Mass Shootings the last six months

[heironymouspasparagus]

Modified to add H to the comment. If the current laws aren't doing the job, your suggestion is that no further changes would be effective either. So, dump them all and label opponents as Brady Agenda devotees.

NOT at all what I said...if the laws aren't doing their job, then changes should be made.  The specific law and approach being advanced today is the exact same tired old misinformed nonsense that was tried before (do you read every word of a post, or just skip 2 out of 3?).  And was shown NOT to work...  Yeah, I know I am repeating myself, but it certainly wasn't heard the first couple dozen times I said it.

So, how about trying something different?  Like revisiting our mental health approach?  How about taking an even closer look at bullying in the schools - a known motivator for many of the attacks we see.  At least LOOK at root causes instead of settling for a "feel good" band-aid approach that we have proven doesn't change anything for the better.

[heironymouspasparagus]

What is the greatest number of people killed in a single incident by an armed assailant in the US in the past 40 years who was armed with only one or more handguns? I think you're making things up again.

That said, handguns are a much bigger public health problem than long guns are, even the scary looking long guns.

Let's not limit it to just guns - that is an artificial construct with no real societal context.  Bombs are much worse.  Even airplanes...

Why the focus on a point that contributes relatively little to the overall societal issue of people's lives being taken prematurely/violently/criminally??

[Gaspar]

You're like talking to an upholstered chair. Try someone else. I like to converse with people who are able to think outside of their own world and welcome me to theirs. I've seen your world. Fox broadcasts it each night.

Modified to add H to the comment. If the current laws aren't doing the job, your suggestion is that no further changes would be effective either. So, dump them all and label opponents as Brady Agenda devotees.

The laws will be changed because we are a democracy where a 70-80% view will usually trump a minority view. You can either help make the new laws more effective, fight for secession or educate the public to your point of view (good luck). Either way, change will happen.

I have no doubt change will happen.  We learn from history that it is the natural course of things.  It may be delayed, but it cannot be stopped. Eventually 2A will be stricken in its entirety, as will all of the other provisions.  It's only a matter of time. 

[nathanm]

Why the focus on a point that contributes relatively little to the overall societal issue of people's lives being taken prematurely/violently/criminally??

Um, maybe because other than auto crashes and disease, gun homicides are the leading cause of death among all Americans, and that gun homicides are the leading cause of death among some subgroups of our population? Like it or not, guns make homicide relatively easy. That makes it happen more often than it otherwise would. I don't want to take guns away from people, but I do want people to be required to be more responsible in their ownership.

The typical right-wingers who agitate about their guns being tooken often drone on about personal responsibility. Why not hold gun owners responsible for keeping their guns secure and for not selling them to crazy people and criminals? A gun can easily cause as much damage as a car, but we don't require gun owners carry liability insurance. Gun manufacturers are exempt from product liability suits, so even if a manufacturer makes a gun with a defective safety and thousands of people are accidentally shot as a result, the gun manufacturer evades any responsibility, even if they knew of the defect. Why all the special treatment?

[Gaspar]

EXECUTIVE ORDERS

So here they are fresh from the Whitehouse Press Corpses:

1. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal agencies to make relevant
data available to the federal background check system. Cool!

2. Address unnecessary legal barriers, particularly relating to the Health Insurance
Portability and Accountability Act, that may prevent states from making
information available to the background check system. Cool!

3. Improve incentives for states to share information with the background check
system. Cool!

4. Direct the Attorney General to review categories of individuals prohibited from
having a gun to make sure dangerous people are not slipping through the cracks. Cool!

5. Propose rulemaking to give law enforcement the ability to run a full background
check on an individual before returning a seized gun. Cool!

6. Publish a letter from ATF to federally licensed gun dealers providing guidance on
how to run background checks for private sellers. Cool!

7. Launch a national safe and responsible gun ownership campaign. Cool! They could use the NRA program.

8. Review safety standards for gun locks and gun safes (Consumer Product Safety
Commission). Cool! Perhaps if mama Lanza had a gun safe we wouldn't be here.

9. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal law enforcement to trace guns
recovered in criminal investigations. Cool! But they already do that.

10. Release a DOJ report analyzing information on lost and stolen guns and make it
widely available to law enforcement. Cool!

11. Nominate an ATF director. Cool!

12. Provide law enforcement, first responders, and school officials with proper
training for active shooter situations. Cool! Especially helpful for those schools like Jenks with armed campus police.

13. Maximize enforcement efforts to prevent gun violence and prosecute gun crime. Cool!. . .but supervague (new word).

14. Issue a Presidential Memorandum directing the Centers for Disease Control to
research the causes and prevention of gun violence. Cool! But wouldn't' that be like admitting that guns don't kill people, people do?

15. Direct the Attorney General to issue a report on the availability and most effective
use of new gun safety technologies and challenge the private sector to develop
innovative technologies. UberCool!

16. Clarify that the Affordable Care Act does not prohibit doctors asking their patients
about guns in their homes. Huh? Ok. Cool!

17. Release a letter to health care providers clarifying that no federal law prohibits
them from reporting threats of violence to law enforcement authorities. Cool! Cool! Cool!

18. Provide incentives for schools to hire school resource officers. Cool! Cool!

19. Develop model emergency response plans for schools, houses of worship and
institutions of higher education. Cool!

20. Release a letter to state health officials clarifying the scope of mental health
services that Medicaid plans must cover. Cool!

21. Finalize regulations clarifying essential health benefits and parity requirements
within ACA exchanges. Cool! Not sure why, but ok.

22. Commit to finalizing mental health parity regulations. Cool! Makes mental healthcare cheeper.

23. Launch a national dialogue led by Secretaries Sebelius and Duncan on mental
health.  Cool! An executive order for a phone call.

Uh oh, the NRA must have gotten to him.

He has also pledged to push congress to re-institute the Assault weapons ban, and a limit on magazines to 10 rounds.  Of course this will require a debate on how those provisions increase people's safety and their relation to the tragedies that instituted this conversation.

All and all, I am very happy with President Obama and VP Biden's recommendations, and delighted that they chose not push controversial legislation through executive order.  All of the executive orders above are basically things that no one would debate the importance of.

[patric]

5. Propose rulemaking to give law enforcement the ability to run a full background
check on an individual before returning a seized gun.

Maybe a due-process issue if the gun was seized under flimsy circumstances?

[Gaspar]

Maybe a due-process issue if the gun was seized under flimsy circumstances?

Full background checks also take an inordinate amount of time.  The one for my CC took over 90 days.

[Conan71]

Full background checks also take an inordinate amount of time.  The one for my CC took over 90 days.

I'm not sure how much of that is actually running checks or simply idle time waiting in line to run it.  I believe I got mine back in about 8 weeks.

[Gaspar]

Dong's today durring the president's speech. Photo from KRMG.

[heironymouspasparagus]

Full background checks also take an inordinate amount of time.  The one for my CC took over 90 days.

Mine took almost 5 weeks until I picked it up at the Sheriff office and that was because it took me 3 days to get back to town.

But then, I am on the top of every background check possible - flying, CDL hazmat, Concealed Carry.... I want 1 card I can carry that does everything....

[DolfanBob]

That's a good looking group of Ol boy's. 

[Gaspar]

So. . .back on subject. . .

Is everyone happy with President Obama's very reasonable common sense executive orders?

[heironymouspasparagus]

So. . .back on subject. . .

Is everyone happy with President Obama's very reasonable common sense executive orders?

Yes.  As if it really is something new...which none of it is.  No time for all of them; # 4 through 10 are already done and have been for a long time...there may be others, just haven't had a chance to review all in detail.  In particular, #7 - the NRA has over 120 years of doing exactly that in excellent fashion.  As has been mentioned here before....

[Hoss]

Full background checks also take an inordinate amount of time.  The one for my CC took over 90 days.

You must have a shady past.  Mine took 35 days.

[Conan71]

Willing to be it's not that quick after recent developments.