School/Mass shootings what's the answer?

[RobG]

Just trying to decide if GutShot is a troll, or truly this tone deaf . . .

A troll, but since it came up... 30-50 years ago when we brought guns to school if anyone saw me with something like that they would have called the cops thinking it was illegal - and this was in Montana. They would have thought I was a terrorist. Even after '95 OK bombing** people owning those types of weapons were believed to be wackjobs, probably with the Montana Militia or one of the other anti-government organizations. The attitude was entirely different back then. Now the NRA has convinced people that these guns are perfectly normal, and as a consequence most nuts have one in their closet ready to go the second their mind snaps.

**Yes it was with fertilizer, and yes they put restrictions on fertilizer after it.

 

[Zach]

You will need to enlighten me on what the "gunshow loophole" is. NICS are required in every state whether you are at a gunshow or not.

Not all states require FTF(private party)transfers to be conducted via NICS.

 

[Gut Shot]

OK, if you want to insult me, I'll bow out of what I thought was a more-or-less adult discussion. Vikingsguy and RobG, you would be welcome at my hunting camp anytime, just understand that I may be hunting with an AR-15. It might be one that I made myself, in my shop, with no serial number on it. If you have a problem with that it is your problem, not mine.

 

[RobG]

Not all states require FTF(private party)transfers to be conducted via NICS.

Take your pick... around 170 magazine fed semi-autos available on Armslist in Montana. No background check required.

http://www.armslist.com/classifieds...es&posttype=1&sellertype=1&tag=semi-automatic

 

[RobG]

OK, if you want to insult me, I'll bow out of what I thought was a more-or-less adult discussion. Vikingsguy and RobG, you would be welcome at my hunting camp anytime, just understand that I may be hunting with an AR-15. It might be one that I made myself, in my shop, with no serial number on it. If you have a problem with that it is your problem, not mine.

To be clear, I have several friends who own them and I don't think they are nuts. That is an attitude change, and it is why they (and mass shootings) were rare back in the day. The truth is, up until very recently anyone carrying them was thought to be a nutjob. Look at Jim Zumbo's comments, and what happened to him.

 

[VAspeedgoat]

Nice picture gutshot, for my wife's friend in Florida it was pointed the other way. It wouldn't be nearly as cute if it were pointed at that kid. I'm assuming yours. Certainly a bolt action wouldn't have been effective for prairie dogs.

So you are saying that in your state if you are a non ffl selling to another non ffl that you are required to run a background check? I find that hard to believe, but that is the loophole.

Continuing down this path of never yielding an inch will get the 2nd repealed quicker than any other action and we will have ourselves to blame for allowing it.

 

[Doublecluck]

Take your pick... around 170 magazine fed semi-autos available on Armslist in Montana. No background check required.

http://www.armslist.com/classifieds...es&posttype=1&sellertype=1&tag=semi-automatic

This might be a good argument if the murder rate with a firearm per 100,000 in Montana wasn't 1.2 compared to 3.9 per 100,000 in California with a bible of gun laws

 

[VikingsGuy]

OK, if you want to insult me, I'll bow out of what I thought was a more-or-less adult discussion. Vikingsguy and RobG, you would be welcome at my hunting camp anytime, just understand that I may be hunting with an AR-15. It might be one that I made myself, in my shop, with no serial number on it. If you have a problem with that it is your problem, not mine.

No intent to push anyone out of a semi-adult conversation. But at times internet forums (including HT) do suffer from "trolls" who post stuff they know is obnoxious just to get a rise out of folks. If someone posts sincere view that I disagree with then no problem, but if folks post to purely to mock or inflame, then I tend to object. And sometimes folks just have a hard time sensing what is appropriate in the moment but are not intending to "troll" -- i.e., tone deaf.

I will accept from your reply that you were not just "trolling", but then I do believe it is semi-adult to discuss that in my view gun owners posting pictures of 8 yr olds firing AR-platform guns this week is not very helpful to our shared cause.

