Edited: easier to buy guns than vegetables?

[Ghost]

This is amazing. Despite the terrorist shooter being explicitly clear that he is a white supremacist who wanted to start a race war, these asshats can't tell the shooting was about race.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyat ... shootings/

[Nodack]

Nodack , that article you posted from Natural News is sheer trash. That site is full to the breaking point with awful science and conspiracy theories. I skimmed it anyway and was not disappointed, as it describes a full-fledged conspiracy of murdering anyone "they" consider a threat. I know you make a point of trying to consider all sides in an argument, but the lunatic fringe does not deserve equal time.

Maybe the site I chose to post was trash, but if you Google it, dozens of different links pop up from all kinds of media sources stating the same thing. I guess my point is that there are a lot forces at work with a guy that goes off the deep end. The drug angle is just a small one. Some people are prescribed the drug that many claim makes people violent. The drug is prescribed to ween people off of hard drugs. Some people claim that people coming off of hard drugs become irritable and violent with or without the drug. I am not blaming the drug for this guy going ballistic. I am just pointing out that it may or might not be a catalyst or straw that broke the camels back.

http://www.ibtimes.com/what-drugs-was-d ... er-1973919
http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/19/health/suboxone/
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/19/us/on ... .html?_r=0
http://www.esbtrib.com/2015/06/20/17708 ... -suboxone/
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/charleston- ... -suboxone/
http://www.inquisitr.com/2183814/suboxo ... page-gone/
http://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/ ... rug-charge

The big picture is how do we stop things like this from happening and the answer is it's complicated. Take away all drugs and guns and there will still be racism and the possibility of someone hating enough to kill. I blame other factors that are out of our control such as our new and improved internet that allows people of like minds to group up and gain confidence in whatever their thing is. People have learned that you can manipulate other people through propaganda. I know, something I have never mentioned before.

The shooter Dylann was described by his friends as a normal guy that even had black friends. At some point he moved to Lexington and met the wrong people and started reading things (propaganda) that made him decide that Black people were evil.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... -roof.html
“I never heard him say anything, but just he had that kind of Southern pride, I guess some would say. Strong conservative beliefs,” he said. “He made a lot of racist jokes, but you don’t really take them seriously like that. You don’t really think of it like that.”

But now, “the things he said were kind of not joking,” Mullins added.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015 ... epublicans
The leader of a rightwing group that Dylann Roof allegedly credits with helping to radicalise him against black people before the Charleston church massacre has donated tens of thousands of dollars to Republicans such as presidential candidates Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Rick Santorum.

Earl Holt has given $65,000 to Republican campaign funds in recent years while inflammatory remarks – including that black people were “the laziest, stupidest and most criminally-inclined race in the history of the world” – were posted online in his name.


http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/22/politics/ ... index.html
The first black Republican woman elected to Congress is returning $1,000 in donations from Earl Holt, the alleged white supremacist whose writings have reportedly inspired Charleston shooter Dylann Roof.


http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStor ... s-31933326
Republican presidential candidates, GOP lawmakers and the lone black Republican in the House are returning donations from the leader of a white supremacist group cited by Charleston church murder suspect Dylann Roof or giving the money to charity.

I realize this thread is about guns. We discussed the gun aspect in great detail already. I will just quote Obama.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/22/politics/ ... index.html
"It's not enough just to feel bad. There are actions that could be taken to make events like this less likely. One of those actions we could take would be to enhance some basic common sense gun safety laws," Obama said.

Obama lamented Congress's lack of action on gun control and said "Unfortunately, the grip of the NRA on Congress is extremely strong. I don't foresee any legislative action being taken in this Congress."

In other words gun laws aren't going to change as long as the NRA owns Congress.

[Dan H]

Slightly OT but not, Nodack is right, there are tons of references out there to some of the bad side-effects of SSRIs, particularly in regards of impulse control. I don't know if they're over-prescribed, or what, but I know a couple of guys personally who ended up getting divorced because their wives turned into basically bad stereotypes of teenage girls after they started taking them for various reasons.

Are they a cause for violent behavior, I'd say not, I don't think you can give somebody a drug and turn them into a monster, but somebody who's mind is already slightly off the rails? Oh, yeah.

[Dan H]

This made me LOL.

