Let's pass a law banning any dissemination of the name, background, and motivation

[Dustlawyer]

of any mass shooter. Whatever some sick individual(s) would want to be publisized about his crime, whether for fame, or advocation of a certain point of view, be it religious, racists, homophobic or some other such crap, let's make it illegal.

WE DONT NEED TO KNOW!!!!

I don't want anything this person wants to happen as a result of their crime to succeed. I would think that even the NRA would approve (I think).

Would you support such a law?

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[Nye Bevan]

1. Such a law would violate the First Amendment.

I do understand your viewpoint, however.

[Dustlawyer]

3. If there is a compelling government interest and the law is narrowly tailored to achieve that

interest you can restrict certain speech. The example used is shouting "Fire" in a crowded theater when there is no fire.

I am not interested in banning other details of the shooting, I think that they may be helpful. I am only talking about the thing that attracts many of these narcissist or racists to this terrible type of crime, the fame or publicity they draw to themselves or their cause.

[Xipe Totec]

10. That's a HUUUUGE If. nt

[onenote]

14. What is the compelling government interest?

Where is the proof as to what motivates "many" or even some of these mass killers?

[Dustlawyer]

16. What motivates these mass killers is varied, but many of the reasons can be tied to

wanting publicity for themselves or their cause. This has been widely written about in books and articles about the killers. We seem to have a fascination with this stuff.

I can understand that people would be concerned about restricting speech. It is never done lightly, but we have "Gag" orders that restrict speech all of the time. I would want such a law to comply with the Supreme Courts test and I admit that it would be broken down into very specific information to be restricted. I would say that since by its very nature, only applying to mass killings ("mass killings" would have to be clearly defined as well), it would be very restricted to a small number of specific types of incidences (further restrictions limiting content would be added such as name of perpetrator, his family and any other identifying information and his motive for example), except the number of these killings is becoming larger with each passing year.

[onenote]

20. You'd censor the motives for such killings?

Let's imagine a shooter is taken alive (as in Aurora CO). Are you going to hold trials in secret? And if the name and motive of a shooter is going to be public when the shooter is alive and on trial, what justification is there for suppressing that information if the shooter is dead?

[NuclearDem]

15. What's funny is that "fire in a crowded theater" was overturned a few decades later.

[Fred Sanders]

2. Why is not wanting any further information only an issue when the mass murderer is a RW white guy?

Illogical in the extreme.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

4. White guys like Cho, Nidal and Alexis?

[Dustlawyer]

5. Where do you get the "only a white guy" part?

I am talking about ANY MASS MURDERER who uses shooting, or I guess even bombings to kill enough to draw media attention to themselves or their causes. I want to defeat that part of their equation.

[Fred Sanders]

7. 2 Yes to 14 No in your push poll.....

[Tommy_Carcetti]

6. Let's not. nt

[Shandris]

8. No. Way too easy to abuse.

While I agree that society has gone to the point that this kind of sensationalism is now a motivator for these attacks, simply not naming them isn't going to work.

Hasn't anyone yet learned that hiding information is a bad thing?

[longship]

9. Sorry! Not only nope, but HELL NOPE! nt

[Special Prosciuto]

11. Utter Bullshit

Nope. Let's censure Lee Harvey Oswald. And do it NOW!

[Dustlawyer]

13. I don't think my proposed law would change a damn thing about his motivation the kill

the President at this point!

It appears that most here believe that knowing the name of the person and why he wanted to kill a bunch of us is important, even if it continues to motivate others to do the same. This has been a very surprising response from me.

We have imposed limits on free speech for certain types of "Hate" speech, speech used to incite riots or violence, as well as the "Fire" example used by SCOTUS when they came up with the test used to determine when speech can be restricted.

Dylann Roof wanted others to know why he killed those poor black people in the church shooting in Charleston, to try to start a race war. He was hoping to succeed and failed of course. Except, he did not totally fail since it spawned another rash of black church burnings. This is what I am talking about. It is not about restricting the reporting of any other relevant details of what happened, just the information I described above.

I can accept the opinions expressed here against my proposal, but I am having trouble understanding many of the reasons when a legitimate reason is even expressed. Thank you for your well though out and intelligent response!

[rbrnmw]

12. No absolutely not

[Nuclear Unicorn]

17. Not a law but an agreement among media outlets to deprive the killers of the notoriety they seek

[Dustlawyer]

18. I could live with that, and it appears that might be palatable to most, but

I think I should give up predicting on this issue at this point!

[Logical]

19. I agree, no law but a agreement that it causes more shootings. Nt