We Don’t Need no Stinking Guns…
We are told by liberals that we have no need for personal weapons because the police will protect us from violent criminals. We all know, without citing the endless litany, that the reality is that the police are most likely to arrive long after the perpetrators have fled, the police officers’ primary usefulness being to summon the ambulances and interview the still-living victims. Look at this most recent example of public violence claiming multiple lives in Colorado. The police chief is on air proudly proclaiming that his officers were on site within one minute. Well, that’s well and good except for what transpired prior to that minute.
His officers weren’t there to shoot down this assassin the moment he opened fire on this collective group of victims, who were innocently and conveniently awaiting their victimhood.
His officers weren’t there until the killer had completed his murderous slaughter and exited the slaughterhouse through the rear door. A minute? When a madman is firing into a helpless crowd with high-powered, automatic weapons, lives are literally measured in seconds and the one minute response time the chief is so proud of becomes a lifetime for those being targeted.
So what is my point? Am I critical of the Aurora Police Department response? Hell no. What drives me to distraction is that no single individual in that theater was armed and responded to the criminally murderous force with rounds righteously delivered upon the body of the killer from any, any, member of the audience. One armed citizen could have made all the difference here. Yeah, the perp was armored up; so what? A full magazine of 9mm dumped into his armored-up figure would have been a series of hammer blows that most certainly would have altered his murderous course. Imagine yourself on the receiving end of a series of smacks from baseball bat delivered by a large and muscular fellow. That’s what being hit by 9mm rounds at close quarters is like. It’s a game changer and, yes, it could have changed this deranged asshole’s game.
So what’s my point? An armed citizenry, that’s what. Had any one individual in that first few rows of victims had a side-arm that he/she pulled and put into immediate action, even blindly firing a full magazine without aiming, he might well have saved the day and who knows how many lives. He might not have killed the killer but he damned sure would have distracted his aim away from the innocents.
The true American tragedy here is that so many lost their lives because no citizen had the foresight to come to that theater armed and ready to protect himself, his family and his fellow citizens, and yes, the American way of life. We are not a cowering people as our history shows, yet we are now in the thrall of a cowering culture and government that kneels to despots and invites violence upon its citizenry. It is not too much of a stretch to equate America to that theater audience in Aurora: helpless from horrific disaster, yet with our federal government but minutes away when seconds count.
As the Democrats keep telling us, “We don’t need no stinking guns.”
Category: Guns
I agree in principle, but there’s only one problem with your argument “no citizen had the foresight to come to that theater armed and ready to protect himself”: the theater was a “Gun Free Zone”. Concealed carry gun owners are paranoid (and rightfully so) about running afoul of carrying in restricted venues. I wasn’t a lack of foresight; it was your last line, “As the Democrats keep telling us, “We don’t need no stinking guns.””
“When a madman is firing into a helpless crowd with high-powered, automatic weapons”
I have to take exception, Poetrooper, on a minor, but important, point. There were no automatic weapons involved. Please don’t fall into the trap that the mainstream media and anti-gun folks use.
Mea Culpa, Old Trooper. I know better but I was fueled by righteous anger and more than a couple of adult beverages when I pounded that out on the keyboard. That’s not a recipe for accuracy, as I’m sure more than a few of the regulars here can attest, heh, heh…
I found thislittle gem in the net. I have a screen shot just in case.
“The NRA is a disgusting organization. The fact that they use events like human-beings dying to drum up donations is proof. No one is going to take your guns, but maybe they should. We’re not in an age of muskets where you can tackle a person after one shot. We’re in an age of semi-automatic weaponry that if you feel you need to own perhaps you need a psychiatric evaluation. People died today because of an insane person. An insane person who had access to guns and tear gas. Seriously?? This pisses me off…. and you can shut the fuck up with your “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” because less people would’ve had died had he only had a knife. I’m done. Our nation has backwards priorities that are embarrassing.”
I have carried my concealed Glock into “gun free zones” just because of the potential. I would abide by our state laws re schools and courtrooms but if it is just a recommendation to be a gun free zone piss on them. Shopping malls and places like a theatre have always been potential targets for a terrorist whether domestic or foreign. My CCW is never in sight, and I would rather be safe than sorry. I also agree with your assessment, if someone would have returned fire, this asshole would have probably ran. Body armor does stop bullets but it is not a pain free process.
Heh… Russ it seems great minds (even mine?) do think alike.
