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Post by andrea on Oct 3, 2017 14:19:54 GMT -5
Perhaps trying to get money into his girlfriend's hands that wouldn't be taxed or tied up in any way.
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Post by Mamapalooza on Oct 3, 2017 14:54:22 GMT -5
I don't think it's an either or proposition though. In Canada we have access to guns but not the same type of weapons available in the States. I come from a family of farmers and hunters and I don't think guns are evil but at the same time the guns I grew up with could never kill so many people at once, isn't it reasonable to crack down on the capabilities of weapons that are available to the general public? From everything being reported about this horrific situation there were no red flags about this guy, I don't see how there's any way to legislate people not going off of the deep end. You can get the same exact guns in Canada as in the United States if this article is correct www.ctvnews.ca/mobile/canada/getting-an-ar-15-style-rifle-is-much-harder-in-canada-than-the-u-s-1.2945990The only difference are laws restricting magazine size which in the most recent shooting would have reduced the kill count because the guy was cranking out rounds almost nonstop. Not even sure if his weapons were even legal in the first place. The US gun statistics are greatly inflated due to inner city violence. Canada didn’t import a bunch of people against their will, give them no opportunity for years in cities where there was reduced economic opportunities. Which is why I always try to break out gun statistics into categories rather than as a whole group which the gun control types like to do in order to inflate the numbers. Yes, we can buy an AR-15 here, but the process to do so, and the culture around guns, are both much different. They're not prohibited, but are restricted so there is a reasonable middle ground between prohibition and a free for all. There's good reason that mass killings using these weapons are incredibly rare in Canada despite their presence. Our strict screening process is evidently quite effective. When my husband applied for his gun licence (unrestricted, basic hunting rifle) part of the application was disclosing his criminal record, his medical history including psychiatric care and medications, and I had to sign a form as his spouse. If we were married less than a certain length of time, his ex would have had to fill out a similar one. He also submitted personal references who met certain criteria. No laws are going to deter a determined person. However, restrictions can help reduce the opportunistic ones. Vegas guy knew he was on his way out. No law would have stopped him. His murderous act was premeditated. He planned for it. Edmonton guy was more of "moment of opportunity" but would have been much worse if we had easier gun laws. If Edmonton guy had easy access to guns, the cop would have been shot and killed, instead of stabbed and alive. The guy would have had time to enter the stadium (30,000+ people) and open fire. He didn't have time because wounded cop fought him. The guy could have been shooting people as he tried to run them over with the truck. The moment of opportunity was never there for him with guns. He still created chaos and hurt people but the chaos was lessened. Minor restrictions on thing like modding kits and clip size are a start. People still have their guns, but the moment of opportunity shrinks. Only the truly determined ones will be successful (even in countries with stricter laws). Agreed. He was going to do harm, but it was at least minimized, which is huge in my view.
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Post by Tpatt100 on Oct 3, 2017 14:58:53 GMT -5
I am not comfortable with the disclosing medical history and medication use. We already have a stigma when it comes to mental health care.
I am going through a background investigation right now for my current job and there was a medical disclosure form for mental health.
The form says it is for determining if my mental health record is suitable for the position and my doctor has to disclose medications I am taking.
I now regret getting help when I did and wish I would have waited until after I got a new job before getting mental health care.
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Post by TapToTalk on Oct 3, 2017 15:11:25 GMT -5
The great thing about the 24 hour news cycle is that we can get bad information from mainstream sources, jump to premature conclusions and live in a fantasy world where a magic law could have prevented this.
We don't know (and may never know) the motive. We do know that this guy was very methodical and had been planning this for a long time. These kind of people are very hard to stop.
And, ITA with tpatt. These incidents are going to continue to stigmatize those who need mental health care. We as a society have stopped locking up adults against their will for some common mental health issues. None of us want to go back to the days where a spouse or some "official with power" could get you locked up. The downside is that a few loose cannons capable of planning and executing a massive attack are walking the streets.
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Post by Tpatt100 on Oct 3, 2017 15:19:20 GMT -5
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Post by stellarfeller on Oct 3, 2017 18:20:59 GMT -5
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Post by stellarfeller on Oct 3, 2017 18:29:14 GMT -5
So tell me this - why is it necessary for any civilian to have the personal freedom to possess weapons that are only meant for killing as many humans as possible in the shortest time? Those types of guns are already illegal in the US. Okay, so what types of legal weapons did he use, then, to kill and injure hundreds of people?
