Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“woke” is the new caravan.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

People are complicated. Love is not.

SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.

This chaos was totally avoidable.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Weird. Rome has an American Pope and America has a Russian President.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

How stupid are these people?

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

Museums are not America’s attic for its racist shit.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. keep building.

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

A norm that restrains only one side really is not a norm – it is a trap.

I really should read my own blog.

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

This really is a full service blog.

At some point, the ability to learn is a factor of character, not IQ.

Giving in to doom is how authoritarians win.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

People are weird.

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Open Thread

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It occurred to me tonight that we live in a country where the Supreme Court has decided the 1st amendment does not give you the right to yell “fire” in a crowded movie theatre, but the 2nd Amendment gives you an unfettered right to amass enough guns to shoot 71 people in the same theatre.

No wonder Europeans think Americans are fucking stupid.

Reader Interactions

174Comments

  2. 2.

    The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik

    @Nemo_N:

    Well, remember, loose lips sink ships, but guns have never killed anyone. Apparently, words kill, people kill, but guns are just a bystander.

    And monkeys do too! [if they have a gun]. Then again, an executive transvestite told me that, so….

  3. 3.

    khead

    It’s Friday.

    And I’m tired.

    But I’m really tempted to snark about the CONCEALED CARRY REPORT AD that is showing up as think about commenting on this thread.

  5. 5.

    Xecky Gilchrist

    No wonder Europeans think Americans are fucking stupid.

    I don’t know about that, but I’m pretty sure they think we’re crazy.

  6. 6.

    freelancer

    The Supreme Court ruled that free speech doesn’t include the right to yell “Fire!” and be immune from criminal prosecution. Pretty sure the 2nd Amendment doesn’t make you immune from 12 counts of Murder in the 1st and 50 counts of attempted murder, so I’m not sure the analogy you’re aiming for quite holds unless the common thread is there are theaters involved.

    I’m against Capital Punishment due to things like the Innocence Project and prosecutorial overreach, but this fucking guy needs to be flayed alive with a Potato peeler.

  7. 7.

    encephalopath

    @Mr. Cole

    You and your foreign spelling of “theater.” That means something about your apple pie, I’m sure of it.

  9. 9.

    amk

    @jwb: If you wanna call majority of supreme court, majority of governorships, majority of congress as just more empowered.

  10. 10.

    whidby

    “amass enough guns to shoot 71 people in the same theatre.”

    Christ fucking Jesus – weren’t you in the army?

    Did they not supply you with 30 round magazines?

    So – amass enough guns to shoot 71 – translates to one AR and 3 magazines.

  11. 11.

    Valdivia

    I try as hard as I can to never watch the MSM news. I saw all the newscasts today, not ONE mentioned the ease with which we can get guns as a cause, controversy, etc. Insane. Instead they did mention you cannot go into a theater wearing a costume, because that was the problem, not his arsenal of weapons.

  12. 12.

    The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik

    @whidby:

    Your math takes in the assumption of perfect aim, mind, as well as 1 bullet to a body. Something that rarely ever happens with these kinds of shootings, even assuming efficient execution style killing.

  13. 13.

    lamh35

    I’ve just seen the statements by Mittens and Obama and I maybe partisan, but Mittens should have released a statement instead of giving an on camera one, the words were def heartfelt, but the delivery was so wooden as to not really be very comforting at all.

    As to the whole escapade, I just shocked that there isn’t some sort of red flag that goes off when somebody buys a AR-15 assault rifle, A Remington 12-gauge shotgun, a .40 glock handgun, a 4th handgun and 6000 rounds of ammo and a 100 round mag within 60 days!!!!

    I’m not a gun and arms person, but that seems to me to be a lot of firepower for personal use?

  14. 14.

    Cantrip

    Absolutely lovely Romney dissing happening over on
    Reddit right now. I expect these will go viral.

  15. 15.

    areyounotentertained

    Stupid question time: have any theatre chains banned people from bringing in firearms?

    Chrome’s squiggly spell-check line be damned, I’m sticking with theatre.

  19. 19.

    whidby

    Okay Snarxist, make that 1 AR and 4 magazines then. Okay 5 magazines. No 6.

    The point being that you do not need an arsenal of weapons to kill that many people.

  21. 21.

    handy

    @freelancer:

    Pretty sure the 2nd Amendment doesn’t make you immune from 12 counts of Murder in the 1st and 50 counts of attempted murder, so I’m not sure the analogy you’re aiming for quite holds unless the common thread is there are theaters involved.

    Right. This is pretty sloppy thinking. I’m a pretty big advocate for sensible gun laws and I do think this tragedy unfortunately is evidence for their necessity. Cole’s not really helping with this post.

  23. 23.

    salacious crumb

    Holmes purchased 6000 rounds of ammunition in the past 2 months..I am wondering, did that ring any FREAKIN’ bells???

    Still I feel warm and buttery knowing that our nations cops and feds are keeping track of all Muslim/Arab people in this country, as well as keeping track of Fred Willard’s shenanigans.

  24. 24.

    Yutsano

    @lamh35: Second Amendment freedumbs. You’re not allowed to question any large arms purchases, otherwise you’re Hitler, Pol Pot, and Stalin all at the same time.

