In his stunningly premature, entirely partisan, irresponsibly political post-Umpqua Community College shooting address to the nation, President Obama asserted  “It cannot be this easy for someone who wants to inflict harm on other people to get his or her hands on a gun.” Wait. How easy? We still don’t know how spree killer Chris Mercer obtained the four weapons used in the attack (three pistols and a rifle). Besides, who cares? Unless the person who sold/gave Mercer the guns knew he was going to commit a crime, what difference does it make where he got them? Predictably enough, Bloomberg’s anti-gun agitprop operation – thetrace.org – is already on the case and lost in those weeds . . .

One of next key questions: How, where, and when did he get the guns?

So far, there has been no indication that Mercer had a criminal record that barred him from owning or purchasing a firearm. There are a number of other factors that could have blocked him from gun ownership, such as an admission of drug use or an involuntary hospitalization for psychiatric treatment, but nor has evidence of such disqualifiers surfaced.

But even if he was prohibited from owning a gun, Mercer might have been able to buy a firearm in Oregon without passing a background check — depending on when the transaction occurred.

Until recently, Oregon did not require background checks on private sales, at gun shows, or at sales arranged over the Internet. That changed in August when a hotly contested measure instituting universal background checks went into effect. Oregon is now one of the 18 states to require checks for all gun sales.

As the bill traveled through the state legislature, local gun groups and retailers rallied in opposition. Some law enforcement officers also sought to derail the bill, with several sheriffs calling it unenforceable and lamenting a lack of resources to sufficiently complete universal checks.

In April, Douglas County Sheriff John Hanlin testified at the state house against the bill. “I can tell you that this law is not going to protect citizens of Oregon,” he said. “It will not do that.”

I’ll go further. No law can protect the citizens of Oregon from a determined homicidal maniac or, for that matter, a practiced violent criminal. But any law making it difficult or impossible for law-abiding citizens to exercise their gun rights in their own defense – and the defense of others – may cost them and other innocents their lives.

To my mind, the source of the Oregon killer’s gun is only important in that the antis may be able to use the information to degrade and destroy Americans’ gun rights. Otherwise it’s a minor detail. Am I wrong?

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

55 COMMENTS

  1. “…this easy…”?

    I guess ‘It depends on what the definition of “this” is.’

    Bottom line, the only solution the antis’ trail leads to is complete civilian disarmament.

    • To those of you who have suggested complete disarmament of the Nation……what exactly will you do when a rogue Nation….perhaps even our own…..comes to enslave the citizens? Think this sounds far-fetched? Think again. Look what’s happening around the World….look what’s happening in our own Country. Look at the freedoms we have lost….look at how our own elected representatives have trashed our Constitution. Do you know anything about the New World Order, Agenda 21, Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals” or the Cloward/Piven Communist strategy? I guarantee none of us will like the fact that the United States will lose her sovereignty. Do you not remember Mussolini, Stalin, Mao, Hitler and others? Just because you live in a Country that hasn’t experienced war since the Civil War does not mean it can’t happen. Think on it. Google or youtube……”Agenda, Grinding America Down.” This is an almost 2 hour long documentary, filmed and narrated by Idaho legislator, Curtis Bowers. You will know it is true and you will have a different point of view after watching it.

  3. Which gun? MSM reports that he had four, including a .40 S&W, a 9mm Glock, a Taurus and a Del-Ton rifle. The same MSM also reports that the Taurus was not “registered” to the shooter, even though Oregon does not register guns. Oh, and supposedly he was wearing body armor, which in MSM-speak can mean anything from the Level IIIA kit to a puffer vest from Nordstrom.

    Yes, I’d like to know how the shooter got his guns. My guess is that they were all purchased legally and some if not all were subject to the left’s fanatically beloved background checks.

    • Which is why to the anti-gun crowd, anything less than complete civilian disarmament will not be enough.

      That is their logical end game.

      • Of course. So they will have to come out of the closet and stop jacking off to the very thought of background checks and admit that their panacea is a total failure and a fraud. Let them meet the situation head on, and so will we.

    • Wait, how could this monster have possibly done this without the dreaded .9mm assault bang stick with a super capacity 100 round drum clip capable of shooting hundreds of rounds a second along with the shoulder thingy that goes up all purchased online via a gun-show loophole (did I miss anything)? Isn’t that what all these monsters use?

        • One set of AP “reporters” claimed some of the guns were “military grade”, with no explanation of what that meant.

    • $10 says that “they” will use this incident to push through HR 378 aka the “Responsible Body Armor Possession Act” – whether or not the shooter actually had armor.

      • “They” can kiss my OFWG butt, making body armor illegal is like saying you can’t defend yourself against assault or rape, no sane citizen will allow it to come to pass, or accept it if it does.

