Cont: School shooting Florida - pt 2

CaptainHowdy said:
Some people think both are complete fabrications. I think that Sandy Hook and Parkland and every other mass shooting that's been reported in the media actually happened.
Click to expand...

Fair enough. Doesn't it concern you that you are hitching your wagon to some nutjobs, though?
 
CaptainHowdy said:
If the goal is reducing the death toll from mass shootings, not just school shootings, taking away assault rifles won't cut it. You'll need to take away handguns as well.
Click to expand...

That's an obviously absurd statement. If the aim is reducing the death toll from mass shootings, then taking away "assault rifles" by whatever definition you're using (to avoid the obvious bait-and-switch gotcha attempts) would be expected to achieve that aim, because a shooter with an assault rifle can fire more shots at longer range and thus kill more people than a person with a handgun. The result is that the death toll is reduced, even if it isn't eliminated.

Dave
 
Having more stringent and unified background checks for handguns as well as having the purchaser legally liable for any non-justified use would also be useful though.
 
crescent said:
It is easy to say that they should have done something. I have not seen anyone actually show what legal options they actually had, or what the calls were actually about. I have heard rumors (unsubstantiated) for example, that many of the calls were due to complaints about the shooter's brother, not the shooter himself.

Can someone tell me what complaints there were that were serious enough or had enough evidence for the police to hold him, or to take his guns away?
Click to expand...
In Part 1 of this thread there is lots of information and links about the behavior of Cruz and interactions with police. I know because I was posting it.

Police were called dozens of times for Cruz and also additionally for his brother. Sometimes they would get in fights with each other and police were called. The nature of the various incidents has been reported. Most often the police would talk to Cruz and decide that he was aware and remorseful of his behavior and that he would stop. It just never got beyond that. We don't know what sort of threshold must be passed before real sanctions are inflicted upon him.

He was always in psychotherapy because he always was mentally abnormal. He alternated between behaving crazy out of control and being decent and stable. But he never seriously hurt anyone physically and he certainly didn't shoot anyone even though he had lots of guns.
 
William Parcher said:
In Part 1 of this thread there is lots of information and links about the behavior of Cruz and interactions with police. I know because I was posting it.

Police were called dozens of times for Cruz and also additionally for his brother. Sometimes they would get in fights with each other and police were called. The nature of the various incidents has been reported. Most often the police would talk to Cruz and decide that he was aware and remorseful of his behavior and that he would stop. It just never got beyond that.
Click to expand...

I saw all of that - but this next bit you said cannot be emphasized enough:

We don't know what sort of threshold must be passed before real sanctions are inflicted upon him.
Click to expand...

We still honestly don't know if the police dropped the ball on this, or if the laws that existed at the time were just not strong enough for them to act on.
 
crescent said:
We still honestly don't know if the police dropped the ball on this, or if the laws that existed at the time were just not strong enough for them to act on.
Click to expand...
I think we can recognize a problem or dilemma that would never go away. In this world, there are really crazy or insane people who have guns and they still never shoot anyone ever for all of their lives. These are examples which show that mental illness and even when combined with scariness doesn't automatically equal murderous.

If guns are confiscated or prevented from being owned by "known crazies" then it will happen to people who never ever would have shot anyone.

If it's enforced with extreme regularity and uniformity then for sure there will be babies thrown out with bathwater, so to speak.
 
CaptainHowdy said:
If the goal is reducing the death toll from mass shootings, not just school shootings, taking away assault rifles won't cut it. You'll need to take away handguns as well.
Click to expand...

Sounds like another "It won't solve every problem, so we may as well do nothing."

We are never going to solve murder. People murder. It has always happened. It will always happen. I would just like to see it made a little bit more difficult to get a high body count. Let's have people give up on breaking the record. That will save some lives, and "some" is good enough for me, even if there will still be a lot killed.

As for handgun restrictions, I am for tighter controls than we have now, but I am also a huge fan of the US constitution, and the Supreme Court has ruled, correctly in my opinion, that a ban on handguns would violate the constitution, so that's right out.
 
Last edited:
crescent said:
I saw all of that - but this next bit you said cannot be emphasized enough:



We still honestly don't know if the police dropped the ball on this, or if the laws that existed at the time were just not strong enough for them to act on.
Click to expand...

As far as I can tell from what I've read, his violence and threats of violence were directed at family members, who declined to press charges. As such, there was no reason for local authorities to do anything. He had no arrest record or any conviction, so nothing could be used to deny him the opportunity to purchase a gun.

The FBI dropped the ball when a threatening message was left on social media, and they failed to follow up on it. However, even that is probably not something that would have resulted in an arrest. It may have given them the opportunity to observe something, and perhaps there was some sort of intervention that conceivably could have happened, but probably it would have been another, "Interviewed subject. No grounds for legal action. Case closed."
 
I see today that David Hogg has called for a boycott of major investment firms, Vanguard specifically, doing business with gun companies. That's going to go exactly nowhere. It seems that his celebrity has gotten to his head. He's going to find out the limits of his influence.

CaptainHowdy is probably wondering why Hogg's media handlers let him get away with such a blunder.
 
Last edited:
William Parcher said:
If guns are confiscated or prevented from being owned by "known crazies" then it will happen to people who never ever would have shot anyone.

If it's enforced with extreme regularity and uniformity then for sure there will be babies thrown out with bathwater, so to speak.
Click to expand...

