The New Republic

Most Americans can't distinguish one gun from another. And they don't care to learn. This will not be a campaign issue that favors Obama.

- rayward

July 20, 2012 at 8:00pm

You do know that there is no such thing as an "assault weapon," right? This is an extremely broad term for guns that have various ad-ons, most of which don't actually increase the ability of the gun to cause harm to multiple people. "Assault weapons ban" has no real specific meaning and it's just a political term to make people think someone care a lot about gun control. So politically, discussing this might work, but as for actual policy, it won't do anything at all to really decrease gun violence. Most crimes are not committed with so called "assault weapons."

- andyman344

July 20, 2012 at 8:45pm

Also, the fact that in that poll, assault weapon is a vague term and different people will think it means completely different things.

- andyman344

July 20, 2012 at 8:46pm

Not sure I'd agree, andyman. I think most people have a roughly accurate sense of whether a weapon belongs with a trained soldier in a military combat situation or is legitimate on the rifle rack in your pick-up. I concede that it's not an accurate term but it does offer a handle on a key issue.

- ironyroad

July 20, 2012 at 9:18pm

Yeah, I think an automatic or semi-automatic rifle pretty much qualifies as an assault weapon. Can you hunt with it? Is it good for self-defense? No? Thought not. What it's good for is killing people. So, why does anybody want one?

- Sophia

July 20, 2012 at 10:53pm

Regardless of the poll numbers, isn't the real issue the outsized power of the NRA? The reason the issue faded is because Dems got burned. But it is so crazy that extended round clips, hollow points, Kevlar piercing rounds, drum magazines--crazy stuff opposed by every law enforcement officer and organization in the country--is OK with the NRA and most politicians. What power these dedicated, fearful and fanatic people wield.

- Vogelfam

July 20, 2012 at 11:20pm

"What it's good for is killing people. So, why does anybody want one?" Because people want to kill people with them, Sophia. Fortunately, most such fantasies remain just that.

- magboy47.

July 21, 2012 at 12:15am

Your chance of being killed in an automobile crash is much greater than being killed by a crazed shooter. Even with improved vehicle safety, licensing, roads & signs and training. The emotional trauma of being killed or injured by a crazed shooter is much greater, though you are just as dead whether shot or stabbed or run down or crashed. We are not very rational. Nevertheless, stay safe out there, as they used to say on the TV show "Cops."

- skahn

July 21, 2012 at 12:17am

Remember, not only whites love guns in America. Blacks and Latinos do, too. Most of them just don't join the NRA. Obama would alienate these people, too, by talking about automatic weapons, many of which are used in inner cities, and not only by gangs. Black home and business owners in the inner city are armed to the teeth, too. And justifiably. They have reason to be concerned with self defense more than any other group of people in America. They're not dealing with paranoid fantasies like most white NRA members are. They're coming up against daily life. Boy, could I tell you some stories about self defense in the inner city of Detroit.

- magboy47.

July 21, 2012 at 12:42am

Look, I'm against the selling of heavy weapons to civilians as much as they next guy, and at least want tighter restrictions on them, but there are many more thing I would rather have Obama focus on at the moment and I'm pretty sure this won't carry an election for him.

- ARealHero

July 21, 2012 at 3:03am

skahn, parents of teenagers who live in houses supplied with a firearm are four times as likely to lose their children to suicide than those who live in homes without guns, and women who live in the presence of guns are three times as likely to be murdered by their male partners as those in homes with no gun present. I'll quote Lynyrd Skynrd for the fourth or fifth time on this site: Handguns was made for killing, Ain't no good for nothing else. And if you like to drink your whiskey You might even shoot yourself.

- AaronW

July 21, 2012 at 6:28am

This is a hard post for me, as I'm about to stand up for the NRA crowd. I'm as cognitively progressive as can be, but quite honestly, guns can be a lot of fun. You look in some of the previously mentioned gun forums online, and you'll find some pretty batshit crazy political views. However, gun enthusiasts (who granted, may harbor said batshit crazy political views), truly enjoy guns as a hobby, and Liberals have failed to grasp this. I take issue with the idea that most people want "assault weapons" so they can be more effective killers. In my experience, they want them to impress their buddies at the gun range. This is a political non-starter. I hope O doesn't give into Liberal outrage on an issue that's hardly relevant. You can pretty much be 90% effective in killing with non-assault weapons over assault. It may be hard to believe, but the majority of the gun community with advanced weaponry isn't doing it to prepare for the apocalypse (and yes, there are outliers), but simply because (like so many hobbies), people enjoy the respect that comes with their shiny new toy. To rock the boat would galvanize the NRA, and whatever shadowy SuperPACs that may be thusly associated. Leave this one alone, Barry.

