I admire this woman's courage in charging down a crazed mass killer holding a gun, who had just been firing at her. She was the person who first stopped Jared Loughner from killing or injuring anyone else. I wish there had been someone who had her kind of presence of mind and courage that could have found a way to intervene in the Aurora, Colorado shootings too.
Guns do not make anyone invincible, they only make it easier to kill more quickly.
We should all be able to come together to do MORE to stop the cycle of legal guns becoming ILLEGAL guns. We should all be able to come together to do more to stop prohibited persons from acquiring legal guns, including the dangerously mentally ill. At the time of the Tucscon shooting, Arizona had a terrible record of supplying the names to the NICS data base of the individuals who had been determined by a court proceeding to be dangerous to themselves and others; most states have poor records of submitting those names despite 2009 federal funding legislation for it, and have as bad or worse records of submitting the names of felons and convicted drug users.
Why? Because the NRA doesn't want those names added to the FBI maintained list - it might reduce their gun sales. Drug users names drop off after just one year, even when the drug user is major drug cartel or gang member who has been sentenced for longer than that -- which enables those individuals to walk out of jail and right into a gun sellers place of business. This, despite the efforts of organizations like the American Bar Association, to retain those names in the data base longer.
Who pushed for the names to be purged so quickly? Guess - the NRA and other pro-gunners. Who pushes for individuals who are known to be volatile and dangerous, like Jared Loughner was known to be, to still be allowed to buy firearms in lax gun law states like Arizona, instead of allowing law enforcement the discretion to deny them permits? Three guesses, and they should all be the NRA, representing NOT lawful gun owners, but the manufacturers who want to sell more and more and more firearms, regardless of the dangers some of those sales represent.
If you object to events like the one where Patricia Maisch intervened, the direct blame and responsibility belongs to Jared Loughner. But beyond that, the organization that made it possible for Loughner to do what he did as easily, quickly and inexpensively as he did lies at the feet of the NRA, and squarely on the other corporations that belonged to ALEC, (like WalMart, that sold him the ammunition), for it to be possible. ALEC has bought almost exclusively conservative politicians with money belonging to right wing special interest groups. They have done so as an unregistered lobbying group that spends money to get local, state, and federal officials elected, and then pays for them (directly and indirectly) to pass legislation written by ALEC to benefit ALEC special interests. ALEC operates in secret, contrary to the actions of legitimate organizations that are not afraid of the disinfectant, sunlight.
That is the very definition of corruption, and it is endemic among conservatives, including the tea partiers. I don't know about you, but I don't want our legislation written by out of state, sometimes outside the country, big money for their benefit and against our state and personal interests. I don't want a lot of corrupt right wingers, giving lip service to patriotism and freedom, engaging in wholesale corruption instead -- and that's what we have, and never more so than since the right wing assault on and auction of government of 2010.
Oppose special interest money, oppose illegal guns, oppose lax gun laws that enable prohibited people from easily and cheaply and LEGALLY acquiring them. Support courageous people like Patricia Maish and Mayors Against ILLEGAL guns. Prevent future mass shootings like Tucson, and like Aurora, Colorado.
From Patricia Maish and Mayors Against Illegal Guns:
As a survivor of the shooting in Tucson, AZ last year, I have firsthand experience of the terrible effect that a mass shooting has on a community, and my heart goes out to the people of Aurora, Colorado.
Unfortunately, I also know what it feels like to wait for action from leaders who share words of comfort but seem to forget their promises. Eighteen months have passed since the shooting in Tucson, and it’s still just as easy for a dangerous person to amass an arsenal of firearms.
Our leaders gave us a moment of silence, but they haven’t given us a plan. That’s why I’m asking you to help Demand A Plan to end gun violence through a bold new TV ad.
It was recorded with several other Tucson survivors to demand concrete proposals from President Obama and Governor Romney.
Watch our new TV ad and please pitch in $25 or more to help make sure this important message is seen by as many people as possible.
No one should have to fear for their life when they walk across their college campus, go downtown to meet their member of congress, or simply go out to the movies.
That’s not the America I want for my family or community. And it’s time our leaders came forward with a detailed plan to do something about it.
We can’t wait until another mass shooting hits the headlines before we finally act. Please make a donation to help us keep our ad on the air and raise the pressure on the candidates to tell us what they’d do to end gun violence:
http://DemandAPlan.org/TVad
Thanks for speaking up,
Patricia Maisch
Tucson Survivor
One of the largest, leading organizations that should have their logo included among those on the right is the NRA, representing gun manufacturers. Guns which become illegally owned represent a significant part of the gun manufacturers sales every year; they oppose any legislation which would help track those transactions, such as microstamping.
Guns do not make anyone invincible, they only make it easier to kill more quickly.
