jillycat
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Oct 24, 2012
- Messages
- 2,746
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I'm really sorry to see veterans characterized as too twitchy and confused and disordered to know the difference between Iraq and a public school, or ISIS and a student. Veteran groups are constantly having to push back against this demeaning stereotype, where statistics simply do not support such a claim.
As for "mental illness", that's a vague and widely applied term that includes common problems in living, so if that generalization is the bar (and that's one of the claims on this thread), then the average person's constitutional rights are potentially at risk. There are already some states where a 3 day hold can be facilitated by a family member's claim that the person is unstable. This is already a slippery slope, without adding the gun 'control' debate to it. Because someone felt sad or anxious or sees a therapist during a divorce or a loss or any challenging time and receives a DSM diagnostic code for third party billing is not a reason to deny them possession of a weapon. And that's where the "mental illness" part of all this is headed. Can you imagine if society referred to people as "physically ill" and policy was made based on that characterization? The messaging about "mental illness" is off course.
I haven't seen anyone make a blanket statement that guns solve problems, as was referenced earlier. However, it follows that an armed person has a better opportunity at stopping another armed person, than a person using their fists or a knife or running away from a shooter. And unsupervised children will continue to be at risk for accessing guns in environments where adults don't secure their firearms, regardless of anyone's POV on the merits or purpose of guns.
I don't think it follows that someone armed with a handgun can't stop a shooter with an AR. A deadly shot is a deadly shot. That's why police and SEALs have Glocks. They're extremely reliable and effective. As the VA Tech shooter also demonstrated.
Violent people will continue to access guns and it seems that keeping these people and any kind of weapon they possess out of schools in the first place makes the most sense. And narratives will continue to be heavy with terms like "military grade", "assault weapon", and "machine guns" despite the inaccurate application of the terms and the often intentional political motivation of these terms. Dana Loesch said today that after the 'town hall', the stage was rushed and people were shouting "Burn her." Don't know who the offenders were, but no one is going to win anything meaningful by behaving this way.
Despite this latest outrage and media attention, and even if there are some new regulatory measures, I don't see this changing a whole lot due to both the highly politicized gridlocked nature of the discussion and 'reform', and also because society is increasingly broken and no government mandate can fix that.
One of these days we'll see a bomb go off in a school and what do we ban then and which 'side' do we blame for fertilizer and nail sales? So, I was also sorry to see the FBI get a convenient pass last night.
As for "mental illness", that's a vague and widely applied term that includes common problems in living, so if that generalization is the bar (and that's one of the claims on this thread), then the average person's constitutional rights are potentially at risk. There are already some states where a 3 day hold can be facilitated by a family member's claim that the person is unstable. This is already a slippery slope, without adding the gun 'control' debate to it. Because someone felt sad or anxious or sees a therapist during a divorce or a loss or any challenging time and receives a DSM diagnostic code for third party billing is not a reason to deny them possession of a weapon. And that's where the "mental illness" part of all this is headed. Can you imagine if society referred to people as "physically ill" and policy was made based on that characterization? The messaging about "mental illness" is off course.
I haven't seen anyone make a blanket statement that guns solve problems, as was referenced earlier. However, it follows that an armed person has a better opportunity at stopping another armed person, than a person using their fists or a knife or running away from a shooter. And unsupervised children will continue to be at risk for accessing guns in environments where adults don't secure their firearms, regardless of anyone's POV on the merits or purpose of guns.
I don't think it follows that someone armed with a handgun can't stop a shooter with an AR. A deadly shot is a deadly shot. That's why police and SEALs have Glocks. They're extremely reliable and effective. As the VA Tech shooter also demonstrated.
Violent people will continue to access guns and it seems that keeping these people and any kind of weapon they possess out of schools in the first place makes the most sense. And narratives will continue to be heavy with terms like "military grade", "assault weapon", and "machine guns" despite the inaccurate application of the terms and the often intentional political motivation of these terms. Dana Loesch said today that after the 'town hall', the stage was rushed and people were shouting "Burn her." Don't know who the offenders were, but no one is going to win anything meaningful by behaving this way.
Despite this latest outrage and media attention, and even if there are some new regulatory measures, I don't see this changing a whole lot due to both the highly politicized gridlocked nature of the discussion and 'reform', and also because society is increasingly broken and no government mandate can fix that.
One of these days we'll see a bomb go off in a school and what do we ban then and which 'side' do we blame for fertilizer and nail sales? So, I was also sorry to see the FBI get a convenient pass last night.