Friday, July 20, 2012

Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?

Woke up this morning, expecting to see lots of reaction to the midnight showing of Batman.

Oh.

So...those victims could have been any of us. Not just nerds, either.

Anyway, I don't think -- no matter what information emerges from now on -- that you can attribute this to anything but craziness.

A crazy person.

13 comments:

Duncan McGeary said...

I always have the same reaction when I see the photo of a shooter.

I don't want to see his leering face. Fuck him.

Duncan McGeary said...

I have a sinking feeling that this is somehow going to be tied in to pop culture.

I think the crazy person just chose the biggest stage he could find.

H. Bruce Miller said...

A crazy person with a gun. If it had been a crazy person with a knife or a baseball bat I doubt we would have had 14 dead in that theater.

Guns don't kill people, but people with guns become very efficient killing machines.

Duncan McGeary said...

I agree except:

The same logic that made me come to the conclusion about the legalization of drugs, makes me think I have to come to the same conclusion about guns.

We can't outlaw them -- there are too many, and emotions run too high. It would be worse than prohibition.

Duncan McGeary said...

I don't want to sound crass, but I wonder if people will stay away from the movies, or this movie, today....

Duncan McGeary said...

Go watch Australian hurdler.

Turn off news.

Ahhhhhh...

H. Bruce Miller said...

"We can't outlaw them"

No, nor do I think we should outlaw them -- even if the Second Amendment would allow it, which it wouldn't. But they can be much better regulated than they are now. The NRA keeps its members whipped up into a state of gibbering hysteria by equating ANY attempt to regulate guns with "outlawing guns," but of course that's bullshit.

Anonymous said...

If everyone in the theater had carried a gun, I wonder if the guy would have been so bold. Like the book title says, "More Guns, Less Crime."

Anonymous said...

"If everyone in the theater had carried a gun...."


Of course an NRA wacko has to come on here and say that ... by posting this stuff, you were asking for it, Duncan, you know.

H. Bruce Miller said...

"If everyone in the theater had carried a gun, I wonder if the guy would have been so bold."

Sure he would. He was a nut case; he wanted to go out in a blaze of "glory."

So instead of one guy spraying bullets around in a crowded, dark, smoke-filled theater we might have had a dozen people spraying bullets around in a crowded, dark, smoke-filled theater. Yeah, that would've worked out REAL well.

The brilliance of gun-nut "logic" just leaves me speechless.

Carl said...

The theater in Aurora has a no gun policy and posts it, even if you are a legal CCW carrier. Gun free zones are nothing but free fire zones for guys like Holmes. He could have used poison gas, fire-bomb, IED, any number ways to cause many deaths in a short period of time.

Want to create terror and economic paralysis in middle America, bomb several malls or Costcos on the same day. I am not advocating that just making a point about terrorists.

I think they will find that this guy is not your typical nutso, but more a psychopath who just wanted to see the world burn, so to speak. He also allowed himself to be captured alive because he is going to enjoy the notoriety and attention.

H. Bruce Miller said...

"He could have used poison gas, fire-bomb, IED, any number ways to cause many deaths in a short period of time."

And how would other people in the theater packing guns have stopped any of that?

But I doubt he would have chosen one of those methods because there would have been an excellent chance that the bomb, gas or whatever would have killed him too -- and, as you point out, he wanted to survive and bask in the notoriety.

Carl said...

Bruce, I know criminals would not obey gun free zone requests or give up their guns if we tried to ban them. Mad men who are out to watch the world to burn can always find easy ways to cause mass murder.