I LIVE “DOWN THE ROAD” from the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland FL and the local news offers nothing else.
One distraught mother railed at President Trump to “do something” about guns.
To my mind, the president is the wrong person to deal with gun control.
FIRST OF ALL, the Fibbies, the Federal Bureau of Investigation or FBI, admittedly botched the preventive measures. According to CNN1, Attorney General Jeff Sessions ordered a review Friday into how the Justice Department and FBI respond to indications of potential violence after the bureau said it failed to act on a tip about the shooter in the Parkland, Florida, school massacre.
A person close to Nikolas Cruz, the confessed shooter, contacted the FBI on January 5 to report concerns about him, the FBI said in a statement Friday. But the bureau did not appropriately follow established protocols in following up on the tip.
"The information was not provided to the Miami Field Office, and no further investigation was conducted at that time," the statement said.
Shimon Prokupecz, the CNN writer then editorialized: The stunning admission -- which prompted Florida Gov. Rick Scott to call on FBI Director Christopher Wray to resign -- is sure to raise further questions about whether the FBI could have prevented the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, which left 17 dead.
Anyone who remembers 9-11 (2001) will recall that the fibbies failed then, too. Despite information at multiple FBI offices, there was zero sharing of the information and 2,996 people died in one day, and more later of the after effects. Anyone who was born in the 1940s also knows that some American’s knew the Japanese planned to attack Pearl Harbor on December 72. (Sadly, many younger Americans don’t know about December 7, 1941.)
Obviously the federal government is not capable of protecting its citizens.
Congress talks a lot, but rarely does anything. It managed to pass the Federal Assault Weapons Ban, a/k/a Brady Bill, but the bill expired.
President Trump might issue an executive order banning gun sales, but with his record with the courts, the order probably would be killed by the judicial branch.
A 1997 Justice Department survey3 of more than 18,000 state and federal convicts revealed the truth:
- • 39.6% of criminals obtained a gun from a friend or family member
• 39.2% of criminals obtained a gun on the street or from an illegal source
• 0.7% of criminals purchased a gun at a gun show
• 1% of criminals purchased a gun at a flea market
• 3.8% of criminals purchased a gun from a pawn shop
• 8.3% of criminals actually bought their guns from retail outlets
Gun control rightly belongs to the states. (The U.S. already has suffered through a civil war caused largely by the federal government taking away individual state’s rights.)
Florida, where the latest mass murder was committed, has laws on the books that would have prevented the shooter from legally acquiring a gun, any gun.
A person convicted of a felony cannot legally acquire a firearm.4
- According to Title XLVI, Chapter 790, Section 115 of Florida statutes, A person who exhibits any sword, sword cane, firearm, electric weapon or device, destructive device, or other weapon as defined in s. 790.001(13), including a razor blade, box cutter, or common pocketknife, except as authorized in support of school-sanctioned activities, in the presence of one or more persons in a rude, careless, angry, or threatening manner and not in lawful self-defense, at a school-sponsored event or on the grounds or facilities of any school, school bus, or school bus stop, or within 1,000 feet of the real property that comprises a public or private elementary school, middle school, or secondary school, during school hours or during the time of a sanctioned school activity, commits a felony of the third degree.
Other Florida statues that prevent legal ownership of a firearm include5
- * Felony conviction
* Active warrant (felony or misdemeanor)
* Unlawful user or addicted to any controlled substance
* Adjudicated mentally defective or involuntarily committed by a judge
* Illegal alien status
* Dishonorable discharge from US Armed Forces
* Renounced United States citizenship
* Active protection order (injunction for protection, restraining order, etc.)
* Convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence
* Under indictment or information for a crime punishable by a term exceeding one year in prison.
* Adjudicated delinquent or received adjudication withheld as a juvenile for a felony charge and person is under the age of 24
* Adjudication withheld for any felony or a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence and three years has not yet lapsed since the completion of sentencing provisions
The alleged shooter is said to have several run-ins with authorities and was apparently known to be violent.
HAD these activities resulted in an arrest and conviction, and had the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) be alert, or had the FBI acted on a tip to look at the shooter’s Internet postings, the person never would have legally been allowed to buy a gun.
Also, given the alleged shooter’s mental state, how is it that his parents – and later his guardians – allowed him to buy he rifle and then to purchase multiple magazines.
- California restricts magazines to 10 rounds. Obviously people with the intent to cause mass carnage can get around the law simply by buying many 10-round magazines.
The FBI provides a table6 titled Crime in the United States 2013 that lists homicides by state and by weapon type.
California, with its strict gun control, leads the nation in 2013 with 1,745 killings, of which 1,224 were by firearms (rifles, shotguns, and handguns), with another 238 by knives “or other cutting instruments,” 191 by “other weapons,” with the balance, 92, attributed to “hands, fists, feet, etc.
Chicago IL, with strict gun controls, saw “historic” crime lows7 in 2013, including the fewest murders in 48 years, according to police.
The city tallied only 415 murders in 2013—88 fewer than 2012, according to data from police spokesman Adam Collins. (Emphasis mine.)
New York City8 bragged on its web site that Through Sunday, December 29th, New York City has seen 84 fewer murders than at this point last year: 333 murders in 2013 compared with 417 murders in 2012 – a decrease of 20.1 percent. Murders committed with firearms represent 194 of the 333 murders in 2013, 58.3 percent (proving that a firearm is NOT necessary to murder someone in New York City).
New York, Chicago, and California are famous for gun control legislation.
Israel, which many gun control promoters point to as a good example, has started allowing some civilians to own weapons. There are restrictions, but compared to previous years, many more Israeli civilians now own legal weapons. The weapons generally are used in self-defense against terrorists.
As with gun proliferation in the U.S., there are many illegal weapons available in Israel.
THE BOTTOM LINE ON GUN CONTROL
When gun controls are strictly enforced,
- Murders by firearm may be reduced, but they are not eliminated
Anyone who really wants a firearm can, for a price, acquire one – not legally, but none-the-less
A person determined to kill another simply will use a different weapon
A person is less likely to attack a person or property when the person or property is protected by a firearm … AND a person who knows when and how to use the firearm.
For all of the above, it is not within the purview of the president or congress to legislate gun control; that belongs to the sovereign states.
This scrivener owns firearms and has a concealed carry permit. He has never shot anyone and hopes he never will, but he does spend time at the range and is prepared to defend himself and others whose lives are threatened by criminals.
Sources
1. http://tinyurl.com/y7vdfhy3
2. http://tinyurl.com/o69g864
3. http://tinyurl.com/c9dkrx6
4. http://www.flsenate.gov/Laws/Statutes/2011/790.115
5. http://www.fdle.state.fl.us/FPP/FAQs2.aspx
6. http://tinyurl.com/yamtbztx
7. http://tinyurl.com/ouc76qh
8. http://tinyurl.com/mvodfdu
PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.
No comments:
Post a Comment