What law would have prevented the AZ shooting?

So some of you folks are suggesting that secrecy is a solution to some of these problems? You could probably find some good advisors from Germany or North Korea, maybe even China (a preferred trading partner). In other words, we just keep these things hushed up.
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Sorry but you are not seeing the problem. A great many of these mass murderers carry out their attacks specifically because they have seen the "immortality" that was gained but the nuts who have gone before them. I saw the Virginia Tech shooter's picture on the cover of a book yesterday at Borders and know that:

1. If I believed in an afterlife he would be laughing.
2. Living nuts are seeing his picture and realizing he got what he wanted.

These sociopaths desperately need to be seen and heard. Without all the publicity many of them would simply be another nut who swallowed a bullet at home and alone with a letter or manifesto left behind. Now they know their writings and rantings will get placed on every news stand, highlighted on every news broadcast and if they are really "lucky" made into a TV movie!

Report the facts. Report who was shot and where. Perhaps give a name. Any publishing or reading/describing their manifestos beyond dedicated subject texts ought to be banned. Any publishing of their faces on periodicals should be banned.

All out COTUS rights have limitations. You cannot shout fire in a crowded theater. The media should also not be allowed to participate in their very profitable casual contract with these sociopaths by giving them exactly what they want in return for providing the maximum murder and mayhem, fueling the media's circulation and revenue.

You cannot stop these lunatics from killing scores of people but you can remove the incentive to do so. That is a law which could help.
 
Laws only affect the law abiding, BT. Making more stuff illegal won't stop folks intent on Murder. That's about as illegal as it gets, and that won't deter the murderer from any lesser law breaking. Making more laws won't have any effect whatsoever on stuff like this.
 
If his intention was to purchase a handgun and at least two 30 round magazines with the intended purpose of commiting cold blooded murder, but filled out a federal form expressing his intention to NOT commit murder - then he obtained the gun illegally. There is still nothing to protect the public from his murderous intentions, but it sure would be nice to turn on the TV and see the talking heads actually recognize that this was the first law broken in the crazy crime spree, instead of hyperventilating about how a disturbed individual was somehow able to easily purchase a firearm legally.
 
Banning free speech is not a good way to go. This situation has three possible infringements on rights.

1. Gun rights
2. Free speech
3. Ratcheting up governmental action against mental disorders with an uknown efficacy and a scary borderline for action.

We might argue for good taste and civility be implemented by people of good will. That won't happen.

Loonies of every political ilk will blather. It will inflame many.

Blame capitalism because the media makes money on sensationalism. Thus profits should be banned?

Ban sports that are violent, movie, crazy preachers - We just have to grin and bear it as a price of various liberties.

If you banned the reporting of the crimes, say good bye to the gun press as images inflame folks. I was told that when they had gun magazines like Guns and Ammo in England their covers were censored as violence provoking.
 
A law banning live/public appearances by politicians would've prevented this particular tragedy since that law would control the actions of a sane, presumably law-abiding person. Laws designed to control the actions of less-sane, less-law-abiding persons are unlikely to be very successful, IMO.
 
You can't think of a law because there isn't one ... McCarthy's proposal would once again outlaw large capacity magazines, since the idiot shooter used a 30-rd? 33-rd? mag in his Glock ... Incidently, a conservative column I get in my email pointed out that Wash DC with one of the nation's strictest gun laws, had 131 gun deaths last year. Tucson, a city of similar size in a state with few gun laws, had only 51. Food for thought ...
 
Funny thing...

... I was at my LGS yesterday, and the store owner there was trying to tell people he DID NOT anticipate a ban.

But, if I understood him right, all his extended Glock mags sold out in one day, anyway.
 
Already some gun dealers are beating the drum of banning the extended mags. Get them now before the ban - here's the UN.
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We were completely sold out of the 33-rounders by Sunday afternoon. I suppose this was to be expected.

Several people remarked that they found it odd we hadn't raised prices. Fact is, our cost isn't going up, so there's no reason for the price to go up.

OTOH, I'm to understand that there was at least one guy at the local gun show Sunday charging $80 under the pretense that they'd soon be banned.

Honestly? A ban on high-capacity magazines sounds suspiciously like a little law we had from 1994-2004, and many politicians, regardless of inclination, remember the political fallout from it. I'm aware that Carolyn McCarthy has plans to introduce such a bill, but I'm also aware that this isn't 1995. It won't even get through committee.
 
I can't think of any constitutionaly kosher laws that would have done a single thing to prevent this. This is the price of living in a free society. Deal with it or move.
 
In my opinion no law will ever prevent a criminal from committing a crime. No restriction will ever prevent someone from obtaining a fire arm if that person really wants one.

If a name is placed on a list, shouted from the roof tops, and broadcast over the news media, telling everyone everywhere that a certain person is not allowed to purchase, own, possess or touch a fire arm, he or she will still have one if they wish to have one. No matter how crazy they are or how illegal they are.

