Kentucky Governor Blames Video Games for Florida School Shooting

[Lakados]

No crime he could be charged with but probable cause he did have. Had they dug into his file they would have found that.

Also, brandishing a firearm in public is a crime last I checked. Don't quote me though.
http://www.leg.state.fl.us/Statutes...tute&URL=0700-0799/0790/Sections/0790.10.html

You have to point the gun at a person for this law to apply having one displaying it or using in as intimidation doesn’t count as reckless, you physically have to raise the muzzle and point it at a person for it to be considered reckless.

In Florida if you are on your property you could unholster your gun look somebody square in the eye and tell them if the come one step closer to you you will shoot them dead. And as long as you don’t point it at them while saying it you are covered under their existing “stand your ground” laws.
Animals and live stock are also not covered under that law and it is only a misdemeanour so a fine and community service at most.

 

[heatlesssun]

The problem is , if a person is in the mindset on harming people, they will wait to do it. They already have waiting restrictions on purchasing guns. They do this so if you're suicidal, you have some time to think about it.

So the State of Florida never even charged this guy but hey, you're totally cool with FBI stepping in. There's just no way people who are obsessed with government taking away gun rights are cool with this. The lobbies that defend gun rights oppose ALL extrajudicial actions against gun owners. You can not have it both ways. And I am probably being more vocal than the NRA here in defending Cruz's right to own a gun before four days ago.

 

[heatlesssun]

You have to point the gun at a person for this law to apply having one displaying it or using in as intimidation doesn’t count as reckless, you physically have to raise the muzzle and point it at a person for it to be considered reckless.

In Florida if you are on your property you could unholster your gun look somebody square in the eye and tell them if the come one step closer to you you will shoot them dead. And as long as you don’t point it at them while saying it you are covered under their existing “stand your ground” laws.
Animals and live stock are also not covered under that law and it is only a misdemeanour so a fine and community service at most.

The FBI FAILED! Over and over and over and I've asked the question even in most racist forums I'd care to visit what crimes did Cruz commit. Nada. So it's REALLY scary that the FBI should have been hunting this guy down while no one even knew why that should have been the case before Wednesday. .

 

[Krenum]

The FBI FAILED! Over and over and over and I've asked the question even in most racist forums I'd care to visit what crimes did Cruz commit. Nada. So it's REALLY scary that the FBI should have been hunting this guy down while no one even knew why that should have been the case before Wednesday. .

Dude....follow the story. The FBI had complaints against this guy, but someone in the Florida branch failed to pass along the message.

 

[maxius]

Dude....follow the story. The FBI had complaints against this guy, but someone in the Florida branch failed to pass along the message.

at most that would lead to an interview as he did not break any laws.

 

[Krenum]

at most that would lead to an interview as he did not break any laws.

Probably, and one thing leads to another and they pull his record and discover he has a violent history and has a mental disorder. That's the point I've been trying to make for the past 2 pages of this thread. I'm done, take care folks.

 

[heatlesssun]

Dude....follow the story. The FBI had complaints against this guy, but someone in the Florida branch failed to pass along the message.

LOL! This guy was in a group that thinks FL. should be an ethno-white state. Let me report that to the FBI and have them care. This is a messed up guy and my point is that even as liberal as I am relative to this place, so fucking what? It's not a crime to want only white folks in FL.

 

[maxius]

Probably, and one thing leads to another and they pull his record and discover he has a violent history and has a mental disorder. That's the point I've been trying to make for the past 2 pages of this thread. I'm done, take care folks.

But having both of those on his record does not disqualify him from purchasing a gun so no law was broken

 

[IdiotInCharge]

...your chart conveniently misses the "Bought a gun legally due to lax background checks" box

What lax background checks?

 

[pcgeekesq]

Like a lot of shooters, this guy was trained by the U.S. military. He was a cadet in the school's Junior ROTC program, "a federal program sponsored by the United States Armed Forces." (Wikipedia) The student leading the JROTC program was so desperate to keep him in the unit, he bribed him to behave:

last year, Cruz reportedly stopped wearing his JROTC gear. As leader, Ciaramello took notice.
He said Cruz always had an excuse for being out of uniform. Worried Cruz would get kicked out of the corps, Ciaramello asked what it would take to get him to wear his gear.
His request: a Snickers candy bar.
“So I went out to the store, I bought him it, and the next day, there on after, he came in with the uniform every day — T-shirt, uniform, everything,” Ciaramello said.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/02/1...oting-suspect-nikolas-cruz-was-his-cadet.html​

The goals of JROTC include "Developing ... basic military skills" (Wikipedia). Including marksmanship (although the competitions are with air rifles).
Apparently, it's okay for JROTC to develop those military skills in unbalanced nutjobs. Even if you have to give them Snickers to stay.

