Obama Talks Earnestly of Simple Laws that Could Have Prevented Oregon Shooting, Names None
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janklow
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pretty much all this right here:
Obama Talks Earnestly of Simple Laws that Could Have Prevented Oregon Shooting, Names None
Obama Talks Earnestly of Simple Laws that Could Have Prevented Oregon Shooting, Names None
What's important in regards to the politics of Obama's speech right now is that neither you nor I nor Obama knows anything about what sort of weapon was used and how it was obtained or the shooter's background. I don't even know his name as I type. [UPDATE: Seconds after posting, killer being identified as Chris Harper Mercer]
Thus, he is undoubtedly overreaching beyond the facts when he speaks over and over about how apparently easy and simple gun-safety laws would have prevented this, or future tragedies like this.
He doesn't, even in this very long speech, get down to a single specific or even a hint of a specific about exactly what new laws he wants that would have prevented this from happening. Maybe because he was politically savvy enough to realize that whenever we do know, someone could point out that, well, that law you suggest wouldn't have actually stopped this.
I don't know what law could have stopped this from happening, and thus cannot argue in good faith that none could. But neither does Obama know, yet he felt it appropriate to take to the bully pulpit and play on our national grief with vague talk about laws that could change this, when he has no idea if it's true.
He never mentioned anything about the Second Amendment or the fact that one of the problems with restricting access to guns in a matter other countries do is that we have that Amendment. Guns are a legally special item in the United States, for good reasons, so discussing them in terms of any other random safety issue misses what is indeed the key point in why it is such a politically contentious issue.
He spells out how many guns there are in this country, and that is an important part of the issue. Because you can't make those guns disappear. By making such a vague speech, refusing to acknowledge the Second Amendment exists, and making it clear that in some senses he thinks the problem is the sheer fact that there are so many guns, he certainly gives reason for Second Amendment advocates to mistrust his intentions.
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It's sad another massacre has occurred in an American school but realistically, I'm not sure what law could have prevented this. If someone wants to ? someone, they will find a way, law or no law. And I believe Harper bought the guns illegally anyway, based on what I'm hearing.
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I really don't see how gun restrictions are going to prevent these thing from happening.
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The user and all related content has been deleted.
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Its Janklow's fault.
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can i have some legislative suggestions, please, OBAMABlack_Samson wrote: »Make it harder for the typical law abiding ticking time bomb to gain access.
That ? is easy.
honestly, i am waiting to see what the deal with this guy is BUT this may be a Newtown-type of situation where family/friends should have known better and done something more themselves; Newtown was obviously a PERFECT case of that, so we'll see.
i hear that guy's some kind of ammosexual, gun-fetishizing ? with blood on his handsSwiffness! wrote: »Its Janklow's fault.
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POSTING MORE ARTICLES:
Obama's Empty Gun Control PromisePresident Obama is tired of calling for more gun control after every mass shooting, and I am tired of explaining why that knee-? reaction is illogical. But he feels duty-bound to continue ("each time this happens, I'm going to bring this up," he says), and I guess I do too.
Last night Obama gave an impassioned 13-minute speech, ostensibly in response to yesterday's murder of nine people at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon, by a gunman who died after a shootout with police. The president insisted that "modest regulation," consistent with the Second Amendment rights of "law-abiding gun owners," could "prevent this carnage from being inflicted someplace else in America." But as Brian Doherty pointed out, Obama did not mention a single specific policy fitting that description.
That telling omission makes it pretty hard to buy Obama's argument that anyone who opposes "common-sense gun-safety laws" has blood on his hands. "This is a political choice that we make to allow this to happen every few months in America," he said. "We collectively are answerable to those families who lose their loved ones because of our inaction." If only we had done something, in other words, those people in Oregon would still be alive. But we are left to guess what that thing might be.
Obama did offer some clues. "It cannot be this easy for somebody who wants to inflict harm on other people to get his or her hands on a gun," he said. So presumably the "common-sense gun legislation" he supports has something to do with making it harder for would-be mass murderers to obtain firearms. The problem is that would-be mass murderers look a lot like "law-abiding gun owners" until they commit their crimes (because that is what they are), and any effort to distinguish between the two groups is bound to be underinclusive, missing seemingly harmless people with murder in their hearts, or overinclusive, depriving actually harmless people of their constitutional rights. Probably it will be both.
