Assasination attempt in Arizona

[red-beard]

It was amazing to hear the sherriff of Pima county say that things like this never happened before during his 75 year lifetime. The reporter had to point out that Presidents and Presidential candidates had been assinated during his lifetime. The Pima county sherriff was using the tradgey to suggest that right wing radio was the cause. Of couse, as we've shown here, the shooter was not a right wing guy.

[Racerbvd]

Another angle
Top US Federal Judge Assassinated After Threat To Obama Agenda | EUTimes.net

[Rick Lee]

He's an idiot for sure. But that's how they roll in Pima Co. It's not a conservative place and their DA has a hard-on for prosecuting law-abiding gun owners.

[drcoastline]

VaSteve, Where does it end? I'm not really sure to tell you the truth. The scenarios presented in post #64 maybe all of those apply? Some for sure do such as Midnight madness at Best Buy, 3rd rate rapper, Times square, Cornhole toss at the Giants game, Friday night high school football game to be sure. I know where I do not want to see it end? That end is a dead 9 year old little girl in the parking lot of a Safeway or the dead students at VA Tech or The dead students at Columbine and how many others? I think there were two or three of those those scenarios this past week. I believe everyone of those scenarios that I described could have been thawrated or lessoned with a little proactive planning and involvement.

If you read my posts you will see that what I think should happen is a law not imposed on you the public but on whom ever wishes to assemble a large crowd for any reason should be responsible to keep that crowd safe. Especially if there is a propensity for violance such as a Rap concert, Soccer game, night club where alcohol, machismo and jealousy are involved. I am not saying that everytime you walk into into your local Walgreens or you Walmart you should be subject to search. But if you pay attention to patterns, searches definately should be performed at schools prior to entering and armed police or guards on premises until the students are safely inside and the doors are locked (from the outside) behind them.

[pa911]

Originally Posted by Racerbvd

Another angle
Top US Federal Judge Assassinated After Threat To Obama Agenda | EUTimes.net

Looks like a good source another story they have http://www.eutimes.net/2010/12/wikileaks-set-to-reveal-us-ufo-war-in-southern-ocean/

[slodave]

Originally Posted by Racerbvd

Another angle
Top US Federal Judge Assassinated After Threat To Obama Agenda | EUTimes.net

You can't be serious with this, Byron.

[oldE]

Originally Posted by Rick Lee

No, she was shot by a raging lunatic. The inanimate object is as innocuous as your or my car.

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

[ODDJOB UNO]

well after careful reading of this lunatics background, its the SYSTEM that failed here. when a problem/tragedy/crash/wreck no matter the circumstance you have what we call crash scene investigators. lets use the NTSB and a plane crash for example. investigators go to area of impact, take angle of dangle measurements, glide path calc's, autopsy info, fuel in tanks, lil itty bitty parts back to hanger and reconstruct etc blah blah.


well with this moron, when he filled out his federal "yellow" form for purchase of a handgun, guess how he answered the question,"are you a raving lunatic moron azzhole, and been adjudicated a freeking mental case?" wanna bet the farm he wrote down "NO!"


he was not allowed to matriculate into the local community college UNLESS he had been "OK'd" by a shrink. this was PRIOR to him purchasing handgun.



so what failed here?


so far tucson top cop has mentioned "gun laws" and so has ch.12 news mentioned "changes in gun laws" and lord knows who else thruout these last 48 hrs.


mark my words ALL of us law abiding citizens who are flat fed up w/FREEKING CRIME and WHO CARRY 24/7/365.5 are gonna take a fall somehow someway for this freeking IDIOT/MORON/PSYCHO/AZZHOLE.


do YOU think i wanna lug around a "mouse gun" or a freeking compact, or a full size every single freeking day,anywhere i go. i cant tell you what a PITA it is to actually have to think about this daily, am i printing,what will i wear, where i can and cannot go, having to constantly scan my 360 for bad guys anywhere and everywhere i go. I DONT LIKE IT ONE DAMN BIT, but it is better than the alternative of getting dead.


