Mass Shooting at Dark Knight Rises Premier in Aurora Colorado (12 Dead, 59 Injured)

[micrometers]

You realize that more people die from vehicles each year than firearms right? Yes/No question: Do you want to ban automobiles?

That's obviously a false choice. The cost/benefit of banning automobiles would be negative given our economic reliance on cars.

Guns, however, are mainly a fetish device for gun nuts. In this modern age no one really needs a gun, while most people need cars. We have police, home security systems, non-lethal defense systems, etc etc. There is zero need for legal guns outside of a fetish.

 

[Jaskalas]

Stupid. Not true. If he had a knife and stabbed someone in the theatre, that is a tragedy, but the people who are injured are going to be a handful, not 71. Guns are like a crazy multiplier.

What about the explosives at his apartment? He would have brought them instead.

Hell, just grab a few gas cans and start pouring them between the folks and the exit. This isn't rocket science.

 

[Balt]

Which is why the US has so many more mass shootings than other countries. It really is the fault of easy access to guns.

Honestly, I'm not so sure. A sick mind will create any way it can imagine to kill a lot of people. Guns may be the easiest way, but they aren't the only way. He could have probably killed more people if he had calmly blocked all the exits in some fashion (which no one would have likely have noticed) and then thrown a few molotov cocktails into the middle of the very large theater audience.

Unless you want to make every dangerous thing on this planet illegal (including gas), you will never prevent sickos from finding a way to kill people.

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

You realize that more people die from vehicles each year than firearms right? Yes/No question: Do you want to ban automobiles?

I am not a gun-control advocate (in fact I am a gun owner), but this has always struck me as a colossally stupid argument by the gun lobby. Cars are not intrinsically made to hurt or kill, and in virtually every instance when people die in using them, it's an accident. Guns are built specifically to kill and/or injure, and in countries where they are not readily available to the public, the incidence of gun-related fatalities is dramatically lowered. I am not an advocate for taking guns away by any means, but this line of argument has always rankled me.

 

[dmcowen674]

He was wearing a helmet and body armor on his legs.

I have no doubt I would slow him down.

A trained and practiced shooter is the best defense against nuts like this.

An unarmed public means slaughter.

Pussies like slaughter.

 

[micrometers]

What about the explosives at his apartment? He would have brought them instead.

Hell, just grab a few gas cans and start pouring them between the folks and the exit. This isn't rocket science.

Explosives are harder to transport and setup than guns. Some are unstable, and so on. Furthermore, we do restrict purchases of everyday items that can be used for illegal purposes, like cough medicine/meth.

Also, on a psychological level, a psychopath like this guy will want guns for the experience of shooting people.

 

[Sunburn74]

I don't own a gun, and am not a member of the NRA. This is just common sense.

I disagree. It think the reasonable thing is to say no one really knows how things will turn out if all guns were banned. There are just too many variables. Did anyone expect the internet to be what it is today? Or the cell phone? And etc. A gun ban may work beautifully, may fail miserably, or may simply not accomplish much at all. No one really knows. If anything when you look at other countries, it probably would work if the enforcement is there.

No, banning guns is the same thing as ...... banning cars Obviously we could prevent ALL car deaths by banning cars, but the benefit to having cars around is much greater than the downside of a relatively small chance of getting killed in a car accident. Same with firearms.

If every once in a while, someone decided to plow their car into public crowds, I'm sure you'd see a little bit of stiffening as to who is allowed to drive a car.

I'm not positive about DC but at least handguns are all but impossible to own legally in Chicago yet people are still killed with them on a near daily basis.

http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/March-2008/Bang/

I think the chicago thing is interesting, but I'm not sure it really counts as a good choice to have the social experiment. It'd be like trying to do an experiment to prove that classical music in class makes kids smarter and then starting with one of those schools for genius kids as the experimental group. You'd really want to pick cities that are in the middle in terms of gun crime, just like for the latter experiment you'd want to start with as average a set of kids as you could get your hands on.

In medicine when we design our clinical trials, we generally don't choose patients who are too far gone off the deep end as the cohorts. If I'm trying to prove that a certain drug cures cancer, my cancer pts won't be people with multi organ failure, because the damage as already been done. Even if you remove every speck of tumor from the person, they'll still die from their ruined kidneys, eaten up brain, non functional liver, and etc. Perhaps chicago is very much like that end stage cancer pt when it comes to gun violence.

