Police are concluding that the semi-automatic rifle with 100-round drum attached used by the Aurora shooter jammed. He was then forced to use his Glock pistol and shotgun (a lot of the 60-some people wounded in the theater were hit by shot from the shotgun).
If this report is true, it seems sure that the malfunctioning of the assault weapon saved lives. Ordinarily it can fire 60 rounds in a minute.
I just saw an Iraq vet, among the wounded, interviewed on CNN. He leaped on top of two friends, newlyweds, and took a bullet from the assault rifle through his leg and arm. Then the gun jammed. He says he is sure he would be dead if that had not happened. The shooter couldn’t justspray the theater any more.
Logically speaking, if a jammed assault weapon can be concluded to have saved lives, so that 12 died instead of 100, then wouldn’t it follow that making assault weapons unavailable would save lives?
Only in a rational universe
sadly, logic has little to do with gun control.
Americans better hope that Global Warming jams because that is our only prayer to stop it.
Yes, that makes sense, because Americans will be the only ones affected global warming….
The editors of my hometown newspaper, “The Pueblo Chieftain,” have a piece in their Sunday edition. Near the end is this:
“Lest some people revisit their argument that this nation should adopt strict gun controls, we would remind them that Timothy McVeigh did not use guns in the Oklahoma City massacre at a federal building. He used fertilizer and diesel fuel to build a massive truck bomb.
It’s not the weapons, whatever their makeup, that kill people. It’s the people behind the weapons who are the danger.”
What great thinking! Let’s give killers a choice! Make a truck bomb, or just go down to the local gun shop and pick up an AR-15. Way to go, editors.
Yes it would follow, Professor.
I’m so sick of our country living under the tyranny of the NRA, their powerful lobbies and all the politicians they’ve bought so they won’t legislate for better gun control.
I’m sick that our country that has been in the war and weapons business for 70+ years.
The USA needs to get out of the war and weapons business and embrace the business of Peace. Instead of spending multi-trillions on pointless war and lethal weapons that only enrich the NRA, war profiteers, and the MIC, we need to spend those taxpayer trillions on rebuilding the USA, on infrastructure, education, new technology and clean green energy, all of which would create JOBS and renew the American people. Not to mention the HUGE relief that would be to the rest of the world.
We need to depower the two terrible tyrannies—the NRA and the MIC—“that have in their direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States,” (with apologies to Thomas Jefferson) ☮
If that were said in court the opposing attorney would object for badgering the witness.
I agree with the NRA “Guns don’t kill, people do”.
Which is why I don’t think every walking personality-disorder in this country needs easy access to high-powered weaponry.
As always, it’s interesting how when 12 Americans die senselessly, flags are at half mast and even the mud slinging presidential campaigns stop out of respect, but when 50 people die in a bombing in Iraq or Afghanistan due to conflicts we promoted it barely makes the news.
or the deaths every weekend in the gun free zone of chicago; where is the outrage? oh they are minorities……
Apparently in the US people kill people while in Iraq , Afghanistan Pakistan etc etc it is weapons that kill people ( Damn those smart bombs!) …either way the solution is simple just don’t let people and guns( weapons) mix – the result is nasty.
I am wondering why the killer chose to carry out this massacre in a movie theater. Usually when students snap they seem to take it out on their fellow students and faculty members, as at nearby Columbine or Virginia Tech. Or, as at Ft. Hood, the killer was an officer killing other soldiers. This guy just seemed to randomly target movie patrons.
I bet you that if enough black people joined the NRA, the NRA would have a complete conniption and start demanding gun restrictions.
Maybe we should ask the Syrians?
the reality is that place like Finland- where there are over 50 guns to every 100 people seems to not have problems like this- the question is why?
the answer is that their society values life.
consider that.
maybe nice weather is a trigger for these sorts of things.
Actually, I recall Finland’s murder rate is high for Western Europe but of course low compared to America. Questions:
Rifles or pistols?
Truly private or militia-issued?
These are important considerations. Canada has plenty of rifles, and Switzerland has plenty of militia-issued assault rifles, but both are based on cultural factors that indoctrinate the citizens to not go around blasting people they don’t like in their communities.
Americans are truly in a state of low-intensity war against each other, with some embracing it and others in denial.
