The police have not released the numbers of fatalities in the Umpqua Community College shooting in Roseburg, Oregon. They have not released any details about the shooting or the shooter that I have heard. We don't know what kind of guns the shooter used or where he got them. We don't know his motivation or his background. In short, we know absolutely nothing except that a bunch of people are dead due to some psychotic nutbag who thought it was OK to kill other people.
Jay Inslee, hard left governor of Washington, has already come out with a statement about wanting to ban "assault rifles" and close the "gunshow loophole". I'll accept for the sake of the argument that there even is such a thing as an assault rifle although I've argued in the past that this is a meaningless term based on cosmetic features and created by people hostile to guns in general. I'll accept for the sake of the argument that there is a gunshow loophole, although I've argued in the past that "loophole" is pretty much defined as "legal actions that the speaker doesn't like". There are, however, a few questions that I think should be answered before we rush to pass any new legislation at all.
Did the shooter use an assault rifle? We don't know.
Assuming that he did, would it have made any difference if he had used another weapon? We don't know.
Did he get his guns from a gunshow and if so, did he take advantage of the "loophole"? We don't know.
Did he acquire his guns legally? We don't know.
Did he pass a background check? We don't know.
The reality of gun control in the United States is that there are approximately 23,000 gun laws in this country and yet psychotics somehow get hold of guns. Unless your plan is to ban guns and go door to door collecting the firearms that are already in existence (good luck with that) you aren't going to get rid of guns in the United States and I, for one, am not convinced that would be a good idea anyway.
Gun violence is on the decline and mass shootings are rare, whatever the media wants you to believe. Gun control is a solution looking for a problem and the left is more than willing to call for more restrictions on guns any time there is a shooting. Their proposals are always to place more restrictions on gun owners and rarely, if ever, directly address the crime that just happened. This should tell you something about their motives.
Oh, just wondering, any chance that this guy, just like almost every other mass shooter recently, was either currently or recently taking any anti-psychotic medications. You know, the ones that are proven to cause hostility and violent behavior. We don't know that either but if we find out that he was, you can bet that the media won't mention it. They'll be too busy running stories about our culture of gun violence.
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