Thread: The Colorado Shooting

Quote from a gun shop owner re the increse in applications for firearms

"What they're saying is, 'they want to have a chance'," he told the Denver Post. "They want to have the ability to protect themselves and their families if they are in a situation like what happened in the movie theatre


My quote in response

What the owner is saying that the preferred scenario appears to be instead of having a single gunman loose in the place - let every one be armed so they can protect themselves i.e the prospect of a mass shoot out is the deterrant.

NOTE TO SELF - On visiting the USA, DO NOT go to the cinema

On the basis that we are never going to fully understand the minds and motives of people like Holmes, Brevik et al - surely making it more difficult to obtain firearms is a no brainer ?

This would have happened none the less. If there is a will there is a way. In the netherlands, a shooter in a mall also killed 7, and wounded 15 people. With a machine gun obviously. We have a strong prohibition on firearms here, and it doesn't work.

I'd say, let them carry firearms, at home, and only at home. Only sell in a sealed bag. Separated from bullets. Open only when at home.

I agree with the idea that everyone should have the possibility to defend themselves. There is just no point in having an assault rifle at home, for self defence. It's like having a death star orbiting the earth, for self defence..

And with those bored loons who shoot people for fun.... There is little you can do about it, maybe a prevention program for the social health services..

The only viable defence against tyranny is a well armed citizenry.
imho
If the media would show the populace less violence, we would have a much less violent society.
Following that idea, the censors are either all insane, or have a hidden agenda which has, as a part, the need to maintain violence in the streets(so to speak).
that being said
1/2 our(united states) prison population is in because of drug related victimless crimes. (California, for instance, spends twice as much on it's prisons than it does on it's state colleges and universities).
None of which makes any sense to me. Down the rabbit hole fersure.

Like one of the above posters stated here (in the Netherlands) we have strikt laws that prohibit the purchase and ownership of weapons.
Nonetheless this does not change the ease at witch individuals can purchase arms in eastern European countries or the black market.

We have to stop focusing on the tools and focus on the person utilizing them. Would it be any different had he made 4 incendiary bombs and thrown them into the crowd in the theatre ?

As for arming the masses, I would have to disagree, the more people are armed the more there is a chance you arm the wrong person. Making weapons more mean-stream available also takes away the way we view them making the society more readily accepting of using them.

If you look at countries that have a total ban on weapons for civilians (northern Africa for instance) criminals use knifes and blades, now this doesn't hinder them from being violent it does however greatly diminish "collateral damage" and the ability to mass murder in schools or public areas.

But in all earnest lets not derail this topic into another gun control debate, its far more interesting to look at it from a different angle and ask ourselves why this movie ? why the theatre at all ? What about the profile of the perpetrator ?

My point in a nutshell:

prohibitively strong gun laws (like in Australia) --> citizens obey the law ---> criminals don't give a rats' ass and are still armed with illegal firearms

Also knives. It is illegal to carry any knife in public here. Any knife. The law has been made so grey that they can arrest you if they like, no matter that.

No, no, NO! HELL NO!

I am teetering on the line. The way I see it, an assault rifle is completely unnecessary as far as hunting, and self-defence, goes. Unless you're an informant against some nefarious person, or organization - I honestly doubt you'd need an assault rifle to defend yourself - to me, that much ammunition and fire power seems more like a danger in home defence. A pistol works just fine, and would probably work better at that. Easily hidden, easily fired - and so on. As opposed to a rifle, which has length - it is not easily concealed, takes time to bring up to fire - and so on.

If you plan on defending yourself, and home, with an assault rifle, you may as well just wine and dine the intruder - because using your assault rifle has already turned into this big tedious thing.

Do I think people should be allowed to own an assault rifle? I certainly do. I also think it should be allowed to be full-auto, and all crazy cool and hardcore... But I don't think people should be allowed to keep such a weapon anywhere but at a shooting range. I figure, the only real use for an assault rifle, in the hands of a civillian, is for the entertainment a hobbyist might find in firing the thing. That's it. That's its only purpose. So if that's the case, they should be left locked up at a firing range/gun club, which is the only place it should be used - and even qualifying for owning such a device should be major hassle ie: Gun licence for 10+ years, spotless criminal record etc.

