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The Nation's Pulse
From Aurora to Chicago
The hollow pieties of gun control politics.
In the wake of the horrific movie theater shooting in Aurora, Colorado, last Friday that resulted in the deaths of twelve people, there have been renewed calls for increased gun control in the United States. One such call came from the Baltimore Sun in an editorial titled, “If Colorado shooting can’t prompt a conversation about gun control, what will?” Consider this passage from said editorial:
What we do know more concretely about the incident, however, raises serious questions about whether Colorado or the rest of the country has done enough to prevent such tragedies from taking place. Surely, it is time to have a public conversation about whether the U.S. ought to adopt some reasonable restrictions on the availability of certain types of firearms, high-capacity magazines and ammunition that enabled the Aurora tragedy and similar shootings.
Yes, we’re talking about “gun control” — the two words Congress and the White House dare not speak in an election year.
O.K., let’s have a conversation about gun control. If more gun control is all it takes to prevent tragedies, then Chicago ought to be the safest city in the United States as it has had the strictest municipal gun laws in the country for the past thirty years. Yet slightly more than halfway through 2012, more than 200 people have been killed in Chicago by gunfire. As March turned into April, 40 people were shot in Chicago in the space of 50 hours resulting in four fatalities. This past Memorial Day weekend, 12 people were killed and 45 were wounded by gunfire. During the course of that holiday weekend, there was one 90-minute span in which 13 people were shot. Last month, eight people were killed and 46 people were wounded in a single weekend. Over the weekend, three men were killed while 26 other people were wounded by gunfire. Three of the people who were wounded were 13-year-old boys. And what will be the tally next weekend? What about Labor Day weekend? What will the numbers be at the end of the year?
If the massacre in Colorado deserves a public conversation, then surely so does the ongoing violence in Chicago. Yet liberals aren’t so eager to have a public conversation about the fiefdom run by former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. There is little desire to focus attention on President Obama’s old stomping grounds on Chicago’s South Side where their policy prescriptions have not worked. Gun control in Chicago hasn’t stopped people from illegally obtaining firearms nor has it stopped people from using them on one another.
For one thing, it puts liberals (particularly white liberals) in the uncomfortable position of drawing attention to the culture of African-American gang violence driven by the drug trade and the breakdown of the African-American family. It puts them into the position of passing negative judgment. White liberals certainly do not like to hear stories about black children being shot and killed in the crossfire, but they’re not willing to speak uncomfortable truths and risk being called racists. For all their abhorrence of guns, liberals keep silent and accept inner city violence as an immutable fact of life.
But until a few days ago, the idea that anyone would start shooting people in a crowded movie theater was both beyond our experience and our imagination. People go to the movies to escape and relax. Now that such an awful thing has happened there is the natural anxiety that there could be a copycat shooter coming to a theater near you. However remote the possibility, it will be in the back of peoples’ mind when they’re waiting in line to buy their ticket. But this anxiety will abate with the passage of time.
Then it will happen again. It could happen at a school, a restaurant, a grocery store, on a bus or subway or perhaps at a concert or a sporting event. But it will happen and when it does there will again be calls for more gun control. And when there are, there will be people dying on the South Side of Chicago.
About the Author
Aaron Goldstein writes from Boston, Massachusetts.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (95) | Leave a comment
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Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 7.24.12 @ 6:38AM
In 2004 slightly over 29,000 people were killed by guns. Seventeen thousand of those were suicides which would have happened through other means. That means that 12,000 were homicides and almost all were the result of criminals having guns.
During that same year over 43,000 people were killed on the nation's highways. Fifty four percent of them or over 21,000, died as the result of driving compact cars. This finding was discovered as a result of a study by the National Academy of Science.
Compact cars are the end game of government regulations regarding fuel standards. Almost twice as many people died in compact cars as died by illegal usage of guns.
Yet, you will never hear liberals complain about small cars. Small cars fit in with their idealistic lofty goals. Small guns or guns of any type do not.
One thing for sure. If the public ever lets the liberals control guns, they next things they will come after are your cars and perhaps other items, like your food. That's already happening.
