In wake of school shooting, Tennessee legislature acts to protect innocent and vulnerable gun manufacturers and dealers

[FenderTL5]

What we really need is better upstream vetting for gun ownership.

Based on your comments, this one and others, I think there's a lot of common ground between us. The challenge; the majority in the gun community oppose those measures as well. Sure they'll say we need red flag laws but they will ultimately work against their passage.

As example, since this thread is about the TN Legislature; it wouldn't surprise me in the least to learn that the Governor's proposal for red flag legislation was made with the full, prior, knowledge that the GOP in the legislature would keep it off the floor. Yes, i believe they are that vindictive. The whole lot of them.
I would argue this is true with other vetting mechanisms as well, such as comprehensive background checks. Gun advocates say they are for them until they are actually proposed, then find any and every excuse possible to oppose them.

..you're right that many of those attachments do have a functional purpose..

Those features are precisely why shooters choose those weapons in many, perhaps most, incidents where they are utilized. The function(s) facilitating a large number of rounds being fired in a short time in a confined space serves the purpose of school shooters to the T.
What I find disingenuous and an insult to intelligence are those who say the only opposition to those weapons is due to their aesthetic. You've seen it. I find those comments equally as ignorant as those who actually would oppose a weapon based on appearance alone. Neither extreme has credibility as far as I'm concerned.

 

[rambot]

Plus, given what we know about the massive scope of those firearms that are already in private hands, for a political entity to suggest that the AWB was a driving factor is already suspect.

Even during the time of the assault weapons ban, there were already millions of those types of weapons in circulation (as 44% of the then 277 million US population were gun owners), no confiscation efforts (as everyone was grandfathered in for the most part), and it's not as if those guns magically stopped functioning.

I've even said in other threads that while we need certain gun control measures to be implemented, don't expect any meaningful changes in the numbers for at least a decade or two.

The idea that a law that took effect in 1995 would have any sort of meaningful impact on the numbers by 1999 is a suspect claim IMO.

With regards to multiple fatalities in what we think of as a "high profile mass shooting" in modern times, that was virginia tech, and was done with 2 handguns (and involved 33 deaths)

Unless they get at the underlying causes, an AWB is basically...well...I can't use the expression here on CF...because people have proven that they can be quite lethal with handguns.

I'm much more concerned with answering the question "who's suitable to own a firearm and who's not" than I am targeting certain gun types. A sane, trained, and vetted person with an AR15 scares me a lot less than unstable person with a Glock.

Isn't a curious thing though. It seems when we hear stories about mass shooters, they tend NOT to have been sitting on their guns for years and years. Generally, it sounds as though they get a gun within a year or two of their crimes.

 

[rambot]

Wow - how many times have you been called before congress as an expert in firearms?

She's NOT an expert in firearms. She's an "expert" on "firearm policty" for a fiercely conservative think tank

 

[dogs4thewin]

I think it's fair to make a distinction between a gun manufacturer and a gun dealer (who would be selling the guns and ammo to individuals).

If a gun dealer sells a gun to someone they shouldn't have, they should obviously have to answer some questions and potentially be held accountable if they sold to someone they shouldn't.

However, manufacturers are just making the guns, they're not selling guns direct-to-consumer.

Suing a manufacturer for something someone did with the product makes about as much sense as trying to sue Ford if someone gets drunk and drives their Mustang into a school bus.


Plus, government entities, themselves, have a vested interest in making sure that manufacturers that make things for them don't get sued out of existence. The government also provides similar protections to drug companies, because there's legitimate government interest in making sure we have certain drugs and vaccines available, and allowing them to get sued out of existence due to extremely rare event (or a doctor dispensing something without doing their due diligence) would mean the end of medicinal innovation.

Likewise with guns. Military and Police entities need to be able to buy the things Smith & Wesson, Glock. and Colt produce. Allowing them to get sued out of existence because a licensed dealer wasn't doing their job with diligence, or because someone behaved immorally or irresponsibly with the product would be a major problem for the aforementioned government entities.

Even the dealers should ONLY be held accountable if they sold the gun knowing or at least reasonably should have known that the person either could not legally have a gun or if it is a situation where a person provided the gun willingly without selling it that the person was a danger to themselves or others having the gun.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Isn't a curious thing though. It seems when we hear stories about mass shooters, they tend NOT to have been sitting on their guns for years and years. Generally, it sounds as though they get a gun within a year or two of their crimes.

