Atlanta Urgent Care shooting. May 3, 2023.
 

Live updates: Atlanta Midtown shooting news

I recall writing a top lawyer in San Francisco at a law firm which had just had a shooting inside and he had written back to me that they did not have the resources to do anything about addressing the needs of survivors/victims of these kind of crimes. One of which had just happened at his law firm.

My concern in writing the lawyer was access to practical materials for survivors/victims of crimes in SF Bay Area law libraries and other kinds of libraries.

But I do think that law firm was a major driver towards a assault weapons ban that went into effect. 101 California Street shooting - Wikipedia

Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act - Wikipedia

Criminals and psychos could care less about gun bans of any type and usually obtain their weapons through some form of illegal means. They are almost always the ones who pull triggers and murder people. All gun bans do is deprive law-abiding citizens of their right to protect themselves from vicious criminals. Having a gun of some kind for defense is essential these days in many areas of the country, both rural and urban, as murderous criminals are rarely incarcerated but released to commit more crimes including murdering folks,

Would you allow homeowners to plant land mines, use grenades, flamethrowers, etc. to protect themselves? Probably not as they could easily blow themselves up or burn their homes down.

Flamethrowers, grenades, land mines are for warfare as also are assault weapons of various kinds.

A ban of some weapons meant for battlefields would at least cut down the flow of these into some areas and into some hands. Red flag laws and close monitoring of those with mental illness by friends, co-workers, and family could also help.

What is your opinion re how HIPAA impacts the release of medical info re red flag laws or the potential sale of guns/ammo to citizens -

Summary of the HIPAA Privacy Rule | HHS.gov
Protected Health Information. The Privacy Rule protects all "individually identifiable health information" held or transmitted by a covered entity or its business associate, in any form or media, whether electronic, paper, or oral. The Privacy Rule calls this information "protected health information (PHI)."12

"Individually identifiable health information" is information, including demographic data, that relates to:

the individual's past, present or future physical or mental health or condition,
the provision of health care to the individual, or
the past, present, or future payment for the provision of health care to the individual,

and that identifies the individual or for which there is a reasonable basis to believe it can be used to identify the individual.13 Individually identifiable health information includes many common identifiers (e.g., name, address, birth date, Social Security Number).

The Privacy Rule excludes from protected health information employment records that a covered entity maintains in its capacity as an employer and education and certain other records subject to, or defined in, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, 20 U.S.C. §1232g.

Very funny about the land mines and all that!

I agree about watching for signs of mental illness. That could potentially have stopped several tragic multiple shootings such as in some schools and Las Vegas as well as some bombings such as those of the Unabomber, at the Boston Marathon and in Oklahoma City although it might be difficult to effectively implement except in a police state such as Cuba, China, Russia, Venezuela and the like.

I would definitely bring back and enforce the death penalty for first degree murder and multiple shootings.

And yet - none of these law-abiding citizens with a generously-written right to carry a handgun openly, used their lawfully-carried gun to stop the shooter. In fact, the shooter is still running around free.

So much for having a gun for defense.

I would hope that it would be friends, family and the like contacting the police about their concerns about someone who is showing signs of wanting to injure him or herself and others. And using medical history to back it up. Of course, abuses would happen where someone with other motives would be turning to the police with their concerns about co-workers who beat them out of positions, jilted lovers getting revenge, neighbors with a beef of some kind, etc.

Most people with" generously -written "right to carry will only use it to protect their families and themselves. Sorry sweetie, that doesn't mean the general public. The way laws are now, the criminals have more rights than law abiding citizens.

It is a small percentage of the population that carry a personal protection firearm, so the possibility of someone at the scene having a weapon is small. Also, most doctor's offices, hospitals and clinics prohibit firearms on their premises. law abiding people obey the prohibition and do not carry in these locations, but the criminal element totally disregards it.

The state of Georgia does allow open carry of a weapon, but the individual must have a carry permit to do so.

Of course not, they are not vigilantes. They own guns to protect themselves, their families and at times others from vicious armed thugs who carjack, rob, burglarize and commit other crimes, some of which are unspeakable.

