Congresswoman Giffords Shooting: Pro RKBA responses to questions/concerns/accusations

[2WheelsGood]

"How do gun owners respond to this in a way that is respectful of what has happened, but does not give any ground to the antis".

Point out that if more people were armed, there would be more of a deterrent to violent crime. And for the nut-cases that will choose to do this kind of thing anyway, an armed citizen can put a stop to it much faster than "grabbing the magazine during a reload".

And point out how armed citizens helped save lives when Charles Whitman went crazy.

 

[moxie]

bikerdoc,

Thank you for articulating a very serious problem in this country related to identifying and acting on people who have problems before they erupt. The sheriff of Pima County said as much in his statement earlier today. Most of these guys are known quantities well before they blow up, and yet we seem incapable of doing anything about it, usually on grounds related to the rights of individuals.

Right on the money!

 

[hso]

How do gun owners respond to this in a way that is respectful of what has happened, but does not give any ground to the antis.

Let's stay on topic.

 

[Owen Sparks]

the Sheriff was speaking to reporters and made it clear that it was too easy for anyone to get a firearm and he criticized the Az. legislature.

It is also too easy for some nut case to have access to information with that pesky First Amendment in force. After all, the pen is mightier than the sword and the free exchange of ideas can be dangerous if those ideas fall into the wrong hands. Wouldn’t we all be better off if dangerous information was censored? After all, the best way to keep guns and ideas out of the wrong hands is to keep them out of ALL hands, right?

 

[Sebastian the Ibis]

How do gun owners respond to this in a way that is respectful of what has happened, but does not give any ground to the antis.

Honor the civilian heroes that stopped the gunman.

One of the fundamental beliefs of Anti's is that only professionals - police, rent a cops etc can stop crimes. The two civilians that stopped this madman are heroes that clearly contradict this belief. The more we laud their actions we rebut this belief, and we shift the conversation from the bad guys gun to the heroes. Everyone likes a hero.
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The heroes who stopped this madman and who have been identified are: Dr. Stephen Rayle, Patricia Maisch, Joe Zamudio and another man who was grazed in the head by a bullet who tackled him first.

It felt like three or four minutes before the police came, Zamudio said. "I thought it seemed like forever. But I think when you're in the moment, your perception of time is off."

http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/01/09/arizona.shooting.wrestled.gunman/index.html?hpt=T2

 

[me9837]

We just have way too many crazies out there that will basically tarnish the reputation of folks like ourselves going forward. I live in NY and I had to go through a pretty grueling process in order to obtain my permit to carry and possess a handgun. I know many of you have an issue with the amount of work (and time) that needs to be done just to get a permit in NY, but I just envision more states going in this direction to monitor gun control. In my opinion, we just need to find a happy medium.

Furthermore, I have to admit that I was really upset to find out that this guy obtained his pistol legally. I just feel like if he was in NY, there would have been no way in hell that he would of gotten through the process with the background checks, interview, and character references required.

Just a complete shame, my heart goes out to the families involved..

 

[Quaamik]

I would be very careful saying anything related to how we can't stop individuals like this because of their rights as individuals. It's too easy for anti's to turn that into a call for more restrictions on one of our rights (RKBA).

We should stress our grief, stress how much we admired the congresswoman and the judge, stress how horrible the death of the 9 year old was, stress the heroism of the older man who saved his wife and those that stopped the gunman and place the blame of this squarely on the gunmans shoulders. Do not allow anti's to shift the blame to the gun, or the political retoric, or anything else. Blame him. He did this. He is a monster. Compare him to John Wayne Gracey. Compare him to Jeffrey Dahmer. He is the one person who could have prevented this - by not choosing to go out and murder these people.

Many people will leap to his defense and bring up that he was mentally ill. That he was schizophrenic. When they do, ask why his family didn't get him treatment. Why the high school he went to didn't get him help. Why the college didn't get him help. Why law enforcement & the courts, when they had him in custody on a drug offence, didn't get him help. Don't let them twist it around to claim that there should be restrictions on sane people because one crazy got a gun.

Understand that he is either a (sane) criminal or insane.

If he was/is sane and a criminal, he would have found a way to get any weapon he wanted.

If he was/is insane, no law would have stopped him from committing murder. He would have made a bomb or found a way to poison people if he couldn't get a gun.

Remember - he killed those people.

