So, let's see here...mom brags on social media, "My right to protect my child with my gun trumps your fear of my gun" and then ends up accidentally getting shot in the back by that same child.
Now she might be charged because Florida law requires guns to be secured from minors?
The question isn't to amend or abolish the second amendment, it is to properly apply it. If the President, Congress and the Courts would focus more fully on what a "well regulated militia" is, I think we'd find compromise. For example, I would propose:
In order to own anything that is not a hunting-purpose long gun (Shotguns without tactical attachments, centerfire/rimfire rifles without tactical attachments) you must be: a) willing to serve in some sort of reserve unit of the Armed Forces or b) some sort of police / sherrif / state trooper auxillary unit
In order to serve in this well regulated militia, you must a) complete a series of psychological evaluations and b) complete comprehensive training with firearms and other aspects of your job.
This would effectively get you into the VA (or state equivalent systems) regarding mental health.
If you are serving in a militia in good standing (including retired), then you can have whatever guns you wish. Much like in Australia, you'd have to do some sort gun buyback which would probably go over like a lead balloon. I'm not sure people have a problem with sensible gun ownership, but instead on whether the mentally unfit / untrained people are using them. At least that's my take.
And a great take it is! The Gun Cult chides continually that gun safety advocates have no real plan and or idea what new laws should look like. This is a great example of exactly what it should look like and something I firmly support. I would add that the mental health evaluations be at least three times a year and one hundred hours a year minimum training.
I was recently asked to answer a question on Quora about gun rights activists. Here was my response.
There are several reasons why gun rights activists ignore gun control success in other countries and they all revolve around the reasons why they are passionate about their guns in the first place.
First, like any hobby, people love their toys. If there is a chance that they might be taken away, it's only natural that people would get upset. Seeing that the rest of the civilized world functions just fine with stricter gun control translates into the possibility that their toys will be taken away hence the emotion, temper tantrums, and willful ignorance of functional societies.
Second, gun rights activists are generally a very insecure lot who draw empowerment from their guns. It would be interesting to see a peer reviewed study on how many of them were bullied as kids because they've always struck me as having inferiority complexes. Seeing other people "disarmed" in other countries strikes deep to their biggest fear: being powerless. Ironic, for two main reasons. One, owning a gun makes it more likely that they will injure/kill themselves or others as opposed to protecting them against bad guys.
Two, having a few guns against a federal government who has drones/tanks/planes/battleships and thinking that somehow they are a force to be reckoned with is pure fantasy. Speaking of governments...
Third, gun rights activists believe that they are guarding against a possible, future totalitarian government. This is a very powerful belief that overcomes any positive news about countries with successful gun control. They disseminate propaganda that "proves" that countries with stricter gun control are subjugating their people. Here is an example...
Fourth, gun rights activists, like most conservatives, experience cognitive dissonance when confronted with objective reality. When they see how successful gun control has been in reducing violent crime in every other civilized country in the world, their brains react in such a way that the feel like they are under physical attack. Several peer reviewed neurological studies have shown this to be valid and are detailed in the following book.
Books
In many ways, this is the most direct and scientific reason why they ignore the precedent set by other countries. It makes them feel physically uncomfortable and this is due to the previous three reasons mentioned above.
Today, I'm wondering if Trisha Nelson knew that when she bought her gun and got her conceal carry permit that she would up being shot with it.
He had served his sentence and was on probation when he shot Nelson. He most likely used Nelson’s gun, for which she had a concealed-carry permit, Padden said.
Having a gun increase, not decreases, your chances of being shot.
The Gun Cult wails away about gun free zones, mouth foaming to anyone who will listen that bad guys will think twice if there are guns at an establishment.
So, it is shocking, I tell you, SHOCKING, that there was a shooting at a gun shop in Mississippi.
Mississippi authorities say a gun shop owner and his 17-year-old son died in a shootout over a $25 service charge. Another man and his 29-year-old son are hospitalized.
I simply can't believe that the Gun Cult was wrong...again.
Take a look at the mass shootings in this country over the last 50 years.
When the Gun Cult flaps their yaps about decrease gun violence, the above numbers show just how fucking tone deaf they are. No other country in the civilized world has problems like this.