But would the HIPPA law re privacy prevent the release of a medical history?

https://jacksonllp.com/red-flag-laws-erpo-and-hipaa/

I found this interesting.

You hit the nail on the head, it's mental illness that is the driver of 90% of these horrible murders. Taking guns doesn't stop them, most are obtained illegally. Working with those with mental illness and people speaking up before something happens! People are complacent and do nothing, or when they do ask for help, it's ignored. We have a Godless society that is full of attention seeking mentally ill people. If no guns, they will find something, knives, vehicles, bombs, poison...People need to stop blaming inatimate objects and start blaming humans!!

So true!! Just like the man that used his vehicle as a weapon and ran over all those elderly people and children at the Wisconsin Christmas parade!! No gun involved but his car was his weapon. I’m from chicago where there are mass shootings every week. The majority of those guns are bought illegally off the street from gangs and brought in by cartel

Unless you are an active duty soldier, you should be deprived from owning an AK rifle. Those weapons are for obliterating an enemy in war. Pretty sure we can live without them on our US streets. “Well regulated militia “ not free for all of all weapons by anybody who wants one.

There are laws and background checks in place, not everyone can just walk into a gun store and buy one.

I agree guns don’t go off by themselves, besides even if they would banned guns of every type how are they going to keep gun murders from happening because criminals won’t hand over their guns willingly. Then criminals would be able to go into any home or bank & rob anything they want. Giving up guns is a Chinese solution, they said yrs. ago if the Chinese could take our guns & do away with our religion they could walk right in the U.S. & demand anything they want. They’ve already got a jump on it!

Hi. I am not saying this in anyway to insult you. The weapon most often mentioned with an "assault rifle" gun ban is an armalite 15 AR15). It is in no way the most powerful weapon (I would not use one hunting boar). The reason most anti first amendment people cite this rifle is because it looks scary. Can you please let me know what you mean when you say a weapon meant for a battlefield. What constitutes an assault rifle for you? Maybe we can agree if we make clear the definitions.

There are MANY instances where someone protected their own life and lives of others with a licensed weapon.

You have been on tik tok I see.

Would you describe the characteristics of (what you call) an AK rifle that makes them unsuitable for legal ownership?

Just me
 

I do own a handgun, so I'm not against firearm ownership. But I am a true believer that everyone who owns a firearm should have training.

A system similar to getting a driver's license. Just as in the types of vehicles you drive, a car, motorcycle, truck. You do the same with firearms, hunting, handgun and assault weapon. The NRA can choose the calcification and do the training, once you pass on the type of firearms you qualify for you can purchase that type of firearm and the ammunition. while this is going on there could be a full background check.

Also there has to be training on how to safely to store your firearm. This business of leaving a firearm in your glove compartment in your car parked on the street overnight is a no, no. There has to be some common sense involved. Which means there has to be responsibility of being an owner. Which would mean if you were smart you would get some type of insurance to protect yourself.

I also believe that the industry should be able to come up with a home protective firearm that will stop an intruder that is easy to handle and will not take down you front door and the neighbor's dog. You don't have to kill an intruder; you just have to stop them in their tracks.

I recall a certain movie star slept or still sleeps with a shotgun under her bed. Probably loaded. That would probably stop most would be intruders except for a gang of them. I suppose you might need a AK rifle if you were being attacked by a platoon like in Ukraine. But this is not Ukraine.

And in practicality there is no way in the US to just confiscate AK rifle weapons now out there. But we could slow down the future flow of them to new would be mass killers.

It is not accurate to compare a legal, semi-automatic weapon that can be purchased in most gun stores to a fully automatic weapon that soldiers use in war, and that are not sold in gun stores. That is an apples to oranges comparison. They are two entirely different weapons.

I think someone's ignorance may be showing. What is it about AK or AR rifles that are legal to own in the U.S. would allow you to take on a platoon anywhere? What is it about them that you think makes them so dangerous? I think you will find any answer you provide will embarass you (if you worry about looking very silly), but I am very interested in how someone who knows nothing about guns but wants to make the rules thinks.

