Targets of Maine Mass public shooter were gun free zones.

[rightwinger]

The people in the bar and bowling alley didn't have access to any gun.......

You really think someone getting drunk in a bar should have a firearm at his side?

 

[2aguy]

While I absolutely support your right to arm yourself, the 19th century West was hardly a polite society.

And more...

Lots of guns, not a lot of crime​

Mass violence, like what took place at the O.K. Corral, was actually infrequent. Moreover, the Old West reputation for lawlessness is unwarranted, despite, at times, an elevated number of homicides.

Crime such as rape and robberies occurred at a much lower rate than in modern America — certainly lower than in the 1970s and 1980s, when the nation was wracked by a surge in criminality. It is also worth noting that crime and gun violence has fallen steeply since the 1990s, even as gun ownership has increased dramatically.

For instance, historian Robert McGrath, who wrote a book about crime in the most notorious Old West towns, found that “robbery, theft, and burglary occurred infrequently,” and that “bank robbery, rape, racial violence, and serious juvenile crime seem not to have occurred at all.” And, “while the homicide rate was high,” McGrath wrote, “the killings were almost always the result of fights between willing combatants.”

The few gun control-type laws that existed were poorly and inconsistently enforced. Additionally, McGrath concluded that it was widespread gun ownership that deterred criminality in these areas in which law enforcement had little authority or ability to combat crime.

 

[pknopp]

It was more polite than you think......you watch too many hollywood westerns...

Here...some truth...

The New York Times Botches America’s History With The Gun

Second, the idea that “Gun control laws were ubiquitous” in the 19th century is the work of politically motivated historians who cobble together every minor local restriction they can find in an attempt to create the impression that gun control was the norm. If this were true, Kristof wouldn’t need to jump to 1879 to offer his first specific case.

Visitors to Wichita, Kan., had to check their revolvers at police headquarters. As for Dodge City, a symbol of the Wild West, a photo shows a sign on main street in 1879 warning: “The Carrying of Fire Arms Strictly Prohibited.”


This talking point has been trotted out for years because it’s the closest thing anyone can find to resemble gun control in the Old West — a picture. But we don’t even know how rigidly the law was enforced, for how long, or if ever. We certainly don’t know that the guns were dropped off at “police headquarters.”

Dodge City-type ordinances—and those of some other towns—typically applied to the areas north of the “deadline,” which was the railroad tracks and a kind of red-light district. By 1879, Dodge City had nearly 20 businesses licensed to sell liquor and many whorehouses teeming with intoxicated young men. It was reasonable that these businesses wouldn’t want armed men with revolvers packed into their establishments.
However, the men voluntarily abandoned their weapons in exchange for entertainment and drink—just as they do today when entering establishments that prohibit the carrying of firearms. Those weapons were handed back to them when they were done. Not in their wildest imaginations would they have entertained the notion of asking the government for permission—getting a license or undergoing a background check—to own a firearm.

In the rest of the city, as with almost every city in the West, guns were allowed, and people walked around with them freely and openly. They bought them freely and openly. Even children could buy them. A man could buy a Colt or Remington or Winchester, and he could buy as many as he liked without anyone taking notice.



The fact is that in the 19th century there were no statewide or territory-wide gun control laws for citizens, and certainly no federal laws. Nor was there a single case challenging the idea of the individual right of gun ownership. Guns were romanticized in the literature and art, and the era’s greatest engineers designed and sold them. All the while, American leaders continued to praise the Second Amendment as a bulwark against tyranny.

Those who praised this right, incidentally, include numerous post-Civil War civil rights activists, who offered particularly powerful arguments for the importance of the Second Amendment. Most gun-control regulations that did exist, after all, were used for subjugating blacks and Indians.
=====

The reason was that enforcement of the anti carry ordinances in Tombstone and Dodge City and other frontier towns like Dead- wood, South Dakota that had them were highly selective. In Tomb- stone, those friendly with the Earps and their buddies got a pass. In Dodge City those friendly with the powers that be and or the Dodge City Gang — which included Wyatt when there — got a pass too on the side of Dodge with the carry ban. That “side” is a rarely mentioned fact.


