Some thoughts on Aurora

My heart goes out to the Aurora shooting victims and their families. They should be the focus right now. However, I do have a few words for that sanctimonious sack of shit, Rep. Gohmert, and anyone else who believes that a law-abiding gun-wielding citizen could have stopped this. Gohmert asked, "Did no one else in that Aurora theater have a gun?" No, asshole, because that's not the kind of society--the kind where one feels one must be armed at all times--in which most people want to live. And I say this as a 2nd Amendment supporter.

But, that's a whole other argument. Let's say one or two, or even ten of those moviegoers were armed. Maybe then only 35 people would have been shot instead of 71. Then again, maybe not. It took the entire fucking LAPD an hour to contain TWO armed and armored bank robbers in 1997, and they were in broad daylight in the middle of the fucking street, and even still, one of those guys offed himself only after his weapon jammed. If 40 or 50 police officers, who I assume regularly trained with firearms and for violent situations, had that much difficulty taking down two perpetrators with body armor and weapons out the ass walking down the middle of the street in broad daylight, you can't fucking tell me that Joe Blow in Aurora, who goes to the range to pop a few caps once a month, could have done any better. (I absolutely mean NO disrespect to the police who responded to this incident--they are much braver than I.)

Let's just destroy this myth that once you put a gun in someone's hand they suddenly become Jason Bourne. You might be able to handle a gun. You might even be able to shoot smiley faces in targets at the range when there's no pressure, no surprise, no confusion, no darkness, no teargas, and oh yeah, no bat-shit crazy motherfucker wearing body armor and shooting at you with a much bigger and faster-firing weapon than yours. However, add a few of those conditions, much less ALL of them, and you have a much more fucked up situation than any normal person (normal person=non-Navy Seal), armed or not, is equipped to handle. You're probably doing well just to get down and hide and hopefully save your own ass.

So, fuck you, Rep. Gohmert. I know you would have been down on the floor, shitting your pants like any other normal person, or maybe trying to escape, and that's ok. The world which you envision, where we all walk around strapped and blowing holes in criminals like Dirty Harry is not realistic, and even if it was, I would not want to fucking inhabit it.