Gun Law Views Inlight of Las Vegas Shooting

Absolutely sick to my stomach at the latest news. Nothing will ever change though so I shouldn't even be surprised. There was even a person with a gun that chased the guy out.....but that still didn't prevent the death of over 2 dozen people (including children) with even more injured. Think I'm kind of getting numb to it at this points.

Thoughts go out to anybody with family in Texas Hoping everybody connected to this group is safe at least

There's so much about this that makes me angry.  I wish we had a president that could bring us together and help us solve the problem.

Doubt anyone can. The lobby is too strong to break, so far. And the culture has become desensitized. It's not "omygod there's been a mass shooting" anymore, it's more of "how many this time" as if it cannot be changed, but must only be endured. 

That being said, in this case it's not the guns, it's the guy. (It pains me to say that, but if he hadn't had a semi-automatic, I think he'd have used dynamite, like when that guy in the upper-midwest blew up the school full of children to settle his grudge.)

I have not followed this closely; however, what I heard was it was one male shooter. He opened fire at a church building, then in the church. He meant to frighten first and then kill - this was one mean bastard with a grudge. My guess is that he has/had a history of violence and of being a bully.

If I might conjecture from what I know of Texas (having grown up there) and human nature:  This will be a white male, young-to-middle-aged, probably not terribly highly educated, and pretty much a failure in life. His wife/girlfriend will have left him very recently and/or he will be in the middle of an ugly custody battle.  His wife and/or her family (or possibly his own children, if he has any) will be members of that church.  He intended to cause as much pain to them as he possibly could. This is the kind of guy who would kill his own kids, rather than have his ex have custody and him have to pay child support - with the added bonus of him knowing it would gut his ex to have her children dead.

I believe I heard in passing that the shooter ran away when confronted by another armed individual after he shot up the interior of the church. That tells me he was not suicidal, but intended to make a get-away.  He is now dead. If it was from the bullet of the civilian who confronted him, there will be a medal/commendation awarded to the gent who shot him. If it was from a self-inflicted shot, he's just dead. Along with all those others. 

In any case, unless he's posted a rant somewhere or left a note, which I doubt (as I think he meant to live afterwards), all Law Enforcement and anyone else will be able to do is try to guess what the hell went so wrong with this guy.  It'll be in the news for a while, then die down as people go back to their daily lives.  Except for the ones who have lost their loved ones, and the dead.

There's nothing but sad around this. Nothing to say that will help, nothing one can do to change history. I'll be lighting a candle for them again tonight.  So, so sad.   

I have not followed this closely; however, what I heard was it was one male shooter. He opened fire at a church building, then in the church. He meant to frighten first and then kill - this was one mean bastard with a grudge. My guess is that he has/had a history of violence and of being a bully.

According to the BBC:

The gunman who killed at least 26 people and wounded 20 others has been identified by police as 26-year-old Devin Patrick Kelley.

Mr Kelley began military service with the US Air Force in 2010 and served in its logistical readiness department based at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico.

Two years later, his career nose-dived. He was court-martialled in 2012 and sentenced to a year in military prison and a demotion for assaulting his wife and child. He was released from the military with a bad-conduct discharge in 2014.

and

Devin Kelley grew up in New Braunfels - about 56km (35 miles) north of Sutherland Springs - in the $1m home of his parents, the New York Times says. It was there that he was accused of assaulting his second spouse, in the same year he was divorced from his first wife. He remarried in 2014.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41884342

According to the BBC:

The gunman who killed at least 26 people and wounded 20 others has been identified by police as 26-year-old Devin Patrick Kelley.

Mr Kelley began military service with the US Air Force in 2010 and served in its logistical readiness department based at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico.

Two years later, his career nose-dived. He was court-martialled in 2012 and sentenced to a year in military prison and a demotion for assaulting his wife and child. He was released from the military with a bad-conduct discharge in 2014.

and

Devin Kelley grew up in New Braunfels - about 56km (35 miles) north of Sutherland Springs - in the $1m home of his parents, the New York Times says. It was there that he was accused of assaulting his second spouse, in the same year he was divorced from his first wife. He remarried in 2014.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41884342

My next question, in this instance, is how the hell was he allowed a gun of any kind?

