Mass shootings using assault-style weapons account for less than 1% of firearm deaths each year in the U.S.. It makes for sensational headlines but perhaps we should focus on the broader problem of gun homicides as a whole. Legal guns aren't going away so some other solution needs to be agreed upon. Let's not forget the sticking point of mental health rights (e.g. disclosure by mental health facilities to law enforcement that someone may not have the capacity to own a gun, aka red flag laws).
27
@Michael D The "mental health" issue is a red herring. You know who a "bad guy with a gun" is? It's a "good guy with a gun" who just found out that his wife is sleeping with his best friend. Ooops. We need to drastically restrict gun ownership in this country. The only people who "need" guns are in the military and law enforcement. Period.
1
The Constitution protects Americans from government retribution for hate speech, but it in no way requires private entities to put up with it. 8chan, Facebook, Breitbart, etc. would be well within their rights to ban such speech on their platforms. If they choose not to do so, they should potentially be liable for their lack of care in a civil suit. The Founding Fathers did not place any limits on private citizens' ability to determine what is and is not acceptable speech. We are free not to listen, we are free to boycott, and we are free not to provide a platform for speech we find objectionable.
24
The author omits from her discussion of collective responsibility the fact that gun manufacturers and dealers have been given immunity from such responsibility by an absurd act of Congress, the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. The gun industry rightly touted this 2005 law as a gift, bestowed by a craven and cynical Congress and George W. Bush.
Next to the mass shooters themselves, it is the merchants of death who make and sell weapons designed to kill dozens in minutes who are responsible for the carnage. Yet they have been given a complete pass by Congress when the guns they sell and make are used for their intended purpose, mass murder. Unlike MGM, they cannot be sued.
Repeal the PLCAA and put the gun manufacturers at risk of billion-dollar lawsuits. Then the market will give us the assault weapons ban that Congress won’t: see how fast these guns come off the market when the risk of making and selling them falls where it belongs, on the people who profit from them.
32
How is MGM responsible for any part of this? I am as opposed to big corporations as the next anarchist, but this is absurd. Should they body scan every patron every time they enter?
Aside from the obvious privacy concerns, the logistics are impossible. Maybe you haven't been to Las Vegas, but the foot traffic for a big casino like that probably runs into the high hundreds of thousands a year.
Sometimes you just can't prevent bad people from doing bad things. Casting about for a big faceless corporation to blame might make some people feel good, but it won't get us any closer to solving the problem of random violence.
45
@BV So you are ok continuing the increase of innocent civilians being killed on such a regular basis?
We are creating a world where more and more bad people are being created by the social and political policies we have. Some ideas of what MGM could have done to meet their "duty of care":
1. Not allow patrons to use the service elevator—ever.
2. Require search of bags if more than X # of bags/person are brought into your hotel.
3. Require inspection of room every other day.
4. Lobby the government to ban assault weapons.
13
@BV
Not so. I've seen the tapes. Anybody with any security training would have heard warning bells all over the place at this guy's behavior. They let it slid because he was a high roller.
10
@sjs
Have you ever seen hotel security demand or ask any hotel guest to open a suitcase so they could examine the contents? I am 60 years old and have traveled in business all over the world and probably have spent close to 3,000 nights in hotels and motels, and not once have I personally seen a guest be even asked to open their suitcase or backpack or briefcase for hotel security examination...not once.
14
Yes! Yes! Yes!
Aside from mass murder and domestic violence, this shirking of responsibility is also true for suicide and "accidents", the leading causes of death by gun.
Older, rural, white men are killing themselves at the highest rate ever recorded. That's because they have guns in their homes. Few of these guns are licensed and none are insured. Doctors are forbidden from asking these guys if they have a gun in the house even though it is a huge public health emergency.
Also unfathomable are the accidents, often among children. Every seven weeks in Kentucky, a child shoots himself or another child. Obviously, that necessarily involves parental neglect. But somehow these events are described as "unforeseeable tragedies".
These problems have little to do with background checks and everything to do with the sheer number of guns in the low-regulation states. It is sickening.
56
@Cousy Personally, I have come to believe that this is Darwinian natural selection in action. Tragic, yes, but possibly redeemed by the winnowing of certain genes.
1
Funny how "collective responsibility" doesn't extend to the people who manufactured and sold the guns and ammunition, only to the 3000-room hotel who failed to notice what one guest was doing.
It's good that someone was held accountable, but the firearms industry and its handmaidens skate away again thanks to their paid stooges in government.
122
@Danny J
I was wondering how long it would take for someone to raise the industry's favorite straw-man argument.
23
@Danny J
Cigarettes, opioids, silicone breast implants, baby powder, dioxin, Round-Up, and asbestos were also all "legal" products.
they're all law-abiding , responsible gun-owners ...right up until the day they're not.
All I can hear is the echo of my own torts professor discussing the "least cost avoider."
You know how you laugh about all those "Florida Man" stories?
That's how those of us in the rest of the world feel about all Americans and your wilful ignorance with respect to gun safety law reform.
We call your bluff - and we live in safe communities able to go about our daily lives without fear of being shot.
Remember how that felt?
The one good guy with a gun is useless.
He/she are told never to bring out their gun in the moment of a mass shooting, lest they be mistaken for the bad guy....or mistake another good guy with a gun as the bad guy.
Really...
And where do all the movies and TV shows that can't get to the next popcorn break without first splattering someone's brains against the wall fit into this...
