California active shooter.....Here we go again...

[Knobgoblin]

To further stir the bubblegum, and disclaimer: these thoughts don't represent my own, but are meant to incite conversation.

I think his point was that the barrier to owning a non lethal feline shouldn't be higher than the barrier to owning firearms.

Yes, there's other ways to kill, but firearms are damn effective at it.

I don't believe in gun control, but definitely believe in people control. If I had to take a mental evaluation with my cpl every 5 years, I would. I guess the question is why wouldn't you?

I should probably just stick to classifieds.

I will be happy to tell you why I wouldn't voluntarily submit to a psych screening for ANY reason
It's a an invasion of my privacy.
It's willfully surrendering my own rights.
It's giving a government power over me ,when I believe that government exists to serve me (as a citizen).
It's laying down yet another paver on the road to a type of society I don't wish to be a part of.

I take absolutely no personal responsibility for the safety of strangers . Freedom is dangerous, that's how it is.

At the most extreme, consider this thought;
If every citizen of this country was genetically screened for any defects prior to birth, you might imagine what the population would be in a generation or 2.
At least there wouldn't be a housing shortage.

 

[3MTA3]

2020 and Portland's leadership. Throw in a little mid 30s European history.

Yeah, but Neville Chamberlainian diplomacy just hasn't been done the right way yet. If it hadn't been for Trump, Ted Wheeler's total appeasement cuck policy of infinite concessions would have made Portland a crime free utopia, just like Biden is doing in the Middle East with Iran.

 

[Koda]

The problem with mental evaluations for buying guns is there is no clear definition of sane. I know people who think anyone who "needs" an AR15 or more than a box of ammo is insane. Now imagine if thats the guy doing your eval....
The last thing you want is to have to ask permission to exercise a right, at that point it becomes a privilege.

 

[baker3gun]

It's a matter of perspective. "Big Pharma" comped me close to $1 million in experimental drugs and has seen me through one cancer three times and two other cancers, plus all three simultaneously. "Big Pharma" is now keeping my transplanted immune system from killing me. Of the 21 anti-cancer drugs I have received, not to mention the many times that number of other drugs to both prevent and counteract, I should have died close to 100 times, based on the "serious adverse events" associated with each drug. ... Haven't.

Lot of interesting comments in this thread.

Glad you're still here!

Perspective indeed.

I'm sure we agree that gun forum criticisms of big pharma are directed more at the unknowns associated with widespread use of psychotropics, and perhaps pharma's role in national opiate addiction, than cancer drugs.

Big pharma is big. Take the good with the bad, or criticize the bad?

2 cents.

 

[baker3gun]

... No offense meant to you or your question, sir. There are no simple answers to humanity's deep seated issues.

Mankind's greatest achievement to date is arguably its consistent long-term pursuit of the advancement of human civilization, which has occurred regularly whenever society permitted it.

Two steps up and one step back, often a giant step back, but 5000 years of documented slow progress.

You either keep trying, or you backslide.

As a race (human race), it seems apparent that we are nowhere near the last step backwards.

But what are you gonna do? Quit trying? Embrace Dark Ages II?

2 cents.

 

[wollzy]

The problem with mental evaluations for buying guns is there is no clear definition of sane. I know people who think anyone who "needs" an AR15 or more than a box of ammo is insane. Now imagine if thats the guy doing your eval....
The last thing you want is to have to ask permission to exercise a right, at that point it becomes a privilege.

My biggest issue with a mental evaluation is that it just won't be effective. I mentioned it before but I will say it again...trying to do a mental health evaluation to determine if someone is prone to violence is the equivalent of modern day phrenology. You can't ask some magic set of questions or make someone look at some ink blots to determine if they are prone to violence. Aside from people who schizophrenic, or under other some other serious mental ailment, it will be near impossible to divine someones potential for violence unless they willingly give up that information. While these people who commit these spree shootings have serious issues, they seem like the type of things that you can't just determine from some screening. Imagine what the questions would be like for one of these things "Do you have violent thoughts?"..."do you have angry outburts?"..."do you fantasize about violence?" No one who want's to commit these acts is going to willingly give up that information.

 

[po18guy]

Lot of interesting comments in this thread.

Glad you're still here!

Perspective indeed.

I'm sure we agree that gun forum criticisms of big pharma are directed more at the unknowns associated with widespread use of psychotropics, and perhaps pharma's role in national opiate addiction, than cancer drugs.

Big pharma is big. Take the good with the bad, or criticize the bad?

2 cents.

True. Pharma sells what Dr. prescribes. Have we become a nation of fakers and addicts? Good evidence for that. Me? I kicked my addiction to placebos, but now am hooked on chemo.

