How the NRA Enables Massacres

thedailybeast.com ^ | 5/24/2014 | cliff schecter

[rktman]

As a shooting spree leaves seven dead in California, the gun lobby is trying to thwart attempts to study gun deaths and officials who see gun violence as a public health crisis.

Yet another massacre occurred last night at an institution of learning, this time the University of California, Santa Barbara. The price we paid for the National Rifle Association’s “freedom” was seven people murdered and seven injured at nine different crime scenes.

[MeshugeMikey]

this particular puke puddler...was clearly an elitist’s elitist !

his eltisim went all the way to defining who should live and who should die and when!

[headstamp 2]

“yet another young, white male... devoid of social skills, relegated to the world of video games for ALL human interaction, being given powerful anti-depressants like Xanax.... snaps, and kills a bunch of people.”

Yep, another Adam Lanza, Jared Lee Loughner to a tee. Because of mentally deranged lunatics like this, we are supposed to sacrifice our Constitutional freedoms.

[dowcaet]

You’re so right. It’s the underlying problem in America. Liberals always whine about people “preaching” to them about morality but these are the same people who tolerate and promote violence and degradation of women in movies, tv, print and rap music. They have utter disregard for human life. How many potential humans have bit the dust since Roe v Wade? Don’t tell me it’s the gun who’s at fault. It’s our embrace of immorality that’s killing us as a nation.

[Ancesthntr]

The Natl Rifle Association's Freedom? Bull cookies. My 'freedom' comes from the 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution.

No disrespect intended (particularly since you almost certainly agree with me), but our rights come from God. Saying it the way you do allows those who have contempt for the Constitution to blame a bunch of dead white guys, claim "white privilege" and proceed to ignore our rights by passing yet more infringements of our basic human right to defend our life, our liberties and those of the people around us. The 2nd Amendment only CODIFIES a preexisting right and clearly puts it beyond the scope of governmental action...it gives us NOTHING.

[faithhopecharity]

It is not the “NRA’s freedom” to keep and bear arms. It is every American’s right. Anyone who doesn’t understand that is remarkably ignorant about USA Incredibly ignorant.

[ClearBlueSky]

A better Article title would be: How Inanimate Objects Enable Massacres /Violence -or- How Psychiatrists/Mental Health Professionals Enable Murderers. First we need to build mental institutions ,then the dangerousLy mentally ill should be put in them. The parents and “professionals” who protect psychotics who attack others should be sued into sub_human poverty. That would only leave the intentionally evil criminals to arrest and execute. Then ALL inanimate objects would no longer be used to do harm.

[Liberty Valance]

I see your point. Thanks for the response.

[nathanbedford]

Leftist gun grabbers, with many of us on the right especially libertarians who wish to legalize drugs, face a similar dilemma. That is, half measures, partial "progress" is worse than useless because they actually aggravate the problem which motivates both leftist and libertarians on their respective issues.

Legalizing some drugs like marijuana but not others, such as cocaine and heroin, leaves the profit motive intact, the addiction problem intact and the corruption unimpeded. Similarly, to tinker around the margins with gun control rather than confiscating all guns makes the situation worse because it simply renders the law-abiding more and more vulnerable to criminals who will continue to illegally possess and use weapons.

Even assuming that confiscation of all guns will greatly reduce mortality and putting aside the problem of the Second Amendment, there is no political will to confiscate all guns and so the left is reduced to half measures like reducing the size of magazines which only infuriate people who associate gun ownership with liberty and increase the mortality count. The left does not admit and cannot admit that it wants to confiscate all guns which must, of course, be their goal because it is the only rational solution from their point of view.

People on the right with a pesky libertarian streak (which I confess to), similarly are afraid to forthrightly maintain that all drugs, even the most pernicious, dangers and powerful drugs, should be legalized if the idea of taking the profit motive out of the drug business is to succeed. Both the left and the right find themselves flummoxed, the right by its inability to sell individual liberty and the left by its furtive yearning for the collective.

So we go on generation after generation at loggerheads on both issues confounded by our own rhetoric and, at least in the case of drugs, by our unwillingness to confront the reality of a war on drugs lost.

[ClearBlueSky]

How was he still a virgin? Evidently SOME females have instincts that warn them away from defective/insane males. If this spreads Jerry Springer et.al. Will be out of business.

[july4thfreedomfoundation]

Besides the three people killed with the knives, the punk ran down and injured, tried to kill in fact, people with his BMW. I guess we have to ban knives and BMW’s now.

[macglencoe]

The government is solely responsible for this. They closed the insane asylums and put all the nuts out in the general population, they made corporal punishment illegal so we can’t discipline our kids, they put blacks into white schools causing white children to be morally corrupted by the immorality of the blacks, etc. etc. etc.

[ClearBlueSky]

Of course too much FREEDOM is the problem. Perhaps we should agree and START by depriving mental cases like this murderer THEIR freedom? Forced institutionalization? Or restrict the freedom of those who produce such people to breed further? Would this moron be ok with THOSE freedoms going first? If more control is the answer lets begin by controlling the insane.

[AnotherUnixGeek]

As a shooting spree leaves seven dead in California,

The shooting spree left 3 people dead, as did the stabbing spree.

[GOPJ]

Everyone of the mass killers was a democrat or the child of a democrat.

Each killers felt their rage was justified BECAUSE none of then had been taught to take responsibility for their own lives. Daddy should have told this brat that his approach to woman wasn't working and HE NEEDED TO LEARN a different technique. But NO, Daddy taught him to blame everyone but himself. Just like daddy does....

So the lunacy stood.

The monster blames the girls for not accepting him. Daddy blame the NRA. The son is creepy and a jerk who feels ‘entitled’... does daddy see that as a problem? Nope it's the fault of ‘blond’ girls. It's the fault of the NRA. It's the fault of conservatives.

NOT ONE CHILD OF AN NRA MEMBER AS EVER BEEN A MASS MURDERER. NOT ONE.

LIBERAL ELITE FATHERS WHO TEACH THEIR CHILDREN TO BLAME EVERYONE BUT THEMSELVES ARE NOT DOING THEIR KIDS A FAVOR. But not to worry, the press covers for their own... the pity party will start for the killer because he's the son of a liberal elite. Was he mentally ill? Is he a victim? All the usual liberal cover they provide for each other.

[dragonblustar]

He wanted to round up all the women of the world and kill them, but its the NRA’s fault.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/05/24/six-absolutely-stunning-details-from-suspected-santa-barbara-shooters-141-page-manifesto/

[anoldafvet]

I will never forget the I.G. inspection we had while I was stationed at Hickam AFB, Hawaii. They found no fault with us except that our scissors had points on them!.. We had to literally break them off to clear the finding. I would never have guessed this was a precursor of things to come.

[VRWC For Truth]

Gun free zone ... The problem is the gun grabbers.

[freedumb2003]

>>I guess we have to ban knives and BMW’s now.<<

We better include Benz’ just in case...

[Nuc 1.1]

There has never been a single documented case of a dues paying NRA member committing mass murder with a gun. Don't fall into this type of trap. While true at some pointy it won't be. The truth is the folks doing the shooting are simply insane. Prayers up for all.

[alloysteel]

“...TOUGHEST gun laws also just happen to also have the HIGHEST MURDER RATES...”

A most inverse relationship, to be sure. “Gun free zone” translates as “free style target practice shooting galley” for psychopaths.

Bringing the mental state of mind of the perp into these discussions is largely a taboo subject for the “mainstream” media. But it is by far the largest distinguishing feature of this story.