We only need to look to the war on drugs. Marijuana was banned in 1937. Yet it can be readily purchased across the country. If the government bans guns, someone will sell guns illegally just as they now sell drugs. And the illicit dealers will not care how crazy a person might be, nor will they use back ground checks.

Laws punish crimes, they do not prevent crimes.
 
I can't think of any constitutionaly kosher laws that would have done a single thing to prevent this. This is the price of living in a free society. Deal with it or move.
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I looked at your location (NYC), and see you have decided to just deal with it.....
 
Laws involving penalties for negative acts tend to be viewed an punative, not preventative. Those fearing punishment will abide by them much of the time. Those not fearing punishment won't care at all.

I see it as being situationally like dealing with a suicide bomber/attacker. The person has already resigned him/herself to the consquences and so there is no punative argument that will keep them from their task.

In this particular case, the suicide bomber/attacker senario may be a very good fit. At least from what I have read, the shooter didn't appear to have any means of escape that was immediately available. So maybe he may have planned on dying there. Being tackled and suviving would not have been in his plans....- conjecture on my part, based on how I perceive the situation from the information I have.

No law will stop a person who wants to break it and who doesn't expect to be around to be convicted for the transgression.
 
Sorry, I was referring to the handgun ban in the UK. It is a good point to mention that the disturbed person will try substitution.

The UK case is made as a succesful example for handgun controls in rampages but certainly not in crime statistics.
 
Double Naught Spy,

The laws can have the opposite effect of their intent as well.

Look at child molestation laws which now track pedophiles, enhance sentences, and send them away for long periods of time.

They used to offend, get caught, go to jail, get out, re-offend, get caught, etc. etc. ad nauseum. It wasn't the best system but it worked.

Now, with all of these enhancements, they can't permit any witnesses to live so they kill the kids. It didn't used to be that way. The unintended consequences of the law have caused great damage. They don't want to go to jail so they try to eliminate the witness. The incidence of child killings is on the rise and has been for several years.

There has to be a fine line drawn which delineates the punishment for the crime which does not cause the offender to commit further, or more heinous crimes. If the punishment fits the crime, most offenders are willing to accept their punishment. Once the punishment exceeds that threshold, the offender starts to conjure the means to avoid that enhanced punishment which usually means committing a more serious crime.

So how do we get to a point where this type of crime, which occurred Saturday, will not occur at all? We can't. It will always happen. This time it happened to a congressperson; but next time it could be a member of a biker gang or a housewife.

Taking firearms would only change behavior such as it has in Britain. They outlawed firearms so knife crimes came to the fore. They outlawed knives so striking weapons came to the fore. Now, they simply call everything "offensive weapons"; and that definition is up to whoever happens to be standing there. Do not deign to defend yourself with your umbrella as it then becomes an "offensive weapon". They have simply done away with the term "defensive weapon".

Laws have to be balanced very carefully. Once they go out of balance, usually due to the desire of politicians to show they are "doing something", the unintended consequences rear their ugly head. That is when good law, or laws passed with good intentions, go very bad.
 
I had this exact discussion with a co-worker today.

Yes maybe there are laws that would have prevented this from happneing.

But in a free country this kind of thing is going to happen

Freedom is not always pretty, sometimes it's messy, sometimes it's bloody and yes, tragically, sometimes it's deadly.

Oh, and by the way. Murder is already illegal. End of story
 
What kind of law would have prevented this? No gun law ever written would have stopped this tragedy. Prohibition-type laws don't work. They didn't work with alcohol, they are not working with drugs, and they won't work with guns.

Having said that, prior to a court decision in the 1970's, it was much easier to force somebody with such bizzare behavior to get mental treatment. In the 1970's, the courts decided that locking some nutjob up in a mental health facility was unconstitutional unless said nut was shown to be a danger to others or himself! The proble with that is that we often don't know that the person is a danger until something like this happens. Then, it is too late. On the other hand, given the mindset of some leftists, if it were easier to lock somebody up for being crazy, a lot of us might be forced into rubber rooms just because the leftists think that libertarians are nuts and evil.

The guy was of legal age. Nobody could make him get help.
 
The condition of irrationality precludes the notion that cause/effect, actions/consequences have a relationship in the mind of the actor. The irrational actor doesn't form these associations in a logical manner (you can observe this in his Youtube rantings), so a person like this isn't going to be in the least dissuaded by what would seem to him a peculiar if not absurd concept. He might acknowledge that there are laws, but feels that they either don't apply to him or are insignificant. You can pass a million such laws, but the irrational person will give them no credence and will not modify his behavior in any way to conform to them. If anything, he will take delight in breaking them, and thus (in his world, at least), confirming to the world their irrelevance/insignificance.
 
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