Florida man...

[Binkie The Clown]

Florida Man Shoots Out Tires of an AT&T Truck Outside Home

A Hialeah, Florida man took matters into his own hands to remove AT&T workers from his property on Wednesday.

Jorge Jove, a 64-year-old retired Miami-Dade firefighter, shot the tires of two AT&T trucks, as seen in video captured of the incident and posted on Twitter.

Hialeah Police Sgt. Carl Zogby told WSVN that Jove was “upset that the trucks were parked in front of his house” and that he “asked them to move.”

https://www.yahoo.com/news/florida-man-shoots-tires-t-054741421.html

Video at the link.

Link to tweet

[NCTraveler]

1. He woke up that morning a law abiding gun owner.

Time to do some gun grabbing.

[jmg257]

2. People are crazy!

[Sancho]

3. People Control, Not Gun Control

This is my generic response to gun threads where people are shot and killed by the dumb or criminal possession of guns. For the record, I grew up in the South and on military bases. I was taught about firearms as a child, and I grew up hunting, was a member of the NRA, and I still own guns. In the 70’s, I dropped out of the NRA because they become more radical and less interested in safety and training. Some personal experiences where people I know were involved in shootings caused me to realize that anyone could obtain and posses a gun no matter how illogical it was for them to have a gun. Also, easy access to more powerful guns, guns in the hands of children, and guns that weren’t secured are out of control in our society. As such, here’s what I now think ought to be the requirements to possess a gun. I’m not debating the legal language, I just think it’s the reasonable way to stop the shootings. Notice, none of this restricts the type of guns sold. This is aimed at the people who shoot others, because it’s clear that they should never have had a gun.

1.) Anyone in possession of a gun (whether they own it or not) should have a regularly renewed license. If you want to call it a permit, certificate, or something else that's fine.
2.) To get a license, you should have a background check, and be examined by a professional for emotional and mental stability appropriate for gun possession. It might be appropriate to require that examination to be accompanied by references from family, friends, employers, etc. This check is not to subject you to a mental health diagnosis, just check on your superficial and apparent gun-worthyness.
3.) To get the license, you should be required to take a safety course and pass a test appropriate to the type of gun you want to use.
4.) To get a license, you should be over 21. Under 21, you could only use a gun under direct supervision of a licensed person and after obtaining a learner’s license. Your license might be restricted if you have children or criminals or other unsafe people living in your home. (If you want to argue 18 or 25 or some other age, fine. 21 makes sense to me.)
5.) If you possess a gun, you would have to carry a liability insurance policy specifically for gun ownership - and likely you would have to provide proof of appropriate storage, security, and whatever statistical reasons that emerge that would drive the costs and ability to get insurance.
6.) You could not purchase a gun or ammunition without a license, and purchases would have a waiting period.
7.) If you possess a gun without a license, you go to jail, the gun is impounded, and a judge will have to let you go (just like a DUI).
8.) No one should carry an unsecured gun (except in a locked case, unloaded) when outside of home. Guns should be secure when transporting to a shooting event without demonstrating a special need. Their license should indicate training and special carry circumstances beyond recreational shooting (security guard, etc.). If you are carrying your gun while under the influence of drugs or alcohol, you lose your gun and license.
9.) If you buy, sell, give away, or inherit a gun, your license information should be recorded.
10.) If you accidentally discharge your gun, commit a crime, get referred by a mental health professional, are served a restraining order, etc., you should lose your license and guns until reinstated by a serious relicensing process.

Most of you know that a license is no big deal. Besides a driver’s license you need a license to fish, operate a boat, or many other activities. I realize these differ by state, but that is not a reason to let anyone without a bit of sense pack a semiautomatic weapon in public, on the roads, and in schools. I think we need to make it much harder for some people to have guns.

[Major Nikon]

6. Nuclear weapons don't kill people....

The fundamental flaw with your argument is that everyone is subject to losing their shit, which includes you and me. Everyone thinks their rational side will always overpower their emotional side, but human behavior just doesn't work that way. When people get angry enough, the Law of the Instrument takes over. The proliferation of guns simply insures more incidents like this one and far worse.

[Sancho]

7. The only argument here is to prevent dangerous people from easy access to guns...

No one claims it's foolproof.

Most "angry people" who are truly dangerous telegraph their emotions. Those people should not have the instant ability to guns and ammunition.

[Major Nikon]

10. The truly dangerous belief is that it can't happen to anyone

Quite often people who commit very irrational acts are described as quite normal, until they weren't.

[Lee-Lee]

8. Let's look at your list item by item

1.- there are already states that require licensing, so before expanding it you need to look at if it works now. Illinois should give you a clue that licensing is a non-issue. And before you say "well it doesn't work because it's not strict enough" if their version doesn't seem to work at all why do you think anything stricter would work?

2- There are two things here. First your mental health check by a professional. The mental health system in this country is stretched thing already. Where are you going to find the professionals to do 50,000,000 or more checks a year? How are you going to make this possible without taking them away from people who actually need their services?

In the second part, it used to be required in some counties in NC when I was growing up that before you were given a permit to purchase any pistol you needed letters of reference just like you described. Of course like any standard for letters of reference what they required was vague in text- but in the reality what it meant was you needed letters from white men. No thank you for any system that goes back to subjective requirements that can be denied based on open or subconscious racial biases.

3- I will actually go past that one and call for more. We should require gun safety courses in every high school. Don't wait until someone wants to own a gun, make it common knowledge how to safely handle one for everyone. That way the person who never plans to own a gun but by circumstance happens to find themselves having to make one safe knows how.

4- I can tell you live in an urban area. For people in rural America guns are tools used in daily life on the farm, and hunting is a long tradition. That law may be a good fit in Chicago but in rural Minnesota or Michigan it would never fly. You want to turn blue rural areas red fast, try this one. In rural America it's common and normal to see a 14 year old on a tractor in the field with a shotgun or .22 for handling snakes or coyotes.

5- Ahh, the old insurance thing. The idea everyone throws out with no idea why just because it sounds good. Do you want to know the one and only thing requiring insurance would do?

It would make the NRA way, way more powerful than it is.

Actual firearms liability insurance is pretty cheap. Like stupid cheap, like under $50 a year. If you mandate it the cost will drop way lower because only the kind of people very unlikely to ever make a claim will be buying.And it won't really change anything because the same kind of people who commit most crimes with guns won't buy it anyway.

But who sells that insurance? 95% of the market is done via the NRA and their affiliates, and of course NRA members get a discounted rate. The NRA would LOVE you to pass a le that would force people to buy their product, join them for a lower rate, and push people who were not apathetic on guns into their ranks pissed because they have to buy it.

If you think they have too much power now at Stephen 4,000,000 members pass this law and see what they are like with 40,000,000+. And if they make a $10 profit from each one on insurance every year....

6- Feel good ideas that don't change anything. That's already the law in Illinois, so look there for an example of if it does or does not work before advocating things already shown ineffective on that scale be expanded.

7-Once again, look to Illinois. A better plan, one proven to work and one you can get broad support for is mandatory sentence enhancers for anyone in possession of a guns. Robbery may get you 6 months, but add a gun and it's 3 years + 6 months. Domestic assault may get you a year, possess a gun during and it's 4 years. This has been done in cities like Richmond to great success. Now, it doesn't really affect overall levels of violence in those cities much because criminals will shift to knives and clubs and other weapons for the most part. But your fixation seems to be on guns, not on violence, so this is a workable solution that attacks it around the one issue you are fixated on. If you actually just want to reduce all kinds of violence and see gun violence drop as part of that, then that is a whole different discussion.

8- What, exactly, do you expect this to accomplish? Do you have any statistics to back up why this is needed, or is it just something intended to harass all gun owners and make things more difficult for them? There are states and municipalities with such laws, can you point to any increase in public safety as a result of them? Or does it just sound good so you are throwing it out there with no idea of it would work?

9- are you talking about registration of individual guns against a license? If so, it's a pipe dream. Canada tried and gave up on registration. Right now the only guns on the USA on a registry are machine guns, suppresses, short barrels weapons and others regulated under the National Firearms Act- about .001% of guns in the country. But the BATFE can't even keep that registry accurately and a recent internal survey they did if agents was released under FOIA found the agency's own agents said when they got records from the registry to do compliance inspection the records were more often than not wrong. It's so bad that people convicted of possession of unregistered machine guns are filing new appeals because the BATFE case hinged on their claims that the gun was not on the registry and that the registry was accurate.

If they can't keep accurate records of .001% of guns, expecting them to do anything but waste money trying to do more is a fools errand.

10- We already have laws that prohibit possession of guns after conviction of any felony, any misdemeanor punishable by more than a year (even if sentenced to less) and any crime of domestic violence at all.

[Sancho]

9. Everything on the "list" is already in place somewhere...and you misunderstand...

1.- there are already states that require licensing, so before expanding it you need to look at if it works now. Illinois should give you a clue that licensing is a non-issue. And before you say "well it doesn't work because it's not strict enough" if their version doesn't seem to work at all why do you think anything stricter would work?

The idea is simply to make it harder for dangerous people to have easy access to guns. That is not a restriction for most people.

2- There are two things here. First your mental health check by a professional. The mental health system in this country is stretched thing already. Where are you going to find the professionals to do 50,000,000 or more checks a year? How are you going to make this possible without taking them away from people who actually need their services?

There is no mental health check. When you go to the DMV, you are not seeing an optometrist! If you fill out a form or get a sign off on superficial stability, you only get seen by a professional IF something shows up. Shooting people leaves lots of need for mental health counseling too!

In the second part, it used to be required in some counties in NC when I was growing up that before you were given a permit to purchase any pistol you needed letters of reference just like you described. Of course like any standard for letters of reference what they required was vague in text- but in the reality what it meant was you needed letters from white men. No thank you for any system that goes back to subjective requirements that can be denied based on open or subconscious racial biases.

Preventing easy access to guns has potential for racism like everything else.

3- I will actually go past that one and call for more. We should require gun safety courses in every high school. Don't wait until someone wants to own a gun, make it common knowledge how to safely handle one for everyone. That way the person who never plans to own a gun but by circumstance happens to find themselves having to make one safe knows how.

Gun safety for all would be useful given the stupidity of many gun possessors.

4- I can tell you live in an urban area. For people in rural America guns are tools used in daily life on the farm, and hunting is a long tradition. That law may be a good fit in Chicago but in rural Minnesota or Michigan it would never fly. You want to turn blue rural areas red fast, try this one. In rural America it's common and normal to see a 14 year old on a tractor in the field with a shotgun or .22 for handling snakes or coyotes.

I grew up in rural SC and have lived most of my life in small rural areas. That includes a couple farms, where I picked tobacco as a youth. That still doesn't mean we should allow easy gun access to dangerous people. The need to carry guns in rural areas can be addressed in many ways without being crazy. You don't see 12-14 year olds allowed to buy dangerous chemicals (also used for farming) without supervision - or allowed to buy explosives (also used in rural areas), etc., etc. Rural folks are perfectly able to follow rules.

5- Ahh, the old insurance thing. The idea everyone throws out with no idea why just because it sounds good. Do you want to know the one and only thing requiring insurance would do?

It would make the NRA way, way more powerful than it is.

Actual firearms liability insurance is pretty cheap. Like stupid cheap, like under $50 a year. If you mandate it the cost will drop way lower because only the kind of people very unlikely to ever make a claim will be buying.And it won't really change anything because the same kind of people who commit most crimes with guns won't buy it anyway.

But who sells that insurance? 95% of the market is done via the NRA and their affiliates, and of course NRA members get a discounted rate. The NRA would LOVE you to pass a le that would force people to buy their product, join them for a lower rate, and push people who were not apathetic on guns into their ranks pissed because they have to buy it.

