Posted on 07/22/2012 9:00:38 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Every American student who's taken a civic class has heard Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.'s admonition that free speech under the US Constitution doesn't give you the right to shout "fire" in a crowded theater.
So the right to bear arms under the 2nd amendment - - written at a time when citizen militias might be needed to fend off the British or a foreign power intent on undermining the new Republic - - shouldn't mean someone has the right to barge into a crowded theater, open fire and slaughter people with powerful guns and ammunition obtained legally.
Yet we have allowed the NRA and allied wealthy conservative organizations with political and electoral agendas to distort legitimate gun ownership for hunting purposes into gun ownership without effective controls that jeopardizes public safety.
Bill Moyers has an eloquent essay about this, here.
The proof is the disproportionate share of the industrialized world's gun violence that afflicts the US, year-in and year-out.
These massacres bring concern for victims, but no remedial controls: the Aurora shootings came but five years after a higher death toll in a mass shooting at Virginia Tech, and Colorado did not toughen its gun laws after the Columbine school killings not far from Aurora...
(Excerpt) Read more at jsonline.com ...
How did the very agencies that protect us (FBI ATF ETC...)not pck up on this kid
I believe to control the nuts with guns we have to outnumber them if 1 man walks into a theater with 2 guns and 20 people in the crowd had one gun each this Guy would have either died or ran not stayed to prey on the weak
Since when is it “cowardice” to ignore the advice of a dumbass ;o)
Where did I say not to carry? I said someone would have had to have the skills of a sniper. He was geared-up which would have made it difficult.
As for your sheep remark, I’ll ignore it.
Without banning so many kinds of guns that self defense would be virtually useless (and many decent sportsmen would be very, er, up in arms) it’s impossible.
Situational awareness needs to pick up. Sheeple can have such a super expectation of safety they never think to what if the worst (or even bad) occurs. A shooter like this is unlikely to show himself, but how about your common street mugger? Shouldn’t people be readier for that? And not just count on some set of exalted officials to guard them? Police may occasionally nab a malefactor red handed but usually they are only there to pick up the pieces.
There is another thread where a man who claims to be a cop said he would have run away. I'll try and find a link.
Indeed if there were 20 armed citizens who had some idea of what to do, some could have shot while the others stormed. A few shots point blank down the shooter’s collar would have done wonders.
I hope that arms associations like the NRA don’t just go away from this saying how terrible. The event should prompt a new move towards training in situational awareness.
Alas, I feel this is too typical. Some might have been heroic. Others, not my yob, mon.
"Sheep" would be a step up from some of these clowns.
At least sheep won't try to argue the finer points of the use of deadly force based on their television experience!
I have seen the same defeatest comment on every thread.
It sounded like bleeting everytime.
Firefights suck no matter what, but they always suck more when one doesn’t have a gun.
Cops are tough around the unarmed and small pets.
I don’t doubt he would have run.
He couldn't even clear a jammed AR; who thinks he would have kept his wits while taking fire?
He couldn't even clear a jammed AR; who thinks he would have kept his wits while taking fire?
Agreed.... but to those who disagree. running in this case might have saved some but tell me that if your standing in the dark and hear a round go by or are even struck by a round that u would not take cover this man preyed on the weak BC he felt in control but if the playing field would have been leveled I believe not as many would have been hurt or even killed.
It’s no laughing matter, getting hit in soft armor with pistol bullets. I’ve seen photos showing ballistic putty behind the kevlar, with a crater about two inches deep and wide. IOW, you might not die, but you are sure going feel like you were shot. A novice like this guy, taking hits in his torso wearing soft armor, was probably going to stop shooting and run away when he knew (and he would know) he was taking effective fire.
It was a chaos. Had I a gun and some idea where it ought to point (at least the shooter was up on the stage, not in the audience) I could well have said Lord, use me and then shot all my bullets at him. Then ducked.
