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this post was submitted on 21 Sep 2023
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Here's the trick... the Nashville shooter had no criminal record and bought the guns 100% legally. There is no gun restriction that would block someone who passes the background check from buying a gun.
BUT:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Nashville_school_shooting
"Hale was under care for an emotional disorder and had legally purchased seven firearms, including three recovered from the shooting scene, between October 2020 and June 2022.[1]"
If someone is under psychological care, should that be allowed to pop up on a background check? Maybe not as an instant disqualification the way a court ordered commitment or conviction would, but as an advisory note? Leave it to the discretion of the firearms seller? "By the way, this person is undergoing psych care, you could be held liable if they use this firearm in a crime." That kind of thing?
Because right now, the only stuff that shows up on the background check are things that were ruled on by a judge, and sometimes not even all of those.
For example:
The guy who shot up Michigan State University:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Michigan_State_University_shooting
"McRae was arrested in June 2019 for carrying a weapon without a concealed pistol license.[38] Initially charged with a felony, he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor unlawful possession of a loaded firearm as part of a plea agreement in November 2019.[39] He was originally sentenced to twelve months' probation, which was later extended to 18 months, and in May 2021, he was discharged from probation.[35] Because McRae was not convicted of a felony, his ban on possessing weapons ended with the end of his probation.[40]"
Arrested for a felony gun charge, pled out to a misdemeanor, did his time, did his probation, was allowed to buy guns again.
Had he been convicted of the felony, he would have been blocked from owning a gun. The misdemeanor was not a barrier and did not appear on the background check.
Maybe it should have? Maybe ANY gun charges, felony OR misdemeanor should bar you from gun ownership?
Stopping people in therapy from owning guns is a good way to stop people from getting mental health care.
And anyone who has therapy billed to insurance has a mental health diagnosis. That's just the nature of healthcare billing in the U.S.
I agree, but what's the alternative?
The Supreme Court specifically addressed that in 2016 in my favorite one of these cases because it didn't initially seem to involve firearms:
Caetano v. Massachusetts - 2016
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caetano_v._Massachusetts
Woman was being threatened by an abusive ex and bought a taser for protection.
MA charged her saying that tasers didn't exist at the time of the 2nd amendment, so she had no right to own one.
Enter the court:
"the Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding" and that "the Second Amendment right is fully applicable to the States".[6] The term "bearable arms" was defined in District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008) and includes any ""[w]eapo[n] of offence" or "thing that a man wears for his defence, or takes into his hands," that is "carr[ied] . . . for the purpose of offensive or defensive action." 554 U. S., at 581, 584 (internal quotation marks omitted)."[10]
Anything you take into your hands for defense is allowed under the 2nd amendment. So, no, you don't have the right to a cruise missile or a tactical nuke, but if you can carry it, it's yours.
So I can carry Sarin gas "for the purpose of offensive [...] action"? How about a non-grandfathered automatic weapon? Hand grenades? MANPADS?
This ruling is nonsense, along with the expansion of the second to self-defense 15 years ago. We've banned the stuff that could support a rebellion and legalized the stuff that's just good for murder.
Gas is banned by the Geneva convention, so no. Grenades are classified as "destructive devices", so no.
Automatic weapons are fully allowed so long as you're willing to do the paperwork and pay the tax. It's not an easy process, and it's SUPER expensive, but it can be done.
https://rocketffl.com/who-can-own-a-full-auto-machine-gun/
Who the fuck cares what the Geneva convention bans? That's a nation-to-nation treaty. We won't use this if you won't, not "no one can ever use this". And the very fact that you approve of "destructive devices" being banned but not handguns proves the whole damn point. The 2nd is about rebellion, but we let the government defang rebellion while playing to petty interpersonal fears. You don't need a constitutional amendment to define the rules regarding fighting off robbers, you need it to define the rules for fighting off the government.
Not according to the Supreme Court and they are the ones who decide this stuff:
McDonald vs. City of Chicago - 2010
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonald_v._City_of_Chicago
"the second amendment right recognized in Heller is fully applicable to the states through the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment. In so holding, the Court reiterated that "the Second Amendment protects the right to keep and bear arms for the purpose of self-defense" (id. at ___, 130 S. Ct. at 3026); that "individual self-defense is 'the central component' of the Second Amendment right"
They're politicians in black robes, they don't define truth. You're citing interpretation changes by an illegitimate court to rules written at the country's birth that aren't even old enough vote. The sooner people stop deluding themselves that they're anything but another form of politician the better, but I'm sure you'll pick and choose which rulings are the word of God and which are bullshit.
