(11-06-2017, 01:25 AM)TJBender Wrote:

(11-05-2017, 11:45 PM)MalabarJag Wrote: The shooter was a 26 year old white male, dishonorably discharged from the US Air Force, which (according to what I read) disqualifies him from legal gun ownership. If that's true then his Facebook photo of a rifle should have resulted in his arrest.

The most common factor in the mass murders (although maybe not in LV) seems to be that the authorities knew about the killers being dangerous but did not keep close tabs on them.

Should have, but didn't. He bought the gun last year with a fake address, presumably to cover up his identity and circumvent that disqualification.

He was discharged after assaulting his spouse and their child.

Yes, their child. His child.

Ok, fine, I'll be the guy to take it there: before anyone starts arguing that there's no way to prevent this, all the laws worked as intended, nothing could have stopped this, negligence because the government isn't trolling Facebook looking for pictures of dishonorably discharged vets holding a gun, whatever, let's consider two simple facts:

1. A more thorough background check and a lengthy waiting period to give it time to come back would have stopped him from buying a rifle.
2. Without a rifle, he doesn't walk into a church and shoot 26 people.

The Second Amendment guarantees the right to bear arms. It does not say anything about the length of time you have to wait to purchase them, and the extent of the background check done to ensure you're not using them to do harm. You want to own a gun? Fine. Here's the background check. It takes a week while your name (and the names of your spouse, children and anyone else living with you) is scrubbed against all available records to ensure that you are who you say you are and you're able to own a gun. It's going to cost 50% of the purchase price of the weapon, with any amount not used to facilitate the background check going to a domestic violence or victims of violent crime charity of your choice. Your firearm will be available in a week or when the background check is satisfactorily completed, whichever comes last. Here's the registry that your serial number goes into linking it to you as the owner, and if any crimes are committed using that gun, you get to answer for how it ended up there.

Sound unfair? Tough [BLEEP]. As the person purchasing a gun, the burden of proof is on you to demonstrate that you are not going to use this gun to shoot up a church, a concert, a school, whatever. If you can't afford the background check fee, you need the gun now or you don't want your gun's serial number registered, then you really don't need it anyway.

If the only way to ensure responsible gun ownership is to price the irresponsible out of the market, fine.