We should all be able to come together to do MORE to stop the cycle of legal guns becoming ILLEGAL guns. We should all be able to come together to do more to stop prohibited persons from acquiring legal guns, including the dangerously mentally ill. At the time of the Tucscon shooting, Arizona had a terrible record of supplying the names to the NICS data base of the individuals who had been determined by a court proceeding to be dangerous to themselves and others; most states have poor records of submitting those names despite 2009 federal funding legislation for it, and have as bad or worse records of submitting the names of felons and convicted drug users.
Why? Because the NRA doesn't want those names added to the FBI maintained list - it might reduce their gun sales. Drug users names drop off after just one year, even when the drug user is major drug cartel or gang member who has been sentenced for longer than that -- which enables those individuals to walk out of jail and right into a gun sellers place of business. This, despite the efforts of organizations like the American Bar Association, to retain those names in the data base longer.
Who pushed for the names to be purged so quickly? Guess - the NRA and other pro-gunners. Who pushes for individuals who are known to be volatile and dangerous, like Jared Loughner was known to be, to still be allowed to buy firearms in lax gun law states like Arizona, instead of allowing law enforcement the discretion to deny them permits? Three guesses, and they should all be the NRA, representing NOT lawful gun owners, but the manufacturers who want to sell more and more and more firearms, regardless of the dangers some of those sales represent.
If you object to events like the one where Patricia Maisch intervened, the direct blame and responsibility belongs to Jared Loughner. But beyond that, the organization that made it possible for Loughner to do what he did as easily, quickly and inexpensively as he did lies at the feet of the NRA, and squarely on the other corporations that belonged to ALEC, (like WalMart, that sold him the ammunition), for it to be possible. ALEC has bought almost exclusively conservative politicians with money belonging to right wing special interest groups. They have done so as an unregistered lobbying group that spends money to get local, state, and federal officials elected, and then pays for them (directly and indirectly) to pass legislation written by ALEC to benefit ALEC special interests. ALEC operates in secret, contrary to the actions of legitimate organizations that are not afraid of the disinfectant, sunlight.
That is the very definition of corruption, and it is endemic among conservatives, including the tea partiers. I don't know about you, but I don't want our legislation written by out of state, sometimes outside the country, big money for their benefit and against our state and personal interests. I don't want a lot of corrupt right wingers, giving lip service to patriotism and freedom, engaging in wholesale corruption instead -- and that's what we have, and never more so than since the right wing assault on and auction of government of 2010.
Oppose special interest money, oppose illegal guns, oppose lax gun laws that enable prohibited people from easily and cheaply and LEGALLY acquiring them. Support courageous people like Patricia Maish and Mayors Against ILLEGAL guns. Prevent future mass shootings like Tucson, and like Aurora, Colorado.
From Patricia Maish and Mayors Against Illegal Guns:
As a survivor of the shooting in Tucson, AZ last year, I have firsthand experience of the terrible effect that a mass shooting has on a community, and my heart goes out to the people of Aurora, Colorado.
Unfortunately, I also know what it feels like to wait for action from leaders who share words of comfort but seem to forget their promises. Eighteen months have passed since the shooting in Tucson, and it’s still just as easy for a dangerous person to amass an arsenal of firearms.
Our leaders gave us a moment of silence, but they haven’t given us a plan. That’s why I’m asking you to help Demand A Plan to end gun violence through a bold new TV ad.
It was recorded with several other Tucson survivors to demand concrete proposals from President Obama and Governor Romney.
Watch our new TV ad and please pitch in $25 or more to help make sure this important message is seen by as many people as possible.
That’s not the America I want for my family or community. And it’s time our leaders came forward with a detailed plan to do something about it.
We can’t wait until another mass shooting hits the headlines before we finally act. Please make a donation to help us keep our ad on the air and raise the pressure on the candidates to tell us what they’d do to end gun violence:
http://DemandAPlan.org/TVad
Thanks for speaking up,
Patricia Maisch
Tucson Survivor
One of the largest, leading organizations that should have their logo included among those on the right is the NRA, representing gun manufacturers. Guns which become illegally owned represent a significant part of the gun manufacturers sales every year; they oppose any legislation which would help track those transactions, such as microstamping.
Do the Aurora facts support the conclusion that NRA is to blame for nuts with guns?
ReplyDeleteNBC reports James Holmes was being seen by a psychiatrist who didn’t believe he was sick enough to be involuntarily committed (which would have triggered his loss of firearms rights). In hindsight, the doctor made a bad call. Is that the NRA’s fault?
Holmes wasn’t in the system because his own personal treating mental health professional said he didn’t need to be. Should society ignore the expert opinion of the treating mental health professional?
Even if depriving current mental health patients of their civil rights is justified, it implies that people who are no longer mental health patients – those whom modern medicine has cured (like Loughner was cured, as noted in your prior post today) – should be able to regain their civil rights to vote, marry, own property and purchase firearms. Women who recovered from severe depression, perhaps associated with a new child or a lost child. Returning veterans with short-term episodes of post-traumatic stress.
