Inconvenient Truths for Gun-Grabbers

 

Making all the usual stipulations about early information — and for the regrettable necessity of making policy arguments while bodies are still warm (thanks, Obama) — consider that all four of the firearms used in yesterday’s massacre were purchased legally, at least two of them by murderer Syed Farook. As a California resident of some years, that means any weapons owned by him would have been subject to some of the most restrictive and cumbersome regulations in the country. Fat lot of good they did, too.

It’s hardly surprising that background checks and better weapons’ records to do little to stop spree killers: such people are generally not habitual lawbreakers and any system with a reasonable chance of identifying the mentally unbalanced is guaranteed to be both intrusive and deny many harmless people the exercise of their rights. (That these laws may play a more constructive role in stopping and investigating homicides between criminals strikes me as far more likely, but those generally aren’t the cases we’re talking about when we’re having a “national debate on gun violence.”)

Short of repealing the Second Amendment and confiscating hundreds of millions of firearms in private hands — a policy that, besides abridging the rights of Americans, would guarantee an increase in violence — there is very little we can do to stop spree-killings from happening. And among the things that might help around he margins, refusing to publish killers’ manifestos, highlighting heroism when it occurs, reforming our mental health systems, and expanding the places where law-abiding citizens can legally carry are far more likely to make a difference than new restrictions on purchasing and carrying firearms.

As it is, the two worst massacres in recent years (this and Sandy Hook) both featured weapons purchased legally in heavily regulated states, and took place in government buildings that typically forbid citizens’ right to carry. Next time your Leftist friends suggest more gun regulations, ask them to think on that.

Update: After publishing, I spent an untoward amount of time trying determine definitively whether the Inland Regional Center was, indeed, a gun-free zone. While the Internet was able to confirm that firearms are prohibited in all public buildings in California, I could not find whether the IRC counted as such, as it is run as a (state-funded) private corporation. After being put in touch with him via email, California Department of General Services Deputy Direct Brian Ferguson confirmed to me today that “yes, [the IRC] would be covered under the law since state employees (social workers, public health officials, administrative laws judges, etc) conduct business there” and thus be a gun-free zone.

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  1. Seawriter Contributor
    Seawriter
    @Seawriter

    When Jihadis attempted to go on a shooting spree earlier this year in gun-friendly Texas (at Garland in May), the shooters were stopped before they killed anyone.

    Obviously gun control kills and needs to be abolished*

    * Yes, I know that is hyperbolic. But it is the same type of hyperbole gun grabbers use.

    Seawriter

    • #1
  2. civil westman Inactive
    civil westman
    @user_646399

    Reason has no place in the minds of fanatic gun grabbers. This is their religion, zealously adhered to. The MSM does not point out that in France – how many times now?- where few guns are in the hands of the public, mass killers have had no problem obtaining fully automatic weapons, i.e. real assault weapons. So much for the efficacy of making every last one of us defenseless victims. I keep forgetting that becoming a victim is now the highest form of social virtue.

    • #2
  3. Kevin Creighton Contributor
    Kevin Creighton
    @KevinCreighton

    Let’s assume for a moment that you are AbdulNot Bin DoinNuttinWrong, and you’re looking to inflict Sudden Jihadi Syndrome somewhere inside the United States.
    You have a choice where you should do this: You can attack in a state with no concealed carry provisions, a state with concealed carry by itself, or a state with concealed carry AND open carry.
    If 10% or more of your potential victims have the means to send you to your 72 virgins ahead of schedule, and worse yet, if 1% of those people are openly displaying that they are ready, willing and able to send you to Paradise before you strike, wouldn’t you decide to move your attack to safer climes?

    • #3
  4. Vicryl Contessa Thatcher
    Vicryl Contessa
    @VicrylContessa

    Kevin Creighton:Let’s assume for a moment that you are AbdulNot Bin DoinNuttinWrong, and you’re looking to inflict Sudden Jihadi Syndrome somewhere inside the United States. You have a choice where you should do this: You can attack in a state with no concealed carry provisions, a state with concealed carry by itself, or a state with concealed carry AND open carry. If 10% or more of your potential victims have the means to send you to your 72 virgins ahead of schedule, and worse yet, if 1% of those people are openly displaying that they are ready, willing and able to send you to Paradise before you strike, wouldn’t you decide to move your attack to safer climes?

