Jack Cafferty just read my comment on CNN. It was in response to his commentary and question:
If you scroll down through the comments, you’ll find mine:
PiedType
The insanity has to end. Your right to own a gun is no greater than my right to go to a theater without fear of getting shot by a heavily armed psycho. Both candidates should come down hard on the side of greater gun control!
Susan R
Denver, CO
With a little luck, the website will soon be changed, as it has been in the past, to show which comments were read on the air. I was so startled I forgot to watch whether mine was the last one he read. It’s always seemed to me he saves the best for last. Or maybe he picked mine because I’m in Denver and I’m mad as hell.
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More on Pied Type:
What’s wrong with this picture
Yet another reason to tighten gun laws
Kids will be kids
The right to be a fool
I feel so much safer now
There is no constitutional right to bear arms
I do not think that there are any easy solutions, or any that can get a majority with the public. Everyone is screaming “Do something! Do something!” but nobody knows what to do.
A person with enough determination can order gun parts & put together some very effective killing machines; they can also build bombs.
Gun control would have been the solution 50 years ago, but the way American culture is now? Black Market guns, build-your-own guns, bombs, chemical weapons… I see very little hope.
So we just throw up our hands and keep shoveling guns out the door to anyone who wants them? That’s just nuts. We non-gun owners have rights too.
PT, I don’t think that we should stop trying, but I believe that it is a fact that someone who is determined to kill someone will find a way to do it.
Mental health care definitely will play a part in the solution… but that’s really unpopular in general, and stigmatizing to the patient.
If we had the tightest, most enforced gun restrictions in the world? I’m sure that would cut the number down some. Between that and mental health care for everyone is would cut that number down a lot.
I do not see either of those things happening in this society.
But son’t let my lack of hope on this issue stop you from doing all that you can and all that you want to do to solve the problem, and I do hope that you and others like you can succeed.
Yes, the mental health thing is definitely part of it. We need to do more to recognize and treat mental illness, and do so earlier.
There is no gun law or control that will protect people who choose to be victims because they refuse to accept the responsibility of self defense.
Right. And there should be no swimming lessons or restrictions on when and where we swim because people should accept the responsibility of drowning when confronted with deep water.
Assuming your own responsibility for self protection would include learning to swim, or staying away from pools of water. Since the police aren’t obligated to protect you, depending on them to for that purpose is irrational IMHO.
Right… and if everyone in that theatre was armed they’d all know instinctively which way to shoot, and who the bad guy was because, obviously, they’d all be responsible gun owners and highly trained by authorized trainers who were licensed by… who, their moms?
Okay, I want to be responsible and learn to swim, who teaches me? Who’s in charge of quality control when it comes to lifeguards, or are we responsible for our own safety when we get a cramp swimming in that public pool?
You don’t want to get me started right now on that concealed carry crap — that if there had been someone in the theater packing, this never would have happened. NO, NO, NO. You don’t solve this problem with even more guns. Every one of them is a potential intrusion into my right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness — in a damn crowded theater or any other public place I choose to go — I have the right to go there without a gun and without getting shot. And you’re aren’t going to ensure that by selling an assault rifle, a shotgun, two pistols, and thousands of rounds of ammo to some sick bastard in Aurora! ‘Scuse my saying so, but that’s one of the most insensitive, illogical things you’ve ever said. Those people deserved to die because they chose not to pack guns to the theater to protect themselves!!!!!?????
Or taken another way, you’re right, there is no law to protect those people. That’s precisely the problem. There should be a law, a lot of laws, strictly enforced, to protect those people. They didn’t choose to protect themselves because they didn’t think they would need to. And most, had they imagined they might have to protect themselves from a shooter in the theater, would have protected themselves by staying home, not by taking a gun to the theater.
I woke up this morning still seething about this. You’re blaming the victims. You dare suggest they were shot because they were too irresponsible to defend themselves!? Seriously? That’s the NRA rationale now? The victims were irresponsible? I suggest gun owners had better start figuring out ways to police themselves if they don’t want lawmakers to do it for them.
Sorry for the insensitivity, but yes… this carnage could have been lessened if someone had stopped him when his gun jammed. There were a few seconds there where everybody still alive should have been regretting that they weren’t armed. There is no free lunch.
So, to a jam-packed, darkened, gas-filled, panicked theater, with bullets flying everywhere from a gunman in all-black full body armor, you would add another shooter, another gun, and more flying bullets …
… shaking my head …
Imagine yourself in that situation armed with a potentially lethal weapon… is that the way you’d act?
Try to imagine that others who understand the immense responsibility and potential liability of being armed… try to imagine that they are no less responsible than you.