NRA has urged lawmakers to respect the individual personal freedoms of healthy people. I believe ACLU also supports the right of former mental health patients to have no criminal conviction to regain their Constitutional right to keep a firearm for protection at home, especially after the Supreme Court’s 2008 Heller decision. Are they wrong?
Neither Loughner nor Holmes had been diagnosed as dangerously mentally ill nor committed serious enough offenses to be in the system to lose their civil rights. Holmes was undergoing therapy by a mental health professional.
Should any person who ever seeks any mental health treatment in any slightest amount be deprived of civil rights instantly, and forever? Are we wrong to believe in modern medicine? Is there no cure?
That's worse than radical, it's medieval.
I can't believe that's where you want society to go. So why are you blaming NRA for opposing measures that must inevitably lead to that conclusion?
.
The NRA has made it possible for people that the police would have denied guns to get guns anyway. The NRA is directly responsible for the lack of names supplied to the NCIS database.
ReplyDeleteYou misrepresent what happened with the College psychiatrist; she didn't make a bad call; she consulted with the staff available - but Holmes was no longer a patient in her jurisdiction or care because he dropped out of the college.
You DO get it, right, that her authority to do anything was contingent on Holmes being part of the college?
Considering the frequency of mass shootings - there was one earlier today where a gunman decided to shoot up a Sikh temple in Milwaukee - and considering the number of crazy people who can easily get guns, it makes sense to make that a more difficult thing to do. THAT is where the NRA has responsibility, for preventing that kind of regulation.
I NEVER said Loughner was 'cured'; I said he was sufficiently medicated to make a plea agreement. You are very loose with both your words and your grasp of ideas.
Mental illness is ONLY a criteria for being a prohibited person when a court has made that determination. However, when law enforcement is aware - as they were with Loughner - that there are serious questions about someone's mental health, either as a danger to themselves such as a suicide risk, or to others, they should have the latitude to deny someone a firearm and the permits that go with it.
You are the one who tries to frame this in radical terms, and you ascribe stupid statements to me that I have never made.
I'm blaming the NRA for obstructing soun, workable practices. You can only try to defend them by changing the discussion and putting in elements that don't belong in the discussion.
Shame on you - you argue poorly, and you utterly fail to research fact.
Personally, I don't think drug users should get their firearm rights back, or at least not for a considerable period of time, and then only with some kind of proof of being clean for a long long long time. I would argue that we should not be giving back firearms rights to felons at the rate we do either. They have a very high rate of reoffending and of gun violence. There is another one of the NRA caused problems.
Try to argue straight or don't argue at all Joe.
Holmes had withdrawn from treatment; there was nothing more that the health professional could do.
But if we allowed the cops to deny someone like Holmes access to guns - as we used to do - we could have prevented Aurora. If we denied peopl assault rifles, and body armor, and lare capacity magazines, we could have significantly reduced the deaths and injuries at the Aurora shooting -- and made it much easier for people in the theater to stop him the way Patricia Maisch did Loughner.
Why do you insist on supporting policies and laws that end up in more mass shootings Joe?
OTHER countries don't have nearly as many as we do; that is because when THEY had problems with them, they enacted laws and regulations to stop them - and they worked, continue to work.
The NRA hates that.
Joe, you seem like a very nice man, so please accept the following observation as one offered constructively, and utterly without snark.
ReplyDeleteI have noticed a pattern where, as with the conclusion you drew about James Holmes wearing a hunting vest rather than ballistic armor, you seem to not correctly read facts, possibly because you are skimming sources quickly. Whatever the reason, you then seem to proceed frequently from misinformation to flawed premises, and with each subsequent elaboration, the flaws become larger in your argument as a result. That was the case again with your argument about Connie Milstein, and the non-existent ties to teachers unions and campaign donations. When people who are involved make it clear that they were not asked to vote for any specific candidate, or that the topic of cigarettes didn't come up until later long after voting --- and it had nothing to do with anyone's campaign contribution, much less a teachers union, you can't fairly and honestly make the claims you made. They are as faulty as the claims about the hunting vest being worn by the Aurora CO shooter. You did it again when claiming I described Jared Loughner as cured, or the statements about religion.
Clearly, you expend energy and effort on your thoguhts and comments. But that is wasted effort if you have such faulty premises and conclusions.
You will see me remind our mutual friend Mitch from time to time on topics that he is engaging me, not someone else. That is because on those occassions Mitch needs a nudge to remind him that I am consistently pretty darn meticulous about facts and details of information; I pride myself on making an effort to be thorough as well as factual (although no one is perfect).
In addition to that, when I venture an opinion, I usually have a pretty solid background in a subject, both breadth and depth of information and concepts.
