UCSB School Shooting

[Reddy]

Hey Rachel Maddow/liberal talking head, give an example of a regulation that would have prevented this shooting. A REAL, viable option.

stricter mental health requirements. he'd been in therapy since 8 years old and had recently quit going against his parents' wishes.

 

red flag.

 

simple as that.

[Reddy]

The answer is to stop reelecting a congress that has a single digit approval rating, but even that's short sighted of what's necessary. Even our local governments approvals are often dismal only to get reelected countless times on broken promises.

 

The people have the power to change things, but they repeatedly show they don't actually want change, they just want to talk about change.

 

people don't have the power to change things when corporations = people.

 

[greg775]

Agreed. We don't publish information about suicides, but we do with murder suicides. It makes no sense.

 

But like with Boston, don't we need to know who did these things in case it was a terrorist group or something?

Maybe you guys are right. I just can't imagine one of these things happening and the gunman surviving and getting arrested and the media not covering it. Like the asshole who killed all the people in the movie theatre. I guess the media could say, "Police say the assailant, who survived, acted alone and was not part of any terrorist group or any violent group trying to make some statement. We are not printing any further about him in accordance with this media organization's policy." Maybe that would work. Or would family of the victims want more? You tell family of the victims and they'd leak it to the press probably. It's an interesting debate, but I'm so used to every thing being reported on, I can't imagine media outlets not reporting on who the assholes are who commit these crimes.

Edited May 30, 2014 by greg775

[EvilMonkey]

stricter mental health requirements. he'd been in therapy since 8 years old and had recently quit going against his parents' wishes.

 

red flag.

 

simple as that.

So then someone in the CA system screwed up by not flagging him enough to prevent him from getting a gun and passing a CA background check. It seems you already had the rules in place to stop him, if they were followed.

[caulfield12]

Not covering the murder/assailant will never happen because of the 1st Amendment...

 

That's obvious.

 

You could have an interesting debate, though about the cause and effect/correlation with "mass" killings around the world...if you were to break it down to which has the bigger impact, the media's incessant coverage of them (think John Hinckley's assassination attempt on Reagan to get noticed by Jodie Foster) or access to the weapons (be it knives, guns, chemical/biological, etc.)

 

Here in China, there are no guns...so the most common "mass killing" is for Chinese men (often unemployed/uneducated or under-educated...frustrated they can't marry with 6 men for every 5 women, etc.) lashing out against schoolchildren by using knives to kill as many kids as quickly as possible.

 

Or the Japanese subway attacks with chemical weapons, for example.

 

Without guns...deranged people/groups/terrorists/cults will still carry out apocalyptic "days of retribution/annihilation/vengeance" regardless.

Edited May 30, 2014 by caulfield12

[cabiness42]

Not covering the murder/assailant will never happen because of the 1st Amendment...

 

That's obvious.

 

You could have an interesting debate, though about the cause and effect/correlation with "mass" killings around the world...if you were to break it down to which has the bigger impact, the media's incessant coverage of them (think John Hinckley's assassination attempt on Reagan to get noticed by Jodie Foster) or access to the weapons (be it knives, guns, chemical/biological, etc.)

 

Here in China, there are no guns...so the most common "mass killing" is for Chinese men (often unemployed/uneducated or under-educated...frustrated they can't marry with 6 men for every 5 women, etc.) lashing out against schoolchildren by using knives to kill as many kids as quickly as possible.

 

Or the Japanese subway attacks with chemical weapons, for example.

 

Without guns...deranged people/groups/terrorists/cults will still carry out apocalyptic "days of retribution/annihilation/vengeance" regardless.

 

Nobody is suggesting that there be legislation involved, just that media networks should agree that sensationalizing the current assailant may contribute to the actions of future assailants and agree not to do so.

 

[Balta1701]

So then someone in the CA system screwed up by not flagging him enough to prevent him from getting a gun and passing a CA background check. It seems you already had the rules in place to stop him, if they were followed.

Here are the reasons why a person can be denied a firearm in the state of California.

California prohibits the following people from purchasing or possessing firearms because of mental health-related issues:

 

1. Inpatient Treatment: A person who has been admitted to a facility and is receiving inpatient treatment for a mental illness and the attending mental health professional opines that the patient is a danger to self or others. This prohibition applies even if the person has consented to the treatment, although the prohibition ends as soon as the patient is discharged from the facility.1 This prohibition is broader than federal law in that it includes persons voluntarily admitted to a mental facility.

