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NationofChange / Op-Ed
Published: Thursday 26 July 2012
“Perhaps, if sane laws on gun control, including the ban on high- capacity magazines, were in place, many in Aurora who are now dead or seriously injured would be alive and well today.”
U.S. Gun Laws: Guilty by Reason of Insanity
James Holmes, the alleged shooter in the massacre in Aurora, Colo., reportedly amassed his huge arsenal with relative ease. Some of these weapons were illegal as recently as eight years ago. Legislation now before Congress would once again make illegal, if not the guns themselves, at least the high-capacity magazines that allow bullets to be fired rapidly without stopping to reload. Holmes bought most of his weaponry within recent months, we are told. Perhaps, if sane laws on gun control, including the ban on high- capacity magazines, were in place, many in Aurora who are now dead or seriously injured would be alive and well today.
The facts of the assault are generally well-known. Holmes allegedly burst into the packed theater during the 12:30 am premier of the Batman sequel “The Dark Knight Rises,” threw one or two canisters of some gas or irritant, which exploded, then began to methodically shoot people, killing 12 and wounding 58.
“Everybody sort of started screaming, and that’s when the gunman opened fire on the crowd, and pandemonium just broke out,” Omar Esparza told me. He was in the third row, with five friends out for a birthday celebration: “He started opening fire on the audience pretty freely, just started shooting in every direction, that’s when everybody started screaming, started panicking. A lot of people had been hit at that point at those initial few rounds, and that’s when everybody sort of hit the floor and started to exit.”
Esparza continued: “It sounded like the bullets had stopped, and it sounded like he was either switching guns or reloading his rifle. At that very second when we sort of heard the silence, we realized that that was our only opportunity of getting out or of dying. So, at that split second, we had to react and had to exit as quickly as possible. And we barely made it, too, because approximately a second after we had exited, we heard him starting to shoot again.”
That moment of silence may have been when one of the weapons jammed. CNN reported that “the semiautomatic rifle used in the Colorado theater killings jammed during the rampage ... a law enforcement source with direct knowledge of the investigation said Sunday.”
Holmes allegedly had an AR-15, equipped with a 100-round drum magazine, as well as one or two Glock pistols with 40-round extended magazines and a Remington 870 shotgun that can fire up to seven shells without reloading. The AR-15 can fire from 50 to 60 rounds per minute. Holmes had a massive arsenal, easily acquired at retail stores and online.
Carolyn McCarthy is a member of Congress from Long Island, N.Y. Her husband was shot in the head and among the six killed in the 1993 Long Island Rail Road massacre. Her son also was shot in the head, but survived and remains partially paralyzed. She was a nurse back then, but when her congressman voted against the assault-weapons ban, she ran against him. She won and has been in Congress ever since.
McCarthy has introduced H.R. 308, the Large Capacity Ammunition Feeding Device Act. It would ban the sale or transfer of these large-capacity clips that enabled the massive casualties in Aurora, and in Tucson, Ariz., in January 2011 when Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot and six were killed. McCarthy told me: “The problem is, politicians, legislators across this country are intimidated by the NRA and the gun manufacturers who put so much money out there to say that ‘we will take you down in an election if you go against us.’ Common sense will say we can take prudent gun-safety legislation and try to save people’s lives. That is the bottom line.”
One group pushing the large-magazine ban is the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, named for Jim Brady, who was shot in the head and severely disabled during the 1981 attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan. I spoke with Colin Goddard, who works for the group. He survived the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre, where 32 people were killed. Goddard was shot four times. I asked him about the refrain so commonly uttered now on television, that it’s too political to discuss gun control before the victims are even buried.
“This conversation should have happened before this shooting in the first place.” Goddard told me. “This is when people are outraged. This is when people realize that this could happen to them. We cannot wait. ... Now is the time for a change. We are better than this.”
© 2011 Amy Goodman
Distributed by King Features Syndicate
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ABOUT Amy Goodman
Amy Goodman is the host of "Democracy Now!," a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on more than 900 stations in North America. She is the author of "Breaking the Sound Barrier," recently released in paperback and now a New York Times best-seller.
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By Aviva Shen
50 comments on "U.S. Gun Laws: Guilty by Reason of Insanity"
July 27, 2012 5:01pm
Short Story Writing/Mr. Barnett – The Samurai by Todd Crews
Ted Nougat was excited about the new Batman movie. Everything that night turned out perfect; he was free because his gig at the air force base had been canceled, the car started right up, he snagged great seats and Sherry was out on bail. She had just slammed back a pint of JD in the parking lot and was peacefully passed out, nestled against his shoulder, a pile of spilled Kettlekorn on her lap. She did not mind that her cheek was hard against the butt of his concealed Kahr Arms .40. When the lights went down, Ted was happy. The world was a good place.
Suddenly, the exit door nearest the screen opened and in strode a man dressed head to toe with what looked like a Samurai costume. Ted laughed to himself thinking this was the theater's idea of a promotional stunt. But he wasn't carrying a nodachi, preferred sword of great warriors; he was carrying a shotgun and what looked like a perfectly tooled AR-15. Cool, thought Ted. His admiration turned to horror as the man leveled the AR and began firing into the crowded seats with the assurance of a Special Forces commando. In his mind, Ted wrestled with whether the man had obtained his weapons legally or a straw purchase. It didn't matter really, he reasoned, because people were dying in their seats, struck by hot bullets that ripped the life from them. Panic swept through the theater as people realized a madman was loose!
