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14 dead, 50 injured by lone gunman in Batman premiere in Colorado


big_dish

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[quote name='MichaelWeston' timestamp='1342814237' post='1139920']
I'm not religious but there are very few conservatives that I meet that don't walk this ridiculous line between living a life of wealth consumption and claiming to want to follow christs example
To be honest I should have added a caveat for you because I think you are making some very reasonable points and at least are not using the death of fourteen people to push your agenda
People who I view as actually living out their religion are not redneck assholes
[/quote]

I need no caveats from anyone. I just want reasonable dialogue, but while there are those in the noisy fringes shrieking diatribe at one another, the vast majority of people continue to plug their ears and walk away, leaving the dais to the extremists. There are piss poor examples of humanity in every creed, every faith, and every political stance. Your "progressive" view just insulted three generations of my family; members that number engineers, artists, service members, musicians, fathers, mothers, honorable hunters, and otherwise honest folk. They all have gun permits, of various sorts, yet they do the world no harm. Believe it or not, they do not ride around in a pick-em-up truck, a-hootin' and a-hollerin', looking toss empty cans of cheap beer at you civilized, educated folks, hoping to pick a fight.
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[quote name='Jamie_B' timestamp='1342808792' post='1139899']
I would +1 if I wasn't on my phone
[/quote]

Thanks, every once in a while I have a rational thought :) It takes alot to explain certain things without giving out a life story on the background.

On a side note: I know at least one person who has been declared mentally unstable that has a valid CWP. I forgot to add that this person is on the FBI's list for subversive or terrorist organization. Ouch.

[b]Kennesaw, Georgia[/b]

[url="http://progressivevalues.blogspot.com/2007/04/kennesaw-georgia-gun-violence-reduction.html"]http://progressiveva...-reduction.html[/url]

[quote]Gun lobbyists and their supporters are once again parading a deeply misleading myth that claims greatly improved public safety in the rural community of Kennesaw, Georgia after in 1982 the City Council passed a law requiring every head of a household to own a gun, while the community of Morton Grove, Illinois passed a handgun ban in their community earlier in 1982.

Gun supporters misleadingly claim that Kennesaw is now much safer than Morton Grove by the use of some select use of statistical percentages of claimed crime reductions. However an honest comparison of the actual crime figures of the two communities certainly fail to prove the case of the gun advocates that more guns in a comunity improve the public safety compared to less guns. In general, guns do correlate with 33,000 national incidents that result in death each year including teen and adult suicide, accidents, domestic violence and murders.

Morton Grove, Illinois is a suburb of the huge city of Chicago, where no doubt, some Chicago residents will travel by car for the purpose of armed robbery and other crimes. Kennesaw is a far more rural community, much farther from a larger community, where most crime will be by local residents.

FBI crime statistics for 2003 provide the most recent equal models for comparison of the two cities which are roughly comparable in population. Morton Grove has 22, 966 and Kennesaw 25, 183 for the purposes of this 2003 actual crime figures comparison.

In 2003, Morton Grove had 2 murders and Kennesaw just 1. But both figures are subject to yearly fluctuations, where some years neither community will have an incident classified as a murder.

In 2003, Morton Grove had 4 robberies compared to 7 in Kennesaw. The Kennesaw figures are much higher than Morton Grove's for that year, and guns are often the weapon of choice in a robbery.

In 2003, Morton Grove had 12 aggravated assaults compared to the higher number of 15 in Kennesaw.

In 2003, Morton Grove had 70 burglaries compared to the much higher number of 89 in Kennesaw. Many burglars may carry a gun in case of being surprised by security or a property owner.

In 2003, Morton Grove had 390 incidents of larcency and theft compared 455 examples in Kennesaw.

