Reality Check: Trump Did Not Make It Easier for Severely Mentally Ill People To Buy Guns
The latest mass shooting at a school in Florida is once again reigniting the debate over gun control and mental health. But now the media headlines are blaming President Trump because, they say, he signed a bill that actually made it easier for people with severe mental health problems to get guns. Is that true? Let's give it a Reality Check you won't get anywhere else.
▶️ DTube
▶️ IPFS
I verified...this is the real @benswann :-)
100% upvote for being the real @benswann....Keep using Dtube my friend!
I went to Stoneman Douglas a few years back so this sits hard with me, BUT it is not the GUNS fault...I think the sick people target safe zones (aka gun free zones). What do movie theaters, schools, churches ,night clubs, concerts and military compounds all have in common?! They are all SOFT targets, meaning law abiding citizens CANNOT carry a gun in these free "safe" zones. They are not "safe" at all, BUT instead EVERYONE above are locations of mass shootings.
I think we need to arm ALL our teachers and staff. It doesn't need to a be gun, but pepper spray and tasers can work if teachers do not feel comfortable carrying a gun. They even have firearms that discharge pepper spray bullets.
I was going to walk past this but I can’t. The last thing you want in a live shooter situation is a teacher with a gun. There’s so many reasons but here’s the two big ones for me:
It’s really hard to shoot accurately with a short barrelled weapon. Unless you know what you’re doing, at any range beyond about 20 feet most people can’t hit the side of a bus with a pistol let alone a shooter armed with an AR 15. Soldiers and police train constantly to develop and maintain these skills. Unless the teacher is a gun enthusiast themselves, then they have no chance of mastering this. It’s made worse by the fact that the type of weapon needed in that situation would have to be large caliber. You need to drop the shooter with one shot. Anything below 9mm is pointless. If you hit the shooter with a 22 (or pepper spray or a taser) and your just gunna piss him off you’re not going to stop him. You might slow him down but it’s 5-10 minutes before a small caliber round will bring the guy down. So best case the teacher hits him, draws attention to himself and his students who now become the shooters primary target. So you give em a bigger caliber weapon that’s even harder to control and they are less likely to actually hit the guy anyway. It’s pointless.
Even teachers who can shoot straight aren’t trained to react in a live shooter situation. They’re teachers, not warriors. They’ll be scared shitless and are more likely to shoot themselve or their students than they are the other guy with the gun. They’d be a liability not an asset in that situation.
My daughters teacher is miss Wallace. She’s a lovely, middle aged woman and a fantastic teacher. Even still the last thing I want in a school shooting situation is Miss Wallace drawing a 9mm. I’d rather she just hid in a cupboard. It’s safer for her and my daughter.
This was a pretty good argument. And poor miss Wallace. Hopefully she'll never have to hide in a cupboard!
I don't believe anybody is suggesting that you just give teachers guns and say "here go protect the students." I don't believe anybody in their right mind would suggest such a thing. The only way that the above points could be valid is if that's exactly what you did.
What people are suggesting is that you train, and the key word being just that "train" teachers who desire to be armed for the purpose of protecting their students.
Teachers as you describe them sound like wilting flowers weak and defenseless. I'm sorry but I strongly disagree with that insinuation. Teachers are tough. Just think what a teacher has to go through on a daily basis.
Again I am sorry for saying this, but it needs to be said, in an active shooter situation your daughter would be much safer if she, or another trained staff member, had the ability to fight back.
There's also the psychological aspect of it. The fact that her school would no longer be a gun-free zone would in and of itself be a deterrent. Murderers target gun free zones. So because the fact that staff is armed would mean but they would probably never have to use their weapons. Murderers are cowards chances are great that they are not going to go shooting people in a place where they themselves can get shot.
Remember the key to arming staff is training. And I'm sure there's a lot of teachers out there that would willingly go into training for it.
Screw that, we have all the guns in the world lets train our kids like in the old days how to fire a weapon in school shooting/range class, in turn teaching the next generation of teachers and women.
It’s got little to do with teachers being wilting violets and more to do with the difficulty of what you are asking them to do.
Nothing I posted suggested the teachers would be roaming the the school. I think the problems I describe are the same in the situation of a class locked down with a teachers standing between them and the shooter.
But we can agree to disagree.
Have you even been in combat or in a situation where someone is trying to kill you? The above points are totally valid. Regardless of the scenario you come up with you are asking someone to effectively operate a weapon against a hostile asssialant. It’s not a shooting range with a paper target at the other end.
I agree with you to an extent about psychological deterrence but this seems a band aid solution that doesn’t address the deeeper issue. The issue I have with this whole issue is that this shouldn’t be a problem for teachers to solve. When the system is so broken that you have to give your kids teacher a gun to keep them safe, you got a big problem.