 

[heatlesssun]

But having both of those on his record does not disqualify him from purchasing a gun so no law was broken

Amazing how fast 2nd Amendment advocates seem to want to walk away from their due process on this one.

 

[maxius]

Like a lot of shooters, this guy was trained by the U.S. military. He was a cadet in the school's Junior ROTC program, "a federal program sponsored by the United States Armed Forces." (Wikipedia) The student leading the JROTC program was so desperate to keep him in the unit, he bribed him to behave:

last year, Cruz reportedly stopped wearing his JROTC gear. As leader, Ciaramello took notice.
He said Cruz always had an excuse for being out of uniform. Worried Cruz would get kicked out of the corps, Ciaramello asked what it would take to get him to wear his gear.
His request: a Snickers candy bar.
“So I went out to the store, I bought him it, and the next day, there on after, he came in with the uniform every day — T-shirt, uniform, everything,” Ciaramello said.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/02/1...oting-suspect-nikolas-cruz-was-his-cadet.html​

The goals of JROTC include "Developing ... basic military skills" (Wikipedia). Including marksmanship (although the competitions are with air rifles).
Apparently, it's okay for JROTC to develop those military skills in unbalanced nutjobs. Even if you have to give them Snickers to stay.

Jrotc to me was a good gym alternative more a basics of adulating class

 

[Lakados]

Probably, and one thing leads to another and they pull his record and discover he has a violent history and has a mental disorder. That's the point I've been trying to make for the past 2 pages of this thread. I'm done, take care folks.

In Florida a violent history and a mental disorder does not disqualify you from owning nor purchasing a firearm a criminal history would but until he does something that he could be arrested for there is nothing the Police can do. As his first offence was mass murder the legal hands were tied, now if Florida required a mental health check to be able to purchase a gun he wouldn't have been able to get one. Existing laws protect crazy people and permit them easy access to guns, face it in the US the Police are powerless to do anything to prevent your murder but they sure as shit will go after the person who kills you.

 

[pcgeekesq]

Amazing how fast 2nd Amendment advocates seem to want to walk away from their due process on this one.

Some do, some don't.

Some realize that historically, orders of magnitude more innocent lives have been taken by governments that banned private ownership of guns than by private-sector nutjobs.

Nothing's free in this life, especially freedom.

 

[IdiotInCharge]

Amazing how fast 2nd Amendment advocates seem to want to walk away from their due process on this one.

I'd just prefer that the laws based on previous compromises be actually followed before we start screaming for more infringements.

Not following the ones on the books got 17 kids killed.

 

[heatlesssun]

Some do, some don't.

Some realize that historically, orders of magnitude more innocent lives have been taken by governments that banned private ownership of guns than by private-sector nutjobs.

Nothing's free in this life, especially freedom.

I might get in trouble for this exceptional point of logic in this place be here it goes. As a black man descended from slavery with parents that lived under Jim Crow I get the point. People say I live is the past too much but I use my ancestry to justify the killing of 17 people, mostly children, to justify killing people that had nothing to do with slavery or Jim Crow.

That's why I am a pacifist. From the womb to tomb killing is something I will not do. And that is a fortune afforded to me in part by many that have.

 

[MarkVI]

You missed the point completely. Inanimate objects don't kill people by themselves.

Here's the problem. People. People don't let others know of a unhinged person, people or (the FBI who received two calls) don't prevent said unhinged person from doing this. Its really a failure at the highest level.

Here's what happened,

This kid was diagnosed with Autism, he was made fun of at school (again, people the problem), both his parents died, his girlfriend cheated on him and broke up with him. So, given all that, the guy snapped and sought revenge on his former classmates. (Again, not defending him) but more people are at fault with this than just the kid that pulled the trigger.

Your argument is facile. Of course there is a human element to this, but he wouldn't have been able to kill so many people so quickly without easy access to firearms. He could have shown up with a knife, but I doubt he had the skill to kill 17 people with it before being overwhelmed.

