Merry Christmas America: More Senseless Gun Violence

We should ban hammers and Grandmothers! :santa_ok:

But we couldn't execute someone just for bashing in a family members skull with a hammer! Are we barbarians? :santa_rolleyes::santa_rolleyes:

Ronald Reagan disagrees

While well meaning, Ronald Reagan was not the sharpest tool in the shed by a long shot. Regardless, situations change and right now (it seems) our mental health system is FUBAR.

No shit. But, the fault does not lie with "Liberals"

If there are ways to protect people from gun massacres and you're not willing to take them, then that is the exact opposite of suggesting that "shit happens" and that nothing can be done about it.
It is also tantamount, in this case, to saying that the lives of children are worth it. It'd really be better if there was some honesty on that score.

I for one am very willing to take these measures:

1. background checks and training for everyone playing or watching violent video games, movies, or TV shows.

2. if you are criminally insane or otherwise out of control and have a long history of such, you will be institutionalized.

3. if you bash your grandma's skull in with a hammer, you leave the court room in a body bag rather than get released 17 years later.

That will put a serious dent in the problem. :santa_smiley:

Metal detectors and National Guard troops at every school in the country would protect against massacres. It would also divert large amounts of money away from education, which is the reason for schools in the first case, and teach kids to live in fear, all to guard against something that is, in reality, highly improbable.

How much IS a child's life worth? I mean if a 5 year old dies, you're five years away from having a replacement, and have you really invested that much over the 5 years?

Now once you start talking about college age kids, then we start talking about real time and money.

The gist of the story is that William Spengler was a 61 year old man who'd done time for manslaughter in the death of his grandmother...moved in with his mother after doing a decade and a half in the slammer...and took his mother's recent death really hard. He had serious issues with his older sister, who shared the house with him...and left a letter indicating he aimed to kill as many people as possible and torch the neighborhood. He did that, killing two first responders to the fire in the neighborhood...and then killed himself.

There was more to the letter which police have opted for the moment not to release, since it's still an active investigation. Part of the reason it's still open is that Spengler's sister is missing. A set of human remains was found in the wreckage of the burned-out Spengler home, and the medical examiner's office is trying to confirm that they were the remains of his sister.

Another mystery being worked on by the Monroe County Sheriff's office, is how he got his hands on guns which can't be legally sold to anyone in New York.

I can't swallow this - surely anyone who bashes in skulls wouldn't do anything illegal! I'll bet he cheated on his taxes too. :santa_angry:

Lived on the shore of Lake Erie. It would be surprising if he didn't have a boat.

No it doesn't.

I always thought you were a bit dumb, but this one takes the cake. The end result of your position is that laws must be more stringent on law abiding citizens to make it harder for criminals to get around them, which means that law abiding citizens get further inconvenienced at the expense of making things more difficult for criminals.

Gee, fucking sign me up.

No, you're just being pedantic. You'd recognize the issue if it was presented to you in a different way. Imagine for a second that we could further protect people from gun massacres by enacting a forced lobotomy for all criminals. You might say something like, "but that's inhumane and it violates their basic human rights." To which we'd say, yeah, "but if you disagree you're not serious about fixing it." In reality though, even if you're serious about fixing it, there are some lengths you're not willing to go to, and anything at that threshold is just "shit happens." The same is true of gun owners, we're not willing to accept every idea out there in the name of protection because there are lines that we feel should not be crossed.

What's a boat got to do with it?

I'll take "What states and what whole 'nother country border Lake Erie?" for $500, Alex.

And a boat still has what to do with it?

Are you really going to say he took a boat to another state or Canada to get guns?

#1 He's a felon. He can't legally buy guns in any state or territory of the United States. And of course he's not going to be able to buy them in Canada.

#2 He's a felon. Most likely he has contacts in New York that can get him guns. No need to take a "three hour tour" in a boat.

#3 He's a felon and the guns he used (which haven't been identified as to what type) probably belonged to his mother and/or his sister and he stole them and then used them to kill the firefighters.

If he lived next to an airfield would you say it would be surprising if he didn't have a plane?

Since when does "Can't legally buy guns" =/= "Can't buy guns"? And why couldn't he have bought them in Canada?

#3 seems most likely, but neither of the others is impossible.

If you look at the photos, the house has a dock. A dock usually means a boat. Not a yacht or a sloop, just a little aluminum job with an outboard. Not exactly on a par with a private plane.

Chicago Public School Violence

No surprise about Chicago - definitely a "roll up the windows" type of city.
It was bad when I lived near there in the 70's - now it's off the scale. :santa_sad:

Depends on where in Chicago you're at.

You're right they could never be a fault. They just had a bad childhood.

I think it was kind of rough there in the 30s before the AR, the AK and 50 round clips to fit them. The cities all know the real problem is gangs and they refuse to deal with that issue.

Tommy guns had 50-round drum mags.

IIRC, something like a dozen or so U.S. schoolchildren who are killed every year in school bus accidents on the average.

It has long been suggested that seat belts for students aboard school buses would cut that number perhaps by half (the majority of fatalities seem to be in roll overs).

But it would be hideously expensive and complicated so for generations schools and state regulatory authorities have basically said "it isn't worth it".

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/12/2...n-with-murder-2-firefighters/?test=latestnews

After his sentence was up in 1996, he stayed out of trouble until 2010, police said Friday. That's when Spengler went to a sporting goods store with a neighbor's daughter, picked out a Bushmaster semiautomatic rifle and a shotgun and had her buy the guns that the convicted felon couldn't legally possess. On Monday, he used the weapons to ambush firefighters lured to a blaze he set at his house in upstate Webster, killing two people and wounding three others before killing himself.

On Friday, state and federal authorities charged the woman who bought the guns, 24-year-old Dawn Nguyen, with lying on a form that said she would be the owner of the guns she bought for Spengler.

Good - nail her.

Clearly people who are relatives of criminals shouldn't be allowed to buy guns.

"neighbors daughter" Ron. She wasn't his relative.

Don't call him Ron. It's Poodle.