 

[Koda]

While these people who commit these spree shootings have serious issues, they seem like the type of things that you can't just determine from some screening.

For a person whos never been convicted true. But the majority of violent criminals have a violent history many of them have been convicted for. Yet we continue to let them walk....

 

[po18guy]

If we arm everyone, after a period of relative chaos, calm would eventually return. Would only be fun to watch from a distance. Like in orbit.

 

[wollzy]

For a person whos never been convicted true. But the majority of violent criminals have a violent history many of them have been convicted for. Yet we continue to let them walk....

Well in theory the 4473 should have caught that...but yea that's a matter of not enforcing the current laws on the books of course.

 

[Koda]

Well in theory the 4473 should have caught that...but yea that's a matter of not enforcing the current laws on the books of course.

4473 only flags felons, who dont get their guns thru that form anyways.

 

[arakboss]

Do I perceive that? No. I am very 2a positive and exercise that right to the fullest. The idea that it isn't the mindset of the mass murderer but the means to that end is ridiculous, 100% agreed. No doubt there are many ways to skin a cat, even if knives are outlawed. The problem is that we don't seem to have anything to say while a new AWB is on the horizon. It's just a lot of jokes about dead countrymen, hardly united.

There's no leftist argument anywhere in the question. What can we do as Americans to better control these events? Is there an objective alternative to an impending ban?

"What can we do as Americans to better control these events?"

We can better control these workplace shootings by arming more workers.

 

[arakboss]

Well, the answer is not more gun control. The government wants disarmament. So that can't be the correct answer. Pointing fingers at the left dosen't fix anything. Using logic to fight emotion is useless.
Different weapons are used. So what is the common denomanator? Bingo, the bad guy.
What do the bad guys have in common? I am sure the FBI or some other agency has that data.
Was it mental illness, medication or lack of, illegal drugs, ptsd from getting their fellings hurt?
My guess is mental illness, improper medication or withdrawl from said meds.
Maybe if cause could be found why bad guys do what they do.....
We as gun owners (a minority) could bring a class action lawsuit for not keeping us safe from the bad guys.
Maybe SAF or GOA could help us come up with answers, form letters to send out asking for better mental health.
It seams we are always putting out fires. How do we lite one under our elected to protect the 2A?
No, I don't have the answers, just a lot of questions.

Sometimes bad guys are just bad, evil, mean, etc. We have to accept that in a free society we are going to be less safe. It's a trade off I am willing to accept but many won't.

Lessons that can be learned is be nice to all your coworkers and don't eat your coworkers lunches.

 

[arakboss]

The government and big brother proponents are going to use this guys history as a means to promote futher intrusion into our lives. Lots of people hate their jobs and many dislike coworkers as well. Expect coworkers to be added to the list of people who can request red flag confiscations in the near future.

San Jose shooter was on feds' radar in 2016, questioned about hatred of his job

The suspected gunman who killed eight people and himself Wednesday at a transit rail yard in San Jose, California, was found to have harbored a hatred for his workplace when he was detained by federal officials several years ago.

www.foxnews.com

 

[baker3gun]

I see little compassion here for 8 dead Americans of unknown political lean. Honest question... Devil's advocate or whatever. As someone that exercises their 2a rights, as a gun owner, does anybody here have tangible ideas on how to better control mass shooting events?

To further stir the bubblegum, and disclaimer: these thoughts don't represent my own, but are meant to incite conversation.

I think his point was that the barrier to owning a non lethal feline shouldn't be higher than the barrier to owning firearms.

Yes, there's other ways to kill, but firearms are damn effective at it.

I don't believe in gun control, but definitely believe in people control. If I had to take a mental evaluation with my cpl every 5 years, I would. I guess the question is why wouldn't you?

I should probably just stick to classifieds.

Good points. Hard questions that invite quick answers but also worthwhile consideration.

1
You assume little compassion. Wrong assumption IMO. Both sides are tired of the violence that accompanies tolerance of aberrant behavior and mismanagement of mental illness. Both sides feel compassion.

Here, people consider the right to arms as the cornerstone of human freedom and rights and true equality. That right is under attack and endangered. Thus freedom and rights and equality are endangered.
The rule of law alone has never preserved liberty or human rights or equality anywhere, and it never will. Power always corrupts. All forms of government, left uncontested, will oppress. We know this from 5000 years of written history.

Defenseless people always eventually become subjects of their rulers.

Freedom is new. Government established foremost to protect freedom and rights is new. We are the first. Ever.

