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Gun attack at Batman film premiere in Denver [W:120]

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Goshin said:
And if we reduced it to 15mph we'd save tens of thousands of lives.... and it would be worth it right? After all, whats' inconveniencing tens of millions of people compared to saving lives? :mrgreen:...
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do you buy your straw by the cubic yard or the ton?

;)
 
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Kal'Stang said:
Mean while our military can use wtf they want. The whole purpose of the 2nd amendment wasn't to ensure people could hunt ya know. But to ensure that the general populace was never ruled by a tyrannical government. Fat lot of good the 2nd amendment is going to be in that department if we're all restricted to single shot rifles...if that.
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And a fat lot of good a semi-auto rifle is going to do you against stinger missiles, Cobra attack helicopters, M-1 tanks, and laser-guided bombs.
 
haymarket said:
A serious question for you and other who feel this way: if one is not suppose to "use" actual real events that have occurred in our society to foster discussion and put forth suggestions and ideas as how to avoid such things, what is suppose to help drive and motivate the national discourse on this topic?

What is so inherently wrong with adding this movie theater massacre to the long and growing list of firearm massacres that have occurred and then asking relevant questions about it?

This has happened before.

This will happen again.

We have a nation where guns are widespread and readily available. We have the Constitution which protects the right to bear arms. I believe this is mostly a good and positive thing in which the benefits out weigh the negatives. However, there are negatives. There is a downside. And a dozen movie goers were simply the latest to pay the ultimate price as part of that downside.

So what is so inherently wrong with having an honest discussion when these thing occur?
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If we passed legislation that made it illegal for everyone to possess firearms, only bad guys would have guns. If we pass legislation limiting magazine size, people will build kits and only the bad guys will have them. If we pass legislation limiting automatics, only the bad guys will have them.

If people want to restrict the sale, possession and use of handguns or anything else, they need to show those opposed that our gun laws work the way they are. You know, that inner city gangs don't have collections of illegal ones to use against the rest of us. That the coppers can get them off the streets. Taking guns away from honest, law-abiding citizens isn't the way.

We pay many different prices for our free society. You're right. This is one of them. You can't stop nutcases.
 
AdamT said:
And a fat lot of good a semi-auto rifle is going to do you against stinger missiles, Cobra attack helicopters, M-1 tanks, and laser-guided bombs.
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How would you rate our military performance in Afghanistan and Iraq?
 
AdamT said:
And a fat lot of good a semi-auto rifle is going to do you against stinger missiles, Cobra attack helicopters, M-1 tanks, and laser-guided bombs.
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As much as I respect Kal's views on this topic, I agree with you. Using "protection from our military" as a defense to gun ownership doesn't cut it in my book. We are long-LONGLONG!! past the days of our citizenry being able to be on an equal footing with our military through ownership of guns.
 
TurtleDude said:
that of course is the emotobabble response

the federal bans on booby traps and explosives worked to prevent acquisition of those items

100 round barrel type magazine-what idiocy. drum magazine is the correct term btw

disarmed victims in gun free zones-the ARC wet dream
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Being restricted to an, e.g. 17 round magazine hardly constitutes "disarmed". :roll:
 
haymarket said:
I am not advocating an unarmed society. I am not advocating that we all be armed and carry.

I am not a person who wants to ban guns or ammunition and take away the guns of current owners.
I am not a NRA member who puts up centerfolds of the latest and greatest high powered rifle.

Is there not some place in the middle where people can advocate for responsible gun ownership but yet have reasonable laws which protect society from turning into Deadwood?
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The "Wild West" wasn't nearly as wild (in terms of crime) as many people mistakenly think it was.

Years ago, when I was in college, Frontier Violence: Another Look was required reading for one of my Western American History courses. A portion of the book was called “The Myth of Frontier Violence.” The argument: while America’s western frontier could certainly be a violent place, it was no more so than any other part of United States at that time . . .



In terms of violent crime statistics, legendary gunfighting burgs like Tombstone, Dodge City and Deadwood were no more dangerous for the law abiding citizen than any other small town. The western towns were considerably safer than the big cities like New York, Chicago and Boston of that same period, where violent crime against innocent victims was much more common.

