PJPOWER said:

mrussel1 said:

I'm not recommending that you proactively enforce any law by barging into a home to check if a weapon is secured.  However, if it's the law, and gun owners follow the law, then it's reasonable to assume the will secure them.  However, as an example the Santa Fe situation, if the owner of the weapons failed to secure them, there would be statutory criminal liability for failing to do so.  

I don't buy the hard line argument.  There are hard liners on every side of an issue.  What matters is what is put before legislation.  And the reality is that the NRA has not supported any measures.  They feigned support of the banning of bump stocks originally, but killed it when it came out of committee, claiming it should come from the ATF, not Congress.  Shockingly, Trump's ATF has failed to act.  

I agree with your first paragraph.  I would think that factoring in the possibility of your child getting their hands on one and hurting themselves or others would weigh more than other legal repercussions regarding safe storage, but maybe that’s just me (just like with cleaning chemicals).  Did I hear that the parent of the Santa Fe murderer was illegally in possession of the guns too?  I could be mistaken on that front?

I have not heard that or read anywhere that the guns were illegal.  

pjhawks said:

mcgruff10 said:

I have always been about training and safety so I think this is a positive step:
http://www.nj.com/middlesex/index.ssf/2018/05/hs_students_fire_real_guns.html

N.J. teens shot guns this weekend and thought it was 'really cool'

Sebastian Mongeau fulfilled a lifelong ambition on Sunday.

"I always wanted to shoot a gun since I was a kid," said Sebastion, who at 14 years old arguably still is one.

But now the brawny Lacey High School freshman is a kid who's fired not only a 9mm Glock pistol, but also a fearsome Stag Arms AR-10 semi-automatic rifle, thanks to an event titled, "Common Sense Gun Safety Training for Students," on Sunday, organized in response to an incident in March that angered Second Amendment activists and parents in the generally gun-friendly Ocean County community.

So how was his first pull of a real, live trigger?

"It was really cool," said Sebastian, who now more than ever wants his own Desert Eagle semi-automatic handgun.

"I thought it would have more kick," added Sebastian, who got a ride to the event at a Middlesex County gun range from his half-brother, John Barrow, 24, also of Lacey. 

The event was held at the Union Hill Gun Club in Monroe, organized by the president of the New Jersey Second Amendment Society, Alexander Roubian, in response to the disciplining of two Lacey High School students after one of them had posted a photo on Facebook taken at a gun range they were visiting with adults during non-school hours.

No threat of violence accompanied the photo and no criminal activity was ever alleged by authorities. And Roubian was one of 200 or so people who packed a  school board meeting where district officials were repeatedly accused of meddling in a perfectly legal family activity, off campus and after school hours. One father was cheered after telling school officials, "It's none of your damn business what our children do outside of school."

Participants in Sunday's free event were given a safety briefing by the gun club's chief instructor and safety officer, Rocco La Rocca II, a National Rifle Association-certified firearms instructor and counselor. La Rocca also runs a self-defense training firm known as ROC -- "Recognize, Organize, Counteract" -- based at Union Hill Gun Club, a two-story indoor shooting range owned by Paul and Beth Picone that also includes the Legend Firearms gun shop, tucked away on a wooded stretch on Union Hill Road.

The Lacey school district was not officially involved in the event.

During Sunday's briefing, participants were given a list of safety precautions, including these three "NRA Gun Safety Rules": 

• Keep the gun pointed in a safe direction
• Keep your finger off the shoot trigger until ready to shoot
• keep the gun unloaded until ready to use

• To those, La Rocca added two more points:

  • Always assume a firearm is loaded and act accordingly.
  • When forced to use a gun, be mindful not only of what or who your target is, but also of what, or who, is behind it.

  Sunday's event was two days after the nation's latest mass school shooting, when eight students and two teachers were killed on Friday in Santa Fe, Texas, where authorities say a 17-year-old student used a shotgun and a handgun legally owned by his father and kept in the attic of their house. 

  Asked how gun safety education might minimize the chances of harm in mass shootings like Friday's, La Rocca did not hesitate to hold parents accountable.