TLP| 7.24.12 @ 8:08AM
What is it, about these people, that they seek to CONTROL everything that everybody Has, or Does? Are they sitting in the Movies, watching Vader Destruing Alderon, thinking: "Yeah. That's what I'm talking about. KNEEL BEFORE ME!"
Who wants to tell EVERYBODY what to do? How to live. What they can Drive, and Eat. What forms of disciplines they may use raising their children, and when their UNDERAGE DAUGHTER can have an Abortion.
What kind of Human Being seeks CONTROL over everyone's lives, from their Cradle to their Grave?
I know that they didn't learn that from the Bible. Just the Opposite is in there.
I'm not a Jew, but I'm pretty sure, they didn't get it in the Torah, either.
So, where?
Only Evil seeks such control. Islam is one such case. "SUBMIT, or Die!"
Communism is one. Marxism is another.
They always appear on the scene, when times are tough, promising Hope and Change, and a better life. But Control is easier said, than done, and soon there are Secret Police, Forced Labour Camps, Gulags filled with Political Prisoners, and Single Shots to the back of the head, for anyone deemed, Uncontrollable, by these people.
This goes on until It reaches it's inevitable breaking point, and the people rise up. Thousands Die, and the Darkness is Cast in to a Dark Cave, and Sealed Shut, where it sits and waits, til the Memories of Men, fade , and the Cave is unsealed, once more.
It's The Circle of Evil, and the Subjugation of Man, and it's been here, since the beginning.
Alej| 7.24.12 @ 8:41AM
I think most people who enter politics as a profession do so more for the egotistical control they acquire than for the $40,000 salary they spend $500,000 to get.
Occam's Tool| 7.24.12 @ 11:11AM
Allow psychiatrists to long term medicate psychotic patients without going through legal conniptions. I note that NO ONE ever suggests being able to medicate chronic violent schizophrenics involuntarily for 10 or so years on one court ruling. Perhaps because it would be THE SANE thing to do. Why are we bugging honest, law abiding gun owners while letting violent lunatics go untreated?
RCV| 7.24.12 @ 12:54PM
Spot on with regard to the need to allow more flexibility in confining and medicating people with mental disorders. It's utter insanity NOT to do so.
At the same time, it's also utter insanity to allow anyone, including nut jobs like this guy, to simply buy massive quantities of semi automatic weapons and ammunition over the internet with no questions asked.
Oldefarte| 7.24.12 @ 1:15PM
Okay then the current laws on the books concerning internet sales of such items are not being properly regulated by government. Send your concerns to your POTUS and the AG at your DOJ!!!!!!!!!
Skippy| 7.24.12 @ 6:15PM
Why not?
I live in a rural area, am a target shooter and burn through 6-10,000 rounds/year.
The main reason we are allowed to even have guns is the foresight of the Founders.
Try taking them away and there will be literal hell to pay.
Control the paranoid-schizo kids wrongly diagnosed as bipolar and half your "nut with a gun" problem disappears.
DTOM
Cloudbuster | 7.24.12 @ 12:13PM
You really think the only financial compensation they get is the salary? Please tell me you're not that naive.
Jack in Wi| 7.24.12 @ 8:46AM
For once I mostly agree with Goldstein. If you want to stop most gun crime disarm the Black and Mexican populations. They do most of it. Lets see the Democrats and liberals on that issue.
DJ | 7.24.12 @ 9:42AM
I like it Jack! Great idea.
John Navratil| 7.24.12 @ 11:18AM
DJ,
Great idea! Glad I'm not Black or Hispanic!
Bill84728| 7.24.12 @ 10:07AM
On the car issue, I kept getting knee-slapping kick after kick over the repeated claims that ownership of an SUV was bad because SUVs are safer than small cars, and therefore in a small car-SUV crash, the occupants of the small car are more likely to be seriously hurt. That argument was uproarious.
JD| 7.24.12 @ 12:16PM
An apt analogy. Soon liberals will be rationing safety the way they ration money (they don't understand that these are basically the same thing, since money buys all other things).
Are you taking extra measures to keep yourself safe? You greedy, evil bastard! You're taking more than your fair share of safety, and leaving less for others! Give up your protections, so that others can benefit from them!
Truth to Power| 7.24.12 @ 11:54AM
"Fifty four percent of them or over 21,000, died as the result of driving compact cars."
