Posted on 07/25/2012 11:16:06 AM PDT by Kaslin
Hours after last Friday's massacre in Aurora, Colo., New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg demanded that the two major parties' presidential candidates explain how they plan to prevent such senseless outbursts of violence.
"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," Bloomberg said in a radio interview. "What are they going to do about guns?"
Whether you accept the premise that something must be done about guns, of course, might be influenced by where you stand on the Second Amendment and where you stand on guns. But according to Bloomberg, even people who object to gun control on practical or constitutional grounds are morally obliged to support it. Such arrogant illogic may help explain why public support for new gun restrictions has been falling for two decades.
Consider how the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence reacted to news that a man had shot 70 people, 12 of them fatally, at a midnight showing of "The Dark Knight Rises." "This tragedy is another grim reminder that guns are the enablers of mass killers and that our nation pays an unacceptable price for our failure to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people," said the group's president, Dan Gross. "We are outraged."
But outrage is no substitute for rational argument, and the response urged by the Brady Campaign -- a petition demanding that Congress keep guns away from "convicted felons," "convicted domestic abusers," "terrorists" and "people found to be dangerously mentally ill" -- had nothing to do with what happened in Aurora. As far as we know, James Holmes, the 24-year-old former neuroscience graduate student arrested for the murders, has no criminal record, no links to terrorist groups and no psychiatric history that would have disqualified him from owning guns.
Similarly, a New York Times story regretted that Holmes was "unhindered by federal background checks" when he bought ammunition online. Since he passed background checks to buy his pistols, shotgun and rifle, why would a background check for ammunition have stopped him?
Other gun-control advocates focused on the AR-15 rifle used by Holmes, a civilian, semi-automatic version of the M-16. Depending on the details of its design, it might have been covered by the federal "assault weapon" ban that expired in 2004. But such legislation targets guns based mainly on their military appearance, as opposed to features that make a practical difference in the commission of crimes (a purpose for which they are rarely used). It is hard to see how the presence or absence of a bayonet mount, a threaded barrel or a collapsible stock, for instance, matters much for a man shooting unarmed moviegoers in a darkened theater.
Holmes also had large-capacity magazines: one holding 100 rounds for the rifle (which reportedly jammed) and one holding 40 rounds for his .40-caliber Glock pistol. But reinstating the federal ban on magazines holding more than 10 rounds, as recommended by Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., would have no impact on a determined killer, since millions of larger magazines are already in circulation. Even if all of them disappeared tomorrow, switching magazines (or weapons) takes just a few seconds -- probably not a crucial consideration when no one is shooting back.
Instead of restricting guns, magazines or ammunition for everyone, why not focus on the tiny percentage of buyers who will use them to commit mass murder? Because there is no reliable way to identify those people before the fact. As Vasilis Pozios, a Detroit psychiatrist who specializes in risk assessment, recently conceded to USA Today, "We're just not good at predicting who does this."
Peter Ahearn, a former FBI agent, made the same point in an interview with The Associated Press. "There's nothing you can do to predict that type of crime," he said. "There's no way you can prevent it."
That message is not reassuring, popular or politically useful. It just happens to be true.
Hey Doomberg,
Kiss my smelly Obama.
An armed audience might have stopped him.
Give everyone 16oz sodas to throw. They’re dangerous weapons.
So they ban handguns, semi-automatic weapons, etc. But they allow hunting rifles and shotguns. I then suppose a deranged killer, like Holmes, wouldn’t use those weapons do murder people? I guarantee you, if Holmes only had a very legal pump shotgun, he could have killed just as many or more people than he did kill. And since he knew about explosives, what would have stopped him from throwing a molotov cocktail or some other type of bomb into the audience? Nothing. Nothing except a law enforcement officer OR AN ARMED CITIZEN!!! can stop a deranged killer.
Actually from what I read Holmes used a shotgun initially and when it ran out he went to use the AR-15. When it jammed he switched to his handgun.
I could be wrong, but that’s what I read in one of the hundreds of MSM news stories. Not that you can expect them to get it right.