Now, the Kahr Arms called out to him - End This Madness Now! Ted jumped up, reached under his arm and grasped the pistol which had waited faithfully for years for this one moment. But the safety wouldn't budge; several people around him fell. Ted's fine buckskin jacket was ruined, flecked with blood. Just as a man fell in front of him, shot in the back, the safety gave and Ted fed one into the chamber, a bullet named Terminator - this would End the Madness Now! (It used to be called “First Shot in the War to Overthrow Barry's Illegal Government” but that was too rhetorical.) Ted drew down swiftly, but the shooter had shifted in the moments Ted was arguing with the safety. Now he calmly walked through the lower aisles, firing methodically. He dropped his AR because it had jammed, and Ted thought, damn fool, he used a BFI magazine, they always jam! There oughta be a law! Furious at the shooter's ignorance, Ted's steady hand leveled and he pulled the trigger.
But the shot went wide; a girl (who he knew just made the cheering squad at his high-school) ran into his field of fire. Her head exploded like a dropped watermelon under the impact of the hollow point. Dismayed by this unfortunate setback (why hadn't he brought the Sig Sauer with the trigger tooled to a fine feather lightness), he leveled again, determined more than ever to End the Madness! It would have to be neck shot because through smoky darkness, he could see the shooter was decked with wall to wall Kevlar. But before he could fire, he felt his body slam to the ground. He had been tackled by a man whose daughter had just been shot in the head. He knocked the gun from Ted's hand and began beating his face with fists of fury. Ted lost passed out immediately...
And woke to find himself in bed, the sun shining. It had all been a dream! The Madness had Ended! He smiled, reaching behind his pillow for his familiar friend, the Sig Sauer. "I had the weirdest dream!" Sherry did not answer. He turned to her - and screamed. Half of her head was gone, the contents of her cranium sprayed all over her pillow and the pink bed lamp she had bought at Target earlier. All that was left of their love was a shattered JD bottle and an empty shell still warm on the bed between them.
Comment: C+ Ted, you show great imagination and detail but rely on cliches. Simplify your language, don't editorialize! Much improved over the story you wrote last time - about the president who was secretly a mole for Islamo-fascist Communists. BTW high school is not hyphenated!!!
July 27, 2012 2:05pm
Some of you who believe that an armed hero citizen could have taken out Holmes don't seem to know that he was wearing body armor, also purchased legally online. The choice here is between escalation and some kind of controlled step down of the mutual assured destruction. Do you really want to have to keep your teenagers home from the movies because you can't afford body armor for them? Because they aren't old enough to carry their own guns? We are choosing to live in this state of siege by refusing to enact reasonable gun-control legislation.
July 27, 2012 8:49am
Gun Control: A nation divided over guns and safety! We must address the issue of fear and social isolation before Americans will abandon guns. Read, "The Perfect Storm for Violence." www.safekidsnow.blogspot.com
July 27, 2012 12:23am
This lady is obviously out of her mind! GUNS DON'T KILL PEOPLE, PEOPLE KILL PEOPLE! We need a revamping of our judicial system to swiftly deal with crazy SOBS like this guy! Let the rest know it won't just be a cozy jail cell in their future! Do you think the police will keep us safe? Do they really prevent crime? No! The police investigate crimes after they happen and hopefully catch the criminal. And for all of you fools who think gun rights should be abolished, when the government has total control of your lives, you deserve it! The Second Amendment was put there so that the people would never again live under a tyrannical government!!!! The day that fool shot those people there were also 50+ million gun owners who shot no one!!!!!!
July 27, 2012 6:11pm
Wally, I'm so tired of this old argument - that the 2nd Amendment was written to arm the people against a tyrannical government - which if it were the case, I would have taken arms against the Bush Administration. Where do you get your information? Let's take a look. The Bill of Rights was written after the Constitution - it was an addendum by Madison and John Jay to address the concerns of the anti-Federalists who were looking for any way in which to stop the ratification - sounds like the current Republican Congress. Madison and Jay had the Shays rebellion fresh in their minds when they penned the 2nd Amendment - you remember that don't you? You don't? Well, a bunch of hot-headed farmers also unwilling to ratify or accept the new Constitution marched on the Massachussetts state house, armed and ready to fire. The state marshalled what remained of the standing Continental Army as a Federal militia and put the rebellion down. Would you have wished the Constitution to be a stillbirth? The 2nd was put there because Madison was worried about rebellion against the Union of these United States - and he was right. What was the historical name of the Civil War? The War of the Rebellion 1861. Our problems today were set in motion by the magnanimous offer by Lincoln and Grant to allow the defeated Army of the South to retain the arms they bore against the Union and we've made a religion worshipping guns intended for war - not protection against thieves threatening to take your flat screen TV.
FYI - Myth #2 - A group of hunters or yahoos who collect .50 caliber pistols do not a milita make.
BTW, it's true - guns don't kill people. BULLETS FIRED IN THE DIRECTION OF VITAL ORGANS KILL PEOPLE!!!!!
If you need a dozen large calibre pistols and/or assault rifles with 100-round clips to protect yourself, you're either a bad shot or basically a coward who knows no other way to deal with life.
July 26, 2012 5:16pm
Do you see the parallels forming here ?
Because of the shoe bomber who was either dumb as a stump, or a stooge for the airport gropers, we are all undressing in public. Goodbye 4th Amendment.
Because of the Aurora coward who was either acting out his game-inspired fantasy, or was a stooge, we are one step closer to lining up shoeless, beltless, and defenseless in front of some protofascist paid to keep watch over us, fear us, and consider us all potential enemies. Goodbye 1st Amendment, 2nd Amendment, 3rd Amendment,---
With all due respect to Amy Goodman, most of the rest of us are getting the picture.