To Get a Gun in the United States, You Must:
1. Pass instant background check.
2. Buy a gun.
In Japan, You Must:
1. Join a shooting club.
2. Take a firearms class.
3. Prove mental fitness.
4. Apply for permit to take training.
5. Describe why you need a gun.
6. Pass review of criminal history.
7. Apply for gunpowder permit.
8. Pass firing test.
9. Describe the gun you want.
10. Buy a gun safe.
11. Let police inspect storage.
12. Pass another background check.
13. Buy gun.
Many Americans can buy a gun in less than an hour. In some countries, the process takes months.
[NYTimes 3/2/18]
I offer the author another bromide:
When you’re a hammer the whole world looks like a nail.
She offers a legal bludgeon to combat cultural rot, profiteering, and indifference.
Wait for it.....
She’s barking up the wrong tree.
The problem is that lying doesn't allow us to come up with solutions to our issues.
1. The US is 94th in worldwide homicide rates.
2. Far more people are killed by other means, not rifles, especially so-called "assault rifles." https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/fbi-releases-2018-crime-statistics
3. So, do all lives matter, or just the relatively few lives that make big headlines?
4. Do we want to fix problems or do we want to practice handwringing over exaggerated issues?
5. We have serious demographic/family, health/nutrition issues, and educational issues which are creating children who become INCELS. Fixing this issues takes time, work, and resources.
6. Please.... blame the non-existent "assault rifles" for all your problems. Pass all the laws you want. They will make zero difference. We are growing disaffected, isolated, and alienated children by the thousands.
We are living "Animal Farm."
Cheers.
1
The whole idea that someone else’s right to kill takes precedence over my right to stay alive is abhorrent to me.
1
Collective responsibility is something religious zealots used to push... now it is the Progressive Left that is using this cudgel to whip secular society. Just another bit of proof that they are trying to create a godless-religion in order to excommunicate anyone with wrong-think. Thanks but no thanks.
2
Always nice to see your name in print. Mass killings happen all over the world. When is there personal responsibility? Yes, it is that person's fault.
1
You fail to mention any Politician that promises to do something about your gun problem. Sandy Hook was the start of a long sting of lies.
1
Law Professors like this take oats to defend the Constitution yet they spew garbage like this. I don't agree with her, but I will defend her right to say it. I bet she is anti-free speech too.
3
Is it a criterion for being published on the NYT op-ed page that a writer refer to "white and male" evil-doers? Does it ever occur to any of the op-ed writers to look at the statistics that show who actually does most of the killing with guns in this country? The Times is the foremost stoker of racial resentment in the country, even as it tries to pin that label on the president. In any case, anyone who teaches law and can condone the blaming of MGM for the killings in Las Vegas should not be heeded. In her perfect world, everyone who dares to rent out a hotel room has an obligation to strip-search every customer.
2
To paraphrase President Clinton, "It's not just guns, it's the internet, Stupid!" You want fame, a sense of power, the ability to control the news? Go shoot up a bunch of people, preferably those belonging to a category, (e.g. Jews, gays, Blacks, etc.) and, compliments of the internet, you are guaranteed fame, power, and control that was impossible thirty-five years ago.
Before the internet, if you shot up a place, the international press would have taken no notice, the national press would have merely noted it the next day (not necessarily even on page one), the regional press around the country might have noted it a couple days later as an A.P. dispatch, local papers probably took no notice of it and, if in America, TV nightly news would have given it 15 seconds. Now, it's the number one story everywhere on and on and on and on.
All it takes in America is one in a million people who craves that fame or who has an agenda he or she wants publicized to create daily carnage. That, vigilante "justice", our major infrastructure subject to being taken down from anywhere in the world, and our military control apparatus subject to sabotage, all this so people can see what their sweetheart of years before is cooking for dinner tonight, what an entertainment personality may or may not think of another "name", so Trump can tweet, and so people can immediately read it and ruin their day.
Silicon Valley's mantra: disruption equals progress. And that gives us Trump and more massacres.
I don't think I could blame the MGM. There is a limit to the amount of security we can live with.
1
Ms Franks leaves out a critical contingent among those responsible: the voters who elect politicians bought and paid for by the NRA.
Hard to take seriously any law professor who publishes a book titled, "The Cult of the Constitution: Our Deadly Devotion to Guns and Free Speech.”
The idea that MGM is responsible for this tragedy is absurd. Who decides what level of security meets MGM's burden to exercise due caution? Must they search everyone's luggage? Must they do body searches on each person entering the hotel? How much is enough?
The only thing MGM was guilty of was having deep pockets. A bunch of ambulance-chasing lawyers could never pass up the opportunity to extort money from a wealthy corporation.
1
1. Scan the suitcases coming into a hotel just as they scan them coming into airports.
2. Ban assault weapons.
3.Censor entertainment for violence.
4. Change laws regarding the mentally ill. People uttering threats, attacking others or describing "what they are going to do" should be taken seriously and confined. This would have prevented Aurora, Sandy Hook, and the recent murder of homeless in NY Chinatown.
5. People living in rural areas have to contend with all sorts of animals. For example, a bear in your yard killing your dog.
Sorry I’m not responsible for mass shootings. I’ve done everything within my power within reason to stop them. If you want to end mass shootings get the millions of democrats who stay home to vote.
The racism, NRA and hotels you blame are convenient scapegoats. What about the responsibility of kids who continually taunt and reject their unpopular, socially awkward classmates? What about the responsibility of teachers and parents who do nothing to discourage such insensitive cruelty? I suspect that at least some of the young, impressionable victims develop emotional problems that eventually inspire a mass shooting.
1
A selling platform such as Armslist should never be allowed in the first place. It is a complete abberation and unbelievable that it is allowed to bypass gun laws in this way. The law in this country is an ass.
The bloody red trail of gun violence flows green with money. Too many have too much to lose to stop it while too many have lost their lives as a needless result. The Second Amendment has been corrupted from a defensive meaning to an offensive one.