  25. 25.

    Wag

    So, what you’re really saying is the action of firing a gun speaks louder than the word “Fire!”

  26. 26.

    Jager

    @whidby:

    The shooter had a 9mm pistol, a 12 gauge shotgun, an AR 15 with a 100 round, round magazine. Tear gas canisters, body armour and a tactical helmet on his head. The police found another 9mm in his car. He bought all his arms and gear legally in Colorado. His hair and beard were painted red and he identified himself as the “Joker”. He graduated with honors from UC Riversid, BTW.

    Of course Louie Gohmert (R-Shithead) wondered whether if someone had been armed in theater they could have stopped it. I think the shooter was well prepared for that!

  28. 28.

    Mr Stagger Lee

    When the people have the nerve to tell the NRA to STFU! Maybe we may see an adult approach to guns, but the people need to get over their irrational fear first, when the NRA/Media complex shows some crime committed by a Black or Latino. I think when a family member of the 1% or a politician in congress, gets smoked in a mass shooting, you may see serious gun control, as for the rest of us HOBBITS well you are on your own.

  31. 31.

    John Cole

    @whidby:

    The point being that you do not need an arsenal of weapons to kill that many people.

    For the life of me, I can not figure out how you think this is supporting your anti gun control stance.

  33. 33.

    Jay in Oregon

    I was unaware that the NRA had a personal safety instruction program called “Refuse To Be A Victim”.

    http://www.nrahq.org/rtbav/rtbavfaq.asp

    Q: Is this a self-defense course?
    __
    A: It is a personal safety program that teaches strategies you can use to avoid situations where self-defense is required. This course focuses on proactive courses of action, rather than reactive. Criminals prefer easy targets. By making yourself more difficult to prey upon, you lessen your risk of criminal attack. That means having a personal safety strategy in place before you need it.

    Information on their website is pretty sparse; you have to pay for the potentially life-saving information that they have to offer, either by ordering it from their store or by taking a course through an instructor. How many of their guidelines involve owning and becoming proficient with a firearm?

    I wonder how many people in the theater “chose” to be a victim by the NRA’s standards? What about people who have philosophical or moral objections to owning firearms? Are they “choosing” to be victims?

  34. 34.

    WaynersT

    It seems the Brady Campaign website is crashing from all the traffic.

    I hope that’s a sign that finally, maybe we’ve reached a turning point.
    I know I went there to sign up.

    F***K the NRA.

  36. 36.

    Valdivia

    @efgoldman:

    I saw CBS and NBC and they mentioned the guns were purchased legally but no comment whatsoever that these things happens because of guns, not one mention of it. Because guns don’t kill people is now a national mantra.

  37. 37.

    David Koch

    Even more bad news for Mittens.

    Bush won’t be attending the tampa convention. That’s a devastating blow. Bush is the best spokesperson they have.

  38. 38.

    whidby

    “Holmes purchased 6000 rounds of ammunition in the past 2 months..I am wondering, did that ring any FREAKIN’ bells???”

    I purchased 3,000 rounds of 7.62 last week and had it delivered to my house where they left it at the front door.

    It’s cheaper if you buy in bulk.

    If you shoot competitive sports it’s not uncommon to go through several hundred rounds in a weekend

  39. 39.

    JGabriel

    __
    __
    NY Times:

    Luke O’Dell, a spokesman for the Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, a Colorado-based group on the other side of the debate over gun control, took a nearly opposite view [from Mayor Bloomberg]. “Potentially, if there had been a law-abiding citizen who had been able to carry in the theater, it’s possible the death toll would have been less.”

    __
    The shooter, James Holmes, was wearing a full set of body armor — vest, groin covering, leggings, helmet, the whole deal — carrying an AR-15 knock-off AND a handgun, and this O’Dell jackass thinks an unarmored law-abiding movie-goer is going to take him out with a side-arm in a dark theater filled with mayhem, panic, and tear gas?

    It’s just mind-boggling.

    .

  40. 40.

    Mr Stagger Lee

    @salacious crumb: Well 6000 rounds isn’t unusual, you don’t know if one day,ZEE GERMANS may invade or that userper in the White House may declare himself emperor and may force us to gay-marry under Sharia Law.

  41. 41.

    dance around in your bones

    I hate this shit. All day I have felt like the woman on South Park lying on the couch watching CNN during the Iraq invasion, blubbering on the couch as her husband says “Honey? Maybe you should stop watching CNN”

    Only this is less “harmful”. Victim-wise.

    Fuck this shit.

  42. 42.

    whidby

    For the life of me, I can not figure out how you think this is supporting your anti gun control stance.

    I’m just stating the truth – I don’t filter everything I say to make sure it lines up with my policy preferences.

  44. 44.

    Judge Crater

    Something snapped in this country in the last thirty years. It’s hard to define, but we’ve lost our bearings. All the primitive impulses that comprise us – religion, guns, sex, violence, greed, ignorance – have escaped our collective super-ego and unleashed their mayhem on society.

    We have to put them back in the bottle or become a very different country than the one we think we know.

  47. 47.

    Raven

    Camden, NJ, 1949
    Howard Unreh, a WWII veteran, kills 13 with a captured Luger. He was arrested and committed to an asylum for the insane. He died in 2009. He is considered by some criminologists to be the first “spree” killer in modern US history.

