Has the pendulum swung? Could this be America's Dunblane?

[Starboard Tack]

This tragedy in Connecticut has brought the reality to Mayberry. The reaction may be knee-jerk, but the proliferators have brought this upon themselves, as well as responsible gun owners.

11 votes, 1 pass | Time left: Unlimited
	Will this spur a re-examination of the Second Amendment?
	1 (9%)
	Will it all blow over until the next one?
	9 (82%)
	Will there be more token restrictions enacted as a placebo?
	1 (9%)
	1 DU member did not wish to select any of the options provided.
Show usernames Disclaimer: This is an Internet poll

[Kaleva]

1. My guess is that it will blow over as folks tend to have a limited attention span.

Even here at DU, there are just a few pro-control members who regularly argue for greater control measures. For most, it seems to be a none issue until there is a mass shooting. Then it's talked about for awhile until something else gets everyone's attention.

[gejohnston]

2. Knee jerking

yeah, I would call it that.

[Starboard Tack]

5. That's what the camel said as it collapsed.

Everything has a breaking point. This one touched too many people.
When too many people piss in the pool, it stops being fun any longer and everyone gets out of the water.
Blame the assholes who let the pissers in the pool, but everyone loses.

[pop topcan]

3. I don't know what "proliferators" means, but how are responsible gun owners "responsible" for the

actions of one screwball?

(It's odd how the adjective 'responsible' has almost opposite meanings depending on context, isn't it?)

edit to add...there's also an interesting philology on "proliferators" now that I think about it...isn't "pro-life" part of its etymology?

[Starboard Tack]

7. Proliferators are those who promote the use and carry of handguns and other

weapons designed specifically to kill humans. The NRA would be the number one proliferator. Responsible gun owners do not carry weapons without a good reason. They have guns for hunting, shooting sports and home defense. And they keep them inaccessible to others, including family members, unless supervised by the gun owner.

[pop topcan]

9. Okay, I'll accept that. What better reason to carry a weapon could possibly exist than a

teacher in charge of a room (or school) full of children? What possible objection could any sane person have to that...unless of course they're not willing to trust their kids to their teachers, in which case they probably shouldn't let them go to school in the first place. Isn't this a little like objecting to airline pilots carrying guns because "they might go crazy and kill someone"???


I just don't understand all the hysteria that claims the NRA is responsible for the actions of a tiny handful of crazy bastards.
edit to fix a typo sorry

[spin]

13. You state responsible gun owners do not carry without ...

a good reason."

In Florida over 800,000 residents have a concealed weapons permit and a significant percentage carry their weapon on a regular basis. How many mass murders in Florida have been caused by a civilian with a carry permit? Florida has the highest number of people who have carry permits of any state in the nation. If allowing honest people to legally carry firearms if they meet certain standards and requirements is such a bad idea why don't we see far more shooting incidents involving licensed individuals in Florida.

Florida has allowed "shall issue" concealed carry since October of 1987. In that period of time the state has issued 2,307,881 concealed weapons permits and 993,162 are currently valid. Only 168 license have been revoked for a crime committed that involved the use of a firearm.
(source: http://licgweb.doacs.state.fl.us/stats/cw_monthly.pdf) Statistics from Texas show similar results.

I would state that the absolute overwhelming number of gun owners who do legally carry are indeed very responsible. It is not unusual to read new paper reports showing that a person with a legally concealed weapon was able to stop a crime in progress or defend himself from a violent attack although such stories rarely recieve national attention. I doubt if many of those people in the stories were carrying for a "good reason." Most likely they carried out of habit and just happened to be in the right place at the right time or were attacked by some predator they didn't know.

[Starboard Tack]

16. It may seem like a good reason to you

And it may seem responsible to you. Fact is, that most people don't see carrying routinely for self defense as a good reason. In fact, they see it as irrational. Furthermore, it contributes to the perverse mindset that says guns are good for society. This has been the course for the last few years and now we have reached a tipping point. We may teeter for a while until the next massacre, but things will change soon.
It's time for America to choose between it's toys and it's children.

