Mass shooting in San Bernardino, CA

[GATTACA!]

Like the fundamentalist Christian who shot up the Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs last week?

Yes that's exactly what my post was referencing.

 

[calvegas04]

To early to change the topic name to "Terrorist attack in San Bernardino, CA"

 

[Grahambo]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Can't. Retweet. This. Enough.

<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/SanBernadino?src=hash">#SanBernadino</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/p2?src=hash">#p2</a> <a href="https://t.co/gApejAYLlh">pic.twitter.com/gApejAYLlh</a></p>— Eric Wolfson (@EricWolfson) <a href="https://twitter.com/EricWolfson/status/672172720457654273">December 2, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

 

[MNIrishman]

The Second Amendment - Album on Imgur

 

[Polish Leppy 22]

Constitution keeps getting in the president's way of fundamental transformation:

Earnest: Obama's Experts Are "Scrubbing The Law" To Search For New Executive Authorities on Gun Control | Video | RealClearPolitics

 

[pkt77242]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Can't. Retweet. This. Enough.

<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/SanBernadino?src=hash">#SanBernadino</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/p2?src=hash">#p2</a> <a href="https://t.co/gApejAYLlh">pic.twitter.com/gApejAYLlh</a></p>— Eric Wolfson (@EricWolfson) <a href="https://twitter.com/EricWolfson/status/672172720457654273">December 2, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

So true.


How the NRA Rewrote the Second Amendment - POLITICO Magazine

 

[BleedBlueGold]

Radical Islam has declared war on the West, its numbers in the thousands or millions (depending on how we categorize the militants, supporters, financiers, etc).

Radical Christianity has declared war on no one. One nutjob who was anti abortion committed murder.

If you can't see the difference, that's a you problem.

Typical.

 

[MNIrishman]

Huh. The NRA is responsible again. It's funny how many radical Islamists become members of the NRA before they commit crimes against humanity in the name of Allah. Well, all these shooters. Anyone got numbers on how many of them were members of the NRA?

 

[Booslum31]

Constitution keeps getting in the president's way of fundamental transformation:

Earnest: Obama's Experts Are "Scrubbing The Law" To Search For New Executive Authorities on Gun Control | Video | RealClearPolitics

Unfortunately, the Constitution has failed to stop this guy IMO. Both sides pull out the Constitution only when it benefits their side. I have (17) different firearms...none of them are fully automatic weapons. I done believe that the general public should be able to own those types of weapons. I just don't know how it could ever get dialed back.

 

[Booslum31]

Huh. The NRA is responsible again. It's funny how many radical Islamists become members of the NRA before they commit crimes against humanity in the name of Allah. Well, all these shooters. Anyone got numbers on how many of them were members of the NRA?

My guess...6

 

[GoIrish41]

Unfortunately, the Constitution has failed to stop this guy IMO. Both sides pull out the Constitution only when it benefits their side. I have (17) different firearms...none of them are fully automatic weapons. I done believe that the general public should be able to own those types of weapons. I just don't know how it could ever get dialed back.

Maybe it's time to amend the Constitution.

 

[Polish Leppy 22]

Typical.

Solid, substantive, response.

 

[Polish Leppy 22]

Maybe it's time to amend the Constitution.

A conversation that should be on the table, but that decision isn't up to one guy. If Obama handles gun control like he handled ACA, we're in for quite the trip.

 

[T Town Tommy]

Unfortunately, the Constitution has failed to stop this guy IMO. Both sides pull out the Constitution only when it benefits their side. I have (17) different firearms...none of them are fully automatic weapons. I done believe that the general public should be able to own those types of weapons. I just don't know how it could ever get dialed back.

Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't fully automatic weapons already illegal in the US?

 

[irishfanjho15]

Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't fully automatic weapons already illegal in the US?

They are unless you have a federal tax stamp for a class 3 weapon that allows you to own it.

 

[T Town Tommy]

They are unless you have a federal tax stamp for a class 3 weapon that allows you to own it.

Thanks. That's what I thought. Usually reserved for licensed gun dealers iirc. I know a gun dealer and he has the stamp and he deals with ATF on a regular basis.

 

[irishfanjho15]

Thanks. That's what I thought. Usually reserved for licensed gun dealers iirc. I know a gun dealer and he has the stamp and he deals with ATF on a regular basis.

Usually, but individuals can get them. They are expensive. I have a colleague who used to have a M1918 (BAR), and it was amazing. He ended up selling it to a guy in Texas for A LOT of money.

 

[Booslum31]

Thanks. That's what I thought. Usually reserved for licensed gun dealers iirc. I know a gun dealer and he has the stamp and he deals with ATF on a regular basis.

I guess I meant Semi-Automatic. Shotguns, rifles, and handguns is all anyone needs. Ofcourse a bow or two as well.