      • I can all but guarantee that his fishing vest or airsoft LBV or whatever he was wearing to carry stuff was not body armor. Because they always report body armor at first and it never is. (except that one time in Texas where they tried to attack an art show and failed hilariously)

        • The only instance that comes to my mind was that big bank shoot-out in LA 20yrs ago. Those guys were armored up, as I recall. Of course that whole operation was anything but subtle.

    • Suspicious there. The shooter’s MySpace page (yes, it still exists) has him posing with a Ruger 10/22. The reports talk about him reloading and I haven’t seen a lot of F.U.D. being spread about “black guns.” In fact, I’m having a hard time finding reports of the gun used. I’m curious what the final report will be.

    • The latest count I heard was 14 total: 7 on-scene, and 7 at home. At least 13 have been identified as having been purchased legally, by the shooter or by family members, through FFLs.

    • Agreed, a minor detail that will ultimately change nothing but undoubtedly be used by some for political points, yet a detail to be investigated nonetheless.

  5. I find it odd that this tragedy occurred in Hanlin’s county. More and more is coming out about his opposition to gun control laws. WashPo also stated in one of their articles that he sent a letter to the White House saying he wouldn’t enforce any new federal gun laws and threatened to arrest Feds who did.

    • Hopefully Hanlin doesn’t bend or break. They are trying to guilt him in to admitting he was completely wrong so they can get another face on the gun control side that was once for gun rights. I hope he stands by his values and doesn’t give in.

      • Hanlin’s one of the good ones.

        He declared that he would not enforce any federal gun laws passed under the Obama administration. He fought loudly against Oregon’s UBC and called it unenforceable at the hearing.

        He’s not going to bend to this.

      • Well, what stopped this shooter was some good guys (LEO’s) with guns. I can’t speak for Sheriff Hanlin but the logical conclusion is to have armed and trained good guys in every classroom, not more useless gun laws.

        I foresee handgun training classes coming soon to every community college near you, despite the objections of the educators that live in fantasy worlds where purple unicorns obey laws on paper.

        • Way to logical a step in ‘Upside Down Barry World ‘ . It won’t happen , what will happen will make all commons sense people scratch their heads and say WTF just happened , like every thing else that’s come down the pike in the last 20 years . Ever since Monica Lewinski went down , the shit pot that is Washington has stunk more and more until in now smells worse than a hog wallow .

  6. Unless he got it as part of some secret Illuminati conspiracy to enable the one world government, or part of a secret CIA operation to discredit gun owners, then it doesn’t matter. So I guess that means the only people who should think it matters are Alex Jones and his fans.

  7. I know the anti rights statist will scream about UBC and more arbitrary restrictions to make buying a gun more difficult, but how many of these morons would still pass a check with more arbitrary bureacratic nonsense added to a gun purchase? I bet most of them would! Broken humans have always been with us and will continue to do so. Thats why I want the ability to defend myself from them.

  8. President Obama asserted “It cannot be this easy for someone who wants to inflict harm on other people to get his or her hands on a gun.”

    I agree. It shouldn’t be easy for “…someone who wants to inflict harm on other people to get his or her hands on a gun.” But I would say to the President, ” For the other tens of millions of us who DON’T want to ‘inflict harm on other people,’ leave us the hell alone and let us pursue our hobbies and interests, let us use the best tools available to defend ourselves, our families and other innocent people.”

  9. It would be a hoot if the bastard bought it at a gun show, with a background check, with a 3 day delay, from one of Bloomy’s former or current bodyguards or Shannon”s ex-husband. 🙂

  10. The brain-damaged liberals care. Once they know the answer, they will come up with some convoluted, unconstitutional scheme to stop it from ever, ever happening again. Ever.

    • They truly believe (I said believe, not think, because they don’t do that) that by having politicians scribble on paper they can ban guns from everyone including criminals (except for cops and government).

      So they actually believe they can achieve this and they believe it will solve this problem.

      Lefty liberals therefore are stupid (this is not an ad-hominem, I just proved they are stupid)

  11. It’s not odd at all, there’s a long list of county sheriffs in Oregon that hold the same views, THANK GOD, so the odds of a multiple shooting happening in one of those counties are better than even I think.

    I’ll bet a steak dinner that this monster was on depression or anxiety meds, either going up or coming down, pretty much guaranteed to cause a psychotic break, but yet we don’t hear any hue and cry to make the doctors quit prescribing them like candy. But then doctors kill ten times as many people in a year as guns do and nobody is doing anything about that.

    • We don’t want anyone to focus on the root causes of this issue because it gets in the way of politicians anti gun-possession agendas and the media doesn’t want to be out of favor with politicians.

    • Way more than 10 times Don. Kellog Institute (as I recall) did a study a few years back and came up with about 1.2 million a year killed by medical mistakes and adverse reactions to treatment, drugs or surgeries.

  12. According to Obama, any time a maniacal spree killer gets his hands on a gun, it is “too easy.” The logical extension, as Maryland’s O’Malley and New York’s Cuomo propose, is to require state-issued purchase permits, with an additional “good cause” showing required to obtain the permit. Kinda like buying a gun in New Jersey, where if you really really need a gun right now, they’ll deliver the permit to your funeral.

