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Obama urges new gun laws, but swift Congress action unlikely

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I know what the NRA response is going to be. That popular culture and mental health care are the real culprits, and that guns have nothing to do with mentally unstable people shooting to death 12 people. And that background checks will be ineffective, will only punish law-abiding gun owners, and will infringe on the right for anyone to 'protect' themselves with weapons designed for mass slaughter.

Shame on you, NRA and your congressional minions, for defending this bloodshed.

1 ( +6 / -5 )

What nobody says on these debates is the Full Auto guns are legal to own. Yes, machine guns. The difference is that the background check is more in depth.

How often do those "mass slaughter" weapons are used in crimes? Zero to none!

How many lives are save by guns? I suspect more than most believe.

Anti-social, instable types can be ticking time bombs. Lets wait for the next one. Perhaps the next Boston Marathon?

-7 ( +3 / -10 )

Senate Democrats eye new gun laws

Cha-ching! Gun manufacturers will soon see a nice pile of cash coming their way because OMG the socialist from Kenya is gonna take my guns!!!

Here are some laws I support:

Universal background checks for all gun sales in all situations - The loss of gun privileges if you leave your guns open to access by children or others - Any accidental shots (like the guy who accidentally shot his wife at a restaurant) means you lose your guns forever - Parents of kids killed while playing with guns lose their guns and face jail time - The requirement for doctors to put mental health patients on a do-not-buy list and the right to remove guns from that person's home....regardless of whose they are. - The requirement that gun shops must physically count inventory twice a year - Signed statements each year stating that you have complied with the aforementioned.

Let's put some responsibility on the plate of gun supporters.

1 ( +4 / -3 )

And that background checks will be ineffective

Not to be jack@ss, I agree with the background checks by the way, but this man went through a background check to buy this gun and he went through other background checks to get his security clearance. This incident actually supports the NRA argument.

2 ( +4 / -2 )

The US is trying to control weapons in Syria, but they can't control them in their own country.

5 ( +7 / -2 )

Lets suppose guns are banned in US. Who out there really thinks they will all be turned in? Try it in Chicago, oh wait they do have highly restrictive gun laws and at the same time have the highest murder rate in recent years. But yes, we can wait it out and attrition will reduce the number of guns, they will still be there. And the crooks will have them all.

And I can add this, it is fairly easy to steal a gun from a police officer. Of course I would never do that and I also would not want to shoot anybody. Though it's not me we are talking about.

-5 ( +1 / -6 )

Lets suppose guns are banned in US.

Come on. Is this a proposal that is getting serious discussion (outside NRA rhetoric designed to whip up libertarian paranoia)?

Chicago, oh wait they do have highly restrictive gun laws and at the same time have the highest murder rate in recent years

Gee, I wonder where they got them guns. Mississippi? Texas? Indiana? It's not like there are inspections at state lines.

the crooks will have them all

And with lax controls the crooks will share the guns with crazy people who can buy them legally. This DC killer wasn't a 'crook'. He was unbalanced and probably wouldn't have had the determination to buy a gun on the black market if he was stopped by a rigorous background check. That's why you don't see these kinds of killings in such numbers in other civilized countries.

Do you honestly think that America doesn't have a gun problem? That it's possible under the current gun laws to have a safe society without tens of thousands of deaths? Tell me how.

2 ( +6 / -4 )

Typical Obama tactic. make lots of noise on a topic where he knows there can be no positive action.

-2 ( +3 / -5 )

If it is true that the majority of the American people agree with president Obama on the need for common sense gun reform and the congress keeps blocking this because of fierce lobbying against it, the congress clearly is not representing the American people but interest groups which puts the United States in the group of non democratic nations. What a sad blot on a great nation.

1 ( +3 / -2 )

The guy was using a Remington 870 hunting shotgun not an assault rifle. The failure in this case was the system that allowed him to get onto a military base in the first place and get a security clearance, and that police failed to do something about this guy when he called them after hearing voices in his head earlier.

Funny you mention background checks too because the more intensive one for his security clearance passed, you think a gun BG check would be more intensive?

2 ( +2 / -0 )

So what's your proposal?