This is how progressives do blood for oil. Progressives are a blood thirsty bunch if it is American blood.
AmericanCynic| 7.24.12 @ 1:16PM
"Almost twice as many people died in compact cars as died by illegal usage of guns."
Gosh, Bill, what about illegal driving of compact cars? Where are the statistics for that?
Here are some bumper-stickers for you:
"If you outlaw low MPG vehicles, only outlaws will have low MPG vehicles!"
"You won't take my giant fuel-inefficient truck until you pry it from my cold dead fingers!"
LOL@RidiculousArguments!
Skippy| 7.24.12 @ 6:41PM
What business is it of anyone's what I drive?
Pecos Pete| 7.24.12 @ 7:20AM
Drowning is a leading cause of death among US youths. In 2002, 1158 youths younger than 20 years died as a result of an unintentional non–boat-related drowning.
Should we outlaw water?
Quartermaster| 7.24.12 @ 3:17PM
Ban deadly Dihydrogen Monoxide!
Boar Hunter| 7.24.12 @ 8:22PM
LOL!
Yup and the liberals already proved they are so mind numbingly ignorant they will sign up to ban it too!
Robert Pinkerton| 7.24.12 @ 7:26AM
A "Copybook Headings" lesson of the last century is that disarming the general public is the harbinger of indecent designs on their other liberties. At the very least, it privileges criminals over the lawful. If that is not an inversion, as well as a perversion, of justice, please tell me what is.
Quartermaster| 7.24.12 @ 3:18PM
Allowing libtards free access to society would be high on my list.
c. j. acworth| 7.24.12 @ 8:18AM
I love it when some brainless editorial writer says that "Now is the time for a conversation on guns." Like we haven't been having that conversation for at least since 1968. I remember how gun control seemed to be the wave of the future, with ever stricter laws being passed every year. But in the last decade Americans have gotten fed up with it and in no uncertian terms told their representatives "No more!" NO new laws will be passed because of this atrocity either. Remember the passing of the last assault weapon ban? It happened in Sept. of '94, just before the mid-terms of Clintons' first term. Remember what happened to the Dem. majority in Congress? Right. They got slaughtered. Not even the Dems are so stupid as to try that again.
DTOM| 7.24.12 @ 8:27AM
c.j. - They are that stupid...they will keep pumping up that lead trial balloon because if they can get it off the ground again, it might just work. After all it did once before.
Eternal vigilance, our only option...
Don't Tread On Me!!!
c. j. acworth| 7.24.12 @ 8:49AM
Agreed, I wasn't arguing for complacency. Maybe send an e-mail to your congresscritters reminding them of what happened last time. In my case it won't be necessary. The fellow currently representing New Hampshire's 2nd district got there when the fellow before him voted for the ban in '94.
Gr0w1er601| 7.24.12 @ 10:01AM
Remember the Commonwealth of Virginia's motto: "Sic Semper Tyrannis"!
Cloudbuster | 7.24.12 @ 12:14PM
When a progressive or leftist says "conversation on guns," what they really mean is "do what I say."
JD| 7.24.12 @ 12:16PM
The "on guns" was unnecessary.
Louis Jenkins| 7.24.12 @ 9:06AM
Guys, go ahead and speak of domestic gun control. Dear old Obama, the Liar and Thief, has a more painless way for gun control. The UN will be doing our controlling. Wake up one morning and it will be illegal to own a firearm, wake up one morning and the police are at your door. Off to jail you will go. It won't happen in the USA you say. We said much the same about most of Obama's projects, and they came to pass. And the best part, no one will have to vote up or down on the motion. The politicians, the rich, the movie stars will still have their armed guard. What will we have? Bricks and sticks.
Follow the link below if you dare.
http://www.reuters.com/article.....Q920091015
Gr0w1er601| 7.24.12 @ 9:57AM
I'd LOVE to see one of those blue-helmeted idiots try to enforce THAT draconian POS resolution!! Hell, they couldn't stop a runny nose from a kid in Bhopal, let alone this!! The UN should all be declared 'personae non grata' and kicked the hell off U.S. soil. Let 'em settle in the new Muslim states of Europe.
