Bedoya: "Congress, Do Something Now, End Gun Violence"

Discussion in 'San Jose OT' started by don gagliardi, Aug 5, 2019.

  1. don gagliardi

    don gagliardi Member+

    San Jose Earthquakes
    Feb 28, 2004
    san jose
    Club:
    San Jose Earthquakes
    Since I have it from a Moderator this matter is not political (and therefore should not be in violation of BigSoccer's terms of service), and since Bedoya did not elaborate what he believes Congress should enact, I figured we can collect, and respectfully discuss, here ideas for legislation that would solve or ameliorate the recent epidemic of gun violence. Who knows, maybe Bedoya will chime in.

    I'll start. Here's an intriguing proposal from a local law professor from San Jose Spotlight:

    . . . Victims and their families should not be on the hook for tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills simply because they were the victims of an act of terror. That is why we need to require that gun owners carry mandatory liability insurance policies that cover third parties . . .

    https://sanjosespotlight.com/vargas-a-call-for-mandatory-liability-insurance-on-firearms/
     
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  2. bsman

    bsman Member+

    May 30, 2001
    MadCity
    Club:
    San Jose Earthquakes
    Hmmm, maybe that'd take some of the sting out of "Medicare for all" for the insurance industry? ;)
     
  3. don gagliardi

    don gagliardi Member+

    San Jose Earthquakes
    Feb 28, 2004
    san jose
    Club:
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  4. SoccerMan94043

    SoccerMan94043 Member+

    May 29, 2003
    San Jose
    Club:
    San Jose Earthquakes
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I like this idea.
     
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  5. FUAEG

    FUAEG Member+

    Oct 18, 2005
    San Jose
    Club:
    San Jose Earthquakes
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    After studying the issue of gun violence, and those that commit that violence, for many years I have identified certain traits in the population that highly correlate with the commission of violent gun acts.

    If we prevent guy ownership and access to those individuals with the identified traits, gun violence would drop up to 90%.

    What's exciting about this solution is that the more vulnerable in our population would still have the access to guns for self defense.

    And what's even more exciting is that it's possible to remove the traits from the gun violent individuals, thereby converting them to the non gun violent population. Anybody could still have access to guns as long as they lose those traits!

    Those traits are testicles.

    My solution is to prevent gun possession by anyone with testicles.

    Those caught in possession of a gun and testicles would immediately lose their testicles. Those that really wanted a gun could have their testicles removed first. Women, who commit of tiny proportion of gun violence, would still have access to guns.

    And just imagine::
    “I know what you're thinking. Did he fire six shots or only five? Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I've kinda lost track myself. But being as this is a .44 magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: "Do I feel lucky?" Well, do ya, punk?”
    In a high squeaky voice.

    Have a gun, lose your testicles.
     
  6. mjlee22

    mjlee22 Quake & Landon fan

    Nov 24, 2003
    near Palo Alto, CA
    Club:
    San Jose Earthquakes
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    In case any of you guys want to donate:

    1158436138073280512 is not a valid tweet id
     
  7. Ch(Elsey)

    Ch(Elsey) Member+

    Columbus Crew
    United States
    May 2, 2003
    Green, Ohio
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    @don gagliardi, weird coming over to your turf.

    Glad you started this thread. More should have popped up by now as trending threads on Bigsoccer.
     
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  8. Scott Rohde

    Scott Rohde Member+

    San Jose Earthquakes
    United States
    Jul 28, 2018
    I haven't heard any of the counter arguments yet, but initially this sounds like a great idea.
     
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  9. QuakeAttack

    QuakeAttack Member+

    Apr 10, 2002
    California - Bay Area
    Club:
    San Jose Earthquakes
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    We need to bring back the federal law to make it illegal to have automatic/semi-automatic and add more teeth to it. Then, we need to provide serious incentives to by-back existing guns. Additionally, we need to limit the number of guns owned by someone or provide constraints for lawfully owned guns (such as storing guns at gun ranges, etc.). Sorry, I'm rambling, but it's far, far past time...
     
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  10. FUAEG

    FUAEG Member+

    Oct 18, 2005
    San Jose
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    San Jose Earthquakes
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    Gavin liked my post ....
    https://www.foxnews.com/politics/ca...der-male-shooters-gun-violence-mass-shootings
     
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  11. bsman

    bsman Member+

    May 30, 2001
    MadCity
    Club:
    San Jose Earthquakes
    #11 bsman, Aug 6, 2019
    Last edited: Aug 6, 2019

    That'll probably prevent a lot of domestic murders, but I'm skeptical it will do much to prevent these sorts of mass shootings, since it seems like in most cases there were no precursors (i.e. psychological event or evaluation, or threat, etc.) that would have initiated such an action. I think that heavy criminal penalties for buying, selling, or possessing magazines for centerfire arms with a capacity of more than 10, 15, or 20 rounds (negotiating points) would be the most effective legal means to, if not prevent these sorts of shootings, at least minimize the number of deaths and injuries.
     
