Forfeited to the government? Can I mail it in with my Tax Return? My father died about a year and a half ago. If this law were in place . . . is the forfeiture enforced via letter? That would go in the trash, of course. So, if a "government" representative showed up at my mom's house, "We're sorry for your loss. Please hand over your Glock 19." They would have met some resistance, I can assure you.
And they're not running background checks off your credit card info? DHS has a little program that was implemented in 2011 called the Ammonium Nitrate Security Regulations. They know a shit load more than you think they do.
I'm not doing anything illegal, so I'm not really worried about it. It's not like I'm the only guy in this country who orders Tannerite off the internet.
Didn't Feinstein's husband make his dough in the military and aerospace sector? If so, what a fucking hypocrite. Any news on what Lanza's motive was?
Destroying his hard drive sounds awfully suspicious to me. Covering tracks for *something*, I'd guess. And yeah, as a Californian I gotta say that our gun laws are pointless/idiotic beyond belief. Still, I think she's representing the majority of (uninformed) voters in this state.
Just because this statement irritated me more than usual, I looked into it. Her current husband is an investment banker who had previously served on the board of a real estate services firm; he has a financial stake in EG&G which provides technical and management services to the military (wiki says they operated the JANET terminal in Las Vegas which flew government workers around the state) though I'm not sure you can say he "made his dough" there. She was previously been married to a judge (from whom she divorced) and a neurosurgeon (who died). And what crossover is there between the technical and management services sector and the civilian firearms market? Don't you have a better argument against gun control than that? Secondly, what does this discussion about how easy it is to get explosives vs. firearms say about the dogma that criminals don't care about laws? That almost reads like a statement that explosives control reduces the amount of bombings. I mean, I'll defer to those of you who routinely do purchase these things that it's reasonably easy to buy, but still: that means that criminals and insane killers (who, as it has been stated many times before, don't care about laws and only care about killing) haven't been taking the easiest route to cause the most amount of destruction possible. I think this says more about the culture one grows up in than it does about one's simple desire to kill, as bombings are rare and they have different motivations, a different psychology to them, than killings. In the same way that a serial killer who kills 10 people has a different motivation and a different psychology than a spree killer who shoots 10 people at once in a public space.
I didn't make any argument about gun control so don't get your panties in a bunch reading things that aren't there. I don't really have an opinion on the matter other than politicians who make money supporting use of weapons against humans are hypocrites for then decrying the use of other weapons against other kinds of people. My recollection of her involvement in military trade is clearly foggy, that's why I asked. I recall reading something about her use of military intelligence or appropriations to help direct govt contracts to her hubby's firm. Again read what I write not what you want me to have written to validate your existing views on gun control.
I'm not going to bother. Read what I've actually said about gun control in this thread. Since we already know you're bad at searching, I'll tell you the answer: I agree with not banning things like "assault weapons" based on piecemeal and reactionary definitions. But it took me not even five minutes of Google searching to find an answer to your question. You accuse me of reading things that aren't there; you're not even bothering to read things that are there.
Now that we have all insulted and ignored each other, does anyone have a practical real world solution to either prevent, or at least reduce loss of life in, school shootings? Other than effinshenanagins that is.
Check out the blog post RCGT shared a few pages ago if you haven't already, especially the section titled "Armed Teachers": (<a class="postlink" href="http://larrycorreia.wordpress.com/2012/12/20/an-opinion-on-gun-control/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://larrycorreia.wordpress.com/2012/ ... n-control/</a>) There's your solution. Short story- Allow those with concealed carry permits to be armed in schools, and do away with "Gun Free Zones."
I did read that. Its interesting. Although Im a little iffy about barely trained teachers acting as "speed bumps."