 

[dmcowen674]

Guns, however, are mainly a fetish device for gun nuts. In this modern age no one really needs a gun, while most people need cars. We have police, home security systems, non-lethal defense systems, etc etc. There is zero need for legal guns outside of a fetish.

You are free to leave and live somewhere like Switzerland.

It's obvious this country is not for you.

 

[micrometers]

Honestly, I'm not so sure. A sick mind will create any way it can imagine to kill a lot of people. Guns may be the easiest way, but they aren't the only way. He could have probably killed more people if he had calmly blocked all the exits in some fashion (which no one would have likely have noticed) and then thrown a few molotov cocktails into the middle of the very large theater audience.

Unless you want to make every dangerous thing on this planet illegal (including gas), you will never prevent sickos from finding a way to kill people.

Guns are extraordinarily dangerous though, and they don't serve much other purpose than killing people. they can't be used for cooking or for opening packages like knives, for instance.

 

[Jaskalas]

Also, on a psychological level, a psychopath like this guy will want guns for the experience of shooting people.

Well... to that end, there's a theory that he setup his apartment to explode, and played loud music to trigger someone to bust it in, triggering a large police response to distract from the massacre.

He seemed to have his head together.

Also... are you arguing that, absent guns, he wouldn't had have the motive to figure out how to do this?

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

I have no doubt I would slow him down.

A trained and practiced shooter is the best defense against nuts like this.

An unarmed public means slaughter.

Pussies like slaughter.

And paranoid narcissists with delusions of persecution like to delude themselves that they would be the big hero in an incident like this. The idea of you, armed, should frighten even the most ardent gun rights advocate.

 

[PG]

Explain what you mean?

I'm talking about a temporary, but complete ban on the right to bear arms for all individuals within 3 cities as a social experiment. I doubt they did that.

Chicago had a strict gun ban for 28 years. There were still tons of shootings and murders.
Chicago also has had a no questions asked gun turn in events on at least a yearly basis for some time too. You even get a gift card for turning in a gun.
There are 25 to 50 shootings every weekend in Chicago.
Hint: the bad guys still get their guns in other places than gun stores, and they are not giving them up for a gift card

 

[Pr0d1gy]

There is a web of tripwire and "so much circtuiry and collapsing circuits" in the suspect's house and the authorities are still trying to disarm his apartment. Holmes admitted to rigging his home with traps when apprehended in the parking lot of the movie theater.

 

[micrometers]

Chicago had a strict gun ban for 28 years. There were still tons of shootings and murders.
Chicago also has had a no questions asked gun turn in events on at least a yearly basis for some time too. You even get a gift card for turning in a gun.
There are 25 to 50 shootings every weekend in Chicago.
Hint: the bad guys still get their guns in other places than gun stores, and they are not giving them up for a gift card

These gun bans don't work because they aren't complete enough. It is too easy to hop over a state line to buy guns. DC especially is an obvious case, since it is bordered by a gun friendly red state.

But if you had to drive 500 miles to get guns, you bet violence would go down.

 

[bfdd]

You are free to leave and live somewhere like Switzerland.

It's obvious this country is not for you.

he would hate switzerland. they have an extremely armed and well trained populous. he'd shit his pants just saying "good morning" to his neighbors.

 

[PG]

You are free to leave and live somewhere like Switzerland.

It's obvious this country is not for you.

Don't send him there! In Switzerland you are required to have some military training and to keep a gun at home. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Switzerland

 

[PG]

These gun bans don't work because they aren't complete enough. It is too easy to hop over a state line to buy guns. DC especially is an obvious case, since it is bordered by a gun friendly red state.

But if you had to drive 500 miles to get guns, you bet violence would go down.

Even if you drive from Chicago to say Wisconsin or Indiana you still need to present ID and there is a background check and waiting period. If you live in Chicago it should show up and the sale would not go through. You can drive a short distance or far away, it should not matter.

