The Aurora Shootings
By David J. Theroux • Monday July 23, 2012 11:01 AM PDT • 40 Comments
The horrendous and calculated, July 20th shootings in Aurora, Colorado, are a great tragedy not just for the victims and their families but for everyone who can clearly see the utter evil of such acts and the helplessness we all feel as a result.
However this massacre might have been far less likely for there are a number of key problems that have gotten virtually no attention in the media and the political demagoguing that has resulted.
1. The patrons of the midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises had entered a zone in which there existed no real protection of any kind against acts of violence. The theater chain owned by Cinemark maintains a strict no-gun position, not just for customers but for all employees, including security personnel. Of course, the theater has full right to ban guns for its customers not just for safety purposes but to keep insurance costs to a minimum, but I draw the line when it also includes security personnel, deferring the only security to the local government police.
And while Colorado has a liberal policy of issuing concealed carry permits for adults over 21 years of age, the City of Aurora and twelve other cities in the state (including Colorado Springs, Denver, Littleton, and Boulder) have adopted local ordinances that prohibit concealed carry permits. In addition, most of the theater goers were under-age for such permits. Furthermore, at midnight the rest of the shopping center area was closed and deserted of employees and patrons, so that aid from others was not possible. Nevertheless, film critic Roger Ebert has predictably and ignorantly made wild claims that the incident proves the failure of concealed carry permits and that America’s gun laws are “insane.”
That James Holmes is insane, few may doubt. Our gun laws are also insane, but many refuse to make the connection. The United States is one of few developed nations that accepts the notion of firearms in public hands. In theory, the citizenry needs to defend itself. Not a single person at the Aurora, Colo., theater shot back, but the theory will still be defended.
Ironically enough the scene of the Columbine High School shootings took place just sixteen miles away on April 20, 1999, where the school zone for blocks also had a strict no-gun policy, giving predators open and unchecked access to murder at will. Contrary to Ebert, the evidence is overwhelming that private ownership of guns is not just a major deterrent to crime but enables rapid responses when crimes occur (see here, here, here, and here). Indeed, here is an instructive video:
2. The shootings went on for fifteen minutes with the initial recording at Aurora police at 12:39 am. Fortunately, the theaters are close to the police station which explains the short response time, but the fact remains that the police could only arrive after the fact and no one on the scene was allowed to be armed to stop the assailant. Indeed, most all police response occurs after crimes have been completed and for Cinemark, the decision was to defer such threats solely to the local police, producing the government failure that occurred.
3. While the theater firm bans guns, they encourage customers to come “in costume” as a marketing ploy and even carry “weapons” as characters in the film, including the mass-murdering Bane! And indeed, James Holmes apparently did just that, dressed in full-body armor including helmet and gas mask and carrying a shotgun, rifle, pistol, and gas canisters. The first question then is was no one watching, including all entrances? No, the answer is that the theater believed that people attending “in costume” was just A-Okay and looking like a mass murderer is apparently no reason to check for Cinemark. And why would Warner Brothers have such a hyper-violent film rated PG-13, except to entice unprotected children to see it?
4. Cinemark’s deferring entirely to the government police is also all part of the “Progressive” myth of the Zeitgeist view that holds that the citizenry cannot be trusted or allowed to make their own decisions but instead should be regulated and controlled by secular, government, bureaucratic “elites.” So for Cinemark and the Hollywood culture it works for, being P.C. to have a gun-free zone is a convenient “Progressive” way to be in sync with the entertainment industries’ support for gun control.
5. Finally, the “chic” entertainment culture of gratuitous death, sadism, depravity and torture, a/k/a Quentin Tarantino films, slasher films, gangster films, and vampire films, etc., reflects the post-modern, moral relativist norms in American elite, popular, and youth cultures. Ironically enough, the Obama re-election campaign tried initially to use the film to link the character Bane to Romney and Bain Capital with Obama and Biden the alleged Batman and Robin, but this has completely backfired as the director Christopher Nolan attacked the idea. In addition and despite the violence, the film’s themes are clearly anti-”Progressive” ones of a courageous, private and wealthy citizen (Bruce Wayne) standing up to the incoherent and immoral, “Progressive,” collectivist and statist forces of moral depravity and violence. In this regard, the Zeitgest support now for gun control in response to the Aurora shootings incoherently translates to mean that all innocent and peaceful citizens should be subject to the threat of lethal force by the State if they do not comply with gun control edicts, exactly what the views of the Bane and Joker characters in the films advocate. In other words, for Roger Ebert, Michael Bloomberg, Dianne Feinstein, Piers Morgan, Frank Lautenberg and other “Progressives” (i.e., authoritarians) the solution to a lone nut using lethal force against the innocent is to disarm them and subject everyone to a universal threat of lethal force so long as it is done “scientifically” and “fairly” by their revered, secular State.