 

[armoredman]

Sorry, but I must instantly disagree with me9837, our process in AZ is just fine, our crime rate reflects well against places that severely limit or deny the right altogether. Considering the individual was known for getting drugs illegally, I would have zero doubt he could get a firearm illegally just like the criminals in your location.
There was no preventing this assassination attempt, for that was exactly what it was. The only person responsible for this attack is the guy who was shooting, not the firearm manufacturer, not the ammunition manufactuerer, not the salesman at Sportsman's Warehoues back in November, ( love that store, and the employees at that one are quite good), nobody but the shooter.
We address this one this way, living has inherent risks in it, accidents driving to work, fires, storms, criminal activity, acts of God, flaming falling toilet seats, etc. I accept those risks, and refuse to live in a nerf bubble of fantasyland. I also refuse to accept punishing the law abiding for the acts of the criminal. Do remember, our famous Constitutional Carry did NOT apply to this one, as he was carrying a concealed firearm to commit a crime.
http://www.azleg.gov/FormatDocument.asp?inDoc=/ars/13/03102.htm&Title=13&DocType=ARS

A. A person commits misconduct involving weapons by knowingly:


1. Carrying a deadly weapon except a pocket knife concealed on his person or within his immediate control in or on a means of transportation:

(a) In the furtherance of a serious offense as defined in section 13-706, a violent crime as defined in section 13-901.03 or any other felony offense; or

 

[AKElroy]

Thoughts and prayers go out to those effected by this senseless act. This assailant has set back the cause of freedom, and my hope would be that any other crackpots out there realize the retribution this type of lunacy can create. While it is easy to assume this event will have little effect, it would be good for us to realize that this was an attack on a lawmaker. Washington will consider this an attack on them, and they are inclined to react in a way that will require our respectful input. I am extremely angry over this event, over it's stupidity, and over the pain it has caused.

God bless to all those effected.

 

[macadore]

the Sheriff was speaking to reporters and made it clear that it was too easy for anyone to get a firearm and he criticized the Az. legislature.

The sheriff is entitled to his opinion, but he should not exploit the country's grief to push his political opinion. He should show some restraint and some respect for the victims and his country. He should leave his political agenda at the house.

 

[Geno]

I will keep this short, because I could write dozens of accurate pages but am not so-inclined.

This event is the result of a "systemic-failure".

There were individuals and organizations aware of this individual's mental/emotional issues. Someone individual(s) or some organization(s) have dropped the ball. There were already laws/policies/procedures in effect to deal with such issues. These laws and or policies were not used/followed, etc.

As a graduate professor, I have had to deal with students who made improper comments about using a firearm violently. We hit the matter immediately, put documentation to writing, and took it rapidly to the whole chain of command, not up the chain.

The student was seen by the school's counselor and deemed not a risk, and this fact was then documented. All the same, the student was given on-going counseling of how to handle matters appropriately.

One or more people/organizations dropped the ball, both procedurally and substantively, in this shooter's life. Unfortunately those laws/policies/procedures devised to protect individuals and collective society, were not followed.

There is enough blame for a lot of people. Now is the time to reflection, investigation, and not for knee-jerk reaction. Now is the time to see who dropped the ball.

Geno

 

[macadore]

Sorry, but I must instantly disagree with me9837, our process in AZ is just fine, our crime rate reflects well against places that severely limit or deny the right altogether.

Excellent point. Especially when compared to Mexico.

 

[me9837]

Sorry for any confusion, but I never questioned Arizona's process, I was explaining that everyone else (the public) would be quick to question the states process going forward. Which in turn, hurts everybody...

 

[sappyg]

Many people will leap to his defense and bring up that he was mentally ill. That he was schizophrenic. When they do, ask why his family didn't get him treatment. Why the high school he went to didn't get him help. Why the college didn't get him help. Why law enforcement & the courts, when they had him in custody on a drug offence, didn't get him help. Don't let them twist it around to claim that there should be restrictions on sane people because one crazy got a gun.

well said. if i take the meaning correctly, society and personal responsibility failed us? not gun laws. this does open open up an entirely different can of worms.

there really are no easy answers. perhaps the best we can do is take responsibilty amongst ourselves to ID poor behavior and correct it as it pertains to proper use of term and deed of a firearm. this definately includes range edicate/ behavior. basically it's about respect and awareness.

maybe the best thing to do is invite others to shoot with us? it couldn't hurt.

