Today four innocent lives were taken by an unidentified man with a semi-automatic gun. His rampage started around his home in Rancho Tehama located 150 miles from Sacramento. He then proceeded to go to Rancho Tehama Elementary School where the Principal immediately initiated a lockdown drill. He rammed his car through the fence and gates and entered on foot. He shot one student, and they are currently being treated for their injuries. Later, the police shot and killed the gunman after four lives had already been taken and ten more injured. The police had been notified of the man a few days before by his neighbors who said that he had been shooting many rounds, and threatening them. The police believe this to be a domestic violence issue after he had been involved in multiple beforehand.
Unfortunately, news like this has been reoccuring the past few months. How can we improve our gun laws to stop incidents like these? What else can the government do?
19 comments:
First of all, the police should have investigated the issues that the neighbors raised beforehand which might have prevented the gunman from going on his rampage. Additionally, we are finding that there are systematic failures in steps to obtain a gun. The lack of thorough background checks has created a problem where people who are angry/violent are able to get easy access to guns. If this shooter has been involved in domestic violence before, then there should have been something in his background check that alerted people of his anger prone personality. Even with adequate background checks, there are failures in flagging potentially dangerous people. In the Texas shooting incident that occurred last week, the shooter was kicked out of the military for domestic violence and should have been reported to the FBI; however, the military failed to do so, and he was able to obtain guns. These two incidents show that gun laws are imperfect, and we need to institute checks on the systems in place in addition to creating new, stricter laws.
Unfortunately, I think that it is really difficult to stop this kind of gun violence. I definitely think that there are ways to slightly decrease gun violence in America and increase the safety of its citizens but I think that unless the government completely outlaws guns, horrific incidents like this will never cease. But, of course, this isn't going to happen since our country is one that began on the basis of firearms and really believes in the protection of the right to bear arms.
So with that being said, in response to your question about ways to decrease gun violence, I agree with Natalie in that background checks should be implemented more to make it a more strenuous and prolonged process for anyone to obtain guns. I also believe that everyone who owns a gun or goes through the background check to purchase one should have to take a mandatory training and licensing course. And these courses should also be taken every other year or so in order to renew their gun permits. I also believe that assault rifle bans should be reinstituted because these guns even though many have argued that numbers haven't dropped when this ban was originally placed.
In response to the mass shooting at the church in Texas last week, President Trump tweeted that rather than this being a problem of gun control, it was a "mental health problem at the highest level". I don't particularly agree with President Trump on this but I do agree that it would be beneficial for our country to focus on is better and more accessible mental health treatment just in general and as an extra safety precaution. I don't agree with President Trump's way to viewing gun violence because statistics all show that mental health isn't directly linked to gun violence and that people with mental health disorders are no more likely to cause gun violence than someone "mentally stable". And since stats show that a history of violent behavior is a way better indicator of gun violence than mental illness, we shouldn't focus on restricting gun access to people who have a history of mental illness, rather other aspects such as domestic violence and DUI's should be taken more into account when performing extensive background checks.
Frankly, the first thing I did after hearing this today was look up the race of this guy and wasn’t surprised to see that he was a white male with possible mental illnesses. It rankles me when our government has been so insistent on accusing and associating immigrants and foreigners with violence or domestic terrorism, when acts like this, perpetrated by our OWN citizens, are threatening the core values of our society. How many gun shootings do we need to have in order to prove that times have changed since the formation of the 2nd, and guns aren’t used for self-defence as several people proclaim? Yet, often times these events are downplayed, and I think Congress, especially the Democrats, have to work to reform gun laws. People with mental illnesses or anger issues should not be able to acquire guns, let alone any weapon for that matter. We need to reform our laws to ensure the background checks are stricter. Building walls and banning Muslims and trash talking other countries is not a pressing issue. We look like chickens if we can’t face the issue at hand, especially if lives are at risk.
