By Brandon via concealednation.org
The firearm used in yesterday’s horrific shooting was purchased legally by the gunman after he passed a federal background check. ABC News reported late last night: “The ATF says the disgruntled former reporter who killed a television reporter and a cameraman legally purchased the gun. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives spokesman Thomas Faison said Vester Lee Flanagan legally bought the gun used to kill Alison Parker and Adam Ward. They were doing a live broadcast Wednesday morning when they were shot to death.” . . .
In his manifesto, the gunman mentioned that he placed his deposit for the GLOCK 19 two days after the Charleston shooting. He specifically mentions that shooting as the tipping point for him to ultimately decide to carry out the acts that he did.
The call for expanded background checks and tighter gun control laws came quickly after yesterday’s incident, but we now know that the background check system failed yet again.
When Hillary Clinton was asked for comment on the shooting, she urged a ‘cool-down’ period for people purchasing firearms. However, that comment was bad timing on her part, as this particular gunman had been planning this for some time. A 2-day ‘cool-down’ period would have had zero impact on the outcome.
We need to stop playing into this game. The goal of every anti is total disarmament and slavery, things like this will just make them screech that if background checks don’t work, obviously we just need to confiscate all guns everywhere. Although, it was nice to see both points Hitlery made be soundly shot down as being totally ineffective. No surprise there.
” The goal of every anti is total disarmament and slavery, things like this will just make them screech that if background checks don’t work”
Well, they don’t work…not in all cases at least…and not in THIS case to be certain. Question is how to acknowledge that while some nuts DO slip through the cracks, that maybe that’s simply the cost of a RKBA?
No, the question is how do we end up with fewer nuts?
Several possible answers:
1.) There are very few nuts so statistically it would be impossible to effect a change to actually reduce them beyond the absurd.
2.) Somewhere someone failed to notice Mr. Krispy and effect a change. From cradle to grave, a change here or there and he’s not a whacko, and doesn’t kill anyone. From his family, to his friends, to his coworkers, teachers, to his doctors, etc, all are culpable. Simply which one holds the most blame? Figure that out and you can start to effect change.
3.) Wouldn’t matter, people like this are broken, or pure evil, and couldn’t be fixed, no matter how many hugs you give them. They are like the divisional remainder of society.
4.) Product of a broken society and slack morals. Fix society and get fewer nuts.
5. When one attacks you, shoot him.
This is going to sound cold, but in the case of this shooting… It’s kind of hard to kill the nutcase when he comes after you when he is standing 3ft away from you and two other people pointing a gun at you for what seems like an eternity and yet you don’t notice him until he starts shooting (find the video and watch it if you don’t know what I am talking about.)
But yes, generally good advice to return fire when evil men insist on coming to find you.
Up until the mid-1960’s, that was pretty much how it worked. Guns were freely available to just about anyone who wanted one, and every once in a while, some asshole would murder people with one. It’s tragic, but people back then seemed to understand that was just the cost of a free society. Also, there wasn’t a 24-hour news beast to feed, so such events got a lot less coverage back then, and quickly faded from the public consciousness.
More recent generations seem to have decided to give up the “free society” part in exchange for an illusion of safety, though I feel like maybe the pendulum is starting to swing back. Hopefully it’s not too late.
+1,000
You largely summed up my main counterpoint to the antis. Today’s “gun violence” is the product of a broken culture, not guns. Prior to ’68 they could be shipped to your door after sending a signed check and catalog slip through the mail no questions asked. This was infinitely easier than any legal option of purchase today, so why weren’t scores of kids ordering their own Winchesters with forged signatures and stolen checks from mom and dad to wreak havoc with? No decent kid did such a thing because parents actually watched and disciplined their kids regularly, and not just with corporal punishment either. Every deranged nutbag we’ve seen since Columbine has always been the result of utter shite parenting across multiple generations. Your points about accepting the cost of a free society, that “shit just happens,” and the lack of 24/7 propaganda ministries are spot on as well.
Civilized society also locked up nuts.
Today we hand them a bottle of pills, a rainbow flag, a dem vote registration card, and dub them normal (or better than normal).
Do as that letter to the St. Louis Dispatch suggested–sanity checks to get a license to purchase. Our rights aren’t rights, they are mere licenses, ya know.