• More than 80% of the assailants responsible for K-12 shootings stole their guns from family members, per the National Institute of Justice.

While some people (like the recent TN shooter) purchase a stockpile within the year or two of committing their crimes, the stats would suggest that the lion's share are a case of family members irresponsibly storing their firearms so in those instances, the person doing the shooting wasn't the purchaser at all.

Granted, "school shootings" aren't synonymous with "mass shootings" (though there is overlap)


This article does a pretty good, balanced write-up on it presenting the positions of both viewpoints

FactChecking Biden's Claim that Assault Weapons Ban Worked - FactCheck.org

President Joe Biden claims the 10-year assault weapons ban that he helped shepherd through the Senate as part of the 1994 crime bill "brought down these mass killings." But the raw numbers, when adjusted for population and other factors, aren't so clear on that.

www.factcheck.org

But to be fair to your position, there are some arguments to be made for waiting periods

Tulsa shooting renews debate on waiting periods for gun buyers

Just nine states and Washington, D.C., have explicit waiting periods before people can purchase at least some types of firearms.

www.pbs.org

I don't know if more granular data is available that shows the exact percentage in terms of "already owned for more than a few years" vs. "bought in the last two years.

However, this PBS article suggests that:
Nationally, about one-third of mass shooters purchased a gun within a month of their crimes, said James Densley, co-founder of The Violence Project, a nonpartisan research group that tracks mass shootings dating back to 1966.

According to a 2017 Harvard Business School review, waiting period laws that delay the purchase of firearms by a few days reduce gun homicides by roughly 17%. But Sam Paredes, executive director of Gun Owners of California, called waiting periods “an ineffective policy to try to affect gun crime.”


That still leaves two thirds where we don't know how long they had it prior to a mass shooting. (could be a year, could be 3 years)
...and still leaves us with 83% of the perpetrators who don't seem to be deterred by a waiting period.

It could be a good step to carve off a little around the edges, but it doesn't sound like these measures are a panacea or nearly as effective as people think they are.


Some would say that I'm "making better the enemy of perfect" here, but I think that sweeping measures (while sometimes needed, and sometimes a good case can be made for them) should have some assurance of significant results.

There should be at least some reasonable correlation between the percentage of rights/privileges being restricted, and the percentage of the stated problem the measure will solve.

To use a hypothetical. If we were talking about measures to crack down on retail theft. If what was being proposed would create a significant amount of additional time, cost, and red tape (like the city paying to equip every store with anti theft devices and paying to put two police officers in every retail store)... if it eliminated 75% of theft, that could be a worthwhile trade off. If it only eliminated 10% of it, it's not clear that the medicine is better than the disease.

 

[dogs4thewin]

Isn't a curious thing though. It seems when we hear stories about mass shooters, they tend NOT to have been sitting on their guns for years and years. Generally, it sounds as though they get a gun within a year or two of their crimes.

Does not matter when they got the gun what matters for purposes of should another person be held liable is whether or not at the time they got the gun the person who either sold or otherwise provided them the gun knew or should have known that they were a danger to themselves or others. For example, if you have someone who you KNOW or reasonably should know is mentally unstable or is a felon and not allowed to have a gun and you provide them a gun selling or otherwise and they go out a kill themselves or someone else you should be held liable. If however, you sell or provide a gun to someone and you have NO idea they are unstable and have no reason to believe so and they go out and do the same thing then that person should NOT be held liable for providing the gun by sell or otherwise whether they provided the gun 10 minutes before or ten years before.

 

[dogs4thewin]

I'd argue that anyone in support of this legislation also has no interest in protecting any of their fellow countryman.

Whatsoever.

Including children.

Let me asks you should we be able to sue car makers and dealerships when people die because of a drunk driver's actions? If not why should we be allowed to sue the makers and sellers of guns when people use them to inflict damage? Keep in mind in many states a bar or person cam be sued if they overserve someone who then gets in an accident that hurts or kills someone, BUT that have to be in a situation where the defendant ( the person sued not the drunk who caused the accident knew or should have REASONABLY known that that person was unfit to drive and allowed them to leave anyway. That does not mean that if I were to go to the package store buy a bottle of liquor leave go home and drink the whole thing and THEN drive and kill someone that the package store would be liable even if the events happened within hours of one another. There is an exception sometimes and that is that sometimes a package store CAN be held liable if it can be shown that they sold liquor to someone they knew or should have known was an alcoholic, but that is hard to prove and thus not used a whole lot.

