It’s Not Guns or Mental Illness. The Problem Is Deeper Than That.

Tom, regarding the difficulty of a mass killing with a bomb, the Boston Marathon criminals simply carried the pressure cooker in a backpack. 20-30 lbs, maybe, and it’s well known that terrorists in the Middle East simply use spare artillery rounds and land mines connected to a cell phone with not much more weight. Ugly reality is that killing a bunch of people is, at least from a physical standpoint, not that hard whether you have available guns or not, as the British are learning—they’re actually starting to pass laws banning knives with points, which will not do much to help the English reputation for culinary excellence.

(my apologies to Englishmen and Anglophiles for repeating the stereotype that ignores their very real culinary achievements, BTW)

Overall, though, if you can wield a sword or machete, pour powder into a pressure cooker and attach a fuse, or drive a motor vehicle, the ugly reality is that you can kill a lot of people. Thank God it’s emotionally and psychologically more difficult!

[Bert Perry]

Tom, regarding the difficulty of a mass killing with a bomb, the Boston Marathon criminals simply carried the pressure cooker in a backpack. 20-30 lbs, maybe, and it’s well known that terrorists in the Middle East simply use spare artillery rounds and land mines connected to a cell phone with not much more weight.

When’s the last time someone in the US was killed with a spare artillery round or land mine connected to a cell phone? Why? How many pressure-cooker bombs have been used in the US?

Overall, though, if you can wield a sword or machete, pour powder into a pressure cooker and attach a fuse, or drive a motor vehicle, the ugly reality is that you can kill a lot of people.

Yep, banning weapons doesn’t change the heart. My point is that we can take steps to make it more difficult for people to inflict mass casualties, or at least give victims a fighting chance to defend themselves.

Apparently, the El Paso, TX murderer was Right Wing; the Dayton, OH murderer was Left Wing.

Just shows evil, hate, extremism can come from the Right, or the Left. Let’s all watch out.

David R. Brumbelow

Well I am for some form of gun control. What I think will happen is that the NRA will continue to hold their ground, politicians will refuse to do something and then what will eventually happen is that instead of logically gun control, there will be large bans of weapons. If the NRA was smart they would start putting together smart legislation around gun control (close loopholds, ban high capacity magazines, complete background checks and an integrated federal/state system…) . None of these would infringe on people who legitimately can have a firearm have a firearm. I don’t think an assault weapons ban will do anything at the end of the day. Except for the high capacity magazine element, they really are just an average firearm. The previous ban was shown not to really have an affect. The reason why everyone is using them is just that they are a popular gun, therefore they are the most sold. They can also be very cheap (as cheap as $500 new).

[dcbii]

I just ordered 5 more AK and 5 more AR mags before they become difficult or impossible to get.

Wow… given that AK’s are something like at least $600 a piece, and can be $1600 +, you had at least $3000 sitting around and spent it on semi-automatic rifles. I must be in the wrong profession!

[Mark_Smith]

Wow… given that AK’s are something like at least $600 a piece, and can be $1600 +, you had at least $3000 sitting around and spent it on semi-automatic rifles. I must be in the wrong profession!

I think my grammar was unclear. I just ordered 5 AK magazines and 5 AR magazines. I already owned the AK and the AR.

Yeah, I think it would be nice too if I could afford to buy 5 rifles at a pop! Not likely on a software engineer’s salary! :)

(And to be quite honest, if I were really spending that kind of money that easily on a hobby, I might have to rethink my priorities!)

None of these kids have a fear of an Almighty God and eternal consequences of their actions.

Great! I’d be glad if you had the money to do it… but I wasn’t sure that anyone needs 5 AK’s!

My take, again, is you need to answer whether it would, indeed, help. For example, the Democrats respond to every atrocity with a plea for universal background checks. Ugly fact; all of the recent mass murderers have bought their weapons with a background check, save the kid who killed his mom and stole her rifles. So universal background checks would do precisely nothing to alleviate these crimes.

The left/gun control advocates are on better ground when they suggest a semi-auto ban, but again, the ugly fact is that when the government examined the results of the 1994 ban, they concluded it had no overall effect on crime. In fact, the BATFE notes that out of ~ 17000 murders each year, only a few hundred are committed using long guns of all sorts. You then have the task of figuring out what measures will actually reduce the even smaller portion which are mass shootings using AR platform weapons.

Take the AR out of the perp’s hands in these two cases, and odds are that he simply chooses another weapon that is just as lethal. It might be a pistol or two with extra magazines, a truck, a pressure cooker bomb, sarin gas, or a good stout knife or sword. Keep in mind here that the average mass shooter is trying to make a scene, and he’s going to do what it takes to do that—the tool matters only as much as it makes the scene.

That’s why the NRA stands against the current proposals, with the exception (at times) of red flag laws. The data simply do not indicate that crime rates will be reduced. You also have the very ugly fact that all of the nastiest genocides of the 20th century were preceded by gun confiscation, for the intuitive reason that the secret police have the same allergy to copper clad lead that you and I do.

So a lot of gun owners, myself included, stand strongly against anything that would create a registry of gun owners that the government could use for confiscation. There are simply too many graves filled with the victims of governments—over 100 million due to the Holocaust, Cultural Revolution, Killing Fields, Soviet atrocities, etc..—to ignore this reality. And if you doubt it could happen here, just talk to a Native American or African-American.

[Barry L.]

None of these kids have a fear of an Almighty God and eternal consequences of their actions.

To put the same truth positively, none had a knowledge of God and of what a priceless opportunity this life is to do things that will matter forever — by serving Him.

Meaning, morality, and true joy all derive from recognizing that life is stewardship.

I grew up with guns. I was taught to respect them, how to safely use them, and to enjoy them. I hunted in my teens and enjoyed going to the range with my dad. I still love going to the range. I am a responsible, law abiding gun owner.

