Debate on background checks for gun buyers

[l***@yahoo.com]

FWIW:

Conservative columnist Jeff Jacoby recently wrote a column that was headlined: "No, expanded background checks wouldn't prevent mass shootings."

You can read it here.

http://www.jeffjacoby.com/23045/no-expanded-background-checks-wouldnt-prevent

Anyway, here are two responses:



Jeff Jacoby's conclusion, “If there were 'common sense' gun regulation that could unfailingly foil mass shootings, we would have adopted it long ago," indicates that he should get out more — perhaps to Japan, Greece, Canada, Spain, Ireland, Australia, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Sweden, Norway, or Britain.

Emilie DiMento, Winthrop


And:


It has been just a couple days since the devastating murders in El Paso and Dayton, and there goes Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby (“No, expanded background checks wouldn't prevent mass shootings," Aug. 7) arguing about the futility of legislation that can prevent future such atrocities.

Let me make a suggestion — and I do this as a lifetime gun owner.

The Dayton gunman's rifle, according to police reports, fired bullets into the bodies of more than 20 innocent victims, nine of them fatally, within a span of a mere 30 seconds. Can anyone in their right mind justify public ownership of an instrument like that?

The time to control sale of such lethal weapons is now. Assault rifles are not toys for big boys. They are designed for a single purpose: killing human beings by shattering their bodies. They need to be kept in the same place as machine guns, howitzers, and nuclear bombs: out of reach of the general public. Perhaps this is where we can begin proving that sensible laws are capable of preventing these deplorable killings.

Mark Hopkins, Concord



Lenona.

[Adam H. Kerman]

Post by l***@yahoo.com
Conservative columnist Jeff Jacoby recently wrote a column that was
headlined: "No, expanded background checks wouldn't prevent mass
shootings."
You can read it here.
http://www.jeffjacoby.com/23045/no-expanded-background-checks-wouldnt-prevent
Jeff Jacoby's conclusion, "If there were 'common sense' gun regulation
that could unfailingly foil mass shootings, we would have adopted it
long ago," indicates that he should get out more - perhaps to Japan,
Greece, Canada, Spain, Ireland, Australia, Germany, Italy, Portugal,
Sweden, Norway, or Britain.
Emilie DiMento, Winthrop
It has been just a couple days since the devastating murders in El Paso
and Dayton, and there goes Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby ("No, expanded
background checks wouldn't prevent mass shootings," Aug. 7) arguing
about the futility of legislation that can prevent future such
atrocities.
Let me make a suggestion - and I do this as a lifetime gun owner.
The Dayton gunman's rifle, according to police reports, fired bullets
into the bodies of more than 20 innocent victims, nine of them fatally,
within a span of a mere 30 seconds. Can anyone in their right mind
justify public ownership of an instrument like that?
The time to control sale of such lethal weapons is now. Assault rifles
killing human beings by shattering their bodies. They need to be kept in
the same place as machine guns, howitzers, and nuclear bombs: out of
reach of the general public. Perhaps this is where we can begin proving
that sensible laws are capable of preventing these deplorable killings.
Mark Hopkins, Concord

Fine. Here are my comments, not that anyone gives a damn:

You don't need to be a observe that someone is a conservative columnist
when he makes an accurate statement. I'll go further: Background checks
are likely meaningless in prventing mass shootings. Meaningless.

the El Paso shooter was a rich kid. The Las Vegas shooter was a rich
senior citizen. People like that pass background checks.

The Dayton shooter ordered the weapon on line, complying with the law.
It was an interstate gun sale. He picked it up from a gun dealer in his
state as it's illegal to transfer weapons across state lines without
using a gun dealer.

He would have passed background checks too.

Mass shooters want notoriety. The only way to eliminate mass shootings
is to eliminate the notoriety, but in a free society, there's just no
way to do that. There's an over-the-top police response even though the
killer may be dead or in custody, then an investigation that takes many
many months producing 10s of thousands of pages of documents for a court
prosecution that cannot happen if the killer is dead. Even if he's
alive, the evidence against him is overwhelming, yet they still produce
more. Sometimes Federal police agencies take over.

