Off Topic Board

From the little I know about his background, it seems this guy could have passed a "vetting" test as well as any civilian.

Is it me, or did anyone else wonder?

Wonder why one of the women interviewed with her fiancee, were at a Midnight show with her (their?) 4 y.o. and 4 month old at a Very Violent PG-13 movie?

I see this far too often when I go to late movies. Red Flags??

That's a good point.

Although there was at least one guy, the gun range owner, who didn't let him sign up.

And then in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, they interviewed the pawn shop owner who sold him at least one gun, the last Glock. What I found interesting is that he said something along the lines of that the guy stuck out because of the questions he was asking about the kind of damage the rounds would do.

But then I saw the same guy the next day (Saturday) and he was singing a completely different tune, that the shooter hadn't given off any vibe that he was a nutjob.

I have a feeling that the pawn shop owner talked to an attorney, or saw himself on TV and thought, "What the fuck am I saying?"

But I also know how these things work. Hindsight has a way of making seemingly insignificant things suddenly jump out at you; remarks that weren't remarkable suddenly become sinister because of what transpired.

I don't know what the answer is, frankly. Like I said, I don't think just a wholesale ban is the right thing to do. But I would like to see gun shop owners et. al. be given the right to not sell to anyone, without any other reason than, "The guy creeped me out."

Maybe there would be people who were harmless but just had shitty interpersonal skills who would be denied the right to their AK, but is that really a huge price to pay at this point?

My fear is that the intransigence and refusal of the pro-gun crowd to give even an inch more is going to end up backfiring, and there will be an event so horrific that the majority of the people push through something more draconian than would otherwise have happened.

"It reiterates my problem with the Second Amendment as it's interpreted today. We require testing to drive a car; I don't think that allowing someone to walk into a gun show, buy an assault rifle in one aisle, an auto-sear in another, and all sorts of specialized ammo, like armor-piercing rounds, in a third, is a good idea. It makes me really, really uncomfortable.

But neither do I think that there should be some massive over-reaction, or that completely banning weapons of that nature are the answer. Pandora's box is already opened in that respect.

But I certainly don't have a problem with more thorough vetting, or having to register the weapon with the local authorities at the very minimum. Nor do I have a problem with the idea of stopping the instant-gratification "It's my RIGHT to have my gun right this instant and not wait" aspect of gun ownership."

LIKE

My wife is ready to string these "parents" up. Personally, the time of night, on its own, might not be bad. I think of if a parent works certain hours where they only have certain times to be with their kids. If it had been "Brave", instead, I would not be so bothered. But THIS movie, and on opening night, you are going to have an element there. As I have said so many other times: Why can't parents just let their kids be KIDS and do a little protecting of them as such?!?!

Yeah, well, until you have some recent threat against you that you want to protect yourself against.

One solution would be to have an expedited permit process where you can go to your Police or Sheriff office to have a check-out done on you in such a time frame.

Credit cards. Maybe he didn't plan on paying them back.

6000 rounds of .223 will set you back about $1500-$2000, based on a quick internet search.

I would not say that's exorbitantly expensive. Say $1000 for AR-15, another $1000 for Glock and shotgun combined, and another $2000 for the ammo? So at the high range he's spent about $4000, which is not a pittance but not impossible, especially if he was using credit cards like 901 says.

I don't know about all states, but selling an 'auto' sear, or 'auto kit' is illegal in Florida and California, as is certain types of ammo. I don't know if that applies to older surplus ammo.

It's not illegal in Texas, or at least it wasn't the last gun show I went to, which was about 4 or 5 years ago. Maybe they closed that loophole.

I know there's no restriction on ammo in Texas as well, for the same reason. And again, maybe that has been changed since I left.

If the perpetrator had tried this in Arizona or Texas, perhaps several in the audience would have been "carrying," and they would have quickly sent him to the other side of eternity.

Absolutely. Too dangerous, and one with training would know it. Dirty Harry could pull it off, but only in the movies (in the other sense).

I recall reading that someone was armed when the Congresswoman and others were shot in Arizona, but knew it was too risky to take a shot.

There, as you may recall, after the gunman ran out of ammunition in the first magazine, he stopped to reload, but dropped the loaded magazine from his pocket to the sidewalk, from where bystander Patricia Maisch grabbed it.

Another bystander clubbed the back of the assailant's head with a folding chair, injuring his elbow in the process, representing the 20th injury, and the gunman was then tackled to the ground by 74-year-old retired US Army Colonel Bill Badger, who himself had been shot, and was further subdued by Maisch and bystanders Roger Sulzgeber and Joseph Zamudio.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Tucson_shooting