"Batman" Colorado Shooting

[Sheriff Magnetman]

I'm going to see Dark Knight Rises in a few hours, and its impossible to have gone through the day without learning of the horrific event that occurred last night in Aurora, CO. A few minutes ago, I found myself checking the local theater's website to read their official policy on CCW.

I felt a lot of sadness well up within me as I sought out this info. While I do carry more often now (always concealed), I guess I've gotten pretty used to the idea of carrying around a device that can be used to cause great bodily harm or death, and I've rationalized it as being a sadly necessary tool in a savage world. Last night, unfortunately, provided yet more justification to my feelings.

Not too long ago, I was discussing with some co-workers how trivial "anti-gun zones" are in the US, and someone brought up movie theaters. I said that they'd be a perfect place for some madman to unleash his plans (dark, many ban firearms so legal CCW is not allowed, not easy to get out of when packed to capacity). I look back on that conversation today somberly. There's really nothing stopping someone like James Holmes from getting a gun, legally or illegally, and deducing the best kill zones. The only thing keeping people like that from following through with these plans is respect for human life. There's unfortunately a small percentage out there that doesn't.

Holmes showed us yet another place in our every day lives where the boogeyman can get you. Now its theaters, and before that it was schools, courthouses, fast food restaurants, post offices, political meet and greets, the mall, banks, and even Amish communities. Monsters do exist, and they can get you anywhere, night or day, whenever they want, and despite what the federal government or local authorities say about it, the truth is they have zero defense against psychos like Holmes, or Jared Laughner, or Tim McVeigh, or the Columbine kids. These are, for the most part, pretty normal people in the public, some quirkier than others. It isn't until afterwards that the pieces come together, and obviously then its too late. There is no realistic way to prevent these tragedies, because once you ban one method, they'll simply resort to a different method (in Tim McVeigh's case, he opted not to use firearms because he wanted to send a message in protest to the 1994 Assault Weapons Act. The result was the biggest domestic terrorist act in US history).

I really don't know what I'd do if I were in that theater. I'd have my gun on me, but I can't say if I'd be able to do much with it, especially against a guy wearing a full suit of body armor (even my .45 wouldn't be able to stop that). I know the "macho guy with the gun" thing to say is that I'd yell at him and shoot a precision shot into his eye, saving everybody's lives, but I'd be willing to bet there was at least one person in that theater with a legal CCW who bolted for the door along with everyone else. Scenarios like this are a whole different level of crazy, and even the most tactically trained operator would have a problem dealing with it. This was a military-style ambush on an unassuming, relaxed group of civilians. Unless you sat down in that theater with a .30-06 or higher caliber rifle, you wouldn't win that fight. And as my weapons instructor says, if you find that you needed a rifle instead of a pistol, you'd wonder why you even came in the first place.

Its a damn shame you can't sit down in a theater and enjoy a good flick without keeping an eye on the exit or the crowd.

[Gauntlet101010]

It really is just crazy. I don't get what this guy was trying to accomplish.

I dunno if carrying a gun would have helped much. It's easy to say it could have made all the difference, but when there's panic in the air in a situation like that you never really know. But even so, it doesn't serve as much of a deterrent to owning one.

[Benjamin]

Perhaps one of the sad ironies about this shooting occurring at a showing of The Dark Knight Rises is that it mirrors Bruce Wayne's origin. The Waynes were gunned down when they were leaving a movie theater, which makes me wonder if this factored into the shooters motivations.

Another sad irony is that one of the dead survived the Eaton Center shooting in TO when she was on vacation.

[Sheriff Magnetman]

Psychos like this don't usually have a complicated motivator. They're angry about where they are in life, can't deal with it, so they take it out on people they deem as normal and happy under the pretense of some sort of false statement about society.

You get some who do have more driven and calculated reasons, like McVeigh, but guys like him are the exception rather than the rule.

The sad reality is that there's a lot of really disturbed people out there, and we don't know they are until its too late, as they usually hide it.

[Byron]

Guns don't kill people. People kill people.

This is probably going to kick off another 'Gun Control' debate in the States, most likely involving just how easy it can be for people to obtain them.

Still, this was a terrible tragedy and I think we should keep in mind that 12 people are dead and many more are injured. Hopefully the friends and family of the victims can work through this difficult time...

[Sheriff Magnetman]

I doubt it. If anything, last year's senator shooting in Arizona should have touched off the gun control debate, but it never happened. The fact is that since Obama took office, guns have never been more popular with the average US citizen. Demand is up something like 200%, and NRA membership is also up. We have more gun owners than there are people in Canada.