    And that’s why the South is awesome.

    • #4
  5. Guruforhire Inactive
    Guruforhire
    @Guruforhire

    We already know due to the recent NY experience that more rigorous gun control laws breed only mass non compliance from citizenry and law enforcement, which fundamental delegitimatizes the state.

    Passing illegitimate dumb[redacted] laws only breeds contempt for the rule of law and its institutions.

    This is something which has no good end, because frankly the laws are broadly unenforcable.  There is ultimately no way to enforce this law over widespread opposition:

    • Over half of the country will not arrest
    • Over half of the country will not prosecute
    • Over half of the country will not vote guilty during a trial

    Nor can the federal government impose the laws via threat of arms because frankly it can’t fight 50 Iraqis with less than 30% of their existing forces.

    The left is going to have to let this one go, for bare metal legitimacy of the state reasons, even if it thinks it can cobble together a slim majority of representatives dumb enough to pass it.

    Even if people agree broadly with the idea, there is not enough trust of the democrats on this issue for it to go anywhere.

    Decades of bad faith are coming home to roost and it is deeply unfortunate.

    • #5
  6. Eugene Kriegsmann Member
    Eugene Kriegsmann
    @EugeneKriegsmann

    These two killers were  a bit too well prepared to be considered anything but committed to achieving a specific planned objective. It is a little too simplistic in light of the events of Paris and the promise by ISIS that the United States was next to pretend that there isn’t  good deal of reason to consider the strong possibility that the two were, if not directly linked to ISIS, at least inspired by their rhetoric. That Obama and the left are attempting to put this in the same category of violence as, say, the Sandy Hook shooting spree, demonstrates how completely unsafe our country has become.

    I find it particularly interesting that Farook’s weapons have not been described other than to mention that they were AR-15s and purchased legally. My understanding is that California has some pretty strict regulations on the furniture that can be used on ARs. I am really curious as to whether the banned items were present on those guns or whether the two killers were able to accomplish their mission without the use of cosmetic items which attempt to make, essentially sporting weapons, look like military assault weapons.

    • #6
  7. DrewInWisconsin Member
    DrewInWisconsin
    @DrewInWisconsin

    Tom Meyer, Ed.:Short of repealing the Second Amendment and confiscating hundreds of millions of firearms in private hands — a policy that, besides abridging the rights of Americans, would guarantee an increase in violence — there is very little we can do to stop spree-killings from happening.

    Which is why you will see attempts to repeal the 2nd amendment and confiscate hundreds of millions of privately-owned guns.

    Because that’s the only way to achieve the goals of the left.

    The President pretty said as much when he admitted that current gun control laws wouldn’t have stopped this. That wasn’t his admission that gun control laws are pointless. That was his expression of a desire to confiscate.

    • #7
  8. DrewInWisconsin Member
    DrewInWisconsin
    @DrewInWisconsin

    Guruforhire: Even if people agree broadly with the idea, there is not enough trust of the democrats on this issue for it to go anywhere.

    Decades of bad faith are coming home to roost and it is deeply unfortunate.

    Yep. That, too.

    • #8
  9. Vicryl Contessa Thatcher
    Vicryl Contessa
    @VicrylContessa

    DrewInWisconsin:

    Which is why you will see attempts to repeal the 2nd amendment and confiscate hundreds of millions of privately-owned guns.

    Because that’s the only way to achieve the goals of the left.

    The President pretty said as much when he admitted that current gun control laws wouldn’t have stopped this. That wasn’t his admission that gun control laws are pointless. That was his expression of a desire to confiscate.

    Yep, and the fact that, as Tom said, this shooting was done with legally purchased guns in a state with strict gun laws will only make the left call for a complete ban/abolishment of the 2nd amendment, and even stricter gun laws.

    • #9
  10. Tom Meyer, Ed. Member
    Tom Meyer, Ed.
    @tommeyer

    Vicryl Contessa: And that’s why the South is awesome.