 

[micrometers]

Conditions under the 1999 Gun Act
To purchase a firearm in a commercial shop, one needs to have a Waffenerwerbsschein (weapon acquisition permit). A permit allows the purchase of three firearms. Everyone over the age of 18 who is not psychiatrically disabled (such as having had a history of endangering his own life or the lives of others) or identified as posing security problems, and who has a clean criminal record (requires a Criminal Records Bureau check) can request such a permit.
To buy a gun from an individual, no permit is needed, but the seller is expected to establish a reasonable certainty that the purchaser will fulfill the above-mentioned conditions (usually done through a Criminal Records Bureau check). The participants in such a transaction are required to prepare a written contract detailing the identities of both vendor and purchaser, the weapon's type, manufacturer, and serial number. The law requires the written contract to be kept for ten years by the buyer and seller. The seller is also required to see some official ID from the purchaser, for such sales are only allowed to Swiss nationals and foreigners with a valid residence permit, with the exception of those foreigners that come from certain countries (Croatia, Bosnia, Macedonia, Turkey, Sri Lanka, Albania, Algeria), to whom such sales are not allowed even if they do have a residence permit. Foreigners without a residence permit or from countries on the ban list must ask for a special permit.
After turning 18, any individual can buy singleshot or semiautomatic long arms (breech-loading or muzzle-loading) without a permit (so-called "free arms"). Likewise, members of a recognized rifle association do not need a buying permit for purchasing antique repeaters, and hunters do not need one for buying typical hunting rifles.
Basically, the sale of automatic firearms, selective fire weapons and certain accessories such as sound suppressors ("silencers") is forbidden (as is the sale of certain disabled automatic firearms which have been identified as easily restored to fully automatic capability). The purchase of such items is however legal with a special permit issued by cantonal police. The issuance of such a permit requires additional requirements to be met, e.g. the possession of a specific gun locker.
Most types of ammunition are available for commercial sale, including full metal jacket bullet calibres for military-issue weapons; hollow point rounds are only permitted for hunters. Ammunition sales are registered only at the point of sale by recording the buyer's name in a bound book.
[edit]

Switzerland gun regs.

A permit allowing a max of 3 gun purchases, that you need to apply for from the government? Sure.

 

[Pr0d1gy]

If we have learned anything from the War on Drugs it is that making something illegal does not make it harder to get, only more costly. If we banned guns then people would make a living importing truckloads of illegal arms into the country to sell for a huge premium, just like they do with drugs.

 

[dmcowen674]

And paranoid narcissists with delusions of persecution like to delude themselves that they would be the big hero in an incident like this. The idea of you, armed, should frighten even the most ardent gun rights advocate.

You are free to leave the country since you don't like it.

 

[Londo_Jowo]

And paranoid narcissists with delusions of persecution like to delude themselves that they would be the big hero in an incident like this. The idea of you, armed, should frighten even the most ardent gun rights advocate.

Outstanding answer!! The last part made LOL loud enough my wife asked what's so funny?

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally Posted by dmcowen674
You are free to leave and live somewhere like Switzerland.

It's obvious this country is not for you.

Don't send him there! In Switzerland you are required to have some military training and to keep a gun at home. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Switzerland

I may not have the right country, I know somewhere over there they don't allow the public to own a gun.

That's where pussies need to go.

 

[tcG]

That's obviously a false choice. The cost/benefit of banning automobiles would be negative given our economic reliance on cars.

Guns, however, are mainly a fetish device for gun nuts. In this modern age no one really needs a gun, while most people need cars. We have police, home security systems, non-lethal defense systems, etc etc. There is zero need for legal guns outside of a fetish.

What about self-defense from criminals with guns? That's a legitimate use.

The "only criminals would have guns" argument against firearm prohibition really is watertight, with numerous supporting examples.

 

[davmat787]

I am not a gun-control advocate (in fact I am a gun owner), but this has always struck me as a colossally stupid argument by the gun lobby. Cars are not intrinsically made to hurt or kill, and in virtually every instance when people die in using them, it's an accident. Guns are built specifically to kill and/or injure, and in countries where they are not readily available to the public, the incidence of gun-related fatalities is dramatically lowered. I am not an advocate for taking guns away by any means, but this line of argument has always rankled me.

I pretty much agree with everything you just said, in essence the comparison is apples to oranges. However, please note who the comment was directed to, and that persons complete lack of understanding in relation to gun ownership and firearms in general. He wants to ban something, with little to zero understanding of it, based on a kneejerk emotional reaction.

Chalk it up as an attempt to get Karmy to think a little. And besides, it was either cars or the swimming pool statistic.

And for the record I am currently not a gun owner either.

 

[Nvidiaguy07]

The problem is the prevalence of guns. If he didn't have access to guns, he would have been less deadly, fewer people would be dead.

im gonna go out on a limb and say that a single bomb that this guy could have made and blew up right in the middle of that theatre probably would have killed more than 12 people. Thats just one, not even thinking of what else he could have done.

What the hell do you think hes gonna do? Use a baseball bat? brass knucles? ahhhhh lol