"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms ... disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes." - Thomas Jefferson
For my 10th birthday, I wanted a BB gun. Like the mother in "A Christmas Story," Mom simply said, "You'll shoot your eye out." Dad had a wiser response. He gave me a choice: I could have the BB gun or a pair of Roy Rogers cap pistols I had been admiring. He made it clear to me that once I owned a weapon that actually fired real projectiles — even if they were only BBs — my toy gun days were over. I chose the pistols, and he knew I wasn't ready for the real thing.
Two years later, at age 12, with my toy gun days behind me, Dad bought me a bolt-action .22-caliber rifle and taught me how to use it — safely. I still remember the three simple rules he taught me: This is not a toy, never point it at anyone, and always assume that it is loaded.
As I grew into a teenager, I always knew where Dad kept our guns — mine and his. They were not locked up. They were standing in their cases in the closet in my parents' bedroom, with the ammunition on the shelf above. Yet never once did it occur to me to take those guns to school and shoot my classmates. Nor did I ever contemplate walking into a packed movie theater or a crowded mall and begin firing.
None of us has any way of knowing whether James Holmes, the shooter in Aurora, Colorado, is simply an evil genius putting on an act in court or if he is a loon who really believes he is Batman's nemesis, the Joker. We don't know if his father ever taught him how to use firearms, or if he got his knowledge from watching TV and movies, and playing violent video games.
What we do know is that a society that once lived in reality has evolved into a culture wallowing in fantasy violence, ruled by people whose goal is to disarm the good guys, leaving us all at the mercy of the bad guys.
We know that, like so many communities today, Aurora, Colorado, did not allow law-abiding gun owners to carry their weapons into the theater that night. Perhaps if they had, someone might have been able to stop Holmes before he killed a dozen innocent people and wounded scores of others.
Even in states that allow concealed carry of firearms, politically correct business owners can forbid the possession of such weapons in their establishments. A sign on the door of the Von Maur department store in Omaha, Nebraska, announces that guns are not allowed. On Dec. 5, 2007, 19-year-old Robert Hawkins read that sign as follows: "Even our security guards are unarmed! Come on in and shoot us!" So he did, killing eight people and wounding five others.
Shortly after my dad bought me those cap pistols instead of that BB gun, a teenage punk named Charles Starkweather went on a rampage across Nebraska, killing 11 people. The entire Midwest was terrified. As the debate again heats up over banning certain sized magazines for particular weapons, limiting the quantities and calibers of ammo, as well as other new forms of gun control, it is instructive to note that Starkweather's weapons of choice on that spree were a pistol, a knife, a .22 rifle, similar to mine, and a .410 shotgun like one I almost bought a few years later.
Charles Starkweather proved in 1958 that he could kill just as many people with a .22 rifle and a small caliber shotgun as Robert Hawkins or James Holmes could a half-century later with a so-called assault rifle. Evil finds a way. As Bruce Wayne's butler tells him in a previous Batman movie, "Some men just want to watch the world burn."
In the wake of these latest murders, as you hear our politicians blather on about more gun control, remember that 100 million gun owners didn't kill anyone last week. They are the good guys. They are on our side.
Copyright 2012 by Doug Patton, a recovering political speechwriter who agrees with himself much more often than not. Astute supporters and inane detractors alike are encouraged to e-mail him with their pithy comments at dpatton@cagle.com. Now working as a freelance writer, his weekly columns are syndicated exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.
Leon Ceniceros posted at 10:28 am on Thu, Jul 26, 2012.
YOU CAN'T TALK SENSE TO A .....LIBERAL OR A PROGRESSIVE AND DEFINITELY NOT TO A...........DEMOCRAT.
IN TODAY'S NEWS WE SEE THAT ONE OF THE VICTIMS IS SUEING THE THEATER. NOW WHAT IN GAWD'S NAME COULD THE THEATER HAVE DONE TO PROTECT THE VICTIMS UNLESS IT WAS TO HIRE AN ....."ARMED" GUARD TO KILL THE SHOOTER.
CAN YOU JUST IMAGINE CNN's...WOLF BLITZER, ANDERSON COOPER, PIERS MORGAN AND ALL THE NUT-JOBS ON MSNBC GOING OFF ON THE THEATER CHAIN FOR BEING............"PRO-NRA" ...?????
LOOK AT THE LEFT-WING ANTI-GUN NUTS DRIVING AROUND TOWN WITH THAT NEW BUMPER STICKER = "BAN GUNS NOT ABORTIONS".
THESE SHOOTER AREN'T THE ONLY CRAZIES RUNNING AROUND IN OUR SOCIETY......THAT'S FOR SURE.
Kuhn-J posted at 11:18 pm on Thu, Jul 26, 2012.
Um, Leon, what the theater could have done was not advertise that it was a "gun-free zone" which is one thing srpee killers look for. All it does to post that no-guns-allowed sign is to tell anyone who is bent on the kind of murder and mayhem that this shooter perpetrated is that he will be unchallenged because those of us who are inclined to obey the law and/or a property owners rules will comply with said laws/rules. Nobody who is willing to commit murder (against the law, by the way) is worried about whether he is going to use a gun to do it in a place he's not supposed to have one.
