Posted on 07/21/2012 7:17:33 PM PDT by neverdem
What happened in Colorado in the early hours of this morning was not a “tragedy” but a willful act of mass murder. Beyond his age, name, and ethnicity, nobody yet knows who the shooter is, or why he chose to do what he did. In my view, this is a blessing, albeit a temporary one; for, as has been the way in recent years, once his party registration, television-viewing habits, and random scribblings become known to the public, all sorts of hysterical speculation and unlettered accusations will burst forth.
Whole groups will be vilified, blame will be apportioned to those many times removed, and the shooter will be partially absolved of blame by those who prefer to see fault in video games or talk radio or political rhetoric or anything else that can be conscripted to explain why terrible things happen to good people. Few will point out that unless someone commits an atrocity in the name of an ideology — Timothy McVeigh, for example — their political beliefs are wholly irrelevant. Even in cases where a killer is motivated by something specific, to draw general conclusions is most often folly. America is not the land of collective guilt, and mass shootings should carve out no exception. Those few people who have already jumped on the crime to hit out at their boogeyman of choice are fools.
Alas, this welcome early absence of opportunity for partisan political blame has created a vacuum that has been filled by another form of folly: Calls for “gun control.” Upon hearing the news, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence immediately changed the front page of its website to aver that, “This is yet another horrific reminder that guns enable mass killings.”
In New York, Mayor Michael Bloomberg lost no time in exploiting the crime to advance his agenda. From CBS:
In the wake of a mass shooting in a suburban Denver movie theater, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is calling on President Obama and Mitt Romney to offer up more than “soothing words” and talk about how they will address gun-related violence.
“Maybe it’s time that the two people who want to be president of the United States stand up and tell us what they are going to do about it, because this is obviously a problem across the country.” Bloomberg said in an interview on WOR News Talk Radio 710 in New York City.
“I mean, there are so many murders with guns every day, it’s just got to stop,” he continued. “And instead of the two people — President Obama and Governor Romney — talking in broad things about they want to make the world a better place, okay, tell us how. And this is a real problem. No matter where you stand on the Second Amendment, no matter where you stand on guns, we have a right to hear from both of them concretely, not just in generalities — specifically what are they going to do about guns?”
On Twitter, CNN’s Piers Morgan wrote:
Horrendous details from this Colorado cinema shooting. America has got to do something about its gun laws. Now is the time.
More Americans will buy guns after this, to defend themselves, and so the dangerous spiral descends. When/how does it stop?
Lunatics like this will always try and get guns. It should be 100,000 times harder than it is for them to do so. That’s my point.
#Colorado
Others pitched in. Actor John Leguizamo tweeted:
My heart goes 2 all the victims families in colorado. No one should have to go thru that. When r we gonna get guns removed in this country?!
The New Yorker’s Philip Gourevitch wrote:
Unless politicians push aggressive relentless gun control they’re accepting these shootings & complicit in the slaughter.
Jose Antonio Vargas tweeted:
To @barackobama, @mittromney, journalists: can we please have an honest and constructive dialogue about gun control? #theatershooting
This is predictable, but deeply misguided. As usual, this is not an issue of gun control. As Cesare Beccaria wrote in 1764 in Crimes and Punishments:
The laws of this nature are those which forbid to wear arms, disarming those only who are not disposed to commit the crime which the laws mean to prevent. Can it be supposed, that those who have the courage to violate the most sacred laws of humanity, and the most important of the code, will respect the less considerable and arbitrary injunctions, the violation of which is so easy, and of so little comparative importance? Does not the execution of this law deprive the subject of that personal liberty, so dear to mankind and to the wise legislator? And does it not subject the innocent to all the disagreeable circumstances that should only fall on the guilty? It certainly makes the situation of the assaulted worse and of the assailants better, and rather encourages than prevents murder, as it requires less courage to attack unarmed than armed persons.
As Beccaria implies, this crime was ultimately about people. It was about the shooter, the victims, and their families — and very little else besides — and we would do well to avoid breathlessly proposing radical changes to our constitutional order because a man abused his liberty. Those with evil in their hearts are prone to do evil things, and those willing to violate strict prohibitions against murder do not care much about regulation of firearms or much else. As such, unless the shooter was part of a bigger conspiracy or was systematically failed by an institution, our attentions might be better focused on Aurora, Colo., and not on any particular group, or — even worse — the whole citizenry of the United States.
yeah maybe but from what I’ve read the whole point of the movie, and the psychopath’s m.o. seem to be leading to pretty obvious conclusions: a proto-obama-shock-trooper.