- RJSampson1

July 21, 2012 at 11:21am

Well yeah you could use your hand grenade, bazooka, assault rifle for hunting if what you really want is to blow some poor creature to bits; so much for eating it right? (And yes I realize there's an art to hunting, some of us have a talent for it in fact. Anyway, why is the NRA so powerful? That's a good question. As to fun, we need to think about fun. Some folks think snowmobiles and loud, snarly water vehicles are fun, I think they're a threat to nature and to sanity. But that's a different argument. NRA anybody? WHAT is the deal?

- Sophia

July 21, 2012 at 1:44pm

Also, as to existing laws - apparently they're easy to circumvent at gun shows? PS where oh where is Darryl Issa? Oh Rep Issa, we need you! Some outrage! What? It's awful quiet from that direction. Hmmmmmm.

- Sophia

July 21, 2012 at 1:47pm

"To rock the boat would galvanize the NRA, and whatever shadowy SuperPACs that may be thusly associated. Leave this one alone, Barry." RJSampson1's analysis and final comment are very accurate. Obama told everyone in his administration even before he took the oath of office to leave the gun issue alone. It was too explosive--it would unleash a torrent of return fire. And Obama, due to his race, would be a particularly hated target. I can easily imagine some paranoid, delusional NRA leader getting very focused if the president spoke up about guns, if you get my drift. The fact that many Americans, men and women, are so attached to instruments of death, despite mostly using them for target practice and status, means there's something very wrong with our culture. There are countless other things for grownups to be attached to. When I was a young boy, I was obsessed with a cap pistol that I got for Christmas, and I went around irritating and startling adults by firing it at them. Luckily, I'm no longer obsessed with toys that go bang, particularly lethal ones.

- magboy47.

July 21, 2012 at 3:32pm

Sophia, I'm not the hugest fan of allowing AR-15s to be freely sold, particularly with 30 round magazines, but they're not actually much good for 'blowing some poor creature to bits.' The round they use is small (.roughly .22 caliber) and not particularly powerful. Kalashnikovs (AKs) are something of a different story...

- Curran1

July 21, 2012 at 3:53pm

Yeah, lets face it, it's not worth the risk, plus, how else am I supposed to watch "Top Shot"?

- ARealHero

July 21, 2012 at 5:08pm

Until fairly recently there was a kind of assumption that any guy obsessed with guns has problems with his penis and/or masculinity in a more general sense, and that if you took his guns away from him he would be revealed as an emasculated wuss. There are certainly, in the deeper recesses of American culture, some confusions and paranoias regarding masculinity and the role of men. There are guys whose self-esteem is entirely defensive and on a hair-trigger status as regards real or imagined threats. They bear some similarity to, for example, those who hate Obama (and, crucially, Michelle Obama) because they can't bear the thought of a black couple having sex in the White House (they never admit that openly, of course). I have to say that as an academic I have always been aware of the barely-disguised resentments of those whose intellectual self-image is disconnected from the real world of study and exams. The Aurora killer was dropping out of med school, as the Virginia Tech killer was failing in his college career.

- ironyroad

July 21, 2012 at 5:25pm

Malahat, np:) Curran, sorry, I'm not an expert at guns; but, this one was plenty lethal; also, what's to prevent somebody from getting his very own AK-47? The murderer in this case went on a buying spree, including 6,000 rounds of ammo; didn't this raise ANY red flags? (If his name had been Mo Mohammed would somebody have noticed?) Speaking of red flags, pursuant to irony's comment - there must have been SOME SIGN that things were amiss with this young man. His dropping out of school is suggestive. Our society does tend to isolate people sometimes...

