Florida Gay Nightclub Mass Shooting

[chill98]

I want to be ready when the government sends tanks to get my guns.  Currently, I mastering my dive for cover, because everyone needs to do that when under tank fire.  If you want to get from point A to point B across a vulnerable opening, you need to break out on the count of three, and then when you are two to three yards from point B, you go into a dive that ends in a smooth roll.  They can't shoot you while you are doing a somersault in mid air that lands you safely behind a bail of straw.  Me and Bubba and the guys practice all the time.  Bubba is good at it and looks really cool.

Nice Try.

At the storm-damaged Superdome, faltering efforts to transport as many as 23,000 refugees to the Astrodome in Houston were temporarily halted after a gunshot was reportedly fired at a military helicopter. Authorities continued to struggle with incidents of looting, carjackings and other violence.

The deepening crisis prompted urgent pleas for help from local officials and residents, many of whom pointedly criticized the federal government for what they said was a meager and slow response.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/01/AR2005090100533.html

I watched it on TV and was horrified by the lack of response from the government.  The looting, the cries for help, the pictures of the dead outside the superdome, where the less fortunate were told to go. 

I have a generator which I use to power my tv, computer and fridge during power outages.  Just like the folks in Algiers Point... continued below 

The highest-profile case involving the police is the Danziger Bridge shooting in eastern New Orleans, where six days after Katrina, a group of police officers wielding assault rifles and automatic weapons fired on a group of unarmed civilians, wounding a family of four and killing two, including a teenager and a mentally disabled man. The man, Ronald Madison, 40, was shot in the back with a shotgun and then stomped and kicked as he lay dying, according to court papers.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/27/us/27racial.html?_r=0

Maybe... just Maybe Bubba has a point.

[marom1963]

Well I agree that would indeed be a start. Getting universal health care that's free for everyone and eliminating the homeless issue would probably be easier and faster than getting a complete ban on the manufacture of handguns but yeah, its a start. But banning the manufacture would make it way more difficult for a black market to exist, assuming of course that we also confiscate and destroy every handgun we can find.Where will police get them once we make them illegal to manufacture? So yeah we'd probably have to do away with that part and keep it legal for companies to make them don't you think? Which kind of puts that whole black market thing back in play or at least a lot closer to being in play. Not saying that's a deal breaker but I wouldn't exactly make me warm and fuzzy.

Yeah that would kind have to be a basic requirement in order for this to work. So we're going to need more prisons. Lots more. And all those prison guards are going to needs guns. Lots of guns. But yeah, the fear of automatic decades in prison would likely keep most people on the right side of the law.

But what about those who are on the wrong side of the law to begin with? When you have someone who is already in the mindset of being a criminal and you face that person with decades in prison just for having a gun in their possession, would that make them less likely to use said gun or more? I'm thinking a criminal with nothing left to lose is probably not going to worry too much about using the black market gun he just bought. Why worry? My life is over no matter what so fuck it. And again I'm not saying its a deal breaker but I do believe that all potential impacts of any legislation need to be considered. A law that makes criminals more likely to become violent is maybe not the best way to proceed if other alternatives exist.


Bolt action long guns and split action shot guns only should be good enough for all legit needs of the law abiding.

But I'm still left with one question. How do we get there. Because what you've laid out looks great. On paper. But in practical terms you might as well have said we just need to dig a hole to China because you've got about as much chance of that happening as you do any of the laws you've proposed here with the current political system we have. So how do we actually get there? Because wishing ain't working and so far, that's all we've got.

Getting such legislation passed is a long way off. It might happen if enough school slaughters take place. But not now. It would take years of propagandizing the public.
I did say "mass manufacture," meaning that some handguns would continue to be made for police and military use.
Yes, there would be a black market - but that would exist, anyway. Legacy handguns, overseas handguns, illegally manufactured handguns.
As for the criminals - use of a handgun in the commission of a crime = automatic life term in prison w/o possibility of parole. Sweat them until they just don't want to have the damned things.
No, your right to bear arms is going to resemble arms that the Founders might have recognized. You're not getting a lazer.

[Hydra009]

I dunno if this has already been posted, but imgur has an album of the victims with a photo and brief bio.

[SGOS]

Has this been addressed?  Sorry if it's a repeat. 

NPR interviewed some professor in California who has been studying gun regulation.  He said his study showed that at least half of the states have enacted some sort of gun legislation in spite of the Federal Government's avoidance of the issue.  This is news to me.  All the focus has been on the Fed, but in fact, guns are being regulated to some degree, apparently, and it's hardly ever talked about.

Also on NPR, as a separate issue, machine guns, like the Tommy Gun and a couple of others, were highly regulated in the 1930s in a response to gangland violence during the Capone era, requiring gun history of sellers and buyers, fingerprints of owners, and owners had to be registered.  And in 1980, the law was amended to read, you just can't own them.  This too is news to me.

