Comments on: Thoughts on Aurora

By: FactsnotFallacies

FactsnotFallacies — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 18:04:57 +0000

Bruce, I would love your critique on the following:

And there are no legal “assault” weapons right now. Only semi-auto rifles, and the AR-style weapons used in the shooting ARE using for sport:

By: mike

mike — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 03:29:12 +0000

Guess we will have to agree to disagree on this one.

By: Bruce C

Bruce C — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 02:03:10 +0000

Mike – apples and oranges here. Assault weapons have no purpose other than to kill. It is as simple as that.

By: mike

mike — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 15:34:18 +0000

I certainly understand your point, but I’m not sure I’m there.

If we’re using analogies we could consider this: in roughly the same time period as the shootings 14 people were killed in a truck accident (the truck was overloaded and a tire popped causing the accident apparently.) Using the same logic, we should ban trucks because more people can be killed more quickly in a truck than a standard car. And, cars are dangerous. Many times the number of people are killed in incidents involving vehicles every year than in incidents like Aurora. Clearly, vehicles are a menace to society and we should turn off the tap on the overflowing vehicle tub. Vehicles, mismanaged, are every bit as dangerous as weapons.

The analogy breaks down at some point, but to me the logic is the same.

By: Bruce C

Bruce C — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 11:16:23 +0000

One has to start somewhere. Not any different than turning off the tap in an overflowing tub.

By: mike

mike — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 04:49:35 +0000

But how can you reasonably do this? There are so many distributed in so many hands already. House to house search? Even if outlawed or restricted today, these things would be in society for hundreds of years to come.

By: Bruce C

Bruce C — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 21:03:25 +0000

Perhaps these things are true. And I cannot deny the statement that guns don’t kill people – people with guns kill people. But one thing I am certain of, people with assault weapons kill more people faster. There is no place for such weapons in our society. I would take them away.