 

[MikePGS]

People tend to react emotionally before they think about something rationally. The BP Deepwater well caused a great deal of damage to the environment, but we aren't considering banning oil. Planes crash and kill people, but no one ponders banning them. A gun is simply a device designed to project a bit of lead/steel/copper at a rapid rate. While one person might use this device to harm someone else, the majority (probably well over 99.9%) of people using them have no intention's to use them for this purpose aside from self defense purposes. Punish the guilty party, don't make everyone else guilty just because they also have a device that can propel matter quickly.

 

[Erik M]

One person on twitter said she knew him in high school, and that he was a liberal - It'll throw a serious monkey wrench at a lot of the gun grabbers if it turns out that he was angry with Giffords because of her middle of the road attitude...

Even though that fact has been advanced it seems that the major outlets are content with attempting to blame Sarah Palin and the Tea Party. I even read a blog that claimed that acquaintances of the shooter described him as a liberal pot smoking atheist taht frightened classmates and faculty alike with unpredictable disruptive behavior.

With the politically un-skewed facts that have been presented, which are few and far in between at this point, I am having a hard time seeing where the dealer or NICS could be blamed for any of this.

It is an absolute shame that pundits were rushing to use this situation for political posturing before the Congresswoman had even come out of surgery. I don't even consider this sort of thing to be knee-jerk anymore. It is a given fact that if a gun crime occurs the anti's follow.

 

[wristtwister]

I'll keep my opinion simple... the shooter was responsible for the shooting. I've got probably 30 pistols in my collection, and have never had one jump off the shelf or out of the box and shoot anybody...

In my hand, however, all of them have killed innocent paper targets on multiple occasions, but only at my direction and operation. They have not even "accidently" shot any innocent targets or behaved badly.

If the shooter in Arizona was as previously described, he was violating EXISTING gun laws (both state and federal), and if he was a "prohibited person" was violating EXISTING laws by simply acquiring a gun. The attempt to produce a new set of gun laws is nothing more than a political ploy, and by introducing such legislation in response to one incident only proves that this administration only knows reactive legislative response to a problem, and has no idea about how problems can be solved by enforcing existing laws.

We don't outlaw cars when a drunk driver runs over a pedestrian, or as in the case in North Carolina, drives into a crowd... so what (other than a political bent) justifies the offering of new legislation in response to one incident. If I recall correctly, the driver in Chapel Hill was a jihadist, and drove into the crowd "with intent"... but as I've already mentioned... none of my guns have ever acted badly on their own. They are simply devices for shooting a bullet... what I point them at, is entirely a matter of my decisions... not the device itself.

WT

 

[barfer]

Best response so far.

This from Quaamik hits it perfectly:

We should stress our grief, stress how much we admired the congresswoman and the judge, stress how horrible the death of the 9 year old was, stress the heroism of the older man who saved his wife and those that stopped the gunman and place the blame of this squarely on the gunmans shoulders. Do not allow anti's to shift the blame to the gun, or the political retoric, or anything else. Blame him. He did this. He is a monster.

My personal paraphrasing:

1. We are grieving--this is a tragedy.

2. This is the attacker's fault--he is a monster.

3. Gratitude to the heroes who stopped him.

 

[bandk]

It's certainly appropriate for us to focus on 2A issues, but to me the shooter's actions were just like attacks on the 2A -- acts that threaten the future of our republic. Whenever a public official is physically attacked for political/policy reasons, it takes us one step closer to a banana republic, even if the shooter is a non-ideological nut case. I was 12 when John Kennedy was assassinated, and I still remember my father's reaction. He had never liked Kennedy, and wouldn't have voted for him if you held a gun to his head. However, he was profoundly shocked and hurt, because we don't do things like this in America. God help us if we forget this.

I think this statement sums the issue up.

 

[Laf'n'Larry]

Guns, knives, poison and bombs are all tools. The mad man will find away to destroy. What is needed is a better way to identify and deal with mental illness. If we can find a more effective way to identify and help those with mental illness then the insanity will cease. It seems quite apparent that this man was identified as having a serious problem, but like many others, VA Tech, Columbine, Oklahoma City bombing... etc., we failed to intercede in an effective manner. We did not prevent him from harming anyone and we did not get him the treatment he needed.

People are blaming the Tea Party and attacking RKBA, but the truth is that we simply don't have an effective way to deal with dangerously ill individuals.

 

[9mmforMe]

We should stress our grief, stress how much we admired the congresswoman and the judge, stress how horrible the death of the 9 year old was, stress the heroism of the older man who saved his wife and those that stopped the gunman and place the blame of this squarely on the gunmans shoulders. Do not allow anti's to shift the blame to the gun, or the political retoric, or anything else. Blame him. He did this. He is a monster.

