Latest Mass Shooting in Colorado Again Shows Need To Reinstate Assault Weapons Ban

“A once-in-a-century pandemic cannot be the only thing that slows mass shootings in this country.  We shouldn’t have to choose between one type of tragedy and another.” -   Former President Barack Obama yesterday 

  "We all will relate to those killed in that supermarket yesterday, because it's a place we all need to go.  To get the foods, prescriptions and other supplies we need during a pandemic.  And also now a place to get Covid vaccines."  - Gayle King, on CBS this morning

"I must say that I want a society in which there are fewer guns sold and fewer guns in circulation. I want a society in which the ownership by individual citizens of weapons of war would be illegal. I want a society where gun ownership is highly regulated and where guns are required to be registered and insured."  - Charles M. Blow, NY Times today

Gayle King's observation this morning was salient and powerful: the absolute shock of the Colorado mass slaying resides in the ordinariness related to the venue.  Grocery shopping, for god's sake!  People taken out by a madman with a military- style weapon (actually weapons) simply going about an everyday, ordinary activity.  WHO can't relate?  And yet the gun-tard Reepos refuse to do anything but make excuses, along with one deluded Dem (Joe Manchin).  A guy who believes just having background checks for online gun purchases will solve the problem.  No, it won't.  Not so long as assault weapons can be purchased almost as easily as Slim Jims. 

After the Aurora massacre in 2012 - when 12 were slaughtered at the Century 16 Cinema  - most of us in Colorado believed we'd never see such horror again.  We were wrong when the atrocity of a massacre again unfolded -  this time at a King Soopers supermarket. First a high school (Columbine), then a movie theater (Aurora) now a grocery.  Was any place safe?  Well, no, not in these United States where guns outnumber people by 55 million.  This time the killer was identified as  a 21-year old Syrian- born scumbag named Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, now charged with 10 murders..   

According to The Boulder Daily Camera the cowardly little maggot had been upset for some time at being unable to get a date.  This according to one Facebook post #NeedAGirlfriend   -  a clear indication he was yet another mentally deranged Incel, e.g.

• NO! You Don't Get to Kill People Because Girls Rej...

And:

• If These Incels Hate REAL Women So Much Maybe They...

This  murderous supermarket rampage might have been stopped had a goofy judge in 2003 not blocked Boulder's effort at a local assault weapons ban.  See e.g.

Boulder’s assault weapons ban, meant to stop mass shootings, was blocked 10 days before grocery store attack

One press account described a gunman who they said opened fire inside and in the parking lot, at one point standing over an elderly victim and firing repeatedly.   The real kicker is when the NRA misfits learned of the Boulder ban they sent dozens of "witnesses" into town to try to present "testimony" against it.  This according to Rachel Friend,  Boulder council member appearing on ALL In last night.   She described the tension at the council meetings as unbearable but the council retained its courage in the face of the NRA's twisted campaign.  However, when the NRA took the case before the Colorado court, they won.  What was worse, according to Ms. Friend, was how the NRA's human refuse rejoiced after the judge blocked the ban.  

I am sure as President Biden's call for a new assault weapons ban reverberates, we will again see lamo rationalizations such as appeared after the Stoneman Douglas massacre just over 3 years ago. One of the clueless Facebook posts I saw then went like this:

"A DUI driver gets rightly blamed and prosecuted for killing 3 people in a crash he caused. A guy shoots up 17 kids with an assault rifle -  and the rifle gets the blame.  Typical liberal logic."

Most of us have to admit this "reasoning"  is mind blowing in its simplicity and precisely for that reason is dangerous.  This is because it can lull those without critical thinking skills to accept it.  This is what I call an example of sophistry often employed by those who'd seek to defend the purchase and ownership of a weapon which was actually considered for use in Vietnam because of its lethality. In other words, its staunch defenders are full tilt embracing the right to own and operate a weapon that is specifically dedicated to slaughter the enemy in a war theater.  For example,  the Ruger AR-556 used by the killer is described thusly by one expert consulted by The Denver Post (p. 4A,  today:)

“It’s not a sporting rifle; it’s not a hunting rifle. It’s made for the military and short-range combat.”

Let's go back to the specious argument posted on Facebook and see why it is specious.  Consider the case of an awful DUI incident- such as occurred in Denver in January, 2018 -  when three members of a family were wiped out of existence by the inebriated driver. He was surely to blame as his blood alcohol level was later found to be 0.3. There is no issue on who was to blame, and the car was merely the instrument for the killing. However, the extent of the death was self limiting by the capacity of the car.

In the case of an AR-15 (or other assault rifle) there is no self limiting factor - and a gunman (like Aliwi Alissa) could move at will - say aisle to aisle at the King Soopers- slaughtering as many as his trigger finger's speed and aim permitted.  Now, this is crucial  - the ability to do that is a function primarily of the weapon,  not just the mobility of the gunman. Again, leaving him with just his "fists"  - or a knife-   and I promise you 10 do not die.

Hence, the AR-15  example is qualitatively and quantitatively distinct from the DUI deaths.  For sure, the gunman is also to blame - but his choice of instrument must also be factored in, to the extent of contributing to the body count. In other words, it's the combination of shooter and weapon that's most important. 

This is the first point that the assault rifle lovers must be forced to admit, that it is far more difficult to kill with a knife than an assault weapon.  Apart from these considerations, even the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia asserted there is no 2nd amendment right to own an assault weapon, e.g.

• Sorry! You Have NO Constitutional Right To Own An ...