” Question is how to acknowledge that while some nuts DO slip through the cracks, that maybe that’s simply the cost of a RKBA?”
It’s not the cost of the RKBA, it’s the cost of living in a free country / open society.
This is NOT the United States of Utopia. It’s the United States of America.
Is it perfect? Hell no.
But it IS considered the best of the other alternatives. The proof of that is there is no other country on earth that people want to get to than the USA.
The police can’t be everywhere. And we don’t want them everywhere.
Evil people exist. That isn’t going to change.
People die. Sh!t happens.
*ding ding ding* we have a winner.
Yeah, but you can’t be the first guy in the argument to break down screaming. This is a show for the masses. The masses haven’t figured out that the end goal is a slave population, or that the agenda of gun control is just a puzzle piece in a larger totalitarian picture.
So if we cut right to the chase and mention that in every gun control discussion, especially with the pawns that are in our communities, in their minds it makes us seem crazy and bolsters the credibility of the antis.
Personally, I think only responding to the antis is a losing game in the end, though we’ve been doing fairly well lately. But they are Borg, they will adapt to our tactics eventually. I think we also need to hammer out own message and I think an effective message is that every year more people are alive because someone had a gun than dead because someone had a gun, and if we stop legislating the item and start pursuing policies that focus on violent people as the source of violence that we can have even lower crime rates than we do no.
It’s also important I think to dispel the misconceptions, keep bringing up that there is no epidemic of violence at all, and that violent crime is still decreasing.
This isn’t about convincing the true believers, it’s about making the true believers seem wrong, clueless or crazy to everyone else.
Anyway, this is what seems like a good idea to me. I could be wrong.
I find a cool down period has the opposite effect on the law abiding, yet has none whatsoever on those planning to use the firearm for criminal purposes.
Those that just have to kill somebody this second will using anything heavy or pointy near them at that time.
If as in this case there is no reason to block a firearm transfer, extra waiting periods and more control simply wont help in anyway.
Well obviously, this crime is evidence we need “federal” background checks and perhaps a ban on assault weapons. End Sarcasm.
Its not about guns, it is about hate. Dylann Roof passed a background check too. I anticipate calls to remove some more flags.
Clearly the answer is to outlaw background checks and waiting periods. Not sarcasm.
Three days?
But I’m mad NOW!
D’oh!
My Favorite episode of the Simpsons hands down.
“Yeah, so last night I was closing up the bar, when some young punk comes in and tries to stick me up. Well, it coulda been a real ugly situation, but I managed to shoot him in the spine… Yeah, I guess the next place he robs better have a ramp!”
Then use one of your other 26 guns.
Dummy was legally entitled to buy the gun. Mudering his 2 victims is the crime part of the equation.
And how long is the cooling off period on murder?
We just need to make murder more illegaller!
And post some “No Murder Zone” signs.
It is hard to effectively combat or even debate an enemy that continually lies about their position. Anti-gunners clamor for expanded background checks when background checks clearly do not prevent tragedies or make anyone safer. Only a moron would argue for a position that has already been proven false or that is not actually their position, but just another step closer to their real motive. It is obviously the later of these two, and until they are made to own their total disarmament stance for law abiding people, they will continue to blindly recite their “common sense background check” mantra ad infnitum.
This is so sad. Having seen the videos, I feel more connected to the victims than I would have if I just heard about the shooting.
Gun control laws wouldn’t have helped here, at all. Even the most draconian proposed gun control laws that I’ve seen reported here on TTAG including ammo registration and firearm ID cards would not have prevented this. This guy had no criminal or mental health record, was 40+ years old, a really odd age to start a criminal career, and this happened two months after he decided he was going to kill somebody. No proposed law would have prevented this.
You can’t cool “Snap”.
I do believe everyone that reads this website agrees that gun control is not the answer. There is no way anyone who is pro-gun control is going to be swayed in their opinions just as we will not be swayed to infringe on our gun rights. Aside from Hillary not understanding that a “cool down” period cannot be open ended (2 months in this case) and no amount of legislature or gun control is going to help. I just read an article from The New York Times that had quotes from Alison Parker’s father:
“I’m going to do something, whatever it takes, to get gun legislation, to shame people, to shame legislators into doing something about closing loopholes and background checks, and making sure crazy people don’t get guns,” Andy Parker, the father of Alison Parker, said Wednesday night on Fox News. “This is not the last you’ve heard of me. This is something that is Alison’s legacy that I want to make happen.”