I agree with most of this statement, but do not agree that "he is a monster."
He is a mentally ill person and after working with mentally ill for over 15 years as a therapist, I know that people who are so affected are vastly different than most folks. They struggle greatly with regulating their emotions, differentiating between what is real and what is not, making rational judgments and controling their impulses. Intrapsychically this person was likely suffering a personal hell we will never know. Does this exonerate him from blame? No, it does not. He needs to spend the rest of his life in a hospital or jail so to protect society and enact justice as we have developed in this country. Does it mean he is a monster, I think not. He probably has people who love him dearly and when mental illness strikes it does not discern, but it does devastate, as the loss of life in AZ will attest.

I think we need to use the following as guidelines while presenting ourselves to the public:

Deal with the immediate grief and shock people are experiencing, we should empathize with those struggling. Make sure that all the facts are clearly understood of this incident, ignorance will breed confusion and drive our efforts into the very "madness" which seemed to envelope this young man's mind. Express great compassion re: the loss of life. Understand that it is truly unfortunate that these things happen even with our best efforts. Agree that we, as a nation, need to make some changes together that will minimize such occurrences. Reinvigorate parental involvement in every aspect of our children's lives. One change should be greater parental accountability regarding getting their children appropriate psychological help when so needed (education is a large component). Have available psychiatric resources to treat our mentally ill children/citizens.

People also need to know that we gunowners are deeply saddened, and profoundly concerned with gun related violence of all kinds; and that merely constructing more laws/restrictions is just a bandaid covering a ruptured artery. The problems are complex and need complex solutions that involve us changing as a nation, together.

 

[hso]

Attacks from the usual suspects were expected (Helmke capitalized on the tragedy right away, McCarthy regularly submits an AWB bill every session, blah, blah, blah) as soon as the news broke of the tragedy. The same tired old anti arguments (lax purchase requirements, "high capacity" magazine, "high-powered" weapons, concealed/open carry too easy,restaurant carry, blah, blah, blah) were trotted out whether they were relevant or not and are being touted with the same predictability.

Our goal is to help ourselves and our fellow gun owners by coming up with counters to these same old tired anti arguments not to "report the news" that has nothing new and that we know is scripted. Some of us have come up with good replies. Acknowledging that this is a tragic event, Compassion for the victims and their families, Anger directed only at the perpetrator of this tragedy, Honor for the men and women that stopped the attacker, Dismay that "The System" (his school and law enforcement) had multiple warnings of an unstable mental state and failed to "catch" it, Pointing out the infrequent nature of these incidents in spite of the intense coverage of this one incident, ...

Perhaps there's no need for this thread and we should just lock it since we could just refer folks to the "What to say to anti GF/family/friend/boss?" threads, but this incident is raw and painful and providing relevant, reasonable responses to the same old questions may help some of our members who haven't been here long enough to read through those threads.

Let's stay focused on helping ourselves and the rest of the membership and coming up with those clear concise replies to the attacks against gun owner's right to carry.

 

[oldfool]

THIS -
Vitriol and hateful rhetoric are the source of this problem.
hso said it (twice I believe, in this thread)
and the local AZ sheriff said pretty much the same

you cannot create, maintain, sustain a civil society with respect for the rule of law (including constitutional law) based on the constant rhetoric of hate and fear

and far too many on all sides of all debates have been far too willing to wallow in that rhetoric, adding more noise than reason to debates that any civil society ought to accomodate
a constant littany of hate-n-fear begets violence, always has, always will

if we fear unconstitutional restraints imposed on us because of high profile events such as this, we are obligated to show some leadership by example, and discourage the rhetoric and politics of hate and fear

waiting for others to lead the way is a certain path to failure and societal breakdown
we are either part of the solution, or we become part of the problem

 

[leadcounsel]

Let's also not forget there are already laws against murder. Anyone determined to break that holiest of holy laws, will find a way to do it, gun or no gun.

 

[FROGO207]

THIS

A lone individual that may have had mental problems did something with a firearm that caused pain and death. This was his decision alone and had little to do with using a firearm. This act could have been committed with another item--say an automobile. It is in the news because a Congress woman and a young child were involved and this makes for sensational news. Little has been said about the other victims sadly. A LOT of people were not thinking clearly and the results will be in the news and on our minds for a long time. My prayers go out to those affected by this tragedy.

This is as good an answer as any IMHO.