I’ll still have to speculate that One Person, armed or not, might have made a difference? Certainly an armed citizen would be preferable, but…
My digging indicated that the Century Theater is owned by Cinemark. Cinemark has a very unfortunate policy of no carry at most of their theaters nation wide. I only know of one exception that doesn’t have the Texas required 30.06 sign, and it is ironically very close to their Corporate HQ.
I hope this tragedy gives them the opportunity to look at reconsidering their current policy – which has just been proven to cost lives. This type of random unwarranted violence is a good example of why I try to avoid any business that prohibit concealed carry. I refuse to be a victim.
Ok, don’t kill the questioner, but…why does your average civilian need body armor?
@4 That sillyassed argument always pisses me off. Frigging manufacturing explosives is illegal for everybody, and that didn’t stop Holmes. The jackass that wrote that should change their name to “DumbfuckDemocrat”.
And, I’ll bet dollars to doughnuts the Brady campaign is using it to fund raise their asses off.
Susan Says:
July 21st, 2012 at 3:40 pm
Ok, don’t kill the questioner, but…why does your average civilian need body armor?
I always wear my vest when going to the range. I’ve also done PI work and am a firearms instructor. There are many good reasons to own body armor – want to bet that everyone in CA during the Rodney King riots wished they had some?
Susan #8: why does your average civilian need body armor?
I’ll suggest that reverse is more valid. Like firearms, body armor is not the culprit here.
Kinda ironic, and exaggerated a bit, but what if some of the folks in the theater (because of the firearm restrictions) had been wearing body armor too?
Don’t blame the tools for the shoddy workmanship.
Gun free zone = eassssssssssssssssy victim zone
@5 – As I understand it, it’s against the law in Colorado to carry a firearm anywhere that admission is charged. If that’s really the case, whether or not that theater chain doesn’t want you visiting their theaters armed, it would still be a violation of the law.
Since I heard about the Aurora shooting, I’ve been thinking about how an armed citizen (or citizens) could have best defused the situation and I don’t think there are any best practices that would have made that terrible event any better, save for the movie theater making sure its damned exit doors didn’t open from the outside. I’m sure for a highly anticipated opening night premiere, staff should have checked those exits several times to make sure nobody was getting into the theater without paying. I think the “how did he get in to the theater in the first place” is a question more of these bobblehead reporters should be asking.
A dark, crowded movie theater playing a gunfight scene is a terrible battlespace. Opening fire may kill the bad guy, but it is at least as likely to kill innocent civilians either fleeing the scene or in adjoining theaters (shooting without knowing what’s behind your target is rarely a good idea). Because of the noise, darkness, and the fleeing crowd, there’s no opportunity to attempt an escalation in force before opening fire. It’s also just as likely to make the armed citizen a target of responding police or other citizens attempting to stop the bloodshed, either by responding themselves with gunfire or by just tackling the person they think to be an assailant. Sure, a skilled or lucky shot by an armed citizen would have stopped/limited the bloodshed, but the chances that things would have gone at least as badly if someone fired on the shooter are pretty high.
All the above assumes the shooter wouldn’t have changed his behavior if he could be confident that armed citizens were likely in the crowd and they would use deadly force to stop his spree if given the opportunity, which is not a trivial assumption.
@15 How he got was answered: he bought a ticket, seated himself in the first row, faked a cell phone call went out the exit faking taking the call, and left the door propped open. Had his car parked by the exit, where he geared up and reentered the theatre.
THe liberals have their chance to prove their ideas work…and fail.
Norway or wherever don’t allow firearms to be privately owned that jackass shot up a whole island of people…kids included. So clearly relying 100% on police isn’t even an option.
I would rather have a chance then none at all.
@15. Pure Speculation. 100%. But consider how a jackass walked in a theater completely armed. Armed citizens are alert…you have to be. Clearly the sheep weren’t watching. Where was the sheepdog?
My family and I are watched the new Batman movie today when 20-30 minutes into it some fucking moron opens the side emergency exit door. My pistol was half-way out of its holster before the door closed and I missed almost 10 minutes of the movie because I was focused solely on scanning the theater for threats >:(
@16, thanks for answering. I turned off the news pretty early since I knew where the discussion was headed. I think a fire exit door alarmed during the movie’s duration would be a hassle but a realistic way to have kept the attacker from easily acting on his plan.
@17, I’m not as confidant that it would be easy to pick out an armed madman from a crowd at a midnight batman premiere with superfans dressed in costume and ultra excited about the movie. For a certain segment of moviegoer, a premiere is like halloween. In a crowd of teenager dressed up like Bane and the joker, some probably carrying plastic guns, a nutcase in a gas mask fits in… Most other situations, I’d agree.