Since the police had been notified of the man a few days before, they should have went to his house (or found him another way), in order to figure out if he was an actual danger to society, as stated by his neighbors. First, it needs to be more difficult to get a gun if one has a history of any type of violence or felonies. Second, it should also be more difficult to get a gun if one has a mental illness. I believe that if we follow these two rules, many of the recent mass shootings never would have happened. Some gun laws do requires some sort of background check, but these recent shootings prove that these background checks are not working. We need a new law or system of background checks that make it very difficult, or impossible, for people who are mentally ill or have committed crimes to buy a gun. However, even with these new laws, these people are going to find a way to get the guns legally, or more likely, illegally, and end up carrying out these shootings anyways. I believe gun laws should be the most important topic in government right now, since we have had so many shootings recently/
As opposed to Julia, who thinks its hards if not impossible to stop gun violence, I believe it is quite easy. Ban automatic, and large magazine guns. Prevent violent or mentally unstable people from acquiring such hardware. Legislation such as this however will be very hard to get though because of the money made off these shootings. Armament companies and weapons manufacturers profit off the sales of guns. The more guns sold, the more profit. So with the NRA there is a hard backing to not ban gun. They claim it is to protect second amendment rights, and fear monger to convince the government is out to get the guns so they can take over the people. But in reality it is to make money. So even though a wide scale banning of automatic weapons and heavily increased background checks would reduce shootings, it would decrease profits, and time and time again america have proven profit before justice.
The shooter was on parole. This simply shows that creating stricter gun laws is a complete waste of time because our current ones aren't even enforced. Just like the Texas shooter, this guy should have never been able to buy a gun. Our background checks are a joke.
Additionally, this brings into question what the ATF and FBI actually do with their time and money. This guy was threatening his neighbors with violence and guns and yet no action was taken. Maybe we should stop busting druggies and escorts and instead go after crimes that actually hurt people.
And before I see yet another ORIGINAL comment that gun control and background checks needs to be strengthened, remember that criminals do not follow laws. "Strengthening" existing gun laws like banning automatic weapons and imposing restrictions on weapon modifications would only strip law-abiding citizens of these guns while criminals would still have access.
The gun control ship has long sailed. People still think we're having a debate on gun control, but it is really over. In Scotland, someone killed 16 kids with a gun - the UK banned guns. In Australia, the Port Arthur massacre happened six weeks later, and they also banned guns. Here in the USA, before the Las Vegas shooting, Texas shooting, and the one that just happened here in California, Adam Lanza killed 20 kids at an elementary school. Yet since then, gun laws have gotten weaker on the federal level. If gun regulation was really going to go anywhere in America, a bunch of kids getting massacred should have been the catalyst, as that is probably one of the most horrifying crimes ever committed in the United States. Yet nothing happened, and opposition towards gun control is always louder than and more determined than the voices for gun control. So regardless of whatever side you're on, the political reality is that nothing drastic will be done.
Again, after every mass shooting or act of violence, people still advocate for more and more gun control. This shooting happened in California, right? And California has the strictest gun control in the nation, yet two acts of violence happened: San Bernardino and this. The gun control we have does absolutely nothing, as bad guys, including those that are mentally ill like the shooter was, do not follow the rules. There is a reason why black markets exist. It's simple economics that when you make something harder to obtain, the black market for that item gets bigger and ultimately, it actually becomes easier for someone to obtain it illegally (cough cough prohibition in the 1920s). To add on to Josh's examples, Russia banned guns, yet its homicide rate is 3 times higher than in the US. There have been multiple mass murders in Russia, you could probably google "Mass Murders in Russia" and there are many examples to choose from.
What it seems like everyone here on this blog is wanting them to deal with symptoms, that is the guns. Guns cannot kill by themselves; it takes one person to pull the trigger and cause violence. Deal with the root of the problem, that is mental health and illness. That aspect has been overlooked for a long time and it needs to be dealt with. The government needs to research ways to better identify and deal with mentally ill people.
For all the people claiming for stricter gun control, can you tell me what stricter gun control has accomplished? Because all I see with stricter gun control is that we get too many tragedies.
It is rather difficult to bring an complete end to events like this in the United States while it is so easy to purchase and own a firearm. without infringing on what most people believe the second amendment entails, there are few laws that can be passed that will make a difference in decreasing gun violence and senseless attacks like these.
Guns should not be in the hands of your every day civilian. Mental health or not, a normal person could snap and cause lots of damage if they have access to guns. Gun control laws should not be diminished just because the criminals wouldn't follow them anyways. Why have laws against running red lights if the people who wouldn't follow them break the law regardless? We have such restrictions in place because they work. Despite likely being impossible to pass, I believe a law that completely bans any firearm from entering the hands of a civilian should go through. People may argue that guns are used for recreation and should not have that right infringed. People drink and drive, inject themselves with drugs, and other heinous acts for fun, should we allow that too?
