Shooting in California

This is going to be a long one...

JustShon wrote: »

I do think there's a lot to be said for mental health / psychiatric checks being involved when purchasing a new gun though.

Depends on what you mean by 'checks'. If you mean 'check to see if the man has been flagged by a competent agency (ie doctor etc), then that's -theoretically- already being done. It isn't, yet, I don't think, because they haven't properly sorted out the mechanics (and money) of doing it. Case in point, Virginia Tech. If you mean 'sit down with a psychiatrist for an hour interview before buying your gun', there aren't enough psychiatrists for people who already need help as it is, let alone enough to run 200,000 interviews for one Friday in November. And that's if an interview will tell you anything anyway. I strongly suspect that it takes more than one meeting to determine if someone's mad.

BattleCorp wrote: »

The old 2nd Amendment is a problem too. I can just picture it: "Hey man, just because I suffered from depression in the past doesn't mean I have to give up my Constitutional rights, now gimme that gun."

You don't even have to get to the legal argument before it becomes a problem. I have a friend who was in a nasty car accident, friends killed. He now cannot ride in a convertible. Just can't do it. Gets in, freezes. He went to the doctor, it's obviously a mental/psychological issue he has. As someone with a psychological issue should he be barred from a firearm?

Or let's look at depression, PTSD, etc. Joe Bloggs (or his wife) has identified the early signs of depression. He has a choice. He can go to the doctor to get it dealt with before it becomes a major problem, or he can avoid it in the hope that it won't get worse because he's afraid that as soon as he knocks on the doctor's door, he'll be tagged as one of those great threats to society, his firearms will be confiscated and he'll be prohibited from ever buying another one again. Which is the better outcome here?

asherbassad wrote: »

Oh brother! More fantasyland hollywood bullshit

Is it? Granted, San Bernadino's only about two hours' drive from Hollywood, but I don't think what happened yesterday was a fantasy.

Superhorse wrote: »

Watching that story unfold last night one thing became crystal clear to me. The San Bernandino police department look like they are more heavily armed than the Irish army and if an ISIS or Islamic terrorist type situation occurred here are the Gardaí armed with something better than 20 year old uzi's to neutralise the threat?

As already mentioned, in the US, the active Army is prohibited from engaging in law enforcement absent very specific circumstances. Plus the Army bases tend to be in the middle of nowhere to provide training room. Reservists will take time to come in and so are unsuitable. States could, in theory, use full-time reservists (Chemical/Radiological/Biological response teams are an extant case in point), but it's a lot more efficient to use police for the job. In Ireland, the Gardai have armed units generally not too far apart from anywhere, and even the top tier ERU folks can get anywhere fairly quickly. Plus, in case of utter Paris or Mumbai style chaos, Army bases are often found in the cities and towns, as a holdover from the times that the Army were actually used to control the population.

Jelle1880 wrote: »

Their stance on it is completely incompatible with common sense. They are for arming teachers for **** sake.

Common sense only if you agree with it, though, right? Give me a rational, not emotional, reason why this is a bad idea, given the situation. It is undeniable that a lot of these shootings are happening in schools. It is, I think, undesirable that schools be turned into fortresses, with big gates and armed guards at the entrances with metal detectors to prevent these shootings. It is undeniable that many teachers are allowed to be armed off school grounds and don't seem to be causing any issues. It is undeniable that a small number of schools and universities allow staff (and students in some cases) to be armed, and this also has not yet caused any issues. Given all this, given that as far as I know there is nothing about a school property line which causes a teacher with a carry permit, who we trust with our childrens' safety and future five days of almost every week, to become a homicidal maniac as soon as he or she sets foot in the classroom, what's the argument against? Not the 'guns don't belong in schools' argument. Not the 'guns are bad' argument. Not even the 'we shouldn't have to resort to teachers with guns' argument. These are emotional ones which do nothing. A solid, practical reason why this is so far from 'common sense' that it's damning.

Hyzepher wrote: »

The NRA are so biased and profit blind that they see no issue with allowing suspected terrorists - currently on no-fly lists - to have the right to buy weapons.

These are people who are viewed as such a threat that the authorities do no allow them in a plane. The NRA want the right for gun companies to sell to these people upheld.

Yes, a list which is so poorly managed that Senator Ted Kennedy found himself on it, and it took even a politician of that stature three weeks to get himself off it. Private Citizen Kareem Mohammed is going to have a much greater issue with carrying out his Constitutional rights if some random bureaucrat managed to put his name on a list even without his having done anything illegal to justify the restrictions.

RasTa wrote: »

Of course, it's too easy for any nutjob to get automatic weapons.

Just limit everyone to handguns and be done with it

Not sure if satire or not, but just in case.

Two legally owned automatic weapons are known to have been used in murders since 1934. One was a police machinegun which a cop used, off the job.

As to 'rifles which look like machine guns but are not.'

Of the 11,600 or so murders in 2014, 248 were known to have been committed with rifles of any sort, let alone specifically EBRs/SURs/AWs/Insert-name-of-choice-for-the-ones-based-on-ARs,-AKs-and-the-like. (vs about 650 unarmed, and 1,600 knives). That's about 2% for all rifles.

It just isn't a problem. Especially when one considers that the AR-15 is the most commonly sold rifle type in the US, and has been for years. They just aren't suited for routine criminal activity.

asherbassad wrote: »

Restricting guns WILL stop mass slayings and do you want to know why? Because the proof is right there in plain sight. After Australia implemented harsh gun restrictions, guess what? mass slaughter fell away to near zero.

The University of Melbourne took a look at that, and were unable to establish a causative relationship. They theorised that other actions (police, social policy etc) were also quite likely to be the cause of the effect. Not least because the 'gun ban' was actually not all that comprehensive, there was significant non-compliance. Still plenty of guns out in Australia. Assuming the very optimistic case that the US might follow the Australian rates of compliance of turn-in (And not the Canadian ones for registration, which were terrible), you're still looking at nearly 100,000,000 firearms in circulation.

And there is the minor fact, already well established, that the presence of firearms does not correlate directly with causation for with the US problems. I can't legally carry a gun down the street here in San Francisco, but you can legally carry a gun into a bar or a school in Prague. Which one has the bigger problem? Why is Australia brought up, where they have had no major incidents since the ban, but not neighbouring New Zealand where they have had no major incidents since they declined to ban?

Jelle1880 wrote: »

But when you have **** like the NRA who are even opposed to mental checks before you buy a gun then you have a massive problem.
Because it's apparently insane to not hand out guns to people who have signs of depression, who are schizophrenic, who have anger issues,...

I don't believe that is the NRA position. Certainly they say otherwise. https://www.nraila.org/articles/20130124/mental-health-and-firearms