# Stopping would-be mass shooters who have clean backgrounds **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 4, 2020, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stopping-would-be-mass-shooters-who-have-clean-backgrounds/848929 "2020-03-04T17:11:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2020, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stopping-would-be-mass-shooters-who-have-clean-backgrounds/848929/21 "2020-03-05T13:02:27Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Bombs. When I was younger it was mad bombers not mad showers that had everyone overreacting. Whatever happened to [this guy](https://villains.fandom.com/wiki/Evil_Midnight_Bomber_What_Bombs_At_Midnight) anyway? Bombs are harder to buy and if you make your own there’s a certain level of Darwinian selection that goes on, plus purchases of certain common ingredients can already raise law enforcement flags. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2020, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stopping-would-be-mass-shooters-who-have-clean-backgrounds/848929/22 "2020-03-05T13:08:43Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > Besides, many - most? - mass murderers are cowards. They may be happy to kill unarmed people from a safe distance, but few of them have the stones to get up close and personal with a knife. As you may know, mass murderers can be equally effective with bombs, often without having to go down in a hail of bullets at the end. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2020, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stopping-would-be-mass-shooters-who-have-clean-backgrounds/848929/23 "2020-03-05T13:44:06Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > 20,000 rounds say within a week? I wonder how many people do that. The cops seemed to think it was a lot of ammo. > And it shouldn’t be banned or anything, just checked out. Even pre-cleared if it going to be done repeatedly. > This is something where a false positive is not all that costly, but a false negative is catastrophic. I don’t know that a false positive is all that low-cost. If the limit is 20,000 rounds in a week, then every gun store has to report everybody who bought that much in a week. They would presumably have to report sales of lesser amounts, so the shooter could not buy 5,000 in four different stores. Creating and maintaining the system to collect and collate the information is not free, nor is the time of the employee who has to notify the police. Then the time of the police to check up on the purchaser. I for one would not be pleased if the police showed up, for instance, at my place of work and started asking me questions when there was no crime committed. Plus, the police show up on my doorstep and want to ask me about my ammunition purchases. I tell to go fuck themselves and slam the door in their faces. What do they do then - start following me around, talk to my family and friends to see if I am depressed? Stop me on the street and frisk me? Mass shootings are rare events. There are going to be massively more false positives than anything else. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2020, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stopping-would-be-mass-shooters-who-have-clean-backgrounds/848929/24 "2020-03-05T13:49:57Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > It’s basic logic. Either you believe someone intent on mass murder is reliant on a gun or you don’t believe it. It’s not “reliant on a gun” – it’s that guns are an effective tool for killing people, and in some circumstances they are the most effective tool for killing people, by far. It’s a lot harder to kill a bunch of kids going about their day in school with a truck or a knife than with a short-barreled semi-auto carbine with a large magazine. This talking point is nuts. It’s like pretending that guns serve no purpose, and it’s just as easy to go kill a deer with a sharpened stick vice a hunting rifle, or take and hold a machine-gun nest on a sandy hill with a bunch of trucks vice a battalion of soldiers with assault rifles. Guns are tools for killing, and very often they are the most effective and efficient tools for killing. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2020, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stopping-would-be-mass-shooters-who-have-clean-backgrounds/848929/25 "2020-03-05T13:56:26Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > As you may know, mass murderers can be equally effective with bombs, often without having to go down in a hail of bullets at the end. Dude. _Dude_. Believe me, I know a thing or two about bombs and bombers. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2020, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stopping-would-be-mass-shooters-who-have-clean-backgrounds/848929/26 "2020-03-05T14:49:26Z")
> [@Absolute](#): > > How many rounds of ammo do mass shooters typically fire? You can’t carry more than a few hundred rounds on your person. But it’s pretty common to buy a few hundred rounds for a day or two at the shooting range. Require that ammo used at the shooting range be delivered from the seller directly to the shooting range, and forbid its removal from there. That was easy. So - honest question: how many rounds of ammo do hunters typically go through during duck season/rabbit season/etc.? I’d expect way less, but then I’ve never been hunting. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2020, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stopping-would-be-mass-shooters-who-have-clean-backgrounds/848929/27 "2020-03-05T15:09:40Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > Besides, many - most? - mass murderers are cowards. They may be happy to kill unarmed people from a safe distance, but few of them have the stones to get up close and personal with a knife. England has murderers using knives. They can’t kill as many as with a firearm, but they still have mass murders. How often do you guys who have 5,000 rounds shoot? I bought a 1911, took it to the range, and 2 out of 16 times, the guy would have beaten me to death with a chair while he bled out. I haven’t put 50 rounds through it in a year. ---