What violence did occur was either between admitted criminals, or existed in the lawless, unorganized mining camps that sprung up overnight during the various gold rushes. Those mining camps typically had a very short period of “lawlessness” – measured in weeks or months, not years. After that they either established law and order or withered away when the gold disappeared.
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http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2011/08/martin-albright/the-wild-wild-west-or-not/


In his book, Frontier Violence: Another Look, author W. Eugene Hollon, provides us with these astonishing facts:
•In Abilene, Ellsworth, Wichita, Dodge City, and
Caldwell, for the years from 1870 to 1885, there were only 45 total homicides. This equates to a rate of approximately 1 murder per 100,000 residents per year.
•In
Abilene, supposedly one of the wildest of the cow towns, not a single person was killed in 1869 or 1870.



Zooming forward over a century to 2007, a quick look at Uniform Crime Report statistics shows us the following regarding the aforementioned gun control “paradise” cities of the east:

•DC – 183 Murders (31 per 100,000 residents)
•
New York – 494 Murders (6 per 100,000 residents)
•
Baltimore – 281 Murders (45 per 100,000 residents)
•
Newark – 104 Murders (37 per 100,000 residents)
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Dispelling the myth of 'The Wild West' - Minneapolis gun rights | Examiner.com
 
Connery said:
Your assessment is both overly broad and far too simplistic. I used to carry a firearm until I stopped. In certain areas a firearm is is necessary, such as the wilderness where human population is low. In a crowded metropolitan area a firearm is can be a danger, especially when law enforcement is readily available. Moreover, there are two type of people that should not carry at all; those who are crazy and those who act irresponsibly. I do not wish to make gun control an issue, but, when firearms are made available too easily the crazy and irresponsible ones seem to the ones who are committing heinous acts with these weapons.

I never heard of a crazed killer ask someone if they were "on the right" or "on the left" before shooting them. Perhaps political perspectives are a non issue here and public safety is the issue at hand.
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This is kind of a dumb analogy. For most people a car represents essential transportation. Society would be radically changed if cars were restricted. Guns ... not so much.

OTOH, you're required to have a license to drive a car, and your care registration and license must be periodically renewed....

Here's another statistic: at least since 1945, more people are killed by cars every year than nuclear bombs. Therefore it's silly to restrict nuclear bombs.
 
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TurtleDude said:
the problem is we on the right understand the limits of a free society and the fact that nuts will always be able to kill while some on the left want to stop honest people from being able to defend themselves and that is why an "honest" debate is often not possible because the gun restrictionists are dishonest as to their true motivations
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To characterize like that - by making the extremes the only participants and models in the discussion is stacking the deck against any honest discussion or national discourse.

There are plenty of people like myself who believe that the Second Amendment is fine and that guns overall save more lives and protect more people than they take. There are plenty of people in the middle like myself who respect the rights of fun collectors and sportsman and hunters in their use of guns. There are plenty of people like me who think it is very reasonable and completely justified for a person to have a firearm in their home or business for personal and family protection.

But I suspect that many of us also do NOT want to live in an armed society where large numbers of people are openly carrying the latest and greatest firepower. We do NOT want anybody in the country to have weapons simply because someday somehow someway they just may have to use those weapons and match firepower with a new Adolf Hitler who has taken over the US government.

We need to badly have this national discussion.

I was born in 1949 - a very long time ago. Once upon a time when things like this happened there was the a national revulsion about the event itself. And then there was a discussion about our society and its various components that contributed to such horrorific events. And that included guns and their proliferation in the society. We discussed these things as people in the media and together and what we can or should or might do about these things.

The right has succeeded in taking that off the table. It is now verboten. And if anyone wants to have that discussion we get the usual reaction that is very very evident here where people excoriate and attack anyone who brings it up for "using this" at an inappropriate time.

What exactly is an appropriate time?

