The Inconvenient Facts of the Parkland Shooting and the Argument for Gun Bans and Confiscation

[Anonymous]

17 lives were lost in fewer than ten minutes. A horrific tragedy. The tragedy that that underlies this all is the failure of our government institutions that allowed this to happen.

The irony of this picture. Who wins when the trigger is pulled?

- The FBI received two reports on the threat the shooter posed

- The Broward county sheriffs office was called to the house of the shooter 39 times

- The Broward County sheriffs office was warned multiple times that the shooter was a potential school shooter in the making

- The Broward County sheriffs office was specifically requested to seize the weapons owned by the shooter

- on the day of the shooting an officer of the sheriffs department was on site during the shooting and refused to confront the shooter for the duration of the shooting. He’s now referred to as the “coward of Broward”

Now as a law abiding gun owner myself I’ve taken the necessary precautions with all of my weapons. They are all legal with no modifications. They were all legally purchased with appropriate background checks and paperwork filed. I hold the necessary licenses and have taken safety handling and shooting courses so I am beyond proficient in handling my long rifles and hand guns. It’s actually a passion of mine.

My guns are all kept secured inside an anchored gun safe unloaded with bolts or trigger mechanisms removed. Except for two semi automatic handguns which are kept behind secured fingerprint unlockable safes.

additionally my home is well secured and video monitored.

Now as a a law abiding citizen advocates of gun bans would tell me I must give up my guns and entrust the government to manage my safety for me.

Based on the unfortunate facts of this shooting should I really give up control to the pile of incompetence that our government is?

Do you truly believe those with bad intent will so willingly give up their weapons?

Remind the law abiding gun owners of this country how that is even slightly logical.

[meowcow]

The second amendment was written in 1791, when the firearms of that era included muskets and flintlocks. By all accounts, they were single-fire weapons.

As time went on, and gun technology evolved, nobody stopped to think whether an ancient amendment to the constitution should apply to modern weapons will 1000x the killing capacity.

The 2nd amendment was written to allow citizens the ability to protect themselves. In that era, a musket was sufficient to protect themselves. Today, a handgun is sufficient.

What rationale person would think that a heavy assault rifle is a practical weapon to defend themselves? It is called an ASSAULT rifle for a reason, and that reason is not to defend. It is to slaughter.

I'd be willing to bet that if the founding fathers realized the type of destruction that a single modern-day assault weapon could unleash on human beings, they would never have written the 2nd amendment. Or that they would never have wanted it to be used to justify the use of such weapons today.

Now, I fully understand that gun advocates feel entitled to their guns. It is definitely difficult to take away a privilege, once it has been given. This is why retracting benefits like welfare, EBT/food stamps, and other benefits is so difficult for politicians to do.

But if it takes a bullet and the corpse of your children to convince you that perhaps it isn't a good idea to give unrestricted access to such weapons to the public, then I'm sure you are on the right path to such a future.

[meowcow]

The other problem with your take is that all of the measures to stop such shootings in the future are last resort options.

It is more practical to ban all non-handgun firearms to prevent future mass shootings. Although, as I mentioned before, it is unlikely given the American gun culture.

It is not practical to give every psycho, sociopath and men with small-penis syndrome access to assault rifles and other heavy weapons, and expect that the FBI, law enforcement and the random observations of the public to identify people at high-risk of a mass shooting. You act as if the FBI have a crystal ball to tell the future. The FACT is that the FBI receives thousands of tips per day, and there is no smoking gun to distinguish that Person A is a real threat compared to Person B.

Resorting to FBI to find a shooter, or relying on an officer to be present to stop a shooter should actually be the LAST resort, and not the first line of defense

[myTake Owner]

You failed to actually address my point even after writing a book.

The facts remain , and I also pointed out people prefer not to deal with facts.

Firearms have been legal up until now at least.

There are 300M of them floating around.

The people that hold their firearms for illegal purposes aren’t just going to give up their firearms because a politician said so.

My firearms are all legal and and inaccessible to anyone but me and I won’t be committing a school shooting anytime soon.

These are all incontrovertible facts.

The proposal as I wrote on behalf of some people is to ban and confiscate firearms.

In order to do that these people will need the support of people like me.

Why exactly should I give up my guns since only harm comes to me? I lose my investment. I have to give up my time. And I lose my 2nd amendment rights. Giving up my guns won’t prevent a school shooting.

There is no benefit to me in this nor does my giving up my guns benefit society = no vote.

[meowcow]

Like I said, the firearms that were legal when the 2nd amendment was drafted were muskets and flintlock guns. Politicians never re-evaluated whether modern military weapons should have been excluded from the 2nd amendment. They should have, but their laziness resulted in handing all sorts of weapons that should never be in the hands of the public.

I also said it is unlikely that people would give up their guns.