Gun control is the third rail of politics. Discussing it means instant political death. The democrats remember what happened the last time they went for a sweeping gun control measure- the 1994 Assault Weapon Ban. The people raged so hard that the republicans rode the wave into a sweeping victory during the 1994 election. The AWB was proven to be ineffective, as we still ended up with high crime and huge incidents, like the Oklahoma City Bombing and 9/11, and even stuff like the Hollywood Hills Shootout, where two criminals armored up and used weapons that were specifically banned by the AWB. In 2004, the AWB quietly sunsetted with little attempt to renew it.

This is a software issue, not a hardware problem. The guy bought his guns legally, and there was no way anyone could have known his intention. Thousands of AR-15 "assault rifles" are sold each year (being the most popular rifle in America), but a tiny, tiny fraction of them end up used in crimes. The guy also made bombs, which are obviously illegal, but do you think anyone like that cares? Its not hard to make explosives. Its not even hard to make radioactive dirty bombs. All it takes is willpower and a bloodthirsty, sick mind, coupled with access to the internet.

Some unscrupulous politicians will use this tragedy to further their own agenda, trying to sell peace by ridding America of these deadly weapons, but what they're really doing is making you dependent on them so that they keep their nice, cushy job with the dream benefits package. I've said it before and I'll say it again; until you fix the real issue here, that being of a weak moral fiber paired with mass stupidity and ignorance, banning any gun only serves to empower outlaws and politicians. It weakens good people like you and me.

Obama may push the issue if he gets re-elected, since he'll have more freedom to pursue his interests without having to worry about a future re-election campaign, but I really doubt he'll bring this up beyond a few vague promises about making America safe. Romney may even push the issue if he gets elected, as he has an anti-gun background, but I doubt that since it'll be his first term and he'll have way bigger issues to tackle first.

It takes a lot of money and energy to pass something like a gun ban and defeat the NRA (the biggest lobbyist group in DC) in the process, and Washington used a lot of it to pass Obamacare. As long as the economy is in the toilet, people aren't going to tolerate anything but job growth as the number one issue, especially after they feel so let down in the last decade.

EDIT: Theory confirmed: http://news.yahoo.com/feinstein-election-n...-153421106.html

[Byron]

Excellent points, although in terms of politicizing it's not just the gun control crowd doing it; we've also had statements such as this.

And I think I remember you (or someone else) stating that it would be difficult to implement any sort of gun control laws in the states, due in part to the fact that they've been 'lax' for so long that a lot of high powered weaponry is available to everyone. As such, implementing any sort of restrictions would have some rather...interesting consequences. It's something that I feel has to be addressed in any gun control debate.

I also honestly question the wisdom of making assault weapons available to the public because they can do a lot more damage than a pistol can, but I haven't thought about this for a while and will need more time to formulate a position...

[Sheriff Magnetman]

Sure, letting civilians own assault rifles is risky, but so is letting them drive their own cars. Drunk driving kills more people a year, and as a guy that just spent a weekend in a party bus for a bachelor party without having a single drop of alcohol, I can fully understand why. People just aren't self-responsible anymore.

Events like this are certainly sensationalized and exploited by people on both sides of the political spectrum. Gun control advocates loudly scream that there's no way this would have happened if he didn't have access to these firearms, and pro-gun groups proclaim that if there was a brave soul who was packing that night and willing to use it, lives could have been saved. Truth use that night was the culmination of many choices, both by the shooter and his victims. The shooter chose, for whatever reason, to take out his anger on a crowd, and the easy way was to use guns.

However, he obviously had enough knowledge to know how to make bombs, since he rigged his apartment with enough explosives to level the entire complex, so I think its a valid point that in this case the death and injury toll may actually be lower because of his choices, as if he didn't have access to these weapons he probably would have just tossed a bomb in there, killing a whole lot more people way more efficiently.

In the Middle East, the various Islamic militant terrorist groups rely more on explosives than firearms. This is because ammunition for their Soviet-era AKs is getting scarce and expensive, as well as the fact that bombs have a deeper psychological effect on a populous than a simple shooting spree. Its also easier to kidnap people and rig them up with a bomb vest than it is to force them to open fire on a crowd.

My point there is that due to various reasons, those already willing to commit such extreme acts of terror go with whatever weapon is most convenient for them.