[Nodack]

BTW, Dylan the shooter was arrested at a mall awhile back before the shooting sort of casing the place and asking suspicious questions like the number of employees type stuff. The police busted him with that drug Suboxone and the Mall banned him as well. He got in trouble again when he ignored the banishment. He wasn't ever prescribed the drug from what I understand.

http://www.drugs.com/sfx/suboxone-side-effects.html
Suboxone Side Effects
Psychiatric

Common (1% to 10%): Anxiety, depression, nervousness, abnormal thinking
Uncommon (0.1% to 1%): Abnormal dreams, agitation, apathy, depersonalization, drug dependence, euphoric mood, hostility
Frequency not reported: Restlessness, irritability
Postmarketing reports: Hallucination, attempted suicide, insomnia[Ref]


A right wing anti Obama site, but I cherry picked this stat.
http://www.wnd.com/2015/06/big-list-of- ... d-killers/
Suboxone is used to treat addiction to opioid drugs such as heroin. It’s adverse effects include anxiety, irritability, depersonalization, confusion, suicidal thoughts and irrational, sometimes violent behavior.

Other drugs linked to mass killers have more often been geared toward treating mental illness. According to a data set of U.S. mass shootings from 1982-2012 prepared by Mother Jones magazine, of 62 mass shootings carried out by 64 shooters, the majority of the shooters (41) were noted to have signs of possible mental illness — the precise kinds of mental illnesses that psychotropic medications are prescribed for.

Whether or not they are prescribed drugs that made them killers, became killers because of other drugs they took first or they are just mentally ill in some way the bottom line is the same. People who show signs of mental illness should not be able to buy a gun.

Of course that opens up another can of worms. Do you do a psych test on everybody that wants to buy a gun or just a background checks to see if anything pops up? If you go to a psychiatrist would that show up on a back ground check and is any psychiatric treatment grounds for elimination? How else are they going to decide if you are mentally fit? Have a gun dealer decide?

Everybody says they want to try to stop this kind of violence as much as possible. Democrats blame guns. Republicans blame drugs and not enough armed citizens.

I blame racist parents for raising their kids to hate other races. I blame their racist parents for raising their child to hate other races. I blame the internet for helping to spread hate by those wishing to manipulate other people into their way of thinking. I blame poverty for a lot of people giving up on society and turning to drugs and illegal activities. I blame us as a country for not uniting and addressing this. I blame genetics for making the human brain so complicated and some people not quite as strong mentally as others. I blame America for not doing what is necessary to keep guns out of mentally ill people's hands. I blame the Politicians that are owned by the NRA that are too scared to do anything about it. I blame FOX News and every other hate site for intentionally trying to spread fear, paranoia and hate. I blame all of us for not doing what is necessary to end hostilities between all people, but fear it's part of the human psyche to hate something or somebody.

[Dan H]

Of course that opens up another can of worms. Do you do a psych test on everybody that wants to buy a gun or just a background checks to see if anything pops up? If you go to a psychiatrist would that show up on a back ground check and is any psychiatric treatment grounds for elimination? How else are they going to decide if you are mentally fit? Have a gun dealer decide?

The bad part of that is there is a social stigma already against those who have issues and need to seek help, further stigmatizing it is going to push even more people away from seeking help.

People go to psychiatrists for lots of reasons, how are you going to narrow down the people who are trying to mourn versus those who are violently dangerous? It would seem to me to run afoul of medical privacy. A guy in Austria killed 3 and wounded 34 the other day with a car and a knife. Do we need to do psych tests for driver's licenses?

I blame racist parents for raising their kids to hate other races. I blame their racist parents for raising their child to hate other races.

That, and the rest of your comment is short-sighted, because by all accounts the kid was not raised in a racist home - he even said so in his manifesto. We are all products of our choices in life. Blame the person making those choices.

[Nodack]

People do have to own up for their choices, but I merely point out that outside influences can effect those choices. Maybe racism wasn't handed down to this kid by his parents, but it was handed down by somebody and he gives Earl Holt and places like this http://www.amren.com much of the credit.

I think a Psychiatrist would be qualified to make the decision if a patient is mentally stable enough to own a gun. He sees a patient who he thinks is a risk for violence and he can add their name to a no gun database. If the doctor later thinks the patient is no longer a risk he can take his name off the list.

Do we need a test for cars? Just about anything can be used as weapon. The only purpose a gun has is to kill people. It is a weapon of choice because it kills so well. Maybe if the Australian guy had a gun he would have killed 37 instead of wounding 34.

I do blame the people who make the choice to kill people and so does society, but I am also one of these rare people open minded enough to consider the possibility that there are things we could do to prevent some of these tragedies in the future. I think, "How does a guy get that FUed in the head?" You said it yourself, his parents did not teach him racism. He picked it up from people like Earl Holt on the internet.

[Ghost]

People go to psychiatrists for lots of reasons, how are you going to narrow down the people who are trying to mourn versus those who are violently dangerous? It would seem to me to run afoul of medical privacy. A guy in Austria killed 3 and wounded 34 the other day with a car and a knife. Do we need to do psych tests for driver's licenses?

