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NationofChange / Op-Ed
Published: Tuesday 24 July 2012
“As long as politicians, preachers, judges, and self-appointed guardians of liberty continue to pretend that there’s no legal or moral – or lethal – difference between hunting rifles designed to kill deer or elk one at a time and military-style weapons designed to kill scores of people in a minute or less there will continue to be ‘tragedies’ like the ones in Columbine and Aurora.”
A Dark Knight in Aurora, A Dark Day for America...
The basic outlines of the “dark knight” massacre in Aurora, Colorado, are now well known. A 24-year-old medical school dropout named James Egan Holmes acting alone opened fire with an assault rifle in a crowded theater, killing 12 people and wounding 59.
A lot of good the Department of Homeland Security did in Aurora that night as “The Dark Knight” was emerging from his booby-trapped spider hole. There’s plenty of obvious irony in the subtitle of that damned movie: “The Dark Knight Rises.” Irony is one thing; tragedy leaves an altogether different taste in one’s mouth. A bitter taste like poison-laced lemon peels.
Living in Colorado, when I heard the first news stories on the BBC within minutes of the shootings, I thought of a high school, another massacre, and a lone shooter. Columbine. So, of course, did people all over the world from Copenhagen to Cairo, from Toronto to Tokyo. The Columbine horror happened only about a dozen years ago; it’s the kind of thing that remains lodged in the world’s collective memory for a long, long time.
Aurora and Columbine are within shouting distance of each other, less than 20 miles apart as the crow flies. That’s too close for comfort, but in fact these two crimes are obviously a lot closer from a sociological perspective. Google Maps is a great tool but it has nothing to say about pathological killers, or about a society that defines terrorism in a way that excludes the terrorist next door.
Any mass murderer – from Adolf Hitler to Osama bin Laden – is a deranged individual, of course. The fact is there are LOTS of deranged individuals among us, lots of nut cases. What was once abnormal behavior can (has?) become the new normal. Who really knows what’s normal, anyway? And who decides? Calling a mass murderer deranged doesn’t prove or solve anything.
The central tragedy in this tapestry of tragedies is not about the wasted life of a young man with a bright future nor about the senseless death of a dozen innocent people (including Veronica Moser, aged six) who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, but rather in the fact that there was a federal law on the books banning the sale and manufacture of semi-automatic weapons. The law, the Assault Weapons Ban (AWB,) – aka the Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act – was passed in 1994.
The Assault Weapons Ban act was inadequate because it did not apply to assault weapons manufactured before 1994 and because it contained an expiration date (a decade). But it was a step in the right direction and provided time for the public and Congress to “get religion” and tighten the provisions of this half-good law. At least that was the hope.
But in 2004, after 9-11 handed the powerful National Rifle Association (NRA) a public relations howitzer, Congress in its wisdom allowed the law to lapse. The result is plain to see: victims of crimes that ought to be impossible to carry out. One individual simply can’t shoot 71 people in a matter of seconds with a hunting rifle. The gun used in the Aurora shooting was reportedly a Smith and Wesson semi-automatic similar to the AR-15; the latter is modeled after the M-16.
My hunting rifle, by the way, is a single shot. If you can hit the broad side of barn that’s all you need, that plus an ounce or two of common sense. The latter, however, is a rare commodity inside the beltway where private money trumps public morality and integrity is like a lawmaker’s illicit affair – embraced but not loved.
Seldom will an esteemed member of that institution dare to offend against the NRA. When the only thing that really matters is getting re-elected, it’s not hard to be soft on guns. And to wrap yourself in the flag while you’re bending over to receive your reward.
After all, lethal weaponry takes a back seat to only one amendment in the Bill of Rights. It was apparently the second thing the founders thought of right after they thought of liberty. It’s perfectly logical: citizens need guns to preserve liberty and prevent government from taking away rights, like the right to own guns. Get it?
But the staunch and ever-so-patriotic defenders of the absolute right to bear firearms never talk about the context of the Second Amendment. They never talk about the state of the union or the world or weapons technology in the late 1700s. They never mention that automatic weapons didn’t exist then. Ditto for semi-automatic weapons and even repeating rifles. And they never point out that hunting in early post-colonial America wasn’t a sport so much as a way of – and here I’ll quote the inimitable George W. Bush – “putting food on your family”.
