Most mass shooters got there guns legally

[Praxidike]

I found a New York Times article, How They Got Thier Guns, that breaks down what guns were used in mass murders and how they were obtained. It seems that just about all of these shooters passed background checks, just about all of the shooters had more than one firearm, and many were able to kill just as many people with a shotgun or handgun; however, within minutes of these shootings happening, antis are out campaigning for universal background checks, 10 round magazine limits, and a ban on assault weapons when none of these laws would have stopped these killers.

The only common denominators per the article is that the killings happened in gun free zones and the killers all showed signs of mental illness well before they went on their killing spree. It's just odds to me that regardless of facts and logic, the antics have been able to convince a large portion of Americans that lax gun control, e.g., assault weapons, high capacity magazines, and gun show loopholes, are to blame for the continued carnage.

 

[kwguy]

Yup. It's amazing.

 

[Robert]

No, they know this. They want to make it illegal to own guns period. Remember gun control is not really about guns...

 

[Praxidike]

No, they know this. They want to make it illegal to own guns period. Remember gun control is not really about guns...

Yea but they've repeated lies and phrases like "assault weapons" and "high capacity magazines" so much, they they've become the norm so much so that many of us start to use them ourselves. We have facts on our side, yet their lies seem to stick.

 

[jmr40]

The most effective mass killers choose to use more efficient explosives. Even if guns were taken out of the equation you'd just force these folks to use find other means.

 

[longknife12]

I'm gonna agree with Robert.....the agenda is to totally get rid of them. Back ground checks and mag limits only affect the good guy....always been that way.
Dan

 

[Shanghai McCoy]

30-40 years ago the big buzz word term was "Saturday night specials". Which got both the cheap throwaway guns banned for import along with some of the higher end quality concealable guns.
Now it's the "high capacity assault" fill in the blank...they use to beat the drums.
The media shills are touting the success of England and Australia's laws as well as the states where they have more gun laws. (Yeah, like Illinois ) We as gun owners will now be demonized, by degrees, until they get their way.

 

[M-Cameron]

Take away guns, you are still going to see these incidents happening.....except they are going to use bombs, machetes, running people over with cars.

The big O says we can't make it easy for these people to kill.....so we need to restrict guns.....

But if you are determined, killing really isn't that hard.....hell, with a bomb, you don't even have to be there.

The issue isn't the weapons used......we need to focus our efforts on detecting troubled behavior and getting those individuals the help they need before these incidents even occur.

 

[AK103K]

Remember gun control is not really about guns...

Ive never understood why people dont understand this.

 

[dekibg]

how do we reasonably prevent people with mental illnesses to obtain guns?
I am not sarcastic, just trying to get some opinions/knowledge how current system works and how you guys think it should work ?
I am asking this, since I admit that I don't know almost anything about actual "behind the scenes" process in place right now, except that you as a gun buyer have to answer questions and I think one of them is about your mental health.
can we agree that medical professionals should start reporting this and it should go to some database where they will also run that type of check during a gun purchase ?
I am just afraid that people will start suing their doctors since long ago we became a country where anyone can sue anyone over much less things and create a nightmare in their lives ( for example: we are not allowed to give any performance reference about a former employee who is applying for a job somewhere else, only pay rate and dates of employment).
And even all that may not work in situations where Adam Lanza's mother gave him access to her guns

 

[CDW4ME]

Vast majority of those incidents involved pistols that are popular for carry.

 

[hso]

A lot of people won't look at that article and realize the Navy Yard murderer armed only with a shotgun killed as many or more people as the other mass murderers armed with what Antis want banned.

If they all passed background checks then what is the background check system doing? If they all were suspected of mental health issues then what needs to be done to get that information into the background check system?

The Antis aren't trying to address the root causes of the mass murders, the mental health question.

