Students Make Voices Heard Again - As Communities Around The Country Pass Stricter Gun Laws

Students packed into New York's Washington Square to make their voices heard again - this time for an anti-gun vote in the November midterms.

Not to be denied their first amendment rights, thousands of students staged another walkout and mass protest Friday in schools across the country - even as assorted communities are taking matters into their own hands re: gun laws.  Here in Colorado, students from Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland FL also joined Columbine students to rally Thursday night in Clement Park near Columbine High for a get out the vote message, urging all those of voting age to get signed up.  As one of the kids said:

"The only thing a gun obsessed politician fears is a vote against him or her."

Bingo! He's nailed it. The guntard politicos only fear being displaced from their pseudo reigns. Below is one of the activist Columbine kids:

This first ever "Vote for our lives rally" drew nearly 500 in Littleton and many thousands more around the nation and preceded the Friday student protests-walkouts, which were tied to the 19th anniversary of the Columbine High School massacre. As if to punctuate student concerns a shooting at Forest High School in Ocala, FL left a 17-year old student injured. Fortunately for those students, the perp misfit (Sky Bouche) wasn't wielding an AK -47, Bushmaster.223, or AR-15. Unfortunately, for 4 slain Waffle House patrons in Tennessee, the degenerate that fired into that establishment did pack an AR.  But the dumb gunnies still insist "more people are killed  each year by fists than guns", yeah right, and pigs fly upside down.

Meanwhile, as reported in the Weekend WSJ (p. A6), NRA honcho Wayne LaPierre told a conservative audience, e.g. at CPAC in February that "current laws" - if vigorously enforced - "are sufficient to curb mass shootings".

Well, hardly  if so many millions of assault type rifles are out there, as well as over 300,000 bump stocks which can easily convert any semi-automatic into an effective automatic (and we saw what that could do last year at the Las Vegas massacre).

So now assorted localities are taking matters into their on hands.  As reported in the WSJ on Friday (p. A6)  Deerfield, IL has now "unanimously  passed an assault weapons ban".  The ban will mandate that all owners of such weapons - residents turn them in by a specific deadline. Failure to do so will result in "violators being fined as much as $1,000 a day from the point the law take effect".  Thus, if any violator delays ten days ditching their AR after the law is enabled, he or she will owe a nice tidy sum of $10,000.

Meanwhile, the city council in Lincoln, Nebraska and the Maryland General Assembly (MD already has an assault weapons ban that has been tested under the 2nd amendment and been preserved) voted to ban all bump stocks.  Then in Coral Springs, FL there is a major push to limit the sale and transfer of large capacity magazines in the city. In addition, Coral Springs, along with two other municipalities is suing the state to be able to do so.  (Many states, like Florida, for some idiotic reason prohibit  municipalities  from drawing up their own legislation.)

Then there is Boulder, CO whose city council has approved an ordinance that would ban the sale and possession of any assault weapons in the city, Infraction may result in a long jail term, possibly up to 2 years.  Predictably, on Saturday a bunch of NRA- backed losers came out to squeal ...errr, protest, about the ordinance - barking the usual false "Nazi" comparisons - which any dumbo that's studied the actual history of the Third Reich knows aren't true,  and carrying fake and real AR-15 rifles as they marched. One bozo quoted in The Sunday Denver Post (p. 2B) whined:

"This demonstration is because of the extremes that the Boulder City Council is going to. If they weren't I wouldn't be here."

Aww. . .boo hoo hoo. This turkey actually believes he has a 2nd amendment right to own an AR. Newsflash,  he doesn't.  He needs to process the words of conservo pundit Joe Scarborough from two months ago:

"If you want to make the argument that the Supreme Court should protect your rights to have military style weapons, that's legitimate.  But if you say it is your God-given constitutional right to have an AR-15 that is not what the second amendment says. And it's not what Justice Scalia says or the Supreme Court says."

 If that Boulder assault weapon ordinance protester doesn't like the ordinance perhaps he needs to move to Texas or Kansas and out of the "People's Republic Of Boulder".