  "Very simple, the parents themselves should know that firearms themselves are mechanical devices that can injure somebody or themselves," La Rocca said in n interview after the briefing. "Why don't you lock them up? Why don't you do that? Why don't you buy a safe? I've had some (adult) students come in my class and say, 'Oh, no, it's fine, it's in the drawer.' No it's not. No it's not. Get a safe." 

  A Rutgers survey of gun-safety studies recently published in Health Promotion Practice found that safety training is unlikely to prevent harmful or fatal mishaps when guns are accessible to young children. The survey found that:

  • Children ages 4-9 who participate in gun safety programs often ignore what they learned when encountering a real firearm without adult supervision
  • Boys are more likely to ignore safety rules than girls
  • Few studies have been done on gun safety programs for children beyond 4th grade.

how utterly absurd. a kid that age can't legally drive a car but hey let's let him shoot guns.  what a good idea. the last 3 points of the story show how stupid it is. jeezus our guns laws are so utterly fucking stupid.

Utterly absurd to teach kids how to safely handle a firearm and shoot? The kids were in high school, not 4-9. You can’t own a gun until 18 but you can legally hunt and handle a gun around the age of ten. 

Gern Blansten said:

My position has been that we will eventually get to a point where assault weapons are banned from public ownership, background checks are much stronger and detailed, waiting periods will be federally mandated, and weapons are registered and licensed.  

The piece we have been missing (in my opinion) when these tragedies occur, is for the law enforcement leaders to be more vocal as to what their opinions are.

Here we have feedback from Houston's Chief of Police.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/19/us/texas-shooting-art-acevedo-guns.html

“I know some have strong feelings about gun rights but I want you to know I’ve hit rock bottom and I am not interested in your views as it pertains to this issue,” he wrote. “Please do not post anything about guns aren’t the problem and there’s little we can do.

Then the shootings will continue with handguns, shotguns and hunting rifles.

Bentleyspop said:

Some numbers to reinforce the problem in this country....  

Since 2009 there has been 288 school shootings in the United States. 
In the rest  of the world there has been 29.
That's the USA over the world by 10-1.

Am I the only person bothered by this?

Yes, why the hell are schools a target?

Why are kids/teens/young males doing this?

PJPOWER said:

oftenreading said:

PJPOWER said:

mrussel1 said:

PJPOWER said:

oftenreading said:

PJPOWER said:

oftenreading said:

PJPOWER said:

Thoughts_Arrive said:

LongestRoad said:

Desensitized children due to violence glorified on the screen,violent video games meant for adults being played by children, media demonizing authority. They do what they're taught by role models and what's glorified by what they see everyday. 

lol @ violent video games. Dude, many of us in Australia including myself and my friends grew up playing violent video games and watching violent shows and movies.
None of us turned out to be mass murderers. 

Interesting, many of us in the USA, including myself grew up hunting/shooting guns.  None of us turned out to be mass murderers either.

This is just a version of “my grandfather smoked and he still lived to the age of 80”. 

No one is claiming that every gun owner/user is going to become a murderer. People are claiming, with a lot of data to justify it, that the high prevalence of gun users/owners in the USA is really the only difference to account for the high rate of gun violence. It’s that simple. 

So what’s your plan for making them go away?  I can think of a few other geographical/cultural differences that makes the US a bit different than Australia as well, can you?

I know it’s a difficult truth to believe, but the facts are clear.

Sure, Australia is different from the US. Canada, too. And England. And Sweden. And Argentina.  But you know what? All of those countries are different from each other, and none of them have the levels of gun violence that the USA does. 

This argument is really just another case of the belief in “American exceptionalism”; that the US is really special and somehow different from the rest of the world. Well, it isn’t; it just has a lot more guns. 
 

So what is your solution?  Since the US is not exceptional in any way or another, why is it so hard to implement the same gun laws as Australia?  Do you think it is actually possible to implement similar gun laws as Australia and do you think they would have the same effect on gun violence in the USA if implemented?

There is no single solution. There are a series of reforms that can be taken in order to reduce the violence and the scale.  You've read the posts, you are just choosing to ignore them.  There is no magic bullet that preserves the 2A, under the definition that even Scalia supported in Heller v. DC.  But just because there is no one solution, doesn't mean you don't implement a series of reforms.  

