Las Vegas Mass Casualty Attack

[Whiskey_Clear]

There is a social media movement to boycott the NRA. (#BoycottNRA) Supposedly Enterprise Holdings (rent a car) and a bank have jumped on board.

I wonder if their CEOs understand that the NRA is made up of millions of private citizens that donate relatively small amounts of money to join. So the CEOs and their companies are boycotting millions of potential customers. If those customers reply in kind, and boycott them.....they have flushed a huge amount of potential revenue down the toilet.

Let’s see how that works out for them. They won’t ever get a single red penny from me unless I’m facing some dire emergency transportation need. I’ll pay more to their competition instead. Goodbye Enterprise/ Alamo / National.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

There is a social media movement to boycott the NRA. (#BoycottNRA) Supposedly Enterprise Holdings (rent a car) and a bank have jumped on board.

I wonder if their CEOs understand that the NRA is made up of millions of private citizens that donate relatively small amounts of money to join. So the CEOs and their companies are boycotting millions of potential customers. If those customers reply in kind, and boycott them.....they have flushed a huge amount of potential revenue down the toilet.

Let’s see how that works out for them. They won’t ever get a single red penny from me unless I’m facing some dire emergency transportation need. I’ll pay more to their competition instead.

Yep, its like boycotting AARP. They are not some big corporate for-profit evil empire somewhere - its a rag tag group of millions of Americans.

I wish the NRA would do like a 1 hour YouTube video to explain AR-15s, semi-automatic weapons, self-defense incidents, violent crime rates in other developed countries, results of past gun bans and buybacks, and so on. There is so much ignorance about guns. I'm not sure the best way to counteract that, but something like that would help. The number of mass shootings that should have never happened had the FBI and law enforcement done their jobs would be eye opening. Parkland, Washington Navy Yard, Garland TX, Fort Hood, Charleston, Boston, Orlando Night Club, Virginia Tech, San Bernadino, and on and on. I mean the list is a mile long of people that should have never had guns had people done their jobs. Doesn't mean they wouldn't have stolen guns or done something else...but you can't argue to make guns more difficult to get when so many of the shootings were already supposed to be impossible for people to get guns.

 

[UgaBlows]

Here’s my narrative- other countries have mass shootings and make changes that work period. Our government is held hostage by the gun industry NRA and refuses to make changes the majority of the nation want. Unless future elections change the legislators then nothing is going to change that affects gun and ammo sales.

 

[UgaBlows]

So when you use a quote to make a point those aren’t your words...ok...but weren’t those words the point you were trying to make?

You’ve spent an awful lot of time arguing the semantics of minutia rather than the broad discussion at large.

I posted a link first and a quote from said article in quotations

 

[Deleted member 2897]

Here’s my narrative- other countries have mass shootings and make changes that work period. Our government is held hostage by the gun industry NRA and refuses to make changes the majority of the nation want. Unless future elections change the legislators then nothing is going to change that affects gun and ammo sales.

Which is a totally reasonable position by the way.

However, if you look at Australia, Germany, Finland, Netherlands, Great Britain, Norway - our mass shootings and school shootings rate is lower than all of those. Now granted, if you look at the last few years we are higher. But if you look at the last week we haven't had a school shooting. They have such smaller populations, in some cases minuscule populations, that you can't just look at one point in time. Furthermore, we have the 2nd amendment and a massively higher number of existing guns that those other countries don't have to worry about. We cannot ban and confiscate guns. That's what many people want. That can't happen here. So there is no sense in saying that if other countries can ban guns we should too. The majority of this country is also ignorant about guns. There is no such thing as assault weapons. If you want to ban any gun that can fire more than 1 bullet per second (just to pick something non-technical we can relate too), then you would literally have to ban and confiscate all guns. Its not going to happen. Furthermore furthermore, if you look at my list from up above, guns were already banned from people that tons and tons and tons of these shootings were committed by. So to say you want to really super dee duper ban guns, I mean...law enforcement just needs to do their job.

I listed several items pages ago that would have a material affect on shootings I believe - gun purchase timeouts for a much more liberal list of behaviors. I believe that could survive 2nd amendment suits - a temporary like 5 year ban for any long list of mental illness, discipline issues, violence, threatening behavior and more. The human brain isn't fully developed until age 25. Why 18? Why 21? Nobody should be able to buy a gun until age 25. If your parent wants you to have one before that, then they can buy one and be accountable/liable.

Better security at schools - armed officers at all schools.