0 ( +0 / -0 )

He was unbalanced and probably wouldn't have had the determination to buy a gun on the black market if he was stopped by a rigorous background check.

He didn't buy his gun on the black market, he bought his shotgun at a gun store and went through a background check, not to mention he went through a separate background check to get his security clearance.

Obviously these background checks are not thorough enough.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

Every few months we witness a new massacre. These are merely white water on a river of gun deaths that prematurely end the lives of 1 in every 10,000 Americans each year.

The multibillion dollar 'security' industry, from gunmakers through private prisons and gated, guarded communities to self-preserving securocrats, will fight tooth and nail to save their revenues. That means perpetuating and ratcheting up the fear.

The only way to resolve this epidemic is to repeal the Second Amendment.

-1 ( +3 / -4 )

The only way to resolve this epidemic is to repeal the Second Amendment.

There's no need to repeal it if it is interpreted on a literal basis, which says the purpose is to support a "well-regulated militia." Follow the Swiss model. Give gun owners the option of joining in the collective defense of their state and nation and make their weapons and ammunition subject to legal controls, the violation of which would subject them to automatic penalties.

1 ( +3 / -2 )

Obviously these background checks are not thorough enough.

True, but at the same time, adding more guns to society is definitely not the answer. Many people who kill someone with a gun were once law-abiding gun-owners at one time. There is no guarantee that another law-abiding gun-owner will cause the next massacre, and the next, and the next ...

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

The only way to resolve this epidemic is to repeal the Second Amendment.

That will never happen, not in our lifetimes anyway. Common sense laws, which every gun supporter says they support yet it never seems to happen (?), would be a good start. But we can't even get that because gun nutters have whipped themselves into a frenzy since the radical liberal hellbent on destroying America took over.

Gun sales have gone through the roof since 2008 while overall gun ownership has fallen. The same guys are buying the same things over and over and over again....like a stockpile. So much so that some stores have literally run out of guns and/or bullets to sell them.

Creepy.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

How much does the public have to pay for all of the damage caused by gun violence in the US? The medical bills alone must run into the hundreds of millions. Many victims of gun violence require care for the rest of their lives. Some "freedom."

Why does that cost have to be levied against those members of the public who don't own guns and want nothing to do with them personally? Make those who manufacture guns and those who promote guns and gun ownership pick up all the costs associated with their "hobby." You might start to see some real action on the front of keeping guns out of the hands who those who should not have them in the first place.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

I guess no one knows that gun violence (and violence in general) has been decreasing for decades, and is at the lowest levels since record-keeping began. Violent crime has decreased by more than 1/3 since 1960, yet know one knows.

On the other hand, despite a 30-odd percent drop in murders over 5 decades, news stories covering murders have increased more than 100%.

The number gun deaths in America is small, most gun deaths are the result of suicides, accidents, and self-defense, the number of gun-related murders is much smaller. This is astonishing when you figure the number of guns in America is nearly equal to the population.

Obama will not be able to pass any gun-control measures. Despite bloody headlines, and stories of murder and mayhem, America is quite a safe place to live, and most Americans do not want to give up their guns. The congress and senate know this, and they know that supporting gun control has cost many a politician his career. Only in the most violent cities in America is gun control popular, funny how the cities which have banned guns for decades somehow seem to have the greatest number of gun-related deaths. They are a good example of how effective gun control in America really is.

-2 ( +2 / -4 )

sangetsu03

The number gun deaths in America is small

really?

most gun deaths are the result of suicides, accidents, and self-defense, the number of gun-related murders is much smaller.

so... less people are murdered by guns than those who die in gun accidents or 'justified homicide'?

where did these happy factoids come from?

1 ( +3 / -2 )

Sangetsu,

Piecemeal gun control is as effective as a leaky condom, and NO reflection whatsoever on how effective federal legislation would be.

Either the gun lobby takes us all for fools, or is easily duped itself. Wonder which it is?

3 ( +4 / -1 )

They kin have mah gurn when they done pried it from mah cold dead fangers!

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

There's no need to repeal it if it is interpreted on a literal basis, which says the purpose is to support a "well-regulated militia." Follow the Swiss model. Give gun owners the option of joining in the collective defense of their state and nation and make their weapons and ammunition subject to legal controls, the violation of which would subject them to automatic penalties.