So when you talk about familiarity with two kinds of Roman catholicism, four synods of Lutheranism, and some knowledge of Baptists, I think you and I are looking at very different backgrounds in religion generally, and the history of different kinds of Christianity specfically. I'm looking for a theologian level discussions, not a basics level discussion.
Religion is a very poor basis for making law. It gets a lot of things wrong. When it is used as it has been to be anti-gay, or anti-marriage equality, it is especially prone to be used by people who are nasty, and bone ignorant, of facts about gay or bisexual or transgender people, and bone ignorant about the religion they profess - in this case, the Bible.
Mental illness is a complex subject. If you'd like to have a discussion on the subject, again, I think we are on very different levels of knowledge, but I'm willing.
But you're making the mistake pointed out in the very well done Fiore animation of 'shootie', the gun character. The emphasis should be on the how, not the why.
Please, DO continue to engage in exchanges and comments, but it would improve those exchanges for both of us if you tighten up your precision on the premises and on factual information.
Thank you for taking the time and making the effort you have.
I think we would have better exchanges, respectfully, if you were more careful
Joe,
ReplyDeleteYou said,
"Should any person who ever seeks any mental health treatment in any slightest amount be deprived of civil rights instantly, and forever? Are we wrong to believe in modern medicine? Is there no cure?
That's worse than radical, it's medieval.
I can't believe that's where you want society to go. So why are you blaming NRA for opposing measures that must inevitably lead to that conclusion?"
I have to ask, is your comment made with a serious intent?
Taking them from back to front, first, it's a strawman at best to claim that the NRA's stance is opposing immediate, irrevocable stripping of rights. Second, please prove why the NRA's position is "opposing measures which lead inevitably to (your) conclusion?" How?
You see, you don't get to make those kinds of claims without actually PROVING that's where they lead. In your argument's world you seem to have only two outcomes, total freedom and total restriction. That's fatuous - and I think you know it. We have limits on who can drive (the blind aren't allowed to do so), we have limits on who can vote (felons aren't allowed to do so), we have limits on speech (you can't advocate for killing the President), these are REASONABLE limits, and I suspect you support each of them.
From that, your base statement, that the NRA is opposing steps which lead to permanent stripping of rights falls flat on its face. There clearly are limits on what someone who is profoundly disturbed should own (at least until they can be provably cured). There are judges who are competent to make that decision - and I'm sure you recognize that.
But, that isn't nor has it ever been the thrust of the NRA (your strawman). The NRA uses the phobia of gun rights advocates to gin up support for VERY conservative candidates. I believe they do so because many of the leaders of the NRA benefit very considerably (financially) by having those candidates succeed. Whether it's promoting gun buying or promoting inequitable tax systems, the NRA certainly is very active in measures I (at least) can find reside WAYYYY outside the bounds of simply protecting the right to own. Frankly, since the McDonald and Heller decisions, there really is very little reason for the NRA to continue to exist. The RIGHT to own has been established AND the right of States to limit it has been affirmed. In short, unless you believe in very crazy extremes, the NRA won - kudos to the NRA.
But it is the step PAST that, the crazy extreme which is now the province of these arguments. Schizophrenia, especially chronic, long-evolving schizophrenia is virtually unheard of as being cured. Should we ignore such realities, especially for the paranoid form, and simply allow those so afflicted to buy more and more guns? Would we let them walk into a school with those weapons loaded? Why not? After all, they've not yet PROVEN they're going to do harm and they should be allowed to carry wherever they want, right? Do you see the extreme here?
Lastly, I find your concerns for liberty both commendable and unfortunately EXTREMELY hypocritical. Where is your concern for suppressing votes to try to stop phantom voter fraud? Where is your concern for protecting the rights of women to determine their own health outcomes? Where is your concern for the violations of Habeaus Corpus? It seems as if your concerns for liberty are limited to not accepting exceptions ONLY for guns, and almost total acceptance of "exceptions" in the above cases.
Dog and Pen, I see that skipping steps in my logic chain perplexes and confounds you. I'll take shorter steps.
ReplyDeleteAs I understand your thinking, it's this:
Holmes and Laudner shot people.
They were able to shoot people because it was legal for them to buy guns.
If it had not been legal for them to buy guns, they would not have been able to shoot people with them.
It should not have been legal for them to buy guns.
Assuming I understand your logic correctly, all we need to do now is figure out WHY it should not have been legal for them to buy guns.
Because they shot people with them? Well, yeah, in hindsight, it's clear we wish they hadn't had guns. Until the Minority Report psychics are established, hindsight is a not helpful basis for making public policy.
Because Holmes saw a mental health counselor for a while but was not deemed dangerous; and Laudner never saw one at all? Again, in hindsight we see that mental health is not an exact science, but what conclusion should we draw? Nuts shouldn't have guns? Agreed. But how do we tell the nuts?
