With a thunderous start, your favorite superhero appears on the massive screen. You haven’t seen him in years and have eagerly awaited his dramatic return. At this moment, nothing could be better.
Moments later, smoke fills your lungs, your eyes are burning, and deafening explosions fill the room. Is this a prank? You wonder as a man dressed in black shoots into the ceiling. Your brain can’t comprehend what you are seeing. Is this really happening?
Suddenly, a pain you have never imagined rips through your shoulder. Screams surround you — people are running madly. A 6-year-old girl lies lifeless next to you. The companion of a pregnant woman falls to the ground.
The man in the theater opens fire with his semi-automatic AR-15 assault rifle. Bullets spew out at an unimaginable rate.
One after another, people begin to fall.
A 26-year-old father of two little children is cut down; a 51-year-old father falls in front of his teenage children. More began to fall. Screams continue in the darkness as the man mows moviegoers down one by one.
Twelve dead and 58 injured. Hundreds of bullets and lives forever torn. In just minutes, in Aurora, Colo., an apparently disturbed young man ended and damaged the lives of so very many.
Imagine if you will, how different it could be if disturbed 24-year-olds were unable to go out and easily purchase an assault rifle that holds 100 rounds of bullets designed to tear through human flesh and kill.
Imagine those two young children running up to their front door to greet their dad upon his return home. Imagine the 51-year-old father, watching his children graduate from college. Imagine the mother experiencing childbirth.
Sadly, our imagination in this horrible case will not bring back these fathers, mothers, sons and daughters. Those innocent children will never embrace their dad upon his return from work. That father will never see his kids graduate and move on with their lives. The parents of the 6-year-old killed in that theater will never see their baby girl again.
While the Second Amendment will forever allow us to bear our arms, should the Second Amendment allow us to outfit ourselves in military-grade weaponry and open fire in a crowded theater?
America is free, and guns will always ensure our freedom, but it is time we demand reasonable gun control, as our individual future relies upon it.
Now open your eyes and ask yourself, what do you see?
• Brian Williams first moved to Tracy in 1993 and returned to town in 2012 after a brief hiatus in Dublin. He can be reached at. Briansbrain2010@gmail.com.
A lot of the articles and comments that came out after this shooting weren't even factually correct. Another annoyance to my husband and I.
People who don't OWN guns need to either shut up or read about the laws and about guns before spouting off at the mouth and complaining about them.
Or if this was just an attempt to ask questions to see what people think.
I'll be voting for Romney because the liberals and liberal media does not like guns in america but we get to keep the street gangs.
The assault rifle ban from 1994 to 04 came about because of the shooting that occurred in Stockton in 1989 when that nut shot up and killed the kids at that elementary school, and the gun AK-47 entered our vocabulary.
After the two shootings that have taken place in Wisconsin and Colorado in the past couple of weeks, the only winners are gun manufactures from sales from fear that this will mean the taking of guns, and fundraising that the NRA gives scaring its members that the government will take away their guns. It’s not about freedom, only money.
Nothing is going to change. We’re no longer shocked when we experience these types of killings. Only the number of victim’s killed gets our attention. The Wisconsin story will fade after the funeral services since the shooter is now dead, but the Colorado story will remain in the headlines when the trial begins.
In fact, one of the arguments they make is that they want to be able to protect themselves if it happens. I'm not advocating either way, but I do think you missed the points they made.
If we are going to make headway on these conversations, eewcertainly need to learn to listen better all around.
Now, we live through this scenario above and now we get our guns back from the authorities and start shooting back to protect our property and familys.
Street gangs and bands of thugs figure out that they are getting shot up by law abiding homeowners and they decide to stay home and leave the home invasions of the now to the real bad criminals or the very stupid criminals but for the most part as we know society today is we actually agree a armed society by lawfull gun owners is actually a safer society.
Take away guns and all of the above will still apply in the all nicer neighborhoods like BelAir in L.A. or Quail Lakes and everyplace in cities like Tracy because the cops will be so over saturated with 911 calls at one time because criminals are not stupid and they would plan it that way.