Talk about waving the bloody shirt! I cannot imagine his grief, I have kids of my own. I will not kick a man when he is down but loopholes? Background checks? No “loophole” here, background check done. So we legislate more? More background checks? Outlaw gun shows? Which would of helped here because a crazy bought a firearm at a “loophole” gun show right? Please Mr. Parker don’t use Alison’s legacy in vain.
I’ve pretty much come to expect the bloody-shirt waving from the mainstream media and opportunistic politicians, but it’s really said when family members of the deceased get in on it.
There was probably some parasite in his ear telling him that if the laws had been different his daughter would be here right now.
I have to say, its a limited few even on that side of the fence that will stoop that low but they exist and just love to get a grieving victim on message.
In his shoes without an attacker left to go after, grief stricken I’d probably want something or someone punished, a reason, a focal point and someone would be right there to give me it I’m sure. Unable to think straight I may do the same.
In an ideal world we would let the man vent, understand why and let it ride itself out. However there is an agenda to push and so the narrative changes, twists and legislation may be pushed through so we are left having to fight against a clearly grieving man.
I blame Bloomberg, in general for lots of things but this especially.
I grow weary of the” mental health” talking point, am I the only one who thinks sometimes it’s just mean or evil, not crazy. A immature jackhole throwing a tantrum with a handgun is more likely than a undiagnosed paranoid schizophrenic , in my opinion.
I seriously doubt that. A sane person, no matter how angry, will realize that this act will ruin and probably end his entire life, without question. Sounds like the definition of crazy to go ahead with it.
Failing at anger management and conflict resolution doesn’t make one mentally ill. Existing in a seething world or rage and misplaced blame probably does though.
Kind of like the antis who call for the death of gun owners whilst blaming the NRA for gang violence. Yeah, that.
Of course I feel bad about the shooting, but also I think what bothers a lot of folks is that she was a really nice looking girl, and seemed to have her stuff together.
She wont be hurting anymore, but her boyfriend will bear the lonesomeness, and sorrow for many years. What a waste.
The only good part of this is that we wont have to spend a fortune for a trial and imprisonment for the killer.
The government can’t protect us from the lone maniac. The solution is to make it easier for people to defend themselves.
This is black on white gun crime and so it is time for it to immediately fade from the news after the funerals. So, please follow the rules of the mainstream media. Of course, according to their rules, you have the option to make the attacker look like a victim too.
He was a black gay liberal who bought his guns legally. Can you imagine if he was a straight white Christian conservative who bought his guns thru gunbroker……..This story will be gone from any mainstream media before the weekend.
…kind of mistakenly sounded like I implied gunbroker is not legal. Sorry, that could have been worded better. The timed edit option does not always appear.
I’m sure it wasn’t your intention, but your words imply purchasing a gun on GunBroker is somehow not legal.
Horrific event and loss of life to be sure. However, there are actually so few of these incidents, statistically speaking, that to try to prevent them by restricting everyone’s freedom and the right to self defense seems to be an absurd, illogical reaction that will never produce the desired results anyway. The press goes crazy with reporting events like this but if you look at the numbers it is FAR less likely that you or anyone that you know will be killed by someone like this than it is that they will be killed in car accident, drinking poison or falling off of a cliff or other tall object. So, while it would be great to stop these incidents it does not really seem possible or practical no matter what laws are enacted. Perhaps it is the price we pay for living in a free society ?
There are maybe 350 million guns out there and the number is growing. I don’t know how many homicidal nuts there are out there — 50,000? 100,000? Whatever the number is, it’s less than 350 million.
So wouldn’t it be easier to control 50,000 savages than it would be to control 350 million guns? And if not, why not? And why won’t the leftards even try? That’s a rhetorical question.
No knowledge, here, but my bet would be fewer than 5,000 murderous nuts.
“wouldn’t it be easier to control 50,000 savages than it would be to control 350 million guns”
Of course it would. Doing it without trampling people’s civil rights is the difficult, if not impossible part.
