This argument bothers me. A lot. An EXACT parallel is that "domestic violence isn't gonna change so long as responsible people think that the choking and punching done by other people are the problem rather than the choking and punching they practice at the dojo right now." Actually, choking and punching done by abusers IS the problem. Choking and punching done by law-abiding offtopic folk doesn't contribute at all to domestic violence, whether it be done through formalized competition or friendly backyard sparring. Blaming "gun culture" for the acts of murderers is like blaming "offtopic culture" for domestic violence done by people who may or may not occasionally watch the UFC.
A law-abiding offtopic competitor does not contribute IN ANY WAY to domestic violence because he chokes and punches in a lawful manner. A law-abiding 3-Gun competitor or hunter does not contribute IN ANY WAY to murder because he shoots a firearm in a lawful manner.
The ballistic performance of rounds are based on two different categories primarily: velocity and energy. Velocity is how fast it's going, energy is how much is transferred into the target. .357 Magnum rounds can go almost 500m/s and put a lot more energy into their target than the slower moving 9mm. This is why that even though the AR-15 is almost essentially shooting a .22 round it has a lot of velocity and energy to make it a good stopping round.
The key difference in this comparison is that only the offtopic competitor can choke and strangle, so he is solely responsible for what his hands do. If a gun owner fails to properly secure his/her weapons, then he is no longer in control of those weapons. You only need to look at the number of kids killed each year accidentally by their parents weapons to see that a lot of people don't take their responsibilities seriously.
PASmith specifically blamed "responsible" gun owners for gun violence in society. Not just murderers, not just negligent gun owners, but "responsible" gun owners. That's what I had a problem with. Like you're guilty by proxy for the negligent and criminal acts of others even though you are neither negligent nor a criminal.
...and the guys who sold fertilizer and rented a van to Timothy McVeigh was responsible merchants. We don't blame them for 168 deaths. If there's no negligence or ill intent on her part, maybe we shouldn't be blaming her for mass-murder.
I haven't been following the son's mental health inquiry that much. Is there actually proof he was "obviously mentally challenged" in a way apparent to people without the benefit of hindsight? Or was he just a quiet, softspoken, not-very-popular twenty-year-old?
If he was diagnosed with a psychotic condition, then yes, going shooting with him was irresponsible. If he was a socially-awkward-and-quiet kid with no history of violence, threats, or criminal behavior, I don't see why it would be. Socially awkward doesn't mean dangerous, and going shooting in a law-abiding manner with a socially-awkward law-abiding citizen isn't any more irresponsible than selling them fertilizer in my opinion.
...because he was a twenty-year-old adult with no criminal history and no history of violence? If it's not irresponsible for someone to allow their spouse to access their firearms, why is it irresponsible for someone to allow their adult child to? We're not talking about a felon or a ten-year-old here.
After every mass murder, there seems to be a backlash at the parents like they're some sort of Nostradamus who could have predicted what their child would do one awful day.
Excerpt from Muad'Dib's January 7th, 2013 Critical Mass Radio interview:
..They used a poster child for this to get everybody's sympathy and to get everybody's emotions up so that they could hopefully bring in a gun ban. They used a little poster child, a little blonde-haired blue-eyed six year old girl. She was the face, the poster child. She was supposedly killed along with the other 19 six year olds and seven year olds at Sandy Hook. Three days later Obama was there doing a photo op and she's sitting on his knee. She's supposed to be dead, used as a poster child, this little girl died - she's sitting on Obama's knee three days later. The same little girl.
And then they have her parents interviewed. It shows that they're all actors. It never really happened, because the guy that was supposedly her dad, is shown in the video where he's to the side and he's laughing and joking with other people and then he's called up in front of the camera. He's off to the left. Then he's called to the center, to the focus of the camera to be interviewed and to give his speech about Sandy Hook and about his daughter. And he goes from on the side from laughing and joking with everybody, he comes up to the center and ... he takes the joking, smiling face off and you can see him physically trying to force his face to look sad and then he starts talking about how his daughter's been killed. They're actors. There were no bodies.
It was a made for TV drama to try to ram through the gun control laws, because they want to kill the American people and they can't kill armed people. That's why Hitler disarmed the Germans, it's why Stalin disarmed the Russians, it's why chairman Mao disarmed the Chinese and they killed between them something like 120 million of their own people. And that's what they want to do in America and they can't do it because the people have the Second Amendment and they have guns. So they have to do all of this, and they'll keep doing it. There will be more incidents like this, which are made for television, until they manage to persuade the American people to give up their guns. And then they'll start killing the Americans. Because the Americans are the only people stopping them from doing what they want to do already. They know they can't put their next phase, which is reducing the world's population, they can't put that phase into operation whilst the Americans have got millions of guns.