[Discussion] Mass Shootings - Yeah, we need a thread just for this...

This year is the deadliest year ever in terms of mass shootings. In a political climate of polarization, it becomes harder to suss out legitimate information from the misinformation propagated by those with political agendas. Complicating this more is the continual resistance of 2nd amendment advocates to allow for political talk surrounding these massacres. This will involve political discussion to see if there are ways we can all agree might be good ways to prevent mass shootings.

This discussion should involve the details of any current, or future mass shooting, and how they compare to past mass shootings. How are they the same? How are they different? Do gun laws have an impact? Does the race of the shooter affect how we treat them? What makes one a hate crime and one an act or terrorism? Are these shootings the price of freedom?

Well said, OG.

Great post.

I am more and more convinced that the whole mass shooting phenomenon is a feature of America rather than a bug. It is working precisely as designed.

A Pasadena, MD man was arrested on Tuesday for making a threat of mass violence (a misdemeanor) at his workplace. He claimed that he jokingly told one of his best friends that "I wish y’all were dead."

His coworkers, though, told a different story. One where they were legitimately afraid because the man showed up to work drunk or high and when told to go home he threatened to "shoot the whole place up" before listing the order in which he'd kill his coworkers.

Before the Anne Arundel County police went to serve the man an Extreme Risk Protection Order, a court-issued civil order temporarily requiring a person to surrender any firearms or ammunition they may have, they checked the Maryland Gun Center and found he had single handgun registered in his name.

When the police arrived at his house they found that handgun locked in a safe along with five additional firearms. And then they kept finding more guns. In total they recovered 140 guns, including at least one AK-47.

The man's father, who he lives with, claims that he owns all the guns except the one registered to his son.

OG_slinger wrote:

The man's father, who he lives with, claims that he owns all the guns except the one registered to his son.

This is good, and fine, right? We shouldn't be taking away a man's possessions just because his son said something off-color. I'm sure it is easy to track the owner of the various weapons, too, they have serial numbers or something? I know on one of those CSI shows they can tell what gun fired a bullet, so there has to be some kind of registry to look these things up in, obviously. CBS wouldn't lie about that.

Here's a set of ideas to fix these problems: Solve the Gun Problem ...

Atras wrote:
OG_slinger wrote:

The man's father, who he lives with, claims that he owns all the guns except the one registered to his son.

This is good, and fine, right? We shouldn't be taking away a man's possessions just because his son said something off-color. I'm sure it is easy to track the owner of the various weapons, too, they have serial numbers or something? I know on one of those CSI shows they can tell what gun fired a bullet, so there has to be some kind of registry to look these things up in, obviously. CBS wouldn't lie about that.

Something something Dan Crenshaw lending his friends guns something.

Tanglebones wrote:
Atras wrote:
OG_slinger wrote:

The man's father, who he lives with, claims that he owns all the guns except the one registered to his son.

This is good, and fine, right? We shouldn't be taking away a man's possessions just because his son said something off-color. I'm sure it is easy to track the owner of the various weapons, too, they have serial numbers or something? I know on one of those CSI shows they can tell what gun fired a bullet, so there has to be some kind of registry to look these things up in, obviously. CBS wouldn't lie about that.

Something something Dan Crenshaw lending his friends guns something.

I know that I, a responsible gun owner who also lives outside of New York, often loan my friends* my personal firearms for their personal self-defense and protection.

Indeed, just the other day, my good friend Adam** asked me if he could borrow my Colt AR, 7 30 rd. magazines, load bearing equipment, kevlar helmet, and body armor because he was concerned about news that a bobcat had been sighted in the east metro.

Adam, understandably, had forgotten his permit to carry, permit to purchase, and state ID that would have allowed him to legally acquire a similar defensive outfitting.

When I asked Adam if a lesser protective posture would be possible, Adam reminded me that bobcat attacks are up across the country and that, when it comes to your personal safety, anything less than an infantry loadout was careless.

*I don't have friends.
**No such conversation occurred as Adam is not real per above.

We wouldn't want to infringe his rights now, would we?

Can I find it darkly hilarious that after six deaths, the FDA may ban e-cigarettes?

Yes, unfortunately.

Have they made any headway as to what exactly is causing it? Why it's happening in some states and not others? My understanding is this whatever it is is seperate from the popcorn lung thing that diacytal causes.

thrawn82 wrote:

Have they made any headway as to what exactly is causing it? Why it's happening in some states and not others? My understanding is this whatever it is is seperate from the popcorn lung thing that diacytal causes.

Here's the official word from the CDC on it right now.

Per your understanding:

The CDC wrote:

The investigation has not identified any specific substance or e-cigarette product that is linked to all cases. Many patients report using e-cigarette products with liquids that contain cannabinoid products, such as tetrahydrocannabinol (THC).

There was something on the nightly news about a specific batch of stuff that had 150 times the usual amount of thc in it.

An 18-year-old woman in Oklahoma was arrested after she showed her coworkers a video of her shooting her brand new AK-47 and then talked about how she hated the kids at her former high school and wanted to "shoot 400 people for fun."

She was suspended twice from said high school, once for bringing a knife and other time for displaying swastikas on her personal belongings. She had liked a documentary about the 1999 Columbine shooting on Facebook. And she wore an "Anarchist Cookbook" t-shirt for her mugshot.

The woman insists that she was "just talking to a coworker about guns," that she didn't mean for her threat to shoot 400 people at her former school "to sound the way it did," and what she really trying to do was "teach her coworkers not to be afraid of guns."

Honey, we're not afraid of guns. We're afraid of the people who have the guns.

"Cancel culture" strikes again.

UPDATE: 10-year-old Waterloo boy caught carrying AR-15 Monday night

This is a school that I have done PD at, research at, and is relatively close to my home.

Controversial opinion. If you are the adult that allow this to happen, I want to take your guns away.

A controversial opinion that shouldn’t be remotely controversial at all.

How dare those Leftists violate that 10-year-old's constitutional right to carry a weapon! There is nothing in the 2nd Amendment about kids not having assault rifles!!!

Kids need guns to protect themselves on the playground. What if some kid comes and pushes another kid to the ground? How is the kid going to protect himself from the bully without a gun? A good kid with a gun keeps us all safe is what I always say.

This guy gets it. Besides, that 10-year-old could be a part of that "Well-regulated militia" that the 2nd Amendment talks about, we don't know him.

Atras wrote:

How dare those Leftists violate that 10-year-old's constitutional right to carry a weapon! There is nothing in the 2nd Amendment about kids not having assault rifles!!!

There's nothing in the rules that says that a dog can't play basketball... with an assault rifle.

Gut-punch oof.

Great!
*well actually horrific and depressing but a perfect way to express that.

OG_slinger wrote:

Gut-punch oof.

Wow that's savage, and yet, still not quite enough.

God damn. That's powerful.

It's just a PR move as they focus on selling guns for the cops and the military to kill people with instead of us average citizens. There's plenty of other companies that make the same AR-15 parts that can be assembled into full guns, often for cheaper than buying it new.

They probably are having flagging sales on the civilian model because they've saturated the market.