Dodge City was actually two towns, one incorporated the other not, controlled by warring political factions that almost went to shooting at each other.
That close call brought together this group of the day’s most famous — or infamous — gunmen like Bat Masterson and Wyatt Earp to back the Dodge City Gang. The other side backed down.
The two Dodges were separated by railroad tracks known as the Dead Line that ran down the middle of Front Street, its main drag.
The famous sign reading “The Carrying of Firearms Strictly Prohibited” so often used to promote similar laws today was at the entrance to the North incorporated portion where the “decent” Dodge permanent residents sought to exclude riffraff like the drovers and maintain a somewhat puritan lifestyle. Women were not allowed in saloons and singing or dancing was against the law.
The cowboys and other undesirables were supposed to stay below the Deadline according to Wyatt Earp in the book The Old West in Fact and Film: History Versus Hollywood: “Below the deadline, as far as the marshals force was concerned, almost any- thing went, and a man could get away with gunplay if he wasn’t too careless about lead. North of the railroad, gun toting was justification for shooting on site, if an officer was so inclined, and meant certain arrest.”
Sounds like cut no slack enforcement, but there are simply too many accounts of gun carry on the North side to believe Earp’s account was anything other than his famed self promoting hyper- bole. One example is the 1879 gunfight in the Long Branch Sa- loon between gamblers Frank Loving and Levi Richardson. Loving killed Richardson and a magistrate ruled the killing justifiable self defense. Even so, why was he not charged with illegal gun carry? Possibly because Dodge’s no carry laws and others like it else- where were not put on the books purely for public safety reasons as anti-Second Amendment activists claim in the many stories with titles like these:

• Dodge City Believed in Strict Gun Control – NYTimes.com
• Even the Old West had gun control – TheHill
• Gun laws were actually stricter then than now – Daily Kos

Those headlines only represent partial truths in that while some frontier towns did enact ordinances against the carrying of weapons in town, they were enacted during a period when the Bill of Rights did not apply to the states. If a town wanted to ban a book, a play, a song or a newspaper story, it could.
-----
Considering that the powers that be in places like Tombstone, Dodge City, Deadwood, South Dakota and many other frontier towns tended to be the saloon owners, gamblers and pimps — like the Earps — that often started the towns and provided the draws that kept money flowing in, business competition from outsiders with guns wanting either a piece or all of their action was something they did not want.
That is why the real reason for Tombstone’s anti-weapon carry ordinance was to disarm those who wanted to muscle in on the gambling, prostitution, liquor, extortion and robbery profits from which those in power got a cut, according to my grandfather and other old guys in and around his Globe – Miami, Arizona home I met who had been in Tombstone during the Earp brothers reign. Their reign could have ended abruptly, wrote Roger Jay in Wild West magazine, had the Tombstone “Gambler’s War” turned out differently:
“It raged during the fall and winter of 1880-81, and if the Earp brothers and Doc Holliday had lost it, they’d have had no choice but to clear out of Tombstone, Arizona Territory. The blood feud with the Sheriff John Behan–Cowboy faction would never have happened. No O.K. Corral. No Vendetta. No The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp TV series starring Hugh O’Brian.
The rivals in Tombstone’s ‘Gamblers’ War’ were the ‘Slopers,’ sporting men who had operated on the Pacific Coast, in and around San Francisco and the mining camps of the Sierra Nevadas — Aurora, Bodie, Virginia City — and the ‘Easterners,’ men who in the 1870s had run the faro layouts, keno rooms and poker games at the end of the cattle trails in Kansas, the beginning of the trails in Texas and points in between. The Earps and Holliday were prominent Easterners.”
The Earps were also Republicans and Civil War Union backers while the Cochise County Cowboys and Sheriff Behan were Democrats and Confederate sympathizers. Even so, the two factions were strange bedfellow partners in crime whose disagreements were the real cause of their OK Coral gun battle, according to then sheriff Johnny Behan, in this December 7, 1897 Washington Post interview:
Did the Wild West Really have More Gun Control than We Do? - CRPA

I never said a word about gun control laws in the West.

