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The Courier-Journal – Why red flag laws, background checks and an assault weapons ban won’t stop mass shootings

Congress is notorious for passing legislation without reading it, but the urge to rush legislation reached a new level in Washington this month. Some members of Congress have announced support for gun control bills that haven’t even been written yet!

What’s already clear from their vague proposals, however, is that none of these measures would have stopped any recent mass public shooting. For the safety of the general public, perhaps we should have a mandatory waiting period for lawmakers who rush to pass unconstitutional and unhelpful legislation.

Take, for instance, the call for universal background checks, which would ban private transfers of firearms that don’t involve a background check. Every attacker in all of the recent mass public shootings passed a background check and purchased his firearm from a federally licensed firearm dealer.

The cowardly perpetrator of the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting didn’t have to pass a background check. His mother passed the background check, and he stole her guns.

Likewise, an underage male perpetrator of the 1999 Columbine shooting obtained a handgun through an older female who acted as a straw purchaser. Using a straw purchaser to obtain a firearm is already illegal.

There’s not a single mass public shooting that would have been prevented by universal background checks.

The other dirty little secret about universal background checks is that the only way to enforce them is to have a universal gun registry, which is a step toward future gun confiscation.

Due to serious defects with the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, millions of citizens otherwise eligible to purchase a firearm have been denied the right to do so.

No one should seek to expand a program that has already robbed millions of citizens of their right to self-defense. Criminals and would-be criminals will simply continue to buy guns from each other, use illegal straw purchasers to get guns from lawful dealers or steal guns from relatives and other law-abiding citizens.

Another unserious proposal that will cause more problems than it will solve is forcing states to adopt red flag laws. If states want these laws, states can pass these laws.

The federal government should not be in the business of using taxpayer money to bribe states to adopt unconstitutional laws. In fact, 17 states have already passed red flag laws, and there’s no evidence that these laws have reduced the frequency of mass public shootings. These laws authorize unannounced gun confiscations that are hazardous to both citizens and law enforcement officers.

For example, a man in Maryland was shot and killed in the confusion that ensued when police showed up in the dark, unannounced, to confiscate his legally obtained guns. Tragedies such as this are why the sheriff in Weld County, Colorado, has already announced that he will not order his deputies to participate in these dangerous raids.

Red flag laws are also dangerous because they pressure those who need mental health care to avoid seeking it for fear of having their guns confiscated. Already the Veterans Administration bans veterans from possessing firearms if the veterans merely admit that someone else manages their finances.

The criteria for “red-flagging” a person in the various states are already vague. In some states, the laws allow only police officers, family members, romantic partners and cohabitants to refer someone for gun confiscation. The reality, though, is that anyone can refer someone by first referring him or her to the police. This system is ripe for abuse.

Every state in the union already has a law that allows individuals to be involuntarily confined to a medical facility briefly, on the basis of a mental health professional’s opinion that they are a danger to themselves or others. Whereas these laws seek to treat individuals in need, red flag laws only irritate individuals by taking some of their firearms and leaving them without mental health help. Furthermore, red flag laws don’t require expert testimony, but only suspicion by unqualified individuals.

Because some recent mass public shootings in the news have been carried out with AR-15 and AK-47-style weapons, some politicians are eager to reinstate the so-called assault-weapons ban of 1994. But there’s no reason to believe that policy would prevent horrific mass public shootings.

The shootings at Virginia Tech (32 fatalities in 2007), Fort Hood (13 fatalities in 2009), and Virginia Beach (12 fatalities in 2019) were all carried out with handguns.

The shootings at the Navy Yard (12 fatalities in 2013), Capital Gazette (5 fatalities in 2018), and Santa Fe High School (10 fatalities in 2018) were perpetrated with shotguns and handguns.

In fact, 50% of mass public shootings are committed with handguns alone, and 80% of mass public shootings involve at least one handgun. If the government bans so-called assault weapons, mass public shootings will still occur, and the same politicians will then try to ban shotguns and handguns.

This brings us to another ineffective and misguided proposal: a ban on high-capacity magazines. The attacker in Parkland, Florida, killed 17 people with 15 ten-round magazines and not a single high-capacity magazine.

People sometimes ask why anyone would need a magazine with a capacity greater than 10 rounds, but if six brave, well-trained police officers required 58 rounds to stop the shooter in Dayton, it would be unreasonable to think that civilians with less training would need only 10 rounds or less to stop an attacker at their home.

Universal background checks, red flag laws and the so-called assault weapons ban all have two things in common: They won’t stop mass public shootings, and they will infringe on constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens.

By keeping civilians from providing for their own protection and by causing those who need mental health care not to seek it, these laws will only make the current situation worse.

