Orlando Gay Night Club Shooting

[iacas]

45 minutes ago, drmevo said:

Maybe in NY and other states, but none of that is regulated in NH as far as I know. Here you could get 100-round drum magazines if you wanted.  The only regulations are whatever comes down from ATF.

I don't want to get too OT on the police stuff, that wasn't really my point (there are a lot of departments that have AR-15-style weapons, though).  Point is, why aren't they using a rifle like in your picture if they're so similar?  The M4 is a variant of the modern type of platform we're discussing, so I think my point still stands.

An AR-15 is not that special.

My hunting rifles were more powerful. I used to kill groundhogs in the fields of a local farmer with a more powerful weapon than an AR-15. They were available as semi-automatic with a clip, though like most hunters, a bolt action rifle is a bit more accurate. The AR-15 or similar guns have some tactical advantages, but none of them really affect the lethality or anything else.

It's incredibly easy to make a clip hold however many rounds you want. Clips are really, really inexpensive, and take very little time to change out. A skilled shooter can drop and replace a clip in a few seconds.

[drmevo]

20 minutes ago, iacas said:

An AR-15 is not that special.

My hunting rifles were more powerful. I used to kill groundhogs in the fields of a local farmer with a more powerful weapon than an AR-15. They were available as semi-automatic with a clip, though like most hunters, a bolt action rifle is a bit more accurate. The AR-15 or similar guns have some tactical advantages, but none of them really affect the lethality or anything else.

It's incredibly easy to make a clip hold however many rounds you want. Clips are really, really inexpensive, and take very little time to change out. A skilled shooter can drop and replace a clip in a few seconds.

Yeah, I get all that about caliber, etc., I have rifles and hunt as well.  If magazines (sorry to be that douche) can be swapped so easily, why the big fuss about them having really high capacity? I have some hi-cap mags but I never load them with more than 8 or 10 rounds - can't really see why someone would want or need to.

Edited June 17, 2016 by drmevo

[Lihu]

2 hours ago, drmevo said:

Yeah, I get all that about caliber, etc., I have rifles and hunt as well.  If magazines (sorry to be that douche) can be swapped so easily, why the big fuss about them having really high capacity? I have some hi-cap mags but I never load them with more than 8 or 10 rounds - can't really see why someone would want or need to.

It's easier to carry 3-30 round clips instead of 10-10 round clips***.

All of the clips sold here are 10, but most are full length so you just need to take out a stop to make them 30. The reason they make them that way is that it's easier to remove the magazine from the gun because you can get a full grip on them. The shorter 10 round clips are so short you can only get a couple fingers on them to remove them.

***Many vests can carry 8 to 12 full clips anyway, if you double up on each compartment.

[Mr. Desmond]

6 hours ago, newtogolf said:

11% of mass shootings use "Assault Rifles".  We all know the problem isn't the gun it's the people but we don't want to address the mentally ill and radicals in this country that want to do harm to others.  

I think that is the same old tired refrain -- if it's 11%, why not attempt to reduce the percentage? What if your child was killed in CT? Would you feel the same way? Be sincere.

Sure, people are the problem. But from my reading, when you limit certain weapons, less people are killed by those weapons. Australia decided to do something. Do they have issues? Are they not a threat to terrorists?

I challenge you to think outside the box instead of repeating tired refrains.

 

[14ledo81]

I heard an interesting analogy the other day.

 "Trying to stop mass shootings by banning AR-15's would be like trying to stop drunk driving by banning Scotch"

[uitar9]

11 hours ago, newtogolf said:

This rifle fires the same rounds as the AR-15, mechanically it's the same rifle, but doesn't look as scary.  If the Orlando shooter used this gun, the press wouldn't have likely identified it as an AR-15 or "Assault Rifle".  

The Orlando shooter didn't use an AR-15 but he did also use a 9mm handgun with 17 round magazines, but I've hardly read anything about banning 9mm handguns.  