Like drug turf gangs and thugs will divide up a city and roam from neighborhood to neighborhood robbing, raping and killing like it was a eight hour work day because there was nobody there to stop them and no homeowners with guns because they were all taken away. Now we call in the National Guard but the Guard members have families and want to protect them but they can't unless they are one of the luvky ones who get stationed at the city they live in and neighborhood they live at.
Call in the regular military? How long do you think society will funtion? You see, a armed society IS a safer society.
Dude, not a very good example. Do you really think the current shootings in Chicago are being carried out by law abiding citizens? Granted some innocents are getting killed in the cross fire which of course is tragic but I'll bet the perps are all miscreants going after other miscreants.
You really seem to be missing the point others are making, guns are fine in the hands of law abiding citizens so making a reference to what goes on in the inner cities is a bit absurd.
You want to fix a lot of the problems we face as a country? Let's get some laws in place which keep the uneducated and uninformed from voting, that would be a good start. Note: I'm not implying you fall into either category.
Next, dump the department of education which helps churn out a bunch of dummies, stop accepting the idea that going through life uninformed, stupid, and out of shape is ok, and lets step up our game. A well informed, educated, and civil populace would solve a lot of problems.
Here's a question:
Gun control --> bring back the death penalty?
This country needs to start putting the responsibility for the future back where it belongs, on the individual!! Shutdown the nanny state handouts and make people responsible for themselves and their actions. Unwed parents? Sterilize the mother AND the father! That way the rest of society won't have to support them and more illegitimate kids!I could go on but why bother? Apathy and complacency rule our society now!
You are proposing two new laws.
The first law you proposed was gun control.
Then you proposed the govermnment makes all the nut jobs take a personality test.
I think the reason you keep striking out is because you have not addressed the fundamental problem in America.
The liberals keep trying to replace morality, in America, with more laws.
As was pointed out, we have laws, and they failed.
Everytime a liberal wants to get voted into office, he or she, skirts past what needs to be done, and instead says, "let's add more gun laws that won't work. The voters will eat this stuff up."
I hope you're able to see that?
Is it troubling that it's easier to buy an assault weapon than get a job or legally drive a car? An employer runs a background check, to include calling previous employers, verifying education, and requiring a personality assessment before you are hired. Legally driving requires, school, practice and testing.
An assault rifle requires a small waiting period and simple background check for previous felony convictions.
In addition, does anyone really believe an armed society is safer than an unarmed or limited armed society? I think that one just has to look at the inner-city to see how well that works where so many are armed and with the slightest provocation, guns are used instead of words and fists.
Everybody is asking questions. It's very sad what happened.
I tried to meet in the middle and help folks find the answers.
Read what others are saying, I mean, this clown was making bombs.
Are bombs legal?
So, the question people have, here, for those who choose to legislate morality, is this.
How many laws should we write before we realize the social experiment is not working?
If you don't want to carry a gun (anytype of gun) DON'T but how dare you infringe upon MY RIGHT to. Imagine if there were more people carrying....these shooters would be dropped LONG before 71 shots were fired. LONG before 50 people were shot. Gun control doesnt stop CRIMINALS WHO DON'T FOLLOW THE LAW TO BEGIN WITH! All it does is put law obiding citizens in danger! Instead of gun control, how about CONSTITUTIONAL CARRY?!?!?!!? An armed society is a polite society.
The most common lines used in the gun control debate is "guns don't kill people, people kill people." and this is indeed true as guns don't simply walk off the shelf, drive to the theater and begin killing people at random.
People just use the guns as a tool to complete their task.
So guns do not kill people, they just make it very convenient for people to quickly kill lots of people.
A point was made to compare deaths by firearms to deaths in vehicles. And this is also true as it is known vehicles kill far more people than firearms. But its odd that you need multiple classes, training and testing to drive. Yet all you need is background check to buy an assault rifle.
This young man was clearly not mentally well when he was allowed to purchase an assault rifle, two handguns and a shotgun. He also purchased an extended clip and over a thousand rounds of ammo in addition to body armor.
I think we need to talk about the need for assault rifles to be legally purchased and how it may be a red flag when someone makes a purchase like he did. Maybe a personality assessment check along with the background where we could look for signs of mental illne
mental illness?