July 26, 2012 11:11pm
Nedlong:
Are you really so afraid of your own government? How can you live here if you feel that way? I know if I felt so threatened by my own government, I wouldn't arm myself to the teeth, I'd be emigrating to a more trustworthy nation. Who wants to live in fear of their own government, like the Syrians are now doing?
Did you serve your country in uniform? I did, but damned if I wouldn't say Good-bye if I thought my country was being run by protofascists.
July 27, 2012 12:12pm
Yes, Ron in NM, I did serve my country in uniform. Why does that make any difference?
Are you saying, 'Love it or leave it'?
The USA is sliding into corporate fascism and like a lot of other good citizens I want to stop it. It is not a pleasant affair.
Some of my ancestors were here long before the Europeans arrived and started screwing things up; I'm not going anywhere.
July 28, 2012 8:58am
Nedlong: I asked you if you served your country because it might say something about your patriotism. I loved my country, and I served in the Army, but love be damned if I thought my government was my enemy. I'd just turn my back and go elsewhere. There are other societies in this world that have saner governments than ours.
That was my point, not Love It or Leave It. Trust your government enough not to regard it as your mortal enemy...or leave it. And that's not some directive from me. Just reasonable advice. I wouldn't care to live in a society I hated, under a government I feared. But that doesn't mean I have some naive airy-fairy trust in the Powers That Be in this country. Up until this year, and this coming election, I've believed in the electoral process, but if Big Money and Big Lies carry the day in this election, I would, in fact, see it as the death of the American democratic ideals and start thinking about emigration. My point entirely is that if you hate and fear the government so much, why stay here? Just because your ancestors were here before mine? Do you really think you can take back the country from this huge multi-racial population? I am aware of the many grievances that Native Americans have against the early white settlers who arrived here, but hopes that are false should not be entertained, and carrying old grudges will get you nowhere. I also believe our country is moving toward a plutocratic oligarchy, a country where Big Money over-rides everything, and people are expected to live or die to please the 1%...but there are other nations to consider. Any fears of a One World Government will go out the window when nations begin fighting each other for water, arable land, or what remains of the cheap petro-chemical energy.
July 28, 2012 8:29am
What's really frightening is the thought of all these heavily armed private citizens who hate their own government. I saw us sliding quickly into fascism in the Bush presidency, and that trumped-up and unnecessary war against Saddam Hussein, at the cost of billions of dollars and the limbs and lives of so many fine young American fighting men. I have no naive trust in my government, now or 8 years ago, but I'll be damned if I would live here in the kind of fear and hatred expressed by many guns rights advocates. There are other nations in the world, you know, New Zealand and Australia, Canada and Germany, Sweden and Norway, etc. If there is no government on earth you would trust, you should be living in the mountains with the bears and eagles, and pull out your arsenal whenever you sight another human. Do you all look upon Timothy McVeigh as some kind of hero to emulate?
That's what's scary. All this fear and hatred, and where does it come from? Perhaps, if there is no government in the world you can trust, there just might be something wrong with your attitude, and arming yourself to the teeth is not going to solve your problem.
I look for reasonable solutions to problems. Like to hunt, fine, take your hunting rifle and go hunting in season. Like target practice? Fine, it can be satisfying and can hone your skills. But why do private citizens need assault weapons and arsenals? There is no rational or moral justification for it.
If I hated and feared my fellow Americans so much that I felt I had to be armed at all times, I wouldn't find it worth living in such a society. I won't live as a finger ready to squeeze a trigger against my own countrymen. Sure, there are dangerous places in America where it might be prudent to be armed, but those places can be avoided or moved away from, and I would prefer that to walking around with an armor vest and loaded weapons. That's no way to live.
July 27, 2012 12:29am
And go where? It's going to be a one world government soon! Ron if you think our government is great and is for the people then they did a real good job of brainwashing you while you were in the military! Did you serve during wartime? If so, then it was a pointless war, strictly for the profits of a slim few that you were forced to fight for the profiteers! And more than likely are permanently scared for life from! Do you think the government cares about that? HELL NO!
July 26, 2012 4:39pm
chicago and new york have strict gun laws and the rate of homicide there is over the top. So I have a handgun for personal protection. remember, bad guys don't care about laws.
July 26, 2012 4:36pm
Anyone who has ever been in a firefight knows that you have no time to identify where the shots are coming from. So if everybody is carryins and they all start firing the original shooter will get off scott free most of the time. Add to that the fact that most right to carry people have no training in actual combat, so this would be the first time they would actually take all that target practice to a battle and you have a recipe for a disaster. Friendly fire is one thing in a battle zone, it is murder when you take it to a movie house.
Ever notice in the movies how thebad guys lay down a river of lead and the good guy needs one shot? That is not how it happens no matter how much of a Rambo you think you are.
The real solution is to repeal the second, get rid of them as quickly as possible.
July 26, 2012 5:49pm
@triumph181 Anyone who's ever been in a firefight knows it's not to hard to identify, and take out, someone who walks around shooting up the place without concern for concealment and cover. That's why soldiers don't do that. The scenario you claim happens "most of the time" has never happened, and you know it. If "most of the time" concealed carry weapons holders shot each other up and the assailant got way scot free that would be all over the news. In fact if it happened once it would be all over the news. In fact armed civilians in the USA are only 1/5 as likely to shoot the wrong guy as the cops (2% vs. 11%).
You don't need to be Rambo to take out a guy who doesn't bother to take cover, makes his presence blatantly obvious and hasn't specifically targeted you. In fact shooter like this ALWAYS lose actual gunfights. ALWAYS. So stop lying.
