Study shows most Americans blame government mistakes, not guns, for Florida shooting

[NightHawkeye]

The government now monitors fertilizer purchases and stockpiling an amount like McVeigh's will get you a visit from your friendly neighborhood fed. And that pales in comparison to the apparatus installed to prevent 9/11 v2.

Though, curiously, making threats about going on a shooting spree at your friendly neighborhood school won't bring out those same Fed visitors.

Go figure.

 

[Snappy1]

From pure ignorance... What could the fbi have done?

Bring him in? Have a chat? Press charges and prosecute?

Investigate the threats and if he made them and if he had the ability to carry out the specific threats he made then charge him with Terroristic Threatening. I don't know if that is a felony in Florida though, so I don't know if it would have gotten his firearms taken away.

 

[Aldebaran]

Investigate the threats and if he made them and if he had the ability to carry out the specific threats he made then charge him with Terroristic Threatening. I don't know if that is a felony in Florida though, so I don't know if it would have gotten his firearms taken away.

Even if they wanted to take away his firearms, how would they know if they had gotten all of them? This would be at best another case of a SWAT team knocking down the door and storming in.

 

[Snappy1]

Even if they wanted to take away his firearms, how would they know if they had gotten all of them? This would be at best another case of a SWAT team knocking down the door and storming in.

I don't know. I seriously doubt that even if he was convicted of a felony, law enforcement would have seized his firearms.

 

[Aldebaran]

I don't know. I seriously doubt that even if he was convicted of a felony, law enforcement would have seized his firearms.

I actually have a problem with the idea of police seizing peoples' firearms based on allegation or even charges. A person usually is supposed to lose rights or property only after they've been convicted of something.
In the case of the Florida shooter, he was allowed by his guardians to have it because it was locked in a safe that they thought they had the only key to. Perhaps some of the blame should be on them for not keeping the rifle secure. But ultimately, the blame is squarely on Nicholas Cruz since he committed the act. Not Donald Trump or the NRA.

 

[Jeffwhosoever]

Nor the manufacturer or the store that sold the gun. Looks like Florida today passed some laws to help prevent such future occurrences without resorting to an AR-15 ban, which is a good thing. I am not convinced 21 is the right age or is constitutional, because we send off 18 year olds to combat with M-4's and more, and if a young person has a home, they need the rights to defend themselves because we don't want a society where we have to have policemen stationed at every street corner to prevent all possible forms of crime. yes, I know you can defend your home with a shotgun, but I think they should have allowed some provision for home defense weapons to be sold to 18 to 20 year olds, and yes save the AR-15 for 21.

 

[Snappy1]

I actually have a problem with the idea of police seizing peoples' firearms based on allegation or even charges. A person usually is supposed to lose rights or property only after they've been convicted of something.
In the case of the Florida shooter, he was allowed by his guardians to have it because it was locked in a safe that they thought they had the only key to. Perhaps some of the blame should be on them for not keeping the rifle secure. But ultimately, the blame is squarely on Nicholas Cruz since he committed the act. Not Donald Trump or the NRA.

I meant him being convicted for a felony.

 

[variant]

The problem is that you're not seeing the fact that even if something is "regulated", people still find a way around it. Sure, they use their imagination. Has that stopped those with imagination from doing far greater damage with knives and explosives than they could with a gun? Just look at the death toll from 9/11, the death tool of the OKC bombing, and the death toll of any single school shooting. Rather ironic that the ones committed with guns has the lowest death toll, while the one committed with box cutter knives has the highest, and the one with the bomb is in between.

The OKC bombing leads us to look into whether or not people are making large fertilizer purchases, which according to your logic is apparently useless.

Of course it isn't useless, and there's no reason not to regulate large purchases of fertilizers, and it does in fact deter people from that easy access to weapons capable of killing large amounts of people.

Your argument is like saying that we shouldn't have laws because people are bound to break them...

 

[variant]

You need to ask WHY the people in the article that the OP posted feel the government is to blame before placing unrealistic expectations on any human being - police or otherwise.

I'm not sure if you are being sarcastic or not here. The police/government don't have crystal balls to see in the future to stop these horrific acts. We all know that. It is their job to follow up on leads, and respond to criminal acts - which as we have read about this kid seem to be abundant. Heck, even the FBI admitted they dropped the ball in a major fashion.

It seems to me that protocols and red flags that could have - and should have - been followed up on were not. I think people have the right to criticize that, and place some blame there. Is that unreasonable?

Do we know that the shooting could have been prevented the way it happened it if had? Chances are VERY good he couldn't get his hands on a legal weapon if they had. Does that mean it could STOPPED this shooting? The probability is much higher.

The kid cleared a background check because the system is flawed and the FBI is imperfect. We're never going to get rid of an imperfect policing force, but we can certainly tighten up the background check system.