Batman III is yet another in a long line of fantasy/action films about a twisted and tormented killer – the evil villain – and, of course, a fearless, indomitable superhero. These films are all the same: following a lot of murder and mayhem, justice prevails in the end, and everyone lives happily ever after. Except, of course, the evil villain’s victims.
In real life, there’s no happy ending. And as long as politicians, preachers, judges, and self-appointed guardians of liberty continue to pretend that there’s no legal or moral – or lethal – difference between, for example, hunting rifles designed to kill deer or elk one at a time and military-style weapons designed to kill scores of people in a minute or less (the AR-15, for example, can use a high density magazine containing more than 30 rounds) there will continue to be “tragedies” like the ones in Columbine and Aurora. And that’s the real tragedy.
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By Kiley Kroh
21 comments on "A Dark Knight in Aurora, A Dark Day for America..."
July 25, 2012 3:22pm
The media including the people that wrote this story are brainwashed!
This tragedy was not the product of gun sales to the wrong person. That is what the government wants you dummies to believe. As long as you all are fighting about guns, guns, guns the government has you right where they want you.
This violence is the product of violent video and the media, that’s right! THE MEDIA!
Violence in movies, TV Shows, News Programs, wars that the government creates are the obvious cause of this typical behavior that people are exhibiting in society today. People are drugged with violence, violence in American Media condition men, women and children to commit heinous crimes.
The guy who did the shooting looked at it all like a video game, keep killing until you run out of ammunition just like the game. I am sick and tired of people being in denial in America. You all want to be entertained; entertainment is a 500 Billion dollar industry.
The Carlyle Group who makes all the weapons in the world wants you to fight over gun control laws so you do not think for yourselves, the Carlyle Group runs the Banks in this country and sells weapons to the terrorists to keep everyone in a perpetual war.
I see a tragedy like this and I am not even fazed by it. What’s the difference between this violent act and the violent act committed by BATMAN? Everyone gets killed and the hero saves the day just like our brainwashed military wants us to believe.
PLEASE WAKE THE FUCK UP! YOU as Americans are one or all three of these things, FAT, SICK, or DUMB! I am two what are you.
July 24, 2012 6:13pm
It's hard to express my feelings on this. In the indiscriminate slaughter of anything that swims, moos, tweets, squawks , burrows or breeds (including our own), for recreation and or profit, we as a species are unsurpassed. When I think of this callous slaughter, I think of our forefathers passing out smallpox-infected blankets to natives, of nuking already beaten Japan, of shooting buffalo from moving trains for "sport." Perhaps the same delusion that informs the moral supremacy of our nationhoods and our religions informs our moral supremacy as a species.
July 24, 2012 3:56pm
I am saddend and dismayed at the tragedies that have occured but also at the speed at which misinformation spreads.
Either by design or carelessness, this article has made light of something I and other take very seriously which is responsible gun ownership. I would like to correct a few points:
1. The assault weapon ban did NOT ban the sale and manufacture of semi-automatic weapons. This irresponsible statement is entirely without merit. Semi-automatic means the weapon will fire once for each trigger pull and automatically cock the weapon for the next round. Some hunting rifles are semi-automatic and some use the same round as the AR-15 used in Aurora, a .223 (22 caliber).
The assault weapon ban DID classify assault rifles as those rifles having a detachable magazine and 2 or more of the following:
1. Bayonet mount
2. Pistol grip
3. Telescoping stock
4. Flash suppressor
5. Grenade launcher
After the ban was enacted, Colt produced the MT (Match Target) line with no bayonet mount, no supressor and a solid stock. (and no grenade launcher) It is the same rifle as the AR-15, same ammunition and same capabilities as the AR-15 used in Aurora. It could be legally purchased with a background check during the ban.
2. The assault weapon ban did NOT make what happened in Aurora or anywhere else impossible. see above
3. One can't shoot 71 people in a matter of seconds with the AR-15 in question either. This is not an automatic fire rifle. The shooting lasted long enough that, were it to happen in Texas , there would be a chance that a legally armed civilian might have interceded.
4. Hitting the broad side of a barn is never "all you need". This comment shows a careless ignorance of safety that would have garnered me a trip to the woodshed when I was a boy.
People tend to repeat any information, accurate or not, that supports their own personal feelings. People should take responsibility to be accurate. Journalists should hold themselves to even higher standards.
July 25, 2012 10:16am
Thanks for your voice of reason in these emotional times. To further illustrate, the "assault weapons " ban had no statistical effect on crime.