 

[2aguy]

You really think someone getting drunk in a bar should have a firearm at his side?

Lots of states already allow people to carry guns in bars, you simply can't drink.....just like designated drivers...

 

[pknopp]

Mass violence, like what took place at the O.K. Corral, was actually infrequent. Moreover, the Old West reputation for lawlessness is unwarranted, despite, at times, an elevated number of homicides .

 

[2aguy]

I never said a word about gun control laws in the West.

You said the west was violent....I gave some facts...

 

[2aguy]

Mass violence, like what took place at the O.K. Corral, was actually infrequent. Moreover, the Old West reputation for lawlessness is unwarranted, despite, at times, an elevated number of homicides .

And you failed the rest of the quote...

Crime such as rape and robberies occurred at a much lower rate than in modern America — certainly lower than in the 1970s and 1980s, when the nation was wracked by a surge in criminality. It is also worth noting that crime and gun violence has fallen steeplysince the 1990s, even as gun ownership has increased dramatically.

 

[pknopp]

You said the west was violent....I gave some facts...

No. I said it was hardly "polite" like claimed. You own link noted it could be violent though.

Mass violence, like what took place at the O.K. Corral, was actually infrequent. Moreover, the Old West reputation for lawlessness is unwarranted, despite, at times, an elevated number of homicides.

 

[Care4all]

Yep....and he told psychiatric professioinals about it, and his military command informed the police, and they did nothing.....

Your god, "government," failed.....

And both sites were gun free zones making it impossible for anyone to stop him.

That hasn't been determined yet.... at least in what has been reported to us in local news.... And the police can't do anything in Maine Yellow flag law until a FORMAL paper request to commit him for evaluation comes from the family, which then the police could arrest him and hold him until a mental health professional could be located to evaluate him....and then he gets due process before a judge, before the guns could be taken away....

It is a 3 entity process, police/family first, then mental health professionals, and then a judge before his guns could be taken.... Yellow Flag Law

Red flag laws, allow family, police, family doctor, mental professional all be the only entity required to request and get the temporary removal of their guns if there is possible endangerment to others or themselves, then the persons due process in the courts comes AFTER the immediate confiscation of their guns, later in a court.

The negative to yellow flag is the process is very long...

And many family members hate that their loved one has to be arrested or held by the police and don't want to hurt their loved one.... They would rather be able to have the guns taken than to traumatize their loved one by being held by the police.

 

[2aguy]

That hasn't been determined yet.... at least in what has been reported to us in local news.... And the police can't do anything in Maine Yellow flag law until a FORMAL paper request to commit him for evaluation comes from the family, which then the police could arrest him and hold him until a mental health professional could be located to evaluate him....and then he gets due process before a judge, before the guns could be taken away....

It is a 3 entity process, police/family first, then mental health professionals, and then a judge before his guns could be taken.... Yellow Flag Law

Red flag laws, allow family, police, family doctor, mental professional all be the only entity required to request and get the temporary removal of their guns if there is possible endangerment to others or themselves, then the persons due process in the courts comes AFTER the immediate confiscation of their guns, later in a court.

The negative to yellow flag is the process is very long...

And many family members hate that their loved one has to be arrested or held by the police and don't want to hurt their lived one.... They would rather be able to have the guns taken than to traumatize their loved one by being held by the police.

Wrong......he was under psychiatric care and they warned the police.....his military unit informed the police....

You simply want to be able to use a Red flag law to start confiscating guns because there is no due process involved......

In 2022 there were 12 mass public shootings....out of over 350 million Americans, only 12 nuts........so you have no rational reason to allow the government to confiscate guns without due process...

Your government failed.......

 

[2aguy]

You really think someone getting drunk in a bar should have a firearm at his side?

Yeah.....many states already do this without any problems...

Virginia's bars and restaurants did not turn into shooting galleries as some had feared during the first year of a new state law that allows patrons with permits to carry concealed guns into alcohol-serving businesses, a Richmond Times-Dispatch analysis found.

The number of major crimes involving firearms at bars and restaurants statewide declined 5.2 percent from July 1, 2010, to June 30, 2011, compared with the fiscal year before the law went into effect, according to crime data compiled by Virginia State Police at the newspaper's request.