 

[NDohio]

So how do those criminals get guns in their hands?

PAGELAND, South Carolina (Reuters) - As sheriff’s investigators threaded past the battered cars, cast-off tires and rusted farm equipment cluttering Brent Nicholson’s front yard, there was no hint of the sinister stockpile hidden behind his windowless front door.

Inside, the guns were everywhere: rifles and shotguns piled in the living room, halls and bedrooms; handguns littering tables and countertops. Outside, when they rolled up the door on the pre-fab metal garage, more arms spilled out at their feet.

“This has completely changed our definition of an ass-load of guns,” said Chesterfield County Sheriff Jay Brooks. Six weeks after the discovery, officers are still cataloging the weapons, many of which have proved stolen, and the final tally is expected to be close to 5,000. “I don’t know if there’s ever been (a seizure) this big anywhere before,” Brooks says.

The question of how one man amassed such a stockpile of guns arises just as there is renewed American soul-searching over the widespread availability of firearms in the wake of a series of mass shootings.

Even in a country where more people own more guns than anywhere else in the world, Nicholson's cache is extraordinary. The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives doesn't rank gun seizures by size, but a spokesman says Nicholson's hoard probably is among the largest ever.

Yet when and why Nicholson set out to amass such an arsenal remains a mystery. Investigators are trying to determine whether he was simply a gun-obsessed hoarder or a supply valve in the “Iron Pipeline” of illegal firearms flowing from the south to New Jersey, New York and other northern states.

Nicholson, jailed on multiple charges of possessing stolen property, has not entered a plea or retained an attorney, court records show. His wife, Sharon Nicholson, facing similar charges and free on bond, declined to discuss specifics of the case but stressed in a brief interview that her husband buys his guns legally.

The Nicholson case raises issues that are fueling an increasingly heated national dialogue on the modern-day implications of Americans’ constitutional right to bear arms, which puts no limits on the number of weapons citizens can own. The uncertainty over how he got his guns – and what he was doing with them – underscores disputes over private gun sales, gun registration and what the government should know about who owns firearms and how they change hands.

Now, the spate of mass shootings, capped by Wednesday's spree by a heavily armed couple who killed 14 at an office holiday party in San Bernardino, California, has pushed those issues to the fore in the presidential campaign. The massacre, which follows an attack that killed three last Friday at a Colorado Planned Parenthood clinic and an Oct. 1 rampage by a gunman who killed 10 at an Oregon college, prompted Hillary Clinton, leading candidate for the Democratic nomination, to renew her call to "stop gun violence now" with new firearm purchase restrictions. Conversely, those who top the polls for the Republican nomination, Donald Trump and Ben Carson, insist the answer to gun violence is to empower citizens to thwart such attacks by making it easier, not harder, to buy and carry weapons.

It wasn’t hard for Nicholson.

A FAMILY TRADITION

Just about everyone knows the Nicholsons in this struggling town of 2,700, where the textile industry’s regional decline has helped strand median household income at $26,500 a year, half the U.S. average, and burglary rates run well over national norms. Firearms are a cultural staple – hunting clubs and cabins dot the county – and people say Nicholson’s penchant for guns was a family affair.

“Everybody knew he’d buy guns; his father bought ‘em, his grandfather bought ‘em,” says Al Padgett, 68, who keeps a booth at a local flea market and says he’s known the family all his life. “He collected ‘em, hoarded ‘em, but I never knew him to sell a gun. Not one. He did everyone a favor keeping ‘em off the street.”

Brooks sees things differently. Nicholson had piles of allegedly stolen goods, including a zoo’s worth of taxidermy trophies, Brooks says, but his preference was guns and he provided a ready market for burglars who grabbed them from cabins and hunting camps. The sheriff still hasn’t determined precisely how many guns in Nicholson’s cache were stolen, noting that hundreds have had their serial numbers removed so they can’t be traced.

“Getting him locked up dries up the outlet for this stolen merchandise,” Brooks says.

Brooks suspects Nicholson may have been selling some of the guns. He had relatively few handguns – maybe a half-dozen large buckets full – and “that makes us believe he had a market for those and was moving them north,” Brooks says, noting that the matter remains under investigation.

South Carolina is a common starting point for firearms moving up the Iron Pipeline, a route for many of the 230,000 or so guns stolen nationwide each year. The South has more gun thefts than any other region, federal data show, and police in New York and other northern cities say they regularly tie those guns to crimes, though there is no data on how often.

Stemming the flow is a challenge, law enforcement officials say, because it’s not organized groups moving truckloads of weapons; it’s a loose web of individuals who sell guns more as an occasional sideline than a full-time endeavor.