 

[variant]

Yes it was the NRA who told the local police not to do anything about an obviously violent kid, it was the NRA who told the FBI not to show any concern for the guy and it was the FBI who kept the local police from going in to stop the guy.

DARN YOU NRA!

Or the NRA that fights against more extensive background checks, makes sure the national background check system is riddled with holes, and denounces any attempt to have a database of gun buyers to be checked against threats...

Here's the state of the national gun database:
https://www.thetrace.org/2016/08/atf-ridiculous-non-searchable-databases-explained/

Why is the ATF required to trace guns, but with crappy technology?
The 1968 Gun Control Act gave the ATF authority to regulate federally licensed gun dealers. In 1978, the ATF tried to make dealers report most sales each quarter. The National Rifle Association and other groups denounced the plan, and lobbied to kill the reporting requirement. Congress did as the gun lobby requested, blocking the quarterly report proposal and reducing the ATF’s budget by $5 million: the amount the agency had sought to update its computer capacity.

“From that point on, if you even said ‘computer’ at ATF headquarters, everybody ran and hid in a closet,” says William Vizzard, a former ATF special agent and emeritus professor of criminal justice at California State University, Sacramento.

The war on searchable technology continued. In 1986, Congress enacted the Firearms Protection Act, which bans the ATF from creating a registry of guns, gun owners or gun sales.

Congress also put a rider barring the agency from “consolidation or centralization” of gun dealers’ records in every spending bill affecting the agency from 1979 through 2011, then made the prohibition permanent, under law.

 

[variant]

From pure ignorance... What could the fbi have done?

Bring him in? Have a chat? Press charges and prosecute?

They would probably have had to press charges for making threats.

 

[Bio-Luminescent Billy]

If we expect the government to stop things like the parkland shooting we're going to have to give them the tools to do so.

This assumes they aren't the ones perpetrating these shooting to begin with.

 

[Fantine]

Yes it was the NRA who told the local police not to do anything about an obviously violent kid, it was the NRA who told the FBI not to show any concern for the guy and it was the FBI who kept the local police from going in to stop the guy.

DARN YOU NRA!

It is the NRA who----despite the opposition of a majority of its membership and a VAST majority of Americans----allows these weapons to proliferate beyond all reason and necessity.

If "guns don't kill people, people kill people" then how come nations with stricter gun controls have so many fewer people being killed?

Without the NRA's stranglehold on the politicians feeding at its trough most of these situations would never get to the point where the local police or FBI had to interfere.

 

[TerranceL]

It is the NRA who----despite the opposition of a majority of its membership and a VAST majority of Americans----allows these weapons to proliferate beyond all reason and necessity.

The NRA doesn't have the power to do that. You know that right?

If "guns don't kill people, people kill people" then how come nations with stricter gun controls have so many fewer people being killed?

Like Jamaica.... or Mexico... or Brazil....

Without the NRA's stranglehold on the politicians feeding at its trough most of these situations would never get to the point where the local police or FBI had to interfere.

Uh huh.

 

[rambot]

Like Jamaica.... or Mexico... or Brazil.....

Or Canada, UK, Japan, Germany, Australia, New Zealand. Countries that are more economically in a similar position.

Perhaps the US should aspire to lighter gun laws like safe places like Pakistan, East Timor.

 

[Bio-Luminescent Billy]

Or Canada, UK, Japan, Germany, Australia, New Zealand. Countries that are more economically in a similar position.

Perhaps the US should aspire to lighter gun laws like safe places like Pakistan, East Timor.

When you subtract urban gun violence and gang crime, the rest of America has similar gun homicide rates as many of the most docile developed countries.

Don't blame America because of high crime blue zones like DC and Chiraq. Also known as Chicago.

 

[rambot]

When you subtract urban gun violence and gang crime, the rest of America has similar gun homicide rates as many of the most docile developed countries.

Don't blame America because of high crime blue zones like DC and Chiraq. Also known as Chicago.

Sure...they don't count cause.....why? Cherry picking data is a legitimate way to get off the hook now?

 

[Fantine]

I guess you just get your alternative facts from alternative sources.

I stand by mine.

 

[Bio-Luminescent Billy]

Sure...they don't count cause.....why? Cherry picking data is a legitimate way to get off the hook now?

Well, if you want to count them, include the ancillary factors that have much more to do with inner city gun violence than the guns themselves.

Also, if you want to use examples like the UK, yea they don't have as much gun violence, but home invasions are up, knife crime has been skyrocketing for a while now, muslim grooming gangs are endemic, and people are being arressted for offensive tweets, even as police have to completely stop responding to certain crimes in some towns for lack of resources.

If that's what we're going to get in exchange for our guns...I'll keep my guns.

I guess you just get your alternative facts from alternative sources.

I stand by mine.

Stand by what? All you made were baseless allegations?

 

[variant]

This assumes they aren't the ones perpetrating these shooting to begin with.

Yes, I'm assuming the government isn't perpetuating shootings because I have absolutely no evidence that they are.