Some Hashtag stuff Breda and Alan will have to explain to me, and while we will NOT be talking about the spree killer in California, we WILL be talking about how the media and lobby groups make it worse.
So yeah, that call-in number is 214-530-0036, join us live at 9pm EST for THE SQUIRREL REPORT!!
One of the most wrenching images from the mass shooting near the University of California-Santa Barbara was that of anguished father Richard Martinez, who told reporters Saturday that his 20-year-old son died because of “craven, irresponsible politicians and the NRA.”
Martinez is partially right. The NRA has bullied spineless lawmakers into opposing sensible changes in America’s gun laws, such as broader background checks, which the NRA itself once supported. After another deranged young male gunned down 20 first-graders and six educators in Newtown, Conn., in 2012, the Senate shamefully rejected every gun proposal before it, including a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.
What part was Martinez right? Further what laws proposed were sensible? The man who killed his son passed several background checks, and was even known to police from last-minute family concerns. They police had no grounds to arrest or even search him, and despite his animosity he had never committed a serious crime. No, he wasn’t a model citizen, but you know who else aren’t model citizens? The MILLIONS of people in America who DON’T hurt anybody their entire life. The Sandy Hook shooter was too young to buy the guns he used, but that didn’t stop him from murdering his mother and stealing hers. As for magazine and “Assault weapons Bans”, California and Connecticut HAD those. What is sensible about making the REST of America more like those two states?
In important ways, though, Martinez’s formulation misses the point. Little or nothing in the post-Newtown proposals would have made any difference in stopping the 22-year-old madman, identified as Elliot Rodger, who stabbed three students to death and fatally shot three others.
Yeah, so why did you lead with that previous paragraph? You aren’t going to win hearts and minds by STARTING your piece with bullshit, only to declare that yes, it is bullshit.
What might have made a difference is something that’s typically an afterthought in the gun debate: giving authorities greater ability to deny mentally disturbed people access to firearms.
In Santa Barbara, there was a huge missed opportunity after the shooter’s parents saw their son’s disturbing videos on YouTube and alerted authorities. Sheriff’s deputies went to the young man’s apartment — which held his guns, his ammunition and a detailed plan for his killing spree — but he easily convinced them he was no threat to himself or others, the threshhold for taking action.
Again, in 20/20 hindsight this guy was insane. Still he had been in the care of various forms of mental health workers for most of his life, and yet never did any of them feel the need to alert police to any potential danger.
Anything that would have stopped this creep by NATURE would deprive rights HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of people who have not, nor will ever be violent. One can NEVER sacrifice that much freedom for the vague promise of safety.
Family members often know better than anyone when someone’s mental state is deteriorating, so their concerns deserve to be taken more seriously than a potential psychopath’s glib denials. In many but not all states, family members and others can ask a judge to have someone’s mental health evaluated. That doesn’t guarantee a person will be held and treated, says Doris Fuller, executive director of the Treatment Advocacy Center, “but we’ve got to start somewhere.”
There is a valid point in that. Still I hesitate to accept it. First up, the family of the Santa Barbara killer didn’t take action until it was really too late, and much of their action might be argued to have made the killer WORSE. Second it isn’t like we haven’t been down this road before. It used to be VERY easy to get people committed, and even lock them up for life in prison-like mental hospitals without any crimes being committed by the committed. Society decided that was NOT the proper way to handle people with mental illness, and great reforms were made in the 70s and 80s. Possibly we went to far with the reforms, but I’m always concerned that people are very willing to return to what we have proven to be wrong in the past.
Treatment or no, someone in a deteriorating mental state should not have firearms. In a proposal backed by the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, families could ask a judge for a “gun violence restraining order.” If a judge agreed the person presented a credible risk for violence, the person would be barred from buying guns and have any guns he owned taken away.
Define “deteriorating mental state”. I can make a VERY good argument that the people in CSGV are poster children to that state. I will say up front that Ladd Evereitt of CSGV is a deeply mentally ill man. I’m not a psychologist, so my evaluation ends there, but I will say, I don’t think he’s a PHYSICAL danger, dispute his nasty attacks he’s made on people who share a different view than him, and his documented stalking and boundary issues. I don’t think he’d hurt anybody if he had a gun, nor do I think he deserves to be committed against his will.