Your firearm may be in a gun locker, but it is easily accessible. Even the best gun lockers can be breached in 10 minutes or less. But for every responsible gun owner, is an irresponsible gun owner. There's an endless number of stories where a toddler or child ends up handling an unsecured gun and blasting their brother/sister's head off. Your example of presumably being a responsible gun owner does not change the fact that there are hundreds of thousands of irresponsible gun owners.

[meowcow]

You also didn't give any good reason or purpose to having an assault weapon. Like I said, a handgun is a practical weapon for personal defense... and personal defense is the reason for the 2nd amendment. Assault rifles are impractical defense weapons. But they are great for slaughtering other human beings in large numbers.

So make a decent case for having assault weapons for defense, because I can think of none, and I'm willing to bet that you can't either. Aside from a bunch of Americans wanting to blow shit up, or otherwise having small-penis syndrome, there is no good reason to own such weapons.

[myTake Owner]

I never said anything about assault weapons in specific.

And you still haven’t pointed out what benefit I get from giving up my guns. There’s a reason you haven’t. It’s because there is none.

You can keep on with your unsubstantiated opinions about the ideology but again I already pointed out it doesn’t matter. It ignores the realities on the ground.

[meowcow]

I'm not sure where you are getting your information. Nobody is asking you to give up all your guns. The push to restrict firearms pertains to non-handguns, specifically to semi-automatic rifles. The concept is no different than how fully automatic rifles became difficult to obtain after 1986 in the US. You don't see mass shootings with fully automatic rifles for the simple reason that they became extremely rare/expensive to obtain after 1986, when the registry for full-auto weapons shut down. So instead, people resort to what IS available... semi-automatics. The inability for stupid Americans to get their hands on full auto weapons is a benefit to everyone.

Regard semi-autos, you are correct. You will get no personal benefit from giving them up. That is because you gain no benefit from having them in the first place, aside from stoking your little-man / little-penis syndrome.

The 2nd amendment was about personal defense. A semi-auto is not a practical defense weapon when needed.

[meowcow]

After the 1986 ban on full-auto weapons, the last mass shooting involving as full-auto assault weapon was 1892. It took time to get such weapons off the streets, but the ban prevented any single person from mowing down a crowd of people with a single pull of the trigger. That is a fact you cannot deny. And today... some 32 years after that ban, nobody whines and cries about the days where full automatics were available.

However, mass shooters now resort to the next best thing... semi-automatic rifles. The firepower and ammo capacity is superior to police issue handguns, so they will outgun almost all of the opposition they encounter. When these weapons are one day banned, nobody will give a shit 30 years later... just like with full auto weapons.

Except that the thousands that were destined to die from those weapons will still be alive. One of which may be your future family.

[meowcow]

And that perhaps is the saddest part. You think that you "lose" something by giving up you assault weapons. Should your children, or your family get slaughtered by the very weapon that you want all people to have unrestricted access to, I'm willing to bet you would destroy every gun you own.

Yet, if such weapons were banned, preventing the slaughter of your family, you'd live in blissful ignorance of the benefit you received.

Which means the only way that such weapons would ever be banned, is if the plague of mass shootings that only America experiences, reaches the tipping point, where hundreds of innocent kids are slaughtered every year... oh wait... that's happening right now.

[gotc147]

There are plenty of people who are pissed about the '86 machine gun ban, just as pissed off about the '34 NFA, and we have efforts going on to begin rolling back these laws.

We know what your long game is, and we will die before we allow it to happen.

So the question really is, are you willing to die attempting to implement it?

[myTake Owner]

First, “nobody is asking you to give up all your guns” well that is patently false. You need only go do a quick search and you’ll find any number of people advocating for complete gun bans. Second, if you have property and it has value then someone takes it from you, by definition you have lost something. Lastly, taking guns away from people that use them legally and with responsibility does nothing to stop people from using them illegally. I have guns in my house to protect my family from people that would do harm.

[btbc92]

"Now as a a law abiding citizen advocates of gun bans would tell me I must give up my guns and entrust the government to manage my safety for me." Anybody who does so is a fool.

You can take away ALL GUNS and destory your amenment rights. Somebody will still murder and kill. It's done to control society. Not help improvement. People needs to be more alert and wake up and stop being on their phones and social media all the time. Be mindful or their surroundings and be careful of how you treat people. I don't condone the acts of the 19 year old. But you can see that he had a LOT of problems that the school NEVER addressed appropiately. He looks like he's been abused and bullied. At the same time he lost both his parents and had to live with somebody else. You have the right to defend yourself. Or else the same people you trust turn on you because they can LEGALLY do it. They have this same similar issue in Japan. No Guns, yet the police system victim shame on anybody that led to the victims death. Even if the victims can be partially responsible for the situation that got them in it in the first place.

[WalterRadio]

You have correctly illustrated the core of the irreconcilable difference.