i used to be the paperboy(remember those?) for downtown scottsdale when it WAS A ONE HORSEY TOWN! we left our doors open, tools out,lawnmowers out,car keys in cars ,bikes outside, etc. there WAS NO CRIME! it was MAYBERRY R.F.D 24/7/365.

now ya would think by moving to a RURAL AREA nowadays would solve the "crime" problem. WRONG! because law enforcement crackdowns on drug dealing where do meth labs land.................yep...............RURAL AREAS! and so what have YOU escaped from? NOTHING!


crime is everywhere the public is. be it a campground in BFE or smack dab downtown.


yeah aint much difference from when indians were hostile and ya never knew where they would pop up and massacre everyone and steal yer horses and yer women. and back then EVERYONE HAD A SPOON OR THREE!


PEOPLE ARE NO DAMN GOOD!

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by silverwhaletail

I stand by my post.

Giffords is a liberal democrat.

No one in her posse was carrying.

Giffords and her kind are gun haters.

I like a person who stands by his beliefs and doesn't let facts get in the way.

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by Schumi

Well, if true, CONGRATULATIONS, now she has even more of a reason to hate guns.

SHE JUST GOT SHOT IN THE HEAD BY ONE.

LOL!! Good observation.

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by drcoastline

VaSteve, Where does it end? I'm not really sure to tell you the truth.

It's not going to end. We live in a society that solves its problems with gunfire. You get crazy and paranoid - shoot someone. You're afraid of the crazy and paranoid - shoot them.
The conviction that solving our problems with firearms is rooted in our constitution. It's part of America. Americans will keep doing it forever. The solution to our fears is a gun. Ask the founding fathers.

[red-beard]

Originally Posted by oldE

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?

Les

There is. NICS covers this.

But what about someone who has not been professionally diagnosed? Should everyone in the USA submit to a mental exam on a yearly basis? This is what it would take.

[Tim Hancock]

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

It's part of America. Americans will keep doing it forever. The solution to our fears is a gun. Ask the founding fathers.

Works for me.

[ODDJOB UNO]

well we can go the politico route and look at this tragedy. it cant/wont/couldnt get any WORSE!


white whackjob massacres gun hating democrats.


well wait a damn minute here, i know plenty of ARMED CCW DEMOCRATS!


but how this looks to the general public nationwide, is btwn all the drugs and gunplay with the border crap and now this, az. looks like freeking iraq/messiko and has NO control over who has guns and who doesnt.


another good example of how knee jerk the govt is. there is a swath of land to the southwest of phx and east of gila bend az. that used to be a great place to go hunting/4 wheeling/dirt biking/etc. well along comes a bunch of azz holes,which includes illegal aliens/coyotes bringing them in/meth labs/drug runners/murders etc. take a wild guess what happens?????


yep btwn the feds/local cops/azgfd dept/state trust lands/BLM, they decide to CLOSE the entire area off to any and all entry to us normal law abiding citizens. basically it is now a NO MANS LAND and there is NO ENTRADE WHATSOEVER unless a LEO!


why? because they didnt have the manpower to contol the problem. but they blame offroaders on shooting at petroglyphs,leaving trash, running over cactus etc.


now lets get something straight here:


1) you have a very low life span if you shoot at rocks

2) your tires on your OHV(whatever kind) have a low life span if you run over cactus(trust me on this one)!

3) well yes some people are just plain PIGS at their home and outdoors. this is one place behavior fer sure needs to be modified.



but back to topic..................we will see a kneejerk reaction from government on this now that obama has the impetus which he had before but shied away from to make MORE GUN LAWS.



now just imagine if an illegal alien/cartel member had shot these people, and watch how the government reacts to this.



mark my words there will be ANOTHER RUN ON GUNS and AMMO before this is all over and is sent to the back page of the newspapers/media.

[The Gaijin]

This is a huge story and is dominating the news, and so it should.

The Congresswoman was targeted, although the Judge seems to have been in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

However, this is a violent country, in a violent world.