Then you get tv and newspaper coverage, and anchormen on tv trying to
scare the public about how dangerous everything is, coverage that goes
on for weeks.

That's what the killer wants.

It's unconstitutional to thwart news media coverage, no matter how over
the top. They get to broadcast and print what they like.

The American public, of course, doesn't know what to believe. Despite
the overwhelming police response and overwhelming coverage, a typical
American murder victim is NOT the victim of a mass shooter nor spree
killer. There's no reason not to live our lives in fear of mass killers.

If we're going to be murdered, it's our spouse, our lover, our lover's
husband, our greedy relatives, or our busines partner who are going to
do us in. It's not going to be by a stranger in a random event.

As far as the "need" to own a rifle capable of shooting that much
ammunition, for better or worse, there are lots of people who own them
for the sport of shooting. They're not hunting, just shooting. Whether
you approve of the sport or not, people who don't own these weapons to
kill or to commit robberies aren't doing anything wrong.

There are, what, 100 million of these. As far as the idea that somehow
they can all be collected and destroyed, that's delusional.

And what are you going to do about all the rifles purchased on the black
market by those intended to commit crime? Can't seize unregistered
rifles.

There's simply no reason to worry about preventing mass killings.
It's an uncommon crime, despite the false impression from the media, and
we don't need to change laws claiming that we know how to prevent future
crime.

Instead, let's concentrate on your more mundane murders that are all too
common but don't make the national news, that police barely investigate
and tend to leave unsolved. In these cases, it's possible that improved
background checks could keep some rifles and guns out of the hands of
those intending to commit robberies or revenge killings.

That's the reason to argue for improved background checks, not absurd
claims that it's the answer to preventing the next mass killing.

Repeating myself because somehow the obvious isn't obvious: Mass killers
want notoriety. If television news coverage took a hard look at itself
and acted in such a way to reduce the hysterical nature of the way they
cover mass killings, that would do some real good. But society cannot
prevent this kind of hysterical news coverage.

[Michael OConnor]

I am a gun owner who, as much as I hate to admit it at times, feel safer living in a country with citizens who have guns than a country with citizens without guns. I favor stronger background checks myself, and wish they could do away with gun shows altogether in order to remove the "gun show loophole", but in the end, if somebody really wants a gun, they'll get one by hook or by crook, and that is damn near impossible to fix. We saw it in the recent Highlands Ranch, CO school shooting where one of the shooters got the guns by taking an ax to the door of his dad's gun safe until he could get the guns out. You can get an illegal gun anywhere you want if you know where to look. And if they can't get a gun they'll get a knife, they use a car or truck, they'll build a bomb or something if they have to. There is no way to stop somebody who is determined to take out a lot of people or one person.

To fix the problem, you have to change the human heart; I don't know how to do that.

I found an article detailing mass shootings and school shootings in America going back to 1891, which is interesting:

http://behindthetower.org/a-brief-history-of-mass-shootings

A lot of people don't know that the deadliest school attack in US history occurred in Bath Township, Michigan in 1927 when a guy named Andrew Kehoe blew up a schoolhouse and killed 45 people:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_School_disaster

[W.C. Green]

Post by l***@yahoo.com
The time to control sale of such lethal weapons is now. Assault rifles are not toys for big boys. They are designed for a single purpose: killing human beings by shattering their bodies. They need to be kept in the same place as machine guns, howitzers, and nuclear bombs: out of reach of the general public. Perhaps this is where we can begin proving that sensible laws are capable of preventing these deplorable killings.

From Quora: What is the most common gun used in Chicago shootings and
deaths?