Gun control advocates put their trust in government to protect them. They do not trust you or me, but they trust someone no more law abiding than you or me who works for the government.

2nd Amendment rights advocates trust themselves more than the government. They believe the government is at best marginally helpful, at worst the criminal itself, and universally incompetent.

Evidence supports only one of these views.

[myTake Owner]

It doesn’t only reflect the differences between the two ideologies it also shows a microcosm of the disconnect between the liberal viewpoint on gun control and the typical gun owner.

If we were to vote today the liberal view would hold that I must vote to give up my rights. In voting to give up my rights I gain nothing and the community gains nothing. In fact I lose capabilities that I now have. Why again would I vote to do that? Multiply me by 100 M or more voting age gun owners. Gun owners that would in all likelihood become 2nd amendment activists at voting time.

[Intraluminal]

So you're saying that the average, unvetted person off the street is MORE "law abiding" than a trained police officer. OK. I guess the black lives matter people are right then.

[myTake Owner]

@Intraluminal wow, are you a woman or something? Man you are freaking annoying af. You go around screaming and whining and conflating shit that was said. You just said below you would be for gun ownership under the right conditions and now you are whining because someone pointed out the difficulty of motivating a gun control vote to suspend ownership rights.

Look at your posts you say the most ridiculous shit. Ohhh the WALL. 😂. Just stick to the topic and quit your silly outbursts.

[Intraluminal]

I would wholeheartedly support it under the strictures you hold YOURSELF to.

That has nothing to do with the earlier gentleman's statement. I was trying to make sure that I understood him correctly.

[WalterRadio]

@Intraluminal
"So you're saying that the average, unvetted person off the street is MORE "law abiding" than a trained police officer."
No, read what I wrote, "you or me". That is literal.

[Intraluminal]

So you *know* my legal status? I could get a gun permit?

[WalterRadio]

@Intraluminal
The "you" is the asker".

Learn to read.

[Intraluminal]

You is indefinite. Learn English.

[WalterRadio]

@Intraluminal
The sentence was a direct response to the asker.

[Intraluminal]

If ALL gun owners were as careful, conscientious, trained, and we'll vetted as you are, your reasoning would make perfect sense, and I at least would agree with you.

HOWEVER, the laws are such that EVEN IF law enforcement HAD investigated, there are no laws that could have stripped the shooter of his *Right* to own a machine gun.

Further the vast majority of gun owners are NOT as careful, well trained, or a conscientious as you are.

I would be willing to bet $1000 that the majority do not have video monitoring, as you do. I would be willing to bet another $1000 that the majority do not have an anchored safe, as you do. I'd even be willing to bet that most are not up to date on their firearms training or many of the other safety related items you mentioned. Are you ready to bet?

[myTake Owner]

So with the intent of keeping an even keel I’m not against appropriate gun control and putting in place more controls provided they have a reasonable chance to have an impact.

On the other hand, I don’t think I can ever be convinced that I personally am better off if I gave up my guns. Nor do I think there is any benefit to the community for me to give up my guns.

So if you are saying I should concede to that then my answer remains no. If you are saying there is maybe some point in the middle then maybe there is common ground to work on.

[Intraluminal]

I'm saying that IF the standards of gun ownership for ALL gun owners was the same as yours, and IF the penalties for failure to comply with those standards were similar to say the penalties for failure to comply with car insurance etc., THEN we wouldn't be where we are and I would fully support universal gun ownership.

[myTake Owner]

I wish things were different... but humans.

[WalterRadio]

"EVEN IF law enforcement HAD investigated, there are no laws that could have stripped the shooter"
Yes there are. The killer had made threats, committed assault, damaged property and other crimes that all that law enforcement had to do was arrest and charge him. He should have, and could have been convicted and imprisoned. It is government incompetence that did not follow through.

[Intraluminal]

@WalterRadio

You know, and I know, and everyone reading this knows that:

a) this kid had the MONEY for lawyers, so he would have gotten off
b) his lawyers, at the very least, would have delayed sentencing beyond the date of the shootings
c) he had enough money that even IF he was convicted, and even IF the conviction was such (remember he's under 18) that it impacted his ability to legally buy a machine gun, that he STILL would have been able to buy guns a gun fairs.

[WalterRadio]

"he would have gotten off"
His name isn't Clinton. He would have been convicted. Can't say what a judge would sentence him to.

"would have delayed sentencing"
Pending felony charges, even before conviction, make one ineligible to own a firearm.

"legally buy a machine gun, that he STILL would have been able to buy guns a gun fairs."
Your knowledge of existing gun laws is lacking. One must be 21 to legally buy a machine gun. And one is not legally allowed to buy a gun at a gun show if one is not legally allowed to buy one at a store. Maybe you should visit a gun show sometime. The vast majority of sellers are licensed dealers and the few that are not are fully aware of the possibility of ATF agents walking around in plain clothes. People involved in legal sales have no desire to sell to criminals, psychopaths and terrorists. Moslems complain about that all the time, that unlicensed sellers won't sell to them.