  13. Well, discounting the long gun, that he could have acquired easily with the background check,

    Asking how he got handguns (allegedly, we still technically know nothing), which as a 20 year old he should not have been able to purchase legally, being as how his family likely knew he was a nutter, is a question that should be answered.

    • Shooter was 26, age was misreported early on as 20.

      It doesn’t matter, you can buy pot and meth on just about any street corner in America, and those same dealers will happily sell you a “ghost” gun if you have enough cash.

      • And thanks to marijuana prohibition it is way easier for any high school kid to get pot than alcohol.

  14. Gee in Illinois the laws are pretty much identical. It affects me not a whit. Do I like it? Nope. But it is pretty minor since I can now legally carry and folks in Chiraq can own a handgun. AND can own all kinds of neat toys despite the idiotic opinions I see HERE and all over FB).BTW I hope this doesn’t bring heat on Del-Ton. I want to get a Sport or Sport lite for less than $500(for SHTF times coming soon). And Del-Ton makes NO 22’s as far as I know-just AR’s and parts.

  15. Update:

    “On Friday morning, Hanlin told KGW that ‘a number of firearms’ were found at the school and at the suspect’s home. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms reported that the shooter had body armor, three pistols, a rifle and five extra magazines, according to the Associated Press.”

  16. If you haven’t done so, join the NRA. Do it now. Granted the organization is not without its warts, but it is our first line of defense.

    • It is the best single tool at our disposal.

      I love GOA and SAF – both are doing great work. But you don’t hear Hillary, Cumo, and Obama talking about how much congress fears the GOA.

  17. If a nut tries this crap here in West Virginia there is a real good chance he would be prone in quick fashion . I think over 50% of my fellow citizens are armed at all times . You can’t get much better coverage unless you’re in Alaska . We do of coarse have gun free school zones here brought by the Progressive crowd but no metal detectors and a strong history of defiance so I would figure a lot of our teachers are carrying as I write .

  18. Well the real problem is that it is “this hard” for the good guys to obtain, carry and use firearms.

  19. I can buy any kind of gun I want, from a full auto to a Saturday night special handgun from at least a dozen different places, with no records. If I were a druggie, I could also buy any kind of drugs I wanted. All it takes is money. There are hundreds of millions of guns of all types in this country (knowing exactly how many is completely impossible) and living close to our southern border, I could always get them from there as well. I could buy a full auto Uzi for well under $1000. I don’t want such a thing, because as a non criminal, it would be completely worthless to me. All it does is spray bullets. You can’t aim it. I own 5 rifles, 3 shotguns, and 4 handguns. My weapon of choice for concealed carry (we can do that here in AZ) and self defense is my Beretta 9000S.

    Trying to keep guns away from criminals is unfortunately a complete impossibility. Our failed multi billion dollar so called “war on drugs” is proof of that. If there is a demand for something, and someone is willing to pay for it, there will be someone there to supply it.

    I am going to Portland OR next week by car. Legally, I will have to carry my gun unloaded inside the car, with the ammo locked in the trunk. I intend to follow the law, as ridiculous as it is. Laws like this will not prevent criminals from doing what this shooter did. That is why they are called criminals. They do not follow the law. Therefore, any gun laws are meaningless to them anyway. Why Barry can’t understand that I don’t have a clue. All I can do is hope our next president does not feel the same way.

    • Obama does understand that Gerald. The thing is, he wants citizens defenseless against his vision of a world government, and is only using ‘criminals’ to get the enabling gun confiscation passed. ‘Controls’ are just baby steps. He and others think that if they can outlaw guns then guys like me will surrender them. They think they can get the guns if they can force us to register them. And they think they can render them useless by making ammo unavailable. But old ammo still kills if kept dry, old veterans can still kill if provoked, and old guns aren’t ‘on the radar’ nor will those be traceable because they were sold across the counters everywhere prior to background check requirements.

  20. It is no matter where firearms come from or how they are acquired. When someone snaps, they are going to do what they do. We waste time discussing firearms as we bypass societal behavioral issues. The POTUS wants to disarm citizens and upsetting The People when a crime occurs is how the agenda moves forward.

  21. Sheriff Hanlin is unlikely to bend on this, he is a local Sheriff and doesn’t have to bend to the will of the state legislature or their sycophants. By the way, did anyone else note the cocked and locked 1911 on his hip? Clearly a gun guy.

  22. I didn’t catch all of it, did you guys catch the line of sickening politicians grabbing their minute of camera time today? One shot had the three most useless wastes of space in the state standing together huddled around the microphone Wyden, Defasio and the drunk. Oh and our likewise useless (dangerous) unelected governor am-tem. I damn near lost my lunch.

  25. What I wanna know is how do these idiots get this much money for shit like this, I make roughly 30k a year and I can’t even buy ammo every month

Comments are closed.