It’s bad news: Until we deal with American gun lords, we’re never going to stop shootings like the 2013 Arapahoe High School catastrophe, exposed in a shocking report Monday.

Nothing is going to happen. Nothing.

The 141-page report released Jan. 18 revealed exactly how a mentally ill high school student stormed into yet another local high school, this time shooting to death fellow student Claire Davis and himself.

The investigation showed that Karl Pierson had long demonstrated serious psychological problems. He was unable to control his anger and behavior. Teachers knew it. Administrators knew it. His parents knew it. Despite this, he was able to easily get a gun, get it to school and start killing. The circumstances leading to the shooting are strikingly similar to those that led to the tragedies at Columbine High School, the Aurora theater massacre, the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, and many others.

Sick people with unhampered access to guns easily unleash chaos and death in schools, theaters — everywhere. We have done absolutely nothing to stop it. We don’t because American gun lords are ruling Congress, state legislatures and even city councils. It has become a national disgrace and an abomination of American values.

Here’s the deal, Colorado. We can come at the problem of gun violence and mass shootings two ways: We can make it demonstrably more difficult to gun up in this country, or we can look seriously for mentally ill people who might go off, and stop them. In another place and time, we would do both, but not here. Not now.

I guarantee you gun lords at the National Rifle Association, locally at the Rocky Mountain Gun Owners group, will have none of it. They’re already yanking the political choke collars of their puppets in Congress and at the Colorado Capitol, and their critics are running scared.

Here in Colorado, milquetoast gun laws spawn from Aurora’s massacre — requiring universal background checks and a reduction of the size of ammo magazines — brought gun lords down on three Democratic state lawmakers in 2013. Petrified state legislators here and in Congress aren’t about to offer any meaningful reforms, such as limiting sales of military-style weapons, mass purchases of ammunition, trigger locks or outright bans on assault rifles. The gun lords have thrown the gauntlet. They won’t even allow the Centers for Disease Control to study the plague of violence that kills about 90 people in this country every day, tens of thousands a year.

So if gun lords won’t let us make it harder for sick and malevolent people to get guns, we have to be able to identify and stop them from getting their guns to places where they can kill people.

We know what to look for. Pierson, along with James Holmes, Adam Lanza and Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood shooter Robert Dear, were nearly poster children for people most likely to become mass shooters, but no one stopped them. So to stop the next Pierson, we have to allow schools, psychiatrists and police to assess these people, dig into homes, email, computers and then confiscate guns and other weapons for those who pose a hazard to others, even go so far as to lock up these “suspects.” We’re looking for people who are angry or disassociated with everything. People who say wild and outrageous things, are paranoid and beyond simply annoying in their obsessions with guns or shutting people up. What doesn’t say “red flags waving here” like someone trying to amass an arsenal in their home or posting angry, strident rants all over the Internet?

There is no doubt that gun lords aren’t going to let cops knock on those doors, ask questions, force some to undergo psychiatric testing, maybe take their guns away until everyone is certain they’re not going to shoot a congresswoman, a movie theater, a Planned Parenthood clinic — or your kid, your neighbor, or you.

Gun lords won’t even allow the Centers for Disease Control to study the problem. And Congress won’t even insist that someone do something about a gang of angry gunmen who’ve taken over a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon. And if the cops wanted to peek into your computer and armory? Does that go on your “record”? Two strikes and you’re out of target practice forever? Ain’t going to happen.

Until the public expresses its outrage at how gun lords preclude even discussion about reasonable and effective ways to curb gun violence, nothing will change. Until lawmakers refuse to accept donations from any pro- or anti-gun advocacy group, cops will continue to break down on courtroom stands retelling how they had to scoop up the bodies of kids shot to death in clinics, shopping malls or theaters. Parents will tense every time they hear “lockdown” at a local school. We will all live in fear of being in public.

This is the “freedom” we get until we muster the courage to make gun lords give us back the real thing. When will you or your elected official finally take them on? We’re all just dying to know.

Follow @EditorDavePerry on Twitter and Facebook, or reach him at 303-750-7555 or dperry@aurorasentinel.com.

15 replies on “PERRY: No hope to stop the next shooting tragedy until we take on U.S. gun lords”

  1. Sure, ‘fight against the American constitution’, not against the criminals. You liberals will never make any sense, I’m certain you cannot see your nose for your face.

