The FAST Approaching Gun Ban

[thombergeron]

Also, do not make the mistake of thinking that because a place is a 'gun free zone' that no one can carry there. Your average K-12 school is a 'gun free zone' and yet your average local police officer doesn't think twice when carrying there... so clearly, a limited # of people are able to carry there.

Perhaps the core of the problem is that you are using English in a non-standard way. You seem to be saying that a “gun-free zone” will nonetheless still feature numerous individuals armed with guns. From where I’m sitting, this definition renders the term “gun-free” meaningless.

Does a 'former police officer' count as an armed civilian? http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/12/us...ed=print&_r=1&

No? Then we've got a principal in Mississippi: http://content.time.com/time/magazin...136736,00.html

A bar patron: http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/th...winnemucca-bar

A guy visiting a local mall with a friend and the friend's baby: http://www.kgw.com/news/Clackamas-ma...183593571.html

Or a dance hall owner: http://articles.philly.com/1998-04-2...cience-teacher

Again, it appears that you and I are using standard English vocabulary in completely different ways. In each of the cases you’ve cited here, numerous innocent people were killed by a gunman. If an assailant sets out to shoot a victim to death, and then does shoot that victim to death, I would not say that the assailant was “stopped.”

Matthew Murray shot four people to death in two different locations over the course of 12 hours before being “stopped,” ultimately by his own hand.

Luke Woodham stabbed his mother to death before driving to his high school with a .30-.30 rifle and shooting nine children, two of whom died. Do you think that those girls’ parents would agree that Woodham was “stopped”?

Ernesto Villagomez shot four people in that bar in Winnemucca, killing both of his intended victims, before he was “stopped” by an active-duty Marine.

Jacob Tyler Roberts killed two people and wounded a third in Clackamas Town Center before his rifle jammed. Concealed carry permit holder Nick Meli fired no rounds, but claims that the mere sight of his .40 pistol was enough to convince Roberts to turn and run down a corridor, descend a flight of stairs, clear the jam in his rifle, and then kill himself in a completely different part of the mall.

And as I pointed out in my post one page back, Andrew Wurst shot the four people that he set out to shoot, killing one, before he ran out of ammunition and left the scene. The dance hall owner, armed with a shotgun, followed and detained Wurst, but since Wurst was 14 years old at the time, it is unclear to where he might have escaped had he not been detained by an armed citizen. The only thing that “stopped” Wurst was that he was finished.

Ending a mass shooting doesn't always involve the police arresting or killing the subject, but come in several different ways:

1. Shooter is killed or subdued by armed response (Navy Yard)
2. Shooter gives up on attack and gives up to armed response (shithead #2 in Boston bombing)
3. Shooter thinks they've done enough and doesn't want to be taken alive without immediate threat to themselves (VT Tech)
4. Shooter offs themselves rather than be taken alive after a perceived immediate threat to themselves (Calacumus Town Center shooting)

There are countless examples of each, and I cited 5 above, would you like me to cite more? Or would you like to admit that you were wrong?

Ahhh… I see. So we’re not as concerned with preventing gun deaths as we are with making certain that episodes of gun violence at least end with the death of the shooter, as well. It’s fine to have armed maniacs in our midst, so long as they’re always put down after doing their worst. Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people and wounded 17, but then he shot himself, so problem solved!

I have to admit that I was prepared for all 5 of your examples, since gun nuts refer to them constantly. Your buddy notdrunk brought up Andrew Wurst a page or two ago. So by all means, offer up some more of your “countless examples.” But it seems as though if there were, indeed, “countless examples,” these same five wouldn’t keep coming up, and you wouldn’t have to include incidents that took place 15 and 16 years ago.

Better cut-and-paste please…

[broncofan]

Perhaps the core of the problem is that you are using English in a non-standard way. You seem to be saying that a “gun-free zone” will nonetheless still feature numerous individuals armed with guns. From where I’m sitting, this definition renders the term “gun-free” meaningless.
…

It is literally a zone where not every individual present can carry a gun, so to them it's now a gun-free zone. In their little gun fetish fantasy world they have become completely divorced from the literal meaning of phrases they use. But who was the first Republican dunce who decided that a limit to something is an absolute restriction? Well, actually that's what most of their arguments seem to boil down to.

Bobvela says he's put a lot of thought into the right to bear arms. What about other fundamental rights? Have you thought about the freedom of speech and how preposterous it would be if a free speech advocate argued that speech could never be regulated no matter what interest was being protected? I don't want to get into a discussion about the nuances of 1st amendment law but I assure you state governments can and do regulate speech.

And would any sane person argue that regulating guns is less compelling an interest for states than regulating speech? Having a fundamental right does NOT mean limits can never be placed on it. The different levels of scrutiny applied by the courts are determined by the countervailing interests the states have in that sort of regulation. For Republicans, the only fundamental right that is sacrosanct is the right to bear arms.

But is Bobvela the Republican everyman? Arguing that maps of the states don't take into account the sort of stratification we see from one neighborhood to the next. That large multi-cultural urban centers are war-zones. That wanting to place sensible limits on gun ownership is as much a violation of fundamental rights as the ownership of people. Is this the Republican party? In a nutshell, yes.

[broncofan]

But of course Bobvela is not being completely serious when he argues that those with gender dysphoria may be precluded from owning guns.

If limits are placed on gun ownership based on psychiatric diagnosis don't you think that they would be a little bit more closely tailored to the symptoms of the disorder and whether it pre-disposed an individual to violence?

Having gender dysphoria means that a person has a dissonance between their assigned gender and their experienced gender. Why would the legislature see fit to consider this relevant?