- Sophia

July 21, 2012 at 5:44pm

Not med school, irony, a graduate program in neuroscience.  A person as introverted as it sounds like the shooter was would likely have had a harder time getting into med school than a second-tier PhD program in the biological sciences. Medicine demands engagement with one's fellow human beings, and medical schools do a reasonably good job of weeding out those who have difficulty making conversation with strangers. My preliminary read on this guy's psychology is that he was a shy person, a classic nerd of the quiet type. (I was a classic nerd of the loud, extroverted type, highly resistant to embarrassment.)  He was ignored by women and was probably a virgin though very much didn't want to be, as evidenced by his Adult Friend Finder profile. I reckon that he saw academic success as the one route through which he might someday win recognition from the world, but then he got to grad school in Colorado and found out that he wasn't as smart as previously he'd been led to believe, and that was the straw that broke the camel's back. He thought to himself, "All you motherfuckers who won't recognize me as a man, well, I will fucking MAKE you recognize me."  And he did.  And we do. 

- AaronW

July 22, 2012 at 3:54am

The evil mind is there. This individual did the planning and preparations for several months. While pursuing his normal routine. After the shootings calmly walked to his car where the police caught him. Then told the police his apartment was full of explosives and booby traps. It sounds an individual with two personalities, the normal and the evil. Even the same day of the massacre, he went to a bar to have a drink and friendly chat with another customer, that later recognized him in the photo circulated by the police. Easy availability of weapons and explosives should be more restrictive. But Americans love their weapons. It's hard to recognize and stop the evil amongst us. This individual had no political agenda as we know this far. Maybe hated the society that was normal. He was acting, by the way he dressed, coloring his hair red, calling himself the joker as in the batman movie. The bullets were real, the killings were real. The nightmare was real. The pain and hurt is real. Our society shows very little to none, empathy for those that suffer. Compassion is not in our hearts. It would seem that is considered a sign of weakness. So this massacre is taken as almost a chilly routin with the others we hear from on a daily basis. Evil is fully ingrained amongst us. My prayers go to the victims and their families. I ask the all mighty to be merciful, compassionate and forgiving. I believe in prayer, I believe in goodness defeating evil anytime. Amen

- JAIMECHUCH

July 22, 2012 at 3:55am

You never know. I worked with a religious fanatic raised in Texas (with lots of experince with weapons) on my last job. He went crazy, was fired (after many kind attempts to help him) for reasonable cause. One day (disobeying a "stay off property" court order) he came to work and started to fix himself lunch in the staff lunch room. A supervisor walked up to him and politely asked him to leave. He politely got up and left instead of ... (leave to your imagination). There are nuts and there are nuts.

- skahn

July 22, 2012 at 2:03pm

BHO is non-Progressive and seriously temporizes on health care, fiscal stimulus, financial regulation, BP, climate change, immigration, Afghanistan, etc, etc--- and he's now going to change his long-established pattern and get Progressive on gun control? When pigs fly. There is, however, a majority to plurality approval by voters on most, perhaps all, the above issues. Which is why a successful Progressive Dem candidate for Prez in not the oxymoron most of you envision. The sooner the better for the Dems and the US.

- drofnats1

July 22, 2012 at 3:10pm

I reckon that if by "nuts" you mean psychotic, most mass murderers aren't all that nuts, the VA Tech shooter being a notable exception. They're depressed. In terms of its value for the perpetrator, an act like the Aurora shootings is not all that different from suicide. Suicide obviously demonstrates aggression towards the self, but what is less obvious is how often suicide contains a strong element of aggression towards others. The suicidal depressed person sees the act as a way out of his pain, to be sure, but also as a way to win recognition from other people and to rub his loved ones' noses in all the ways that they failed him. Looked at in a certain perverse way, a mass killing IS suicide taken to a gruesomely spectacular extreme. James Holmes had to know there was a very real possibility he would be killed at the scene of his crime, and even though he lives on, his life is, for all intents and purposes, over. The advantage for him over simply killing himself, if only as he would have perceived it during the planning and execution of the act, is that he gets both to destroy himself and his life and bear witness to the results.