Tags: Civil Society, Conservatism, crime, Culture, Gun Control, Law, Liberalism, Liberty, Media, Morality, Nanny State, Personal Liberty, Police, Privatization, Regulation, Safety, Terrorism, Torture, Video, Weapons 
Norway has few such occurences, but surely the larger the population, the larger the number of fanatics in the total. . Norway 8 million, USA 300 million. Religious fanatics alone must number in the thousands in the USA.
richard | Jul 23, 2012 | Reply
Richard, Somehow you have apparently forgotten the gun and bombing rampage last year in secular, gun-controlled Norway, in which 77 were killed.
David Theroux | Jul 23, 2012 | Reply
No I did not. The point I thought I made was compare the numbers. Norway has a fairly high percentage of it population involved, similar to ours.
richard | Jul 23, 2012 | Reply
Denying law-abiding people their constitutional right to bear arms for their own protection transforms them into defenseless targets for criminals who, of course, simply ignore laws they don’t agree with (sort of like like Obama, Holder, Geithner and Napalitano, doesn’t it?) One would think that criminals might think twice about opening fire on a college campus, in a theatre or elsewhere if they believed that SOME of the people assembled there just might fire back., If only ONE person in that auditorium had had a gun in his pocket or in her purse, the death and injury total would have been a heck of a lot less. But, no. Theatre policy was to save money by NOT having security even at a time of packed houses and instead turning their clientele into sitting ducks.
Mark Charger | Jul 23, 2012 | Reply
Richard, Let’s see then, using your reasoning: Norway’s population is 8 million and had a massacre a year ago killing 77 and injuring 319, or .005% of the population; the Aurora shootings resulted in 12 killed and 58 injured, or .0000023% of the U.S.’s population of 300 million. In gun-controlled Norway, the assailant Anders Behring Breivik is a secularist, nationalist and pantheist who admires the work of the militantly anti-Islamic, atheist Ayaan Hirsi Ali. In Aurora, there is every indication that Holmes is also a secularist.
I would hence suggest that your claims do not hold up. May I also suggest the following article?
“Secular Theocracy: The Foundations and Folly of Modern Tyranny”
David Theroux | Jul 23, 2012 | Reply
People must realize that the Founders put the 2nd Amendment into the Bill Of Rights not so that people could protect themselves from criminals or for target shooting or for hunting. If you read the writings of the period the Founders put Firearm Rights into the Constitution so that the people could protect themselves from their own government. Especially the Federal Government. The Founders were afraid of standing armies because they knew that tyrants would use those same armies to terrorize and control their citizens,especially in the pursuit of tax collections. A good example of this was the Battles at Lexington and Concord early on in the Revolution. This is where the Crown sent a detachment of Redcoats to seize the firearms and powder that was stored in these 2 towns. And,of course, the Patriots refused to give up their guns and instead fought the British into a hasty retreat. History shows that when people are disarmed they are easy targets for tyrants. Think of what would have happened if every Jew met every Nazi at the door with a gun. There may have never have been a Holocaust. This is why Hitler made sure that the Jews were disarmed before the “Final Solution” was put into motion. Its the same old story. Firearm ownership is an indication of a free man. And,as the old adage goes,”when the government fears their citizens there is liberty and when the citizens fear their government there is tyranny.” A welled armed citizenry has little to fear from their government.
libertarian jerry | Jul 23, 2012 | Reply
“Of course, the theater has full right to ban guns for its customers…”
And it thereby assumes the responsibility for their security, morally if not legally. Putting up a sign and doing NOTHING else creates a “make-believe safety zone.” Unless you also scan people entering to ensure they comply, all you have done is to create a free shooting gallery for any terrorist or nutbag. That the movie house actually ALLOWED a “costumed” patron to enter with actual weapons is nothing but felony negligence.
Here is the OTHER recent shooting that happened in Aurora, Colorado. The lamestream media DIDN’T cover this one. Why? Because an armed citizen cut it short, as he should have.