Vote.
We have to decide between anonymity and liberty. Freedom of speech is predicated on the notion that when your speech is offensive or dangerous the government doesn't have to prosecute you for it because everybody knows who you are and there will be consequences. Technology and privacy culture are conspiring to keep hate speech anonymous, almost as one moral crusade, even as another moral crusade uses the hateful anonymous free speech as a pretext to attack freedom of speech. It's not the freedom that's the problem, it's the anonymity. Feel free to shout your evil madness on the street corner where we can see your face and look up where you live. Give the police every reason to track your every move.
1
A good example of the arguments that will be used in bring China-type control of speech to be USA.
2
Another element of this is that the mass shooters are essentially performing for each other because they have the outlets to do so. It is the critical common denominator in these kinds of shootings--that they are inspired by others.
2
In the Wisconsin case, suppose the gun purchase had been arranged over the telephone. Should the telephone company be vicariously liable to the shooting victims? Suppose the gun purchase had been arranged through the US mail. Should the Postal Service be vicariously liable to the shooting victims?
2
@James Ribe The Telephone Company did NOT (I presume) list said implement of death for sale alongside one million other ads for such devices on its platform. By that logic, the company that made the paper the receipt was written on would be liable, as well.
4
@James Ribe
That's an awful strawman.
The telephone company is not advertising unlicensed sales of guns.
The telephony company has no knowledge of the information that passes over its lines.
If you can't even come up with a halfway decent argument, maybe you're just wrong.
I read yesterday that Silicon Valley has managed to get Section 230 type protection inserted into the trade agreement with Japan and it now appears to be a standard part of our negotiations with other countries.
The Administration is doing this despite the rising tide of concern over the harmful unintended consequences of Section 230 in our own country. Yet here we go, trying and succeeding in foisting it on others. Once it is in a trade agreement, it becomes more difficult for us to modify it on our own. Like many other elements of trade agreements that have gone before, the will of the people suddenly becomes subservient to what is in these international agreements.
4
When I was ten years old in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio a friend invited me to a sleepover at his family home.
In the middle of the night he woke me up to show me where his father had hidden a loaded pistol. He knew where it was.
We both handled it in a dangerous manner almost pulling the trigger.
When I realize how close we came to a tragic death it still gives me shivers.
I’ve grown up with an absolute aversion to all guns.
7
Remedy hate speech by counter speech? Back in old days of personal interaction, yes. These days, not working like it used to.
Counter speech will not remedy hate speech if people can spend much of their time holed up in a radical, dark Internet forum without leaving their house, thus rarely encountering counter speech and not realizing that the views they hold go against the cultural norms shared by 99+ percent of the population.
5
The American attitude toward gun con control and the Supreme Court misinterpretation of the second amendment were the primary reasons I was moved to become an expatriate.
As usual, the dysfunctional public support for guns in America is the root problem.
America is destroying itself from within.
9
@Michael Kittle Yet, the evil is still there, in France. Four cops killed by a knife. Two people shot at a synagogue in Germany. Shootings in Brussels...
There is no dysfunction in our society anymore than anywhere else.
Your aversion seems to be of our country....
The thesis is that evil acts are failures of society to prevent them, not the solitary acts of individuals or groups of people. It's an absurd assertion. Firstly, it presumes that society can anticipate what produces acts of evil. Second, it presumes that evil acts cannot be done in the absence of society being unaware of them. The Las Vegas shooter surprised everyone, nobody had any clue that he might do what he did. The El Paso shooter announced his bigoted hatred but it would have taken a lot more knowledge of him and his actions to anticipate what he would do. People like Bundy and other serial murderers succeed in concealing themselves for years while leaving dead bodies in abundance. The thesis is just wrong.
5
There is a huge, and evidently unrecognized, difference between 'freedom of speech' and 'anonymous speech'.
Freedom of speech traditionally has also included responsibility for speech. That is why we have libel and slander laws and you can't yell 'fire' in a theater.
Section 230 can and should be amended but the real problem is Anonymous Speech.
There is no reason that internet companies can't be held to the same 'know your customer laws' that govern banks and financial institutions.
How many internet trolls would still be spewing their filth if their victims, employers and parents actually knew who they were?
Want to clean up the internet? Then end Anonymous Speech.
10
@JMC .....yesterday the phone rang and instead of a robo call advertising junk it was a woman in America wanting to talk to me about immigrating to France.
She had read my comments in the Times and wanted information to convince her husband that it was a good idea for them to leave America and move to her native country.
When I asked how she had my unpublished phone number she said she Googled it on the internet.
When I did the same Google up came my name and phone number.
There is no privacy with the internet.
7
@JMC
It's the negative ideology, not the negation of ID.
According a recent study conducted by the Los Angles Times, an average of 51 Americans die each year in mass shootings. The Times study used the standard definition of mass shooting as a gun incident in which three or more people die.
Only a small percent of mass shootings are hate crimes or terror attacks.
According to the Pew Research Center, “In 2017, the most recent year for which complete data is available, 39,773 people died from gun-related injuries in the U.S.” (The figure includes suicides, which account for about 60 percent of gun deaths.)
So, mass shootings account for about 0.1 percent of gun deaths each year.
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-09-01/mass-shooting-data-odessa-midland-increase
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/08/16/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/
6
@William Case
Not sure what your point is, from the LA Times article you cite: "For decades, the toll of mass shootings has risen steadily. During the 1970s, mass shootings claimed an average of 5.7 lives per year. In the 1980s, the average rose to 14. In the 1990s it reached 21; in the 2000s, 23.5. This decade has seen a far sharper rise. Today, the average is 51 deaths per year.
