recession, and other events and policies that we've had over the past 25 years that are too numerous to count?

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