President Barack Obama and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney have both passed through the San Francisco Bay Area. Each offered words of sympathy and eloquence to remember the victims and soothe the survivors of the July 20 movie-theater massacre in Aurora, Colo.
Neither was brave enough to talk about the most obvious lesson of the scale of that horror: Weapons of war such as the AR-15 assault rifle do not belong in civilian hands.
Romney spoke to supporters who had paid between $2,500 and $10,000 at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco to hear what he had to say about free trade. Obama was filling his campaign coffers at the Fox Theater in Oakland, talking up his economic plans to supporters who paid between $100 and $7,000. If they can’t bring up the critical issue of gun control in the Bay Area in front of the friendliest of their many audiences — and in a state where legislators had the sense to outlaw assault rifles such as the model that was unleashed on theatergoers in Colorado — how will they bring it up before Congress?
The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence estimates that there have been 334,168 gun deaths since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
In the wake of this latest tragedy, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., has been one of the few people in Washington to call for a renewal of the federal ban on assault weapons, a ban that she originally authored in 1993 after another mass shooting. The ban expired in 2004 for no reason other than political timidity.
Expressions of grief and condolences, however genuinely delivered, will not stop anyone from going into a gun shop to buy an AR-15. This nation deserves leadership, and action, to stop the madness.
San Francisco Chronicle (July 23)
Citing the Brady Campaign on guns is like citing Velikovsky on astronomy.
AHHHHHHH hahahaha! Great stuff.
How many hundreds of millions have been murdered, in the 20th century alone, by governments? Since this comes out of San Fransisco, which has much tougher gun laws than Maine, why don’t you tell us about the gun free paradise that is California versus the war zone of Maine? People simply do not seem to understand that the reason our founders wanted a well armed populace is so that we could protect ourselves from government!
Some of the locales with the toughest gun laws are murder capitals. Chicago for instance.
Hey wait a minute. I thought Chicago had a top notch community organizer. How can it be that they are a murder capital?
It has hardly been a week and the ultra liberals are going to use this tragedy to try and leverage their utopian big brother knows best legislation.
This guy was intelligent and all he had to do was lie on forms or find some local drug dealer to get hooked up with some weapons. He was unstable and insane and going to do this no mater what. Even if he didnt get his hands on firearms he could have bombed the theater or torched it to the ground.
No doubt he is a psychopath as shown by his actions. However those who now seek to disarm and punish the rest of us are the real psychopaths. They believe their own mantra of protectionism and government intervention and intrusion. Their ideas for the utopian paradise of brotherhood is unachievable at this point in our evolution. Human will is to much of a variable as we have seen in Colorado and elsewhere.
I have a different question on the shootings in Aurora. Where did the money to aquire the firearms, body armor, ammunition and other things come from?
The Perp was an unemployed student and had $20K+ dollars in his pocket to purchase these things? It seems unlikely.
How many Grad student at the University of Maine could make such purchases in any year, never mind over a period of months.
where did you get 20K dude seriously? I saw some idiot on yahoo comments post the same thing. Let me break down the cost of this for you.
level iii soft kevlar body armor $1000.00
+ helmet if he had one $300.00
Working gas mask $100.00
tactical vest or chest rig $100.00
2 glock 17 pistols $900.00
1 Mossberg 500 pump action 12 gauge $200.00
1 Standard setup AR15 $1500.00
magazine and accessories for AR $300.00
ammunition they say he had $500.00
I highballed the hell outta these #’s you can shop around and buy used gear @ army navy stores and stuff. less than $5000.00 for this gear.
You can walk into any walmart and sign up for a discover card with a $3000.00 limit walk out call and get the limit up’d to $4000.00 same day. could also use the same card to purchase gear @ walmart.
This isnt a big mystery where the money came from. He could have bought it on credit sold some of his possessions.
In the day and age of worthless paper money it isnt hard to leverage a few grand in credit in a day or two.
Do we know how the purchases were made? I have not heard anything about cash, check, debit card, credit card or USPS money order.
Until that is known should we be speculating? My questio was just where did the money come from.
Whats wrong with speculating? The media does it why can’t I lol. Plus my speculations are at least based in some factual logic. If you had nothing to loose rapidly acquiring debt probably wouldn’t be a concern.
for whatever reason disqus didnt like my last comment and ate it. only $5000 tops worth of gear. easy to get 5g’s in credit it on a few different cards.
He carried better than 3 grand in firearms alone The body armor is at least 5 grand and a few thousand bullets would be at least another 1500 dollars. stop talking about things you have no idea of what you are talking about. Take just fifteen minutes on line and find out.
ahhh my other post went up. read that.
you obviously are the one with no clue. look at this link someone right here in maine has on uncle henrys for soft body armor.
http://www.unclehenrys.com/init/classifieds/ad_detail/4016727/?_next=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.unclehenrys.com%2Finit%2Fsearch%2Fresults%2F1%234016727
here is a link to a brand new vest for under $1000.00 and it has plate carriers on it for level IV hard armor which is hard to acquire and actually illegal in most states I believe.
Body armor is not $5000
I actually own these things. I participate in the firearms market. Yes you read yahoo news which is always right. Because everything on the internet is true!
If he has 6000 rounds of ammuntion in .223 that would be about 1400 in cheap tula/wolf steel case and about 1900 in brass case ammo. However I assume its a mixed bag of ammo of .223, 12 gauge, and 9mm. so could be anywhere from $600-$3000 in ammo.
read my other post on the break down in cost. A savvy shopper could outfit themselves for under $5k easy.
Pluuuuze. he was covered with BODY armor.” He wore a ballistic helmet, a ballistic vest, ballistic leggings, a throat protector, a groin protector, and tactical gloves. “
As smart as he was, I’m sure he could have devised something fare more destructive than what he did.
exactly my point. Look at the enemy we fought in the sandbox for the last 10 years. the majority of those dudes were not half as smart as this guy and they took a devastating toll with improvised explosives.
334168 gun deaths over what period? The entire 20th Century?
I can cite 2010 stats showing less than 9400 murders by firearms. Where are the rest of those grim deaths coming from?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/jan/10/gun-crime-us-state
FACT: There are far more vehicular deaths than firearm deaths every single year.
http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx
Cite real numbers here or don’t hit the submit button. These “shock” numbers are meaningless to those who know the truth.
There has been no deaths caused by firearms period end of discussion.
There are deaths caused by individuals WITH firearms but in no instance has a firearm caused a death without some kind of intervention.
Apparently, government forces gunning down dissidents and other “undesirables” doesn’t count as gun crime.
How can a country that only averages 16000 or so annual murders over the same period, average 30, 378 gun deaths per annum over the same period? Are we to believe that in addition to the fact that every murder is committed with a gun, there are also another 14,000 suicides and accidental deaths by guns every year? Wow? Numbers check, anyone?
Yawn, just another mindless piece of liberal propaganda designed to rile up the BDN’s base.
oops here is the link for the new piece.
http://www.qmuniforms.com/Brands/GH-Armor/GH-Body-Armor-Pro-Vest-Level-3A-Navy.axd?utm_source=GPS&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=GPS