The Battle of Athens (2 AUGUST 1946)

[Panther Al]

Speaking as a former Class 3 firearms dealer, my view is always going to wind up Pro-Gun.

That being said, the main issue with the talk on bans is that they never work: Columbine happened during the previous ban after all, and look how well that worked out. And do recall, the same political forces behind a new ban was behind prohibition. Once more, look how that turned out.

The NRA is getting a lot of hate for the recommendation they offered: myself, I am not a 100% sure its a good idea. But at least they are offering an idea thats new, and offering up things that may need looking at.

Is violence in games, tv, music, and movies the root problem? Of course not. Do they have a part in it? Sure. Just as I never took any of my collection of fully automatic silenced weapons and shot some place up, nor will your typical listener of Gangsta Rap, Call of Duty player, or Pulp Fiction fan - but its pretty safe to say they do play a small role - availability of weapons for the one position and then as well so does the role models that popular culture lionises. When you grow up in a place where the local hero's are guys that rob, shoot, and steal, it will have an effect.

But lets look at the argument that no one needs a 30rd magazine. How will not having those prevent anything? How will not having a particular style of firearm prevent anything, when all that will happen is the bad guys will find some other tool to use?

If you want to ban 30rd mags because no one needs them, then lets ban cars. After all, more kids have been killed by cars doing more than the speed limit than has ever been killed by firearms of any type. So lets ban cars that go faster then 55. Of course, if you suggest this, you'll get rightfully laughed at. But the point is valid.

The left will always do a knee jerk reaction based on "Government Knows Best, and Lets Make a New Law". Sometimes, thats the right answer.

Not this time.

This time the existing laws worked.

Lets look at the Oregon Mall Shooting. The press says the shooter shot himself. What they don't say is what was going on around him. A concealed carry permit holder was drawing down on him, and the shooter, for whatever reason that no one will ever know, decided to turn his gun on himself. If that civilian did not pull on him, I think it would be safe to say that more would have died.

In the case of Newtown, the shooter - and I refuse to mention the names of those that do these crimes as to give my bit to make sure no one will ever remember who he was, after all, in most cases a desire to make a name for themselves to be remembered by is one of the reasons they do this - attempted a few months ago to purchase a firearm. He was turned down because Connecticut has a very strong permitting process that saw his mental health issues and turned him down. Then, you have the fact that his mother was about to have him committed - this is probably what sparked things - because she saw that he needed the help. His mother, who owned the guns purchased them in a State that has very strict gun laws - which means she was someone no one would have to worry about. To get those guns, he had to kill her in her sleep, and then steal them. Something we all agree is unlawful. He then went to a school, a school that according to law, is a gun free zone. Odd, the law was ignored by a bad guy? Who would have ever thought that a bad guy will ignore the law?

Every step of this tragedy was done by a person who broke the law in *every* step of the process. Nothing he did, nothing at all, was permitted by law.

So how does making new laws going to help?

Ban AR15's?

They was at Columbine. The bad guys there used 22's.

Ban High Cap Mags? Ak's? Assualt Weapons in general?

Hollywood Shootout.

Yep. Those laws worked fine.



So lets forget new laws that will be ignored.

Lets focus instead on prevention. Lets take a look at what we can do to prevent people, not items, to go down this dark path. Lets fix the People that commit these crimes. Lets bring back personal responsibility. Lets all stop looking for something else to blame things on, be it another person, an organisation, or an inanimate object and accept that in the end...

We have met the Enemy.

And He is Us.