We have these problems because domestic terrorists are holding our country hostage. If you support looser gun laws, you are offering aid and comfort to the enemies of national security. Gitmo is getting mighty empty these days and, considering we can't seem to close it, perhaps we should start putting some people in it who represent more of a threat than ISIL or Al Qaeda.
Emotional Wayne LaPierre Honors Victims Of Background Checks “Because of our nation’s senseless gun control laws, this poor man with a known history of domestic violence was unable to procure an assault-style weapon, despite his desperate wishes to own and operate such a weapon,” said the visibly distraught lobbyist while gesturing towards a framed portrait of a middle-aged man, one of dozens of photos of victims displayed around the conference room.
My initial thoughts on the president's town hall on gun violence are ones of frustration. While I am pleased that the issue is getting more attention and it appears that it's going to be a center piece to the 2016 presidential campaign, there are two core points that are not being addressed.
The first is illustrated in Taya Kyle's portion of this video. As Chris Mooney noted in his book "The Republican Brain," people let emotion drive their reasoning process and this was never more true than with the gun issue. I was hoping that Ms. Kyle would have learned the lesson that her husband and Nancy Lanza did not learn and that is that the gun culture creates a myopia. Neither Mr. Kyle nor Ms. Lanza used reason in their judgement regarding gun safety and allowed mentally ill people to operate firearms. The ideology of the gun rights activist (one devoid of reason and more rooted in paranoia and chest thumping emotion) is a chief cause of mass shootings and gun violence in this country.
Instead, Ms. Kyle spoke of needing a gun for protection and spoke of the hope of declining gun violence. The former is, of course, ridiculous as has been proven time and again by study after study. If you own a gun, you are more likely to kill/injure yourself or a loved one than protect yourself or a loved one. Believing the latter is, again, an emotional response driven by some sort of need for empowerment. The latter I found to be incredibly insulting to the families of the now weekly victims of mass shooting. How can anyone say it's getting better? This is especially befuddling behavior of someone who lost their own loved one to the myopia of gun rights ideology.
I think the president knows this because he's obviously an intelligent man. I get that saying something like this would be a bad PR move but it is the truth and we have to face the fact that this ideology is a threat to our national security.
My second frustration is that the NRA and other gun rights supporters are essentially getting what they want here: enforcement of current laws. Despite their faux protestations, they have successfully shifted the argument so far to the right, that "compromise" is something they've actually supported for years. They've been employing a political tactic that needs to be countered immediately.
Instead of allowing them to set the table with talk of totalitarian governments and dystopic futures (see: appeal to fear), gun safety advocates like the president should be talking about mandatory, minimum training, liability insurance, registration, and even altering the 2nd amendment so that only people who want to devote a considerable portion of their lives to community protection own firearms. These things may seem like a pipe dream now but gun safety advocates need to cease starting from a point of capitulation.
It's clear that the gun issue is going to have ongoing prevalence. I only wish that it wasn't due to the regularity of gun violence and our inability to accept what we need to do to solve the problem.
Bullies are intimidating until someone calls their bluff. By ruling out any reasonable steps toward containing the killing in our nation and by offering ever more preposterous arguments, the gun worshipers are setting themselves up for wholesale defeat. It will take time. But it will happen.
The best part about it is they don't see it yet...:)
Bullets next to elected officials...fantastic. I'd say it's way past time we started rounding up these fuckers and putting them in jail. Isn't Gitmo still open?
I voted twice for Barack Obama for two basic reasons. The first reason was to fix problems that we already knew we had. He's certainly done some of that. Getting bin Laden and literally saving American lives by making health care available to everyone are two of the biggest accomplishments.
But I also voted for him because he'd work to fix the problems that we didn't know about yet. The main problem I have with conservatives is they are very limp when it comes to new problems, especially if it's domestic issues. A great example of this is the gun issue. When the president took office, guns weren't really a top priority. We didn't have mass shootings every week and violence was on a downward trend. We did have the ongoing issues of gang violence and suicides but guns aren't necessarily at the root of those problems.
Then came Aurora and Sandy Hook and everything changed after that.
It certainly did for me. The chief cause of Sandy Hook was the Gun Cult. Nancy Lanza bought into their bullshit, armed herself to the teeth, and, like most "responsible" gun owners, allowed someone access to guns that should not have had them. As a result, first graders were shot in the face. Nothing was done to change our insanely loose gun laws and look what has happened since. Can anyone really remember all the mass shootings? I can't because they happen all the fucking time now.
