The shooter involved in the Navy Yard Shooting passed an FBI background check for a security clearance, which is about as thorough a background check as anyone can ask for, and he was cleared. And Obama has the nerve to say this?
President Barack Obama accused opponents of gun control of fighting to allow “dangerous people†to own guns in a speech on Saturday to activists at Congressional Black Caucus, promising he  would revive his failed gun control efforts following recent urban shootings in Chicago and Washington D.C.’s Navy Yard.
All this shows is that background checks don’t matter worth a damn if authorities don’t take time to get an adjudication in cases where someone is mentally ill enough to be a danger to themselves or others. That goes the same for criminal convictions, as is the case here when Seattle authorities missed another chance to prosecute the shooter under a charge which would have made him ineligible to own firearms upon conviction. People on our side have been saying this until we’re blue in the face. No background check in the world will stop someone who slips through the cracks of the mental health system or the criminal justice system. In more cases than the authorities are comfortable admitting, or even talking about, that is the case. Until we can have that conversation, more gun control is just putting lipstick on the pig.
It’s because background ducks are NOT the real objective. A comprehensive registry is their real goal.
“…authorities missed another chance to prosecute the shooter under a charge which would have made him ineligible to own firearms…”
True, perhaps, but I won’t bother making that argument because it too is counterproductive. Even if we imposed the most draconian, Crimestrike, Project Exile, Hang’em-High punishments, and in the process disbarred from legal firearms possession anyone who so much as thinks impure thoughts about guns, in a country of 320+ million people enough new crazies would slip through the cracks that high-profile shootings would still occur, and they would still incite calls for ever-stricter gun controls.
Gun control is not about crime, other than crimes provides limitless excuses for expanding it. We don’t need to aid our enemies by contributing to arguments that could be summarized by, “If only we had given government more power of us,” or, “If only government had used its power to a greater extent.”
Unfortunately the incident at the naval yard is not about gun control.
A sick man with a known history of problems was never helped. It is difficult to imagine that such an individual could go to work day in a day out and not have colleagues notice something. And to work in an environment where there is special training for personal to recognize people with such risks before they happen.
It is a poor excuse of our administration to use this as a gun control platform when the checks in place to prevent such an incident all failed.
Don’t forget Obama’s endorsement of Australian type gun control as a solution for America. He did it at the service held for the victims of the Navy Yard massacre.
http://dailycaller.com/2013/09/23/obama-demands-gun-curbs-laments-gun-rights-in-navy-yard-shooting-speech/
I think it is terribly informative that some of the loudest tools for gun-control keep bringing up the Australian policy. Joe Scarborough did it the day after Newton. The Daily Show did it about a month or two ago (even winning an Emmy for it!). And now Obama has too.
And of course these tools all say, no one is going to take away your guns! They must think we are really stupid to fall for that lie. If they really were against gun confiscation they would condemn Australian gun control instead of praising it.
Brad raises a MAJOR point.
Australia: No semiautos at all and most cannot own pumps. To own others, you must have “need” — and protection is not a valid need.
Any gun control advocates who say no confiscations, no hunting gun bans, no self-defense bans here — and then praise Aussie gun law — have been LYING.
The Providence RI police had an opportunity to stop this. They were called in when AA was causing problems at a hotel. He was hearing voices and was sure three invisible people were following him with their microwave machines. Rather than take him to the hospital for observation, they blew the whole thing off, except for sending a report to the Navy. the report fell through the cracks at the navy.
If any one of these people gave a damn about the sanity of AA, he might still be alive. And TWELVE INNOCENTS WOULD BE ALIVE.
All the laws in the world are useless if the police are too lazy/incompetent/busy/uncaring/whatever to do their jobs.
“Rather than take him to the hospital for observation, they blew the whole thing off, except for sending a report to the Navy.”
It’s been a long time, like pushing 50 years, but to my recall that was always the way civilian authorities dealt with members of the services, and I’m sure to some extent it still is. Often even the civilian police would just hand over service people guilty of minor civilian misdemeanor offenses to the military, for military discipline.