As soon as somebody comes up with a way to legislate human behavior, I'm all ears. Guns do not kill. I have 3. None of my guns killed anybody Sunday. Or Saturday. Or ever. Most people who talk about "tougher" gun laws say so out of frustration, never offering any suggestions as to what needs to be tougher. They also generally have never gone through the gun purchase process to know what it entails. I know those gun laws intimately, and I have done those background checks 4 times with no issue. You simply cannot legislate human behavior and the choices people make.

I now expect to hear "If he didn't have the gun he couldn't have shot." True, but acknowledge that a human made the decision to do this. By the same logic, if people didn't have cars they could never choose to drive them while drunk and kill other drivers. Shall we ban cars because they can kill?

The public attention would be better shifted to the terrorist group who is planning to wage war with first responders being the first targets. However, the media in this country is controlled by the faction who is in favor of overthrow of the current government. America is not the same world as New Zealand and South Africa. I don't know your political climate, but at this moment we are a very divided country.

I make this offer to every anti gun person I meet. I will meet you at a mall of your choice. We will sit in the food court from 11:30 to 1, the lunch rush. We will each have a pad and a pen. In that 90 minutes, you write down a description of every person you can absolutely say will snap 3 years from now and shoot up that very mall. At the end of the 90 minutes we will exchange pads. Mine will be empty. Yours should be too. People who whine about "tougher" gun law and "mental health" are asking for legislation that predicts the future. Gun law works fine for the people who do things legally, like I do. The thugs who steal guns or buy guns with the serial numbers ground off on the street are the issue. How are you going to stop that? Cops can't be everywhere. Those people don't obey the law NOW. Do you think they will suddenly start if there are more laws? Remember, law is reactive. It punishes. It does not prevent. We HAVE laws against killing. It happens anyway. If the killers are caught, they face justice. Law is reactive, not proactive.

I get the frustration when a nutbar like this guy opens fire. However, more info is being reported that may indicate an affiliation to a terrorist group, which would mean that he was on a deliberate, calculated mission. The guns he used were elite guns that call for very expensive sales tariffs and hard to obtain permissions. The guy is a multi millionaire, and the firepower he had in that room was worth approaching $250,000. Just the kind of guy that a group like that would want to recruit.

So let's agree that this was an ugly thing and move forward. With our music.

Edit to add: For our friends not in the USA, let me add this. In the USA, if you are under 21, if you have a felony on your record, if you ever had a DUI, if you have ever been convicted of a domestic violence issue, if you are on active parole or probation (which works hand in hand with the felony qualifier), or if you have ever had inpatient mental health care, you are automatically disqualified from gun purchase. Doesn't that cover it pretty well? In your opinion, who else should be disqualified? Automatic rifles, other than those very rare cases, are not available to average Joe. They have been banned since 1986. We just had the losing presidential candidate come out crowing about her bill that "silencers" be illegal. She actually thinks silencers make a gun silent. They are correctly called "suppressors", and they cut the sound by 2 to 3 decibels to protect the shooter's ears. They do not silence. THAT is the kind of misinformation we have spread by people who do not know the subject matter.

It is truly ugly here in the USA right now as we sit on the verge of an all out civil war.

Last edited by eddie1261; 10/02/17 07:25 PM.