[Anon-ymous1]

Ban assault weapons, and each and every similarly-styled weapon, and ban them forever., as they are not necessary for home defense. Ban extended magazines, all magazines over seven rounds for pistols and nine or ten rounds for rifles, as they are not necessary for home defense. Ban bump stocks, as they are not necessary for home defense.

We can't ban violence, and people have legitimate desires for home defense; no one uses an AR-15, or any similar gun, for home defense. They own them because they want them, and because they're fun to shoot. I get that. But my private right to fun is not more important than public safety. Our 1st Amendment rights are very strong, but not absolute; I can't claim "fun, your Honor" as a defense in court when I cause a riot or incite violence with my words. Or that my religion allows me to murder people. Our rights are not absolute when they breach public safety. These weapons are a menace, and they need to be banned.

[Anonymous]

It's not possible to remove guns from the US. We are not an "island" nation like Australia where everything must enter by either boat or airplane, which can be tightly controlled. If guns are outlawed, they will still make their way into the country illegally just as freely and prolifically as illicit drugs do through both borders.

So if guns are outlawed, criminals will still have relatively easy access to firearms via the black market. So responsible gun owners are the only ones who will lose, and gun violence will not be impacted much at all.

I understand the desire to address the problem. It's driven by very real and deep emotion. But unfortunately there is not much logic involved right now.

[Intraluminal]

But... THE WALL! first across the Mexican border, then in Trump's second term, across the Canadian border! Go Trump!

[Opinion Owner]

@Intraluminal But THE TUNNELS! You know about all the tunnels, right?

Let's not be so naive in a discussion about taking away Americans' Second Amendment rights for a plan that won't do what people hope it will, and in fact will likely do more harm than good.

[Intraluminal]

Are you saying that PRESIDENT TRUMP'S wall would be ineffective? TREASON!

[Opinion Owner]

@Intraluminal Of course it would be inefficient. It would help, but it's no panacea and not worth the cost. It will never happen anyway... it was nothing more than a campaign promise to get the SOB elected. I didn't vote for that dumb ass prick.

[Intraluminal]

On the contrary, Trump still wants and has re-promised to build the wall as recently as January 25th 2018.

www.google.com/.../trump-border-wall-dreamers-immigration

[Opinion Owner]

@Intraluminal It will never happen.

[Intraluminal]

I know, but he keeps on saying that he will. LOL 😂

[Opinion Owner]

@Intraluminal Wait, you're surprised he continues to say things he doesn't mean? Huh?

[Intraluminal]

Not at all surprised. He's a compulsive liar.

[Anonymous]

It gets worse. There were four officers that did nothing during the shooting. Also there was no error in his background check because of the "promise program" that allows the students to commit crimes without anybody reporting to the government so the school gets more money. So many states dont even report to the background system. That this could have stopped so many ways makes me sick.

[Anonymous]

What burns me is that my kids can’t take guns to school. Who will protect them from all these guns if they can’t carry themselves? My kids teacher is an idiot so giving one to her is useless. My kids are usually responsible (when the medication is working) and I taught them not to take shit from anyone.
So how many more kids gotta die before we finally let kids carry guns in school so they can shoot these nuts?

[WalterRadio]

When I was in high school, kids would take guns to school. They had to leave them in their trucks, unless they had special permission to bring inside.

I think what has happened is that teachers and administrators have lost their authority. How many principals have a paddle now? They wouldn't put up with bad behavior then, but now, it is expected and we wonder why some kids run amok.

[Opinion Owner]

@WalterRadio I know, right. Even beating the kids is wrong now. One time my old man beat my brother so badly he has trouble with his left eye. But he never spoke back.
Fear- it’s sll about fear. What kind of childhood is it, if not marked by fear? Kids need to fear their parents, teachers, hell, anyone older.

[Browneye57]

This kind of logic just goes over the anti's heads. There is no logic to their argument - it is an emotional response.
You can't fix stupid.

[John_Doesnt]

Because this happens all the time in countries with strict gun control laws. Oh wait?

[myTake Owner]

Oh wait? My guns have never been used in a shooting at a school nor will they ever be. So while that’s a... boring and thoughtless question because it’s based on emotion and doesn’t address the facts of reality.

Taking away my guns does nothing to help society. So again why should I agree with you that banning and confiscating my guns is beneficial?

[John_Doesnt]

My statement was based completely on fact, this doesn't happen in countries with strict gun control laws. You should agree because of facts, but facts never interest conservatives.

[Anonymous]

Don't worry. They'll all forget about it in a few weeks just like all the other shootings. If it's not happening in their town, than it's not happening.

[Hungry_Shark]

Noice