 

[Larniavc]

Gun free zones kill people,

How many people get killed in the by guns in the gun free zone in the UK? Gun free zones do not kill people. People shooting people in gun free zones kill people because Americans cannot be trusted to not shoot each other’s faces off at the mildest of annoyances.

 

[dogs4thewin]

How many people get killed in the by guns in the gun free zone in the UK? Gun free zones do not kill people. People shooting people in gun free zones kill people because Americans cannot be trusted to not shoot each other’s faces off at the mildest of annoyances.

all Americans? I know many people who own guns this is the rural south. I know quite a few people who carry in public with a permit though they are no longer required here in GA now some of those people would be some of the same people who would be the last I would expect to raise their voice in anger and yet I can promise you that if they were out with me and they reasonably felt me or them was were in danger of death or serious injury they would also have no issue shooting the person in their and/or my defense.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Gun free zones kill people, and joe biden is the one who got the federal gun free zones laws passed. Resulting in a history of shooting kids .... like fish in a barrel.

I've heard the theory that gun free zones create "soft targets".

However, I don't know if it's a problem created by a gun free zone, or if those places already had "soft targets" to begin with, any many of those places just so happened ones that ended up getting designated as such.

Furthermore, I would suggest that many "gun free zones" actually aren't gun free. For instance, court houses, correctional facilities, police stations are all "gun free zones" for the general public, yet they all have several uniformed officers who are armed.

Even with regards to schools, many have armed resource officers, and several states extended exemptions to teachers with concealed carry permits.

Does your state allow teachers to carry a gun?

Most states have enacted some sort of legislation allowing – or not allowing – teachers and school employees to carry a firearm on campus.

thehill.com

Plus, these types of shootings have been carried out in places that weren't gun free zones.

List of mass shootings in the United States in 2019 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

If you peruse the list, more than half take place in states that are pretty permissive with ccw laws, and in venues that aren't gun free zones.
(a mass shooting at a Walmart in Texas isn't happening in a gun free zone, neither is a massage parlor in Georgia, nor is a mall in Florida, nor is a public street outside a bar in Dayton Ohio)

Even if they said that schools were no longer gun free zones, it's still going to be viewed as a "soft target". It's a building full of kids (who can't legally own a gun at that age) and a handful of adults with liberal arts degrees, the majority of whom skew left on the political spectrum and aren't likely to be the type of person who would carry even if they could.


To be clear, do I think a sticker in a window with a picture of a gun and a red line through it is stopping any bad guys? No, obviously not...I think the concept is silly.

However, do I think a public place being designated as one is having a big impact one way or the other? No. I think they're happening in places that the shooters would've likely targeted anyway regardless of "gun free zone" status. An unstable person (who's planning on dying anyway in most cases) is equally undeterred by the prospect that two or three people inside may have a handgun.

Guns act as a great deterrent to criminals who have an interest self-preservation. However, that's not the mindset of most mass shooters. A wanna-be mugger (who doesn't want to get hurt, and is hoping that someone will just be afraid and comply so they can get the loot and get out of there unscathed) is working with a very different psyche than a deranged person who's thinking "I'm gonna get an AR and head into this building and take as many people out as I can before I die today"

 

[Larniavc]

all Americans? I know many people who own guns this is the rural south. I know quite a few people who carry in public with a permit though they are no longer required here in GA now some of those people would be some of the same people who would be the last I would expect to raise their voice in anger and yet I can promise you that if they were out with me and they reasonably felt me or them was were in danger of death or serious injury they would also have no issue shooting the person in their and/or my defense.

Enough Americans to make your country have a gun violence problem.

Guns in the hands of people who would have no issues shooting someone when they perceived someone as a threat is why your cops kill so many people when they ‘fear for their lives’.

 

[dogs4thewin]

Enough Americans to make your country have a gun violence problem.

Guns in the hands of people who would have no issues shooting someone when they perceived someone as a threat is why your cops kill so many people when they ‘fear for their lives’.