The beauty of all these local actions is there is very little the gunnies (perhaps other than in FL) can do to thwart them. We already know as I've stated at least a half dozen times before, that assault weapons are not protected under the 2nd amendment. This was in the famous  2008 SC case District of Columbia vs. Heller:
http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2018/02/sorry-you-have-no-constitutional-right.html

The majority opinion was written by arch-conservative Justice  Antonin Scalia who - while upholding the right to own arms - adamantly asserted that those weapons "most useful in military service" fall outside the scope of the 2nd amendment.

A recent article in The Wall Street Journal ("Ban On Military  -Style Rifles Upheld", April 7-8, p. A3) notes that earlier SC ruling was once again upheld in a Massachusetts . And I am sure it will be upheld in the more recent Deerfield IL, Boulder CO, etc cases too - for the same reasons.  

As federal judge William G. Young  wrote in the MA  ruling:
"The AR-15 and its analogs - black, semi-automatic rifles with pistol grips and other military features - are simply not weapons within the individual constitutional right to bear arms."

The kids from Parkland and around the nation are now having an effect, with a powerful energy to reclaim gun sanity.  That sanity underscores that there is a higher freedom to live and let live than to be suddenly cut down in a hail of assault rifle bullets as those people at the Waffle House were early yesterday.

The beauty is that the gunnies and guntards will not be able to stop them, or stop the movement now in motion and gaining more steam every day. And that is irrespective of how many photo-shopped images of David Hogg with Hitler, or in a Nazi uniform, they put up on their stupid blogs.

Should An Author Be Held Responsible For Mass Shootings?

The news (New York Times, Sunday, p. 1) that the 18-year old German -Iranian mass shooter was in possession of the book, 'Why Kids Kill: Inside The Minds Of Mass Shooters', has again triggered questions of whether the author (Peter Langman) must somehow share responsibility.   The perpetrator in Munich, like the Columbine killers he idolized, evidently was bullied like they were and also suffered from depression.

Like the psychotic Colorado killer Karl Pierson, German authorities in Munich found the gunman had been bullied, and seemed to have few friends. No link to religious extremism or Islamic State zealots have been found.

Alas, the book by Langman was also found in the possession of Arapahoe High School student Karl Pierson, an honor student who shot to death a fellow student, Claire Davis. Pierson barged into the school hallway armed with a shotgun and Molotov cocktails. He was angry and looking for a debate coach with whom he wished to settle a score.  He fired a blast that struck Claire in the face at point blank range and sent her into a coma, dying after lingering unconscious for a week. Friends and family prayed that she'd come out of it - but that didn't happen..  Pierson wrote in his diary that he was psychopathic with a superiority complex.  According to author Langman: “I think he was right and correctly identified himself as a psychopathic personality from my book.”

However, is a coincidental profiling of oneself from the subject matter of a book on mass shooters  enough to impute blame to the author? Probably not. And Langman himself has made it clear he gave absolutely no details concerning techniques or strategy, nor did he deliver gory details.
 

But this may not matter in the end, because a certain niche of intelligent potential shooters can become obsessed and ensnared with their own divergent psychological manifestations. Then  - with self diagnosis - these misfits often end up analogizing themselves to Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, the infamous Columbine killers.
 

In a Mother Jones analysis of Langman's book from 2012, it appeared that many school shooters had become mesmerized by the story of Klebold and Harris. The Colorado duo's violent actions then formed the template for dozens of subsequent shootings. In particular, the pair's sense of isolation, plus the relentless bullying they endured from the jocks at Columbine High School. Add in their single-minded objective to deliver payback to those who they believed tortured them and the nefarious stage was set.
 

Thus, the MJ conclusion was that this template might be taken to heart by others, even if no particular strategies were given, or gory details.  But Langman himself has downplayed the bullying aspect though he wasn't specific on causes, noting in a UK Guardian piece (7/23):

“Sometimes there’s a revenge factor. Sometimes they are full of rage and lashing out against the world.  Sometimes they are wanting to make a name for themselves. As a nobody, they see the only way to be a somebody is get international recognition for killing people.”
 

Well, the inverted fame may also be a part, but it could also be that certain beliefs arising from the Columbine template are also in play. Also there is no gainsaying the fact that since Columbine the two killers have emerged as the "anti-heroes" of a misshapen death cult that idolizes the pair. The MJ  article noted other mass killers have been obsessed with the Columbine attack, drawing on a wealth of information in books and movies, fan websites dedicated to the shooters, and even a Broadway show. 

