He had been wanting to go back to a bar and do that for a pretty long time. Actually, before he went to bars, according to some of his high school classmates. What set him off might have been that night, but it definitely wasn't the first time he wanted to shoot people.
It is. But only in retrospect. It’s a whole lotta crazy and it’s a bunch of red flags if it ends in violence. If it doesn’t, it’s just another person with mental illness who experiences intrusive thoughts and sometimes acts in socially-inappropriate ways but largely still functions normally within society. These mass shootings are horrible, don’t get me wrong. But they should not dictate national policy the way everyone is wanting them to. They are rare, and they are individually complicated. If you want to do something about unnecessary deaths, do something about people driving while intoxicated. Do something about gang violence. Do something about tobacco companies marketing to youth. Do something about people abusing prescriptions. Or at least do something about Florida, because that place is seriously fucking weird.
Only? It goes pretty far beyond his ex-honey there. He had a hit list, and a rape list of his high school classmates. To the point they were getting warned by police officers. He put a gun to the head of one of his friends a few months before the shooting. When he was out at bars he would talk about how much damage he could do with certain weapons. He had fantasies about murdering people and told his friends about them. He wrote poems about killing people. I don't know what you do about a person like that. Sure, add them to a gun purchasing blacklist or whatever, but that's hardly a sure measure. I definitely don't believe in someone losing their rights just for being mentally unstable. I doubt we can afford some of these grandiose mental healthcare plans people sometimes talk about, but we probably could at least afford mandatory meetings for a person with a record like this. And yes, police knew at least some of that record. Even so, I do wonder how effective mental healthcare professionals are with people so far gone. Sadly, I think some people are so fucked up they just need a new brain.
Any word yet on how he obtained the weapons? As far as I’m concerned, if you’re deemed mentally unfit to possess a firearm, then that right gets removed. Won’t stop an illegal purchase, but security is so much about layers of an onion and barriers to entry that even a small bit of resistance can have a payoff in the big picture.
Great, and now the shootings have spawned a feral hogs meme. Which kinda belittles the point I've made for years, that "anyone who thinks a 30-round magazine doesn't have a practical use has never seen a sounder of hogs tearing up their yard." So yes, I have that question too.
Conservatives: The Congressman investigating the President is a failure because his home city is infested with rats. Also Conservatives: Without a fully automatic assault rifle with a 100 round drum magazine my yard will be literally overrun with feral hogs and my children killed.
I’m fiscally conservative but that’s about it. More libertarian than anything. Hate the idea of big government, think they should stay out of people’s homes when it comes to everything from guns to drugs to abortion to marriage. It’s incredibly difficult to have nuanced beliefs in a 2 party system that expects you to subscribe to one “side” or the other
Not addressing you specifically, I just found it amusing how we went from "the presence of rats is a disgrace" to "HOGS ARE ABOUT TO COLLAPSE OUR RIGHT FLANK" in less than a week.
I face-palmed hard when I heard about the hog thing. We will never be able to have nice things. I live on a farm. I have a few different rifles in various calibers. I need a rifle for lots of things. Coyotes, wood chucks, fucking Canadian geese eating my soybeans out of the ground, various other varmints. Do I need an AR-15? Nah. I can do the exact same thing with any other style of .223 or whatever caliber I need to get the job done. I can also get a 20 round or better magazine for damn near any rifle. So why do I have one? Because it's an excellent gun for the money. It doesn't take up a ton of space, it shoots very nice, it's relatively light, durable, and it's very easy to disassemble and clean. It's also modular. This means if I'd like an AR platform rifle in a different caliber, I only have to buy an upper receiver with a barrel, which pins right on to the lower receiver that I already have. The point I'm trying to make is that no one needs an AR or an AK, but banning them is dumb as fuck because they aren't functionally different than other semi-auto rifles. They just look scary. Getting rid of them won't accomplish a fucking thing (except for piss people off). Background checks or mandatory training would be much, much more conducive to trying to solve this problem. And before someone jumps down my throat for being a dumb redneck conservative, I'm a progressive lefty. More liberal than most of the Democratic party at the moment.
Yup. I can run a bolt action, lever action, pump, what have you pretty quick as well. But I have an AR in .223 and one in .308 because they shoot great, carry well, and are modular like you said. My AR-10 is outfitted with a green light and bi-pod for night hunting (hogs). My .223 AR-15 is much lighter and setup with a foregrip and streamlight, used mainly for armadillos and coyotes. But I can change them up in a matter of minutes to specifically suit whatever I'm doing, from target shooting to hunting from a stand to stalking coyotes around the property. The Ruger Mini-14 is a .223/5.56, semi-auto, can take a high capacity magazine and I was very close to buying one. Great rifle. But it isn't as modular as the armalite platform, isn't as reliable, and the inner workings are more complicated to break down and clean. Oh, and unless you're a gun person you've probably never heard of it, because it isn't scary. Even though it's functionally the same as these so-called "assault rifles."
well most canadians know about the mini14 because that is what some dumbshit shot up a womens university with and they instantly made them restricted(gun range only).
What.... the.... fuck.... Like, you literally cannot own one except to use at a licensed range? But other guns are presumably allowed and not under such restrictions? They literally banned a gun just because one dumb shit did something stupid with it? To me that sounds like banning hammers because some asshole pretended his classmates were nails. Maybe the people who say it’s a culture thing with the US are right, because I literally cannot fathom such a thing happening. If the government were to try to take away our guns (not just pretend or threaten to), there would be an armed revolt in the street.
anything scary and pistols are restricted. you can only bring them to the gun range or gun Smith in the shortest route possible.
So no pistols at all? No concealed carry, no having one in your home? Holy shit! For perspective, I got my first pistol when I turned 19 and started living on my own (21 to buy a pistol, but anyone can be given one to own, even minors if given to them by their parents). It was my home security system. Well fuck my ideas of wanting to live in Canada some day.