- AaronW

July 22, 2012 at 3:21pm

"Which is why a successful Progressive Dem candidate for Prez in not the oxymoron most of you envision." Drofnats, you are a master at putting words in people's mouths, and the air you cultivate of being a truth-telling outsider who alone in this forum accurately reads the deep currents of American political economy is more than a little tiresome. Few posters, if any, have suggested that a liberal Democrat could not be a successful presidential candidate. We have simply suggested that, as a matter of fact, no such candidate has emerged in 2012 and that in the absence of such a candidate, Barrack Obama is preferable by far to the Republican alternative.

- AaronW

July 22, 2012 at 3:31pm

If what you desire is for the Democratic Party to nominate more progressive candidates--as opposed to a progressive third political party such as the Greens or the Democratic Socialists--then what you should do is become active in your local Democratic Party organization and be a voice for progressivism therein. But of course for you to do that, you would have to behave like a member of the Democratic Party which would mean you'd have to stop actively tearing down the party's nominated candidates.

- AaronW

July 22, 2012 at 3:41pm

skunk is just a fanatic of having sex with his chickens. What a way of releasing your stress. He is an atheist fanatic. He is a vermin that still at his age believes he is the center of the world. Whining is his main weapon. Worries of the future because of his absence of believes. Wonders what will happen to the fruit of his two lesbians procreating with an homosexual male. He is indeed a degenerate, always asking people for a handout. The rich husband of his sister in law ignores and neglects him. He posts this information day in a day out. He has disrespect and deep antagonism to believers of a supreme being. as a dangerous deviate, he should be surveyed by the authorities if he is accumulating explosives to blow up the island where he lives. And I kid you not, the Australian expatriate has not yet described this specimen as a psycho. Well what can you expect from one that has a kangaroo and an emu as pets. The Australian expatriate insists he is an expert in psychiatric nuts. .....Go and figure. And Australia has winter and I see the expatriate shivering. He keeps warm jumping all day with his pet kangaroo.

- JAIMECHUCH

July 22, 2012 at 4:42pm

Australian expatriate, shut up, you are posting idiotic statement after idiotic statement. You are showing your inferior mediocrity ignorance. Well one way to keep warm in the Australian winter. Go and keep jumping with your pet kangaroo, he has more brains than you.

- JAIMECHUCH

July 22, 2012 at 4:48pm

My inferior mediocrity ignorance? Wow, that burns. I thought I was showing my superior mediocrity ignorance. But thanks for complementing my kangaroo, he is rather intelligent and he doesn't hear it enough. IMHO 'roos are the smartest bipedal animals around, Homo sapiens included, but they tend to be quite insecure about it. You have to keep feeding them complements or else they totally fall to pieces. And by the way, Jaime, are you for real? There is about your posts a whiff of Andy-Kaufman, Sacha-Baron-Cohen role-playing. Of course, if that were the case, you wouldn't let on. Carry on, then!

- AaronW

July 22, 2012 at 5:26pm

Oh, and one more thing, Jaime, I have no quarrel with your desire to label James Holmes and his actions "evil". He is evil, and make no mistake about it. It's just that normative values such as evil, cannot speak to causation of an act. If we try to make them serve such an explanatory purpose, we wind up talking in circles. "James Holmes is evil because he killed 12 innocent people." "Why did he kill 12 innocent people?" "Because he is evil."  A narcotaficante kills to gain and retain control over his drug distribution empire. A Nazi kills for similar reasons overlaid with a perverted theory of justice. A depressed loner kills to exact revenge on a world he perceives as having rejected him. All of them are evil, but that does not mean that labeling them as such needs to be the end of the conversation. If we are to have any hope of combating evil, then we need to understand it in all its particular manifestations. To reject psychological or medical explanations for actions such as Holmes's out of the fear that such explanations inappropriately discount the moral depravity of the action is to miss the point.  

