irstupid said:
Doesn't matter how he obtained the guns. 1. If they are legal and he obtained them legally, then refer back to my post. How do we prevent this mentally disturbed individual from acquiring these legal firearms without preventing perfectly capable people from acquiring the same firearms. 2. If they were obtained illegally, then what woudl any further gun restrictions do? He clearly obtained them illegally and would have done so still with further laws in system. To me the firearms debate is like the cop debate. There are millions of legal gun owners in the U.S. and a fraction of a fraction of them commit murder. Like .0001% or somethign insanely small. Cops, there are millions of cops and there are some bad ones, just like gun owners. But do we hate on all cops cause 1 out of a million is some racists murderer? I'd like to think no. But it sure seems like right now people want to hold every cop in the world accountable for one random cop somewheres actions. |
Well, if he obtained ten fully automatic rifles legally, there's a huge problem somewhere. First of all, I would be interested in considering the idea of making fully automatic weapons illegal for private ownership, period. Then there are issues with private sales and transfers not requiring a background check or the other regulations that come with purchasing certain weapons. Then there are the issues that we have with our current background checking system which involves a lot of pertinent data not being entered into the system and other flaws in the system. Then there are additional possible steps that could be taken as others have mentioned such as requiring a license or some sort of psychological evaluation before you are allowed to own a gun.
If the gun was obtained illegally, how? Was it purchased through a straw buyer and then sold on the black market? Was it purchased in a state with lax gun laws and moved elsewhere? Was it stolen and then sold on the black market? Depending on how the gun was obtained, there are often different laws which would be used to address those issues.
As for the "cop debate", the thing is, we should make efforts to hold police accountable and try to remedy the issue of police violence. No, not all cops are evil, but that doesn't mean we should just sit idly by act like the wrongful deaths caused by police are irrelevant because there are some good cops. Of course that doesn't mean we should do away with police (just as we shouldn't do away with gun ownership), but we should still seek a solution.
Disclaimer: I am not personally supporting any of the laws I stated or implied above, just making statements about how different laws address different issues.