Mass shootings still represent just one-half of 1% of the more than 14,000 firearm-caused homicides per year in the United States, but while the number of homicides overall has declined in recent years, the number of mass shootings continues to surge."
I would include: “Following enactment of gun law reforms in Australia in 1996, there were no mass firearm killings through May 2016,” Simon Chapman of the University of Sydney and colleagues wrote.
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/no-mass-shootings-australia-20-years-how-did-they-do-n597091
5
@William Case this is called 'rationalization'. It's an attempt to justify the collateral damage associated with the Second Amendment, combined with using guns as a 'solution' to fear for personal safety -- a fear which is irrational, stoked by both the NRA and by the news media.
But there can be no justification for any collateral damage related to the possession of guns. The damage is unacceptable, because the fear is unwarranted, and even if it were, then there are multiple, less expensive, far safer means to secure personal safety, and safety of one's possession, than ownership and use of a gun.
If you hunt, or target-shoot, or collect antique guns -- I have no problem, just be safe and learn how to wield these deadly instruments with care. But if you're afraid for your person, or afraid of the government, and think a gun is a solution... then I have a problem, because the data supports neither of those fears, nor the use of a gun to assuage them.
4
Agreed. A baseball bat is much more effective. It can safely be kept anyplace in the house and small children will not kill themselves or each other with it as easily as with a gun.
It's because we believe that guns will not go away that they don't go away.
3
Guns are at the center of America's rotten core.
USA exports corruption in so many ways, motivated by money and fear: political corruption, environmental corruption, moral corruption.
Guns deprive America of the freedom from fear and keep us enslaved to violent and sudden death. Guns deprive us of tens of thousands of productive human lives ever year.
Thus, guns make the USA infinitely weaker.
We export weakness to the world.
12
Not guns. People with guns. You believe that people with guns cannot be trusted to not to harm others with them.
Like the previous opinion piece a few days ago, this is yet another attack on free speech by the NYT. A sad state of affairs when a news reporting organization gives credence to those who desire to reduce our freedoms.
8
@JDK Sorry? What are you even trying to say? I gather that mass shootings, and selling guns to people who have already been deemed unfit to own them, is just fine with you? It that's the case, you might want to sit down and ponder whether you happen to be a monster.
It takes a lobbyist to raise a nut. The real reason populism an racism has bumped up in the US,and in places like the Philippines, is that AI is monitoring our keystrokes, our facial expressions, and then pitching us what THEY think we want to see. So locally, IRL, a racist, a gun enthusiast ( average owner has 17 guns), a religious bigot, etc, finds 'community' on line. They are sold this community. End result: Poland, end result, Hungary. End result, Duterte, etc etc etc. They were there, they were isolated, and they found their 'home' on line.
2
This gun owner has *never* understood online gun-sales. When I purchase a weapon, I want state and Federal checks to be sure the weapon comes to me, legally. Cost for all this, to a dealer? $2 for the background check, perhaps $25 for the transfer fees. That poses no burden to someone purchasing a $400 gun. I'd make any transfer go through a licensed dealer. To the credit of sites like Gunbroker, that is how they operate.
Besides, in person I get to inspect the gun before taking possession. Unscrupulous sellers can hide damage and excessive wear to a gun, when selling it used, online.
We all need more gun owners to step up and join the call for sensible regulation over the sale and transfer of firearms. I'm not holding my breath...the NRA has enormous power and its propaganda has warped many minds.
13
I simply do not agree that there is some collective responsibility for all or even more than some mass shootings. There are mass murderers who just started killing without others having the ability to know that they were going to do so.
Some people who kill give lots of warnings as to what they might do. These people should be addressed by communities, local or national, as clear and significant risks to public safety. Not doing so does make communities partially responsible for the harm that they do if not addressed.
But more that a few people who have killed just gave no indications of what they might do. We know that some people begin working their way towards killing others within their imaginations and they just do not act out their feelings any differently from people who are never going to do any harm. Some actually plan and commit heinous acts without being detected for a very long time. Some never have like Jack the Ripper. Communities just cannot know that these people need to be addressed to prevent them from harming others.
3
If communities are responsible for all acts of individuals within them, then individuals cannot be free to do anything without the community’s consent. Liberty means trusting individuals to be responsible and considerate unless they act otherwise.
For those who long for government under an Ardern type of leader, remember that she exercises authority which presumes that all citizens are subjects of a sovereign. They do not constitute the actual sovereign that gives authority to state to represent them as do citizens under our system. Having that sovereign authority means that all must obey, like it or not. In our system the state has limited authority. You may hate the idea but a majority makes decisions for all with everyone’s consent, everyone not just those in the majority.
The framers of the Constitution would have been aghast at the "warping" of the 2nd Amendment. Sadly, CJSCOTUS Roberts has failed to heed his predecessor Warren Burger in this regard.
In the 1700's/ early 1800's, consumption of available water was considered suspect to City dwellers. Those Colonialist drank cider, milk, whiskey and rum along with tea and chocolate, coffee less so.
The result was an alcoholic, intoxicated populace where those Framers would have restricted armaments. A well regulated militia, indeed!
A strict constructionist who does not grasp the context is not an advocate for "from their eyes" approach to interpretation.
4
@Tabula Rasa Kudos for a brilliant interpretation.
I'm a rare bird -- someone who enjoys competitive shooting (trap, skeet and sporting clays), but who endorses very aggressive gun safety measures.
Many of the people I compete with view the Second Amendment as absolutely inviolate, and thus see no need to compromise on any issue -- ever. We need to change that mentality.
We need to convince firearm enthusiasts that if they won't support action to curb gun violence through legislation, then we will seek relief through Constitutional means -- by repealing the Second Amendment.