Henry Bowman | Jul 23, 2012 | Reply
Two key issues have been avoided or skimmed over in the black or white need for everyone to rush back to protect their platform. Why aren’t we talking about mental illness and the ability for the mentally ill to gain such armaments as automatic weapons, body armor etc...? I see a wide discrepancy between ordinary citizens having guns for hunting, self-defense and for collecting/hobbies and the NRA’s fight to make automatic and semi-automatic weapons available to a wide variety of people including the mentally ill. The “secular state” also determines that those who think they can drive while intoxicated will not be allowed to. That a bad idea?
Second, this really idiotic fantasy of Coloradans packing heat in a midnight show and as the gas canisters are released and the smoke billows in the darkened theater (extra dark cuz it is, after all, the Dark Knight) they are able to rise up and, with Batman like accuracy, shoot down a guy in BODY ARMOR without hitting any number of innocent bystanders?!?
Really?
As for security at the theaters upon entering, and especially at such a show? Good points all. I imagine that will become regular, Very good point indeed.
The majority of Americans do not have any interest in divesting people of their guns. Just the massive firepower. I mean why not tanks, bazookas, and grenades?
Mac
Christopher MacDonald | Jul 23, 2012 | Reply
The toothpaste is out of the tube. Continuing to disarm law abiding citizens is negligent as well as deadly, since the bad guys have guns and are willing to kill said citizens. Dozens are killed here in Chicago on a monthly basis; it’s ironic concealed carry is not allowed as it is in the 49 other states in the union. Would concealed carry without restriction have saved one, two, or twelve of the victims in Aurora? We will never know...But they would have at least had a fighting chance.
Garry Watkins | Jul 23, 2012 | Reply
Mac, 1) Allowing government officials to determine who is fit and who is not to own a gun means that some will be left defenseless based on the “precautionary principle” that some people should be subject to “prior restraint” without due process, even if they have not committed a crime. A better approach is the traditional common law use of covenants to establish norms for property owners to police themselves and reduce risk from predators or deranged trespassers. In addition, the definition of “mental illness” has been shown to be a vague and slippery one, and empowering government officials to impound individuals based on “mental illness” has produced enormous injustice in the past, as Thomas Szasz and others have shown.
2) Covenants are similarly relevant for policing the use of heavy weaponry just as in the desire to keep dynamite factories, dump sites, brothels, and refineries from moving next door. However, the issue we are discussing here is the ability of private citizens to have the means of self-defense and prohibiting handguns is both foolish and outrageous. The Aurora shootings are Exhibit A that gun control is utter folly. Indeed, gun control is itself a crime!
David J. Theroux | Jul 23, 2012 | Reply
While I wholeheartedly believe in the right to defend oneself and carry concealed, I have to say that some people should not be allowed to carry a magnanamous device such as a firearm. That was taught to me in basic firearms training in my introductory course – the presenter stated “some people should not be allowed to hold a salad fork, let alone a firearm” and exclaimed that at the final testing, he would be the sole judge and jury of who will be allowed to test and who will be asked to leave.
I have a friend who should not own something such as a firearm, this person lived with me for a while and exhibited signs of Aspergers. That’s the info I rec’d from a trained mental health professional that I had known. The exactly words “I can’t give you a full and accurate diagnosis without meeting “person X,” but based on the description that you are giving me, this sounds like Aspergers.” We had a child in the house, and I wanted to know what I was dealing with. Being that I was, at the time, a veteran schoolteacher, I was fully capable of presenting first hand evidence.
I myself put my guns away, years back, when my mom died – for two years. I didn’t want them in my life. When I felt capable, I slowly re-acquainted myself with review and practice. I’ve told my wife that if she ever sees me exhibit certain behaviors to call the police and have them come and disarm me. I will do the same for her as well.
I won’t drive at night as my eyes have played tricks on me when there are certain lighting conditions. Some people can “self-police” and some cannot or won’t.
Some will laugh at my post and others will understand.
Dahnoo | Jul 24, 2012 | Reply
If you look at nations around the world you’ll notice that countries armed citizens have lower instances of gun violence. For example, Switzerland issues each adult a firearm and trains them to use it. I believe that is why their instances of gun violence are the lowest in the world. Think about it: how many people would be shot by an insane gunman in a crowded theater of trained armed citizens.
Christopher Lacy | Jul 24, 2012 | Reply
Henry, this is a great point. People don’t stop to think of the implications of a no-guns policy, but you have hit the nail on the head. Maybe this is the way to break the potential log-jam of businesses trying to keep people from entering their premises armed. Simply sue the pants off of them when they are found to be negligent in providing security if they don’t allow people to furnish their own. And, maybe the cost of providing security for their patrons will more than offset the potential insurance costs a business would have to pay if they do allowed armed citizens on their premises.