(Why? Because more people are shot weekly in Chicago than are shot in
most mass shootings)

Answer: Trent Schultz, Firearms Author & B.A. Psychology, University of
Calgary (1991)

Answered Apr 9, 2018 · Author has 651 answers and 1.5m answer views
“In all, the Chicago Police Department inventoried 4,505 guns in 2014
that were associated with criminal incidents — or events in which an
officer determined that a crime had taken place.” says Phillip Cook, an
economist at Duke University who studies underground gun markets. “The
guns being used in Chicago for crime and murder are by and large very
ordinary pistols.” (my terminology correction: handguns, as revolvers
are used as well).”

But what about those scary looking AR-15s? Gang members must use those.
Of those 4505 guns used during 2014, “Chicago police recovered only
three assault weapons associated with criminal incidents... So, less
than .07%, that's less than 7/100ths of 1%.”


Full answer with graphic of the top 20 guns seized by Chicago police in
2014 at
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-most-common-gun-used-in-Chicago-shootings-and-deaths

[That Derek]

The Trump team have averred that the recent shootings were not a gun issue, but a mental health issue.

Yes, that sounds like a legitimate argument and approach. However, this administration and all others never seem to do a damned thing about this mental health issue.

I'd be hopelessly naive if I were to suggest that the hundreds of thousands of dollars it would have taken to prosecute and incarcerate Jeffrey Epstein be allocated towards addressing either the mental health crisis or the hunt-down-the-pervs crusade.

Nah!

To paraphrase Algonquin J. Calhoun's courtroom defense about allegations and alligators, "Not only do I resent these allocations, but I alos resent the allocators!"

[David Carson]

Post by That Derek
The Trump team have averred that the recent shootings were not a gun issue, but a mental health issue.
Yes, that sounds like a legitimate argument and approach. However, this administration and all others never seem to do a damned thing about this mental health issue.

I think it's social isolation. People are living less and less in the real
world and more and more in a virtual or online world. They become pods,
who look like humans and can mimic human bevahoir, but don't think like
humans. They lack any emotional connection to the people around them;
their motivations come from the screens of their devices. Fix that
somehow and these shootings will go down.

David Carson

[Kenny McCormack]

Post by That Derek

Post by That Derek
The Trump team have averred that the recent shootings were not a gun issue, but

a mental health issue.

Post by That Derek
Yes, that sounds like a legitimate argument and approach. However, this

administration and all others never seem to do a damned thing about this mental
health issue.
I think it's social isolation. People are living less and less in the real
world and more and more in a virtual or online world. They become pods,
who look like humans and can mimic human bevahoir, but don't think like
humans. They lack any emotional connection to the people around them;
their motivations come from the screens of their devices. Fix that
somehow and these shootings will go down.

IOW, it's the video games.

Yeah.

Right.

[Adam H. Kerman]

Post by Kenny McCormack

Post by David Carson

Post by That Derek
The Trump team have averred that the recent shootings were not a gun issue, but a mental health issue.
Yes, that sounds like a legitimate argument and approach. However, this administration and all others never seem to do a damned thing about this mental health issue.

I think it's social isolation. People are living less and less in the real
world and more and more in a virtual or online world. They become pods,
who look like humans and can mimic human bevahoir, but don't think like
humans. They lack any emotional connection to the people around them;
their motivations come from the screens of their devices. Fix that
somehow and these shootings will go down.

IOW, it's the video games.
Yeah.
Right.

Well, no, you said video games. He didn't. I know it's confusing keeping
your own thoughts separate from the person you are following up to.

A common example of a virtual or on line world is a forum on a social
networking site. If these people with potential propensity for violence
look for other people in on line communities who won't challenge them but
reinforce their hysteria and paranoia, they aren't interacting with the
people around them who exist in real life. They may come to hold contempt
for strangers they encounter in the real world, or even friends and family
(like the Dayton shooter) and blame them in some way for whatever it is
that they are angry about and feeling resentful toward.

Now, there are social communities that are associated with on line video
gaming, and occassionally we've heard about them being used to spread
hateful rhetoric but that's only a small part of the on line world.

