# Oxford Shooter's Parents Charged with Involuntary Manslaughter **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 4, 2021, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxford-shooters-parents-charged-with-involuntary-manslaughter/955493 "2021-12-04T13:48:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 27
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2021, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxford-shooters-parents-charged-with-involuntary-manslaughter/955493/528 "2021-12-09T20:39:14Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > That may be true, but restoration of ecosystems is going to be a massive part of preventing our planet from falling apart. Not just here in the US but in places like Europe where the issue is much older, too. Ecosystems for tens of thousands of years in the Americas and much longer in most of the rest of the world have included humans as a predator. (Admittedly for most of that time we were also prey. In some places we occasionally still are.) > [@Babale](#): > > But that’s a different topic… whoops, yeah, I guess you’re right. But this thread is pretty much all over the place already. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2021, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxford-shooters-parents-charged-with-involuntary-manslaughter/955493/529 "2021-12-09T20:47:25Z")
> [@BeepKillBeep](#): > > - Mandatory comprehensive background checks on all firearm purchases and transfers. > - Permanent ban on firearm ownership for anybody convicted of domestic abuse > - Mandatory gun safety features (e.g., biometric locking) for all firearms not stored in a gun safe separate from ammunition > - Permanent ban from firearm ownership for violating firearm law regardless of whether it is a felony or not 1 is mostly a law, except straw man and private transfers, which I have already proposed banned to a large extent. 2. A law in most states, afaik. 3. Already a law in most states in houses with children, iirc. “Biometic”? 4.What firearm laws are not felonies? > [@BeepKillBeep](#): > > Better mental healthcare would also really helps with suicide in general, but I know the idea of actually giving people healthcare in the USA is considered unworkable for … reasons. No, we have Obamacare, Medicaid, Medicare, and various state health plans. Biden has been working on expanding these. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2021, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxford-shooters-parents-charged-with-involuntary-manslaughter/955493/530 "2021-12-09T20:49:30Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > I asked for workable. But when your definition of “workable” is “things people will currently vote for”, that’s just a convenient way to dismiss the only approach that _will_ actually work. When the set of real solutions does not overlap the set of things people will currently vote for, the only way to solve the problem is to change people’s minds - to convince people that the problem is _worth_ solving. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2021, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxford-shooters-parents-charged-with-involuntary-manslaughter/955493/531 "2021-12-09T20:49:32Z")
How about doing serious research into the causes of gun violence? ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2021, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxford-shooters-parents-charged-with-involuntary-manslaughter/955493/532 "2021-12-09T20:51:23Z")
Those are all great ideas, but none of them would require amending the Constitution, and many of them are in fact in place (for example, the standards for issuing gun licenses are IMO appalling lax in many jurisdictions, but all of them do actually require you to have licenses and can at least theoretically confiscate your gun for violating that requirement). There’s this popular belief that everyone has always agreed that the Second Amendment generally gives civilians the right to own guns, but it’s only recently that the Supreme Court has endorsed that notion, and as you may have noticed, the Supreme Court has sucked recently. The Second Amendment itself is IMO meaningless. It basically says, “subject to regulation, this right exists,”. That’s not really very helpful. You can point to the first clause and say that it means civilian gun ownership could be completely outlawed if the government wished to do so, or you can point to the second clause and say it means six year olds can buy machine guns. Either interpretation is equally defensible based on the text. The Second Amendment isn’t the real obstacle to gun reform, the corrupt and politicized Supreme Court is. ---
**Author:** ![DavidNRockies](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidnrockies/32/6279_2.png) [@DavidNRockies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidNRockies)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2021, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxford-shooters-parents-charged-with-involuntary-manslaughter/955493/533 "2021-12-09T20:52:54Z")
There’s smoke. It’s TBD whether or not there will be fire: > **[CDC Director wants the agency to take on firearm violence for the first time...](https://www.businessinsider.com/cdc-director-vows-to-take-on-gun-violence-as-public-health-crisis-2021-8)** > > "This is clearly one of those moments, one of those issues that is harming America's health," Dr. Rochelle Walensky told CNN. [if this isn’t widely known] ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2021, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxford-shooters-parents-charged-with-involuntary-manslaughter/955493/534 "2021-12-09T20:54:17Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > I asked for workable. And I gave you what will work. Will it actually happen? No, of course not, because too many people in this country care more about their guns than they do about dead school children. ---