That's the job of the Supreme Court, I'm sorry you disagree, but that doesn't change the fact of the matter.
It could change if the court were to swing the other way, but it's only been getting more conservative in my lifetime, not less.
What an incurious reverence of authority.
It's not reverence, I'm telling you the way it is. You're free to ignore reality if you'd like. The line of "money isn't real, man!" people is over there -->
This whole comment chain is about the ruling being dumb and not in line with the actual historical reason that owning weapons needed to be a constitutional amendment. Circling back around with "but that's what they said" is just complete mindless deferral to authority. "They were right because they said it, checkmate libtard."
The ruling is the ruling, there's only one way to over-ride the Supreme Court and that's by passing a new amendment.
Here's what needs to happen:
Get 290 votes in the House. The same people who don't have 218 right now to fund the government.
Get 67 in the Senate. The same people who can't get 60 to over-ride a filibuster.
Get ratification from 38/50 states. In a country where 25 + DC voted Biden and 25 voted Trump. You'd need all 25 Biden states + 13 Trump states.
Alternately, we could bag the whole thing and write a new Constitution, but again, the new one needs to get ratified by the states, and between the states who want to outlaw abortion and the states who want to outlaw guns, nobody is going to agree on it.
Or just tell the court to go fuck itself and states will make their own laws. Guns for personal defense wasn't the law of the land until 15 years ago and it can flip and disappear the moment the court changes or liberals find some gumption and stop respecting corrupt justices. No constitutional amendment needed.
Not that any of your repeated circular arguments addresses the whole topic of this thread.
You can't do that without throwing out the Constitution, where all these entities are defined.
You're free to not like it, it doesn't change the law of the land.
Which continues to be an irrelevant circular response to "this was a bad ruling made by an illegitimate court that didn't fulfill the obvious reasons for the 2nd Amendment". The Constitution doesn't say guns for self-defense are untouchable. 5 politicians in robes did, multiple of which have clear evidence of corruption. This particular court can be packed or reformed or even disregarded without even touching the Constitution.
I can't help you if you continue denying the reality of the situation.
The highest court in the country has ruled. That's it. It's over. They are going to make more gun rulings and I guarantee it will get worse.
The court DOES NOT CARE what you, or I, or anyone else thinks about their rulings, they don't have to because they know there's absolutely no check on their power. They can't be overturned, the House and Senate won't impeach them, and Biden will never pack the court (if he did, the next Republican President would just re-pack it the other way.)
They might get overturned in 50 years, like Roe did, but that seems highly unlikely given how the court is becoming more conservative, not less conservative. In my life there have only been 5 Democratic appointees to the court compared to 14 Republican ones.
I'm not asking you to LIKE it. I'm asking you to acknowledge that the court and it's rulings are not illegitimate. They are a function of our founding document and denying that is to deny what it means to be an American.
Your problem is you don't want to have a conversation about the 2nd Amendment, you want to reinforce the status quo because you like having guns.
There literally are. Tons of checks. The court's power extends only as far as its legitimacy. If Biden defied the Court on something and the Court says "you can't do that", all that is is words. That's literally how it was designed. The only thing making the corrupt Court a super legislature that can just make rules up law whole cloth is people like you saying "well, the court says so and they're the unitary decider".
And it doesn't have to be moderate timid Biden that defies them. Gavin Newsome and the California legislature can defy the Court tomorrow and their only recourse is whining about in in the op-ed pages. Unless the people of California believe that the Court is legitimate and vote them all out for it, that's the balance of powers alive and well. You may not like it, but that's just how the system works.
LOL. No. Shitting on the legitimacy of a corrupt Court is a good thing and an essential step toward correcting the mess we're in.
Rolling over for tyranny when the founding fathers very deliberately separated enforcement from legal judgement is not what it means to be an American. This is literally stuff written by the founding fathers in discussing the design of the nation. Yielding full rule making authority, whether in a misplaced devotion to authority or learned helplessness, is what they were fearful of. On its own, as a coequal branch, it's nothing.
It's not like the Founding Fathers just never considered that a Court could be bad and power hungry, or that supermajority impeachment alone would always be a simple remedy for such. They were quite explicit in that the Court is not all powerful because their only power is that of judgement and judgement alone doesn't do anything. Their power relies on adherence by the other branches, and such power exists only if the people will punish the elected branches for challenging them.