No good statistics on suicide in the two communities can be easily found, but in general more guns do correlate with higher suicide rates just the same as more automobiles will correlate with higher accident figures. But with higher actual crime figures in Kennesaw compared to Morton Grove, that may include the use of guns, why gun supporters use Kennesaw as any shining example to support their claims yhay more guns improve community safety is simply absurd. No good evidence is to be found in the actual number of crimes which are higher in Kennesaw than Morton Grove that the law requiring gun ownership has made the community are more safe or crime free at all.

Also has the average person had their own life impacted by gun? My grandmother's brother was killed in a hunting gun accident. Careless hunters nearly hit the farm house I was raised in as a child when they illegally hunted pheasants on our farm property. My own mother was held up at gunpoint at her workplace. I lived in a community where gangs of young men with rifles and pistols were stalking pedestrians in automobiles with the windows blacked out and the license plates removed during a 1968 race riot. In this same community gun incidents still are somewhat common at two local high schools and at two area shopping malls. A Korean man was recently shot in the neck and paralyzed from the neck down during an armed robbery for a carton of cigarettes and cash while he only watched the store for a short time so the owner could attend a church service. A very nice man I know was shot during a robbery at his business and left him to spend the rest of his life as a disabled worker at the local St. Vincent De Paul. I ran a bookstore on Foster street, and another shopowner only a few doors down was shot and killed during a robbery. More guns failed to improve any of these incidents. Guns only correlated with all of these problems. And these are only the examples from my own life that I have personal knowledge of, many persons know of even worse personal examples.

Some gun advocates are now also claiming that students, teachers and security at Virginia Tech should all be allowed to bring guns to school to somehow enhance "security". Yet during the early college years of 18-25 higher problems with suicide, mental illness, alcohol, drug abuse or depression are the most likely to manifest itself according to all good scientific evidence, and putting guns in the hands of young people whose brains are not yet fully developed would only likely invite many incidents of gun violence or tragedy and is a highly irresponsible and reckless proposal.

Gun advocates may use misleading statistics to support their wholly absurd claims that more guns in a community improve the public safety. But no good statistics have ever proven this absurd premise. More guns always correlate with a higher number of unfortunate incidents of some type.[/quote]

[b]Edit: [/b] I have one intial problem with the above statement concerning 18-25 year old people. What is average age of young men we send off to war ? Yet stating that their brains have not fully developed as an excuse... citing "good scientific evidence" in itself is not evidence.

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[url="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/nypd-providing-increased-dark-knight-rises-shooting-352445"]http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/nypd-providing-increased-dark-knight-rises-shooting-352445[/url]

On Friday morning, Mayor[b] Michael Bloomberg[/b], a noted gun control advocate, called on [b]President Obama[/b] and GOP challenger [b]Mitt Romney[/b] to take a stance on the issue in the wake of the shootings.

"You know, soothing words are nice, but 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," he said. "And everybody always says, 'Isn’t it tragic,' and you know, we look for was the guy, as you said, maybe trying to re-create Batman. I mean, there are so many murders with guns every day, it’s just got to stop. 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, OK, tell us how. And this is a real problem."
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I knew as soon as I heard about the shooting this morning that there'd be a post from Dish on here trying to compare this, somehow, to the Trayvon Martin shooting or the video posted in that thread of a man trying to execute a couple of robbers.

Much like your inability to grasp the meaning of the word "follow", trying to compare this to those incidents is ridiculous. And disturbingly ghoulish, too, for that matter.
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http://www.stltoday.com/suburban-journals/stcharles/news/no-charges-filed-for-accidental-shooting-in-wentzville-church/article_04a783ec-6f52-5395-a71a-a311caf9528f.html
http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/2011/nov/18/tdmet02-man-whose-gun-discharged-killing-him-had-c-ar-1467500/
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=118x38972
Death is final
We should be moving away from guns in our society not toward more