 

[VikingsGuy]

A lot of "doesn't work" and "won't work" comments about gun restrictions. I tend to be similarly skeptical, but this is not a factual or a scientific discussion, it is an emotional and political discussion. Actual likelihood of successfully addressing an issue is not the only way laws get passed. A lot of bad legislation crops up in response to emotional concerns and political expediency. When this happens, you need to either be part of shaping something that sucks less or sit on the sidelines and watch to worst come about. Firearm regulatory framework is such a topic. Either mainstream gun owners start helping take the edge off the most emotional targets, or sit by and watch the landslide of demographics give us the very worst outcome.

 

[Gut Shot]

Nice picture gutshot, for my wife's friend in Florida it was pointed the other way. It wouldn't be nearly as cute if it were pointed at that kid. I'm assuming yours. Certainly a bolt action wouldn't have been effective for prairie dogs.

So you are saying that in your state if you are a non ffl selling to another non ffl that you are required to run a background check? I find that hard to believe, but that is the loophole.

Continuing down this path of never yielding an inch will get the 2nd repealed quicker than any other action and we will have ourselves to blame for allowing it.

Have you ever tried fitting a bolt action to an 8 year old? The AR stock collapses to fit him and the recoil is very little meaning he can shoot all day. He tried my bolt 22-250 that day and decided he liked the AR a lot better. And if my kid were looking down the barrel of a bolt action instead of a semi-auto, I wouldn't feel any better about it. I posted the pic to show that millions of rounds are fired from semi-autos every year and it is all fun. The few people (relatively speaking) who are killed by this type of gun are certainly a tragedy, one that I wouldn't wish on anyone, but I don't believe putting restrictions on guns will change anything.

If maniacs couldn't get guns at all, then what? Vehicles like they used in NY and Europe? Bombs like we've seen...just about anywhere? What happens when one of these lunatics discovers the fantastic killing abilities of sodium hypochlorite? Are we going to look askance at swimming pool owners? I've got enough cyanide on the shelf behind me to do in God knows how many people. Are we to regulate that too? Taking lives isn't physically difficult, the human body just isn't that durable. How many things must we regulate, license, and tax to give kids the illusion of safety?

And no, in Illinois we are issued a "Firearms Owners ID" (FOID) card at the whims of the government. If you don't have one you can't buy guns or ammo from anyone, licensed or not. I just don't understand what that has to do with gun shows.

And the gains we have made in gun rights the past 30 or so years have been significant. One of those gains is the proliferation of concealed carry permits. The issuance of those permits coincides with a decline, country wide but especially in heavy CCW states, of violent crime. If those statistics were spewed out by the media with the same frequency that less favorable statistics are we would have many more supporters of gun rights.

 

[RobG]

This might be a good argument if the murder rate with a firearm per 100,000 in Montana wasn't 1.2 compared to 3.9 per 100,000 in California with a bible of gun laws

The argument was that background checks weren't required to buy guns, i.e. there is no loophole.

The NRA keeps saying that we need to keep the guns out of the hands of these nuts, but they oppose fixing this loophole. What do you think about keeping this loophole for semi-auto weapons?

 

[RobG]

Have you ever tried fitting a bolt action to an 8 year old?

I did fine at that age without a collapsible stock (which BTW isn't the issue with semi-auto weapons). My son's vanguard had a "youth stock" which had a removable pad.

 

[Straight Arrow]

... but this is not a factual or a scientific discussion, it is an emotional and political discussion.

If you have been watching and listening to the emotional political rhetoric being so very well expressed in clear articulate language by impassioned young people who it now appears are committed to change with regard to the firearms issues, you can't help but envision those same faces / voices in the chambers of Congress as elected by the same group(s) who are now taking time off school to march and demonstrate. "You can stick your head in the sand ... but then your butt is exposed." NRA and those unwavering guns rights advocates who continue the trite "doesn't work" and "won't work" rhetoric will likely one day wish they had the foresight to be part of the solution ... rather than have the overly stringent pendulum-swung-the-other-way solutions imposed on them ... and on all of us more moderate hunting firearms owners.

 

[cedahm]

Do you really believe that the security at the airports makes your flight any safer? The TSA and the "Patriot Act" haven't given you security only the illusion of security. And it came at a cost to your rights. Men with guns make flying safer in the form of Air Marshalls.