Members of a gun forum are as tired of defending the right to arms as Gavin Newsom is of attacking it. Watch his press speech just after the shooting. Do you see any real compassion there? No. He is just wearlily leveraging a crime to try to promote his same tired ineffective agenda while he fights to ward off a recall.

People don't come here to express sympathy for victims. We all feel it, but we come here to discuss frustration with the ineffective idea that gun control will prevent criminals from committing crime. We want the government to stop spending time and resources on ineffective policy, and turn it's attention to the real underlying causes of crime, and to forging policy that addresses those real causes.

2
When a person gets mad at his coworkers and job supervisors, and decides to vent his anger by killing them, that person is either a criminal or insane. This incident was not a "mass shooting" where some nut killed random people. It was a specifically targeted homicide. A simple crime. Not a "mass shooting." The terminology "mass shooting" is an essential element of the leftist agenda to ban all guns.

3
Tangible ideas? Easy.
A - We as a society are too tolerant of crime. 95% of all criminal prosecutions end in plea bargain for lesser sentence. Prison is a crime school. Rehabilitation does not occur in any form, which is proved by absurdly high recidivism rates. Our criminal justice court system and prisons are overwhelmed. We have more criminals than we have criminal justice infrastructure, which is an easy problem to solve. Want to reduce violent crime? Reform the criminal justice system. Make it so that crime does not pay. Make it so that any convict who gets released has a deathly fear of ever going back.
B - Beginning in the 1950's, America de-institutionalized. Instead of maintaining enough infrastructure to effectively manage mental illness, we abandoned most of it and resorted to non-treatment as the primary method of managing people with serious mental illness (SMI's). America does not have enough psychiatric beds to accommodate even half of it's population of SMI's. Hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, are locked up in prisons without treatment until they are released, or, simply live on our streets. We embraced a MYOB mentality where no one reports crazy people, and no authority takes action based on the reports. So, in short, we transitioned from housing and treating crazy people, to dumping them on the street. After decades of this idiotic policy, the proportion of unmanaged SMI's in living among sane Americans increased dramatically. More crazy people among society means more crazy acts committed in society.
Tangible ideas: crack down on crime, effectively manage mental illness, end the welfare state that locks so many people in an undignified, unproductive lifestyle that promotes anti-social "street culture" and also glorifies criminal behavior, divert entitlements funding to work programs, return the failed press to a state of accountability for what they publish, and use truth to easily and quickly refute the pervasive mentality of victimhood.

4
Why does American society need barriers to firearm ownership? If there were no criminals or crazy people running around all the time, would we need barriers to firearm ownership?

5
You are correct. A gun is absolutely the best available tool for killing someone. People are hard to kill. Unless you have a gun. Then they are easy to kill. So what is the problem exactly? Too many guns? Or too many people who want to kill someone? If no one wanted kill someone, what problem would be caused by guns? Maybe we should get better at discouraging crime, and keep the citizen right to arms that forms the only lasting cornerstone of liberty and rights and equality.

6
Sanity and mental evaluations.
Most members here believe what the founders believed: if you attach a government-controlled prerequisite to the right to arms, the government will eventually abuse that power to disarm the people in order to oppress them. Read about public resistance to standing armies and select militias at our founding.
Remember, all systems of unchecked government always go bad. They always have. No society or civilization has survived the test of time. All have failed or been overrun. Government has always been an engine of oppression. The American government will go that way if the people are disarmed.
That's why informed people don't want to empower government to deny the right to arms.
That's why the Constitution says " shall not be infringed."

BUT - the sanity-check issue isn't solved by the comments above.
Rather, the latest attempt to solve it is a background check system that many but not all gun owners support, which if properly operated, could prevent most transfers to crazy people, IF we bothered to make an effort to identify crazy people (in general, not only when they want to buy a gun), and keep adequate records, and use those records effectively.
The NICS and related systems don't work because we don't operate the system effectively and we don't enforce straw-purchase prohibitions and we don't work together to identify crazy people and get them the help or confinement they need.

Parting shot:
A background check system for new purchases from licensed dealers could work in a society that maintains and effectively uses accurate records of criminals and people certified as mentally ill via due process.
A universal BGC system is a dumb ineffective idea, and creates a de facto register, and affects only law-abiding citizens, and will do nothing to prevent an unlawful or crazy person from transferring anything anywhere, because in private transactions, no licensed dealer is involved therefore no point of enforcement exists.
BUT - I'm quick to point out that the only reason we need a BGC system at all is because we are so tolerant of crime and mental illness and so willing to allow so many criminals and insane people to run freely through our society. If we cleaned all that up, there would be almost no incentive or need to check someone's background before they bought a gun.