July 27, 2012 12:30am
Well put!
July 26, 2012 3:09pm
I love Amy but she's all wet here. The hi cap mag on the M-16 probably saved lives because it jammed the rifle. Anyone familiar with the technology would've known that. That's a big problem with gun controllers, they know nothing of guns.
Re 2nd amendment, the founders were well aware that an armed population will never be tyrannized, that's the principle the 2nd was aimed at.
July 27, 2012 6:24pm
Let's end the tired canard about the resisting tyrannical goverments! See my reply to Wallykanan above - and let's add another example - the Whiskey Rebellion - put down by whom?? George Washington.
Another thing - I grew up with guns and inherited my father's sizable collection. They are examples of invention that have only one purpose - to kill. There is no "phasers-on-stun" setting on a Bersa .40. A gun is as good as its shooter but a proliferation just amps up the opportunity for more killing, not less.
And I lived for years under a tyrannical government - in Hungary in the 70's. Most of my fellow Americans, particularly the gun nuts who never served in the military, have no idea what a tyrannical government is but I can tell you, the Bush Admin came closest.
July 26, 2012 3:05pm
Here’s a question for the oblivious gun control nuts:
Q. If all guns were banned, who would flaunt the law and continue to own them?
A. No one (WRONG!)
B. Honest, law-abiding citizens (WRONG!)
C. Bad guys and psychopaths (RIGHT!)
If only ONE law abiding citizen was carrying a weapon in that theatre, there would have been only TWO SHOTS fired.
FreeMarketUnderdog.com
July 26, 2012 11:13pm
The reason why bad guys and psychopaths can easily obtain guns is because so many people have guns in their homes and are often burglarized. Guns are a prize for every burglar. It would take time, but if every confiscated gun was destroyed or melted down, eventually the well would dry up for the black-market weapons.
It's easy to picture one lone armed "good citizen," ostensibly with damned good aim in a darkened theater, saving the night by blasting the mad gunman. But what if 20 or 40 people had loaded guns and started blasting away in self-defense (again, in the darkened theater)? There could easily have been more than 12 people killed, and I think you know that. As I say, the theater was dark, and people can't always be expected NOT to panic in a situation like that, so bullets could have been flying all over the place. What happens to your argument then? It sounds to me like trying to douse a fire by throwing gasoline on it.
It's really a national shame and disgrace. We have higher murder rates than any country in Europe, because guns are so easy to obtain, and because guns make it SO EASY to kill or cripple other people. JFK, MLK, RFK, George Wallace, John Lennon, and so many blameless victims in high schools and colleges, and even a McDonald's, and yet we now allow assault weapons to be purchased by virtually anyone.
The Second Amendment was written to provide for the arming of a citizen militia when there was no standing army and European powers were suspected of planning to invade us. You have to study the history of that period to understand what the amendment was about. The militia arms were not to be used to fight against our own government, as wingnuts would have it. If they're so afraid of their own government, maybe THEY are the ones who should look abroad for a government they feel they can trust.
July 27, 2012 1:37am
Excuse me Mr. RON IN NM but I am guessing you flunked History. The Fact is that at the time the Amendments were written we were fighting with the British and according to the History books I read the British was our Government.
You should do some research on some of the blameless victims you mentioned. For example JFK was killed by a professional. There were at least 3 shooters and Oswald was not one of them. Watch some of the JFK videos and you will discover there were a bunch of people in on the assassination. Including the Vice President, the CIA the Driver the Passenger in the front seat George W. Senior and others.
Do a google search for JFK Assassination and watch the videos. One of them that was televised repeatedly over the years shows JFK's motorcycle protection and body guards dropped away from his vehicle as soon as it entered into Daily Plaza. Think about it, who has the power to have the Presidents body guards stand down? I will tell you who, the CIA and the Vice President.
If you look back on some of JFK's speeches you will find that he was trying to expose the secrete societies that are very much alive and very much in control to this very day. And if you think the people you mentioned were killed by single individuals that spent too much time in the sun, you are wrong.
The only reason we have any freedom left at all is because we have our guns. Even with them we are losing our freedom.
No doubt you are one of the people that still believes 9/11 was not an inside job. Common sense should tell us that he who controls the United States is a very powerful person and there are all kinds of people who will stop at nothing just to get their hands on a small piece of the pie.
You have heard the saying, When they outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns? Well not only is that true but so is the saying Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Take away the guns and those in power will become worse then they already are. If you want to stop killings in the US you allow people to obtain concealable weapons and require them to go through a training course and obtain a license to carry. I guarantee crime will plummet.
If you think taking the guns away from the good people is a good idea all I can say is their will be a large number of those guns that will have to be taken from cold dead hands. I expect controlling guns by making them illegal will be about as successful as controlling drugs.
The CIA give it while the police take it away.
You have a lot to learn my friend and I hate to say it but I don't think there will be much more time to learn the truth about what is happening here in the U.S. shouldn't you be watching Rush Limbaugh?
July 28, 2012 2:16pm
Thomas Lewis:
Sorry, but I simply have to correct your incorrect statement when you began "explaining the facts" to me in your attack. Just some simple dates:
Declaration of Independence 1776
Articles of Confederation ratified 1781
U.S. Constitution crafted 1787
Bill of Rights added 1791
Since a peace treaty was signed with Britain in 1783, and we later adopted the U.S. Constitution, and then later amended it, it hardly appears that we were fighting against the British in 1791 OR that Britain's government was OUR own, as you maintain. Really, if you're going to attack someone on the facts, you should get your own facts straight. Perhaps, when you thought you were reading "history," you were reading the "hysteria" penned by Coulter, Hannity or Limbaugh, none of which relates to reality.
