Ideas for Gun Control

[deadeye74 5]

So after sifting through all kinds of headlines and social media posts, I have noticed that no one is writing or ranting about the idea of gun owner accountability.

 

There is one glaring issue with this whole tragedy that's fairly obvious. If the shooters mother had her firearms secured to prevent access by her mentally disturbed son, non of this may have happened. Is anyone here opposed to supporting legislation that holds accountable a gun owner who does not secure their weapons?

 

As responsible gun owners, we need to show the community that we are for responsibility and accountability. Hard core anti's will not settle for anything short of banning firearms no matter what, but perhaps we can reach more people in the middle if we push for better mental health checks and a law that holds a firearm owner accountable for allowing a prohibited persons access to guns.

 

Thoughts?

[Bully 749]

Kinda hard to hold someone accountable when they've been shot in the face, don't you think?

 

I'm all for looking at mental health reform since if less "mentally disturbed" people have access to firearms less tragedies will happen. That means the "anti's" will leave us/me alone. However, since this kid did nothing wrong (that's being reported) no amount of checking would have helped. I have my own feelings and thoughts on why there was no record of his mental health standing but I don't think it would be too intrusive for the state to question why someone was sent to a charter school or prescribed certaiin medications. But then you get into Dr./patient confidentiality. Also, we don't know the storage situation in that house(or is it just not being reported?). Did he threaten her for the numbers before he killed his own mother? Did he know where the auxilliary key was kept? Tough to tell.

 

And remember, the check system worked. Instead he chose to murder and steal before he murdered some more. I don't think any law will ever prevent tragedies on this level.

 

C

[EchoMirage 137]

how do you NOT know she had them locked up? how do you know he didnt threaten her with a knife for the combo/keys? how do you know he didnt just STEAL the keys or combo, kill his mother, then continue? you dont. so you have no right to blame the mother for anything.

 

the same glaring mistake and misinformation is being reported by every media/new station there is. none of them are reporting facts, just speculations and conjecture. the guns were all legal. there is a MUCH greater chance they were safely locked up then there is a chance of them just laying around fully loaded. the mother knew her son was unstable, and planned to have him committed. what better reason is there to keep them locked and secure. i wouldnt doubt for a second the truth is being withheld to further the gun grabbers agenda.

[JustJoe 0]

how do you NOT know she had them locked up?

 

 

This.

[Bully 749]

. the guns were all legal. .

 

No, They weren't. They were stolen. He murdered his mother and stole HER legally purchased firearms. That makes the firearms used in this illegally obtained. He tried to buy guns legally but was turned away/got impatient/didn't want to deal with the background checks. The system worked.

 

So, he murdered HIS OWN MOTHER and STOLE HER GUNS.

 

C

[bulpup 98]

how do you NOT know she had them locked up? how do you know he didnt threaten her with a knife for the combo/keys? how do you know he didnt just STEAL the keys or combo, kill his mother, then continue? you dont. so you have no right to blame the mother for anything.

 

Well for what it's worth it is now being reported that she was shot 4 times in bed while sleeping.

 

I would like to say that although there my be gaps in the facts we are given and straight up false information, the OP's question is a good one.

 

If you have a mentally ill person in your house wouldn't it be prudent to make it so they can't "find the keys" and kill you in your sleep?

 

I have posed the question before and everyone likes to skip it. Can we all ask ourselves if we have the balls to say a member of our family isn't right and I should take greater precautions or simply remove the firearms from the house?

 

 

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[EchoMirage 137]

yeah. i know. the point is the guns were ORIGINALLY legal, but his USE of them was illegal. did you not see that i said he STOLE HER GUNS in my post?? furthermore, my point was the media is NOT reporting the facts, and simply implying false assumptions and conjecture.

[ruger9 0]

 

 

I have posed the question before and everyone likes to skip it. Can we all ask ourselves if we have the balls to say a member of our family isn't right and I should take greater precautions or simply remove the firearms from the house?

