A 21-year-old father was upset when his girlfriend broke up with him and plotted for a month before killing his infant son with a rifle, authorities said Monday.You never know when one of the supposedly responsible and sane law-abiding gun owners is going to lose it. One minute before the crime, they all look alike.
Joshua Petersen of American Fork was denied bond and ordered held as prosecutors prepare formal charges, which are expected next Monday
Sgt. Gregg Ludlow broke down when he described how Ryker Petersen died of a gunshot to the head, and how Petersen revealed to investigators that he had planned the killing, Johnson said.
A booking statement said Petersen sat his son down on a sofa in the basement, left the room to load his rifle, and returned to shoot the boy in the forehead.
Petersen then sought to turn the .22-caliber rifle on himself but was stopped by a family member, police said. He likely faces a charge next week of aggravated murder, which could bring the death penalty if he’s convicted, Johnson said.
Family members tell Utah news outlets that Petersen was suffering from lifelong depression and also was hurting over the breakup of his relationship with the boy’s mother.
The solution is obvious: stricter gun control. Gun owners need to be better qualified.
What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.
How is stricter gun control supposed to determine who is more qualified between people who all look alike?
ReplyDeleteTS, do me a favor and don't break my balls with silly questions that you can answer for yourself.
DeleteThere's nothing silly about his question. Your answer and your attitude, on the other hand, are exceedingly foolish.
DeleteIt's not a silly question. Your statements are the nonsensical ones. This question aims to have you reconcile your statements with an explanation.
DeleteMy idea of stricter gun control includes both "may issue" for gun licenses as well as the one-strike-you're-out rule. Those two would begin immediately weeding out the unfit. When those two gun laws are implemented, you guys will no longer all look alike.
DeleteMay issue to exercise a right. When we institute a may-issue license for free expression, your blog will go off-line.
DeleteYou can't tell who will snap--therefore we need stricter controls to keep those who will snap from getting guns in the first place.
ReplyDeleteRiiiiiiiiiiiight...
Take a couple seconds and just see if you can figure out the self contradiction there.
By your own words, there is no way to weed these people out before hand, so the only way that your controls will cut down on this is by reducing the number of people, total, who own guns, and maybe scooping some of these people in with the disarmed number. They'll still snap and kill people, just not with guns.
And if you get your way, you won't get all of the people who will snap, so you'll be able to demand stricter controls again--because maybe it'll save just one life. And on and on until you have outlawed gun ownership. And then, these people will just knife or drown their children, but at least they won't do it with guns.
We're not going down that pointless road and seeing you disarm us little by little.
By your own words, there is no way to weed these people out before hand
DeleteI guess you didn't understand me then. What I've said is we should raise the bar on qualifying for gun ownership and we should enforce a one-strike-you're-out rule for gun owners who violate safety rules. The result, I have said, would be to disarm about half the current gun owners, the worst half, the half that's responsible for much of the trouble.
The words you used were "you never know" and "they all look alike" and that gun control is the obvious solution for these things that we never know when they are going to happen to indistinguishable people. That's what you said. So how's it only supposed to pick out the worse half then? It's a valid question.
DeleteHave you forgotten my list of proper gun control laws?
Delete1. Licensing of all gun owners which would include a penal background check, a mental health background check, an eye exam, a written and practical test and approval by the local authorities.
2. Registration of all newly bought firearms which would need to be renewed after three months and yearly thereafter by presenting the paperwork and the weapon to the police.
3. Background checks on all purchases including private ones. This can be done at the local FFL dealer for a nominal fee.
4. Three day waiting period for all first purchases.
5. "May Issue" policy for concealed carry permits managed federally - same rules in every state.
6. Assault Weapons Ban using the California model which would include restrictions on extended magazines.
Now, imagine my point number 1, combined with a strict one-strike-you're-out rule. You don't think that would weed out the worst half, say over a few years?
I think your rules would keep every police officer and mental health care provided stuck at a desk handling firearm licensing issues for all of the people that want to own guns.