Today, the president issued executive orders that are going to expand universal background checks and allow doctors to report some mentally ill patients to the FBI to prevent them from getting guns. His speech was extraordinary and made me proud to be an American and have this man stand up for what is right. Here is an excerpt.
President Obama, tearing up about the Sandy Hook shooting: "Every time I think about those kids, it gets me mad." http://cnb.cx/1UtHVET
Posted by CNBC on Tuesday, January 5, 2016
That works out to be an average of about 5 a week. Here's how most of the stories go...
On Monday, three days after Christmas, the four-year-old son of an Alaska state trooper had just returned home from sledding. He was playing by himself in the living room. His mom and grandmother were not far away, in the kitchen, the Alaska Dispatch News reports.
But somehow the boy, William Anderson, found a gun belonging to his father. The gun went off and killed William.
What the Gun Cult fails to grasp is that society is filled with irresponsible people who end up falling through the cracks of loose gun laws. That's why we need the entire country to adopt the law that is already in effect in 28 states and hold gun owners criminally liable if children have access to their guns.
Research shows that these laws work. A 2005 study found that child access prevention (CAP) laws in 10 states prevented 829 injuries in 2001, saving $37 million in medical costs. A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2004 found that CAP laws prevented 333 teen suicides between 1989 and 2001. Clearly, this should be a federal law.
I have a great deal of hope for 2016 in terms of gun safety. The president is going to be issuing an executive order on background checks next week. We'll find get to see how well open carry works in Texas...not that any facts or data will change the mind of the Gun Cult but at least the rest of America will. The NRA is raising their membership fee for the first time in 20 years which tells me that they are hurting for cash and expect a tougher than usual fight in this year's election.
And every single time there is a mass shooting, the levee continues to erode for the Gun Cult. We've given them a long leash (largely due to fear and emotions) but its clear that leash is shrinking.
This piece from The Trace is the best gift I've received this holiday season. I had no idea that there was this much progress on the issue of guns in this country. Take some time to look through each of the stories on the 10 Americans and how they are helping shift our nation's attitude about guns.
Americans aren't completely free in many ways, and most gun owners don't seem to worry about the many laws and social customs that place limits on other aspects of their lives. I'm not free to walk down the city street completely naked (have no fear folks, that's not something I want to do), yet there are open carry advocates walking around stores with AR15s on their backs.
People willingly submit to rules and limits on their personal freedom in countless ways; it's the price of living in a civilized society without being a huge nuisance to other people. One day I realized that nudity is controlled more tightly than ownership of deadly weapons, and that seemed absurd to me.
Indeed. It is absurd. But one has to understand that people that feel this way aren't really rational. They feel powerless without their guns. It's pretty fucking sad when you think about it. Worse... They seem to believe that the reason a lot of people are in favor of gun control measures is because they don't value freedom and are "Sheeple," somehow rejecting the fact that more and more mass shootings and gun crimes seem to be happening and worry the rest of us. Some of the hardcore gun owners I met were convinced that America is heading towards an Orwellian future where no one is free and the government controls every aspect of our lives. To many of them, the only thing standing in our evil government's way is their personal stockpile of AR15s. They seem to ignore the fact that if the government went to such an authoritarian extreme, it would have the resources to effectively vaporize any suburban "patriots" who decided to raise an armed resistance against it. Thinking the government is out to get them is a very simple and fairly stupid way of looking at things, and not something the majority of responsible gun owners buy into, but once I found myself encountering a bunch of those characters, I decided I didn't want to be part of that culture anymore.
Bravo! Way to deprogram yourself and wake the fuck up. Why would anyone want live their life that way? Gun bloggers and the commenters that post on such sites seem to lack the capacity to reason at all. They are so overcome with emotion that it astounds me they can even function in society at all.
Too often guns are shown to be totems of power, the only way to deal with a conflict, and as a symbol of masculinity. It's stupid. I personally began to feel less powerful whenever I carried a gun. Living in fear while going about my business just made me feel weak and paranoid.
Exactly right. And it's self feeding as long as they are armed.
I challenge all gun owners to stop living in fear and being weak and paranoid. It's no way to go though life.