If these proposals become law they will inevitably fail to produce the intended results and there will be a push for even more gun bans. It’s time to slow down and look at the facts before rushing new laws to the president’s desk. ~ Thomas Massie and Jim Jordan, Opinion contributors at Courier Journal

Aug. 14, 2019 – 3:50 – Judge Napolitano’s Chambers: Judge Andrew Napolitano weighs in on the dangers to the Second Amendment by both political parties in the wake of mass shootings. What confiscating guns or Red Flag laws will mean for your Constitutional rights.

Listen to Underground USA’s Podcast – The Left’s “White Nationalist” Fraud, then comment below.

Oxford – “A person who strongly identifies with their own nation and vigorously supports its interests, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations.” <- Maybe I wasn't paying close enough attention the first time. When was that added or changed? Knowing how the left operates, right after Trump was elected.....

American Psychological Association – August 4, 2016

“Media Contagion” Is Factor in Mass Shootings, Study Says

Psychologist calls on media to withhold shooters’ names

DENVER — People who commit mass shootings in America tend to share three traits: rampant depression, social isolation and pathological narcissism, according to a paper presented at the American Psychological Association’s annual convention that calls on the media to deny such shooters the fame they seek.

“Mass shootings are on the rise and so is media coverage of them,” said Jennifer B. Johnston, PhD, of Western New Mexico University. “At this point, can we determine which came first? Is the relationship merely unidirectional: More shootings lead to more coverage? Or is it possible that more coverage leads to more shootings?”

Johnston and her coauthor, Andrew Joy, BS, also of Western New Mexico University, reviewed data on mass shootings amassed by media outlets, the FBI and advocacy organizations, as well as scholarly articles, to conclude that “media contagion” is largely responsible for the increase in these often deadly outbursts. They defined mass shootings as either attempts to kill multiple people who are not relatives or those resulting in injuries or fatalities in public places.

The prevalence of these crimes has risen in relation to the mass media coverage of them and the proliferation of social media sites that tend to glorify the shooters and downplay the victims, Johnston said.

“We suggest that the media cry to cling to ‘the public’s right to know’ covers up a greedier agenda to keep eyeballs glued to screens, since they know that frightening homicides are their No. 1 ratings and advertising boosters,” she said.

The demographic profile of mass shooters is fairly consistent, she said. Most are white, ostensibly heterosexual males, largely between the ages of 20 and 50. They tend to see themselves as “victims of injustice,” and share a belief that they have been cheated out of their rightful dominant place as white, middle-class males.

“Unfortunately, we find that a cross-cutting trait among many profiles of mass shooters is desire for fame,” she said. This quest for fame among mass shooters skyrocketed since the mid-1990s “in correspondence to the emergence of widespread 24-hour news coverage on cable news programs, and the rise of the internet during the same period.”

She cited several media contagion models, most notably one proposed by Towers et al. (2015), which found the rate of mass shootings has escalated to an average of one every 12.5 days, and one school shooting on average every 31.6 days, compared to a pre-2000 level of about three events per year. “A possibility is that news of shooting is spread through social media in addition to mass media,” she said.

“If the mass media and social media enthusiasts make a pact to no longer share, reproduce or retweet the names, faces, detailed histories or long-winded statements of killers, we could see a dramatic reduction in mass shootings in one to two years,” she said. “Even conservatively, if the calculations of contagion modelers are correct, we should see at least a one-third reduction in shootings if the contagion is removed.”

She said this approach could be adopted in much the same way as the media stopped reporting celebrity suicides in the mid-1990s after it was corroborated that suicide was contagious. Johnston noted that there was “a clear decline” in suicide by 1997, a couple of years after the Centers for Disease Control convened a working group of suicidologists, researchers and the media, and then made recommendations to the media.

“The media has come together before to work for good, to incite social change,” she said. “They have done, and they can do it. It is time. It is enough.”

Session 1246: ”Mass Shooters and the Media Contagion Effect,” (PDF, 265KB) Symposium, Thursday, Aug. 4, 1-2:50 p.m. MDT, Mile High Ballroom 4F Level 3, Ballroom Level, Colorado Convention Center, 700 14th Street, Denver.

Presentations are available from the APA Public Affairs Office.

Jennifer Johnston can be contacted by email or by phone at (575) 654-0052.

For the record: I haven’t given up on the NRA… yet. I’m still hopeful they can get their shit together before it’s too late!

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How about you? What specific things drives you nuts about the NRA?

Check out the NRA’s current ranking on the Top Gun Rights Organization Page.

Universal Studios recently released a trailer for the movie, “The Hunt,” originally named “Red State Vs. Blue State.” The trailer shows elites hunting and killing pro-life, Trump supporting “deplorables.”