Needy wrote:
Smiles wrote:
Why is this ( ie shootings) more common in america? There is obviously a problem if this keeps happening every month...
2nd amendment
Since I am not only a lawyer, but a prosecutor, I deal with A LOT of unlawful carry of weapon cases....despite Texas being an open carry state.
Well its just more than the 2nd amendment....there is a history of private gun ownership that is not only tied to the history of the founders not believing in a standing army and believed in militia volunteers, but also to Post Civil War Wild West. There was no law in the frontier and the only law was those that were armed.
That being said, gun ownership rights needs to modernize with the world as it is. No more BS interest group money from the NRA, period! NRA has destroyed any political will and capital to reform gun rights and laws. We need to have all arms in a national registry, need to shore up 3rd party "straw men" buyers, fix exceptions to background checks at gun shows, etc. The gun debate cannot be solved by congress....it needs the courts to define what the 2nd amendment entails.
This tragedy however highlights something else other than gun access and rights. That is the grave error the Air force did in not reporting this defendant's convictions to the Feds and also clearly defining domestic violence from simple assault bodily injury. There are 3 instances in which you aren't allowed to have a gun by law: 1. If you are a convicted felon, 2. if you have been convicted of domestic violence (AKA Assault Family Member), and 3. are a member of a gang and are ID'ed as a gang member via tats/street name/etc.
There are big differences between Assault Bodily injury & Assault Family Member. Both are Class A misdemeanors which mean both are punishable by a fine of up to $4000 and confinement up to a year in jail. A conviction of Assault Family Member carries what is called an "affirmative finding of family violence" in which if a person convicted of this does it again, it is AUTOMATICALLY a felony which deals in YEARS for punishment rather than months. Whereas with Assault Bodily Injury, you can get as many convictions for it and nothing in terms of getting bumped up to felony charge on subsequent cases happens.
Apparently the Airforce and the military in general in its Uniform Code of Military Justice does not have Assault Family Violence, but only Assault. Federal reporting requires it to be assault family violence so i'm not sure even if it was reported it would qualify to prevent him from legally getting a gun due to the statutory nature of the charge. Who knows how many hundreds if not thousands of such cases haven't been reported.......
And if they had reported it, they might have been able to take notice of how he escaped a mental institution and get him involuntarily committed.
Sunny<3
