(02-14-2018, 10:45 PM)JagNGeorgia Wrote:

(02-14-2018, 09:56 PM)TJBender Wrote: We do have a mental health issue. Good thing Reagan had the foresight to kick all the loonies out of the hospitals, right? For a guy who did such a great job as President, that's his biggest misstep.

I'm not sure how that matters to this case. Those in hospitals in the 1980s don't make up the majority of killers today. 

Reasonable exceptions, like someone picking up a deceased police officer's gun to shoot the person that shot the officer, are understood, as is the notion that a registration would extend to immediate family. Of course, a 12-year-old using her dad's gun would get both of them sent to jail for a long time. My thoughts are not meant to be an exercise in finding excuses. They're meant to be a solution with teeth that, if enforced, leaves ownership of guns alone because, frankly, Americans do have the right to guns, and I support the Second Amendment believe it or not. The problem is that the laws we have aren't enforced, and they apparently aren't enough of a deterrent to keep "responsible" gun owners and dealers from irresponsibly letting firearms get into the hands of those who shouldn't have them. You want to bear arms? Cool. Be ready to surrender other rights to gain that one.

Of course it's reasonable to pick up another person's gun if it's to defend themselves from a killer. My point is that how do you legislate exact moments in time when it's appropriate to use someone else's weapon in constantly changing scenarios. You can't legislate for every single situation. I agree that they aren't enforced appropriately, but that falls on the court system. I believe the court system holds most of the responsibility here (aside from the killers). They allow too many second chances for people that give no indication that they've earned it.

How would more laws have stopped the shooter in Parkland? Remains to be seen, but I promise you that if the person he got/stole/bought that AR-15 from were sent to prison for 25 to life for negligent homicide and accessory to first degree murder, it would make others think twice about how they secure the guns registered in their name or who they give/sell the guns registered in their name to.

So, you'd imprison someone for legally selling a gun to someone that does something illegal with it? You can't hold that standard for anything else. Why would a gun be any different? Is the owner of a car responsible for involuntary manslaughter is the driver who borrowed it killed someone? That standard could be applied to almost anything. 

Guns are like drugs in that regard. Punishing the end user accomplishes little to stop the problem. It's when you move up the chain and start getting the people who are supplying the end user that you start to make an impact, only it's magnified here because it's not just drug dealers you're putting the fear of God into. If Bill down the street goes to jail for six months because his kid took the family pistol out from the master bedroom and robbed a Stab-N-Go, I bet you anything that everyone else on that block is thinking long and hard about the way they secure their own firearm.

Bill didn't commit a crime. Bill didn't want rob or shoot anyone. He isn't responsible for the actions of another.

I think where you're short-sighted is that the punishment shouldn't be exclusive to gun-related crimes. These people don't just start robbing / killing people. They start with home burglaries, vehicle burglaries, etc. Then they'll be caught just carrying a stolen gun. Then it escalates into something where someone is hurt or killed. The problem is that courts go easy on them until they hurt someone. Two or three  months in jail is nothing to someone willing to kill another person. There is no deterrence for criminals.

1. Just pointing out how so many of the Republicans that today hide behind the "mental health" excuse for not addressing a complex problem that surrounds guns are the same that supported Reagan's move to largely defund mental healthcare in the 80's.

2. The jury holds the ultimate power, and "self defense" is a common defense. Not to mention that the DA is under no obligation to prosecute, ever, as we see so often in cases like those you cite of offenders being let off with a slapped wrist. If a jury believes that someone charged with a crime didn't commit it or was faced with circumstances that excuse their crime, that's what "not guilty" is for.

3. If the gun was sold legally and the buyer later used it illegally, the seller has nothing to worry about. If the seller ignored or broke the law and the buyer used that gun illegally, yes, the seller should be held accountable. Hell, if a seller is caught skirting the law they should be held accountable regardless of whether or not guns they sold were used illegally.

4. Bill failed to secure a deadly weapon, and a member of his immediate family was able to get their hands on it and use it against another human being. He absolutely bears a large degree of responsibility for the crime. Ever seen anyone try to rob a Stab-N-Go with a baseball bat? Here's a hint: the clerk is legally in possession of a firearm.

No, the punishment should not be exclusive to gun crimes. I could go into a whole diatribe about how the for-profit prison system in the United States has resulted in more and more nonviolent drug offenders being sent to prison, which diminishes the amount of room available for the people who actually belong there. Many of those nonviolent drug offenders are in there because they have severe mental health issues, which comes back around to the inevitable point. Yes, we have a mental health problem, and fixing that will solve lots of other problems.

Here's a quick aside for you, and this will probably out my real name because I know there's at least one other person from my company who reads this board but whatever. I went to a training session in the upper midwest last year, and part of that training was touring a local homeless shelter. One of the things I learned while there is that they were eliminating their housing for the mentally ill. It wasn't something they wanted to do, but the decision was made that because mental illness is a "temporary" thing, those people could be better served elsewhere.

Yeah, we have a mental health problem. I will not argue that. But we have a gun problem too. Let's fix them both at the same time with aggressive lawmaking and harsh enforcement, and with a restoration of a true national mental health program so that the James Holmeses of the world can get the help they need before they lob tear gas around a movie theater.

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