No, the gun remained entirely in the control of the perp. No FL law held an adult responsible for the guns owned by this minor. The foster parents knew he was unstable - as other parents of perps have known. That knowledge could be leveraged.
YES - cars! I’m glad you brought that up.
We study car deaths to an extreme, and make regular improvements in car design, road design, training, insurance, and other factors that are found to be relevant.
We need to do the same thing for guns.
Holding the manufacturer and reseller responsible for the criminal misuse of their product by one of their end customers would certainly seem to be a radical departure from the way we do things today. Are you familiar with the PLCAA?
The discussion is about what the law should be, not what it is. Anyway, weapons that have no reasonable use other than criminal ones are going to be used criminally when used at all - and that is not “misuse” but “intended use”.
Are *you *familiar with the “unreasonably dangerous” concept in product liability?
He didn’t need an AR-15 to do that.
Plus, I’m not a big fan of the death penalty for burglary.
I’d like to know what steps were taken to cause the perps to leave, with or without booty.
I’ve had burglars and other unauthorized “guests” on a few occasions.
I’ve been there, and I don’t feel bad for not having killed them.
That wasn’t his claim though. ElvisL1ves said “weapons that have no reasonable use other than criminal ones”. Either he wasn’t talking about the AR-15, or he’s wrong.
I don’t doubt that another weapon, or perhaps even nothing but a stern talking to the criminals, might possibly have accomplished the same end result of protecting the resident. That’s irrelevant to the claim about the possible uses of the AR-15 though. In this example, one was utilized in a perfectly lawful and non-criminal manner while defending a resident from a home invasion, therefore, AR-15s have a demonstrated reasonable use other than criminal ones.
I don’t accept that argument.
One has to accept that any device that launches a projectile could possibly be used for something - even if as a fun way to punch bolt holes in a sheet of metal.
An AR-15 is simply not necessary for legitimate civilian purpose. It’s characteristics don’t justify its proliferation.
That sounds like a decidedly different argument than the one ElvisL1ves made. I made no claim about it being “necessary”. There are a great many things that are not strictly “necessary” that are yet still legal. I like my country being a generally-free place where not-strictly-necessary things are still legal to own / do.
ETA: I’m curious, do you see the AR-15 as being in a class of it’s own in this regard, or is “It’s characteristics don’t justify its proliferation” a description you’d apply to most / all firearms?
A gunfight is more about hitting first than what you are firing. Most center fire handguns will will put someone down with one torso hit about 75% of the time. The range at which most of these scenarios occur makes the ranged accuracy differences irrelevant.
Even a lowly .22 can deliver debilitating, even lethal hits with a single shot. The fact that it is more controllable makes it more likely that repeat shots fall on target. they are also less prone to over-penetration of walls or the intended target.
Granted, being an experienced handgun shooter (did IPSC matches for a few years) I would always go with something with more stopping power, but school shooters are not big on body armor and defensive measures, making even a .22 a useful choice.
Sure, I like freedom, too.
But, those kids shot at Columbine, at Sandy Hook, at FL, etc., are not experiencing freedom. They and their families and their friends are experiencing death and hell on earth.
It’s more than logical to look at the tools used to create that hell on earth and question whether there is a justification so significant that we should allow proliferation.
As ElvisL1ves points out, we have product liability law. In America we don’t believe “freedom” makes all risk inconsequential. We absolutely do have products people like, but that were removed from the market because they posed risk. And, we have tort. And, we have significant legislation on the construction of specific products, aimed at reducing the dangers they pose.
Today, ATF is not allowed to even ask how many AR-15’s are sold in America.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article201882739.html
This idea that we can’t even study this issue is not acceptable. Period.
You didn’t appear to directly answer my question (do you see the AR-15 as being in a class of it’s own in this regard, or is “It’s characteristics don’t justify its proliferation” a description you’d apply to most / all firearms?) but I gather from this response that it’s probably something you feel about most / all firearms. Am I wrong on that point?
While it’s true we don’t have a precise count of every AR-15 in citizens’ hands (and as long as there are people advocating for gun bans, I suspect the idea of a national firearm registry will meet with stiff opposition), we have a pretty good idea that they’re only used for a tiny fraction of gun crime and are responsible for only a sliver of all gun deaths. Does that change your analysis at all?
ETA: and no one’s saying you can’t study the issue. Study your little heart out (please, I’d really like to see knowledgeable people participating in this discussion that is so often filled with ignorance from one side). The Dickey Amendment forbade the CDC from using funds to advocate for gun control, but that’s hardly any sort of a blanket ban on all study of this issue.
