Would it be TOO much to ask that in order to own a gun

That you have a criminal background check AND an evaluation by a licensed mental health professional?

....I'm sorry, criminal background check, yes. But when I decide I want a new hunting rifle I ain't gonna stuff some shrink with money so he can weigh in whether I can have one or not....where is it gonna end?

establish somethng like the DMV

Oh sorry... I forgot... oh never mind

.....local mental health center in order to purchase legally? I doubt it. He'll just get the gun by other means.

And no serious/effective efforts to reduce their availability.

If guns were harder to get -- if their use was seriously constrained (shooting clubs with gun safes for the law-abiding); methods employed to withdraw them from our communities; and gun manufacturers and retailers stringently regulated and their numbers reduced, there would be less senseless death. Period.

....and maybe not. We can blame the guns and the fact that they are relatively easy to come by.
But it seems to me that what we're seeing is a symptom of something being very wrong in our society. It seems to be almost exclusive to the US (correct me if I'm wrong) but I don't remember hearing of a lot of School shootings in Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia - what the hell is it about our society that makes people, kids, do such a thing?

Is it America's gun culture that leads to more shootings or more guns that foster a gun culture?

The cop out (but maybe truth) is "both."

In the UK (one place I've lived) guns are hard to come by (although growing more common) and -- even though American entertainment (i.e., violent entertainment) is very popular -- when the impulse to do something flamboyantly suicidal comes over a person, they usually don't have a gun at hand. While UK criminals can sometimes get guns, it's still a stretch for them, and low-level neighborhood thugs are often priced out of the market for firearms and are reduced to blunt instruments or repurposed household cutlery (which, while dangerous, are not nearly as lethal as handguns).

In Hong Kong (another place I've lived) guns are verrrrry hard to come by and even career criminals may find themselves not packing heat. They tend to use cleavers (as do non-criminals who want to modify someone's behavior -- or physical aspect) as a weapon of choice. Again, a cleaver, while very dangerous, doesn't have a hundredth the killing efficiency of a handgun, and also requires its wielder to get up close and personal with the intended victim, a situation in which good sense can sometimes raise its head before anyone is actually dead.

My point being, in both these cultures, while a determined person can obtain a gun, societal opprobrium makes it much harder and less respectable, and they have monumentally lower death rates from handguns. In America, we still idolize the gun-totin' frontiersman and his modern analog the fast-drawing cop/soldier.

We also have that 2nd Amendment thingy which muddies the water completely. While no constitutional scholar, I'm convinced the Founders really *did* intend for the general populace (of propertied white men) to retain the right to keep arms as a reasonable check on government overreaching -- but if they could have seen the situation today, they would've been appalled and would have banned private gun ownership totally.

In moving toward a solution, gun control advocates need to inject cartilege into spineless politicians who cower before the NRA logo, chip away at the insane influence of the gun manufacturing lobby, and slowly withdraw handguns from the general population. It's a work of decades, which means maintaining the political will over such a period is far from a sure thing, but it's got to be tried.

At least as I see it.

(mass killing using guns), are appropriate moments
to get the points across.
I am sorry to say the progress will be slight.
The next one, yes, it will happen again, will be
another opportunity for slight progress towards sanity.
Civilisation is a long slow process. Ten steps forward,
nine steps back.....and so on.

I wonder what a class on Violence and American culture would look like?

Would it be reduced to chapters on;
physical (familial, aquaintence, stranger), verbal, graphic, textual, simulated, historical, fictional, video (cinematic, televised), etc maybe?

I'm sure there's more. We have an endless library from which we could bring up discussion.

Where guns come in in each area is anyone's guess. The fact that we do enable a lobby that serves to contribute to the above is pretty sick.

The same could be said for a consideration of other forms of violence in our culture.

I have no idea what to do about guns. Although, I know that where we are is not good.

I know a person who drinks a lot and has a PTSD startle response.
Since 9\11 sleeps with a loaded handgun next to his bed.

a waiting period. To answer your question where's it gonna end? I don't know? When someone gets killed?

Sadly there is a large criminal element that makes such suggestions necessary.

bad things.

However, not sure the mentally ill will.

nt

of avoiding this type of thing in the future, if possible. Maybe it isn't, but we need to try. This kid needed help, instead he went out and got guns. How could he have been stopped? What could have been done to get help for him before he murdered all of those innocent people? In my opinion, we can't just throw up our hands and say, oh well, he would have found a way to do this regardless.

and good people will always have to find ways to stop them. The only reason this issue resonates with me is the safety of my family. I know the good guys are not a threat, but a lunatic with a legitimately purchased handgun can ruin my life forever. So sometimes us good guys gotta sacrifice for the good of all.

..however - the criminal element will find a way around it. All those suggestions are fine but they will only effect the law abiding citizens. We'll go by it - the checks, the waiting periods...but some thug, hellbent on causing some mayhem will find other means to accomplish what they want to do.

I hope researchers don't give up on combatting the bad cells. When the bad guys new way is discovered we will have to combat that. Banks are forced to spend millions and millions combatting identity theft and are somewhat holding their own. I hope they don't stop trying.

There has to be room for compromise and the ones of us who don't pack them should rest assured that the ones that do aren't fucking nuts.

right now, with a fucking hammer. So now I want to go to Home Depot and buy a hammer, but first I've got to have a mental health evaluation, and criminal background check. Look, when you can assure me that our crack system of government is keeping guns out of the hands of criminals 100%, I'll give up mine. What is being suggested here opens the door to curtailing the rights of citizens to arm themselves, and who is going to control the evaluation process? You? Do you think you could pass a personality profile tomorrow? How about a lie detector test? Failure of these two tests wouldn't necessarily qualify you as "fucking nuts", but it might be used against you when you attempt to exercise your right to own a gun.

