Logic for Dummies

We should not have laws preventing private ownership of GUNS.

You're taking legitimate reasoning and twisting the context to serve your purpose.

Laws are intended to provide a punishment for violating the property, life and liberty of another.

A law against robbery is unnecessary for the law abiding and meaningless to the lawless, but it provides a punishment for the act.

A law against private gun ownership, however, makes the lawful, who is only concerned with his security and self preservation, either a criminal or an easy victim.

Again, meaningless to the lawless, such a statute would give them a marked advantage over their prey.

With all the anti-hunting rhetoric about the "unfairness of shooting defenseless animals" I would think that people would understand the concept I'm outlining.

The fact remains that zero law abiding citizens have gone on shooting rampages just because they had this "cool" firearm laying around. But a handful of shootings have been thwarted or interrupted by a "good guy" with a gun.....and I don't mean the police, who 99% of the time arrive AFTER the event is over.

In a free society you have every right to refuse to own or lawfully use guns, but you do not have the right to deny me ownership and lawful use of them.

Unfortunately there are no mind readers in the real world so laws are not written based on who is a law abiding citizen and who is not. In fact we are all law abiding citizens until we commit a crime so your argument about infringing upon the law abiding is irrelevant.

The Vegas shooter bought all his firearms legally and he was a good law abiding citizen until he murdered 50 people. Are we supposed to be to read minds and know if his intentions were to commit mass murder or be a law abiding citizen?

The fact remains that noone ever said they were taking away the right to own firearms as allowed under the constitution. We do obviously need more restrictions to prevent these mass murders from becoming so common place. If you are law abiding then additional checks should not be of concern.

Question(s):

1. Exactly what additional checks are you desiring be made?

2. Exactly what additional restrictions are you desiring to impose?

I have not heard or read any substantive recommendations from any source how further background checks or restrictions will prevent any mass shootings, or how, in your words, they would prevent a law abiding citizen who legally obtains weapons from later choosing to use them for illegal purposes, or how it they prevent a non law abiding citizen from obtaining a gun.

A man legally obtains a driver's license and uses it for legal purposes until the day he decide to drive drunk. Part of the punishment for his crime is HE loses HIS license. Nobody else does, nobody else is subjected to more restrictions, or additional driving tests. The thought of doing so doesn't even enter the discussion.

By your own statement, your position could be considered "irrelevant" as well since it is true that there are no mind readers to forecast a person's future use of any item, vehicle, or device. Simply put, the law does not prevent crime. The law creates crime and it punishes crime. But the law is not my central focus - freedom is. Freedom is about choices and responsibility. People are not made more responsible by removing their freewill. Being said, however, the only irrelevant argument in debating this issue would be whether or not cats should wear purple spacesuits.

I agree that the only way to prevent a gun related homicide is to remove all guns from all people. I can't logically disagree with that statement. But I do disagree with infringing on one person's rights because of the misdeeds, or potential misdeeds, of another. And, I think it naive to trust that "gun control" advocates have any goal but the absolute forfeiture, seizure, and prohibition of guns.

As I certainty am no mind reader, please answer me the two questions posed up top so that we can have a civil and thought provoking exchange of ideas without name calling and dismissive statements.. .

How about for starters a database of people acquiring an arsenal of guns and ammo in a short time frame. Database for additional mental health checks. The problem of mass shootings is a mental health issue, no? Are you OK with lunatics obtaining large amounts of guns and ammo in a short amount of time?

Well, that data base is already in place. You legally buy a gun and the government knows.

Your personal data is run through the NCIC (maintained by the FBI) every time you make a legal purchase.

Governmental access to the volume and dates of your purchases already exists.

If their is no specific data column to show accumulated data and red flag an arbitrarily contrived amount, that is easily overcome in a spreadsheet and would hardly warrant a change in existing law.

But no citizen needs a government agent knocking on their door every time they buy two boxes of ammunition in the same week. We can't assume that purchasing large quantities of guns and ammo are for nefarious reasons anymore than we can read minds to know if there will be immediate or future malicious intent.

Mental health issues are part of your medical history and are heavily protected by privacy laws. Might be a hurdle there. And some state run studies purport to show that people with mental health disorders are NOT any more likely to use the gun for criminal violence than you, me, or any other memer. I'm sure that there are other studies that would refute this conclusion.

Mass shootings are not a mental health issue any more than a single homicide, a burglary, aggressive driving, etc. Ascribing the reason for the conduct to "lunacy" is just the way "normal" people cope with the fact that "normal" people commit crimes.

As matter of fact, you stated earlier that the Las Vegas shooting suspect was a good law abiding citizen the whole time he was legally purchasing his gun collection. So a mental hygiene check would have been of no value.

A soldier participates in a mass shooting during combat. Is he deranged? No. (I'm in no way construing the duty of a soldier as a criminal act, but the differences are semantic.) Ask anyone who knowingly killed another in the line of duty. It's a mind f*ck, even to a man trained by his government to lawfully kill. If anything, the mass shooting may cause him mental health issues.

I think mental illness is a scapegoat. If not, then EVERY mass murderer, every criminal for that matter, is not guilty by reason of insanity.

I am okay with an individual amassing a large cache of firearms. You can only shoot one at a time (two if you're a movie cop or special forces soldier), and it is far easier to carry multiple

......clips and magazines than nine pistols and rifles.

Is one death less a tragedy than fifty? Does the manner of death make a killing more acceptable?

People have been killing people since the dawn of man. It is not getting "worse". It is a ratio of population and we number in the billions. The more densely populated areas generate the most crime. The more people, the more crimes - period.

I wish to maintain my uninfringed, inalienable, natural right to possession and use of firearms, if neccessary, for the defense and preservation of me and mine . I also wish to maintain YOUR uninfringed, inalienable, natural right to not.

The databases are not linked at a national level which is why the Vegas shooter was able to amass an arsenal. He was not mentally ill like you said. He was intelligent and knew how to get around whatever checks are in place. I agree the mental health check would have made no difference here. But he did buy over 40 guns, most of which were purchased this year from different states. Do you believe buying this many guns in such a short time should have warranted further investigation?

Also what solutions, if any, would you propose to fix the mass shooting problem in America?

The databases are all run and monitored by the ATF/FBI which also approve or deny the purchase(s). So if there is a failure to monitor the data it would lay with those agencies. You get both a state and federal background check when you buy a gun. Point being, the information already exists and is collected so no further legislation is required, just an added column in the spreadsheet.

And no, I have no issue with a person buying as many guns as he can afford in any interval of time. I got cut off in my last response - too wordy - and will restate, you can only shoot one gun at a time. The time difference in reloading versus changing weapons is nominal and would go unnoticed by the people being shot at.

In my opinion, there is no fix, and other than wishing it removed from debate, I consider gun control a nonissue.

I used to raise chickens. Timid, docile creatures, right? They are UNTIL they get overcrowded. Then the incident rate of pecking one another to death, stomping one another to death, ganging up on the weak and infirm drastically increases. Always happens, but much more frequently the greater the population.

The human animal is no different. Although social, herd beasts, we don't like being jostled in crowds. Ask any feller that was beat up for merely bumping into someone in a crowded bar, or the instances of violence on our roadways the more congested they have become.

Well, I reckon there is a fix then - depopulation. Just stating, not advocating.

Mass killings would still occur but at a reduced rate.

I am more afraid of getting cancer than I am of being the victim of a mass murderer, an islamic terrorist, or a World War III - with or without nukes (which could cause cancer).