Meanwhile, here in Prof Cole’s and my home state of Michigan, legislation is pending – and a student organization on my own campus at Central Michigan University is pushing for it – that would legally permit students and others to pack heat on campus and in my classroom. One of my former students (an Iraq vet whose Facebook page suggests to me that he has a virtual love affair with his guns) leads that organization, and is adamant that he has the right to serve as our protector from gun mayhem.
I know it’s hard to listen to someone speaking mildly at a time like this, but ban that 100 round magazine. There’s no reason of any kind for a magazine of that size (unless, of course, you imagine that you’re going to be fighting off government forces that have come to deprive you of your 100 round clip).
The rifle he used, an AR-15, is not really that ban-worthy. Pretty much any hunter in the United States uses a rifle that can do four times the damage that the .223 Remington round fired by the AR-15, but I’m generally not worried about hunters killing people. People that scare me, gunwise, are ex-military, cops and ex-cops, and the unsuccessful social isolate. Oh, and people from Florida and Tea-hadists.
Over at redstate.com, one member (link to redstate.com) argues that the 2nd Amendment actually saved lives that day, by giving this murderous fool an outlet. They say, he could have built a suicide vest and killed even more, but didn’t because he had easy access to guns. Read it while you can (as that kind of posting embarrasses even those guys).
I want my Second Amendment Rights!
I want my own thermonuclear device!
We are always quick to point out how one evil man can do horrific things with a legally owned firearm, but somehow forget about the kind of death and destruction that governments or others organized entities can inflict against a disarmed population. Aurora is a tragedy, but proposed gun control solutions could be a stepping stone for America’s Mao, Stalin or Hitler of tomorrow. To think that “it can’t happen here” is foolishly naive.
And one might ask if you might be blind and gullible enough to fail to see that our NeoSecurity State and the way things work right now, already, in a political division near you and in our Imperial Capital, are not as bad and as pervasive as the stuff of your Maofears and Stalinterors and Hitlerhorrors? There were a whole lot of humans who were very comfortable going along with those predatory elites, just like the NRA is happy to go along with our current set of predators and kleptocrats.
“Disarmed population?” How you gonna protect your freakin’ bank account against government cyberseizure, your HomeIsYourCastle against theft by the Foreclosing Bankstas or some pipeline company all that other stuff that “the government” and the People Who Want To Run Government Like A Business And Already Are are holding, like your delicate cullions, in their massive inevitable slowly tightening hands? You gonna shoot your way out of the actual “takeover?” Which day, on the long slow descent into subjugation, are you going to pick to start your revolt? “It can’t happen here”? Hey, it already has. All that’s left is some further integration of the control mechanisms and some mopping up. Military training, or even thousands of “CallofDuty” hours ain’t gonna help even a little.
You think you are “free,” because you can buy guns ‘n ammo? You think the massive thing that rules you and the rest of us and is turning us into serfs and slaves and cranking the machinery that is grinding up the planet at an ever-faster rate is in the tiniest way concerned about that little bit of chimerical “freedom” you think you have left? Really?
Or they could be a stepping stone to a murder rate as low as Canada’s. Do you want a serious debate about that or are you going to claim that all the rest of the 1st World countries are Communist?
“assault rifle” is a nonsense term, semi automatic is semi automatic.
link to youtube.com
When do you begin advocating a ban on pump-action shotguns?
Banning weapons from citizens won’t make a dent in what’s really going on here. Sick people who shouldn’t be allowed in society but go un-noticed long enough will eventually commit a crime(s). There are so many ways to harm another person without having a gun but putting all this aside, if guns are banned…I would like to know how will you keep weapons from the hands of criminals and drug dealers? Do you just expect them to obey the law?
But then why aren’t things like this in Europe? Breivik was simply a political terrorist, unprecedented in Norweigan history and possibly inspired via the Internet by American extremists. Are you saying that Europeans are inherently more moral and sane than Americans? I’d like to have a national discussion about that.
luiza doesn’t get it. we americans don’t want to ban guns. we support the second ammendment. we want to prevent ordinary citizens from acquiring assault weapons and magazine ammunition that can kill a hundred people in one minute. get a grip. get the facts right. we don’t want to ban guns. life is gray not black and white.
You support YOUR version of the Second Amendment, which in its entirety reads:
A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
Which well-regulated militia do you belong to?
And yes, I have heard all the smarmy work-arounds that the NRA and other gun lovers have cobbled up to justify their preferences and peccadilloes. No sale, a four-corners strict construction is compellingly plain-meaning.