I believe I heard in passing that the shooter ran away when confronted by another armed individual after he shot up the interior of the church. That tells me he was not suicidal, but intended to make a get-away.

I read this morning that he was fleeing already when he was chased by an armed member of the public (not in the church) but that might have been a misreport or I might have misunderstood.

I agree wholeheartedly that it's all just sad and also that I've hit a point where I say "how many?" vs "OMG WHAT?!"...that speaks volumes in my opinion.

It's easy to get a weapon in Texas. One doesn't necessarily have to do it legally.

http://www.10news.com/news/national/mass-shootings-in-the-u-s-over-270-mass-shootings-have-occurred-in-2017_

Posted on my Facebook today(no real point...other than to make you think).....you have to be willing to make changes....people aren't ready. Maybe someday.

1967 - Jayne Mansfield is killed when her car runs under the rear end of a tractor trailer. Since then, all trailers have a DOT bar at the rear to keep cars from going under them.
1982 - Seven people die when Tylenol packaging was tampered with. Since then, it takes a PhD, channel locks, and a sharp object to get into a bottle of pills.
1995 A bombing using a certain kind of fertilizer, solution grade ammonium nitrate, killed 168 people, so the government imposed severe restrictions on the purchase of that fertilizer.
2001 - One person attempts to blow up a plane with a shoe bomb. Since then, all air travelers have to take off their shoes for scanning before being allowed to board.
Since 1968 - 1,516,863 people have died from guns on American soil. Gun violence kills an average of 168 people every two days! Now, the problem apparently can't be solved except with thoughts and prayers. AND JU$T WHY DO YOU THINK THI$ I$???

Good post Mr. Mandolin.  I wanted to vent my anger as well, but where do we start?  What difference does it make when people refuse to listen. 

I'm even more angry now because everyone keeps talking about the fact that the shooter was stopped by another guy with a gun, thus "proving" the most moronic argument the gun lobby makes.  The other guy with a gun did not make this situation OK.  That's not a solution.

I'm even more angry now because everyone keeps talking about the fact that the shooter was stopped by another guy with a gun, thus "proving" the most moronic argument the gun lobby makes.  The other guy with a gun did not make this situation OK.  That's not a solution.

I don't even believe the guy fled because there was another guy with a gun. I originally read that he fled and was THEN chased by a guy with a gun (haven't checked back since because it's just sickening news all around. But, regardless, the guy with the gun didn't stop more than 2 dozen deaths.

I give up. Since they won't make me King of the World (I haven't asked....but I'm assuming "they" won't)......people are always going to be scared of people with views that differ from their own. Scared....suspicious.... As I say to other people......isn't is crazy that the people who claim to be the most religious, are the least religious in behaviour? I'll just hunker down.....play some golf....and hope that the world becomes sensible (not Cpt Sensible...a terrible couple of video's)......my wife just assumes the world is doomed. Hard to argue against it at this point.

Can we have better mental health services, victim protection and better gun laws yet? Not many details, but yet another domestic abuse case turns into a shooting spree, AT AN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL the shooter had no affiliation with. I'm just ... ugh. My heart hurts and I want to hug my husband.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/education/wp/2017/11/14/officials-say-at-least-3-dead-after-shooting-at-multiple-scenes-including-california-elementary-school/?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_californiashooting-240p%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.7bddcfe9a3fc

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Can we have better mental health services, victim protection and better gun laws yet? Not many details, but yet another domestic abuse case turns into a shooting spree, AT AN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL the shooter had no affiliation with. I'm just ... ugh. My heart hurts and I want to hug my husband.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/education/wp/2017/11/14/officials-say-at-least-3-dead-after-shooting-at-multiple-scenes-including-california-elementary-school/?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_californiashooting-240p%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.7bddcfe9a3fc

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Wish I could say that things might start to change but I pretty much have no faith in that (which is sad in itself).

I find it funny that many on the right are trying to change the accepted definition of a mass shooting.  Remember Mr Texas was giving that a go as well, arguing that the current number (4?) shouldn't really count as that could be a domestic incident or gang violence.  The reason for that is because under that definition, America is having a mass shooting almost every day!   So,  the gun industry tries to get everyone to redefine the problem so it's not so embarrassing.  Personally, I think the currently accepted number is plenty for me to think of it as a mass shooting. 