July 28, 2012 9:21am
Thomas Lewis:
Your counsel for me to be watching Rush Limbaugh tells me where you're coming from, and I'm not going to waste a lot of time replying to a wingnut with paranoid conspiracy theories. Perhaps you don't know as much as you seem to think you do, but just get all fired up over things in your imagination. Go get some counseling.
And I didn't flunk History. It was one of my concentrations for my BS degree, and I scored quite highly in doing so. I got my undergraduate degree from the University of the State of New York.
July 26, 2012 2:33pm
This is typical Americanism defend violence. Gun's are not the problem! Violent video is. Don't you people care about the real issue here violence is making you want to defend your gun rights. Shit! Wake Up!
July 28, 2012 5:38pm
I have to make a comment about this.My 2 sons grew up playing violent videos, and I myself occasionally enjoy blasting the "zombies" in Left 4 Dead, and none of us have any violent tendencies toward other people. It's just fun, that's all, and we don't relate it to anything in our actual lives. Now, there may be unbalanced individuals who are prompted by violent games to act out the hostilities they harbor and don't know how to deal with, but it's wrong to blame the videos as the source of violence. The three of us are kind to children and animals and don't go around grinding our teeth and feeling hatred to anyone. It's like blaming rape and sexual assaults on pornography. Much of the porn on the internet is just a turn-off to me, because it's so hokey and unbalanced, and I'm no prude about such things. I hope most people are repelled by the extreme stuff. I myself like to look at attractive women in a nude setting, and I belonged to a nudist camp in my youth (it was very asexual, after the first few minutes) but these crappy and ungainly photos of women awkwardly exposing their shaved crotches must be something that appeals to drooling adolescents who have more hormones than brains. The bottom line is I don't think anyone is going to be corrupted by things they see on the internet or in video games, and hopefully most teen-aged boys will grow out of these phases and get repelled by violence for its own sake, or viewing crotches so avidly. I would, of course, try to protect they youngest children from such sex or violence extremism until they're ready to handle it. But don't tell me that this fruitcake in Aurora did what he did because of violent video games. Whether his madness stems from chemical imbalance or a trauma dating from earliest childhood is not for us to determine, but don't look for easy answers by blaming violent video games.
July 26, 2012 5:51pm
If violent videos were the problem why did homicide decrease for DECADES with more violence allowed in movies, video and even free-to-air TV? Start looking at the actual facts.
July 26, 2012 2:15pm
Same old, same old from the gun nuts: "Guns don't kill people - people do." Guns are just these benevolent or neutral objects - no problem at all. If that's so, why not just leave them lying around, so kids or anyone can pick them up? Oh, wait a minute, you do that already, don't you?
Or why not take the logic to its extreme - which I have no doubt will actually happen one day - and allow everyone to pack a hand grenade if they want to. After all, hand grenades don't kill people, people do. I like to go hunting with my hand grenade. It takes all the worry out of aiming. And ...I was a liberal, but now I just feel so much more secure with a hand grenade or 2 on my belt. And..if you take away my hand grenade, only criminals will have hand grenades.
July 27, 2012 1:54am
Have you ever seen how much damage a person could do in 5 minuets in a crowded movie theater with a sword? Or how about a a glass bottle filled with gas and plugged by a burning rag?
If someone has the intent to kill, they will do it one way or the other. The numbers may be less but the dead and injured will still be the dead and injured.
By the way the number 4 cause of death in the U.S. which far exceeds the number of people killed in the U.S. by guns every year is errors by doctors, druggists and other medical staff members. So why don't we focus on fixing that problem first.
July 27, 2012 5:48pm
I'm sick of this ridiculous argument - and the kool-aid you've been drinking. No doctor or medical professional sets out to kill people with drugs (Dr. Kevorkian aside, another issue altogether). No one gets into a car to deliberately run over people (addled seniors and faulty accelerators excepted). We don't outlaw them because they have no lethal purpose behind their invention. Doctors heal, automobiles convey us.
Guns were invented to kill people, period. There is no 'phasers on sun' setting. They have both served well and failed us in war and I'm not sure that is humanity's proudest achievement.
If home protection or shooting a deer at 200 yards is all you need a weapon for, what excuse do you have for owning half dozen high caliber handguns and assault rifles that can take BFI magazine? The sheer thrill of shredding a paper zombie at the shooting range? You have no legitimate answer - just a quasi-religious belief in your safety behind the barrel of a gun and that is a cowardly way of life. There is no statistic that does not bear out the fact that firearms are overwhelmingly successful at doing that for which they were invented - killing. For every criminal act prevented by a handgun, there are multitudes killed intentionally or accidentally every day. That alone is justification for removing guns from all civilian hands.
And as for that old canard about standing up against tyrannical governments or Communist invasions (yeah, I saw "Red Dawn", too) see my reply to Wallykanan above.
July 26, 2012 1:16pm
NO, NO, NO.
1 - Arms ownership were put in place to protect citizens from their OWN GOVERNMENT and MILITARY, as well as other governments and military structures. Having a single-shot revolver is absolutely NO deterrent to a military with machine guns.
In fact, the military has been giving, loaning and training local police with military weapons as of late - which is totally AGAINST the Constitution and Founding Father's intentions. To top this off, the military now has weapons that can overtake machine guns - which the general population needs to get to deter the government from any thoughts of a "military state."
As Bill Cooper was fond of saying, "The only reason why we aren't in a police state now is the deterrent that there are arms in houses from one end of America to the other."