That is certainly true of existing restrictions on firearm ownership, which exclude millions of people—including ? smokers, illegal immigrants, nonviolent felons, and the targets of involuntary psychiatric treatment—who would never have used a gun to harm anyone. Meanwhile, these rules allow the vast majority of mass shooters to legally buy their weapons because at the time of the purchase none of the disqualifying criteria applies to them. Strengthening enforcement of these restrictions, whether by making databases more complete or by requiring background checks for private gun transfers as well as sales by federally licensed firearm dealers (as Oregon started doing in August), therefore will do little to prevent mass shootings, but it will deprive many people who pose no threat to others of a basic human right: the right to armed self-defense.
We do not know yet where the Oregon shooter obtained his weapons (a rifle and three handguns), whether he had a disqualifying criminal or psychiatric record, or whether he underwent a background check. Maybe he will turn out to be an exception: a mass shooter who was legally disqualified from buying guns for a reason that would have been flagged by a properly performed background check. But even if that's true, it does not change the basic picture: Restrictions on gun ownership affect far more innocent people than criminals, who generally find a way around them, and mass shooters typically do not even need to avoid the background checks that Obama seems to think would stymie them.
There are similar problems with proposals to loosen the criteria for coercive psychiatric treatment. "It's fair to say that anybody who does this has a sickness in their minds," Obama said, "regardless of what they think their motivations may be." But how does he propose to identify this sort of mind sickness before the fact? Only a small percentage of people who receive psychiatric diagnoses commit violent crimes, and psychiatrists are notoriously bad at predicting which ones will.
Anticipating the charge that he is using a tragedy for political purposes, Obama embraced that description. "This is something we should politicize," he said. "It is relevant to our common life together, to the body politic." Obama is right that important political issues are at stake—in particular, the extent to which Americans should sacrifice their freedom for an empty promise of safety. -
Black_Samson wrote: »Make it harder for the typical law abiding ticking time bomb to gain access.
That ? is easy.
But the shooter had no mental illness record or criminal record neither did his mom and she's the one who brought them for him. Only way that could have been prevented is if you outlawed firearms -
The people who ? us all over on a daily basis don't want us having guns. What a surprise!
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if accurate, this is another example of who legitimately deserves blame they're not getting: people with close relationships with the perpetrators who should be in a better position to know what's going on than the gun dealers or bureaucrats running a background check. if they're the ones buying the guns, well...The_Jackal wrote: »But the shooter had no mental illness record or criminal record neither did his mom and she's the one who brought them for him.
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Washington Post Fact Checker Calls Obama's Statement About 'Gun Laws' and 'Gun Deaths' MisleadingResponding to last week's massacre at a community college in Oregon, President Obama said "we know that states with the most gun laws tend to have the fewest gun deaths," which according to him means "the notion that gun laws don't work, or just will make it harder for law-abiding citizens and criminals will still get their guns, is not borne out by the evidence." Washington Post fact checker Glenn Kessler gives that statement "two pinnochios," signifying "significant omissions and/or exaggerations." Here's why.
According to the White House, Obama's claim was based on National Journal chart published in August under the headline "The States With the Most Gun Laws See the Fewest Gun-Related Deaths" and the subhead "but there's little appetite to talk about more restrictions." As I noted at the time, that chart included suicides, which account for three-fifths of gun-related deaths in the United States, twice as many as homicides do. You can argue that suicides should be included because gun restrictions might affect them (although Kessler notes that the evidence on that score is equivocal). But in the context of preventing mass shootings, which is what Obama was discussing, it is clearly misleading to cite the association between "gun laws" and "gun deaths" that consist mostly of suicides.
Kessler finds, as I did, that focusing on homicides can have a big impact on a state's ranking:
Alaska, ranked 50th on the National Journal list, moved up to 25th place. Utah, 31st on the list, jumped to 8th place. Hawaii remains in 1st place, but the top six now include Vermont, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Iowa and Maine. Indeed, half of the 10 states with the lowest gun-death rates turn out to be states with less-restrictive gun laws.