- AaronW

July 22, 2012 at 6:52pm

You tell me what is the difference between this criminal mind and criminals likke LBJ, Westmoreland, Nixon and Kissinger that knowing the war was lost and served no purpose , continued resulting with over 50,000 of our own killed and more than a million of the enemy killed. Is there any difference in these evil criminal minds? The NYT is now writing that explaining on psychiatric terms this criminal is not enough. In psychiatry a psychotic can not control his illness, unless medication or the talking cure is used. This individual planned for months his crime. In all that has been described he had a cold easy going behavior. he did not snap suddenly. He bobby trapped his apartment. He assumed the role of the joker, he dressed to "perform". He threw the canister of gas, and then proceeded to shoot with real bullets. When captured he informed in a calm cold way how his apartment was full of explossives ready to detonate when somebody opened the door. A psychiatrist will not find this person sick, his behavior is normal utter criminal behavior. No different from the guy that entered the bar in my neighborhood to rob the bartender an proceeded to knife him down in a savage way, and with his accomplice proceeded to robe $600. Simply put, there are normal individuals and there are criminals. And criminals are evil on my book. This criminal will never be cured, and will be removed from society. Too little too late sadly enough. Life is too precious.

- JAIMECHUCH

July 22, 2012 at 7:39pm

Loner, antisocial has nothing to do with it. That he hated we don't know yet. Could be an explanation. simply put a criminal is a criminal. Eichman continued with his crimes on a daily basis. Went home to enjoy his family, gardening, classical music. He explained he followed orders, killing, killing, killing. Mengele practiced his experiments on human specimens and thought of no wrong. And so goes on an eternal debate of the sane mind and the criminal mind.

- JAIMECHUCH

July 22, 2012 at 7:51pm

This is similar to the Unabomber years back. Read all in the Wikipedia.

- JAIMECHUCH

July 22, 2012 at 9:15pm

Holmes may or may not be a depressed, socially isolated loner, you are correct--although the early reports from those who knew him suggest that he was fairly withdrawn--but we do know that other mass murderers have tended to be isolated people and to show signs of clinical depression, so it will not do to be over hasty in dismissing such considerations even if on closer examination it turns out that Holmes is something different, a psychopath, for example, or a psychotic. And what's the point in invoking Eichmann? Of course, Eichmann was not a depressed loner. That's exactly the point I was making in my prior post. Eichmann's and Holmes's murderous acts were both evil, but the sequences of events, both external and internal, that led each of them to succumb to such evil were almost certainly quite different from one another. To end the inquiry into motives by saying the Devil or a criminal mind made them do it and leave it at that is a cop out.

- AaronW

July 22, 2012 at 9:22pm

He denied being insane when his defender tried to obtain a lighter sentence. He insisted his methods were unorthodox but necessary to save the environment from human destruction. His activities lasted twenty years until caught. Another item to plunder about. Why all these mass murderers tend to be White? Although the one in Virginia was Oriental. .

- JAIMECHUCH

July 22, 2012 at 9:30pm

My point is that a criminal is a criminal. Yes isolation is a characteristic of Holmes and the Unabomber. But we had socially active criminals like those mass murderers of women or teenagers. Holmes interacted in society, was shy and a loner. But there are plenty more that are shy and loners and don't go in rampages killing people. Yes it is very American that you have to be socially involved, and it is odd if you are shy and reserved. What I am trying to get at is that the criminal is a criminal , just like the sane is the sane. It is in the genes. However I agree with you, if somebody is a loner, better watch him/her. Remember many actors that were loners like George C Scott and Glenn Ford. and later Rita Hayworth when developing Alzheimer's. And the famous Howard Hughes that lived completely isolated scared to death he will contact diseases if mingled with humans. Well I mentioned Eichman and Mengele as examples of criminal minds. Just doing their everyday job. That is why Ana Arends wrote her book about evil. For a human to understand you have to realize that in some humans evil is for them as normal as it is for you and I going on with our daily lives. We have to have a rational explanation why people exist that commit heinous crimes like if it was nothing wrong with it. In other words it is for me , as for most people, a shock of immense consequences that these things happen, and only analyzing cures my soul. I am a fan of Alfred Hitchcock. And all of his movies he dwells and brilliantly exploits these human evils. He invokes many times rational explanations , like in Shadow of a Doubt, Joseph Cotten falling from a second floor, hitting his head, and later becoming a mass murderer of rich widow. Or like he most gruesome movie Psycho. We need to explain the reasons to keep our own sanity.