DRed| 7.24.12 @ 10:56AM
The UN is coming to take our guns! ooooh noes! Are they going to come in their black helicopters? I remember they were going to do that during the Clinton Administration. How did that turn out?
Seriously, a treaty dealing with international arms sales, even if ratified by the senate, has nothing to do with your second amendment rights.
Occam's Tool| 7.24.12 @ 11:12AM
DRed: and you would be wrong, if the UN decides to attempt to enforce it. It will affect domestic gun ownership, as well.
DRed| 7.24.12 @ 11:15AM
Can't you point out the parts of the treaty that will affect domestic gun ownership?
DRed| 7.24.12 @ 11:15AM
Sorry, meant to write 'can'
John Navratil| 7.24.12 @ 11:41AM
DRed,
If you can find a text of the "Arms Trade Treaty", let me know, I cannot. I've wandered over the UN site and find a lot of aspirational statements. Looking through the "small arms" pages you get a lot of talk about regulating small arms trade.
For a reasonable restatement of the goal of this treaty, see: http://www.un.org/disarmament/ATT/ and play the video. Not a lot of meat, but look around 1:00 and see what at least one U.N. official things the goal ought to be.
As regards domestic gun ownership, see: http://www.un.org/disarmament/convarms/SALW/
and read:
"If national law enforcement officials were able to trace small arms back to their last legitimate owner, who might then be held accountable, this would form an effective measure against illicit trade and diversion. For that purpose, it is essential that the weapon be marked upon production and import, and that appropriate records be kept."
DRed| 7.24.12 @ 11:53AM
It was a trick question. The treaty hasn't even been drafted yet. So perhaps the paranoia is a bit premature.
John Navratil| 7.24.12 @ 12:00PM
DRed,
So we can disregard what these people have to say as being meaningless? Should we wait for the latch to click on the jail door before protesting? I think not.
DRed| 7.24.12 @ 12:04PM
An international treaty can't supersede the constitution. Protest all you want, but you're protesting an unwritten treaty that we haven't signed, hasn't been ratified by the senate, and can't regulate domestic gun ownership. Which seems to me to be a waste of your time.
John Navratil| 7.24.12 @ 12:36PM
DRed,
My protest consists of writing to by representatives to let them know what I think and that I will continue to do so whether or not you think I am wasting my time.
That said, read Article VI of the Constitution.
"This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding."
The Supreme Court has decided that the Constitution trumps treaties, but allow me to be unpursuaded that the precedent would be ignored or side-stepped by a liberal court in the interpretation of a treaty seeking to impose such "reasonable" restrictions. In any event we would have gun laws by treaty rather than by Congress - which is exactly what you want, isn't it.
DRed| 7.24.12 @ 1:15PM
I'm familiar with the supremacy clause, John. That says that federal laws and treaties trump conflicting state laws, not that treaties trump the constitution.
John Navratil| 7.24.12 @ 1:21PM
DRed,
Did you read what I wrote? That is just what I said!
HOWEVER, it is established by Supreme Court precedent, not as written (note the proposed Bricker Amendment). A Supreme Court can drive a truck over the 2nd Amendment by asserting a small arms treaty does not violate it. It took Heller to establish an individual rather than a collective right under the 2nd Amendment, remember.
In any case, it gives cover to the Democrats who hope the never have to vote on a gun control bill again, doesn't it?
DRed| 7.24.12 @ 1:32PM
A treaty isn't legally binding until it has been ratified by the Senate, John, which requires a vote.
"and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land". A treaty that violates the constitution is not made under the authority of the united states, and is, therefore, invalid. It says that right there in the Constitution.
John Navratil| 7.24.12 @ 2:16PM
Dred,
Did I say otherwise?
DRed| 7.24.12 @ 3:45PM
If you agree with me, John, then why are we arguing?
Louis Jenkins| 7.24.12 @ 1:37PM
And Obama hasn't? Think again my friend.
C'mon Man!| 7.24.12 @ 1:48PM
Yeah, D, let's pass it to find out what's in it! I'm sure that will work, Nancy said so!
Louis Jenkins| 7.24.12 @ 1:56PM
DRed:
I believe the picture at the beginning of this article tells us the Democrats opinion of gun owners.
Jack London| 7.24.12 @ 9:33AM
"For all their abhorrence of guns, liberals keep silent and accept inner city violence as an immutable fact of life."