41
@Scott The second amendment is there and won't be repealed any time soon and unless we want to throw out the rest of the document it is part of we have to cater to the court's reading of it. But there are things we can do that pass (current) court muster. The NY SAFE act would do wonders if enacted nationally and despite all the yard signs it hasn't set off the threatened revolution.
1
@Scott
The world needs more of you. You're exactly the kind of gun advocate that can change the culture!
@Scott More people share your hobbies and views than will admit to them. You can't say that out loud at the gun range.
Thank you for bringing this issue of violence to the forefront, a byproduct of our collective complacency in allowing potential killers to become actual murderers... by looking the other way. If our laws say that 'hate' speech is a right, where does our corresponding obligation to care for each other start? Justr because we, in these United States, remain a violent society, does not mean we cannot, as we must, reform, and show humane feelings of prudence...and do the right thing for a change. And, unless you have become Trumpian, there is our conscience that 'knows' right from wrong. Last though not least, rhe common denominator is clear, far too many guns for the asking, including the license (instead of freedom) to have weapons of war, incompatible in civil society.
10
@L osservatore
So that makes what they did OK?
What’s your point...you needed a “Gotcha” moment?
We still need action. Our Freedom trumps your gun fetish.
7
@Pauline Shaw
What I should have made more clear is that what we need is mental health AND police responses when troubled people make threats.
I think only the Las Vegas shooter was a complete surprise to the cops. ALL the others were familiar names to local P.D.s.
Neighbors or friends had WARNED the cops but no one saw the threat.
@Pauline Shaw The person to whom you are responding thinks that his "right" to own guns trumps [sic] your "right" to live.
Right now I'm more concerned about our collective responsibility to restore democracy, the Constitution, and the Rule of Law than I am worried about whether MGM is culpable for the actions of Mr. Suitcase Guy.
6
@Agilemind I see the enabling of unrestricted access to firearms to be the biggest threat to democracy, the Constitution, the Rule of Law, and reason itself in our polity.
12
@MidcenturyModernGal
When and where did that happen?
Not in the United States.
@Agilemind Maybe your agile mind did not pick up that the two issues very likely are connected? And, I am pretty sure, you would feel different if one of your loved ones was the victim of "Mr. Suitcase Guy."
I'm not really sure how MGM is responsible. Yeah, the shooter brought in a lot of suitcases, but it was in ones and twos spread over a large period of time. What clerk or series of different clerks spread over many days and shifts could have noticed the oddity. A large hotel has people shuffling back and forth with suitcases every minute of every day. It's a large hotel.
Otherwise, he was in his room. What are hotels supposed to do now, search every suitcase that passes in front of the desk clerk? Close all other exits/entrances that aren't monitored? Search rooms at random?
27
@Jim
They could have metal detectors and gunpowder-sniffing dogs.
Even random checks would help.
3
@Jim: What is the matter with a country that did not notice the oddity of this mans's gun collection?
5
@Jim :"I'm not really sure how MGM is responsible. "
It's called deep pockets. Hang any portion of responsibility one one with deep pockets and guess who pays the cash?
Of course "We don't collect unless you do!"
So, over a course of a couple of days a man walks in and out of his hotel room, and each time he returns he is carrying a suitcase, and somehow the hotel owner is responsible for first identifying how strange it is that someone would go into their room with a suitcase, and second, knowing exactly what was in the suitcase.
I cannot tell you how many times I have seen people in hotels carrying suitcases to their rooms, but let's just say "a lot" like always. And, I have never know what was in their suitcases, not once.
It sounds like the most logical and safest thing is to have a TSA checkpoint at every hotel, motel, Inn and YMCA in America to throughly check every single suitcase that enters the establishment. This is the only way we can feel safe.
19
@Shend Or we could ban assault weapons and make everyone register their guns and undergo a certification process to determine if they pose a danger to others, like the rest of the civilized world.
Wasn't it Franklin that said "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."?
30
@Shend Or restrict how many guns a single person can buy. How about that?
For far too long, online intermediaries have sought, and been granted, near-total immunity for harmful uses of their products, services or platforms.
Gun manufacturers years ago extracted from an NRA bought and paid for Congress a singular law granting them total immunity from any civil action brought by those who suffer even the most grievous foreseeable harm from deadly use of their lethal product.
12
I can't understand this love affair with guns. The second amendment was written hundreds of years ago, when society was far different and the guns were for members of militias. We no longer have militias and we certainly and unfortunately have guns. They should be banned with no exceptions. At the very least, private sales (on line or otherwise) should be illegal.
20
@Sheila Dropkin Don’t forget that Justice Antonio Scalia did none of us any favors in his majority opinion in 2008 that granted citizens a greater right to bear arms. Justice Alito, and Justice Thomas followed suit. In speaking with historians of the Constitution, it’s become very clear that Scalia cherry-picked his arguments, and that the conservative Justices followed him all the way to this pernicious decision. Justice Breyer wrote the dissent. was The evidence is forceful: since that SCOTUS decision, the number of mass shootings has risen.
16
@Ambroisine
Correlation is not causation.
Well, I'm a liberal democrat that owns firearms and I have to disagree with your assessment of liability. Maybe having MGM pay the victims is equitable in your mind...but not mine and likely not other law abiding gun owners. Next we'll be holding cattle farmers liable for coronary artery disease. It will never end...when in fact (or at least in my mind), it takes a human being to pull a trigger. Background checks are done at the state level and even the large online dealers or intermediaries (Gunbroker.com) require that transactions be conducted by a licensed FFL if the item sold qualifies by ATF as a firearm. What happens elsewhere (ie., social media), is what it is and if illegal, it should be enforced -- good luck with that. I don't have the answers, nor do you unless you put "crazy" into the equation.