In this super-heated environment of self-absorption and  lunacy a single author can hardly be blamed for the dastardly acts of a series of misfits entranced by Columbine's killers.

Sue Klebold - Dylan's mother -  has even said she still receives mail from young women across the country professing their love for her son.  Twisted? For sure, but again if true - and there's no reason to doubt Mrs. Klebold - it might also help explain the ongoing demented fascination with the whole Columbine incident and why its infectious memes continue to generate offshoot killings. As for Mrs. Klebold, in her recent book  A Mother’s Reckoning,  she leans to the idea her son suffered from a "brain disease"

An alternative explanation has been advanced by Tahir Rahman, a forensic psychiatrist at University of Missouri. In his recent paper he argues for the need to examine "the extreme overvalued belief"  This term was coined originally by Carl Wernicke, a German neuropsychiatrist. He used it to describe ideas that dominate a person's mind causing non-delusional but extreme behaviors. Anorexia nervosa has been cited as one example in which extreme beliefs of body image dominate minds. (To the point of starvation.).

The same can be said for racists, anti-Semites, anti-Muslims,  psychotic anti-liberals or any person gripped with hatred toward a target group. (Often because of his own lack of adequate information, knowledge).  Most don't act out in violence, reach for an AR-15 and shoot twenty people. But those who become fixated on the misshapen justification of their hate can and do.  Thus, we beheld the demented Orlando mass shooter acting out his overvalued ideas, just as we also saw  the confused, alienated teen in Munich doing the same. .


The danger of all such overvalued beliefs is their propensity to become amplified by the possessor,  fulminating in the mind until the beliefs dominate. For example, the belief that Obama is a Muslim and is guilty of aiding the cause of radical Islam in some weird way.  It is difficult to deal with these people because their beliefs are magnified out of rational proportions, and tied to emotional over-investment. This disposition is also associated with an abnormal personality, e.g. the schizoid type or submerged personality manifested by James Holmes. .

As an example, Eric Harris idolized Hitler, and felt the human race was totally worthless. Being a hostage to such beliefs, then having them confirmed by being picked on by jocks, led him to conclude the only solution was to annihilate as many fellow students as possible.  This led to joining forces with Dylan Klebold to kill 13 and injure dozens more on Hitler's birthday (April 20) in 1999.

The danger of Trumpism now is sowing many more minds with such hateful, overvalued beliefs, in this case centering on white superiority and ridding the nation of immigrants, gays, and liberals ("libtards").   This morning, while grabbing a quick breakfast at McDonald's I even overheard three local wingnuts complaining loudly about no American flags seen at the DNC. One said: "What do you expect from these Muslim lovers? And they haven't even mentioned the word 'Isis' yet!"  Another fed into the first guy's overvalued idea by asserting: "Yeah, and they have a fence all around their Convention center but don't want Trump to build a wall!"

Could I have interjected reason with these guys? Not likely! Short of a brain transplant I'd have had no more success than trying to convince a denier like Kort Patterson of the reality of man-made global warming.  Reason and evidence simply play no role for the brain committed to an overvalued idea.

Hillary Clinton clearly has her serious defects  and disadvantages but may be the only "antidote"  to preventing a nation based on extreme overvalued beliefs. Kind of like using the toxins delivered via chemotherapy to eliminate a cancer.

Or, mayhap we need a "political physician" as Jill Stein describes herself, to clean house of these nasty overvalued, extreme memes warping the minds of so many of our citizens. People might wish to watch Dr. Stein's extemp speech to Sanders and other supporters outside the Wells Fargo center, e.g.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTG67z0yUag


See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/dave-lindorff/68284/no-sociopaths-in-the-white-house-i-m-with-jill-stein

Another School Shooting: Is Rigorous Gun Regulation Even Possible?

In Murdock, FL, ca. May, 1986, with a Colt AR-15. It is doubtful these weapons can be controlled unless the private market (as exemplified in Gun show sales) can also be regulated.

With the news of another school shooting, this time by a 12 year old using a semi-automatic weapon in Sparks, NV, attention once more turns to gun control. Make no mistake the damage in Sparks could have been much worse had a courageous math teacher, Michael Landsberry, not stepped in front of the young shooter, impeding him from firing on other classmates. According to one student interviewed by John Blackstone as reported yesterday morning on CBS Early Show, the shooter yelled: "You ruined my whole life!" - likely referring to a bad math grade.

