Hokie, that was one of the most reasoned post I've seen, by anyone, in a long time. Thanks!!hokiewolf said:The Florida law changes were very well legislated and put together. I would love to see something similar in NC.PackFansXL said:
Glass, did you only read the last page or two?
I think the response to the horrific school shooting in Florida was pretty dang good. Chem posted a link to the CNN article this morning. Here is the key result of Republican legislation in Florida back in 2018.Banning mythical assault rifles is ornamental at best and essentially worthless at worst.Quote:
In Florida, a red flag policy, also known as risk protection orders, was one piece of a sprawling gun reform package that then-Gov. Rick Scott signed into law just three weeks after a teenage gunman killed 17 people inside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. It included $400 million in new spending for priorities like school security and mental health resources, and allowed trained school staff to carry firearms for the first time. Republican lawmakers also agreed to raise the age to own a gun to 21 and implemented a three-day waiting period to purchase most rifles.
I would add requirements to see counselors for anyone who is subject to red flag laws as a minimum. I like the approach of incentivizing states to pass red flag laws as opposed to having the Feds do it. They have no place in the debate and suck when they attempt to follow through.
For Glass - you keep asking about solutions, I don't think there is a magic solution that will stop these incidents. After more and more information came out this past week, it's clear we had a catastrophic failure of duty by the police. Every one of those officers should be fired at a minimum. This guy could have been armed with a steak knife and given an hour alone in a classroom full of 9 year olds, the same outcome would have happened. The fact that the police did not do anything in the face of a lot of evidence that it was wrong to do so, that actually should strengthen your opinion that there should be an allowance of trained staff to be allowed to carry fire arms in schools.
When you see the type of evil that occurred last week, it's just so incomprehensible. Trying to apply a legislative solution to the type of person who would commit such a heinous act, I'm just certain that they would commit that violence no matter what.
It seems like such an easy problem / solution but this is a very complex problem and there's nothing easy about it. If you are one to be into bans - and I admit, packgrad and I had a discussion about high capacity magazine bans, which in retrospect I think I was wrong; but if you really want some type of change you need to realize two things:
1. Any small, incremental change will take a very long time to implement
2. If you are in favor for banning you need to come to the realization that that is a non-starter
For BBW, I 100% acknowledge you are correct that there is another mass shooting complex problem that needs to be addressed. In NYC for instance, 90% of homicides are done by persons with criminal records, often for violent crimes , sometimes for felonies and very often for weapons offenses.
Here are some suggested solutions:
1. More robust enforcement of current gun laws including simple possession of illegal guns.
2. More enforcement against straw buyer purchasers, which is a big problem that hardly ever gets prosecuted
Where that creates a problem is that historically, that means more arresting, prosecution and conviction of young African American males, which is a problem politically, culturally, emotionally particularly for people who consider themselves left of center.
So as a society from political left to right, we have to make a decision. Are we just going to do 1 and 2 above, or do we need to invest in additional resources and policies in areas that are culturally and social economically different then where you or I grew up in and currently live in now?
This is the difficult part of the solution. 1 and 2 treat the symptom, but they do not treat the problem. We have to have honest and open conversations that those who are habitual offenders is a small subset of these communities. It is offensive and unfair to group all people into the same category when discussing this issue.
Where I disagree with HOW you make your point is that you suggest that this is a debate between people who care and people who don't care about this issue and this is really infuriating and is no different than someone from left of center making the same argument in the opposite direction. I don't believe you don't care about the lives of 9 year old school children because you oppose gun bans. I would ask that you would have the same courtesy with those who you disagree with policy wise.
BTW, one thing I don't understand are the straw purchases. I bought my daughter a pistol. I had to buy it in my name, as I was the purchaser. It was a gift. She has it now; however, the purchase was in my name. So, far, we haven't done a transfer. Is that considered a straw purchase?