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@Rudolph Johnson Hi Rudolph. If you invite guests to a dinner party and serve alcohol, and one of your guests drives home a little inebriated, you are considered liable and may be convicted of manslaughter. I think that law oversteps, but it is the law. And you, the host, are the presumed judge of who is or isn’t inebriated. So for the sake of consistency, if you provide a gun to someone, you are also on the hook for what happens if that gun goes off and kills a person or people. If you get a bad knee transplant, you get to sue. So why are the gun manufacturers held to a different standard?
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@Rudolph Johnson
Or, holding Ben & Jerry's responsible for Type 2 Diabetes.
Or, blaming schools for not having adequate security to stop a crazed gunman with an assault weapon and 3000 rounds of ammunition.
Or, blaming a hotel for a national gun policy disaster it did not create.
Only in America.
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There is only one person responsible for the misuse of firearms and that is the person holding the weapon and pulling the trigger. That's it. No one else is liable.
There is a great problem on the Internet and webpages and other social media that promote violence and hate speech. That is not the same as illegal use of weapon but, we must admit that it does contribute to violence.
In my view the electronic bloodletting of video games and bloody Hollywood mayhem that glorifies violence is another primary cause of violence with firearms. Gun violence in a video game or in a Hollywood movie is a legal way to send the message that the best revenge is murderous rage with guns. There is no excuse for allowing full frontal carnage to be portrayed as the only way to solve all problems.
Red flag laws are necessary as are full, complete and comprehensive back ground checks for purchasers of guns. We also need age restrictions as well. No one under the age of 25 should be able to purchase a hand gun or AR pattern rifle.
But no legitimate gun owner should ever have to fear confiscation or restrictions that limit the type of firearms (other than full auto machine guns or magazines with a capacity greater than 30 rounds).
Then too, I should be able to attend my school, mall, theatre, church, mosque, temple or Synagogue without fear of being slaughtered. And I should be safe in my home or vehicle too,
There is no simple answer.
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@Jack Frost
So 30-round clips are fine, but 31? No way! That's just too dangerous.
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No, there is a simple answer: confiscate the guns. What purpose do they serve for an individual?
Mandatory biometric trigger locks and universal background checks would help, as would secondary liability for gun owners who don’t properly secure their weapons and/or ammo. We don’t prevent all auto deaths, but the regulations and laws we do have help reduce them. Doing nothing is a coward’s way out.
Some claim the blame for shootings lie with the gun manufacturers, some with the internet, some with video games. They are all wrong.
The responsibility for shootings, like any other crime, lie with the criminal. Remmington did not pull the trigger, neither did GTA nor Facebook. An immoral or amoral individual made the calculated decision to take one or more lives. That is the responsibility right there.
It is about time we stopped trying to find excuses for relieving people of responsibility for their own actions, be those actions taking out loans they cannot repay, illegally crossing a border, or killing another human being.
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@michaelscody That opinion is deeply, and fatally, flawed. Here's a Gedanken experiment. Fill the world with guns, but no humans. Then there is no gun violence against humans. Now fill the world with humans, but no guns. Then there is no gun violence against humans. Conclusion: in order to minimize gun violence against humans, we can either minimize the number of guns, or minimize the number of humans. It's that simple.
'Logic' like yours, in service to the Sacred Second Amendment, ensures the carnage of collateral damage will go on and on. When police shoot an innocent, they are rarely charged, and even more rarely convicted. When a hunter 'accidentally' shoots a woman in Maine, gardening on her back deck (because she's wearing white gardening gloves that 'look like a deer tail'), the hunter is acquitted. And when a gun is kept in a home for 'protection', it becomes 30 times more likely for members of that household to come to harm via gun violence, than a 'protection' benefit will accrue.
Too often, we writhe in fear of 'invasion' in our homes -- the probability of which is almost nil. Yet also too often, we presume a gun solves our fear; whereas the truth, is that sustainable protection, without collateral damage, occurs by using means other than lethal projectile weapons, and instead using cameras, alarms, pepper spray, and other, similar approaches.
Reject guns. Don't give into fear. Don't give into the NRA narrative, that guns are the answer to fear.
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@Albert K Henning
In your world with humans but no guns, there is no gun violence, I agree. However, humans will find some other way of committing violence against other humans if they are morally deficient enough to be so inclined.
There is nothing about being shot that makes it any less painful and potentially fatal than being stabbed, run down, or strangled.
If your goal is to simply reduce gun violence, then restricting guns is a valid idea. If your idea is to reduce violence in general, a more noble cause in my opinion, then you must go deeper and do something to enforce personal responsibility for people's actions on themselves and stop looking for outside, inanimate objects to blame.
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@Albert K Henning Bad juries are not an argument against hunting or police they're an argument against bad juries. Nonlethal technologies are powerful only in a generally nonviolent context. Cameras, alarms, and pepper spray work in civilization, but not in anarchic war zones such as the world is littered with (including places as near as parts of Mexico). Gun nut culture falsely tries to convince people that we are in one of those anarchic zones currently, but nevertheless the argument could be made (and is, in the constitution) that having a sleeper corps of responsible armed citizens is long term insurance against social decay reaching it's worst possible depths. The cost, when poorly managed, is social decay now, but indicting responsible gun ownership for that is like blaming bad court decisions on whole classes of people not responsible for them. Gasoline is dangerous and should be contained rather than allowed to leak all over an engine willy nilly, but that doesn't mean it isn't useful when the engine is properly designed and maintained.