As many others, I've been following this thread with great interest. A lot of very salient and thought provoking points being made. In this arena, I think I have relevant experience and I think it has parallels to this discussion and is illustrative of the degree to which a massive cultural shift can happen toprevent human tragedy. Since 1995, I've had my butt in commercial airline seats as a passenger for slightly more than 3MM actual flight miles and have spent more time in commercial airports and airplanes in a few dozen countries than I care to recall. Just this week I've gone through US airport security 4 times - statistically, I interact with TSA more in a few weeks than a lot of folks do in their lifetimes.

The Sky Marshal program was created in the 1970's. It was ramped up after DB Cooper. It was ramped up again after the creation of the TSA a couple of months after 9/11 and then again after the Air France Shoe Bomber in December of that year.

Higher prevalence of armed marshals - while fun to try and identify - were a minor blip in the overall increase in US air travel security. Prior to 9/11, you could turn up @ the airport 30 minutes before your flight, no real ID, a walk through a POS metal detector (the reason knives with blades shorter than 4" were allowed in a carryon was because the detector tech at the time couldn't reliably ID them) manned by a (often lowest-bidder and marginally qualified) private company with little skin in the game.

Go back another 20 years and you didn’t have to show ANY form of ID, and the 'security check' was, quite literally, the check-in agent 'observing the passenger and evaluating their mental state by looking for telltale signs of distress or exhibiting odd behavior'.

Within 2 months After 9/11:

- TSA was created, and 60,000 agents were hired and deployed to every US airport, which was the largest single mobilization of the Federal Government since WWII
- Pre-Screening was introduced, backed by high technoogy, and taken seriously (to the point of overreach at times).
- Advanced monitoring techniques were implemented in the airport
- MANY items were banned from airline cabins. A lot of them were (and remain) somewhat frivolous, but nonetheless, no more baseball bats, 4" bladed knives, liquids over 100ml, etc, etc, etc

The American people, via our congress (and it warrants noting that it was an 'R' congress) said 'No more' and the TSA was created. It happened rapidly because there was just NO way the US was going to stand for another event like that. And it has unequivocally worked in terms of preventing a hijacking or a weaponized airliner in this country. It has also cost our country hundreds of Billions of dollars in real and opportunity costs. Is the TSA a 'crack squad'? Far from it - there is substantial data proving that their efficacy at certain threat detection is poor. But - the simple act of going to the airport now places limitations on our rights that were deemed necessary to prevent a massive tragedy. And, again, that has worked.

More 'good guys with a gun' on a plane was a very small part of a massive, transformational shift in the way we treat commercial air travel in this country. I recall travelling to Tel Aviv in 1996 and being shocked at what the Israelis had in place for security to board a commercial aircraft. In retrospect, it was basically equivalent to what we have in the US today.

Note that I'm not necessarily advocating for a similar transformational shift in our school security or to our 2A protections, but I do believe that post-9/11 airport and airline security is a valid lens to the scale of the problems and the willingness (or lack thereof) of the American public to accept repeat events. As one more analogy - many travelers were (and continue to be) very upset about taking their shoes off, arriving early for a flight, perceived and real invasions of privacy, losing all that time, limitations on their rights, etc, but we were the huge minority.

 

[Straight Arrow]

Have you ever tried fitting a bolt action to an 8 year old?

Yes, that is why they started with the Cricket 22 then worked up to a 7mm-08 with a youth stock. If you think the preponderance of AR 15 owners / shooters are nice young kids with thoughtful parents, then you are mistaken. I have lived in a state with high per capita gun ownership and have had firearms my entire life. Friends, relatives, normal people own and use firearms ... and perhaps my age reflects my bias against AR 15s, but most folks I have encountered have been immature guys you wouldn't want to hunt with and you wish there were a law against gun ownership for! Around here the most visible shooter recreation has been rapid-fire shooting at trees til they fall or hauling old furniture up into the woods to blow something up. Seldom do you see them at the range practicing marksmanship. Perhaps the AR 15 has gotten a bad rap, but there is a reason ... even without the emotion of the mass school massacre vision.

