Gun buyback event back-fires. Oh the humanity!

So if she'd died, would this have been Murder 2 or daughterslaughter? With the so called castle laws I'd go for no charges.

On the tragedy of the buy-back, I agree. It sounds like a win-win. Guns off the street. Dangerous guns (those that were not usable) were destroyed. Safe guns put back on the market and sold by a law enforcement agency so you know they were sold to scrupulous dealers. And the sheriff's dept gets some needed cash.

I hope McDonald is fired for demonstrating firearm incompetence. Or was it incompetence?

Well ..., sorta. An enlisted person has something like 10 years to make E5, after that, yes, you get kicked out.

Not sure what the rank is for officers. Probably have to have made Major

Yes, it's called the RCP - the Retention Control Point. Don't make a certain rank by a certain time in the service and you're gone. Crazy? Certainly, nobody ever accused the US military of making sense. Imagine you are a huge corporation - some very talented, intelligent, gifted engineer says he will work for twenty years and doesn't want a pay increase or more responsibility.
He loves what he does and moving up in rank would mean he becomes manager/paper pusher. And you will get rid of this guy? And some MOS (Military Occupational Skill) don't make rank very fast. They just don't need as many leaders/managers as other jobs. So they are behind the power curve from the git-go. I have seen some gifted people forced out - it's the military's loss as far as I'm concerned.

When I first served in Korea I had an "extra duty" escorting Koreans around packing up and delivering soldiers' belongings whether arriving or leaving of course.
A few of the folks were young officers (Captains) who didn't make Major in time. No legal problems, no job performance problems, no psychological problems, etc.
They were bright young college educated officers who no doubt just chose the wrong branch to make rank in, and were forced out.
Funny but the next year they might change the rules and the officers would be given more time to make rank - but too late for these folks. Very depressing.

Sometimes it's 10 years to make E5, other years it can be 8 years, other years in can be 12 years. Their RCP standards change every few years, just like their bodyfat standards and fitness standards and tattoo standards. Anc was smart to get out. He has way too much to offer society than to be jacked around with that bullshit. Volpone, Tex, and more WF members served but never retired.
It's a cut-throat competetive business that does not in any way shape or form appreciate or desire the most talented.

Classic example (I feel my blood pressure rising already) was a fucking E-7 (Senior NCO, risen above his peers and all that horse-shit) from the transportation folks getting us out of Iraq at the end of our tour. Fucker was reading punctuation. Let me explain, with this example:

"Welcome to the 43rd Battalion unit movement area, exclamation point. We are here to help you, period. Does anyone have any pressing medical concerns question mark?"
That was the tipping point for me - at that point I could not/would not take anything seriously anymore. I had about two years left and I felt like a burned out wrecked shell of an E6.
But by fucking God I knew how to read and speak like a human adult.

Oh, yea. I remember those guys.

But, if you want to talk about the ones that REALLY annoyed the piss out of me. I was working in the operation room for our company while awaiting my medical discharge papers (Little joke aside, the E8 told me because I'd taken on so much of the administrative duties, he was going to "lose" my paperwork so I'd have to stay. Turned out the Army really did lose my paperwork and I ended up staying an extra 7 months.) so I had to take care of a lot of the ... operation duties. One day while inspecting rifles at the firing range, a couple brand new lieutenants brought me their rifles. After the second time I told him he still had gun powder in his barrel, he started to walk away and says to the other "typical. give an E4 a little bit of power ..." I didn't let him finish. I told him to give me the rifle and his cleaning equipment and leave. ..

Some people are just jackasses.

He might be a jackass but you ended up cleaning his rifle! Ha ha Yeah, there will always be those types. We had an E5 get busted in Bosnia for being a "peeping Tom."
After doing a few months in prison and getting busted down to E-1 our commander started dragging..his...feet over kicking the guy out. He was one of our best electronic technicians!
He hung around a long time as an E-1 working circles around everyone. Eventually the hammer fell and the upper chain-of -command reluctantly booted him.

BTW I can't clean a rifle for shit. I can shoot great, but I never had the gift for pleasing the armorer. After a while they really start nit-picking. So as an experiment a buddy took my rifle up after it was returned to me as dirty and didn't clean it any further. He took it up and they said accepted it. They just match rifle butt numbers with rack locations - they don't scratch off names until we are all finished for the day then they confirm serial numbers. I took my buddies weapon up (cleaned to perfection by him) and they rejected it. Whatever, now I knew the armorer had it in for me!

Yep. There are those types too. I don't pay enough attention to people not in my ... circle (work, friends, whatever) to remember them from one day to the next. In fact, just ... a couple weeks ago, I was in the cafeteria at work and this woman came up to me, called me by my name and started talking to me about something that I'd helped her with, she was going on and on about the great job I did. I just kept smiling and nodding and had absolutely no idea who she was.