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It is not only the availability of guns but the constant goad to gun violence perpetrated on television shows. There is a government agency that regulates what content is permissible to show on TV. The guidelines dumb down what can be shown, establishes and perpetuates divisions amongst different classes of people, enforces prejudices against already marginalized groups yet normalizing conflict and aggression by constantly showing massive gun violence which is way outside the experience of 99.999999% of watchers, but still provoking the outrage, fear, paranoia, distrustfulness that such violence portends. We could do much better in our national, shared experience if someone could straighten out our “code of broadcasting” and allow for some true reality to be produced and shown on TV.
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@Pat This is a case where the bad needs to be drowned out by the good, not banned outright. Let's not censor. Violence and danger of it are a lazy way to create and release dramatic tension. People need to be educated to have better taste: not because salad is a grim moral duty but because you can actually learn to derive greater pleasure from it and because it's better for you than chips can ever be.
Empathy is something we need more of in our society. The MGM legal case is a good lens. Imagine being an attorney or paralegal on MGM's legal team and getting the assignment to counter-sue the victims. Oh to be a fly on the wall. Was there a stunned silence? Did people quit? Or did they cheer at the prospect and jump right to work? Did it register as a particularly notable task at all? How could someone have so little empathy as to even consider the notion of suing the people who were shot from your hotel?!
Perhaps all these lawyer jokes are onto something. (What do you call 6 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean? A good start!)
The question of how liable MGM really is is a tricky question. I get it: what were they supposed to have done to stop Paddock from bringing luggage into the hotel? Should they have assumed that he was porting guns & ammo? To this day we don't know any motive because to all appearances he was a very normal, unassuming person. Not the typical profile of a mass shooter. (And even if he was, should MGM be scrutinizing and denying service to people based on superficial profile?) He picked MGM simply because it was near the concert venue.
However, unavoidable fact of the case is that a mass murder was committed on/from the MGM grounds, and the DHS-approved security didn't notice that someone brought a terror arsenal into their building. If they can't handle that, what good are they?
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@Nick
He brought it in suitcases a couple at a time spread over many days and shifts. No reasonable person could have noticed that in a large and busy hotel...a random person walking by with a suitcase or two. C'mon.
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The history of the NRA illustrates how guns went from being a tool for hunting and sport shooting, to an essential item for self-defense, to now a core element of white, male identity. Many white Christian men feel emasculated by the loss of manufacturing and farming jobs and ensuing loss of status in their families and communities. Stand your ground, right to carry, and automatic weapons are assertions of hyper-masculinity. All mass shootings are by men, most over the loss of a relationship with a woman or perceived mistreatment at a workplace. White nationalist mass murderers cite the replacement theory or demand a white ethnostate. Blaming mental illness is a deflection, but focusing solely on gun control is wishful thinking. Our history of racism, misogyny, police misconduct, and continuous foreign wars, exacerbated by the collapse of the middle class, are converging into a violent, toxic brew.
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@Bruce Shigeura
While I agree with your assessment about the toxic social brew driving mostly white, male, so-called Christian gun owners, gun control does indeed saves lives. We need only look at how the number of mass shootings skyrocketed the instant the assault weapons ban expired. As Dr. ML King said, no one can make a racist love you, but laws can help prevent a racist from killing you. Strict gun control won't eliminate 100% of gun violence, but there is no doubt it would go a long way toward reducing the number of victims.
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We are dying. And nobody will stop it.
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@sjs
No. There are many of us deeply concerned about this, and are trying hard to turn the tide. Please help elect politicians that will do something about gun violence -- democrats!
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@sjs Yeah, too bad. Oh well, that's just the price of freedom.
@sjs
Shouldn't you be more worried about banning automobiles, then ?
It's a failure of government and society to allow unlimited and unrestricted ownership of guns (or to set rules that are a snap to get around.)
Liability? Might as well post a sign saying "We reserve the right to refuse service to homicidal and/or suicidal individuals in possession of assault guns, large magazines, etc." That should cover it.
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@JR
That's why we passed the 1934 Federal Firearms act.
And the 1968 Federal Firearms Act...etc.
Not to mention BATF regulations for many decades.
They seem to be pretty effective at removing automatic and assault weapons as well as cheap "Saturday Night Specials" from our streets.
The former, like the Thompson .45 or a M16. haven't been used in any mass murders I can recall; while the latter crumbled to rust a long time ago.
Businesses in California post signs per state law telling customers that some products "are known to cause cancer by the State of California," and are absolved from some liability.
How is that more ethical than your proposed disclaimer?
MGM decided to settle, not because it was liable, but because it was the best business decision to put the tragedy in its past.
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The common denominator in mass shootings, in all shootings, is absurdly simple -- it's the guns, stupid. And all that surrounds them: idolizing the Second Amendment. Continuation of a Wild West freedom of spirit when social responsibility is at a low point. A macho, Clint Eastwood sense that only a gun will keep things safe, despite stats to the contrary. NRA leadership and gun manufacturers purchasing political power and protection from the government.
With all due respect to Dr Franks' argument, the internet is "just" a reflection and magnification of the criminal profile America has painted. Freedom of speech has limits, and social news, mass media, and graphic "entertainment" have definitely intensified our violent culture. But trying to prohibit certain attitudes among the public is a slog uphill, and results in backlash.
The Second Amendment gun worshippers, the shooters and criminals, and the failing politicians and cowardly public who silently allow murder to continue will have blood on their hands that will never wash off. Until we confront our lack of civil and ethical responsibility as moral citizens -- we'll keep our trigger finger on unalloyed freedom, believing each of us has the right to stand our ground and fire at will. Guns simply have to go -- not go off!
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@SGK: The second amendment states that the security of the unarmed depends on their rights to vet those who would be armed, and regulate their arms.