  48. 48.

    lamh35

    my Lord, CNN reporting that suspect had the whole apartment rigged and when he left apt he set a timer so that at midnight the sound system would play “really loud music” enough to possibly trigger a noise complaint and reporting is that if anyone had gone to apt and attempted to get in that there was trip wires and which would detonate the bombs in apartment and would have toppled the whole apartment building.

    My Lord, my Lord.

  49. 49.

    Gus

    @whidby: Uh huh. One AR-15 is too many. And I’m speaking as someone who used to hunt and owns a shotgun and a pistol for plinking. There’s no conceivable reason to need an assault rifle other than to kill people

  51. 51.

    Gin & Tonic

    @lamh35: I think the operative theory is that it would have drawn away most of the police and fire units to his apt, giving him more time to do his work at the movies.

  53. 53.

    General Stuck

    When I first turned on the computer this morn, and read about another senseless massacre, I just turned the computer off, and spent the day communing with nature. It is the only thing about living in this country that makes any sense to me, these days.

    I don’t indulge much in the gun/anti gun rights here, because it is wasted energy imo, because gun ownership is hard wired into collective psyche of America, and that is not going to change, no matter what.

    I think it is too easy to buy too many guns, but am also a 2nd amendment supporter. And this guy had no criminal record, nor was he adjudicated for issues of mental illness. So there were none of the red flags in the weak check system we have. I think the wingnuts and their NRA, are nuts on the gun issue, and should be denied gun ownership on that basis alone. But there are so fucking many of them, I fear nothing will change to tighten laws for keeping guns out of the hands of those that have no business owning a device that propels lead in a lethal fashion.

    So we shake our heads, and grieve again for another senseless slaughter of our fellow citizens, until the next time, when we do this all over again.

  54. 54.

    Hal

    I’ve seen a handful of comments on Facebook and elsewhere about how it’s such a shame the people at the theater weren’t armed, or why people “let” other abuse them etc.

    It’s such enormous bullshit, like folks who think if they were on one of the planes the crashed into the towers they would have taken out the terrorists single handed using the butter knives from the airplane kitchen.

    I’m just not seeing how more guns is in anyway a preventative measure for situations like this, especially when you’re dealing with automatic weapons.

    Is there any civilian sue for an automatic rifle other than mass killing?

  58. 58.

    whidby

    @Gus:
    The gun that Brevik used in Norway wasn’t an “assault rifle”. It was a Ruger Ranch rifle which was legal to buy here in the US even when the “assault weapons” ban was in effect.

    “Assault weapons” is primarily about cosmetics.

    Look, I doubt that you and I will agree on gun control issues, but it’s silly to argue about it in terms of “assault rifles” and so forth.

    Very, very few murders are committed with “assault rifles”. I am sort of pulling number out of my ass here, but I’d guess it’s less than 1% of the total murders.

    if people want to stop “gun crime” they need to get rid of guns. Period.

    Next would be allowing people to have single shot rifles or shotguns. That’s all you need to hunt just about anything except ducks and other game birds.

  60. 60.

    Cluttered Mind

    @efgoldman: Yeah, the real tragedy of that list is who survived being shot and who didn’t. I have a feeling that if it were Republican political figures who kept dying in these attacks, something more might have been done. I guess they figure having their people shot at every so often is a small price to pay for ridding themselves of mouthy liberals.

  62. 62.

    smith

    @Jager:

    Exactly, which is why it is driving me nuts when people keep saying that “if someone in that theater was armed they would have stopped him.”

    This guy was preparing for the possibility there would be someone there with a gun or a gunfight with police. He was covered head to toe in protective armor – where the fuck would you shoot him?

  64. 64.

    dan81359

    Name which amendment which permits the US government under Obama and Holder to sell guns to Mexican drug lords that were used to kill US agents.

    Quite frankly, I pitty that fool if the 84 people shot in that theater would have had conceal and carry permits and all had guns with them and only one had gotten a shot off at that bastard. Perhaps you gun control folks would have a different oppinion about the whole thing. But then again, you would most likely pitty the nut case who should have been in a psych hospital, rather than a movie theater killing 12 and injurring 72.

  65. 65.

    John Cole

    @whidby:

    If you shoot competitive sports it’s not uncommon to go through several hundred rounds in a weekend

    This is the kind of shit I love from gun nuts. I was in the military, and shot every weapon from a 9mm to 45 cal to .50 cal to m-60 to m240 to TOW’s to a 120 mm smoothbore main gun.

    I also played lacrosse, swam, played soccer, baseball.

    The former is not a sport. The latter is.

    A bunch of pasty white middle aged fat guys with yellow ray bans like Walter Sobchak heaving themselves off their hemmorrhoid pillows, piling ino their pick-em-up truck and driving to the range after a biscuit bowl at Bob Evans, and then pulling the trigger on their .556 penis extension is not sporting. It may be competitive, but please stop insulting my fucking intelligence by pretending it is a sport.

  66. 66.

    Citizen_X

    @Jager:

    The shooter had a 9mm pistol, a 12 gauge shotgun, an AR 15 with a 100 round, round magazine. Tear gas canisters, body armour and a tactical helmet on his head.