No, in the context using a gun means using it in defence.

Good idea.

The highest gun ownership rate I've seen quoted is 47%. Regular citizens don't spend more time on the range, because most regular citizens don't own guns. I'm sure gun enthusiasts spend more time on the range, and in this country that's not an insignificant portion of the population. But I'd say the average LEO has considerably more training than the average citizen - just not more than the people who love to do this as a hobby.

I'd also say your experience with guns is probably more of an outlier these days than mine - I certainly know several people who go shooting on a regular basis, but statistics show they aren't the majority of the population by any means.

The lastest meta studies show consistently that that isn't true. Guns do increase chances of suicide - especially among teens.

http://www.ucsf.edu/news/2014/01/111286/access-guns-increases-risk-suicide-homicide
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/gun-ownership-and-use/
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/means-matter/means-matter/risk/
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/05/06/suicidal-children-access-guns-home/2136931/
http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/160/10/929.full

For example:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/01/20/us-gun-suicide-idUSBREA0J1G920140120

Bold emphasis mine.

And:

Bold emphasis from the summary of the paper.

You aren't more likely to attempt suicide if you have a gun.

You are just much more likely to be successful. Thus more deaths by guns in cases of suicide.

Again, the difference between a tool and a weapon - one is designed to end life.

If you are finding studies that suggest otherwise, they are probably pretty old - or funded by a guns rights group.

Officers are automatically promoted to O-2 and O-3, then wait a number of years before going up gor prmotion. If they don't get picked up for O-4, ( Lt. Commander in the Navy) on the third look, they go home. In any given year, 75 percent of folks get picked up and you gotta be completely fucked up/ piss off the wrong people not to get picked up.

Ok, please do state them again because I have not seen you do it. Or perhaps you could direct me to the particular post you are talking about

Yes, even with a spotter. Now you are bringing up a specific point, and I told you I would pound it if you made it so here goes.

You create a huge legal problem when you do that because the spotter could direct the blind person to shoot when there was a person there and if it were premeditated the persoan doing the murdering separates themselves from the action. The blind person actually would have shot someone and the guilty party only said shoot.

You see, we all can come up with really obscure what iffs. Now do you see how inane your arguments are?

That is factually wrong. They found a sharp drop in suicides when britain banned guns. I have read it and can pull up those facts to smash your pitiful argument with if you like? Oh please do challenge me, I just love statistics and a guntard.

Yeah, the statistics on this point seem farily overwhelming.

No correlation with the number of attempts increasing.

Just a large correlation with the number of attempts that are successful.

But how can that be, when guns are just a tool like a screwdriver? Lordy.

Ok, so you need to hear it again. Do realize I confront this point right here. Blind fire is a term used by sighted shooters. It indicates firing without looking at what you are shooting. It is considered dangerous and stupid. Inherently blind fire is reckless and unsafe. Now if a blind person were to remove the part where they fire the gun, the gun merely becomes a weight and the gun has the potential to go off if rattled around so handing it to a blind person to begin with would be dangerous and unsafe.

*STOMP!**STOMP!**STOMP!*

Yes, so why would a blind person even need that right? We say they cannot own a gun, but that does not mean they cannot touch one for whatever that is worth to them. They still can feel a gun, and collect antiques for whatever purpose because collectors would never tarnish their old and fragile gun. Really, no one is taking anything away here. Right now a blind person can go to any walmart and hold a gun.

*STOMP!**STOMP!**STOMP!*

No, actually you are wrong there. Just because most disabilities do not keep the disabled from doing and owning things does not mean we have lost our minds and are going to be giving blind people guns. Now if blind people wanted to go to a shooting range they would need much more supervision than a sighted person and the range may not be equipped to handle them, but if a gun range wished to do so I would not be opposed. Since that assistance would not be available all the time the blind person can leave the gun at the range. If they wanted to purchase a gun for use they could easily make arrangements with a range to purchase a gun that would be reserved for them, and there is no problem. But no we are not going to send helen keller home with a gun.


*STOMP!**STOMP!**STOMP!*

Ok.
http://jeffsachs.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Australia-Gun-Law-Reforms.pdf

You could also go here for some information and links to suicide rates. I know they do not say directly it happens, but the date shows a spike in countries like the US in suicide deaths. It looks a lot like the drop in suicide deaths when they changed over from the gas oven. The same easy, almost always fatal, and painless way to go, which is very effective does increase suicide rates. The only thing that messes the studies up across country lines is the countries with stuff like honor suicides.

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

Yeah, your NRA bullshit manipulation of stats won't work on me. It is not just guns that suffered from suicide.

Ahhh, ok in the rational world you were leveld, but you go enjoy fauxland.