Glad for your feedback so I can clarify. I'm not advocating taking people's guns away. I'm saying that there are no simple solutions and the idea that the answer to recent massacres is more "good guys with guns" is preposterous. I've been kind of overzealous on this issue because I honestly believe in statistics and know I am more likely to die at the hands of a distracted driver or the flu virus than from an intentional shot from a rifle. I don't carry an AR-15 or a 9 MM, but I still feel safe going to Church, to Kroger and driving the streets of Dallas. I can live with the 'well regulated militia" though if I had my druther's I'd prefer a Canadian style approach to firearms regulation. I am in favor of things that can be done to better use existing laws to keep weapons out of the hands of people like Cruz or Roof. I want computerized search of weapons and ownership rather than the literal paper trail we now use.
... and I am in favor of being able to respond to people like these. Be able to STOP THE THREAT of those people. It'd be nice if we could all get along, like Rodney King pleaded ... but we're human. Fallen humans who seek self above everything else. some of us that's nothing more than taking the last donut at the office without offering it to another ... for too many of us ... that includes the brazen act of disregarding innocent human life's sanctity and murdering others.
Could please back this up with some kind of evidence stronger than your say-so? Are you saying that if, let's say, 3 people in that school would have been armed, that would have made the situation WORSE?
You good guys with guns are more likely to be like the good guy with a gun and a badge in Parkland. Or like Colonel Bone Spurs. In my experience Dick's is fancier and more expensive that Academy with the same basic inventory. Their golf corner is easier to hide from the family in. I don't see a need to "take anyone's guns". We just should be smarter about it going forward. These two things would make a big difference: 1. Universal background checks. 2. Accountability for ALL firearm sales (legal and financial). If I sell a 9mm to Prodigal and Prodigal goes on to commit a crime then it is my duty to prove that he was eligible to own the gun or I'm on the hook legally and financially (no offense Prodigal ).
Well, Louisiana, including New Orleans, is an open carry state with what is generally considered NRA model firearms regulation. Not much there holding back "good guys with guns" yet also the state with the highest per capita homicide rate. Of course projections of "what would happen" are pure speculation. What do you think will be the net result of more good guys with guns Phil? My feelings about guns are also colored by my experiences as a newspaper reporter in Bastrop County in the early 1980s. Every murder there was big news and I covered a few investigations and trials. The fact that the homicides were general all around tragedies for families of both the perps and the victims was driven home. I can't forget the tears of a pretty high school girl crying because I took a photo of her father, on trial for shooting a hole through a man who tried to stop a fight. I watched a witness stand outburst of uncontrollable grief from the wife of the victim. These were not like in movies or TV where there are clear bad guys and clear good guys. The perps did something terrible, but it was often out of character. For a few minutes they were drunk and or enraged and they had weapons. One particularly memorable quote from an unsophisticated defendant. "Sure I knew the victim. We was good friends. We fought at the time."
No ... New Orleans is not. Most everywhere in New Orleans is restricted, especially during Mardi Gras. So ... next issue? Contrary to popular belief, NOLA isn't the sum total of La ... there's actually a place or two which is very much La ... and not NOLA ... with its murder rate.
The bottom line is more folks are willing to concede their rights ... their restriction upon government for the perception of safety &/or security. Y'all have done an outstanding job creating this bogey man of incompetence in the general public with regard to firearms and therefore made it "simpler" to judge everyone by the actions of a few. I realize there will be eye-rolls ... but really ... can anyone reconcile this notion of firearm-related violence being the "fault" of the NRA ... when there has yet to be an NRA member who has committed these acts? I'll even stipulate that the regulation the NRA would have would make firearms available for use to more and of that more there'd be evil committed with them. We don't have those regulations. We have regulations which suppose to restrict availability from "irresponsible" people. How's that working out? We have a lot more landmass categorized as "gun free." How's that working-out???
LOL! This is comical. I predict that Victoria Secret is going to be the next retailer to announce that it won't be selling guns.
That's correct. It's basically the same thing with Dicks, which also does not sell the rifles in question at their locations. (There are Field and Stream stores, not sure if they're co-branded as Dicks, or what.) It looks to me like the brand just wants more juice for its main brand, and technically it's true. It's just ridiculous.
Regarding special restrictions in New Orleans. The only restrictions I know of is no open carry in public parks. Concealed carry, with permits, is permissible. I guess you can't tote guns to places where alcohol is sold ... which, admittedly, is pretty much where I spend most of my time in the Bayou City.