I don’t think it would have mattered either way. There could have been someone there in full body army with their own assault rifle, that immediately responded to the asshole, BUT because as he tried to engage the asshole, he was encumbered by about 50 people all running the other way and pushing him away and/or pinning him in place, giving the asshole gunman prime opportunity to lay waste to our protective citizen. Gun Control wouldn’t have fixed this, Conceal carry doesn’t fix this. You just can’t fix it. If the guy really wanted to kill a bunch of people and A) could not get a gun, or B) there were concealed carry people in the audience (as many as you like) they guy WANTED to kill people, at random, at a random place that is just packed ass cheek to ass cheek with people and could have done so with home made pipe bombs thrown everywhere at random in less than 15 or 20 seconds, which would not have given anyone enough time to react, and he would have killed at least as many people, if not more. And then run away laughing his insane little asshole head off. There just isn’t any argument that applies here. If someone really want to kill people at random, there just isn’t anything that can be done to stop it.
@18: I hope you at least walked over and skull punched the idiot.
SomePeoplesKids #20: You mix possibilities with fact. Please allow some of the rest of us the same.
9/ll proves your broad point… save for Flight 93.
McVeigh did his stunt too.
I have argue with there just isn’t anything that can be done to stop it.
Your way is capitulation! BOHICA? No thanks.
@20 – I’ll agree that if someone is intent on killing people, they usually will succeed.
The real question in this ‘debate’ is that if even 1/20 of the audience had been CC holders, would someone have had the opportunity to stop this individual from killing and wounding so many people? Based on my experiences and training, I say Yes. But, we’ll never know for certain since CC was prohibited in the Theater & if there were any CC holders present – it would appear that they were law abiding citizens…
I carry concealed every single day. I have done extensive training with both of the firearms I routinely carry. That being said, unless I was right near this asshat and could have screwed the muzzle into his ear and then touched off a round, I would not have taken the shot. Im not afraid to take the life of someone who is threatening me or mine however, I never wish to take the life of an innocent person. Would I have tried to get closer so that I could take the shot? I dont know, having not been there I couldnt tell you honestly that I would have or wouldnt have. There are just way too many variables in the equation for me to agree with someone carrying concealed being able to have done a whole lot WITHOUT causing further harm to others. As someone who carries concealed I take my duty and responsibility to carry safely very seriously. Sometimes that responsibility means leaving the gun in its holster and not playing the hero.
As for the theater prohibiting concealed carry, unless I absolutely must do business with an establishment that makes my gun unwelcome I wont do business with them. For me it really is that simple.
This is a very sad, unforseeable tragedy.
My condolences to the victims and their families.
Anyone know what threat level armor he had?
Plates?
?”There is almost no security in movie theaters.” Interview from author of “Full Black” who wrote about terrorists slipping into movie theaters in his book (see http://www.bradthor.com/novels/behind-the-book). Different brand of evil i know but security was exploited.
Poetrooper is right – it’s time for me to send my SP-066 to the NJ State Police and have the means to protect my family and others if needed.
@OT…didn’t have the opportunity since he was walking out and never came back in. Plus I was sitting in the back of a sold-out showing. The movie was bad ass though
Who brings ther infant children to a midnight movie screening?
#29 Sometimes there just isn’t a babysitter available when the parents want a “date night.” Just a couple weeks ago my wife and I took our 2 year old with us to see Ted because we had no one available to watch her and it was the only night we had available to do something together.
Aurora has some of the strictest gun laws around and it didn’t help.
http://cnsnews.com/blog/ron-meyer/auroras-strict-gun-laws-didnt-prevent-shooting-if-one-law-abiding-person-theater-had
I carry…….I don’t care about their rules.
Semper Fi
Sporkmaster Says: Shopping malls and places like a theatre have always been potential targets for a terrorist whether domestic or foreign.
==========
On that topic, I’m not sure of the validity of this, or if it has been posted here already, but a friend on Facebook posted this earlier today:
May 2012 – DHS/FBI Warns of Terrorists’ Interest in Attacking Theaters in United States
(U//FOUO) “An early April 2012 suicide bombing of a theater in Somalia and a violent extremist communication advocating attacks on US theaters highlight terrorists’ continued interest in attacking such venues. Although we have no specific or credible information indicating that terrorists plan to attack theaters in the United States, terrorists may seek to emulate overseas attacks on theaters here in the United States because they have the potential to inflict mass casualties and cause local economic damage.”