 

 

Sure, I'll say that. But I won't support a LAW of that sort at all. BIG difference.

[deadeye74 5]

Well that's part of the problem. We need to know if they were locked up or not. I have several gun owners in my family, and I can tell you non of us give out keys or combinations to any of our safes/gun cabinets. Not even to wives, mothers, brothers, or sisters. Personally, if I were in a situation where I lived with someone with a mental disorder, I would do my best to prevent them from having access. My ex was manic depressive bipolar and did attempt suecide by taking pain meds. I did not own firearms at the time, in part because I knew of her condition. That was my personal choice as to how to deal with the situation to prevent her from shooting herself. At the time, I just bought my first house and my daughter was an infant so life for me did not allow the time to go to the range, etc. Again, this was my personal choice and not what I recommend everyone in that situation does to deal with it.

 

Without knowing the full story in CT, there is a huge question as to how he made access to the guns. We as gun owners have to face the reality that something is going to come out of this tragedy that will effect us all. I'm not saying we bow to restrictions, I'm saying we have to all be able to agree on something to bring to the table as an alternative to a ban on ownership of certain types of firearms.

 

Any ban or restriction is ridiculous. We all know that nothing is going to stop a crazy person from carrying out an act of destruction if that's what their goal is. We also need to realize that the people in the middle see two extremes. They see gun owning nuts with houses full of guns, and they see anti gunners that want the second amendment repealed. We need to reach the middle and show people that responsible firearms owners are not extremists out to overthrow the government or shoot everyone they see!

[EchoMirage 137]

Can we all ask ourselves if we have the balls to say a member of our family isn't right and I should take greater precautions or simply remove the firearms from the house?

 

 

if you remove your own legal guns from the house, you are giving up your freedoms and your rights. just as you have a right to own guns in this county, at least for now, you also have the right to not own them. but that is the citizens PERSONAL choice. but to ever have a law REQUIRING you to surrender all your guns just because someone in your house is unstable is where i draw the line.

 

as far as other precautions, what can you actually do to prevent a premeditated act like this. its the same argument used over and over...you CANT stop crazy. if someone snaps, for whatever reason, there is little to nothing you can do to stop them without directly intervening. the aurora shooter could have easily made homemade bombs and tossed them into the theater, killing far more then he did with guns. the guy in china just recently stabbed several school children with a knife.

[ruger9 0]

If the guns WERE locked in a safe, and the kid somehow found the key, or figured out the key code, or got the key from his mother somehow, I doubt you'll hear that on the news reports. So we'll probably never know.

 

A law requiring guns to be secured is folly anyway, because it's unenforceable.

[BleedingOrange36 0]

It was also stated that she was a prepper of some sort. I know from experience that most people that prep tend to try and save as much time as possible to be able to safely gather and go. What if this was the case with the guns? What if they were placed somewhere loaded to be easily accessible just Incase?

At the beginning of this I stated my concerns with the accessibility of the firearms. I always keep a pistol at the ready, but un-chambered. My long arms are all locked away, but still relatively easy for ME!! To gain access.

If loaded guns stored unsecured was what occurred, then I believe this is something that needs to be addressed.

[DevsAdvocate 112]

how do you NOT know she had them locked up? how do you know he didnt threaten her with a knife for the combo/keys? how do you know he didnt just STEAL the keys or combo, kill his mother, then continue? you dont. so you have no right to blame the mother for anything.

 

the same glaring mistake and misinformation is being reported by every media/new station there is. none of them are reporting facts, just speculations and conjecture. the guns were all legal. there is a MUCH greater chance they were safely locked up then there is a chance of them just laying around fully loaded. the mother knew her son was unstable, and planned to have him committed. what better reason is there to keep them locked and secure. i wouldnt doubt for a second the truth is being withheld to further the gun grabbers agenda.

 

 

Because he shot her in the head 4 times when she was asleep.

