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School shooting Florida

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They look at medical records, but they only if they suspect mental illness first

Anyone may object to a person being allowed to hold a F/L.

So how does that work? "Anyone" -- your neighbor, your kid's teacher, your co-worker, your ex-spouse, your mechanic -- can call the cops and say "This guy shouldn't have a gun." Do they have to file a sworn statement? How is that investigated? Do you get to know who's badmouthing you? Are there penalties for making an unsubstantiated report? I can't imagine how that would work in the U.S. And on what basis would the cops "suspect mental illness?" The neighbor's allegation? So the cops can demand your doctor's records or therapist's notes? Gee, you think there's any chance of abuse of power?
 
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Don't mistake CaptainHowdy's fantasy for reality, Boob001. What he is prattling on about is how he would like it to be, not how it is. He wants only special people, people like him, to have guns.
 
So how does that work? "Anyone" -- your neighbor, your kid's teacher, your co-worker, your ex-spouse, your mechanic -- can call the cops and say "This guy shouldn't have a gun." Do they have to file a sworn statement? How is that investigated? Do you get to know who's badmouthing you? Are there penalties for making an unsubstantiated report? I can't imagine how that would work in the U.S. And on what basis would the cops "suspect mental illness?" The neighbor's allegation? So the cops can demand your doctor's records or therapist's notes? Gee, you think there's any chance of abuse of power?

Its not as loose as that. You have to make a formal complaint, but if the Police investigate and find you are wasting their time on some frivolous personal vendetta, they WILL charge you for wasting Police time.

As to mental illness, I'll let the act speak for itself...

The Arms Code states:
People who have;

history of violence or
repeated involvement with drugs or
been irresponsible with alcohol or
a personal or social relationship with people who may be deemed to be unsuitable to obtain access to firearms or
indicates [sic] an intent to use firearms for self defence

may find it difficult to satisfy the Police that they are fit and proper to have a firearm.

While there are no provisions that deal directly with psychiatric assessments of firearms license applicants, a history of mental illness may also provide reason for the Police to refuse or revoke a license on the grounds that the person is not fit and proper to possess a firearm.

1997 Report and Subsequent Actions

Following the 1992 changes, and after two shootings by police officers in 1995, the government ordered an examination of internal police procedures for storing and using firearms. The government also sought an independent review of firearms legislation, which subsequently took place in the context of gun massacres in Australia and the United Kingdom in 1996. The resulting 1997 report (the Thorp Report) recommended “radical reform of firearms laws,” including restricting the number of handguns* that a licensee can hold; banning all MSSAs (Military Style Semi-Automatics); limiting magazine capacity for other semi-automatics; disqualifying persons convicted of certain offences from holding a firearms license for a set period; and permitting the voluntary disclosure of relevant mental health information by health professionals.

*NOTE: The Laws on handguns have changed since then. Handguns are severely restricted. Possession or use pistols only for target shooting is allowed (B endorsement), collection of pistols and restricted weapons for display is allowed (C endorsement) or and stage theatrical performances involving pistols and restricted weapons is allowed (also a C endorsement)
 
Yeah, nitpicking every suggestion. Oh, and Florida doesn't agree with you. They just changed the law on gun ownership. Why didn't you let them know they were wasting their time?

It's pretty ridiculous to buy into American exceptionalism, when the evidence from around the world is that gun control is do-able, and it works. Thank goodness people with a bit more foresight got to run the show here after Dunblane.

Tinkering with the law after Sandy Hook has not stopped the flow of mass shootings. Why will Florida tinkering with the law make any difference.

Gun control only works when there is one law across an entire country, where there is national agreement that controls are needed, so that they are enforced and the guns were kept under control from the start.

If the UK had 20 million gun owners with 90 million guns, British gangs and criminal had easy access to guns, the police had no idea who had what gun and there was a UKNRA preventing action, we would also numerous mass shootings and no way of solving the problem.

The only think exceptional about the USA was that it was the only country to never get a grip on who had the guns, so as to ensure on suitable people can possess them.
 
It depends on what you mean by "work". If you mean an Aussie-style ban complete with gun roundup, that won't pass the legislature and if it did, it probably wouldn't pass the courts.

If you mean legislation that will eliminate all future mass shootings, that won't work.


If you mean meaningful gun control that will save a few lives, I believe that can be accomplished.

Maybe tinkering with the law may have helped prevent some mass shootings, by stopping a wannabe mass shooter getting hold of guns.

I suspect that tinkering makes no actual difference because there are so many guns in circulation that anyone who wants one, or two, even if they are criminal, angry, paranoid etc can get one.
 
When you talk about banning the AR-15 and all guns similar to the AR-15, you're talking about banning pretty much all sporting rifles. If you're talking about every gun that performs the same function as an AR-15, as in 'fire a projectile' that's every gun. So when someone says they only want to ban the AR-15 and guns that perform a similar function, they want to ban all guns.