DeleteMikeb, we haven't forgotten your proposals. We've dismissed them as idiotic. But I'll try to make you see sense again:
Delete1. So you'll impose a burdensome system that will clog with applicants--there are 100,000,000 gun owners in this country, after all. To get the processing done, the tests will have to be perfunctory and therefore easy to beat by the people who are genuinely a problem--not 50% of gun owners, by the way.
2. Impossible to enforce, given the 300,000,000+ guns in this country, our porous borders, and our general unwillingness to comply. Useless in any case.
3. Nominal fee? You expect us to trust that? Besides, people who are a problem will just buy from others who are a problem.
4. What the hell does a waiting period accomplish? Did you see how the man in this case plotted for a month?
5. Great, so another Federally run program. We can't pass a budget, but you want a new bureaucracy?
6. Why? "Assault weapons" are used in a tiny fraction of crimes.
The goal of your proposals is to make firearms ownership so difficult that most people either will give up or will turn criminal. That way, fewer and fewer good citizens will have guns. What a world you want to create, where only criminals and government goons are armed.
Mike,
DeleteI remembered your proposals when I wrote the entry above. As I said, since there's no way to tell who's going to snap in advance, that means that the half you disarm will include some of them, but so will the half you allow to have guns.
And so, you'll want to disarm another half. The argument will be the same, so if we give in to your "logic" now, we'll have to accept it as valid then too.
That might be true if we were to pick a random half. But since we're going to disarm only those who show clear indications of being unfit, the improvement will be achieved.
DeleteWhat do you mean, "show clear indications"? You just said "you never know when" and "they all look alike". That doesn't sound like "clear indications" to me.
DeleteI second what TS said. You tell us that these people look the same until they start shooting--that there is no way to weed them out before hand. And then you turn around and say that you'll be able to get all of them.
DeleteAs if the contradictions weren't enough, you're using your "one strike" policy to remove rights from the half you don't want to have them. How, pray tell, will taking guns from everyone who accidentally puts a round into the ground get only these types that we have to worry about, and not get those who would never harm anyone?
Your system would result in little better than a random sampling disarmed. Some of these would slip right by--maybe because they're good at hiding sociopathy, maybe because they haven't suffered something that breaks their psyche yet. And, as I said, when these people snap and kill, you'll be whistling down the road, ready to sell us another round of controls that you promise will just infringe on our rights a little bit more, and will be for the children, and will benefit US as much or more than the rest of society.
No thanks. I don't make deals like that with con men.
"You tell us that these people look the same until they start shooting--that there is no way to weed them out before hand. And then you turn around and say that you'll be able to get all of them."
DeleteWhere in the fuck did you get that? Did I say we'll "be able to get all of them."
No, what I said is "the improvement will be achieved."
Why is it necessary for you guys to keep lying, distorting and mis-representing? I think I know the answer.
Mike, you seemed to imply that your controls would get all or at least MOST of them--better than a random sample, and presumably a lot better because you used that to argue against my statement that these people would slip through the cracks, and then be used by your side to push further controls even after getting everything you say you want.
DeleteYou keep dodging dealing with either that notion, or with explaining how you will be able to disarm more than a random sample of these people.
Mikeb, you have a deeply misguided faith in your own proposals. All they would do is make all of us have a much harder time owning and carrying guns legally. All of us. Not just the tiny minority who are a problem.
DeleteThe real problem people would own and carry anyway.
A man killed his infant son. For whatever reasons, he chose to use a small caliber rifle. He could have killed an infant just as easily with his hands, a knife, a hammer, drowning, etc. etc. etc.
ReplyDeleteCivilian disarmament would NOT have stopped this man from killing his son.
What does civilian disarmament mean? It means a 15 year old boy cannot protect his 13 year old sister when criminals break into their home. It means a 120 pound woman cannot stop a rapist from impregnating her. It means a 70 year old man cannot stop a punk who is beating up his wife while demanding her social security money.
- TruthBeTold
All that you say is right, but only up to a point. We're not talking about eliminating all guns and complete civilian disarmament. So, your extreme hypotheticals don't fly. About the concrete example I gave, we don't know what would have happened if the guy had no guns available. Maybe the ease of killing without the messiness of a knife or a hands-on strangulation made the difference. But even if it wouldn't have, is your position that we should make it as easy as possible for unfit people to get guns?
Delete