Former Mayor Bloomberg Fights Against NRA

[Fionnuala_Saoirse]

Mental health checks require diagnosis by a trained psychologist (psychiatrist? I always get the two confused).

Either works. One is medically trained (psychiatrist) and one isn't (psychologist) but both can diagnose.

I really do wonder what kind of strange impression people have of either professions capability however if they think mandating mental health checks will have any tangible benefit other than lining a lot of pockets.

[Russian Socialist Soviet States]

He is a fucking leftist.

No, he's a conservative.

"leftist" does not mean "not sucking Koch Brothers' dicks", no matter what the right-wing-controlled media wants you to think.

He is not conservative. He supports many things contrary to conservatism.

[Paddy O Fernature]

1 out of 3 people own guns that is a lot of mental health checks.

It's probably a bit less than that, and declining.

Actually, gun ownership is at a 20 year high currently in America. He is also pretty much spot in with the 1 in 3 number.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/150353/self- ... -1993.aspx

[Greed and Death]

1 out of 3 people own guns that is a lot of mental health checks.

It's probably a bit less than that, and declining. However, your point is taken. I think it's a problem, frankly. However, it can be attacked from the other side. For example, if you have a certain amount of seizures in a certain period you aren't permitted to drive. Certain types of mental instability should result in the same restriction being placed on your record for gun purchase and ownership.

The truth is that mass shootings really are not the problem. Irresponsible gun ownership is, for certain, though. And easy way to deal with that is to one make sure firearms are registered, which would make transferring them to criminals much more difficult. It would also make it easier to tell where firearms came from when they are used in crimes. It would have a significant effect on the criminal market since the most common source of criminal guns is from legal sources within the US.

Yes the background check currently in place does check for mental health flags.

No I do not wish to register my firearms and the state I live in is also against it. Luckily our system practically requires such sweeping measures to be done at the state level. I also do not feel the need to require private sales to go through a background check.

[Geilinor]

No, he's a conservative.

"leftist" does not mean "not sucking Koch Brothers' dicks", no matter what the right-wing-controlled media wants you to think.

He is not conservative. He supports many things contrary to conservatism.

Define "conservative". He'd sure fit in with European conservatives. http://www.nyc.gov/portal/site/nycgov/menuitem.c0935b9a57bb4ef3daf2f1c701c789a0/index.jsp?pageID=mayor_press_release&catID=1194&doc_name=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nyc.gov%2Fhtml%2Fom%2Fhtml%2F2007b%2Fpr348-07.html&cc=unused1978&rc=1194&ndi=1

[United Prefectures of Appia]

No I do not wish to register my firearms and the state I live in is also against it. Luckily our system practically requires such sweeping measures to be done at the state level. I also do not feel the need to require private sales to go through a background check.

And why do you wish not to register your firearms? What are you afraid of if you are a law-abiding gun owner?

[Geilinor]

No I do not wish to register my firearms and the state I live in is also against it. Luckily our system practically requires such sweeping measures to be done at the state level. I also do not feel the need to require private sales to go through a background check.

And why do you wish not to register your firearms? What are you afraid of if you are a law-abiding gun owner?

It always comes back to "the police will come to my house and seize my guns!"

[Corrian]

If you don't want your firearms registered, than you probably should be having them registered...Or not having them at all.

[Paddy O Fernature]

No I do not wish to register my firearms and the state I live in is also against it. Luckily our system practically requires such sweeping measures to be done at the state level. I also do not feel the need to require private sales to go through a background check.

And why do you wish not to register your firearms? What are you afraid of if you are a law-abiding gun owner?

The possibility of local agencies releasing said information, and thus unjustly making law abiding citizens a potential target for criminals and extremists perhaps?

[Occupied Deutschland]

And why do you wish not to register your firearms? What are you afraid of if you are a law-abiding gun owner?

It always comes back to "the police will come to my house and seize my guns!"

Yes, the only reason to oppose rules based on "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear!" logic is that.

In other news, anyone opposed to the NYPD stop and frisk policy is a racist, and those opposed to the USA PATRIOT Act are with the terrorists.

[Arkinesia]

Or ADHD for that matter. Pretty certain me and my brother aren't about to go be hyperactive and shoot a school up because we have ADHD.

