I’m generally not a fan of more laws or more taxes. I don’t know much about the particular laws concerning the purchasing and owning of guns, but I really don’t think the problem is whether or not he legally purchased the weapon et al. Rather, I believe there are two larger issues involved in this situation, issues that are actually to blame for what happened.
Law enforcement - Why didn’t they do anything? Anything at all? The FBI knew about this kid. The local police and sheriff’s department, knew about this kid. We are everywhere told, “If you see something, say something.” The public saw something and told law enforcement. Multiple times. And they were completely ignored. He had 39 run ins with law enforcement, yet he was not on their radar. Worse, even when the sheriff’s department was on the scene, they literally did nothing. They huddled outside the building, safe behind their cars, waiting until it was safe. I’m outraged that Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel has not been fired; that heads haven’t rolled in the FBI.
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| the kind of photos Cruz published on social media |
The system - According to the laws on the books right now, Nikolas Cruz, 19, should not have been able to purchase a gun of any kind, yet there were no red flags. Why? Why not? Why is there no system to track arrests and mental health issues? They keep track of my traffic violations, my arrest record, my financial dealings, my credit score. When I apply for a job they do a background check. I’ve had simple background checks and a much more extensive one done by the federal government. I know of someone who recently had a background check reveal an arrest that he had to get cleared from his record in order to get hired. Facebook and Google keep track of every site I visit (I know this because of the ads that show up on Facebook), and yet there is no system in place to red flag gun purchases. Why not? This is ridiculous and inexcusable!
So what do I think? We don’t need more laws, we need to fix the system. The laws we have now would have worked just fine if law enforcement would have paid any attention at all, if there was some kind of data base tracking arrests and mental health issues. If you asked me, that’s what I would say.
Jeff this will give you some insight to the problem. This article was written in 2013 about a problem that was bubbling since 2007. Agencies fail to report this information to the NICS system. If the information is not in the system then no one is going to be able to make a determination about the eligibility of an individual to buy a firearm. Fast forward to 2018 information is still not being entered into the system. Information that would have helped to prevent this individual from owning any firearms. Devin Kelley, the shooter in Texas, had all the elements that would have prevented him from purchasing a firearm but a government agency failed to enter/report this information to the NICS system. Jared Loughner, James Holmes both had mental health issues known to people but this information never made it into the system. If you read the CNN article you'll read about the Virginia Tech shooter, Seung-Hui Cho, he was adjudicated as mentally defective and his information never made it into the NICS system. This lack of reporting is so egregious and yet we never hear anyone protesting or talking about this. During the CNN Town hall about gun violence Dana Loesch brought up this issue and it was met with boo's and jeering. https://www.cnn.com/2013/01/30/health/mental-illness-guns/
ReplyDeleteThank you for your reply and the information you supplied. Unfortunately, that just makes it worse. Or is you said, egregious.
DeleteYes it is and more people should be screaming about this to their legislators and especially in the states that fail to report this. So often the arguments about this problem take the perspective that we have a flawless, working background check system. The reality is we do not and politicians that are so vocal about this go everywhere but to this problem. They are dismissive towards any mention of this fact. They would rather bring up the boogey man "gun show loop hole" which has never played a part in any of these high profile shootings.. In fact I have something for you about "expanded background checks and gun show loop hole" that you should read that was ignored and not even reported by the media... This was requested by Elijah Cummings, Elizabeth Warren and Brain Schatz to have the GAO investigate this for them. Read the results then ask yourself if it makes sense why you really didn't hear about this in the news... https://www.gao.gov/assets/690/688535.pdf
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