Hunting and killing defenseless animals is pretty sickening as well
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[quote name='MichaelWeston' timestamp='1342820680' post='1139933']
[url="http://www.stltoday.com/suburban-journals/stcharles/news/no-charges-filed-for-accidental-shooting-in-wentzville-church/article_04a783ec-6f52-5395-a71a-a311caf9528f.html"]http://www.stltoday....11caf9528f.html[/url]
[url="http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/2011/nov/18/tdmet02-man-whose-gun-discharged-killing-him-had-c-ar-1467500/"]http://www2.timesdis...d-c-ar-1467500/[/url]
[url="http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=118x38972"]http://www.democrati...dress=118x38972[/url]





Hunting and killing defenseless animals is pretty sickening as well
[/quote]

And allowing them to starve and ravage ecosystems is worse.
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[quote name='fluhartz' timestamp='1342806292' post='1139890']
absolutely not... the person who does this type of thing usually either kills themselves afterwards, or basically makes the police kill them. They very very rarely go in to it thinking they are going to get away with it without something like that happening.

Also if you are capable of doing something like this, you aren't a very rational/sane person in the first place.... So no, I don't think more relaxed laws would have changed a thing. Stricter ones may keep some guns out of psychotic peoples hands though...
[/quote]

You realize your answer doesn't necessarily prove me wrong, but it proves all the people that say he was able to do this because of how easy it is to get guns, wrong. If someone REALLY has no regard if they live or die and are so mentally ill that they will kill people indiscriminately, then they will find a way to carry out their plan one way or another. Let's say Colorado had very strict laws where hardly any citizen could carry a gun or purchase a gun, there are many other ways the guy could have killed large groups of people. He could do like the Unabomber and make bombs, he could have pulled a truck load of fertilizer and diesel fuel up to the back of theater and blew up the place, heck he could have blocked the exit doors and fire bombed the place.

So the point here is, neither side of the CCW laws argument can really use this guy as an example for pros or cons, but myself I'd rather fall on the side of holding my fate in my own hands.
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[quote name='Xombie' timestamp='1342808598' post='1139898']
The stereotype of the hyper-macho, Cool Hand Luke; expert gunslinger who sees everything in John Woo bullet time and always is radiating the overcompensating hero complex. And as for appropriate gun rights, I have few problems with carry laws. I believe in citizens being able to own weapons for hunting and self-defense.
[/quote]

Co-signed.

I can't think of any reason to allow someone to own an AR-15 with a 100-round drum. Yeah, I enjoy target shooting and I'm sure it'd be a lot of fun (although expensive as hell), but there's no justification to own something like that.
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[quote name='GoBengals' timestamp='1342827279' post='1139945']
If I had a ccw permit I probably wouldn't have brought it in the movie. I would have left it in the car or home, sitting for three hours with a gun on me doesn't sound fun at all.
[/quote]

It's also illegal in your state, apparently. Not that it would have done you much good, being as that this dude had an assault rifle and was wearing body armor. Oh, and was tossing tear-gas, it seems. I guess it would have benefited everyone else to have someone draw his fire momentarily, but that's about all it would have accomplished.

A CCW permit-holder single-handedly stopping this guy is pure fantasy.
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When I read these arguments I can't help but laugh. For some reason it seems as if the people that are for more people carrying guns actually believe that if a gunman came in shooting up a place that they would just pull out their firearm and defuse the situation. This ain't Hollywood, boys. I'm not saying you wouldn't defend yourself but let's be real, you'd be shitting yourself if some fucker with an automatic weapon came in shooting the place up. On top of that, especially in this theater shooting, it was fucking dark and people were going crazy trying to get out of there. In my opinion, if there were these "5 people with permits" sitting there it would have been so easy for one of them to shoot one of the others by mistake. You don't know which one is the gunman, all you see is someone with a gun in a room full of panic. Also, someone said that if there were 5 law abiding people in there that were allowed to carry, and if one of them was up front, that he could have taken the guy out or at least slowed him down. Well sure, if you're going hypothetical on us then anything is possible. Fact of the matter is this, there could have been 50 people in there with CCW permits and none of them may have been up front. And if we're going to be hypothetical then we might as well just say that this could have been prevented if they had better security on their damn doors. You know, this guy was wearing a bulletproof vest. If someone in the front row had stood up and shot at him I can almost guarantee that that person would have ended up in a body bag.

