Just shoot yourself

In reply to alfadriver:

I guess I didn't express myself well enough. I don't want revenge. I don't want anyone shot at all.

Luke Woodham (of the 97 Pearl High School Shooting), was stopped by an Asst Principal who'd run to his truck and gotten his .45. I'm not sure everyone is up to having a gun, to be honest. People who can handle it should be able to defend themselves.

T.J. wrote: In reply to alfadriver: I guess I didn't express myself well enough. I don't want revenge. I don't want anyone shot at all.

But since that's not going to happen what do you suggest people do when a crazy with a gun, knife, dynamite, letter opener, iron bar, training and the will to commit mayhem appears?

I don't have anything meaningful to add but this just makes me sick. I work in and around schools everyday and I can honestly say I would hope I could or would do something to help protect innocent children if I was ever faced with such a situation. I just have to keep all those families in my thoughts and try not to spend too much time watching the news, I don't think I need to hear any more of the details.

In reply to DoctorBlade:

You make an excellent point. There are many that could not handle the responsibility or pressure of carrying and usng a weapon. Others are naturally wired to run into danger and do what it takes to save the innocents around them even if it means taking a life. Due to some past experiences I know this is the way I am and honestly the first time I discovered that I was quite shocked.

If someone decides to carry they must practice regularly. Shoot from every conceivable position and even shoot with an elevated heart rate to practice calming and steadying yourself.

In reply to dj06482:

I'm glad that your son is OK. Give him an extra hug or 3 from all of us.

40% of all guns purchased in the US are bought at gun shows.

At a gun show, the seller does not have to be licensed and there is no background check.

If gun enthusiasts really want to keep guns out of the hands of the wrong people, why do so many of them support the gun show loophole?

aeronca65t wrote: 40% of all guns purchased in the US are bought at gun shows. At a gun show, the seller does not have to be licensed and there is no background check. If gun enthusiasts really want to keep guns out of the hands of the wrong people, why do so many of them support the gun show loophole?

Speculation, but....

1. In private to private sale, it's not a loophole. It's just one dude selling to another dude.
2. A lot of folks don't trust the government. They are more frightened of a government that knows where all of the firearms are, than of the occasional nutjob who does end up with one.

So it's OK if an "occasional nutjob" gets a gun as long as "dudes" who are paranoid about the governemt can sell unregulated to each other?

I guess you've answered my question.

Hey - you can be a reactionary dick, or you can engage in a conversation. I've avoided all discussion on this because it seems that most folks are interested in the former, but I thought you were interested in the latter.

Is it OK if a nutjob gets one? Of course not. It's also not OK for us to be governed by a group that a large portion of the populous finds untrustworthy. So when you're dealing with two things, neither of which is good, you have to make a "greater good" value judgement sometimes. It's called a gray area. Our experiences shape where our decisions fall in this gray area. If my experience is that a nutjob shot my kid, I'm likely to fall in a different place in this gray area than someone who was wrongly convicted by a corrupt prosecutor for instance.

I'm all for keeping the guns out of the hands of the nutjobs. I'd also love to figure out a way for us to trust our government. I'm not sure either is very likely though.

An armed society is not a polite society. An unarmed society is not a polite society. Only a polite society is a polite society. A polite society is something we are not.

Lots of hugs for my kids today and yesterday. Newtown is only 30 min from here and my thoughts go out to all of those affected.

DILYSI Dave wrote: Hey - you can be a reactionary dick, or you can engage in a conversation........

When you have nothing useful to say, it's always best to resort to name-calling.

I asked a question.
You provided an answer.
It sounds like you are dissavowing your own answer.

Fueled by Caffeine wrote: An armed society is not a polite society. An unarmed society is not a polite society. Only a polite society is a polite society. A polite society is something we are not. Lots of hugs for my kids today and yesterday. Newtown is only 30 min from here and my thoughts go out to all of those affected.

Good stuff.

aeronca65t wrote:

DILYSI Dave wrote: Hey - you can be a reactionary dick, or you can engage in a conversation........

When you have nothing useful to say, it's always best to resort to name-calling. I asked a question. You provided an answer. It sounds like you are dissavowing your own answer.

No, it sounds like he was right. You didn't want just any answer, you wanted only your answer. This is when threads get derailed, so please just go away and let the adults talk.

In reply to DILYSI Dave:

I came in here to say that I think it is completely out of line that either side of the argument has jumped so quickly to lobby their side before anyone really knows the details. Turns out the guy didn't buy the guns legally, but took them from his mother and killed her before going to the school, and he's had some kind of mental issues that were known.

I will clear up the gun show "fact". A person to person transaction at a gun show is no different than a person to person transaction anywhere else and doesn't require a background check. However, it is incorrect that nobody has to do background checks. Dealers selling at shows have to do the same background checks as if they were selling to you from their shop. I've done it before when I bought my ar lower, filled out the paperwork, guy called it in from his cell, not that difficult.