We know for the past incidents that when the stories leave the front pages and the furor dies down, so does interest in the topic. Which is what I think the right desires and they know damn well what they are doing in this feigned "how dare you talk about this at this time of tragedy" BS that we see.

When are we going to not let the extremes define this issue for the great mass of the American people?
 
Goshin said:
The "Wild West" wasn't nearly as wild (in terms of crime) as many people mistakenly think it was.
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Goshin - you are a bright person who is reasonable. Do you understand my point or do you want to argue about murder statistics on 130 years ago in the West?
 
haymarket said:
To characterize like that - by making the extremes the only participants and models in the discussion is stacking the deck against any honest discussion or national discourse.

There are plenty of people like myself who believe that the Second Amendment is fine and that guns overall save more lives and protect more people than they take. There are plenty of people in the middle like myself who respect the rights of fun collectors and sportsman and hunters in their use of guns. There are plenty of people like me who think it is very reasonable and completely justified for a person to have a firearm in their home or business for personal and family protection.

But I suspect that many of us also do NOT want to live in an armed society where large numbers of people are openly carrying the latest and greatest firepower. We do NOT want anybody in the country to have weapons simply because someday somehow someway they just may have to use those weapons and match firepower with a new Adolf Hitler who has taken over the US government.

We need to badly have this national discussion.

I was born in 1949 - a very long time ago. Once upon a time when things like this happened there was the a national revulsion about the event itself. And then there was a discussion about our society and its various components that contributed to such horrorific events. And that included guns and their proliferation in the society. We discussed these things as people in the media and together and what we can or should or might do about these things.

The right has succeeded in taking that off the table. It is now verboten. And if anyone wants to have that discussion we get the usual reaction that is very very evident here where people excoriate and attack anyone who brings it up for "using this" at an inappropriate time.

What exactly is an appropriate time?

We know for the past incidents that when the stories leave the front pages and the furor dies down, so does interest in the topic. Which is what I think the right desires and they know damn well what they are doing in this feigned "how dare you talk about this at this time of tragedy" BS that we see.

When are we going to not let the extremes define this issue for the great mass of the American people?
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Unless and until our justice system is able to get illegal guns off the street -- stop drive-bys that kill more people in a typical weekend than these horrific incidents kill in a year -- you'll never convince me that more laws will work. This is one of the prices we pay for a free society -- that nutz happen and people die.

Give me a gun, let me carry it, and I will shoot them. Or die trying.

(Oh, yes, I know it sounds like bravado. But really? My personal instincts tell me (though I've never been in such a situation) that there are good reasons to die. That theater incident? That would have been one of them. And I know damned well I'm not alone.
 
haymarket said:
To characterize like that - by making the extremes the only participants and models in the discussion is stacking the deck against any honest discussion or national discourse.

There are plenty of people like myself who believe that the Second Amendment is fine and that guns overall save more lives and protect more people than they take. There are plenty of people in the middle like myself who respect the rights of fun collectors and sportsman and hunters in their use of guns. There are plenty of people like me who think it is very reasonable and completely justified for a person to have a firearm in their home or business for personal and family protection.

But I suspect that many of us also do NOT want to live in an armed society where large numbers of people are openly carrying the latest and greatest firepower. We do NOT want anybody in the country to have weapons simply because someday somehow someway they just may have to use those weapons and match firepower with a new Adolf Hitler who has taken over the US government.

We need to badly have this national discussion.

I was born in 1949 - a very long time ago. Once upon a time when things like this happened there was the a national revulsion about the event itself. And then there was a discussion about our society and its various components that contributed to such horrorific events. And that included guns and their proliferation in the society. We discussed these things as people in the media and together and what we can or should or might do about these things.

The right has succeeded in taking that off the table. It is now verboten. And if anyone wants to have that discussion we get the usual reaction that is very very evident here where people excoriate and attack anyone who brings it up for "using this" at an inappropriate time.

What exactly is an appropriate time?

We know for the past incidents that when the stories leave the front pages and the furor dies down, so does interest in the topic. Which is what I think the right desires and they know damn well what they are doing in this feigned "how dare you talk about this at this time of tragedy" BS that we see.

