Batman premiere shooting, 14 dead

[Stardreamer]

Actually I was rather surprised when the police announced he had a drum magazine for the AR-15, I rather thought those were illegal but I guess not.

 

[Kulindahr]

No one needs an assault rifle unless you're a soldier. Some men just like them. As I said many times before, it's an adult toy and don't take away their toys or there will be Hell to pay.

No one can buy an assault rifle without extensive federal paperwork. A guy I know who had one likened the process to getting a "hostile enema".

Why can't someone walk into a sporting goods store and buy ... an A Bomb?
. . . .
It's my second amendment right...... to bear arms and a grenade is an armament. So is an A bomb.

Incredible ignorance here. "To bear arms" doesn't mean whatever you want it to, it means what it did when the words were set down: to carry the common weapons of a common soldier.

Grenades are special issue (both then and now), and thus are not the common weapon of a common soldier. An A-bomb is not under any stretch an individual weapon.

 

[Kulindahr]

Actually I was rather surprised when the police announced he had a drum magazine for the AR-15, I rather thought those were illegal but I guess not.

You can order the silly things from any federally licensed dealer.

For those interested, here's what they can look like:

The second one actually "only" holds ninety rounds (and since it sticks out sideways from the rifle, it messes up balance).

 

[FuryOfFirestorm]

Maybe the cause could be hard-core violent movies from left-wing liberals like sean penn, nick note, and josh brolin that inspired the guy.

What use are these kind of movies?

The preview vid was up yesterday and was taken down. I also read that it was in the previews at that theatre.

GANGSTER SQUAD Movie Images | Collider

So movies by Sean Penn are to blame, but the glorified violence in films by hard core Republicans like Chuck Norris, Clint Eastwood and Arnold Schwarzenegger are completely blameless?

 

[maxpowr9]

The Comics Magazine Association of America (CMAA) was formed in September 1954 in response to a widespread public concern over gory and horrific comic-book content.

Comics Code Authority - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I remember buying comics with the seal on the cover.

Of course when something happens like the Aurora shootings groups of people must find someone or something to blame. It may be one thing or a number of things. I blame the shooter himself. His easy accessibility to assault weapons enabled him to fulfill his wishes much more quickly and easily. No, banning guns isn't the answer either. Stricter laws making the sale of these deadly weapons harder to get would be a start. No one needs an assault rifle unless you're a soldier. Some men just like them. As I said many times before, it's an adult toy and don't take away their toys or there will be Hell to pay.

Why can't someone walk into a sporting goods store and buy live hand grenades? Or an A Bomb? They can kill hundreds at a time too. If my neighbors down the street know I have a collection of hand grenades in my house they sure won't break into it. It's my second amendment right...... to bear arms and a grenade is an armament. So is an A bomb.

That's right up there with the Hays Code for movies.

Yes, there is no justification for a civilian to have an assault rifle. Hand guns, even a shotgun are fine IMO.
---

If you want to finger point at any particular thing, I would blame the deinstitutionalization of our mental wards. Sometimes, rehabilitation and releasing back into society is just not a probable solution. So now many of these people that would be in said wards for life just clog up our prison system instead.

 

[Stardreamer]

You can order the silly things from any federally licensed dealer.

For those interested, here's what they can look like:

The second one actually "only" holds ninety rounds (and since it sticks out sideways from the rifle, it messes up balance).

Even the 'balanced' one must make it unwieldy as hell.

 

[Jack Springer]

So movies by Sean Penn are to blame, but the glorified violence in films by hard core Republicans like Chuck Norris, Clint Eastwood and Arnold Schwarzenegger are completely blameless?

I didn't say that.

I don't care for violent movies or tv shows. I rarely watch a cop show -- never seen a complete CSI program. About as close as I get is Fringe.

Showing violence can easy excite people to violence -- just as porn excites you to jack off.

The real problem, as I see it, is the mentally disturbed people are able to roam loose. It's time to lock them up again.

 

[Telstra]

No pun intended here, but the drafters shot themselves in the foot over this right. Its inclusion was meant to provide people with a means of protecting themselves, its failed. So focussed are people on the right to defend themselves, that protecting 'each other' has been obscured.

I also have to wonder exactly how many guns the common soldier carries, since there is a hell of a variety in the hands of the common man. There is clearly room here for types of guns to be banned.

Yes, some guns only suitable for war but were sold to public. Crazy law.

 

[Telstra]

I didn't say that.

I don't care for violent movies or tv shows. I rarely watch a cop show -- never seen a complete CSI program. About as close as I get is Fringe.

Showing violence can easy excite people to violence -- just as porn excites you to jack off.