Meanwhile, Maryland—a more urban state—fell from 15th place to 45th, even though it has very tough gun laws. Illinois dropped from 11th place to 38th, and New York fell from 3rd to 15th.
National Journal did look at homicides separately, but only with reference to three specific policies regarding carry permits, self-defense, and background checks. Amazingly, those charts omitted the states with the fewest homicides—all of which have relatively permissive gun laws—because they "had too few homicides in 2013 to calculate a reliable rate." By not performing an overall analysis focusing on homicides and by skewing the presentation of data in the ancillary charts, National Journal seemed to be bending over backward to reach the conclusion announced in its headline, including the false implication that correlation proves causation.
"This is a classic situation in which a politician bases a statement on a study, but then exaggerate(s) the conclusions to justify a policy," Kessler writes. "It also lacks context because the results change, sometimes dramatically, when suicides are removed from the gun deaths. While gun suicides are certainly a serious issue— and account for more than 60 percent of gun deaths—the evidence is mixed on whether restricting gun purchases would affect the overall suicide rate. In any case, the president's policy proposals are aimed at mass shootings, not suicides." -
if accurate, this is another example of who legitimately deserves blame they're not getting: people with close relationships with the perpetrators who should be in a better position to know what's going on than the gun dealers or bureaucrats running a background check. if they're the ones buying the guns, well...The_Jackal wrote: »But the shooter had no mental illness record or criminal record neither did his mom and she's the one who brought them for him.
The mother was a gun freak (like you) but to be fair, she was probably naïve on what her kid was doing and how he was acting, everyone wants to believe the best of their kid. Harper probably acted very normal around his mom. -
whoa whoa whoa... since when am i a gun freak?kingblaze84 wrote: »The mother was a gun freak (like you)-
...wait, is this because i buy a gun every time the president lectures me?
honestly, i do blame the mother in this situation (like at Newtown). i don't know how Harper acted around his mother, but she apparently was willing to state that her kid had mental health issues, and no matter how much you like your guns, you can't let someone you describe that way run around with them.kingblaze84 wrote: »-but to be fair, she was probably naïve on what her kid was doing and how he was acting, everyone wants to believe the best of their kid. Harper probably acted very normal around his mom.
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whoa whoa whoa... since when am i a gun freak?kingblaze84 wrote: »The mother was a gun freak (like you)-
...wait, is this because i buy a gun every time the president lectures me?
honestly, i do blame the mother in this situation (like at Newtown). i don't know how Harper acted around his mother, but she apparently was willing to state that her kid had mental health issues, and no matter how much you like your guns, you can't let someone you describe that way run around with them.kingblaze84 wrote: »-but to be fair, she was probably naïve on what her kid was doing and how he was acting, everyone wants to believe the best of their kid. Harper probably acted very normal around his mom.
Yeah she should have had less guns in her home, 13 guns in one home is a lot for someone with a son who used to bang his head against the wall. She deserves to live with some guilt -
honestly, this is a false narrative. 13 isn't too many if they're secured and you're not handing them to your mentally-ill child. 1 is too many if you let him run wild with it.kingblaze84 wrote: »Yeah she should have had less guns in her home, 13 guns in one home is a lot for someone with a son who used to bang his head against the wall. She deserves to live with some guilt
it's entirely possible there's a very specific scenario where she shouldn't feel guilty, but i am not thinking it's the case here, especially since the father already tried to pass the buck.
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honestly, this is a false narrative. 13 isn't too many if they're secured and you're not handing them to your mentally-ill child. 1 is too many if you let him run wild with it.kingblaze84 wrote: »Yeah she should have had less guns in her home, 13 guns in one home is a lot for someone with a son who used to bang his head against the wall. She deserves to live with some guilt
it's entirely possible there's a very specific scenario where she shouldn't feel guilty, but i am not thinking it's the case here, especially since the father already tried to pass the buck.
