Ease With Its Firearms, Tightening Gun Rules Was Resisted

.....the police department was getting complaints of shooting in the morning, in the evening, and of people shooting at propane gas tanks just to see them explode,.....

.....Right now, if you’re standing on your property and my house is 20 feet away, you can shoot…..

....ban on firing weapons within 500 feet of an occupied building more enforceable. “Five hundred feet!” Mr. Flaxon said in an interview. “A BB gun can go that far.”.....

...said he and his friends had been shooting automatic weapons since he bought the 23-acre property more than 12 years ago. It is safe, he said, because his land is sandwiched between two other gun ranges…

.....residents began noticing loud, repeated gunfire, and even explosions, coming from new places. Near a trailer park. By a boat launch. Next to well-appointed houses. At 2:20 p.m. on one Wednesday last spring, multiple shots were reported in a wooded area on Cold Spring Road near South Main Street, right across the road from an elementary school…...

......Gun enthusiasts here, as elsewhere in the country, have taken to loading their targets with an explosive called Tannerite, which detonates when bullets strike it, sending shock waves afield.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/17/nyregion/in-newtown-conn-a-stiff-resistance-to-gun-restrictions.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0&hp;

Guns aren’t the problem. It seems that most of these massacres have occured because an individual has become disenfranchised with his colleagues or parents. How these things might have been prevented is not worth considering, because some people are not reasoned with, but in some cases I suspect if people made an effort to be nicer to each other, didn’t treat their children like sh!t, respected each other regardless of race or sexual orientation, then the world would be a wholly better place, but it isn’t going to happen anytime soon and I suspect that someone is currently plotting their moment of fame.

Most (not all) of these shooters seem to be suicidal and either take their own lives or are killed during their rampage. A classic suicidal thought is “you’ll miss me when I’m gone” and suicide is almost an attention seeking matter, especially from my teenage recollections. Those who go on the rampage know they will get large scale, worldwide media coverage and I think it is, in part, adding to the massacre-suicides we are now seeing.

If emotional platforms are the problem, and I believe bullying for empowerment, suicidal thoughts etc. fit into ‘emotional’ platforms, then I believe that entire masses of people who build arsenal of guns including assault rifles and exploding devices as toys more than for protection…..............(which, apparently, a good many folks do and which were/are rampant in this town), fits into a more irrational, irresponsible emotional platform suited to delinquent patterns than healthy and safe behavior. 

Apparently it’s just so much fun to rig a target to explode when a bullet expelled first from a fire arm then hits the target and then explodes again.  Or lining up propane bottles and shooting them causing enough explosion to rock and shake the ground.  I mean, why have all those expensive and pretty guns locked away and useless when they can be the subject of tournament and play?  The article also indicates that the gun club ranges (several) were so full that people were using more shallow back yards as their own ranges.

Mr. R, these people are not just gleaning their skills, they are playing with ‘toys’, very dangerous toys very near neighbors.  So it would seem we have entire neighborhoods bordering on or in the midst of emotional breakdowns.

I will not even apologize for considering this behavior as dangerous to everyone as living next to an ill-kept meth lab or aged wet dynamite, or walking along a road filled with only drunk drivers racing with each other, yet with these situations we also have laws more strictly enforced. 

As one interviewed individual said:  This is a town, not a war.

You take away a mechanics tools and he can’t fix cars.  Take away the guns and people wont’ be able to shoot up schools, malls, churches, etc.

It’s easy to say that guns aren’t the problem but to come up with a system whereby potential mass murderers can be identified and stopped before they do something drastic is impossible.  Would you go to every person in the country and give them a psychiatric evaluation?  There are a huge number of mentally disturbed and even sane people who would not ever think of pulling a scene like Columbine or Sandy Hook.  But because they exhibit a lot of the same symptoms as the people that did would they be considered potential murderers? 

Education is great and helping people identify signs that might lead to such a thing is possible.  The problem there is that you end up with a nation of paranoid people who are constantly looking for the slightest sign of abnormality in their neighbor.  That scenario leads to a large possibility for abuse when someone is reported because their neighbor doesn’t act or think like they do and so are looked at suspiciously. 

The easier solution would be to restrict the tools that such a person would use to do their deeds.  Reduce the number of available weapons and restrict access to the ones that are available and it would reduce the tools available for nutcases to do their deeds.