I do not see your point.
I'll distill it down for you: if it is really your assertion that the issue with the Orlando shooting is "how easy it is to get firearms," you are wrong. Easy firearm purchase has nothing whatsoever to do with it, and changes nothing.
Do you need an automatic rifle?
Who said anything about an automatic rifle?
(1) The rifle he used was not an automatic.
(2) Automatic rifles are EXTREMELY difficult to legally buy in the United States. To purchase one requires a special tax stamp that involves a 6+ month wait and additional (above and beyond the normal NICS check) ATF examination of the application, and this special case paperwork is also VERY expensive.
If it is your assertion that "automatic rifles" are "easy" to legally purchase in the US, again, I will state, and I do mean this as respectfully as possible, that you do not have actual FACTS about firearms law in this country.
(3) I did not think my individual rights were enumerated in the US Constitution as the "Bill of Needs." I am not morally required to justify my "need" to own any piece of private property any more than I'd be morally justified to show my need to attend the church of my choice or wish for an attorney to represent me if accused of a crime.
How 'bout conservative platitudes?
So, what conservative platitudes did I use? I mentioned FACTS. It's really quite simple...the 'talking points' being thrown about in the pop press, especially those used by politicians, regarding firearms are NOT FACTUAL.
You could keep it friendly.
Here's the thing with that. I'm way past keeping it friendly when lies are passed on as truth. The truth of the matter is that this incident had NOTHING to do with firearms, and many, many other mass murders had nothing to do with firearms.
The use of an incident like this for political purposes, to (a) further gun control and (b) vilify tens of millions of gun owners who have committed NO crime is repulsive, dishonest and illogical.
I'll tell you what...when Statist politicians and their sycophantic followers lay off trying to infringe on my individual, natural rights (including freedom of speech and due process as well as in regard to firearm ownership), maybe then I'll get back to "keeping it friendly."
As you ask me to keep it friendly, do you realize that the lives of gun owners are threatened daily online by anti-gun zealots? I'm most certainly not accusing you of doing that, but while I do get a little "heated" in discussing this, I have threatened no one and will not do so...directly or implied.
But, I hope you can understand that the vitriol leveled in my direction, as a gun owner, as a white man, as a Christian and as a Conservative has me, as I said, a little past TOO much concern about 'keeping it friendly.' At this stage, I'm far more concerned with "truth" than I am friendliness.
Oh, you challenge me about purchasing firearms? Is that meant to be intimidating, or just macho bullsh!t?
Not at all. It was an honest query to see if you really know what is involved in buying a firearm in this country. You are the one that said it was 'easy,' and I am challenging you to show how easy it was for you vs just repeating some BS lie Obama told last year (or whenever).
And, while we are at it, let's define "easy." What exactly does that mean to you? Is it easier to buy a gun or a car? Is it easier to buy 10 gallons of gasoline (which could be used, as it has been, to murder gay people in a bar fire) or a firearm? Is it easier to buy a knife (as was reported today to have been used in France on a Ramadan attack on a young woman who was intended to be a 'sacrifice') or firearm?
Mass murders (as defined by the government) have been committed with cars, gasoline and knives...all of which are easier to purchase than guns. Yet for some bizarre reason when such occurs, we don't get a week of angst about regulating cars, gasoline or knives when that happens.
And as I said, 9/11 attack was perpetrated without a single firearm...yet I can still buy box cutters (no permit, no background check) and still fly on jets.
Such inconsistency is puzzling.
How interesting your argument immediately becomes based upon your personal knowledge of me.
I don't really know that much about you. I simply asked if you had personal knowledge about how "easy" it is to purchase a firearm. I don't even know what state you are in, which would impact your answer to that since different states have different laws.
These are the questions that need answering: When did this killer buy his weapon? How quickly did this person come to own it?
What POSSIBLE difference does that make? That makes no sense whatsoever.
Get your focus off the gun(s). It simply does not matter when he got it, how he got it, where he got it or what kind it was.