The end game here for most advocating for further gun restrictions is gun confiscation. Biden said nearly as much: https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/joe-biden-says-he-%E2%80%98going…. Think of what he is proposing. He is advocating for forced possession of private property by the government. Even if they institute a forced “buy-back” program, the cost alone would be prohibitive. On the lower side, there are an estimated 5,000,000 AR-15s owned by the general public. Lets assume a market rate of $500 (which is really low, actually). That’s $2.5 billion just to buy back one type of weapon. That doesn’t even include AK-47s or any other of the number of different styles and manufacturers of “assault style” rifles. And these are rifles that are already made and in private hands. Politicians know that a new assault rifle ban would really do little, following their logic, because so many exist pre-ban and would, therefore, be grandfathered in. This is why confiscation is the ultimate endgame for them. And why stop at “assult rifles”? Why not also have a forced government confiscation of handguns, which are responsible for the vast majority of gun violence in the US?

I also worry about “red flag” laws. They are ripe for vindictive abuse. All someone needs to do is watch Judge Judy and see that people file frivolous PFAs all the time. The bill of rights is there to protect individuals from losing those rights without due process. Red Flag laws seemingly sidestep due process. And I also worry about how those laws would be enforced regarding “mental health.” If someone ever took an anti-depressant, would they be banned from gun ownership? Who is determining what mental health issues rise to the level of triggering a red flag?

The reality is that there is no legislative answer for this. As long as sin exists, violence will exist. If the goal is to stop violence, then, ultimately, the only answer is the gospel.

It is so weird to me that the pro-gun crowd takes this anti-law approach to guns saying that because people are sinners, laws would not work. It is ironic because they are normally conservative and pro-law on everything else. I don’t see them applying the same principles to abortion for example. Or car theft. Or for that matter, nuclear bombs.

It is also really hard to understand why people that probably as a rule do not hunt or shoot recreationally are so passionate about this. Maybe it is about the whole idea of having guns to stand up to the government. If so, here is a newsflash: no one is going to keep the government out of their home with a handgun or even an assault rifle. Maybe that would have worked in 1776 but not now.

Those who advocate for gun owners rights are not anti-law. We are against laws that infringe on freedom without cause. The reality is that no proposal being floated by anyone will really do anything to curb the majority of gun violence in America. Yes, there are a minority of people who do terrible things with guns. The answer is not found in laws that take away freedoms from the majority of gun owners who lawfully own and use their guns.

And, if we are going to talk about being anti-law, those who seek to restrict or… ahem…. infringe on gun rights are the ones who are actually anti-law since the 2nd amendment is part of the supreme legal document of the US.

[GregH]

Maybe it is about the whole idea of having guns to stand up to the government. If so, here is a newsflash: no one is going to keep the government out of their home with a handgun or even an assault rifle. Maybe that would have worked in 1776 but not now.

Greg, I think that view is looking at it wrong. If one family wanted to rebel against the government, that wouldn’t have worked even in 1776. Yes, back then citizens could privately own cannons, but the town militia would easily have been able to deal with one family or even a small group of them.

I have no preconception that my limited amount of firepower could stand up against the police, let alone national guard, even if I were to join with some of my neighbors. The idea is that if there are a large enough number of people that own guns, it wouldn’t be that simple to just start tyrannizing the populace large-scale. But even the American war of independence had to start somewhere, whether Lexington or Concord, or anywhere else. I’m sure those few citizens had no thought that alone they could stand up to Britain. But they could get something started. And you know what — it might have failed. But it didn’t.

I rather doubt that unless the goal is extinction, US nuclear or biological weapons would be used against the U.S. populace. Plus, there would be a significant faction of the police and national guard that would question using that type of deadly force against the populace if enough of them were to stand up to tyranny. In other words, the idea of an armed populace being useful against a tyrannical government only works if it’s bought into by everyone or at least a significant fraction of the populace. I agree with you that a few crazy “preppers” are not going to make any dent on their own. It has to be the American people in general.

Given the way people seem to be willing to take the rights of others in the name of their ideology, I’m actually happy that there are somewhere near 300 million weapons in this country in the hands of private citizens that at least would give pause to someone thinking they could seize power easily outside of the mechanisms our government has in place. Are weapons what I put my hope in as a Christian? Hardly. But since I can legally own them, and since I do agree with the founders that an unarmed populace is more likely to end up subjects than citizens, I’m going to own them as long as I can. I may eventually have to give them up to be in proper Christian subjection to the “higher powers” that are ordained of God. In the mean time, I’ll do whatever I can to not be placed in that position. In that I believe I’m no different than the apostle Paul using his rights as a Roman citizen to appeal against his unjust imprisonment.

The end game here for most advocating for further gun restrictions is gun confiscation. Biden said nearly as much: https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/joe-biden-says-he-%E2%80%98going-…. Think of what he is proposing. He is advocating for forced possession of private property by the government.

I would advocate banning AR-15 and similar types of firearms / accessories, but I wouldn’t advocate confiscating them. I would make them very hard to acquire, like fully automatic firearms are now.

What does this accomplish? First, for someone who wants to buy this type of firearm with the intent to inflict mass casualties, it takes these types of options off the table. Case in point, a guy couldn’t walk into a gun shop, buy an AR-15 with multiple 100 round magazines, and use it later to inflict mass casualties. Yes, he could steal one. Yes, he could find an alternative (knife, shotgun, handgun). However, shotguns and handguns are not as accurate and lethal at distance as long rifles.

I am focused primarily on helping to prevent mass shootings. These could be hindered / prevented if we take away the tools most commonly used to perpetrate them.

As for standing up to government with your “well-armed militia,” good luck with that.