I don't claim to have a good idea for how to manage mental illness in this society. I only know that the current method (non-management) is hilariously ineffective and therefore easily improved on, and that our society collectively needs to learn more about the link between substance abuse and mental illness, and also about the link between psychiatric drugs dujour and lingering or worsened mental illness.

whew.

Good data in this post:
https://www.northwestfirearms.com/t...se-active-shooters.370605/page-5#post-2938336

Thx.

 

[baker3gun]

True. Pharma sells what Dr. prescribes. ...

Hmm. Pharma spends a ton of money advertising psychotropic and other drugs to...

consumers.

They also spend money marketing drugs and explaining their use to providers.

But why advertise to consumers?

To induce consumers to ask their doctors for pharma products?

Those "feelz" TV ads probably convince a lot of people that they need some pills to feel better.

 

[arakboss]

Good points. Hard questions that invite quick answers but also worthwhile consideration.

1
You assume little compassion. Wrong assumption IMO. Both sides are tired of the violence that accompanies tolerance of aberrant behavior and mismanagement of mental illness. Both sides feel compassion.

Here, people consider the right to arms as the cornerstone of human freedom and rights and true equality. That right is under attack and endangered. Thus freedom and rights and equality are endangered.
The rule of law alone has never preserved liberty or human rights or equality anywhere, and it never will. Power always corrupts. All forms of government, left uncontested, will oppress. We know this from 5000 years of written history.

Defenseless people always eventually become subjects of their rulers.

Freedom is new. Government established foremost to protect freedom and rights is new. We are the first. Ever.

Members of a gun forum are as tired of defending the right to arms as Gavin Newsom is of attacking it. Watch his press speech just after the shooting. Do you see any real compassion there? No. He is just wearlily leveraging a crime to try to promote his same tired ineffective agenda while he fights to ward off a recall.

People don't come here to express sympathy for victims. We all feel it, but we come here to discuss frustration with the ineffective idea that gun control will prevent criminals from committing crime. We want the government to stop spending time and resources on ineffective policy, and turn it's attention to the real underlying causes of crime, and to forging policy that addresses those real causes.

2
When a person gets mad at his coworkers and job supervisors, and decides to vent his anger by killing them, that person is either a criminal or insane. This incident was not a "mass shooting" where some nut killed random people. It was a specifically targeted homicide. A simple crime. Not a "mass shooting." The terminology "mass shooting" is an essential element of the leftist agenda to ban all guns.

3
Tangible ideas? Easy.
A - We as a society are too tolerant of crime. 95% of all criminal prosecutions end in plea bargain for lesser sentence. Prison is a crime school. Rehabilitation does not occur in any form, which is proved by absurdly high recidivism rates. Our criminal justice court system and prisons are overwhelmed. We have more criminals than we have criminal justice infrastructure, which is an easy problem to solve. Want to reduce violent crime? Reform the criminal justice system. Make it so that crime does not pay. Make it so that any convict who gets released has a deathly fear of ever going back.
B - Beginning in the 1950's, America de-institutionalized. Instead of maintaining enough infrastructure to effectively manage mental illness, we abandoned most of it and resorted to non-treatment as the primary method of managing people with serious mental illness (SMI's). America does not have enough psychiatric beds to accommodate even half of it's population of SMI's. Hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, are locked up in prisons without treatment until they are released, or, simply live on our streets. We embraced a MYOB mentality where no one reports crazy people, and no authority takes action based on the reports. So, in short, we transitioned from housing and treating crazy people, to dumping them on the street. After decades of this idiotic policy, the proportion of unmanaged SMI's in living among sane Americans increased dramatically. More crazy people among society means more crazy acts committed in society.
Tangible ideas: crack down on crime, effectively manage mental illness, end the welfare state that locks so many people in an undignified, unproductive lifestyle that promotes anti-social "street culture" and also glorifies criminal behavior, divert entitlements funding to work programs, return the failed press to a state of accountability for what they publish, and use truth to easily and quickly refute the pervasive mentality of victimhood.

4
Why does American society need barriers to firearm ownership? If there were no criminals or crazy people running around all the time, would we need barriers to firearm ownership?

5
You are correct. A gun is absolutely the best available tool for killing someone. People are hard to kill. Unless you have a gun. Then they are easy to kill. So what is the problem exactly? Too many guns? Or too many people who want to kill someone? If no one wanted kill someone, what problem would be caused by guns? Maybe we should get better at discouraging crime, and keep the citizen right to arms that forms the only lasting cornerstone of liberty and rights and equality.