What special characteristics does an AR-15 possess that make it “special” in a way no other semi-auto center-fire rifle does.
Please consider .223/5.56 NATO is one of the lowest powered center fire rifle rounds.
We should be funding scientific examination of this issue. We should have been doing that starting long ago, even though the NRA has opposed gathering knowledge about this problem.
The Dickey Amendment has been interpreted as including studying the issue - I presume under the suspicion that anything related to studying the issue might lead to advocacy of legislation that impacts the NRA view of firearms.
And, that isn’t the only case of blocking information. We don’t even have data on firearm discharges by law enforcement.
You can tell people to go study the issue. But, the results are then too easy to write off as partisan advocacy. Plus, it isn’t cheap and it IS what we have government agencies to do - for example, the FAA and NTSB. Refusing to have official ongoing studies of this issue that we can all look at, learn from, criticize, etc., is just absolutely not acceptable.
I didn’t answer concerning specific guns, because I don’t have much information to back that up. I will say indications are that most gun death comes from hand guns. But, the AR-15 in specific seems like a serious problem.
Registration? Absolutely. So many aspects of safety have to do with registration.
I don’t mean for this to come across as harsh, because you do seem interesting to discuss things with, but you started out with this statement:
and now seem to have regressed to pleading ignorance:
Either you have enough knowledge and information to make informed declarations about the characteristics of particular firearms and their uses for legitimate civilian purposes, or you don’t. It seems that you’re trying to have it both ways here.
Your last sentence was that “the AR-15 in specific seems like a serious problem”. Is that problem just that it’s popular, or is there something about its particular characteristics that you think is a problem?
Well, you *are *using your own definition of “reasonable use”, which does not seem limited at all since you consider possession of any firearm to be reasonable in itself. But try basing it on what you would actually use it for - is it a good tool for hunting, target shooting, livestock protection? How about self defense? If none of the above, what is it good for other than killing lots of people? If you accept that there isn’t anything else, that that’s what it’s designed for and why people buy it, then you’re arguing for the legality of the means to kill lots of people. No wonder you’re having trouble.
If the goal is self-defense at close quarters, what is the best weapon to choose? Hint: Not it.
Maybe this is why you’re confused. Yes! It’s a good tool for all of those things, and gets used for all of those things.
We’ve seen what AR-15s do.
I interpreted the question to mean what others I might not like for whatever reason.
And, I don’t have comprehensive knowledge of the guns that have been used in mass murder in the US, let alone what perps might want to switch to were that one type become less available.
Please do be direct - even to the point of perhaps seeming offensive. I’d rather it were all on the table. I don’t research every post I make, so I could well make mistakes or appear to flip.
Great, here, let me lay out some facts. Here is a list of the 10 deadliest school massacres in US history (pulled from here)
(Spoiler’ed as the closest thing I can offer to a trigger warning)
#1 - Bath School Massacre: 44 killed, 58 injured. Weapons used: explosives and perhaps some sort of long gun (NOT an AR-15).
#2 - Virginia Tech: 32 killed, 17 injured. Weapons used: Walther P22 and Glock 19 (pistols)
#3 - Sandy Hook: 27 killed, 2 injured. Weapons used: Bushmaster XM15-E2S (an AR-15 variant) and a 10mm Glock 20SF (pistol)
#4 - University of Texas tower shooting: 17 killed, 31 injured. Weapons used: Remington 700 (hunting rifle) and Sears model 60 (shotgun)
#5 - Stoneman Douglas High School: 17 killed, 14 injured. Weapons used: an AR-15 variant rifle
#6 - Columbine: 15 killed, 14 injured. Weapons used: 12-gauge shotguns and 9mm handgun and carbine
#7 - Umpqua Community College: 9 killed, 9 injured. Weapons used: Glock 19 and Taurus PT24/7 (pistols)
#8 - Red Lake: 9 killed, 5 injured. Weapons used: Ruger MK II and Glock 23 (pistols) and a Remington 870 (shotgun)
#9 - Oikos University : 7 killed, 3 injured. Weapons used: .45 caliber handgun
#10 - Isla Vista: 6 killed, 14 injured. Weapons used: knives, several 9mm handguns, and a BMW
Looking over that list, #3 and #5 used an AR-15 variant. The other eight did not. I think your argument that there’s something particularly special about the AR-15 falls flat when we actually look at history.
All of them involved semi-autos (I guess the Sears model 60 is a semi-automatic?). Very instructive.
I haven’t been able to find the details about #1, but other than possibly that, yeah. However, I don’t think that’s as instructive as you do. Semi-autos have become the most popular choice for firearms. It’d be a bit like noting that most vehicular homicides involved gas-powered vehicles.