**Author:** ![glee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b5a626/32.png) [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2020, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stopping-would-be-mass-shooters-who-have-clean-backgrounds/848929/28 "2020-03-05T16:59:48Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > England has murderers using knives. They can’t kill as many as with a firearm, but they still have mass murders. Here’s some facts. England and Wales combined (population around 56 million): In the year ending March 2018 there were 285 homicides (currently recorded) using a sharp instrument, including knives and broken bottles, accounting for 39% of all homicides – a rise from the 212 recorded in the year ending March 2017. USA (population around 330 million): 2017 gun homicides = 14,542. 2018 knife homicides = 1,515. P.S. In England, we’ve had precisely one school shooting in the last 150 years. ---
**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:** [March 5, 2020, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stopping-would-be-mass-shooters-who-have-clean-backgrounds/848929/29 "2020-03-05T17:08:00Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Short of banning \*\*\*all \*\*\*gun sales, how exactly do we stop mass shooters who can pass all the background checks required at purchase? You don’t. > [@](#): > > Are we just required to accept a mass shooting by a clean shooter every few years or so? Pretty much. Frankly, if ‘clean’ purchasers can just buy whatever they want, it is inevitable that ‘dirty’ purchasers will have no problem at all getting access to those guns. For all the “murderers can still kill with X” talk… they can already use X to murder people with, but they choose guns because guns kill people so much easier. The idea that they don’t is comical nonsense. ---
**Author:** ![RioRico](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f04885/32.png) [@RioRico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RioRico)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2020, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stopping-would-be-mass-shooters-who-have-clean-backgrounds/848929/30 "2020-03-05T17:53:08Z")
How to stop would-be mass shooters who have clean backgrounds? Just assume that everyone with a clean bg is a suspect, or _asshole_ in official police terminology (according to my police-chief BIL). With legal concealed carry becoming ubiquitous, every cop and civilian MUST assume that every clothed civilian conceals a handgun. That doesn’t make us all prospective mass-killers, but any “funny move” MUST be considered a potential assault. Failure is suicidal. How to protect the public, short of banning possession of personal firearms, which is most unlikely in the US? A technogeek solution: install monitors in public doorways that combine metal detection (to determine the presence of a solid weapon) and mental detection (to evaluate an individual’s mood). Otherwise, recognize that US law grants one the freedom to shoot or be shot. Mass shootings are integral to the national culture. Chairman Mao was right; political power DOES grow from the barrel of a gun. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2020, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stopping-would-be-mass-shooters-who-have-clean-backgrounds/848929/31 "2020-03-05T17:53:22Z")
To go in another direction, I wonder how many people that appear to have no record probably should have had one. For example, people that commit domestic violence need to be arrested and convicted. This is much, much better than it was a generation ago, but there’s still lots of cases of domestic violence that go unreported and a lot of victims that feel unable to report. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2020, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stopping-would-be-mass-shooters-who-have-clean-backgrounds/848929/32 "2020-03-05T18:09:26Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > … > But you should consider the alternative; that what people are drawn to is not simply killing others, but specifically shooting them. To the extent that that’s the case, then obviously restricting the availability of firearms can make a signficant difference. > > … > … OK, then what would you suggest? Exactly what restriction on the availability of firearms would you think would work? **“Stopping would-be mass shooters who have clean backgrounds”** Incidentally, I dont accept your premise, but I do want to see your real life solution. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2020, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stopping-would-be-mass-shooters-who-have-clean-backgrounds/848929/33 "2020-03-05T18:43:06Z")