Well pretty miserable if you compare homicide rates with most of the developed world. But for the US it's about what we're used to except the mass killings that get all the headlines.
every time I goto NOLA ... the signs read "no guns here" ... no perhaps they're wishes like some places here in Texas do and they don't even try to comply with the law ... but about all you can do AFA carry in NOLA is drive down the road. Most businesses restrict 'em in NOLA. Yes ... but once again, were it not for our gun free zones, &/or liberal dominated politics which holds-down people in poor neighborhoods, facilitating the desire for gun violence ... the US would be 2nd from the bottom in homicide rates. Zero is what we should all expect ... but we should also understand man is evil. Not male ... man. Mankind. Humans. Our soul is sick from the day we land on the planet and it battles evil all its days on the planet. Remember Trading Places? As is typical Hollywood, they take a position on something and they vilify the truth. They villified "Col Jessup" and they Villified "Mortimer and Randolph Duke" ... but the truth is ... take ol winthrop and beat him down, the evil human will readily appear. In fact, you could argue one facet of that "experiment" ... the desire to actually do it was evil. There but for the grace of God go I ... not I deserve to be Winthrop and his wealth ... but that even if my finanical status is Billy Ray, I am saved by His grace. When I don't remember that, I'm as evil as the Hollywood people would have you think the Dukes were. I'm as evil as the 9/11 hijackers. As evil as Kate Steinle's killer. George W, for all his lacking conservatism, was ridiculed for his descriptor of "evil doer." But he was precisely correct.
Everybody finds it troubling. That's why you shouldn't adopt a disciplinary policy that prioritizes a stupid politically correct agenda over order and keeping students safe. That's why you don't have a local sheriff's office that blows off warnings about a crazy man and then has the audacity to blame people who had nothing to do with the incident. That's why you don't have a federal law enforcement agency that blows off more warnings about a crazy man. That's why you don't have officers standing outside the school while the shooter is inside blowing people away. People on the Left are doing everything they can to throw up diversions and spin this shooting, but the bottom line is that it took a little bit of stupid liberal policy and a lot of government incompetence to enable this shooting. Why should anyone believe that the same jokers who fumbled and bumbled around with this nut will suddenly get their crap together enough to effectively enforce an assault weapons ban or competently conduct a background check? If you want to instill confidence in people to get behind gun control, the people who will assume responsibility for their safety need to do a lot better than they did in this case or at least assume some responsibility for their screw-ups. Instead, we got incompetence, ********, blame-shifting, and sanctimonious grandstanding. Not good. I didn't go to a first tier law school, so I'm not that bright, but isn't that the reason why you call the cops when a dangerous guy shows up with a gun and starts shooting people? Isn't the expectation that a "good guy with a gun" will show up and outgun the bad guy in order to minimize the harm that the bad guy with the gun can do? Sure, that didn't end up doing as much good as it should have in this case because the "good guys" weren't very good at their jobs and were commanded by someone who actually wasn't a very good guy, but I think that's what the person who called 911 was hoping for.
Judge Andrew Napolitano weighs in. It is nearly impossible to argue rationally with tears and pain, which is why we all need to take a step back from this tragedy before legally addressing its causes. If you believe in an all-knowing, all-loving God as I do, then you accept the concept of natural rights. These are the claims and privileges that are attached to humanity as God's gifts. If you do not accept the existence of a Supreme Being, you can still accept the concept of natural rights, as it is obvious that humans are the superior rational beings on earth. Our exercise of reason draws us all to the exercise of freedoms, and we can do this independent of the government. Stated differently, both the theist and the atheist can accept the concept of natural human rights. Thomas Jefferson, who claimed to be neither theist nor atheist, wrote in the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal and are "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights." Such rights cannot be separated from us, as they are integral to our humanity. Foremost among our unalienable rights is the right to life — the right to be and to remain alive. And that right implies the right to defend life — the right to self-defense. If I am about to assault you in the nose, you can duck, run away or punch me first. If I am about to strike your children, you can strike me first. If I am about to do either of those things with a gun, you can shoot me first, and no reasonable jury will convict you. In fact, no reasonable prosecutor will charge you. The reason for all this is natural. It is natural to defend yourself — your life — and your children. The Framers recognized this right when they ratified the Second Amendment. They wrote it to ensure that all governments would respect the right to keep and bear arms as a natural extension of the right to self-defense. In its two most recent interpretations of the right to self-defense, the Supreme Court characterized that right as "pre-political." That means the right pre-existed the government. If it pre-existed the government, it must come from our human nature. I once asked Justice Antonin Scalia, the author of the majority's opinion in the first of those cases, called the District of Columbia v. Heller, why he used the term "pre-political" instead of "natural." He replied, "You and I know they mean the same thing, but 'natural' sounds too Catholic, and I am interpreting the Constitution, not Aquinas." With the Heller case, the court went on to characterize this pre-political right as an individual and personal one. It also recognized that the people who wrote the Second Amendment had just fought a war against a king and his army — a war that they surely would have lost had they not kept and carried arms that were equal to or better than what the British army had. They didn't write the Second Amendment to protect the right to shoot deer; they wrote it to protect the right to self-defense — whether against bad guys, crazy people or a tyrannical government bent on destroying personal liberty. In Heller, the court also articulated that the right to use guns means the right to use guns that are at the same level of sophistication as the guns your potential adversary might have, whether that adversary be a bad guy, a crazy person or a soldier of a tyrannical government. But even after Heller, governments have found ways to infringe on the right to self-defense. Government does not like competition. Essentially, government is the entity among us that monopolizes force. The more force it monopolizes the more power it has. So it has enacted, in the name of safety, the least safe places on earth — gun-free zones. The nightclub in Orlando, the government offices in San Bernardino, the schools in Columbine, Newtown and Parkland were all killing zones because the government prohibited guns there and the killers knew this. We all need to face a painful fact of life: The police make mistakes like the rest of us and simply cannot be everywhere when we need them. When government fails to recognize this and it disarms us in selected zones, we become helpless before our enemies. But it could be worse. One of my Fox News colleagues asked me on-air the other day: Suppose we confiscated all guns; wouldn't that keep us safe? I replied that we'd need to start with the government's guns. Oh, no, he said. He just meant confiscation among the civilian population. I replied that then we wouldn't be a civilian population any longer. We'd be a nation of sheep. ____________________________________________________________ I really enjoy reading this judge's opinion pieces. I hope this one may bring some clarity to the back and forth in this thread.