But who regulates the militia? The people regulate the militia, just as they are supposed to regulate the government. It is not vice-versa. The revolutionary war was fought to end the tyrannical control of monarchs and despots, not to cede control of the people's only means of asserting freedom to yet another form government.

The revolutionary war was not fought against an external invader, but to evict a tyranical form of government that put itself ahead of the people.

Suppose for the sake of argument the second amendment is abolished, and the people are disarmed. Suppose the next amendment abolished is the first amendmant. Why not? It was written with the same ink as the second amendmant, and if the second amendmant can be abolished, what's to stopped the rest of the from going the same way?

Do you think this is too far-fetched? Why so? After all, we have recently seen that the government doesn't seem to care much about the fourth amendmant, as shown by the NSA listening to conversations without probable cause and without warrants.

so... less people are murdered by guns than those who die in gun accidents or 'justified homicide'?

where did these happy factoids come from?

These come from the American CDC. Homicides seem to include self-defense shootings which are not police related. Look them up yourself.

-5 ( +2 / -7 )

Homicides seem to include self-defense shootings which are not police related

Sangetsu, let me copy/paste the 2010 data for US gun deaths, collated from CDC and FBI stats:

Total gun deaths: 31,672

Of which suicides: 19,392 (50% of total suicides)

Gun homicides: 11,078 (68% of total homicides)

Self-defense: 232 (killing of a felon, during a felony, by a civilian)

Unintentional gun deaths: 606

http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/united-states

3 ( +4 / -1 )

It seems like our system of monitoring is flawed. Tsaraev brothers. Federal level. Aaron Alexis, also Federal level with clearances most don't go through. Newtown shooter, slipped through the cracks just as the Colorado shooter. And the responsibility resides with who?

Go ahead and ban the guns. The deaths won't stop. What would be next? Drugs are already against the law. How is that working? Worse than guns!

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

@SuperLib

Universal background checks for all gun sales in all situations - The loss of gun privileges if you leave your guns open to access by children or others - Any accidental shots (like the guy who accidentally shot his wife at a restaurant) means you lose your guns forever - Parents of kids killed while playing with guns lose their guns and face jail time - The requirement for doctors to put mental health patients on a do-not-buy list and the right to remove guns from that person's home....regardless of whose they are. - The requirement that gun shops must physically count inventory twice a year - Signed statements each year stating that you have complied with the aforementioned.

I agree with all those, and there are other good ideas. Register the owner of each gun sold and hold that person responsible if their gun is stolen and used in a crime. Also, I think there are smart grips that can recognize the owner and only allow the owner to fire the gun. This technology should be pursued. Requiring everyone to undergo training and a psych test to get a license to be able to own a gun, and the the license has to be periodically renewed like a driver's license, would be a good idea, I think.

First and foremost, I think the gun manufacturers should be clamped down on and limited. The sheer number of guns on the supply side has to be reduced.

-3 ( +1 / -4 )

Again, the irrational clamoring about gun control...

This particular disturbed individual had a history of violent behavior, yet due to systemic incompetence was allowed to join the US military, somehow pass the background check for at least Confidential security clearance(inexcusable ), pass an additional check for another clearance despite a very checkered history, AND another FBI check to purchase a gun. It seems he was passed along like so many functionally illiterate high school grads. How many times did the various systems fail?

So the solution is...more ineffective systems?

1 ( +5 / -4 )

Unfortunately, gun control in America would not work. For it to work in a country, that country's society must be selfless on the whole, have a decent amount of respect for their fellow citizens, and be willing to change to fulfill a greater good.

3 ( +6 / -3 )

Again, the irrational clamoring that gun control is unnecessary.

So the solution is more effective systems.

-2 ( +1 / -3 )

SuperLib:

So what's your proposal?

Institutionalize the mentally ill. It's what we did back before you were born, when guns were more accessible, and it worked great. There was one mass shooting, in 1996 (the "Texas Tower sniper"). Not one every few months because someone who "hadn't hurt anybody yet" stopped taking their meds.

