Police: Body found at US park is that of gunman

[iverglas]

71. maybe somebody could offer a logic/rhetoric course here

It's quite entertaining to watch these terms flung around with such gay abandon - move the goalposts, strawman, apples and oranges, etc. etc. - in situations where they have no application ... but really it does get tedious.

You quote me:

"I'll be happy to entertain proposals that people who are involved in custody disputes should have their eligibility to acquire and possess firearms withdrawn."

but completely disregard what that was said ABOUT.

I was engaged in a conversation with someone who had said:

*I* certainly wouldn't have wanted him to carry, as he was obviously deranged.
The trouble was, either no one alerted the authorities (see Jared Loughner), or he was actually found to be incompetent and the system fucked up (Seng-Hui Cho), and didn't get him flagged on the NICS system.

My question was how someone could say they did not want someone to "carry" would propose that their wish be implemented, assuming, of course, that they did want there to be some means of doing that.

The individual was NOT disqualified by any factor currently applied in the US, as far as I could determine: he had no criminal record, he had not been committed for mental illness or adjudged mentally incompetent, and there was no protective order outstanding against him. The facts showed that he was involved in a custody dispute, and an investigation of his mental status was underway in connection with that proceeding only (i.e. there was little possibility of it resulting in either commitment for treatment or adjudication of incompetence, although someone could always have initiated a separate proceeding to have him committed, which might or might not have been successful -- but no one had).

I found the reply posted to me -- that the poster would not have wanted the individual to carry a gun -- rather pointless. As I pointed out:

"If one does not advocate measures to prevent this individual and people like him from acquiring firearms, one advocates him and them having firearms."

If one does not want such an individual to carry a firearm, then presumably one has some ideas about how to reduce the risk of it happening. In this instance, I would suggest that what was needed was something to reduce the risk of him possessing firearms, really.

The only ground I could imagine was as I stated:

"I'll be happy to entertain proposals that people who are involved in custody disputes should have their eligibility to acquire and possess firearms withdrawn. Anybody want to start?"

No one was precluded from suggesting any other mechanism, obviously.

Now comes you, quoting the statement I made, that being involved in a custody dispute is a risk factor for using firearms to cause harm, and stating:

Risk factor, you said it twice, it is a RISK FACTOR but that is not what you stated. You said they "SHOULD HAVE their eligibility to aquire and possess firearms withdrawn". Big difference between "risk factor" and "should have".

Really? Not where I am.

Where I am, if this individual had applied for a licence to acquire/possess firearms, there would have been several screening factors that would, if he was honest in his application, have resulted in a licence denial. The application includes questions about spousal status and situation, and requires that the spouse be notified of the application; the spouse then has the opportunity to make submissions about the application. I can tell you with certainty that if the situation had come to the attention of the firearms officer handling the application, it would have been denied.

If he was already in possession of firearms, either legally or illegally, anyone, including the spouse, could have reported the situation to police, who would have investigated and realized that there was a high risk of harm, and confiscated the firearms immediately and applied for a firearms prohibition order.

Risk factors are, in fact, exactly what disqualifying factors for firearms possession are based on. In the US, they are very limited: commitment for mental illness, adjudication of mental incompetence, outstanding protective order (in addition to criminal record, of course; although this tends to be viewed through the medieval lens of stripping someone of civil rights, quite obviously a history of criminal behaviour is a risk factor for causing harm with firearms).

That does not mean that other factors do not present an equal or even greater risk. Someone against whom a protective order has been made in the context of a problematic family situation cannot be said to be at higher risk of causing harm with firearms than someone who is plainly just as disturbed or just as violent but against whom no such order has been made. The risk factor is obviously not the protective order, it is the behaviour or risk factors for the behaviour.

The risk factor referred to by the poster whom I was addressing was the fact that he was "deranged". And yet he had not been committed for mental illness or adjudicated mentally incompetent.

The alternative risk factor I referred to was involvement in a custody dispute. Not all people involved in custody disputes go around shooting other people. By no means all "deranged" people go around shooting other people, either.

So what have we here, when it comes to goal posts being shifted?

We have you doing it, if anyone. I was discussing risk factors with someone who had raised that precise issue, if not by that term. That poster obviously viewed a "deranged" person who was not expressly disqualified as at elevated risk of causing harm with firearms. I asserted that a person involved in a custody dispute is at elevated risk of causing harm with firearms.

Neither person is disqualified, in the US, from possessing firearms.

So, if someone seriously does not want a "deranged" person, at least, to have access to firearms, exactly what are we all proposing?

I'll be happy to entertian any proposals in addition to the example I offered. Obviously.