HotWingConspiracy: griffer: The police credit armed civilians returning fire. These citizens provided suppression fire that reduced the casualties that day. But I am sure you don't remember that.

I'm sure that's comforting to the dead. Somehow I imagine they'd rather just not get shot by a legal gun owner.

1. Firearms will never be banned in this country. Even if they were, they would be smuggled in from elsewhere and the whack jobs would have more soft targets to hit, not less.
2. People are broken, not the weapons. We need to spend more on mental health in this country and a whole lot less on nitwittery firearms regulations that make one weapon legal, but another one of the same caliber and capacity illegal simply because the designer made it with plastic and not wood.
3. Stop playing the "piles of dead bodies, think of the children!" card. It stopped working a decade ago. You sound like an "anti-abortion no matter what" protestor.

quiotu: I still haven't seen a very valid argument about why a ban on assault weapons would be so bad. Not all guns, just stuff like the AR-15 this guy was using.

Defintionally, that's hard.

That gun is like so many other magazine fed, semi-automatic hunting rifles firing .223 Remington civilian round.

What exactly made that particular model gun more deadly? Nothing. How do write legislation that works?

Oh, it LOOKS like a military weapon?

From the wiki article-

Assault Rifle-
-It must be an individual weapon with provision to fire from the shoulder (i.e. a buttstock);
-It must be capable of selective fire; (fire modes including single shot, or multiple or full auto fire)
-It must have an intermediate-power cartridge: more power than a pistol but less than a standard rifle or battle rifle;
-Its ammunition must be supplied from a detachable magazine rather than a feed-belt.
-And it should at least have a firing range of 300 meters (1000 feet)

Assault Weapon- It defined the rifle type of assault weapon as a semiautomatic firearm with the ability to accept a detachable magazine containing more than 10 rounds, and two or more of the following:

-Folding or telescoping stock
-Primary pistol grip
-Forward grip
-Threaded barrel (for a muzzle brake or a suppressor, commonly called a silencer)
-Barrel shroud

These are AESTHETIC things that don't make a weapon more deadly, they just make it look 'scarier'.

Did you know rifles used in the Winter Olympics qualify as assault weapons?


I am not saying no regulation, rather I am asking that we sponsor legislation that makes rational sense and isn't motivated by fear.

One last point about the specific weapon, the M&P15 and other AR-15 style weapons. The M&P15 is designed as a tactical weapon. That means its intended to be used against people. Let's not be blind to that point. But I know many property owners in the wake of Katrina were very happy to have tactical rifles in their possession to defend their property.

As stable as out society is, there are place and points in time where the police can't help you, and if you are facing large numbers of hostiles, this weapon is for that.

The people in the theater are actually lucky he chose to use a quote-unquote "assault weapon"

Dude put a drum magazine in his rifle causing it to jam. Then he sprayed birdshot around everywhere virtually guaranteeing everybody in the theater would be "hit", (i recall back to the french riots some cops were shot with birdshot and the press was downplaying it saying it was a "b b gun"). So he was able to kill 12 people all together with his AR15 before it jammed, his shotgun and pistol. If he had just used a dependable hunting rifle he probably would have killed alot more people.

I mean unless you're willing to straight up ban ALL weapons, and spend about 20-40 years going house to house rounding up illegal arms from resistors, there is literally nothing you can do stop assclowns that want to do this.

This is literally no amount of gun control that can stop crazies from doing this. Even in Europe. Think about that for a second.

probesport: FTA: The grenades were wired to a control box in the kitchen, which bomb technicians disabled with the help of a remote-controlled robot that squirted water on it.

Sounds sophisticated.

The "journalist" makes it sound like a squirtgun. Which I suppose it is, in a way-- but it's more likely that they were using one of the explosively-driven shaped-charge water projectile devices. This one, for example, is placed under cars, and then drives the water hard enough to punch through the car and shove the explosive device through the roof.

Now that I think about it, any definition of "squirtgun" that includes devices that can punch water straight through a car is cool with me. Carry on.

Dimensio: Is such a distinction necessary? Obviously, the objectionable element is the firearm; had mass homicides been committed with other implements, they would have been acceptable.

You don't think motive matters?

I do.

Legalize and decriminalize and you remove the motive for gang shootings.

If you address the motive- poverty, desperation, drugs- you reduce crime. Most crime is an economic activity.

Mass shootings like Aurora are not.

The problem is, I don't think you can ever stop an intelligent, committed crazy person from doing harm.

We haven't stopped serial killers, arsonist, pedophiles or rapist, but they don't need a particular product to commit their insanity. Take away one tool, they will use another.

sirgrim: vegasj: actually CNN...

[a4.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net image 850x544]

You don't know the difference between thousand and thousands do you?



/better?

Interesting to me that many of the same people who want to legalize drugs also want to make guns illegal. Instead of outlawing drugs, they want to treat the root cause of the problem, which is addiction. But with guns they take the opposite stance. Never mind addressing the root cause of violence in America. JUST GRAB THE GUNS!

Frank N Stein: I'm going to purchase an Ar-15 and there's not a thing you can do about. Stay mad, gun grabbers.

You'll shoot your eye out!

I'm just glad it was bullets instead of gasoline if it had to happen at all. In one office I worked we filled plastic milk jugs with water and left them at the coffee stations since we didn't have running water at them or any support staff. Most of us could carry 3 to 4 gallons in each hand. He looks pretty weak so maybe 6 gallons unless he packed some on his back in addition. He could have easily splattered a gallon at the exit door, got to another exit door to herd them in and tossed the rest into the air to splatter throughout the theatre except for one to throw at the biggest clump of people trying to get out of any other available exits. The body count would be pretty high I think and the injuries would be life-long hell. The only thing worse than seeing bodies that have drowned and have been under for a while is bodies that have been burned.

This douche had issues and he would have found a way even if he couldn't have gotten his paws on a firearm. I can't fathom what would make someone want to do this.

Well duh, they were using their handy dandy chart:



They probably mistook a grenade for an AK-47.

CNN reports that Sideshow Bob.....

Drew, stop trying to make "fetch" happen! It's not going to happen!

It's insane. It's just like anyone can just walk up and buy ALL the gasoline they want.

"These acts of heroism and sacrifice are the essence of what military service is about -- putting your life on the line to defend those who are part of the American family," Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said in a statement Monday.