 

[M-Cameron]

how do we reasonably prevent people with mental illnesses to obtain guns?
I am not sarcastic, just trying to get some opinions/knowledge how current system works and how you guys think it should work ?
I am asking this, since I admit that I don't know almost anything about actual "behind the scenes" process in place right now, except that you as a gun buyer have to answer questions and I think one of them is about your mental health.
can we agree that medical professionals should start reporting this and it should go to some database where they will also run that type of check during a gun purchase ?
I am just afraid that people will start suing their doctors since long ago we became a country where anyone can sue anyone over much less things and create a nightmare in their lives ( for example: we are not allowed to give any performance reference about a former employee who is applying for a job somewhere else, only pay rate and dates of employment).
And even all that may not work in situations where Adam Lanza's mother gave him access to her guns

Well the problem is, what does the doctor report?

Should somone who has depression, or ocd, or any of the other hundreds of common place mental disabilities potentially lose their right to own fire arms?

Because it seems to me like it would be all to simple for an anti gun psychiatrist to say you shouldnt be allowed to own forearms, even though you have no violent tendencies.


Also, that system only works if the person actually sees a mental health professional on a regular basis.

And if it does turn out that mental health professionals DO have to report to a central agency, that could dissuade people from seeking help because it could mean the Loss of their rights.


To me, this isn't a background d check issue, this isn't a gun issue....this is a society issue, we don't have infrastructure in place for people to readily seek help, we stigmatized mental health calling people "crazy" because they suffer from an illness, we make it so people would rather go without help because ether are afraid of the conciquences if they do

 

[Carl N. Brown]

Another common feature is that these mass shooters go to venues guaranteeing a lot of victims and no one allowed to have a gun to stop them; when, someone arrives with a gun, they commit suicide or they are subdued by armed responders.

Our local schools have had armed School Resource Officers (SROs) since the 1990s not only as armed security but for a number of functions, including sources for safety training and just being a friendly representive of LE to the students.

We had a planned school massacre thwarted by an alert mental health worker (the students were planning to out-do Columbine in a copy-cat shooting), and we had an armed man who entered a school to avenge a greivance stopped by an SRO who was armed and present and deputies who entered the school as soon as they got there (no setting up a perimeter and waiting like at Columbine).

The gun politics hullabaloo has a lot in common with things like Chicago using the SCOTUS overturn of its handgun ban and the requirement to allow shall-issue carry permits as an excuse not to prosecute armed criminals. In Tennessee the fact you can get a permit to go armed legally makes it easier to prosecute criminals caught illegally armed. The anti-gun politicians do not want to support steps that stop gun violence -- they want to use gun violence to promote gun prohibition by not taking steps that would affect bad behavior by bad people; eg, SROs or legally armed staff in schools, prosecution of illegally armed criminals, and better mental health efforts to identify and help the ill. The goal has always been the modern spin on the Hobbesian absolute state ruling through the Weberian state monopoly on force.

ADDED: the Norwegian mass shooter who killed 77 at a summer camp (not counting those killed by the bombs he planted as a diversion) spendt a lot of effort acquiring weapons, even traveling outside Norway for the purpose of making black market connections. These mentally ill killers seem to have a lot of patience and are capable of long term planning in pursuit of their goals, during which they put out a lot of ignored storm warning signals.

 

[dekibg]

M-Cameron, do you have any specific suggestion how to overcome this problem
were mentally ill obtain guns legally ?

 

[TwoEyedJack]

A veteran in N. Idaho suffered a stroke and some bureaucrat at the VA put his name on the list that NICS uses to deny gun purchases. They also sent a letter to him telling him he had to get rid of his guns. The VA actually scheduled an "inspection" of his home. Luckily the local sheriff put an end to it. Nobody who knows this man believes him to be a danger to anyone.

http://www.khq.com/story/29726937/priest-river-community-stands-up-for-veteran-facing-gun-seizure

I have a real problem giving nameless, faceless bureaucrats any power whatsoever over second amendment civil rights. They *will* abuse this power. The word is out among the veteran community that you are never to discuss anything with the VA related to depression, etc. T

 

[TwoEyedJack]

Take away guns, you are still going to see these incidents happening.....except they are going to use bombs, machetes, running people over with cars.

The big O says we can't make it easy for these people to kill.....so we need to restrict guns.....

But if you are determined, killing really isn't that hard.....hell, with a bomb, you don't even have to be there.

