Quote:
Originally Posted by Rick Lee
No, she was shot by a raging lunatic. The inanimate object is as innocuous as your or my car.
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Rick,
I have a little problem with this argument. Granted, while more people die every year in the US from traffic accidents than gunshot wounds, there is a difference in the designed purpose of the device.
A motor vehicle's purpose is primarily transportation, followed by pleasure of possession, show, competition.
A firearm's designed purpose is to move a bullet with enough velocity to kill or seriously injure the target. Like vehicles, people also possess them for the purposes of pleasure, show and competition.
If you are seeking to injure someone, thought processes tend to lead to selecting something designed as a weapon. In defending your home, you would probably select a pistol at even a baseball bat over a motor vehicle. By the same token if this individual couldn't have gotten his hands on a pistol, he may have taken a knife, IED or an automobile.
Just like we try to keep mentally unstable persons from taking charge of a motor vehicle, there are screening procedures (nominally) in place to prevent these people from possessing firearms. The processes aren't perfect (obviously). Should there be an automatic flag on a person's medical file prohibiting operation of a motor vehicle or possession of a firearm if the patient is under care for mental illness?
People have the right to assemble. Telling a group you can't have an assembly (be it sports or political or a church social) because their security procedures are not to code is going the way of airport security. That is cumbersome and (as pointed out here many times) ineffective.
My prayers go out to the victims of this tragedy.
All the best
Les