Would a background check for particular psychiatric disorders require all psychiatric disorders to be disqualifying? The obvious answer is no. Perhaps certain neurotic disorders will be considered completely irrelevant to gun ownership. But maybe the government does want to preclude a paranoid schizophrenic who thinks someone is reading his thoughts from carrying around a weapon.

So what does Bobvela's argument boil down to? More slippery slope nonsense. A total and utter red herring.

[broncofan]

And let me just point out that even though the Supreme Court has ruled that gun ownership can be restricted based on psychiatric illness, if state legislatures used this as a green light for invidious discrimination against anyone who's ever been diagnosed with a psychiatric condition it probably would not pass Constitutional muster. I didn't read anything but a summary of Heller, but let's assume the Court applied strict scrutiny. In order for the Court to say that the right to bear arms can be excepted in the case of mental illness the state laws would have to be necessary to achieve a compelling state interest. The types of mental illnesses that could be considered disqualifying would be subsumed within this analysis.

Edit: my point is that the Constitutional analysis actually depends on how necessary the restriction is to improve public safety. This is one of the reasons the public policy and constitutional arguments run together. If gun control does not improve public safety, it probably could not be constitutional. This also forecloses any possibility of an arbitrary regulation, because insofar as it is random and unlikely to be effective (like restricting transsexuals from owning guns), it would probably be unconstitutional.

[notdrunk]

The first person Aaron Alexis shot was armed with a handgun. DC and park police officers were on scene within 2 minutes. SWAT entered Building 197 within 7 minutes. Aaron Alexis was not "stopped" for another 30 minutes. Is it your contention that the American public needs to be prepared to endure 30-minute firefights in populated areas in order to be "safe"?




That's fine. But you, bobvela, and hordes of other mouthbreathers didn't even wait for the gunfire to die down before blaming Bill Clinton for turning military bases into "gun-free zones." Which is just a blatant lie.


Is Andrew Wurst supposed to be the "mass shooter"? Andrew Wurst shot all four people he set out to shoot, ran out of ammunition, and left the scene. In what sense was he "stopped"?

The assailant in San Antonio was armed with a knife, and went ahead and stabbed the person he intended to stab. He was arrested, but again, not stopped.

The other two were robberies, so again, I'm not clear how they're relevant to the issue at hand. In the United States in 2013, if someone wants to obtain a firearm and shoot 1, 2, or 20 people, there's really nothing to stop them from doing that.

We don't know if he shot the security guard first. That hasn't come out. He probably didn't shoot the security guard first. It wasn't a two minute response time. Additionally, police have to clear rooms and floors.

The military base reply was in reply to one of Trish's post:

Perhaps we should arm all U.S. Naval officers. Oh wait! We already do that.

Your post said:

Actually, this virtually never happens. I’m willing to bet that you can’t come up with a single unambiguous case of an armed civilian stopping an armed assailant.

I gave you examples of armed civilians stopping armed assailants. Don't try to adjust the goal posts. It is relevant because it shows that armed civilians have stopped "bad" people before. We don't live in the world of the Minority Report. Therefore, it is ridiculous to ask for examples of armed individuals "stopping" armed assailants using your definition of "stopping." The armed individual has to know at the exact time and moment when an assailant is going to strike. As you know, that is impossible. An armed individual can't just pull out their gun because somebody is sweating and shaking. Additionally, the states have various laws on concealed carrying.

[yodajazz]

We don't know if he shot the security guard first. That hasn't come out. He probably didn't shoot the security guard first. It wasn't a two minute response time. Additionally, police have to clear rooms and floors.

The military base reply was in reply to one of Trish's post:



Your post said:



I gave you examples of armed civilians stopping armed assailants. Don't try to adjust the goal posts. It is relevant because it shows that armed civilians have stopped "bad" people before. We don't live in the world of the Minority Report. Therefore, it is ridiculous to ask for examples of armed individuals "stopping" armed assailants using your definition of "stopping." The armed individual has to know at the exact time and moment when an assailant is going to strike. As you know, that is impossible. An armed individual can't just pull out their gun because somebody is sweating and shaking. Additionally, the states have various laws on concealed carrying.

The government is not about to ban all civilian guns. It's not even possible at this point. What I would like, is just to see a greater amount of the public, convinced that these weapons are not practical for them to own. Yes you can site examples of of someone stopping an armed person with a gun. However, it is more statistically probable that a person would use that same weapon to kill a spouse, or commit suicide, etc. When I was a young man someone borrowed $50, and never repaid me. I let it go for a while, but when other things turned bad for me at the time, I decided it was a point of honor that the person had taken advantage of me. I got one of my father's guns, and went looking for him. I caught up with him eventually, but decided it wasn't worth it. OK, so theoretically I could find an instance to protect someone, but that is remote compared to times I have been very angry. I would like to believe that I would not use a gun, if it was available to me, but I don't take that chance. For example, I have been in a ltr for a long, long time. We have had many serious disagreements over the years. Plus, she has had her own issues, and we have younger relatives that visit occasionally. Some are young men, who look at those gangster rap video, as a definition of manhood. They are young, and have to define for themselves, what it means to be a man in today's world, just like we did.

To be honest, my father used a gun, and shot someone who was attempting to rob him. But He was a grocery store owner, in a poor neighborhood, and he was over 70. So I'm not saying all guns are bad.

[Wanderer1]

Americans: Do you think your criminals will listen?

[trish]

Americans: Do you think your criminals will listen?

Hey, let's make murder legal. While we're at it, let's make it easier to murder. Let's manufacture and sell everything one might need to murder as many people as one possibly wish to murder. Make it all legal. Why? Because the murderers won't listen anyway!!!

[trish]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/24/op...?smid=pl-share

[martin48]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/24/op...?smid=pl-share

A small voice, I'm afraid