The All Time Greatest Random Mass Shooting Thread

Already answered, you stupid prick.

But I'm guessing you either have me on ignore, or you simply ignore facts that run contrary to your narrow, ill-informed worldview.

Either way,

It’s one.
but what happens when a background check doesn’t return anything for an 18 year old or a 21 year old buying their first gun and that “boys will be boys” bullshit from some whore back in high school is discounted?

Is there a database that can be accessed during a background check that has records for crimes committed by a minor? I'm guessing no, because those records are usually sealed (he said based on his vast experience from watching police procedurals on A&E and ION). How would you have those accounted for? By having the criminal history of minors treated the same as adults? I'm okay with that. I never really understood why those records are considered off-limits anyway.

I wasn’t really think about that so much as ... well, obviously, don’t rely on personal references, but .. really, anything that can disqualify someone from owning a gun might be considered. I’ve no idea how that would happen.

Maybe it should be a longer term. Apply for a gun, then you have to show years of being responsible. I don’t know. Three days might prevent a crime of passion but won’t work for someone with continuing violent behavior.

QFT

I don't know either.

Wouldn't that be unnecessarily redundant? A background check checks over years to see if you've been responsible already. If you're talking about stuff over and above what's checked with a background check...

1. What stuff, and who decides what that stuff is?
2. Why isn't that stuff searched in a background check already.
3. How would you keep track of all that stuff over time if we aren't already doing it?

I mean, you're talking about a searchable database that contains...what? Loud arguments you've had with a spouse? Antidepressants you may have taken (or not taken)? Being a quiet loner? Wearing a trench coat? Having a temper?

Only to the point that you aren’t arrested or have charges brought against you. Maybe they should notify a man’s wife or girlfriend, or a woman’s husband/boyfriend when they apply for a gun?

I understand about buying guns for teenage boys. All four of my brothers got a gun for Christmas when they were 10or 12.

So, for domestic violence, we have a “notify domestic partner” law. For mass shootings ... if your excuse for buying an AR-16 is that you’re a gun collector, prove it and put them all on display. This also requires a background as well as a psychological check.

Now, let’s talk about urban gang violence, these people are obviously not getting guns legally. So where are they getting them? I mean.. as many guns that are on the streets could not have all been stolen from law abiding citizens? And if so, those idiots should be charged - why wasn’t it locked up?

But wouldn't that be asking for personal references?

I agree that people who have committed domestic violence are the last people that should be allowed to own a gun. Don't those people have to forfeit their guns already? Maybe that's a State thing.

Okay. Mass shootings/Assault Weapons is way complicated. You're talking about targeting a class of firearms that is used in a fraction of times in a particular crime (mass shootings) that is a fraction of a fraction of violent gun crimes. In other words, an overwhelming majority of mass shootings are carried out by handguns, shotguns, and rifles that aren't assault weapons. On top of that, the percentage of gun violence that is mass shootings is incredibly small https://www.statista.com/statistics/476409/mass-shootings-in-the-us-by-weapon-types-used/. So I know. It's a numbers game. "Isn't one life worth banning you from owning an AR-15?" That's the question isn't it? The fact is, @oldfella1962's annoying deflections by pointing at obesity and smoking does have a kernel of truth. Everything is a numbers game. We're always doing cost benefit analysis with human lives in the ballance. Tons of people are killed every year due to car accidents (cost), but until @Ancalagon gets his way, driving cars are absolutely beneficial, maybe even necessary to society (benefit). Cars win. there is some number between 0 and 400 murders per year where assault weapons are involved. (actually, I have no idea what that number is. The 400ish number is for rifles in general. I've never seen the number with assault weapons broken out...probably because nobody can decide what exactly the definition of an assault weapon is). On the other hand, nobody needs an assault weapon, so assault weapons lose. Okay, makes sense, but nobody needs a swimming pool either. They're a huge liability. Around the same number of people drown in pools as are murdered by rifles per year. Yet pools win. Nobody needs a sports car that can go 140 mph. Around a quarter of all traffic fatalities are linked to speeding, yet high speed sports cars win. Hell, I think my 2004 Tundra can do over 100mph. I've only gotten it up to around 90, but it seemed to have a lot more to give. Why do they sell cars that can go that far above the speed limit? Then there's the fact that nobody needs alcohol and tobacco.

