Journalists shot, killed in Virginia during live shot

I've hear lots of talk about the problems with our "culture" our gun "culture" and how it needs to change, for the greater good.

Now, what that usually means is that Bubba, and all his Redneck Southern friends need to give up their guns for the greater good.

But Vester wasn't part of the gun culture. He didn't own a gun until recently.

He was a gay, black guy with a victim mentality. He blamed everyone else for his problems. He thought he kept getting fired from jobs because he was black. Turns out, he kept getting hired for jobs because he was black. He got fired for being an asshole.

Hiring this guy basically guaranteed you'd eventually have ab EEOC complaint and a lawsuit filed against you.

His manifesto makes clear that he was a racist. And, as much as Dylan Roof hoped to spark a race war, we haven't seen any white people follow him into battle. But, this guy responded. He bought his gun in reaction to Dylan Roof, and welcomed a race war.

The fact is, Flanagan and Roof have more in common than either would have ever admitted. They're both losers, who couldn't hold a job, and who blamed everyone else for their problems.

They were a part of the same culture -- the victim culture.

If we're going to address the "culture" problems in response to this shooting, why don't we address the victim culture in America that we've been fostering for a generation?

 

Wait, guns aren't regulated?

 

Not to the extent necessary. Not by a long shot.

I realize this will likely cue the other TWU argument of "Well, if we just enforced the laws already on the books blahblahblah (headlodgedinass)," but those are insufficient.

One example of a great many: Some people in this state are only now realizing that "Duh, the required CCW training isn't anywhere close to preparing people to know what to do with a gun!" Yet this is the established law.

 

Insufficient according to who?

 

Well, if they could speak, I'd venture to say all the people murdered by guns every day in the US.

 

For cripes sake, do you think there aren't bitter loons with victim mentalities in Australia, Japan, Canada, Europe, New Zealand, etc.? Of course there are, but theirs don't go homicidal nearly as often as ours do. Why do you think that is?

It confounds me how people evade the fundamental question of why this shit happens so much more frequently here than the rest of the industrialized First World. Seems to me the most obvious way of addressing that question is to ask: what is different between us and them? The answer ain't the presence of crazy people, bitter people, violent video games/movies, or any other such nonsense that gets tossed out. They've got that shit just like we do. Instead, the obvious difference is our ultra-liberal gun laws. Plain and simple. There's a ten foot tall naked emperor standing in the middle of the room that at least half of America pretends they don't see.

 

According to people, including police, who are sensible enough to know that the CCW training isn't enough to educate someone sufficiently on when to draw a gun and fire it.

 

Wait, was yesterday's shooting accidental or something?

I'm not sure how better/more weapons training is going to prevent what happened yesterday.

 

I agree with the bulk of this. I have no real use for guns, but banning them is not a valid solution, nor in any way realistic. People should be allowed to own guns, for protection, hunting, skeet shooting, whatever. First, we need to be smarter in enforcing the laws that are on the books -- at least a few of the recent shooters, including Roof, IIRC -- should not have been allowed to purchase a gun if the regulations were followed. Mental health issues and arrest records should be readily available. It should be one of our biggest priorities to update the technology so all gun sellers have access to the databases they need. And I would make it more expensive, especially for a concealed carry permit. And sentencing laws would help a bit as well. I doubt a buyback would do much good, but it would take some guns off the streets. And if there are fewer guns then, yes, I think it will be more difficult for criminals to get their hands on them. Where do a lot of the criminals' guns come from? They are stolen from law-abiding gun owners. So the fewer people who own guns and the fewer who are irresponsible about ownership would help. We need to start somewhere.

 

The truth is, in these cases we almost always learn one of two things:

1) There were already laws on the books that should have prevented the killer from getting a gun

B) Only a law banning all gun ownership would have prevented the killer from getting a gun.

Any new law would likely just make it ore cumbersome and expensive for law abiding citizens to acquire a gun, and would do nothing to prevent what happened yesterday.

 

It won't. Not the point.

 

And they don't work properly. In the Internet era, there are lots of cross checks that could be done, but aren't.

Also, the "almost always" claim is dubious.