The idea NOT for the teachers to walk around looking for the hostile shooter. The goal would be to first secure the classroom, lock the door, take a defensive position with your students behind you, and guard it until police arrive. I can't think of why this isn't a better solution than waiting helplessly for the shooter to break in and spray bullets at people.
The thing is this subject will always be open to Monday morning quarterbacking. Suppose a teacher did end up killing an innocent while trying to defend his classroom. Are we going to scream about how arming teachers was a horrible mistake? How can you know if despite the 1 child, 17 others were saved?
Also not every teacher should be armed. Only those who feel confident enough to take up that role.
I get where you are coming from. However, this isn't like Miss Wallace is going to throw on her plate carrier and start clearing hallways while engaging hostile targets. Miss Wallace isn't going to be trained in close quarters combat tactics.
What Miss Wallace having a gun means is the final line of protection. That shooter actually enters Miss Wallace's classroom and is going to kill everyone in there. Miss Wallace, even though nervous and with some inaccuracy, has a chance to eliminate the threat. At the very least she has caused the shooter to change their current focus to the immediate threat that is Miss Wallace crouching in the corner with her 38. Even potentially causing the shooter to run from the classroom. A mass shooter is looking for easy targets.
But Miss Wallace doesn’t want this job. She wants to teach our children, not defend them from violence. That’s why she’s a teacher not a cop. The focus should be on putting her in situation where she doesn’t need a gun and can focus on teaching rather than expecting her to solve other problems created by societal failings.
Well of course its not the guns fault, however criminals will tend to use the easiest tools to get the job done. This tends to be true even if they are not thinking clearly. Having easy access to these weapons, AR-type weapons and the like, allows for criminals to do more damage and kill more people then if they didn't have access to them to begin with.
Bombs are quite easy to build now that we have the internet. People who want to kill people will find a way to make maximal casualty...by buying weapons legally or illegally.
The real issue is cultural, Switzerland is armed to the teeth and every citizen has a gun, yet no mass-shooting issue. There is a big discussion to be had about mental illness, the education system, fatherless homes, etc. But all we talk about is the weapon these sickos use kill people.
Bombs aren't that easy to build and aren't as easy to control the outcome of the attack. But if it were so easy to build bombs, why aren't there more bombings as opposed to shootings. Simply because to the availability of these types of weapons.
In my opinion, you've brought up two different and distinct issues. The availability of guns and the crimes those guns allow for in the hands of a criminal, as well as issues of education and mental health. Not all gun crimes are committed by the mentally ill and not all mentally ill commit gun crimes.
So to help lower mass shootings, limit the sales of these firearms. Its true that criminals will always find a way to do what they intend to, but that doesn't mean we should make it easier for them.
You are missing one little nugget of information in your mental reasoning...the availability of guns for self protection actually, on-the-whole, reduces the number of shootings and other severe violence. In most cases, without anyone getting shot.
Not having any guns also has in all cases nobody getting shot.
But in the US, you need a gun for self-defence because of the potential that you're assailant will also have a gun.
I'm not suggesting banning all guns, even if in my opinion that would be the better option, but to add limits on the sale of guns through licencing, background checks and the like.
We have universal background checks now for any new gun purchase. Other limiting factors are in place on a state-by-state basis. Bad people still get them.
If you are advocating for a more-stringent system where a person must in some way prove their worthiness in order to purchase a gun...be careful and ask yourself: Who watches the watchmen? Whoever enforces limits on guns will have the power to abuse those without guns.
That is the reason the US Constitution (AKA: our protocol for playing nicely with each other) uses the specific language to say that you are born with the right to have a gun and others must prove you to be unworthy in order to take it away.
If you produce an immutable blockchain for gun registry and licensing that no government or entity can abuse, co-opt, or manipulate...I might then be convinced of some of the viability of what you are arguing.
Gas bomb? Not easy to built or control? Please keep those myths spinning.
How many gas bombings have been used in mass killings?
Why do you want to know? Will that make a gas bomb any less complex?
You do make it easier by disarming people and giving the criminals the superior armament almost by default. What sense does it make to limit guns if guns aren't the problem, and true that criminals will commit their deeds either way, why are we trying to mitigate the symptom again when the root cause is making things such as property rights and inherent nature of the state towards it's sovereign people completely trivialized and meaningless. People will act more unjustly the more and more society is unjust to them, inherently, overtly, and covertly. More tyranny is not going to make the recipe of tyranny taste any different.
Taking guns away doesn't take the criminal motive of criminalizing everything under the sun and running false flags every other week from the FBI and the CIA, what happened before columbine, we've had 20 years of school shootings started with one that had been FBI tainted and preceding to numerous ones, didn't that sandy hook principal die at boston bombing also? nobody noticed that lolol.
This is far from funne but still.
How is limiting you from buying a gun trivialise your property rights? Your property rights are defined by law.