[David Carson]

On Sun, 11 Aug 2019 15:53:26 -0000 (UTC), "Adam H. Kerman"

Post by Adam H. Kerman

Post by Kenny McCormack

Post by David Carson

Post by That Derek
The Trump team have averred that the recent shootings were not a gun issue, but a mental health issue.
Yes, that sounds like a legitimate argument and approach. However, this administration and all others never seem to do a damned thing about this mental health issue.

I think it's social isolation. People are living less and less in the real
world and more and more in a virtual or online world. They become pods,
who look like humans and can mimic human bevahoir, but don't think like
humans. They lack any emotional connection to the people around them;
their motivations come from the screens of their devices. Fix that
somehow and these shootings will go down.

IOW, it's the video games.
Yeah.
Right.

Well, no, you said video games. He didn't. I know it's confusing keeping
your own thoughts separate from the person you are following up to.

I don't think it's video games, I didn't say it was, and only Kenny can
explain how he got video games from "social isolation."

Post by Adam H. Kerman
A common example of a virtual or on line world is a forum on a social
networking site. If these people with potential propensity for violence
look for other people in on line communities who won't challenge them but
reinforce their hysteria and paranoia, they aren't interacting with the
people around them who exist in real life. They may come to hold contempt
for strangers they encounter in the real world, or even friends and family
(like the Dayton shooter) and blame them in some way for whatever it is
that they are angry about and feeling resentful toward.

That's definitely part of it, but I'm also referring just to the lifestyle
of constantly looking at a screen and getting your emotional and social
needs fed by the internet rather than by real human interaction. In my
opinion, whatever is on the screen is only part of the problem, and maybe
not even the biggest part; the danger is the isolation that results from
it.

To use kind of an absurd example, I would be a lot more worried about
someone who spends 18 hours a day making cat videos, watching cat videos,
rating cat videos, commenting on cat videos, and participating in cat
video chat rooms going on a killing rampage than someone who lives a
normal life that includes spending 2 hours a day reading propaganda and
playing Grand Theft Auto online.

David Carson

[Alfalfa Bill]

Post by David Carson
On Sun, 11 Aug 2019 15:53:26 -0000 (UTC), "Adam H. Kerman"

Post by Adam H. Kerman

Post by Kenny McCormack

Post by David Carson

Post by That Derek
The Trump team have averred that the recent shootings were not a gun issue, but a mental health issue.
Yes, that sounds like a legitimate argument and approach. However, this administration and all others never seem to do a damned thing about this mental health issue.

I think it's social isolation. People are living less and less in the real
world and more and more in a virtual or online world. They become pods,
who look like humans and can mimic human bevahoir, but don't think like
humans. They lack any emotional connection to the people around them;
their motivations come from the screens of their devices. Fix that
somehow and these shootings will go down.

IOW, it's the video games.
Yeah.
Right.

Well, no, you said video games. He didn't. I know it's confusing keeping
your own thoughts separate from the person you are following up to.

I don't think it's video games, I didn't say it was, and only Kenny can
explain how he got video games from "social isolation."

Post by Adam H. Kerman
A common example of a virtual or on line world is a forum on a social
networking site. If these people with potential propensity for violence
look for other people in on line communities who won't challenge them but
reinforce their hysteria and paranoia, they aren't interacting with the
people around them who exist in real life. They may come to hold contempt
for strangers they encounter in the real world, or even friends and family
(like the Dayton shooter) and blame them in some way for whatever it is
that they are angry about and feeling resentful toward.

That's definitely part of it, but I'm also referring just to the lifestyle
of constantly looking at a screen and getting your emotional and social
needs fed by the internet rather than by real human interaction. In my
opinion, whatever is on the screen is only part of the problem, and maybe
not even the biggest part; the danger is the isolation that results from
it.
To use kind of an absurd example, I would be a lot more worried about
someone who spends 18 hours a day making cat videos, watching cat videos,
rating cat videos, commenting on cat videos, and participating in cat
video chat rooms going on a killing rampage than someone who lives a
normal life that includes spending 2 hours a day reading propaganda and
playing Grand Theft Auto online.

