AWKWARD ZOMBIE

As far as the legal system goes, and so far no one seems to acknowledge that I've said as much, is that the guy, who had been under investigation (that was mentioned here) on two occasions for making threats and claiming association to Al Qaeda, should have immediately been placed on a watch list, and then, because of such threats, been legally barred from purchasing any kind of firearm. If that much wasn't an option, then they should have at least had his personal info in the system, so that, as I stated before, they could have immediately began surveillance. If they had done that, they could have averted this catastrophe.

What also goes unreported in the media is that there have been occasions where a mass shooting attempt was either thwarted altogether or at least stopped early on by an individual with a license to carry a concealed weapon.

As for you guys being scared of me for owning a gun, allow me a moment to inform you a little bit about myself.

At the time I purchased my handgun, I was on convalescent leave from Basic Training with the Army. By that point, it had been drilled into my head to never have my finger in the trigger guard or have the safety off, or even have a round chambered, until I have that weapon pointed at something I need to shoot.

So you can believe me when I say I have been trained.

A summary of the known info on the shooter.
There are several conflicting versions. Some say he was nice, some say he was unstable and violent. Some say he was a homophobe, others say he liked hanging out at the same bar and was on friendly terms with LGBT people.

Gun ownership stats in the US.
The percentage of people owning guns diminishes while the number of guns soars, meaning people are building arsenals. There are currently 1.12 gun for every person in the US, which is terrifying.

MassShootingTracker.com
There has not been a single day without a mass shooting (aka >= 4 people being shot) in the US for the whole period covered by the tracker (since January 1st 2013).

Oh, I forgot to mention, it's a felony to buy a firearm for someone who legally cannot own or have access to one. I think, if they commit a crime with a weapon acquired this way, whoever got the weapon for them is considered an accessory to whatever crime it was. I don't think it matters if they knew the person wasn't permitted to have it or not.

Hell, I don't even know if it's legal to buy a gun for someone who IS legally allowed access/ownership of a firearm.

(Don't know if this would make you folks feel any safer, even though the closest forumite is a couple hundred miles away, but my family has a strong military and law enforcement background, so we take firearm safety pretty daisies seriously.)

http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnew ... 1464182796
I also saw this today. Found in a blog (opinion) post that points how the 2nd Amendment not only states the right to bear arms, but also notes the importance of having a "well regulated Militia".

It really is disturbing how common-sense these sorts of stricter regulations are, at least according to public opinion, and yet still nothing makes it out of Congress because NRA lobbyists have it in a stranglehold. The obstructionism of right-wing politicians in the US is getting absurd. It's not about what people actually want, it's about stopping everything that the moderates and left-wing people want because "goddamn libruls"... for lack of a better explanation.

And what can be done about it, other than public outcry? Voting for new politicians is too slow and sadly ineffective, it seems. What else can we do but try, possibly in vain, to remind people that guns are literal killing machines that need to be kept away from dangerous people?

I respect responsible gun owners who know how to be safe. But I still think it should be harder to be one of those people. And I definitely think that whatever regulations we have need to be enforced way more severely.

Well, the thing is, just about every time there's a shooting, the first thing that happens is gun owners and anyone who supports the second amendment is blamed. This happened after the one in California, even after it came to light that the shooters had made videos that showed they were Islamic extremists. Our president has, repeatedly, blamed Americans for attacks carried out by IS sympathizers, saying it's because we won't let him ban guns.

There's also been occasions where he has said the firearms checks that are in place don't work, but when someone says that Syrian refugees are being allowed to bring their own weapons into the country, his response has pretty much been "Don't worry, they go through a federal firearms background check," which I don't think would work in that situation, as they aren't likely to have any records of anything they've done in other countries, and some IS fighters, who probably have snuck over here (though I want it to be made clear that I think and hope is a tiny percent) may not necessarily have a criminal record in their home countries, in the first place.