**Author:** ![BeepKillBeep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9e8a1a/32.png) [@BeepKillBeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeepKillBeep)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2021, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxford-shooters-parents-charged-with-involuntary-manslaughter/955493/535 "2021-12-09T20:54:20Z")
Biometric safety features keep a weapon from firing unless it is being held by a registered user(s). I was bringing it up simply as an example. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2021, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxford-shooters-parents-charged-with-involuntary-manslaughter/955493/536 "2021-12-09T20:54:56Z")
The article says, “Congress passed spending bills allocating $25 million for the CDC and National Institutes of Health to research gun violence.” That is really a tiny amount of money. ---
**Author:** ![BeepKillBeep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9e8a1a/32.png) [@BeepKillBeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeepKillBeep)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2021, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxford-shooters-parents-charged-with-involuntary-manslaughter/955493/537 "2021-12-09T20:56:28Z")
> **[How the US fails to take away guns from domestic abusers: ‘These deaths are...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/oct/26/domestic-abuse-gun-violence-reveal)** > > Every 16 hours, a woman is fatally shot by a current or former intimate partner. Many of the offenders were legally prohibited from having guns > **[Domestic Violence and Firearms - The Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence](https://efsgv.org/learn/type-of-gun-violence/domestic-violence-and-firearms/)** I’ll admit I’m not intimately familiar with the firearm laws in the USA but I don’t think they are doing a particularly good job of keeping guns out of the hands of domestic abusers. Perhaps this is one of those places where better enforcement would help. ---
**Author:** ![DavidNRockies](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidnrockies/32/6279_2.png) [@DavidNRockies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidNRockies)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2021, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxford-shooters-parents-charged-with-involuntary-manslaughter/955493/538 "2021-12-09T20:58:25Z")
Sure … except when compared to … y’know … nothing. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2021, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxford-shooters-parents-charged-with-involuntary-manslaughter/955493/539 "2021-12-09T21:00:49Z")
[This page](https://efsgv.org/learn/learn-more-about-gun-violence/gun-violence-research/) compares spending on gun violence research to research on other causes of death. ---
**Author:** ![DavidNRockies](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidnrockies/32/6279_2.png) [@DavidNRockies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidNRockies)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2021, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxford-shooters-parents-charged-with-involuntary-manslaughter/955493/540 "2021-12-09T21:03:21Z")
This would fall under “preaching to the converted” 😉 The NRA basically prevented any federal funding for study on gun violence in about 1997 (from the linked article): > Congress stopped funding the CDC’s gun violence research in 1997 under pressure from the National Rifle Association, and the agency’s directors in the time since have largely stayed mum on the issue until now. So I’ll take the $25M down payment and hope that it’s just a beginning. [not that facts, statistics, science, logic, and data are persuasive to the demographic that has to be moved, but …] ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2021, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxford-shooters-parents-charged-with-involuntary-manslaughter/955493/541 "2021-12-09T21:04:53Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Nor is that a Law, it requires a totally impossible repeal of a Constitutional amendment, which can not happen given the political climate. Political climate is a fancy word for what YOU will allow your representatives to do. This cannot happen because of YOU, because of your personal views on guns repeated millions of times. Banning gun ownership will absolutely reduce violent crime and our murder rate, it won’t happen because YOU won’t let it happen. The 300M guns out there can become ‘not out there’ if it weren’t for people like YOU who would break the law and encourage others to break the law because you think the law is unfair. Sorry for singling you out, but I’m not going to let you blame a nebulous thing for the ‘impossibility’ of fixing our gun problems, when that thing is created by people. Take ownership of that thing you’ve created. Me, though, I’m a softie compared to @Miller , I’m cool with long guns as long as they are either bolt action, or low capacity semi-automatic. ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2021, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxford-shooters-parents-charged-with-involuntary-manslaughter/955493/542 "2021-12-09T21:07:50Z")