I'd go with the cat person as less dangerous.

Extreme cat people are nearly always women and women are less likely to become mass shooters than men.

Cat people love cute, soft, cuddly cats, which seems inconsistent with the psychology of a mass shooter.

An hour a day of propaganda is 365 hours of propaganda in a year which is not nothing.

[Terry del Fuego]

Post by David Carson
That's definitely part of it, but I'm also referring just to the lifestyle
of constantly looking at a screen and getting your emotional and social
needs fed by the internet rather than by real human interaction.

It's definitely possible to sincerely believe that 90% of real human
interaction is an annoying, frustrating waste of time while
simultaneously having no desire to shoot up a Wal Mart because some
people have more melanin.

[Kenny McCormack]

Post by Terry del Fuego

Post by David Carson
That's definitely part of it, but I'm also referring just to the lifestyle
of constantly looking at a screen and getting your emotional and social
needs fed by the internet rather than by real human interaction.

It's definitely possible to sincerely believe that 90% of real human
interaction is an annoying, frustrating waste of time while
simultaneously having no desire to shoot up a Wal Mart because some
people have more melanin.

Post of the Year!!!

Your lips to God's ears.

[Adam H. Kerman]

Post by Kenny McCormack

Post by Terry del Fuego

Post by David Carson
That's definitely part of it, but I'm also referring just to the lifestyle
of constantly looking at a screen and getting your emotional and social
needs fed by the internet rather than by real human interaction.

It's definitely possible to sincerely believe that 90% of real human
interaction is an annoying, frustrating waste of time while
simultaneously having no desire to shoot up a Wal Mart because some
people have more melanin.

Post of the Year!!!
Your lips to God's ears.

He's not talking about a scenario in which someone might be a potential
shooter, which he so stated explicitly. Annoyance is not the same thing
as contempt or resentment, and doesn't rise to the level of shooting
a stranger.

[David Carson]

On Mon, 12 Aug 2019 05:44:21 -0700, Terry del Fuego

Post by Terry del Fuego

Post by David Carson
That's definitely part of it, but I'm also referring just to the lifestyle
of constantly looking at a screen and getting your emotional and social
needs fed by the internet rather than by real human interaction.

It's definitely possible to sincerely believe that 90% of real human
interaction is an annoying, frustrating waste of time while
simultaneously having no desire to shoot up a Wal Mart because some
people have more melanin.

The cause is what we're trying to figure out. Your statement pertains to
only a few incidents of this type, and not possibly even all that well to
this one. (The shooter's alleged manifesto supposedly included a lot of
anti-big-corporation, pro-environmental stuff.) An equal, or greater,
number of shootings are committed by people with leftist orientations,
e.g. The Capitol baseball game shooting. Probably the greatest part of
shooters, such as the one at Las Vegas, haven't had any apparent ideology.
What do they all have in common? Well, I don't actually claim to know, but
I suspect that social isolation is a common thread.

Nor am I talking about people who dislike a lot of things about real human
interaction and who seek to minimize it. I don't think one person who's
ever been online for more than a few weeks would say that overall, people
are less annoying and more considerate to each other online than they are
in the real world.

Does everyone who spends 12-18 hours a day online go berserk? No, but
enough do. We've all read about the ones who grow to hate themselves so
much because of what they experience on social media that they commit
suicide. (Remember online bullying? I rarely hear about it anymore. Did
we fix that?) Others' hatred grows outward instead of inward.

I can be persuaded otherwise, but not by pithy remarks that ignore both
the facts and the point I'm making .

David Carson

[Terry del Fuego]

Your statement pertains to only a few incidents of this type, and not
possibly even all that well to this one.

My statement pertained to your comment about "the lifestyle
of constantly looking at a screen and getting your emotional and
social needs fed by the internet rather than by real human
interaction." To some extent, that IS my lifestyle and while, being an
American [sic], I have a large list of names of people whose deaths
would not trouble me in the least, I have absolutely zero desire to
actually cause any of those deaths nor in fact any others.