From what I've read, the mother truly believed that her son was improving his behavior from his younger days, so it's a tough situation either way. People can be unpredictable. I'm sure there are things she could have done better, but he was a grown ass man at the end of the day. A mother only has so much power over her son, so aside from lowering the amount of guns in the home (must be a little tough to keep track of 13 weapons?), I don't really know how else she could feel guilty. He didn't give her a reason to kick him out the house. -
see, i feel like if you're saying your son has mental health issues, that's less something that improves drastically and more something you're going to want to keep an eye on.kingblaze84 wrote: »From what I've read, the mother truly believed that her son was improving his behavior from his younger days, so it's a tough situation either way.
she's in a better position to observe him than anyone else, so she should feel guiltier than anyone else. look, if the dad's going to say this is to be blamed on his son being allowed to own 13 guns, i'm going to say, "what kind of ? is it to blame it on the random number of guns he owns instead of looking at how you raised and/or enabled your kids?"kingblaze84 wrote: »People can be unpredictable. I'm sure there are things she could have done better, but he was a grown ass man at the end of the day. A mother only has so much power over her son, so aside from lowering the amount of guns in the home (must be a little tough to keep track of 13 weapons?), I don't really know how else she could feel guilty.
and keeping track of 13 guns seems like it should be easy, IMO. -
see, i feel like if you're saying your son has mental health issues, that's less something that improves drastically and more something you're going to want to keep an eye on.kingblaze84 wrote: »From what I've read, the mother truly believed that her son was improving his behavior from his younger days, so it's a tough situation either way.
she's in a better position to observe him than anyone else, so she should feel guiltier than anyone else. look, if the dad's going to say this is to be blamed on his son being allowed to own 13 guns, i'm going to say, "what kind of ? is it to blame it on the random number of guns he owns instead of looking at how you raised and/or enabled your kids?"kingblaze84 wrote: »People can be unpredictable. I'm sure there are things she could have done better, but he was a grown ass man at the end of the day. A mother only has so much power over her son, so aside from lowering the amount of guns in the home (must be a little tough to keep track of 13 weapons?), I don't really know how else she could feel guilty.
and keeping track of 13 guns seems like it should be easy, IMO.
Keeping track of 13 guns is easy? IDK, I'm sure a few days she slacked off and didn't pay attention to ALL the weapons. I agree raising your children right is more important then the amount of guns in a home but why have 13 guns in a home when the mother knows her son USED to have mental problems? I fully support gun rights but come on.
Aside from that, she seemed to be a decent mom, Harper wasn't known to be violent till the day he snapped. He was 26 years old, not a little kid. But because of his former mental problems, I think 13 guns in that home was excessive. She was not known to be an abusive mother, he just hated society and took advantage of the many weapons lying around in the home, I only have a few weapons in my home but if I had 13 of them, I would likely lose track of them after awhile. -
incredibly. you... may be missing what i'm trying to say here.kingblaze84 wrote: »Keeping track of 13 guns is easy?
well, i don't know how she stored them, but if he shouldn't have access to a gun, it doesn't really matter if it's 1 or 13, does it? this is why all these proposed laws about one-gun-a-month or other limits on ownership often miss the point.kingblaze84 wrote: »IDK, I'm sure a few days she slacked off and didn't pay attention to ALL the weapons. I agree raising your children right is more important then the amount of guns in a home but why have 13 guns in a home when the mother knows her son USED to have mental problems?
she literally described him as having mental health issues. i don't know the specifics of his issues, behaviors, whatever, but that obviously means it's to the point where you're admitting to yourself and others than your son has SOME problems.kingblaze84 wrote: »Aside from that, she seemed to be a decent mom, Harper wasn't known to be violent till the day he snapped.
comes back to the same point: you know your son has mental health issues, why is ANY weapon lying around in the home?kingblaze84 wrote: »-took advantage of the many weapons lying around in the home
so, without getting TOO into specifics, it's been over a decade since i had only 13 guns, and i've never lost track of any of them. just saying!kingblaze84 wrote: »I only have a few weapons in my home but if I had 13 of them, I would likely lose track of them after awhile.
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