The warnings around Nikolas Cruz seemed to flash like neon signs: expelled from school, fighting with classmates, a fascination with weapons and hurting animals, disturbing images and comments posted to social media, previous mental health treatment.
In Florida, that wasn't enough for relatives, authorities or his school to request a judicial order barring him from possessing guns.
...
He (Cruz) was able to legally own the semi-automatic rifle even though his mother, classmates and teachers had at times described him as dangerous and threatening.
I couldn't agree more.
Politically correct legislation that prevents logical follow up on complaints like the ones you cited along with pulling whack jobs from the general population might actually have a positive effect. Do that in conjunction with arming trained personnel at schools and now you got something!
Dangerous line. There are members here that some would argue match Philboyds discrption. Are you ready to lock them up? I've been arguing against banning them and you seem to want them committed.
While I was king for that second I would not have arrested him in the first place.
If ??I had me druthers there would be no jails, no criminal justice system at all, no rules or laws of any kind. But I don't have my druthers, so I bow the the rule of law set by the majority.
I guess it's true. There are always two sides to a story.
How confident are you that, had authorities not dropped the ball, Cruz would not have been able to legally purchase a gun in Florida? Honestly all I "know" I gathered from a few articles on the web over the past two days.
According to this article USA Today article:
And even though someone with a judicial history of mental illness cannot buy a gun from a licensed seller, that person could purchase one privately.
Background checks are not required in private gun sales in the state of Florida, according to state law. If a convicted felon, a mentally ill person or an underage person privately bought a gun, the state of Florida wouldn’t know. And under Florida law, it’s illegal to create a database of gun owners.
I don't know if that means it would have been legal for Cruz to purchase the gun from a private seller, as the article never explicitly states so.
I read a Fox News article that lists the many of the failure by local and federal authorities, and even states that it would have been illegal for Cruz to purchase a handgun because of a federal law. It does not, however, state that it was illegal for Cruz to purchase the AR-15.
On the other hand, if guns do make us safer, then why prohibit concealing them anywhere? They should be keeping us safe in the halls of Congress, on tours of the White House, etc..
My wife said this to me today: A weapon never shattered bones or spilled blood.
You gotta have an emotionally disturbed whack job to do that - with or without a weapon. (That's why they have Nicholas Cruz locked up by the way. Him AND his emotions!) Since he was apprehended, his weapon hasn't even threatened a soul!
There are many "damaged" people, who never even think about shattering bones or spilling (?) blood. There are many people who no one who knew thought them they were in any " way crazy" , who have snapped and killed in anger, very often with a gun.
My wife didn't say one way or the other. I, on the other hand, don't think she said that people who had such thought were innocent, only that the thoughts did not kill, the people did the killing.
Killing is a physical act, not a mental one. Guilt and innocence are a matter for the courts not for me.
Oh, wait, never mind... you'd be dismissed as soon as you told them in the voir dire that you didn't believe in laws or in jails, or in anything, for that matter.
In the voir dire before a big trial,
Vic said, "Jail and laws ain't my style."
The lawyers were p*ssed,
Saying, "Vic, you're dismissed,"
And so Vic slithered off with a smile.
I was taking you at your word, but of course there is no reason to to believe your word either.
In taking old Vic at his word
(Which rarely will skirt the absurd),
One must e'er bear in mind,
He's the nihilist kind
And his word, so we've heard, is quite blurred.
Sounds like one of the old sayings my mother used to tell me about dealing with life's difficulties "Sticks and stones will break my bones but names will never hurt me". Anyway, my answer to Vic's post is what my cat always says to me, "And your point is ... what?"
Now please, Vic, I don't mean to b*tch,
But no one should buy your flawed pitch.
One needs flexibility,
But sometimes rigidity,
And good sense to know which is which.
Yes, yes. Vic... the paths of glory lead but to the grave, but to have been born to consciousness at all is such an improbable miracle that I prefer to rejoice in it, dust or no dust. Let my epitaph be, "Lord, I have loved the habitation of Thy house and the place where Thine honour dwelleth."
But you would would probably prefer Gabriel John's epitaph.
Sorry. Don't me to imply I don't rejoice. I love every minute of existence. I live life to to its fullest, I smell the roses, I laugh and I love. I am just not silly enough to think it matters in the least.
