Obama wants gun control talks to resume.

[Webleymkv]

Seems to me that somewhere I heard that Obama will not seek a 2nd term. If that is the case he has little to lose by stabbing America in the back a couple times on his way out.

I've heard some speculation that Obama might not try for a second term, but nothing substantial enough to make me think there's a good chance he won't. Regardless though, even if he did want to pass some sort of sweeping gun control legislation and didn't think he had anything to lose, I don't think he could get Congress or the Supreme Court to go along with it.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

Ok, if we start to discuss Obama's re-election strategy we are going political and that's no-no.

Can we stay on discussing the content and process of this meeting and stay away from Obama's motives? I know that is hard and I have to keep myself from being political.

We shall see. Give it a try.

Thanks

[Webleymkv]

Can we stay on discussing the content and process of this meeting and stay away from Obama's motives? I know that is hard and I have to keep myself from being political.

Sorry Glenn, I knew I was "riding the line" so to speak with my comments, but it's hard to express such an analysis without doing so.

As to the topic at hand, I have somewhat mixed feelings about the NRA or any other pro-RKBA organization attending a meeting about gun control laws with the administration. On the one hand, I have a sneaking feeling that such a meeting may be nothing more than a political trap to get the NRA into a "gotcha" moment or at best just a waste of time. On the other hand, however, if anyone's going, I'd rather it be the NRA because I think they're probably more adept at navigating such a political minefield than some of the other, shall we say more "agressive", pro-RKBA organizations.

As to what can be done to prevent another Virginia Tech or Tuscon incident, well I think that's a fine line to ride. As I remember the details (VT in particular is a bit rusty to me at the moment) there were a lot of failures to recognize some pretty glaring warning signs with both individuals at the local level. I oppose sweeping measures such as mandatory psychological evaluations in order to own a gun because, from what I remember from Psych 101, the field of psychology by its nature can be rather subjective depending on who is doing an evaluation and what school of thought they subscribe to (my impression was that the field of psychology was as broad as it is long). I don't, however, think it would necessarily be a bad idea to require that certain very specific incidents and circumstances be reported to to NICS. If memory serves, the Tuscon shooter had previously made death threats and the VT shooter had been stalking other students and had been involuntarily committed to a mental institution though for only a short time. Incidents such as those are clearly definable and would transcend most people's definition of "harmless eccentircity" or "kind of creepy".

At the end of the day, however, you simply cannot prevent every act of violence. People do occasionally just snap and even people who cannot legally obtain a firearm get them anyway fairly regularly. The goal of gun control legislation, in my opinion, should not be to prevent every act of violence (an impossible goal) but rather to prevent the people who are most likely to cause it such as violent felons and the dangerously mentally disturbed from easily obtaining a firearm (you simply can't prevent every badguy who wants a firearm from getting one no matter how restrictive your laws are).

[Glenn E. Meyer]

Good post. That's the problem, IMHO. At a hypothetical meeting:

1. Is it really just a ban the guns PR show? If so, should Wayne fight the good fight or look petulant. I'm all for the fight.

2. Will it really be about a scholarly and realistic attempt to see if Cho and Loughner types should have been reported given their behavior to NICS?

If that's the case, then the meeting shouldn't have Brady, McCarthy, Josh, Wayne, Pratt, etc. - it should be made up of legal and mental health professionals rather than bloviating lay people with PR antigun agendas vs. some progun folks.

3. As a psychologist, the violence prediction without critical incidents already - like Cho and Loughner committed, is impossible because of the false positives. So can we tighten up to catch folks like them - who threatened folks, been involved with the mental health system or college / or other law?

That would be the center of a serious conference. This probably won't be that.

Given the crap in the world now - I doubt - we will see any antigun legislation.

[hogdogs]

Man I am so proud of me!!! I woulda never thunk that lil' ol' me could start a thread and L&CR and it go so long remaining open! I thought it would be lucky to go 10-15 posts before it got locked up...

Brent