Democrat James Holmes (D-Aurora) did this as a hail-mary by the Obama Administration to pass gun control, after their Fast and Furious Scandal blew up in their face.
When are we going to get Bibles back into our schools?
This didn’t happen because a psychopath decided to shoot a theater full of people.
This happened because no one else in that theater had a gun to shoot back with.
That’s the ONLY reason this happened.
You don’t coat all the roads with leather. You wear shoes.
Psychopaths and violence are going to happen.
Only other psychopaths try to disarm victims.
Gun grabbing IS murder.
If Joe Biden had a son, he would look like James Holmes.
He seems to be in the Occupy Wall Street’s violent Black Block group.
From what I've been able to find, that claim seems to be based on a coincidence of names, just like ABC's false assertion he was a Tea Partier. It seems another James Holmes posted some pro OWS videos on YouTube, and from those and the fact that like Black Bloc members at riots the shooter wore a gas mask and black clothes some PI in Florida came to the conclusion he was in the Black Bloc, which then got "verified" by actual OSW members discussing the PI's assertion and another YouTube post with screen-shots of their discussion.
Do you have anything solid to back that up, are are you just propagating a meme?
No
I will not be like the left and accuse any group until I see prooff
He he gets a Lifetime sentence and never goes to court then I will say coverup
|
Are you still killing your unborn? -- GOD |
On an average day in the great country of the United States of America, 2750 future AMERICANS are killed by choosy mothers.
In 2008, an average day in COLORADO saw 44 killed by "CHOICE".
God bless AMERICA!!!
All to say; where there is a 'Will'; there is always a WAY.
These anti-gun mush-minds; are the same people who - despite unspeakable MO's per 'terrorism'agenda - want the terrorists at Gitmo - or those 'contained' anywhere; to have their prayer rugs and Korans. These are the Liberal 'observers'; who work tirelessly, to see that these heinous perps, are sent home or worse; find a home - in America!
These anti-gun, protesters are the 'candle-holders'; the 'criers'; holding vigil, outside the prison walls, when a serial killer prepares to find Justice post his final walk.
Sickening and beyond stupid. . .
(And speaking specifically re the terrorists - the devotees of death - might these same 'advocates' who shed tears for real monsters; only take note; that these perps seldom use guns; and yet. . .we know they have countless success stories.
Wake-up; you dangerous, useful idiots who either believe; or, who just 'fall' for it!
All to say; where there is a 'Will'; there is always a WAY.
These anti-gun mush-minds; are the same people who - despite unspeakable MO's per 'terrorism'agenda - want the terrorists at Gitmo - or those 'contained' anywhere; to have their prayer rugs and Korans. These are the Liberal 'observers'; who work tirelessly, to see that these heinous perps, are sent home or worse; find a home - in America!
These anti-gun, protesters are the 'candle-holders'; the 'criers'; holding vigil, outside the prison walls, when a serial killer prepares to find Justice post his final walk.
Sickening and beyond stupid. . .
(And speaking specifically re the terrorists - the devotees of death - might these same 'advocates' who shed tears for real monsters; only take note; that these perps seldom use guns; and yet. . .we know they have countless success stories.
Wake-up; you dangerous, useful idiots who either believe; or, who just 'fall' for it!
Well, I don’t know about “coincidence”. There is a published photo of someone with the same name, same mismatched eyebrows, same eyes and same nose. But longer hair that is discheveled and a light beard, that is being carried off by hands and feet by police in what is reported to be an Occupy San Diego event. It looked like Holmes to me.
A caller to KOA 850 radio on Friday said his group had been filming the Occupy Denver protests for a documentart and was sure they had film of Holmes in the protests as well as an interview with him. They are working on confirmation.
People who knew him in Colorado are saying he was “very left wing”.
But, maybe Bush did it.
It’ll never happen; even a large portion of the “Christian” community has bought fully into the false “separation of church and state” mantra. People are just too uninformed to correct error.
Based on whom they choose as their U.S. seantors, it is correct to say that a clear majority of American citizens do worship abortion, just not an abortion that would have prevented their own births!
The useful idiot brigade is out in strength.
Hosea 4:6
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.
>> People who knew him in Colorado are saying he was “very left wing”. <<
.
Just like the Tucson assassin.
Interesting. The national Dim party has backed off of gun control in recent years because they finally figured out it is a loser. I wonder if Barry will be dumb enough to take the leftie bait and push for gun control in this election?
I doubt it. It feeds rght into the right's meme that Fast and Furious was just a scheme for more gun control. The rats won Congress in 2006 and enlarged their majorities in 2008 by recruiting a load of pro Second Amendment candidates. That's why Reid and Pelosi refused to renew a so called "assault weapon ban."
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