That's not true of course - violence in all its forms have long been concerns from many angles, such as public health, education, housing and so on.
But I'll bite - what is your solution to keeping guns out of the hands of Chicago South Siders?
Bill84728| 7.24.12 @ 10:05AM
Extra time in prison for using a deadly weapon while committing a crime, strictly enforced.
DRed| 7.24.12 @ 10:54AM
That's not currently a crime?
Bill84728| 7.24.12 @ 10:57AM
Yes, it is, well it's an aggravator to be used in sentencing, but I don't know how strictly it's enforced in Chicago.
DRed| 7.24.12 @ 11:05AM
So your contention is that criminals in chicago are using guns to commit violent felonies because their is too much prosecutorial or judicial discretion in applying an aggravating factor in sentencing? And that if that discretion was removed, criminals in Chicago would stop using guns?
Drunken Sailor| 7.24.12 @ 11:21AM
So please explain how the strict gun laws in Chicago have decreased the violence there? That is what the article was about. Not the strawman you put up.
Please explain how violent crimes have decreased in Texas and Florida after the "Concealed Carry" laws were passed and more armed citizens were out and about.
DRed| 7.24.12 @ 11:30AM
I have no idea if Chicago's gun control laws have decreased violence at all. Perhaps that's because criminals can just leave Chicago and buy guns nearby. Perhaps it's because of something else. I will note that New York City has similarly strict gun control laws and lower rates of violent crime than a number of cities with permissive CCW laws (Dallas or Nashville, for example both have more armed citizens and more violent crime).
Drunken Sailor| 7.24.12 @ 12:05PM
To correlate high crime with lax gun laws is meaningless. Gun control will not reduce violent crimes. I fail to see the logic that if someone intent on commiting a crime finds out that it is illegal to own a firearm they will then re-think their decision into criminal activities.
It's pretty simple, outlaw guns and only outlaws will have them.
DRed| 7.24.12 @ 12:11PM
"I fail to see the logic that if someone intent on commiting a crime finds out that it is illegal to own a firearm they will then re-think their decision into criminal activities." Well yes. That's what I was trying to get at.
tdiinva| 7.24.12 @ 12:30PM
Yep I can see the thought process. "I am an criminal and they just passed this law making it illegal for me to have gun. Wait a minute it's already illegal for me to have this gun! Heah DRed, get your a$$ over here and give me your money or I blow your head off.."
DRed That criminal 101 and you are an idiot.
Drunken Sailor| 7.24.12 @ 12:33PM
I think what Bill was trying to get at is instead of making laws outlawing guns how about we increase the penalty for using guns in violent crimes. I personally don't think that approach would work either as the criminals don't weigh the consequence of the punishment when planning to commit such crimes.
Hell some of them simply look at it as the more time they spend in the "joint" the better their "street cred". But at least that would get them off the streets longer. Count it as a seperate offense and count it toward the 3 strike rule and you may make a dent in the problem.
Bill84728| 7.24.12 @ 12:39PM
Criminals often weigh the penalties before the choose to commit a crime.
For example, if you steal more than $1000 worth of goods, that's a felony and you can do 3 years in the state penitentiary. If you steal less than $1000 worth of goods, you commit a misdemeanor and you can do no more than two years in the county jail. If you steal less than $1000 worth of goods from a store, that's shoplifting, a municipal offense for which you can do a maximum of 90 days in the county jail.
Guess how many people get prosecuted for felony theft and how many get prosecuted for shoplifting?
These people are utility maximizers; don't sell them short. They may not have much in the brains department, but they can see what's what if it's kept simple enough.
C'mon Man!| 7.24.12 @ 2:19PM
Wrongo, they plea bargain the charge down, or limp kneed prosecutors lower the charges, I have seen it many times.
Bill84728| 7.24.12 @ 12:32PM
No; it's my contention that when asked for a lawful measure that might deter people from committing crimes using deadly weapons such as guns, a longer term in prison for such use is among the measures I would support as part of the solution of that problem.
Drunken Sailor| 7.24.12 @ 12:34PM
agreed
Bill84728| 7.24.12 @ 12:49PM
I think a person inclined to commit a mugging might well consider the amount of time if caught, and would easily distinguish between roughing up a citizen and stealing his wallet as opposed to threatening him with a gun or knife and getting another, say, five or ten years.