-2 ( +2 / -4 )

@oldhawk

Institutionalize the mentally ill. It's what we did back before you were born, when guns were more accessible, and it worked great. There was one mass shooting, in 1996 (the "Texas Tower sniper"). Not one every few months because someone who "hadn't hurt anybody yet" stopped taking their meds.

110% agreed!

-3 ( +2 / -5 )

So what's your proposal?

How about they get the current background check system working first before implementing a whole new system. I'm a licensed manufacturer and it still jacks up my check every other time because I have an absurdly common name.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

OldHawk: Institutionalize the mentally ill. It's what we did back before you were born, when guns were more accessible, and it worked great. There was one mass shooting, in 1996 (the "Texas Tower sniper"). Not one every few months because someone who "hadn't hurt anybody yet" stopped taking their meds.

So let me ask you this. Someone gets put in an institution then is released. Is it OK for him to be in a house with a gun owner where he has access to the gun or can we put in a requirement where that is not allowed?

Here's what you guys do: Simultaneously water down or repeal any kind of gun control law while saying that law enforcement isn't doing it's job of enforcement. Well no shit. I hear gun supporters saying they support the idea of criminals or the mentally insane not having access to guns, but then they turn around and say that it's OK for him to live in a house with other people's guns because that wouldn't be fair to the other people. The net result is obvious. The mental patient has easy access to a gun. Now go ahead and complain about enforcing laws where the mentally ill can't have guns. Failure ends up being a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Give me any piece of legislation that you think the NRA would support if the net result would be keeping guns out of people's hands....even the wrong ones.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

The inmates are running the asylum when it comes to the NRA and their disciples, so I'm not surprised there is opposition to mental health issues in gun ownership.

As long as the constitution insists that gun ownership is a right, rather than the supervised privilege it ought to be, then insanity will always prevail.

Making gun owners responsible for their arms and penalizing those that aren't is the only sane way forward to a continuation of legal gun ownership in private hands. Why would any sane person refuse such legitimate controls?

1 ( +3 / -2 )

Old Hawk,

There was one mass shooting, in 1996 (sic) (the "Texas Tower sniper"). Not one every few months because someone who "hadn't hurt anybody yet" stopped taking their meds.

That conveniently ignores the 10,000 American homicides each year that are NOT mass shootings. Most of these other shootings are by perpetrators known to their victims.

How do we stop these murders - build high-rise asylums?

4 ( +5 / -1 )

Unlike the other shootings, this one was started with just a pump-action shotgun. In the process of his rampage, he took down a police officer and then traded his shotgun for the officer's 9mm handgun. No laws involving "assault" weapons or large magazines would have prevented this.

There will be no additional National laws restricting guns until the American people get fed up with the slaughter and amend the Second Amendment to the Constitution. Until that obscenely vague amendment is tossed and a better one put in it's place, Congress can do NOTHING about the proliferation of arms in people's possession.

There's only ONE way I'd support the Second Amendment as it's currently written and that's if it only applied to the "arms" in existence when the Second Amendment was written. I will defend your right to the DEATH to bear flintlock muskets and pistols and to keep as many flintlock weapons and corresponding ammunition as your house can hold.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

The only way we can stop/limit these nutter gun rampages with people on psychotropic medications is to get armed. Obviously more guns are needed in the hands of good people. Seems the Drs and the Gov are hell bent on causing as much media chaos as possible to avert the 2nd amendment. But in reality these rampages are few whereas in Chicago (homicide capital) it is a daily thing with little to no media attention.

-2 ( +2 / -4 )

badsey3Sep. 19, 2013 - 04:21AM JST The only way we can stop/limit these nutter gun rampages with people on psychotropic medications is to get armed. Obviously more guns are needed in the hands of good people.

And just how do you determine the "good" people?

Also, you ignore the fact that the man was prescribed psychotropic medication BECAUSE he was mentally ill. It wasn't the other way around. You also ignore that we have no idea when he last took his meds, and this is one of the major problems with psychotropics, that people that mentally ill tend to be lousy at taking them.

Seems the Drs and the Gov are hell bent on causing as much media chaos as possible to avert the 2nd amendment. But in reality these rampages are few whereas in Chicago (homicide capital) it is a daily thing with little to no media attention.