The tragedy in Aurora is about LOVE. The people surrounding this young man fell down on the job, badly. Parents, mentors, teachers, friends. We can't mandate love and genuine care, but we can spread it around, today, now. We can infiltrate places and people that are "poor in spirit" and uplift them. This is spirit. Spirit always trumps over law. Always.
I for one am not going to allow the disarmament of an entire nation because of one lone freak. This is exactly what Thomas Jefferson, that great freedom fighter, meant when he said:
"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it."
July 27, 2012 5:58pm
YES YES YES. The 2nd was an addendum to the Constitution to placate the anti-Federalists like Patrick Henry who was fighting against the ratification of the Constitution of the United States. Madison and Jay had the Shays rebellion in mind when they wrote it - an armed militia of farmers raised to attack the Massachussetts statehouse - put down by a Federal militia. Madison and Jay were worried that the inability of the central government to fund troops in response made "the inefficiency of the Federal government more and more manifest" and the Union would go down in rebellion. Which it did - the War of Rebellion 1861 as it is historically known.
You're arguments are specious - and you have no faith in the Constitution and its defenders - although the current Congress makes me wonder if ineptitude is grounds for revolution. Nah. This country survives not because of armed citizens militias but because of the form of government that was intended to guide the outcome of disputes that are inevitable in a democracy. To argue against the government is to argue against yourself.
Gun ownership among citizens is a privilege, not a right.
July 27, 2012 2:03am
Touche, Dave knows what he's talking about.
July 26, 2012 12:43pm
I'm a resident of Florida, currently living in New York City.
A year ago I found myself in the process of obtaining a Concealed Carry Permit in Florida. I thought, "This is interesting. It's a measure of my anxiety about society."
Six months after getting the permit, I found myself buying a pistol. Again, a measure of anxiety.
I carry the pistol in Florida. I'm a far-left liberal/radical and notice I don't tell many of my friends I have or carry the gun.
Now that I'm in NYC where there is *no* license to carry a gun available to any but politicians, celebrities and jewelry store owners, I find myself, once again, a bit anxious. I grew up in New York, so it's not as if I've moved to a completely new environment.
I'd be happier if I could carry a gun.
---------------
In all the anti-gun conversations about Aurora, I don't see anyone suggesting that if five or ten people in that audience had been carrying concealed weapons, the outcome might have been very different.
I note that the theater in which the shooting took place specifically outlaws guns on the premises.
I imagine myself standing on a subway platform in New York and seeing a crazy person/terrorist start shooting. Would I want to know that there might be five or ten armed civilians on that platform? Of course I would.
Lastly, I know that when a crazy person entered a mega-church and threatened the crowd, he was killed by a civilian church member who had been assigned to a church security detail.
Growing up as a liberal in New York, I thought the city's Sullivan anti-gun laws, the strictest in the country, were a good thing. After the Brady shooting and the creation of a wider anti-gun lobby, I *still* thought restricting firearms access was a good thing.
I should say, "I didn't think..." about any of it. I was a non-thinking believer in gun control.
I've given it all some thought and have changed my mind. I believe Vermont is right. No gun permits. No special permissions. Anyone who wants to carry a gun can do so. I haven't heard that Vermont has become a center of gun crime, gun accidents or police attacks.
Think about it. If you or someone you loved were in a situation where a crazy or terrorist began killing people, would you be happy that no one in the crowd could respond effectively because of a gun law you supported?
July 27, 2012 6:08pm
I have collected 240 pages of commentary from armchair heroes who believe had someone in the theater been carrying, they could have ended the carnage, all believing themselves man enough and such a sure shot they could have pulled off a neck shot in a smoke-filled, darkened room with dozens of panicked people running wildly for the exits.
As gun-owning liberal with very good skills, I would hesitate before saying such a thing. The root of the problem in incidents like Aurora is the proliferation of weapons invented for war-time purposes - killing the enemy before he kills you. If we have descended into such a state now, then by all means, arm every citizen to the teeth. You figure out the rest - I can tell you it will be a state of mutually armed destruction only because of the accidents, the road-rage, arguments over phonebills.
Guns are for cowards, not heroes nor people wishing to live the fullness of life.
Vermont is a sparsely populated state - not exactly a lab for social inequality - which of course is the basis for the dissatisfcation and dismay in life. A gun does not level the playing field - it gives the owner a sense that they have power, control and defense. They have only the means to kill. What determines the time and justification for lethal force is different in each man, wise or foolish - but there is no society which condones settling differences with guns. Not anymore.
July 26, 2012 12:20pm
PLAIN and SIMPLE -
1) Estimate how many people OWN firearms legally in the U.S. or in a section of the country.
2) Research how many firearms related crimes occur within a period of time in the U.S. or in that section of the country.
3) Compare those numbers in a direct ratio.
4) Decide whether or not 'firearms ownership (and related legal accessories) is really the issue.
5) Smack yourself for not thinking that the human behind the trigger is the issue.
July 27, 2012 2:11am
Hey there is no need to go to all that trouble. The FBI has already done that for us and they found that crime goes down when there are no restrictions on guns.
However if you out law guns then you should also outlaw the water filled fire extinguishers because they can easily be converted into a Flame Thrower. Oh and fertilizer should also be outlawed because you can make a bomb out of it.
July 26, 2012 12:13pm
Gun owners please securely keep your guns but pay for the damage guns do to people and families. With Cars we register them, pay taxes and insure them so what is the problem with doing so with guns. The second amendment was written long before the invention of the assault weapon but it did apply to the musket. Perhaps its time to roll back the clock and regain some sanity about this issue. If our laws cannot keep crazy people from easily obtaining guns than we need a new approach. In Canada I understand people have weapons but not a media that bombards the public with violence 24 by 7.
