I don’t have a lot to say about the massacre in Las Vegas. My heart goes out to the survivors and their families as well as the families of those who were murdered.
Details are still emerging and I still don’t know enough to say much else. I have no objections to commonsense restrictions on firearms and it would seem to me that banning the sort of conversions from semi- to full automatic that this guy apparently used fall into that category as well as being a law that might actually have reduced the carnage had it been in place.
All too frequently these days proposals take a form something like this. “If you put an extreme version of such and such in place and enforce it with 100% effectiveness, it will have a minor effect on whatever it is you’re trying to do.” To my eye banning conversions to full automatic fire does not fall itnto that category.
Yeah, I agree. The loopholes to get and automatic-like weapon should be closed.
I don’t see much else though. If you look at this and the other mass shootings in terms of policy proposals that would have prevented them, none of the common ones promoted by the gun control community would have done anything.
This is instructive:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-used-to-think-gun-control-was-the-answer-my-research-told-me-otherwise/2017/10/03/d33edca6-a851-11e7-92d1-58c702d2d975_story.html
I know nothing about guns but have read something that sounds plausible-that the bump stock apparatus can easily be rigged or created with a 3D printer. If that is accurate I don’t see how a ban could be effective.
Yeah, I read that, too.
Even if the Constitution were amended to ban the private ownership of firearms and a house to house search were conducted to confiscate all existing firearms it would only reduce the number of homicides conducted with legal weapons. An enormous proportion of homicides are presently conducted with weapons owned illegally.
IMO the Las Vegas incident is an example of a rare case in which the carnage actually could be been reduced by a fairly straightforward law.
The marketing of conversion kits in sporting goods stores was shocking; I wasn’t aware of it and part of me blames gun control groups from focusing on the so-called ‘assault weapons,’ when there was something like this going on. Frankly though, I imagine this market disappears quickly, either through bad public perception or anxious tort defense lawyers.
Since gun manufacturers have a Congressional grant of immunity (Wikipedia) for suits over the use of their products, don’t hold your breath.
However, agree a revamp of what makes a weapon automatic vs semi is needed. Might as well toss in a magazine capacity limit. Hunters grumble but comply with one, game wardens don’t give much slack.
The big thing though is that proponents of legal action will have to consistently and persistently hold legislators feet to the fire to get something instead of haring off after the hourly outrage.
Timothy Mcvay outdid this guy with no gun at all. It is intent, motivation, determination. Gun laws only divert the means. People, even crazy people, are clever.
I am very sorry this happened. And sorrier still to know it’s not the last.
I doubt there is a neat answer to be tied in a bow and delivered. And we know precious little about this character. In perspective, I’ll bet resources spent on mental health would be better than gun control.
In one way the gun control crowd has been its own worst enemy. Their real goal is total confiscation. As such, people know they will take any sensible concession, put it in their pocket and move on to the next iteration on the path to gun elimination. Hence they must be fought every step of the way.
“In perspective, I’ll bet resources spent on mental health would be better than gun control.”
And guess which party opposes spending on that!
“Their real goal is total confiscation.”
And the goal of GOP health reform is for poor people to just die. Ok, that out of the way, what most people support are a few changes that most of us know won’t have large effects, but might have some. Universal background checks, out law bump stocks and conversion kits, do away with high capacity magazines. Realistically, there are so many guns and accessories out there that it amounts to relatively little.
Mental health would probably help. Lots of little kids still shoot themselves or friends or siblings so gun safety education would be good. Maybe let physicians (pediatricians) actually talk to parents about the issue like they do about poison control, instead of outlawing it.
Steve (Gun owner)
@Walt, that law provides “qualified immunity,” which means traditional negligence suits aren’t effected. It also only applies to manufacturers and sellers of legal guns, ammunition, or “a component part of” either. A kit which adds a part to a legal gun, which would have made the gun illegal if it was part of the original gun, is arguably not “component part.” It might be a gun accessory.
I don’t know if there is more legislative or judicial history to bear on it, but I’m just suggesting if the CEO asks legal counsel for a definitive opinion on liability risks, they find the answer is not definitive enough to justify continued sale of a novelty item.
“they MIGHT find the answer is not definitive enough to justify continued sale of a novelty item.”
@andy, I thought that was a good article, but didn’t convince me to change my view that it is probably reasonable mitigation to restrict magazine sizes.
This week, a federal judge in Chicago sentenced a gang member to 10 years for stealing 104 mint (untraceable) Ruger guns from a train. Only 34 have been recovered so far. Seems light, but prosecutors asked for 11 years. Defense argued for 5 years, saying the convict was the father of ten children, lost his dad and other relatives to gun violence, and was himself shot 12 times in his life.
That reminds me of the story of the guy on trial for killing his parents who threw himself on the mercy of the court because he was an orphan.
Still, we can’t lose sight of the fact that gun restrictions would hamper the ability of the people to defend themselves against tyranny of their own government, as happened in 1776. I’m no hunter, but I sure as hell see the value of allowing the Jews, Ukranians, Rohingyans, Kurds, Afghanis, Tutsis, Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Koreans and Japanese to arm themselves as Amerikans and the Swiss do.
“@andy, I thought that was a good article, but didn’t convince me to change my view that it is probably reasonable mitigation to restrict magazine sizes.”
I think the point is that there’s little to no evidence that restricting magazine sizes would have any identifiable statistical effect on gun violence. I personally don’t oppose magazine size restrictions – I just don’t think they’ll have much, if any, effect.
I don’t think we disagree much. The article concludes that we need to be looking at the situation in which these killings occur and not treat them as a whole.
With mass shootings, particularly killers that are targeting a hundred or more people, scale changes the calculation. Changing guns or cartridges might be the difference in one step to safety. The home manufactured part may fail when a factory product won’t. I also resist the urge to assume the killer is a master marksman and machinist.
Basically though the bump stock and cartridge size are the only regulations that have made any sense to me.
I notice the NFR is thinking like me: “The NRA believes that devices designed to allow semi-automatic rifles to function like fully-automatic rifles should be subject to additional regulations.”
https://home.nra.org/joint-statement#
PD, you always have the most interesting comments, re Chicago case.