Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire The 2nd won't save us this time

If one doesn't accept that there is an inherent risk in life and that the risk of gun ownership by millions and millions of people is considerably less than car ownership, we will end up trading rights for inferred safety.

How many 6 year old's died last year in car accidents?

How many due to crazy people with a gun?

Giving the government authority to determine who is normal and who is not, is as dangerous as giving them authority to determine which guns are safer.


Keep in mind that the rifle used by the Norwegian killer, who murdered 3 TIMES as many people as at Sandy Hook, was a legal rifle under the Clinton Assault Weapon Ban.

As Usual +1000!

A crucial distinction that is lost is the difference between real danger and real safety, vs. perceived.
It seems that as we have become an Oprah society, perceptions and feelings trump objectivity.
We on the gun rights side of things are often protrayed as uncaring and selfish, and indifferent to the greater good.

If I truly believed that giving up or limiting my right to own guns would lead to a significantly safer, better world, I would agree to do so.

However, I will not sacrifice my rights so that anybody can feel safer.

That public policy is so influenced by emotion, leading to feel-good laws, is troubling to say the least.

Paul

Bend over America, you are all going to become Californians if there is not an overwhelming unity of gun owners.

Join today.

https://membership.nrahq.org/forms/signup.asp

Actually, you can verify it with a simple internet search.

Oh, and BTW, Asperger's is not psychosis. They may both occur in the same individual, but Asperger's is not considered a risk factor for mass murder.

This is a good read about what could be done
http://www.policeone.com/active-sho...ve-Grossman-to-cops-The-enemy-is-denial/

Guns allow people to save more lives than are taken using them.

Firearms defend our other freedoms. We let them go, we must accept that we are also, ultimately, surrendering the rest of them.

Quite true. Mental health care has always been a step-child in the medical and popular communities. It has been and is traditionally underfunded and is on the backburner in virtually all circles. People would rather admit to being treated for cancer than a mental disease; the mentally ill are regularly shunned and thought of as second-class.

Prior to Ronald Reagan, the homeless street people in Washington DC were picked up by the police and taken to St. Elizabeth�s Hospital for observation and treatment; if they were deemed to be mentally ill or a threat to themselves or, others, they were kept indefinitely. This generally occurred around the country with the bills being picked up by local governments, aided by Federal grants. Reagan cut local grants and these people were released to the streets, where they now reside. Walking through downtown areas in many cities, you see homeless people (generally with mental illnesses) huddled in corners. Generally, they are non-violent, but occasionally they are. In the mid-1990�s, I saw a woman sleeping on a bus stop bench in a snowstorm beneath my DOT office window � the next day, she was found frozen to death, still on the bench. She had a long history of mental illness and had received little treatment. Both the Secretaries of Transportation and HUD attended the funeral and noted the little treatment she had received.

I saw a psychiatrist on TV last night discussing the issue of mental illness in the US. It is expensive to treat and requires long-term treatment (no quick fix) and even then will not fix people, only help them function. The wealthy can afford the expense of treatment; the poor can get limited treatment through city/state funding, but this funding is quite limited. The middle-class does not have the money for private treatment, does not qualify for publically subsidized treatment and, generally their health insurance plans do not pay for the expensive treatment required.

Due to the limited treatment resources that are available, society is left to deal with the results of these people (e.g., Newtown (CT), Aurora (CO), Virginia Tech (VA), etc.).

A simple, unequivocal truth that Leftists like Will either don't understand or pretend not to.

But it got better when Clinton reinstated the grants right? And Obama expanded them, right?
Just curious, what did you do for the woman as you saw her freezing to death from your government office window?

He's an avowed democrap communist and is always there to take a swipe at Reagan or other Conservatives with bullshit. That was not the intended reason for what happened then. As to what he would do? NOTHING except let the government take care of them, until such time they could be "disposed of" for the good of society...

"Most people don't give two [bleep] what the constitution says when they see pint sized body bags coming out of a kindergarten school."

Will's point this changes the public dialogue. I agree, it does indeed.

That is the liberal mindset and the fruit of paternal Gov't entitlement - don't bother, the Gov't should take care of it.

This ought to be a fishing forum for the red herrings most of you chase.

Penguin, some of your ideas border on despotic, Stalinesque.

We do need to do that. The mental health system in this country is horribly broken...an abject failure.

At face value that sounds good but every compromise that I can think of results in a solution that's worse than the problem.

What could you do?

Put a tag on background checks? Then you give the authorities the ability to determine if someone is mentally competent or not.

Lock them up? That's one way but it's not going to happen unless someone is raving lunatic.

What if they did put a tag on background checks to prevent someone from purchasing a weapon? What the next step? Confiscation of weapons they already have in possession?

I can't see a solution that won't jeopardize the rights and liberties of all of us.

There really are no good solutions. Maybe up the age limit for purchasing an "assault rifle" to the age of 21? to the age of 30? Limit purchasing high capacity magazines to the same? Right now we have a different age requirements for purchaning rifles and handguns, maybe the age limits on purchasing an assualt rifle and hi-cap magazines should be more in line with where handguns currently are. I don't want to see anything banned, these recent mass shootings do seem to follow a pattern of young mentally disturbed males, most of whom are in their early 20's.

What's an assault rifle?

We've got laws against murder, but that doesn't stop them.

We've got laws against drunken driving, but that doesn't stop them.

We have a "war on drugs", but drug use is strong as ever.

Dianne Fienstien has her list complied of what is going to get defined as an assualt rifle.

Let's consider one option that some find appealing, the requirement of a medical fitness exam to get a firearms permit.

Even if you could find a doctor within 50 miles who would be willing to do it, I can envision a conversation like this:

"Hello, this is Joe Nimrod, I'd like an appointment with Dr. Jones for a certification exam for my firearms permit".

"Let me see, Dr. Jones' first available appointment is five years from now."

That's even assuming any health professional (and his insurance carrier) would want to assume the legal liability and potential ethical conflicts in making such a determination.

Just think about the situation James Holmes' psychiatrist found herself in.

This is just one example of a potential issue. None of this is as simple as it may appear at first glance.

Paul