I’m all for Darwinism…but not when he takes 20+ people with him before he gets a lead injection…
Background checks
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Where did i say i wanted to take everyones firearms or limit them? Some of y’all just jump at the chance to scream omg they wanna take my guns. My entire thing is limit people with mental health concerns, not every day people.
Okay, that’s probably the dumbest thing i have ever heard. Background checks are only to make people feel safe? No! Its a very small solution to keep people who want to perform violent crimes from legally owning a firearm. If we didn’t have these laws the guy who continuously beats his wife, convicted and spends time in jail can now walk into Cabelas and buy a gun to possibly seek revenge. Cmon now!
doubleh
Member
I would like to inquire just who gets to determine that. Mental health is an inexact science. Some are raving lunatics and easily seen. Others will exhibit no sign at all until they go off the deep end. How about we put a red flag law into effect nationwide and I report you because we had a disagreement or I just don't like you because I don't like the way you look? See where this can go? Very thin ice here with what you propose.
Edited to add: Considering just how inept some of the people that make up law enforcement are who can you depend on to do the right job?
Part of that is essentially already the law, if we're talking about getting admitted involuntarily. If the law was changed to include prohibiting anyone who was on mental health meds, a bit over a quarter of the US population would be prohibited persons. Would you be ok with that? I think well over a quarter of the population is basically nuts, the problem is, you have to give someone (the government) authority to define what that means. That's extremely problematic.
I'm an everyday person, and you're telling me that if I go to a gun shop tomorrow morning, that I do not have to right to a firearm until I "prove" that I'm not a psychotic killer with a $5 background check.
You really think that they can let someone out of prison- a place where no weapon is legal and people still injure, maim, and kill people all the time- and that $5 background is going to actually make anyone safe? That's the dumbest thing I ever heard.
Put yourself in his shoes. You don't think you could kill a woman without a gun? Even women kill people without guns.
It’s obvious that you just wanna argue. Have a good night. Be sure to post a pic of the gun you buy tomorrow, we like pics.
With the latest shooting in Maine the focus remains on the AR not the person. Over 42, 700 automobile fatalities occurred in the U.S. last year. No one blamed the vehicle. More than 400 by Texting and more than 30000 by distracting driving, no one blamed the car, but a lunatic walks in a building with an AR and it is not the lunatic's fault it is the firearm and we must pass legislation for stricter gun control. I wonder if the same insane school of thought was directed to cell phones and automobiles how much of an uproar that would cause. Addressing the main issue has always been sidestepped. Just like it seems acceptable that DUI and DWI fatalities caused by repeat offenders out number the lives taken, than from a mass shooting by a firearm.
Outlaw75
Member
Just for the record; Maine has a "Yellow Flag"* law, but it did not work in this case. There's been no determination as to why, especially since the shooter was hospitalized earlier this year after he started hearing voices.
wgme.com
wgme.com
*Maine's law requires a medical practitioner to sign off unlike "Red Flag" laws that do not and can be open to abuse.
Mental health a key factor in Maine mass shooting, officials working to piece together tim
The search for the Maine mass shooter may be over but the investigation is far from it.
wgme.com
Here's how often Maine's 'yellow flag' law has been used
STATEWIDE (WGME) --A state law that can be used to temporarily confiscate weapons from a person deemed a danger to themselves or others has been put into the national spotlight amid new calls for gun control measures. Maine's so called "yellow flag" law went into effect in 2020 and is different...
wgme.com
*Maine's law requires a medical practitioner to sign off unlike "Red Flag" laws that do not and can be open to abuse.
Emotions run high after one of these events, and the "we must do something" human response sends us grasping at the handiest "solution", but it isn't a solution because humans are tool users and there are many tools that will always be available, even to those who are institutionalized. No, the challenge is to identify and intercept psychopaths, and that is much more complicated and resource-intensive than grabbing the "evilest" guns, then the other guns.
Federal law on the topic was drafted in the dark ages of mental health treatment, and speaks of persons who have been "adjudicated mentally defective". That is a far cry from someone who self-reports, who appears normal, who doesn't cause any problems until some process we cannot understand turns them into a sociopath. Yes, something should have been done decades ago, but that something must be measured, evaluated, based upon sound science and applied equitably and universally. We haven't figured out how to do that yet, and I don't think our society will stand the cost. Gun control is always the answer when the guns belong to others.
Federal law on the topic was drafted in the dark ages of mental health treatment, and speaks of persons who have been "adjudicated mentally defective". That is a far cry from someone who self-reports, who appears normal, who doesn't cause any problems until some process we cannot understand turns them into a sociopath. Yes, something should have been done decades ago, but that something must be measured, evaluated, based upon sound science and applied equitably and universally. We haven't figured out how to do that yet, and I don't think our society will stand the cost. Gun control is always the answer when the guns belong to others.
