The Dark Knight Rises shooting and Gun Control

ADMIN EDIT: this conversation was moved from this thread, and was spun off as it quickly became about another topic,


Wow Americans scare so easily its remarkable.

Astonishing really.

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"The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it." - Michelangelo.

It's a shade more reasonable to question the poll than to say the entire country is scared. It didn't slow ticket sales, for example, so the evidence that we're cowering over this is mixed, to say the least.

it sure spurred gun sales + applications of Conceal Carry Permits.

As if having several Costumed movie goers blazing away in a smoky dark theatre would have been awesome.

For Cryin out loud, its not even the first shootem-up in Aurora. A looney tuned individual shot up a Chuck E Cheese in the 90's.

Honest Question Chris. :

If the Shooter was of Iranian Descent do you have any doubts whatsoever that the call for drones to be deployed would be teh conversation that would dominate?

It spurs gun sales because people assume it will lead to more gun control. We saw a jump in light bulb sales when news laws effectively banned the old kind, too. I guess Americans are really afraid of the dark.

Well, it was already illegal to carry a concealed weapon in Aurora. Amazing how many news articles and people commenting on the situation fail to mention that.

But if you're asking me if I'd have preferred if one of those moviegoers had had a gun to fight back with? Yeah, of course. I dunno how that's even a question.

So are you arguing that Americans are overreacting to a lone incident, or that it really is a trend (every twenty years, I guess) and that they should be scared? You seem to be arguing both.

If he was of Iranian descent and had some kind of tie to a terrorist organization, then yeah, they'd react very differently. Of course.

There have been 125 mass shooting incidents involving "innocents" since Columbine 10 years ago and this latest one.

The Only gun law to have changed during that decade long span is the lapse of teh restriction on Assault weapons with huge-ass magazines.

So again, why would a reasonable person "assume" they are comin for teh guns?

Why?

Also, not for nothing, but i really wish the Gun-Nuts that trumpet the 2nd Ammendment would be intelectually honest about the intent.

Single Shot Musket followed by 10 minutes of re-loaden and then single shot isnt the same thing as what we are talkin about here.

Not to mention, the Amendment mentions something about a "Well Regulated Militia" does it not?

You don't have to "assume" they're coming for them. You just have to assume they might. If you might want a gun, and something happens that might make it a lot harder to get one, it makes sense to get it now, in case something comes of it.

Also, gun ownership and usage has been going down for some time. So to say the sales have gone up by a certain percentage is partially a reflection of the size they were at beforehand.

Let's try that argument with another right: hey, when the Founders codified Freedom of Speech, that just meant raising your voice in public! That isn't the same as cable news and blogs and Twitter.

Same logic. But it sounds pretty bad, yeah? These rights weren't given carelessly, with absolutely no thought to the kind of effect the progression of time and technology would have on them. They were very mindful of the future and how to craft a Constitution that would withstand the test of time. If you want to argue that they didn't do it properly, that's fine, but I don't think anyone can seriously argue that they gave no thought to the idea. The entire purpose of a Constitution is to contain enduring principles stand over time.

It does. But we're not in that militia just by virtue of owning the gun, either. The right cannot be infringed because we might need the militia, is the idea. And multiple courts have ruled as such.

I went to go see The Watch yesterday and saw several police officers at the theater. I s'pose that struck the entire nation.

http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s3546943.htm

Furthermore, I don't know how well the whole gun-control idea will work, since bad guys don't tend to follow the law.

Something has to be done in America. Though the idiot Politicians will never do it. Why? They won't get elected...that cracks me up!

Obama got elected.

I used to lean more to the left on gun control when I was in my teens and twenties, but I eventually realized that it's meaningless to defend constitutional freedoms if you're gonna argue to take out its teeth.

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#31 on SC's Top 100 Mofos list!!

Not on Gun control.... Seriously though, that psycho who gunned down a movie theatre never done anything wrong until he massacred the people. Is that odd? C'mon!

I was making a joke about idiot politicians never getting elected.

Sorry

No worries mate. I don't understand some humour, though I understand will.15 to a certain extent...that's bad I think..lol!

whats a bad guy?

Well lets say movie goer in the 20th row had a gun. If he attempts to hit the rampager and kills somebody else, does he get a free pass for given it the ol college try?

How about the 3rd guy who sees the 2nd guy shooting? How does he know in a split second whether the original nut is acting alone or not?

and the cops arrive at the scene, with several batman clad men firen away..what do u think they ought to do to figure out whats what?

Dexter - Bad guy being a criminal.
Powder - That's fine man,

The shooter would qualify as a bad guy.

I think you know what he means, though. The old saw is that "if you criminalize guns, only criminals will have guns." It's probably a little simplistic, but there's plenty of truth to it. If you ban guns the only people who will have them are those willing to break the law to get them. IE: the people who you least want to have them.

No. That's called involuntary manslaughter.

He doesn't. There's going to be a lot of chaos. That doesn't mean the alternative--a bunch of people being shot with no way of defending themselves--is better.

I mean, obviously people just getting slaughtered results in much less confusion. It'd be even less confusing if they were lined up and executed one by one. But since when is preventing confusion the goal here? That's only important insofar as it prevents the loss of life.

They'd have to get there insanely fast to actually arrive in the middle of ongoing gunfire. It's not a siege.

People were massacred. They had no way to defend themselves. It would have been better if some of them could defend themselves. That seems like a pretty uncontroversial statement to me, no matter your position on gun control.