Omaha Mall Shooting

[VR43000GT]

So far, 9 people dead, 3 in critical condition, and 1 wounded still in the hospital. The mall is less than a mile down the street from me. I was actually just leaving to go there to get my haircut there and my brother called me and told me what was going on as he knows I go there often to the food court, to get my haircuts and whatever else. He had a friend who was in there when it happend who called him from inside. Which gave him the idea to call me to make sure I wan't there. Which thankfully, I wan't, but would have been in about 5-10 mintues. They are calling it the worst shooting in Nebraska ever.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/20...nt_7206758.htm

[Oz]

Another dozen people have died senselessly and America doesn't need to reform the gun laws, yet again.

[jon@af]

I hate the world we live in. I hate it more and more every day because of shit like this - another piece of human shit that takes his anger out on someone else because he was the one with the problem. Good riddance to him, though it is so unfortunate that he couldn't be the only person to die.

[BNaylor]

Really sad!

Nothing but a mentally disturbed home grown American psychopathic terrorist. America's troubled youth. IMO not a gun control issue and hopefully this thread doesn't go off track harping on the issue.

[YogsVR4]

Originally Posted by Oz

Another dozen people have died senselessly and America doesn't need to reform the gun laws, yet again.

Nope - there is no need to reform the laws. Enforce the existing ones, yes, but not reform them. The guy had a felony conviction and there are already laws on the books that make it illegal for a felon to own a firearm. Short of going ghestapo and tracking down the three hundred million guns in the country there going to be there for other criminals to provide.

They need to find where he got his weapon and if it was given/sold to him, then that person needs to be held responsible for at least nine murders.

My prayers go to the families.

[Toksin]

Call me lazy for not googling it, but what do you have to go through to get a gun in the US?

[jon@af]

I'm pretty sure, and someone correct me if I'm wrong that all you need is:

-to be at least 18
-to have a FOID card (takes about 2 weeks, requires background check, I believe)
-to submit for purchase of the firearm and subsequently submit yourself to another background check (I think)
-After the waiting period, you have a gun.

OR

You get it from some guy's trunk or you steal it from someone you know.

[GForce957]

Originally Posted by J_Swigz

I'm pretty sure, and someone correct me if I'm wrong that all you need is:

-to be at least 18
-to have a FOID card (takes about 2 weeks, requires background check, I believe)
-to submit for purchase of the firearm and subsequently submit yourself to another background check (I think)
-After the waiting period, you have a gun.

OR

You get it from some guy's trunk or you steal it from someone you know.

Isn't that just for a rifle/shotgun tho? I haven't looked at it for a while, but I thought you had to be 21 for a handgun.

[VR43000GT]

Yeah you have to be 21 for a handgun I believe. In fact, don't you have to be 21 to buy any rifle?

[kublah]

Right now they're saying they think he stole the gun from his stepfather. If it turns out that this is true, the stepfather has to be responsible at least to some degree. And if our gun laws don't need changing, our attitude about responsibile ownership and ability to keep them out of the hands of people who are not mentally fit to posess them certainly do.

All I know is Al Qaeda certainly isn't the scariest thing out there anymore, if it ever actually was. Recently more people have been killed in this country by the guns of stupid Americans in malls and schools than by any foreign idealist. I think we've always known that America is good at turning out murderous lunatics, it just seems like we've recently turned it into an art.

The motivations seem to remain the same though. This guy left a suicide note that said "Now I'll be famous", which is basically the same reason John Lennon and lots of other people were killed. The Virginia Tech guy supposedly felt tormented and outcast by society, which also isn't anything we haven't seen before. So nobody has any new ideas, they're just getting better at being more shocking about it. We don't shoot from the top of belltowers with long range rifles anymore, it's up close and personal with automatic weapons.

The only thing that all of these people have in common is that they are certainly mentally ill, and until we can figure out a way to identify and help these people instead of selling them guns and intensifying them, I don't think there will be a solution for this.

[Muscletang]

Yes this is a gun issue and not something bigger at hand

Christ how fucking stupid do you have to be? The kid wrote a note saying he wanted to "go out in style" in his suicide. Could this shooting, the VT shooting, and others be problems of our violent society that we see in the media and the lack of parenting that is going on?

Oh, fuck no, it's those damn guns.

I'll just quote a good friend of mine, who is as liberal as they come so don't say he's a right wing wacko.

I saw we make gun laws as lax as possible. Think about it, if half the kids in the classrooms had a gun, the VT shooting would not have gotten as far as it had gotten. The kid walks into a class and opens fire, three or four kids shoot back. Problem solved. You want to know why people don't go psycho in Switzerland? Everybody and their dog has a gun. If you decide to go on a shooting rampage you have to think, "I'll be able to shoot one, maybe two, people before several others open fire. Is it worth it?" People in this country wouldn't go flashing their guns so much if they knew most people were packing and wouldn't think twice about laying their ass out if they wanted to fuck around.

[ericn1300]

Ineligible Persons

The following classes of people are ineligible to possess, receive, ship, or transport firearms or ammunition:

Those convicted of crimes punishable by imprisonment for over one year, except state misdemeanors punishable by two years or less.

Fugitives from justice.

Unlawful users of certain depressant, narcotic, or stimulant drugs.

Those adjudicated as mental defectives or incompetents or those committed to any mental institution.

Illegal aliens.

Citizens who have renounced their citizenship.

Those persons dishonorably discharged from the Armed Forces.

Persons less than 18 years of age for the purchase of a shotgun or rifle.

Persons less than 21 years of age for the purchase of a firearm that is other than a shotgun or rifle.

Persons subject to a court order that restrains such persons from harassing, stalking, or threatening an intimate partner.

Persons convicted in any court of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence.

more info here: http://www.nraila.org/GunLaws/Federal/Read.aspx?id=60

[2strokebloke]

Musclestang, your friend might have thought he was smart to note such a thing - but it's also a completely asinine comparison to make. It completely negates all other variable to take into consideration. Bluntly, Switzerland is not the United States. The Swiss are not Americans, their culture and society, politics, and just about everything else that could have even the slightest effect on how people operate is different. Their schools are different, their economy is different.
I've heard the "if everybody had a gun" spiel before, and never once had anybody back it up with even the slightest shred of proof or fact, just speculation - but further to draw a comparison blatantly ignoring all other possible factors and influences - it's just plain retarded.

Regardless, I do think the problem has much more to do with Society and not with gun laws. The guns, and gun laws have been around for a long time, but it's only been the past decade or so these things have begun to happen frequently.

Perhaps your friend may have been wiser to state, that instead of relaxing gun laws, we should just replace trigger happy, angsty Americans, with quiet, reserved, neutral Swiss...

[Oz]

I saw we make gun laws as lax as possible. Think about it, if half the kids in the classrooms had a gun, the VT shooting would not have gotten as far as it had gotten. The kid walks into a class and opens fire, three or four kids shoot back. Problem solved. You want to know why people don't go psycho in Switzerland? Everybody and their dog has a gun. If you decide to go on a shooting rampage you have to think, "I'll be able to shoot one, maybe two, people before several others open fire. Is it worth it?" People in this country wouldn't go flashing their guns so much if they knew most people were packing and wouldn't think twice about laying their ass out if they wanted to fuck around.

Originally Posted by Muscletang

problems of our violent society that we see in the media.

You want your society to be LESS violent. Having everyone carrying a lethal weapon is a BRILLIANT way to do it. That's a GREAT way to have a LESS VIOLENT SOCIETY. You must be an completely bonkers.

[Toksin]

Obviously he hasn't thought too much about the effects of a classroom full of students shooting at a guy and the bullets bouncing around.