    How the fuck does someone get into a theater with all that? I get that they might not question “costumes” (even so: a helmet?), but he had to have a gym bag or something for the long guns. You’d think the combination might be kind of suspicious.

  68. 68.

    eemom

    the Supreme Court has decided the 1st amendment does not give you the right to yell “fire” in a crowded movie theatre, but the 2nd Amendment gives you an unfettered right to amass enough guns to shoot 71 people in the same theatre.

    Bored out of yer gourd this evening, eh Cole?

  70. 70.

    Raven

    @Citizen_X: I’ve never been to one of these goofy premiers but they dress all kinda weird. He left the combat shit outside the door and propped it open from the inside.

  71. 71.

    TooManyJens

    @Citizen_X: He had it stashed outside the theater. He paid for a ticket, went in the normal way, snuck out an emergency exit door (propping it open) and went out and grabbed his stuff.

  72. 72.

    Caz

    I see what you did there. Yelling fire in a theater is illegal, but shooting 71 people with a gun in a theater is legal. Oh wait, that’s not what you said, sort of.

    Europeans envy us, they don’t look down on us and think we’re stupid. Besides, they are too busy dealing with near bankruptcy, and they are just a bit ahead of us on that road.

    You think if we make all guns illegal that incidents like this won’t happen anymore? If that’s what you think, then by all means, keep up the anti-gun rhetoric.

    However, if you are not retarded, then you realize that events like this are just more fodder for the liberals to use to get gun control, not to make us safer, but to disarm the populace.

    We have a right to bear arms, and that’s that. So you ought to work on some other agenda to curb incidents like this. We’re always going to have criminals and murders, but this is a relatively safe country, yet we are the top gun country in the world. If guns caused violence, we’d be the most violent nation in the world. But we’re not.

    This guy had no criminal record and there was no reason to think he was going to go on a shooting spree. It wasn’t a preventable incident. The only thing that might have helped was if someone in the theater had a semi-auto .45 caliber pistol, and they could have taken this murderer out before his victims reached the double digit mark.

    But you keep making it harder and harder for law abiding citizens to own guns, and these incidents will continue to happen in crowds of totally defenseless, law abiding victims.

    Cars kill far more people than guns, so how about outlawing cars? If the goal is to save lives, there are lot more dangerous things out there than guns in terms of lives taken. Cigarettes kill more people than guns too.

    This discussion isn’t about making us safer; it’s about disarming the population. A disarmed population is one that is easy to take control of. When “it can’t happen here” becomes “it is happening here,” we’ll be better off with guns than without.

  74. 74.

    David Koch

    this could have been easily avoided if they had only handed out guns to the patrons as they entered the theater.

  76. 76.

    amk

    @John Cole: Hear, hear.

    A bunch of pasty white middle aged fat guys with yellow ray bans like Walter Sobchak pulling the trigger on their .556 penis extension is not sporting.

  77. 77.

    Cassidy

    @Gus: This is where the anti-gun/ gun control side fails: you can’t focus on the kind of weapon. The type of weapon is not the issue. I mentioned in another thread that for less than $250, you can have a .22LR semiautomatic rifle with a 100 rnd magazine filled with hollowpoint bullets. The round doesn’t seem like much but the rifle spits them out quickly, with little recoil, is accurate as hell, and the hollowpoints chew shit up. The type of weapon isn’t the problem. The ease with which they are bought is the problem.

  82. 82.

    TooManyJens

    @Caz: Yeah, you got us, jackass. The outrage about the weapons that make it easy to massacre people has nothing to do with the people who are massacred and everything to do with enacting the fantasy broccoli dictatorship.

    And “it’s” been happening here for a long goddamn time. Guns haven’t made anyone free from the drug war, from SWAT-team cops in every podunk town, from stop and frisk.

  83. 83.

    whidby

    @Raven: Yes, which points out the absurdity of the “assault weapons” laws. They are about cosmetics mainly.

  84. 84.

    Hill Dweller

    @Raven: You just know that cynical fuck Willard, after hearing about the shooting, thought this was his chance to try and look Presidential. So they waited until after the real President spoke, likely begged for TV time, put Willard in a suit, and sent him out there.

    No amount of polish is going to change the fact they’re trying to sell the public a turd.

  85. 85.

    David Koch

    The right of the people to keep and bear flintlock muskets, shall not be infringed.

  88. 88.

    whidby

    A bunch of pasty white middle aged fat guys with yellow ray bans like Walter Sobchak heaving themselves off their hemmorrhoid pillows, piling ino their pick-em-up truck and driving to the range after a biscuit bowl at Bob Evans, and then pulling the trigger on their .556 penis extension is not sporting. It may be competitive, but please stop insulting my fucking intelligence by pretending it is a sport.

    There are a few fat ass pasty guys who shoot 3 gun where I do. They usually don’t score that well, since scores are based in part on how quickly you engage multiple targets while moving.

    If you don’t want to consider it a sport, I don’t really give a shit. If you want to go down to the bowling alley or the golf course or the frisbee golf course and yell at folks about how they aren’t participating in a sport, that’s fine, too.

    You’re wound a little tight, it seems.

  92. 92.

    WaterGirl

    @JGabriel:

    It’s just mind-boggling.

