Breaking the gun-control stalemate
Gun-rights advocates should support efforts to strengthen the prohibition on possessing firearms by those who have mental illness. Many people with severe mental illness are too dangerous to entrust with firearms—regardless of whether they have been formally labeled under the current law as ineligible.
Mechanisms can be put in place to identify such people—and restrict their access to firearms, including expanding background checks to private sales, i.e., between individuals who are not in the business of selling firearms. Gun owners (especially close relatives of such persons, such as Adam Lanza’s mother) should also be obligated to store unused firearms safely so that potentially dangerous persons and minor children do not gain easy access to them.
As for gun-control advocates, they should show more flexibility about restoring firearm rights for people who may have suffered from mental illness in the past but are no longer a danger. Instead of lobbying to expand the number of people permanently ineligible to possess any type of firearm, gun-control advocates should accept a risk-based approach.
Some patients may be permanently impaired, making them too much of a risk ever to trust with firearms. Others should be temporarily barred or restricted. But efforts to restrict the types of firearms possessed by law-abiding, healthy adults are counterproductive.
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Did the fact that he couldn’t get a gun legally and had to steal one just go down the memory hole for these people? The system in place actually worked. What didn’t work was his mother locking her weapons (or her house) away from her son.
Mitoch55 on December 17, 2012 at 11:26 AM
So give guns to crazy people and legislate more restriction on gun owners?
sharrukin on December 17, 2012 at 11:27 AM
So this article is based on an entirely false premise–that murder rates are increasing.
They’re actually at a 40 year low, and continuing to decline, with record gun sales and increasing numbers of citizens legally carrying guns.
juliesa on December 17, 2012 at 11:27 AM
Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t it Lanza’s mother who bought the weapons?
Ward Cleaver on December 17, 2012 at 11:33 AM
Repeal the 2nd before you do this. Tie it in with a strenghtened 10th that spells out the states’ right to make their own gun laws. Leave it up to the feds to define “mental illness” and anyone who quotes Jefferson will be gun banned soon enough.
Buddahpundit on December 17, 2012 at 11:33 AM
Okay, never mind, just saw that that was the case. I keep hearing about a .223 rifle; anybody hear what make and model?
Ward Cleaver on December 17, 2012 at 11:36 AM
We still don’t know in what manner she kept her guns secured. If they were in a safe, how many times would you have to punch her in the face to get her to hand over the keys? 8-inch kitchen knives are very persuasive also.
JohnBrown on December 17, 2012 at 11:37 AM
While I agree with this on principle who’s to say what it would take for one to be considered a risk? I can foresee where anyone who opposed a political ideology might be considered “impaired” and blacklisted. Mental illness has been the playground of the Left for a long time (#32) and they would like nothing more than to have “others’ who oppose them be classified as dangerous.
HotAirian on December 17, 2012 at 11:38 AM
I have read it was a Bushmaster identical to the one used by the DC Snipers.
HotAirian on December 17, 2012 at 11:39 AM
What law is he familiar with?
Where do you even start with that? Other than a federal database on the ownership and location of every gun in America. Good luck with that.
That is verging on stupid. Taking the current case, the guy murdered his mother first. He was ready to go to any length.
cozmo on December 17, 2012 at 11:41 AM
Historically Republicans seem to think that it is always a good PR to compromise with a really stupid idea.
rgranger on December 17, 2012 at 11:43 AM
#38 and #39 especially.
HotAirian on December 17, 2012 at 11:45 AM
+1
alwaysfiredup on December 17, 2012 at 11:48 AM
The last I heard was that he was recognized as being mentally unstable. And, that while in high school he did have a school psychologist assigned to him. The mother as a means to attempt to bond to him, took him to shooting ranges. Let us all just calm down until we learn all the facts.
SC.Charlie on December 17, 2012 at 11:55 AM
Every human emotion now classified as a mental disorder in new psychiatric manual DSM-5
How did the Batman shooter come up with $20k worth of weapons, body armor, and explosives?
Akzed on December 17, 2012 at 12:06 PM
Who was effectively stopped by the Assault-Weapons ban.
Oh, wait….