We are the only first world country that has these kinds of problems with gun violence. Our gun violence rates look more like sub-Saharan Africa than like Canada or Western Europe. We have 55x the number of gun deaths per year as the UK. We also have, by far, the highest rates of firearm ownership. By itself, this is pretty strong link, but admittedly it's just correlation. Thanks to the Dickey amendment, we don't have the studies to prove causation since the NRA doesn't want us to even do the research and see what comes out. It would be like if the tobacco lobby had managed to prevent us from studying links between smoking and cancer.

Here are some fun (sarcasm) statistics:
https://www.cnn.com/2017/10/03/americas/us-gun-statistics/index.html

Aren't we all sick of reading these headlines over and over? The Onion literally reprints the same story every time this happens as a way to point out the absurdity. We need to address this problem comprehensively. This includes mental health screening and reasonable restrictions on firearm purchases. Keep in mind the Republicans say it's not the guns' fault out of one side of their mouths while wanting to cut funding for social services and eliminate ACA regulations mandating that insurance cover mental health. Unless something changes this is just going to keep happening. I am so glad I'm not a university prof any longer.

 

[pcgeekesq]

People say I live is the past too much but I use my ancestry to justify the killing of 17 people, mostly children, to justify killing people that had nothing to do with slavery or Jim Crow.

No one is justifying murder, especially not mass murder of innocents.
But it is impossible to prevent it in anything short of a totalitarian society, and I would rather accept the risks of freedom than live "in safety" as a slave of the government.
You are free to disagree, of course.

 

[pcgeekesq]

he wouldn't have been able to kill so many people so quickly without easy access to firearms. He could have shown up with a knife, but I doubt he had the skill to kill 17 people with it before being overwhelmed.

That's not only unimaginative, it's provably wrong by historical counter-example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Land_fire

The Happy Land fire was an act of arson that killed 87 people trapped in the unlicensed Happy Land social club ... in ... the Bronx in New York City on March 25, 1990.

González went to an Amoco gas station, then returned to the establishment with a plastic container with $1 worth of gasoline. He spread the fuel at the base of a staircase, the only access into the club, and then ignited the gasoline.
Eighty-seven people died in the resulting fire.
​

But I don't see you advocating the banning of gasoline. 87 people murdered using gasoline. Five times as many as the Florida shooter. And more than the Vegas shooter of last year, too.

See also the Blue Bird Cafe fire in Canada, 1972, 37 people murdered using "a molotov cocktail or gasoline."
Also the Gothenburg Disco fire, 1998, 63 people murdered by arson in Sweden by four Iranian teen-age immigrants.

 

[IdiotInCharge]

Aren't we all sick of reading these headlines over and over?

I'm sick of so-called liberals using them for political gain in service to their totalitarian ideology

 

[IdiotInCharge]

That's why I am a pacifist. From the womb to tomb killing is something I will not do. And that is a fortune afforded to me in part by many that have.

You are absolutely fortunate to be able to ascribe to pacifism- that's something that's been extremely rare in human history.

 

[sfsuphysics]

Please explain to us how a gun magically kills people with out a person to pull the trigger? Should we start banning rocks & hammers?

The gun purchase is irrelevant. Society failed to protect itself, yet again.

Well depending upon when the gun was purchased, if you go by the lovely flow chart, the police were called to his house multiple times, he was diagnosed with a mental illness, but none of that matters "here's your gun"

 

[MarkVI]

I'm sick of so-called liberals using them for political gain in service to their totalitarian ideology

It isn't about scoring political points, it's about addressing the issue. In this case, the right is obstructing all of the potential means of solving the problem (firearm regulation, funding for social services including mental health and education, researching the problem, etc.).

Totalitarianism isn't a liberal or conservative thing. Ever hear of Nazi Germany (hard right) or the USSR (hard left)? You know, name calling doesn't really add anything. If you don't have a point, maybe don't post?

 

[kinjo]

Here's my point in all of this,

Maybe if the FBI would stop focusing so much on Russia and political gain, and do their job, and focus on the rot within, those 17 people might still be alive today.

Yes because the FBI (the primary federal law enforcement agency of the most powerful and affluent nation on the planet across all of recorded human history) clearly only has the resources to investigate one thing at a time...

 

[Morphy]

So lets blame the fake digital guns but not the real guns.
Makes sense.

 

[IdiotInCharge]

It isn't about scoring political points, it's about addressing the issue. In this case, the right is obstructing all of the potential means of solving the problem (firearm regulation, funding for social services including mental health and education, researching the problem, etc.).

Totalitarianism isn't a liberal or conservative thing. Ever hear of Nazi Germany (hard right) or the USSR (hard left)? You know, name calling doesn't really add anything. If you don't have a point, maybe don't post?

