A 14-year-old boy allegedly fatally shot his older sister in Florida after a family argument over Christmas presents, officials said Tuesday.
The teen had been out shopping on Christmas Eve with Abrielle Baldwin, his 23-year-old sister, as well as his mother, 15-year-old brother and sister’s children, Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said during a news conference.
The teenage brothers got into an argument about who was getting more Christmas presents.
“They had this family spat about who was getting what and what money was being spent on who, and they were having this big thing going on in this store,” Gualtieri said.
You’ve made an excellent point, just not the one you think
You’re playing chess with pigeons, I wouldn’t bother
That those kids got the guns illegally and would have done so regardless of what laws were in place? That point?
Ah yes, the “If it’s not going to stop 100% of the problem, let’s not do it at all” bullshit.
That old chestnut.
If random check stops don’t stop 100% of drunk drivers, why do them at all. Your just punishing the drivers who AREN’T driving drunk!
If seatbelts don’t save 100% of lives, why regulate that we wear them. Muh Freedums!!
It bullshit excuses made by people with literally nothing of any real sense to fall back on.
Not on that guy’s side, but he didn’t strictly say that we shouldn’t have those laws.
He said that if you’re siteing a case where we did have those laws and a bad thing happened as an example for why we need laws like that in place to stop the bad thing from happening, it falls a little flat.
Not that the idea of having laws like that is bad, but citing individual cases is flawed, as no amount of regulatory structure will ever prevent 100% of cases.
To frame it a different way, I could argue that there’s literally no country on earth with strong enough gun laws, because there’s no country with zero gun deaths. I could argue that we need random searches of people homes to try and find guns, or imprisoning people who talk about guns, because the current laws clearly aren’t good enough because people are still getting shot. Doesn’t matter if it was only 1 incident in the past 30yrs. Still happened, so we need stricter laws.
That’s obviously an absurd level of hyperbole, and I want to reiterate that I’m all for regulation on firearms. Just wanted to point out that the core argument here is unideal.
The guy said “would have done so regardless of what laws were in place”.
As in, this happened, and there are already laws, so there’s no point in stronger laws or more restrictions.
That’s like saying “Sure, there are hundreds of fatalities in this factory, but they already get 10c fines whenever there’s an at-fault accident. The accidents would have happened regardless of the fines! There’s no point in higher fines since the fines have shown they’re not working!”
That’s all valid, but I think you’ve missed my point.
While I disagree with “the laws did nothing so why have laws,” I also disagree with, “the laws didn’t work, so we need harsher laws.” Both are flawed logically.
There is, in fact, a level of restriction that goes too far in the name of preventing crime. We could lock everyone in jail for instance, as people in cages can’t commit crimes (ymmv). That’s obviously a bad idea though, for many reasons.
And I’m with you. I think we need to evaluate what that right balance is. What I was pushing back on was the idea that, “if there’s even one gun death ever, then the laws didn’t go far enough, and we need more restrictions,” which I took to be the sentiment of the OP. That lack of nuance worries me is all.
I don’t know if the gun laws that were violated were good enough or not. I didn’t look them up, tbh. But you can have all the laws in the world, and have them be completely useless if they aren’t properly enforced. Maybe the laws are actually good, and the enforcement mechanism is flawed? Maybe both are good and this is just an unfortunate side effect of it being impossible to police everyone all the time. Or maybe the laws themselves are flawed and the OP is right that something needs changing. I don’t know. But I do know that it’s a big issue with a lot of nuance, and that a knee jerk reaction of “we need more laws” is unhelpful at best and detrimental at worst.
I don’t know what you mean by “logically”. There’s no “logical” way to determine what will work. This is a matter of human nature, not logic. But, science strongly suggests that harsher laws do work when it comes to guns. Places with strong gun laws have been clearly shown to have fewer gun crimes. That doesn’t necessarily work for everything. During prohibition, strong laws forbidding alcohol did somewhat reduce alcohol use, but it definitely didn’t eliminate it, and it dramatically increased crime due to smuggling alcohol. For guns, the picture is much clearer. When they’re harder to own legally there are fewer gun crimes.
In this case it’s more “we need the same laws as the rest of the civilized world, which doesn’t have all these problems with gun crimes”.
I really think we’re just having two completely different discussions here mate. I don’t disagree with what you’re saying. I never did.
I also don’t know that I think it’s worth the time to hash out at this point. We’re just talking past each other.
