News & Politics - Right to Bear Arms Discussion #4 - Page 3

**GardenSirens** · 12-02-2013, 08:57 PM

Still nothing done here in America about this horrible gun problem. I say melt them all down and build rehab centers for people who think they need a gun. I'll happily volunteer my time for that

**sunnykerr** · 12-03-2013, 08:18 PM

I think people wouldn't willingly give up their guns, though.

And there's too much jurisprudence interpreting the second amendment as giving individuals the right to bear arms.

When they did it in Australia, the Conservative PM who pushed the motion through essentially committed political suicide.

Who knows how many lives that man saved, but basically it took someone who would put doing the right thing above political survival.

**GardenSirens** · 12-04-2013, 12:34 PM

People need to stop worrying about how people interpret them and start saving lives. Second amendment doesn't say to buy guns, nor does it say you have a right to own them forever. People not knowing how to read the constitution makes it a scary place to be right now here in america.

quaist · 12-04-2013, 02:07 PM

To me, there's a stark difference between trained adults owning guns and keeping them safely locked away in their homes for potential self-defense and 14-year-olds taking guns to their schools.

**sunnykerr** · 12-04-2013, 08:12 PM

To be honest, even trained adults owning weapons gives me the creeps.

Because guns give me the creeps.

And look at the world we live in. Plenty of law-abiding citizens with guns wind up being accidentally behind mass shootings because their kids have access to those guns.

The kid who murdered all those kids in Newton, his mother was the gun enthusiast. She was also his first kill. The kids at Columbine. I think one of them got into his grandfather's "arsenal" or something.

It's all creepy.

**sunnykerr** · 12-12-2013, 08:17 PM

Quote:

Congress set to extend plastic firearm ban, but gun control advocates aren’t happy

The United States Congress is expected to renew a ban against plastic firearms on Monday only hours before it would expire, but gun control advocates say lawmakers are doing too little to tackle the greater issue this time around.

Monday’s vote is expected to end with the Undetectable Firearms Act of 1988 being extended for another decade, but efforts to augment that law to accommodate for new technology will be ignored, leaving the task of regulating weapons made with 3D printers to be brought up for debate at a later time.

Under its current language, the law prohibits the manufacturing, importing, selling, shipping, delivery or transfer of any firearm that eludes metal detectors, x-ray machines and other types of screening devices. The problem with this, gun control advocates insist, is that the metal components built into plastic weapons to make them detectable can often easily be removed.

Senator Chuck Schumer (D-New York) has been attempting to alter current law to add a provision that would mandate otherwise all-plastic guns to be manufactured with a permanent metal part, but firearm enthusiasts and lobbyists at the likes of the National Rifle Association have largely rejected the notion.

The Senate is now expected to shoot down Schumer’s proposal during a vote in Washington on Monday, but approve the extension on the 1988 ban.

Voting down Schumer’s proposal will be the second major blow to gun control initiatives in 2013 and comes eight months after the Senate rejected a plan for expanded background checks for interested gun buyers. It also falls just short of the one-year-anniversary of a mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut’s Sandy Hook Elementary school, which ended in more than two dozen fatalities.

"The gun lobby still has enormous power in Washington — more, frankly, than I thought they still had," Sen. Chris Murphy, (D-Connecticut), who represented Newtown last year while in the House of Representatives, told the Associated Press. The House voted to extend the 1988 ban last Tuesday without including any new rules for new weapons, despite 3D-printed firearms becoming increasingly prevalent in recent months.

"Back then, in 1988, the notion of a 3D plastic gun was science fiction," Rep Steve Israel (D-New York) told USA Today in November. "Now, a month away, it is reality."

Just this year, a handful of developers released the digital blueprints necessary to make functioning firearms using increasingly affordable 3D printer technology. At issue here, Schumer has said, is that these homemade weapons may call for metal parts, but they aren’t actually required to make the gun shoot.