Most mass shootings are not done with AR-15's or as the media calls them "Assault Rifles", in fact only 11% total (15 mass shootings out of 133 total in last 7 years), you only hear about these because the press and democrats are pushing to ban them.  

I spoke to a police officer today who is against any additional gun laws, his response to me was, the only thing that stops these mass shooters from shooting more people is other people with guns.  

When I was younger, our police force didn't carry guns-the bad guys didn't have them. Bad guys now have access to a lot of firepower. 

I don't want to limit anyones rights to hunt or protect them selves so maybe eliminating the access to guns of any kind for non military use and replacing that with the bow and arrow satisfies both sides. 

The hunter can still hunt, you can still protect yourself and the nutter (radical extremist or other) can still try the mass killing (he's going to do it regardless) but there will be less loss of life.

The world has become a small place. We really need to reset because the nutters aren't going away. This is a perfect example of where these stories go-it becomes a gun story or it becomes a sexual preference story

To me, its a nutter storey.

That loss of life in Orlando was a terrible tragedy. 

[xcott]

13 hours ago, Gunther said:

We've established it's no different than a .223 semi-auto used to hunt woodchucks and shit, other than its looks.

No we haven't. The rate of fire and capacity of bullets is key. What it looks like is irrelevant. Comparing this to a bolt action is not the same. 

4 hours ago, Mr. Desmond said:

We all know the problem isn't the gun it's the people but we don't want to address the mentally ill and radicals in this country that want to do harm to others.

The mentally ill with a koosh ball are just as dangerous, right?

1 hour ago, 14ledo81 said:

 "Trying to stop mass shootings by banning AR-15's would be like trying to stop drunk driving by banning Scotch"

Exactly, which is why we need to ban all assault weapons, not just one brand. 

[xcott]

Hard to find my way with all of these straw men running around here. 

[newtogolf]

5 hours ago, Mr. Desmond said:

I think that is the same old tired refrain -- if it's 11%, why not attempt to reduce the percentage? What if your child was killed in CT? Would you feel the same way? Be sincere.

Sure, people are the problem. But from my reading, when you limit certain weapons, less people are killed by those weapons. Australia decided to do something. Do they have issues? Are they not a threat to terrorists?

I challenge you to think outside the box instead of repeating tired refrains.

 

They are "tired refrains" because you don't support them.  Our country isn't good at "banning" things, prohibition was a complete failure, as is the drug war.  Banning only creates a black market for these items which ensures only the bad guys have them.    

There are plenty of laws on the books that need to be enforced before you're going to get gun owners to give up any more rights.   Rather than placing blame on the inanimate object, how about we force people to be accountable, I know that isn't the popular thought process these days.  Why don't anti-gun people support automatic death penalty for anyone using a gun to commit a violent crime?  

Mental illness is the root cause of these problems, not AR-15's.  If you want to really stop mass shootings lets hold the mentally ill individuals and their care takers responsible for their actions or lack of actions.    

Drunk driving causing more injuries and fatalities than AR-15 rifles, yet we continue to freely sell cars to drunks, allow DWI offenders to drive and loved ones knowingly still watch drunks get behind the wheel.  When they kill someone or themselves we all talk about what a tragedy it was.  It wasn't a tragedy, it was an avoidable situation but no one cared enough to prevent it, the same is true for these shootings.   

The CT shooter was mentally ill and lived in a home where his mother had an wide array of guns that were not properly secured.  My guess is she bought the guns for her kid to play with, but we'll never know.  This enabling mentality needs to stop.  People need to stop being told if you have a mentally ill child you should treat them like any other child, just pop a few pills down their throat.  If you have a mentally ill child or spouse you have a responsibility to society to make sure that person doesn't harm society.  The wife and father of the Orlando shooter should be in jail as an accomplice given she didn't report him to police.

There were numerous flags that within the current legal system should have prevented the Orlando shooter from purchasing a gun.  He was investigated twice by the FBI, he was reported by one gun store owner of trying to purchase body armor and a large amount of ammo.  The government failed to do their job, but rather than take responsibility for it, they would prefer to ban guns but ultimately that's been their agenda for the last 8 years. 

