He's in, 'Shaggy Hunter Mode' until Spring...but after that he cleans up nice, LOL!
Posted on 10/04/2015 6:15:20 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Much like the famous quote about how everyone talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it, (often attributed to Mark Twain, though it was probably first said by Charles Dudley Warner) mass shootings are portrayed as a problem with no solution. Actually, there are solutions on the table from both sides but nobody wants to talk about them.
Having been off duty when the Oregon college shooting news broke, I had the time to absorb some of the constantly shifting details coming out of the crime scene. As with all of these events there were wildly inaccurate reports flaring up on social media throughout the first 24 hours, frequently leaking over into the cable news coverage, but the grim details have begun to settle down at last as authorities get a handle on precisely what happened. We now know the identify of the shooter – 26 year old Chris Harper Mercer – and that he was at least a part time student at the school, enrolled in the entry level English class where the shooting began. We also know, or at least suspect, that Mercer either had some mental problems or was, at a minimum, socially withdrawn and inept. He uploaded a lot of wild content to fringe social media sites and had a grudge against organized religion, particularly Christians.
But since the usual hodgepodge of cries for more gun controls have erupted in the wake of the attack we can also begin to look at some of the more clinical, legal aspects of the case. One of the first things we now know is that the killer purchased his generous supply of weapons legally.
Thirteen weapons have been recovered from the gunman behind the mass shooting at a US community college, and all were purchased legally, officials said on Friday.
“So far we have recovered 13 weapons. Six were recovered at the school, seven recovered at the shooter’s residence,” said Celinez Nunez, an agent with the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
“All were traced to a federal firearms dealer,” she told a news conference a day after the shooting in Roseburg, Oregon that left 10 dead including the shooter.
We also know that while his family says they expressed concerns over his “mental state” in the past, others in the community just felt that he was “withdrawn” and something of an outsider. No matter how you dice it, no legal plan to ban gun ownership from the mentally ill was going to catch up Mercer, as he hadn’t been in trouble with the law or been adjudicated in court as being dangerously insane. Given those facts, there isn’t a great deal to go on in that regard, but it hasn’t stopped Sebastien Blanc from demanding to know when somebody is going to do something about it, while hinting that America’s long standing demand for gun rights may be waning.
At the heart of the matter is what Joan Burbick, a professor at Washington State University, describes as the nation’s “hard-wired belief in guns.”
“I do not think that many Americans want change,” the author of “Gun Show Nation” told AFP.
“Every mass shooting only reinforces their belief that the world is a dangerous place and that their gun protects them from these dangers. They believe the gun is necessary.”
There are however some long-term demographic trends which point to a shift in attitudes and the waning power of the gun rights lobby, said Gregg Carter, a professor at Bryant University in Rhode Island who has written several books about guns in American society.
Gun rights activists tend to be white Republicans while women, immigrants and people of color tend to be more likely to support both Democrats and gun controls: and their numbers are growing.
The usual list of suspects from the President to Hillary Clinton and all the liberal crows on the cable news fence have once again begun expressing their outrage over that fact that nobody will take action to stop these shootings. But there are, of course, plans on both sides of the aisle which could actually alter the odds in terms of future mass killings, but nobody really wants to talk about them.
If we want to kick the conversation off in earnest, the first step is to ask those complaining the most loudly the same question which Charles C. W. Cooke posed to Mark Halperin yesterday, though it stymied Halperin completely: what do you propose to do about it?
The responses which Cooke received were filled with anger and bluster, but no plans were offered on the Morning Joe panel where the discussion took place. And yet, as I said at the top, there are already remedies being floated on both sides of the aisle which could make a significant difference, though they are as different as night and day.
From the liberal, gun grabbing side of the discussion there is one remedy which would – eventually – cut down on mass shootings. It involves eliminating all of the guns on the planet. Owing to the fact that the majority of Americans still value gun rights and view private gun ownership as a positive force in protecting themselves from evil, Democrats are loathe to say the words out loud, but that doesn’t mean that they wouldn’t like to see it happen. Unfortunately, the gun genie is out of the bottle. By removing all guns from existence you would certainly eliminate the threat of mass shootings. Sadly, the transition period would be ugly indeed because the first and easiest guns to confiscate would belong to law abiding owners. Rooting out all of the black market weapons would be a generational effort, leaving the lawful population in the position of being inviting, soft targets for criminals for decades. Then there is the inconvenient fact that guns aren’t only made in America. They are all over the world, and as long as there was a demand in the criminal marketplace the market would find a way to fill it.
On the conservative side of the shelf there are also solutions, albeit far from foolproof ones. Schools would be far less appealing as soft targets of opportunity if they were more dangerous for the would be mass shooter. Eliminating the so called “gun free zones” around campuses, installing armed guards and allowing qualified, trained students and faculty to arm themselves would make the job of people such as Mercer far more dicey.
I’m aware that the left is attempting to make hay out of the fact that there was one “good guy with a gun” on campus on the day of the shooting and he didn’t stop the slaughter. This isn’t even a data point in the discussion. The individual in question – a veteran who was carrying when the shooting took place – could have intervened if he’d chosen, but the fact is that he decided not to. It wasn’t his job to act as security guard and if he decided not to risk his life in a shootout with Mercer I’m not here to second guess him. That doesn’t mean that an armed guard or teacher couldn’t have shut the situation down quickly. And if Mercer had known that a lot more students were armed he might not have shown up at all.