Are you saying that the US is exceptional because of the 2A?  I haven’t seen too many judges saying that the 2A is going away any time soon...I guess we’ll just wait.  Actually, instead of waiting, I’m going to try educating my children and those I love about how to avoid gun accidents and how to act around crazy people...I do not need to wait for a law to do that.  I do not see guns (or the 2A) going away any time soon and I do not see crazy people going away any time soon.  

So, all the kids who got shot in school this year simply didn't act properly around "crazy people"? What about the people shot in Vegas? In church by Roof? In the movie theatre in Colorado? 

I'm curious about what you are going to teach those you love about avoiding those situations.  Also, still curious about your point about "geographical features". 

There you go jumping to words like “all”.  Do you think that situational awareness helped “none” of the people get out of these situations alive?  Do you think that panicking got “some” of the people killed?  You say that there are a number of things that can be done, but think it is stupid to teach people how to act out in public and how to spot warning signs?  Nowhere did I say that these things would stop “all”, but they are logical steps that I can take on a personal front that doesn’t involve waiting for legislation.
By geography, I was referring to proximity to criminal ridden locations or connected to crime ridden countries with a proliferation of drug trafficking/gangs.  Australia has some natural borders and a way lower population than the US that decreases the propensity of these burdens that should be taken into account when comparing nations and effective policies.
Again, what is your solution?  Bitching about it online?

Completely agree with the first part. Lack of planning and awareness has helped get some killed, and proper reaction has saved some lives.
It is so ridiculous at my school, they refuse to come up with an actual plan, and want to put it all on the teachers. 
They say hiding is a bad idea, because that is how most died in Columbine, they hid until they got shot. But then they also say exiting may not be the best, because if there's a team they have have someone waiting by exits to shoot.
They won't disclose our evacuation plan to teachers, because if word gets out then shooters can plan to ambush along the evacuation sites.
The only real thing we can think of is there is no real plan, but the district wants to be able to pass the blame on to teachers if something does happen. We can't act according to the district's instructions if there aren't any.They don't want to tell us to hide and have students killed, they don't want to tell us to run and have the same thing. The plan is literally "you're the professional, use your best judgement."
To me it seems ridiculous. If anything ever did happen at this school it will be utter chaos and many will not know what to do.

What we should do is plan for about a half-dozen different scenarios. How to evacuate if there's 1 shooter in this location. What to do with multiple shooters, and so on. But then the district would have to take some responsibility if something went wrong with their plans.

Gern Blansten said:

PJPOWER said:

Gern Blansten said:

My position has been that we will eventually get to a point where assault weapons are banned from public ownership, background checks are much stronger and detailed, waiting periods will be federally mandated, and weapons are registered and licensed.  

The piece we have been missing (in my opinion) when these tragedies occur, is for the law enforcement leaders to be more vocal as to what their opinions are.

Here we have feedback from Houston's Chief of Police.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/19/us/texas-shooting-art-acevedo-guns.html

“I know some have strong feelings about gun rights but I want you to know I’ve hit rock bottom and I am not interested in your views as it pertains to this issue,” he wrote. “Please do not post anything about guns aren’t the problem and there’s little we can do.

Many in law enforcement are VERY pro 2A.  I am going to go out on a limb and say that “most” in law enforcement encourage private gun ownership for personal protection.

And nothing I mentioned prevents that.

Edit: This is a good example of why nothing gets done....I list reasonable solutions and the opposition immediately suggests that (1) A law enforcement official wanting stronger gun laws is ANTI 2A. (2) The items I listed somehow translate to no private gun ownership

I think you took what I said out of context.  That police chief stated that they are not interested in hearing about gun rights (that sounds somewhat anti-2A, as “gun rights” are pretty much “2nd Amendment rights”).  I mentioned that many in law enforcement are vocal about gun rights and do not support more restrictions.  You said that they need to be more vocal about???

Gern Blansten said:

The TX Lt Gov was on This Week yesterday...he launched into prepared talking points about video games, movies, etc.....no mention of guns.

Did he bring up the stupid "too many exits" argument or was he lampooned so much that he shelved it?

PJPOWER said:

oftenreading said:

PJPOWER said:

oftenreading said:

PJPOWER said:

mrussel1 said:

PJPOWER said:

oftenreading said:

PJPOWER said:

oftenreading said:

PJPOWER said:

Thoughts_Arrive said:

LongestRoad said:

Desensitized children due to violence glorified on the screen,violent video games meant for adults being played by children, media demonizing authority. They do what they're taught by role models and what's glorified by what they see everyday. 

lol @ violent video games. Dude, many of us in Australia including myself and my friends grew up playing violent video games and watching violent shows and movies.
None of us turned out to be mass murderers. 

