Early morning, July 20 - shot rings out in Aurora Colorado

[Steved1998]

Can someone here who is pro-guns explain to me in what kind of fucking situation would an ordinary citizen need an assault rifle?

To take down an assailant in a movie shooting perhaps?

 

[Steved1998]

Interesting question. Are we going to see metal detectors now at the movies? I wouldn't be opposed to it.

It's way too easy for psychos to get a hold of weapons and guns made for warfare.

There's more of a background check for getting your drivers license. Why are gun fanatics opposed to this? ( background checks, passing a safety test) What's the problem?
Or putting controls on how many bullets or what type of bullets you can buy. What is the big freaking deal? This makes me so mad.

Metal detectors at movies? Are you kidding? How about they strip search us too. Did 9/11 turn everyone in this country into a bunch of pussies?

 

[cobl04]

I can never tell if you're trolling or not, but I definitely agree with your second post there.

Incidentally when I saw TDKR Tuesday night, the shootings did pop into my head. Luckily the movie was so engrossing I forgot about it after 10 minutes.

 

[yolland]

by Chauncey Hollingsworth (The Atlantic, July 25)

I grew up with guns around the house. Firearms were an integral part of everyday life, as commonplace as bicycles and silverware. I always expected to hand my guns down to my children, a generational rite of passage among the men in my family. But I can no longer ignore the obvious: The conditions that once allowed owning a gun to become a rite of passage for American men have changed.

My dad was a champion marksman and gun collector, and I was a 6 year-old boy version of Saoirse Ronan's reindeer-hunting Finnish girl in last year's movie Hanna. By the time I entered fourth grade, I knew how to field strip, clean, and reassemble several types of revolvers, semi-automatic pistols and rifles. I knew wadcutters from hollow points. I knew how to ease my breath and relax my trigger pull for a better shot. One of my earliest memories is of the gun range. I was five, maybe six, as my dad drove our family there in our potato-brown Volkswagen Rabbit. It was very early in the morning and bitter cold inside. When my dad handed me his revolver, I turned to face him and he exploded at me. Never point a gun at anyone! Always point the gun at the target! That instruction would eventually evolve into never pointing a gun at anyone whom I didn't intend to kill.

As a kid, I associated guns with safety, the right to live in your own home without being afraid. It was ingrained in me early that outsiders were not to be trusted. We had a fallout shelter beneath the house, a Blair Witch hideout rank with musty smells and walls lined with canned food and mason jars. My dad jerry-rigged a wood panel with a holster so he could hide one of his revolvers under the bed ruffle by his dangling hand, loaded with five bullets so the firing pin rested on an empty chamber. (If the gun was dropped, this meant the pin wouldn't accidentally fire a bullet. Gun safety, you see.)

I became an adult who felt uncomfortable in a domicile that didn't have a weapon in it. I imagined the horror stories from the NRA's magazine, The American Rifleman--stories culled from the pages of newspapers of home intruders, usually, foiled with the help of a firearm--and wished for a gun of my own. When I finally got one, at 20, I was able to sleep soundly. When I heard creaks or strange noises in the Chicago house that I rented with a handful of roommates, I wasn't afraid. I felt empowered and in control.

At first, I found it difficult to reconcile all of that with this country's increasing numbers of violent murders. There was the Virginia Tech shooter. And the woman who was denied tenure and blasted several of her colleagues at the University of Alabama. The Columbine killers, of course. The D.C. sniper. The Fort Hood killer. The term "going postal," a reference to a rash of postmen and office workers who shot up their workplaces in the '80s and '90s. Never mind the drive-bys, the accidental homicides, the random schoolchildren hit by stray gunfire. The statistics began to speak for themselves: Every year there are 30,000 gun deaths and 300,000 gun-related assaults in the U.S. As PBS's Bill Moyers points out in an excellent commentary, far more Americans have been casualties of domestic gunfire than have died in all our wars combined.

Several years ago, my then-girlfriend and I were mugged on the street by an assailant with a gun one block away from a local police station and two blocks away from my home. Despite having only $10 to give him, he graciously opted not to shoot us with the black 9mm he was brandishing in our faces. He was never caught. Conceal-and-carry proponents would have you believe that a secreted snubnose would have changed that outcome. That blithe action-movie attitude ignores the fact that I'd have spent the rest of my life haunted by the memory of the stranger I'd killed over $10.

But the sad fact is that American society can no longer handle the responsibility of private gun ownership. We've lost whatever internal gyroscopes enabled us to monitor ourselves and our conduct. We need stronger legal controls on gun ownership, including not only background checks but mental fitness exams and mandatory training. There should be at least as much required to own a gun as there is to obtain a driver's license. Instead, even people on the government's terrorist watch list are legally able to purchase firearms.

