Out of recent large shootings, how many would have been stopped?

Status
Not open for further replies.
1

12many

Member
Joined
Jan 7, 2007
Messages
647
My questions is this. Out of the recent tragedies (sp?) how many would have been stopped by background checks? This also assumes the criminals would not have found other ways to obtain the guns through illegal means, which is typically the case.

Newtown
Aurora Movie Theater
Arizona Congresswoman
Columbine (older but still relevant)
Any others?

My concern is that the new laws are 1) not going to stop criminals from getting guns. They are already planning to kill so breaking a gun law is not a concern for them and 2) the new bacground check would not have stopped these terrible events.

I think the bad guys in Newtown, Aurora Movie Theater, and Arizona Congresswoman all went through background checks or got guns from other source. In some cases police were already notified and did nothing.

How will this new law change that is happening? The common denominator seems like crazy people getting guns.

Thoughts?
 
Based on the laws at the time none. To my knowledge, and I may be wrong, but none of the gunmen would have been prevented from legally buying a firearm.

Edit:
The Columbine shooters were too young to legally buy a handgun, not sure on rifle as I do not recall their exact ages.

The Newtown shooter killed his mother to get the firearms he used. A background check cannot prevent something like that.
 
That is what I was thinking. I don't have the text of the new proposed law, but from what I am reading, it does not seem like this new law would keep the guns out of the hands of the bad guys since the guys would have passed background checks or they got them from family.

I think columbine kids used a third party since they were too young, but not sure.

I wish they would focus on the mental side of it, namely keeping guns out of certain peoples hands. I know that is hard to figure out, but seems like the best way to go about it, not background checks for everyone, particularly when those background checks did not stop the last several mass shootings.
 
While I agree on paying more attention to the mental side, that's a double edged sword. Suppose that were the only part they could pass. What's to keep your doctor from being required to report every medication you take beyond aspirin? Who makes the judgement that one person is dangerous from taking an antidepressant and not another? Or, do we simply deny guns from ALL antidepressant patients? Is limiting reporting to only first time offenders enough or too late? The mental issue is my highest concern and my first to blame, but regulating based on this can still ruin it for everyone else. "IF" it followed similar guidelines as required for my Texas CHL, there may be something I could support. Maybe...
 
Newtown - murdered his mother to acquire her legally purchased firearms
Aurora Movie Theater - passed the NICS check despite police having been warned a month in advance
Arizona Congresswoman - passed the NICS check
Columbine (older but still relevant) - acquired through straw purchases, one straw purchaser given probation after she agreed to stump for gun control
VA Tech - passed NICS check even though adjudicated a danger to himself or others

As to the mental health issue, there is one good bill in the recent batch (S.480) that is NRA endorsed and clearly defines "adjudicated mentally ill" in a way that protects civil rights. It even has bipartisan support.
 
it is easy to find fault with every option. Yes, lots of if.

In the movie theater shooting, the doctor with many years of school and experience said they guy is homicidal and a threat. Let's start there. She was right. No ifs about it. Asprin? Really.

Same in Arizona. The parents took the kids guns away since they could tell he was a danger and a nut job. They tried to get other help. Let's start there.

In both situations could we not find away to stop these people from getting guns after these clear warning signs were present.

In the 'old days' which everyone says were just fine (the good old days), these people were put into the mental hospital and provided help and treatment and they did not get access to guns there either. In the old days, the crazies were committed and denied guns until better. Were these good old days the time of terrible gun restritions becuase people in mental hospitals did not get guns? In the old days no one was put in the mental hospital for taking asprin.

I would rather focus on the problem then have the lawmakers pass a bunch of laws that take away rights from all of us. I am also against shootings.

An the founding fathers were not stupid. Please don't tell me they wanted everyone to have guns including nut jobs like that guy in aurura CO. They did not want nut jobs to have guns. They did not want people to falsely scream fire in a crowded event in a room. They were much smarter than that.

The antis are using the emotions from these terrible events to pass laws that restrict freedome but do not solve the problem, IMO. The issue is mentally disturbed people, not the guns.
 
All the firearms were legally purchased except Columbine and as pointed out the Newtown murderer killed his mother and took her firearms. Also, the Klackamas Mall shooter borrowed the AR he used.

In the VaTech case VA screwed up keeping the mental health status out of the background check system.

In the Aurora case the University screwed up by not reporting the mental health concerns to the authorities.

In the Az case there was no requirement for the Community College to report the mental health concerns to the authorities.

In the Amish School case the shooter never sought any help nor was he assigned any evaluation/treatment for his mental health problems.
 
Gun control is not about public safety, it's about reducing the total population of guns and gun owners over time. The proponents of the recent measures admitted this repeatedly.

Not to say that reminding non-dogmatic folks that these laws won't help is a bad idea. It's just an excellent opportunity to drive that message home.
 
Even if background checks would have made a difference can we say difinitively that the actor wouldn't have taken a different track to get the gun. Ultimately the anti's intent is to constrict the ownership of guns down to what we saw in England and Australia so that the final solution is simpler.
 
