Reply #44: Too many variables to determine [View All]

[krispos42]

If the person was a career felon, he was probably already prohibited from owning or even touching a gun for the rest of his life.

If the person had a clean criminal and mental health record, then he did nothing illegal until minutes before the shooting started.

The crime may have started the minutes he left the house with a handgun (like in New Jersey), or it might not have occurred until he pulled it out of his pocket (Vermont) and pointed it at the cashier. In either case, there was no reason for this hypothetical person to be denied at the time he began shooting people in the back of the head in the rear of a Wendy's.

To give you a better example...

I have a deer rifle, legally. I have patio doors. There is no legal reason I cannot sit on my couch with a loaded deer rifle and one of my neighbors across the street centered in my crosshairs, aiming through the open patio doors and hidden from view. Up until the MOMENT I pull the trigger, no crime has been committed.
If I never pull the trigger (and assuming nobody ever sees me aiming at them), no crime has been committed and there is no legal cause for my right to own a gun to be stripped away with due process.

If somebody sees me, of course, they can rightly call the police and report some nutjob aiming a rifle at them, and I'd likely be arrested and convicted for some crime or another. Threatening or some such.

And if I pull the trigger, even if the gun fails to fire, then I've committed, at minimum, attempted murder.