For all the complaints about how ignorant the pro-gun control crowd are, one would think that the complainers among anti-gun control crowd would at least try not to represent themselves in just as bad a way as that or worse.

You quote this figure as if it was relevant to something being discussed here. It isn't. Best case performance by the world's top experts is not a useful comparison.

What was the average hit rate in standard usage by "well-trained" police officers? 27% or so? The accuracy rate drops pretty fast when you're not dealing with the best of the best, seems like.
 
.......The only think exceptional about the USA was that it was the only country to never get a grip on who had the guns, so as to ensure on suitable people can possess them.

And you are perfectly content to say "leave it as it is. It's too difficult to deal with".
 
And you are perfectly content to say "leave it as it is. It's too difficult to deal with".

I am saying the USA has no choice other than to learn to cope with the situation as it is. I am far from content with that, but like having an amputation, there is no way back and so learning to cope is the one realistic option.

In the thread I started about coping strategies I showed how that is what the USA is already doing. Some cope by claiming the mass shootings are faked, which has been done about the Florida shootings. Some cope by tinkering with the law (which is what Florida state has done) hoping it may make a difference.

Last night I watched the episode on Columbine in the Active Shooter America Under Fire series. That was 1999 and nothing significant has happened since then. Indeed, the episode showed just how many myths sprung up about the shooting and how it became an inspiration for other shootings. Here is a study of other mass shootings or plots to shoot that were inspired by Columbine;

http://abcnews.go.com/US/columbine-shootings-grim-legacy-50-school-attacks-plots/story?id=26007119

"...at least 17 attacks and another 36 alleged plots or serious threats against schools since the assault on Columbine High School that can be tied to the 1999 massacre."

As unpalatable as it sounds, the evidence is there that the USA is an outlier which reacts the opposite way to guns to the rest of the western world. It is ingrained in society, the way people think and act and even how they are inspired to respond.

I see no point in battering yourself into submission fretting over something that cannot be changed.
 
I agree with Nessie.
Nothing can or will be done, there are already too many guns and no way to remove them short of a civil war.
 
Well I profoundly disagree. In time, Americans will sort this out. They'll restrict what guns can be owned, and who is entitled to have them. The fact that it is difficult, and won't be done quickly or in one go, doesn't alter my optimism. You pessimists are entitled to your view, but it's hard to separate that attitude from those of the NRA supporters.
 
Well I profoundly disagree. In time, Americans will sort this out. They'll restrict what guns can be owned, and who is entitled to have them. The fact that it is difficult, and won't be done quickly or in one go, doesn't alter my optimism. You pessimists are entitled to your view, but it's hard to separate that attitude from those of the NRA supporters.

"In time"... sure, you might see some amount of restriction on certain weapons/people, but (not in my lifetime) we won't see guns generally unavailable to the public. Guns to Americans are like bad teeth to the Brits. It's just part of who we are.
 
Great, except that bad teeth thing is about 40 years out of date......and "guns generally unavailable to the public" isn't what I was saying.
 
Well I profoundly disagree. In time, Americans will sort this out. They'll restrict what guns can be owned, and who is entitled to have them. The fact that it is difficult, and won't be done quickly or in one go, doesn't alter my optimism. You pessimists are entitled to your view, but it's hard to separate that attitude from those of the NRA supporters.


I'm rather inclined to go with Nessie on this one. There's really nothing more that can happen in the USA to prompt action. That is, if what they've seen till now hasn't made a difference, I really can't see what will.

Add into that the actual logistical difficulties and the unbending nature of the second amendment (which cannot be further amended due to the deep, partisan divide in US politics where no side will allow the other a 'win) and I really can't see change happening.











(Edit: Would it be in bad taste to run a sweep on location and numbers of the next US mad shooting. If it would be in bad taste, is that in better or worse taste than being the only developed country where this happens?)
 
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I'm rather inclined to go with Nessie on this one. There's really nothing more that can happen in the USA to prompt action. That is, if what they've seen till now hasn't made a difference, I really can't see what will.

Ousting the Republicans from power en masse, like may hopefully be in the works, would probably help quite a bit, both directly and by getting the message across that their strategies are starting to backfire.

Add into that the actual logistical difficulties and the unbending nature of the second amendment (which cannot be further amended due to the deep, partisan divide in US politics where no side will allow the other a 'win) and I really can't see change happening.

The unbending nature? The NRA has managed to "bend" the nature of the 2nd Amendment into something nigh unrecognizable from what it was for about 200 years of precedent.



(Edit: Would it be in bad taste to run a sweep on location and numbers of the next US mad shooting. If it would be in bad taste, is that in better or worse taste than being the only developed country where this happens?)

I don't know what you're asking about here, so it's hard to answer either way.
 