Murder is against the law; that did not stop any of them. If the Aurora Theater shooter's plans had gone correctly the death toll and devastation from his booby trapped apartment's explosion would have made the shooting death toll pale in comparison. These politicians could not care less about stopping shooting crimes, they merely want to clear the way for their own crimes of tyranny against humanity!
 
Last edited:
2011 - Copley, Ohio massacre (7 killed by Michael Hance) - guns purchased legally through pawnshop in 2005 and 2011 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Copley_Township,_Ohio_shooting
2012 - Café shooting and carjacking (5 killed by Ian Stawicki) - guns purchased legally in 2012 http://www.king5.com/news/Shooters-...here-DC-sniper-purchased-rifle-156076255.html
2011 - Detroit police substation shooting (4 shot by Lamar Moore) - shotgun could have been legally purchased as recently as a few days before the event. Moore apparently had no previous record, though his sex slave had just recently escaped and he was being investigated (not arrested and no charges filed by time of shooting, can't find information on how gun obtained).
2011 - Carson City IHOP (4 killed by Eduardo Sencion) - no arrest record and while his family said he had mental issues, never involuntarily committed. He could have purchased legally (can't find accounts of purchases).
2011 - Wheatland, WY (4 killed, 1 wounded by Everett Conant III) - target family members. Apparently no previous felony or mental record to prevent legal purchases (no purchase information found)
2010 - Appomattox, VA (8 killed by Christopher Speight) - former security guard, apparently using legally purchased firearms, not previously arrested or diagnosed with problems that would disqualify him from gun ownership.

I could continue the list (which is a continuation of hso's) but I think it would be somewhat pointless. Mass shootings have occurred and either the perps were able to make or had the ability to make lawful purchases inclusive of background checks, or as noted stole or made illegal purchases. It is possible that the random event might, MIGHT be stopped, but proving negatives is exceptionally difficult.

One correction, in the Aurora theater shooting, the psychiatrist DID report Holmes to the authorities as per her testimony in court. The authorities were university police. Beyond that, however, that was only about 1 month before the event. Holmes did not purchase the weaponry used in the event during that time frame. It was legally purchased months/years prior. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162...istic-gear-through-unregulated-online-market/ So a background check didn't stop him either.
 
My concern is that the new laws are 1) not going to stop criminals from getting guns. They are already planning to kill so breaking a gun law is not a concern for them and 2) the new bacground check would not have stopped these terrible events.
Click to expand...

This is a good topic for academic discussion; however, the point of these laws is not to address those concerns that you brought up. Gun control is about control. The convenient excuse used by those who wish to control a population is 'safety, crime reduction, etc'. It's really not about those things at all.
 
The antis will predictably argue the point that this is purely academic and a moot point...because there surely have been (and will be) countless massacres prevented by background checks and the proposed expanded checks to come.
 
In ct there was a situation in a chuck e cheese. A legal permit holder got into a screaming match with another mom and she whipped out her piece. Turns out she has had previous domestic violence and restraining orders against her, she failed the background check but the STATE over turned the decision because she had found god and had been clean for 5 years.

If she shot someone there would be no one to blame but the state.
 
The problem is after these events people are justifiably scared and outraged. They look for an answer to why it happened and what can be done to stop it in the future. Politicians respond to this they only way they know how, pass laws.

The problem lies with the simple fact that people do not want to acknowledge, evil exist. The people who commit these horrible acts are evil, now you may argue the source of that evil be it mental health, abuse or social isolation, but they are evil people bent on causing harm to others. Now when you place the blame for tragic events such as these on evil and not on objects such as firearms you are left with a disturbing fact, you are powerless to stop it. Evil will always find a way to do harm, take away guns and they will use knives. Remove knives and they will turn to fire, evil doesn’t care about how it just wants to hurt others.

I don’t have the answers, and I know that these new laws will do nothing to stop evil, the sad truth is so do the politicians who are creating the laws.
 
12many said:
it is easy to find fault with every option. Yes, lots of if.
Click to expand...

In the movie theater shooting, the doctor with many years of school and experience said they guy is homicidal and a threat. Let's start there. She was right. No ifs about it. Asprin? Really.

That was not what the poster meant in his response. The fear among many(myself included) is what a liberal legislature will do to define someone crazy, that already has a gun grab mentality. Many prescription drugs today, and even some OTC's have warning labels regarding depression and mood altering effects.

Same in Arizona. The parents took the kids guns away since they could tell he was a danger and a nut job. They tried to get other help. Let's start there.

In both situations could we not find away to stop these people from getting guns after these clear warning signs were present.

In the 'old days' which everyone says were just fine (the good old days), these people were put into the mental hospital and provided help and treatment and they did not get access to guns there either. In the old days, the crazies were committed and denied guns until better. Were these good old days the time of terrible gun restritions becuase people in mental hospitals did not get guns? In the old days no one was put in the mental hospital for taking asprin.

Thank the ACLU and other liberal minded groups for that. They pushed hard for keeping peoples privacy even to the detriment of society as a whole.

I would rather focus on the problem then have the lawmakers pass a bunch of laws that take away rights from all of us. I am also against shootings.