I find it funny that many on the right are trying to change the accepted definition of a mass shooting.  Remember Mr Texas was giving that a go as well, arguing that the current number (4?) shouldn't really count as that could be a domestic incident or gang violence.  The reason for that is because under that definition, America is having a mass shooting almost every day!   So,  the gun industry tries to get everyone to redefine the problem so it's not so embarrassing.  Personally, I think the currently accepted number is plenty for me to think of it as a mass shooting.

The federal guideline is 5 (excluding this California event, which was a spree over a number of scenes so would also be excluded) with a bunch of other conditions. The best publicly available stats use a standard of 3 deaths with no other conditions - so nutball shoots wife, kid, self inside home equals mass shooting, and I hope we can agree that’s a different problem than actual mass attacks on random people. A different problem that can’t be solved with the same solutions.

It’s just like madd created training standards for police depts to identify the presence of an empty alcohol container, even if clearly from weeks before or litter near the accident. Then classifies any accident where a container is present or where any occupant of any vehicle involved (including a passenger in the car hit by the at fault driver) to be an alcohol related traffic death. That creates a bigger number for the sake of scaring people for their fundraising and lobbying efforts to achieve their policy goals, but it doesn’t create a useful number. The number of scenes where a container is present is irrelevant to stopping drunk driving. The number where anyone other than the at fault driver - be that the victim driver or passengers of either car/etc - having alcohol in there system are irrelevant to alcohol caused accidents. And situations where the at fault driver has only trace amounts of alcohol are not caused by alcohol. Drunk driving accidents are still tragic horrible things that we should try hard to prevent, but the numbers skewed for a policy purpose don’t accurately and honestly get at the problem.

Just like a gun used in a domestic violence situation or in a gang/etc activity or politically/religiously motivated terrorism is not relevant to mass shootings of random people. If you’re interested in making the number of events as high as possible to shock the public and support a lobbying effort to ban guns or certain types of guns because you want those guns banned independent of the mass shooting problem, then drive on with the current system. However, if you’re interested in actually useful information to break down mass shootings from other events, then we do have to be more selective on what we categorize as a mass shooting or not.




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The federal guideline is 5 (excluding this California event, which was a spree over a number of scenes so would also be excluded) with a bunch of other conditions. The best publicly available stats use a standard of 3 deaths with no other conditions - so nutball shoots wife, kid, self inside home equals mass shooting, and I hope we can agree that’s a different problem than actual mass attacks on random people. A different problem that can’t be solved with the same solutions.

It’s just like madd created training standards for police depts to identify the presence of an empty alcohol container, even if clearly from weeks before or litter near the accident. Then classifies any accident where a container is present or where any occupant of any vehicle involved (including a passenger in the car hit by the at fault driver) to be an alcohol related traffic death. That creates a bigger number for the sake of scaring people for their fundraising and lobbying efforts to achieve their policy goals, but it doesn’t create a useful number. The number of scenes where a container is present is irrelevant to stopping drunk driving. The number where anyone other than the at fault driver - be that the victim driver or passengers of either car/etc - having alcohol in there system are irrelevant to alcohol caused accidents. And situations where the at fault driver has only trace amounts of alcohol are not caused by alcohol. Drunk driving accidents are still tragic horrible things that we should try hard to prevent, but the numbers skewed for a policy purpose don’t accurately and honestly get at the problem.

Just like a gun used in a domestic violence situation or in a gang/etc activity or politically/religiously motivated terrorism is not relevant to mass shootings of random people. If you’re interested in making the number of events as high as possible to shock the public and support a lobbying effort to ban guns or certain types of guns because you want those guns banned independent of the mass shooting problem, then drive on with the current system. However, if you’re interested in actually useful information to break down mass shootings from other events, then we do have to be more selective on what we categorize as a mass shooting or not.




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Tell me more about why some guy shooting 3 people is such a different situation than someone shooting 5?  Or 50?  Why can't these problems be solved by the same solution?  A solution like the one implemented in Australia did solve both the 3 and the 5 and the 50.  Less guns around means less mass shootings in Australia.

I think arguments like that are made to  obfuscate the problem.  Oh, yesterday's mass shooting was a spree across several sites, no problem then.