An equal, or greater, number of shootings are committed by people
with leftist orientations

And this is where I have to genuinely, sincerely wonder if there's any
point whatsoever in even attempting to pretend to discuss this in any
adult fashion whatsoever.
<https://www.businessinsider.com/extremist-killings-links-right-wing-extremism-report-2019-1>

Nor am I talking about people who dislike a lot of things about real human
interaction and who seek to minimize it. I don't think one person who's
ever been online for more than a few weeks would say that overall, people
are less annoying and more considerate to each other online than they are
in the real world.

It's not (speaking strictly for myself) a question of who is more or
less annoying and rude, it's a question of control. If I'm stuck
waiting in a checkout line while Bob and Betty Breeder have decided
that it's totally cool to let their 15 children shriek the entire
time, there's little escape. If someone annoys me online, I have, at
least to a great extent, chosen to allow it.

And that's why I've never really bought into the "online bullying"
thing. I mean, on some level I understand what it is and know that it
technically exists, but in a purely technical sense it's nearly 100%
avoidable and ignorable. Granted, I'm saying that as a 60 year old who
first got online at 31, not as someone who can't remember a time when
there were no home computers.

Does everyone who spends 12-18 hours a day online go berserk? No, but
enough do.

But I wonder if that's because so many of us do that now so that's
where we're tempted to point the finger. Were people doing something
else 30 years ago that we could have just as easily (and potentially
inaccurately) pointed to as the culprit? It's a sincere question and
one for which I have no answer. The reductio ad absurdum that George
Carlin came up with decades ago was "Mother's milk leads to
*everything*."

I can be persuaded otherwise, but not by pithy remarks that ignore both
the facts and the point I'm making .

Not everything that you either don't understand (or, perhaps, was
imperfectly worded) or don't agree with is intended to be pithy,
sarcastic nor any other indication of any level whatsoever of
insincerity.

[Adam H. Kerman]

Post by Terry del Fuego

Your statement pertains to only a few incidents of this type, and not
possibly even all that well to this one.

My statement pertained to your comment about "the lifestyle
of constantly looking at a screen and getting your emotional and
social needs fed by the internet rather than by real human
interaction." To some extent, that IS my lifestyle and while, being an
American [sic], I have a large list of names of people whose deaths
would not trouble me in the least, I have absolutely zero desire to
actually cause any of those deaths nor in fact any others.

I don't think any of us required any assurance whatsoever. You didn't
express resentment nor extreme paranoia nor any other sentiments that
even hinted that you were a potential killer. All David Carson was saying
that, for those ALREADY feeling resentful toward strangers with certain
characteristics or people they know, the isolation from other people
together with the reinforcement might tend to amplify those feelings of
resentment. Another possibility is that they'd already made the decision
to kill and they're looking for people who will validate the feelings
they already have and encourage them. Or it's some combination of the two.

The two of you have made valid points but are talking at cross purposes.

Post by Terry del Fuego

An equal, or greater, number of shootings are committed by people
with leftist orientations

And this is where I have to genuinely, sincerely wonder if there's any
point whatsoever in even attempting to pretend to discuss this in any
adult fashion whatsoever.
<https://www.businessinsider.com/extremist-killings-links-right-wing-extremism-report-2019-1>

Great. You want the rhetoric toned down so these things can be discussed
in an adult fashion? You go first.

I have a great idea. Stop ascribing political motives to those who have
decided to conspire to commit crimes and those who actually commit
crimes. It's meaningless bullshit because, once again, they are actively
looking for other people to reinforce their feelings. They're not truly
interested in political participation in a democratic sense.

Ascribing political motives to people who are potential killers is done
to make the rest of us feel better about ourselves, to validate us for
the political views we hold. Just because we personally aren't potential
killers doesn't give us the moral superiority to impose our political
views on other people without infringing upon their liberties.

Post by Terry del Fuego

. . .