The Omaha shootings

J77

The selfish bastard said he wanted to go out in style.

The best thing the media could do is not to give any details of this ****, even his name.

Greg Bernhardt

Sadly these people will always exist. Like terrorists, you just have to hope to be lucky not to get in their way. :(

hypatia

How sad for the families, I am so very sorry for them. I agree with the OP.

LURCH

My fiance' is responsibel for security at a very large mall. Every time I hear about this kind of thing it makes me nervous.

Moonbear

I agree. I think that it only further encourages those who are borderline psychotic to consider dying famous instead of just shooting themselves in the living room.

momentum_waves

Would it have helped if there had been some kind of gun control laws which prevented persons with a history of previous mental instability, to be allowed to purchase weapons, or ammunition?

Moonbear

In this case, no, I don't think so. As far as I know, he had no such history...at least not documented in a way that a law like that could access. There's another catch to such a law, which is that it would require making your medical history known beyond your doctor's office in order to have a database to report such instabilities.

cristo

What about gun laws that prevented anyone from owning a gun?

Evo

Oh, the slogan here is "if owning a gun is criminal, then only criminals will own guns".

cristo

That might be so, but doesn't answer my question. This guy doesn't appear to be the sort of person that's gonna go and get a gun off the black market. I bet he used his dad's gun or something like that.

How many mass shootings does the US need to go through before the legal ownership of guns is banned?

Evo

I doubt you will ever see gun ownership banned in the US. We have the NRA (National Rifle Association) which is probably one of the most powerful lobby groups in the US. It would be un-Amurcan to ban guns, not to mention how many guns there are in the US and that many people would only give up their guns if they were pried out of their cold, dead hands.

Greg Bernhardt

when was the last time a law prevented a crime? if someone wants a gun, they will get one, it's not hard. he had the guts to kill 8 people, you don't think he has the guts to ask a couple shady buddies for a gun?

Mallignamius

If these guys don't have their guns, they'll find, make, or use something else. Homemade pipe bombs are easy, for example. So I doubt taking guns away will make any difference at all.

jim mcnamara

cristo - beyond counting. For years, I lived VERY far from any city. Everyone in my ghost town had at least a small caliber hunting rifle. It's legal in New Mexico to walk around with a holstered pistol.

ghost town = Domingo NM. It's a ghost town on the Santo Domingo Reservation.
I do not think gun control will happen any time soon in the US. Not because it has a load of bigtime downsides or even some good aspects. It's more related to cultural mores than anything. IMO. Can you say 'John Wayne'?

moonbear - HIPAA protects everyone. So you can argue either side. Privacy of medical records vs release medical records for special cases. The 'no release' folks won the toss of the coin.

cristo

But we're living in completely different times to when the constitution was written. Every country has to progress with the times, or be stuck back in the dark ages.
But you can't just say that there are some people who wouldn't agree with this, so let's just go along with them. Sometimes laws have to be changed for the good of the country, and people have to make sacrifices in order to save lives.

There will be a time in the future when America bans guns; it will happen when such shootings become a weekly or daily occurance. However I agree that noone in the US government will try and ban them before such a thing happens.

Greg Bernhardt

There are daily shootings in Milwaukee where I live and we're only the 23rd most violent city in the states :)

cristo

What, so we should not have any laws because they don't make any difference? Come on!
I'm saying that spur of the moment things like this would not happen if every household did not own a gun.

And you're supporting the fact that americans should be allowed to own guns? Wow.