Look, I'm not 100% against people owning guns. I grew up in rural Kentucky and there were guns in my house since I was born. I'm fully trained to use a gun. I do feel that there needs to be much much much stricter gun laws though. And yes, I'm against CCW. I wouldn't be comfortable walking down the street knowing that at any moment one of these law abiding CCW holders may have had a bad day at work, after a big fight with the wife, and he just decides to take it out on some others. Fuck you guys acting like everyone with a CCW can't have something happen to them that makes them snap. People walking around with guns is a huge, huge mistake.

Oh yeah, someone mentioned that if there were more CCW permits would it possibly deter shit like this from happening? I think not at all. The death penalty sure as shit hasn't deterred anyone. Prison hasn't deterred too many from committing crimes. People like this fucking idiot that shot up the theater are not right in their fucking head to begin with. You actually believe that they would be of sound enough mind to think about the downside to what they're doing and decide not to do it?

There are good arguments on both sides, within reason. Fact of the matter is this, there are too many guns in America now that it would be impossible to clean it up and get rid of them. It's something that you guys have to live with.

To be totally honest, now that I sit back and REALLY think about it, instead of stricter gun laws I'd like to see people learn to treat others with a little more respect. That alone would drop the crime rate down a hundred fold. I do believe the old NRA saying that "Guns don't kill people, people kill people" and America is a fucking cesspool when it comes to respecting your fellow man. That is an entirely different argument though.
MULLY
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[quote name='GoBengals' timestamp='1342827279' post='1139945']
If I had a ccw permit I probably wouldn't have brought it in the movie. I would have left it in the car or home, sitting for three hours with a gun on me doesn't sound fun at all.
[/quote]

After a while, it just becomes a part of you. Ive had my CCW for nearly 8 years and at this point I usually dont even take my small (9mm) gun off at night until I am either about to work out or go to bed. It is completely comfortable. I have a larger one too that is uncomfortable but its more for fun at the range (.45/410 Judge) rather than practical CCW.

[quote name='T-Dub' timestamp='1342828632' post='1139949']
It's also illegal in your state, apparently. Not that it would have done you much good, being as that this dude had an assault rifle and was wearing body armor. Oh, and was tossing tear-gas, it seems. I guess it would have benefited everyone else to have someone draw his fire momentarily, but that's about all it would have accomplished.

A CCW permit-holder single-handedly stopping this guy is pure fantasy.
[/quote]

Even with body armor, a .40 or .45 would knock him back, or knock him completely over. A CCW holder stopping him isnt fantasy at all- but he still would have wreaked some havoc before anyone (even an off duty cop in theater for instance) could have stopped him. I have a decent amount of friends that have CCW, and the majority of them are ex-military... I dont know what the breakdown nationally is, but I would assume there are plenty of CCW holders that would know how to react. Of course, there are also those that wouldnt know what to do- and I tend to think of CCW holders as the former, and I would guess you and others here tend to think of them as the latter.
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[quote name='MichaelWeston' timestamp='1342820680' post='1139933']

Hunting and killing defenseless animals is pretty sickening as well
[/quote]

I'll side with you if the person is doing it just for sport. I can not side with you though if the person is taking what they kill and eating it. I grew up in Kentucky and deer season was a helluva good time to be sitting down at the table to deer meat chili. And you could run the argument that we could have just as easily gotten meat at the supermarket but I'll say this, I'll take fresh killed wild animal meat over store bought, filled with chemicals meat any day of the week. But again, if someone is going out to hunt just to get a trophy for their wall then I'm totally against the killing of that innocent animal.
MULLY
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As far as this whole crime-deterrence argument goes, why do you need to conceal your gun? Ohio at least, and plenty of other states, already had open-carry laws. Wouldn't it be more of a deterrent if these potential criminals knew you were packing?

edit: Colorado also has open-carry, outside of Denver.
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Very informative article complete with some pictures of those who died, one of the weapons used in the crime (AR-15 with what looks like a 30 round mag), pictures of the shooter (James Holmes), a picture of his head-to-toe ballistic gear, etc...