@30.
At midnight???
Go to a matinee. You can make out and there are less folks around.
Sit in the back.
These are good discussions. I have to agree with anyone who says the intent to kill is the driving force, not access to weapons. In 1995, Tim McVeigh and Terry Nichols used fertilizer and fuel oil to create an extremely destructive homemade bomb and managed to kill a large number of people they did not know, people who were innocent of any crime. The Unibomber taught at Harvard University. He sent homemade explosives through the mail to his targets and killed and/or maimed several people. In 1988,Laurie Dann sent arsenic-ladend juice boxes and rice cereal snacks to her sorority house and three fraternity houses at Northwestern University, and took three guns and walked into a grade school in Winnetka, IL, shot and wounded several children, killed one 8-year-old boy Nicholas Corwin, did other damage such as setting a fire, and eventually killed herself with one of her own guns. She had exhibited erratice behavior many times before that, but was able to purchase those three handguns. In 1966, Charles Whitman, an ex-Marine and a student at the University of Texas in Austin, took a rifle and ammunition to the top of the university’s clock tower and started shooting at random victims, killing 16 people and wounding 32 others in a shocking episode. He was popular in high school, an excellent student, and seemed to be the fairhaired child, but did not do as well in college as he had in high school. He was shot and killed by an Austin cop. Basically, what I’m saying is that guns are not the issue. The issue is the people who misuse them. The murder rate from gun-related violence in Chicago — mostly gang shootings — is climbing this summer, worse than it has ever been and those crimes are not being committed by licensed gun owners. Many of the victims are very young children sitting on their own porches and lawns. I don’t have a gun. I don’t want one. If I go hiking in the woods, I take my camera along with pepper spray, a walking staff, and an umbrella, because… Read more »
To allay the concerns that some have expressed here regarding collateral damage to civilians from friendly fire, I never intended to convey any thought or intention of just mindlessly blasting away in a darkened and chaotic theater. My thinking was that if some theater patrons were armed, perhaps at least one would be in the immediate kill zone with the prospects of at least putting a couple or more rounds on target to distract if not disable the perp.
I do not for a moment think this jerk didn’t know that his selected target area was a no-carry zone. Yeah, he armored up, but that was more likely for what he thought was going to be a very strong police response.
Holmes carefully selected a target where he knew he would be shooting unarmed fish in a barrel. We can thank our nanny society for permitting him to do this.
Holmes was all armored-up, indicating he had no interest in death for himself. He also booby-trapped his apartment, with the intent to kill anyone who opened the door.
That smirking freak in Norway set a car bomb to detonate in Oslo while he went on a rampage on an island shooting a captive audience, but had no interest in dying himself.
Just trying to piece this stuff together. Nichols and McVeigh were not suicide bombers, but the Bulgaria bus bomber was.
I don’t think I’m ever going to understand any of this.
@ 29 & 33: Not everyone works a 9-5, or even 6-3 job. Some folks work odd shifts. The world doesn’t stop once the sun goes behind the horizon, you know. And young parents don’t always have luxuries like extra money for babysitters, on top of the expense of a movie. Stop sounding like the nanny-state ubber-libs. Or, for that matter, the nanny-state ubber-cons.
Priorities, priorities…they have none.
@#27 Most theaters don’t have security, but this one almost always does because it’s not the safest neighborhood. In addition, that night they had cops on duty for crowd control because of the sellout shows. Cops weren’t just there “within one minute” they were ALREADY there, yet no one thought to patrol around the building or to check the back doors. The back door had to have been propped open for at least 30 minutes. The guy was in that theater shooting for 15 minutes yet there wasn’t one attempt to stop him. My daughter read one statement that the cops couldn’t go into the theater because of “the gas”. But I guess it was OK for hundreds of innocent people to be in “the gas” and getting shot at, right? The cops didn’t nab him until he was finished with what he was doing and was getting into his car. Cops are useless at preventing crime, your only protection is yourself. My question is why didn’t someone tackle him from behind? The theater is dark and filled with smoke. The movie is loud and still running and people are screaming. He wouldn’t have seen or heard someone coming up behind him. @#37 If you don’t have a babysitter and you can’t work the schedule, you do without. That’s part of the sacrifice of being a parent. We have 3 kids that are now (finally!) grown up and are finally getting some free time after 26 years as parents. We’re also able to finally start saving some money, we were paycheck to paycheck for most of those years. If we couldn’t afford a babysitter or find a family member to watch the kids, we didn’t go out. We didn’t party, we didn’t go to movies (there are DVD now you know), and we didn’t go out to dinner. Small babies may sleep through a movie, but young children have no business in a movie theater at midnight to see ANY movie, let alone a loud violent one. Doing so is putting yourself before your children’s well-being and very selfish. Pointing… Read more »
Ex-PH2, Poetrooper you are correct. This guy was and is a pussy. I think if someone had shot back at him he would have ran. This is why he gave up so quickly when the cops found him. He had no intention of going out in a blaze of glory.