DRed| 7.24.12 @ 1:23PM
Those laws already exist in Illinois . You're proposing a solution that's been proven not to work.
tdiinva| 7.24.12 @ 1:33PM
But DRed Illinois already has laws that say you can't have a gun yet lots of criminals still have them. Explain.
Houdini| 7.24.12 @ 10:54AM
First, make the possesion of a firearm by a felon a federal crime and the use of a firearm while committing any crime (felony) also a federal (no bail) offense. Second build a large tent city prison in Nevada, Arizona, or West Texas and send them there. No TV, a/c, weight rooms, just lots of chains for the road work crews. Third, have Joe Arpaio run the prison. Won't take long for the message to get through.
Bill84728| 7.24.12 @ 10:58AM
Pink undies and jump suits.
Occam's Tool| 7.24.12 @ 11:13AM
I couldn't care less about keeping guns out of the hands of sane people. I want to keep guns out of the hands of unmedicated violent psychotics.
John Navratil| 7.24.12 @ 11:42AM
Occam's Tool,
And violent felons, as well. Anyone having demonstrated a willingness to do violence doesn't need the help.
RCV| 7.24.12 @ 12:55PM
We're on the same page, Occam.
Skippy| 7.24.12 @ 6:45PM
An armed populace.
That's my answer and the only one that has a chance of succeeding.
DJ | 7.24.12 @ 9:40AM
You cannot legislate against insanity. If it wasn't a gun it would have been a Molotov cocktail or a pipe bomb. Knee jerk gun laws have exploded in California, New York and Illinois over the years and to what end? We do not need anymore gunlaws.
Mike G| 7.24.12 @ 10:17AM
You're right, insanity will never be outlawed. Congress would never vote to disband Congress.
Occam's Tool| 7.24.12 @ 11:14AM
Actually, DJ, you CAN make it possible to more easily involuntarily medicate. I could write a book on it, and might, some day, to release when the next incident occurs.
Bill84728| 7.24.12 @ 10:00AM
DJ is right: the problem isn't guns, it's people. And people are moved to do evil things by the evil incentives they see around them. We have allowed our culture to be poisoned with attacks on every conceivable standard for the past three or four generations, and now we're surprised and horrified when people react to having no standards and viewing evil after evil on our TV and movie screens by committing great evil? Why might that be? In the name of being non-judgmental, we've created a beast that will devour all of us, and we call it freedom.
JD| 7.24.12 @ 3:21PM
Tolerance as Democrats define it is a dangerous myth.
First, they equate "intolerance" with "disagreement", which is a flagrant abuse of language. Tolerance is definitionally a treatment of something with which you disagree; one cannot tolerate something with which he agrees because the whole concept only applies to disagreement. If all disagreement equals intolerance, then there is no tolerance!
More than that, though, the Left demands that we "tolerate" everything, which is also impossible. There are mutually incompatible things in the world, and we cannot embrace all of them. We must choose. This is fundamental to world history - nations organize as groups of people with aligned values, and nations with conflicting values either avoid each other or make war. There is no conflict-free coexistence with incompatible ideas. It's fundamentally impossible.
Put another way, if you VALUE something, you are intolerant of attacks on that thing. To eliminate intolerance, one must eliminate the valuing of things. Which means we must have no values (sound familiar?). Of course, even then, the valuing of the concept of tolerance requires one to be intolerant of "intolerance", which is a contradiction as well.
Maybe we should abandon this whole foolish exercise and get back to having values, as we did back when we were prosperous!
Bill84728| 7.24.12 @ 10:02AM
I notice that gun violence occurs with great frequency wherever the venue is a declared gun-free zone. If somebody tried to shoot up the people in a Colorado Springs theater, he'd probably be cut in half by the return fire.
SSG Baker| 7.24.12 @ 10:21AM
Amen, I am stationed at FT Carson and am a Colorado resident (native damm it :P ). I've had that conversation with alot of my friends outside of the military in the Springs. We all agree, he would have died a few seconds after opening fire in the Springs.