JeffWeimer on December 17, 2012 at 12:10 PM
Let me guess…the government?
cozmo on December 17, 2012 at 12:10 PM
Thank you for the observation, Mr. Obvious.
Bitter Clinger on December 17, 2012 at 12:10 PM
The whole concept of “law abiding” flies is willfully ignored by the anti-gun side. The law abiding abide by the law, criminals & sociopaths do not.
More laws = more restrictions on those who follow them not less crime.
/end
roy_batty on December 17, 2012 at 12:15 PM
I’ll agree to consider all this right after the ACLU sues the appropriate school district in Connecticut for failing to enforce their ‘gun-free school zone’.
Knott Buyinit on December 17, 2012 at 12:21 PM
Who knows?
Maybe the Department of Fast & Furious Office of Domestic False Flag Operations to Eliminate Privately Owned Small Arms and Reinstate the Government Monopoly on Violence?
Akzed on December 17, 2012 at 12:31 PM
Um dude, don’t go to Natural News for, news.
He got the money from education grants. Then educated himself on how to pull off a massacre.
cozmo on December 17, 2012 at 12:35 PM
Remington Bushmaster .223.
EXCLUSIVE: Gunman’s ‘survivalist’ mother was OBSESSED with guns and stockpiled supplies as she planned for economic collapse
~
No matter what topic the training session concerns, every DHS sponsored course I have attended over the past few years never fails to branch off into warnings about potential domestic terrorists in the community. While this may sound like a valid officer and community safety issue, you may be disturbed to learn how our Federal government describes a typical domestic terrorist.
These federal trainers describe the dangers of “extremists” and “militia groups” roaming the community and hiding in plain sight, ready to attack. Officers are instructed how to recognize these domestic terrorists by their behavior, views and common characteristics. State data bases are kept to track suspected domestic terrorists and officers are instructed on reporting procedures to state and federal agencies. The state I work in, like many others, have what is known as a “fusion center” that compiles a watch list of suspicious people.
So how does a person qualify as a potential domestic terrorist? Based on the training I have attended, here are characteristics that qualify:
Expressions of libertarian philosophies (statements, bumper stickers)
Second Amendment-oriented views (NRA or gun club membership, holding a CCW permit)
Survivalist literature (fictional books such as “Patriots” and “One Second After” are mentioned by name)
Self-sufficiency (stockpiling food, ammo, hand tools, medical supplies)
Fear of economic collapse (buying gold and barter items)
Religious views concerning the book of Revelation (apocalypse, anti-Christ)
Expressed fears of Big Brother or big government
Homeschooling
Declarations of Constitutional rights and civil liberties
Belief in a New World Order conspiracy
Akzed on December 17, 2012 at 12:41 PM
I just stumbled on it today for the first time.
The Boss Emeritus doesn’t buy it, but look at these photos.
Akzed on December 17, 2012 at 12:45 PM
Antigovernment conspiracy theories and “end times” prophecies could
motivate extremist individuals and groups to stockpile food, ammunition, and weapons.
Nancy Lanza was a survivalist, who may have owned the weapon her son used to kill her as part of her stockpiling of supplies for the the economic collapse she thought the country was facing, according to a close family member.
Speaking from her home near Chicago, Nancy Lanza’s sister-in-law, Marsha Lanza, told reporters , “She was stockpiling food. We talked about prepping a lot. She was getting ready for the economic collapse. I think she had the guns for self-defense because she lived alone.”
~
DHS is downright prophetic.
Akzed on December 17, 2012 at 12:52 PM
Not if the ACLU has anything to say about it.
jaydee_007 on December 17, 2012 at 1:07 PM
So, nut jobs Democrats like Harry Reid who is bat shit crazy, traitors like John F. Kerry a mental case on lies his whole life, and Nancy “we have to vote on it before we read it” loon nut job,
put them on the list first and then some talk,,, but you see,
the commie Democrat Party view,,ie,, “Stalin View” of “threat to the state” gulag deal for all who hold to the constitution, rule of law, and conservtive views .. well they would see to it that we “others who voted aganist their lord and master B. Obama” would all be sent to “mental re-education camps”.
It is a matter of liberty or tyranny plain and simple.
APACHEWHOKNOWS on December 17, 2012 at 1:08 PM