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Shooting Rampage at Santa Monica College, Wheels up NRA

 
 
oralloy
 
  -2  
Reply Sat 8 Jun, 2013 04:40 pm
@Lustig Andrei,
Lustig Andrei wrote:
oralloy wrote:
Lustig Andrei wrote:
Daydream much, oralloy?

Not sure. I've never really thought about it. Perhaps some.
But the fact that I do not share in your denial of reality does not mean that I am daydreaming.

I can just imagine the SCOTUS ruling in the near future that it's legal to walk across, say, Times Square, with an AR-1 slung over my shoulder and a .44 magnum in my belt. Sure.
See, I have a good and vivid imagination, too.

The ruling is coming, and you know it.

Local jurisdictions might be allowed to mandate either open carry or concealed carry if they have a preference between the two, so perhaps if NYC prefers concealed carry you would not be allowed to carry openly according to your description. But widespread carrying of guns will indeed be coming to the heart of NYC.
0 Replies
 
izzythepush
 
  1  
Reply Sun 9 Jun, 2013 04:12 am
@mysteryman,
mysteryman wrote:
I remember in high school almost everyone had a gun rack in the window of their pickup trucks, and there was a shotgun or a rifle on every rack.
We didn't worry about getting shot, we didn't worry about people going crazy, and we were safe in our schools.


I imagine there are still children living in America whose experience is the same as yours was. Are you sure it was safer in your day, or were you just less aware of what was going on elsewhere? With instant access to news there is much greater awareness.

When I was a kid I would wander alone in the woods for hours, but I would never have let my kids do anything like that. I don't think it's because there's more child abductors around now than there was then, but that we're more aware of it.
Foofie
 
  1  
Reply Mon 10 Jun, 2013 05:30 pm
@izzythepush,
izzythepush wrote:

...When I was a kid I would wander alone in the woods for hours...


The background music to this scene would definitely be Peter and the Wolf, in my opinion.
0 Replies
 
Finn dAbuzz
 
  1  
Reply Mon 10 Jun, 2013 05:52 pm
@glitterbag,
glitterbag wrote:

Yes, just turned on the TV and there it is. I don't know how much longer my fellow citizens can claim the second amendment was intended for this purpose.


Virtually none of your fellow citizens are claiming the 2nd Amendment was intended to facilitate homicidal rampages.

0 Replies
 
Finn dAbuzz
 
  1  
Reply Mon 10 Jun, 2013 05:54 pm
@glitterbag,
glitterbag wrote:

I'm taking a wild ass guess they were either purchased illegally, or smuggled in. California also has laws against murder, and yet here we go again.


And so the strictest of gun laws would not have prevented this, just like laws against murder don't stop people from killing one another.
firefly
 
  1  
Reply Thu 13 Jun, 2013 12:56 pm
@izzythepush,
Quote:
I imagine there are still children living in America whose experience is the same as yours was. Are you sure it was safer in your day, or were you just less aware of what was going on elsewhere? With instant access to news there is much greater awareness

That's true, we are made more aware now. But I think it's also true that serious, violent crime by juveniles has increased--that's one reason that more of them are being tried, and sentenced, as adults in this country. And juveniles have also carried out more mass killings in schools than was previously the case. So, I think children are both less safe in schools now, and we are more aware of all kinds of crimes involving children, as either perpetrators or victims.

I'm not sure that crimes of the following sort were at all frequent, or even occurred, when I was growing up...

A few weeks ago, a student was arrested for planning to blow up his high school.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/25/grant-acord-bomb_n_3337706.html

And earlier this year, two 5th graders were arrested for planning to kill a classmate.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/14/justice/washington-school-murder-plot

I think mystery man is correct in what he said:
Quote:
we didn't worry about people going crazy, and we were safe in our schools


The times have changed in all sorts of ways. I think we are less safe in certain areas, like our schools, and even our movie theaters, because we have more kids and young adults, with access to lethal weapons of mass destruction, "going crazy" and killing people, and we're also made more aware of that now.
0 Replies
 
firefly
 
  1  
Reply Thu 13 Jun, 2013 01:48 pm
@Finn dAbuzz,
Quote:
And so the strictest of gun laws would not have prevented this, just like laws against murder don't stop people from killing one another.

I'm sure even murder laws have some deterrent effect, even though they don't completely stop people from killing each other.

You can exercise some control over point of sale (internet vs in-person licensed gun dealers), amounts of ammo purchased at one time, size of magazine clips, and the use of background checks, etc.. This man had a past psych history, and he was toting 1300 rounds of ammo.