    It is mind boggling. I can’t quite seem to process what happened. I have been uncharacteristically cranky all day, and half of what I read leaves me in tears.

    3 parts impotent anger + a sense of hopelessness at knowing this will happen again + overwhelming sadness for all the victims + having read that blog post from the woman who just missed the toronto mall attack and was killed in this one = me unable to process it all.

    On the plus side, it’s not every day that I get to move right to my daily “what the fuck is wrong with these people!” outburst the moment I turn on the computer and find steve benen telling me about colorado. Some days I have to wait hours for that.

  94. 94.

    John Cole

    @efgoldman: Be easy on him. Burnes is still trying to explain how he WAS TOTALLY FUCKING RIGHT that SCOTUS would uphold the commerce clause argument for the mandate by a 7-2 vote even though they struck it down 5-4 on that argument.

  95. 95.

    David Koch

    I appreciate all the cool special effects and computer generated graphics in today’s movies, but using live ammo is taking things to bad.

  97. 97.

    freelancer

    @Caz:

    STFU. Owning a gun should be at least as hard as getting a driver’s license or purchasing a home. I live in Arizona. There’s no reason what happened last night in Colorado could not have happened in the theater I was in. Anybody could take a thousand bucks and go to a gun shop here and buy all the shit necessary to recreate this fucking nightmare and they could do it all tomorrow. There’s no waiting period. There’s no concealed-carry permit needed. It comes down to,
    “I want to buy that gun.”
    “Fill this out.”
    “Okay, I’ve filled out a piece of paper saying I’m not batshit.”
    “Okay, may I see an Arizona I.D.?”
    “Here you go.”
    [Shop owner makes a phone call to the FBI’s NICS system to see if your name is on the restricted list.]
    “Okay, that will be this many dollars.”
    “Here’s my Visa.”
    [Hands over gun and you walk out.]

  99. 99.

    jwb

    @Hal: Not that I know much about it, but it seems to me that given that the shooter had a bullet-proof vest and the theater was dark anyone who wanted to take him out would have needed armor piercing bullets, night vision goggles, and extensive training in shooting in crowds as well. The dumbfucks think they are playing a video game.

  100. 100.

    Mike in NC

    @Caz:

    Europeans envy us, they don’t look down on us and think we’re stupid.

    Been out of the US lately, you moron? We spent two weeks in Europe in 2010, and I’ve been to many foreign countries in the past 30 odd years, and trust me, none of them fucking envy us. They all pity us for our endless wars, backwardness, and worship of the top 1% moneygrubbers.

  101. 101.

    El Cid

    __

    the Supreme Court has decided the 1st amendment does not give you the right to yell “fire” in a crowded movie theatre

    And this logic was applied in a case in which someone was arguing that people should refuse to be drafted to fight in World War 1, and that is the situation to which people glibly apply this little cute phrase about fire and theaters.

    Because you also do not have the right to decide what is and is not a fire, and what is and is not a theater, and your betters will tell you what is what.

  102. 102.

    Geoduck

    Just to add to the “it’s always been happening” comments.. the worst-ever school massacre in US history happened in 1927, when a man named Andrew Kehoe blew up half a school in Bath Township, Michigan, by filling the basement with dynamite.

  103. 103.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @John Cole: Jesus fuck. They did not strike anything down. You sure as hell didn’t cover yourself in glory on that one either.

  104. 104.

    dance around in your bones

    ‘You know, you need a license to buy a dog, to drive a car – hell, you even need a license to catch a fish. But they’ll let any butt-reaming asshole be a father buy a gun.’

  107. 107.

    El Cid

    I’m pretty sure that — even given that it’s a paraphrase — most people who mention the ‘shouting fire in a crowded theater’ get that this is talking about shouting about it falsely.

    I never anticipated having to make that clear, because otherwise the story doesn’t make any sense at all — no one would talk about this case because if the Supreme Court had had its opinion written that the 1st Amendment did not protect your ability to warn the people around you that there literally was a clear and present fire, we wouldn’t be discussing the case but how there was a crisis in which several Supreme Court justices were determined to be seriously ill and removed from the bench.

  110. 110.

    El Cid

    @efgoldman: When filling school basements with dynamite is outlawed, only outlaws will fill school basements with dynamite.

    Is that the type of world you want to live in?

  112. 112.

    The Dangerman

    I happened to be driving through most of the California Central Valley today (starting near SacTown, ending in LA), listening to rightwing talk radio almost all of the way.

    These people are fucking unhinged. Mostly, if only someone in the theater had been carrying (as if that has ever stopped a gunman like this one; I can’t recall that ever happening, it is quite simply a masturbatory fantasy for those stroking their “gunbarrels”).

  113. 113.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @amk: No, he is actually a lawyer. Of course, my comment leads to proof issues, etc., but anyway…. Also, I don’t really see how Cole’s comment led you to that conclusion. Oh, well.

  114. 114.

    John Cole

    @Omnes Omnibus: They fuck they didn’t. They rejected the commerce clause argument that Burnes told us would pass 7-2 by a 5-4 vote. The only reason the mandate survived was because Roberts latched onto the taxation argument with the 4 in the liberal wing.