As for the shootings happening on a regular basis, I have mentioned before that gangs do perpetrate a lot of violent crimes. However, I also wonder about the veracity of those sites. Conservative media websites are often suspected of being not entirely honest, and I don't believe liberal and moderate websites are any different. Case in point: While not a website itself, a New York publication (I honestly don't remember the name, only that "New York" was in the title) claimed that this shooting was orchestrated by the NRA, or something like that. And yet, daisies near every report I'd read stated that this guy acted alone and had claimed loyalty to IS.

Keep in mind, though, that I generally do not trust any media, regardless of leanings. For example, Fox News is conservative, but I really wish someone would pull a righteous hack and force that entire corporation into bankruptcy. Media outlets should not be politically biased, and should never twist the truth or spin it or whatever.

I just want to point out that at no point, ever, has President Obama stated that he wanted to ban guns or take anyone's guns away. I don't think any politician with half a brain wants to do this, because it would never work. I really truly have no idea where this sentiment comes from - all I can think of is that right-wing politicians make it up because they want to make their supporters afraid of losing their guns. Like I said, it seems like every time someone says "Well maybe it's too easy to get a gun" someone slippery-slopes that statement into "oh why do you wanna ban guns??". I don't think that's what most people want.

I really urge you to watch this video, this is Obama talking about his thoughts on the gun control situation in a town hall less than a month ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSEoVkl ... BSNewsHour

Either the information you're getting is very wrong, or you're exaggerating for the sake of creating a strawman to argue against. I think you'll find that the people advocating for stricter gun control are not as dead-set against you as you might think. They're just saddened by the sheer volume of senseless violence in this country and are looking for ways to stop it. Yes, there are certainly people that demonize gun owners, but I think way, way, way more people are just trying to keep them out of the wrong hands.

Sorry for interrupting the discussion, I just wanted to say something since I spoke out in somewhat of a defense of Trump in this thread. I've since been able to find clearer and more unbiased information on the matter, thanks in part to the excellent reply made in this thread. I've changed my mind and Trump is in fact, awful. Unfortunately I still believe Hillary is roughly just as awful. Basically, the world is going to shit (well not really, the world was already shit, but things are probably going to get worse instead of better for the foreseeable future).

Hopefully US citizens will someday figure out their election system is a sick perversion of democracy. And then actually do something about it.

(And for the record, I kind of lost faith in Bernie's abilities as a leader, though I still think the guy at least has his heart in the right place. That's irrelevant at this point though).

Well, from what I hear, over four hundred members of congress are up for reelection this year. Hopefully (assuming the elections aren't rigged) people have had enough of people who have been in office for years and continue adding to the mess by adding more layers of bureaucracy where there's already too much, and not putting in any kind of oversight where it's actually needed.

Oh, and hopefully someone will be in a position to get rid of this common core thing. I haven't heard anything about it actually working.

Found this while looking for gun statistics.

http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/160/10/929.full

Tl;dr:
Apparently you're almost twice as likely to get murdered in your own home if you own a gun.

News happening right now: Senate democrats are holding a filibuster to try and force a compromise on a gun control bill. We'll see how it goes.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/s ... rol-224369


As far as the presidential candidates, Trump is, of course, awful and dangerous, and I think Hillary is a liar and a crook. But given the choice I would honestly rather have a crook in office than a raving, racist, reality show lunatic. I won't be pop flyin' about it, but honestly i figure with Hillary it would just be business as usual in the White House (unless she actually has to face some consequences for the leaked emails thing soon, which I doubt.

I dunno about Bernie not having leadership skills, but he certainly didn't have the campaigning skills. My beliefs align pretty closely with what he stands for but sadly it just isn't working out... I didn't want to give up on him until I was sure he wouldn't make it though. I do admire his dedication to his "rebuild the middle class" message, but the simple truth is, that message just doesn't appeal to everyone. He really failed to recruit big minority groups to his side and that cost him A LOT of votes. I'm interested to see what he'll do now, though. I doubt he would join forces with Hillary but maybe he'll inspire more candidates like him for the future. If he goes third party (which I doubt), I don't think he'll win, but it would be a big stepping stone for future third party candidates just out of how much support he gained already.

The last time we had a Republican TV star in the oval office he fucked up the economy so hard that we're feeling it 30 years later.