John Roberts isn't worried about the belief in the legitimacy of the court because he just wants historians to praise his tenure, he's worried about it because if they lose it, they can and will be defied. And that's a consequence there by design.
It's pretty clear you have no concept of how our system of government works.
The Supreme Court is the top tier of the Judicial Branch, the 3rd "Separate but Equal" part of our government.
You can't just decide "Well, I don't like you, I don't have to do what you say." Doing so cracks the very foundation of what our government is built on.
Same if someone decided to ignore the President (Executive Branch) or a ruling coming from the House and Senate (Legislative Branch).
The only difference is the President has the ability to sign or veto laws passed by Congress, and Congress can over-ride a veto.
There is no similar constraint on Supreme Court rulings. They are the arbiter of what is or is not Constitutional. That's their job. If you disagree with that, your options are 1) pass a new amendment or 2) a Constitutional convention.
Whether I like or dislike their definition of the 2nd amendment is irrelevant. It's THEIR definition. It's settled law. My liking it or disliking it doesn't change that.
Want to change it? Make sure we have Democratic Presidents exclusively for, oh, the next 20 to 25 years or so. Hope we don't have another block like they did with Merrick Garland.
Thomas (75) and Alito (73) are the next likely two to age out. If that happens under a Democratic President, it could shift the balance from 6-3 to 4-5. Given ages of court deaths and retirees that's probably 10-15 years from now.
The next three though are Sotomayor (69), Roberts (68) and Kagan (63). Say what you want about Roberts, but he has served as a key swing vote, siding with the "liberal" judges on multiple occasions. Losing any or all of them under a Republican President would lock in a conservative court long past my lifetime.
Kavanaugh (58), Gorsuch (56), Jackson (53) and Barrett (51) could all be with us for 30 years or more. So that's a baked in 3:1 disadvantage until maybe 2053? I'm 54 myself, so it's unlikely I'll live to see this.
I can't believe when confronted with deep theory of government from the Federalist papers you forged on to repeat a grade school description of government. Go read the Federalist papers.
And when confronted with the realization that politely waiting for deaths under an unbroken reign of Democratic regimes means you will literally live the rest of your life under a corrupt and illegitimately stacked conservative court, you dutifully knuckled under. My god.
I suspect they know and that is the actual intent.
Of course. Just waiting for the "No one wants to take your guns" comment. But everything they propose as "common sense" would do just that. But it also very likely that they just have no idea what semi-auto means and just repeat what's on TV. That's the extent of 'critical thinking'.
Semi automatic weapons existed at the time.
Furthermore, following that logic leads to TV, Radio and the Internet not being protected mediums for the first amendment. I don't think anyone wants to think about the power that decision would give the government.
I'm not sure you really want carry permits to be more like driving a car. Go to the local branch and take a written 15 minute test to get an initial permit and then take a brief range trip for basic proficiency 6 months later and at 16 you can get your license. As long as you don't get caught doing major bad things you can just pay a fee every 4 years and keep your license. If you commit small infractions you pay a fine and move on. Just don't get caught more than once a year. What's a little negligent discharge every now and then really hurt anyway. Plus if you do commit a large violation we'll just suspend it for a couple years and after 30 days you can apply for a hardship permit. Plus your license is valid in all 50 states and most foreign countries.
Excellent highlights - I'm saving this for future reference. I hadn't really considered the glaring flaws to such an approach and you highlight them well.
While I like your idea, also consider the adverse impact: people will sometimes not treat their mental disorders anymore because they could pop up in a background check.
There has to be some more nuance to this. I didn't study law though,so idk how to make it better.
Yeah, I don't know how to make it better either. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ But when you start looking at the shooters who had documented mental health issues that never showed up on background checks, it gets a little scary.
Right now, it only counts for the background check if it goes through a Judge.
