After the Navy Yard shootings, the DoD wants to know more about people who get passes.

[Stinky The Clown]

The rule, generally speaking, has been to ask people applying for passes if they have any criminal convictions. Since it turned out that the shooter had been arrested for certain crimes, but never convicted, none of that info made it to the people giving out passes. And so a bad guy slipped through even more cracks.

In an effort to plug that seeming hole, the DoD now wants to get not only conviction records, but arrest records as well. In effect, they want to pass judgement on people based on actions that were not found to be criminal. True enough, some of the non-prosecutions or not guilty findings were likely just based on technicalities, but the fact remains: Americans are considered innocent until proven guilty.

I find this mindset troubling. This is just more erosion of our rights and - lissen-up repubicants - FREEDOMS. We should not be denied access to a workplace where we might earn a living because of an action that wasn't judged criminal.

I expect no one will notice, no one will sound the alarm, and no one will protest. The result will be another encroachment on our privacy and our freedoms.

I'm not suggesting that we should overlook abnormal, aberrant behavior when granting access to secure locations, but neither am I willing to give up more to be "secure." We must find ways to balance the rights of innocent citizens against the safety and security of our workplaces. And in the end, that's really what the Navy Yard shootings were: workplace violence.

If the call were mine, I'd say we have to accept that life comes with risk. We should do all we can *within reason and the law* to make life as safe as it can be. But it will never be without risk.

[Marrah_G]

1. I think it's good

My son turned 21 today. He could have easily have been one of this nutcases victims. The signs were all there. People knew he was crazy. Still he not only was able to buy a gun, in a state he doesn't live, in with extreme ease, he was also allowed onto a miltary base. Granted the place he shot up is an office building, but he could have also been on just about any sort of navy/marine base.
So many people fucked up in this case. The cops knew, the VA knew, the Navy knew. But no one stopped him. No one said "Hey, maybe this guy should not be coming onto military bases" AND because of our fucked up laws, no one could say "Hey this guy is delusional, hallucinating and dangerous, maybe we shouldn't let him buy a gun"

My son is out of job now, a good job, for no fault of his own, but at least he is alive.

We need to do something about our gun laws, especially in the area of background checks.

You and I agree on probably 95% of issues, on this one, we do not.

[Stinky The Clown]

2. Actually, I'll bet we agree even more.

My complaint is with releasing arrest (not conviction) records.

I *am* in favor of better background checks and better reporting of behavior that would disqualify one from being a gun owner. As you say, the cops knew, the VA knew, and the Navy knew. But gun humpers keep in place severe limits on gun purchase background checks. Making these sorts of things known and able to form the basis to deny a gun purchase permit is very different from giving up arrest records to anyone who asks for them.

I agree with you that he should have been stopped. His case was obvious. Yet we protect the right to buy a gun by people like him, yet we now want to erode our personal rights because of people like him. That's just wrong.