[bulpup 98]

Well that's part of the problem. We need to know if they were locked up or not. I have several gun owners in my family, and I can tell you non of us give out keys or combinations to any of our safes/gun cabinets. Not even to wives, mothers, brothers, or sisters. Personally, if I were in a situation where I lived with someone with a mental disorder, I would do my best to prevent them from having access. My ex was manic depressive bipolar and did attempt suecide by taking pain meds. I did not own firearms at the time, in part because I knew of her condition. That was my personal choice as to how to deal with the situation to prevent her from shooting herself. At the time, I just bought my first house and my daughter was an infant so life for me did not allow the time to go to the range, etc. Again, this was my personal choice and not what I recommend everyone in that situation does to deal with it.

 

Without knowing the full story in CT, there is a huge question as to how he made access to the guns.

 

 

I agree with all of this. When I first thougth about applying for a pistol permti in NYC I had co-incidentally started a relationship with a woman who I gradually found to be legitimately unstable. What her problem was I will never know but I stopped the process and took some time to think through what this person and and a gun in the house would be like. I couldn't do it. Rights or not, I didn't want to blindly walk into a situation where I am giving access to a person that the state would have denied or that I thought was irresponsible.

 

 

if you remove your own legal guns from the house, you are giving up your freedoms and your rights. just as you have a right to own guns in this county, at least for now, you also have the right to not own them. but that is the citizens PERSONAL choice. but to ever have a law REQUIRING you to surrender all your guns just because someone in your house is unstable is where i draw the line.

 

as far as other precautions, what can you actually do to prevent a premeditated act like this. its the same argument used over and over...you CANT stop crazy. if someone snaps, for whatever reason, there is little to nothing you can do to stop them without directly intervening. the aurora shooter could have easily made homemade bombs

 

Yes. True. But being an adult and a responsible gun owner has its own definitions. Take the idea of a law requiring it out of it. We have a person that likes and collects guns and takes their son out to bond at the shooting range. As he gets older there are signs of a disorder of some sort. Still, the time at the range is bonding time, and their little baby isn't violent, eerything will work out right?

 

You might think I am talking about this woman and her son, but I am talking about anyone here in this forum. We need to able to recognize and react to what hasn't happened yet, i.e., see the issue and make sure that our guns are not used in something like this.

 

The idea that someone just snapped, there were signs. You have to be looking. You don't have to look and see "wow, this guy might kill 20 kids" either.

 

All I am saying is, if you think there would be a time where you have to decide if you should shoot an intruder and that you can make that judgement call, you should very well be able to determine if your guns and the people you live witth should be together.

[PDM 91]

The OP's point about accountability is the first thing I thought of when I heard about this. I couldn't give a rat's a** whether this mother had the guns locked up or not. She shouldn't have owned them, period. With a seriously mentally ill person in the house, the risk of owning guns is just too great. As we all know, any safe can be broken into and there have been cases of family members cutting locks or otherwise obtaining secured firearms and using them to kill people. Nothing is 100% -- mental illness isn't always apparent and very rarely people do snap, and there is nothing we can do about that. But when a mother KNOWS that a child, or spouse, or elderly parent living in the home is seriously distrubed, DON"T OWN FIRGGIN GUNS! Although the Kellerman studies were utter BS, there clearly are circumstances in which where a gun in the home is in fact more likely to be used to kill a family member and others than to be used in self defense. This was one of those cases.

 

In my opinion, there should be a law that makes it a felony to possess any firearm when there is a person living in the home who has received and currently has a medical diagnosis of a serious mental illness (which can be defined -- bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, paranoia, severe depression, etc). While laws may not dissuade criminals, a law like this most certainly would dissuade a law abiding person with a mentally ill person in the home from owning a gun.

[ruger9 0]

In my opinion, there should be a law that makes it a felony to possess any firearm when there is a person living in the home who has received and currently has a medical diagnosis of a serious mental illness (which can be defined -- bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, paranoia, severe depression, etc). While laws may not dissuade criminals, a law like this most certainly would dissuade a law abiding person with a mentally ill person in the home from owning a gun.