 

[Gut Shot]

A lot of "doesn't work" and "won't work" comments about gun restrictions. I tend to be similarly skeptical, but this is not a factual or a scientific discussion, it is an emotional and political discussion. Actual likelihood of successfully addressing an issue is not the only way laws get passed. A lot of bad legislation crops up in response to emotional concerns and political expediency. When this happens, you need to either be part of shaping something that sucks less or sit on the sidelines and watch to worst come about. Firearm regulatory framework is such a topic. Either mainstream gun owners start helping take the edge off the most emotional targets, or sit by and watch the landslide of demographics give us the very worst outcome.

Agreed with the emotional component. What we are doing here helps offset that.

"Wisely and slow, they stumble that run fast" Shakespeare.

By arguing and getting frustrated and getting nothing done, it delays the process and gives emotions time to simmer down. In the end sanity will return to some, lets hope it is our leaders. Though, I long ago lost hope that many of our leaders had any sanity.

 

[Handlebar]

Part of that loophole allows you to give a gun as a Christmas gift to a family member. There was a post earlier that talked about the unintended ramifications that came with "fixing" the loophole in Washington State.

It would not matter if Gutshot put a picture of his child with an AR, a bolt action or a Daisy RedRyder someone would find it tone dear or someone would comment that all he was doing is raising a homicidal manic etc. etc. My 10 year old also shoots one. It is easier on the shoulder and has gotten him interested in starting to use heavier recoil firearms.

VAspeedgoat, this conversation has been civil but the comment about the one pointed at your wife's friend was out of line. Can we only have an opinion if a At-15 has been pointed at ourselves or someone we know?

There have been several comments that if we don't effect change ourselves then we are going to get something. There is definitely some truth to this. I demand from this moment on that police and FBI and school districts follow the law. Even the Miami Herald has an article talking about the myriad of discipline problems the district had with this kid. There was a Jan 2017 assault that resulted in nothing supposedly he had a knife (per another source may or may not be accurate), students reported violent threats against them nothing was done. Perhaps if Chief Israel was as interested in charging a repeat offender as he is in banning guns , he would have been flagged when he bought the damn thing. Perhaps then the background check could have worked All of this info is from the Miami Herald. If you are not going to use the tools already at your disposal don't come to me and tell me I need to surrender more of my rights. For the record there is one in my closet that has never killed anyone .

 

[Doublecluck]

The argument was that background checks weren't required to buy guns, i.e. there is no loophole.

The NRA keeps saying that we need to keep the guns out of the hands of these nuts, but they oppose fixing this loophole. What do you think about keeping this loophole for semi-auto weapons?

Personally I am fine with closing the "loophole" because I don't believe it effects law abiding people. But my point, not necessarily directed at you, you were just the last one to post on the idea, was that the data does not necessarily suggest that ease of accessibility to firearms alone leads to more murders with firearms.

 

[VAspeedgoat]

I read an article supposedly written by a surgeon who worked both the pulse nightclub and Douglas high. His take was to limit capacity and caliber (energy) of these weapons. He said the handgun wounds from pulse were fatal generally from number of shots and Douglas was based on organ damage from caliber and energy. He said that when treating pistol wounds the patients that arive at the hospital have a very high rate of survival. Immediately fatal wounds from head, lungs, heart etc are usually not treatable.

I have had no time to think through this but decided to post anyway. Is this a viable alternative?

 

[Gut Shot]

The American people, via our congress (and it warrants noting that it was an 'R' congress) said 'No more' and the TSA was created. It happened rapidly because there was just NO way the US was going to stand for another event like that. And it has unequivocally worked in terms of preventing a hijacking or a weaponized airliner in this country. It has also cost our country hundreds of Billions of dollars in real and opportunity costs. Is the TSA a 'crack squad'? Far from it - there is substantial data proving that their efficacy at certain threat detection is poor. But - the simple act of going to the airport now places limitations on our rights that were deemed necessary to prevent a massive tragedy. And, again, that has worked.

You are correct and I shouldn't have said that the TSA doesn't make our airports safer. But it is an illusion. The reason that it works is because it is a good illusion. Sooner or later someone will see it for what it is and find a way around the security measures that have been put in place. Back in 2003 while flying back from AK my hunting buddy went to get his camera out of his carry on bag only then to see the hunting knife he forgot in the pack.