12 dead at a Dark Knight Rises midnight screening

KGarrett wrote:

It was only a matter of time before some nonsense conspiracy theory showed up, but not even a day later?

Is it just me, or does the author of that article look an awful lot like Daniel Tosh?

Penguin wrote:

Oh,

I'll give you that one, since an assistant principal "subdued" the gunman in his car and it's possible having his own gun helped with that. However:

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fuck

civilian grabs his gun and charges into firefight between maniac and trained law officers only to get killed by maniac, and

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off.

police officer and sherrif's deputy stop maniac with guns and police training tend to bolster the "favourite fantasy" idea. Might wanna read the stuff you link next time, lest you look foolish.

Cyberwulf wrote:

police officer and sherrif's deputy stop maniac with guns and police training tend to bolster the "favourite fantasy" idea.

I think you overestimate the amount of training the typical police officer gets with firearms. I'd honestly put more faith is some lunatic redneck to be able to hit a target and not hurt himself in the process.

Cyberwulf wrote:

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fuck

civilian grabs his gun and charges into firefight between maniac and trained law officers only to get killed by maniac, and

The only thing it fails to meet the "fantasy" criteria was that he died. He entered the conflict and struck the shooter, potentially saving the kid in the process.

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off.

police officer and sherrif's deputy stop maniac with guns and police training tend to bolster the "favourite fantasy" idea.

Police officers are civilians, although, yes, it's obvious what the idiot cartoonist meant. In any case, these were on-scene as students. Police training typically is "wait for backup and advance en masse," it doesn't really come into play here.

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Might wanna read the stuff you link next time, lest you look foolish.

Rest assured, I did. There are other examples I could've used that would've fit the criteria better, but I was sticking with things that happened in America, fairly recently.

Penguin wrote:

Cyberwulf wrote:

Quote :

fuck

civilian grabs his gun and charges into firefight between maniac and trained law officers only to get killed by maniac, and

The only thing it fails to meet the "fantasy" criteria was that he died. He entered the conflict and struck the shooter, potentially saving the kid in the process.

Image posted by WD40 wrote:

The civilian with a handgun who, in a chaotic shootout situation, accurately plugs a bad guy without getting himself or numerous bystanders killed.

Try harder next time.

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off.

police officer and sherrif's deputy stop maniac with guns and police training tend to bolster the "favourite fantasy" idea.

Police officers are civilians, although, yes, it's obvious what the idiot cartoonist meant. In any case, these were on-scene as students. Police training typically is "wait for backup and advance en masse," it doesn't really come into play here.

So the odds of police officer panicking in a shoot out situation are no less than the odds of anyone else doing so? Really? The police in the US must be so incompetent that it's a miracle they can do their jobs.

ETA: It would also help your case if, in the first article, the assistant principal had been in the midst of the shoot out instead of going after the guy when he was getting ready to drive away to his next target.

Anon wrote:

So the odds of police officer panicking in a shoot out situation are no less than the odds of anyone else doing so? Really?

In a situation where they're alone, without backup? Actually, yeah.



Much as just being a "good guy" and picking up a gun doesn't guarantee anything, giving someone a badge and having them shoot a box of ammo twice a year to "qualify" with a pistol doesn't make them marksmen with nerves of steel.

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The police in the US must be so incompetent that it's a miracle they can do their jobs.

It varies greatly from department to department.

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ETA: It would also help your case if, in the first article, the assistant principal had been in the midst of the shoot out instead of going after the guy when he was getting ready to drive away to his next target.

Damn, if only I could alter the past to better back up my arguments.

Already, secularism has been blamed, and the pro-gun/anti-gun folks are gnashing their teeth, ready to use this tragedy as a political tool. Fuck you all. People died. Let's mourn them now, and maybe, MAYBE later we start placing blame, preferably on the guy who shot all those people.

Penguin wrote:

Quote :

ETA: It would also help your case if, in the first article, the assistant principal had been in the midst of the shoot out instead of going after the guy when he was getting ready to drive away to his next target.

Damn, if only I could alter the past to better back up my arguments.

Back up? You were arguing that shootout situations could be and are resolved safely by ordinary people using firearms. Your entire case consists of three articles - one of them where someone came along with a firearm after the perpetrator had stopped shooting, one which actually backs up the cartoon you were arguing against rather than refuting it, and one where firearms played, at best, a minor role in resolving the situation.

You don't need to alter the past in order to better back up your arguments, you need to alter the past to have successfully put an argument together in the first place.

Anon wrote:

You don't need to alter the past in order to better back up your arguments, you need to alter the past to have successfully put an argument together in the first place.

Only if you want to insist on every one of the cartoon's absurd laundry list of criteria, and then add some more of your own to boot.