 

You can't violate one person's constitutional rights because of what ANOTHER person MIGHT do. This isn't the Minority Report.

[Handyman 5,682]

Hindsight is 20-20. The only way that you know that someone is going to snap is after the fact, unfortunately. In some cases there might be previous sentinel episodes that raise concern, but everyone has a first episode. Maybe this was the first episode for this guy.

 

Further complicating things, it is pretty well established that changes to psych meds can lead to problems with impulse control.

[bulpup 98]

Hindsight is 20-20. The only way that you know that someone is going to snap is after the fact, unfortunately. In some cases there might be previous sentinel episodes that raise concern, but everyone has a first episode. Maybe this was the first episode for this guy.

 

Further complicating things, it is pretty well established that changes to psych meds can lead to problems with impulse control.

 

That kind of thinking actually plays into the anti's hands.

[PDM 91]

You can't violate one person's constitutional rights because of what ANOTHER person MIGHT do. This isn't the Minority Report.

 

That's BS. Under your logic, we couldn't bar a mentally ill person from owning a gun because they haven't done anything yet. They are barred because their owning a gun is an unacceptably high risk and they are presumed not to be able to responsibly exercise their consitutional right to keep and bear arms. This is the same thing. It isn't Minority Report -- it's limiting a right because of a specific, identifiable, high risk associated with the exercise of that right. We all know that no right is absolute, including the 2A right. There are categories of people that clearly be prohibited from owning guns, and that should include the category of someone who has a mentally ill person in the home.

[vladtepes 1,060]

I have said this several times over the past couple days... the problem is people getting guns that should not have them.... that IS a legitimate concern.... while the following would NOT have impacted this situation I believe it to be reasonable...

 

right now MANY states allow face to face gun sales (long guns).... in NJ we rely on the FID still being valid..... and the person having not become prohibited since issuance of the card.... as a law abiding gun owner...

 

I would support the following:

the discontinuance of ALL face to face sales.. I would support ALL sales to be done through a licensed dealer...

 

in exchange for:

the repealing of all the nonsense gun laws that do not make sense....

 

like I said.. would not have stopped what happened this time.... but would certainly do something about verifying that the individual is not a prohibited person..

[mcbethr 42]

I would support the following:

the discontinuance of ALL face to face sales.. I would support ALL sales to be done through a licensed dealer...

 

Here's the problem, and I've mentioned this before. There are still some areas of the country where a gun is a farm tool.

There are still areas of the country where a rancher will give a rifle to a farmhand and tell him that it's his turn to shoot prairie dogs that day. Or where a guy working for a grain elevator carriers a .22 revolver to kill the mice in the grain silo. Pigs are still slaughtered with .22LR rifles. We would need some sort of provision to allow workplace-related temporary firearms transfers.

 

I wouldn't mind calling NICS for a genuine face to face sale, though.

 

What I don't like is that this "dialog" about gun control seems to mean, we listen while the gun banners tell use what we think. In a compromise we get something and they get something. They seem to think "dialog" means "talk at us."

[DevsAdvocate 112]

I have said this several times over the past couple days... the problem is people getting guns that should not have them.... that IS a legitimate concern.... while the following would NOT have impacted this situation I believe it to be reasonable...

 

right now MANY states allow face to face gun sales (long guns).... in NJ we rely on the FID still being valid..... and the person having not become prohibited since issuance of the card.... as a law abiding gun owner...

 

I would support the following:

the discontinuance of ALL face to face sales.. I would support ALL sales to be done through a licensed dealer...

 

in exchange for:

the repealing of all the nonsense gun laws that do not make sense....

 

like I said.. would not have stopped what happened this time.... but would certainly do something about verifying that the individual is not a prohibited person..

 

I wouldn't support that. I would support opening NICS to everyone for FREE so FtF transfers can be done without the potential of providing a gun to someone who isn't allowed to have one.