The laws already in place didn't stop him from violating those laws. That doesn't mean they aren't deterring other people, or that additional safeguards/controls wouldn't help to have more of a deterrent effect.
Quote:
latimes.com
Santa Monica shooter's rifle appears to have been pieced together

Authorities said the semiautomatic weapon that John Zawahri used in last week's fatal attacks was assembled from various parts, possibly to skirt California law.

By Andrew Blankstein and Matt Stevens, Los Angeles Times
June 12, 2013

The semiautomatic weapon used in the Santa Monica shooting rampage appears to have been put together from various parts, possibly in an attempt to circumvent the state's restrictions on such guns, law enforcement sources said Wednesday.

While certain types of AR-15-style rifles are banned in California, it's legal to purchase parts that can be used to assemble and customize the guns. Santa Monica police have said John Zawahri, 23, used an AR-15-style gun during the attack and was also carrying a .44-caliber handgun.

The sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the case was ongoing, said detectives are still trying to figure out how the gun was put together and whether Zawahri obtained it whole or assembled it himself.

Zawahri killed five people last Friday in an attack that started at his father's home and ended at Santa Monica College, where police fatally wounded him in the school's library.

Sources said Wednesday that Zawahri fired about 100 rounds during the rampage, which lasted about 10 minutes. He fired at passing cars, a bus, pedestrians as well as police. Authorities have said he had access to more than 1,300 rounds of ammunition.

Santa Monica Police Department investigators, working with the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the California Department of Justice, are now trying to trace where the parts came from.

Zawahri's rifle appeared to be modified so it could fire more rounds, the sources said. Police said he had 40 magazines capable of holding 30 rounds each during the rampage.

California outlaws the commerce of AR-15 weapons that have certain features, including a detachable magazine, which allows sustained firing. Other features include folding telescopic or detachable stocks or a threaded barrel.

Purchase, sale and transfer of high-capacity magazines is illegal, but currently possession of the items is not.

Experts say that buying a legal, already assembled AR-15, and then taking it apart and rebuilding it to custom specifications is common.

The concern, said Garen Wintemute, director of the UC Davis Violence Prevention Research Program, is that some people buy an unfinished AR-15 base receiver and then build out the weapon without ever registering it.

"People who really push the envelope on the law like to play with the question, 'How finished does that lower receiver have to be to be considered a firearm?' " he said. "There's a point at which it is just a block of steel."

Anti-gun advocates have been raising alarms about illegal weapons that were put together with legally obtainable parts.

The AR-15 rifle was the type of gun used by shooters in an Aurora, Colo., movie theater shooting and at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. It's unclear how exactly those rifles were modified.

In the wake of Newtown, the California Legislature is considering a string of new gun-control bills. One proposal would ban the possession of high-capacity magazines. Another would outlaw future sale, manufacture, transfer and possession of semiautomatic rifles that accept detachable magazines.

Police are trying to determine a motive for the violence. Sources have said Zawahri suffered from mental problems and struggled with the divorce of his parents.

In 2006, an English teacher at Olympic High School in Santa Monica said he saw Zawahri surfing the Internet for assault weapons. Alarmed, he sent Zawahri to the principal's office. Within days, the police were involved and Zawahri was admitted to UCLA's psychiatric ward.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-santa-monica-gun-20130613,0,1511956.story


This man was a ticking time bomb. But it was too easy for him to get his hands on the lethal means that enabled him to carry out his violent fantasies. Maybe we can make it a little harder for the next nutty guy to do that.
JTT
 
  0  
Reply Tue 25 Jun, 2013 02:23 pm
@firefly,
Only two pages, not much wailing and gnashing of teeth - this is becoming so mundane to y'all, it's "nothing to see here folks, hey, isn't Johnny having a barbeecue".
0 Replies
 
oralloy
 
  -2  
Reply Tue 25 Jun, 2013 05:43 pm
@firefly,
firefly wrote:
it was too easy for him to get his hands on the lethal means that enabled him to carry out his violent fantasies. Maybe we can make it a little harder for the next nutty guy to do that.

Your plot to damage our Constitution has been defeated. Except for the political repercussions, it's over.

Pretty nice political repercussions though. 100% of the political capital that Obama gained from his reelection has been expended in a childish tantrum against the NRA, and now he has nothing left with which to achieve anything in his second term.

Obama might get immigration reform, but if so, only because the Republicans want it even more than he does. Other than that, Obama no longer has any prospects for getting a single thing enacted into law.

And after four years of a do-nothing presidency, the voters are going to be more than ready to put a Republican back in the White House come 2016.

And this is all existing damage. If the Democrats are fool enough to make yet another assault on the Constitution, they'll make it even worse for themselves come election day.
JTT
 
  1  
Reply Tue 25 Jun, 2013 05:48 pm
@oralloy,
With all that's going on, it's amazing that all you seemed concerned about is stroking your little wankers, Oralboy.
0 Replies
 
 

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