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  12. don gagliardi

    don gagliardi Member+

    San Jose Earthquakes
    Feb 28, 2004
    san jose
    Club:
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    A red flag law conceivably could have prevented the Dayton shooting. There were numerous tells that he was dangerously mentally ill dating back a decade to his high school days.

    As for heavy criminal penalties, the El Paso shooter is already facing the death penalty (under both state and federal law), and other mass shooters either kill themselves or are killed in the process. I think you would have to rationally assume that if you engage in a mass shooting you will die as a direct result (of course, these people aren't rational, by definition). The upshot is that enhancing criminal penalties is likely to be ineffective, since the repercussions are already severe.
     
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  13. markmcf8

    markmcf8 Member+

    Oct 18, 1999
    Vancouver, WA, USA
    Club:
    San Jose Earthquakes
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    • First, we need to register all gun sales, whether stores sales, convention sales, or private sales.
    • Second, gun owners need to take safety classes, just like car drivers. And those safety classes need to be refreshed every five or seven years.
    • Third, if you can't hit what you're aiming at with eight rounds you suck and need serious lessons. Therefore, no magazines of more than eight rounds will be allowed. (No hollow points, no amor piercing rounds, no shotguns under 12 guage, no semi-automatic weapons, and we need to ad to this list.)
    • Fourth, those people with restraining orders against them shall lose their guns for the duration of the restraining order. Said restraining orders also need to come with manadatory therapy sessions. (Which both hasten the lifting of the restraining order should it not be necessary, and identify those folks who need to have their "traits" removed. See @FUAGE above.)
    • Fifth, liability insurance for all gun owners, as described above.
    That's just a start. Mandatory gun locks? What do we do if some law abiding citizen's guns are stolen? (Has happened to a friend of mine, twice!)

    - Mark, angrier than usual
     
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  14. don gagliardi

    don gagliardi Member+

    San Jose Earthquakes
    Feb 28, 2004
    san jose
    Club:
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    Here's a Washington Post story from yesterday amplifying my point about the significant preexisting evidence that the Dayton shooter was "off."

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/nati...0a895c-b79e-11e9-b3b4-2bb69e8c4e39_story.html

    There is an overlap with red-flag-gun-control policy and homelessness policy, because there is an overlap in a substantial underlying cause of both mass shootings and homelessness being mental illness, and the question when someone presents a sufficient danger to himself or others to warrant societal intervention. Our elected officials have not shown themselves able to grapple honestly with this issue, the proliferation of homelessness over the last five years being the clearest evidence to me.
     
  15. FUAEG

    FUAEG Member+

    Oct 18, 2005
    San Jose
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    San Jose Earthquakes
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    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/05/health/mass-shootings-mental-health.html

     
  16. don gagliardi

    don gagliardi Member+

    San Jose Earthquakes
    Feb 28, 2004
    san jose
    Club:
    San Jose Earthquakes
    Well, things are looking up because a red flag law might have prevented at least one of the three (not one in five) mass shootings within the last week or so.

    And, by the way, what defines "mass murderers who show evidence of psychosis"? I've read in the media (unreliable, I know) that you cannot make a psychiatric determination in absentia. So just how did this forensic psychiatrist assemble his data? And how would he know if the Dayton shooter was psychotic? (The New York Times article is behind a paywall for me so maybe these questions have been answered in it, but I'm skeptical.)

    I'm not clinically trained to make a diagnosis, but the Dayton shooter had rape lists and kill lists in high school, and his classmates uniformly thought he was a creep. That's enough for me to say he shouldn't have had access to guns, whether or not he is clinically psychotic.
     
  17. don gagliardi

    don gagliardi Member+

    San Jose Earthquakes
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  18. markmcf8

    markmcf8 Member+

    Oct 18, 1999
    Vancouver, WA, USA
    Club:
    San Jose Earthquakes
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    From the article that @FUAEG linked:

    How strong is the link between mental illness and mass shootings?

    Tenuous, at best. People who blame mass shootings on “the mentally ill” are usually reasoning backward from the act itself: the person just shot 20 unarmed strangers, so he must be “crazy.”

    In fact, scientists find that only a small fraction of people with persistent mental distress are more likely than average to commit violent acts: patients with paranoid schizophrenia, which is characterized by delusional thinking and often so-called command hallucinations — frightening voices identifying threats where none exist.

    People living in this kind of misery are far more likely to be the victims of violence than perpetrators; but they can act violently themselves, especially when using drugs or alcohol. The clearest recent example is Jared Loughner, the college student who opened fire at an event in Tucson, Ariz., hosted by former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in 2011, killing six and wounding 13. Mr. Loughner’s online posts demonstrated increasing drug use and paranoid fantasies.

    About one in five mass murderers shows evidence of psychosis, according to Dr. Michael Stone, a forensic psychiatrist who maintains data on some 350 murderers going back more than a century. The other 80 percent have many of the problems that nearly everyone has to manage at some point in life: anger, isolation, depressive moods, resentments, jealousy.

    # # # # #

    Imprecise science at best, but still the best available thining on the subject.