I've never bought at a gun show, and only been to one once (with my BIL who works for the GBI). Not my bag baby. But thanks for clearing up the details.

aeronca65t wrote: 40% of all guns purchased in the US are bought at gun shows. At a gun show, the seller does not have to be licensed and there is no background check. If gun enthusiasts really want to keep guns out of the hands of the wrong people, why do so many of them support the gun show loophole?

Stop spreading lies. The vast majority of sales at gun shows are done by licensed vendors that run background checks. Yes there are some face to face private sales but nothing like you are trying to indicate here. If you had ever been to a gun show you would know this as normally there are huge hold times on the background check lines whenever there is a gun show do to the volume of vendors calling in checks at the same time. Don't spew "facts"that you know nothing about and pull out of thin air.

Fueled by Caffeine wrote: An armed society is not a polite society. An unarmed society is not a polite society. Only a polite society is a polite society. A polite society is something we are not. Lots of hugs for my kids today and yesterday. Newtown is only 30 min from here and my thoughts go out to all of those affected.

I am glad you and yours are safe. I am on the other siade of the country, have no kids and still have been hit hard by all of this. I can't imagine being right there at the moment.

carguy123 wrote: ........please just go away and let the adults talk.

You'll have to excuse me: I'm still stunned over the loss of 20 of God's innocent children along with 6 innocent adults.

I'm a gun owner and I think hunting is a great family pastime. I don't hunt these days, but I do enjoy skeet shooting.

I don't understand why law-abiding gun owners with proper ID and a clear background would want the gun show loophole? Who does this benefit?

I can certainly understand if you can't provide a cogent answer. It's always a challenge to answer hard questions.

Anyway, I'll gladly leave this discussion to you self-appointed "adults". Good luck.

aeronca65t wrote: I don't understand why law-abiding gun owners with proper ID and a clear background would want the gun show loophole? Who does this benefit?

There isn't a "gun show loophole."

At a gun show, anyone buying a weapon from a licensed dealer still has to go through the same verification that one would go through at a gun store.

There may be a few people that are having private sales, maybe you were hoping to trade your handgun in on a new one, but couldn't make a deal with a dealer. So someone makes you an offer. That is a private sale, which is not regulated. No different than If I were to buy a handgun from you, in a face to face sell, there is no need to go through a background check.

But at every gun show I've ever been to, 98% or more of weapons for sale were from licensed dealers, which require background checks.

How many times do we have to tell you? There is no mythical "loop hole" the exact same laws and regulations are followed at both gun shows and the outside world. Stop spreading media driven lies because it supports your agenda.

We have all been very careful about making this thread about this incident and not political BS and you are using it for grand standing. Please leave and do not come back until you can converse on this topic without pushing an agenda and spreading lies.

I'm not sure what the answer is, but I'm pretty sure it's not speaking dismissively in snarky platitudes, and I start getting really, really nervous when the reaction to something like this is WE NEED MORE LEGISLATION NOW!!! That's how we end up with stuff like the Patriot Act and NDAA.

I don't see how laws regarding how guns are sold at gun shows would have done anything to stop this. I WOULD imagine, however, that there were some warning signs that this guy was "off." I don't know how you fix that, aside from suggesting and offering mental help.

You all have 2 posts to get this thread back on track before I lock it. I'll be back after lunch.

From Wikipedia;

"U.S. federal law requires persons engaged in interstate firearm commerce, or those who are "engaged in the business" of dealing firearms, to hold a Federal Firearms License and perform background checks through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System maintained by the FBI prior to transferring a firearm. Under the terms of the Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986, however, individuals "not engaged in the business" of dealing firearms, or who only make "occasional" sales within their state of residence, are under no requirement to conduct background checks on purchasers or maintain records of sale (although even private sellers are forbidden under federal law from selling firearms to persons they have reason to believe are felons or otherwise prohibited from purchasing firearms)."

So you make occasional sales at gun shows and you're not doing background checks, right? I think this is the "gun show loophole" discussed above.

I also really wanted to point out how strange the 'armed societies are polite societies' line is that gets trotted out is. The two don't really seem connected. Israel is pretty well armed, I'm not sure if it's considered 'polite' (and really, what does this even mean?). Switzerland is also highly armed and I think it's considered 'polite'. We've got the most guns per capita in the world. I think Yemen is second. We're probably more polite, I guess, but really it just seems like an engagement in silly platitude examination to worry about this.

The aftermath of this will likely require examining a number of things about our society. We won't be able to do that properly until enough time has passed for passions to have cooled and all the pertinent information to be gathered and released.

Until then... I really don't know what to say. This is just too horrible. I have felt a sick weight in my stomach since I heard about this yesterday. They were children. Just children.