Stop the social decay where marriage doesn't matter, families don't matter, and so on. The data is right in front of us - you have a 10-20 times higher likelihood of being a shooter, having mental illness, committing violence, dropping out of school, and on and on if you aren't raised in a 2 parent household. Its right there!

We also have to recognize that 2/3rds of gun deaths are suicides. 70% of the remaining 1/3rd are inner city gang violence, which nobody is focusing on. Out of about 30,000 gun murders a year, that knocks it down to 3,000. Remove justifiable homicides from self defense and you're close to 2,000. Imagine a perfect world where there are no broken families. Then you've got another 90% collapse, down to a few hundred. All the numbers are right there in front of us.

The NRA is funded by millions of Americans to protect the 2nd amendment from well-meaning but ignorant Americans who know nothing about guns and how to craft public policy in a way that would actually do something.

 

[smathis30]

in absolute no instances (outside of maybe 1 or 2 due to poor forwarding). With Due Process and privacy rights, the FBI will always be limited in what they can do because of that. There is no ifs and or buts about that. Whisky_Clear said what i wanted to say in a clean and concise manner. We have a right to a fair trial and to our privacy as long as we are doing nothing wrong. Red flags don't mean **** until the line is crossed. The dude's parents were the ones that called on the police to try to teach him a lesson. Literally calling the police because their skills at parenting had reached a certain point. Its hard to take threats about someone seriously because of that. Yes his postings online said he would do something, but posts on the internet don't really mean anything because of anonymity.

As to the point about Europe- The only thing i found was https://www.thejacknews.com/law/gun...oes-not-have-more-mass-shootings-than-europe/

Which shows that the U.S. would be ~12th compared to Europe. which is pretty solid until you consider that Europe has 51 countries and the US has more mass shootings than 80% of them and nearly 60% of Europe has not had a mass shooting in that time frame. since that study, western europe has had 1 mass shooting and the US has had 7. The only one in Europe, in Germany, was a religion-based terrorist attack at a mall. Europe as a whole also had a lower fatality rate due to mass shootings than the US did in the time frame, and that's including countries that had civil was in the past twenty years. No way around it, the US has worse gun violence than Europe. End of story.


As to policy
No one is realistically calling for a gun buyback. Its not really practical with how many are out there and its relative political suicide. People pulling support has more to do with how the NRA finances campaigns and HR moves than upsetting "common" Americans. Every mass shooting in the past three years has used a semi-automatic rifle, and that is a little concerning. In florida, it is easier for an 18-year old to obtain a rifle than a pistol due to the waiting period hand guns have but not rifles. Is that something we should be ok with? Im in favor of a weeklong waiting period. If we think the FBI should have increased power and should be better at their jobs, we need to give them more funding so they aren't overwhelmed with having to track 350 million people. I think the argument that if they didn't have guns they would use other things is dumb. I've spent the last few hours trying to google school machete massacres and its coming up a little empty relative to gun-based actions. Guns make it easy and people wouldn't do it if it wasn't easy. Arming teachers is a terrible idea all it takes is one misfire from a teacher for that to end poorly. Adding armed guards didn't do anything at Fort Hood and won't do anything at schools as long as people can sneak stuff in backpacks or on their person. Adding metal detectors may help but it creates fire hazards. I want research done by the CDC. If you don't trust the CDC when its led by a republican appointee than other research (from colleges that don't have to play by the appointing rules) will have much further left influence on them. If we want nationwide research (with what some of you call left leaning bias) now is the best time to do it. If mental health is really the issue and not guns, lets go see what we can do.

 

[kg01]

Hey, what's you guys' take on the officer on site that chose not to engage the HS shooter? I'm sure he's a nice guy and was scared but ... I mean, that's why you're there, right?

All kidding aside, considering he's gonna be blamed for all of this, he should be on suicide watch.

 

[Whiskey_Clear]

 

[Whiskey_Clear]

Lot of talk about raising the age to purchase firearms. Let’s discuss, I’ll focus on Ga. law but it applies to many states. You can drink at 21, have sex with anyone of any age after 16 (that is also 16 or older), can’t leave home without permission or get kicked out until 18, go to adult jail for violating a criminal offense.

What does any of that have to do with buying a rifle at 18? The 2nd amendment. And the draft. At 18 the law allows you to live independently. You are an adult in every way except for alcohol consumption. Drinking booze isn’t a civil right unless you want to argue 1st amendment religious consumption of alcohol.