Interesting, many of us in the USA, including myself grew up hunting/shooting guns.  None of us turned out to be mass murderers either.

This is just a version of “my grandfather smoked and he still lived to the age of 80”. 

No one is claiming that every gun owner/user is going to become a murderer. People are claiming, with a lot of data to justify it, that the high prevalence of gun users/owners in the USA is really the only difference to account for the high rate of gun violence. It’s that simple. 

So what’s your plan for making them go away?  I can think of a few other geographical/cultural differences that makes the US a bit different than Australia as well, can you?

I know it’s a difficult truth to believe, but the facts are clear.

Sure, Australia is different from the US. Canada, too. And England. And Sweden. And Argentina.  But you know what? All of those countries are different from each other, and none of them have the levels of gun violence that the USA does. 

This argument is really just another case of the belief in “American exceptionalism”; that the US is really special and somehow different from the rest of the world. Well, it isn’t; it just has a lot more guns. 
 

So what is your solution?  Since the US is not exceptional in any way or another, why is it so hard to implement the same gun laws as Australia?  Do you think it is actually possible to implement similar gun laws as Australia and do you think they would have the same effect on gun violence in the USA if implemented?

There is no single solution. There are a series of reforms that can be taken in order to reduce the violence and the scale.  You've read the posts, you are just choosing to ignore them.  There is no magic bullet that preserves the 2A, under the definition that even Scalia supported in Heller v. DC.  But just because there is no one solution, doesn't mean you don't implement a series of reforms.  

Are you saying that the US is exceptional because of the 2A?  I haven’t seen too many judges saying that the 2A is going away any time soon...I guess we’ll just wait.  Actually, instead of waiting, I’m going to try educating my children and those I love about how to avoid gun accidents and how to act around crazy people...I do not need to wait for a law to do that.  I do not see guns (or the 2A) going away any time soon and I do not see crazy people going away any time soon.  

So, all the kids who got shot in school this year simply didn't act properly around "crazy people"? What about the people shot in Vegas? In church by Roof? In the movie theatre in Colorado? 

I'm curious about what you are going to teach those you love about avoiding those situations.  Also, still curious about your point about "geographical features". 

There you go jumping to words like “all”.  Do you think that situational awareness helped “none” of the people get out of these situations alive?  Do you think that panicking got “some” of the people killed?  You say that there are a number of things that can be done, but think it is stupid to teach people how to act out in public and how to spot warning signs?  Nowhere did I say that these things would stop “all”, but they are logical steps that I can take on a personal front that doesn’t involve waiting for legislation.
By geography, I was referring to proximity to criminal ridden locations or connected to crime ridden countries with a proliferation of drug trafficking/gangs.  Australia has some natural borders and a way lower population than the US that decreases the propensity of these burdens that should be taken into account when comparing nations and effective policies.
Again, what is your solution?  Bitching about it online?

I wondered if your point about "geographical features" was referring to the border.

How do you reconcile your (and Trump's, and the right's in general) concern about the border and immigrants with all available data that shows that immigrants, both legal and illegal, are less likely to commit crime, including violent crime, than those born in the USA?

I think it is irrelevant where they were born.  Drug trafficking is still a major cause of gun violence in that it increases the proliferation of criminal organizations.  Just because the manufacturers from Mexico are not the ones committing violent crimes in the USA, does not mean they do not contribute to the crimes people born in the US commit...due them having been trafficked across the border.

The USA has drugs coming in across the border with Mexico. Canada has drugs coming in from China. Europe has drugs coming up from Afghanistan and Pakistan. Everyone has drugs coming in across borders, in addition to what is manufactured domestically. I'm told (by police) that in Canada it is relatively easy to buy fentanyl online and have it mailed in. No country is immune to drug trafficking. 

I’m just wondering. Since most republicans think thoughts and prayers will solve the mass gun violence, why don’t they just use that for immigration and other areas of policy? Why do they enact laws for some issues and just use thoughts and prayers for others?