Presumably some other gun owners have sought mental health help without subsequently becoming murderers. Do you really want to tell society that seeking mental health care will automatically and permanently deprive your of your civil rights? If not, but you don't want to rely on the treating mental health professionals to make the call, what policy do you prescribe?
Because Holmes purchased bullets online, owned cop-wanna-be gear, possessed more than one firearm? All traits shared by thousands of non-mass-murderers.
Both mass murderers went through background checks before buying guns. Neither were flagged because there was nothing in either man's background - criminal or mental - to justify denying them a gun.
Tell me what criteria should be adopted to change that result.
Dog, you're famous for your fact checking.
ReplyDeletePlease provide me with the brand name of ballistic armor Holmes was wearing and a link to verify it.
I suspect the police chief was mistaken in his video interview and I want to verify his facts to ensure that you are right and I am wrong.
.
Penigma, I wish the NRA had won. All that happened is the Supreme Court took a very tiny step toward re-establishing a right that predated the Constitution by centuries. And that step is vehemently opposed by your co-blogger, Dog Gone, and many others who think like her.
ReplyDeleteIn prior posts, Dog Gone has said the Constitutional right to possess a firearm exists solely for self-defense inside the home. In her response at 2:24, Dog Gone implies acquisition of firearms should be at the whim of law enforcement. I say whim advisedly, as neither Loudner nor Holmes had any prior criminal or mental health history deemed serious enough to deny them a permit, but she believes they should have been denied, so the only basis would be whimsical.
I'm not talking about voting rights in this post, I'm not talking about religion, I'm sticking solely to the point of this post: the NRA is not responsible for nuts getting guns when nobody knew beforehand they were nuts.
Joe, you don't reason well.
ReplyDeleteI will leave it to my co-blogger, Laci, to outline to you where you fail. He's better qualified to point out those specifics than I am in general logic - he holds a degree in the philosophy of logic from a world-class university btw, just one of his multiple degrees. Clearly logic is not something into which you've put any study, because you need some serious remediation in it.
However, I'm confident Laci will support that I have reasoned clearly and well and that you have not done either.
The NRA is responsible for it being too easy for people who commit crimes to get guns, including those who are mentally ill, and for the kind of guns and accessories those mentally ill people get.
The OTHER areas where the NRA is at fault in that regard is in having lobbied at great expense and effort to make the NICS data base voluntary instead of mandatory, and in lobbying for SHALL issue instead of MAY issue.
You claim 'whim', yet the law enforcement officer who was in charge of the Loughner arrest made it very clear that he wanted very much to deny Loughner a permit, as he was known to be a volatile individual with a drug use past, and as he was aware of the increasing issues of mental health and inappropriate anger, and of his having made prior threats to Gabby Giffords and others. That is not 'whim', that is being able to respond to people who a law enforcement officer knows will not behave responsibly with firearms because of a clear pattern of worsening concerning behavior.
Not everyone should have firearms.
You for example apparently believe in drawing your weapon in illogical and inappropriate use in violation of the rules of safety so as to endanger yourself and others.
If you want to know the brand of the ballistic armor, I suggest you either contact the Aurora CO law enforcement, and ASK them yourself, just so you can be perfectly sure of the info, and get all of your questions answered. In fact, I'd suggest you ask them about your hypothetical scenario of shootign Holmes as well. (Share with us afterwards how long they laughed at you.)
ReplyDeleteHere is the Aurora, CO police web site addy:
https://www.auroragov.org/LivingHere/PublicSafety/Police/index.htm
They have a copy of their Press Releases at the web site; the contact person you want to talk to is Sgt. Cassidee Carlson, PIO, 303-739-6616, although subsequent press releases are being handled by the County Attorney's office due to the media orders by the court.
As there are, last I counted EIGHT different, separate statements by the chief of police, as well as earlier interviews with law enforcement at the theater site, which mentions very specifically BALLISTIC armor, defined as bullet proof /bullet resistant, I don't really care what brand it is.
Because YOU don't have even a single source that says James Holmes was wearing anythign else.
You have a source that is a retailer saying he sold Holmes a hunting vest, but not one where the retailer claims that was what Holmes was wearing.
So, if you wish to assert you are correct, you need SOMETHING somewhere that is a credible source as to what Holmes wore during the shooting, not simply claims (which could be self-serving) as to his shopping.
And - here you are sloppy again - Laci, who has an extensive background in firearms law, for multiple jurisdictions, including before the Supreme court bar, was the source for the information on firearms for self defense findings in Heller, where he quoted the specific decision wording.
And you have WHAT all to support YOUR position?
The NRA is responsible for WHAT weapons they got, how they got them, the lack of checks and waiting periods and for promoting a gun culture where we have far more mass shootings than any other civilized and developed country in the world.
Or do you want to try to deny that two the week of the Aurora shooting, and another one today isn't a higher frequency of mass shootings then anywhere else that is a developed country?