To get back at the whole point of the topic. Why do people like holmes or breivik act the way they do.

According to breivik he acted on self defence. That he actually feared his country being overrun by muslim. His solution to this was, to set an example, and shoot people to prove his point.

He claims to be intelligent, but what happens afterwarts is. A "probably christian" american, shoots random people in a movie theatre. Mostly non muslim. Breivik could have projected this, as his worst case scenario. Well it happened, and the exact opposite to what he wanted to achieve has happened.

- People hate and fear ALL religious fanatics now.. Not just muslim
- EVERYBODY is a possible mass murderer. It are no longer just the "outcasts".
- They use each other as examples, but all had a different point in doing these murders.

Holmes killed those people out of boredom, no doubt about that. He was a neurology student. Usually calm. Then he shifted and went berserk. My guess is he did not have a girlfriend.

What drives people insane.

- Fear
- To much time, to little to do.
- Insomnia, seeing ghosts, hearing voices etc.
- Talking to yourself (all the time)
- Rage, of the world not doing what you want it to do.
- Having none of the following; House, pet, girlfriend, friends etc.

Just my 2 cents.. Another reason why not to do what they did. It'll never get you anywhere.. The opposite of what you want will be the result..

Originally Posted by stander-j

...I figure, the only real use for an assault rifle, in the hands of a civillian, is for the entertainment .

I keep reading this "in the hands of a civilian" as though somehow, putting on the uniform promotes the wearer to a higher moral code.
In my experience, it just may be that the opposite is true.

In ww2. it was discovered that only a small percentage of those engaging the enemy acttually shot at and hit the enemy. So an agressive remodeling of the mind was developed by the military to increase the number of those willing and capable of shooting/killing others was developed>
here's a brief summary from: Military education and training - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A leading expert in military training methods, Grossman(2001) gives four types of training techniques used:^[1]

• brutalization
• classical conditioning
• operant conditioning
• role modeling

According to Grossman (2001), these techniques were meant to break down barriers to embrace a new set of norms and way of life (brutalization), condition them to pair killing with something more enjoyable and pleasurable (Classical Conditioning), repeat the stimulus-response reaction to develop a reflex (Operant Conditioning), and finally the use of a role model of a superior to provide action by example.

There is an old army joke wherein a young private says to his seargent
"searg, I can't shoot women and children"
and the seargent replies,
"sure you can, just don't lead them as much"

When in the military, i met some who would "kill for fun"---"for the entertainment", not many, but enough to make the arguement against assault weapons, or any weapon "in the hands of a civillian" really seem silly.
As part of our training, they convinced us that we had gone to war with China-------(Oh my god, "China", I thought, "China who could field a soldier for every man, woman, and child alive in america"----"Oh Shit"----thought I, I then noticed that almost all of the other 1700 guys there with me were shouting enthusiastically in favor of the upcoming battles, shouting things like: "yeah, lets go kill 'em"---whereupon, I thought, "and I get to go fight with this collection of moronic lunatics"----"OH SHIT", as i sank down in my chair-------) Out of the 1700 of us, there were only 5 or 6 "oh shits" and we all got to visit with the battalion comander who informed us that we/i had a bad attitude. OK seriously?

On another note, there was a young sculptor, Eric, here who used to come out to my studio. We would work together, chat, and just enjoy the company of a peer. Unfortunately, he was dating the same woman as was a seargent on the local police force. One night while Eric was working late in the office of a company his father had built, the police seargent stopped a patrol car and claimed that there had been a report of an armed prowler in the neighborhood---long story short--- a young cop saw the light on in the office and burst through the door, and seeing a phone in Eric's hand, thought it a gun, and fired point blank into Eric's chest killing him. There was no record of any 911 call reporting a prowler that night, so I am left to wonder, and, i think it was murder. No trial was held. No justice for Eric's friends and family. It destroyed Eric's father, who let his business fall into ruin.

so
"in the hands of a civilian"
who better?

Originally Posted by Zwolver

To get back at the whole point of the topic. Why do people like holmes or breivik act the way they do.