July 24, 2012 3:25pm
The second amendment was created in a time of a very small country surrounded by hostile nations and beset by hostile animals, people and doctrines. I think that that is no longer the case and our Constitution should reflect those changes and, just as we repealed prohibition, allowed slaves to be free and woment to vote, we should recognize that is time to repeal the second and cast off those symbols of inadequacy such as the blunderbuss, the rifle the assault weapon anf who knows the homefront drone? We got rid of slavery shackles, repeal the second and do the same with the killing machines.
July 25, 2012 3:58pm
'- a very small country surrounded by hostile nations and beset by hostile animals, people and doctrines.'
'Triumph 181' , you are displaying a settler mentality.
Incidently, the way my country got rid of slavery was with a very large, highly motivated, hi-tek (for the time) killing machine.
July 24, 2012 1:25pm
You can hug your loved ones, or hug your guns - you can't do both.
Unless they are one and the same.
The 2nd amendment has been under mortal attack by foreign enemies for over 10 years. Yet the NRA's 4+ million members of cowardly gun experts continue to refuse to defend the 2nd amendment against those enemies by serving in our well regulated militia. For it is so much easier and safer for the NRA to be hysterical and irrational free speech bullies in America than to pick up a gun to protect the 2nd amendment against our external enemies. If the NRA did care enough about protecting America to serve, al qaeda and the taliban would be long gone, and no one would have to serve 2, 3, 5, 6 tours of duty. And the 2nd amendment would have again served its purpose.
July 24, 2012 1:27pm
For years I have been listening to the argument of the gun freaks that "guns don't kill people, people kill people." Of course, that is true, but one thing must be remembered about firearms: GUNS MAKE IT TOO EASY TO KILL PEOPLE. Taking someone's life, snuffing out their future, is something that SHOULD take effort and at least a hint of courage. Imagine killing someone with a hammer, a baseball bat, a knife, or even your bare hands. The killing with these implements might take some strength, or athletic ability, determination, and at least a modicum of risk. A gun requires none of these things to exterminate someone. You point your loaded weapon, squeeze the trigger, and boom, the bullet's on its way. With a gun, a 99-lb weakling, a sniveling coward, can blow away the bravest of the brave, the strongest or most athletic. We all know that, but the NRA argument never mentions it.
Now, I served 3 years in the Army, and I displayed considerable marksmanship, and I have no problem with enjoying target practice, or disabling or even killing someone in last-resort self-defense. And though I don't hunt, I have no objection to hunters having their hunting weapons. But why, I ask, must private citizens have the right to have arsenals in their homes? Why do hunters have the right to own automatic weapons? And why is all this "freedom" allegedly guaranteed by the Second Amendment, when any grade-schooler can see that this amendment was written with a militia in mind, before there was a Department of Defense or a standing army. Now that we have a DOD and a standing army, what need do we have of a "militia," and if we don't need a militia, why do gun freaks twist and misinterpret the Second Amendment to guarantee their crazy Uncle Neds the right to have bazookas and mortars in their cellars? It's stupid and senseless. We have much higher rates of homicide than any European countries, because any jerk with a grudge can go to a gun show and buy whatever he needs to avenge himself...or just kill senselessly, like this idiot in Aurora. I put the deaths of thousands of Americans on the shoulders of the NRA, with their big mouths and deep pockets. How long must we live and die under the rule of the NRA? Yes, people kill people, but more Americans kill their neighbors than Europeans do, and simply because guns are so easily available in the U.S. and not overseas. Killing others is so ridiculously easy here, and we all know that.
July 25, 2012 3:32pm
Thanks to Nation of Change for this open debate; it could not happen in the Huffington Post.
'Ron in NM', watch the name calling. I don't have a bazooka or a mortar.
Didn't Michael Moore ask in 'Bowling for Columbine' why Canadians who are better armed than U.S. citizens are less likely to blow away their neighbors? Was there ever a conclusive answer in the film?
July 24, 2012 12:59pm
I pray for the souls of those who lost their lives in this terrible shooting, and for those who were wounded. And even for the man who did the shooting. I'm not interested in what weapon he used, nor in any 'right to own a gun' as is the case in America.
What happened here was the result of the disconnection of people, the disconnection from the Source, or God, if you prefer. So much healing is needed, before we can stand as one for Peace, for Love. I pray that we may all be healed so that tragedies like this one will not happen again.