Bombs are really, really easy to make. You can make them out of stuff you can buy locally, more cheaply than you can get one of these "assault rifles". The fact that these guns are a weapon of choice for these middle class crazy ass white kids is due to the fact that its easier to pick up a gun than it is to figure out how to make a bomb. But, if they're already mentally disturbed without access to these guns, I can guarantee you they'll just start making bombs to get their message across, making it even harder for police to track (before and after).

Wanna know something even scarier? Watch this short documentary. Its actually really good and thought provoking.

The Nuclear Boy Scout (Part 1)

The Nuclear Boy Scout (Part 2)

This guy lives about half an hour away from me.

Now, what's stopping him from using his brilliant mind to attach a bunch of highly radioactive material to a homemade bomb? The guy made a breeder reactor in his dad's woodshed, believing that fission had been attained, perhaps creating a few atoms of plutonium. And now, this knowledge is out there, and easily repeatable. Wanna take bets on whether or not we'll see a homemade dirty bomb attack on US soil in our lifetime? That'll make these "little" shoot 'em ups seem quaint by comparison.

Now, the other choice made on that night was by the patrons of the movie theater. I do not know what Colorado's concealed carry laws are, nor do I know that theater's specific policy on the matter, but if its anything like Michigan and the theaters I frequent, at least one person would have been armed. Again, I'm not saying that a gun instantly makes a guy a hero, nor does it guarantee survival, but I'd be willing to bet that a good share of the people in that theater that night wish they had a gun.

The thing is, Americans are very, very spoiled. We haven't had an actual war on our soil in well over a century, whereas many parts of the world deal with it every day. To proclaim that we're somehow above the need to self-regulate and be vigilant reeks of arrogance, smugness, and ignorance. Quite obviously, threats exist everywhere, at any time, whether or not the "right" people are "allowed" to own deadly weapons or not. After all, someone smarter than I once said "the price of freedom is eternal vigilance."

Basically, if you like this freedom stuff, you gotta be ready to act on your own, and not rely on anyone else. Cops got to that scene pretty quick, but they haven't mastered teleportation or precognitive abilities yet, so that means you've always got to very aware of your surroundings, no matter how relaxing it may be. I know that sounds like tough guy, "hindsight is 20/20" talk, but considering I purposely avoid theaters that explicitly prohibit lawful carry of concealed firearms, I'd say I was on to something.

Do not misunderstand me here- I'm not holding any of the victims accountable for the random acts of a madman. They have no blame in this tragedy, as all they wanted that night was to take in the show and go home. However, my point is that how sick society is these days, you can never completely disengage. Banning guns doesn't change that. It only ups the ante.

Up until 1986, any lawful citizen could own a full auto machine gun. This ability even survived the initial definition of "machine gun" by the federal government in 1934, as well as the RFK panic-induced Gun Control Act of 1968. Wanna know how many of these machine guns were used in murders? Two. One of them was committed by an off-duty cop who caught his wife in bed with another man. In 1986, the US government stepped in and saved us from this vicious onslaught by making machine guns all but out of reach for average citizens (we can still get them, but you have to wait up to a year for the paperwork to clear, pay a $200 tax, and submit to an ATF inspection whenever they want).

I bring that up because once machine guns were off the table, despite their lack of popularity with mass murderous psychos, they just went for the next easiest thing. Ban the semi-auto version of these assault rifles, and they'll just move onto the next available tool. If you were to ban guns entirely, you simply force these maniacs to be more clever in their methods.

Now, when I turned on the news today and had a bunch of overproduced segments on the theater massacre shown one after another, they naturally showed a bunch of people shouting about how "something needs to be done about these guns". I got the distinct feeling while watching these people, many of whom were extremely overweight and unable to speak coherent English, that they would very quickly jump to the other side of the debate if they had the option to kill rather than be killed. I also got the impression that these people are so utterly lazy that they just wanted somebody else to do all of the hard work for them so they didn't have to worry about anything. Then I realized that a good share of these people are parents. Parents who have no business raising kids, as they apply this "let someone else worry about it" philosophy to everything.

Sometimes people are just sick in the head no matter how to you raise them. But, most of these cases are from parents who did the bare minimum in raising their kids, so they wound up establishing their own set of morals.

How's that working out for you so far, 'Mericuh?

[Byron]

I'm guessing 'not so well'?

I'll also watch that documentary at a later date (let's say by the end of next week) and provide feedback when I do so, okay? From the sounds of it, it should be interesting.