Speaking as someone who has been diagnosed, ADHD is not an actual mental disorder, it's an attempt to make an excuse for a culture that ignores the few good aspects of human nature and is incompatible with greater human development.

I don't think it's an accident that most intelligent people wind up with ADHD diagnoses and that so many of these diagnoses are made in the West.

[Corrian]

Or ADHD for that matter. Pretty certain me and my brother aren't about to go be hyperactive and shoot a school up because we have ADHD.

Speaking as someone who has been diagnosed, ADHD is not an actual mental disorder, it's an attempt to make an excuse for a culture that ignores the few good aspects of human nature and is incompatible with greater human development.

I don't think it's an accident that most intelligent people wind up with ADHD diagnoses and that so many of these diagnoses are made in the West.

I haven't been diagnosed, but I could easily have it. Everyone says I have the signs. But my brother has had it pretty serious before, and it definitely can be a problem.

That said, with how many various types of disorders and whatnot there are now, I'm pretty sure everyone in the world has something. Us humans are flawed. None of us seem perfect, and there's gotta always be something wrong with us, minor or not. And there may be various reasonable arguments for that being so prominent that I couldn't even name, beyond just more diagnosing now these days than before.

[United Prefectures of Appia]

And why do you wish not to register your firearms? What are you afraid of if you are a law-abiding gun owner?

The possibility of local agencies releasing said information, and thus unjustly making law abiding citizens a potential target for criminals and extremists perhaps?

Then you'd blame the newspaper instead, not the local agency that allows registered information to be released on public records. Besides, if pro-gunners are for justice, wouldn't they want persecutors and detectives be granted access so they can track the murdering culprit when investigating a gun-homicide? That would be the primary reason to have all guns registered in the first place, right?

[Llamalandia]

Not a fan of his "stop and frisk" policy, but background checks for deadly weapons seems like common sense.

Umm, NY state already closed the gun show loophole and regulates the all private gun sales as well. So, I'm not quite sure what you're saying here. I mean, logically stop and frisk was only taking guns off the streets that had criminals had bought or otherwise acquired illegally. (not that is support stop and frisk either but objectively speaking it was a useful tactic in combating illegal guns which i believe even strong 2nd Amendment supporters think is a good thing).

I think the only reason to oppose background checks is that it's a slippery slope to more gun control. I mean, if we had universal background checks and then another mass shooting happens, where do go from there? I mean, it's like ok, so we've done the low hanging fruit common sense background check thing, next banning say high cap mags will be "common sense", and then it'll be an "assault weapons" ban and on and on.

The reality is pro-gun people are having a hard time trusting the sincerity of even reasonable gun control advocates because too many are like Mike Bloomberg and would like to ban assault weapons (and possibly handguns if I'm not mistaken) as well as implementing universal background checks. If the antigun lobby were to equivocally give up some of the more radical anti-gun positions i imagine it would considerably easier for congress to act on the things that basically 90% of the people agree on.

[Geilinor]

And why do you wish not to register your firearms? What are you afraid of if you are a law-abiding gun owner?

The possibility of local agencies releasing said information, and thus unjustly making law abiding citizens a potential target for criminals and extremists perhaps?

That's on the newspaper and the local agencies, not registration policies in general.

[Corrian]

The possibility of local agencies releasing said information, and thus unjustly making law abiding citizens a potential target for criminals and extremists perhaps?

Yeah, that's stupid. But that is more something that should be a complaint about that local agencies stupidity than being registered as a whole. Just like with anything, sure, there's problems with it, but it still feels weird to me when people don't want to be registered with background checks or whatever, or go "OVER MY DEAD BODY!" in reply to someone wanting better background checks. Those kinds of things just feel odd to me I guess.

[Geilinor]

Not a fan of his "stop and frisk" policy, but background checks for deadly weapons seems like common sense.

Umm, NY state already closed the gun show loophole and regulates the all private gun sales as well. So, I'm not quite sure what you're saying here. I mean, logically stop and frisk was only taking guns off the streets that had criminals had bought or otherwise acquired illegally. (not that is support stop and frisk either but objectively speaking it was a useful tactic in combating illegal guns which i believe even strong 2nd Amendment supporters think is a good thing).

Stop-and-frisk was not "check everyone for guns" (not that I support stop-and-frisk, but just clarifying).