When are we going to not let the extremes define this issue for the great mass of the American people?
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That's a freaking awesome position
 
haymarket said:
Goshin - you are a bright person who is reasonable. Do you understand my point or do you want to argue about murder statistics on 130 years ago in the West?
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Okay, let's talk about that.

Haymarket said:
Is there not some place in the middle where people can advocate for responsible gun ownership but yet have reasonable laws which protect society from turning into Deadwood?
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The problem lies in defining exactly where that "place in the middle" is.

Personally I think we're pretty much there. Crime and violence in general are way down from a peak in the 1970s, and accidental gun deaths are WAY down from a peak in the 70s.

At the same time, there are more guns in private hands than ever before. 41 states have some version of easy-to-get "shall issue" concealed carry permits; several states allow either open or concealed carry or both without permit; none of these changes from the 70's have resulted in the "bloodbath" predicted by detractors.

Now I've said more than once that I'd be perfectly okay with adding "was committed involuntarily to a mental institution" and "is heavily medicated to keep him from being dangerous" to NICS. We'd have to determine the exact mechanism by which this is accomplished (due to medical confidentiality issues and where to draw the line) but in general I think it is a good idea because it restricts the dangerous individual, not the whole population.

The thing is though, that while we ARE much safer from violent crime today than 50 years ago, you will still have incidents like this one from time to time, and it is highly improbable that any laws will prevent psychos from going psycho.



The year 2010 was overall the safest year in almost forty years. The recent overall decrease has reflected upon all significant types of crime, with all violent and property crimes having decreased and reached an all-time low. The homicide rate in particular has decreased 51% between its record high point in 1991 and 2010.
......

Despite the recent stagnation of the homicide rate, however, property and violent crimes overall have continued to decrease, though at a considerably slower pace than in the 1990s.[9] Overall, the crime rate in the U.S. was the same in 2009 as in 1968, with the homicide rate being roughly the same as in 1964
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Crime in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In a nation of around 330 million people, you will occasionally have some nut do something spectacularly tragic. Despite these relatively rare and dramatic incidents, overall we're a lot safer than we've been in many other times in history.


On the whole I'd say we're doing pretty well and don't need to make any major changes in gun laws.... maybe a small tweak as I mentioned above, but at the same time noting that this tweak isn't likely to stop psycho rampages like this unfortunate incident at the Batman premiere.
 
Furiounova said:
That's a freaking awesome position
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That's called intelligent discussion. No LOL's -- no ROFLOL's -- no attacking the poster. Haymarket's good at that. Oh, ooookay, not all the time; but when he puts his mind to it, he's awesome.
 
Crimes like this are when I ask "who in their right mind would spend thousands of dollars and waste time in trials on this crap?". It should take about 5 minutes to strap this guy on a guillotine. There are theorems where a mathematician writes "Trivial." for the proof of the theorem. Certain instances of crimes should be handled similarly.
 
sharon said:
I think so too.. and I think he was ASKED to leave school because he was so creepy and getting worse.
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No evidence yet to support this. All I've read is that he was quiet and not doing well academically, that the doctoral program was thinking about providing him with remedial help, and that Holmes had dropped out on his own.
 
Harshaw said:
How would you rate our military performance in Afghanistan and Iraq?
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I'd rate it pretty good, given the fact that we're using only a fraction of our power half way around the world, where the opposition can escape across the border into Pakistan, and where we have language and cultural barriers, and we're an invading force, and we have to be very careful not to kill civilians, and where they make use of suicide attacks, etc.

IOW, not a great analogy.

How would the Libyan rebels have done without our air support and NATO assistance?
 
MaggieD said:
Unless and until our justice system is able to get illegal guns off the street -- stop drive-bys that kill more people in a typical weekend than these horrific incidents kill in a year -- you'll never convince me that more laws will work. This is one of the prices we pay for a free society -- that nutz happen and people die.

Give me a gun, let me carry it, and I will shoot them. Or die trying.