We have utterly fucked gun laws, and too damned many guns in the hands of irresponsible, crazy, drug using convicted felons, and far too many people who use them to commit violence on other people while precious damned few EVER use them for more legitimate defensive purposes.
You are ill informed, and factually inaccurate -- and btw, it's LOUGHNER not Loudner.
And if you'd care to review the origins of self-defense law and rights, bring it on. Laci was kind enough to provide me with one of the better histories of that, which I have thoroughly enjoyed reading. It saves me the necessity of accessing multiple sources with ample footnotes and annotations in one handy volume.
I'd be happy to educate you with the chapter and verse of the legal decisions prior to the Constitution being written, occurring in English and European common law, and subsequent to the Constitution in this country.
I am confident you don't know your rear from your ears on that topic either.
You're a nice guy Joe, but you're sloppy - sloppy reading, sloppy factually, and a sloppy thinker. Bring us your A game.
This is getting nowhere. Dog Gone, I'll try one last time.
ReplyDeleteYou blame NRA for Holmes getting a weapon. But he had no criminal convictions and was not deemed dangerous by mental health professionals.
Please articulate the specific factual basis on which Holmes should have been denied the right to purchase firearms.
Joe, try to pay attention. This requires effort, but I'm sure you can do it.
ReplyDeleteYOU are the one who lumps Loughner (not Loudner) together with Holmes as the same with respect to the NRA, not me. If you read with more care, you would catch the distinctions between the two as they relate to the NRA.
I blame the NRA for denying law enforcement the capability of refusing Loughner a license under may issue instead of shall issue.
I blame the NRA for Holmes having access to body armor, the 100 round magazine and the assault style weapon, and the stockpile of thousands of rounds of ammunition.
Those items are responsible for the number of people killed in such a short time, as well as the sense of invulnerability from the armor apparently that Holmes sought. If Holmes had only had his hand guns - and I dispute that people should be able to buy those as easily as they do now - then he would have had to stop more often than he did, and more people would have attempted what Patricia Maisch did in Tucson.
Joe,
ReplyDeleteI don't see that DG said anything of the sort, so if you are going to try "one last time", perhaps you should try the right thing.
What DG said, what I read, is that she blames the NRA for opposing ANY limitations on the kinds of ammunition, kinds of magazines, KINDS of weapons to which people, not simply Jerod Loughner, but anyone is allowed access.
Nothing in Loughner's past said he shouldn't be allowed to own firearms, nor did anyone SAY that - not one person, said that. Your statement is either something you know to be untrue or something you are not capable of understanding. The former is a lie, the second says you aren't able to carry on a logical discussion - or so it would seem.
continued...
ReplyDeleteThe ACTUAL point of discussion, which I think you very well know, is whether the NRA's ceaseless push to keep ANY restriction from being enforced is right, good or proper for the United States? I think it is unseemly, corrupt and craven of them to do so when they shroud it fatuously in arguments about 2nd amendment liberty - you can be reasonably armed without needing bazookas or 100 round magazines or incendiary rounds or any of the rest of the things the NRA advocates should be unrestricted. We can have a society of irregular forces (GCIII lexicon) WITHOUT needing to allow violent felons and those deeply mentally disturbed with very real risks of violence, to be armed. There isn't some huge push to start declaring half the country mentally unable to determine right from wrong, so your fear mongering on that point is senseless. Allowing, however, law enforcement to deny a license to carry to those whom they can RIGHTLY establish as posing a danger to society - is a logical, supportable, limited rule. Do you SERIOUSLY, seriously now, think violent felons, those who have used firearms in the past commission of crimes SHOULD be allowed to own automatic weapons, with owning assault rifle magazines capable of holding 100 rounds, do you feel the deeply, violently disposed, mentally disturbed should be allowed to own the same? Based on what extreme, unyielding interpretation of the Constitution, one which could only be described as saying the Constitution is a "suicide pact" (look that up, it relates to a SCOTUS ruling saying exactly the opposite, rights aren't something which requires the US to "commit suicide" to allow) - your right, my right to carry a firearm IS limited and able to be further limited. The NRA, and it's devouted followers, are absolutely wrong to defend, ethically wrong to defend, to allow violent felons and the seriously and violently mentally disturbed unfettered access to firepower far beyond that which is necessary to be "in common use." Furthermore, they are both WRONG beyond any question and words, not just Constitutionally wrong, to repeatedly stand in the way of reasonable limits on the type of weapons which ANY civilian can own. Defending the right of the average person to own an automatic rifle is ethically wrong, it is Constitutionally wrong, and you darned well ought to know it. Furthermore, given your undoubted support for George Bush' (the lesser Bush) rampant violation of Habeaus Corpus, your undoubted support of his attempts at legalizing torture for which he has been indicted by not less than three foreign courts (in countries which are our allies) - I have to ask, where is your voice on those issues? I sleep well at night not feeling that YOU or I have the right to a Browning Automatic Rifle or M-2 .50 cal in our basement, I DON'T think the Constitution allows me to own a nuclear weapon, how do YOU sleep at night knowing you abbetted allowing OUR government to routinely violate the most basic of our liberties - the right to trial and due process - and then ask yourself which right is more meaningful, standing up for not allowing the government to jail people without charge, or standing up for the right to a Tommy Gun? THEN ask yourself if you're living what you really believe in and then try your one last time to ask a meaningful question. If you can't get to the truth at that point, don't worry, we won't lose sleep not arguing with someone who cannot stop changing the argument to something we didn't say so that HE doesn't have to face the truth he's, at his core, failing to live up to his own words.