The issue isn't the weapons used......we need to focus our efforts on detecting troubled behavior and getting those individuals the help they need before these incidents even occur.

One of the worst mass murders in modern times happened on 3/25/1990, Cuban refugee Julio Gonzales killed 87 people at the Happy Land night club using a can of gasoline and two matches.

http://www.murderpedia.org/male.G/g/gonzalez-julio.htm

 

[M-Cameron]

M-Cameron, do you have any specific suggestion how to overcome this problem were mentally ill obtain guns legally ?

like i said, the guns are not the problem......it really doesnt matter if the guns were legal or illegal......hell, if he didnt have guns, there are a myriad of other options he could have used to achieve the same result.

the real question should be " how do we get those mentally ill people the help they need, before they harm themselves or others?"

 

[X-Rap]

I'd like to see statistics on foreign mass murderers by other methods, I wonder if these mass killing still occur without the presence of firearms and at what frequency.
There is still a fair amount of gun violence in other countries and you would also have to figure in a suicide rate to make a proper comparison because some probably just kill themselves rather than others due to social and cultural reasons.
I think overall the US would fit in with what is typical with regards to violence, firearms play a bigger part here because there are so many but in their absence knives, clubs, machetes, axes, explosives would all fill the gap.
At the end of the day I'm much happier living here knowing that I have the right to the most efficient means of defending myself and others and will continue to work toward restoring that right to its full extent.

 

[2ifbyC]

It’s that pesky 2nd amendment. And the NRA is like a wart that won’t go away.

This presents a conundrum for the liberals. They do not want “stop & frisk” laws, do not favor harsh penalties for perpetrators who commit crimes with firearms, rally against capital punishment, offer illegal felons sanctuary, are opposed to non-voluntary mental health evaluations, would rather see the mentally ill in the streets rather than under the care of mental institutions, and do not want to enforce even existing firearms laws.

The plan therefore is to chip away at RKBA since the only solution between their liberty and security is to remove all guns from society.

 

[50 Shooter]

Check out the reply to Obama from The Gun Owners of America, see the list of lies. Not that it matters, won't be seeing it on CNN.

Also has stats on mass murders in other countries.

 

[RandyC]

There is no good answer to the mental illness problem. In the history of civilization there never has been and chances are good there never will be.

Every time a government comes up with a sweeping policy to get "help" for the mentally ill, dissidents and people out of favor in up having their civil rights trampled into the dirt.

And those in question certainly don't seem so ill that they can't find a gun free zone.

I'm far more concerned about all the places our freedom of self protection are taken from us. When someone starts shooting at me or my kids, I don't give a rat's ass what their problem is. Just let me shoot back.

 

[herrwalther]

The problem is not mental health. There are more people on anti-depressants or anti something medication now than ever before in human history. Not many people are willing to handle their own emotions anymore. More and more are fine with letting a pill do it for them. And that would reduce the number of gun owners drastically. I get bouts of depression, sometimes severe. But I am not going to shoot up a school because of it.

 

[Gaucho Gringo]

Well there a series of incidents over the years in China of persons that went into schools and killed a number of children wielding a knife. There was another incident in China a little over a year ago in which several persons wielding knives killed 33 and wounded 130 in a train station. This happened in the country that has the most people in the world and least number of gun owners whether per capita or sheer numbers.This lends credence that if a person is determined to kill others they will use whatever method they can use to commit their murderous rampages. Of course the antis always blame the gun and never the person. I am as shocked and saddened by the events that happened less 200 miles from where I live in Portland as anyone. But I do agree with the Sheriff of Umpqua County about not mentioning the shooter by name as it just gives them the notoriety they crave. And the media circus just feeds into the problem also, making the next person who feels like doing this that they will be famous although in my opinion they are infamous mass murderers. They should be tossed out with the garbage and be nameless and forgotten.

 

[R.W.Dale]

The Antis aren't trying to address the root causes of the mass murders, the mental health question.

At the risk of being "that guy" in my opinion they take the stance they do because the results of not addressing the root causes are too useful for the broader agenda.