Well, in MY state random stops ARE illegal. Thanks Oregon! Frankly, I’m surprised more states haven’t done that.
https://romanolawpc.com/oregon-dui-checkpoints/
There are things that CAN be done, you just have to start with rejecting the idea of “hurrr durrr take all the guns” because that can’t be done due to the 2nd amendment.
In THIS case, we know the two kids already had priors for car burglaries.
So #1) You find out who legally owned those guns, then you charge them with improper storage and/or failure to report a stolen weapon.
#2) When kids are arrested for a crime like burglary, you search their homes to make sure weapons weren’t anything that were burgled.
“The solution to ensuring our freedom to own guns is to restrict all our other freedoms. “
Our other freedoms aren’t restricted though.
Children steal a car and have their private property ransacked by the cops in case they have a gun. That was your suggestion was it not?
They didn’t steal a car, they burgled cars, big difference. But yeah, if the cops recover a stolen car and the owner goes “Hey, where’s my gun?” Yeah, the cops absolutely need to be serving a search warrant.
Your rights protecting you from illegal search and seizure don’t come into play when there’s probable cause and a search warrant.
Wow you’re a moron
Really? Well, what would your solution be?
Keep in mind, banning guns is not an option because of the 2nd Amendment and changing the 2nd amendment is currently a political impossibility.
Sooo? Thoughts?
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Again, rendered irrelevant by the Supreme Court rulings in Heller and McDonald:
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/554/570/
“The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home. Pp. 2–53.”
Further, they explain their reasoning:
“As we will describe below, the “militia” in colonial America consisted of a subset of “the people”—those who were male, able bodied, and within a certain age range. Reading the Second Amendment as protecting only the right to “keep and bear Arms” in an organized militia therefore fits poorly with the operative clause’s description of the holder of that right as “the people.””
This reading is pretty obvious when you look at the text of the 2nd Amendment:
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
The right of the PEOPLE to keep and bear arms, not the right of the MILITIA to keep and bear arms.
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Imagine applying that logic to anything else:
“He would have been murdered regardless of what laws were in place. There’s no reason to change the penalty for murder! The 10c fine already ensures that only criminals will murder other people.”
“The city already has a firefighter, and the city block still burned down! What’s the point in adding more firefighters if we already have a firefighter and we still get major fires?”
…
The kids got the guns illegally because it’s incredibly easy to get illegal guns in the US. The biggest reason for that is that it’s so incredibly easy to get legal guns too. In places like Japan or England where it’s hard to get legal guns, it’s extremely hard to get illegal guns, so the criminals tend not to use illegal guns.
If “would have done so regardless” were true, there should be no difference in gun crime in the UK vs the US. But, they’re not. It’s not because the US has far more of a problem with mental illness or something, it’s because the tool designed for killing is harder to get.
Oh come on, regardless of where you stand on the issue, you can’t think of any change in law could contain that would prevent someone from getting a gun?
FTA:
“Both teens have prior arrests for car burglaries.”
Seems likely they stole the guns from cars, so maybe make it illegal to keep your gun in your car?
Hard to say until the gun origins are traced back, but they weren’t legally purchased by or for the kids.
Hmm, so the source of the guns were the cars that were broken into. Hmm, yes. So what law can you imagine that would have even prevented the option for those gun owners to keep guns in their cars? C’mon, you’ve got this. Hint: How did the car owners get the guns?
Nothing that could be blocked because of the 2nd amendment. You can’t prevent people from legally owning guns.
Now, if you want to get rid of the 2nd amendment, we have a process for that…
First you get 290 votes in the House, then you get 67 votes in the Senate, then you get ratification from 38 states, so all 25 Biden states +13 Trump states.
Good luck with that!
The constitution was written by a bunch of geriatric slave owners who barely washed once a week. Every single one of the signatures on that paper comes from someone that would be considered mentally deficient in this day and age.
You shouldn’t be proud of it standing in the way of sane legislation, nor the fact that gross gerrymandering keeps it that way.
Regardless of how you FEEL about the 2nd amendment, it is the law of the land and it’s not going anywhere until we can get 290 votes in the House… you know, the legal body that took 15 tries to get the simple majority of 218 to decide who their own leader was.
But hey, we got 311 to bounce out George Santos, so it IS possible to get that level of agreement, it just won’t happen on guns.