I believe I heard that right.  Is this correct?

[Johan]

Getting such legislation passed is a long way off. It might happen if enough school slaughters take place. But not now. It would take years of propagandizing the public.
I did say "mass manufacture," meaning that some handguns would continue to be made for police and military use.
Yes, there would be a black market - but that would exist, anyway. Legacy handguns, overseas handguns, illegally manufactured handguns.
As for the criminals - use of a handgun in the commission of a crime = automatic life term in prison w/o possibility of parole. Sweat them until they just don't want to have the damned things.

Great. I'm in. A few questions though.

If we take a hard line and impost life in prison without parole for using a gun to commit a crime (and I think we should) how many more prisons do you think that will require? Twice as many as we have now? Three times as many? Four times?

Next question. Who pays for those prisons? Tax payers I'm assuming. How do you think that will affect support of all this legislation?

Next question. Where do we build all those prisons? How do you think it will affect support for this legislation when people realize they might have to allow a prison to be built next to their kids school?

Final question. Considering all that, do you want to revise your guess for a timeline on this from "a long way off"? I'm thinking "probably never" is more likely.

[marom1963]

Great. I'm in. A few questions though.

If we take a hard line and impost life in prison without parole for using a gun to commit a crime (and I think we should) how many more prisons do you think that will require? Twice as many as we have now? Three times as many? Four times?

Next question. Who pays for those prisons? Tax payers I'm assuming. How do you think that will affect support of all this legislation?

Next question. Where do we build all those prisons? How do you think it will affect support for this legislation when people realize they might have to allow a prison to be built next to their kids school?

Final question. Considering all that, do you want to revise your guess for a timeline on this from "a long way off"? I'm thinking "probably never" is more likely.

I'd legalize drugs and open the gates and let out all but the violent drug offenders - then, we'd not need new prisons.
It would be a very simple solution and would solve a lot of problem w/o having to - fire a shot. Big Pharma could take over the manufacture and legal sale of the fucking drugs. Anyone who wants the damned things can have them. I'm willing to bet that the market would expand for a brief time, then shrivel as the glamor wore off. We'd be left w/a small segment of hardcore addicts. Then we could treat them as patients, not criminals. End of problem. Has worked in the Netherlands. Can work here. Want it - take it. Nobody gives a damn. There's a nice, clean, safe corner over there where you can piss your life away.
Once it became clear that life meant life for handgun possession, I think that that would drop, too. Old age, in the nursing home wing of the prison - no getting out, ever. Body buried in the prison yard. Just get caught w/a handgun.

[baronvonrort]

"Reuters

Australia on Thursday marked the 20th anniversary of a mass shooting which led to strict gun controls that have in turn led to a huge decline in gun murders, undermining claims in the United States that such curbs are not the answer.

The chances of being murdered by a gun in Australia plunged to 0.15 per 100,000 people in 2014 from 0.54 per 100,000 people in 1996, a decline of 72 percent, a Reuters analysis of Australian Bureau of Statistics figures showed.

In 1996, Australia had 311 murders, of which 98 were with guns. In 2014, with the population up from about 18 million to 23 million, Australia had 238 murders, of which 35 were with guns.

It was the April 28, 1996, shooting deaths by a lone gunman of 35 people in and around a cafe at a historic former prison colony in Tasmania that prompted the government to buy back or confiscate a million firearms and make it harder to buy new ones.

The country has had no mass shootings since."

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-australia-guns-idUSKCN0XP0HG

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rR9IaXH1M0

We have had mass shootings since 1996, Lockhart was a mass shooting the gun grabbers like to pretend never happened.

There were 640,000 guns surrendered in the compensated confiscation which cost half a billion dollars, less than 3% of them were semi auto rifles have a look at the pics of the buyback black AR15's stand out against wooden stocked guns yet there are very few if any in all the pics you see.
Of course the gun grabbers like to claim over 1 million guns were handed in when the actual figure is just over 640,000.

After our 1996 gun laws we had around 800,000 firearm license holders with nearly 3 million registered guns, today we have 1.9 million firearm license holders with just over 5 million registered guns.
The buyback did nothing to reduce gun numbers which are at their highest ever levels, the Police minister did say greater than 97% of all gun crime is done by criminals without a license using unregistered guns.

In 1980 we had a firearm homicide rate of 0.8 per 100K which declined to 0.3 per 100K with 67 firearm homicides in 1995.
The semi auto rifles we banned were responsible for 27 of the 813 firearm homicides from 1980-1995, when they were banned in 1996 after a mass shooting by someone who never held a firearm license they had caused 62 out of the 916 firearm homicides in Australia from 1980-1996.
How much safer are we by banning a type of gun that caused just over 1% of all firearm deaths, we only had 5 mass shootings where the victim was unknown to the offender.
www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/productsbytitle/9C85BD1298C075EACA2568A900139342?OpenDocument

With 67 firearm homicides at a rate of 0.3 per 100K how bad was the gun problem in Australia when semi auto rifles with silencers were allowed for self defence?