Dog Gone said in original post: "We should all be able to come together to do more to stop prohibited persons from acquiring legal guns, including the dangerously mentally ill."
ReplyDeleteNeither H nor L was a prohibited person. Neither had been convicted of a felony nor diagnosed by mental health professionals as mentally ill and dangerous.
Dog Gone said at 6:39: "the law enforcement officer who was in charge of the Loughner arrest made it very clear that he wanted very much to deny Loughner a permit"
But NOT because he was a felon, or diagnosed as dangerously mentally ill.
Dog Gone said at 8:44: "I blame the NRA for denying law enforcement the capability of refusing Loughner a license under may issue instead of shall issue."
Penigma said at 10:22: "Nothing in Loughner's past said he shouldn't be allowed to own firearms, nor did anyone SAY that - not one person, said that."
Am I the only one who reads this blog?
Penigma said at 10:22:" . . . violent felons and those deeply mentally disturbed . . . ." Not under discussion. Neither H nor L was a felon. Neither was deeply mentally disturbed - in the opinion of their mental health professionals. And even if it were . . .
CBS News, 2009: "The NRA is urging Congress to tighten loopholes in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, a government database that provides background checks on gun buyers. The changes, which stem from the Virginia Tech shooting last spring, would ensure that more mentally ill people are barred from purchasing firearms." [Note: President Bush signed that law before he left office: JD].
I don't think it can be fairly said the NRA is at fault for H or L having acquired guns.
Dog Gone - you feel comfortable giving police the 'may issue' power to deny a fundamental Constitutional right to people who have never committed a felony and who mental health professionals have not deemed to be a danger.
Penigma: it's your name on the blog, you should know what your co-bloggers are proposing. You haven't reputiated her position; therefore, I assume you support it.
I see no point in posting further on this specific thread. Thank you for allowing me to air my concerns.
Police having may issue authority is consistent with the SCOTUS decision on the 2nd Amendment. I have yet to find a pattern anywhere of abuse of that authority; and given the numer of people who pretty much daily demonstrate that they should NOT have firearms, that they are people who are in the gray area of being questionable - yes, if the alternative is people killing others or themselves with the frequency we have -- YES, more of those people should be denied firearms ownership.
ReplyDeleteIn 1977, in the so-called Cincinnati Revolt, the extremists took control of the NRA, and began with financing by the gun manufacturers, to dismantle and oppose reasonable firearm restrictions. Prior to that the NRA supported and even proposed such regulation.
The result? By 1982, the US had begun to have steady increases in mass shootings. There is an incomplete but still very comprehensive list here:http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/07/mass-shootings-map
Since 1982, there have been at least 57 mass murders* carried out with firearms across the country, with the killings unfolding in 30 states from Massachusetts to Hawaii. We've mapped them below, including details on the shooters' identities, the types of weapons they used, and the number of victims they injured and killed.
Of the 132 guns possessed by the killers, more than three quarters were obtained legally. The arsenal included dozens of assault weapons and high-powered handguns. (See charts below.) Just as Jeffrey Weise used a .40-caliber Glock to massacre students in Red Lake, Minnesota, in 2005, so too did James Holmes when blasting away at his victims in a darkened movie theater.
Today we had another mass shooting - a 40 year old angry white guy who supported extreme right wing politics; no surprise there.
Other countries, like the UK, like Australia, have experienced huge reductions in gun violence with their gun control laws; and they have virtually eliminated entirely mass shootings.
I faulted the NRA for the KIND of equipment Holmes acquired; you of course have to change what I wrote, because you are either incapable of being accurate, or because you are incapable of arguing honestly.
That goes as well for your statement 'who mental health professionals have not deemed to be a danger'. There are plenty of instance - like Loughner, like Holmes, like the shooter in Seattle in the video I posted, where mental health professionals had indicated they were a danger. The threshold of an involuntary commitment or other similar court decision is too extreme to apply to enough people - but even then, the NRA is responsible for those people's name being OPTIONAl to each state to supply to the NICS data base.
And the right is also directly responsible, beginning with under Reagan, for the defunding of mental health care. If you have few or no mental health care professionals funded to treat the mentally ill, you won't have anyone 'deeming them a danger', will you?