How often does this have to happen before we finally do something? It seems like there is a large scale shooting every week now. After Las Vegas, they were going to ban bump-stocks. After, the Texas church shooting, which was just last week, everyone was concerned about mental health. Nothing will ever get done; every time one of these shootings happens, we are understandably outraged and yet we never do anything to try to solve the problem. Clearly whatever we are doing now is NOT working. 60% of Americans believe that we need harsher gun control laws, I personally agree with them. Statistically states with stricter gun control laws have less gun deaths (relative to the population). Clearly we have a problem, and any logical nation would at least try so solve it but instead we just sit and wait for it to solve itself.
The headlines of someone going somewhere and shooting everyone shouldn't be something we get used to and its whats happening now. If a shooting happened just a couple years ago it would have been much more surprising than if another one occurred tomorrow, we've gotten to the point where our response isn't "how sad" but more along the lines of "what else is new". People need to stop coming up with excuses for this, they need to act and implement harsher gun laws because not just anyone with a pulse should be able to own a gun. Restrictions need to take place, have strict regulations for who can buy them and who cant, how many guns a person can own, and what type of guns they can own. This needs to happen now or things will keep getting worse.
I'm confused to as why the policy overlooked the warning that the neighbor had first brought up, especially if it was considered as a domestic violence issue. Domestic violence shouldn't be taken lightly as lives can also be lost/damaged (trauma). I believe the police should've acted upon that case and investigate his motives and sanity state. If the police was more thorough, I think a case like this might've been prevented. That said, gun violence in general is a hard general topic to stop, due to many households owning at least one gun. However, this shouldn't stop the government from making more efficient and thorough background checks.
I am a strong supporter of strict gun control, and believe that more shootings like this are proof that stricter laws are needed. I think in order to get a gun, a person should be made to go to instructional classes and have required courses taken before being given a gun, perhaps along with a test like when getting a driver's license. It pains me to see that after so much senseless gun violence, people are still fighting stricter gun control.
In this situation, I agree with Natalie in that I also believe more should have been beforehand, especially with the man's neighbor's concerns. I also agree with Tilman in the sense that I think dangerous weapons should be banned, and mentally unstable people barred from acquiring them especially.
I know that many people argue that as Americans, we have the right to bear arms, as per our second amendment rights. However, I am one of the people who believes that was meant to apply to the States' right to form militias, not the freedom to own as many guns one wants with no regulation. I also believe that if that really were the Founder's intent, it should still be revised today. In the 1700s, firearms were difficult to use, even to load, and were not very accurate. Today, one person with a gun can slaughter countless people in minutes. Just look at the Orlando and Las Vegas shootings for proof. The Founders could never have predicted this. Our country and its population are ever-changing, and corresponding changes must be made to our laws to keep up with the times, and in this, the advance of dangerous weapons.
How many more deaths and injuries will it take for the government to DO something? Stories like these are occurring more often, and are getting overlooked like they are insignificant. It is no surprise to me that the shooter is described as a white male with mental illness. What is alarming to me is that the police were notified prior to the shooting that this man was being disruptive and threatening to others and nothing was done. We call the police and ask for their help and protection when we need them the most, and knowing that children's lives could have been saved if the police did a little more investigating is alarming to me. Like Justin said, maybe the guns aren't the problem anymore and mental illness should be looked at in greater consideration because obviously, 'strengthening' our gun laws have done nothing, and the current background check system is essentially meaningless. In a week or a month from today, it's sad to say that it will not be a surprise to see another tragedy like this happen if nothing drastic happens.
Incidents like this keep happening, yet nothing is being changed. Mental illness is a problem and needs to be addressed, and at the same time back ground checks need to be stricter. Like witnesses said after the Vegas shooting, that before the shooting they did not feel the need for stricter laws until a near death experience changed their minds. It should not take a near death experience to change minds and realize how dangerous a mentally ill person with a gun is, it just needs to happen now before large numbers of people dying from a mass shooting becomes normal to America's daily news.
Acts like these are terrible, and the lack of attention on these subjects is even worse. Without proper background checks our nation will continue to have these incidents happen as the trend over the years has shown that these mass shootings are only getting worse. I don't believe the guns are the issue, the people being allowed to buy these guns and our policies surrounding gun control are the real issues. It is not as easy as simply banning guns as our conservative counterparts will strike that down, in order to make a change there must simply be a crackdown on who is able to purchase these weapons.
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