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 ...
Why is it that when talking about gun ownership, the sport of hunting and home protection are assumed to be the only purposes for owning weapons?
The most eloquent explanation of the Second Amendment, I’ve ever heard is that, “The Second Amendment is the reset button of the Constitution.”
Where I went to school and my personal readings of the Federal show that the Founding Fathers included the Second Amendment because of their justified distrust of large, central governments; so they included the Second Amendment to allow the American to face a large, central government, hostile to the wants and demands of the people, much like we have today.
I forget the name of the Senator, who said they had no problem with people owning weapons used for hunting, but felt rifles, as the AR-15, AR-10, etc, should not be allowed.
I personally owned both of the aforementioned rifles and must say that they are both my favorite rifles to fire, with the exception of my Savage 10, when shooting from the 500 meter line.
An education program is much overdue to let the American people know what the intent of the Founding Fathers were and to never allow ourselves to be lulled into thinking that our government is a benign, benevolent government, whose only purpose is to help us.
I’d hope that whoever was in the projection booth would have been alert enough to stop the movie and put the house lights on... I have been singularly uninterested in the grody details to this point. But anyhow, the odds could not be WORSE with decent, honest folks packing.
Well obviously “James Rowen” WTH he is, hasn’t taken a civics class because Holmes’ opinion said FALSELY shout “Fire” Big difference there, Jimbo.
Where do they find these dumbasses? Seriously.
And this:
“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.”
The “right to barge into a crowded theatre and open fire” . . . . lol...........WHOEVER argued that “right” ? This guy’s 100% idiot
But there’s more?
“bi-partisan political cowardice . . .”? Oh like bipartisan efforts to take on Hollyweird’s violence? Rap’s violence? How about the cowardice that won’t speak out against the most violent constituencies, that just so happen to vote 90% Democratic? See Chicago and Detroit, James.
((((hand shake))))
So it would have been better not to be carrying and at least being able to try?
FR is littered with sheep lately.
I believe the best way to stop a gunman from shooting up a crowd is to have more people in the crowd carrying concealed weapons! No,I’m not sure if it would help but I do know that if one man walks into to a theater with two guns and there are 20 people with one gun each that he would have problems running with 30 pounds of lead in his A#$
I don’t know about u but if I’m was going to get shot and die in that theater I would like to atleast had the chance to shoot back
I think fire in a theater is a wrong example lets try bomb on a airplane!
I think I could make out a Guy with an ar rifle firing rapidly
Non sense had a cop been in the movie with pistol the outcome WOULD have been different
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!
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