Now, as reported this morning, the parents may have to accept responsibility for the kid getting the gun, and take the consequences for his actions.  But is it even reasonable? Perhaps, given it was their duty to ensure the weapon was secure. Once a weapon enters a home, the parents are the last line of security ensuring a kid doesn't get his mitts on the merchandise, load it up and go out with a chip on his shoulder to settle scores.

But outside of the home venue,  is rigorous gun control even possible? According to James B. Jacobs, writing in the January-February 2003 Legal Affairs ('Off Target', p. 18) all the regulations in the world  won't help unless we finally get smart about what is practical and what isn't. It's also clear that other nations (e.g. Canada) with high numbers of guns owned per capita don't act like we do. In Jacobs' words:

"it's clear that there is much more going on than unchecked access to guns. The United States has much more violent crime, with and without firearms, than any other Western democracies. America, it seems, has a disproportionate penchant for violence."

Why? One can surmise any number of reasons. My own, as given in 'The Elements of the Corporatocracy',  is the presence of pervasive free floating anger - even rage - endemic in so many citizens. This arises because of their powerlessness in the face of the power brokers, who play with their lives and basic security like a deranged kid might "play" with ants using a magnifying glass.  A guy is one week from collecting a pension from his company which would ensure long term security, and he's fired. Make sure if you do such a deed, you batten the hatches. The guy  dumped will not go gracefully or easily into that good night !  A working mother, meanwhile, has to leave her job to take care of her sick kid and is fired on her return. Another mom with an autistic child to care for is happy to get the news of her promotion, until she learns she will no longer be able to get the Medicaid care needed - the higher salary now disqualifies her! 

All of these disclose possible reasons for the endemic anger  in much of U.S. society, but let's be honest and admit the easy access to weapons makes going over the precipice to violent action easier. Why not in Canada which has more guns per capita? Because there are more social support safety nets in place to catch people who are cut off from their life lines. Canadians enjoy a truly single payer health insurance system as well as other social insurance protections that U.S. citizens don't. Hence, there's a higher threshold of pain that can be tolerated before they go whacko.

This is something to bear in mind, as the Neoliberal politicos ponder "entitlement" and other cuts in some "bipartisan grand bargain" to try to right the U.S. debt situation..

Anyway, back to Jacob's piece. He notes that the "practical effect of gun control is severely limited". For example, the regulatory system itself appears to defeat its own efforts. Purchases made through Federal Firearms Licensees are heavily regulated but purchase by private individuals, say at gun shows, are not. So long as occasional gun sellers don't declare themselves FFLs, there's no federal requirement they run background checks.  Jacobs compares this to "a house with six deadbolts locks and one open window."

Jacobs adds it ought to surprise no one that most criminals get their weapons through the secondary market, i.e. at gun shows. As he points out:

"If the law doesn't require background checks at gun shows, then it's at gun shows that criminals know they need to get their guns."

Hence, no gun regulation law that leaves out the private market can work.

The other practical problem, as Jacobs shows, is that even if a gun regulation "forbids" selling guns to certain categories - say illegal aliens, or mental patients - there's no way to ascertain a buyer falls into these prohibited categories.  "It serves only as political agitprop not as policy".

He adds that even after the Columbine massacre here in Colorado, the U.S. Congress refused to pass the "Gun Show Accountability Act", and there's no reason any new congress would do so even after Aurora, Newtown and other school shootings such as the one in Sparks.

What about a national handgun registry - say to cover weapons such as Glocks? Jacobs argues that this would "mean little unless nearly all of the 250 million guns currently in circulation were all listed with the government."

What about laws regulating assault weapons such as the AR-15 I am holding in the photo? Jacobs acknowledges states have passed laws mandating regulation of such rifles but "for reasons ranging from ideology to laziness these laws have been overwhelmingly ignored". He adds that even given such laws, "a black market would inevitably crop up where unregistered weapons would be peddled."

He adds that "unlike with cars - where drivers without license plates can easily be spotted by police- those who choose to carry an unregistered gun would likely go undetected until after they commit a crime."

As he further asks:  Even if we overcame the political, logistical and financial impediment to passing a practical and cogent law for the secondary gun market, would a new generation of criminals obtain unregistered handguns? And - would the gains in controlling guns be worth it?