Its true that taking away guns doesn't take away the criminal intent but not doing anything doesn't either.
If limiting the sale of firearms lowers the occurrence of mass killings then you have to ask yourself whether your right to buy guns is more important than stopping mass shootings and gun crime in general.
Property rights come from the principle of Self Rule>Self Ownership>Owner of your acts and words.
If someone manufactures rifles they are the owners of the products.
You cannot take away intent. Doing, not doing, you're going to keep running headlong into the wall. Look at the uk, australian and nz statistics on crime.
If it raises the occurence of all other crimes and makes easy victims of people by stigmatizing the gun instead of recognizing that the state DOESN'T define rights or GIVE rights then we might as well Nerf the world. Not a peep about the state false flag history? Not a peep about them orchestrating these mass shootings?
So we punish everyone because some misbehave. Impeccable logic. Tell me again why we trust the gov with nukes?
For the greater good yes. Now I personally think that all guns should be banned but I understand that its different in the US as there are millions of guns in circulation. There are already limits on the types of guns that you can purchase. Making changes to these limits that take into account the changing reality that AR type firearms are used by criminals in mass shootings would help mitigate these sorts of events.
Except that nobody has a right to tell another person what they cannot and can own simply because of some arbitrary reason like "it's guns or children".
yeah...
:D
Agree !
Wow, that’s awesome! I’ve been wondering if it was really him or someone just making a page and posting his clips. I’ve been a big fan of Ben Swann and his reality check segments for years! Stoked to see him on the platform. :-)
You might also like this..
Trump, on his hair: "I have tried with all my strength to hide this baldness"
https://steemit.com/news/@viralyard/trump-on-his-hair-i-have-tried-with-all-my-strength-to-hide-this-baldness
Trump is a businessman in the first place, we're living in capitalism ideology, that's why it's hard to ban a gun from the seller. That's the result of democracy, we have free will and there's positive and negative result in the environment we created, unless you are living in communist country where everything is being controlled. :)
The only thing he did was make it easier for people with severe mental health problems to become president!
Ah, a anti-Trump dig.
This video is ASS!
guns should be kept only by police and the security forces and not ordinary people
They tried that in Germany once.
A lot of developed nations currently have this as law. So whatever happened in Germany, it was an outlier.
In my country teachers don’t have guns. We’ve also never had a mass shooting at a school that I’m aware of....
May I ask what utopian country you are from?
I’m from Australia. It’s not utopia, It’s just normal, like the rest of the world.
Ha ha ha ha!!! THAT was classic. And I'm from the USA. But I gotta tell ya, I think our downfall here is how often we broadcast the shootings. No other country does that. And other countries DO have shootings. But you don't hear about them. So they aren't a thing. It's not publicized. It is quickly dealt with and handled quietly and appropriately. We get such an obsessed craze going on like we need to know it's going on, when we don't NEED to be informed of every incident. As a matter of fact, this feeds the frenzy rather than solving it.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/mar/15/so-america-this-is-how-you-do-gun-control
But now they have a required psychiatric exam. In fact, its probably very much in the social fanric that guns are for our fourlegged friemds rather than protection
People who make insurance claims are outliers too; does that mean that nobody should carry insurance?
Well, there is a country that has socialism. Guns are banned for citizens. Only government and criminals have guns and it is a complete shit hole. Venezuela... no thanks.
Why should individual people not own guns?
youtube is dead
Nice informative video! Thanks.
Keep up the great work Ben!
I really hate debating politics because at the end of the day, it's unlikely anyone will change their minds. People think he is smart, people think he is stupid...blah, blah, blah. If everyone just minded their own business and didn't encroach on other people's rights it would be unlikely we'd have to deal with these same issues at all. But it seems like when one person shits their pants, people rush in to try to force everyone to wear a diaper. How about you do you, and I'll do me and we'll get along just fine?!
It depends on your definition of what it means to infringe on people rights. The more people who own guns, the more they infringe on my right to safety. What’s more important? Some 19 yo old kids right to own a gun or my right to send my kids to school safely?
kids buy weed and it's illegal. Making guns illegal won't solve the problem...The US issue around mass-shooting is cultural issue that won't be solved via legislation. If these sickos can't find a way to buy guns, they will build bombs with stuff you can buy off the shelf.
What do you think the issue is? If it’s cultural, what aspect(s) of your culture causes this to happen so often?
Respectfully, I disagree. Owning a gun does not infringe on your right to safety. Using a gun in an illegal manner to inflict harm infringes on your right to safety. Guns have been around for hundreds of years, yet now all of a sudden it's a problem and something needs to change? I think there are much deeper societal problems at the root of violence.
I believe we need to address the issue of violence in general versus worrying about changing gun laws just to make people feel better, like the government is addressing the issue.