[KramD52 0]

Herein lies part of the problem. We, as pro gun advocates, cant even agree among ourselves as to what would constitute reasonable alternatives to an outright ban. This is where the anti's have us cold. They are ALL behind an outright ban on so called "assault" weapons.......quick and clean with one fell swoop. I'm seriously hoping the pro gun politicians will have the stomach to stand up against the anti's considering the heinous nature of the incident that got this proverbial ball rolling.

[vladtepes 1,060]

I wouldn't support that. I would support opening NICS to everyone for FREE so FtF transfers can be done without the potential of providing a gun to someone who isn't allowed to have one.

 

I do not think it is reasonable to allow you access to my potential criminal history...

if you can't afford to spend a few bucks to transfer a gun.. you should reconsider that $800 rifle purchase....

 

people are angry about guns.. and they WILL be looking to make laws... I think it far more beneficial to offer up changes that MAY actually help keep guns out of the hands of criminals... as opposed to laws that are ridiculous and useless...

 

having a check on EVERY gun sale is the only way to verify a non prohibited person... CCW licenses expire.. FIDs are revoked...

 

a dealer would also have the means to manage those transactions better than an individual

[mattio41 0]

maybe a 3 hour safety course with this guy??

 

[raz-0 1,259]

I have posed the question before and everyone likes to skip it. Can we all ask ourselves if we have the balls to say a member of our family isn't right and I should take greater precautions or simply remove the firearms from the house?

 

Do I think you have a responsibility as a gun owner to take that into consideration? Definitely. IMO as a gun owner, your firearms should be under your immediate control, or locked up. By immediate control, I mean that you are capable of interfering in anyone messing with your gun in less time than it would take to make it ready to fire. However, I do not see any meaningful way to legislate that that is actually done. In the case of having a mentally ill person in your home, even locked up may not be sufficient if the person with an issue could have unsupervised access to the safe for durations long enough to compromise it.

[DirtyDigz 1,812]

I do not think it is reasonable to allow you access to my potential criminal history... ...

 

In my vision of the "F2F NICS check", I don't see detailed rap sheet reports being supplied. Just either a "purchaser/seller clear to possess firearms" or "purchaser/seller prohibited" is the only response. Could be criminal, could be mental, could be substance abuse, neither party knows the details of the other.

[BlueLineFish 615]

 

In my vision of the "F2F NICS check", I don't see detailed rap sheet reports being supplied. Just either a "purchaser/seller clear to possess firearms" or "purchaser/seller prohibited" is the only response. Could be criminal, could be mental, could be substance abuse, neither party knows the details.

 

True. Seller has an Id and buyer does. If they are clear the NICS authorizes the transaction and gives a number which goes on a COE. No personal info is given.

[vladtepes 1,060]

that might work... but in fairness to the crazy anti gun crowd.. face to face sales ARE definitely kind of sketchy... it is crazy that even in a super anti gun state like NJ I can buy an AR15 at a rest stop with just a "FID card" that may or may not still be valid.. OR may be stolen all together..

[TheLugNutZ 21]

Herein lies part of the problem. We, as pro gun advocates, cant even agree among ourselves as to what would constitute reasonable alternatives to an outright ban. This is where the anti's have us cold. They are ALL behind an outright ban on so called "assault" weapons.......quick and clean with one fell swoop. I'm seriously hoping the pro gun politicians will have the stomach to stand up against the anti's considering the heinous nature of the incident that got this proverbial ball rolling.

 

Good point. There is def going to have to be some sort of compromise here. We as gun owners need to come up with something to possibly help the situation without giving up our rights completely.

 

Requiring firearms to be locked when not on someones person may be a step in the right direction. Yes, it MAY not actually prevent anything, same with a new AWB, but at least its not stripping us of something and it makes people feel a little better.

 

NCIS for every transaction is also another good idea. Yes its a trade off, we have to use an FFL, cost and inconvenience, but its better than more restrictions or worse.