[Llamalandia]

And factually, Chicago's gun control laws are the most restrictive in the country. Why do you think crime is so high?

Because gun laws on state and local levels are inconsistent. This allows criminals to exploit any loopholes that exist. Gun nuts like to use Chicago for example to prove their point. True the city does have very strict gun laws, but they conveniently leave out the part where criminals can just waltz over to Indiana where gun laws are very lax. Also the ability to violate the 4th Amendment wouldn't be hard to accomplish given that the Chicago police department is ill-funded, which also contributes to high crimes as well. A lack of police officers on the street makes it that much hard to uphold any gun laws [i](or any laws for that matter), regardless how strict they are.

And yet, despite the "lax" gaun laws in the state of Indiana, Indianapolis doesn't seem to have a huge problem with gun crime and homicide like Chicago does. So clearly the problem isn't a lack of gun laws, the problem is too many criminals in Chicago and not enough police. Seems like maybe cleaning up the city the way Giuliani did in NYC might do a lot more to curb not just gun crime but crime in general in Chicago, while at the same time respecting gun rights.

[Llamalandia]

Umm, NY state already closed the gun show loophole and regulates the all private gun sales as well. So, I'm not quite sure what you're saying here. I mean, logically stop and frisk was only taking guns off the streets that had criminals had bought or otherwise acquired illegally. (not that is support stop and frisk either but objectively speaking it was a useful tactic in combating illegal guns which i believe even strong 2nd Amendment supporters think is a good thing).

Stop-and-frisk was not "check everyone for guns" (not that I support stop-and-frisk, but just clarifying).

No, but they, did recover a fair number of illegal firearms in the process. I realize it wasn't intended as an antigun measure, but in practice it did help partly solve the problem. Of course I do find it slightly ironic how vehemently people are defending the 4th amendment, while advocating for violating or limiting the 2nd.

[McNernia]

Hurrah! Finally, some good sense! About time those NRA bitches met their match!

Do I smell Koch v Bloomberg?

[Corrian]

A large chunk of people who preach the 2nd amendment (Or, well, a portion of it taken out of context, anyway) violate other amendments on a regular basis.

[Britanno]

Fully support him.

[Llamalandia]

The possibility of local agencies releasing said information, and thus unjustly making law abiding citizens a potential target for criminals and extremists perhaps?

Yeah, that's stupid. But that is more something that should be a complaint about that local agencies stupidity than being registered as a whole. Just like with anything, sure, there's problems with it, but it still feels weird to me when people don't want to be registered with background checks or whatever, or go "OVER MY DEAD BODY!" in reply to someone wanting better background checks. Those kinds of things just feel odd to me I guess.

Backgrounds in and of themselves aren't really a huge source of contention with most people (even I tentatively support them though i am still concerned about a possibly slippery slope to further restrictions) but I'm adamantly opposed to registration. I mean, if the govt knows where the guns are and who owns them, then should they decide one day to confiscate certain firearms as NY has been doing then a registry just makes it that much easier to do so. If the govt has to send cops door to door it would be both a practical and PR nightmare to try and confiscate any type of gun.

[Llamalandia]

A large chunk of people who preach the 2nd amendment (Or, well, a portion of it taken out of context, anyway) violate other amendments on a regular basis.

Such as...? What do you mean by this? Can you offer some specifics and examples to back this up? Not trying to attack you just genuinely curious about what youre saying.

[Geilinor]

Yeah, that's stupid. But that is more something that should be a complaint about that local agencies stupidity than being registered as a whole. Just like with anything, sure, there's problems with it, but it still feels weird to me when people don't want to be registered with background checks or whatever, or go "OVER MY DEAD BODY!" in reply to someone wanting better background checks. Those kinds of things just feel odd to me I guess.

Backgrounds in and of themselves aren't really a huge source of contention with most people (even I tentatively support them though i am still concerned about a possibly slippery slope to further restrictions) but I'm adamantly opposed to registration. I mean, if the govt knows where the guns are and who owns them, then should they decide one day to confiscate certain firearms as NY has been doing then a registry just makes it that much easier to do so. If the govt has to send cops door to door it would be both a practical and PR nightmare to try and confiscate any type of gun.

Knowing where the guns are and who owns them can make it easier to solve crimes. Source that NY has been going around confiscating already legally purchased firearms?