The Aurora shooting is NOT a reason for gun control

The violent attack at Aurora Colorado should NOT be used as a reason for restricting the rights of law abiding citizens.
Here are several reasons.
Criminals have a MAJOR advantage. They choose when, where, how and who. This makes surviving an encounter exponentially harder. Only by having good situational awareness AND the ability to defend yourself do you have a chance of surviving. You are the only person truly responsible for your well being.
They are committing a crime. And since they are they are willing to ignore or break other laws. They will arm themselves illegally.
By increasing gun laws, only the law abiding person is truly affected. We are not going to buy a weapon illegally. James Holmes would still have killed people. If not with a legally owned firearm then with an illegally owned on, or worse one of the many explosive devices that he had in his apartment.

And what about the 100,000 to 2 million (stats vary wildly, so I took the lowest and highest I could find) people that use a firearm to defend themselves or others per year?

I saw a very similar saying on a woman's T-shirt a few years ago, It was SO true, I actually wrote it down, "Who thinks a woman raped and strangled is morally superior to a woman with a smoking gun and a dead rapist at her feet?"

And let's look at one of the weapons. a Smith & Wesson M&P15, This is a version of the AR-15. It is what the press keeps calling an 'assault rifle'. Technically they are wrong. Assault rifles must be capable of selective fire, meaning semi-auto (one round per trigger pull) and either burst (usually 3 rounds) or full auto. His was a standard semi auto. Why am I pointing out what most would consider a 'technicality'? Because most people give WAY to much credit to the platform firing the bullet. a .223 travelling 3,000 feet per second is just that. It does not matter what fired it. It makes zero difference if it was fired from an AR or a mini 14 or a bolt action. On this point a civilian 'assault rifle' is no different from any other semi automatic weapon. They DO NOT make the bullet magically more dangerous.

As for the '100 round magazine', that probably saved lives. Every one I have heard of has jamming issues. And, from what I can tell, his did jam.

BTW, don't rely on the news to get gun info right. Look at the picture below.

This was published by the New York Times. It is NOT a Glock. It is a 1911a1. That's kind of like mistaking a Chevy Camaro for a Ford F150. Oh and The NY Times is obviously blind. It clearly is marked .45 ACP not .40 cal.


To Quote my friend MikeE,"This may come as a complete shock to most, but violent interaction with a nut has precisely zero resemblance to a game of rock, paper, scissors."



Dan Emplit WBFD
USN 1986 - 1992