    And Northern New England. For instance, the Maine constitution states that:

    Section 16.  To keep and bear arms.  Every citizen has a right to keep and bear arms and this right shall never be questioned.

    • #10
  11. James Gawron Inactive
    James Gawron
    @JamesGawron

    Tom,

    This is a most egregious politicization by the President. The strong arguments the you make are not exactly unknown. With no respect for the victims or the facts, the President immediately pressed ahead and used the incident for his political agenda.

    This is disgusting and the brainless media still shill for the malicious parasite who for the moment is the resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. How many black lives have been lost in Chicago by black gang violence with illegal guns? Does the President even care?

    We know he doesn’t comment.

    Regards,

    Jim

    • #11
  12. ctlaw Coolidge
    ctlaw
    @ctlaw

    Vicryl Contessa:

    DrewInWisconsin:

    Which is why you will see attempts to repeal the 2nd amendment and confiscate hundreds of millions of privately-owned guns.

    Because that’s the only way to achieve the goals of the left.

    The President pretty said as much when he admitted that current gun control laws wouldn’t have stopped this. That wasn’t his admission that gun control laws are pointless. That was his expression of a desire to confiscate.

    Yep, and the fact that, as Tom said, this shooting was done with legally purchased guns in a state with strict gun laws will only make the left call for a complete ban/abolishment of the 2nd amendment, and even stricter gun laws.

    The shooter listed himself as a “health, safety and environmental inspector”.

    CA has had all sorts of gun bans since the shooter was a tyke.

    In many jurisdictions, titles like “health, safety and environmental inspector” often are accompanied by badges and guns and exemptions from gun laws. In CT for example, law enforcement officers are exempt from magazine bans even for personal weapons. Apparently the same goes for CA:

    STATE EXEMPTIONS FOR AUTHORIZED PEACE OFFICERS

    Peace officers who have legislative authority to carry and use firearms may, without a letter signed by the head of their agency or the agency head’s designee, purchase non-rostered handguns and/or large capacity magazines. The peace officer must present a valid peace officer identification card and the dealer must retain a copy of the identification card on file (Pen. Code, § 32000). A letter is still required from the head of the agency to exempt the peace officer from the ten day waiting period (Pen. Code, §§ 26950, 27650).

    Did he use his badge to get his guns and mags where other Californians could not?

    • #12
  13. Douglas Inactive
    Douglas
    @Douglas

    Vicryl Contessa:

    Kevin Creighton:Let’s assume for a moment that you are AbdulNot Bin DoinNuttinWrong, and you’re looking to inflict Sudden Jihadi Syndrome somewhere inside the United States. You have a choice where you should do this: You can attack in a state with no concealed carry provisions, a state with concealed carry by itself, or a state with concealed carry AND open carry. If 10% or more of your potential victims have the means to send you to your 72 virgins ahead of schedule, and worse yet, if 1% of those people are openly displaying that they are ready, willing and able to send you to Paradise before you strike, wouldn’t you decide to move your attack to safer climes?

    And that’s why the South is awesome.

    This stuff doesn’t happen in Montgomery Alabama, or Jackson Mississippi. Abdul ain’t gonna like it if he brings that fight to Bubba. They always pick victim-friendly zones.

    • #13
  14. Kevin Creighton Contributor
    Kevin Creighton
    @KevinCreighton

    Douglas: This stuff doesn’t happen in Montgomery Alabama, or Jackson Mississippi.

    They tried it in Texas, and it did not go well for them…

    • #14
  15. Mark Wilson Inactive
    Mark Wilson
    @MarkWilson

    Tom Meyer, Ed.: consider that all four of the firearms used in yesterday’s massacre were purchased legally

    Let me play devil’s advocate here.

    I see this point made frequently when a mass shooting occurs: the guns were purchased legally, so new gun control is not going to help.  But the goal of gun control proponents is to change the law so such purchases would be illegal.  The fact that a gun was purchased legally and then used to commit crime would be used by gun control proponents to argue that the law was too lenient, wouldn’t it?

    What am I misunderstanding?