There are obvious reasons that firearms in the hands of civilians make less and less sense: denser populations; higher powered weaponry; ever-looser regulation that prevents weapons from being effectively tracked from owner to owner, better enabling sales to criminals. But just as important is the dissolution of the social mores that once corralled the behavior of civilian gun-owners: the knowledge of one's neighbors; a sense of participation in a community; respect for others, even if their political views didn't align with your own. Even my dad, of the fallout shelter and the loaded pistol under the bed ruffle, would've viewed someone who owned a semi-automatic assault rifle as dangerously antisocial. You don't shoot paper targets or hunt with an AK-47 or AR-15 with a drum magazine. There's simply no appropriate place for that kind of firepower in civilian society and no justifiable reason for owning such a device.

We're living in the time of conceal-and-carry permits, of "stand your ground" laws that put the onus on the dead, not the shooters, to justify their intentions. The NRA has called for guns to be allowed in bars, in churches, in schools. Such proposals would create a paranoid, jumpy free-for-all far deadlier than anything in the Wild West.

We see gun violence--Columbine, gang shootings, this Holmes guy in a movie theatre--and we buy the rhetoric that we need to defend ourselves--with more guns, of course. We stock up on ammo, get the conceal-and-carry permit, and we complete the process of fulfilling our fears (not our hopes). In other words, we become part of the problem. And now we're standing, guns drawn at ourselves, poised in a standoff that is all too American.

 

[Steved1998]

I can never tell if you're trolling or not, but I definitely agree with your second post there.

Incidentally when I saw TDKR Tuesday night, the shootings did pop into my head. Luckily the movie was so engrossing I forgot about it after 10 minutes.

I look at it this way: I have a better chance of being killed on my way there than I would be killed in a movie theater shooting.


Metal detectors would have done nothing to prevent this. The kid left the theater through the emergency exit to get his stuff. Maybe they should alarm those things when opened. Or maybe the ATF should have done it's job and looked into the fact that a 24 year old was stocking up on $20k worth of ammo in a short time span.

 

[Irvine511]

That really is al we can do.

As well as better mental health.

I am beginning to think that the only way to understand these big shooting sprees/mass killings is as a mental health issue.

But, you know, "SOCIALISM" and all that.

 

[Steved1998]

That really is al we can do.

As well as better mental health.

I am beginning to think that the only way to understand these big shooting sprees/mass killings is as a mental health issue.

But, you know, "SOCIALISM" and all that.

The kid was never in trouble in his life aside from a speeding ticket. What are they going to do? Require mandatory screenings every year for every person in the country? His family and friends are just as responsible as he is for not getting him help, unless he played this very close to his vest.

 

[INDY500]

I think we will all agree that it would be much more productive if this could be the focus of the debates.

I was typing with my contacts and meant to say registration rather than restriction twice. It's an old guy thing.

But yes, maybe an issue where we're both (most people actually) are flanked on both sides by more stringent views.

 

[corianderstem]

His family and friends are just as responsible as he is for not getting him help, unless he played this very close to his vest.

You can't force an adult to get help. You don't know what his family or friends did or did not do, if anyone noticed signs of trouble.

 

[Diemen]

Heard a story on NPR about gun control in Japan. In order to own a gun (and your only options are a handgun or shotgun), you go through a rigorous background check, a mandatory mental health assessment at a hospital, and then a full day training course. You are also required to inform the police where in your house you store your weapon, and how much ammo you have (and I believe you're limited to 50 rounds max). Licenses are renewed annually, and you must undergo the full background and mental health check every 3 years.

I'd be perfectly okay with the States adopting that model. Particularly the mental health check.

 

[notsomadLisa]

It turns out I know two of the survivors.

Here's one. Her husband is currently in a medically induced coma after being hit in the face.
Miracle baby of the Aurora tragedy - U.S. News

This is Jansen. I used to TA with her in a couple of classes together, and would often shoot the shit about various music, movies and such.
Jansen Young Describes How Military Boyfriend Jon Blunk Took a Bullet for Her During Aurora Colorado Dark Knight Shooting | Video | TheBlaze.com

Our school typically has at most 500-600 students at any one time. For us to have two people (that I know of anyway, I've heard that there are a few more, but these two I know personally) is a little shocking.

/L

 

[BVS]

Reading state constitutions from the 13 states and arguments from the time it is pretty clear they are referring to an individual right.

This is not only lazy but simply not true, one cannot state that it's "clear" when a portion of those original 13 constitutions also stated that gun ownership was tied to regulated militias.

 

[the iron horse]

Heard a story on NPR about gun control in Japan. In order to own a gun (and your only options are a handgun or shotgun), you go through a rigorous background check, a mandatory mental health assessment at a hospital, and then a full day training course. You are also required to inform the police where in your house you store your weapon, and how much ammo you have (and I believe you're limited to 50 rounds max). Licenses are renewed annually, and you must undergo the full background and mental health check every 3 years.

I'd be perfectly okay with the States adopting that model. Particularly the mental health check.

I agree with a rigorous background check and a mandatory mental
health assessment and a training course. It should be a process that
takes several weeks or more.