These guns get out to the criminals, drug dealers, and even to Mexico as drug lords come to America to buy the guns they use to go to war across the border killing hundreds every year with legally purchased guns in America.
These laws keep honest people honest, fer certain but they also provide a revenue stream ta th government.
Fer example, does it really cost all that money ta register yer car every year? An why do we have ta carry that registration an proof of insurance when it's all computerized so every officer can easily retrieve it?
Oh wait, it must be so th bad guys can watch yer family attend a blockbuster movie that's gonna keep ya occupied so they can break inta yer car, look at yer registration an proof of insurance, get th address an then drive over ta yer house with over an hour ta browse through yer house uninterrupted.
I've never heard of a gangbanger worried about passing a backgrounds check to get a gun so he could do his driveby shooting. They don't care period.
*In common usage, the word "tyrant" carries connotations of a harsh and cruel ruler who places his or her own interests or the interests of an oligarchy over the best interests of the general population, which the tyrant governs or controls.
It's why we have search an seizure laws as well as quartering laws incorporated in th Constitution.
Imagine yourself in the soothing darkness with your family in the family room and all of a sudden your front door explodes by one, two or three masked home invaders wanting that TV and money you have and look at your wife or daughter as their next crime to do by raping and kill you after.
How can this happen when only good citezens are the only ones who can legally own guns? And how can this happen when we have a police department just minutes away to save you if you have enough time to dial 911?
Well what the government is working towards is a total ban on all gun and needless to say the only people who would have guns would be the criminals and police. After all, it is the police VS the criminals right? And since we are lawful citezens we depend on them because we don't have any right to own a gun to protect our family and the police will save us?
It takes a couple of seconds ta kill someone with a gun. How long does it take th police ta respond when they finally get th message?
What if they (theoretically) imposed gun control laws and took all the legal ones away...
What would happen to all the illegal ones?
Who would get them?
You don't think he would have found a way?
Just trying to deduce if we should follow your logic and where it might end up if we did.
Thanks in advance!
In this day and age I think an unarmed America is a more dangerouse America because of the terrorists sleeping in their cells across our country, they are just waiting for the call of idiot leaders who are just as bad as the killer in Colorado was.
There are enough gun laws in our country to float a battleship but these law makers want to keep cranking out stupid gun laws thinking it will make us safer. Can we say SB249 Senator YEE? What is the best way to rally liberals in a voting year but to attack gun owners.
Can we say the ATT Gun Ban that gives NATO full power to circumvent our 2nd ammendment rights as Americans?
Criminals DON'T CARE ABOUT GUN LAWS, NEVER WILL CARE. Guns will always be in the hands of criminals because they are criminals preying on me and you. Guns also keep us free!
Ya can play th what if scenarios until yer blue in th face but in th end yer still gaspin fer breath.
First of all no gun control law would have prevented this and if ya thank fer a second bannin guns is gonna solve th problem yer delusional.
Th criminally insane will always find a way ta kill.
Whair I grew up they would make what was called a zip gun in th high school machine shop an then use it against a teacher, students, rival gangs an or private citizens.
Th point bein made here is th deranged mind will go to every length ta satisfy it's ego an derangement.
GUNS, in an of themselves, DO NOT KILL PEOPLE. People do.
It's already against th law for a mentally unstable person or a person who has a history of violence, both th same mentality, ta own a gun or have a gun he can easily an illegally access to feed his warped mentality.
Restrictin law abidin citizens th right ta keep an bear arms, under th 2nd Amendment of th Constitution ain't gonna make ya any safer because, understand this, CRIMINALS, CRAZY PEOPLE, DON'T OBEY THE LAW AN ALL YA HAVE DONE IS MAKE IT EASIER FER EM.
Actually, it's knowin when ta use th gun an hittin th intended target with th first shot, but I do understand what yer sayin.
Th point is definin when it's necessary.
Betcha th cops showed up with fully automatic weapons an would have used em if necessary.
Bet if thair was one law abidin citizen that had a military grade weapon in th theater an that citizen had th opportunity ta use it th killer wouldn't have been as successful as he was durin his murderous rampage an a whole lot of people would be alive taday.
But that's a what if game that's really don't answer anythang.
I know yer question was leadin an beggin fer discussion.