So yeah. It's all a big numbers game with lives in the balance. How do we rationalize swimming pools, high speed sports cars, alcohol, and tobacco as winners, but assault weapons as losers while comparing lives lost in a way that makes sense?

Most of that is from straw purchases. We need to tamp down on that hard, but it's pretty hard to do when the cops ask a suspected straw purchaser what happened to all those 200+ guns they bought 5 at a time over the past 5 years, and they say, "stolen " and there's not much the cops can say about it. Which brings us back to criminalizing getting your guns stolen.

Ok. Never heard about “straw purchaser”, but ... what you’re describing ... shouldn’t that already be illegal?
also, as far as assault weapons vs swimming pools. The difference is “use”. The purpose of manufacturing an assault weapon is to kill people. Whether that is an enemy of the military or a private citizen the sole purpose is to kill. Which is why I wouldn’t outright make them illegal because some people do collect guns. How to determine if a purchase is actually collecting or contemplating mass murder ... well, I think several years of waiting then wouldn’t be an issue for a collector.

Swimming pools, on the other hand, have a use that is for recreation.

Please don’t argue that gun collecting is recreational. It can be, yes. And swimming pools can be deadly. But we’re talking about purple pose here.

It is illegal, but it's apparently hard to prosecute.

So the intended use (recreation vs. using it to kill) is what justifies the lives lost on one side, but indicts the lives lost on the other? See, to me, that's not a rational distinction. What difference does it make? Lives lost are lives lost.

Because no one bitches when protections are added to recreational ... things. But people lose their minds when protections from guns is even broached.

Yes, lives lost to swimming pools is tragic. But we have implemented laws and designs to avoid tragedies.

Agreed.

Yet, they still happen. And I've never owned a pool, but I'd be willing to bet they aren't nearly as regulated as firearms are. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong.

What is regulated with buying an AK-47?

Swimming pools have additional insurance requirements and fencing and ... other things. I don’t own a pool either, but I do know these things exist.

A semi auto AK? Background check and age requirement. In some states, a waiting period and other restrictions like the design and magazine capacity. Import bans mean a certain number of of parts have to be US made. If we're talking real AK-47s, it's a whole nother level of regulations.

It looks like Federally, it's all about drain covers and ways in and out, and then varies from state to state. But I can't tell if that's just for public pools or public and private pools.

But they do make money off of straw purchases. If Person A can't legally own a gun but gets Person B to buy them a gun, then there's a chance that a gunmaker will be able to profit from the situation, even if Person B buys a used gun (since there's a non-zero chance that someone in the chain will use the money to buy either a new gun or ammunition).

I should point out that there is roughly the same number of guns as there are people in the US. That's a textbook market saturation situation, and the only way gunmakers can continue to increase sales (which is what every company wants, especially those that are publicly traded) is by stimulating artificial demand. A well-made gun is definitely a durable goods item, and if properly taken care of, can last generations. So how do you continue to increase sales? By convincing those folks who want guns (for whatever reason) that they can never have enough.

Agreed. But I was talking about person to person sales, not straw purchases.

"The purpose of manufacturing an assault weapon is to kill people" - Jenee

and? If you use any gun for self defense the idea is that somebody is an imminent threat to your life. Thus why shouldn't you use the most efficient weapon you can obtain? The person(s) attacking you are going to end up dead either way, hopefully before you are harmed. So what difference should it make which weapon you use?

Do the laws work 100 percent of the time? Most tragedies doesn't cut it - maybe pool owners need a universal background check. Maybe a red flag law for parents that get drunk and don't watch their kids at the pool. My point is this: 300 million and change guns in circulation in America - obviously the vast majority of these guns will never be used for nefarious purposes.

Would not a straw purchase count as a person-to-person sale? Yeah, sure, technically, it's not, as in they give me money, I go buy a gun and then give it to them, whereas in a true person-to-person sale, I've got a gun for sale, somebody buys it, and that's that. But without person-to-person background checks, I can claim that I had no idea I was selling a gun to someone who shouldn't have been able to buy a gun. Theoretically, I can claim that I sold the gun to "somebody" at a gun show, and I had no idea who this person was, and it's entirely possible that they resold the gun to someone else, who just happened to use the gun in a commission of a crime. If there's a paper trail, I can't do that.