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Post by TapToTalk on Oct 3, 2017 18:44:39 GMT -5
Those types of guns are already illegal in the US. Okay, so what types of legal weapons did he use, then, to kill and injure hundreds of people? None. The weapon he used is banned. He violated both Federal and State law by possessing that weapon.
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mare
Full Member
Posts: 2,517
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Post by mare on Oct 3, 2017 18:49:05 GMT -5
Okay, so what types of legal weapons did he use, then, to kill and injure hundreds of people? None. The weapon he used is banned. He violated both Federal and State law by possessing that weapon. The weapons he had were legal. The modifications he made were not. There are videos online on how to modify semi-automatic weapons. Let's also be honest here...even if he had to squeeze tge trigger for every round he fired, many people still would have died. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk
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Post by stellarfeller on Oct 3, 2017 19:01:36 GMT -5
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Post by TapToTalk on Oct 3, 2017 19:29:35 GMT -5
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Post by Tpatt100 on Oct 3, 2017 19:38:44 GMT -5
Almost everybody knows this which is why people resort to emotional pleas to avoid logically defending the laws they throw out there. its also why I don’t buy into other country’s laws are why x and y don’t happen as much because they don’t work with the issues we have here when compared to each other.
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Post by villanelle on Oct 4, 2017 2:16:04 GMT -5
We need to change our culture, not just our laws.
But you know one good way to start the painfully slow changing of our culture? Our laws.
People like to act as though they are separate. "A law wont' prevent a madman from killing people with a legal gun." I don't know about that. I think the conversations about our laws and the defense of the right to stockpile hundrends of weapons that will never be used for hunting and are far more than would be needed for any self-defense just contributes to the fetishization of guns and gun ownership. That helps solidify ours as a gun culture, and IMO, that absolutely contributes to these shootings.
I'm not against guns. I've fired several different kinds of guns. Growing up, my dad had a long gun in the house under his bed. I wouldn't be opposed to owning a gun now, or maybe even to taking up target shooting as a hobby. I don't hate guns. I don't want people not to be able to have and own them, and to use them for hunting and hobby shooting and have them for home defense.
But people walking around with very intense looking weapons strapped to their chest, just because? Of course that feeds into our gun culture.
Our gun laws and our gun culture are not separate. Directly keeping some weapons away from some people is not the only way gun laws address this problem. People say that other countries don't have X and Y not because of their laws, but because of their culture. But don't they see that they laws help shift the culture, too?
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Post by Tpatt100 on Oct 4, 2017 5:24:09 GMT -5
Like I said before, the gun control supporters need to drop the “we don’t want to take away your guns” theme and just be honest and say “we want to take away some of your guns, some access to guns so eventually our culture doesn’t really like guns”.
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Post by stellarfeller on Oct 4, 2017 6:19:28 GMT -5
Excellent post, villanelle.
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Post by alicechalmers on Oct 4, 2017 8:48:42 GMT -5
An AR-15 is not a machine gun.
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Post by andrea on Oct 4, 2017 8:56:07 GMT -5
I think we could do things like make bump stocks illegal but I'm not sure that will do much to reduce the incidence of mass shootings, or decrease the body count by much.
This man amassed quite the arsenal. He had the means to do so. Limits to the number of weapons a person can own will be struck down as unconstitutional.
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Post by stellarfeller on Oct 4, 2017 9:00:58 GMT -5
An AR-15 is not a machine gun. Yeah, because that makes so much difference when it’s used to kill people.
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Post by Sprockey on Oct 4, 2017 9:04:29 GMT -5
The point is people should know what they are talking about before they start trying to ban them.
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Post by andrea on Oct 4, 2017 9:06:18 GMT -5
Most instances of gun violence are committed with a handgun.
If you want to kill somebody, a handgun is a better choice. It's easily hidden. AR-15s are very scary looking but they're not the weapon of choice, usually. They are in mass shooting events, but those are rare occurrences. The handgun kills more people.
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