    - Mark
     
  19. don gagliardi

    don gagliardi Member+

    San Jose Earthquakes
    Feb 28, 2004
    san jose
    Club:
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    Just as suspected, there is no backup in the article itself for the assertion that only "one in five mass murderers shows evidence of psychosis."

    Further, as the Dayton shooter example shows, we don't need a diagnosis of psychosis to see warning signs with dangerous individuals. It's very much akin to the pre-9/11 airline trainees-eventually-turned-terrorists who weren't interested in learning how to land the aircraft. Some f*cking common sense goes along way, if you're paying attention.

    And, ironically, the New York Times is being sued for defamation for blaming the Jared Loughner shooting on Sarah Palin. Her defamation suit was just reinstated. So, which is it? Was he psychotic? Or did Palin put him up to it?
     
  20. don gagliardi

    don gagliardi Member+

    San Jose Earthquakes
    Feb 28, 2004
    san jose
    Club:
    San Jose Earthquakes
    A dissenting perspective on red flag laws.

    . . . There is nuance to be had here, for sure, but realize that it is an abrogation of due process to invert the order of “innocent until proven guilty” to “somewhat guilty until proven innocent.” The question isn’t whether these laws do this, the question is whether you feel comfortable giving up a cornerstone of our republic for a safety dependent upon enforcement by a government that has failed at this before. . . .


    https://thefederalist.com/2019/08/06/red-flag-laws-not-good-solution-mass-shootings/

    The due process concern before divesting someone of their constitutional right to arms is important to address, but I believe it can be addressed and should not and will not ultimately derail these laws.

    More interesting to me in this article is the discussion of how we may have already had the tools to prevent some of the mass shootings but did not due to governmental incompetence -- in terms of failure to share data or take known information seriously. That, to me, is the crux of the issue. We need to get serious about threats when we see them, and we didn't necessarily need a red flag law to do so.

    . . . The murderers in Parkland, Florida and Dayton, Ohio, are two recent examples. These two monsters were walking red flags with access to firearms and yet, with all of the laws available to adjudicate them ineligible to carry or purchase guns, they continued unabated until the unthinkable. They weren’t stopped.

    In fact, the Parkland murderer was coddled by a school district that pretended a refusal to report crime (thereby suppressing their criminal statistics) was the same thing as reducing crime, and they received federal dollars for it. That murderer’s violent behavior (beating his adoptive mother, sending death threats to fellow students, and putting a gun to another person’s head, to list a few offenses) was so well known, teachers had a backup plan in case he decided to become threatening, and he was searched every morning after arriving at school.


    We didn’t need red flag laws to get either of these individuals before they committed their crimes. According to numerous local reports, had the previous Broward County sheriff performed his duties, case number 18-1958 would not have been able to legally purchase the rifle he used to carry out his evil. From everything reported on the Dayton murderer, it seems barring him from legal purchase or possession of firearms by adjudicating him mentally unfit was entirely possible.

    None of this is to say that nothing can be done. To the contrary: I and others have spoken for some time about the need to ensure that the systems upon which we rely to stop heinous would-be criminals at the point of sale needs to be up-to-date with timely reporting of ineligible, violent cases.

    This problem was pushed into the national spotlight after the horrific murders at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, where an evil prohibited possessor took the lives of 26 innocents and injured 20 others.

    That murderer was convicted of domestic assault during a court-martial and thus ineligible to legally purchase or carry a gun before his spree. Yet because his record was not submitted to the federal database, the National Crime Information Center (NCIC), which is referenced during a background check at the point of sale when purchasing a firearm, he was able to legally purchase firearms.

    The Air Force took responsibility and vowed a lengthy review and to never repeat the error. The Chicago Tribune examined other cases of oversight wherein states and even government agencies failed to forward similar cases to the NCIC.


    (Emphasis added).
     
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  21. Quakes05

    Quakes05 Member+

    Oct 1, 2005
    birthplace of MLS
    #21 Quakes05, Aug 7, 2019
    Last edited: Aug 7, 2019
    on second thought, sorry for the rant, I'm going to keep my politics out of here, I've been all churned up about this for days as we all have, but this isn't the best forum for that, for me.

    Go Quakes
     
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  22. don gagliardi

    don gagliardi Member+

    San Jose Earthquakes
    Feb 28, 2004
    san jose
    Club:
    San Jose Earthquakes
    The Mods have already decreed that this discussion is NOT political.
     
  23. Quakes05

    Quakes05 Member+

    Oct 1, 2005
    birthplace of MLS
    it is for me though, I can't really separate the politics from the problem.
     
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  24. don gagliardi

    don gagliardi Member+

    San Jose Earthquakes
    Feb 28, 2004
    san jose
    Club:
    San Jose Earthquakes
    You and all of our elected officials. :)
     
  25. SoccerMan94043

    SoccerMan94043 Member+

    May 29, 2003
    San Jose
    Club:
    San Jose Earthquakes
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    As I've been traveling to Israel a lot the last 6 months, I think they may have mastered common sense. The problem is common sense can't be used in the US as it's considering profiling.
     
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