I could throw out dozens of successful, defensive uses of guns with about five minutes in Google... but then, there'd be a thousand ways to nitpick them out as irrelevant. "Oh, the aggressor didn't shoot first." "He didn't shoot enough people for this to qualify as a 'shoot-out.'" "He didn't 'plug' the bad guy, therefore it doesn't count." "It might've been crowded and chaotic, but it was an armed robbery, not a spree shooting." Et cetera.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

To help Penguin's argument there. There are sites which collect such stories, and this is one of them. I also read every month in America's First Freedom, yes an NRA publication, of stories which illustrate his point. And yes, I'm an NRA member. I also believe that background checks and the waiting period are a good thing.

Just to throw some other "facts"* out there, which may or may not add to the argument:

• There are 129 million privately owned firearms in the United States according to the September, 1997 FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin.
  
• There are an estimated 65 million handguns in private circulation in the United States. (FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, 9/1997)
  
• The fastest growing group of gun owners is women, according to Gary Kleck in Targeting Guns.
  
• Firearms are used defensively roughly 2.5 million times per year, more than four times as many as criminal uses. This amounts to 2,575 lives protected for every life lost to a gun (Targeting Guns).
  
• The accidental firearm death rate is at it's lowest point since records were started nearly 100 years ago according to Injury Facts 2000 from the national Safety Council.
  
• Motor-vehicle accidents, drowning, suffocation, and fires each kill more children under the age of fifteen than do firearms.
  
• Less than one handgun in 6,500 is ever used in a homicide.
  

I absolutely believe that the right to bear arms is vital to maintaining our civil rights. I don't care if this opinion makes me unpopular on a liberal board (because this is a liberal board), nor will I sit and argue this after I post this. In my experience, there is absolutely nothing I can say to change anyone's mind on any damn subject, much less one as sensitive as the right to keep and bear arms.

Is this a tragedy? Absolutely. I feel nothing but sadness for the people who lost their lives, and for the families and friends who are deprived of their loved ones because of a mad man. Are pro-gun control people going to use this as an example for why we should ban firearms? Absolutely they are. *puts on tin foil hat* It's just one more way the government is taking away our rights, one by one, and they'll keep hammering at this one until it's gone. When it is, the rest will be quick to follow. *takes off tin foil hat*

I leave with a couple of quotes from our Founding Fathers on the subject.

"Americans have the right and advantage of being armed - unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms." ~James Madison, The Federalist Papers #46

"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of people always possess arms, and be taught alike especially when young, how to use them." ~Richard Henry Lee, 1788

"Are we at last brought to such humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in possession and under our direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?" ~Patrick Henry

"...to disarm the people - that was the best and most effectual way to enslave them." ~George Mason


*I put facts in quotes because god knows anyone in an argument will cook the data presented to them in order to slant it to their favor. It's fucking horrible that I'm skeptical of almost all statistics quoted anymore because of this.

EDIT: FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff--

I just saw the article linked by ILE there, and I'm facepalming hard.

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"You know what really gets me, as a Christian, is to see the ongoing attacks on Judeo-Christian beliefs, and then some senseless crazy act of terror like this takes place," Gohmert said.

FUCK YOU, YOU FUCKING SHEEP FUCKERS! What the hell? Attacking people at a MOVIE is suddenly an attack on Christianity? What? Is Batman Jesus??

SECOND EDIT:

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Gohmert also said the tragedy could have been lessened if someone else in the movie theater had been carrying a gun and took down the lone shooter. Istook noted that Colorado laws allow people to carry concealed guns.

"It does make me wonder, with all those people in the theater, was there nobody that was carrying a gun that could have stopped this guy more quickly?" he asked.

How can I facepalm any more?? I'm all for gun ownership, and I'm all for people defending themselves, but there is NO WAY you can predict how things might have turned out. That's being a Monday morning quarterback. And who's to say there wasn't a person there carrying a firearm? Just because a person has one doesn't they know how to use one!

God damn, the wank coming from this from all sides is going to make me sick. I'm completely with ILE here. Blame it on the psycho.

To Maxi, penpen, Anon and anybody I may have missed or has yet to leap into the brewing pro/anti-gun debating I wish to point back to this post.

I_Lam_Edhellen wrote:

Fuck you all. People died.

Now kindly shut the fuck up.

Somath Cegem wrote:

To Maxi, penpen, Anon and anybody I may have missed or has yet to leap into the brewing pro/anti-gun debating I wish to point back to this post.

I_Lam_Edhellen wrote:

Fuck you all. People died.

Now kindly shut the fuck up.