Houdini| 7.24.12 @ 10:40AM
Contained in the article is the umpteenth reference to a "conversation about guns". Liberals don't want a conversation, the want their demands met and the rest of us turned into sheeple. They mistakenly believe that the police are there to keep everyone safe...wrong, they are there to draw the chalk outline around the body and then find out who did it. Thats OK if you are not the one with the chalk outline.
Slacker| 7.24.12 @ 11:53AM
The sad thing is the liberal assessment is spot-on.
Inner city violence is an immutable fact of life. It is impossible to keep guns out of the hands of south Chicago gang bangers.
Everybody formulates an explanation for gun violence that fits their political ideology. Be it the availability of guns, the NRA, our self-centered heartless society, breakdown of the back family, the drug war, the war on poverty, etc.
It is all bullshit. Some of our population is a lost cause.
JD| 7.24.12 @ 12:21PM
Yesterday, Jack London was quick to say that we can't compare Switzerland to America in terms of gun violence due to differences in the two societies. He was right, though he was a hypocrite, given liberal refusal to credit indirect factors in most all other settings.
Inner city violence might be reduced if more victims could defend themselves, but in this case, there are plenty of attacks on armed victims, too. Economic and social factors also contribute to this violence, which is why it exists to a fair degree in all cities, with gun control laws being only an exacerbating factor.
Until the entitlement society, class warfare, race-baiting, and anti-business practices decline significantly, we will continue to foster an underclass of unskilled, angry, entitled people who can't find work and choose to be thugs.
Drunken Sailor| 7.24.12 @ 12:35PM
Exactly. Take a good hard look at the statitistics of places like Memphis.
tdiinva| 7.24.12 @ 12:26PM
Let's put this in perspective. If trends continue Chicago will have a murder rate 20 per 100,000. Since 2010 there have been 117 people murdered by spree shooters. That is a rate of .04 per 100,000 for three years or approximately 1 per 10,000,000. While spree shootings are dramatic they are rare events and account for less than 1% of total homicides. The real problem is gang related violence accounting for over half the nation's homicides.
AmericanCynic| 7.24.12 @ 1:08PM
Many of us are aware that you Righty-Too-Tighties enjoying dinging Chicago any chance you have because you think it adds to the "Chicago style politics" narrative you've placed on President Obama. If, however, you think you can hold a national discussion on crime in Chicago WITHOUT spurring a bigger discussion on gun access, go right ahead! You might not like the results when NRA members like myself start inching toward the side of MORE regulations.
Please continue this line of attack. The gun lobby is TOO powerful in this country and needs to be taken down a peg or two.
Drunken Sailor| 7.24.12 @ 2:07PM
Well this is one NRA member that would cancel out your vote. Illinois and Washington DC are two of the last remaining places without concealed carry. And oddly enough two of the places with the highest violent crime rates.
In Illinois you not only cannot carry concealed weapons, you must have a firearm identification card (FOID) to purchase said firearm or even simply to purchase ammo. Hell until recentely you couldn't even own a handgun in Chicago (was in effect for 28 years). Now with all those laws in Chicago, please tell me how that has helped them?
And before you make it a Obama issue again, let's be clear. As stated these laws were in place long before he showed on the scene, yet Chicago's violent crime rate keeps climbing.
irish19| 7.25.12 @ 6:00PM
This NRA member is with you.
Slacker| 7.24.12 @ 5:36PM
First, I think the NRA and the right-too-tighties would love to make Chicago the focus of the gun-control discussion.
Second, I think you are putting the cart before the horse. Gun control would be easier to enact in a more peaceful and successful society. Unfortunately America is currently rather fucked up. We really are quite violent and people perceive a need to protect themselves.
Petronius| 7.24.12 @ 1:13PM
Who is the Target of gun control? Lawful middle class people who don't vote for Liberals.