A SHADOWY PATH

On Oct. 21, a sheriff’s deputy just over the state line in Union County, North Carolina, pulled Nicholson over for running a stop sign. Nicholson’s pick-up had bogus license plates – and the deputy noticed rifle barrels poking up from behind the seat when he approached the vehicle.


A search turned up 20 rifles, nine handguns and nearly 200 hydrocodone pills, arrest records show, and several of the guns were stolen. Nicholson was arrested for possessing stolen weapons, trafficking in opiates and vehicular violations.

Nicholson was still jailed 48 hours later when a deputy in Pageland stopped by his house with a subpoena in a family court matter. The deputy spotted equipment in the yard that had been reported stolen, and investigators returned with a search warrant. They’d spend the next six days removing guns, hundreds of cases of ammo, and other goods.

“He was going up to Union County to do something with those guns; we don’t know what,” Brooks says. “We’ve got information that he was moving some of these goods and … we’re looking at his activities to see if he was part of something more organized.”

Tracking Nicholson’s guns is a challenge because many states, including South Carolina, don’t regulate private gun purchases, which are unrestricted and require no background check. So person-to-person sales, including gun show transactions that don’t involve licensed dealers, are largely untraceable.

There also is no national gun registration mandate – only some state laws. So, unlike, say, cars, which can be tracked through registrations, guns often have no traceable ownership trail beyond their last sale by a licensed dealer.


It's an issue that also is complicating efforts to trace the origin of the two assault-style rifles and two handguns used in Wednesday's shooting spree in San Bernardino. The guns initially were bought legally: two by someone "associated with" the case and two by someone with no apparent link, according to ATF spokeswoman Meredith Davis. But it's still not clear how those guns got to the shooters.

President Barack Obama and the major Democratic presidential candidates support background checks for private firearms sales; Leading Republican candidates generally oppose additional gun controls, echoing the National Rifle Association’s position that they’re unnecessary constraints on gun owners’ 2nd Amendment right to bear arms.

None of the proposals being floated on either side of the political spectrum would limit the number of guns someone can own.

A HUNT FOR OWNERS

So far, investigators have identified owners of just a fraction of Nicholson’s guns. Even those that still have serial numbers can be traced only to the last time they passed through a licensed dealer. And since there’s no requirement that gun owners record those numbers, many who believe their guns were stolen and sold to Nicholson are unable to prove the weapons belong to them.

Sharon Nicholson, 52, said in a brief interview at the family’s liquor store that her husband typically bought his guns at stores, but Brooks says investigators have found no records of any purchases he may have made from licensed dealers.

Ultimately, the courts will decide what happens to Nicholson’s guns. Brooks suspects many will be destroyed, particularly those with no serial numbers, because their rightful owners can’t be identified.

Some locals scratch their heads over that possibility, arguing that it’s a waste of good weaponry. Nicholson may not have known if he was buying weapons that prove to be stolen, some say, and he should be allowed to keep any that do not.

“It doesn’t make sense,” says Otis Burch, 85, another local who knows the Nicholsons. “He’s a good man – he wasn’t selling those guns.

“I asked him just about a month ago if he’d sell me a deer rifle,” Burch adds, “and he said he didn’t have any.”

(Reporting by Peter Eisler; Editing by Jason Szep and Martin Howell)

 

[Irish Insanity]

Unfortunately, the Constitution has failed to stop this guy IMO. Both sides pull out the Constitution only when it benefits their side. I have (17) different firearms...none of them are fully automatic weapons. I done believe that the general public should be able to own those types of weapons. I just don't know how it could ever get dialed back.

Do you really think any laws or the Constitution are going to stop guy like this? He, and his wife, executed a mass killing. He obviously wasn't concerned with laws and the Constitution.

 

[Booslum31]

Do you really think any laws or the Constitution are going to stop guy like this? He, and his wife, executed a mass killing. He obviously wasn't concerned with laws and the Constitution.

No...this guy and his hag were going to find a way to hurt people.

 

[irishfanjho15]

I guess I meant Semi-Automatic. Shotguns, rifles, and handguns is all anyone needs. Ofcourse a bow or two as well.

First of all, supply and demand has skyrocketed the prices of auto weapons. That alone makes them hard to come by without being stolen or illegally smuggled into the country. Prices for auto weapons on the black market are even more astronomical.

I agree, semi-auto weapons are all you need, but gun enthusiasts like to have more, which I can understand and support. Hell the FBI/Secret Service can come to your house and sit outside it when the president comes to your state if you have a fed tax stamp, so the oversight is legit. Myself, I have four handguns, one GSG-5 .22 plinker, a semi-auto AR-15 my buddy and I built for myself, and a shotgun with some home defense mods. I live in the country, surrounded by woods and we have a cash business that my fiancee runs in a standalone building on our property. Firearms are just something needed to protect our selves during the seconds when it takes minutes for police to arrive.