As an off-topic aside, California has a 10 day waiting period, a law that was successfully challenged in the trial court and is now on appeal. According to plaintiffs and the legislative record, the sole reason for he waiting period was to allow the state time to conduct a background check. It was originally 5 days, then 15, and now 10, the time reduced because the DOJ didn’t need 15 to do its job. Nonetheless, and despite the lack of legislative evidence, despite the lack of any evidence really, the DOJ argued in the trial court that the ten days was a “cooling off period” that was in the public interest. The trial court didn’t buy it. Similarly, in a case attacking a 1923 law that bans signs on gun shops depicting handguns–but not long guns–the DOJ argued that the law was in the public interest because it helped prevent “impulse” purchases (a non sequitur in the face of the current 10 day wait). The trial court didn’t buy that one either.
“A 2-day ‘cool-down’ period would have had zero impact on the outcome.”
Don’t be silly. Did she say anything about “2-day”? She’s talking about a 25 year cool-down period, except for her friends and bodyguards.
Did the background check fail or was there actually nothing to disqualify the shooter in the system?
Did the background check fail or did some agency fail to feed data into the system?
Nothing to disqualify him. He had no criminal record and nothing in his history to flag him in the NICS system.
That’s what I figured. So it sounds like the background check didn’t fail then; it worked as designed and passed a guy who didn’t have any reason to be disqualified as far as the system was concerned.
My point by asking these questions is to show the stark reality that no background check system will ever be able to catch a person who has no record to disqualify them. There will never be a way to catch these fly under the radar type guys who have been the perpetrators in the last two or three incidents. It really helps to illustrate the lack of effectiveness and failings of background checks.
Yeah and crazy guy could also “act” on cue-like the Isla Vista killer-enough to discourage authorities from doing their job. AND I disagree this is going away-I see wild-eyed pops with his show-biz connections starting a “new” anti-rights org. Blaming the NRA hours after the shooting…
It just dawned on me. Does anyone know if the location where the shooting occurred was a “gun free zone”? We all know that the 2 day cool down period, background checks and closing loopholes will stop gun violence in the future (sarcasm) but this didn’t happen because the “gun free zone” signs says so. Everyone knows that if you are crazy and you intended to shoot someone and film it, as soon as you saw that “gun free zone” sign you would turn around and go back to your car.
Even if background checks involved a visit to a psychiatrist, this guy could have bluffed his way through it. Not sure what could stop a person consumed by hate short of last minute action taken when his intentions revealed themselves.
This proves are gun laws are too lax and that all handguns should be banned from serfs, err, civilians, and only military and police should have them.
If you’re pro gun control, you’re not anti gun. You just believe in gun centralization. You believe in creating two classes in society. A class of those who are armed, and a class of those who are not. You believe in returning to a medieval society where the armed classes control the disarmed classes, like the Samurai of feudal Japan or the Knights of medieval Europe.
You believe in an armed government and a disarmed populace.
Because that has never gone bad before in the history of the world.
Disarming the populace creates the ultimate class division.
A couple responses to questions asked above and comments in other posts. First, please respect the dead and wounded. Calling them out for lack of situational awareness puts you at the level of Bloomberg, using the victims for your own gain. Second, to answer Ted’s question, the killings occurred in one of the most firearms friendly counties in the country — I say that literally. There must be at least as many firearms in Franklin County, VA as there are people. While I don’t personally know the spot where it happened, being Franklin County, I seriously doubt that it is a gun-free zone.
Regarding all the idiotic ravings of certain politicians, and the sad situation of the reporter’s father, suppose that the laws here had been like in NY or CA? So he might not have been able to obtain a handgun. He certainly could have legally obtained a “hunting rifle”. Various articles say that he was dressed in black and that the area was surrounded by “a park”. That means concealment, especially at 0645. With a rifle he very well might have become the second incarnation of the DC Sniper. It would fit with his ravings.
The saddest part of this sad story is that even in one of most firearms friendly parts of the country, the victims, who as reporters were always doing potentially dangerous work, were not themselves armed. A CCW is easy to get here, and open carry without a permit is legal. No Guns Allowed signs on a private business do not exist here. Sadly, political correctness says to us: it won’t happen here. My job really isn’t that dangerous. And it sets up a conversation — I don’t need a gun. I don’t need to be watchful. I have a CCW but I can leave the gun at home. I fall for this one myself even though I should know better. Political correctness is deadly.
Add “I am a powder keg” yes/ no to the 4473