One lib online said that it would be wrong to shoot him in the act. That he deserved his day in court.
Liberalism is a mental disorder.
Bump for later reading.
Good article that highlights the obvious fact that there is simply no way to prevent a person like James Holmes from committing mass murder. He had no criminal record, no association with any terrorist group and was never considered psychotic. That is, until he began randomly killing people in a movie theater last week. Too late, then. So, all the restrictions on gun ownership that most people agree on would have been useless against a psycho like Holmes. Of course the left doesn’t want restrictions, they want private ownership of guns totally outlawed. Arrogant leftists like New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg are using a tragedy to score political points. What else is new? Bloomberg can go pound sand.
Can anyone make demands like this or just the Mayor of NYC? What is the penalty for not meeting his demands?
***New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg demanded that the two major parties’ presidential candidates explain how they plan to prevent such senseless outbursts of violence. ****
I supposed Bloomberg would be thrilled if Holmes had driven his auto up to the theater exit and set of a big bomb killing everyone in several theaters. He could grandstand about how no one was shot!
Despot Bloomberg can say all he wants, but the fact remains 2nd Amendment infringement does nothing but get people killed. That’s where the argument starts and ends. Put it this way; Despot Bloomberg waltzes around town with armed bodyguards. If some nut suddenly ran up to him waving a machete, would he want his guards armed or disarmed?
Given the outrages he has perpetrated on the public, when is New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg going to get professional psychiatric help?
I’m not even sure that there is a current description of a mentally ill person who tries to “externalize” their internal conflicts by forcing others to do what they personally need to do but don’t.
For example, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg consumes such unhealthy levels of salt that food served in the Mayor’s mansion is inedible to normal people. And after being told that consuming so much salt is bad for *him*, his response is to try and limit other people’s consumption of salt.
This is mentally ill.
Bloomberg also has “issues” with cigarettes, so he tries to make them prohibitively expensive in NYC. And he is dreadfully afraid of assassination, so he surrounds himself with a heavily armed phalanx of bodyguards. But he also wants to take guns away from everyone else.
This is all characteristic of mental illness. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s mental illness. And until he is treated for his mental illness, he is a public threat or menace.
Nelson T. ‘Pete’ Shields
Founder of Handgun Control, Inc.
“I’m convinced that we have to have federal legislation to build on. We’re going to have to take one step at a time, and the first step is necessarily — given the political realities — going to be very modest. Of course, it’s true that politicians will then go home and say, ‘This is a great law. The problem is solved.’ And it’s also true that such statements will tend to defuse the gun-control issue for a time. So then we’ll have to strengthen that law, and then again to strengthen that law, and maybe again and again. Right now, though, we’d be satisfied not with half a loaf but with a slice. Our ultimate goal — total control of handguns in the United States — is going to take time. My estimate is from seven to ten years. The problem is to slow down the increasing number of handguns sold in this country. The second problem is to get them all registered. And the final problem is to make the possession of all handguns and all handgun ammunition — except for the military, policemen, licensed security guards, licensed sporting clubs, and licensed gun collectors — totally illegal.”
-Pete Shields, Chairman and founder, Handgun Control Inc., “A Reporter At Large: Handguns,” The New Yorker, July 26, 1976, 57-58
“Yes, I’m for an outright ban [on handguns].”
-Pete Shields, Chairman emeritus, Handgun Control, Inc., 60 Minutes interview
And rifles are already in their sights.
“The NRA is a rifle organization! They should give up their handguns and they can keep their rifles!”-Lee Grant on GMA.
“We only want to control handguns. Rifles and shotguns will not be affected”.-HCI from about 1980.
“Today we make America safe by taking guns out of the hands of criminals.”-Lyndon Johnson when he signed the 1968 gun control act into law.
I can think of several things:
I am sure other can think of other correctives.
Romney: "I've decided Democrats have been right all along. People act out because they're economically disenfranchised. Therefore, my administration will prevent this senseless violence by fixing the damage Barack Obama's done to the economy."
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