July 24, 2012 12:29pm
Thumbs Up to those who posted that its "People who kill People, and its not the weapon's fault".. Its a horrible tragedy what happened in Aurora, but in order to deal with it and understand the truths and facts of it and ANY senseless event like it, EMOTION must be left out that process. If its not, then personification of inanimate objects begins and then become the blame for the event and NOT the person wielding these objects.. (For example, from STRATMANDAVE:" ... I'm pretty sure that the writers of the 2nd amendment did not foresee the evolution of the single shot rifle into the terrible mass killing machines of today...".. That statement holds blameless any PERSON who is the actual 'killing machine'.. And to just point out that if there were no firearms available, people will use something else, anything else they think would work. People are shown low statistics on gun related crime in areas that have strict gun regulation, but they are not also shown the higher statistics in crime where other means were used to commit them in the same area.
As to the author's statement regarding "difference between, for example, hunting rifles designed to kill deer or elk one at a time and military-style weapons designed to kill scores of people in a minute or less (the AR-15, for example, can use a high density magazine containing more than 30 rounds) "... --with any semiautomatic firearm, it can shoot as fast as you can pull the trigger and get reloaded just as quickly with practice - to the point that it won't matter that it wasn't an automatic rifle and that the magazines were less than 30 round capacity. THE POINT is that a PERSON decided to use them for his murderous intent... the firearms didn't come to life and do so on their own.
July 24, 2012 12:25pm
The USA is the most contentious advanced "free world" country on the globe. It has the most murders-per-hundred thousand of guns, both direct and indirect, than any other country of both large and small populations. In its population of 300 million of which approximately 20o million are of adult, working age, there are 4 out of 10 gun owners (licensed concealed weapons gun owners are considerably less but constitute no-less-a-potential threat). World-wide, one out twelve people in this world of 7 Billion people own guns, mostly manufactured by the USA to foreign countries and mostly own by foreign governments and large portions of their population. I reference the movie "Lords Of War", starring Nicolas Cage to make my points on USA origin of arms-dealers, both to foreign governments for military and for civilian use and their intended and "unintended consequences". It is appalling how the "Merchants of Death" can go unimpeded and without much resistance by republican, democratic, and parliamentarian populations in "free world" governments who have experienced the horrors of World War and endemic international violent conflict. It is appalling still how much diffidence and indifference there is to no effective "gun-control" laws, especially against assault rifles and weapons of such caliber and such rapid fire power as to make them obvious to anyone, even a child, that they are "weapons of mass destruction" and make populations even with Constitutional governments vast areas of "killing fields", thus even fortified and reinforced with ambivalent and ambiguous and uxorious laws called ironically "Stand Your Ground" laws that exist for ideological and political reasons, not practical and pragmatic ones.
July 24, 2012 11:52am
Yes people kill people but without an automatic weapon as a tool their ability to kill people would be limited. I'm pretty sure that the writers of the 2nd amendment did not foresee the evolution of the single shot rifle into the terrible mass killing machines of today. If NRA members are worried about the ability of the people to stand up to theit government in some sort of civil war, the weapons of choice should be IT; not guns/tanks/ etc. There is no way the people could win a shooting war but we could win an Internet based war whether it's just through communications to call the people to action or by more drastic measures. In any case as one other writer said "wake up" it's not 1776 or even 1976 anymore!
July 24, 2012 11:43am
Not a Liberal Pussy is dead on: PEOPLE kill people, period. They use different means to do so, whether bullets, knives, germs, or even economic disenfranchisement but bottom line is that's the fact. And believe it or not, THAT was what Michael Morre was actually trying to show in his flawed but poignant 'Bowling for Columbine' documentary (worst mistake was attempting to belittle Charlton Heston in order to try and prove a point - Wayne LaPierre of the NRA would have been happy to debate the merits of the picture). The killing problem is within out society and I don't pretend to have an explanation or a solution to that. But I DO KNOW that the OVERWHELMING MAJORITY of firearm related crime committed in this country (and most others, for that matter) is perpetrated by people who obtain or own guns ILLEGALLY. The caliber or magazine capacity simply is not the issue. The great majority of vehicular homicides are committed by those under the influence of alcohol or drugs, or both, yet there has NEVER been an outcry to ban motor vehicles. But there has been a successful campaign to further penalize habitual drunk driving.