I totally agree about the societal issues. I think a failing to address these issues is a failure of a lot of governments, not just the US. I don’t think you can ignore the role of guns though. The US has the second highest rate of gun violence ownership in the world and the highest rate of gun violence (amongst modern western democracies). You also have one of the highest rates of homocide in the western world. That seems to be a pretty bit coincidence.
There may be an answer to the gun debate, but I don't think it stems from a ban of any kind. I feel like a lot of the legislation of the last couple of decades have done very little to solve these issues and have just been a legislative bandaid used to garner political favor under the guise of "doing something". I'd be interested in hearing a creative solution that doesn't rely on penalizing the law-abiding gun owners. And I'd be interested in hearing what percentage of gun-related homicides are from legally-obtained guns. It certainly doesn't help things when government officials drop loads of guns across the border for gangs to use. High probability they wound up back in the US with those gangs. Excuse the pun, but this government is shooting itself in the foot.
Just so you know... In the US you DON'T have a right to safety. You DO have a right to a gun. The idea being that, as an individual, with a gun, you are best able to make decisions that maximize your safety.
and I think that’s crazy! But hey! It’s your country so your choice as to how to live your life. It’s just not a culture that I find easy to understand.
But politicians can't "mind their own business" because its their job to enact laws that effect everyone more or less. Laws should be able to effect the greater good in a society and when taking this into account, guns allow for a greater ability to cause death and damage then if they weren't allowed by the populace to begin with.
Now I understand that guns in the US are a cultural thing and peoples' right to bear arms is in the constitution, but this right should be balanced with the damage that they can potentially cause. Most of the rest of the industrialised world have enacted laws that limit this sort of problem and I don't understand why even an attempt to do anything in the US is almost scandalous or blasphemy.
Yes, politicians have the responsibility to enact laws that effect everyone, this is true. Laws "should" effect the greater good, I also agree. Yet congress is exempt from the laws they make, so would they really care how it effects their constituents? I try not to generalize, but the last few decades it has seemed like members of Congress care less about the people and more about their own well being. They play lipservice to the issues and do nothing. But I don't want to get off track here because that is a completely different issue.
Society in general, I feel, has eroded in the last 20 years. When I was growing up, I learned (and felt) the consequences of my actions. As a result, I slid down a hill on ice and hit a parked car. I went door to door until I tracked down the owner so I could take care of the problem and exchange insurance info. Conversely, kids in the parking lot of my work were playing around my car. I walk out later and find a huge dent in the panel. They ran into my car (or leaned on it or whatever) and they caused damage. They ran away. Now I get to pay for it. There is a general lack of respect in much of the latest generations. Many kids are not brought up to understand there are consequences to there actions. This is a problem with society where people either don't understand or don't care about how they effect other people. I'm talking about individuals minding their own business. I'm talking about individuals respecting each other.And I'm talking about individual's freedom. Freedom to do whatever they want as long as it does not harm anyone else's life or property.
I understand guns are an emotional issue, but they aren't the source of the problem. Murder with any other item is still murder. So let's address the societal source of violence and lack of respect for life.
I agree with most of what you said, but I still think societal issues are separate from gun control. There will always be criminals but giving them easy access to firearms only makes the crimes they commit easier to commit and amplifies any damage they can do.
Now I personally am for an all out ban on firearms, but I understand that its an American thing that guns are part of the culture and it would most likely never happen as there are millions of guns in circulation. If firearms were harder to obtain, through either stronger background checks, licencing or having a documented need for one as examples, you could lower the impact of crimes committed with firearms. Addressing only societal sources of violence doesn't take into account the damage of firearms in crime that will happen regardless.
If the gun crime is going to happen regardless, how would legislation limit anything? Criminals, or would-be criminals, will be able to get guns with or without laws against a semi-automatic weapon or high-capacity magazine. When you enact laws, only law-abiding citizens are affected. Want to require gun licenses? Most states already do. Want stricter background checks? We can discuss that, though background checks are already in place as well as mandatory waiting periods in many states.
I think the societal issue is overarching because if you take away a person's inclination toward violence, then you can hand them loaded guns all day and they won't harm someone else with them. But if some element of society has caused their brains to cross a wire and snap or have some desire to cause harm out of past rejection or whatever, then they will use that tool for harm.
If only it were that easy and people weren't inclined to murder as many other people as possible ...
That's the point I hopefully made in my other reply. I think society has been desensitized to violence and that is the root issue that needs to be addressed. Not so much "let's ban another gun component or write another law that will be ignored by criminals".
Hi everyone! Yup this is my official DTube channel. Really glad to be here!
Looks like Dtube is working pretty good.
Welcome to Steem. I'll get this resteemed to 30k followers and try to help the next few posts get started like that too. Glad you're here. I'm a fan of your work, and please don't get shot for sharing some truth or questioning bullshit narratives!