Suspected Colorado movie theater gunman James Holmes purchased four guns at local shops and more than 6,000 rounds of ammunition on the Internet in the past 60 days, Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates told a news conference this evening. "All the ammunition he possessed, he possessed legally, all the weapons he possessed, he possessed legally, all the clips he possessed, he possessed legally," an emotional Oates said.
What does this say about how we, as a society, condone and protect our ability to commit these violent acts? How much longer can we use the lame rationale that these atrocities are committed by "disturbed" loners and are aberrations.
Our problem is it’s simply too easy to assemble an arsenal of weaponry in this country. Our gun related death rate and injury compared to other first world countries is absurd. Other countries number in the tens, while we number in the thousands. These countries all have stricter gun laws. Similarly within the US, gun related deaths and injuries are lowest in the states with the strictest laws . And these mass murders mostly occur in the states with the most lax regulations. These things are not unrelated.
A kid like the Aurora shooter can assemble an outfit like this in only two months.
Which should also put the rest the misguided notion of the gun rights people who claim if only there had been more armed patrons in the theater, they could have taken out the shooter before he killed and injured so many people. More people shooting guns in a darkened theater, filled with acrid smoke and a panicked crowd would unlikely have led to less mayhem.
What would have lessened the death toll would have been if it had been more difficult for the shooter to obtain rapid fire weapons and 6,000 rounds of the kind of ammo that makes it possible to injure close to 100 people in just a few minutes. Certainly these guns have no sporting purpose. These are military grade guns which were designed to do one thing. Kill people. There’s no reason to allow anyone to carry them on our streets or use them outside of a firing range.
Unfortunately for the victims of these mass killings we persist on protecting what is obviously a crazy notion that guns are not a problem and quickly forget Arizona, Columbine, and now Aurora.
Lest we forget; "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."
No sporting use?
ReplyDeleteWhat about competitive shooting? What about gun owners that enjoy going to the rifle range? What about people that choose to use them for self/home defense? Also, referring to these guns as "rapid fire" is a great leap to imply any more lethality over any other firearm. These are semiautomatic firearms and require the trigger to be pulled for each shot. The 870 actually requires you to pump the action to chamber a new round, so it's the farthest thing from a "rapid fire" firearm.
The Glock 40 is a very popular gun for IPSC and other shooting organizations, and also the GSSF.
The AR15 is the most widely purchased and owned semi-automatic sporting rifle in the US. Countless people deer hunt, varmint hunt, and use AR15's for competition. I believe that constitutes sporting use, wouldn't you say?
Lastly, the Remington 870 is the number one selling pump actuated shotgun in HISTORY. It's also the most common shotgun used for deer hunting, duck hunting, sportsman clays, and some are even using in it 3GUN events. There has never been a question of its sporting use.
The author of this article seriously needs to educate themselves before writing such a worthless article. The guns in the shooters hands never once killed a person, or harmed a person...the person pulling the trigger is solely responsible.
The author of this post strongly disagrees with the notion that "killing" anything is a "sport". Claiming that one needs "assault" weapons for self defense is contradictory in and of itself. An "assault" weapon is for just that, "assaulting" and way more than anyone needs for self defense unless they are taking on an army of assailants. How many times has that happened in your life? Excusing your self from societal influences on personal behavior and encouraging people to put guns in their hands does have a big influence on what happens next. And it happens a lot and not just by some "disturbed" loner in some random situation. People that promote the ownership and use of guns have a social and moral responsibility in what happens with these guns, be it in Colorado,Arizona,or way down south in Mexico. Glorifying violence and making it a sport is not helping the situation no matter how you try to rationalize it.
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