“Regardless of the geriatrics who wrote the constitution, it will never change due to the geriatrics who are now in power”
While your comment is entirely true, it represents a seriously flaw in the way that our country determines what is best for its people
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Realistically, the actual wording of 2nd amendment is actually rather specific. But that leads to a whole different ugly ass problem - what to do about the corrupt SC?
Ugh
Ah, so the gun was purchased legally by one of those trustworthy, responsible members of the well-regulated militia. Nothing to see here, then.
“Well regulated militia” didn’t mean the same thing back then.
Well regulated = well armed and equipped.
Militia = general public who could be called up at a moments notice for public defense.
See:
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/554/570/
“The prefatory clause comports with the Court’s interpretation of the operative clause. The “militia” comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense.”
So:
“A well armed and equipped public, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
Your comment has been reported, but as you had links and appeared to be arguing in good-faith, I decided to leave it. With that said, I completely disagree with your words.
Review Article 1, Section 8, Clauses 15-16.
Militia was what we now call “National Guard”. Speaking from experience, as a former guardsman as well as vet in 2 other branches. Back when I went to basic, this was well discussed as a given. I’m surprised people think otherwise to this day.
Unfortunately, it’s the Supreme Court who defines such things and, as cited in D.C. vs. Miller above, they very clearly set the definition as noted.
Since that ruling, they have further clarified it in McDonald vs. City of Chicago (necessary because Heller involved Washington D.C., which isn’t a state).
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/561/742/
Generally when I point out these inconvenient facts the response is “well, who cares what the Supreme Court says! Get the court to reverse it!”
Which, sure, can be done, we saw that with Roe vs. Wade, all it took was 50 years and the appointment of one conservative judge after another.
In theory we could flip the court, Thomas and Alito are the two oldest members of the court and highly conservative, so electing a Democratic President in '24 and again in '28 would virtually assure flipping the court.
Then the problem becomes keeping it, because the next three oldest are Roberts, Sotomayor and Kagan.
I wasn’t arguing with you about what they say NOW. I was pointing you to what they literally said THEN.
You said “a well regulated militia didn’t mean the same thing back then”
I merely pointed you to the founders own words to show you that you were wrong.
It wasn’t an amendment. It was baked into the first article.
You pointing out the RECENT supreme court ruling was a bad faith argument against my rebuttal.
Yes, I’m pointing out that the Supreme Court now has defined what the founders meant then. :) They are the arbiters of what the founders meant after all.
There’s a TON of history they go through in Heller, and McDonald and the recent ruling from New York, Bruen.
All worth reading if you have the time.
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/597/20-843/
Bruen is the one with most of their historical reasoning because it’s the one that requires a historical precedent for gun laws, which is a new twist.
They aren’t arbiters of what the founders meant. They’re arbiters of how we currently interpret the constitution. Originalism is only one possible way to interpret it.
The Heller decision went against 200+ years of precedent.
The founders were alcoholic slave owners, who fucking cares what they mean lol
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Oh man, I think I saw a fish swim by. It was definitely not blue or yellow, either!
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What if I told you it’s much easier to use and illegal gun when they are readily available?
Only country where this happens regularly to not have figured anything out. Stop embarrassing yourself and just post thoughts and prayers
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I didn’t make any argument about legal gun ownership. Guns are legal in my country and this doesn’t happen.
Read into arguments much? You had already set your mind on what I was saying before you read it
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The solution is to examine how these guns got out of the legal system and into the illegal system.
The 2nd Amendment isn’t going anywhere so you can take that pipedream off the table barring 290 votes in the House, 67 votes in the Senate, and ratification from 38 states.
So what CAN we do?
Well…
#1) Hold gun owners accountable for storing a gun in something like a car that can be easily be broken into or stolen.
#2) When kids are arrested for something like burglary, you search their homes for weapons.
So to start with: universal registration and ID/licensing for gun ownership, and strict liability on registered owners for crimes committed by their guns.
I’m in, sounds great.
2nd Amendment. Can’t be done. “Shall not be infringed.”
Add to that the most recent ruling from the Supreme Court:
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/597/20-843/
“the government must affirmatively prove that its firearms regulation is part of the historical tradition that delimits the outer bounds of the right to keep and bear arms.”
This is a new twist from the Supremes. Gun laws must prove that they are in keeping with “historical tradition”. So, banning felons from owning guns is allowed, there’s an historical tradition for that.
So if there’s no historical basis, it won’t pass muster at the Supremes.
Youre saying something called an amendment can’t be changed?
You might need a thesaurus buddy.