This was in the case of District of Columbia vs. Heller, in which Scalia wrote at the time:

"It may be objected that if weapons that are most useful in military service — M-16 rifles and the like — may be banned, then the Second Amendment right is completely detached from the prefatory clause. But as we have said, the conception of the militia at the time of the Second Amendment’s ratification was the body of all citizens capable of military service, who would bring the sorts of lawful weapons that they possessed at home to militia duty. It may well be true today that a militia, to be as effective as militias in the 18th century, would require sophisticated arms that are highly unusual in society at large. Indeed, it may be true that no amount of small arms could be useful against modern-day bombers and tanks. But the fact that modern developments have limited the degree of fit between the prefatory clause and the protected right cannot change our interpretation of the right.”

To get the language straight, and in Scalia's terms, it is useful to replace "assault weapons,”  with  the phrase:  “the kinds of weapons that Justice Antonin Scalia has defined as ‘dangerous and unusual’ and subject to regulation or an outright ban under the Second Amendment.”  And, if these weapons are subject to regulation, then they do not make for a "constitutional right".

As Joe Scarborough framed it at the time (this was one week after the Parkland massacre): 

"Some say this is embedded in the constitution. It is not!"

Adding:

"Go back and read Heller, 2008, what Scalia and the Supreme Court said. You're right, you can have handguns in your home, and shotguns to protect your family. But the court has allowed states  - like Maryland (2017)  to ban assault style weapons.  They let this and other laws stand   - without challenge - as constitutional ."

All of which proves the idiocy of   Sen. Cynthia M. Lummis (R-Wyo.) who chattered this bilge yesterday:    “Every time that there’s an incident like this, the people who don’t want to protect the Second Amendment use it as an excuse to further erode Second Amendment rights.”

Newsflash, dummy! Your second amendment rights don't extend to owning AR 15s!   

Take the AR-15 rifle (and a similarly designed assault "pistol",  the Ruger  AR -556) out of Aliwi Alissa's hands and substitute a knife -  whatever one you  choose- and 10 don't lose their lives. Indeed, the policeman responding to the scene- Eric Talley - is able to put a bullet into Aliwi Alissa's head before he can move on him. You can take that to the bank. 

What has been done is to replace one of the most lethal weapons with a much less lethal one. In the first case, the weapon,  a cousin to the M16, is expressly designed to kill and do so with maximal efficiency.  Moreover, it is expressly designed to kill people, not hunt prey. As blogger David Lindorff put it following Parkland:

"An AR-15 is not a hunting weapon. In fact there’s a reason it’s called an “assault rifle.” As a hunter, unless you’re an atrocious shot and are hunting random flocks of small birds, you certainly don’t need to be able to fire powerful ammunition of two bullets per second — the rate at which experts say an ordinary person could be able to pull the trigger."

By contrast, the knife  -- no matter how sharp or large- must usually be wielded by an assailant in an up close and personal manner. It isn't like taking aim from 20 or more feet away and dispatching victims with the touch of a trigger.  To kill ten people in separate store aisles -  even in the same aisle - the assailant would have to work demonically, stabbing from one to the other, and there is no assurance any given slash would be a fatal one  say like an  AR-15 bullet fired into a chest.  Even if it took only 3 seconds per stab, this  is much longer than firing 2 rounds per second. And you can't assume the people will just stand there like dummies and let you do them in, oh no. They will react and more than likely several will gang up to take the assailant down 

Look, the gun insanity will not stop until our population of assault weapon owners are forced to confront these contradictions and provide coherent explanations.  Since they can't - never have and doubtless never will- two important "intermediate"  pieces of gun control legislation are the only answer:

1)  Background checks for ALL gun purchasers, whether in gun stores, online or at gun shows.

2) Registration of all guns of whatever type on purchase.  

Ultimately we need to return to a full assault weapons ban such as we had during from  1994-2004.   Again, gun regulation - especially via licensing, fingerprinting etc. - is NOT taking away rights, neither is outlawing the purchase of military style weapons.

See Also:

 Guns

The NRA Way of Life Is Ruining Our Nation

by Amanda Marcotte | March 24, 2021 - 7:10am | permalink

— from Salon

Excerpt:

The grim reality is that the entire nation is in the thrall to a minority of extremely insecure mostly white men who, drunk on decades of NRA-fueled propaganda, have decided that having the ability to commit mass murder at a moment's notice is a crucial component of maintaining their manhood against the ever-encroaching threats from de-gendered Potato Heads and lady video game players. Most of these men claim exoneration because they don't personally grab one of their many overpriced killing machines to lay waste to a grocery store or high school. Grotesquely, some even use these mass shootings to indulge in public fantasies about how they would totally stop an active shooter, though somehow they never seem to actually get around to doing it.

AND:

Constitution, Civil Rights, Civil Liberties | Guns

Boulder: Is it Time to End the Second Amendment?

by Thom Hartmann | March 24, 2021 - 7:00am | permalink

Excerpt:

Another mass gun murder just happened in America, the seventh in 7 days, and already "Second Amendment legislators" are offering the 2021 version of thoughts and prayers. Lauren Boebert just tweeted, "May God be with them." Standing in front of her wall of assault weapons, most likely.

And, of course, today on rightwing talk radio and Fox News they've already begun lengthy bloviation about the Second Amendment. So, let's just clear a few things up.

The real reason the Second Amendment was ratified, and why it says "State" instead of "Country" (the Framers knew the difference—see the 10th Amendment), was to preserve the slave patrol militias in the southern states, an action necessary to get Virginia's vote to ratify the Constitution.