Can we decide who gets to buy a gun?

[JettaKnight]

Oregon gun store owner tried to block troubled woman from buying gun



One dealer says "non" to buyer then contacts the state police. They can't do anything legally to bar someone.


Is this good or bad? (I have my opinion)


So the buyer goes to another store that sellers her the gun that's later used in a suicide.


Comments?

 

[ModernGunner]

Any business can refuse to sell their goods or services to anyone they choose to deny.

Anyone and everyone can forget about trying to 'stop' someone who is determined to kill themself.

For whatever reason, good or bad, Dunn wanted to kill herself. That's HER choice. I have no sympathy or empathy for that choice.

 

[No2rdame]

The first gun store owner did the right thing, in my opinion. While the woman may legally be allowed to buy a gun, it is at the owner's discretion if there is something unusual about the situation that would raise red flags. In this case, the owner made the correct call based on the hunch. Had he ignored warning signs about this woman and sold her a gun he could be in legal trouble and would definitely have her death on his conscience for the rest of his life.

Now, whether or not the state police should allow him to block the purchase is a slippery slope, but there should be a way to at least "flag" the buyer as a potential threat so other owners might have an idea of what's going on. That way if the person tries to buy elsewhere that owner can make an informed decision about whether or not to proceed with the sale.

 

[actaeon277]

I agree with what people have said.
You can agree not to sell to someone, that's your choice.
A person can find another method to commit suicide, how do you stop it.
They seem to do just fine in Japan, committing suicide.
Someone could jump in front of a train, off a building, take some pills, take some poison, slit a vein, etc.

 

[Flinttim]

Some years back, a friend of mine who was having some marital problems walked into a gun shop, asked for the cheapest shotgun they had and walked out with a used H&R 12ga and three shells. Who buys a shotgun and three shells ? He went out into the country, drank a 6 pack and blew his head off. The "less than a full box " thing would have raised a flag to me but I do not fault the gun store. He was out to do it no matter what. Ultimately it falls onto the gun shop to do what think is right and I can find no fault either way.

 

[JoshuaW]

While I wholeheartedly believe that it is EVERYONE's right to commit suicide, I think the first store did the right thing. Do I think that the state police should have been able to flag her or in some way to prevent her from buying a firearm? That is a tricky question. Like I said, I believe that someone should be able to make that choice. If I had the opportunity to make the rules, I would say that someone in this situation should be able to be tagged as a "Wait" but not a "No".

If she had been tagged as a "Wait", she may have changed her mind. If not, that is her choice. She probably wouldnt have, since she still waited a full day to buy a gun and kill herself. Again, her choice, but at least whoever sold it to her wouldnt be left feeling like they didnt do their due diligence.

On the other hand, what if she had been assaulted recently, or was being stalked? She could have just as easily been really freaked out and not thinking clearly ("I need this gun before this happens to me again, and simply having it is going to make me safe, I dont need to know how to use it.") For that reason, a "No" is a slippery slope. How long does it take that "No" to expire? Would she still be denied if she decided to purchase a firearm for self defense a few years down the road? These are the tough choices that we simply cannot allow any politician or bureaucrat to make. Adults have every right to make their own choices, even if the people around them dont like it.

 

[7urtle]

like what he said^

 

[Bummer]

Someone else deciding who gets to have a gun is getting more difficult all the time.

Defense Distributed in doing the final work on a printable plastic pistol. The very small handgun will have two metal parts: a nail for a firing pin, and a metal plug (which can be left out) to make it detectable. Printer files should be downloadable soon.

The printable AR lower and the AK and AR 30 round magazines, also available at that site, already work.

Since there's a Senator with his panties in a wad that Cody Wilson's unlocking Pandora's box, it's hard not to expect some sort of heavy handed action pending.

So, if they want to tell 'em no, they'd better do it now. Soon it'll be too late.

 

[KoopaKGB]

Someone else deciding who gets to have a gun is getting more difficult all the time.

Defense Distributed in doing the final work on a printable plastic pistol. The very small handgun will have two metal parts: a nail for a firing pin, and a metal plug (which can be left out) to make it detectable. Printer files should be downloadable soon.

The printable AR lower and the AK and AR 30 round magazines, also available at that site, already work.

Since there's a Senator with his panties in a wad that Cody Wilson's unlocking Pandora's box, it's hard not to expect some sort of heavy handed action pending.

So, if they want to tell 'em no, they'd better do it now. Soon it'll be too late.

I doubt somebody would go through the trouble to print off a gun rather then merely purchase a functioning one in order to end their life.

Like others have said, its a tricky situation, I too believe the owner of the store did the right thing. I think the police should have contacted the woman or at least her family, merely to let them know that she was reported to be acting the way she was, which in this case was clearly depressed. Or maybe the police could have simply spoke with her. I know the police aren't counselors, but reaching out to this disturbed lady would have been better then letting her continue to struggle and eventually end her life.

 

[cook4army]

I can understand the concern here. Its almost like bars that continue to sell alcohol to people who are visibly drunk. Some states allow the bars to be sued if they serve an obviously intoxicated person, and they do something bad because of it. Personally, I think the LGS did the rightly ethical thing and refused the sale.

 

[jerryv]

While I agree it would be a tough call to decide who should have a gun, I strongly feel that there are some people who should NOT have one.