I agree with David that businesses have to right to bar firearms from their premises, but they should bear some responsibility when their policy backfires and innocent people are hurt or killed when a deranged person starts shooting. This is something all businesses should ponder.
Antonio | Jul 24, 2012 | Reply
Get on a bus any day in Guatemala. Two passengers draw handguns. One aims at the passengers the other robs them. Resist and you get shot. Then another passenger draws a gun and there is an exchange of fire. Neither he nor the thugs can handle a gun. They just spray without aim. Several passengers are hit. Mark Charger thinks that just one person with a gun would have reduced the casualties in the cinema. Nonsense.
0ldie | Jul 24, 2012 | Reply
Oldie, This is all the more reason to privatize buses in Guatemala and elsewhere and allow bus firms to provide security for their customers. As it is now, the “tragedy of the commons” of government transportation provides open season for predators.
David J. Theroux | Jul 24, 2012 | Reply
Why religious fanatics? from what I have read, this guy wasn’t particularly religious. Neither were any of the other recent terrorists (a/k/a mass murderers) in the U.S. What the heck? Thank GOD that I have been able to find at least some solace in my faith. Some times these people are just plain crazy.
Carla | Jul 24, 2012 | Reply
For the numbers read a new article “It’s the Guns-But We All Know,It’s Not Really the Guns”, by Michael Moore, in Truth-Out.
richard | Jul 25, 2012 | Reply
Richard, For accurate numbers, I would suggest you look elsewhere than the propaganda of Michael Moore. Not only does Moore get the numbers wrong but he turns a blind eye to the meaning of gun control. Indeed, Moore supports gun ownership, but only for agents of the State as he exalts sweeping and apparently unlimited powers for police to threaten lethal force against the citizenry in virtually all aspects of life (e.g., healthcare, food, housing, welfare, employment, education, etc.). Moore is in fact a true-believing authoritarian who utterly distrusts the citizenry and claims that government power must be pervasive throughout society to keep people in line with his socialist ambitions.
More specifically and contrary to Moore’s claims, he uses numbers that do not distinguish between gunshot “deaths” and “killings.” As evident from the statistics anyone can find at the Centers for Disease Control Web site, and using 2003 as a sample year, more than half of of all gunshot deaths were indeed suicides by adults, not Moore’s “two Auroras that take place every single day of every single year.”
As Don Kilmer notes, “The FBI publishes its Uniform Crime Reports annually on its Web site at http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/ucr.htm. The total number of homicides in which a firearm was used by the perpetrator between January 1, 1993, and December 31, 2006, is 151,934. Do the math—that works out to 10,852 firearm homicides per year for that 14 year period.” Yet, Moore erroneously claims a figure of “over 25,000″ and that this total does not include suicides or accidents.
In addition and as criminologist Gary Kleck and other scholars have shown, 2-2.5 million uses of guns for self-defense occur each year compared with 100,000 to 125,000 uses for criminal purposes.
And for Moore’s claims that “the United States is responsible for over 80 percent of all the gun deaths in the 23 richest countries combined,” economist John Lott reports that since 2001 the average rate of deaths from mass shootings in Europe and the U.S. is the same, but that (with a higher population) Western Europe with gun control experiences more killings in absolute numbers each year. Here also is a list of mass killings in gun-free zones in Europe:
- Zug, Switzerland, September 27, 2001: a man murdered 15 members of a cantonal parliament.
- Tours, France, October 29, 2001: four people were killed and 10 wounded when a French railway worker started killing people at a busy intersection in the city.
- Nanterre, France, March 27, 2002: a man kills eight city councilors after a city council meeting.
- Erfurt, Germany on April 26, 2002: a former student kills 18 at a secondary school.
- Freising, Germany on February 19, 2002: Three people killed and one wounded.
- Turin, Italy on October 15, 2002: Seven people were killed on a hillside overlooking the city.
- Madrid, Spain, October 1, 2006: a man kills two employees and wounds another at a company that he was fired from.
- Emsdetten, Germany, November 20, 2006: a former student murders 11 people at a high school.
- Southern Finland, November 7, 2007: Seven students and the principal were killed at a high school.
- Naples, Italy, September 18, 2008: Seven dead and two seriously wounded in a public meeting hall (not included in totals below because it may possibly have involved the mafia).
- Kauhajoki, Finland, Sept. 23, 2008: 10 people were shot to death at a college.