I am pro second amendment all the way, although I do not interpret that provision to read that every law abiding citizen can have a Howitzer in their front yard. There is a place for COMMON SENSE firearm legislation, such as the National Firearms Act of 1934, effectively regulating (but not 'banning', btw) automatic and short barreled shoulder held hi-cap weapons. But one of the biggest problems pertaining to guns in general is that there is such a great disparity in rules regarding possession and ownership throughout the fifty states (thank you, Civil War). And that disparity creates blatant 'loopholes' whereby enterprising and only marginally clever individuals can circumvent their own communities standards and regulations, which, ironically, makes many of these people 'illegal' gun owners. The federal government can and does regulate cars, alcohol, two stroke engines, tobacco and medicine - I see no reason it cannot create a FAIR and EFFECTIVE national policy on firearm ownership without resorting to draconian measures which make little to no sense to the majority of citizens affected. CRT
July 24, 2012 11:23am
This may just be another "Oklahoma Bombing" organized by the "Powers That Be" to formulate an excuse to disarm the American People in preparation for their final subjugation. Oswald was a dupe. Sirhan Sirhan was a dupe, Timothy McVeigh was a dupe.
The Warren Commission was nothing but hundreds of pages of lies. Neither Oswald, or later Sirhan Sirhan acted alone. Recent forensic evidence proved that the bullet that killed RFK did NOT come from Sirhan's gun, but you will notice how quickly that was snuffed in the news. http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/key-witness-rfk-assassination-says-...
How long will it take us to wake up and smell the coffee??????
July 24, 2012 11:01am
“The fact is there are LOTS of deranged individuals among us, lots of nut cases”, including the ones in congress and the senate who have passed damned near every war bill that has come down the pike, or the nut-case-in-chief who facilitated the deaths of a half-million children in Iraq with nine years of sanctions or the next nut-case-in-chief who taught the people in that country a real lesson about disarmament.
July 24, 2012 11:03am
When are you Liberal asswipes going to see that it is PEOPLE THAT KILL, not guns. Why blame guns, why not blame bullets? It's like blaming pencils for grammatical errors. It's not the fault of the pencil, it's the person writing.
By the way, the AR 15, also known as a .223 rifle is simply a high powered 22 shell. Non-automatic for civilians.
I don't see you writing about the steamrolling job Obama has signed onto in the Middle East and in Africa, where hundreds of thousands of people are killed through political means using .308 and .50cal ammo. The 7 countries in 5 years plan is rolling out without a hitch. You have to take some of the blame for defending that.
I am in no way protecting the very sick person that did the shooting in Aroura, he should be dealt with harshly. But the problem that arises from blaming an inanimate object for a tragedy is, it doesn't serve to change anything. All it does is stick a knife into the emotional response of the people reading the news, and allow Liberal scumbags like Obama, Holder, etc. to attempt to destroy the 2nd Amendment.
The 1st and 4th Amendments are history. I guess you want to see the 2nd gone too? Sounds Nazi-like to me.
I guarantee the author of this mush has never looked into armament in a factual way, just emotionally. Are you still 7 years old?
July 24, 2012 3:36pm
Yes we want ot see the second gone too, the sooner the better. Yes you are protecting the Aurora killer by not only allowing him the right to purchase his dildos, but taking him by the hand to the door of the movie house and then telling him, go and exercise your second amement right to whack your dildos on innocent people. Yes you are totally complicit in these killings but you will never understand that because you never looked into armament in a factual way just in the dildo efect on your brain.
As killers in Africa, VietNam, Iraq and other fun places where your kind could go and get your jollies, used to say, and probably still say, you can play with your gun and you can play with your rifle, but your gun will give you satisfaction you crave.
July 24, 2012 11:44am
Hey Careerest, You really think we need hundred round clips. You really think that's going to stop the government if they come to get you. They can drone your dumb ass before you get the safety off. You should be as concerned about the fact that you no longer have any privacy. Gone. They know more about you then you do from the illegal gathering of your emails and phone calls. You conservatives blind yourself to that one. Hey the "Hero's in the military would never off a Careesrest. I believe we can have sensible clip regulation were it not for knuckle-draggers like you. Keep the blinders on and know you are a perfect example of Hedges well made point
July 25, 2012 10:49am
I guess you might have answered your own question if you were to think it through. While you are correct that a drone may spot and neutralize a shooter; it won't be able to do that to all 4 million of us. That is why the big push to take away first semi auto firearms, then sidearms, then bolt actions. Just look at the progression of confiscation in England. That worked out well; once all the guns were confiscated violent crime rose by about 300 per cent!
July 24, 2012 10:09am
How rude! The writer left George w. Bush off the list of 'any mass murderers'.