    • #15
  16. MarciN Member
    MarciN
    @MarciN

    If the government were to suddenly go after guns owned by private citizens, people would quickly resort to purchasing guns from the black market (or perhaps the government itself, as we saw in Fast and Furious), and soon the government wouldn’t know who had guns and who didn’t. The government would not be able to disarm the American people any more than it can get illicit drugs off Main Street.

    • #16
  17. Tom Meyer, Ed. Member
    Tom Meyer, Ed.
    @tommeyer

    Mark Wilson:

    Let me play devil’s advocate here.

    I see this point made frequently when a mass shooting occurs: the guns were purchased legally, so new gun control is not going to help. But the goal of gun control proponents is to change the law so such purchases would be illegal. The fact that a gun was purchased legally and then used to commit crime would be used by gun control proponents to argue that the law was too lenient, wouldn’t it?

    What am I misunderstanding?

    A fair challenge. Three answers:

    1. Such a ban would likely not pass constitutional muster. So unless the claim begins with a repeal of the Second Amendment and presents a path for that to happen, it’s just bloviating at this point.
    2. Even if circumstances were to change such that such a ban were possible, it does not address the existence of the millions of such weapons currently in private hands. It would likely increase the costs of exchanging such weapons and reducing their availability, but it would hardly solve the problem, and would likely lead to others through contempt of the law and many people’s refusal to acquiesce.
    3. Even stipulating all this, the impact would be minuscule; long guns constitute a shockingly small percentages of homicides.
    • #17
  18. Mark Wilson Inactive
    Mark Wilson
    @MarkWilson

    Yes, agreed on all three points.  However, people who want more gun control aren’t going to let the details of mere implementation stop them from having a strong political opinion about it and voting accordingly.  It’s an appealing position to take during a moral panic. Telling them the guns were purchased legally means we really need to do something!  Same sentiment as “there oughta be a law.”

    • #18
  19. civil westman Inactive
    civil westman
    @user_646399

    Tom Meyer, Ed.:

    Vicryl Contessa: And that’s why the South is awesome.

    And Northern New England. For instance, the Maine constitution states that:

    Section 16. To keep and bear arms. Every citizen has a right to keep and bear arms and this right shall never be questioned.

    Legal sophistry being what it is, this presents no obstacle. The right will not be questioned. It will merely be excised. Note that it is almost exclusively ivy-league trained lawyers who cannot understand that the Second Amendment’s text recites a right of individuals and does not confer a power upon the government.

    • #19
  20. hokiecon Inactive
    hokiecon
    @hokiecon

    civil westman: The right will not be questioned. It will merely be excised.

    I guess we’re just on the wrong side of history…

    • #20
  21. Brian Clendinen Inactive
    Brian Clendinen
    @BrianClendinen

    Kevin Creighton:

    Douglas: This stuff doesn’t happen in Montgomery Alabama, or Jackson Mississippi.

    They tried it in Texas, and it did not go well for them…

    So 13  dead soldiers and the shooter is still living is not going well? I consider that a successful terrorist attack.

    • #21
  22. Mike LaRoche Inactive
    Mike LaRoche
    @MikeLaRoche

    Kevin Creighton:

    Douglas: This stuff doesn’t happen in Montgomery Alabama, or Jackson Mississippi.

    They tried it in Texas, and it did not go well for them…

    They played Cowboys & Muslims, and lost.

    • #22
  23. Seawriter Contributor
    Seawriter
    @Seawriter

    Brian Clendinen: So 13  dead soldiers and the shooter is still living is not going well? I consider that a successful terrorist attack.

    Fort Hood is a Federal reservation. Texas laws are secondary to base regulations. Unless Texas secedes and annexes it. The Federal government also denies it was a terrorist attack, and claims it was workplace violence. Under those conditions I am not sure you can rightly claim it took place in Texas in much the same way the Russian Embassy in Washington D.C. is not in the United States, but is part of Russia.

    When Jihadists attacked in Garland – fully under control of the sovereign state of Texas – the outcome was a wee bit different. Dead tangos, no dead innocents. Not saying that will happen every time, but it will happen more often than not.