This really just seems to be magical thinking, and mashing a square agenda into a round hole. What do you all think?
The green solution for global warming and evil capitalism are also dangerous!
A teen boy was struck and killed by a train Thursday morning, railroad investigators said.
…According to Joe Faust, the director of public affairs for Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad, the incident occurred as the teen walked westbound on the railroad tracks while wearing a backpack and headphones.
I bet the headphones played a part! Walking on the tracks is generally a stupid move, doing so without the ability to properly hear is REALLY stupid!
Still, it isn’t a “Gun Death” so we shouldn’t be concerned, or want to ban trains, headphones or walking on the tracks (which is probably already a crime).
H/T Bob
Registration is never used to prevent crime. It is so infrequently used to prosecute criminals the cases where it has been used can be used to show and exception to prove the rule.
Registration HAS been used to confiscate guns, in this country, and more so in other nations. That’s not what the proponents of gun control claim is their motive, and that shows how little we can trust them!
In New York City, the current capital of Gun Control in America:
There are more than 300 of them in New York – violent crews of dozens of 12- to 20-year-olds with names such as Very Crispy Gangsters, True Money Gang and Cash Bama Bullies.
Police say these groups, clustered around a particular block or housing project, are responsible for about 40 percent of the city’s shootings, with most of that violence stemming from the smallest of disses on the street, Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
There are more than 300 of them in New York – violent crews of dozens of 12- to 20-year-olds with names such as Very Crispy Gangsters, True Money Gang and Cash Bama Bullies.
Police say these groups, clustered around a particular block or housing project, are responsible for about 40 percent of the city’s shootings, with most of that violence stemming from the smallest of disses on the street, Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
The trend of smaller, younger crews has also been seen in Chicago and Northeast cities over the last few years as police have cracked down on bigger, more traditional gangs, experts said.While the Bloods, Crips and Latin Kings still exist, operating such money-making schemes as drug dealing, their members are usually older and understand the timeworn mantra of organized crime: violence is bad for business.
Not so for the crews, whose recklessness prompted former Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly in 2012 to launch an initiative to confront the crews dubbed Operation Crew Cut.
…Sixty-three people were rounded up, and at least 62 entered guilty pleas, including crew members so young that one told another to “mob up” after school.
‘The evidence was very powerful,’ said Robert Anesi, who represented a 19-year-old who pleaded guilty to attempted murder and conspiracy charges in the case last week. ‘They had such access to social media and they knew who the players were.’
NYPD statistics show gang arrests are up citywide nearly 14 percent from 2013 – and more than 28 percent from two years ago.
So we have a huge number of murders and violent crime perpetrated by people too young to own guns, and not in compliance with New York’s laws. Also the amount of violence compared to the number of perpetrators shows that people are generally good, but when good people are disarmed, the few violent monsters are empowered.
Also interesting to note that violent crime is UP in New York City where gun control is high, but crime is DOWN nationwide where gun laws are being relaxed.
Yet another massive data point showing the failure of gun control laws to increase public safety!
Because predators can hunt in packs!
Authorities say one person has been killed and three others are hurt after what is believed to be a gang-related shooting on a street in Toledo.
Police say that a group of about 10 men walked up to a house in central city and started firing Sunday around 3 p.m.
Police say one person was killed, two were in serious condition at Toledo Hospital and another suffered non-life-threatening injuries.
ABOUT 10 attackers, that could be more, that could be less. Still assuming it was EXACTLY 10, using politically correct 10-round magazines one would need 100% stopping accuracy to quickly stop all attackers. Of course 100% simply doesn’t exist in reality, as does the fallacy of the one-shot-stop, so this would require a reload if the magazine was limited to 10.
Meanwhile the attackers are acting in a group. So why put violent criminals at an advantage?
Because being anti-gun means being pro-criminal!
The mother a six-year-old Louisiana boy who was killed by his school bus when he bent down to tie his shoes says she forgives the driver and doesn’t blame her for the horrible accident.