Better to be safe than have yet another schoolyard full of children turned into a killing field!
 
jimbob said:
Fair enough. Doesn't it concern you that you are hitching your wagon to some nutjobs, though?
Click to expand...
I'm not hitching my wagon to any nutjobs. Other people might be hitching me to other nutjobs but that's because they don't understand what I'm saying. Or, to be generous, I'm not explaining myself clearly. Then there are those people who label any idea they don't like a "conspiracy theory" so they don't have to address it.
 
Dave Rogers said:
That's an obviously absurd statement. If the aim is reducing the death toll from mass shootings, then taking away "assault rifles" by whatever definition you're using (to avoid the obvious bait-and-switch gotcha attempts) would be expected to achieve that aim, because a shooter with an assault rifle can fire more shots at longer range and thus kill more people than a person with a handgun. The result is that the death toll is reduced, even if it isn't eliminated.

Dave
Click to expand...
Here's another source with individual mass shooting incidents and the type of weapon used. Count the number of incidents where an "assault rifle" was used.

I'll be generous and let you define all shotguns and all semi-automatic rifles as "assault rifles" even though nobody in their right mind would do so. I'll let you count every incident where a handgun was used with another weapon (a rifle, shotgun, knife, flamethrower, etc) as an "assault rifle" incident. Also, go ahead and count the incidents where the weapon was unknown as an "assault rifle" incident.

Now, count the number of incidents where only handguns were used. Add together the number of people who were killed in handgun only incidents and "assault rifle" incidents.

Now explain to me how it's obviously absurd to say that an "assault rifle" ban would not have helped all those people killed with handguns.
 
Meadmaker said:
I see today that David Hogg has called for a boycott of major investment firms, Vanguard specifically, doing business with gun companies. That's going to go exactly nowhere. It seems that his celebrity has gotten to his head. He's going to find out the limits of his influence.

CaptainHowdy is probably wondering why Hogg's media handlers let him get away with such a blunder.
Click to expand...
Not only that, but did you hear about him calling for another nationwide student walkout to celebrate Hitler's birthday??!!? Thank God the Columbine people threw acid in his face and told him to sit in the corner over that one.
 
crescent said:
I saw all of that - but this next bit you said cannot be emphasized enough:



We still honestly don't know if the police dropped the ball on this, or if the laws that existed at the time were just not strong enough for them to act on.
Click to expand...
The laws that existed at the time would have required Nikolas Cruz to be arrested and thereby prevented from buying a gun if they had been enforced. Unfortunately, Broward County has a policy to keep POC from being "disproportionately" arrested and stigmatized with a police record. There's no way a kid named "Cruz" was going to be arrested with that policy in place. 'Cruise' or 'Crews', maybe. But not 'Cruz'
 
CaptainHowdy said:
The laws that existed at the time would have required Nikolas Cruz to be arrested and thereby prevented from buying a gun if they had been enforced.
Click to expand...


Does being arrested prevent someone from purchasing a firearm in Florida?

Unfortunately, Broward County has a policy to keep POC from being "disproportionately" arrested and stigmatized with a police record. There's no way a kid named "Cruz" was going to be arrested with that policy in place. 'Cruise' or 'Crews', maybe. But not 'Cruz'
Click to expand...


The agreement you cite seems to be about "school related offences".

What "school related offences" do you think Cruz should have been arrested for which the police declined to do on the basis of this agreement?
 
CaptainHowdy said:
Here's another source with individual mass shooting incidents and the type of weapon used. Count the number of incidents where an "assault rifle" was used.

I'll be generous and let you define all shotguns and all semi-automatic rifles as "assault rifles" even though nobody in their right mind would do so. I'll let you count every incident where a handgun was used with another weapon (a rifle, shotgun, knife, flamethrower, etc) as an "assault rifle" incident. Also, go ahead and count the incidents where the weapon was unknown as an "assault rifle" incident.

Now, count the number of incidents where only handguns were used. Add together the number of people who were killed in handgun only incidents and "assault rifle" incidents.

Now explain to me how it's obviously absurd to say that an "assault rifle" ban would not have helped all those people killed with handguns.
Click to expand...

Nice bait-and-switch strawman argument. First of all, you were the one who introduced the term "assault rifle," and as I predicted you did so purely in order to get a Gotcha! by then quibbling about the definition of your own term. And secondly, you start by saying that a ban on "assault rifles" would not decrease the murder rate at all, a claim you're now trying to morph into one that banning "assault rifles" would not eliminate all killings with guns. Clearly your aim here is to use blatantly dishonest tactics to give the illusion of making a point; I just thought I should let you know just how predictable your lies are.

Your next move, by the way, is to pretend you never claimed banning "assault rifles" wouldn't reduce the number of murders, but that you simply meant that the reduction wouldn't be significant enough to be worth the cost. This, too, will be a lie.

Dave
 
fagin said:
Go on then, humour us with a link...
Click to expand...

It's only partly a lie. David Hogg has called for a nationwide walk-out tomorrow. Tomorrow just happens to be Hitler's birthday, which a sharp-eyed smearmonger has noticed and publicised. The bit about the walk out being "to celebrate Hitler's birthday" is a fairly obvious malicious lie.

So the lesson to take away from this is that anyone who does anything tomorrow is clearly a Nazi. Hopefully CaptainHowdy will refrain from "celebrating Hitler's birthday" by posting on this forum; if not, I suggest we all call him out on it.

Dave
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom