The Colorado Massacre

The Colorado Massacre

by MSgt. John DeLallo, USAFR (ret.)

I had thought that before going on line, or putting my
thoughts in print, it would be reasonable to allow the complete set of facts
surrounding the deadly massacre in Aurora, CO come to the surface. I thought it
would be respectful of the victims, their families, and their friends to wait
until the bodies were carefully placed in hallowed ground, and their spirits
sent on their way by Clergy. I was wrong.

The blood hasn’t been washed from Theatre number 9 yet,
and surely the Medical Examiner’s office is not yet finished doing its grisly
work, but already the fearful, and unrepentantly sensationalist pillars of the
community that insist they can run your life better than you can have seized Aurora, Colorado as a new tragedy du jour to advance their socialist and un-America agendas.

Strong words? How about Sociopath? Murderer? Deranged?
Sick beyond description? Totally without compassion? While those words
certainly fit the shooter, whose name I will never put in writing as some
unwitting dupe in his drive to become famous, they also fit others.

The New York Times reports that Mayor Michael Bloomberg,
that other worldly billionaire with the Napoleonic complex, has already seized
the opportunity to exploit the tragic deaths and injuries. Dawn had not broken
on the day of the shootings, and Bloomberg called upon both presidential
candidates to stop with “soothing words”, and “…on his weekly radio appearance
Friday morning, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York called for the
presidential candidates to make gun issues a part of their campaigns.” Bloomberg
also stated, actually overstated that “Maybe it’s time that the two people who
want to be president of the United States stand up and tell us what they are
going to do about it,” Mr. Bloomberg said during his weekly radio program,
“because this is obviously a problem across the country.”

Bloomberg, and by extension his awful cabal of duped Mayors Against Illegal Guns (note to Mayors—it’s actually Bloomberg wants all guns) has again proposed, based on the actions of one lunatic, to suspend the Constitution. It’s evident to everyone that the shooter committed a criminal act, and was caught red handed. Little could have been done to prevent his crime; and frankly little would have been necessary, but more on that point later.

Those same strong words I put forth above also apply to The Brady
Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence , who issued a statement that laid the
blame on lax gun laws: “The horrendous shooting in Aurora, Colo., is yet
another tragic reminder that we have a national problem of easy availability of
guns in this country.” And they too, with callous disregard for the grieving
and the dead, seized upon this awful carnage to advance their anti-gun
pursuits.

And how about one Heather Morton, who issued this statement: “Carrying a concealed weapon requires a permit, but Colorado is among those states whose rules on permits are relatively lax, said Heather Morton of the National
Conference of State Legislatures. Colorado is one of 38 “shall issue” states. She explained that this meant “if a person complies with all of the requirements,
then the state must issue a concealed weapons permit.” Another anti-gun, anti-freedom group whose mission is to bury our God given right to defend ourselves by self-proclaiming she knows better than the legislature of Colorado that the laws recently passed there are “relatively lax”. Compared to what, Heather, Pol Pot in Cambodia?

And of course, “comparisons” to the Columbine High School shootings in 1999 are being aired, complete with touching photographs of memorials to the slain students. Journalists, it would appear, are not above tearing open wounds which have arguably only begun to heal.

For those familiar with columnist Joan Collins, the “strong words” apply to her equally. In the New York Times, her words appear, and I’d ask that you read them carefully: “My favorite American heroes are the ones who went for the long slog, even when their cause appeared to be hopeless to the point of ridiculous. Civil rights activists in the 1950s. Generations’ worth of suffragists who trudged around the country collecting signatures on petitions to give women the right to vote. Also, anybody who works on gun control. “We do just seem to slog along, from one tragedy to the next,” said Tom Mauser of Colorado Ceasefire.”

Even Collins, though, puts some distance between her heroes and herself when in the same column she writes “The gun control advocates were all working the phones on Friday, holding press conferences, sending out e-mails in the wake of the mass shooting in Colorado. They’re uncomfortably aware that they might appear to be taking political advantage of a national tragedy.”  Really?

We need only turn to another of the expected anti-gun and even more nonsensical folks, the Congresswoman from New York, who opines “This is the only time you have the opportunity that people will listen to you,” said Representative Carolyn McCarthy, who has spent her entire legislative career fruitlessly attempting to do something about assault weapons that allow crazy people to easily mow down a flock of victims in a couple of minutes.” Again, Collins rants, but hides behind walls. Perhaps I should add “Coward” to the “strong words”.

In all of this pandemonium of news articles, television coverage, radio alerts and so forth, the common theme is, “Who do we blame?” So far, the list of blame includes, but is certainly not limited to:

• The NRA, though strangely, the NRA isn’t being blistered as badly as one would think. Could it be that the impotence, and the excesses, of the NRA are finally seeing the light of day? LaPierre is no better than a televangelist who fleeces his congregation, and uses the money to sleep with prostitutes.
• Lax gun laws. In my home state, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Article 1, Section 21 of our Constitution is unambiguous.  “The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State shall not be questioned.” In a compendium of Pennsylvania laws relating to firearms, there are 130 pages of “questions”, i.e. gun laws. Are we to believe that in 130 pages, the laws relating to firearms are lax? I hardly think so.
• The gun show loophole. Ah, but the shooter
  lawfully acquired all four firearms, and none of them at gun shows.
• Grassroots organizations that impede the passage of gun bans, and other “sensible” gun control. Thank God for those Patriots who devote countless hours using limited funds to fight against billionaires like Soros and Bloomberg; globalists who realize that their agenda can only survive
  if gun control akin to that under Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, and others is
  immediately carried out.
• State legislatures who carry out the will of the People they represent. I can only suggest that folks like McCarthy and Bloomberg run for dictator.
• 
  Guns! Guns are a tool, not unlike a lawnmower. Handled improperly, or in the hands of a madman, both can be crippling weapons. Our Nation holds individual liberty as the key to security.
• 
  Gun owners. Or, as our detractors like to say, gun nuts. At the same time the lunatic shooter, for reasons known only to him, committed mass murder, nearly 100 million lawful gun owners had a completely uneventful day.

I have my own principle source of blame. It’s directed
towards those sadly misinformed thinkers who believe that by declaring an area
a “gun free zone”, they create a safe place, free from violence and criminals.
How sad, as they only create a Victim Disarmament Zone.

Gun free zones are a horrible idea. I’ve suggested to more liberal minded and anti-gun folks I know that if they feel so strongly about gun ownership, put up a 4 X 8 piece of plywood in their front yard, brightly painted with the words “Gun Free Zone” on it. Up to now I have no takers. Gun free zones attract serial shooters as a bear to honey. That may make you raise your eyebrows, but I want you to think about the most notorious mass shootings and mass murders in recent history. Most of them have occurred in churches, schools, and on private property where the owners, or corporate leaders, have been convinced by folks like Bloomberg, who goes nowhere without a cadre of armed men, that guns are bad and signs stop crime.

Think about that logic. Signs stop crimes. No wonder none of the anti-gunners I’ve spoken to have put up a sign.  But, lamentably, some folks have put up signs. I remember flying in commercial aircraft when no-one bothered to ask if you were armed. Other than D.B. Cooper’s fateful jump from thousands of feet with loads of cash, and a few unremarkable hijackings to Cuba where no-one was harmed, not knowing who might be armed seemed to put a crimp in criminal’s style. Then, bit by bit, we were forbidden guns, then knives, then even fingernail clippers. The result? Surely you haven’t forgotten the tragic results of four flying “gun free zones” on September 11th, 2001?

Government is intrusive, but it is incrementally intrusive. When I went to high school, a .22 was in the trunk and squirrels were in peril at the ring of the final bell. Over time, we allowed the Government to incrementally cut back our rights to responsibly possess firearms, even on school grounds, to the point where school shootings, once unheard of, too often lead the news wires.

And now comes yet another misguided corporation, and it establishes a gun free zone in a theater complex in Aurora, CO. One person with reasonable marksmanship skills and a lawfully carried firearm may have been able to stop the shooter. In my musings above I said that little would have been needed to stop this carnage. Researchers have estimated than nearly 2.5 million, yes, million, times each year, a gun is used to defuse a violent or perhaps even lethal confrontation. Does that mean that there are 2.5 million defensive shootings a year? No, not even a fraction of 2.5 million events result in a shot fired. In this instance the shooter would most likely have to have been stopped with lethal force. A small price to pay to save a dozen lives and 50 or so injuries.

I do have a retort for Collins, Bloomberg, McCarthy, CeaseFire, and others. Would you have rather been in that theater sitting beside me, well-armed and capable, or sitting beside me, my very accurate pistol locked in the trunk of my car? You may wish to ask that same question of former Texas legislator Suzanna Gratia-Hupp. I spoke to her at length at a rally in Harrisburg. I still get tears in my eyes listening to, and hanging onto every word she spoke.

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