Brenden Houston stopped in front of his school bus after getting off last Thursday afternoon and knelt down to tie his shoes in North Shreveport, Louisiana.
Bus driver Debra Stevens didn’t see him and hit the boy with the bus. He later died at a local hospital.
I thought drivers were trained for this? Isn’t that why it’s illegal for cars to pass a stopped school bus? Either way, this is not a “Gun Death”
H/T Bob
Yankee Marshall says it best:
Now I won’t lie, I watched a bunch of this loser’s videos, and I skimmed his lame-ass manifesto. I do this for the same reason I read anti-gun blogs, twitter feeds, and pinterest accounts. I’m doing opposition research.
Now some interesting things I found about this case was while he was obviously mentally ill, he didn’t seem as barking insane as many of the other media-hype killers we have information on. Really the whole manefesto was a bed-to-bed story of much of his life talking about A) That he was a spoiled rich kid and got EVERYTHING he wanted, and when even the slightest moderation was shown to him he saw it as “Injustice”, and B) He wanted women to love him. Not just any women, but ONLY Hot young blonde women. Since he was a total asshole, people in general wanted nothing to do with him, and so he HATED them. Dude was a RAGING misogynist, yet he still wanted women to fawn over him because he had designer clothes, sunglasses, and expensive cars.
Also he has very detailed plans on his attack. Most of those details thankfully weren’t fulfilled. Reading his plans, it seems like the bulk of his concentration was on stabbing various people known to him, as well as torturing people to death. Like Columbine, the guns were never a major part of the plan, but they are the part that gets all the press. More on that later. Yankee Marshall is correct, he wanted fame from this.
And he got it, and he likely knew it, no matter how delusional he was. The Main Stream Media is talking about him because it is the perfect storm for them. He’s the son of a famous Hollywood director, he lived a wealthy and privileged life, and the victims were not inner-city gang members. Six people dead from gunshots and stabbing is commonplace in Chicago, Boston, LA, New Orleans, or any other city with a major gang population. It’s often not by one perpetrator, but the families of the dead don’t care, and the news doesn’t care because inner city violence is boring.
Now dispute this case being a guy planning on stabbing and torturing a ton of people, and his guns really being a secondary tool and exit point, all deaths and injuries are being cited as “Gun Death” by the Anti-Gun forces. There are already many politicians and lobby groups tat are rallying around this crime.
This means I feel obligated to talk about this story to point out what foolish crap their laws are. And so it goes.
I don’t see how we can end the media spectacle of it. We have a first Amendment, and I respect that, and I know how well stories like these drive ratings. We will never end the anti-gun ideology, but that’s easier. We haven’t eliminated the Ku Klux Klan, or the American Temperance Movement, but they are no longer serious groups. I suspect we have a bit of work yet, but the gun control ideology is soon to become that laughing stock with the others.
What we CAN do is fight against gun free zones. ALL of these fame-seeking killers chose places where they would have the ONLY gun. The Santa Barbara killer took steps to avoid police contact for as long as possible, because those were the ONLY other guns he would encounter. You do not see these attacks happening in places were concealed carry is common and allowed.
I really see it as the only angle. If these monsters factor in somebody like me returning fire before their plan even gets off the ground, I would suspect they’d do something different.
What do you think?
This would be a compelling argument…if it was true:
Both sides have a similar recursive argument. The pro-gun side notes that gun control empowers criminals and makes us less safe, which results in more bloodshed and the antis use this to call for MORE gun control.
The anti-gun side notes that more guns means more “Gun Death”, and that leads us to call for less restrictions on gun owners.
Of course where do the mass shootings happen? Where are some of the most violent places in America? How do they compare to where the most liberal gun control laws are, and where the most restrictive are? As gun laws get less restrictive what has the result been?
Also it’s fun to note that our side discusses this issue in rational terms, and welcomes the other side to join. The other side does not join, and when we take the discussion to them they screen their comments or close them entirely. Further they choose to invoke childish and hyperbolic cartoons, which I suspect are more to be rallying propaganda to their own kind rather than persuasive arguments to further their agenda.