Jacobs concludes that prohibition of civilian ownership of firearms "is not a feasible option".

But he does assert some things can still be done. These include:

- Ballistic fingerprinting: requiring manufacturers to test fire new guns and supply the government with samples of the bullets and shell casings.

- Restricting handgun sales to one handgun per buyer each month. ("Very few legitimate users would be inconvenienced by the limit")

- Imposing a defined waiting period, say from 48 to 72 hours. This would prevent a person in a murderous rage (say just after being canned 1 week from getting his pension) from running straight to a gun shop - buying a gun- to discharge his frustrations.

- The easiest solution (to strengthen firearms policy)  is to "provide severe punishment for every defendant who uses a gun to commit a crime." No serious interest groups would oppose tough treatment for gun offenders."

The one little problem with the last? It takes no account of the 'Stand Your Ground' laws such as in Florida, which allow a gun toter to blow away his opposition if he "feels threatened with deadly force".

One wonders what Jacobs would have thought of such laws, given Florida's only came into existence 5 years after his article. I believe if he'd been cognizant of them, he'd have argued they're a bad idea because of undermining the punishment aspect by applying too general conditions for use of deadly force. Think George Zimmerman and Tavon Martin.

Time to Reel in the U.S. A. Gun Culture Zealots

The horrific tragedy in Aurora, Colorado this morning, leaving at least 12 dead and 58 wounded, stands beyond belief in the annals of state mayhem. Hundreds of people throng joyously into an Aurora Century 16 cinema, to see the midnight premier of 'The Dark Night Rises' only to be greeted by gunfire 25 minutes into the film. The shooter, evidently armed with two large  (0.40 cal) Glock automatic handguns, and a Smith and Wesson MP15 assault rifle, mowed down fleeing theater goers at will, as blood spattered all over the cinema floor. Many of those who survived did so not by fleeing (because the shooter waited for victims to bolt to the exit), but by lying low or playing dead between the seats.

We have seen such scenes play out before, as with the April, 1999 Columbine massacre at Columbine High School in Littleton, barely 20 miles down the highway from Aurora. In the wake of that tragedy in which 12 were killed and more than a dozen injured, there emerged a faint hope that once and for all the zealots of U.S. gun culture would be brought to heel. But it was a mirage. Quickly, the NRA called its main meeting in Denver, featuring spokesman Charlton Heston who gave his usual full-throated cry: "You can pry this gun from my cold, dead hands!"

Then there was the Virginia Tech massacre, and again a hope emerged to contain the zany zealots of gun culture, but nothing was done. The NRA lobby once more exercised its powerful influence on our lawmakers, but as usual they capitulated. It doesn't take a lot to capitulate, even a passive failure to veto an onerous piece of legislation that promotes gun insanity. Case in point, the 2009 credit card bill (which reined in interest rates and fees) but for which a "rider" amendment was attached by the Repugs allowing people to carry weapons into National Parks. By all rights this perfidy ought to have been forthwith vetoed by Obama, but it was signed into law. An opportunity to send a message to the insane gun zealots had passed, message not received. Bring whatever guns you want, into National Parks! We believe in "the Second Amendment"! Horse manure!

Given such wimpishness in facing the gun lobby and its defenders it's little wonder we stand out as having so many massacres, such as Columbine, Virginia Tech and now Aurora.  It is evident that we are a nation that treats gun ownership, and by that I mean any kind, as more important than the lives of citizens. This perhaps is no surprise. Of all the nations on Earth, ours is the most lax in providing protection for citizen information, privacy. No wonder then we yearly suffer from a plague of not only identify theft, but serious incursions into our information and files. We don't even see a problem with the NSA setting up a monster 2 million square foot spy -atorium in Utah to spy on everything from Twitter messages, to cell phone texts to ....you name it.  Hey, it's "national security'"! In our best interests! If we don't protect citizens at this basic level, why protect their life and limbs from insane gun- toting nuts? Bottom line: our politicos are more worried about "politics" and how it'll play in Peoria, or Pensacola...than the national welfare.