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None of the other first world countries has this problem.
They don't have active shooter drills for their children.
We are doing something wrong.
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I'd say its a bit of an exaggeration to say that Armslist "facilitates illegal gun sales." Probably millions of guns have been legally bought and sold between law-abiding individuals with only two known incidents of people using weapons they acquired on Armslist in crimes. Most guns used in crimes are simply stolen.
It's also disingenuous to say that the seller "didn't require a background check" because private individuals do not have direct access to the Federal NICS background check system. That said, selling a gun to someone known or suspected of being a prohibited person is illegal and no gun owner I have ever met in the 30 years I have owned guns would knowingly do it. I occasionally buy and sell on Armslist, and a common way buyers/sellers establish if the other person is legally allowed to own a firearm is to require them to show their Concealed Weapons Permit (aka CCW permit). One cannot acquire one of these permits as a prohibited person (e.g. felon, domestic abuser, history of violent mental illness and forced institutionalization).
That said, there's obviously room for improvement. Gun owners have been asking for reform of the NICS background check system so that it is open to the public so that we could do instant background checks on buyers that would simply tell us if they were a prohibited person or not. It would be a major improvement but the gun control lobby seems to have doubled down on the idea of confiscation rather than work with us.
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There is no legal concept of punishable "hate speech".
You can write or speak all you want about how much you hate THEM and how the world would be a better place if THEY weren't around. And there is not a damn thing the government can do about it.
The idea that the government should hold websites legally responsible for non-criminal hate speech is not consistent with the First Amendment.
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@Lilo
The First Amendment does not prevent the websites from refusing to publish hate speech. In no way does it require private citizens, or their businesses, to provide a platform for speech they find objectionable. This is why a person who works for XYZ Company can be fired if he or she posts nasty things about the company on his or her social media feed. Just because the government can't throw you in jail for saying things it doesn't like, that doesn't mean you can't face any consequences from private citizens. We can't beat someone up for objectionable speech, but we can exclude that person -- and that includes excluding (blocking) them from privately owned websites. If the websites don't choose to block hate speech, it is essentially a tacit endorsement of that speech. At the very least it is indeed a failure to care about the potential consequences of providing a platform to a neo-Nazi nutcase.
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@Nikki It is no more a tacit endorsement of "hate speech" than the fact that libraries and bookstores and Amazon sell "Mein Kampf".
Professor Franks is pretty plainly endorsing attempting to hold private websites liable for speech she does not like. That is a serious step away from free speech.
If people don't like the topics or tone on 8chan, don't go there. That's a pretty simple solution.
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@Lilo
So no regulation of pornography or swearing? Sweat let the billboards be free!
Advocating violence, participating in violence verbally, are not protected free speech. They are the express exceptions to free speech.
They are the famous "Fire!" in a crowded theater, words meant to and likely to kill.
Still, this is about free speech: separating protected speech from unprotected speech, and then doing something about it.
We have never done that well, but in a print age the problem was much easier. Collect up the offending printed material, and fine the printer, and jail the writer.
How does that fit the electronic media world? It doesn't. Not at all.
Yet the risk remains. The risk is of prior restraint of free speech, especially political speech. The risk is of silencing the unpopular and powerless, in order to get at the truly dangerous abusers.
It is not so simple as saying private companies can just refuse to carry it. Those private companies are monopolies by government acquiescence, and what monopolies do when leaned on by government to do it is not just private action.
There is probably no alternative to literal policing of the internet. The same is true now of child porn. We need trained cops patrolling, arresting, and sending to jail the criminals who do this.
We will need to be very careful of those cops not abusing the police power, but we have more experience with that. Cops are always a risk for abuse of power to serve power. We can protect our rights from our own cops. We do that all the time.
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@Mark Thomason
The key point here is the monopoly issue, because it negates the other option we have: the boycott. If Facebook, for example, provides a platform for hate speech or doesn't step on Russian bots, we can choose not to use Facebook. Problem is, the company controls so many social media platforms that boycotting them pretty much means boycotting social media (not a problem for me, but I understand others actually like social media).
In order to give consumers back the power to decide, either big media companies need to be broken up, or else considered public utilities and regulated accordingly. As for fringe players like 8chan, the issue is not promoting speech (protected or otherwise), it is facilitating domestic terrorism. The Dept of Homeland Security should be looking at whether they are sufficiently involved in facilitating domestic terrorism to be shut down on those grounds.
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@Nikki -- Yes, that is one of the many problems with monopoly.
We see it in other monopolies too.
For example, our electric company behaves so badly that "high handed" would be a compliment in comparison. Yet there is nobody else. You take it, or you sit in the dark.
We do have gas choice programs. There is competition for natural gas. They are in consequence much better behaved toward customers.
We've let monopoly creep into our economic life as if natural. It is poison.
It is the same poison for electronic media as for electric supply as for anything else. We see it. We can fix it. If we can do it with gas supply why not electric supply? If we can do it with internet connection they why not with internet content?
Wow. Very interesting argument. I am a free speech advocate, but not an absolutist about it. You can't yell fire in a crowded theater, which was an analogy about incitement. Also, I don't think the second amendment is going anywhere, so you have to regulate the law to prevent mass shootings. I am very interested in the prevention of mass shootings.
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The MGM should have body searched every guest who walks in and out of the hotel? Scanned every suitcase and every visitor?
As with suicide clusters, mass shootings are fanned by media coverage. There are many other ways to do evil, but people see and read about shootings, and the deranged ones emulate them.
Is Ms. Franks, or the NYT, responsible for shooting deaths? Certainly media coverage is. how much blame should we assign to her?
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