Mass Shooting in Colorado

Originally posted by Omega Vision
While this is true, it doesn't change the fact that it's much, much easier to kill 30 people with 3,000 rounds than it is with 30.

I think the realistic aim of gun control isn't to completely prevent tragedies like the Aurora shooting but to make it more difficult for a lone nutjob to pull them off without some thread of the safety net catching him beforehand.

The only people who would buy that many bullets are people who are (1) intensely serious about target shooting, (2) planning a shooting, or (3) planning to survive a zombie apocalypse

You forgot the real #1: most rednecks, ever.

3000 rounds seems like average for many of the people I know that shoot around these parts. They have a whole gun safe full of bullets. 3000 rounds seems too little to account for how many boxes/cases of bullets they have.

But a spontaneous purchase of 3000 rounds is what should be looked for. But that would not have caught this guy: he purchased that stuff over the course of a few weeks to months, IIRC.

That guy was smart, too. I don't think it would have been impossible for someone like him to make his own bullets and do several tests to make sure he has a decent process in place before mass-producing some bullets.

no system of monitoring ammunition sales would be worth establishing if all one had to do was stagger the purchasing of 6000+ rounds over a few weeks or months.

i don't have a problem with rednecks having to provide some justification for owning thousands of rounds.

Originally posted by Oliver North
i don't have a problem with rednecks having to provide some justification for owning thousands of rounds.

But rednecks do and they'll shoot you if you ask them.

Originally posted by dadudemon

But a spontaneous purchase of 3000 rounds is what should be looked for. But that would not have caught this guy: he purchased that stuff over the course of a few weeks to months, IIRC.

Purchasing it over the course of years is a little more innocuous though.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
But rednecks do and they'll shoot you if you ask them.

that sort of seems like a good reason why they shouldn't be allowed to have it /shrug

Pretty pathetic that some group in Idaho made a meme billboard comparing the shooter and his rampage to President Obama and the war in Afghanistan.

Some guy calls himself "a joker" and threatens to kill people from his workplace.

Yet since he's not being charged and mental health issues don't disqualify him from gun ownership he will possibly get everything that the police confiscated back since they won't be part of an investigation and worse case for him he can simply buy more weaponry.

Originally posted by Omega Vision
Purchasing 3000 rounds over the course of weeks or months should also be watched for.

Not necessarily. I've bought 2400 rounds in a single day, simply because it was cheaper in the long run to do so. Lots of gun owners do it that way.

Originally posted by Ascendancy
Pretty pathetic that some group in Idaho made a meme billboard comparing the shooter and his rampage to President Obama and the war in Afghanistan.

Well, they do have a point. People seem to think mass killing is ok just so long as governments do it.

Originally posted by Archaeopteryx
Not necessarily. I've bought 2400 rounds in a single day, simply because it was cheaper in the long run to do so. Lots of gun owners do it that way.

Originally posted by Tzeentch._
If you're buying 2400 rounds in a single day for purely innocent reasons, would you mind then if the government decided to watch you for awhile?

What do you mean by "watch'?

Originally posted by Oliver North
i don't have a problem with rednecks having to provide some justification for owning thousands of rounds.

I agree.

Originally posted by Omega Vision
Purchasing 3000 rounds over the course of weeks or months should also be watched for.

Purchasing it over the course of years is a little more innocuous though.

I agree, here, as well.

We do this type of regulation with our drugs, already, though. You cannot purchase so much of drug X or it will set off red flags or even get you in trouble. So why not ammo?

Well, it is easier to make ammo than it is to make some of those drugs. I'll admit that. But I think regulating ammo purchases may prevent some of these mass shootings we see every few years. Maybe not? I can think of a million reasons that it would do jack to prevent these mass shootings and plenty of reasons it would encourage them.

Originally posted by Ascendancy
Pretty pathetic that some group in Idaho made a meme billboard comparing the shooter and his rampage to President Obama and the war in Afghanistan.