"The expiration of this law, combined with advances in 3D printing make what was once a hypothetical threat into a terrifying reality," he said recently. "We are actively exploring all options to pass legislation that will eliminate the threat of completely undetectable weapons."

“What we believe is the best proposal is to say there has to be a piece of metal that’s part of the gun that’s not removable, a significant part of the gun, the trigger, the barrel, the handle, stuff like that,” he added on Friday to reporters at Gannett newspapers.

Schumer’s attempt was met with strong opposition by the likes of the NRA, however, who vowed to fight any expanded requirements to the Undetectable Firearms Act, “including applying the UFA to magazines, gun parts or the development of new technologies . . . that would infringe on our Second Amendment rights.”

In a statement of their own after last week’s House’s vote, Dan Gross, the president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, saluted Congress in a statement while warning that more could be done by lawmakers.

“Unfortunately, the House failed to address the fact that in the quarter century since this law was first enacted, new technologies have emerged that enable people to make and use undetectable guns that are not barred by the law,” Gross said. “Terrorists and other dangerous people can now make undetectable guns with 3-D printers in complete anonymity in their homes, enabling them to breach security and bring guns into airplanes and other secure places. We hope the Senate renews and modernizes the law to keep Americans safe.”

Speaking to Gannett, Schumer acknowledged that he would continue his fight even if his proposal was shot-down as expected this week.

“[W]e will then move the 10-year extension, which is better than nothing, and then work when we come back in January to plug this loophole,” he told the paper.

I understand how plastic guns are easier to smuggle through security measures such as metal detectors, although if current security measures were adequate we wouldn't have had a Newtown, an Aurora, a Columbine, etc.

It does strike me as supremely ironic that plastic guns operate under such strict legal restrictions, but regular ones do not.

Of course, then I remember that the NRA probably doesn't care so much about plastic guns...

**GardenSirens** · 12-13-2013, 02:02 PM

I'm sorry for not providing a link as this is still unfolding but there is another shooting in Colorado. Two students shot, one critically...and the shooter then killed himself. After all the pains Colorado has been through, and the nation, you'd think guns would be banned. No doubt this is from a parent who felt they needed a gun to protect themselves from liberals trying to take the gun and now look what happened. Their kid is dead and shot two others, trying to kill them. F'ed up.

quaist · 12-13-2013, 02:39 PM

Thank you, Matt, for bringing this over.

News coverage of this incident is in its very early stages, so there's only so much I could find:

Quote:

Shooting At Colorado High School — One Critically Injured, Shooter Dead

There are reports of at least two people injured and one person dead after a shooting at Arapahoe High School in Centennial, Colo.

Arapahoe County Sheriff Grayson Robinson told reporters this afternoon that the gunman was found dead inside the school with what appears to be a self-inflected gunshot wound.

Police have the suspect's identity and he was a student, but they have not released the name. They have not located any other potential suspects at this point.

Another student is in a serious condition with a gunshot wound, according to Robinson, and there is a second student with a minor wound. The gunman was reportedly looking for a specific teacher when he was confronted by another student, Robinson told reporters.

The teacher exited the school safely, according to Colorado police.

One student told ABC News: "I heard one shot fired. Then two more went off and I knew it was a gunshot after that and it echoed in the hallways."

Parents are being directed to the Shepherd of the Hills Church, according to the sheriff. Littleton Public Schools are reportedly now all on lockdown.

This keeps happening so frequently... I don't even know what to comment anymore

The Survivor · 12-13-2013, 05:21 PM

Very shocking only one day from the 1 year anniversary of the Sandy Hook shooting in CT and this high school shooting was not far from Columbine High School.

**sunnykerr** · 12-14-2013, 05:01 PM

Quote:

Colorado high school gunman planned to hurt more people: sheriff

CENTENNIAL, Colo. -- An 18-year-old who wounded a fellow student before killing himself at a suburban Denver school had entered the building with a shotgun, a machete and three incendiary devices in his backpack and had ammunition strapped to body, authorities said Saturday.