July 26, 2012 12:24pm
The problem with that is that only law-abiding citizens would do that if that ever became a law.
Criminals wouldn't care...and its the damage caused by criminals that are usually the issue.
You compared it to car insurance, well, have you ever been in an accident with an uninsured driver?
July 26, 2012 11:53am
I really don't want to grace this stupid article with anything considered well thought through. Let's try this again, "GUNS DON'T KILL PEOPLE, PEOPLE KILL PEOPLE!" This will probably have as much effect as the last million times it been brought up. That won't let people who consider themselves intelligent to see the truth here. Let them deminish their reputations with this stupiditiy. Carolyn McCarthy is an asshole.
Let me comment something outside this stupid article, no one, hope you heard that, not one of the people that are gun holders that I know would ever give up their guns no matter what laws they pass. Remember, George Washington didn't try to talk the British into leaving our country, he shot them. Basically, that is one of the main reasons people keep and bear arms. Do you feel safe with a government like we have?????????? Stop the bulls***t and focus on real problems we have, there are certainly enough to go around.
July 26, 2012 11:53am
The argument is not about gun control or who is crazy or not, the argument is about the Second Amendment to our Constitution. It was brought in when we were a small nation, defenseles in front of almost overwhelming forces on every border. To the East there were nations that looked on us with envy, to the West Nations that looked on us with loathing and internally there were those who would return us to the British. There was an overwhelming need for a well organized militia armed with long rifles and blunerbusses. No More, we have become the nation to watch and fear, we export our wars and reap profit from them and the sale of weapons.
Internally we need to repeal the Second Amendment now. It has become the mantra of every NRA bought official and gun nut. If those people feel the urge to fondle their dilsos, then they should enlist in our well trained militia, the aremed forces of this country.
July 26, 2012 5:33pm
"-to the West Nations that looked on us with loathing- '
Once again 'Triumph181" shows his contempt for the people who were here long before the Europeans arrived, or maybe he just doesn't know jackshit about US history.
July 26, 2012 11:00pm
I think Triumph181 was referring to nations in the West, that is, in Europe, and not Native Americans. At least that's how I interpreted his comments. Then again, I could be wrong.
July 26, 2012 11:47am
Gun Control
In the United States in 2012, it is argued that in 1787 the founders knew that each person should have a gun to protect against all others. This is called the Second Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1791 as part of the Bill of Rights, and is so sacred that some people say it can never be changed. The arguments for or against unlimited gun ownership revolve around the interpretation of the Second Amendment which states, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” The National Rifle Association (NRA) convinced its supporters to interpret the Amendment to mean that individuals have the right to keep and bear arms without restrictions, while those favoring strict gun controls interpret the amendment as addressing the need for a well regulated Militia and the “people” being the collective body politic, as in “We the People”. Shouldn’t we think of the Second Amendment to our Constitution in terms related to the conditions that existed at the time of ratification? The founding fathers of this nation were not stupid, but they would have had to be if they would have known about the weapons available today, and determined that such weapons should be available to individuals without strict control. Those who control the NRA have made this place in which I live the most dangerous in the world, excepting those places at war. Who are they? Are they those who also profit from guns and munitions? I never hear anyone suggest that the National Rifle Association and the manufacturers of weapons and ammunition should bear any responsibility for the out of control gun murder rate in the United States. Shouldn’t the government place restrictions on what can be manufactured and distributed? All the speeches and articles decrying the horrors of gun ownership and deaths resulting from gun ownership will change nothing unless there are reasonable regulations and restrictions governing both gun ownership and gun and munitions manufacturing.
July 27, 2012 6:41pm
Hberndt, I agree 100% - but we have to be as forceful, almost vindictive as the individual rights proponents. They fight dirty, they use hyperbole and right wing scare tactics that only work on people with little civic-mindedness. They regard guns as a religion and we know how religion in America has rent the fabric. They regard freedom as the natural result of security but aren't willing to sacrifice genuine security for genuine freedom because they have no concept of freedom - only habits they've acquired.
Every argument from the NRA can be "shot down" with very little effort - but the vehemence of their belief defies rationality.
Argue hard, but don't use multiple exclamation points and capitol letters - it only angers them.
July 26, 2012 11:40am
What is insane, is that folks who live insulated lives of wealth and privilege, who belong to the upper quadrant 25% (NOT 1%) of plutocratic powerbrokers in our once beautiful pariticpatory democracy don't GET the facts.
We have broken down every civilizing institution via which for hundreds of years we human beings have, for all the failures attendent to any bureaucracy, enculturated virtues into our citizens and hence into our society.
During all that time guns were in virtually every household, and indeed, it is to guns and to weapons manufacturing we and Europe owe their freedom following the global threat of Adolf Hitler's Nazi fascism.
Guns do not make murderers. Insanity is not necessarily a causative factor. Social enculturation into perverted forms of violence contribute a geat deal. Crazy making pharmacological agents that cause drug induced psychosis, which is what the shooter of Gabrielle Giffords most decidedly had, (in addition to any other issues) are ubiquitous in our society, from marijuana laced with crack or speed, to bath salts.
We have an upper quadrant that has a stranglehold on all the nation's goods and then labels themselves society's best and brightest when the bottom three quarters of struggling paeons know they are only society's celebrity entitled.
Whatever else is wrong with our society, it is not our precious Constitution and its granteeship of elemental rights including that of self defense and national defense by private citizens.