[url="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2176377/The-Dark-Knight-Rises-theater-shooting--James-Holmes-looked-like-said-JOKER.html"]http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2176377/The-Dark-Knight-Rises-theater-shooting--James-Holmes-looked-like-said-JOKER.html[/url]

[img]http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/07/21/article-2176793-14267ED5000005DC-746_306x423.jpg[/img][img]http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/07/20/article-2176377-14264342000005DC-51_306x423.jpg[/img]

Reports are he may have bought his gun or guns from Bass Prop Shop or even Gander Mountain.
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[quote name='MichaelWeston' timestamp='1342837719' post='1139973']
I would be vegetarian if I had more will power

The fact is I simply can't imagine holding a gun staring down a living creature and killing it knowing I don't have to
There is something inhumAne about that
How many people have guns in japan
[/quote]

Don't quote me on this unverified source on guns in Japan. However, everything points to a culture that promotes a very low crime rate.

[url="http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/japan"]http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/japan[/url]

[quote] Number of Privately Owned Firearms
The estimated total number of guns held by civilians in Japan is 710,000

Rate of Civilian Firearm Possession per 100 Population
The rate of private gun ownership in Japan is 0.62 firearms per 100 people[/quote]

[quote]Ownership of handguns is forbidden to the public, hunting rifles and ceremonial swords are registered with the police, and the manufacture and sale of firearms are regulated. The production and sale of live and blank ammunition are also controlled, as are the transportation and importation of all weapons. Crimes are seldom committed with firearms, yet knives remain a problem that the government is looking into, especially after the Akihabara massacre.[/quote]
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[quote name='MichaelWeston' timestamp='1342837719' post='1139973']
I would be vegetarian if I had more will power

The fact is I simply can't imagine holding a gun staring down a living creature and killing it knowing I don't have to
There is something inhumAne about that
[/quote]

Same here. Except, I love to eat meat, but I would never, ever be a hunter. I would never want to kill an animal (that wasnt about to kill me first, at least). I had a Texan friend who used to try to talk about dove hunting around me. Doves, of all things. The nearly universal symbol of peace, and he found joy in snuffing out their lives..
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[quote name='T-Dub' timestamp='1342834897' post='1139960']
As far as this whole crime-deterrence argument goes, why do you need to conceal your gun? Ohio at least, and plenty of other states, already had open-carry laws. Wouldn't it be more of a deterrent if these potential criminals knew you were packing?

edit: Colorado also has open-carry, outside of Denver.
[/quote]

Because people freak out, mainly. Thats what I've always thought. Many people are uncomfortable around guns- and truthfully for good reason- you dont know who the person is that has them. IMO, they are better left concealed.
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[quote name='MichaelWeston' timestamp='1342837719' post='1139973']
I would be vegetarian if I had more will power
[/quote]

In that case man you're just being squeamish and really don't have a leg to stand on.. Not saying you need to go out and hunt a cow or anything, but complaining about hunting when you're probably eating meat from factory farms? Fresh fish & game is far less cruel.. and [i]much[/i] tastier, too.
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[quote name='big_dish' timestamp='1342840612' post='1139978']
Same here. Except, I love to eat meat, but I would never, ever be a hunter. I would never want to kill an animal (that wasnt about to kill me first, at least). I had a Texan friend who used to try to talk about dove hunting around me. Doves, of all things. The nearly universal symbol of peace, and he found joy in snuffing out their lives..
[/quote]

So, to summarize:

Shooting people: Had it coming.

Shooting birds: Cruel.

[img]http://www.hchs.hunter.cuny.edu/wiki/images/d/d3/LOLWUT_Pear.jpg[/img]
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