    1. You liberals? Another of gooey ‘s typical nonsensical comments. No racist overtones this time a rarity for goo man.

  3. “Until we deal with American gun lords, we’re never going to stop shootings like the 2013 Arapahoe High School catastrophe, exposed in a shocking report Monday.”
    Do you remember what prevented further loss of life? The presence of an armed officer at the school which caused the murderer to take his own life.

  4. “or we can look seriously for mentally ill people who might go off, and stop them.”
    Who would define this and make this assessment? What is “seriously mentally ill”? A progressive liberal? Someone is already barred from purchasing a gun if they have been committed for mental health reasons.

  5. So by gun lords do you mean MILLIONS of private individuals who do not want your fascist ideals? That is who make up the NRA and the people who brought down the traitorous Colorado law makers.

  6. 2/3 of the 30,000 (90 a day) gun deaths are voluntary suicide. That figure also includes negligent discharges (about 500 a year) and justifiable homicide. In 2014, there were less than 9,000 people murdered with a firearm and the murder rate was at a 55 year low.

    These are just some of the facts that Dave Perry won’t include in his opinion pieces because they don’t support his progressive Democrat agenda. I call it lying by omission – you know, like the Democrat front runner, Hillary Clinton.

    I would love to hear your thoughts Dave on how you would go about barring these people from firearms? While I certainly can’t disagree that people with severe mental health issues AND exhibiting signs of violence should be nowhere near a gun (hammer, rock, propane tanks, etc) unless they are adjudicated mentally ill in a court or have a criminal record, they will pass a background check.

    Do you want to put anyone who has ever sought treatment for any issue to be in the prohibited list? Putting aside the serious consequence that millions of people will no longer seek treatment if they know they will be put on a “list”, it’s also crossing the line on privacy and going to far to label many of them as mentally unstable when that may not be the case at all.

    Obama directed the CDC to research the problem right after Sandy Hook and they did come back with a report. However, the results didn’t look too damning of gun owners so it more or less was swept under the rug

    https://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/crime/item/15941-cdc-study-ordered-by-obama-contradicts-white-house-anti-gun-narrative

    Furthermore, the problem is the mandate is to research GUN violence which is biased from the outset. Why not all forms of violence? Is there not other forms of violence? Shouldn’t the desired outcome be to better understand the causes of violent behavior? Yes Dave, it should.

    Let me make this perfectly clear to you Dave. The NRA did not initiate nor condone the recalls until late in the process and AFTER your buddy, Nanny Bloomberg put in $350,000 to try to save the Constitution trampling State Senators. NRA didn’t even match Bloomberg’s money. The recalls of Morse and Giron were initiated by constituents and it was run by grassroots organizers from stat to finish. This is a blatant lie to vilify the NRA. You’re lies are disgraceful.

    Rifles, of all types Dave, account for just 3% of all murders with firearms and 2% of all murders. Rifles of the type you erroneously call “assault rifles” account for much less, probably 1% of all firearms murders.

    Please tell me how limiting bulk ammo sales will save a single soul? You can restrict a person to 20 rounds a month (which will NEVER happen) and in a few months, the perp would have plenty of ammo for an attack. This is probably the biggest red herring yet.

    No Dave, your ideas such as making it harder to get a gun, bans on semi autos and buying ammo have one intention and it’s not public safety. It’s to harass lawful gun owners into submission to give up being a gun owner. And grave dancing on victims is intended to shame gun owners from exercising a Constitutional right.

    The shame is on you Dave.

  7. There goes Dave again with his hyperbole … “gun lords” and “milquetoast gun laws”.

    Indeed, Dave’s alarmism reminds me of Dorothy of “The Wizard of Oz” when she exclaimed “Wizards and scarecrows and witches, oh my.”

  8. Not surprised to see the impotent angry white men rear their high anxiety and low education heads after anyone suggests we regulate firearms like we do many other things in our society. A law does not have to be 100% effective to be of benefit to society…reasonable people are just trying to pass reasonable gun laws to protect some people some of the time. Self-radicalized gun-hadists will never accept anything but total and complete freedom to hoard, sell, trade, shoot, open carry and suck on as many firearms as the NRA tells them they need to protect themselves against the unspecified danger here in America. The radicalization of these nervous white men is complete… but luckily they represent only 19% of the population and reasonable people will support reasonable laws coming up here… real soon.

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