    Seawriter

    • #23
  24. Solon JF Inactive
    Solon JF
    @Solon

    One just gets worn out making these points over and over again.  Mark Steyn said he’s all ‘Islamed out’; well, I’m all gun controlled out.  The two sides are talking past each other.

    My fear is that Obama’s rhetoric in particular with regards to race, guns, and Republicans is fomenting a dangerous situation in the United States.  People are so angry about the way he speaks to Americans that they are supporting the only guy that will punch back, who happens to be Trump.  Bad vibes in the USA.

    • #24
  25. MarciN Member
    MarciN
    @MarciN

    Mike LaRoche: They played Cowboys & Muslims, and lost.

    Laugh-out-loud funny. :) :) :)

    • #25
  26. Vance Richards Inactive
    Vance Richards
    @VanceRichards

    I found it interesting that in a NYT account they mentioned the manufacture of each of the guns. They described the handguns as simply “handguns”, with no mention of model or caliber, but the did tell us who made them.

    Officials said the two assault rifles were variants of the AR-15, the semiautomatic version of the military M-16 rifle; one was made by DPMS Panther Arms, and the other was a Smith & Wesson M&P model, a designation meaning military and police. The senior law enforcement official said one handgun was made by Llama, and the other by Smith and Wesson.

    I wonder if this is an indication that the Left will be trying to paint guns makers as the bad guys?

    Also, on the local NY news last night  I heard Senator Chuck Schumer say that he had been briefed and that the gunmen used AK-47’s. Now I do not expect him to be an expert on rifles, but he wants to be the one who can tell us what guns we should and should not be allowed to purchase.

    • #26
  27. CuriousKevmo Inactive
    CuriousKevmo
    @CuriousKevmo

    Worst case scenario: President Cankles nominates a Sotomayer type disaster to replace any of Messrs. Scalia, Kennedy, Alito, Thomas.  Then in a 5-4 decision, the court rules that “clearly, the second amendment applies to  militias only”  and purchases of new guns are outlawed – existing guns are grandfathered.  Tyranny ensues.

    Best case scenario: it takes longer for the worst case to play out.

    • #27
  28. Douglas Inactive
    Douglas
    @Douglas

    Seawriter:

    Brian Clendinen: So 13 dead soldiers and the shooter is still living is not going well? I consider that a successful terrorist attack.

    Fort Hood is a Federal reservation. Texas laws are secondary to base regulations. Unless Texas secedes and annexes it. The Federal government also denies it was a terrorist attack, and claims it was workplace violence. Under those conditions I am not sure you can rightly claim it took place in Texas in much the same way the Russian Embassy in Washington D.C. is not in the United States, but is part of Russia.

    Federal establishments in the South are occupied territory, where our laws, rules, customs, and morals don’t apply. The embassy comparison is an inspired one, and I’m going to use it in the future. Down here, federal places… military bases, federal buildings, etc…. are functionally foreign soil. The Islamist that shot up the office in Tennessee chose a military building, where even Marines were forbidden from being armed. He likely would have had a different time of it among common Tennesseans.

    • #28
  29. Petty Boozswha Inactive
    Petty Boozswha
    @PettyBoozswha

    Reason or logic do not motivate these appeals, it’s more like this:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_h4DZeBleLs

    • #29
  30. Douglas Inactive
    Douglas
    @Douglas

    Vance Richards:I found it interesting that in a NYT account they mentioned the manufacture of each of the guns. They described the handguns as simply “handguns”, with no mention of model or caliber, but the did tell us who made them.

    Officials said the two assault rifles were variants of the AR-15, the semiautomatic version of the military M-16 rifle; one was made by DPMS Panther Arms, and the other was a Smith & Wesson M&P model, a designation meaning military and police. The senior law enforcement official said one handgun was made by Llama, and the other by Smith and Wesson.

    I wonder if this is an indication that the Left will be trying to paint guns makers as the bad guys?

    Oh they’ve already been doing that. There’s a bill being crafted for Congress that would hold gun manufacturers responsible for crimes committed with them. Clearly unconstitutional, but is shows where the mindset of the left is.

    • #30
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