There are plenty of medical conditions, which vary from state to state, that can prevent you from driving. They do not conflict with medical privacy law. I don't see why gun ownership should be different.

[Ghost]

I am unfamiliar with the site or author, but the reasoning here seems pretty solid.

http://www.armedwithreason.com/the-gun- ... shootings/

[Dan H]

http://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php ... pdf&TYPE=2

Page 17, but the entire paper is interesting.

Some good points are also made in the comments to the op-ed you posted, as well as a link to this paper, which is also interesting and worthy of a read:

http://www.cjcj.org/uploads/cjcj/docume ... otings.pdf

Comments from your link:

MAIG criteria for ‘Gun Free Zone’ is questionable. They discount the Navy Yard shootings as NOT being in a ‘GFZ’. Since the Navy Yard had armed guards/Police on the grounds it wasn’t ‘Gun Free’ Despite the fact that police/guard response was less than optimal.
You could make that same argument that since cops have guns and they are allowed everywhere in public then there are no ‘GFZ. Their study is flawed.

...

The shootings in the Naval Yard (and the Fort Hood shootings) WERE in gun free zones. I’m certain everyone in the Naval Yard wasn’t strapped. As far as the Fort Hood shootings, I am retired Army and was Active Duty during the 1st shooting and was 3 blocks away.

Fort Hood is a gun-free zone. Despite the fact that every soldier has at least 1 weapon assigned, we only see those weapons when we’re cleaning weapons, using them for PT or going to the range. And the only time we’re issued ammo is on the firing range…and that’s tightly controlled (down to the individual round.) Walking around the Garrison side of Post, the only weapon a soldier can have is a knife. The only personnel authorized to carry weapons are MP’s, civilian guards and CID agents. Their reaction time to incidents is faster than city police due to having less geographical area to cover, but a maniac with a gun – as seen – can do a fair amount of damage before they can get on site.

...

“Australia’s gun laws essentially transformed the entire country into a ‘gun-free’ zone.” This is a lie, considering not all guns were banned, and many were still allowed via “legitimate reason.”

“in the 17 years after, there has not been a single one” – this is true if you discount the 2002 Monash University Shooting and the 2011 Hectorville Siege.

...

John Lott's paper in response to MAIG's intimation that he was wrong:

http://crimepreventionresearchcenter.or ... mberg2.pdf

[Dan H]

Welp, our 11 pages of debate has been rendered moot.

http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2015/0 ... -gun-case/

[Ghost]

Because "The truth about guns" said so?

[Dan H]

Eh, the block quotes are pretty straightforward but that would require the Court to actually be consistent on its rulings.

[Ghost]

Good. I look forward to the day when courts recognize the "well regulated" phrasing too.

[Ghost]

But it seems to me that resolving the legality of gay marriage will affect plenty of things more than leapfrogging into gun rights anytime soon.

[Mori Chu]

I don't know how you can with a straight face post a link to a site like that, which is so clearly biased toward one side of the issue and talks about how "people of the gun" now have the "intellectual high ground" over "gun haters", etc.

[Dan H]

Hmm, and yet Gawker, Patheos, and other sites with well-known progressive biases are posted with no comment. Got it. The most interesting thing from TTAG in my mind was the quotes from the actual Supreme Court briefs, but whatever. At this point the entire conversation is kind of like tilting at windmills. You guys are hoplophobes and no amount of debate will change that.

[Mori Chu]

If the pro-gun folks actually wanted their weapons for defense, there would be way more interest in non-lethal arms. Tasers, tranquilizers, stunning the enemy. And there would be way less interest in automatic weapons that fire rapidly; that would only be needed in an extremely rare situation when you're being attacked by ... I don't even know what. Tons of people, or zombies.

Guns are a toy, and some boys love to play with their murder toys. That's all there is to it. As time goes on, the laws will further and further restrict folks' right to own murder weapons. And this will be a good thing.

[Dan H]

"Murder toys"? Automatic weapons?

For Pete's sake, Mori do some bloody research, you're so ignorant on the topic it's laughable. The "assault rifles" you're in histrionics about account for about 5 percent of all firearm murders per year. You're more likely to be murdered by a hammer than you are a rifle.

[carey]

"Murder toys"? Automatic weapons?

For Pete's sake, Mori do some bloody research, you're so ignorant on the topic it's laughable. The "assault rifles" you're in histrionics about account for about 5 percent of all firearm murders per year. You're more likely to be murdered by a hammer than you are a rifle.

Please don't be so rude. He may be talking about the people that buy these guns (not just assault rifles) as a hobby. They consider them something to show off or to play with. Personally I have never had an issue with someone owning a firearm for protection. But a personal armory? It gets taken to absurd levels and in turn deserves absurd language.