(Oh, yes, I know it sounds like bravado. But really? My personal instincts tell me (though I've never been in such a situation) that there are good reasons to die. That theater incident? That would have been one of them. And I know damned well I'm not alone.
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That is NOT the society I want to live in. Were it to come to that - I would move to Canada. I love this nation and its people and it would pain me greatly to do that. But I feel such a society is a giant step backwards in civilization and I would want no part of it.

If this is indeed the price we pay for second amendment rights, why do people get so damn offended when I propose that the NRA and others build a monument to those who pay that price? Wayne La Piere does not pay that price. Charlton Heston did NOT pay that price. Seventy people in Colorado paid a price and for a dozen of them they paid the ultimate price. But when I and others want that price acknowledged publicly, we are attacked and ripped into and portrayed as gun grabbers.
 
Goshin
I appreciate your honest post. However, I would say that we are not in the middle. We have not found that place. By your own admission, we have more guns and more carry laws than every before in recent memory. The right has won this issue and they have prevailed. And these sort of things keep happening. And they happen here in the USA more than anywhere else.

Why is that?

I heard somebody on the radio ask a question today and it was food for thought. I will ask it of you and anyone who wants to answer: If a gunman did this to a session of Congress and seventy members were shot - a dozen fatally - would the topic of guns be off the table the way it seems to be whenever these things happen today and for the last few years?
 
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haymarket said:
...I heard somebody on the radio ask a question today and it was food for thought. I will ask it of you and anyone who wants to answer: If a gunman did this to a session of Congress and seventy members were shot - a dozen fatally - would the topic of guns be off the table the way it seems to be whenever these things happen today and for the last few years?
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if such a horrible thing occured, gun-regulations would be THE TABLE for some time to come.
 
Thunder said:
limiting magazine size to say...20 rounds....isn't such a bad idea.
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Do you think this psycho would have stayed home that night if he couldn't get a 100-round mag?

He apparently booby-trapped his apartment, setting his stereo to blare techno music at midnight so that if/when law enforcement opened his door the gasoline bombs would go off. If we banned gasoline and techno music, would the outcome have been any different? Apparently some sort of fireworks are also part of his booby-traps, should we ban fireworks?

My local liberal mouthpiece (formerly a "news" channel) is whining about this psycho's ability to purchase as much ammunition as he did (6,000 rounds via the internet). I don't know how many rounds he actually used, but I'm guessing he didn't use 6,000 rounds. So what limit should we apply to gun owners purchasing ammunition? Remember the fact that only responsible gun-owners follow the gun laws, the criminals and crazies do not follow the law. Clearly.

Banning law-abiding, sane citizens from purchasing potentially lethal items doesn't cure crazy. Crazy will always find a way.
 
haymarket said:
Goshin
I appreciate your honest post. However, I would say that we are not in the middle. We have not found that place. By your own admission, we have more guns and more carry laws than every before in recent memory. The right has won this issue and they have prevailed. And these sort of things keep happening. And they happen here in the USA more than anywhere else.

Why is that?

I heard somebody on the radio ask a question today and it was food for thought. I will ask it of you and anyone who wants to answer: If a gunman did this to a session of Congress and seventy members were shot - a dozen fatally - would the topic of guns be off the table the way it seems to be whenever these things happen today and for the last few years?
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Therein lies the problem; what you consider the "middle" and what I and many others consider "the middle" are very mismatched. You view the proliferation of guns in the hands of private citizens as a negative; yet statistically 99.98%+ of those guns are NEVER used in any kind of crime. You view concealed carry as a negative, apparently, despite the fact that existing evidence says that "shall issue" concealed carry in a given state, tends to cause criminals to alter their behavior to committing crimes where they are unlikely to encounter an armed citizen.... things like muggings and carjackings go down while "cold" burglaries (residents not at home) go up.... which I consider a positive as it leads to less loss of innocent life.

You haven't defined what you consider "that middle ground" for us, but your post seems to imply that you favor fewer guns in private hands regardless of whether they are lawfully used or not, and give the impression that you don't like shall-issue-carry permits even though there is no evidence that CCW's are a problem.... yes? No?
 
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