Oldefarte| 7.24.12 @ 1:25PM
The problem is not guns or ammunition, but rather people. We have lost our culture, our traditions, our heretage, our morality. THOU SHALT NOT KILL! Ever heard those words? It will probably be discovered when the facts come out about this worthless dirtbag that he was/is completely insane, that either drugs infiltrated his mind or his high intelligence overloaded and caused a fuse to explode; that his extreme facination with this Batman series of movies was at play here; that his family/friends/associates/relatives ignored the warning signs of his mental breakdown and society played the ultimate price for same. The solutions are for people to return to church, to religion, to morality, to respect for their fellow human beings, to shutdown the immorality of Hollywood's movies/TV programming that is indoctrinating our youth to extreme liberalism, to taxpayers taking control of academia and pulbic schools that are mentally destroying our children's minds, etc. Guns are not the cause or the solution. Guns are inanimate objects and without human interaction, do not kill humans, animals etc. Someone has to pull the trigger, and if that someone is crazed or mentally ill, the inanimate object becomes a destructive object that then kills!!!!!
Louis Jenkins| 7.24.12 @ 1:52PM
And what do you think about Operation Fast and Furious? We have laws yet Holder and crew refused to use them. There are laws and our government ignores them. Instead they add on to the already existing laws. The truth is out there, unfortunately the American public will never see it.
drake1456| 7.24.12 @ 2:54PM
True that! And two things;The inciting movie was a product of the ever-violent Hollywood, main supporters of the president, and two, fertilizer kiiled 156 more people and injured 500 more than this maniac.Means to kill are always available to thos so inclined.
JD| 7.24.12 @ 5:12PM
Let's flip this conversation. To all those who say "legalize and tax" drugs, arguing that banning them doesn't prevent people from getting them and we're unduly criminalizing people, what of this argument when it comes to guns?
Read up on the horror stories of people who took their legal weapons with them to NY and ended up serving long jail sentences for having them when they tried to declare them.
Or the reverse - if lax gun laws supposedly result in their being so many more guns, won't "legalizing and taxing" cocaine cause a massive spike in cocaine use? Do we want that?
I know drug legalization is an issue that separates some libertarians from conservatives, but consider this: I consider the ideological Right to be, fundamentally, those who don't believe third parties have the right to interfere in wilfull exchanges between two entities. Criminal acts are unwilling on the part of one entity. Governments can perform these as much as people, though their purpose should be to prevent them.
So what of buying and using cocaine? It's a tough one. That first purchase is definitely "willing". But after addiction forms, it's not anymore. Addiction perverts the "willingness" angle. So can an ideal conservative government ban addictive drugs? I'd say... no, but our current world is so far from ideal conservatism that we need to make a lot of progress before we can trust people to not make that initial decision to try a drug.
Thom| 7.24.12 @ 6:47PM
"But until a few days ago, the idea that anyone would start shooting people in a crowded movie theater was both beyond our experience and our imagination."
Aaron, please speak for yourself here. We are in a "war" with people who routinely blow themselves up with explosives killing dozens and wounding hundreds. On 9/11/2001 these same people took advantage of our utopian naive view of ourselves and the world at large with just "razor blades" as weapons. How did we respond? We banned plastic knives and forks on the planes.
This "gun free" craze is just a manifestation of a larger childish view of the world we live in and everywhere government creates these "killing fields" murders flock. I wonder how many people know the "joker" fired for two minutes and there were two security "guards" in the "gun free" zone?
Will this happen again? Of course. Bank on it. The possibilities are limitless for improving upon what this "joker" accomplished and that will encourage many future “jokers”. This Bastard will outlive me even if Colorado has the courage to give him the death penalty. It will cost over 10 million to protect him while he awaits the compassionate death we reserve for our pets no less.
Nick| 7.24.12 @ 8:28PM
When the dirt-bag Giuseppe Zangara attempted to assassinate FDR, and killed Chicago mayor Anton Cermak, on February 15, 1933, in Miami, Florida; he was executed on March 20, 1933.
Granted, he pled guilty to all charges, but, still. Bring back the good ol' days.
Thom| 7.24.12 @ 8:42PM
The legal system will spend months just assessing the competence of this clown to stand trial. By the time it is all over the defense lawyers and criminal justice system of CO will have made/cost a mint off this guy at taxpayer expense. He is playing the “role” of the Joker and will end up making a fool out of both the legal and criminal justice system before it is over.
Bill84728| 7.25.12 @ 12:46PM
By the time it's time for sentencing him, the Aurora movie theater shooting will long since have become a memory, then Auroraites will be demonstrating in front of the courthouse, carrying signs that say capital punishment is too cruel.