The very first thing you learn with this responsibility is that you go out of your way (WAY OUT) to avoid confrontational situations, but when you find yourself unable to escape one, you have to know that collateral damage is something you’ll live with the rest of your life.
I don’t understand why depending on strangers to protect your life (when you have BY FAR the greatest incentive to do so yourself) seems reasonable. I just don’t understand it.
Now see, there you go again, assuming that everyone with a gun is responsible …
Actually Pied, it’s just the opposite. It’s because I do not assume that everyone with a gun is responsible that I want those of us who are law abiding, responsible citizens free to defend ourselves against those who are not.
Just because I can legally carry a gun doesn’t mean that I’ve been given any additional rights to shoot it. All it means is that I don’t have to be a complacent, powerless victim when faced with imminent harm or death. And even then, if I’ve shot somebody, I still have to prove that I didn’t act irresponsibly.
On top of all that, gaining my permit required me to learn all the reasons why you shouldn’t draw a weapon. I know that a judge and jury will discover that I’ve studied the Texas laws that spell out all the reasons why having a concealed carry permit is no defense against any wrongful harm I’ve caused.
As I wrote in an earlier post, “There’s no way to predict if or when an individual will become angry, scared, drunk, high, or simply impulsive and in an unthinking moment, reach for the nearest way to make a point. When that way is a gun, tragedies can and do result. Licenses are just pieces of paper, not guarantees against human emotion. Impulse and emotion are transient; death is very, very permanent.”
Guns have only one purpose — killing. I don’t want them around me; I don’t want to be around them. My thinking may change some day if I feel sufficiently threatened, but until that happens I’m not going to live my life as though every other person on the street is a potential gunman.
We’ll just have to agree to disagree, as we always have.
Texas has a “stand your ground” law, which makes it very hard to figger out who did what to who, and why re: the case in Florida, which has a similar law. Which means that not all of those who have guns are responsible or perform only legal acts with their concealed or openly carried guns.
I am sure any number of them would have loved to defend themselves and their children except well normal people don’t need a gun in a movie theater. I’m pretty sure though that you aren’t referring to that, right?
I can tell you that a 5 inch Kimber 1911 .45ACP isn’t the most comfortable thing to share a theater seat with.
WOW. Just WOW.
No, really bats, we’ll all be safer because our behaviour — more importantly, the behaviour of the hundreds of freaks who surround us wherever we go — would be dictated by the fear we / they feel from knowing everyone around us are packing heat. See, none of those people who died or just got shot felt The Fear, so they were naive enough to believe they were safe. Whereas any rational human being, before leaving the house to go shopping for milk, or taking public transit because the armoured Hummer is in the shop, would stop and think “hey, the only way I’ll feel safe is to have a gun in my belt because, you know, EVERYONE ELSE WILL BE ARMED.”
OR it wouldn’t fucking matter how many guns were in that theatre, a dozen or more people were going to die anyway because it all happened so fast. Because, really, if you’re going to whip out a 5 inch Kimber 1911 .45ACP at the first sound of gunfire in a modern, 8.3 Dolby Surround Sound IMAX theatre, and start looking for targets, you’d be the target.
Gabriel… dial 911 when your life is in danger. Nobody is forcing you to protect yourself.
Sure… hey, good luck when you’re in the deep end and you get that cramp in your leg and you realize the only person who can save you is a government certified, public sector lifeguard, but then you remember you’re a libertarian “…no, don’t help me, I don’t believe in government intervention into my life… gurgle… no taxes… gurgle… I have only myself to blame… sputter…”.
That’s cool!!! Is there a video for the show?
Some of them seem to turn up on YouTube eventually but not with any regularity. The full text of his comments is on the website, but I’d love to have video of him reading my comment.
Wow! I’m not surprised he read it out, it’s powerful stuff. Lucid, logical, moving.
Okay, now you’ve made me blush.
I saw him say it! Great comment btw Type.
You saw his commentary, or you saw him read my comment? If it was my comment, you just made the whole thing 10 times better!
I saw him read your comment. I had no clue at the time it was you. Now I do and it makes the comment 10 times even better!
I can’t even explain how cool that is!
Neither can I. 🙂
Lawrence O’Donnell had a great anti-NRA segment tonight.
I’ve probably missed a lot of good discussion. I’ve really been trying hard not to watch news surrounding the shooting. The local media are still saturated with it and it’s hard to get away from it. It’s just too hard to keep hearing it.
“Concealed carry crap ” great phrase-making, exactly my sentiments. We need to say this often and loud to those who want to close down solutions to this out-sized problem. Signing petitions by Mayors against Illegal Guns and the Brady Campaign also help the rest of us believe we are not totally helpless.
Hey, Naomi, thanks for dropping by. It’s nice to meet another senior blogger.