There's no shortage of opinion on the Aurora shooting. Nothing new either; the usual suspects making the usual demands, including the standard insipid bleats for more gun control, outlawing guns, etc., etc.
Frankly, I've found it amazing that you can explain logically to these people that if you outlaw guns, what you're basically doing is taking the guns away from the people who could fight back against the bad guys. You'll only get the guns away from the law-abiding who grudgingly give them up; the criminals aren't going to give you their illegal guns any more than they cared about acquiring them legally in the first place. So effectively, all you're doing is making sure that the criminals end up being the only ones with guns.
I've never heard a gun control advocate give a good response to that reality. It's at this point that they employ the liberal debate tactic that makes you want to scream, changing the subject slightly so that it seems like they're still debating even though they've fallen and they can't get up. (And if that doesn't work, then they just get downright derisive and start insulting you and everything you believe.)
The stark reality of this situation is simply this: there are crazy people who are going to do crazy things, and the tools they use change little or nothing about the fact that they and their actions exist. I mean, do we seriously think that if the guy who did this couldn't get guns legally that he would have decided not to do something else instead? Was the point of what he did killing people with guns, or was the point killing as many people as possible? Are we honestly expected to believe that the point of the event was the use of guns and not the killing of the innocent people? The apartment contained dozens of home-made booby-traps constructed from liquid explosives, chemical, powders and bullets, according to the Washington Post. A guy who wants to kill will find a way to kill. What we should do is outlaw killing. Oh, wait...
Yes, this criminal procured his weapons legally and that's pretty much not preventable, because he was the extremely rare case where there was no history with the law or mental health services. There was nothing about this guy (so far) to raise a red flag and say he shouldn't be able to acquire what he wants to in a sort of free country; there was no indication he'd do anything wrong with it. If we're going to live in a society where we're going to say people can't have something because they might do something wrong with it, then we're in trouble. You'll have to take away the cars, because sometimes people go berserk and drive them into a crowd. You'll have to take away airplanes for similar reasons. You'll have to take away 2X4s, because there's the possibility of swinging one at someone and injuring them. And so on. And let's say no one could buy a gun. This guy obviously lived in Unibomber territory mentally; are you seriously telling me he wouldn't have just shifted his modus operandi to using explosives or something else for his plans? Don't insult my intelligence.
Gun control is a "solution" looking for a problem. The problem isn't guns, it's criminality. More laws will not change anything. If laws were the answer, we'd have no criminal activity already. Oddly, the same people who argue for gun control often argue for decriminalizing drugs, and one reason they give is that it takes away the incentive for drug cartels to exist and work outside the law. If you outlaw guns so that none can be purchased, the law-abiding certainly won't have any, but what do you think the criminal element will do? Of course, exactly the same thing the drug crowd has done; go underground and grow their own. How long before you have a black market for guns being manufactured and sold not by corporations but by cartels and gangs? How would this be an improvement?
Aurora shows us what happens when the guns are taken away from the good guys; making that theater a "gun free zone" also made it a slaughterhouse killing pen. Who can say what would have happened if when this pathetic figure threw that tear gas canister (where did he get tear gas anyway?) and fired that first shot, 15 legally armed citizens had stood up and opened fire? Could he have been stopped? Maybe. He certainly would have been slowed down and couldn't have done as much damage. I'll take "maybe" over "no chance" at all any day.
In the end, guns are like nukes. Neither one is going away, and you can't pass laws that will make the bad guys get rid of theirs. In other words, no matter what you do, the bad guys will always have them. The question is, will the good guys be able to defend themselves and their loved ones? A cold war is better than a hot war, but even a hot war is better than an outright slaughter of the helpless. Taking away guns from the law-abiding does nothing but tell the bad guys that no one can stop them. It guarantees not less violence, but more and worse violence. Think carefully about your position on guns, yours or that of a family member may someday be the life that a firearm in the hands of a law-abiding citizen saves...
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