First Report on Oregon Shooter's Guns: Legally Obtained
Obama's talk of common-sense gun safety laws don't seem to apply to this tragedy.
As I wrote yesterday, President Obama swiftly reacted to yesterday's horrific mass murder in Oregon with a sad, frustrated certainty that (unnamed and undetailed) common sense gun safety laws could have prevented this, and could prevent future tragedies like this.
First report via USA Today about the guns that the killer used and owned:
Authorities confiscated 13 weapons associated with the shooter, six at the sight of the killings and seven at his apartment, Celinez Nunez, assistant agent in charge at Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, told reporters Friday. Nunez said all the weapons had been purchased legally by the shooter or members of is family.
Thus, as usual, no laws other than "all guns will disappear from within our borders" or "people who in the future commit a horrible crime with their guns are legally barred from buying one"—both problematic for various reasons—would have had any effect on the killer's ability to obtain the weapons he used to commit the crime. It bears, sadly, repeating that the enormous staggering overwhelming majority of gun owners never commit such crimes with them.