Aside from a few rep comments, I've tried to stay out of the gun control / mental health debate, mostly because it's been far too juvenile and irrational for this board. That said, I'd like to bring up a few points, some new and some rehashed, regarding school shootings. Firstly, as an engineer who works in site design in a company with a presence in the security engineering industry, most school campuses are not well-designed for security. Much of this is a product of omissions in the design phase; it often leads to weak links in security policies. At Sandy Hook, for example, visitors were locked out of the building (good policy) and had to be visually identified before they were allowed to enter (good policy), but anyone could simply break the large glass windows adjacent to the door (bad design). I've been through several courses on site designs for schools and, often, security in design is an afterthought. (Ironically, older schools, with smaller windows, solid, opaque doors, and less use of glass as an architectural element, are more well-suited for security than newer schools.) I won't bore the reader with details, but there are some simple steps that could improve security at new or existing campuses, such as: Limiting access points to and from the campus and its buildings, and installing deterrents elsewhere (such as fences, hedges, or secure windows); Blocking access without authorization outside of school start/dismissal times with gates, locked doors, or guards (more on this below); Creating vestibules at access points to buildings, and relocating administrative offices to the main entrance; and Providing all classrooms and other areas with lockable, opaque, solid doors. I could fill up a post explaining these and others in more detail, though for brevity's sake I won't do that unnecessarily. But the bottom line is that there are ways to increase security through design without making schools feel like prisons. Secondly, schools need security guards. This is not a radical idea. My city's school district, like many others, provides resource officers in middle and high schools to curb gang violence, fighting, et cetera. It doesn't seem to me that unreasonable to post at least one police officer or private, armed security guard in every school. The knee-jerk reaction to this in the Internet armchair quarterbacking circles has been "ZOMG the officer at Columbine didn't stop Harris and Klebold!" notwithstanding that he was eating lunch in the parking lot, and reasonably so, at a time when mass shootings at schools had virtually none of the exposure in the public mind they do today. The Facebook chain letter analogue du jour has been the incident in San Antonio where a gunman was stopped by an off-duty sheriff's deputy working security at a movie theater. While not necessarily a testimonial to the effectiveness of this policy, providing any security presence in schools is better than none at all. Given much of the irrational, infeasible, and borderline ridiculous ideas the public has entertained in response to this problem, I certainly don't think it's out of the question. Finally, do away with "gun-free" zones in most public buildings and areas. If a owner doesn't want guns on his property or in his business, more power to him. But it's nonsensical for a government to issue citizens permits to carry a gun in public while providing a rather exhaustive list of public areas the permit doesn't apply. In my state, for example, I can carry a gun in public, but not in parks, civic buildings, recreational areas, any federally-owned area, and relevant to this discussion, schools. I understand the reasoning behind this, I really do. But it seems silly that the government will give me a permit that effectively says they trust me to carry a gun, but they don't trust me to carry it in some places. And, as noted, anyone wishing to do another person harm isn't going to change their mind because they were going to do it in a gun-free zone. So what's the point? Why not allow teachers, administrators, or yes, even parents who choose to obtain their carry permits to do so in a school? They've been trusted to walk down the street with a firearm, and they've been trusted to attend to the care and development of children. I don't see easily where the two are mutually exclusive.
The way I see it, they'd only be acting as "speed bumps" in situations where otherwise they'd just be sitting ducks just like all the children in their classrooms. So, although "speed bump" isn't a perfect solution, I see it as a damn sight better than the current plan. And to head off a potential "arm the children!!!!!Shift+1" reduction-to-absurd response I can expect to that first sentence, I would support adult students who have a concealed carry license also having legal permission to carry on campus.
Whether he does or not, she's already a hypocrite for being, for a time, the only person in San Francisco legally allowed to carry a concealed weapon...which she took advantage of while actively campaigning against the right for everybody else.
Wow, the irony is so think it isn't even funny. http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/02/us-usa-guns-newspaper-idUSBRE9010R820130102 The news paper that published the list of all the registered gun owners, now has hired armed guards.
In light of the "Demand A Plan" video* I think it's fine to "demand a plan," come up with reasonable solutions, start dialogue to try to figure something out, and want congress to take some actions. None of those three things listed make sense to me. If those three things were in place, that wouldn't have changed much, if anything, about what happened in Newtown, would it? If we're using what specifically happened at Newtown as the springboard for this discussion, isn't letting the principal have a gun a more "common sense" solution? I also think it's fine for people to use their celebrity to draw attention to important matters, but aren't these the same actors who portray all sorts of gun violence on film? *If you haven't seen it: And, a "you're all hypocrites" response: