Side story on the recent gun spree

[carl]

I'm guessing - and again, only a guess - that weapons intended for sporting use are more likely to be locked up, often with ammunition separately locked up, than weapons intended for defense, which would add a small level of opportunity for second thoughts.

Weapons are locked up, from my observation, for two reasons. The first is to keep the children from getting into unsupervised mischief when they are young. The second is to make it harder for burglars to steal them. Burglars LOVE guns more than just about anything because are easy to sell to other hoods. Nobody I ever knew stored ammo away from the gun for any reason other than convenience.

My point was killers don't have second thoughts about what they do. They want to do it. They don't snap. They kill because they want to. It makes them feel better. If they had a pile a parts and had to assemble the weapon they wouldn't have a second thought. They would just be ticked off at being inconvenienced. These aren't normal guys pushed too far. Normal guys pushed to far go and cool off at their brother's house. These are bad, bad people.

I think a certain number of weapons nominally intended for "protection" are actually bought, owned, and all too often carried as ego props, as sort of a surrogate phallus. Typically this involves people who buy a gun but never bother to learn to use it. The ability to use it isn't that important to them, what they're after is the way having it makes them feel. That IMO is a dangerous combination.

Perhaps they are used for ego props. But if they are I think that is going to be much more likely to be an action of a gang banger type. Yo, dude, I'm strapped. I'm something. That is the action of a a person who is already criminally disposed.

Most law abiding people buy weapons, in my opinion, because they are interested in shooting as a sport, hunting or protecting themselves or a combination thereof.

I'd be curious to know what percentage of killings are actually planned, in any coherent sense. i dislike the term "crime of passion" because it sounds like an excuse, but arguments do get out of hand and people do stupid things when they are angry. It may be different there, but here the "typical" murder - you can find them in the newspaper on almost any given day - is an argument that got out of hand, and often involves friends, neighbors, or family. Alcohol is consistently involved. Whether or not these people are "evil" is open to interpretation, but I'm not sure their actions are planned.

I hope Slap will get into this, but these actions don't come from nowhere. These killers almost always have a criminal past of some kind or a history of violence or something.. They aren't good guys. I read a book about the NYPD cold case squad and one of the detectives said most all killings have to do with face. The killer figured he got dissed and wants some back. Normal people don't murder because they got dissed.

I don't think much Filipino crime patterns have much to do with American ones.