Psych evaluation might be a bit much.

Criminal background check "should" reveal any serious past mental issues.
Finger print / DNA documentation. If you insist on owning a gun, we insist that you are well documented.

I also believe that a person should be licensed to own a gun (much like driving a car). This would involve the same type of proficiency evaluations (like a road test).

I also believe that gun owners should be required to produce their registered firearms upon demand. There are too many guns that have been stolen that are never reported (because of embarrassment). Anyone who can not produce their firearm within a reasonable amount of time (or a police report of a stolen firearm) should have their license revoked and firearms forfeited. The intent of this is to get people to report their stolen guns.

I am not into guns personally, but if one of my children expressed interest, I would be the first to enroll them (and myself) in a class to learn the proper way to handle firearms.

Cheers
Drifter

.....sounds like a good middleground between those who want to ban all guns and those who want to arm everyone......

All women should be monitored after birth for PPD until they can be deemed sane enough to not drown their children also.

be comparatively speaking.

Please back that up because I've never heard of such a thing.

I was thinking it said psych background check, which is different. Sorry for the confusion.

I have never heard that.

I've never heard of such a thing.

What problem does having your head examined & a background check done? Sorry, I refuse to have either done.

:eyes:

I do not need to justify to some shrink or poolice bureaucracy the reason why I wish to own a handgun, for the protection of my home and the people in it. Damn can we get off of this horse-shit already!

How do you refute a professional saying someone shouldn't own a gun? Find another who says that the person is fit to own a gun? Its not a bad idea, but there needs to be a way for the citizen to refute the mental health denial.

The criminal justice system has it due process already in place. By the time you have a criminal record, you already had a chance to refute the charges.

was there enough background checking/mental health evaluation of the chimperor before he got his paws on the "football"? Sure doesn't seem like it :crazy:

I do not think that it is a good idea to suggest 40% of the country be subject to a random mental health screen.

I do, however, argue that the law is already on the book for mental health professionals to trigger names into the gun database and that we don't have the structure in place for them to do it. They should be able to send a letter to the individual and the judge, 10 days to respond or emergency placement. If the person doesn't respond, and most mentally ill won't, the name goes. We can't rely solely on felony records.

From everything I've heard about this kid though, this was such a borderline case that I'm not sure he could have been stopped. Really, there's not enough stigma on killing in this country. People should think of it the way they do incest with your sister - but we make video games of it. That's the bottom line problem. Would anybody play a video game called "pork your sister"??

A slippery, slippery slope IMO.

However, I think guns should be licensed much the same way cars are. Prospective gun owners should be required to take lessons and establish competence before being licensed; licenses should be issued for a set period of time; gun owners re-tested before licenses are renewed; and abuses of the privilege--for gun ownership is no more a right than is car ownership, willful misreadings of the 2nd Amendment notwithstanding--should be cause for revocation of the license and confiscation of the gun(s).

And no civilian, anywhere, anytime, anyhow, should be allowed to buy/own/carry military-grade weapons.


On edit: added "Prospective."

and one other thing - documented training. I think, if you want to own a handgun, you ought to have to complete a compulsory training and safety course.

Mental health checks? Nope...too subjective to the potential personal perceptions by the evaluator. And no one's business. If you delve into mental health, then you must certainly go toward anything that can affect your ability to shoot correctly/incorrectly...example - should someone with Parkinson's disease be allowed to purchase a handgun? Should they have to be re-evaluated annually to determine if they have the ability to handle the firearm?

Slippery slope we should steer clear from. Criminal background checks, waiting periods and certified safety and use course certificates would go a long way, IMO.

I suffered situational depression for a time after my mother died. Should I have given my handgun up during that period? I did not want to die, I did not want anyone else to die, but I was chemically screwed up for about 6 months, and it took me 8 months before that to finally go to a doctor and have him figure out what the heck was wrong with me...situational depression for me meant no sleeping, weight loss, and general feeling of crappiness. Once I got my chemical balance back, and time went by, all gone. And the answer is No, I should not have given my handgun up during that time, yes I was diagnosed with an illness, and it happened to be mental in nature, and no, it was no one's business except mine, my spouses and my doctor's. Certainly not the governments.

Lots of keystrokes to say yes, criminal checks, no on mental health evaluations, and the addition of a suggestion.

But we don't have enough spare "licensed mental health professionals."

We need them to, say, work with campus health services.

but instead of a mental evaluation, I would suggest a waiting period for "cooling off". Might not have helped in this case, but maybe it would--and there have been other shooting tragedies that could have been avoided.

I don't know if one who is mentally unstable would necessarily go underground to get an illegal gun--for some, being blocked getting one legally would be enough of a deterrent for them not to do anything.

In order to get a driver's license you have to prove that you are who you say you are and that you live where you say you live. You have to indicate that you are not banned from driving in any other state. Above all you have to prove that you know how to drive a car and that you know the rules for safe driving.

Surely that would not too much to ask someone who wants to buy a lethal weapon when we do it for persons who want to drive?

That you have a criminal background check AND an evaluation by a licensed mental health professional?

we should have to to own a gun as well. there is not one good argument against making everyone who buys a gun go through safety training.

Lord only knows there's some fruitcakes out there who'd like nothing more than to know one of their 'toys' will become famous in the field of pain and misery while they get off scott free for selling it.

requiring every Muslim coming into the country to have an evaluation by a licensed mental health professional to prove they aren't a terrorist?