Sit tight a moment, I'll go get a ladder so you can safely dismount that high horse you're on.

This thread isn't going to help any of the victims. Nothing said on this board will have ANY affect on what happened and what happens in Colorado. Someone brought up gun control, people who know better shouldn't be expected to sit around with their thumbs up their asses just because you have you're knickers in a twist. All this "discussion" is going to do is cause strangers on a series of tubes a shared headache. Stop acting like you matter.

And kindly shut the fuck up.

Seriously though, Somath, what's crawled up your ass lately?

Maximilia wrote:

Is Batman Jesus??

Yes.

Somath Cegem wrote:

To Maxi, penpen, Anon and anybody I may have missed or has yet to leap into the brewing pro/anti-gun debating I wish to point back to this post.

I_Lam_Edhellen wrote:

Fuck you all. People died.

Now kindly shut the fuck up.

this isn't even pro/anti-gun you ridiculous dumbass

why don't you learn to fucking READ

maybe you could start with the instructions on the haemhorroid cream you so desperately need


Penguin: never mind throwing up your hands and claiming OH YOU'D ALL NITPICK ANYWAY. Only one of the examples you cited involves a civilian (perhaps "private citizen" would be more accurate) apprehending/stopping a gunman while using his own gun. The civilian who intervened in the firefight and got killed himself - I'm not saying he wasn't brave, but he wound up dead. Mostly because the maniac with the gun was wearing a bulletproof vest. The reason I note that a police officer and a sherriff's deputy were involved in the third incident has less to do with their training on how to use firearms properly and more with their training on how to approach an armed suspect. Again, very brave, and I'm sure that in most places the protocol is to wait for backup, but still not the same as Joe Bloggs who only knows about policework from cop dramas.

I mean if you have examples of “private citizen stops maniac mid rampage by using a gun” post them. That’s what I would do.


I'm not anti-gun or pro-gun here. I just agree that this

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"It does make me wonder, with all those people in the theater, was there nobody that was carrying a gun that could have stopped this guy more quickly?"

is a ridiculous thing to say and it's the kind of thing that gets said every time some nutcase goes berserk with a gun in a crowded, public place. Let me answer your question with a question, Mr. Tea Partier - what normal person brings a fucking gun with them to the pictures? No, seriously - gun people on this board, do you go everywhere packing heat, or are there places where it's just more of a hassle if you bring your gun? And if you do, would you be confident enough in your abilities to whip out your gun in a dark room filled with panicking people and take out the nutcase with a nice clean headshot?

KJM wrote:

Maximilia wrote:

Is Batman Jesus??

Yes.

Shit. I better convert. You can't side against Batman!

EDIT: I just saw the question Cy posed. The answer is a firm maybe.

In some cases, there are people who are armed everywhere, especially in the Midwest. Concealed carry permits are easy to get, and it's legal to carry it into a multitude of places. The laws on that vary state to state; South Dakota has it legal to carry a firearm (OPENLY I might add, though this applies to concealed weapons as well) everywhere except a church, a bar, and the post office (ie, government buildings). This is a very much "western" state though, with people thinking evidently they'll need to circle their wagons at the drop of a hat (please note I'm saying that sarcastically). Do people go around armed? Some do. Not many though. It's far more common to leave the firearm (usually a hunting rifle or shotgun) in their vehicle.

That being said, businesses can and do post that it's illegal to bring a firearm into their establishment. So, it's a mixed bag. I think (stretching my head here, it's been a while since I've been to a movie) one or more of the local theaters here have that sign posted. The pawn shops around here definitely do. Again, this is only South Dakota--I can't even begin to speak for the other 49 states because each state can add to federal laws where it is and isn't legal to carry.

So, yeah, it's a maybe. I think the difference between the states depends on the area (if there's a lot of hunting in the area, for example) and depends on the population. Rural areas to me seem that there's a lot more armed people around. By that I mean legally armed people, ie, people with concealed carry licenses or with guns obtained through normal means.

SECOND EDIT: Again, READING COMPREHENSION FAIL. Just saw the second part of Cy's question. Since I don't own a firearm myself, I can only say that I know of people who do go armed everywhere. As for their confidence in using it... I have no idea there. I would imagine pretty high. (Again, said sarcastically, because fuck, no one knows how they are going to react to a situation until they're in it.)

THIRD EDIT: Ah! I know of specific instances! Thinking back on how easy it is to get a concealed carry license here (and in North Dakota), I recalled a conversation I was having with my brothers and my brother's wife. She works in a hotel, front desk, and she carries a firearm to work every day. Where they are at, there is an oil boom going on, which means a lot of strange men in the area. Concerned for her safety, my brother bought her a firearm. She already knew how to use one, though. She went and got a permit to carry concealed, and went to work every day with it on an ankle holster. Never had to use it or anything, but it was an every day thing. AND, she was able to bring it out while we were discussing it because she was wearing it, this being at my mom's house during Christmas. So, that's a definite yes.