Attacks like this have been perpetrated with legally just-bought guns, illegally just-bought guns, stolen guns, guns that have been owned for decades, and all other ways.
None of that changes the basic fact: an a***ole used A WEAPON to kill people. They'd be no less dead than if he set the place on fire or rammed his car through the building. They'd be no less dead if he just bought the guns, got them from work, stole them from a cop car (it happens!) or, like the Sandy Hook killer, committed a murder to steal the guns.
Had not the FBI investigated and interviewed this person, as you may have pointed out, yet he was able to purchase this weapon?
I'm not following this point.
He passed the NICS checks for any firearms he bought. That means that AFTER the FBI investigated him for whatever they investigated him for (twice!), they did not enter him into the system as a flagged person.
Would it have mattered?
Probably not.
The dirty little secret about NICS is that it is a colossal waste of money. It has been estimated that somewhere around 90-97% of 'positives' flagged by NICS are 'false positives' on honest people, AND that in over 70,000 "felon hits" a few years ago, the government only prosecuted 13 (thirteen) cases. A multi-million dollar system put in place to catch felons trying to buy guns netted 13 convictions in an entire year.
Pretty much all NICS does is inconvenience law abiding citizens that are NOT prohibited persons (by the governments definition) until they can clear up their false positive.
So, there you have "Background Checks." The government decides who goes on the list, and this "terrorist" was investigated for something by the FBI not once but twice, and he did not get on the list. Yet hundreds of thousands of regular Joes get ON the list falsely each year. That's why BG checks, such as NICS, are useless.
Said another way...NICS did not stop this guy from murdering people.
In addition, he was a LICENSED security "operator" and had access to firearms as part of his job. This is ANOTHER reason why 'where he got them' and all that is immaterial. He had access to them, just like EVERYONE that wants to do something like this has access to them somehow, some way, even if they make their is (ie, 'total bans' won't work...the technology exists and they are not THAT hard to make...).
I'm naive?
I just re-read my post to see if I called you that and did not see it. So, I'm wondering if that's a question you are asking me now to address.
I don't think you are naive. I do, however, think you believe some things that are verifiably untrue. These things are satisfying to believe, but that does not make them true.
Factually, firearms are not really "easy" to purchase in the US, and automatic ones (which is irrelevant since no automatic firearm was used in this case) even harder. But all that is a diversion anyway. The real issue is not the firearm(s) the bad guy had, but rather the LACK of firearms the victims had.
You may not like guns, and that's cool. But, they exist, and bad guys use them to do bad things. The problem with ALL the suggestions ALL the politicians are talking about by making the guns the issue here is that anything they "do" will ONLY effect you, me, Indy, etc...and not the type of a-hole that would walk into a bar and kill 50 people...with whatever weapon he chooses.
The whole "he used a gun" thing is a deflection. I don't even care to get into the "He was a Muslim" thing. The ONLY thing that matters, ultimately and deep down, is that I want a chance....I want a CHANCE to defend myself, my wife and my children if, God forbid, some sh1thead happens to do something like this where WE are at any given moment.
It is personally repulsive to me at a very limbic level that my life, and the lives of my family, could be sacrificed on the alter of "politics" because some power hungry narcissist thinks climbing on the bodies of the dead to shout the evils of guns is the quickest way to personal fame.
The Pulse Club victims' families have not even had a chance to grieve yet, and yet those victims are being forgotten in the rhetoric of blaming the gun for the actions of a human being. Rationally, it makes no sense to focus on the gun, because OTHER WEAPONS have been, and are routinely used for similar attacks. It's all just nonsense...insulting, repugnant nonsense.
I don't see you being condescending? You have questions for me, well I have questions for you as you can see. Me love you long time but sometimes you are long-winded and haughty.
Ask away, and guilty as charged on the long winded thing...even though it's 'typing.' I touch type rather fast, so it just flows with the thoughts sometimes.