This solution isn’t seriously addressed on a national level either. Democrats oppose it on principle and too many Republicans fear being labeled as “gun nuts” if they bring it up during an election season. So we are left with the “answer” put forward by both Mark Halperin and Mika Brzezinski when challenged by Charles C.W. Cooke: somebody needs to do something… but we just don’t know what it is.
Other than a bad guy encountering more armed good guys, I can’t think of a GUN law that would stop the bad guys.
Do away with "gun free" (target rich) zones!
Not even the Security Guard was armed. What kind of shooting gallery do these parents send their kids to?
My “solution” might be helpful.
Require all law abiding citizens to own a gun. If they can’t afford one, I might support gun welfare.
The mother has been airbrushed from this story. The fact that she is black has been suppressed in order to promote the “white supremacist” angle, and the fact that she apparently allowed her mentally unstable son to have an arsenal has not been questioned, even by gun opponents, perhaps because THAT might lead to the disclosure that she is black.
Primary solution, encourage people to turn back to God and the Bible as a guide for life and living. Secondary solution, what this writer says - concealed carry everywhere and arming of teachers, etc. where needed.
Tertiary solution, find a way to be able to find individuals who are unstable either on the record or off the record (public reporting) and make sure that where they live they have no access, limited access or controlled access to weapons. The public reporting would be rife with problems with many reporting someone they simply don't like as being unstable instead of reporting someone who actually might be a danger. That process would have to be refined.
DITTOS!
I think its patently obvious that high profile massacres have increased because of the coverage the perpetrator is guaranteed to get in the media: “Cable, Internet, political speeches etc.” These lunatics ultimately want attention and they feel powerless to get it any other way.
If Mika, and Morning Joe, and Stephanopolis really want mass shootings to stop, then they need to stop sensationalizing them for political advantage and ratings when they happen. In other words, run a scrawl on the bottom of the TV regarding what happened and leave it at that. That’s a solution that doesn’t need a Constitutional Amendment, involves very few people, and is in complete control of the people who say they are ‘so concerned about gun violence’. It won’t happen though.
Side note: Most mass murders are at that hands of 18-35 year old males. I truly think if these dudes would not do this sort of thing if they had better luck with the ladies. Seriously, a lonely dude who feels powerless to change his course and is a bit mentally unstable to begin with is a just a bad situation.
Women are more in control of their ‘personal life’ and rarely feel as powerless and hopeless as men regardless of their mental state. These nut jobs never have a girl friend and I don’t think it’s a coincidence because if they did, they wouldn’t feel so powerless. I don’t know what the answer is but, these are my thoughts.
Finally, I am trying to have a conversation. It doesn’t mean I’m right or that other ideas aren’t better...or worse. I’m just being conversational. Remember when we used to solve problems by talking like this? Either do I.
The left, the pervert alliance, Hollywood, and snarling liberals with their incessant attacks on white Christians, results in a mass murder by a Muslim affiliated half black and Barack Hussein Obama is shocked again and blames the weaponry. Time to remove all guns from politicians, judges, celebrities, the secret service, and their bodyguards to show us what a gun free zone is like.
Thanks for the tip! Beau is shopping for a Walther P38 for me. What’s not to love about a man who buys you weaponry? I’ll take that over diamonds and chocolate any day.
But I still want chocolates; I already have The Rock, LOL!
You are correct-—Gun free zones all to often become killing fields. I would never enter a “gun free zone” if I could help it.
You are on the trail....
Goes to show just how utterly corrupt the old media is and why people are sick of their lies and coverup for liberal behavior.
I’m with you on that! :)
He's in, 'Shaggy Hunter Mode' until Spring...but after that he cleans up nice, LOL!
In almost all of the mass shootings - and many shootings involving one or two victims - the killer was known by virtually everyone to have mental or emotional issues. So the object is to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill without using false allegations of mental illness as an excuse for taking guns away from virtually anyone.
So, obama should be arrested for inciting violence against Christians.
It's quite obvious, unless you're a godless Lefty.
From an e-mail I received recently:
Australian Gun Law Update;
Here’s a thought to warm some of your hearts....
From: Ed Chenel, A police officer in Australia
Hi Yanks, I thought you all would like to see the real
figures from Down Under. It has now been 12 months since gun owners in Australia were forced by a new law to surrender 640,381 personal firearms to be destroyed by our own
government, a program costing Australia taxpayers more than $500 million dollars.
The first year results are now in:
Australia-wide, homicides are up 6.2 percent,
Australia-wide, assaults are up 9.6 percent;
Australia-wide, armed robberies are up 44 percent (yes, 44 percent)!
In the state of Victoria.....alone, homicides with firearms are now up 300 percent.(Note that while the law-abiding citizens turned them in, the criminals did not and criminals still possess their guns!)
While figures over the previous 25 years showed a steady
decrease in armed robbery with firearms, this has changed drastically upward in the past 12 months, since the criminals now are guaranteed that their prey is unarmed.There has also been a dramatic increase in break-ins and assaults of the elderly, while the resident is at home.
Australian politicians are at a loss to explain how public safety has decreased, after such monumental effort and expense was expended in ‘successfully ridding Australian society of guns....’
You won’t see this on the American evening news or hear your governor or members of the State Assembly disseminating this information.
The Australian experience speaks for itself. Guns in the hands of honest citizens save lives and property and, yes, gun-control laws affect only the law-abiding citizens.
Take note Americans, before it’s too late!
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