I think you misunderstood what I was saying. I'm all in for a UBC. I was just saying that I don't understand where all the push back against a UBC is coming from. Most gun owners are for them, and I don't see why gun manufacturers would be against it. A straw purchase is someone buying a firearm for someone they know couldn't pass a background check. A person to person gun sale that (legally) circumvents a background check, is by definition, someone selling a pre-owned gun. How do the gun manufacturers profit on that?

IME, the kind of folks who are willing to bend the rules around gun laws, tend to buy lots of guns (not necessarily to resell, but just because they think they need to have a kajillion of them). Not all of the guns that they buy will be used, and at least some gunmakers also sell ammunition, so the more guns out there, the more ammo they can sell. Anything that impedes the sale of a gun from one person to another is a potential lost sale for a gunmaker. Be it ammo or an actual gun.

So, let's say that I have a used Mauser. It's a perfectly fine gun, nothing at all wrong with it, but I really want an Uzi. Why? Because WTF not? I mean, they were in all the cool 80s cop shows. I can't afford a new Uzi (which is what I want), and someone offers me stupid amounts of money for my Mauser. Enough so that I can buy a new Uzi, as well as another Mauser (or similar weapon of comparable quality and capability). If I can sell them the Mauser, with no way to hold me accountable for selling it to someone who has no legal right to own a gun, why shouldn't I?

I agree....why shouldn't you? You do have more than one pair of shoes, don't you? Shoelace makers are making serious bank off your obsession...unless you are a Velcro purist of course.

So you figure that goes into a gun manufacturer's calculus when deciding to lobby against a UBC? "If they sell their old gun, they can use the money to buy a new gun."? How does a UBC change any of that? It's not like if a UBC is passed, gun owners are gonna say, "well great! Now I can't sell any of my guns." They still can, and they still will.

Besides, most people I know that have sold their guns did it because they needed money for something else...like car repairs or alimony.

No, I don't own more than one pair of shoes. YMMV. And my shoes wear out long before the laces do.

The same way a software company figures that if I pirate a program that costs as much as six months of my income, that I'm stealing from them. (Not saying that I pirate software, mind you.) But if the only way I had to get the software was to cough up six months' worth of income, I wouldn't buy it. If the company sold the software for, say, $25, I might be inclined to buy a copy, even if I never wound up using it. Once it becomes a significant investment for me, then I have to be 100% certain that not only will I use the stuff, but it will increase my standard of living. If I'm not, then I'm not going to buy it.

And yeah, I've known plenty of people who've sold a gun that they've owned to meet a short-term need that they've had (paying rent, alimony, etc.), but they've always bought a replacement gun as soon as they've had extra cash, even if they still have a number of guns.

I mean, realistically, how many guns does a person need? You have a primary pistol for defense, a backup pistol that you keep in an ankle holster or something, a shotgun, a rifle (for game hunting or sniping), and (assuming you plan on taking on military forces) a semi-automatic rifle. That's basically it. Yet I know people who've got tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of dollars tied up in gun collections. These aren't people who are buying obscure or specialized pieces but just making sure that they have as many guns as possible because they're terrified that one day they'll have to fight back against a tyrannical government. When that day comes (assuming it ever does), do you really need a dozen Uzis or AR-15s? WTF are you going to do with all those guns in such a situation? Just hand them out, willy-nilly to people who've no experience with such weapons?

I've never understood some people's obsession with shoes either. I mean, wtf are you going to do with a closet full of shoes? You only have two feet and even accounting for exercise, work, dressing up, and every day milling around the house what's the point of having twenty plus pairs of shoes? And dont get me started on purse collectors. What possible reason is there to spend thousands of bucks on purses? But I digress.

Some people are just strange like that. But as long as their fetish isn't bothering anybody, what difference does it make?

wow, change car to truck and ya got yerself a country song!

I still don't understand where you're going with this. Why you seem to thing gun manufacturers would be against a universal background check. How it would cause them to lose money.

That wasn't an answer. It was a deflection. If easy access to guns is to blame for Chicago being an uninhabitable war zone, then those neighboring rural areas where they get their guns should look the same.