In a community where only cops (too many of whom are corrupt and bullies with badges now) and soldiers have the only big guns ...you have a police state.
What we need is a multipartisan takeback and giveback of basic human empowerment to the working and lower middle class in order that our governemnt might actually represent all its people instead of only corporations and the affluent double upper income families.
We need to stop the stupid pseudoscientific social study domatic theorism about social problems and go back to honesty, accountability, truth seeking, truth telling and self sacrificing acts that are actually rewarded in society when people do the right thing instead of punished.
And we need to role model, not brainwash, our youth into happiness that is not rooted in social darwinism or anarchic hedonism, but in achieving virtues through self discipline and courage.
When we have a society in which kids once again internalize the actual goodness of Life's many beauties, instead of jaded, cynical, hypersexualized, exploitive hopelessness or the shallowness of media pop group think and mob bullying, then just maybe we will be able to stop the violence.
It is not now, nor has it ever been about the guns which protect us from violence. Anyone bent on violence will achieve it with acid or bombs, knives or fists unless stopped.
Outlawing weapons that protect us from enemies domestic and foreign, is a really scary capitulation to the thugs.
July 26, 2012 11:41am
Very well said! I applaud you.
July 26, 2012 10:56am
Yes again, you are being suckered into a conversation about gun control. If Amy Goodman really cared about stopping violence she would have written about violence in the media including movies, television, and video games and the media reporting countless actions of violence in the guise of the 1st Amendment right to freedom of speech.
Guns, Guns, Guns! Why don’t we talk to the people that make guns like the Carlyle Group, they endorse the Freedom of Speech by keeping our citizens actively involved with the gun debate. They know that guns don’t kill people the Carlyle Group invests in the 500 Billion dollar entertainment and Media business, they know if you go see Batman fight the evil doers you will want to do the same thing, play the game buying lots of guns and shooting at your friends, and family. Just in play don’t you know?
The Carlyle Group knows how to play the money game better than we do. The Carlyle group plays both sides of the game though; they play good guy and bad guy while they play the Human race. Who do you think makes the AK-47 for the so called terrorists, the Carlyle Group of course?
If you want to fight violence, start by fighting the media and the entertainment business. Violence in the media and entertainment desensitize people of violent actions, when the shooting happened how many of you did it really effect. How many people went and bought more guns and how many people went on watching the Batman flick or played a violent video game?
Did you know that in World War II, the firing rate on the front line against the enemy was 35%? That’s 65% that refused to kill the Germans and the Japanese, in reality the soldiers shot over the enemies head and this was true on both sides. People do not like to kill anyone and they have to be conditioned to do so. That’s why in today’s military the front line firing rates are up to 95%. Our men and women are conditioned to kill live targets.
The same is true amongst our young, the more conditioning you treat them with through video games and entertainment the more desensitized they are to violence and the more used they are to using violence to hurt one another and society.
So, Miss Goodman, please stop with the tit and tat about gun control and start investigating the Carlyle Group, and you might even want to investigate the Federal Reserve Bank they bankroll the wars in the world that pay the Carlyle Group to make weapons.
July 26, 2012 10:44am
I live in CO. Colorado needs to be zero tolerance. Look at the stats in countries w/gun laws. we need NO assault weapons, NO clips, NO glocks, because anybody insecure enuf to buy and stash them is unstable enough to use them wrongfully; 2nd amendment does not sanction them, these weapons of massive obliteration were not invented in 1776 and their ownership is NOT constitutional nor the killing. It will have to be thru referendum until we can move beyond 'deme-ocracy' {wherein greeks had demes like chinese had grandmas on every street to keep things in order} to full participation of all active citizens wherein the women can again have a balanced impact and sanity be restored, as this political system has become too corrupted w/testosterone on steroids to function for the benefit and health of the humans it no longer represents.
July 26, 2012 10:03am
Another Liberal nit-wit blaming inanimate objects. I have "high-capacity" mags, I guess I must be a lune.
These idiot Liberals are ONLY liberal about morality issues like gay marriage. Other than that, liberals are the true control-freaks.
And by the way, off topic here, all but 1 Republican voted FOR auditing the Fed, half of the "Liberal Dems" voted NOT to audit the Fed. What do the moral-torch-carrying liberals have to hide? You think CA Senator D Feinstein gives a rat's ass about CA? She's a Globalist to the enth degree.
July 26, 2012 1:56pm
"I have "high-capacity" mags." For what? Hunting? You must be a helluva shot. Target shooting? If you want to "play" army why not do the "real thing" and join up. Home protection? Statistics abound relating that the "armed homeowner" much more often than not winds up wounded or dead, NOT his/her attacker. Are you part of a "well-regulated militia?" Did the framers portend they would eventually incubate a nation of "carbine masturbaters" with a fetish to "nuzzle with the muzzle?" Do you have small kids mastermind? Do you let them play with razor blades? Aren't they "inanimate objects?" No you're NOT a "liberal pussy." Assuming you're a man...you're not much in that department either. Now go play with your toys...little boy.
July 27, 2012 6:50pm
WoetoPoe - you can sit by my campfire any time. The darkness around us is getting thicker. But these are not bright people - they've just acquired a set of really bad habits, bad manners, and a tendency toward lethal acts in the name of a poorly conceived idea of "freedom". Guns give them a false sense of power - and some are itching to become the next George Zimmerman. Individual rights folks are true believers in a concept that never existed. Gun only make cowards out of cowards (military and police excepted). I've been collecting facts, figures and anecdotal evidence on 2nd amendment issues for 30 years. Pro-gun is the weak side of humanity.