"Great cases like hard cases make bad law. For great cases are called great,
not by reason of their importance ... but because of some accident of
immediate overwhelming interest which appeals to the feelings and distorts
the judgment." (OWH)
("Baby with the bathwater" also come to mind...)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
18 murders every 12 days here might make an interesting study project for the
effect of "...well we have to do something...' laws vs bad people.
not by reason of their importance ... but because of some accident of
immediate overwhelming interest which appeals to the feelings and distorts
the judgment." (OWH)
("Baby with the bathwater" also come to mind...)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
18 murders every 12 days here might make an interesting study project for the
effect of "...well we have to do something...' laws vs bad people.
entropy
Member
The main result of that will be people who need and would have sought help otherwise will not because they don't want to have such a basic right taken away.
Got news for you: There's a good chance he'll be able to go fill out that form and just lie and still get an OK, at least for a while.
As if keeping it legal were a concern for such people........
230RN
2A was "political" when it was first adopted.
If I may make one insignificant edit?
"I’m all for Darwinism…but not when he takes 20+ unarmed people with him before he gets a lead injection..."
You have posed a survival (Darwinian) situation with defenseless prey.
Terry, 230RN
Anchorite
Member
We’ve not been able to solve the problem of people drinking to the point of intoxication and getting behind the wheel of a vehicle, so I’m not sure how I see that we’re going to solve the firearm and violence issue either.
Point being, no amount of legislation is going to “fix” whatever perceived problem is being debated.
Any background check is only going to be as good as the data that has been input, which means its historical and data can be faulty. Conclusions draw from compromised data are not useful or reliable.
Point being, no amount of legislation is going to “fix” whatever perceived problem is being debated.
Any background check is only going to be as good as the data that has been input, which means its historical and data can be faulty. Conclusions draw from compromised data are not useful or reliable.
benEzra
Moderator Emeritus
Do you think the gun control lobbyists want his AR, his semiauto handguns, his over-10-round magazines, or his Barrett?
I feel that bringing up bolt-actions in old calibers is a red herring (demeaning language aside), because the prohibitionists are aggressively trying to criminalize detachable-magazine self-loading rifles, and all firearms holding more than 10 rounds, for now. They will get to “high-powered sniper weapons of war” like the Remington 700/M24/M40 later.
“Any sort of mental health meds”? Like antidepressants? Anxiety meds? What else?
It sounds like you are unintentionally advocating for the ending of mental health services for all peaceable and nonviolent men and women who own guns and wish to keep them.
The prohibitionists have already made it a Federal felony for a disabled SSI recipient who requests a designated payee to own a gun, out of sheer spite. Yet you think that the same people can be trusted to be fair, unbiased, and open-minded when it comes to deciding whether “assault weapon” owners and carry licensees who disagree with them politically can keep their guns?
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As likely has already been correctly noted, this can’t be done absent due process.
And something has already been done in that those adjudicated to be mentally ill or incompetent are rendered prohibited persons.
VoodooMountain
Member
It amazes me anyone with access to data in 2023 and who has the ability to process logical thoughts could possibly think more laws, especially enhanced BG checks, red flag laws, and/or limiting firearm access to law abiding citizens, would reduce homicides in any meaningful way.
That's as nice as I can be about this.
That's as nice as I can be about this.
Telum Pisces
Member
We find ourselves in a place where we can no longer lock crazy people up in the looney bins. Mental hospitals of the early 1800's/1900's up until about 1970 were horrible places. There's no doubt about that. But we threw the baby out with the bath water when all the mental asylums where closed down. We thought we could simply medicate and allow people with problems to circulate in society. The deinstitutionalization of psychiatric patients in the 1950s and '60s has put us where we are today.
There needs to be a place for the severely mentally unstable people to be housed humanely. And there needs to be a process to identify and place those people into these new places. But they don't need to be the black holes that they used to be either where humans were experimented on and left to rot.
All that is left for these people now is prison after they commit their crimes. And they do not get the help they need in prison. It's just a holding cell till they get out and continue their plight against society again.
There has to be a middle ground between the old dark dungeons we used to have and allowing these people to run freely in our society. When I was in high school we took a psychology field trip to the Chattahoochee mental hospital here in Florida. It was big eye opener for me. I got to sit down in a room full of murderers. I listened to these people tell me story after story about the voices and fictitious people (Satan, their dead uncle, or just some random person that didn't exist) that told them to kill another human being. These people were telling the God's honest truth as they knew it too. There was one person that could tell you about a horse that started to talk to him. This guy lived out on a farm. This horse told this gentleman that if he didn't kill his sister, someone else was going to come kill the rest of his family and him as well. Stories like this crazy crap were just nuts. But all these people were locked away from society so they could do no harm to others. We need more places where mentally unstable people can be housed and get the help they need.
