BartCop's most recent rants - jon-on-gun-sanity.htm

Subject: We live in a nation of morons

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The Aurora shooter, James Holmes, pretty much shot down all of the NRA's arguments.

Holmes was seriously disturbed, but was able to pass a background check and bought
all his weapons legally (including 6000 rounds of ammo he bought on the internet).
He walked into that theatre with an assault rifle with a 100-round drum, two semiautomatic
Glock .40-caliber handguns, a Remington 870 Express Tactical pump action 12-gauge shotgun
and a ballistic helmet, a ballistic vest, ballistic leggings, a throat protector, a groin protector,
a gas mask, armored boots and metal shin guards. With those kinds of weapons, he was
able to shoot 71 people in 2 minutes. Not sure exactly how a "good guy with a gun" in that
theatre could have taken down someone dressed in body armour from head to toe and
carrying an assault rifle with a 100-round drum. http://wagingnonviolence.org/2012/07/the-nras-war-at-home/

As I found out when I got into a nasty argument with a couple of my conservative
brother-in-laws on Christmas Day, any talk of gun control is viewed by conservatives as
an attempt to impose "liberal" values on people. I actually had one of my brother-in-laws
ask me what right I had to tell him how to live his life which was a pretty odd question
since all I wanted was to make sure that some crazy f**k didn't go on another killing spree
with an assault rifle and a 100-round drum. Neither one of my brother-in-laws could be
considered "gun nuts", yet they were totally bought into the NRA argument and were
absolutely opposed to ANY type of new legislation.

All the old chestnuts were brought out in the argument: "guns don't kill people, people kill people"
....the Newton shooter could have walked in there "with a knife or a baseball bat" and killed
those kids just as easily (ignoring the fact that the Newton shooter was hardly physically
imposing and any of the adults there could have easily taken him on if he didn't have a gun)
.....we need to post armed guards at schools (ignoring the fact that Columbine actually did
have an armed sheriff's deputy on guard), etc. When the argument finally spiraled down to:
if I didn't like kids dying, why do I support abortion, I ended up leaving. I also ended up
believing that there will not be any real, serious efforts to curb gun violence.

There's too much of a gap between the two sides and our politicians simply do not have
the backbone to take on the NRA and the conservatives. There will be other shootings
and other memeorial services. People will pound their breasts and say "Something must
be done. We can't let this happen again" and it will happen again. Committees will be
formed, newspaer editorials will be written, angry words will be exchanged at family
gatherings, but nothing will change.
Jon

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