That is a wonderfully detailed answer, Max, thank you.

Cyberwulf wrote:

That is a wonderfully detailed answer, Max, thank you.

Welcome. I was talking about this discussion with a friend, and he corrected me on a couple things. Other off limits buildings included schools (which I suppose falls into my 'government buildings', but it's listed separately, so I'm listing it separately)...and there was one more which I forgot already. Drat. Interesting enough! You can have an unconcealed weapon in your car (like on the seat) without a permit, but you can NOT have one on your motorcycle here. You have to have a permit for a concealed weapon on a motorcycle. That law is definitely on the books for the Sturgis biker rally here, so it makes me wonder what are other states' gun laws/concealed arms laws like? I can well imagine they'll be vastly different from state to state.

I have a hard time thinking anyone with a concealed weapon could have done anything to Holmes since he was decked out in a bullet proof vest and neck/groin guards... and don't forget the tear gas. And also don't forget that he was able to have access to high magazine clips since it's legal and if we're going to talk about wait periods/background checks, the guy only had a traffic violation in the past. *shrugs* I've grown up around guns, but to be perfectly honest, they have caused more trouble than they have been useful. Why the hell can we not look at other countries and how they handle them? Like Canada for instance. They have them, they have a healthy hunting culture, but you don't see them packing military-esque heat just because they can.

I respect the 2nd amendment, I grew up around guns, but if we're going to treat the constitution as a living breathing document, it needs to be adjusted since the guys who compiled the document really only had, what, muskets? Don't quote me on that... I have no clue what they had. Muskets are just hella old. Like.. ye olde.

As for the "fuck you, people died, let's not start on the whole gun control argument" well... if not, then when? When a problem like this happens, it needs to be addressed. You don't see people freaking out about the removal of the Paterno statue from PSU because it was just "too soon." We have short attention spans in this country, and sadly, when something like this happens, only then do we pay attention and demand change.

I was talking about the politicians hopping on this tragedy to use it as a political tool, blaming it all on their political enemies.

The whole gun control debate here is kinda stupid, IMHO. Who goes to a theatre, expecting to need to use their firearm, even if they keep one with them regularly? Up here in Montana, I know plenty of people who keep guns in their cars (hunting riffles, handguns are pretty rare), but harrying a gun around with you is just cumbersome and heavy. You'd have to be pretty damn paranoid to carry a gun with you 24-7. Even IF they had been allowed to carry a gun into that theatre, they wouldn't have, because they're expecting to have fun watching a movie, not get shot at by an insane murderer on rampage.

If buying guns was illegal, he'd have gotten them illegally. Obviously, he didn't much care if what he did was legal or not.

So, gun laws would have no effect on the outcome of this tragedy.

Oh look, someone's trying to blame the shooting on Autism. What a moron. Let's point and laugh!

The debate that should logically arise from this tragedy is "How do we keep guns out of the hands of obvious mental defectives?"

Instead, predictably, it's by and large devolved into "DURR DEY WAN TAKE AR GUNZ"

the asylum wrote:

The debate that should logically arise from this tragedy is "How do we keep guns out of the hands of obvious mental defectives?"

Answer: you can't.

Moving on, here's someone blaming the shooting on homosexuality. Let's point and laugh.

ETA: the non-round-about way to make the point I'm trying to make is thus: We have much more outrageous and potentially hilarious things to be picking apart than our views on gun control laws.

[quote="I_Lam_Edhellen"]

the asylum wrote:

Moving on, here's someone blaming the shooting on homosexuality. Let's point and laugh.

How the hell do you make that connection?

It's a common thing about those religious blowhard types.

9/11? God's punishing us for, i dunno, working on Sundays.

Pile-up on the freeway? That's God, and he's pissed about, let's see... repealing DADT? Yeah, we'll go with that.

Raining? Power outage? Clipped too much off my toenail and now my quick is exposed and it's really really sore? Let's just blame the gays on that one.

[quote="Kevin M"]

I_Lam_Edhellen wrote:

the asylum wrote:

Moving on, here's someone blaming the shooting on homosexuality. Let's point and laugh.

How the hell do you make that connection?

I kno rite?

I, for one, blame the shooting on Baltimore.

All of it. The Orioles, the Ravens, even the Crapitols, though they aren't in Baltimore. Fuck Baltimore. Ray Lewis has claimed even more lives. Won't someone act to stop this aging, overrated loudmouth before he harms more innocents!?