[gejohnston]

17. but, none of that has anything to do with this case

as for the rest of it, there are a couple of logical fallacies for those. Jumping on bandwagons, real or imagined, and appealing some sense of "sanity" are not on my list of useful arguments. Since he did not legally own them, he murdered the legal owner before stealing them, I have to stop and wonder about the relevance. If he were a kid and she left the guns sitting around on the coffee table, then we would be having a different conversation.

[spin]

18. Only time will tell which one of us is right. ...

I will tell you one prediction I have made. If the media continues to cover this story on the cable channels 24/7 as they are currently doing, they will inspire other mentally unstable people to commit similar acts.

Of course this is an important news story that should receive significant coverage. The media does have a bias that favors the gun control side., however I feel that there should be some balance in their reporting.

In posts that I have made i have often said that if both sides of the issue were forced to sit down a table and hammer out some improvements to our laws, we would live in a better nation. Perhaps President Obama can use some leadership skills to cause this to happen.

I feel the changes will involve improving the NICS background check and finally providing some adequate financing to allow states to input data into the system on a more timely basis. It is possible that the manufacture of hi-cap magazines for public sale will once more be banned which will accomplish little or nothing as magazines are easy to change quickly. This "feel good" law will appease the gun control lobby. Another assault weapons ban will be considered but likely fail.

I also see some legislation to improve our mental health care in this nation. This might cause the insurance companies to provide better coverage for people seeking counseling for mental problems and would be part of Obama care.

I also see a movement to provide better security at schools and areas that are gun free and house large numbers of people. We spend an enormous amount of money on insuring that passengers who wish to fly are not carrying weapons or chemicals to make bombs. We can afford to take some of those funds to finance qualified armed personnel at schools and other gun free sites. This might be accomplished at the state level. I feel retired police officers would be good candidates for such positions.

I don't see any changes to laws about concealed carry which would have to be at the state level.

I will admit that perhaps only 10% of those who have a carry permit carry on a regular basis. I do and many of my friends also carry daily. However almost all of the shooters that I know who do have been shooting handguns for years on a frequent basis. If my estimate is right it would mean that 80,000 resident Floridians "pack heat" every day.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

19. Just questions

"...most people don't see carrying routinely for self defense as a good reason."

I suppose that's why "most" people exercise their freedom to not carry. Right?

"... it contributes to the perverse mindset that says guns are good for society."

If, by it you mean concealed carry, how would anyone but the carrier know that he's carrying?

"It's time for America to choose between it's toys and it's children."

It's time to choose (among other things) between a commitment to active defense and having one's head in the sand.

[dipsydoodle]

4. Following the Hungerford massacre here in the UK

our gun laws were tightened further.

The Hungerford massacre occurred in Hungerford, Berkshire, England, on 19 August 1987. The gunman, 27-year-old Michael Robert Ryan (b. 18 May 1960), armed with two semi-automatic rifles and a handgun, shot and killed sixteen people including his mother, and wounded fifteen others, then fatally shot himself. A report on this incident was commissioned by the Home Secretary, Douglas Hurd, from the Chief Constable of Thames Valley Police, Colin Smith. It remains, along with the 1996 Dunblane massacre and the 2010 Cumbria shootings, one of the worst criminal atrocities involving firearms in British history.

The Firearms (Amendment) Act 1988[2] was passed in the wake of the massacre, which banned the ownership of semi-automatic centre-fire rifles and restricted the use of shotguns with a magazine capacity of more than three rounds. Ryan's collection of weapons had been legally licensed, according to the Hungerford Report.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungerford_massacre

[spin]

15. The UK never had the number of firearms as exist in the U.S. ...

a strong gun culture or a law similar to the Second Amendment.

Here is a bit of history for you to consider:

The American Revolution begins with resistance to Gun Control!


At about 5 a.m., 700 British troops, on a mission to capture Patriot leaders and seize a Patriot arsenal, march into Lexington to find 77 armed minutemen under Captain John Parker waiting for them on the town’s common green. British Major John Pitcairn ordered the outnumbered Patriots to disperse, and after a moment’s hesitation the Americans began to drift off the green. Suddenly, the “shot heard around the world” was fired from an undetermined gun, and a cloud of musket smoke soon covered the green. When the brief Battle of Lexington ended, eight Americans lay dead or dying and 10 others were wounded. Only one British soldier was injured, but the American Revolution had begun.