... so the government made this guy mad and caused this (and all the other) shootings? ... wow. I sincerely hope you don't have a gun, and will never have a gun, because you're beginning to look a bit like a tin-foil hat wearing lunatic.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

Gun control doesn't work because criminals don't follow the laws. Never have, never will.

-5 ( +1 / -6 )

That conveniently ignores the 10,000 American homicides each year that are NOT mass shootings. Most of these other shootings are by perpetrators known to their victims.

And that is still way down from the heyday of gun homicides 30 or 40 years ago when half of all households owned a firearm. There is a serious debate as to whether mass murder shootings are increasing at all, for sure it doesn't have anything to do with deinstitutionalization of mental patients which started for economic and civil rights reasons in the late 1960's.

-3 ( +0 / -3 )

A simple question to Americans:

Should our society/system allow an individual who has been determined by a comprehensive psychological examination to have "strong" (i.e.: potentially dangerous) anti-social tendencies, but who is otherwise deemed "mentally competent," to purchase firearms?

A follow-up: Why would a society issue the type of lethal weapons to individuals at-large without such a screening? Far more careful screening is done by organizations when a person is applying for a job than for the ability to kill his/her fellow citizens en mass.

Gun control doesn't work because criminals don't follow the laws.

We know that the mentally deranged don't follow the laws either. And yet American society allows them to purchase firearms. And that is because statements like the one above are made by another class fairly unique to America -- unique in the sheer number of them: the criminally stupid.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

... so the government made this guy mad and caused this (and all the other) shootings? ... wow. I sincerely hope you don't have a gun, and will never have a gun, because you're beginning to look a bit like a tin-foil hat wearing lunatic.

You said it -not me. But I do believe this individual said he was being followed/monitored and hit by microwaves = that tin-foil hat (faraday cage) most likely could have saved him. Most of these mass shooters are on psychotropics and under a psychologists care.

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

I will defend your right to the DEATH to bear flintlock muskets and pistols and to keep as many flintlock weapons and corresponding ammunition as your house can hold.

Because having people running around buying gunpowder by the barrel is such a grand idea. Not only do we go from having stable ammunition to unstable powder but we also have additional transport and storage hazard. Even in small quantities fine granulation black powder can go up without much effort. Modern shells and bullets are much safer to store, transport, and sell.

The expansion of the black powder market would also increase the prevalence of black powder storage, making it far easier to accumulate large quantities of the stuff without raising any red flags. I fire off about 600 rounds a week, for me to do that with black powder I'd be buying over a kilo of the stuff per month. Stands to reason a person could accumulate 10-20 kilo's in a short amount of time. Right now that would raise a lot of eyebrows but if it became common practice it would likely go undetected.

Then instead of mass shootings we get nail bombs. We'd also have more explosions in houses, accidental discharges would cause more fatalities, and considerably more property damage.

-5 ( +0 / -5 )

I fire off about 600 rounds a week, for me to do that with black powder I'd be buying over a kilo of the stuff per month.

The pro-gun lobby wins! They've bored us into submission.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

badsey3: people on psychotropic medications

and

OldHawk: Institutionalize the mentally ill

and

bass4funk: how about building more MENTAL asylums

It's amazing to me that right after LePierre said this his followers followed suit. Like on cue or something.

badsey3: Most of these mass shooters are on psychotropics and under a psychologists care.

So should we ban purchase of guns to these people? Ban guns in the same house? A car with them in it? Tell me your proposal.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

Gun control doesn't work because criminals don't follow the laws. Never have, never will.

Yes, but many of these 'criminals' were once law-abiding gun-owners at one time. And should we just wait until the next law-abiding gun-owner (who previously had no criminal record), suddenly let the stresses of life get to them and let them go ballistic with the gun(s) they own?

1 ( +2 / -1 )

It's amazing to me that right after LePierre said this his followers followed suit. Like on cue or something.

Are they all on the same meds?

0 ( +1 / -1 )

This story has already dropped off the drive-by media's radar here in the States because Alexis didn't use an AR-15 and now it turns out the guy was democrat and an Obama supporter.

Time for Obama to move on to a new shiny object.

-6 ( +1 / -7 )

The pro-gun lobby wins! They've bored us into submission.

In any other country, they'd be train spotters!

1 ( +1 / -0 )

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