    Are you people just fucking making shit up at this point? It’s like many of you alleged liberals are as factually challenged as wingnuts. The Supreme Court said, by a 5-4 vote, that the mandate could not be upheld under the commerce clause. Burnes said it WOULD be upheld by a 7-2 or 8-1 margin under the commerce clause argument. The only reason the law was upheld was because of Roberts defection to taxation.

    Jesus christ, we really are in a post truth environment.

  116. 116.

    whidby

    @Cole

    There are a few fat ass pasty guys who shoot 3 gun where I do. They usually don’t score that well, since scores are based in part on how quickly you engage multiple targets while moving.

    If you don’t want to consider it a sport, I don’t really give a shit. If you want to go down to the bowling alley or the golf course or the frisbee golf course and yell at folks about how they aren’t participating in a sport, that’s fine, too.

    You’re wound a little tight, it seems.

    [Excuse the double post – my last one went into moderation …]

  121. 121.

    El Cid

    @David Koch: Also, if all those kids hadn’t been in that government school, that dynamite wouldn’t have killed them.

    I think you know the conclusion.

  123. 123.

    El Cid

    @efgoldman: Yes, yes, but which is more important: not shooting the wrong person, or getting to shoot people even if one or more people may be innocent victims?

    And, anyway, is anyone truly innocent anyway?

    Regrettably, the American freedom to shoot at people you think may be harmful to you might regularly result in people being killed who may deserve to not be killed, but that’s why George Washington died on the cross for our sins.

  125. 125.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @John Cole: Did you read the words I wrote or did you just flip out? The Court upheld the law. Right? They did not strike it down. Right? They did not uphold it under the CC argument; this is true. They upheld it under that taxation argument. This makes Roberts’ CC reasoning dicta. Influential but not binding. These terms actually have legal meaning and effect. Saying they struck it down is wrong. Simply wrong. Burns was wrong about the division of the Court and the grounds on wihich it was upheld. I was wrong on the division of the Court. You got 5-4 right; congratulations. OTOH, you said the law would be struck down. I remember several hair on fire posts about it. I think your taunting of someone on this subject is more than a bit foolish.

  126. 126.

    TheMightyTrowel

    @The Dangerman: it’s the illusion of control. people are so overwhelmed by the horror that they game out ways that they would have escaped being a victim. its a bit of what’s behind some of the post sexual assault tutting you hear.

    granted some of it is gun wanking, but i think a lot of it is also about the fear of being helpless.

  128. 128.

    eemom

    @John Cole:

    oh fer fux sake. As has been pointed out to you at least eleventy billion times, YOUR bullshit schtick all along has been that every one of the 5 on the “right” side of the Court is nothing more than a paid Koch whore and that as SUCH, they would vote to strike down ACA no matter what, law and precedent be damned.

    And you were fucking WRONG.

  129. 129.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @eemom: May as well run your head into a brick wall. Although the “you alleged liberals” comment is precious.

  130. 130.

    Citizen_X

    @The Dangerman:

    I can’t recall that ever happening

    This is an important point. With all the guns in this country, and all the massacres we’ve had, there had to have been plenty of opportunities for pasty white middle aged fat guys with yellow ray bans like Walter Sobchak armed American patriots to heroically shoot the gunman. And yet, this has never happened.

    Am I wrong about that? Has the free-for-all shooting melee ever happened, for that matter?

  131. 131.

    Mnemosyne

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Fertilizer and diesel fuel. No permits for either. Ask McVeigh.

    There weren’t at the time. There are now, because McVeigh exploited that loophole. If you try to buy fertilizer today in the quantities that McVeigh bought it, you will be refused and the ATF will come have a chat with you.

  132. 132.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Citizen_X:

    Has the free-for-all shooting melee ever happened, for that matter?

    No, thank [insert deity or totem of your choice].

  134. 134.

    Jager

    @Citizen_X: He bought a ticket, went out the exit, blocked the door got himself rigged up and went back in. I thought most theaters had an alarm go off when an exit opened? At least a light should go on or some damn thing.In my office the alarm panel shows me whenever an outside door is open. Maybe they were too busy selling tix to the midnight show.

  137. 137.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Gin & Tonic: Okay, in the interest of full disclosure, I supported Nixon in 1972; my logic was my world seemed quite nice so the president must be doing a pretty good job. I was 8. That was the last Republican I supported for anything.

  138. 138.

    mclaren

    Europeans think Americans are fucking stupid because Americans are fucking stupid.

    Europeans figured out 70 years ago how to create affordable universal national health care for their people. Americans still haven’t got a clue.

    Europeans thought it might be a sharp idea to ban guns, and it reduced violence. Americans still haven’t got a clue.

    Europeans tried decriminalizing marijuana. Reduced crime, emptied the prisons. Americans still haven’t got a clue.

    If the world were a TV sitcom, Europeans would be Mr. Belvedere, while America would be a slack-jawed drooling Jethro Clampett.

  140. 140.

    amk

    @mclaren:

    Twitterdom

    In one year, GUNS murdered 35 in Australia, 39 in England and Wales, 194 in Germany, 200 in Canada, and 9,484 in the United States.

    No idea if this is truthy or not.