LOL ... was actually watching one of those the other night. Good entertainment. Like talking policy with you, actually. Your efforts to marginalize the facts do not change the facts nor the relevance. You issued the charge of homicide rates, but then do the typical leftists tactic of spin/ridicule when challenged. it's a bummer, I know ... but honoring the 2A ... DEFENDING the 2A will result in a better government and a better society.
Nice cherry-picking of statistics, there, but you left off DC from your stats. They prohibit open-carry and their rate is more than double that of Louisiana. Thanks for letting me know that New Orleans is in the state of Louisiana, tho.
I mentioned New Orleans because in a meme popular with my Facebook friends New Orleans and Detroit are portrayed as cities with tight gun controls and a high homicide rate. Only the part about the homicide rate is correct in both cases, since the state drafted rules that prevent more restrictions on a local level.
Usually, NOLA is included in the other 2 or 3 citations due to their overwhelming dominance of big govt politics ... not ONLY their firearm laws, though that is usually enough to substantiate the point. But as I said above ... most places IN NOLA have prohibitions on firearm carriage ... so you're free to have one in your vehicle, but the places you can have it outside your vehicle are VERY few in number. So ... the point remains valid about the freedom of carriage ... ie BEAR. but even if it didn't ... that NOLA was a Constitutional Carry location and people were dying from firearm crime every day ... it wouldn't invalidate the right to self defense with a firearm ... nor the right to keep and bear period. A right isn't a right when the government must approve.
It's not particularly useful to compare states based on gun crime rates (excluding suicides) due to significantly different demographics. It is more instructive to see trends in gun crime in a particular city or state when specific gun regulations are changed.
So my question got ignored, or probably just lost in the back-and-forth, so I'll re-ask it for the lawyers on here: Is it really legal for Dicks or any other company to decide that it will refuse service to an age group that otherwise has full legal right to purchase an item in your store? How is that not the same issue (with obviously different political ramifications) as the objection raised in the gay wedding cake issue - where the plaintiffs (dishonestly) argued that the store was refusing to sell them something that was available for anyone else to buy? What it Walgreens decided it would no longer fill prescriptions for parents, because it was concerned about kids stealing their parents' medication and getting high?
Well there is apparently that issue of unintended discharges when males view the catalog and models...
And now I see the nation is wetting itself over a thug who engaged in a dispute with two dorm mates at Central Michigan...in the absence of the media describing the gun used, my guess is handgun. Which means this was a targeted shooting that, had it occurred in inner-city Chicago or Detroit, nobody would shed a tear over or give a damn about. The leftist hand-wringers and pearl clutchers are the single biggest collective threat to the survival of this country.
As a general rule, it is legal for a business to discriminate on any basis it chooses. It only runs into trouble when it discriminates for a reason that is prohibited by law. When it comes to public accommodations such as retailers, federal law prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, or national origin. Age is not covered. (It is covered for employment discrimination but not public accommodation.) Some state laws cover age, but most of the time when age is a prohibited reason for discrimination, the law is designed to protect old people, not young. Do some state discrimination laws provide broad protection against age discrimination (meaning even for young people)? That is possible. (The wedding cake cases arise under state laws that prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.)
Cruz didn't use high capacity magazines. https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/03/report-parkland-shooter-did-not-use-high-capacity-magazines/
All this carnage caused by what an ordinary hunting rifle could do. I guess we need to ban those too.