The problem is that it's not the sort of thing you can always decide by answering questions on a form .. it's more an issue of character .. stuff you don't know until you know the person. There are obvious exclusions already in use by law .. previous criminal history of violence in particular.

But consider the Colorado theater shooter .. Holmes .. it's easy to see in retrospect that he shouldn't have had access to that kind of weaponry .. but how would someone have decided that at the time?

Of course, nothing works perfectly. Look at how many people with multiple DUIs are still driving around drunk .. we apparently can't even stop that. Or the idiots who drive while texting, balancing a Big Gulp between their knees ..

You can't fix stupid.

 

[Bill of Rights]

Jerryv hit the nail on the head. We can't stop criminals (past or present) from driving or from drinking, even if their offense included those things, and neither alcohol nor a car is a right(an argument could be made for the latter under right of travel and for the former under "pursuit of happiness", I suppose, but neither has ever been found to be a right to my knowledge.)
We can't stop a former or current assailant from buying a knife or a lead pipe or a candlestick, "Clue" references notwithstanding.
We can't even stop Michael Vick from buying a dog.

And yet... people want to ask if we can decide who can be "allowed" to lawfully buy a gun?

What the bloody %$#@ happened to my country?

Blessings,
Bill

 

[Bummer]

How do we punish people for bad stuff they haven't done yet without punishing people who are never going to do anything bad?

Once the Democrats get their way and start punishing everyone for stuff that hasn't happened yet how can we call the US the land of the free with a straight face?

 

[rugertoter]

Oregon gun store owner tried to block troubled woman from buying gun



One dealer says "non" to buyer then contacts the state police. They can't do anything legally to bar someone.


Is this good or bad? (I have my opinion)


So the buyer goes to another store that sellers her the gun that's later used in a suicide.


Comments?

Well, if a person is at the bar and has had too many drinks, the bar tender usually cuts them off. The reason is that the gun store owner had a feeling that this was "not right". I still think the store owner did the right thing...if I were in his shoes I probably would have done the same thing.

 

[Bill of Rights]

Well, if a person is at the bar and has had too many drinks, the bar tender usually cuts them off. The reason is that the gun store owner had a feeling that this was "not right". I still think the store owner did the right thing...if I were in his shoes I probably would have done the same thing.

And any person may choose not to enter into a transaction for any reason or no reason: I do not have to sell you a piece of candy if I choose not to do so. ("Management reserves the right to refuse service to any person for any reason at any time.") Similarly, I can choose not to buy something from you at any time, for any reason. The gun store owner was fine, following a moral law. Where we fail on this is in the bar example: It should not be a (statutory) crime to become intoxicated, plain and simple. Driving? OK, because there, you're putting others at risk. However, we're headed for float tanks holding psychics in sensory deprivation a la Minority Report if we continue on this path.

Blessings,
Bill

 

[Classic]

IMO the first gun store had every right to deny the sale. However, unless the store owner has some kind of psychology credentials how can the state be expected to rely on her diagnoses?

Doesn't anyone see a problem with having Joe Shmoe on the street deciding what is a mental health issue and what isn't?

Even if every gunseller on the planet had refused her a firearm, a determined person will discover the means to their own end. Just do a quick internet search for a few of the possible alternatives.

 

[Mark33]

I would rather be the one that refused to sell than the one that sold one used for suicide or worse. Of course one could walk in all smiles, buy a gun and make CNN.

 

[Bill of Rights]

I would rather be the one that refused to sell than the one that sold one used for suicide or worse. Of course one could walk in all smiles, buy a gun and make CNN.

And again, that is your choice, and FWIW, I agree, I wouldn't want to be the person that was labeled by the media and demonized as the one who made it possible for so-and-so to kill him/herself or someone else.

That said, though... a bunch of years ago, a man with whom we were well-acquainted from prior visits came into the ER where I was working with a blood-alcohol of 0.504 and the following night, 0.545 (or at least that's how it was reported by lab... Correct to 0.0504 and 0.0545 if need be, and yes, the numbers are accurate: he was a VERY experienced drinker! (the legal limit at the time for driving was 0.10, so he was over five times that. I say that for reference, despite the fact he was not driving.) Anyway....) So which bar or liquor store sold him so much that he could drink himself into a near-coma?

That would be "Dollar General". See... he went in and bought a couple of the really big containers of mouthwash and got himself plastered two nights in a row.

My point? The register clerk at DG had no way of knowing what this guy was planning to do and had no way to prevent it. Is it odd that someone would buy so much mouthwash? Sure, but it's also 100% legal, just like buying a gun. Neither that clerk nor you nor I have any control over what someone does with their legal purchase after they buy it, nor should any of us either be or feel responsible for someone else's bad or even illegal choices.

If you feel a moral obligation to not sell something you own to someone, don't sell it. There should never, IMHO, be a legal penalty, however, for your action, whichever way it goes.

Blessings,
Bill

 

[LordTio3]

I think the whole idea that this decision, on the part of the gun shop owner and the potential buyer, did NOT require the intervention of the federal government is a huge win.

Headline: People solve their own problems; NEWS at 11...

~LT

 

[SERparacord]

Rule #1: happens.
Rule #2: You can't change rule number one.