There needs to be a place for the severely mentally unstable people to be housed humanely. And there needs to be a process to identify and place those people into these new places. But they don't need to be the black holes that they used to be either where humans were experimented on and left to rot.
All that is left for these people now is prison after they commit their crimes. And they do not get the help they need in prison. It's just a holding cell till they get out and continue their plight against society again.
There has to be a middle ground between the old dark dungeons we used to have and allowing these people to run freely in our society. When I was in high school we took a psychology field trip to the Chattahoochee mental hospital here in Florida. It was big eye opener for me. I got to sit down in a room full of murderers. I listened to these people tell me story after story about the voices and fictitious people (Satan, their dead uncle, or just some random person that didn't exist) that told them to kill another human being. These people were telling the God's honest truth as they knew it too. There was one person that could tell you about a horse that started to talk to him. This guy lived out on a farm. This horse told this gentleman that if he didn't kill his sister, someone else was going to come kill the rest of his family and him as well. Stories like this crazy crap were just nuts. But all these people were locked away from society so they could do no harm to others. We need more places where mentally unstable people can be housed and get the help they need.
JEBruns
Member
Spot on. My father was the administrator of a large state hospital in MN. I always wondered where all those severely mentally disturbed people would end up when they shut the place down in the late 70's. I knew they were not going to "main stream" most of them. I think prisons/jails are the new state hospitals in some ways. I guess we are finding out now how that policy worked out.
OP says 95% of them say they have firearms or access to them; a background check would not change that if they purchased the gun years ago.
If I go to the doctor for whatever (sore throat) and am asked about guns I lie about that like most everything else. 
If I go to the doctor for whatever (sore throat) and am asked about guns I lie about that like most everything else.
PistoleroWadcutterGANG
Member
The agencies in charge of follow up after court ruling whether Dept of safety / Social services, let alone LEO on duty. There just aren't enough live shoes to make headway in a tragically backlogged and exponentially growing demographics. This is the classic cracks in the system fall through. Unfortunately to fix it means more taxes to pay more people to do a duty which people are already sick of bloated gov. expansion.
Miami_JBT
Member
Background checks don't work, gun bans don't work, magazine bans don't work, gun free zones don't work. It isn't a gun problem, it is a mental health problem. If someone is too damaged to be a functioning member of society, they shouldn't be on the streets.
Miami_JBT
Member
Maine Sheriff Says He Sent Statewide Alert About Gunman Last Month
The sheriff said the gunman had made threats against the Army base where he was assigned, prompting an alert to all law enforcement agencies in the state weeks before the mass shooting.
Maine Sheriff said he sent a statewide alert about Robert Card being a whacko before he snapped and no one listened. Robert Card was swept under the rug.
Mosin77
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1. Bad actors who want a gun and have money can go to the appropriate place of business and buy one. They’ll fill out a 4473 form and potentially get delayed or denied if they have enough of a record. But there’s a good chance they’ll get approved either because their record doesn’t show up in the right database, or because they never did anything bad enough, or because they didn’t ever do anything bad yet.
2. Furthermore, if they really want a gun they can probably get one via straw purchase or just buying one with cash from an acquaintance. So background checks, while undeniably placing a small barrier that will weed out the lowest common denominator sort of criminals, really don’t do a whole lot because to make them more effective would entail further trampling on the rights of law abiding citizens. We’re talking about something like a mandatory 10 day delay or somesuch.
3. Dealers are already empowered and encouraged by ATF to reject sales for any reason if they have suspicion that thus guy should not have a firearm. I was told “if you don’t like the color of his shoe laces, don’t sell the gun.”
2. Furthermore, if they really want a gun they can probably get one via straw purchase or just buying one with cash from an acquaintance. So background checks, while undeniably placing a small barrier that will weed out the lowest common denominator sort of criminals, really don’t do a whole lot because to make them more effective would entail further trampling on the rights of law abiding citizens. We’re talking about something like a mandatory 10 day delay or somesuch.
3. Dealers are already empowered and encouraged by ATF to reject sales for any reason if they have suspicion that thus guy should not have a firearm. I was told “if you don’t like the color of his shoe laces, don’t sell the gun.”
FL-NC
Member
Background checks take time and are almost always some sort of inconvenience. In many places, they require a payment. I would consider all 3 of these things an infringement. What other consitutional rights require such measures for the citizen to exercise said rights?
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