The 'right' obstructed Obama and his DNC-controlled Congress?

Sorry.

The DNC doesn't want to 'fix' anything. They'd lose political capital.

 

[pcgeekesq]

Ever hear of Nazi Germany (hard right) or the USSR (hard left)?

Interesting to see the National Socialist (aka Nazi) party called "hard right."
"Initially, Nazi political strategy focused on anti-big business, anti-bourgeois and anti-capitalist rhetoric" -- Wikipedia.

You know, name calling doesn't really add anything. If you don't have a point, maybe don't post?

Better to post without a point than to post blatant untruths, as you did when you wrote "he wouldn't have been able to kill so many people so quickly without easy access to firearms." You did see me prove that wrong, I assume, but I haven't seen you retract the statement.

 

[RC-Heli-3D]

My response to the school shooting around the country. Guns are not the problem, it is the people that choose to kill. Schools are soft targets, banning guns will not solve anything. It pains me to see many people lives stolen by violence. Why don't we put aside our differences and employ dedicated police officers and none-PTSD veterans with AR15's? Next time a evil loser shows up to kill kids and young adults, mow him the "F" DOWN!

Mass Killers as far as I am concerned, have no constitutional rights!

Gun free zones do not work, banning guns do not work, liberal outrage based on emotional fallacies do not work!

We are wasting our time arguing the differences, the only logical solution to these problems. IMHO is to harden the soft target and employ "QRF" teams to neutralize the threat on the premises.

 

[pcgeekesq]

It isn't about scoring political points, it's about addressing the issue.

Sure, let's address an issue.

The Government created large, well-demarcated "kill zones" where it is illegal for people to have the tools they would need to defend themselves from even one of the hundreds of millions of firearms in private hands, and then forced millions of innocent children to sit helpless and unprotected in those kill zones for hours at a time on most weekdays.

And you see nothing wrong with the government doing that?

My hypothesis is that gun-free school zones are a key contributing factor in school massacres. Can you prove me wrong? Can you show me that they've saved enough lives to make them worth the ones they've cost? Got stats on that?

 

[Flogger23m]

Your argument is facile. Of course there is a human element to this, but he wouldn't have been able to kill so many people so quickly without easy access to firearms. He could have shown up with a knife, but I doubt he had the skill to kill 17 people with it before being overwhelmed.

We are the only first world country that has these kinds of problems with gun violence. Our gun violence rates look more like sub-Saharan Africa than like Canada or Western Europe. We have 55x the number of gun deaths per year as the UK. We also have, by far, the highest rates of firearm ownership. By itself, this is pretty strong link, but admittedly it's just correlation. Thanks to the Dickey amendment, we don't have the studies to prove causation since the NRA doesn't want us to even do the research and see what comes out. It would be like if the tobacco lobby had managed to prevent us from studying links between smoking and cancer.

Here are some fun (sarcasm) statistics:
https://www.cnn.com/2017/10/03/americas/us-gun-statistics/index.html

Aren't we all sick of reading these headlines over and over? The Onion literally reprints the same story every time this happens as a way to point out the absurdity. We need to address this problem comprehensively. This includes mental health screening and reasonable restrictions on firearm purchases. Keep in mind the Republicans say it's not the guns' fault out of one side of their mouths while wanting to cut funding for social services and eliminate ACA regulations mandating that insurance cover mental health. Unless something changes this is just going to keep happening. I am so glad I'm not a university prof any longer.

We've done this a number of times, but the overall homicide rate in the US is disproportionately attributed to black males. Most of that is gang related to. There are a lot more very poor areas in the US compared to other developed countries. The vast majority of these crimes will only go away if something is done to help these communities, which will be a monumental task. Of course it is easier to be a politician, claim you can make a problem go away overnight with the stroke of a pen. Makes for good sound bites.

When it comes to mass killings if you adjust the size of the US and compare it to other similar countries (France, Canada) the US isn't that much higher. It certainly is, but not by 3-4 or 15-20 times like most try to insist. I did some rough math a while and if I recall the mass shooting rate of the US was about 2.2 times that of France and I excluded the recent Islamic terrorist attacks because those are different in nature from the lone killer type scenario which is common in the US. Australia is a bit more puzzling because the rate of mass killings has more or less stayed the same, and although firearms are less common the attackers have switched to other weapons. Outside of Port Arthur it seems the average fatality rate of a mass killing in Australia has gone up since the new regulations. But the country is wealthy and never had a crime problem to begin with. They simply don't have the mass crime problem we do in the US. Copy/pasting laws without acknowledging the difference in demographics, wealth distribution, crime rates and whatnot is something only the low info voter would willing support.

