Post by l***@yahoo.comConservative 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.