If you think they have too much power now at Stephen 4,000,000 members pass this law and see what they are like with 40,000,000+. And if they make a $10 profit from each one on insurance every year....

The reason for insurance is simple. Insurance companies do research. A serious insurance requirement would make it more difficult for some people to obtain or afford a license. It would also provide incentives beyond some state law to obtain training or a safe environment in order to save money.

6- Feel good ideas that don't change anything. That's already the law in Illinois, so look there for an example of if it does or does not work before advocating things already shown ineffective on that scale be expanded.

Universal requirements may or may not work. I think it would help.

7-Once again, look to Illinois. A better plan, one proven to work and one you can get broad support for is mandatory sentence enhancers for anyone in possession of a guns. Robbery may get you 6 months, but add a gun and it's 3 years + 6 months. Domestic assault may get you a year, possess a gun during and it's 4 years. This has been done in cities like Richmond to great success. Now, it doesn't really affect overall levels of violence in those cities much because criminals will shift to knives and clubs and other weapons for the most part. But your fixation seems to be on guns, not on violence, so this is a workable solution that attacks it around the one issue you are fixated on. If you actually just want to reduce all kinds of violence and see gun violence drop as part of that, then that is a whole different discussion.

The goal here has little to do with punishment. The goal is to prevent easy access of guns to dangerous people. Yes, the focus here is on guns. Are there other issues in society? Of course.

8- What, exactly, do you expect this to accomplish? Do you have any statistics to back up why this is needed, or is it just something intended to harass all gun owners and make things more difficult for them? There are states and municipalities with such laws, can you point to any increase in public safety as a result of them? Or does it just sound good so you are throwing it out there with no idea of it would work?

Yes, there are reports and statistics. You can start studying with some of the links below:

http://everytown.org
http://www.loc.gov/law/help/firearms-control/australia.php
http://www.legislation.act.gov.au/a/1996-74/current/pdf/1996-74.pdf
http://www.thetrace.org/2015/07/background-check-vermont-gun-range/
http://www.newsweek.com/2015/07/24/bullet-initiative-354203.html
http://wowway.net/news/read/article/los_angeles_times-la_city_council_bans_largecapacity_ammunition_maga-tca
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/10/03/us/how-mass-shooters-got-their-guns.html?_r=0
http://still4hill.com/2015/10/05/fact-sheet-hillary-clintons-plan-to-address-gun-violence/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=4&v=YN6rjamk0Q0
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/13/the-macabre-truth-of-gun-control-in-the-us-is-that-toddlers-kill-more-people-than-terrorists-do

9- are you talking about registration of individual guns against a license? If so, it's a pipe dream. Canada tried and gave up on registration. Right now the only guns on the USA on a registry are machine guns, suppresses, short barrels weapons and others regulated under the National Firearms Act- about .001% of guns in the country. But the BATFE can't even keep that registry accurately and a recent internal survey they did if agents was released under FOIA found the agency's own agents said when they got records from the registry to do compliance inspection the records were more often than not wrong. It's so bad that people convicted of possession of unregistered machine guns are filing new appeals because the BATFE case hinged on their claims that the gun was not on the registry and that the registry was accurate.
If they can't keep accurate records of .001% of guns, expecting them to do anything but waste money trying to do more is a fools errand.

No, this is not a gun registry. If you went to your local K-Mart to buy a gun or ammunition, you would present a license. No need for a national database. There would be a state record of valid licenses (like a driver's license or hunting license).

10- We already have laws that prohibit possession of guns after conviction of any felony, any misdemeanor punishable by more than a year (even if sentenced to less) and any crime of domestic violence at all.

...and there is no way to check at the point of sale (see the links above). If you have a current and valid license, it increases the likelihood that you had a criminal check. Nothing is foolproof.

[3_Limes]

4. I, along with many of my neighbors, very much appreciate "Florida Man"!!

He takes an awful lot of attention away from "Pennsylvania Man", who would otherwise be monopolizing the "Weird News" section of your favorite news source.

[MiniMe]

5. How can he leave when his tires are shot out?