Australia has doubled the number firearm license holders since 1996 while reducing gun crime to its lowest ever levels we have over 5 million registered guns for 24 million people.

[gentle_dissident]

I thought we weren't going to turn this into a gun control issue.
http://interactive.nydailynews.com/2016/06/liberal-redneck-trae-crowder-nothing-funny-orlando-massacre/

[Hijiri Byakuren]

I thought we weren't going to turn this into a gun control issue.
http://interactive.nydailynews.com/2016/06/liberal-redneck-trae-crowder-nothing-funny-orlando-massacre/

Everything is a gun control issue. We could be talking about fairies and still somehow have it devolve into a gun control debate.

[marom1963]

Everything is a gun control issue. We could be talking about fairies and still somehow have it devolve into a gun control debate.

Yeah - and it can also degenerate into a pissed off meta-conversation, silly cartoons and all.

[SGOS]

I thought we weren't going to turn this into a gun control issue.
http://interactive.nydailynews.com/2016/06/liberal-redneck-trae-crowder-nothing-funny-orlando-massacre/

I heard Hillary Clinton giving a speech the other day: "This is not a time for politics," she said in her usual public speaking voice!  I thought to myself, "Yeah, right.  No politics in this speech."  You know, I can't remember if she even talked about gun control.  I really can't remember anything she said.  But anytime a politician speaks to a crowd about the latest public massacre, the unescapable result is that it's always going to be politics, whether guns are mentioned or not.  But Donald Trump made no bones about it.  To him it was quite clear.  A mass shooting calls for more people carrying guns. 

[PopeyesPappy]

Also on NPR, as a separate issue, machine guns, like the Tommy Gun and a couple of others, were highly regulated in the 1930s in a response to gangland violence during the Capone era, requiring gun history of sellers and buyers, fingerprints of owners, and owners had to be registered.  And in 1980, the law was amended to read, you just can't own them.  This too is news to me.

The first part is right. The National Firearms Act (NFA) became law in 1934. It regulates machine guns, short barreled rifles and shotguns, suppressors, anything with a rifled barrel with a bore over 1/2" and some other stuff at the national level. Owning one requires a $200 tax stamp. Getting the stamp requires a signature from both local law enforcement and the FBI. In the more than 80 years since NFA was passed there has only been one person that I'm aware of convicted of murder for using their legally owned privately held machine gun. An Ohio police officer murdered an informant with his privately held MAC-11. No US civilian has been convicted of murdering someone with a legally owned machine gun since NFA. The regulations on machine guns work.

The last part is incorrect. At least on the federal level. Machine guns are still allowed in most states. What happened in 86 was they passed a law that said no new machine guns in civilian hands. Only stuff manufactured prior to the date the law was passed. There are still at least half a million legally owned registered machine guns in civilian hands in the US.

Depending on what state you live in you can buy a machine gun here.If you want a new machine gun they are still legally available, but you have to get a Class III dealer or manufacturer license to get one.

[chill98]

Depending on what state you live in you can buy a machine gun here.If you want a new machine gun they are still legally available, but you have to get a Class III dealer or manufacturer license to get one.

hmmm...

GERMAN W.W.I 08/18 8mm "LIGHT WEIGHT" (YES @ 32 LBS.) CAVALRY AND BICYCLE TROOP AIR COOLED MACHINE GUN C&R" RATED.... THE 08/18 IS THE LIGHTER WEIGHT MODEL OF THE 08/18 DESIGNED FOR THE MORE MOBIL UNITS OF HORSE CAVALRY AND BICYCLE TROOPS OF THE GERMAN ARMY IN 1918..... THERE IS LITTLE AVAILABLE INFO ON THE FIREARMS AS THEY ARE EXTREMELY RARE COMPARED TO THE MAXIM 08/15 WATER COOLED VERSION..

verrie interesting...

[Jack89]

Everything is a gun control issue. We could be talking about fairies and still somehow have it devolve into a gun control debate.

What I find ironic is that, on an atheist forum, the fact that the killer is a religious fanatic is all but ignored.  In fact, it is excused because he's not the right kind of religious fanatic for SJWs. 

[FaithIsFilth]

But Donald Trump made no bones about it.  To him it was quite clear.  A mass shooting calls for more people carrying guns. 

Whether it's Trump, Hillary, Obama, or George W, they all agree that Americans should have their second amendment rights restricted. They are all in favour of having American citizens banned from owning guns, stripped of their liberties without due process, without the presumption of innocence until proven guilty.