How many other incidents of mass murder, including bystanders and innocent children have happened in Arizona in the past few years? Gang bangers, drug dealers and assorted crazies and criminals seem to kill lot's of people all the time - and it hardly makes the news..

[Rick Lee]

Random violence in AZ is actually pretty rare. They say Phoenix is the kidnapping capital of the world. But 100% of those cases are illegal aliens or otherwise involved in drug or human trafficking, and most of those were never reported missing. They just get held in a drop house until their coyote gets paid. But when the cops find such a drop house with 50 illegals in it, it's counted as 50 more kidnapping victims. I don't know that I've ever read of a random murder in Phoenix other than the infamous Baseline Killer, who's now on death row. As in most places in the US, the vast majority of crime victims know their assailants. Being a victim of a violent crime has pretty low odds here unless you run in those circles. Saturday's tragedy, while not totally random, did have a lot of random victims who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Hug and kiss your loved ones every chance you get.

[oldE]

Originally Posted by red-beard

There is. NICS covers this.

But what about someone who has not been professionally diagnosed? Should everyone in the USA submit to a mental exam on a yearly basis? This is what it would take.

I'm not one to push for 'all or nothing' solutions or say"If it's not perfect I'm not going to bother." Lord, I'd never do anything if that were the case.

What I would push for is enforcing the laws already on the books, put there in an attempt to keep firearms out of the hands of those who have been shown to be unstable. How about an interview and a realistic check into applicable medical records before someone is granted the right to purchase a firearm? True, this is not the perfect filter, but I would expect some sort of competency test.

There may well be a valid argument for seeking out persons with stability issues, but I suspect that sort of screening would fly in the face of rights and freedoms. Even then, I doubt it would 'weed out' those in crisis (job loss, nasty break up, etc.) who suddenly take it in their mind to 'show them'.

Address the problem one step at a time.

Going back to the firearm-automobile analogy, the average driver does not require a vision test annually, and only runs into problems when they come to the attention of the authorities (traffic accident, etc.) Commercial drivers, on the other hand, do have a yearly visual test for renewal of their license.

I can only imagine the bureaucratic SNAFU annual competency tests for continuation of firearm possession (or a drivers license) would cause.
North of the border, we tried the long gun registry. The waste of money shows what government is best at.

Heck, if it was easy, we would have had the problem fixed long ago.

Les

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by Tim Hancock

Works for me.

It worked for Jared Loughner too. He shot 20 people. Killed a 9 year old girl, a 76 year old woman, a 79 year old woman, and three others. He had a problem them and he took action in the American way. I'll bet he feels a lot better, thanks to his Glock.

[Rick Lee]

Originally Posted by oldE

How about an interview and a realistic check into applicable medical records before someone is granted the right to purchase a firearm? True, this is not the perfect filter, but I would expect some sort of competency test.

We're not "granted a right" to purchase anything here. The rights are already ours, not the government's to grant us. That said, the problem here is when to label someone a threat to themselves or others. This perp is pretty young and was already known as a loose screw. But nothing he had done until Saturday had risen to the level of getting him into the disqualified category that would have shown up in a NICS check. And even had been turned away when trying to buy a gun, he could have bought one on the street far more easily and for probably a lot less money. The guy was a determined madman. No law is going to stop someone like that unles they get committed and stay confined. And I don't see anyone claiming we need to step up involuntary committals. They'd rather pass more meaningless gun laws, which will do nothing to stop this from happening again. And so this kind of thing will happen once in a while.

[drcoastline]

I agree with Ricks post above. More laws restricting the law abiding persons ability to obtain a gun isn't going to fix the problem. I think it would only increase the sale of illegal guns. If a gang banger wants a gun he's not going to the local walmart and applying for it hes going to the back alley in the hood. So did anyone get help by the law? I say no.

In addition what if someone gets a gun through proper channels and in 10 years they develop a mental illness then what? Maybe periodic psych tests? Kind of like re-taking your drivers test? The gun isn't the problemit's people and we are in constant change.

I don't know just a thought.

Rick and OJU, what type of questions are on the gun purchase form?