- Winnenden, Germany, March 11, 2009: a 17-year-old former student killed 15 people, including nine students and three teachers.
- Lyon, France, March 19, 2009: ten people injured after a man opened fire on a nursery school.
- Athens, Greece, April 10, 2009: three people killed and two people injured by a student at a vocational college.
- Rotterdam, Netherlands, April 11, 2009: three people killed and 1 injured at a crowded cafe.
- Vienna, Austria, May 24, 2009: one dead and 16 wounded in an attack on a Sikh Temple.
- Espoo, Finland, Dec. 31, 2009: 4 killed while shopping at a mall on New Year’s Eve.
- Cumbria, England, June 2, 2010: 12 people killed by a British taxi driver.
David J. Theroux | Jul 25, 2012 | Reply
How many of those “thousands” of religious “fanatics” murder other people compared to the great mass of people that have left everthing Christian behind them?
bill | Jul 25, 2012 | Reply
Reading Michael Moore is a complete waste of time. My less Christian sentiments imagine that idiot being tarred and feathered for the complete laughing stock that he is. The only tragedy is that people actually take him seriously. If he is so concerned about the welfare of this country, he should put his money where his mouth is and give all his wealth away. That is what he wants others to be forced to do by government. Again, he is an idiot and a demagogue.
bill | Jul 25, 2012 | Reply
Jacques Delacroix, who has published a couple of really good articles in the always excellent Independent Review, has written a great outline on some of the facts concerning gun control: Guns and Truth. He uses a cross-national comparison and illuminates some pretty standard conclusions...unless you’re a Leftist.
Nodnarb the Nasty | Jul 26, 2012 | Reply
If gun-free zones make gun-control fanatics feel safe, then they should place signs in their home and car windows announcing that these places are gun-free zones. Instead of Che Guevara shirts they should don clothing advertising that their bodies are gun-free zones. Even in gun-ban cities, such public articulations of irrational beliefs should provide sufficient easy targets for criminals so that the rest of us are left alone.
MetaCynic | Jul 28, 2012 | Reply
The example of the Swiss militia has been twisted, and is now often misquoted to support concealed carry. Please check the facts. Peaceful Switzerland has no standing military, but does draft most of its young men to train for its militia. The trained men keep their government weapons–but no ammunition–at home. These weapons are not for self-defense. And there is no concealed carry permitted in Switzerland.
Linda | Jul 31, 2012 | Reply
Linda, Your claims are only partially correct. You are correct that since 2007, militia members cannot have government-issued ammunition in their homes. However, the country has at least 1.2 to 3 million firearms in private homes, most of which are not attached to the military, and most types of ammunition are available for commercial sale. In addition, Swiss citizens can indeed obtain permits to carry guns, and neither hunters nor game wardens require a carrying permit.
“Citizens in Arms: The Swiss Experience,” by Stephen P. Halbrook (Texas Review of Law & Politics)
“Guns, Crime, and the Swiss,” by Stephen P. Halbrook (Wall Street Journal)
“Where Kids and Guns Do Mix,” by Stephen P. Halbrook (Wall Street Journal)
David J. Theroux | Jul 31, 2012 | Reply
This is just stupid. Who’s going to protect the rest of us from the Rambo who’s shooting up the place along with him? It would make the OK Coral look like a church social. And who’s to keep the Rambo from shooting every perceived threat that he invents while playing life like a video game?
tosten | Aug 1, 2012 | Reply
tosten, The answer is security provided by private property owners and armed citizens. Please see the following:
More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws, by John Lott
David J. Theroux | Aug 1, 2012 | Reply
David, they are the Rambos I am talking about.
tosten | Aug 2, 2012 | Reply
tosten, This is a total myth as scholars such as Gary Kleck, John Lott, Don Kates, and others have shown. Indeed, it is private citizens who are responsible for stopping most all crime, with the government police only responsive after the fact. Moreover, it is government agents who society-wide threaten lethal force domestically in the myriad taxes, mandates, and other edicts, and these agents are equipped with massive and unchecked firepower. And globally, government agents are responsible for daily mass killings on a gigantic scale.
In short, it is primarily the State and its agents who are the problem not the citizenry.
David J. Theroux | Aug 2, 2012 | Reply
I’ve never been worried about any government attacking me but I have worried about the guy next door with a pistol in his pickup next to the bottle of Jose Cuervo. That is reality and not the rantings of some pseudo intellectual blogging his way out of personal experience.
tosten | Aug 2, 2012 | Reply
Tosten, You should realize that if you do not obey government edicts, you will ultimately be visited by a SWAT team and if you resist they will kill you.
