Thursday, June 26, 2014

Ah, Florida, Haven (and Heaven) for Gun Lunatics


Earlier this week, there was another mass shooting, no surprise - in lax gun law state Florida, haven of ammosexuals. This quote from seems to sum up the problem with allowing weapons with large capacity magazines and which can fire a great deal of ammunition very quickly, for the purpose of wounding or killing large numbers of people. From the Miami Herald:
...two men had pulled up in a dark SUV around 2:15 a.m. Tuesday as more than a dozen people were hanging out, talking and drinking. The men climbed out lugging high-powered automatic weapons, and took aim. ...When the shooting stopped, more than five dozen shell casings littered the parking lot, sidewalk and street. Two men were killed and seven people were wounded in one of the worst mass shootings in Miami in decades. But sources say the two men, carrying an AK-47 and an AR-15, were firing at an intended target who might not have even been in the crowd. The shooters had not been arrested or identified by Tuesday night. Police were tagging beer bottles and other paraphernalia around the crime scene hoping to find DNA matches or other evidence that might help identify the shooters. “The motive at this point is still unknown. We’re still investigating,” said Miami police spokeswoman Frederica Burden. The scene was so chaotic that when reports circulated that three men had been arrested in connection with the shooting, police immediately said it wasn’t true. The reality: Three men were detained after tossing a Sponge Bob Square Pants bag that contained weapons.
As noted in supporting a ban on large capacity weapons and assault-style weapons in Washington D.C., back in 2011, from the New York Times, quoting the findings of the presiding court:
This ruling underscores a principle set forth in the 2008 Supreme Court decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, which held that the Second Amendment allows individuals to keep handguns at home for self-defense. The Supreme Court said in that case that the right is “not unlimited” and doesn’t protect guns “not typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes.” And it specifically suggested that jurisdictions could ban the possession of the military’s M-16 rifle because it is “dangerous and unusual.”
The District’s firearms law defines “assault weapon” to include rifles like the AR-15, which the Supreme Court once called “the civilian version of the military’s M-16 rifle.” The appeals court suggested that the only place where assault weapons, which are designed to spray bullets at a rapid rate, are necessary for self-defense is on a battlefield or the equivalent for police. Anywhere else their presence is an invitation to mayhem and puts police officers and all around at high risk.
It also concluded that “the evidence demonstrates a ban on assault weapons is likely to promote the Government’s interest in crime control in the densely populated urban area that is the District of Columbia.” The court reached the same conclusion about banning magazines with more than 10 rounds of ammunition. Those magazines increase the dangers of semiautomatic guns: they result in more shots fired, people wounded and wounds per person. The appeals court’s ruling is careful and convincing on this heated topic.
To date the SCOTUS has not in any way disagreed with this ruling that :
1. Specifically sets limits the kind of weapon guaranteed under the 2A; and
2. Restricts that right to the home, not on the street or in/at/on any other public or private place;
Shootings like this underline why we need stricter gun control laws and enforcement, and fewer and different guns in our population.

4 comments:

  1. I'm guessing this is some sort of gang beef, which would make gun laws in any state rather immaterial. Especially since they seem to have used fully automatic firearms. Class 3 firearms are tightly controlled and any transfer needs to be reported to the government.
    As Mike often says, people who commit these crimes are uncaring about the laws in place and the location for the shooting is driven by whatever demons residing in the mind of the shooter. So Florida's gun laws are no more relevant to the occurrence of this shooting, than the mass shootings that took place in either California or say, Maryland,

    http://mikeb302000.blogspot.com/2014/01/shooting-at-columbia-mall-maryland.html

    http://mikeb302000.blogspot.com/2014/05/uc-santa-barbara-drive-by-shooting.html

    Both of which took place using legally purchased firearms and complying with laws in their respective states which give both high rankings by gun control advocates. If the shooting in Liberty City WAS committed using a registered class 3 firearms, then the authorities will be able to quickly be able to ascertain who was responsibly for it.

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    1. What if the guns used in all these incidents had been stolen from their lawful owners because they failed to practice the safe storage that simple common sense dictates. A law requiring that might very well have prevented these thugs from getting guns in the first place.

      Comprehensive and proper gun control laws would eliminate many of these bad scenes.

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    2. And what if they weren't? We currently have no information on it. But class 3 firearms are sort of a closed market, since a freeze was put on any additional firearms since 1986.

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    3. We have plenty of information on it. We know that 500,000 guns are stolen every year and by that very act they pass from legal ownership to the criminal world. Is it too much to presume that some of them are used to kill and that if we had strict storage laws fewer would be stolen and fewer would be used in killings?

      Your argument that gun control laws do not prevent crime is simply wrong.

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