The real problem, as I see it, is the mentally disturbed people are able to roam loose. It's time to lock them up again.

How do you detect James Holmes as mentally disturbed ?

 

[chrisrobin]

How do you detect James Holmes as mentally disturbed ?

Detection is one thing; acting on that detection is another matter. I used to teach Jr. High and I had a seventh grader in one of my classes that I thought was "a little odd."

As it turned out, he was the pawn in an ugly custody battle. He wanted to live with his dad, but the court awarded the mother custody. I went to the counselor (who wasn't worth a shit) but my warning was ignored. The boy ended up torching his mother's house - sweet.

I have very little prescience, but judging on the basis of what I heard and what I saw, I think the case was at least worth a look. Others who could have done something chose to do nothing. Good thing he didn't have access to firearms!

 

[bankside]

.
Small silver lining in the big cloud: casualty count has been downgraded from 14 to 12.

I direct this question to our Canadian JUBbers: there are lots of guns in Canada, but Canadians don't shoot each other - as is the case of the U.S. Why not?

Apparently there are 88 guns for every hundred Americans. There are 30 guns for every hundred Canadians.

And those guns are mostly in the hands of rural people, or people destined for rural areas, where there is at least 1 bear for every hundred Canadians. But 80% of us live in cities.

So we have only about about a third of the guns that Americans have. They're mostly in rural areas. And Canadians do not use guns for "personal safety" anyway - at least not from each other. We would not accept to live in neighbourhoods where a gun is actually necessary to protect yourself. We'd bulldoze them or call in the army or something. But we just don't go around shooting each other. They're tools for hunting and protection from wildlife.

The answer to the question "why not?" seems kind of obvious:

Because it's a fucking stupid thing to do.

 

[Centexfarmer]

It does happen here...perhaps not as often and you may not always hear about them. There was a mass shooting this week in a Toronto suburb and last month another in a Toronto food court at a large downtown shopping centre

Generally, in Canada, these shootings are gang attacks and, sadly, innocent bystanders often get caught in the middle

And here in Texas, on the same day within rock throwing distance between El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico 18 innocents were "murdered" and I had to do a google search to find that comparison because I know that it happened.

I didn't hear BBC America/World comment once on those atrocities.

NOT ONCE!

The only thing that disgusts me most about the American media's coverage of this event is the reminder (every second sentence or so) of what was showing in the big screen that night; BATMAN DARKNIGHT!

Even during the death of more than a dozen American Citizens they can't help but to get some "product placement" in.

What has gone wrong in our society and culture as human beings where we take such personal suffering and carnage, and reduce it into statistics, sound bites, and product promotion?



We're all like little children, standing before the marked stained walls with markers in our hands and screaming "NOT ME!"

It breaks my heart.

 

[hungkee]

And here in Texas, on the same day within rock throwing distance between El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico 18 innocents were "murdered" and I had to do a google search to find that comparison because I know that it happened.

I didn't hear BBC America/World comment once on those atrocities.

NOT ONCE!

The only thing that disgusts me most about the American media's coverage of this event is the reminder (every second sentence or so) of what was showing in the big screen that night; BATMAN DARKNIGHT!

Even during the death of more than a dozen American Citizens they can't help but to get some "product placement" in.

What has gone wrong in our society and culture as human beings where we take such personal suffering and carnage, and reduce it into statistics, sound bites, and product promotion?



We're all like little children, standing before the marked stained walls with markers in our hands and screaming "NOT ME!"

It breaks my heart.

And I LOVE the hollow gesture of the studios who will hold off on revealing weekend box office numbers for Batman...until Monday.

Um, they generally do that anyway.

But besides that, it shows where their heads - and the heads of many movie-goers - remain.

Sadly, the lines continue to be huge for this film. And more sadly, it will make this film an underground classic as people already are trying to link the first shots in the film to the storming of the theater by this gunman.

And you are correct, people come to think that the gun-related tallies in Juarez, Mexico or in Chicago, Illinois, USA are just standard procedure. Its a human tragedy the loss of sensitivity and understanding that these things just are not normal.

 

[Kulindahr]

Even the 'balanced' one must make it unwieldy as hell.

Actually no -- the estra weight helps keep the barrel down, so the rifle is easier to control.

Ooh -- gun control!

 

[Kulindahr]

No pun intended here, but the drafters shot themselves in the foot over this right. Its inclusion was meant to provide people with a means of protecting themselves, its failed. So focussed are people on the right to defend themselves, that protecting 'each other' has been obscured.

I also have to wonder exactly how many guns the common soldier carries, since there is a hell of a variety in the hands of the common man. There is clearly room here for types of guns to be banned.