I think a public health model is the best way to go about approaching guns. Do what we did with cigarettes; don’t try to directly ban them, but discourage gun ownership through a combination of burdensome and expensive regulations and a sustained PR campaign pointing out the established scientific fact that gun ownership is risky and stupid.\* As they become less fashionable over a couple generations, it will be possible to pass progressively more restrictive laws. \*by which I mean that the _average_ American gun owner is much more likely to shoot themselves or someone else by accident/suicide/unjustified homicide than they are to do so in legitimate self-defense. Many people (women with abusive ex-partners, for instance) might legitimately feel that the odds in their particular circumstance are different, which is one reason why I generally favor a tactic of encouraging informed choices rather than trying to eliminate the choice entirely. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2021, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxford-shooters-parents-charged-with-involuntary-manslaughter/955493/543 "2021-12-09T21:39:34Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Were any of those school shooting caused by a minor? No. Yes. The La Loche shooter was a minor. This is the most ridiculously disingenuous attempt to “win teh interwebs” that I’ve ever seen. You said “Canada, for example, does not allow the names of the shooters to be broadcast”. This is clearly false and I gave you several examples. Show me where there is any law, or any policy on the part of any school board or any police force or any media organization in Canada that says that the name of a mass shooting perpetrator should not be released “because it leads to more shootings”. You are spouting pro-gun total nonsense that you picked up somewhere that is an insult to the intelligence of Canadians and Canadian law, which respects the public’s right to know all reasonable information about crimes and the criminals who perpetrate them. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2021, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxford-shooters-parents-charged-with-involuntary-manslaughter/955493/544 "2021-12-09T22:18:35Z")
> [@Thing.Fish](#): > > There’s this popular belief that everyone has always agreed that the Second Amendment generally gives civilians the right to own guns, but it’s only recently that the Supreme Court has endorsed that notion, and as you may have noticed, the Supreme Court has sucked recently. Well, the men who wrote it thought that is what it meant, but yes, until Heller SCOTUS never explicitly ruled citizens had a individual right to own guns. However, it was not until Chicago, DC and SF tried to actually ban guns that a explicit ruling was needed. [quote=“BeepKillBeep, post:537, topic:955493”] I’ll admit I’m not intimately familiar with the firearm laws in the USA but I don’t think they are doing a particularly good job of keeping guns out of the hands of domestic abusers. Perhaps this is one of those places where better enforcement would help. [/quote] from your cite: _Many of the offenders were legally prohibited from having guns_ > [@Cheesesteak](#): > > Sorry for singling you out, but I’m not going to let you blame a nebulous thing for the ‘impossibility’ of fixing our gun problems, when that thing is created by people. Take ownership of that thing you’ve created. I did not create it, and I support realistic workable gun control. I am not a “gun nut”. I support Bidens gun control policies, for the most part. I am not a member of the NRA. I own an ancient single shot .22 rifle my Dad gave me and my service handgun, which I wore to protect the citizens of this state. It is just that I want people educated on guns, and for **realistic workable gun control**. Not rainbow unicorns whose magic horns will take the nasty guns away. But since I don’t want to put 70 million Americans in prison for the horrible crime of GUN OWNERSHIP I am viewed here as some sort of gun rights supporter. Yes, I support and have taken an oath to protect and defend the Constitution, so I support the Bill of Rights- _all_ of the Bill of Rights. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2021, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxford-shooters-parents-charged-with-involuntary-manslaughter/955493/545 "2021-12-09T22:24:09Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > But since I don’t want to put 70 million Americans in prison for the horrible crime of GUN OWNERSHIP I am viewed here as some sort of gun rights supporter. That’s probably because you keep resorting to ridiculous strawmen like insisting that banning guns means locking up 70 million people. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2021, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxford-shooters-parents-charged-with-involuntary-manslaughter/955493/546 "2021-12-09T22:28:51Z")
Yes, and they did not publicize his name, now did they? I did say that- “Canada, for example, does not allow the names of the shooters to be broadcast” but it was here, in this thread, where we are talking about student school shooters. Not any killers, not the Olympic shooting team, not the hockey goal shooters, SCHOOL shooters. Do you not understand context? I am not _spouting pro-gun total nonsense_ I posted cites from recognized experts in the field, sociologists and criminologists and none of those cites were from anything even close to a “pro-gun cite”. Please show me where this is a progun cite:[It’s time to rethink coverage of school shootings - Columbia Journalism Review](https://www.cjr.org/united_states_project/parkland-anniversary-education-reporters.php) Or this:[https://journals.sagepub.com/toc/abs/62/2](https://journals.sagepub.com/toc/abs/62/2) American Behavioral Scientist I can give you more, but I want you to show me where those cites are “pro-gun total nonsense” first. or are you just a science denier? ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2021, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxford-shooters-parents-charged-with-involuntary-manslaughter/955493/547 "2021-12-09T22:29:48Z")
If you ban all guns and there are 70 million gun owners, you have 70 million criminals do you not? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxford-shooters-parents-charged-with-involuntary-manslaughter/955493.md?page=26) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxford-shooters-parents-charged-with-involuntary-manslaughter/955493.md?page=28)