How about watching the news. Prohibit Assault Weapons | Everytown | Everytown

And because of the 1st Amendment, you have the right to proclaim your beliefs. And because of the 2nd Amendment, your well meaning ideas are just that, well meaning ideas. Can you imagine placing similar requirements on a person before they are allowed to express their views? You might say you can't equate the two (right to free speech and the right to bear arms) and I would say the Supreme Court has said no right shall be abridged. Placing such restrictions on gun ownership would do just that. Now, you do have a recourse. Use your poetic skills to stir up enough support to actually change the 2nd Amendment. It can be done.

Check the history of the NRA. They were historically about gun control. How the NRA evolved from backing a 1934 ban on machine guns to blocking nearly all firearm restrictions today

Yep - interesting - 'til I git to the Disclaimer! LOL

Now I'm gonna go look up HIPAA and gun permit applications! Thanks for your responses.

Forgotten words: ‘A well regulated Militia’ | The Hill

I would bet that the Founding Fathers had read a lot of English history and did not want private armies around that would march on Parliament. That is not what the 2nd Amendment was about back then but was about a "well regulated militia".

And they probably know about Roman History-- Year of the Four Emperors - Wikipedia.

I see it the same way, we make drugs illegal but criminals find a way to get them. So banning guns from everyone will only lead the criminals & psychopaths to get them illegally and the people in our country who are law abiding defenseless if they fall victim to a criminal who may be attacking them, breaking into their homes etc.
Now that most criminals face no consequences due to their crimes because of DAs and AGs who won’t prosecute them it may start looking like the wild west because the citizens won’t take crime in such a lax way when it comes to their doorstep, they will find a way to protect themselves and their property and not let the bad guys win a war on crime.
And guns are not the problem, if you put a gun on your table and walk away it will just sit there and nothing happens until you put it in your hands and pull the trigger, it’s the person holding it and their intentions on using it in a criminal act.. that’s the problem.

They are lawyers. I remember as a law library reference worker I would just be allowed to take the person to an area of the library and kind of point at a work or works for whatever they were interested in at that time.

No one is suggesting banning of all guns. That is a straw man argument.

I have enough sense not to follow a Chinese trash app that steals your private information. Don't assume anything especially that I don't have enough intelligence or logic to speak for myself. But on the other hand you have just proven that you must follow tiktok trash..

You do realize the site you linked is to a Bloomberg funded anti-gun group, right? Calling it news is quite the stretch.

The first amendment: are you not aware what been going on here in Fl. Banning certain books, what Disney can say and not say. I'm just saying there are many people out there who have firearms and don't have a clue how to handle them.

Thanks for providing this for those who "claim" ignorance. Nobody "needs" these types of weapons. And it's not because they "look scary." Unfortunately this is just a little friendly chat site where others like us can simply choose to argue the point back and forth and the info should be pounded into the lawmakers because they either don't seem to get it or choose to ignore it.

I'm all for tougher background checks. Maybe having family members come along to ok the purchase and verify that their son/sibling/husband isn't some stockpiling psycho with revenge as a motive. Yes it's come to that point where mommy and daddy need to sign off already. And yeah it's been like that where a few bad apples make it a hassle for everyone, I get it but that's where we've been.

agree 100%, not sure why so many otherwise level headed people don't see this - the left wants to defund the police while depriving law-abiding citizens of their 2nd amendment right to protect themselves - there's a reason why its the 2nd amendment, right behind #1 freedom of speech (also under attack under the guise of misinformation, Russian or otherwise) - thank you for speaking out

The 2nd Amendment is about a well regulated militia and not the right of private citizens to have weapons designed for warfare.

In 2021, 447 homicides reported using a rifle vs 6,012 using a handgun. You want to outlaw certain rifles based on their muzzle velocity? Does a higher muzzle velocity make someone more dead? Rifles have higher muzzle velocities because (this really should not come as a shock) they are used to fire at targets further away. In addition, there are many rifles chambered with ammo that have greater muzzle velocity (i can not believe it has come to this. Ban requests based on muzzle velocity)than an AR15.