But as I have noted above, communities are safer ones in which guns are legal and every person (including any government official) is held accountable under a uniform rule of law.
The further and key irony here is that for fear of “Rambos” (which incidentally primarily occur in gun-free zones), you support banning guns through society-wide threats of lethal force by governments against all citizens who do not commit any crimes of any kind.
David J. Theroux | Aug 2, 2012 | Reply
“The shootings went on for fifteen minutes.” I was already laughing at the sensationalized, 3-angle, Epic Soundtrack depiction of “guy shoots would-be burglar.” But seriously... 15 minutes? Is the author familiar with ANY of the facts of the case? The crowning moment, though, was when the author became a film critic for a split second.
I wonder if the author is aware of a certain organization that recently put on a Hollywood Arms exhibit, featuring (among other weapons) the shotgun used by “the Joker” – a role that the Aurora shooter seemed to have taken as inspiration for his crime. If the Independence Institute wants to look around for those who promote “the ‘chic’ entertainment culture of gratuitous death,” it has only to look at one of its donors – the NRA.
EJRT | Feb 8, 2013 | Reply
EJRT, As a correction, we are the IndependenT Institute, not the IndependenCE Institute. We would suggest that check your “facts” and aim your accusations elsewhere.
David J. Theroux | Feb 8, 2013 | Reply
Says the guy who didn’t check any facts before writing an entire article. My comment was a typo, not a mistake in fact. In fact, I was first linked to this site by an NRA-ILA alert. If you want to respond to my comment, feel free to engage its substance and not its spelling.
EJRT | Feb 9, 2013 | Reply
EJRT, Clearly your error was not “a typo” and perhaps reveals you as a “troll” who confused us with the Independence Institute in Colorado.
As for your claim that I “didn’t check any facts before writing an entire article,” you have provided no evidence that anything in my posting is incorrect. Instead, we are left with your incredulous claim of some conspiratorial relationship involving a film exhibit somewhere. As for creating a culture of violence, how about the hypocrisy of the pro-Obama, pro-gun-control PSA, “Demand a Plan to End Gun Violence,” featuring a plethora of Hollywood “celebrities,” all of whom live off of the pro-predatory violence films and TV produced by the “Progressives” (i.e., authoritarians) of Hollywood? Here incidentally is a video response on this blatant hypocrisy.
Incidentally, those interested in arming themselves with the facts to counter the current, “Progressive,” P.C. propaganda campaign for statism are invited to visit our new website, Firearms, Violence, and the Second Amendment.
David J. Theroux | Feb 9, 2013 | Reply
The Second Amendment was ratified before there were any rifles, revolvers, multi-round assault weapons, &c. Had those weapons been around back then, the “well-regulated militias” would have been more strongly worded so as to be inseparable from the “right of the people to bear arms” part. As it was, with only single shot pistols and muskets available, the recent mass murders could have been easily prevented. But since the Supremes have separated the two parts of the Amendment, crazy murderers have been free to buy guns at gun shows, or to have other people buy machine guns for them if their own background checks prohibit their own purchases. When 90% of the public are in favor of universal background checks, why is Congress so scared of the NRA to enact them? Members, we will remember your cowardice in 2014 and 2016.
mmth42 | Mar 29, 2013 | Reply
Michael (mmth42), You apparently believe that criminalization of peaceful behavior is moral and necessary but as has been noted an armed citizenry is a safer and freer one. Your additional claim about what the Founders would have thought regarding the technology of weaponry is simply false as can be found in the following authoritative book:
The Founders’ Second Amendment: Origins of the Right to Bear Arms, by Stephen P. Halbrook
To believe that giving one organization a monopoly in weaponry is a route to harmony and peace is a “progressive” fantasy that does not comport with history. In this case, your supporting the U.S. government, that is equipped with hundreds of military bases worldwide, stealth bombers, ICBMs, killer drones, thousands of nuclear and biochemical weapons, and other weaponry to kill populaces on a mass scale, to disarm people with rifles, shotguns, and handguns would appear to anyone with common sense to be utter folly on stilts. And what is the record of the U.S. government, even just within recent years, regarding invasive wars; occupying other countries; killing thousands and displacing millions; renditioning people without charge, attorney or trial indefinitely; systematically torturing untold numbers of people; spying on and intercepting the communications of millions if not billions of people, etc., etc.? We would suggest you stick with being retired from linquistics at KU.
David J. Theroux | Mar 30, 2013 | Reply