The here and the now, enjoy the moment. It doesn't matter if you believe, if you understand, if you communicate or don't. It doesn't matter if I lie, if you write poems, if we debate or just ignore each other. Nothing matters - so have fun!
Of COURSE it matters in the least, Vic. It matters to you, and are you not at least an infinitesimal part of the universe, even if your own existence is a delusion?
And as anyone with a math degree should know, an infinitesimal is not zero.
If you were zero, you would not have rejoiced at all, even an infinitesimal amount.
It may not matter to anyone 1000 years from now, but what if your brief existence in space-time has an existence outside of time; i.e., what happens to a given moment after it has passed? Is it gone in every sense of the word? Or does it have a transcendent existence?
I prefer to hope for the latter, that we will be singing Psalm 65, among other things.
Is this your defense against locking up crazy people?
Cuz crazy people don't need a gun to kill others or as your dramatic wife put it, 'shatter bones and spill blood." There's lot's of ways crazy people have been killing people for centuries!
Please inform your wife that taking guns away from everyone would only serve to make soft targets out of all of us, not to mention require taking a major liberty from citizens. Instead of fixating on inanimate objects, maybe focus on actually resolving the problem!
Gun control, moderate to severe has proven to not work. Let's try some toher ideas.
"A damaged psyche never tore through a child's body. Delusional thoughts don't shatter bones and spill blood" - You're telling me that's not dramatic? Just everyday chit-chat?
-curiously wonders about your defense of Mrs. Vic-
Thanks Bud. As I have said many times, and you don't think I am serious but I am, people should be allowed to have any weapons upto and including nukes.
That some people seek to restrict access to armaments to NK or Iran is the ultimate in hypocrisy. No law. No law. Period.
Yeah, since you just posted a random thought, I connected the dots on my own as a liberal statement against gun ownership - you know, in as much as gun control is on the front page of the liberal play list following a whack job killing people.
And the parents who raise the child who has a finger that pulls a trigger....
and so on and so on and so on.....'and the green grass grows all around'
Are you anti children now?
Anti-fingers?
A thinking person.
Violence begins with intent.
Every seen a bull in a chinashop?
Nope. Have you?
The warnings around Nikolas Cruz seemed to flash like neon signs: expelled from school, fighting with classmates, a fascination with weapons and hurting animals, disturbing images and comments posted to social media, previous mental health treatment.
In Florida, that wasn't enough for relatives, authorities or his school to request a judicial order barring him from possessing guns.
...
He (Cruz) was able to legally own the semi-automatic rifle even though his mother, classmates and teachers had at times described him as dangerous and threatening.
Is this true? If so, then WTF?
http://www.chicagotribune.com/n...218-story.html
I couldn't agree more.
Politically correct legislation that prevents logical follow up on complaints like the ones you cited along with pulling whack jobs from the general population might actually have a positive effect. Do that in conjunction with arming trained personnel at schools and now you got something!
Dangerous line. There are members here that some would argue match Philboyds discrption. Are you ready to lock them up? I've been arguing against banning them and you seem to want them committed.
If you know of people that have said similar things that Nicholas Cruz said - do you think your best course of action would be to keep that secret?
Or, would you rather that authorities investigate, the person interviewed to determine if he's a legitimate threat or not?
As usual, your hyperbole steps right over that and puts people in the slammer.
You've been arguing banning who now? Banning from what?
Against. Read it again Bud. I said against banning.
One man's poison is another man's meat.
I want no one in jail, ever.
Sounds like you would open a stalag on every corner and be the police, judge and jury for everyone you meet.
So you are against banning guns?
No one in jail?
So, if you were king, Nicholas Cruz would be let go?
As usual, your hyperbole steps right over that and puts people in the slammer.
No idea what you are trying to say here.
I have always been against judging people. Let the chips fall where they will.
It wasn't in code Vic.
You wrote - "I want no one in jail, ever."
I responded - "No one in jail?
So, if you were king, Nicholas Cruz would be let go?"
And now you don't understand?
If I was king, I would abdicate.
While I was king for that second I would not have arrested him in the first place.
If ??I had me druthers there would be no jails, no criminal justice system at all, no rules or laws of any kind. But I don't have my druthers, so I bow the the rule of law set by the majority.