  141. 141.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    I don’t want to argue the pro-gun point of view – most pro gun folks sicken me these days. (NB: “Most” = 50%, plus epsilon. Point to ten of my friends who are mostly pro-gun, and I just need 11 assholes to make my point.)

    But, that said, I will ask you to consider what we might need to fix this kind of thing.

    From what I’ve heard (and I’ve been deliberately dodging the news), this guy wasn’t in trouble with the law. What would have kept him from obtaining weapons? What regulations would have had to be in place?

    Should the government have that much information about us?

    Of course, there *are* sensible regulations we should consider – but if this guy hadn’t been in legal trouble, or civilly committed (or in court-ordered treatment), it would have taken very intrusive measures to be able to stop this.

    There. I’ve said it. I’m going to go punch myself upside the head for talking about opposing some forms of gun regulation at this time, and then I’m going to shut up about it.

  142. 142.

    Jager

    My neighbor’s kid is a Ranger and he is home on leave. I was walking my dog saw him and asked him how much pistol training he gets. He said about 300 rounds every 6 months and then he said “I can’t hit shit with it, I’m expert on everything but the damn pistol.” I wonder how many of these hero types who think it would be a good idea to try to take a shooter out in a panicked crowd in a theater, have ever fired a pistol that much under tactical conditions? I asked him if anyone of his fellow rangers were good with a pistol, he said, “Not many.”

  143. 143.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Jager: Years ago, I qualified expert with a .45. I happened to have a good pistol, the stars were aligned, I had a bunch of practice, and I had some aptitude. I will not even pretend that I could do anything useful in an environment like that theater. I would try to stay as low to the ground as possible and encourage everyone near to do the same thing.

  144. 144.

    Gin & Tonic

    Willard heads to Europe on Tuesday to drive home the “stupid” point.

    He won’t release the tax returns Monday before he goes, and by the time he gets back the story will be deader than Jimmy Hoffa. You proles will never ever get to see them.

  145. 145.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Gin & Tonic: And then the Obama campaign will drop the next little bomb. The drip, drip, drip of horribles about Romney will build up.

  147. 147.

    eemom

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Okay, in the interest of full disclosure, I supported Nixon in 1972; my logic was my world seemed quite nice so the president must be doing a pretty good job. I was 8. That was the last Republican I supported for anything.

    omg. I was 10 that year, and my 5th grade class had a mock election, and I…..I volunteered to be Pat Nixon. (They wouldn’t let a girl be Dick back then.)

    Whew, what a load off my mind. You’ve SAVED me Omn. I thought I would NEVER be able to confess.

    [wipes away tears of redemption, blows nose]

  148. 148.

    Mike S.

    … but SCOTUS does not hold that one has the right to fire those weapons, unprovoked, in a movie theater. That is why J Cole’s stated comparison is full of fail.

  149. 149.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @eemom: It took several drinks and playing Bernstein while writing an investigative paper on the playground the next year for me to be able to say it. Um, could you please dispose of that tissue, I mean, ick.

  150. 150.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Mike S.: There is also the fact that one can’t falsely shout fire. Falsely being important to the analogy in the ruling. But whatever. Cole is totes a legal expert.

  151. 151.

    eemom

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    The Supreme Court said, by a 5-4 vote, that the mandate could not be upheld under the commerce clause.

    Apropos of Cole the legal expert — and I recognize you kind of said this already — he thinks that Roberts’ dictum on the commerce clause in the actual majority opinion gets added to the 4 votes against the commerce clause in the dissent to make a whole ‘nuther little majority decision against the commerce clause that can be cited in future cases. Ain’t that just darling?

  152. 152.

    satanicpanic

    Someone, I believe it was on here, made the very good point that Ronald Reagan was fucking shot and the wingnuts are still cool with guns. Whoever said that is my hero for today.

  153. 153.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @eemom: Teaching and the law are two professions that everyone assumes they understand and are qualified to perform, and many people, hell even most educated people, could if they had the requisite education and/or training. Cole is Exhibit A.

  154. 154.

    A. European

    @Caz:

    Europeans envy us, they don’t look down on us and think we’re stupid.

    Hahahahaha. No, wait, you’re serious. Let me laugh harder.

    The basic complaints in European (or at least British) anti-Americanism are that Americans are a) (indeed) stupid, b) ignorant, and c) arrogant. A statement like that doesn’t do much to dispel that impression. If you think that when the entire European continent looks to you it feels burning envy; well, you must think nationalism somehow works differently outside the US. I promise you, it doesn’t. Get over yourself.

    Personally, I like America and Americans, or at least the Americans who I run into, and dislike how casually acceptable anti-Americanism is in the circles I walk in. But yeah, there’s no denying that the word “stupid” does get bandied around a lot.

  158. 158.

    Anne Laurie

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Olympic rifle shooting is close, biathlon very definitely is.

    Maybe all would-be gun purchasers should be required to complete a biathlon run first?

    That would weed out a lot of out-of-shape wannabe Clint Eastwoods. It might not have stopped Holmes from amassing his props, but it would at least reduce the number of “accidental” deaths of kids finding daddy’s gun… probably more than a few potential suicides, as well.

  159. 159.

    TenguPhule

    However, if you are not retarded, then you realize that events like this are just more fodder for the liberals to use to get gun control, not to make us safer, but to disarm the populace.