Sure, it can be changed… here’s the process:
First you get 290 votes in the House, the body that needed 15 tries to get a simple 218 vote majority to decide who their own leader was.
THEN you need 67 votes in the Senate, the body that can’t muster 60 votes to over-ride filibuster after filibuster.
If by some miracle, you get those votes, then you need ratification by 38 states, from a country that broke 25 states for Biden and 25 states for Trump in the last election.
Here’s the map, find 13 red states that will vote to give up their guns. Keep in mind, of the 25 Biden states, only 19 of them have Democratic statehouses, so you’ll likely lose six of them as well and for every blue state you lose, you need 1 more red state.
https://www.270towin.com/maps/2020-actual-electoral-map
So, yes, given the current state of American politics, the Amendment will never change. Same as if, say, you wanted an Amendment protecting abortion, or establishing the size and term limits of the Supreme Court.
Oh so we went from “cannot be infringed” to “supreme court rulings” to “the politics wouldn’t work out”.
Keep skating buddy youre almost gone full circle
Meh, the modern interpretation came from corrupt justices legislating from the bench, building completely ahistoric interpretations to suit modern sensibilities. This whole absolute 2A thing is entirely modern with no sincere history backing it up. The solution is court reform which is needed for a host of other reasons anyway.
But also, just to point out, YOU are arguing against YOUR OWN solutions. Which is absolute proof of how intractable the situation is right now. And the situation has become intractable because of people like you.
You’re the problem.
You think you can just say “2a” and that shuts every argument down, it’s so cringe
When the argument is the overly simplistic “well, just ban guns” the counter argument doesn’t need to be more nuanced than that. We can’t ban guns, full stop. The sooner we abandon that dead end logic, the sooner we can start working on what we CAN change.
For example, remember the guy who shot up Michigan State? Had a prior felony arrest on a gun charge, but was allowed to plead down to a misdemeanor, did his time, did his probation, passed a background check, bought a gun and shot up the school.
How is this for a fundamental change:
If someone gets arrested on felony GUN CHARGE, you stick them with the felony. No plea deals on gun charges.
Felons, legally, can’t buy guns.
Or, how about this, you let him plea down to the misdemeanor charge, but you make it so ANY gun conviction, felony or misdemeanor, blocks you from gun ownership.
Crazy, right? But those are the conversations we AREN’T having because people get hung up on “ban guns” and that will NEVER happen.
That Jordan Lund is too stupid to insult
you know those minors, always committing major felonies no matter whatcha try to do.
FTA:
“Both teens have prior arrests for car burglaries.”
So, yeah, apparently so… probably where they got the guns.
Guess what, if those kids were breaking into cars in London, there’s 0 chance they would’ve acquired guns that way (not to mention, it’s irresponsible to store a gun in a car to begin with).
England doesn’t have a 2nd Amendment, but yeah, kids killing kids seems pretty universal:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/articles/homicideinenglandandwales/march2022
US per capita homicide rate is 6.4. UK is 1.2
HMMM.
Those stats don’t show kids killing kids. It does show about 50% of perpetrators were aged 16-24 though.
Also UK has a homicide rate of 11 per 100,000. The US rate is 63 per 100,000.
Yeah, if only there weren’t so many millions of guns in this country that literally any pubescent dumbshit and his brother can get one illegally without any effort! But yeah no the system is flawless and the problem unfixable cool yeah I agree.
I’ve seen estimates of 475 million+ guns in a country of 330 million+ people, so, yeah. Tons of guns and not enough people taking securing them seriously.
These kids being car burglars makes perfect sense too… here’s a stat from my city:
https://katu.com/news/local/car-gun-thefts-increase-portland-police-say
"Kapp said nearly half of stolen gun reports from that last 15 months were firearms stolen from personal vehicles.
“That’s 47% of guns are stolen because they were stored in a vehicle; either the vehicle was broken into or the vehicle is stolen with a gun inside. That is a huge number,” said Kapp.
Kapp said gun owners should also have documentation, like serial numbers, in secure, safe spaces."
You would think by now that people would know “Don’t leave ANYTHING of value in your car!” but apparently not!
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EXACTLY RIGHT! That’s why need to outlaw Abortion, have speed limits, make fraud illegal, make murder and illegal and keep all other laws in place! Because laws DON’T WORK!
Trying to regulate the weapons used in our hellscape dystopia is just a method of maintaining the hellscape and avoiding any real change to society at large.
So which changes would you suggest to help solve this problem?