My Florida grandmother thinks that particular president did the country a huge service and put it into economic prosperity. She is unwavering in her perspective.

Even though she can barely afford her own bills and her children can't get any jobs or anything.

I dunno, an argument could be made that a racist idiot is better for the world in office than a corrupt warmonger. I think Hillary is going to win though. Trump alienates far too many moderates.

I'd been seeing a lot of claims regarding theOrlando shooting, as well as some conspiracy theories.

While conspiracy theories are, sometimes, entertaining, I gotta poke a few holes in these, as well as the claims about how many rounds the shooter fired, and all that.

First up, I'd heard a few statements that the shooter fired hundreds of times, or that there were too many shots for one person to make. This is not correct. While it is true that semiautomatic assault rifles are stated as being capable of firing hundreds of rounds per minute, this measurement is calculated based on the weapon's cycle time, or the amount of time it takes for the mechanical parts of the weapon to fire a bullet, extract and eject the spent casing, chamber the next, lock the bolt into place, and repeat this process. This measurement does not account for reloading or acquiring targets.

Further, the police report states that 202 rounds were fired that night, including those fired by law enforcement. That tells me the shooter could have had as few as three 30 round magazines for the rifle, and three 17 round magazines for the handgun. Although, I haven't yet seen any report stating how many rounds he actually had, and I don't know how many he actually fired (though definitely over a hundred).

There's also the fact that surveillance footage was taken from the club. I really don't see any plausible reason why, if there actually was a second shooter, nobody, not police, not the news, not even the people there, said anything about a second shooter.

So, yeah, I seriously doubt there was a second shooter.

Then, to look at the other end of the spectrum, some news guy said he fired an AR-15 to see what it was like. Everything he said about the experience was either a complete lie, or an exaggeration. He claimed it was like firing a cannon, and called it bazooka-like, and very, very loud. First off, nobody is going to let you onto their range without hearing protection. Second, I'd been at a few ranges in Ft. Benning, GA, where about 220 men (but not all that the same time) were firing M4 carbines, which shoot the exact same cartridge. With earplugs in, you hear a loud thump, but not the "deafening explosion" described in the article.

He claimed the rifle bruised his shoulder. Unless he has excessively fragile flesh, this could not happen. There is a large spring in the stock of the weapon (in fact ALL rifles in the AR family have this), called a buffer spring. You won't really feel much of an impact. Sure, there's some recoil, but not something that would cause bruising.

Next claim: The flying brass disoriented him. Based on my personal experience firing an M4, the only way he could have even seen the brass would have been to use a rifle for a left handed shooter is he was shooting right handed, or vice versa. The casings are ejected to the right (if it's a right handed weapon), and that little bump behind the ejection port is there to deflect the casings AWAY from your face, even though the weapon is in the way.

Well, I suppose he could have seen it, if he wasn't looking through the sights. Not sure about that, as I haven't fired one of those in years.

Finally, he claimed he had a temporary form of PTSD as a result. I don't really know if that could happen, but I suppose if someone had never heard gunfire in person, and didn't wear earplugs, then maybe.

Also, and sorry about this one, which will piss a bunch of people off, but after the AWB expired, the CDC released a report (linked from the Wikipedia article about the ban) stating that they hadn't found any conclusive evidence that the ban reduced crime.

Although, I still wonder why this guy was able to pass multiple background checks in spite of more than one investigation. Granted, they found no connection, but still...

Also, something I had forgotten until last night... The first time I went to a gun store, I asked how to get a license for owning an AR-15, and was surprised that, as long as you don't intend to buy any suppressors or automatic weapons, you don't need a license. Completely forgot.

EDIT: Speaking of forgetting things, I'd forgotten to mention the "false flag" conspiracy theory. From what I've seen of the two false flag theories... Yeah, every point raised, I saw a hole. I'd post if I had time, except there's no need to really take the time to say more than it's all a crock of shit.

So Britain voted to leave the European Union and people are all flustered over it. I'm actually glad they did. When the EU does stuff that could actually destroy the Open Internet, I think it's time for countries to consider leaving.