So when the Jacksonville shooter had an involuntary mental health hold under Florida's Baker act, that didn't stop him from later buying the guns completely legally:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/ryan-palmeter-named-as-jacksonville-shooter-who-targeted-and-killed-3-black-people-at-dollar-general-store
Same with the Buffalo shooter:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Buffalo_shooting
"In June 2021, Gendron had been investigated for threatening other students at his high school by the police in Broome County.[20][58][64] A teacher had asked him about his plans after the school year, and he responded, "I want to murder and commit suicide."[65] He was referred to a hospital for mental health evaluation and counseling but was released after being held for a day and a half.[20][64][66]"
Same with the Parkland shooter:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkland_high_school_shooting
"The Florida Department of Children and Families investigated him in September 2016 for Snapchat posts in which he cut both his arms and said he planned to buy a gun. At this time, a school resource officer suggested[94] he undergo an involuntary psychiatric examination under the provisions of the Baker Act. Two guidance counselors agreed, but a mental institution did not.[95] State investigators reported he had depression, autism, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). However Psychologist Frederick M. Kravitz later testified that Cruz was never diagnosed with autism.[96] In their assessment, they concluded he was "at low risk of harming himself or others".[97] He had previously received mental health treatment, but had not received treatment in the year leading up to the shooting.[98]"
Maybe only include it if it's an involuntary mental health hold and/or have practitioners have an option to report if the individual should in their opinion be barred from purchasing a firearm (with the capacity to revoke that opinion, if their situation changes)?
These guys have quite a few suggestions meant to address prevention up through mitigation.
In general I'm not opposed, but I think that needs to come with some sort major reform to make our gun laws more consistent across the country, because currently there can be situations where you can be legally carrying a firearm in accordance with all of your state laws, but make a wrong turn or miss your exit and cross state lines and you're technically committing a felony because the laws are different in that state. Then you're just a burned out tail light away from prison time if you get pulled over and the cop finds out you have a gun.
Not that it's a super common situation, but it's not totally outlandish either, and I don't think that's exactly the kind of person we want to punish with these laws, especially since those are the sort of thing that you know would be enforced inconsistently- the white guy gets directions back to his home state and the nearest AutoZone to fix his tail light and sent on his way, and the black guy gets arrested on the spot (if not tazed, beaten, or shot)
That's absolutely true and something I think about when I leave the house.
I live in Portland, Oregon which is just a river and a bridge away from Vancouver, Washington.
I have a concealed carry permit for Oregon, but Oregon and Washington don't have laws for reciprocity.
So my carrying concealed in Oregon is perfectly legal, but would get me in trouble in Washington and vice versa.
So it's contingent on me, the gun owner, to be aware of the laws and remain in compliance. Mostly going "Do I need to go to Vancouver today?" If yes, leave the gun at home.
From my personal experience, I live near Philly, which is similarly a river and a bridge away from NJ, where gun laws are drastically different. I don't drive in the city super often, and there are some real doozies of confusing intersections, at least one of them is right by a bridge to Jersey, so once or twice I've gotten stuck in the wrong lane because city traffic sucks and no one would let me change lanes, and so I had to make a quick detour into the garden state, find somewhere to turn around and head back to the city of brotherly love. At no point was "go to Jersey" on my itinerary, and yet it happened.
I don't carry a gun, but if I did that would put me in a potential bad position. As it is, I can take that detour to Jersey with impunity and only be out a few minutes of my time and maybe a couple bucks in tolls and gas rather than make some unsafe turns and lane changes trying to stay on the PA side of the river. If I did carry a gun though, that becomes a matter of weighing the risk of a potential felony in Jersey against the risk of driving like an unsafe asshole in PA. That's obviously kind of a shitty choice I'd rather not have to make.
I live in TN and have a carry permit. Last week, I had to drive up to PA.
During the drive, I passed through TN, VA, WV, MD, and PA. Every single state honored my permit except for Maryland. I had to stop in WV, disarm myself, unload the gun, then lock the gun and ammo into SEPARATE locking compartments in the trunk. In order to be legal by federal law, I had to straight-through Maryland without stopping. Fortunately, on 81, Maryland is only like 15 minutes, but still - if I had had some kind of emergency, had to get off the highway, and got pulled over for any reason, it would have been a firearms charge.
I pulled off at a gas station to do the unload, got witnessed by some random lady getting gas, who promptly panicked, jumped in her car, and sped off. I expected to get blue-lighted the entire way to PA after that.
I'm really fucking tired of the inconsistency. Make some laws, fine, but make them fucking consistent. Don't make me have to spend an hour online digging through different states' laws just to make sure I don't become an accidental felon.
Fortunately here there are only 2 paths to Washington and you pretty much have to do either intentionally.
I-5 gets backed up so you sit in traffic for 20-30 minutes before you hit the final exit in Oregon.
I-205 has the exit to the airport before you're on the bridge to WA so it's kind of hard to miss.