 

2. Threats of Physical Violence: A person who communicates to a licensed psychotherapist a serious threat of physical violence against a reasonably identifiable victim or victims.2 In 2013, this prohibition was extended from a period of six months to five years after the licensed psychotherapist reports the identity of the person making the threat to local law enforcement. The subject of this prohibition may petition to have it removed.3

 

3. Adjudication: A person who has been adjudicated to be a danger to others as a result of a mental disorder or mental illness or has been adjudicated to be a mentally disordered sex offender. This prohibition does not apply if the court of adjudication issues, upon the individual’s release from treatment or at a later date, a certificate stating that the person may possess a firearm without endangering others.4

 

4. Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity: A person who has been found not guilty by reason of insanity of enumerated violent felonies.5

 

5. Incompetent to Stand Trial: A person who has been found mentally incompetent to stand trial. This prohibition is permanent unless there is a subsequent finding that the person has become competent.6

 

6. Conservatorship: A person who is currently under a court-ordered conservatorship because he or she is gravely disabled as a result of a mental disorder (or impaired by chronic alcoholism).7 The prohibition ends when the conservatorship ends.8

 

7. 72-Hour Detention: A person who has been taken into custody, and placed in a county mental health facility where a professional in charge of the facility has assessed that the person cannot be properly served without being detained and evaluated for at least 72 hours, and that the person is a danger to himself or herself or others as a result of a mental disorder.9 This prohibition lasts for five years.10 However, a person barred from firearm possession by this provision may petition the superior court for an order permitting him or her to possess firearms. At the hearing, the state must show by a preponderance of the evidence that the person “would not be likely to use firearms in a safe and lawful manner.”11

 

8. 14-Day Detention: A person who has been involuntarily committed for intensive mental health treatment for 14 or more days. This prohibition lasts for five years.12 As above, a person barred from firearm possession by this provision may petition the superior court for an order permitting him or her to possess firearms.13 This provision is weaker than federal law because it lasts for five years while the federal prohibition is permanent.

 

Court-Ordered Evaluations and Counseling: California law provides a process by which any individual may request a designated county agency to petition a court to order an evaluation to determine whether a person is, as a result of mental disorder, a danger to others, or to him or herself, or is gravely disabled (unable to meet his or her own physical needs). If the court grants the petition, an evaluation is performed. If, after the evaluation, the subject is deemed to be a danger to self or others or gravely disabled, he or she will be prohibited from purchasing or possessing firearms and referred for voluntary treatment, ordered detained for 14 days for intensive inpatient treatment, or recommended for conservatorship.14

None of those would have been true in this case. If he didn't tell a psychotherapist about the threats and he wasn't actually admitted to a mental health facility then it was entirely legal for him to purchase and possess whatever arsenal he wanted. His family was freaked out about him, sent police to his place, but because he wasn't admitted and didn't open up about violent to a therapist, sure here have all the guns you want.

 

But please tell me again about how California's gun laws are so strict.

[Reddy]

So then someone in the CA system screwed up by not flagging him enough to prevent him from getting a gun and passing a CA background check. It seems you already had the rules in place to stop him, if they were followed.

 

You don't know that that's true. Maybe the rules were followed to a T and the regulations just aren't tight enough regarding mental health?

 

Can you recite the mental health statutes involving gun ownership in CA?

[Reddy]

Not covering the murder/assailant will never happen because of the 1st Amendment...

 

That's obvious.

 

You could have an interesting debate, though about the cause and effect/correlation with "mass" killings around the world...if you were to break it down to which has the bigger impact, the media's incessant coverage of them (think John Hinckley's assassination attempt on Reagan to get noticed by Jodie Foster) or access to the weapons (be it knives, guns, chemical/biological, etc.)

 

Here in China, there are no guns...so the most common "mass killing" is for Chinese men (often unemployed/uneducated or under-educated...frustrated they can't marry with 6 men for every 5 women, etc.) lashing out against schoolchildren by using knives to kill as many kids as quickly as possible.

 

Or the Japanese subway attacks with chemical weapons, for example.

 

Without guns...deranged people/groups/terrorists/cults will still carry out apocalyptic "days of retribution/annihilation/vengeance" regardless.

 

they'll just kill fewer people.

[Reddy]

You don't know that that's true. Maybe the rules were followed to a T and the regulations just aren't tight enough regarding mental health?

 

Can you recite the mental health statutes involving gun ownership in CA?

Thanks Balta.

 

[Jenksismyhero]

stricter mental health requirements. he'd been in therapy since 8 years old and had recently quit going against his parents' wishes.

 

red flag.

 

simple as that.

 

Yeah...and the cops were called and nothing happened, so... someone screwed up. Or not, because s*** happens.