1 hour ago, uitar9 said:

When I was younger, our police force didn't carry guns-the bad guys didn't have them. Bad guys now have access to a lot of firepower. 

I don't want to limit anyones rights to hunt or protect them selves so maybe eliminating the access to guns of any kind for non military use and replacing that with the bow and arrow satisfies both sides. 

The hunter can still hunt, you can still protect yourself and the nutter (radical extremist or other) can still try the mass killing (he's going to do it regardless) but there will be less loss of life.

The world has become a small place. We really need to reset because the nutters aren't going away. This is a perfect example of where these stories go-it becomes a gun story or it becomes a sexual preference story

To me, its a nutter storey.

That loss of life in Orlando was a terrible tragedy. 

Bow and arrow does not replace guns.  If you've hunted with both you'd know that.  It also doesn't replace target practice and competitions that use guns.  

Australia still has guns, it's just that they are used mostly by bad guys to kill bad guys like it is in Chicago.  It doesn't get much attention like it doesn't in Chicago because no one really cares with one gang member kills another.  Australia also never had the gun proliferation the US does, nor was gun ownership part of their Constitution so the task of "banning" them easier.  

[boogielicious]

2 hours ago, 14ledo81 said:

I heard an interesting analogy the other day.

 "Trying to stop mass shootings by banning AR-15's would be like trying to stop drunk driving by banning Scotch"

You need a license and training to drive a car. There are severe penalties for violating the law when driving a car. You can lose your license if you misbehave driving a car. What happens when people accidentally shoot someone? In some states, they are not restricted from continuing to own a firearm and not even prosecuted. Why is that? Both can kill people. If I do that in a car, I can lose my license. Yet in Florida, I can buy a rifle without any license or any training. That is what I find baffling.

No where is the 2nd Amendment does is say we can't required training. And with training, we may be able to spot people who are not mentally prepared or competent to own a firearm. It could be a great screening tool. And yet there is resistance to that as well. Again baffling.

[Lihu]

You anti gun people are completely off base. The shooter's profession required him to own weapons.

No matter how much you restrict everybody else from owning a gun, he would have still had the same weapons.

Net effect of gun bans for law abiding citizens is zero for this tragedy. NO EFFECT.

[boogielicious]

Sandy Hook

Aurora

Columbine

Charleston

Arizona

Were these all professional @Lihu whose job required them to own firearms?

Why is it you cannot fathom any amount of required training or licenses? You need a license to fish! 

[Gunther]

25 minutes ago, boogielicious said:

You need a license and training to drive a car. There are severe penalties for violating the law when driving a car. You can lose your license if you misbehave driving a car. What happens when people accidentally shoot someone? In some states, they are not restricted from continuing to own a firearm and not even prosecuted. Why is that? Both can kill people. If I do that in a car, I can lose my license. Yet in Florida, I can buy a rifle without any license or any training. That is what I find baffling.

No where is the 2nd Amendment does is say we can't required training. And with training, we may be able to spot people who are not mentally prepared or competent to own a firearm. It could be a great screening tool. And yet there is resistance to that as well. Again baffling.

The vast majority of gun owners have had some type of training.  CCL holders, I believe in every state, are required to take a training class.  Most states also require a gun safety class prior to issuing a hunting license.  This shooter had, I presume, tons of training given the nature of his job.

Once again, this is not the answer.  As I indicated earlier, I don't have the answer, no one does because there are too many fkd up people in the world.  

[xcott]

39 minutes ago, newtogolf said:

Why don't anti-gun people support automatic death penalty for anyone using a gun to commit a violent crime?

1. death penalty costs more for the state than life in prison

2. I don't like the idea of killing any humans

33 minutes ago, Lihu said:

You anti gun people are completely off base. The shooter's profession required him to own weapons.

No matter how much you restrict everybody else from owning a gun, he would have still had the same weapons.