An the founding fathers were not stupid. Please don't tell me they wanted everyone to have guns including nut jobs like that guy in aurura CO. They did not want nut jobs to have guns. They did not want people to falsely scream fire in a crowded event in a room. They were much smarter than that.

I agree with you to a certain extent. The FF's would not have wanted mentally insane people to be running around with guns.
However they also would not want the government to have a backdoor means of disarming the citizenry by making laws that could be used to take away guns for spitting on the sidewalk either.

For example, according to the state of CA, you can lose your right to have firearms for merely being accused of domestic violence.
You can also lose your rights for being convicted of a misdemeanor, not a felony.
Heck even the felony vs. misdemeanor issue can be warped as it relates to our 2A rights. You steal (without violence) a TV at one store where prices are low, you get convicted of a misdemeanor and still have your gun rights. Steal from a store where the same TV is higher in price or not on sale, and you are now a felon without your gun rights. :banghead:

The antis are using the emotions from these terrible events to pass laws that restrict freedome but do not solve the problem, IMO. The issue is mentally disturbed people, not the guns.

On this point, we could not agree more.
 
If she shot someone there would be no one to blame but the state.
Click to expand...

Really? Not the shooter?

See, that's the problem; it's always the shooter that should be first held accountable, followed in some cases by accessories (those who somehow facilitated the shooter even though they knew better or should reasonably have known better).

We must always remember that as long as there are "mentally ill" persons and persons who have a demonstrated penchant for violence who do not choose to shoot up a school or a theater, we cannot blame mental illness or violent history alone for such events. Every case is different because every person is different, and that makes every shooter primarily accountable regardless of the presence or absence of mental illness or a violent record.

Blaming the system for the actions of an individual is a progressive copout and is one of the main reasons why the dangerously mentally ill and the proven violent criminal are not kept away from free society.
 
When the mentaly ill present themselves as problems for society we need to deal with them but to try and design some sort of Minority Report that will single out individuals simply because of some predisposed condition or behavior will be a world I don't want to live in.
A good number of our mass killers flagged their intention but those close to them didn't deal with it. Looking at your child or other loved one and turning them in for being a danger to themselves and others must be a horrible choice but that is where it needs to start.
Another problem we must deal with is how we have allowed the mentally ill to become a protected class so much of what is obvious to mental health professionals is kept from society in general.
 
NONE
not going to dig it out, BUT when VP Biden had his meetings, and the NRA said NONE of the proposed legislation could or would have prevented a single one of the recent tragedies, Biden agreed, the promptly came back with the liberal line

"We have to do something..."
 
Why did the Aurora shooter pick THAT theater?

Was it closest to his house? No
Was it closest to his school? No
Was it his usual choice? No
Was it the ONLY one in the area posted "No Guns"? YES

Crazy enough to kill, not crazy enough to risk getting shot.

What law can minimize this? Unrestricted constitutional CCW.

Like Wayne said, the only thing that will stop a bad man with a gun is a good man with a gun.
 
All the gun laws and background checks in the world didn't stop the nutcase from stabbing 14 people in Cypress Texas this week. If they want to do it, they will find a way. Politicians vote on issues solely based on getting re-elected.
 
My concern is that the new laws are 1) not going to stop criminals from getting guns. They are already planning to kill so breaking a gun law is not a concern for them and 2) the new bacground check would not have stopped these terrible events.
Click to expand...

What makes you think they want to stop criminal from getting guns? If the anti-gunners really had a magic bullet (sorry) to eliminate mass murders they wouldn't use it. Dead children are great props for beating the NRA over the head with. Besides, they don't want to get rid of ALL guns, they just want to get rid of YOURS (and keep theirs)

ETA: Did you see the pictures of Diane Feinstein all over the news the day after the Newtown massacre? She looks absolutely gleeful.
 
The problem lies with the simple fact that people do not want to acknowledge, evil exist.
Click to expand...

I think it is less that people refuse to recognize evil exists so much as it is that when confronted by evil or the threat of death (even abstractly from something like media coverage of a terrible crime) they react various with fear. Some people turn towards external authority and demand protection. But some chunk of gun owners have become so based on the same information. Both approaches are addressing the anxiety of living in a world where evil exists and cannot be controlled.

The problem, of course, is that most on both sides of the debate feel their approach to addressing that anxiety is incompatible with the other side's approach. The gun controllers literally cannot tolerate gun ownership -- witness Bloomberg/MAIG's constant refrain that gun violence in their nanny-state environments are the fault of gun-owner states where firearms are more accessible. But the same holds true on our side as well -- run a search on here for the phrase "common sense gun laws" and observe the vitriol that phrase generates.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

U
  • Locked
Gun sales skyrocket since Colorado movie shooting
Replies
0
Views
283
usmarine0352_2005
U
D
  • Locked
Response from congresswoman Kathy Castor.
Replies
7
Views
683
Akita1
Akita1
S
  • Locked
Response From My "Representative"
Replies
4
Views
433
strange246
S
S
  • Locked
A response from my Senator on Gun Control
2
Replies
30
Views
2K
Trent
Trent
W
  • Locked
Corporations Will Flush Freedoms For $$$
Replies
17
Views
1K
Robert
Robert
Back
Top