OK, I don't agree with your response - BUT, it's the first straight answer I've gotten from you in a while so I thank you.
Sounds like anarchy. I'm pretty sure I'd need my guns for that. Just like the lawless wild west with mob hangings and all?
Pretty much. Not many would go for that, they'd get all law-and-order on the sitch.
I guess it's true. There are always two sides to a story.
How confident are you that, had authorities not dropped the ball, Cruz would not have been able to legally purchase a gun in Florida? Honestly all I "know" I gathered from a few articles on the web over the past two days.
According to this article USA Today article:
And even though someone with a judicial history of mental illness cannot buy a gun from a licensed seller, that person could purchase one privately.
Background checks are not required in private gun sales in the state of Florida, according to state law. If a convicted felon, a mentally ill person or an underage person privately bought a gun, the state of Florida wouldn’t know. And under Florida law, it’s illegal to create a database of gun owners.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/...hip/347189002/
I don't know if that means it would have been legal for Cruz to purchase the gun from a private seller, as the article never explicitly states so.
I read a Fox News article that lists the many of the failure by local and federal authorities, and even states that it would have been illegal for Cruz to purchase a handgun because of a federal law. It does not, however, state that it was illegal for Cruz to purchase the AR-15.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/...-killings.html
P.S. What the heck is amp.usatoday.com?
On the other hand, if guns do make us safer, then why prohibit concealing them anywhere? They should be keeping us safe in the halls of Congress, on tours of the White House, etc..
My wife said this to me today: A weapon never shattered bones or spilled blood.
You gotta have an emotionally disturbed whack job to do that - with or without a weapon. (That's why they have Nicholas Cruz locked up by the way. Him AND his emotions!) Since he was apprehended, his weapon hasn't even threatened a soul!
I don't ask and she don't tell.
There are many "damaged" people, who never even think about shattering bones or spilling (?) blood. There are many people who no one who knew thought them they were in any " way crazy" , who have snapped and killed in anger, very often with a gun.
They have. I would guess many people have those thoughts and never harm anyone.
My wife didn't say one way or the other. I, on the other hand, don't think she said that people who had such thought were innocent, only that the thoughts did not kill, the people did the killing.
Killing is a physical act, not a mental one. Guilt and innocence are a matter for the courts not for me.
Vic, you mean you've never served on a jury?
Oh, wait, never mind... you'd be dismissed as soon as you told them in the voir dire that you didn't believe in laws or in jails, or in anything, for that matter.
Seems to happen every time.
I'm not surprised.
In the voir dire before a big trial,
Vic said, "Jail and laws ain't my style."
The lawyers were p*ssed,
Saying, "Vic, you're dismissed,"
And so Vic slithered off with a smile.
I don't believe that.
I was taking you at your word, but of course there is no reason to to believe your word either.
In taking old Vic at his word
(Which rarely will skirt the absurd),
One must e'er bear in mind,
He's the nihilist kind
And his word, so we've heard, is quite blurred.
Good one.
vic has a wife amazing
But delusional thoughts or a "damaged psyche" are the motivations behind the actions.
Sticks and stones. Thought are not crimes, murder is a crime.
There are already laws banning drunks from driving cars. Some people want laws banning deranged people from shooting guns.
Sounds like one of the old sayings my mother used to tell me about dealing with life's difficulties "Sticks and stones will break my bones but names will never hurt me". Anyway, my answer to Vic's post is what my cat always says to me, "And your point is ... what?"
Your mother already said it,"Sticks and stones will break my bones but names will never hurt me"
Are you the same Vic that agreed with this famous thought?
http://www.amirite.com/famousth...ons-watch-your
How would I know?
Seems unlikely that I would be the exact person after a few seconds have passed.
They tell me I am constantly shedding cells (see this dandruff?) and that I am constantly building new synapses connections.
I don't believe it though.
And constantly breaking them too.
I think I at last have detected
What often I guessed or suspected:
Old Vic's mental lapses
Are 'cuz his synapses
Have somehow become disconnected.
Seems better than having ridged and unyielding thoughts.
Now please, Vic, I don't mean to b*tch,
But no one should buy your flawed pitch.
One needs flexibility,
But sometimes rigidity,
And good sense to know which is which.
You would think that, oh well.