Also, the governor is an asshat.

 

[Meeho]

LOL! This guy was in a group that thinks FL. should be an ethno-white state.

LOL! No, he wasn't. And he was a registered democrat hispanic jew. Not really a core white ethnostate support group. Not that any of that matters. He was retarded and wanted to kill.

 

[viper1152012]

Personally, been playing FPS games since they came out on PC, and console games with violence as well. Have fired many firearms, got my NRA certs, even worked in armed security... have shot 0 people.

I only had to unclasp my holster twice as a show of force and the extra paperwork sucked.

Never had any thoughts of homicide, I haven't even been in many fights* (*not on duty).

 

[Draax]

As someone who doesn’t live in the US, the US obsession with firearms is completely foreign to me. The so called solutions to the mass shooting problem the US has, I see suggested by US media, are right sad. Suggestions such as more firearms, armed guards at school, armed teachers, metal detectors at school ... really? Honestly now ... what kind of third world shithole needs armed guards/teachers and metal detectors at its schools just to keep the nations children safe?

 

[Jagger100]

Nicholas Cruz is the one to blame here. I'm not gong to blame the FBI anymore than the entertainment industry when someone decides to murder 17 people.

When the FBI has time to launder opposition research into something more legitimate looking to help pull a soft coup, I can blame them.
When they seek deeper and deeper intrusion into the daily lives of everyone but ignore the data handed to them already, I can blame them.

 

[Armenius]

LOL! This guy was in a group that thinks FL. should be an ethno-white state. Let me report that to the FBI and have them care. This is a messed up guy and my point is that even as liberal as I am relative to this place, so fucking what? It's not a crime to want only white folks in FL.

I remember that 4chan post, too. Are you also charging your cell phone in the microwave?

 

[M76]

You missed the point completely. Inanimate objects don't kill people by themselves..

But they sure make it easier to kill people if the intent is already there. If someone has no access to guns he can do jack shit with his intent.

 

[Meeho]

But they sure make it easier to kill people if the intent is already there. If someone has no access to guns he can do jack shit with his intent.

Either take away everybody's rights or work on fixing the intent.

 

[Jagger100]

But they sure make it easier to kill people if the intent is already there. If someone has no access to guns he can do jack shit with his intent.

How well has Drug interdiction worked? How well has illegal immigrant interdiction worked? If I was a coyote, I would have each migrant carry one gun. Supply routes would be secured by people actively promoting illegal immigration

Do you really think a magic wand will poof away all guns and stop any further guns from entering?

 

[ArFLaserBear]

Again, what crimes did Cruz commit? Like pointing guns at chickens is a Federal offense. People point guns at people all the time and last time I checked that's not a Federal offense.

I'm not American so I could have misunderstood the last sentence but that sounds insane... Pointing a gun at someone isn't a crime? Around here pointing a gun at someone counts as death threat and is quite a big offence. Or is it something like just "local offense"? If someone points a gun at anyone for no good reason they should really not be allowed to own a gun since they are not responsible enough...

 

[DejaWiz]

Keep in mind the Republicans say it's not the guns' fault out of one side of their mouths while wanting to cut funding for social services and eliminate ACA regulations mandating that insurance cover mental health. Unless something changes this is just going to keep happening. I am so glad I'm not a university prof any longer.

My research about the demise of mental health facilities in the US points to a plethora of reasons. Budget cuts, civil liberty groups, lawyers, etc...all calling for their closure.

Fiscal conservatives (of any party) don't want to spend the money, and social liberals (of any party) don't want to remove individual liberties by essentially imprisoning people in treatment facilities/asylums.

It's asinine to point the finger at a single entire political party, when they are ALL to blame.

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/insane-violent-street-article-1.1225716

Even to this day, the ACLU maintains a double-standard on the very topic of mental health and drug abuse treatment: they are absolutely in favor of treatment programs being funded and expanded by the government, but also doesn't want the government to profile, apprehend, and force potential at-risk people into these programs.

That falls into the very definition of being fucking hypocritical.

Yet, here they are, lambasting President Trump and Republican Congress members for not wanting to spend the money on both mental health AND not profiling, apprehending, and forcing potential at-risk people into the system.

Gee whiz, the ACLU has purposefully constructed their stance so that they have the opportunity to bitch and moan no matter which side of their stance (funding or forcing) gets government attention...