- JAIMECHUCH

July 22, 2012 at 10:05pm

I came across that a new theory in psychiatry is that empathy Defficiency is characteristic of Mentaly I'll people. An in that basis this mass murderer lacks empathy for his fellow humans. How else he would go on a killing spree without caring for human suffering and hurt. This is a very sad chapter in our lives. God be merciful of those that died. God be merciful of the survivors and their families. Their pain is my pain. And I only pray that people will come together and heal towards the good in all of us. Regardless if you believe or not in God. Let us believe in the good. That is the right thing to do.

- JAIMECHUCH

July 22, 2012 at 11:45pm

In the prayer for the dead we praise the all mighty. And we ask for peace for all of us

- JAIMECHUCH

July 22, 2012 at 11:50pm

There is no evidence that any of the Founders knew or imagined firearms that can fire hundreds of rounds in a few seconds. Single shot muzzle loaders were the only "arms" the founders knew--and these they certainly did intend to place in the hands of the American populace. Clearly, the Founders could NOT have intended to flood our lives with horrors they could not imagine--like the unthinkably effective modern semi-automatic weapons invented by Gatling and Browning. And aren't "intentions" of the founders critical for interpreting the Constitution? And what about the creeping re-definition of the the kind "arms" the Founding Fathers unwittingly meant to sow amongst us, don't we do those Founders and all the rest of us a terrible disservice? The point is, anyone could defend his or her home with a one or two shot, slow-to-reload, rifle or shotgun but, only a village idiot would try to drag 20 of these heavy suckers to a public place there to commit mass murder. I grew up with my grandfather teaching me to shoot in the piney woods of N.J. and over time I've enjoyed target shooting, pot-hunting, and fussing over a nice gun collection. Now I live and hike about in serious bear and cougar country where I've learned to make a bit of noise, use a walking stick for slippery places and carry a can of "bear spray" "just in case". I've used all kinds of firearms and I have to say that I would happily see my precious collection replaced with a couple of old fashioned single shot rifles and maybe an engraved black powder fowling piece. Could I use these firearms that the Founders knew for target shooting, hunting, and protecting my home? Absolutely--many states already give black powder hunters substantial and attractive perks. Would any nutbar use a five foot long single shot squirrel gun to knock over a corner grocery store or butcher kids in a school? Not bloody likely--he couldn't even get on the bus! We've had enough of senseless mass murdering. With respect to the NRA and all who enjoy shoot-em-up drama, we need to give our heads a shake, look a the situations that are now surrounding us, and simply evolve past a seductive but socially unacceptable "dead end" filled with sound, fury, and confused values. Why not give up the multi-shot people killers and maybe use them to cast a very large "Getting the Second Amendment Right at Last Freedom from Terror Bell." With fair-market value for my .308s and grandpa's 30.30 Winchester and a little self-discipline I could move along just fine knowing that I'd be helping to keep my kids and grandchildren safe. And for our collective sanity, President Obama or President Romney, please instruct our military to have chaplains and psychiatrists query such practices as having trainees march around holding their rifles in one hand while touching their genitals with the other and shouting, "This is my rifle, this is my gun–this one's for fighting and this one's for fun!" Also, why should masses of young troops hear uniformed chaplains yell, "Jesus wants you to pull the trigger! Jesus wants you to pull the trigger!" God only knows how this irrational and offensive clap-trap must warp the mind and contribute to mental derangement from generation to generation....

- JohnC

July 23, 2012 at 2:47pm

First, it is obvious from this thread that most of you are clueless concerning the characteristics of semi-automatic rifles, or of the complexities involved in banning them. "Assault rifle", though military experts may quibble, means a light-weight, short barreled, small caliber, fully automatic rifle. The AR-15 and other semi-auto rifles that most people think of as assault rifles are made to resemble the military versions. Other semi-auto rifles with wood stocks and lacking pistol grips and flash suppressors, like the Mini-14, use the same type of action and can fire just as rapidly as the scary looking ones. Millions of these weapons, and hundreds of millions of high capacity magazines for them are in private hands. The old federal "assault weapons ban" only prohibited the manufacture, sale and import of new guns and mags with specific cosmetic features. All of the existing guns and magazines remained on the market, and the law did not ban Mini-14s and similar guns. To be a meaningful ban rather than a useless symbolic gesture, an actual ban would involve the confiscation of millions of weapons and accessories. Try that on politically.

- nehocm002

July 23, 2012 at 9:28pm