Mass Killing Theater

[pgg]

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-08-07/semi-automatic-thinking-on-gun-control

This is an excellent article.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[doctor712]

Bloomberg Business Week, the mecca of scholarly writing. Better yet, just listen to what BLOOMBERG HIMSELF has to say about gun control:

http://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/2012/08/06/at-sikh-center-bloomberg-advocates-for-gun-laws/

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/07/20/bloomberg-demands-gun-action-from-obama-and-romney/

http://piersmorgan.blogs.cnn.com/20...lectively-and-say-were-going-to-go-on-strike/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/22/michael-bloomberg-gun-control_n_1692950.html

Take your pick PGG.

D712

 

[pgg]

Yeah, Fareed Zakaria is one of the smartest guys on the news these days - I should really make more of an effort to watch him.

Yeah, I don't always agree with him, but he thinks and argues well. He's worth watching and reading.

Well, I've revised my generally positive view of Fareed Zakaria.


First he lays this ridiculous turd of an article:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2121660,00.html

(which was capably refuted here)


And then it turns out he plagiarized parts of it and has since been suspended from Time and removed from CNN's lineup.


So. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the one pro-gun-control journalist I had some respect for turned out to be not so worthy of respect after all.

 

[badasshairday]

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuX-nFmL0II[/YOUTUBE]

This is my thought exactly. Keep your 2nd amendment, but give me a solutionin how to stop mass shooting murders. I think this is legit. Bullet control.

 

[pgg]

This is my thought exactly. Keep your 2nd amendment, but give me a solutionin how to stop mass shooting murders. I think this is legit. Bullet control.

It's just comedy. Bullet control is even more nonsensical than actual gun control.

It's easy to cast bullets in your back yard. Fire up the grill, get a bucket of used wheel weights from your local tire shop, melt some lead, pour into the molds, run through a sizing die, done. Bullets are just lead balls, and lead has been worked by amateurs for 1000s of years.

Lots of people do it because it's a dirt cheap source of bullets for high volume shooting.


If there's a gap or problem with the reasonable gun regulations we have now, I think it's the mental health angle. Presently the system just relies on mentally ill people to check the "I'm mentally ill" box on the paperwork; for obvious reasons this doesn't work well. And the background checks aren't able to ascertain whether or not someone is seeing a psychiatrist for schizophrenia. I don't know how to improve this process. There'd be a lot of resistance from doctors and privacy advocates if there was suddenly some kind of mandatory reporting for ALL mental health problems to a federal database for the purpose of firearm purchase checks.

But even that makes more sense and is less of an infringement than banning guns, gun parts, ammunition, or ammunition components.

Mental illness is the common theme in all of these shootings. Unfortunately the US has gutted our public mental health infrastructure in the last 50-100 years. Maybe efforts would be better focused there.

 

[deleted103644]

It's just comedy. Bullet control is even more nonsensical than actual gun control.

It's easy to cast bullets in your back yard. Fire up the grill, get a bucket of used wheel weights from your local tire shop, melt some lead, pour into the molds, run through a sizing die, done. Bullets are just lead balls, and lead has been worked by amateurs for 1000s of years.

Lots of people do it because it's a dirt cheap source of bullets for high volume shooting.


If there's a gap or problem with the reasonable gun regulations we have now, I think it's the mental health angle. Presently the system just relies on mentally ill people to check the "I'm mentally ill" box on the paperwork; for obvious reasons this doesn't work well. And the background checks aren't able to ascertain whether or not someone is seeing a psychiatrist for schizophrenia. I don't know how to improve this process. There'd be a lot of resistance from doctors and privacy advocates if there was suddenly some kind of mandatory reporting for ALL mental health problems to a federal database for the purpose of firearm purchase checks.

But even that makes more sense and is less of an infringement than banning guns, gun parts, ammunition, or ammunition components.

Mental illness is the common theme in all of these shootings. Unfortunately the US has gutted our public mental health infrastructure in the last 50-100 years. Maybe efforts would be better focused there.

People need to pass psych screening to become cops or enter the military (not that it's perfect).

It should be mandatory before purchasing a gun too.

 

[pgg]

People need to pass psych screening to become cops or enter the military (not that it's perfect).

It should be mandatory before purchasing a gun too.

I don't remember being psych screened at all when I entered the military; it couldn't have been that thorough.


All sane people certainly favor keeping guns away from insane people. The devil's in the details though.

What threshold for mental illness do you propose to preclude gun ownership? Depression? A cluster B personality disorder? Psychosis?

Will a prohibition be permanent, or temporary until a person is treated or stable on medication? If the latter, is someone going to check up on the person to ensure they keep taking their medication? Or will we just trust the crazy people to keep taking their antipsychotic meds?

Will re-screening be required periodically? If not, is there a point in doing it at all? If so, how often, at whose expense?

A paper questionnaire or an interview, or both? If an interview, will it be done by a board certified psychiatrist, or (for example) the desk-riding laughably-unqualified cop who interviewed my wife during her CCW application process?

How standardized will the process be? If it's not standardized, is that fair? If it is standardized, do you really think people won't figure out how to game the system? Crazy people are crazy, not necessarily stupid.

It's easy to propose these things in an abstract sense. Actually making them work in practice is another issue.

Like most well-meaning gun control laws, I suspect the end result whatever you do in this area will be inconvenience and headaches for sane law-abiding citizens, a near-total failure in keeping guns away from most mentally ill people, and an absolute failure in dissuading the criminal crazies.


Again, consider the possibility that what we all want (an efficient, effective system to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill) simply may not be possible.


Case in point: Major Nidal Hasan. Medical school classmate of mine - a year behind me. Went through the same psych screening I did upon entering the military (which again I don't think actually happened). Had many encounters with psychiatrists, actually became a fellowship trained subspecialist psychiatrist himself ...

Shot a bunch of people in a "gun free zone" ...


So, if you want to tighten up the mental illness screening (a laudable goal) let's have some specifics with regard to how you're going to do it.

Difficulty: No magical or wishful thinking.



For some rough unscientific 30-seconds-with-Google produced numbers for perspective:
10,288 people died last year in drunk driving crashes (first link on Google source)
8,755 firearm murders last year (first link on Google source)

While we're aiming for rainbows, why aren't we screening people for alcoholism and revoking their drivers licenses? Driving's not even a Constitutionally protected right.

 

[deleted103644]

You're right - the military has been barely screening for psychiatric disorders, which is alarming but I guess makes sense considering they need as many people as they can get.

It's probably variable by police departments, but most do (I hope).

 

[doctor712]

Mental illness is the common theme in all of these shootings. Unfortunately the US has gutted our public mental health infrastructure in the last 50-100 years. Maybe efforts would be better focused there.

A solid idea and perhaps part of a multi-faceted approach to dealing with these GUN issues. Oh, and don't forget 2nd amendment has limits.

I caught myself watching Youtube videos of people using their open-carry rights and video taping police as they ask for their IDs, name, why they are open carrying. What a ridiculous waste of police time and resources. We get it, you can own a gun.

Let's just make sure it's not an AK with a 100 round drum. Which, last time I checked, was NOT explicitly provided for in the US Constitution.

D712