In the moment all seems important, in the end nothing matters. Dust to dust my dear friend, dust to dust.
Yes, yes. Vic... the paths of glory lead but to the grave, but to have been born to consciousness at all is such an improbable miracle that I prefer to rejoice in it, dust or no dust. Let my epitaph be, "Lord, I have loved the habitation of Thy house and the place where Thine honour dwelleth."
But you would would probably prefer Gabriel John's epitaph.
It is all one and it is all nothing. Nothing is the one and the one is nothing.
'Tis better to have rejoiced and died than never to have rejoiced at all. And who knows...? Maybe there's an encore (see 5:52 below).
Sorry. Don't me to imply I don't rejoice. I love every minute of existence. I live life to to its fullest, I smell the roses, I laugh and I love. I am just not silly enough to think it matters in the least.
The here and the now, enjoy the moment. It doesn't matter if you believe, if you understand, if you communicate or don't. It doesn't matter if I lie, if you write poems, if we debate or just ignore each other. Nothing matters - so have fun!
Of COURSE it matters in the least, Vic. It matters to you, and are you not at least an infinitesimal part of the universe, even if your own existence is a delusion?
And as anyone with a math degree should know, an infinitesimal is not zero.
If you were zero, you would not have rejoiced at all, even an infinitesimal amount.
You would think that, but as I said above: In the moment all seems important, in the end nothing matters.
So we tend to pretend it matters so as to avoid both boredom and mayhem. But it really doesn't matter at all.
It may not matter to anyone 1000 years from now, but what if your brief existence in space-time has an existence outside of time; i.e., what happens to a given moment after it has passed? Is it gone in every sense of the word? Or does it have a transcendent existence?
I prefer to hope for the latter, that we will be singing Psalm 65, among other things.
Is this your defense against locking up crazy people?
Cuz crazy people don't need a gun to kill others or as your dramatic wife put it, 'shatter bones and spill blood." There's lot's of ways crazy people have been killing people for centuries!
Please inform your wife that taking guns away from everyone would only serve to make soft targets out of all of us, not to mention require taking a major liberty from citizens. Instead of fixating on inanimate objects, maybe focus on actually resolving the problem!
Gun control, moderate to severe has proven to not work. Let's try some toher ideas.
There’s no need to call her dramatic
-shakes my head-
Me thinks there is!
"A damaged psyche never tore through a child's body. Delusional thoughts don't shatter bones and spill blood" - You're telling me that's not dramatic? Just everyday chit-chat?
-curiously wonders about your defense of Mrs. Vic-
What is there to wonder about? I see slights to a person’s beloved worse than insults to the person
Similar to how I come to defense when a child brings another kid’s Mom into an argument “yo mama so fat”
I’m sorry you see it as dramatic to talk about something deeper than idle chit chat?
Or as Vic's wife might say -
"It pains me to my soul that you would elevate common prattling to a theatrical quality."
Yeah just stick to yo mama jokes
Will do.
And you stick to picking nits.
No thanks.
Thanks Bud. As I have said many times, and you don't think I am serious but I am, people should be allowed to have any weapons upto and including nukes.
That some people seek to restrict access to armaments to NK or Iran is the ultimate in hypocrisy. No law. No law. Period.
So, you posted a random thought of you're wife's? Not connected to anything?
It is her thought, which I agree with. Thoughts and emotions do not kill.
"Sticks and Stones"
The fact that you connected it to guns says more about you than about me. Are you trying to justify your own thought process?
Yeah, since you just posted a random thought, I connected the dots on my own as a liberal statement against gun ownership - you know, in as much as gun control is on the front page of the liberal play list following a whack job killing people.
Thoughts and emotions do not kill - unless they are in the mind of a crazy person - like that kid that shot up the school last week.
It's a damned shame that liberal political correctness and policies keep authorities from acting on warnings, wouldn't you agree?
You know that Cruz could have killed a bunch of kids with other weapons. But, he couldn't have had he been confined to safety.
You are barking at a dead end Vic. Taking peoples guns only makes it easier for whack jobs like Cruz to kill more of us.
And you are barking up a non-existent tree. Nobody wants your toys.
My toys...
Do you enjoy being obtuse?
Since you consistently tell me I misunderstood, or that's not what you said, maybe you could write more clearly.