It was a gal down in the church in Colorado Springs a few years ago that ran towards the shots as the gunman came in the church. IIRC she was a deacon or something but was active in the church security. The uniformed guard (guy) on duty didn’t do much as I recall.
She killed - or at least stopped the guy before he could enter the sanctuary - although some people (a young girl?) were killed by the nut out in the parking lot.
BTW- on other FR threads they talk about the guy’s purchase of a “Tactical Vest” - which is nothing but a fabric vest with lots of pockets and straps to hang crap off of. So he may not have been armored.
To your friend the cop,
So much for the vow he took “TO PROTECT AND SERVE”
IIRC, reports say that after entering the theatre the regular way, he went back outside, propping open the fire exit and returning to his car for the weapons and body armor.
I wonder why this ever went to the smokey backroom. The discussion in here is more civil than in many a political thread. I think we all agree on what would be ideal here. We just don’t all agree on how.
So, yeah, it would definitely interrupt the train of thought.
Another freeper related how he once tried ducking out a fire exit to catch a smoke during a romantic movie with his girlfriend that he found dull. An alarm sounded and the house lights went on. Why wasn’t that S.O.P. here.
It would be ironic if one of these weapons turned out to be from F&F.
Unless he bought them at a Mexican flea market, I doubt it.
We should all agree that this man should be hung for wat he has done to this country the state of Colorado and the families of these victims but its not the situation I fear it is wats to come more “copycats” more “gun control”
Cheap theater!!!!!
They picked a cheap movie house to show a premium premiere in?
It’s sounding a lot to me like the fellow took an ultimate fantasy trip. He was going to be part of the movie. And do something very, very wicked. (I mean he could have gone up there with a paint ball gun or sumfin if he’d had some scruples left.)
Sure gotta make money some how
He was very lucky he was in Batman movie and not true grit
Well, a fire exit that you can quietly let a gaggle of nonpaying friends in to the movie, isn’t the most conducive to that.
Instead of the orange hairdo he’d be up there in camos?
I prefer the first one to the second option
No... he would be in hell right now
Sure they do. He was that detective in the movie with a sidekick named Watson.
/s
The theater is a place of free speech, and to see places of free speech while people walk around without weapon just shows how dum America has become.
The theater is a place of free speech, and to see places of free speech while people walk around without weapon just shows how dum America has become...
oh, and next after that, the pink gays are going to be free to make their war on us...
This thing is a Trayvon set up by the gay terrorists. I think I smell a Bill Ayer type terror operation getting covered up.
The patrons would come in ready for war?
I used to think that you were correct. Sadly, you are not.
What would happen would be that the MSM would minimize it or downplay it. Remember the mass shooting outside of Denver that was stopped by the lady shooter in the church? It got the most play.
There was the shooter in the California gun store that was stopped by an armed employee. He had plans for mass murder in his car. It was barely mentioned, and spiked by the MSM.
The MSM and their "progressive" agenda is the cause of 90 percent of our problems today.
Plus there’s the deterrent factor.
How many times do these things happen at police stations? Rifle ranges? Gun shows?
“I said someone would have had to have the skills of a sniper. He was geared-up which would have made it difficult.”
Have you ever been hit by a bullet wearing body armor? It hurts like Hell. It stings and will get your attention. Body armor does not mean you are impervious to bullets. They do have an effect. That’s all a shooter needs to finish him off.
When a report says “body armor”, it isn’t a suit head to toe and he can’t just stand there and take unlimited shots from people.
LOL. Ya, Eddie Albert was Oliver Wendell Douglas on Green Acres. So kids may know about him, if they watch those old reruns, instead of all the reality nonsense on TV today.
Unfortunately tzar your NOT to carry a gun to a bar to begin with
Unfortunately tzar your NOT to carry a gun to a bar to begin with
Last month where I am from there was an incedent that a couple got robbed the man was beat and left while the woman was raped now had the man or woman been carrying a gun the suspect would have not gotten away
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