6
Sanity and mental evaluations.
Most members here believe what the founders believed: if you attach a government-controlled prerequisite to the right to arms, the government will eventually abuse that power to disarm the people in order to oppress them. Read about public resistance to standing armies and select militias at our founding.
Remember, all systems of unchecked government always go bad. They always have. No society or civilization has survived the test of time. All have failed or been overrun. Government has always been an engine of oppression. The American government will go that way if the people are disarmed.
That's why informed people don't want to empower government to deny the right to arms.
That's why the Constitution says " shall not be infringed."

BUT - the sanity-check issue isn't solved by the comments above.
Rather, the latest attempt to solve it is a background check system that many but not all gun owners support, which if properly operated, could prevent most transfers to crazy people, IF we bothered to make an effort to identify crazy people (in general, not only when they want to buy a gun), and keep adequate records, and use those records effectively.
The NICS and related systems don't work because we don't operate the system effectively and we don't enforce straw-purchase prohibitions and we don't work together to identify crazy people and get them the help or confinement they need.

Parting shot:
A background check system for new purchases from licensed dealers could work in a society that maintains and effectively uses accurate records of criminals and people certified as mentally ill via due process.
A universal BGC system is a dumb ineffective idea, and creates a de facto register, and affects only law-abiding citizens, and will do nothing to prevent an unlawful or crazy person from transferring anything anywhere, because in private transactions, no licensed dealer is involved therefore no point of enforcement exists.
BUT - I'm quick to point out that the only reason we need a BGC system at all is because we are so tolerant of crime and mental illness and so willing to allow so many criminals and insane people to run freely through our society. If we cleaned all that up, there would be almost no incentive or need to check someone's background before they bought a gun.

I don't claim to have a good idea for how to manage mental illness in this society. I only know that the current method (non-management) is hilariously ineffective and therefore easily improved on, and that our society collectively needs to learn more about the link between substance abuse and mental illness, and also about the link between psychiatric drugs dujour and lingering or worsened mental illness.

whew.

Good data in this post:
https://www.northwestfirearms.com/t...se-active-shooters.370605/page-5#post-2938336

Thx.

I am going to be very honest and say my capacity for compassion is about tapped out. People are dying at such a large rate, that I can't feel compassion or grieve for all the lives lost. I still feel bad for the innocent young children that are killed but all the others are just another news story. Same goes for covid deaths, war deaths, etc. I will let the families and friends of those who died, do the grieving.

 

[po18guy]

No one "just snaps." There is a deterioration, whether gradual or quick, but a noticeable difference in the demeanor, behavior or activities of the shooter. Psychologists and psychiatrists could likely explain the cues to watch for, as the person himself may be unaware of them, even though they are obvious to others. There are profiles in such cases and it "seems" to be unsupervised or troubled youth, middle-aged white guys or practitioners of a 'peaceful religion.'

More will come out, but there is much to be learned as the data piles up. Take the Las Vegas shooting - that guy gave numerous clues, particularly as he was about to complete his plan. Several very odd things that he did "should" have raised concern, but did not. Had hotel employees completely acted on even one of them, 51 lives might have been saved.

The Sandy Hook autistic kid had, the day before, tried to forcibly enter that same school and was in a violent confrontation with a custodian. A single phone call (isn't that about all that schools do anymore?) would likely have prevented it.

Prevention is key, as there is no cure for the dead once the murders act.

 

[arakboss]

No one "just snaps." There is a deterioration, whether gradual or quick, but a noticeable difference in the demeanor, behavior or activities of the shooter. Psychologists and psychiatrists could likely explain the cues to watch for, as the person himself may be unaware of them, even though they are obvious to others. There are profiles in such cases and it "seems" to be unsupervised or troubled youth, middle-aged white guys or practitioners of a 'peaceful religion.'

More will come out, but there is much to be learned as the data piles up. Take the Las Vegas shooting - that guy gave numerous clues, particularly as he was about to complete his plan. Several very odd things that he did "should" have raised concern, but did not. Had hotel employees completely acted on even one of them, 51 lives might have been saved.

The Sandy Hook autistic kid had, the day before, tried to forcibly enter that same school and was in a violent confrontation with a custodian. A single phone call (isn't that about all that schools do anymore?) would likely have prevented it.

Prevention is key, as there is no cure for the dead once the murders act.

The prevention scares me more than the acts as we enter the ultimate environment for big brother activities.

Edit: As goverment and tech continues to grow it is going to become more and more difficult to stay off the government's radar.

 

[arakboss]

Gun free workplaces are a problem. The more workers that are armed the better.