IMHO, I don't think we will be able to predict social behavior scientifically. There are far to many social\ behavioral variables (e.g. age, gender, culture, climate, stress....etc) to identify a causation with mass shootings. I am annoyed with the usual rant of "It's the violent video games and movies, that motivates them to perform crimes of this magnitude." Yet, millions of people consume the same genre of movies/games without violent incident.

The best we can do at this time is to isolate them and conclude some variation of "They went nuts" in a verbose clinical evaluation.

Originally Posted by sculptor

Originally Posted by stander-j

...I figure, the only real use for an assault rifle, in the hands of a civillian, is for the entertainment .

I keep reading this "in the hands of a civilian" as though somehow, putting on the uniform promotes the wearer to a higher moral code.
In my experience, it just may be that the opposite is true.

In ww2. it was discovered that only a small percentage of those engaging the enemy acttually shot at and hit the enemy. So an agressive remodeling of the mind was developed by the military to increase the number of those willing and capable of shooting/killing others was developed>
here's a brief summary from: Military education and training - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A leading expert in military training methods, Grossman(2001) gives four types of training techniques used:^[1]

• brutalization
• classical conditioning
• operant conditioning
• role modeling

According to Grossman (2001), these techniques were meant to break down barriers to embrace a new set of norms and way of life (brutalization), condition them to pair killing with something more enjoyable and pleasurable (Classical Conditioning), repeat the stimulus-response reaction to develop a reflex (Operant Conditioning), and finally the use of a role model of a superior to provide action by example.

There is an old army joke wherein a young private says to his seargent
"searg, I can't shoot women and children"
and the seargent replies,
"sure you can, just don't lead them as much"

When in the military, i met some who would "kill for fun"---"for the entertainment", not many, but enough to make the arguement against assault weapons, or any weapon "in the hands of a civillian" really seem silly.
As part of our training, they convinced us that we had gone to war with China-------(Oh my god, "China", I thought, "China who could field a soldier for every man, woman, and child alive in america"----"Oh Shit"----thought I, I then noticed that almost all of the other 1700 guys there with me were shouting enthusiastically in favor of the upcoming battles, shouting things like: "yeah, lets go kill 'em"---whereupon, I thought, "and I get to go fight with this collection of moronic lunatics"----"OH SHIT", as i sank down in my chair-------) Out of the 1700 of us, there were only 5 or 6 "oh shits" and we all got to visit with the battalion comander who informed us that we/i had a bad attitude. OK seriously?

On another note, there was a young sculptor, Eric, here who used to come out to my studio. We would work together, chat, and just enjoy the company of a peer. Unfortunately, he was dating the same woman as was a seargent on the local police force. One night while Eric was working late in the office of a company his father had built, the police seargent stopped a patrol car and claimed that there had been a report of an armed prowler in the neighborhood---long story short--- a young cop saw the light on in the office and burst through the door, and seeing a phone in Eric's hand, thought it a gun, and fired point blank into Eric's chest killing him. There was no record of any 911 call reporting a prowler that night, so I am left to wonder, and, i think it was murder. No trial was held. No justice for Eric's friends and family. It destroyed Eric's father, who let his business fall into ruin.

so
"in the hands of a civilian"
who better?

That isn't quite what I was going for. Looking back, I definitely could've been more concise. I didn't really consider whether or not a soldier has superior ethics to that of a civillian. I was only saying that the assault rifle serves an actual purpose in both the hands of a soldier, and a police officer. In the hands of a civillian? Not so much (imo). I don't think it would ever really be an effective tool in home defence, at least in comparison to a small firearm, and that therefore its only real purpose is to be used the way a hobbyist would use it - at a firing range.

That would sum up my thoughts. Has nothing to do with ethics, or morals. It only has to do with whether or not civillians really need assault rifles to defend themselves - or if civillians just want assault rifles so they can entertain themselves by using it.

It's power...

People all want power, and buying a gun will make you feel more powerfull..

Then it's like; The bigger the gun, the bigger the power.

Strange, I have many guns with no desire for bigger guns or bigger power.

Originally Posted by sculptor

The only viable defence against tyranny is a well armed citizenry.

Its that simple. And yes, semi-automatic rifles are absolutely needed for that purpose. (I avoid the useless and meaningless phrase "assault rifle.")


Identifying the crazies to get them help without infringing on the rights of the rest of the citizenry is what we need to figure out.