AURORA | This year could be remembered as the year of the mass shooting after more than 50 people were killed in a handful of shootings across the country.
Now, local and federal lawmakers say they are ready to consider further gun control laws — a move that for the past two decades has been a sort of third rail in American politics. The discussion comes as polls show more Americans want stricter gun controls and gun sales show a large chunk of the populace wants more guns.
Gov. John Hickenlooper told The Associated Press last week that lawmakers should tackle the issue when Colorado’s Legislature convenes in January. Since the July 20 theater shootings in Aurora that left 12 dead and more than 50 wounded, Hickenlooper has largely shied away from discussing gun control. But he seemed in the Dec. 12 interview to favor some control.
“I wanted to have at least a couple of months off after the shooting in Aurora to let people process and grieve and get a little space, but it is, I think, now the time is right,” Hickenlooper said.
Two days after the governor’s comments, a 20-year-old man armed with an assault rifle and two pistols stormed into a Connecticut elementary school and killed 20 first graders and six adults before turning a pistol on himself. The slaughter in Newtown, Conn., led to further calls for gun control, specifically when it comes to assault rifles like the ones used in Aurora, Newtown and Portland, Ore., where a gunman killed two people and wounded a third before killing himself Dec. 10. In all three cases, the gunmen used an AR-15, a popular semi-automatic rifle that resembles the fully-automatic weapons favored by the United States military.
State Sen. John Morse, D-Manitou Springs, said weapons like the AR-15 make sense for the military, but they have no place among civilians.
“We don’t need those weapons in the city streets where they can be used to do exactly what just happened in Aurora,” he said.
Hickenlooper — along with federal lawmakers — also raised concerns about assault rifles.
“When you look at what happened in Aurora, a great deal of that damage was from the large magazine on the AR-15 (rifle),” he told AP. “I think we need to have that discussion and say, ‘Where is this appropriate?’”
But gun advocates say further restrictions on guns won’t mean fewer mass shootings.
Sen. Bill Cadman, R-El Paso County, said the impact lawmakers can have is minimal.
“Someone somewhere is planning to do harm to somebody any given day, and all the laws in the world aren’t going to stop it,” he said.
Richard Abramson, general manager at The Gun Store at Centennial, said the Connecticut case shows that more gun control laws aren’t a deterrent. In that case, police say Adam Lanza stole three guns from his mother, killed her, then went to the school and opened fire.
Abramson said Lanza broke several laws — including laws against people younger than 21 possessing guns, bringing guns to a school, stealing guns and murder.
“He broke four laws right there. Would a fifth one have made any difference?” he said. “More laws aren’t going to make more difference because criminals don’t care about the law.”
Abramson said he would like to see lawmakers take a closer look at mental illness and spotting people who pose a threat before a crime can occur.
Also, Abramson said lawmakers need to allow responsible gun owners to carry firearms in schools and other places where they are currently banned. Those “gun free zones” like the school in Connecticut or the Aurora movie theater attract gunmen who know they won’t meet any resistance, he said.
“The law abiding citizen leaves their guns at home so there is no defense for anybody,” he said. “The good guys obey the law, the bad guys don’t.”
As recently as April, a CBS News poll said just 39 percent of Americans supported stricter gun laws. But now, in the aftermath of the Connecticut shootings, the same poll showed 57 percent of Americans support stricter gun control.
Still, while some may have shifted their stance on gun control after the Connecticut or Aurora shootings, plenty of others responded to the shootings by buying more guns.
According to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, the day after the Connecticut shootings was the busiest in the history of the state’s background check system for gun purchases. More than 4,000 people tried to buy a gun, breaking the previous record set a few weeks prior on Black Friday.
At The Gun Store at Centennial, Abramson said sales have spiked since the shooting, leading to some long wait times for purchases. The floor behind the counter at the sprawling complex near East Arapahoe Road and South Peoria Street is lined with purchased guns just waiting for the go-ahead from a background check.
Abramson said many of the customers are first-timers who have bought a gun because of the recent shootings.
Since the Aurora shooting, a debate has raged about whether an armed moviegoer that night could have slowed down the gunman, who was decked out in body armor and had the benefit of a loud movie blaring behind him as he gunned down his victims.
Abramson said nobody can know the answer to that.
“We just know that nobody was armed in that place except for him,” he said. “So he had his will.”
Aurora Sentinel reporter Sara Castellanos contributed to this report.
“The whole point of the Second Amendment is to preserve the military capacity of the American people
– to preserve the ability of the people, who are the militia, to
provide for their own security as individuals, as neighborhoods, towns,
counties, and states, during any emergency, man-made or natural; to
preserve the military capacity of the American people to resist tyranny
and violations of their rights by oath breakers within government; and
to preserve the military capacity of the people to defend the
Constitution against all enemies, both foreign and domestic, including
those oath breaking domestic enemies within government. It is not about
hunting, and at its core, the Second Amendment is not really even about
self-defense against private criminals. It is about self-defense
against public criminals – against tyrants, usurpers, and foreign invaders.
The truth is that our semi-automatic, military pattern rifles are the single most important kind of arm we can own,
and are utterly necessary for effective defense of our lives, property,
and liberty. When you are disarmed of your military rifles, you are
DISARMED. At that time, the lion’s share of your military capacity to
effectively resist tyranny is removed (yes, accurate bolt action hunting
rifles are useful in that role too, but the semi-auto battle rifle is
truly the Queen of battle, as Col. Jeff Cooper correctly noted). It is
a significant force on the battlefield, and as Patrick Henry said, when
you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined. ” Stewart Rhodes
I understand that our Mayor is not joining the bi-partisan coalition of 750 mayors on issues relating to gun control. So what is he proposing to do keep us safe. He mentioned in another article it was a state issue. If this is really a state issue then how do we keep these crazy people from coming to Aurora, a? Like some say – it isn’t guns that kill people it is people who kill people. We should make anyone that comes to Aurora take a mental health test?
Yes, we do have rights to carry a gun to protect ourselves from crazzies but do I want to live in a town where I “have” to carry a gun. Do I want go to place where the clerk in a store is carrying a gun. Who is to say they are not one of the crazzies. If I tell this clerk I don’t like the service am I now afraid this person will shoot me or others. If I’m a clerk in a store that didn’t give good service, am I not afraid I will be shot and killed because the cream sauce is too salty. This is the real slippery slope we should be watching for and does our mayor know what he’s stepped in.
In 1982 Kennesaw, GA passed a law that required each head of the household to maintain a firearm and ammunition.
In 1982 their violent crime rate was 4332 per 100,000 citizens. Significantly higher than the national average. In 2005 the crime rate was 2027 per 100,000. This, despite a 500% population increase.
Now compare that to Morton Grove Ill. A town who passed a gun ban in 1981. Their crime rate jumped 15% after the gun ban, despite a cook county crime increase of only 3%.
I bring this up not to say we should require handguns, but to point out that requiring everyone to carry a gun does not have the effect you fear.
I congratulate the mayor for not giving in to media and peer pressure.
Jason. I will note that Colorado has more guns per 100,000 than Georgia and it doesn’t seem to protect up from the big ones. And that other state you quoted also has more guns than Georgia per 100,000.
While the press and others with an “attitude” focus on guns being the problem – explain why one mentally challanged individual decided to start a
fire [ARSON] at an apartment complex near Anschutz Medical Campus – killing 2 people, wounding many more and destroying an entire building – the press and politically motivated people completely ignor the FACT that no guns were involved – – – only a match and some gasoline!
Whats the common thread – not guns, rather it is mentally challanged people who kill. Lets get real and focus on the mentally challanged – not guns!!!