And overall, the crimes that occurred during the law's first year were relatively minor, and few of the incidents appeared to involve gun owners with concealed-carry permits, the analysis found.

A total of 145 reported crimes with guns occurred in Virginia bars and restaurants in fiscal 2010-11, or eight fewer than the 153 incidents in fiscal 2009-10. State police track all murders, non-negligent manslaughters, aggravated assaults, forcible sex crimes and robberies in more than two dozen categories, including "bars/nightclubs" and "restaurants." . . .

crime-down-in-virginia-bars-and.html

Link to the story from the Richmond Times Dispatch..but it is behind a paywall...

Gun crimes drop at Virginia bars and restaurants

Virginia's bars and restaurants did not turn into shooting galleries as some had feared during the first year of a new state law that allows patrons with permits to carry

richmond.com

 

[2aguy]

That hasn't been determined yet.... at least in what has been reported to us in local news.... And the police can't do anything in Maine Yellow flag law until a FORMAL paper request to commit him for evaluation comes from the family, which then the police could arrest him and hold him until a mental health professional could be located to evaluate him....and then he gets due process before a judge, before the guns could be taken away....

It is a 3 entity process, police/family first, then mental health professionals, and then a judge before his guns could be taken.... Yellow Flag Law

Red flag laws, allow family, police, family doctor, mental professional all be the only entity required to request and get the temporary removal of their guns if there is possible endangerment to others or themselves, then the persons due process in the courts comes AFTER the immediate confiscation of their guns, later in a court.

The negative to yellow flag is the process is very long...

And many family members hate that their loved one has to be arrested or held by the police and don't want to hurt their loved one.... They would rather be able to have the guns taken than to traumatize their loved one by being held by the police.

You do realize that the police go in with guns out to confiscat the guns under Red Flag laws...and people have been killed...right?

This guy was known to the police, and his psychiatric professionals....and they failed.

 

[Care4all]

Wrong......he was under psychiatric care and they warned the police.....his military unit informed the police....

You simply want to be able to use a Red flag law to start confiscating guns because there is no due process involved......

In 2022 there were 12 mass public shootings....out of over 350 million Americans, only 12 nuts........so you have no rational reason to allow the government to confiscate guns without due process...

Your government failed.......

They failed by NOT having Red Flag Laws....

 

[2aguy]

They failed by NOT having Red Flag Laws....

Nope....they had yellow flag laws, they had him in custody...they could have taken his guns......and didn't....

 

[2aguy]

They failed by NOT having Red Flag Laws....

You just don't want any due process...you want any disgruntled asshole to be able to call the police and have someones guns taken......and then they have to spend thousands of dollars on lawyers to get them back......

You don't care about stopping them, you want to be able to confiscate guns.

 

[pknopp]

They failed by NOT having Red Flag Laws....

They had every opportunity to address the issues with this guy and did nothing. That is a valid point. It likely would have made no difference but a quick court case could have addressed his right to own a gun.

 

[Care4all]

You do realize that the police go in with guns out to confiscat the guns under Red Flag laws...and people have been killed...right?

This guy was known to the police, and his psychiatric professionals....and they failed.

When was he made known to the police? When were they notified that a mental institution in NY state found him deranged and incapable of owning a gun? When was he treated by a mental healtg professional in Maine? When did his family make a formal request to the police to have him held and committed for evaluation?

You are speaking out your speculative ass.

 

[Care4all]

They had every opportunity to address the issues with this guy and did nothing. That is a valid point. It likely would have made no difference but a quick court case could have addressed his right to own a gun.

Did they?

 

[Flash]

While I absolutely support your right to arm yourself, the 19th century West was hardly a polite society.

Neither are the authoritarian governments where the citizens are not allowed to have guns, Only the government thugs and the crooks.

Our Founding Fathers were smart enough to know that. Idiots like you are not.

 

[22lcidw]

Yea…because 40,000 gun deaths a year are not enough

140,000 alcoholism deaths a year. 110,000 drug deaths a year, 16,000 HIV deaths a year.