 

[T Town Tommy]

I guess I meant Semi-Automatic. Shotguns, rifles, and handguns is all anyone needs. Ofcourse a bow or two as well.

Got ya. That's what I initially thought as well. And I agree... who needs a Barrett 50 cal? I own several guns as well ranging from hunting rifles to semi-automatic handguns. I usually pack one of my cheaper 45 cal hand guns in the small of my back when out and about. Fits perfect. Have never had to even think about reaching for it. Guess I chalk that up to good luck.

 

[irishfanjho15]

Got ya. That's what I initially thought as well. And I agree... who needs a Barrett 50 cal? I own several guns as well ranging from hunting rifles to semi-automatic handguns. I usually pack one of my cheaper 45 cal hand guns in the small of my back when out and about. Fits perfect. Have never had to even think about reaching for it. Guess I chalk that up to good luck.

Hell, I've been a LEO for going on 9 years total, and I've only had to draw my weapon once (for a felony stop of a strong-arm robbery suspect who was running from the guy he just beat up and stole from). And I am happy and thank my lucky stars everyday that I haven't had to again.

 

[T Town Tommy]

Hell, I've been a LEO for going on 9 years total, and I've only had to draw my weapon once (for a felony stop of a strong-arm robbery suspect who was running from the guy he just beat up and stole from). And I am happy and thank my lucky stars everyday that I don't have to again.

Amen buddy. Thanks for your service and be safe out there.

 

[irishfanjho15]

Amen buddy. Thanks for your service and be safe out there.

No problem. Always safe.

 

[BobbyMac]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Can't. Retweet. This. Enough.

<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/SanBernadino?src=hash">#SanBernadino</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/p2?src=hash">#p2</a> <a href="https://t.co/gApejAYLlh">pic.twitter.com/gApejAYLlh</a></p>— Eric Wolfson (@EricWolfson) <a href="https://twitter.com/EricWolfson/status/672172720457654273">December 2, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

So true.


How the NRA Rewrote the Second Amendment - POLITICO Magazine

To be fair guys, he did not deliver that opinion as a member of the Supreme Court. That quote is taken from a Playboy or Parade interview and then a later television interview sometime after his retirement. He may have held that conviction his entire life, he may not have but the meme does portray him in his robe and one could easily deduce that this was his opinion at that time. That does matter.

I'm somewhere in between on this issue. I think as long as you can buy a 12 gauge or .223 caliber and larger bolt action rifles on the spot from places like Walmart or Sports Authority, you can protect yourself and your family with basically immediate access.

The Politico article that pkt linked starts with this paragraph:

A fraud on the American public.” That’s how former Chief Justice Warren Burger described the idea that the Second Amendment gives an unfettered individual right to a gun. When he spoke these words to PBS in 1990, the rock-ribbed conservative appointed by Richard Nixon was expressing the longtime consensus of historians and judges across the political spectrum

How the author came up with opinion that Burger was expressing the consensus of historians and judges regarding the 2nd Amendment is somewhere between ignorance and a lie. If it was anywhere near a consensus it would have been amended long ago.

A couple of other things to keep in mind. The murder rate in America has been at a 55 year low for the past two reporting years. It's most likely longer but the records I'm using only go back to 1960. The murder rate in 1980 was over 2x higher for example.

Lastly if the gun looked like this boring "hunting rifle":

versus this bad ass Rambo "assault rifle":

The reaction would have been totally different wouldn't it???


.

 

[Grahambo]

Australia confiscated 650,000 guns. Murders and suicides plummeted. - Vox

This is the best paragraph I've ever read on gun control and mass shootings - Vox

 

[Cackalacky]

Australia confiscated 650,000 guns. Murders and suicides plummeted. - Vox

This is the best paragraph I've ever read on gun control and mass shootings - Vox

Yep. People here would shoot people trying to do anything like this as TTT said earlier. Imagine if people who wanted to do violence on a group of people had limited or no access to guns and had to choose instead a knife of some other weapon that can't kill 20 people in three minutes.

I have weighed in on the Second Amendment interpretation far too many times but the more these things happen the more I wonder why people like this had access to armor, fatigues, and assault rifles. Are they part of a well regulated militia? Does the NRA check to see if it's members are terrorists? Why are terrorists in the no fly list able to buy guns here? It's maddening truly.

 

[GATTACA!]

Australia confiscated 650,000 guns. Murders and suicides plummeted. - Vox

This is the best paragraph I've ever read on gun control and mass shootings - Vox

Holy shit! These graphs are beyond misleading. People will glance at these tables and not realize the double y axis that is making firearm suicides and firearm murders appear to be more than 3.5x and 2x what they should be respectively.