By 1775, tensions between the American colonies and the British government approached the breaking point, especially in Massachusetts, where Patriot leaders formed a shadow revolutionary government and trained militias to prepare for armed conflict with the British troops occupying Boston. In the spring of 1775, General Thomas Gage, the British governor of Massachusetts, received instructions from England to seize all stores of weapons and gunpowder accessible to the American insurgents. On April 18, he ordered British troops to march against the Patriot arsenal at Concord and capture Patriot leaders Samuel Adams and John Hancock, known to be hiding at Lexington.

The Boston Patriots had been preparing for such a military action by the British for some time, and upon learning of the British plan, Patriots Paul Revere and William Dawes were ordered to set out to rouse the militiamen and warn Adams and Hancock. When the British troops arrived at Lexington, Adams, Hancock, and Revere had already fled to Philadelphia, and a group of militiamen were waiting. The Patriots were routed within minutes, but warfare had begun, leading to calls to arms across the Massachusetts countryside.

When the British troops reached Concord at about 7 a.m., they found themselves encircled by hundreds of armed Patriots. They managed to destroy the military supplies the Americans had collected but were soon advanced against by a gang of minutemen, who inflicted numerous casualties. Lieutenant Colonel Frances Smith, the overall commander of the British force, ordered his men to return to Boston without directly engaging the Americans. As the British retraced their 16-mile journey, their lines were constantly beset by Patriot marksmen firing at them Indian-style from behind trees, rocks, and stone walls. At Lexington, Captain Parker’s militia had its revenge, killing several British soldiers as the Red Coats hastily marched through his town. By the time the British finally reached the safety of Boston, nearly 300 British soldiers had been killed, wounded, or were missing in action. The Patriots suffered fewer than 100 casualties.
http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/22258

It does seen the British have been trying to impose gun control on Americans for centuries and we have successfully resisted the effort.

edited to add:

I was just watching a pompous Brit, Piers Morgan, tonight on CNN. He has launched his own War on American Guns. He asks experts on both sides of the issue to appear on his program. He gives those who support gun control a fair opportunity to state their view and then asks the gun rights representative a question and when they attempt to answer he goes on an angry rampage filled with insults. They are lucky to get a couple of sentences out before he overrides them in an extremely impolite manner.

After watching him do the same on several of his shows dealing the the gun issue I have decided that our founding fathers were indeed wise to separate from England.

[petronius]

6. Place my vote somewhere between 1 and 3 (but not 2)

It would not surprise me if this led to some sort of non-token regulation or policy change, but not anything that could realistically be described as re-examining 2A...

[Starboard Tack]

8. I should probably have said "lead" instead of "spur"

I'm not thinking any re-examination will happen immediately, but we are a lot closer.
Unless, of course, someone comes up with something better.

[gejohnston]

10. the best start would be to make this forensic psychiatrist's guidlines law

You support laws against hate speech, I support laws against the media sensationalizing spree murders to encourage copy cats. While we are at it, I support laws to prohibit programing that makes shit up from calling itself news.
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/staggers/2012/07/how-media-shouldnt-cover-mass-murder

[rrneck]

14. The fucking lego dimension.

[rrneck]

11. It'll blow over.

There is too much money and power associated with guns, not to mention all the millions and millions of people that own them. Americans aren't like Brits, and guns are too hot a political wedge issue for things to change much.

[Glaug-Eldare]

12. I doubt it will stick any more than the other murders have.

I'm on a ship so I'm not really in tune with what the public reaction is, but we've seen this movie before, and, unfortunately, we're going to see it again. I really doubt that this is going to significantly change the 2A landscape, though. Enough of the country is pro-gun enough that any absolute restriction is dead on arrival. Compromise is a non-starter in 2012, since the activists on both sides appear to be fanatics who won't budge an inch to meet the other. There's not enough trust (or trustworthiness) to craft a palatable solution.

I'm sure I disagree with a lot of Democrats on what progress looks like, but it'd be nice if we could come together with a bit of respect for each other as human beings, and come up with ways to move forward and save lives and rights at the same time. There's got to be a way.