That is stupid.


I have nine guns in my house. Six of them are sporting rifles. None of them are similar to an AR 15.

I call B.S.
They are all EXACTLY like an AR15 in that they can fire a projectile. If you were a kid who wanted to shoot up the school and you didn’t have an AR-15, you don’t think any of your guns could be used instead? They couldn’t even be modified in some way that would allow them to be used to shoot somebody? Really?
 
For all the complaints about how ignorant the pro-gun control crowd are, one would think that the complainers among anti-gun control crowd would at least try not to represent themselves in just as bad a way as that or worse.
You’re argument would be taken more seriously if you explained why I’m wrong.
 
Married to and living with a non-citizen would be treated as if you were married to and living with any other ineligible person. I don’t know what they do if you own a gun and your spouse, say, is a restrained person. Can you keep your gun? If you store it where your spouse doesn’t have access to it can you keep it? I don’t know.

All non-citizens would be treated the same. Being Swiss, Christian, and a White gives her no benefits. Although being Swiss she probablY grew up with a gun in the house and is familiar with their operation.

So you would overturn the Constitution in its entirety, including the civil right implicit in the second amendment, rather than modify the rest of the second amendment?

Have you actually thought about this?

And you have not really ever come up with any good reason why a law abiding, legally resident alien should have less right for, or need for, a gun than a person born on US soil. Now our use of guns back then was pretty minimal, but we did take some potshots at garden pests, and also had to shoot a rabid animal in the yard which was threatening our (AMERICAN-BORN!) children, and the question remains why a non-citizen, or for that matter the spouse of a non-citizen, should be deprived of that right, which the constitution rather explicitly guarantees.

I don't know how you stand on the traditional issue of smaller government, but your proposal would, among other things, be enormously statist, requiring a considerable increase in both the administrative size and the intrusiveness of government, as well as being radically federalist, since it would be removing not only the current level of state control over gun laws, but the current level of state consideration of who is to be granted basic civil rights and the emoluments of citizenship. As I believe I pointed out earlier, the US Constitution is pretty consistent in applying the term "the people" to ALL civil rights, and if the right to bear arms is modified to change the meaning of "the people" it follows that that term either is or can be modified with regard to ALL civil rights in both the body of the Constitution and the amendments. Furthermore, by doing so it would usurp the current practice of states to determine who in their jurisdiction enjoys civil rights. In Vermont, for example, where there is no gun registration at all, and no record of gun ownership at all, and where all legal residents of the state are permitted to own and carry a firearm, the Constitution and its subsequent interpretations are also pretty explicit that citizenship, for State purposes, applies to all who are legally resident in the State. In fact, it was only under a degree of pressure that Vermont gave up its practice of allowing resident aliens to vote at the State level.

I will charitably presume that your proposal is the result of insufficient thought rather than xenophobic bias, but I would just add that I think the society you propose would be complicated, messy, hateful and ineffective, and for a rather large number of people, a hell on earth needlessly infected with fear, hatred and bureaucratic stupidity, overturning civil rights to a degree that is, in short, wholly and shamefully unamerican.
 
They are all EXACTLY like an AR15 in that they can fire a projectile.

Like I said, it's strange how easily you recognise different categories of people but can't recognise different categories of gun. But, hey, if you want to argue that a Brown Bess musket is exactly the same as an M61 Vulcan because they both fire a projectile, and the difference between weights of projectile and rates of fire is irrelevant, please go ahead. I'm sure everyone will adjust their view of your credibility accordingly.

Dave
 
Well I profoundly disagree. In time, Americans will sort this out. They'll restrict what guns can be owned, and who is entitled to have them. The fact that it is difficult, and won't be done quickly or in one go, doesn't alter my optimism. You pessimists are entitled to your view, but it's hard to separate that attitude from those of the NRA supporters.

Here in California, we’re potentially just one Supreme Court decision from banning the sale of handguns to the general public, something that isn’t flying on the average california’s radar. In an anti-gunners wet dream, the requirement for microstamping has halted the sale of new semi-automatic handguns which do not meet that requirement. Semi-autos on the roster now are grandfathered in but will eventually be phased out.

Gun manufacturers of course balked at the law because as written, is impossible to implement. The California DOJ’s response? Then you’re certainly welcome to sell your guns elsewhere. Legal challenges at the state level have failed.

Theoretically, if the SCOTUS declines to hear or rules against the current legal challenges, California may then ban the sale of revolvers and derringers as well since they don’t eject microstamped cartridges either. Then the state may then focus on chipping away at long arms. Nifty. Other gun-unfriendly states will be free to implement similar measures.

Incidentally, the Attorney General who signed this legislation, Kamala Harris, is now a US Senator. Look for her to try pushing through something similar when the Democrats regain control after the mid-terms.

So there you have the seeds planted, perhaps.
 
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