    And the Repuke Projection blame game begins.

    We need a law, registering as a Republican should not only ban you from public office for life, but deny you gun ownership as well.

  160. 160.

    Anne Laurie

    @TheMightyTrowel:

    i think a lot of it is also about the fear of being helpless.

    Yup.

    Doesn’t make it less ugly, though. I was working on the MSU campus when a co-worker in another department disappeared. My boss, who knew the woman slightly, tried to get people to help put up flyers (state of the art, in the mid-1970s). A surprising number of otherwise good-hearted people were absolutely sure that the victim “probably ran away with a man, or because she committed some kind of crime”. Even after this guy confessed to her murder & led the police to her body, some of those Nice People who knew her personally still insisted she “”must’ve done something to deserve it” (like: agreeing to go to breakfast with a guy she met at a church function). Fear makes people stupid, and mean.

  163. 163.

    Yutsano

    @dan81359:

    Name which amendment which permits the US government under Obama and Holder to sell guns to Mexican drug lords that were used to kill US agents

    Fail. That was a Dubya program. You remember him right? You were all rah-rah for him about six years ago.

    But then again, you would most likely pitty the nut case who should have been in a psych hospital, rather than a movie theater killing 12 and injurring 72

    And Fail Number Two. Ronaldus Magnus (your patron saint!) cut mental health care to the bone during his regency.

    It helps when you actually try.

  164. 164.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @amk:

    I’m an American and I approve of your message. We have built one fucking stupid country for ourselves. I can’t help but think that if our forefathers could see the mess we have become that they would burn the Constitution and Bill of Rights and start all over again. People here die every day in the name of this so-called freedom that so many worship at the expense of everything else in their lives. People worship those documents over the lives of their fellow citizens. We are one pathetic fucking mess of a nation and the rest of the world looks on in horror at what we’ve allowed ourselves to become. All in the name of freedom.

    Freedom isn’t free, it’s cost us our humanity.

  165. 165.

    chopper

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    yeah, i think you’re the only person in the universe that didn’t immediately understand that ‘falsely’ was implied in his statement.

    i guess we’ve entered the part of the mourning process where everybody starts pedantically griping at each other about issues that have fuck-all to do with the actual event.

    wake me after we’ve passed the point where someone bitches about the proper use of the oxford comma.

  166. 166.

    Terry

    Wasn’t there a time when we called the machine guns? Wouldn’t that be a more useful term for public consumption. People aren’t lugging around sem-automatics, they are lugging around sub-machine guns?

  167. 167.

    Terry

    Wasn’t there a time when we called them machine guns? Wouldn’t that be a more useful term for public consumption. People aren’t lugging around sem-automatics, they are lugging around sub-machine guns?

  168. 168.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @chopper:

    i guess we’ve entered the part of the mourning process where everybody starts pedantically griping at each other about issues that have fuck-all to do with the actual event

    You are probably right about that. It is easier to vent about “someone being wrong on the internet” than to try to figure out all the crap in society that leads to what happened in Aurora.

  169. 169.

    ottercliff

    But the Supreme Court also ruled that corporations are people, so don’t expect anything resembling logic from them. They are appointed to carry on the work of the NRA, the Koch Bros and all the other scumbags that line our politicians pockets with cash.

  170. 170.

    chopper

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    i guess it’s the natural response to realizing that there’s no way in hell this country is going to change in this regard. guns are going to continue to be worshipped and goddammit you’re a dirty communist if you even think i should take my gun off the dinner table i don’t care if it’s thanksgiving! and these tragedies are going to continue.

    you can either just shut down and be terribly sad, or you can keep yourself busy discussing other things and arguing over petty bullshit.

  171. 171.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Judge Crater: Homicide and general violent-crime rates were actually much higher thirty years ago than they are now.

    It’s possible that we have a higher rate of front-page-news mass killings of the Columbine/Virginia Tech/Aurora variety, but I’d have to see statistics to know for sure. Unfortunately, while they’re a minority of homicide deaths, they happen often enough that they tend to be eclipsed in memory by later instances.

  172. 172.

    Matt McIrvin

    …This book review

    http://www.albany.edu/scj/jcjpc/vol15is1/Bratina.pdf

    suggests that the mass-murder rate generally tracks with other violent crimes, though I’d have to read the book to be sure. That’d suggest that these shootings are actually less common than they used to be.

    However, it sounds like the body counts of the individual incidents might have been increasing because of the weapons used.

  173. 173.

    Thomas F

    John, when those of us who share your political predilections try to tell you that you know nothing of the current state of constitutional law and probably shouldn’t bloviate on the subject without informing yourself, these posts are why. Your extraordinary ignorance on this subject is breathtaking. You have nothing but a political axe to grind, and any inconvenient fact goes by the wayside when you believe you’ve found the appropriate frame of mind to adopt. Your statements are glib, indecent, and uninformed. Please, please, please, I beg you to actually read something before you comment next.

  174. 174.

    Ithink

    @John Cole:
    Absa-frickin’-lutely HILARIOUS! And true, but most importantly hilarious because its just that and not the Orwellian inverse that is so often the state of political discourse in America nowadays. If only we can get somebody to say it on one of the major news networks and LIVE…

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