Op-ed from One-Eyed –
Conceal and Carry and Batman!
Would a ‘Conceal and Carry’ citizen have stopped the Colorado shootings?
It’s easy to look back now at the series of unfortunate events and conclude that if someone in the audience was carrying, they could have likely jumped up and fired upon this man, quickly dissolving the problem.
But what you might not consider, how many people were dressed up? This is a very popular thing to do at movie premiers of which super heroes or other costume clad actors are the stars. Whether its Frodo or Darth Vador as well.
Did this person blend in with other costumed fans? Was it a theater full of villains and super heroes?
Since the gun fire was very rapid, and this person seemed to target nobody in particular but rather random people in the audience while strafing the isles…. it could be easy to determine who the shooter was and therefore it sounds plausible that a ‘conceal and carry’ person could have easily ended the situation.
But now image a single gun shot, lots of people dressed up and franticly moving about. Now say you have four ‘conceal and carry’ persons all try to diffuse the scenario. They could not know for sure who to shoot at, and so now you would have multiple persons shooting at each other, making for a very dangerous and confusing situation. Right?
Now imagine that the police have just walked in. There is only one ‘bad guy’ in this scenario, but the police see five gunmen all firing upon each other. They are trained to quickly take these people out, no questions asked.
How is a member of the audience, who came to see the movie and is probably focused on the screen suppose to diffuse this type of situation? He took a test to handle that weapon, but he is not trained to observe, identify and diffuse this type of threat. All he can do is point and fire at who he assumes is the bad guy.
Remember them scenes from the old movies where the cop would round a corner and find two men standing, both pointing a gun at each other. The cop being confused at who to shoot at, since he didn’t see any prior events, he only heard some shots in the distance and came to assist. And almost at once, each of the two men frantically try to persuade the cop to shoot at “Not me, him!” “No, shoot the other guy, I’m the good guy!”, “Nah uh, I’m the real good guy..!”
Well, its a fifty/fifty chance that things are gonna work out for you.
What if there are two crazed shooters? You don’t know at the time what exactly is going on. Maybe a similar situation happens again, but this time there is not only a shooter walking the isles, but also a shooter who is seated.
Is this man, who just stoop up and is now brandishing a weapon, a ‘conceal and carry hero’ or is he another ‘bad guy’? Who do I shoot at? I suppose you can identify yourself, hopefully quickly and accurately enough to avoid confusion. Still sounds risky though.
I just don’t see how allowing all these ‘Conceal and Carry’ citizens out and about everywhere are really gonna help.
The ‘conceal and carry’ could possibly work best by only having one person in each theater. One designated person so that no confusion could be created.
For example, a security guard. Someone who is trained not only to use but to diffuse. This person is to constantly scan the crowd, not watch the movie.
Besides, adding anymore guns to the mix is just gonna create more chaos and bloodshed.
And what are average citizens doing with assault rifles? Just what can you legally do with these things? Can someone please enlighten me on why we need these? Banana clips or drums?
People want the Right to Bare Arms, but they don’t want to carry around a musket or drag a cannon everywhere, do they?
They want Modern 21st Century Weapon Technology protected by an old, out dated 19th century Bill of Rights.
The Right to Bear Arms? Sure, when there is a Civil War going on, I’d be
happy to hand out MUSKETS to all of our minutemen. But that’s not the case anymore is it?
Can you imagine a ‘shooting spree’ ever taking place if all we had were muskets?
It’s not possible.
Heck, if you think about it, Lincoln being assassinated might just be the first ever ‘movie theater shooting spree.’ I don’t mean to make a joke, but think about it. If Booth had an assault rifle, the headline might have been different.
Lets say for every 100,000 people, there is one nut job with a gun who will shoot
a few people. Now what’s a better idea?
Concentrate on giving those 100,000 people a deadly loaded weapon to carry around everywhere or work on taking away that 1 gun from the nut job??
Giving out hand guns to everyone, to prevent shootings in public places, is like saying we
should put more drivers on the road to look for drunk drivers….in order to prevent
drunk driving related car crashes!!….Wow, What the heck?? Does that make any sense
to you now??
So if we let all these people carry guns around to protect themselves and others from the crazies
at the mall. Then I should be able to protect myself as well……from terrorists. Which is why I
should be able to mount an M-60 machine gun and some anti-aircraft missiles on my car.
I hope I don’t void the automobiles warranty.