Then, no surprise at the spate of record -setting wacko gun legislation in individual states,  such as we beheld in Florida-  implementing a reckless law known as "Stand your ground". This nutso law basically confers the right of ultimate self protection (as in being judge, jury and executioner rolled into one)  if a person feels or senses that his life is threatened. On this basis, we then beheld George Zimmerman acting "pre-emptively" to neutralize a vague threat that had become entrenched in his sense perceptions - triggering the fear circuits in his amygdala.

Zimmerman encountered Trayvon Martin  (a young black kid in a hoodie) passing through his gated Sanford, FL neighborhood - and suddenly felt his life threatened. He insists Martin threatened to kill him by planting some blows on his head so he had to act, but then insists it was "God's plan" that he did so. (In an interview with Sean Hannity). Sorry, Georgie, but you don't get to invoke "God's plan " when you off somebody!

Now, think of laws like this all over the nation (we also have one in Colorado called "Make my Day" after the famous catch phrase in the first 'Dirty Harry' flick - where you can shoot and kill anyone entering or already inside your home if you believe he poses a threat to your life) and the inevitable results. Those include the perception that retribution is only a carry permit away.

My point is that the ease with which extremist gun culture is dignified by legislation, makes it feasible that gun use is legitimized in the public square. Add then one more ingredient: a wacko with grudges galore - maybe against his wife or girlfriend, maybe against a thesis advisor or boss, or perhaps against his peers....or even against life....and you have the formula for mass tragedy as beheld at Columbine, High School, at Virginia Tech and now at Aurora.

We still don't know what the Aurora shooter (James Holmes)  back story is - other than he was supposedly pursuing a Ph.D. in neuroscience (if you can believe it), but we know the Columbine killers  - Eric Harris and Dylan Kliebold- had grievances saved up for two years against the entrenched "jock culture" at Columbine, and also against the students (mainly girls) who adored it, fawned over it. In their televised diary Harris and Kliebold frothed at the mouth at what they intended to do, and the vengeance they'd wreak against jocks and jock lovers. They were as good as their word.

The Virginia Tech killer, Seung -Hui Cho, who killed 32, had a similar laundry list of grievances against those who bullied him. Add to that a serious mental instability and purchasing a Glock 19 and Walther P22 with the ease of buying chocolate bars, and you had the formula for massacre. The refrain heard by the NRA puppets in the wake was the usual one: "Guns Don't Kill People! People Kill People!"  Yeah - nice try, but the part left out is that guns kill people more efficiently when used by people to kill other people.

If Harris, Kliebold or Cho had been limited to large knives, they'd never have wrought so MUCH carnage. Maybe five at most would have been killed before the perps were taken down. It was the availability of the automatic or semi-automatic weapons that conferred the massive kill numbers and kill -to-wounded ratio. Ditto in the case of the Century 16 slaughter.

And no, once more I am not an anti-gun lib. I have owned and used rifles and fired off shotguns as well in target practice. However, I've never owned anything automatic, with multicapacity clips!

I am not for banning all guns, but for regulating the use and magazine capacity to a rational standard. In other words, IF you really are a hunter, you don't require an AK-47 or an UZI!  A true hunter, out for deer say, can get by very nicely with a good, old -fashioned Remington 30.06, the tried and true standard. If you need a weapon for protection, you do not need a Glock 9 or a Glock 19, you can get a .38 revolver and with enough shooting practice be just fine.

In other words, I am arguing for rational standards on gun ownership, not anything goes. I argue by similar analogy for rational pet ownership. No, you ought not be able to own as many jaguars, anacondas, Burmese pythons, or tigers as your little heart desires! THAT is irrational, and moreover those WILD animals can't be contained properly in captivity. That is also why so many pythons (estimated at 30,000) have now made their home in the Florida Everglades, not to mention hundreds of monitor lizards, because pet owners couldn't control them once they grew too large, or too feisty. (I won't even go into the character in Colo. whose pet python ate him several years ago, while he was sleeping with the snake in his queen bed.)  Now, the "liberated" -by- owners pythons are upsetting the whole ecology of the glades.

In the same way, zealot gun crazies have upset rational gun ownership "ecology" and culture in this country by their extreme demands and desires. They make the rest of us appear also like crazies, because of their inordinate demands for weapons which do not fit any normal use for citizens.

Until our legislators finally get some balls, as opposed to kowtowing to the NRA and kissing their butts, we can expect to see more tragedies like today's here in Colorado. And that is a damned tragedy!