Edited May 30, 2014 by Jenksismybitch

[Jenksismyhero]

Here are the reasons why a person can be denied a firearm in the state of California.

None of those would have been true in this case. If he didn't tell a psychotherapist about the threats and he wasn't actually admitted to a mental health facility then it was entirely legal for him to purchase and possess whatever arsenal he wanted. His family was freaked out about him, sent police to his place, but because he wasn't admitted and didn't open up about violent to a therapist, sure here have all the guns you want.

 

But please tell me again about how California's gun laws are so strict.

 

Not really sure what else could have been done. I guess you could put the responsibility on his therapist to deem him too dangerous to own a gun, but maybe he/she never got an understanding of all of his psychotic manifesto stuff. That was an issue in the Colorado movie theater case too. The parents called the cops because of the videos and stuff he was saying, so are you going to place the responsibility on them? They called the cops, not sure what else they could do. Or do we blame the cops for not following up enough? If someone alleges you're crazy and a danger, is the allegation alone enough to warrant that you can't buy a gun? Shouldn't there be some kind of adjudication on that issue (hey, like the law requires?). And even then, we're talking about a very rare case where the crazy person has shown signs of being crazy.

 

So again, absent an absolute ban, this s***'s not preventable. Crazy people do crazy things. At some point you have to stop regulating and infringing on the rights on the 99% of people that use/own/operate weapons legally and responsibly.

[Balta1701]

Not really sure what else could have been done. I guess you could put the responsibility on his therapist to deem him too dangerous to own a gun, but maybe he/she never got an understanding of all of his psychotic manifesto stuff. That was an issue in the Colorado movie theater case too. The parents called the cops because of the videos and stuff he was saying, so are you going to place the responsibility on them? They called the cops, not sure what else they could do. Or do we blame the cops for not following up enough? If someone alleges you're crazy and a danger, is the allegation alone enough to warrant that you can't buy a gun? Shouldn't there be some kind of adjudication on that issue (hey, like the law requires?). And even then, we're talking about a very rare case where the crazy person has shown signs of being crazy.

 

So again, absent an absolute ban, this s***'s not preventable. Crazy people do crazy things. At some point you have to stop regulating and infringing on the rights on the 99% of people that use/own/operate weapons legally and responsibly.

Neither the parents nor the police actually had the right to do anything about him having a gun. The parents literally couldn't have known since he was an adult, and I'll admit I don't know if the police who went to his door would even know that information. Given how our gun laws are written by people paranoid that the government is coming to take their guns, I wouldn't be surprised at all if the police who went to his address had no idea he was armed.

 

As I noted though, there is now a proposed law in Cali that would have covered this case, allowing a family member or acquaintance to request a "firearms restraining order" for a person who is believed to be at risk. Of course, then we'd have the problem of it being impossible for the family to know that they needed to do so because there's no published information on who is stockpiling weapons, but in this case, that proposed law would have had the potential to stop it.

[Jenksismyhero]

Neither the parents nor the police actually had the right to do anything about him having a gun. The parents literally couldn't have known since he was an adult, and I'll admit I don't know if the police who went to his door would even know that information. Given how our gun laws are written by people paranoid that the government is coming to take their guns, I wouldn't be surprised at all if the police who went to his address had no idea he was armed.

 

As I noted though, there is now a proposed law in Cali that would have covered this case, allowing a family member or acquaintance to request a "firearms restraining order" for a person who is believed to be at risk. Of course, then we'd have the problem of it being impossible for the family to know that they needed to do so because there's no published information on who is stockpiling weapons, but in this case, that proposed law would have had the potential to stop it.

 

Potential. No guarantee. And once the proposed law is passed and some other pyscho shoots someone you'll be screaming that there needs to be more regulation to stop it.

[EvilMonkey]

Neither the parents nor the police actually had the right to do anything about him having a gun. The parents literally couldn't have known since he was an adult, and I'll admit I don't know if the police who went to his door would even know that information. Given how our gun laws are written by people paranoid that the government is coming to take their guns, I wouldn't be surprised at all if the police who went to his address had no idea he was armed.

 

As I noted though, there is now a proposed law in Cali that would have covered this case, allowing a family member or acquaintance to request a "firearms restraining order" for a person who is believed to be at risk. Of course, then we'd have the problem of it being impossible for the family to know that they needed to do so because there's no published information on who is stockpiling weapons, but in this case, that proposed law would have had the potential to stop it.

California has a handgun registry and you need to take a safety class to own a gun. If they didn't know it was because they were too lazy to look it up and/or someone there doesn't have their databases coordinated to that information like that would be readily available to law enforcement officials when they are called to a home of a potentially dangerous person.

