A serious question

[Duckhunter935]

First I am for UBC and have no big issues using the Bush watch lists to prevent firearms purchases as long as due process rights are not infringed.

Would these have prevented Sandy Hook, columbine, San Bernardino, Orlando, Virginia Tech?

Please name one mass shooting that would have been prevented, please be honest.

Once again, put this into law but please do not think it will prevent most mass shooting events.

[linuxman]

1. Maybe. Like, all caps maybe.

Only if mental health was a factor, the records were freed to be integrated in to the system as well, and if the VT and Sandy Hook shooters had mental health treatment backgrounds. I don't think the others did.

[Duckhunter935]

3. In Sandy Hook

The mother purchased the weapons and the son murdered her. I do not even think that would have helped unless family members are included. I am not even sure if his mental state would have been enough if it was not documented in any database.

[linuxman]

5. I forgot about that.

[HereSince1628]

2. We don't really have a good handle on what it is we are talking about and want to prevent

Mass shootings mostly aren't Sandy Hooks, Columbines, San Bernadinos, Orlandos or Virginia Techs, most mass shootings (those with more then 3 or 4 persons depending on what definition you go by) pass through the background news with almost no public concern.

Consequently suggesting as models mass shootings only the atypically large body count events such as the Sandy Hooks, Columbines, San Bernadinos, Orlandos or Virginia Techs, which also are atypical in their locations may widely miss a measure of the effectiveness of -any- method of reduction in gun violence.

Yes, of course, we want to prevent the Sandy Hooks, Columbines, San Bernadinos, Orlandos or Virginia Techs

But we've got to come to shared understanding of what is to be prevented. It seems that what we "want" to prevent is shootings involving other than brown people and those that are outside of impoverished neighborhoods/ communities.

It certainly feels like thinking on this problem still engages a social understanding that loss of multiple lives in some places is more dreadful than the loss of multiple other lives in other places.

[Duckhunter935]

4. Most of those shootings are done by gangs and

Drug wars. Most are prohibited person's that is already illegal for them to have weapons. UBC might help some and straw purchasing laws need to be seriously enforced. End the war on drugs. The issue is all of the politicians are talking about these high profile shootings and even you can't admit the laws they are pushing would not change things really at all.

[Wounded Bear]

6. Your title is perhaps the most important thing you said...

Congress, led by the gun lobby sheep, has prevented much badly needed research on the methods and reasons for these crimes and terrorist acts. This really is a public health issue, and should probably be addressed as such, but the Repubs in Congress denied even hearings on a potential Surgeon General who had made that common sense point.

I'll agree that it goes beyond simple improvements in UBC and honing of 'no-fly' lists. But perhaps we have finally reached a point where doing nothing is no longer acceptable. Support for increased restrictions on the ease of which weapons are distributed in this country is near universal. The only block appears to be Congress.

[HereSince1628]

7. Here's the problem I see with definitions and "N"

For law enforcement, federal, state or local, they use the 3 or 4 victims standard. That's great for trying to show there is a BIG problem. But the dominant (white?) community doesn't really give a shit about that.

The advantage of those big numbers is they make statistical analysis really meaningful. If only those murders happened in a subpopulation that caused people to demand action...

The BIG mass shootings are actually pretty rare...to uncommon to really avail themselves to statistical analysis. But, THOSE shootings take place outside of impoverished neighborhoods and strike subpopulations that get the dominant class (WHITE) of people really upset.

Having worked as a state epidemiologist I can tell you that STATISTICS are THE TOOLS that public health isssues are dealth with. The massacers that upset people are too rare to be statistically analyzed. The mass-shootings that have the numbers to analyze are considered background problems of impoverished neighborhoods, and too complicated to address.

It's really screwed up. The lives of poor people of color DO MATTER

[Rex]

8. Do you have any concrete proof it will not help?

How do you know it would not have helped at all, since we have never tried any type of real gun control we might never know.

Doesn't help that GOP Congress is controlled by the NRA.

[Duckhunter935]

9. From history

None of the mass shootings I can think of would have been affected. Most all I know of legally passed the mandated background check and it has never been stated after the fact they were on any list. Please prove me wrong.

[Rex]

11. So we need tougher laws then the legally mandated background check?

Thanks, that is interesting.

[joshcryer]

10. It would have raised flags for Orlando.

As for the others a mental health registry would have raised flags for Sandy Hook, Charleston, Aurora, Congresswoman Giffords, etc.

Whether anything would have been stopped is debatable. That's not the point. We see where the systems in place may have helped. So put in place the mechanism to help.

But the fucking Congress won't even let us study the issue to figure out what to do.

[Duckhunter935]

12. I agrees the many databases need to be

Linked and accurate.

[joshcryer]

13. And enforced. Dylan Roof was marked as a felon.

And while his arrest was not a felony, it should have stopped him from getting a gun. And yes, I'm fine with someone erroneously getting blocked from getting a gun for a mistake, which is much preferable than someone slipping through the cracks who shouldn't even have a gun.

And really, nothing is going to catch a Dylan Roof or Elliot Rodgers, or Kevin James Loibl type. Shut ins who hate the world and who are completely isolated hate monger losers.