Good discussion. I really have to laugh at some of the press I have read urging for psychiatric exams as a condition of being allowed to buy a weapon. What was Nidal Hasan’s occupation again? On another note, anyone remember the idea Archie told Meathead to put put an easy and fast stop to the Cuba hihjackings of the ’70s? (Hint, it involved a cardboard box.)
@37.
You are making a very shallow-mined, short-sighted assumption that some of us were never in that position.
All I am saying is that maybe some of us did it diffrently in earlier years.
What’s the likelyhood that this would’ve happened in Texas? Law abiding Citizens with a Licenses to Carry should be taking advantage of their rights if they are properly trained and accurate.
Let it be know especially in this Terrorist Era. Don’t expect a Duck Shoot,this is American Roulette and all Chambers are full. Go head make my Day!
Check out (Lt Col USA Ret.) Dave Grossman’s “The Bulletproof Mind” set of talks. If you don’t know who Dave Grossman is, he’s a well-known and highly-regarded counter-terrorism trainer, and who is also a great proponent of private citizen concealed carry.
For this attack and others like it, concealed carry by private citizens DOES deter these attacks. The attacker may or may not be afraid to die, especially if it’s the muslim bad guys. But whether it’s the failed graduate student wuss or a hardcore suicide muslim, they both fear FAILURE – they don’t want to die in an unsuccessful (from their point of view) attack. Places with concealed carry are very bad from their point of view, even if they have armor and other stuff. If even just a couple percent of the people somewhere have personal weapons, the bad guys cannot plan to come in and attack without an unpredictable and significant chance of the attack being stopped right away by return gunfire.
Israel went through all this too. They do open carry but they quickly learned that the only way to stop this kind of crap is to have people with guns distributed all over the place, so that there are no unarmed victim zones. Being the retarded US of A, we create more unarmed victim zones and build giant stupid-ass ineffective government programs like the TSA that waste money and don’t work.
I don’t enter gun-free victim zones 🙂
Holmes watched Batman, and referred to himself as the ‘Joker’.
– Ban Batman
Holmes was working on a PhD in Neuro-stuff.
– Ban higher education
Holmes entered through a side exit in theater.
– Ban side/emergency exits
Holmes ordered his body armor and ‘tactical gear’ online.
– Ban the internet
Guns are the least of our problems. Apparently there were no concealed weapons in the theater. Would they have made a difference? I think so. I think Holmes would have been shot dead or at least wounded, and then the CCW permit holder who diffused the situation would be on trial or branded as a crazy gun-nut. Clearly it’s better to let the truly crazy go on their rampages and speculate in the aftermath. It’s a catch-22.
Several thoughts: It’s almost impossible to stop a well organized lone idiot … that is even the Secret Service’s nightmare. If the perp doesn’t communicate what he intends to do to anyone, and makes his preparations via legal means….nothing stands out to notice (except maybe in retrospect.)
Could this happen in Texas? Sure as hell could…almost every theater I see has the Texas 30.06 notice posted. And whether you like the law or not, once you carry in a place that has posted one, YOU becoem the criminal.
Taking infants or small children to a very violent late movie – sorry, screw theexcuses – that’s just wrong. Kids should not be seeing that crap and other patrons have the right to be protected from potential disturbances. Zero sympathy… the year my daughter was born we saw one (1) movie, but that’s just the price of being a parent. Suck it up.
We don’t KNOW if anyone in the theater was armed for self protection. All we know is no one attempted to stop the gunman. That doesn’t mean no one else in there was armed. We tend to think since no one attempted to stop him, no one was armed. That isn’t necessarily the case.
And, it is possible to take and pass a psychiatric exam and still be batshit crazy. It’s as ugly as it is simple: we either accept the danger of unbalanced people with guns in a free society, where armed citizens have a chance to fight back — or we cower under the threat of having only unbalanced and cruel people prowling our streets armed, while innocents have no equal ability to fight back. Those are the only two choices. We have enough gun laws in place.