I personally would prefer to see these differences in defined legal age of adulthood. If you can be drafted into a war, I think you should be able to drink beer and buy firearms. Will some bad things result. Yeah, there may be an increase in DUIs etc.

But most gun grabbers like to point to Europe as a guide book to follow for gun bans. Europe doesn’t outlaw consumption of alcohol under 21 yoa. And Europe doesn’t have the problems of DUI and alcohol related deaths of persons under 21 that America has. So we should emulate them right?

Imo if we want to limit the legal age to purchase firearms to 21 we should raise the draft age to 21 (how likely is another draft anyway?) and we should not recognize adulthood and adult incarceration until 21. (And man oh man the crime rate of juvenile offenders between 17-21 will skyrocket.)

There are downsides to every choice but I think the laws should be more consistent regarding age and legal adulthood.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

iEvery mass shooting in the past three years has used a semi-automatic rifle, and that is a little concerning.

Because semi-automatic guns is the only thing people buy. I mean its not the only, but its over 80%. If you ban just semi-automatic rifles, then they'll drop a part here or two so it doesn't qualify as a rifle. The Virginia Tech shooter killed 33 with handguns. In that case, he had been convicted of stalking 2 students at school, and a special court declared him mentally ill. Never should have owned a gun.

There are like a dozen states who don't report into the background check system. The 30-something that do only report like 3/4s of the info. So there are literally 5 to 10 million people walking around with guns right now who shouldn't have them.

Law enforcement needs to do their job.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

Hey, what's you guys' take on the officer on site that chose not to engage the HS shooter? I'm sure he's a nice guy and was scared but ... I mean, that's why you're there, right?

All kidding aside, considering he's gonna be blamed for all of this, he should be on suicide watch.

Yep, he doesn't belong on the police force, so he's rightfully gone. We are all human though - I'm sure he has a family - would you want to walk into a war zone? I wouldn't. That was his job though, but its understandable. I bet in war soldiers freeze. Its gotta be human nature sometimes. NBC News interviewed a surviving student at the school who called the officer a coward. The guy quit, he knows what he did...what good does that do? If I were a parent, I might be upset that he gets a golden million dollar plus retirement parachute since they didn't fire him but let him retire. But there is literally nothing to be gained by pointing out to him what he no doubt already knows and has nightmares about. Our local high school has 5 armed officers for 4,000 students. Parkland had 1 officer for 3,000 students. If you had an appropriate amount of officers, who were actually at school, it would have made a difference. There is a chance they would have recognized him as the banned student when he first got there too. And of course disturbing schools, making threats against schools, making terroristic threats - the latter 2 are already felonies in Florida. He didn't use anonymous posts on the internet - he used his personal accounts by his name directly to other people. And, the voters had passed a bill to spend a bunch of money upgrading security at this school which would have helped...4 years ago, but the school district never did it.

There is all kinds of bad in this story - multiple layers that if people had just done their job this never would have happened.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

Lot of talk about raising the age to purchase firearms. Let’s discuss, I’ll focus on Ga. law but it applies to many states. You can drink at 21, have sex with anyone of any age after 16 (that is also 16 or older), can’t leave home without permission or get kicked out until 18, go to adult jail for violating a criminal offense.

What does any of that have to do with buying a rifle at 18? The 2nd amendment. And the draft. At 18 the law allows you to live independently. You are an adult in every way except for alcohol consumption. Drinking booze isn’t a civil right unless you want to argue 1st amendment religious consumption of alcohol.

I personally would prefer to see these differences in defined legal age of adulthood. If you can be drafted into a war, I think you should be able to drink beer and buy firearms. Will some bad things result. Yeah, there may be an increase in DUIs etc.

But most gun grabbers like to point to Europe as a guide book to follow for gun bans. Europe doesn’t outlaw consumption of alcohol under 21 yoa. And Europe doesn’t have the problems of DUI and alcohol related deaths of persons under 21 that America has. So we should emulate them right?

Imo if we want to limit the legal age to purchase firearms to 21 we should raise the draft age to 21 (how likely is another draft anyway?) and we should not recognize adulthood and adult incarceration until 21. (And man oh man the crime rate of juvenile offenders between 17-21 will skyrocket.)

There are downsides to every choice but I think the laws should be more consistent regarding age and legal adulthood.

Science says that brains aren't fully developed until age 25. Its one thing to vote or live by yourself and make dumb mistakes like forgetting to pay your bills. But when it comes to owning a firearm, I'm fine with going with age 25. That's for buying one. If your parent is good with you owning one before then, then they can buy one for you - but they are then accountable and liable for your actions.

