High school shooting in Parkland FL

[Mister Agenda]

Ideally, he wouldn't legally be able to get his hand on a pistol.  But I'm not sure what sort of profiling would be necessary, and even possible constitutionally speaking.

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Do you care that it was a semi-automatic rifle, and not a handgun?  That's where I think gun control advocates come off a bit wonky.  Because nobody believes that him killing 8 people with a handgun would be any more acceptable than killing 14 with an AR-15.   It's a bit of mitigation, but it doesn't really solve the problem in any way.

The point that a semi-automatic rifle is deadlier than a hand gun, that is a fact.

A Glock 17 (as one example) has a standard magazine capacity of 17 and fires just as fast as you can pull the trigger, like almost all semiautomatic firearms. And you can easily carry one each hand, though shooting both at once isn't very effective unless you're trying to hit the same target with both guns. At short range and all other things being equal, I'd rather be shot at by someone with a .223 AR-15. That's probably what the Las Vegas shooter mostly relied on, and less than one in ten of the people he hit died of their wounds. School shooters use the AR-15 because they're copy cats, not because they're tactical geniuses. The Pulse nightclub shooter definitely put thought into his plan, though no rifles. He could have used revolvers and still gotten one of the highest body counts ever because he trapped people in the club first.

I want sensible gun laws for America, but I'm not sure basing them on what is popular with mass shooters instead of firing characteristics will accomplish fewer mass shootings. I don't see a school shooter staying home because if they can't do it with an AR-15 they just won't do it. And there are firearms that you could get a higher body count with, forcing them to get more creative, I think, could easily backfire.

Keeping them from buying firearms in the first place though, ought to be more effective. A requirement that you be at least 21, have no prior violent offenses for at least, say, 10 years; no prison time in the last, say 10 years, and if you have mental health issues, an independent evaluation should be required before you are allowed to purchase a firearm. Any of these would be more effective than 'force them to buy a different gun'. Ideally, we eventually will get to a point where a safety test has to be passed and a license obtained, like in Canada.

Right now, the only thing I think we can find the political will for on the federal level would be to have the FBI treat threats of school shootings like they treat threats to government officials. Pick the person up, interrogate them, search their property for weapons, if they're determined not to be a threat, let them go without charges, but keep any guns found. I think this has a chance of passing. Most shooters aren't stupid enough to announce it, but at least we can do something to keep those who do from falling through the cracks.

I would hope better mental health care would be an option, but I don't think that can happen before 2020.