Stopping would be mass shooters at the gun purchasing step is impossible. What they all have in common is a desire for a gun and a willingness to die. If they are willing to die to achieve their aims then having them jump through a few more hoops to obtain a gun is not going to affect them. The only solution is to take away what most of them are seeking, fame. Stop publicizing and politicizing them and they will stop happening. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2020, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stopping-would-be-mass-shooters-who-have-clean-backgrounds/848929/34 "2020-03-05T19:04:52Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > The only solution is to take away what most of them are seeking, fame. Stop publicizing and politicizing them and they will stop happening. In a free society with a free press, how could this possibly be accomplished? These events are news that people will want to know about. Someone will step in to fill that demand. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2020, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stopping-would-be-mass-shooters-who-have-clean-backgrounds/848929/35 "2020-03-05T20:25:06Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > In a free society with a free press, how could this possibly be accomplished? These events are news that people will want to know about. Someone will step in to fill that demand. They don’t publish the names of rape victims. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2020, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stopping-would-be-mass-shooters-who-have-clean-backgrounds/848929/36 "2020-03-05T20:27:35Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > They don’t publish the names of rape victims. But they do report on these crimes. Is there any evidence that holding back the names of shooters and/or victims when reporting on mass shootings would reduce these events? ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Duality](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.duality/32/4098_2.png) [@Mr.Duality](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Duality)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2020, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stopping-would-be-mass-shooters-who-have-clean-backgrounds/848929/37 "2020-03-05T20:29:03Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > Stopping would be mass shooters at the gun purchasing step is impossible. What they all have in common is a desire for a gun and a willingness to die. If they are willing to die to achieve their aims then having them jump through a few more hoops to obtain a gun is not going to affect them. > > The only solution is to take away what most of them are seeking, fame. Stop publicizing and politicizing them and they will stop happening. This would stop the ones looking to make a statement. It would not stop those who are motivated by anger. Impossible to implement though. ---
**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:** [March 5, 2020, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stopping-would-be-mass-shooters-who-have-clean-backgrounds/848929/38 "2020-03-05T20:38:15Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > Stop publicizing and politicizing them and they will stop happening. Has this strategy been successful anywhere in the world at any time in history? Is there any objective evidence that this works, at all, even the tiniest little bit, in the real world we inhabit? I only ask because earlier in your post you described something as “impossible” and it’s something that has actually been done, by actual human beings, living on our planet. I’m just attempting to gauge your reaction to evidence that certain attempts to cut down on mass shootings have actually worked in the real world, compared to your recommendation which I don’t believe has a shred of evidence to support it. ---
**Author:** ![Saintly\_Loser](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saintly_loser/32/4045_2.png) [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2020, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stopping-would-be-mass-shooters-who-have-clean-backgrounds/848929/39 "2020-03-05T20:41:46Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > It’s not “reliant on a gun” – it’s that guns are an effective tool for killing people, and in some circumstances they are the most effective tool for killing people, by far. It’s a lot harder to kill a bunch of kids going about their day in school with a truck or a knife than with a short-barreled semi-auto carbine with a large magazine. > > This talking point is nuts. It’s like pretending that guns serve no purpose, and it’s just as easy to go kill a deer with a sharpened stick vice a hunting rifle, or take and hold a machine-gun nest on a sandy hill with a bunch of trucks vice a battalion of soldiers with assault rifles. Guns are tools for killing, and very often they are the most effective and efficient tools for killing. It’s not “nuts.” It’s a _lie_. Everyone who makes this point in any debate about gun regulation knows it’s a lie. ---
**Author:** ![Airbeck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/airbeck/32/6574_2.png) [@Airbeck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airbeck)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2020, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stopping-would-be-mass-shooters-who-have-clean-backgrounds/848929/40 "2020-03-05T20:42:46Z")
I really don’t understand this right wing trope about not reporting on bad things meaning that bad things won’t happen. How does anyone believe this? Sticking our collective heads in the sand isn’t going to make any problems go away. Do those on the right really think that the media has the power to create reality like this? That if they collectively all agree to not report on a particular crime then that means that crime will go away? It’s just self delusion, on a societal level. Makes zero sense unless you think you can just control reality by essentially bullying it to your will. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stopping-would-be-mass-shooters-who-have-clean-backgrounds/848929.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stopping-would-be-mass-shooters-who-have-clean-backgrounds/848929.md?page=3)