So cutting health care funding and then acting all surprised that crazy people have guns and no mentl health professionals noticed is too tragic to be funny. The NRA got in up to their eyeballs in all kinds of legislative right wing causes, including those having nothing to do with guns, post 1977.
We COULD stop these mass shootings, and we could dramatically reduce the gun violence we have in this country, by stricter gun control.
The NRA doesn't want to stop it, and apparently Joe Doakes, neither do you. You just want to join the crazy guy in the body armor shooting it up in the theater, pretending your doing something about the problem. You both have gun delusions.
CBS News, 2009: "The NRA is urging Congress to tighten loopholes in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, a government database that provides background checks on gun buyers. The changes, which stem from the Virginia Tech shooting last spring, would ensure that more mentally ill people are barred from purchasing firearms." [Note: President Bush signed that law before he left office: JD].
ReplyDeleteAnd yet in state after state, including MN, and the surrounding states, even after the 2009 legislation, those names aren't being supplied to the NICS (and the names of drug users, felons etc. aren't either). Why? Because the NRA endorsed and sponsored and funded right wing pro-gun politicians don't authorize it.
The NRA went through the motions after Virginia Tech - but they did so in the context that providing names was made strictly VOLUNTARY, when the original legislation setting up the NICS had it as mandatory -- and they also set it up so the names in the NICS belong to the states, not the FBI or the data base. Then they consistently make sure in red states that most of the names were not submitted.
In AZ, when Loughner shot up Congresswoman Giffords and the others, they had submitted minimal names; there were well over a million that were NOT submitted to the NICS. Why? Because in Arizona, it is not popular to do so with right wing pro-gun politicians - and look who controlled their legislature and the office of governor.
The NRA is squarely responsible for a lot of this.
Dog Gone said in original post: "We should all be able to come together to do more to stop prohibited persons from acquiring legal guns, including the dangerously mentally ill."
ReplyDeleteBoth Loughner and Holmes WERE recognized as dangerously mentally ill by their respective colleges. One of Loughner's instructors, and a fellow student both made the statement that they feared he would commit a violent mass shooting. His school required him to produce an assessment that he was NOT a danger to himself or others to continue in school - and he didn't and couldn't.
We've already covered Holmes being recognized as dangerous, and the school was meeting on the problem when he dropped out; it wasn't too long after that when he committed the shooting.
In the case of the shooting in Seattle, again, it was no secret the shooter was dangerously mentally ill.
We don't stop mentally ill people from obtaining guns. We could stop a lot of dangerous people from obtaining guns with may issue instead of shall issue, or with other more stringent requirements - other civilized countries do it. ALL OF THEM.
Your point?
Joe,
ReplyDeleteFirst, I misunderstood DG's points, so I apologize for my misunderstanding. Tryly, and I am not offering an excuse, more an explanation, you two have exchanged SO much on this that it's wearying to sift through all the back and forth. My "name" isn't Penigma, it's my blog, but one which DG has co-run for years. So, sorry for the misunderstanding, but by the same token, let's not get a little high-and mighty about what I should or should not know.. mmmkay?
The bottom line still comes down to two things. The first and shorter is this, where is your moral outrage about other violations of the Constitution, violations FAR more serious than where the line is drawn on access to firearms?
Second, and more to the point, you and she are having a reasoned argument about where that line should be drawn. She feels, and I agree, that it should be allowed to be drawn by law enforcement so long as they (the government) can establish a sound reason for doing so and argue that sound reason in front of a judge. The bar they should have to get over is NOT, though, to prove the person was simply a violent felon in the past (already therefore stripped of their rights) OR - and this is where you and she disagree - to ONLY be allowed to object when the person has been determined to be a danger to themselves and to others - essentially the "commitment" standard.
The standard SHOULD be far below that - where that standard is, is open for discussion. The facts and history seem to bear this out, though, in that many of the "rampage" shooters we've seen have a definite history of dangerous commments and acts YET the NRA seeks to exclude those kinds of limits.
When they do, when reasonable people ELECT politicians who do, and then when they prove to be inadquate, we don't say "Well, the LAW was upheld correctly, tough luck", we say, "how do we improve the law?" The question to you is, are you willing to improve it? Are you willing to accept your complicity in standing in the way of improving it? Are you willing to accept that you hold some accountability for arguing for lax standards? If not, why not? You argue that Pres. Obama is responsible for minorities staying on welfare because he advocates for a social safety net. Your standard of accountability seems far lower for yourself than for Democrats. I thought you were the personal accountability folks?
Bottom line here is, the laws as written are inadquate. The NRA seeks to keep them as such - allowing those who are demonstrably dangerous to purchase firearms is madness compounded. Allowing citizens to own ANYTHING they want is equally madness - yet the NRA advocates for both and you back them. What accountability do you hold if you set a standard which proves to be inadequate?