Kuhn-J posted at 11:22 pm on Thu, Jul 26, 2012.
(continued) If the theater owner is going to tell his customers that they may not carry the means to defend themselves in his theater, then he should take respnsibility for their safety himself and either screen all persons entering for weapons or post armed guards in each auditorium to do so.
chuckles3 posted at 12:01 pm on Fri, Jul 27, 2012.
That is why I love the 'guns on campus' debate. VA Tech was a gun free campus, except for the evil madman who had the guns and killed people.
This theater and the department store were the same.
We can conceal carry here in AZ, but it it not worth the hassle for me for a couple of reasons, one of them being how many stupid businesses don't want me to carry in their stores. I have trained to disarm knifes, handguns and even rifles, but if I am 20 feet away it does not do me much good.
CSalafia posted at 12:51 pm on Fri, Jul 27, 2012.
The one argument that cannot be countered is this:
Everything James Holmes had and bought was 100% legal, and any effort to restrict things like, oh, internet mass ammo purchases and high capacity clips, are opposed by the NRA.
The city of Aurora thanks you, NRA, for fighting for keeping the tools of mass killings legal.
VofReason posted at 1:10 pm on Fri, Jul 27, 2012.
Evidently this article above was above your understanding CSalafia. Couldn't the shooter have killed many people even if he had to have come in with 6 of seven loded guns? Those not covered under your targeted ban? Mr Patton hits the nail on the head. There are evil people out there who are intent on hurting people. No matter what is banned, they will find a way to do so. The only thing that will limit or prevent the damage is when someone else is there to stop it.
CSalafia posted at 1:37 pm on Fri, Jul 27, 2012.
Patton pushes the ridiculously naive argument that "had someone been armed, they could have stopped it".
Right.
Dark theater, tear gas, mass panic, and a guy in full body armor.
Even trained professionals would have a hard time with that one.
But, hey, we can't stop 100% of all the bad guys, so let's just do nothing and wait for the next massacre so we can have this debate again.
Slabside posted at 6:14 pm on Fri, Jul 27, 2012.
"But, hey, we can't stop 100% of all the bad guys"
You just answered your own ignorance chrissal. Kooks kill people. Placing the blame on the NRA and not enough gun laws is just a liberal cop out.
CooperG posted at 7:50 am on Sun, Jul 29, 2012.
First of all, Jefferson never uttered these words. The problem with platforms like this is it gives people a way to misquote or rewrite history to their liking, ignoring the importance of history and context and then have people believe them--which is the point.
http://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/laws-forbid-carrying-armsquotation
Doug defeats his own argument by failing to recognize that keeping assault rifles that can kill or wound hundreds of people off the market does not impact the right to "wear arms" as Jefferson sees it. Rather, it means that those movie goers who might be armed would have a better chance of stopping someone with a .22 rifle than an AR-15 with 100-round magazine a handgun with an 30-shot magazine. He presumes anyone being armed creates a level playing field when in reality it does not. The better analogy in this situation of an under-powered public is that of bringing a knife to a gun fight.
A single shot handgun versus an automatic weapon in a crowded theater makes the handgun owner and everyone around them the target if they miss--which research shows they probably will. That creates an even more risky and deadly set of circumstances. If I had to bet on an AR-15 versus a handgun, I'd bet on the AR-15 every time.
Leon Ceniceros posted at 4:32 pm on Sun, Jul 29, 2012.
Yes............let's all just be.....Liberal/Progressive/Democrat...."gutless wonders" and duck down in our seats and munch on our...lactose-free, fat-free, sugar-free, gluten-free candy bars while every one around us is murdered............maybe that makes sense to a .......Barack Hussein Obama....or a .....Nancy Pelosi...or a...Michael Moore...or a ...Wolf Blitzer....or a..Whoopi Goldberg...or a ...Anderson Cooper...or a...Mumbai-born, Fareed Zakaria....or his female alter-ego = Iranian-born, Christiane Amanpour (she sure doesn't mind sending these same "assault rifles and their 100 shot clips to the Syrian Rebels...now does she ???)................BUT TO A PATRIOTIC AMERICAN CITIZEN CARRYING A PERSONAL DEFENSE PISTOL....THAT MAKES.................NO SENSE AT ALL.
VofReason posted at 1:37 pm on Mon, Jul 30, 2012.
I wonder too why we sell assualt rifles. I don't know what the rational is behind that one. Same with mega clips. I would have to hear what the reasoning for either is- doesn't seem to make sense. However, just means the bad guys have to have multiple weapons to do same damage. Still doesn't defeat the logic that having good guys in the crowd armed will give the bad guys a reason to think twice and hopefully bring the violence to a quick end if they choose to try.
Masterrogue666 posted at 8:36 pm on Tue, Jul 31, 2012.
@Doug Patton: I agree with what you wrote 100%!
Masterrogue666 posted at 8:42 pm on Tue, Jul 31, 2012.
I use to hunt lizards with a .22 SAR. That thing was ACCURATE! Depending on one's abilities, and range, a handgun can kill just as easy as a rifle. I've hit targets with my handgun that others MISSED with a rifle....
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