This is a pickle over here!

No one I know (here) believes that people should be allowed to buy a gun without an extensive background check, including a mental health background check.

MOST gun stores in the US DO a background check on law-abiding people like you and me.

I go in and say "I want to buy that Glock and that .45", and the guy says: sure, do you have a permit? I say no, and he gives me a form, which I fill out.
He says: I will hold your guns for you, and I will submit this form to the powers that be, and in 4 days, when the background check has cleared, I will call you.
This is the way it's done in most places.
Those of us that are law abiding, we do it, we see it as necessary and we do not get bent out of shape.

But, there are times and places where you can buy guns without a permit or a background check.
Like gun shows.
But these are mostly for hunters.
I used to go (to the shows) with my ex-husband (David), who is a hunter. (venison, pheasant, wild turkey and rabbit, all eaten!)

Or online. God knows WHY selling guns online even makes sense. Crazy teenagers who have killed their classmates in school bought guns online (Columbine boys did).

My son got his hunting license when he was 12.
He had to take classes. Safety and responsibility and handling. It was several weeks, once a week.
He used to hunt for rabbit, with David, never alone.
Had he/we been required to do more, we would have all complied.

The target shooting we did at home. We lived in rural Michigan, and David taught everyone to shoot.
My father taught me and my brothers to shoot when we were in our early teens. He'd been a rifleman in the armed forces when he was young. He had a pistol.
When we were young, the permits were not required. But things changed.

To answer your question, should people be required to take a weapons handling class?
Yes. Many people injure themselves mishandling their own gun.

Regarding a combat situation course, I do not even know what that would look like.
Since we (general civilian population) never consider being in a combat situation.

You've done military service, my dad also and my brother; but the rest of us do not ever see combat.
I would not want to take a combat situation course.

There are LOTS of weapons that are bought on the black market. That is a BIG problem.
Gangbangers do not buy their weapons at the gun shop.
Drug dealers do not buy theirs at the gun shop either.
But buying guns on the black market, by bad guys, happens everywhere in the world, not just here.

I understand in the latest school killing the couple who killed people had a no fly ban on them. They had purchased two AR Assault rifles and 1,400 rounds of armour piecing bullets. I find this incredible. It maybe that they have no criminal background but I know in my job everyone giving the worst circumstances can become ill. The world is not divided by those who get mental illness and those that do not. It can happen to anyone. So in my view - the more guns that are available - the more chance someone will use them for terrible consequences.


On another point I remember someone telling me about the Platinum rule of treating people as they want to be treated. The trainer was celebrating the point until I said it does not work. She looked shocked and told me the Platinum rule was better than the golden rule. I just said well I want you to worship me and then asked her if she was prepared to do it? The obvious answer was "no". That was the end of the lecture on the Platinum rule.

I do not wish to get at anyone but I find the idea of AR assault rifles as having no other use than killing people. Well that is my opinion. It hurt to see the event and the newspapers questioning the mental health of people after the event when if the means was not there it would not of happened. It is not mental illness that caused the problem (imo).

Lannah. My reference to combat situation might be better explained if I say Rules Of Engagement. This is something that is strictly taught to all British military personnel. It defines when you can legally shoot someone and not when you think you can shoot someone.You don't have to run around or get muddy. It is taught in a classroom. But it is comprehensive. We have a Royal Marine serving a life sentence for apparently breaking this rule. He was accused of killing a wounded Taliban. We had a soldier jailed during the troubles. His road block was crashed by a bunch of joyriding teenagers. The car was approaching at speed and he fired his last shot when the car was technically no longer a threat.Of course, it took a scientist to work that out. One who had never been in a life threatening situation.

Thanks for the clarification! I was horribly confused.

Over here, for law enforcement, they are allowed to shoot if they "feel threatened".
Therefore, we have lots of killings done by law enforcement agents, and they get away with it, because it is a "catch all" phrase.
"I felt threatened!"

Fear and guns are a bad combination.

My son is 25.
His friend Jason is 25.
Jason is a policeman in Illinois. Jason has already killed a civilian man.

The man took his 8 year old daughter to the hospital.
The man was hysterical because something was not taking place in the hospital, and he was screaming and yelling.
The hospital staff called police (all female nurses) because they felt scared.
Jason arrived on the scene. (police in the US do not have partners, they patrol "solo")
Jason too felt threatened by the screaming man.
And he shot him, in the hospital, in front of his 8 year old daughter. Shot him dead.
Nothing will happen to Jason. He is still a police officer in his department.