Arapahoe County Sheriff Grayson Robinson said Karl Pierson likely was motived by retaliation against a faculty member -- probably a librarian at the school -- when he opened fire Friday at Arapahoe High School. Robinson said it appears the librarian was the initial target but that Pierson planned to hurt multiple people.

Robinson said at a news conference that the teen bought the pump-action shotgun legally Dec. 6 at a local store.

Anyone over 18 is allowed to buy a shotgun in Colorado; only those over 21 can legally buy a handgun.

Also Saturday, Robinson identified the wounded student as 17-year-old Claire Esther Davis. Robinson said Davis was seated with a friend near the door Pierson used to enter the school when Pierson shot her at point-blank range.

Davis wasn't a specific, intended target, the sheriff said.

"She is an innocent young lady, and she was an innocent victim of an evil act of violence," Robinson said. Davis remained hospitalized Saturday in critical condition.

Robinson said Pierson bought ammunition Friday and went to the school armed with multiple rounds. The sheriff believes the teen intended to harm many more people but ended up killing himself less than two minutes after entering the school because he knew a sheriff's deputy was closing in.

You know, I firmly believe that if someone wants to commit suicide, they shouldn't be allowed to take other people with them.

Of course, the way laws work in the United States (and, obviously, when it comes to guns, that's not a homogeneous situation in the least bit), these school shootings must be looked upon as the price the country pays to keep guns readily available for all law-abiding citizens who want one.

It's the only way to stay sane in the face of such relentless proof that guns should never be in the hands of civilians.

quaist · 12-15-2013, 01:21 PM

It's unimaginably horrible when innocent teens get to pay the price for a life that apparently went terribly wrong.

However, it may not be significant -- but it does sound strange somehow that the target of this retaliation should've been a librarian.

Maybe it's a difference in our school systems, but librarians usually don't have a say in grading, do they?

**sunnykerr** · 12-15-2013, 06:34 PM

Well, I don't know that we know what truly motivated this person.

To me, it seems like a cowardly act of suicide-by-cop in which the perpetrator decided he wanted to end it all but, in the doing of it, he wanted to take others with him.

So, even if the librarian in question had, by some twisted turn of faith, had some impact on the future of this young man... I mean, that happens every day.

It takes a very troubled sort of person to resort to mass murder over that.

People do murder, but killing people who have nothing to do with the imagined object of your unhappiness? That smacks of something else.

**GardenSirens** · 12-16-2013, 03:50 AM

What kills me the most about this is that conservatives are jumping on this kid's facebook posts saying he is ultra socialist. Before you're an adult, you're going to have absurd views on this without any solid facts. Media tells kids to hate republicans, etc....they don't know why they just do. Theyr'e not talking about if this kid was troubled, rejected, an outcast, had a traumatic experience, etc....

It does happen far too often now. Poor Colorado has had so many incidents and then factor in Sandy Hook and the countless others on a smaller level...we have a problem. Fox News said that people who own a gun are a gift from god. Makes me sick. Something needs to be done but you have all these gun nuts who won't even sit down for a conversation because they assume that a conversation means to take their guns away. While a delicate issue, it should be a no brainer especially to ANYONE with kids. My wife quit her job at the school after Sandy Hook last year. This is the f'ed up country we live in....well me, hehe.

I also agree that if people want to commit suicide they should be able to do so in privacy. Not to advocate it, but they certainly shouldn't take down anyone else with them. people need to realize that help IS out there for them. I'm going for my psychology degree because i've talked just over a dozen people off the brink of suicide (a few in the act). Words of compassion are all most people need to hear to smack sense into their heads.

**sunnykerr** · 12-16-2013, 05:35 PM

I find it very troubling to hear that people are trying to make political points off a tragedy like this.

Not to mention that it's very odd political capital to be pursuing, considering socialism is generally not perceived to be the source of all evil, or whatever.

quaist · 12-17-2013, 11:51 AM

I hadn't heard that 'ultra socialists' are known to advocate for school shootings before either

The arguments of some paranoid 'conservatives' are getting more bizarre by the minute...


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