Right off the bat, didn't the video of the shooting indicate that the shooter was, for at least part of the shooting, using a fully- automatic (aka illegal) gun, not a semi- auto?
However, the award for biggest douche on this thread has to go to this guy:
"Star Member PoindexterOglethorpe (3,207 posts)
30. Everyone who opposes the ban is essentially saying,
it's perfectly okay for mass shootings to occur in this country.
I just wish that once someone who is quite fine with all of these weapons would somehow be impacted by one of these mass murders. And if you then say, "I'm fine that my (wife, brother, mother, son) was murdered. It's a small price to pay so that anyone at all can own a gun, including semi-automatic weapons," I'll then suggested you are as psychopathic as the murderers themselves."
Liberals are always the best at straw- men aren't they?
I of course am against mass shootings.
The thing is, though, liberal gun laws have done nothing to prevent them, as in pretty much all of the recent mass shootings we've gone through, including this one, the shooter(s) largely if not exclusively relied on guns that were illegally owned to begin with (i.e. guns that were stolen, or obtained in some sort of ! Also, the majority of mass shootings occurred in areas designated "Gun Free Zones" (i.e. The Pulse Nightclub, the various school shootings, etc.), another liberal gun- control attempt that ultimately has proven useless at doing anything but assure shooters that they won't run into anybody in those environments capable of firing back at them. Since shooters clearly don't care about breaking gun laws already on the books, they won't care about breaking more gun laws.
As for the heartless and extra- douchey assertions made in the second paragraph, while I admittedly have not lost anyone in a mass shooting, that's not to say I've never lost a loved one to gun violence. Eleven years ago, an old friend of mine from youth group was shot dead in a botched carjacking before he could even graduate high school, by some thug who wanted his car and the $16.00 in his wallet and didn't want to leave any witnesses. Fortunately, the thug in question was quickly caught, entered a plea bargain to keep his sorry butt off death row, and got two life sentences for murder and grand theft auto plus an additional eight years for charges basically centering around the fact that he was a minor who used a gun in a crime. Hopefully by now he's already caught herpes from being raped by a cellmate. In this murder, too, the gun in question was illegally owned; The thug stole it from a relative of his who was a retired cop.
I have mourned the loss of my friend, but know that more gun laws would not have prevented his murder.
If you want to take about serious ways to prevent future mass shootings, I feel a MUCH more effective way would be a nationwide campaign educating the public on the "Warning signs" a person may be at risk of committing an act of violence, and encouraging people to act if they see someone demonstrating most of those signs. In nearly all of the recent mass shootings, with the exception of the Vegas shooting, the shooter was someone who was clearly mentally disturbed and demonstrating those signs, the shooters' friends and family members KNEW they were dangerous, and yet they did nothing. In contrast, at least one planned shooting (A plan by someone to launch an "Aurora movie theater"- esque shooting at the midnight premiere of 'The Twilight Sage: Breaking Dawn, Part 2') was thwarted because the would- be shooter's loved ones noticed him acting suspiciously, looked into it, discovered what he was planning, and told the cops about it.
This DUmmy gains extra douche- points for this:
"Mandatory reporting of theft, and holding liable those whose guns were stolen if those guns were later used to kill someone."
I don't have much of a problem with the first of those ideas, but the second one sounds really unfair and oppressive. If someone's gun was stolen (Especially if he had used reasonable precaution in storing it), he shouldn't be held responsible for what the thief or someone else then does with it.
