Comments on: On the Highland Park shooter and red flag laws

By: Barry Meislin

Barry Meislin — Sun, 10 Jul 2022 07:29:13 +0000

Seems to me that the father is certainly complicit.
He HAD to know that his son had tremendous problems—threats, violence, a whole arsenal of knives confiscated.
The question is, does such behavior translate into becoming a mass murderer (and it could well have been far worse if he had got to Madison, WI)?
Well, if it doesn’t then WHAT DOES??
And so, something is very, very screwy here—ESPECIALLY since the father denies any and all responsibility for the event.
(Not that I usually advise people what to do…but he should have expressed deep remorse—or if not remorse then regret—and otherwise remained silent.)
Very screwy.

By: Mike-SMO

Mike-SMO — Sun, 10 Jul 2022 07:04:22 +0000

The father signed for the guns. He is fully responsible. He facilitated the murders and is fully responsible. Without the father’s involvement, the murders would most likely not have happened. Prosecute the Bastard.

Is that simple enough?

By: neo

neo — Sat, 09 Jul 2022 19:50:36 +0000

Richard Aubrey: It did happen.

By: Richard Aubrey

Richard Aubrey — Sat, 09 Jul 2022 13:52:27 +0000

What’s a weapon? To reduce things, I spent a lot of time in the dojo learning to be a weapon all by myself.
The fascination with the AR15 is, I submit, a result of the drooling, incontinent horror with which it is described or how it is referred to. When some chump who doesn’t know from guns wants something slightly less deadly than an atomic bomb…he goes to the Thing which gets all the free advertising.
But these are not gun crimes, they’re crimes in which the murderer chose to use a gun. Without a gun…he takes up knitting?
Suppose the Uvalde shooter had not been able to get a gun. A two-liter Pepsi jug full of gasoline and with a cherry bomb attached pitched into a class room will do the job. And it’s less obvious in its carrying and its procuring right up until the last. And if a Pepsi bottle full of gasoline is suspicious, why not one of those two gallon cans you get to keep your lawnmower fueled?
When working with our church security team, I was concerned about the less than murderous. Some fourteen year old with a deficient impulse control pitches four Gopher Gassers into the sanctuary and how many are trampled to death?.

What concerns me is that, fifty years ago, with, even then, a surfeit of guns, this sort of thing didn’t happen. What’s changed?

By: Inactivist

Inactivist — Fri, 08 Jul 2022 04:01:53 +0000

Kate – Dave L stated that it’s very rare for the Feds to prosecute anyone for being untruthful on any part of the ATF form 4473. He also mentioned trouble with straw purchasers only after the gun is used in a crime.

Unfortunately, the form has no checks or balances to see if a statement is true – mostly the forms end up being used as a “gotcha” once the firearm has been used in an illegal manner – just another law broken that can be added to a litany of charges, after the fact. Also, a throw-away charge so the prosecutor has more leverage to make a deal with.

Nonetheless, stating he purchased the guns legally is a mistake, accidental or intentional, that is used by Brady and Giffords (among others) to say we need yet more laws that the lawless will also disregard.

By: om

om — Thu, 07 Jul 2022 20:09:53 +0000

Occam’s razor says neo knows the most likely reason for capital cases taking so long.

Something about the purpose of a defense attorney comes to mind …..

By: MBunge

MBunge — Thu, 07 Jul 2022 19:57:25 +0000

“Capital cases have for a very long time been known to take a long time, for the most part, to play out in the legal system with appeals and stays and that sort of thing.”

Capital cases will take longer than others but the reason they last quite so long in the U.S. is a deliberate lawfare effort to exploit every possible delay even when it comes to undeniably guilty and culpable people.

Mike

By: neo

neo — Thu, 07 Jul 2022 19:50:23 +0000

John Tyler: The issue with capital cases isn't ordinarily whether the perp did it, although that sometimes is in doubt. But with mass murders it's rarely in doubt. The issues have to do with their mental state, their trial procedures, and that sort of thing. Capital cases have for a very long time been known to take a long time, for the most part, to play out in the legal system with appeals and stays and that sort of thing. It makes sense, because the state's killing someone (as opposed to incarceration for life) is a very big step. Take a look at this article, for example, about Tsarnaev's case.

By: neo

neo — Thu, 07 Jul 2022 19:44:14 +0000

Garrett Crawford:

Depends what you call “high users,” and whether they use those things more than the general population of young men their age. Also, correlation is definitely not causation. That troubled young men might be given SSRIs and also might be drawn to pot-smoking doesn’t mean those things cause their behavior. It might, but it’s very hard to design research that can tease out whether there is causation there.

By: Garrett Crawford

Garrett Crawford — Thu, 07 Jul 2022 17:59:31 +0000

Some relevant questions: What % of mass murderers are frequent pot users? What percent on SSRIs? Both drugs? Applying the same questions to that group that is always swept under the rug, Gang related shooters, would be revealing. I imagine both groups are high users of both pot and SSRIs.