I disagree. That seems apt if you approach Obama's campaign in Afghanistan to him being a mass-murderer: which is exactly how many people feel about some of the things he's authorized.

Originally posted by Tzeentch._
If you're buying 2400 rounds in a single day for purely innocent reasons, would you mind then if the government decided to watch you for awhile?

Yes, I would. I would not want the government to be peeking over my shoulder. However, I won't do anything immoral with those rounds? Should I give up a bit of freedom for the right to own potentially deadly tools? Tough decision.

Originally posted by dadudemon
Yes, I would. I would not want the government to be peeking over my shoulder.

Then why don't you have a problem with the government peek over other people's shoulders in the same way?

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Then why don't you have a problem with the government peek over other people's shoulders in the same way?

I think...I would. That is the implication of my post. "I" is used for everyone.

Just because I think an idea sounds appealing, does not mean I wholly agree with it. If you read up, I go through many of the problems of regulating ammo purchases.

Last I checked Bush started the war in Afghanistan and Obama has been the one scaling it back. Certainly he couldn't just pull every soldier out of an unstable theater day one in office. Funnier still is that if he had the same group that made the meme would have been cursing him for letting the troops who died in the conflict previously give their lives in vain, no? It was a conservative group doing it so how they can say we need to stay there yet make that kind of ad is foolish.

I can't believe anyone would see the comparison as valid. Shooting up a theater of non-combatants is not the same as waging war against an armed opponent and having civilians killed as an unintentional result. I can understand criticisms of policy, but not ignorant ones and this "ad campaign" is about as pathetic as it gets. I would be willing to guess that if the victims could be asked they would not want to be used as a part of such idiocy and I doubt their surviving friends and relatives find it very appealing either.

But hey, what do I know? Maybe it's a great idea. Maybe we should do our own ads saying that Romney will do to terrorists what the Virginia Tech shooter did to his classmates? Seems like that's the way to go.

Originally posted by Ascendancy
Last I checked Bush started the war in Afghanistan and Obama has been the one scaling it back.

Sure, maybe now. But that has not always been the case.

I'd prefer to avoid killing even a single innocent life. I also don't like the idea of invading other countries for less than effective counter-terrorist campaigns.

Killing 38 innocent people is somehow justified, to you, for some odd reason...and going on a killing spree in a movie theater is not okay.

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/240628.html

Odd perspective, but, hey, someone has to support the actions of Obama...too much cognitive dissonance would be experienced if your chosen president was doing something immoral and wrong, right?

I didn't say it was right or preferrable, I said that it is not in any way the same as walking into a theater and intentionally killing as many unarmed people as possible. Is it really that hard to understand that is what I am saying?

I would be equally unhappy about anyone comparing any President to the piece of crap that murdered and injured all those people in Colorado when the comparison is so unjustified, and it is pathetic to use that spree as political fodder.

Originally posted by Ascendancy
I didn't say it was right or preferrable, I said that it is not in any way the same as walking into a theater and intentionally killing as many unarmed people as possible. Is it really that hard to understand that is what I am saying?

Oh no, I got you and what you were saying. It's just that you're missing the point.

Things such as drone strikes are calculated risks. They KNOW there is a strong possibility that some innocents will be killed in some situations. Yet, they proceed with the strike.

You like to draw some sort of arbitrary line that the crazy theater shooting is somehow far more atrocious than the government killing innocents. That's a comparison I with which I am unable to be comfortable.

Originally posted by Ascendancy
I would be equally unhappy about anyone comparing any President to the piece of crap that murdered and injured all those people in Colorado when the comparison is so unjustified, and it is pathetic to use that spree as political fodder.

My point does not seem to be making any sense. After reading my post, let me know if you point still does not make sense: I will try to explain it another way.

point of fact: Obama kills civilians as a result of policy decisions in regards to how "combatants" are defined in Afghanistan/Yemen/somolia/etc. They are not accidental consequences.