 

[Pearl]

Heard a story on NPR about gun control in Japan. In order to own a gun (and your only options are a handgun or shotgun), you go through a rigorous background check, a mandatory mental health assessment at a hospital, and then a full day training course. You are also required to inform the police where in your house you store your weapon, and how much ammo you have (and I believe you're limited to 50 rounds max). Licenses are renewed annually, and you must undergo the full background and mental health check every 3 years.

I'd be perfectly okay with the States adopting that model. Particularly the mental health check.

Careful now. That may be interpreted as promoting socialism or even a communist dictatorship to a lot of people!

 

[Jeannieco]

Metal detectors at movies? Are you kidding? How about they strip search us too. Did 9/11 turn everyone in this country into a bunch of pussies?

No, making it easy for people with mental illness to access guns did. The mental health industry in this nation has a lot to say about this issue, but that's another story.
If the laws are not possible to change because of the NRA and it's bribery of Congress, then we have to play defense. There is no offense (prevention) . Do I want metal detectors, searches, ect.. invasion of privacy? NOPE! But this is a direct result of our worship of "weapons of mass distruction" and giving power to the rise of the NRA.
I am not talking about hunting rifles, I am talking about AK 47's and the like.

 

[BVS]

I agree with a rigorous background check and a mandatory mental
health assessment and a training course. It should be a process that
takes several weeks or more.

I like this reasonable approach.

Now if we could only get you to admit that certain guns are not needed for civilian ownership.

 

[LemonMelon]

I don't think he explicitly approved RPGs.

 

[Dfit00]

Venezuela recently passed a law prohibiting the ownership and commercial sale of guns to civilians due to constant pervasive armed crime.

Venezuela bans civilians from private gun ownership � Hot Air

I guess if the United States were in a similar position with increased crime rates, a law like this would be looked as a solution and not as the typical thing that the government interferes with the rights of the people.

 

[BVS]

I don't think he explicitly approved RPGs.

They're all just tools.

 

[elevated_u2_fan]

I don't think he explicitly approved RPGs.

Omg i luv skyrim!!1

 

[digitize]

Venezuela recently passed a law prohibiting the ownership and commercial sale of guns to civilians due to constant pervasive armed crime.

Venezuela bans civilians from private gun ownership � Hot Air

I guess if the United States were in a similar position with increased crime rates, a law like this would be looked as a solution and not as the typical thing that the government interferes with the rights of the people.

To be honest, Venezuela is one place where I would truly be concerned about this interfering with the rights of the people. I can't help but think that this may have something to do with Chavez cracking down to help reduce any future revolutionary thought.

 

[HBK-79]

A lot of people, especially the victims' families, insist that the shooter should be given zero media attention.

However, shouldn't there be some focus on Holmes in order to make an attempt to study and understand what's going on in these killers' minds?

This way, we may be able to detect red flags and become more proactive to intervene before someone else does something stupid.

I know I'm really reaching here. But I find it disturbing how "mental health issues" are often placed on the back burner in tragedies like this.

 

[BVS]

I know I'm really reaching here. But I find it disturbing how "mental health issues" are often placed on the back burner in tragedies like this.

I don't think that's reaching at all. But the problem is, there's not enough evidence in this particular case to use this as an example of a situation that could have been prevented if mental health were taken more serious.

 

[Danny Boy]

Venezuela recently passed a law prohibiting the ownership and commercial sale of guns to civilians due to constant pervasive armed crime.

Venezuela bans civilians from private gun ownership � Hot Air

I guess if the United States were in a similar position with increased crime rates, a law like this would be looked as a solution and not as the typical thing that the government interferes with the rights of the people.

If such a law were passed in the US, it would be struck down. Any real change in gun ownership policy would require a constitutional amendment.

 

[BVS]

Well that, and hell freezing over...

 

[Danny Boy]

Well that, and hell freezing over...

Yeah, that would come first.

 

[corianderstem]

However, shouldn't there be some focus on Holmes in order to make an attempt to study and understand what's going on in these killers' minds?

Yes, absolutely. But that focus and study should absolutely NOT happen in the media.

 

[Angel617]

The kid was never in trouble in his life aside from a speeding ticket. What are they going to do? Require mandatory screenings every year for every person in the country?

No, how about just mandatory screenings every year for those that choose to own a firearm.

 

[Pearl]

Yes, absolutely. But that focus and study should absolutely NOT happen in the media.

Indeed. Its amazing to see "reporters" and op-ed writers analyze someone they've never met before and likely never will.

No, how about just mandatory screenings every year for those that choose to own a firearm.

This I'm all for.

 

[LemonMelon]

Well that, and hell freezing over...

As badly as I want serious gun regulations, I sure as shit don't want the type of catastrophe that would provoke a Constitutional amendment.

There's still an ounce of patriotism in me, but our own constitution has fucked us pretty hard here. It's going to take decades of small steps or one huge, scary big step to undo our cultural perspective on gun ownership. Thankfully, it seems as if many people are OK with those smaller steps, such as yearly testing.

Preaching gun rights is absurd when we don't even have the "right" to something that is often a societal requirement, like driving a vehicle.