 

edit

 

They already are confiscating gun, btw. From people that shouldn't have them, but hey, they used a registry to find them. What is to prevent them from going after people just because they have them in the future?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/19/c..._n_3117238.html

Edited May 30, 2014 by Alpha Dog

[Balta1701]

Potential. No guarantee. And once the proposed law is passed and some other pyscho shoots someone you'll be screaming that there needs to be more regulation to stop it.

Correct, because the right regulation is the one that isn't politically possible. Therefore, I will keep pointing out how right it is until it becomes politically possible.

[Y2HH]

Correct, because the right regulation is the one that isn't politically possible. Therefore, I will keep pointing out how right it is until it becomes politically possible.

 

A glimpse into your future...

Edited May 30, 2014 by Y2HH

[Balta1701]

A glimpse into your future...

You want a prediction of the future? "There will be more than 10 mass shootings (4 or more in an incident) this month." "In a few months another person who shouldn't have a gun will go on an even larger rampage and we'll be right back to this."

[Reddy]

Not really sure what else could have been done. I guess you could put the responsibility on his therapist to deem him too dangerous to own a gun, but maybe he/she never got an understanding of all of his psychotic manifesto stuff. That was an issue in the Colorado movie theater case too. The parents called the cops because of the videos and stuff he was saying, so are you going to place the responsibility on them? They called the cops, not sure what else they could do. Or do we blame the cops for not following up enough? If someone alleges you're crazy and a danger, is the allegation alone enough to warrant that you can't buy a gun? Shouldn't there be some kind of adjudication on that issue (hey, like the law requires?). And even then, we're talking about a very rare case where the crazy person has shown signs of being crazy.

 

So again, absent an absolute ban, this s***'s not preventable. Crazy people do crazy things. At some point you have to stop regulating and infringing on the rights on the 99% of people that use/own/operate weapons legally and responsibly.

 

 

Totally not preventable

 

 

You guys realize how ludicrous you sound when you say that right?

[greg775]

Totally not preventable

 

 

You guys realize how ludicrous you sound when you say that right?

 

Totally not preventable?

The American dream is officially dead. Our society just gives up now on so many things. We should have a ban on people having babies because these poor kids don't know what kind of an America they are being born into. Wow.

[Jenksismyhero]

Lol, West Germany. That's not a country any more. How old is that?

 

Regardless, as has been pointed out, you're comparing apples to oranges. We're a different breed than the rest of the world. Plus you can't discount the role gangs play in this. No other country has gang problems like we do. And they make up the vast majority of gun murders. In Chicago, 80% of the murders were gang related. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/29/c..._n_2378073.html

 

Chicago's McCarthy said the city's high murder rate, up 18 percent over last year as of Dec. 16, was due to gang violence. Eighty percent of the homicides were gang-related and 80 percent of the victims were African-Americans, he said.

 

 

[StrangeSox]

So why shouldn't we care about restricting the availability of guns to gangs? If it's harder to buy legal guns, it's harder to funnel them to gangs. Short of confiscating a bunch of guns, you'll still have a huge supply for a while, but at least it wouldn't constantly be making matters worse.

[Soxbadger]

No one has gangs.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakuza

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Mafia

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triad_%28underground_society%29

 

http://www.irinnews.org/in-depth/70038/28/...re-in-cape-town

 

 

 

 

[Jenksismyhero]

So why shouldn't we care about restricting the availability of guns to gangs? If it's harder to buy legal guns, it's harder to funnel them to gangs. Short of confiscating a bunch of guns, you'll still have a huge supply for a while, but at least it wouldn't constantly be making matters worse.

 

And I think people on this board and generally people in the country are ok with restrictions generally and more restrictions than we currently have. But criminals are criminals and crazy people are crazy people. No matter the amount of words you put in big legislative books, they're going to still kill people.

 

And while tragic, these events are INCREDIBLY rare in comparison to the amount of guns and gun owners in this country. And hell, more people die from alcohol related deaths than guns (http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-alcohol-related-deaths-years-lost-sxsw-20140313-story.html).

 

At some point, this anti-gun stuff just becomes a bunch of fear nonsense.

[StrangeSox]

An overwhelming majority of people in this country are ok with more restrictive gun laws, it's just that it's much easier to organize those that are really, really opposed along a single line of opposition. The recall elections in Colorado several months ago are a perfect example of that.

 

Side note: if no amount of laws is going to stop people from killing other people, doesn't that undermine the whole "deterrent" argument for capital punishment or a harsh retributive justice system in general?