Net effect of gun bans for law abiding citizens is zero for this tragedy. NO EFFECT.

It's a bad premise that his profession should require him to own a weapon. 

 

I'm interested in how the australia example is NO EFFECT.

[baller7345]

31 minutes ago, Lihu said:

You anti gun people are completely off base. The shooter's profession required him to own weapons.

No matter how much you restrict everybody else from owning a gun, he would have still had the same weapons.

Net effect of gun bans for law abiding citizens is zero for this tragedy. NO EFFECT.

Banning guns or introducing new gun control laws aren't necessarily just about the the current tragedy.  It may not have had any effect on this case, but it could stop a similar event from happening that doesn't follow the exact circumstances that this one does.  I don't think anybody is conceited enough to think that some new legislation will completely solve mass shootings, or gun violence in general (well actually there probably are people that do), but if tighter restrictions on what kind of gun can be owned or who it can be owned by as well as closing some loopholes in our current laws stops future events then it's worth it.

[Lihu]

Unfortunately, people own and or could procure guns. There's no going back to the 15th century. Banning guns is nearly impossible. I demonstrated this in several posts.

The topic is this shooting incident and how it could have been avoided. Banning guns would not have avoided it.

Could other incidents have been avoided? Possibly, but not likely. The weapon of choice would have been different, but the outcome would likely be the same in those incidents. Perpetrators would have just found softer targets for whatever weapon they could access.  A person with that much drive, hatred and mental illness could learn to use a Katana, for instance, to intermediate level and still kill the same number of people.

The issue with gun control is it is ineffective against mental illness which is the root cause of all these incidents.

[saevel25]

13 minutes ago, newtogolf said:

There are plenty of laws on the books that need to be enforced before you're going to get gun owners to give up any more rights.   Rather than placing blame on the inanimate object, how about we force people to be accountable, I know that isn't the popular thought process these days.  

Accountability does not matter when these people typically commit suicide or look to be shot by the police. They don't want accountability. 

14 minutes ago, newtogolf said:

Mental illness is the root cause of these problems, not AR-15's.  If you want to really stop mass shootings lets hold the mentally ill individuals and their care takers responsible for their actions or lack of actions.    

When you criminalize the people who are trying their best to help these people then all you do is hurt the situation. 

In the end its extremely hard to identify if a mentally ill person will commit a crime. Holmes, the shooter in Colorado, was seeing a professional psychiatrist. From her sessions with the guy, she didn't see him to be at risk of committing that crime. 

Also, Psychiatrists already have a legal obligation to inform the authorities of a threat anyways. 

35 minutes ago, newtogolf said:

This enabling mentality needs to stop.  People need to stop being told if you have a mentally ill child you should treat them like any other child, just pop a few pills down their throat. 

There is no link between any level of autism and planned violence. 

Does it take extra effort to care for an autistic child, yes. My brother is autistic. He's is on of the kindest souls I know. We give him great leeway to do a lot of stuff normal people can do. My mom has dedicated her life to work with autistic people so they can function normally as possible in the real world, so people in this world do not take advantage of Autistic people who want to function in this world. You can take pill popping mentality and shove it. That is some ****ed up logic there Joe. 

14 minutes ago, Gunther said:

The vast majority of gun owners have had some type of training.  CCL holders, I believe in every state, are required to take a training class.  Most states also require a gun safety class prior to issuing a hunting license.  This shooter had, I presume, tons of training given the nature of his job.

A lot of those classes are half a day, pay your money, shoot a few rounds, and walk out with a piece of paper. I wouldn't classify that as legitimate training. The responsible people are those who spend time honing their skills using the gun and learn how to defuse the situation before the need for the gun is required. 

 

[jgreen85]

14 hours ago, iacas said:

And what about legitimate reasons to own guns? My family hunted.

find a new hobby? Lots of changes in the constitution b/c the greater good was served by said change. I'm sure certain people owners didn't want to have to start working.