 

[kg01]

Yep, he doesn't belong on the police force, so he's rightfully gone. We are all human though - I'm sure he has a family - would you want to walk into a war zone? I wouldn't. That was his job though, but its understandable. I bet in war soldiers freeze. Its gotta be human nature sometimes. NBC News interviewed a surviving student at the school who called the officer a coward. The guy quit, he knows what he did...what good does that do? If I were a parent, I might be upset that he gets a golden million dollar plus retirement parachute since they didn't fire him but let him retire. But there is literally nothing to be gained by pointing out to him what he no doubt already knows and has nightmares about. Our local high school has 5 armed officers for 4,000 students. Parkland had 1 officer for 3,000 students. If you had an appropriate amount of officers, who were actually at school, it would have made a difference. There is a chance they would have recognized him as the banned student when he first got there too. And of course disturbing schools, making threats against schools, making terroristic threats - the latter 2 are already felonies in Florida. He didn't use anonymous posts on the internet - he used his personal accounts by his name directly to other people. And, the voters had passed a bill to spend a bunch of money upgrading security at this school which would have helped...4 years ago, but the school district never did it.

There is all kinds of bad in this story - multiple layers that if people had just done their job this never would have happened.

Only part I sort of disagree with is saying the "officer" shouldn't be called out. It's harsh but it's what he signed up for so he knew the risks. I honestly don't know how he'll live with himself. His name is literally being dragged right now. Soon his face will be as well.

I feel for the dude but .. I mean, it was his job. You won't see me in that position because I'm not sure I could fulfill those duties.

 

[Whiskey_Clear]

Science says that brains aren't fully developed until age 25. Its one thing to vote or live by yourself and make dumb mistakes like forgetting to pay your bills. But when it comes to owning a firearm, I'm fine with going with age 25. That's for buying one. If your parent is good with you owning one before then, then they can buy one for you - but they are then accountable and liable for your actions.

25 is a bit extreme imo. “Fully developed” does not equate to an ability to determine right from wrong or able to behave maturely. I think we should expect more from 13-16 year old juveniles, 17 year old quasi adults, and 18 year old adults. Fail to behave properly and pay a legal consequence. Drive drunk at 18 and lose your license for 5 years for first offense and do a minimum year in jail. That will deter them from dui.

 

[Whiskey_Clear]

25 is a bit extreme imo. “Fully developed” does not equate to an ability to determine right from wrong or able to behave maturely. I think we should expect more from 13-16 year old juveniles, 17 year old quasi adults, and 18 year old adults. Fail to behave properly and pay a legal consequence. Drive drunk at 18 and lose your license for 5 years for first offense and do a minimum year in jail. That will deter them from dui.

Too late to edit but ability should have read *inability*

 

[Whiskey_Clear]

https://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/feb/22/eric-harris-and-dylan-klebold-columbine-high-schoo/

 

[jeffgt14]

So let's see if they take his guns away.

http://www.totalprosports.com/2018/...-threats-to-shoot-up-high-school-nfl-players/

 

[WreckinGT]

There is a social media movement to boycott the NRA. (#BoycottNRA) Supposedly Enterprise Holdings (rent a car) and a bank have jumped on board.

I wonder if their CEOs understand that the NRA is made up of millions of private citizens that donate relatively small amounts of money to join. So the CEOs and their companies are boycotting millions of potential customers. If those customers reply in kind, and boycott them.....they have flushed a huge amount of potential revenue down the toilet.

Let’s see how that works out for them. They won’t ever get a single red penny from me unless I’m facing some dire emergency transportation need. I’ll pay more to their competition instead. Goodbye Enterprise/ Alamo / National.

Sometimes doing what is right comes at a cost.

 

[WreckinGT]

Earlier, someone was picking at folks for calling one of the shooting survivors a liar and professional protestor.

Well these sorts of real stories do not help when you have conspiracy theorists in your mix:
CNN told him to just stick to the script - and only ask the question they gave him and not his own:
Networks don't want their opinions - they want to further the network's agenda:

CNN released the emails they had with the kids father if you would like to learn what really happened.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

CNN released the emails they had with the kids father if you would like to learn what really happened.

Bizarre. This kid was talking about what they told him on the phone, not what they emailed his Dad. And in this video, her father was right there. I think the Town Hall in its final product on full display speaks for itself. they are a pitiful excuse for a news channel, and it goes on every day.