SCOTUS has stated multiple times that any weapon which could be used for a military function is covered. Ironically, they once ruled that a shotgun had no such function -- when they are used for security at US and other bases!


Although, at the time the military didn't look on them as important that way.

 

[Kulindahr]

I didn't say that.

I don't care for violent movies or tv shows. I rarely watch a cop show -- never seen a complete CSI program. About as close as I get is Fringe.

Showing violence can easy excite people to violence -- just as porn excites you to jack off.

The real problem, as I see it, is the mentally disturbed people are able to roam loose. It's time to lock them up again.

It's sort of sadly amusing, but studies have shown that more violent impulses in young people are stirred by the evening news than by movies and video games.

- - - Updated - - -

Yes, some guns only suitable for war but were sold to public. Crazy law.

Um, that's kind of the main point of the Amendment.

 

[Kulindahr]

And I LOVE the hollow gesture of the studios who will hold off on revealing weekend box office numbers for Batman...until Monday.

Um, they generally do that anyway.

But besides that, it shows where their heads - and the heads of many movie-goers - remain.

Sadly, the lines continue to be huge for this film. And more sadly, it will make this film an underground classic as people already are trying to link the first shots in the film to the storming of the theater by this gunman.

And you are correct, people come to think that the gun-related tallies in Juarez, Mexico or in Chicago, Illinois, USA are just standard procedure. Its a human tragedy the loss of sensitivity and understanding that these things just are not normal.

I occasionally rile my fellow NRA members by suggesting that those with means, who claim to care about crime, don't volunteer to be unpaid deputies patrolling the streets of violent areas. Violent urban areas are not conducive to "the security of a free state", so why aren't those with skills and means stepping up to protect that security?

 

[hungkee]

I occasionally rile my fellow NRA members by suggesting that those with means, who claim to care about crime, don't volunteer to be unpaid deputies patrolling the streets of violent areas. Violent urban areas are not conducive to "the security of a free state", so why aren't those with skills and means stepping up to protect that security?

Because they're really just big-talking, gun loving chicken shits?

Oh, I kid. I kid.

I think it might have something to do with the fact that street or "urban" gun violence is so off the chain that it would be difficult even for modern-day "vigilantes" to identify or keep up with the shootings/killings.

In that way, a war has been lost in favor of an America which has so long adored its gun culture.

The reality of such gun violence is that it is truly - in very practical terms - not simply gun shootings or "drive bys" but a form of home-grown all-American terrorism.

Such violence and slaughters in our streets as we see happening every single day in staggering numbers isn't the occasion violent outburst of a western bank robber or even a Capone-era hit man. Its not the isolated shooting of some drunk by an enraged and jealous husband.

Its elevated to the level of a real strain of terrorism.

And as such, fighting such terrorism is difficult to impossible - just as we see in the global world of terrorism.

Perhaps because any terrorism and terrorist act is difficult to impossible to predict. And it seems to come from or stem from many different directions at once.

There is no code or clear pattern or discernible motive in many of the gun killings we are subjected to in the USA.

And as such, a "vigilante" force would be hard pressed to be everywhere or to even know where to be at any one moment anywhere.

One would need an armed and valiant person, well, everywhere at every time of the day prepared for anyone ready to shoot and kill anyone else.

And that would seem to be an impossible task.

Especially considering how the US military, the largest on the face of the earth and in all of history funded by trillions of dollars can't get a handle on such terrorist acts.

And again, I do categorize US gun killings as terrorist acts at the rate and type and variety which they are today.

I think that SADLY if the war on drugs has been lost, the war on gun violence is a lost one, too.

We created it or brought it upon ourselves - as is often the case of societies which suffer a Fall. We asked for it over all the time & politics which allowed it to exist, expand and to finally grab hold of the culture (much to the culture's own detriment).

 

[Jack Springer]

PMSL. Essentially, yes you did. You tried to equate violence with liberalism. Then you tried to brush off your political attack on the left by getting back to topic of violence in movies, as soon as FuryOfFirestorm pointed out the right leaning conributions to the movies. If violent movies are the problem, then politics have nothing to do with it, so why use it as a cheap shot to make a pop at your political adversaries eh, that's pretty LOW.

The new movie (with all the liberal actors who I thought would know better than to put out a movie so violent and bloody) I pointed out had a scene in the previews where a gunman shot up a movie theatre.

The liberal actors were saying violence and blood is ok as long as I make the big bucks.

I also said I didn't care for violent movies that starred so-called right-leaning actors.

Get your story straight.

 

[White Eagle]

What if we make the rule of "to bear arms" that the rifle is like it was in 1776. Single shot, ram powder and ball down the barrel.