“Let me preface what I’m about to say, so the civil libertarians understand what I’m saying, I believe the number one civil right is to be free from harm.” That’s former New York Police Department Commissioner Howard Safir’s wind-up, via CNBC (video below). Here’s the pitch . ..

In order to do that in a civilized society we maybe have to give up a little bit of our privacy . . . I understand that this individual had posted things on social media [ED: no reports confirm this assertion]. The police need to do more mining of social media.

We need to make people responsible for the guns they own. I’m not saying that we should do away with Second Amendment rights. What I’m saying is, for instance, we should have a required safety check every year of somebody who purchases a gun. Bring in your weapon.

There should be a database for police departments and federal agencies of people who have been sex offenders, mentally disturbed where e before you get a gun these people have to be cleared in order to process them.

I know the NRA will be against it but until we start doing sane things about weapons possession this is going to happen unfortunately again. Up to 99.9 percent of the weapons that are used in these shootings are legally obtained.