This is one of those daily cases that does not reach the media.
In Illinois the police force is protected from lawsuits.
And all he had to say was "I felt threatened. We all felt threatened."

Lannah that is horrifyingly scary. I am so shocked I do not know what to say.

I know what you mean!
It was hard for me too.
This is a young man that used to come to my house all the time, eat with us, hang out with my son and daughter and the other boys that spent time at my home.
Jason was going to police academy while Sebastian was in technical school.
My home was always full of boys, since my son was going to Mechanic's School, the boys were always tinkering with their cars and Sebastian would help them.

When Sebastian told me I was SO horrified. I think he was horrified too, when he told me he was very subdued. He could not believe it.

But here police and FBI are taught to shoot at what they call "central mass" which is the person's chest. So quite often it is not good news for the person shot.

I think I understand now why we fail to comprehend each other from time to time. In our legal system, feelings are not considered except in mitigation. Only the facts. For example, an abused woman who kills her husband would still be jailed for murder but her sentence may be reduced. In Jason's case, unless the man was aiming a weapon at someone he would be jailed for murder. We have had cases where police have shot someone through misidentification of an atifact but they are never allowed to carry a weapon again. In France,where all police are armed shootings are rare because if they so much as draw their weapon they have about three days of paper work. And who would know? The French are the biggest complainers in the world and every one knows their local mayor. I don't think I could live in America. To stressful. In fact, this place is starting to drive me up the wall. Can't wait to get back to to my hide out in France.

You've hit it on the head.
Here the "I felt threatened" has covered many people's rear end. And it has left many families terribly wounded and unable to move forward.

What happens now, that did not before, is that with the advent of video cameras in mobile phones, and CCTV in business, or even inside one's car, many things that happen are posted on social media.

Over here regular civilians are buying cameras that they stick on their windscreen, they record video and audio. 18 hours of it straight.
That way, if you are stopped by the police, it records automatically.

The other catch phrase police use over here is "resisting arrest".
If they start screaming "you're resisting arrest! you're resisting arrest" and they can shoot you.

We had two horrible cases here.
One was of an 83 year old woman who accidently ran though a stop sign without stopping. Police car saw her and drove after her with sirens and lights. She was terrified and did not stop, and kept driving till she got home. When she got home, she parked her car in her drive way.
The police jumped out of the cars, with weapons pulled out, they busted the glass of her door window, and pulled her out through the busted window.
All this in front of neighbors, who were horrified (and they called the media!)
The police screamed at her "why didn't you stop? why didn't you stop" and she said "because I am scared of you all!"
Thank God there were neighbors as witnesses.

The other case, that broke my heart, was a police man pulled over a car with 4 teenage boys in it.
Two boys in front seats of car, two boys in back seat.
The officer asked the driver for license, registration and insurance.
He said "Your license better not be expired, young man."
And the driver said: "What are you going to do if it is, are you going to shoot me?"

The officer pulled out his gun and started screaming: "your resisting arrest! you're resisting arrest!" and shot the young man who was sitting in the driver's seat, with his seat belt on.
In front of the other 3 boys!!

My daughter's friend, Kendra, got her degree in criminal justice, and when she had to do her internship, with the police department, she decided she did not want to become a police woman.
The officer who she was assigned to would randomly stop young people, and harass them, pull them out of their car, put them in handcuffs.
Kendra was scared for herself. She did finish the internship, so she could graduate with a degree, but was horrified. She got her degree thru the university where I used to work, Concordia. This course is taught by professors at Concordia, that have not been police officers.

My nephew was in the criminal justice program at the college across from Concordia. He did a year. and also quit. He was horribly disappointed in his professors. His professors were ex-police officers. There was a lot of problem with racism and nasty attitudes and it turned him off too.

Of course, not all officers are like that!
But we always hear about the bad apples.
This was all in the Chicago area.

It is unfortunate because we NEED them!

When we lived downstate, in a small town, it was not like that.
The police was accessible and quite helpful and the response time for a 999 call was about 4 minutes.
And there were several programs where the police created relationships with the kids in the community, as a way of preventing anti-social behavior.

Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.