Keep in mind that a person does NOT HAVE to be armed for lethal force to be justified. If a person REASONABLY believes a person is armed and shoots them it is considered justified. Also remember that they do not need to be armed with a gun or even a knife for it to be considered justified either. If someone is coming at me with a baseball bat or a metal pipe and someone else shoots them in my defense ( due to motor skills and eyesight I do not carry I would otherwise. that is enough to be considered justified as well.

 

[Larniavc]

Keep in mind that a person does NOT HAVE to be armed for lethal force to be justified. If a person REASONABLY believes a person is armed and shoots them it is considered justified. Also remember that they do not need to be armed with a gun or even a knife for it to be considered justified either. If someone is coming at me with a baseball bat or a metal pipe and someone else shoots them in my defense ( due to motor skills and eyesight I do not carry I would otherwise. that is enough to be considered justified as well.

I guess that is a big difference in the UK. You’re only allowed to use sufficient force to fend off the attacker. Killing someone because you are scared of them doesn’t cut it in the UK

 

[dogs4thewin]

I guess that is a big difference in the UK. You’re only allowed to use sufficient force to fend off the attacker. Killing someone because you are scared of them doesn’t cut it in the UK

Does not here either the fear have to be REASONABLE and/or the person must be committing or trying to commit certain felonies. We also have a concept called imperfect self defense this is when you use self defense lethal or otherwise when you may have been scared for your life, but a REASONABLE person would not be. In these cases the person usually will get a reduced charge whereas in a correct self defense case they would have no charges at all.

 

[DarkForest]

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — In the wake of a deadly school shooting last month, Republican lawmakers in Tennessee awarded final passage Tuesday to a proposal that would further protect gun and ammunition dealers, manufacturers and sellers against lawsuits.

If I run over a bunch of kids with a Range Rover, should they be liable?

 

[ruthiesea]

Almost every major study on the issue has found that Americans use their firearms in self-defense between 500,000 and 3 million times annually

Second Amendment a Blessing, Not a “Curse,” in End-of-Year Examples of Defensive Gun Use

The editorial board of a major New Jersey newspaper started the year off with an anti-Second Amendment screed, decrying the right to keep and bear arms as a “curse” perpetuated by a “fanatical” interpretation created by the Supreme Court in 2008.

www.heritage.org

That would be self defense against 500,00 and 3 million people with guns?

 

[Wings like Eagles]

Doing a great job protecting children.

Protecting Schools the Israeli Way

townhall.com

From the article : Left’s attitudes towards violence. They blame an inert object, rather than the criminal.

How schools in Israel keep students safe and prevent mass shootings

School shootings are virtually unheard of in Israel, so CBS News went to see what they're doing differently

www.cbsnews.com

 

[Ana the Ist]

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — In the wake of a deadly school shooting last month, Republican lawmakers in Tennessee awarded final passage Tuesday to a proposal that would further protect gun and ammunition dealers, manufacturers and sellers against lawsuits.

Wherever is that manifesto?

 

[RocksInMyHead]

Wherever is that manifesto?

FBI has it.

Hale's motives and the 'manifesto' have been a continued subject of interest for many looking for answers but Johnston says she personally hopes it is never released. "I just think from what I have been told it is like a blueprint for heinous things," Johnston says.

"Its really not even a manifesto," she adds. "Its diaries of a mentally ill person. Her mental illness is not something that should be used for entertainment and I don't understand these claims that law enforcement is hiding something."

Her statements coincide with statements from U.S. Representative Tim Burchett, his office telling FOX 17 News the manifesto is "being processed by the FBI" which is why it has not been released yet. Unlike Councilwoman Johnston, Burchett believes the documents could be helpful in answering some of the questions when it comes to a motive in the shooting. Rep. Burchett's office says he believes the manifesto should be released to families affected and Congress.

And it apparently doesn't spell out a clear motive.

Authorities have yet to release what was written publicly. But TBI director David Rausch did talk candidly about the contents of the manifesto at a Tennessee Sheriffs' Association meeting. Rausch said what police found isn't so much a manifesto spelling out a target but a series of rambling writings indicating no clear motive.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Tennessee governor signs bill to shield gun firms further against lawsuits​

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee has signed off on additional protections for gun and ammunition dealers, manufacturers and sellers against lawsuits within a bill that lawmakers passed after a deadly school shooting