I watch the ripples change their size
But never leave the stream
Of warm impermanence
And so the days float through my eyes
But still the days seem the same
And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations
They're quite aware of what they're goin' through

Sunday, July 22, 2012

The stupid gets into full windup

Sigh, the crazy train keeps rolling. Sure, let's not blame the victims or anything. No offense, former Sen. Russell Pearce, but shut the fuck up.

Look, I have some training in firearms (and I have all the training required to hold a concealed carry permit in the State of Ohio). I'm actually a pretty damn good shot. But in a darkened theater with flickering lights, the chaos of the crowd, the smoke from his grenades, and the adrenaline that would be pumping through me at that moment, I wouldn't even try to take the shot because it's a damn good chance (I would put it at over 99%) that if I would hit something other than a wall it would be another audience member.

Plus, and I can't stress this strongly enough, the fucker had body armor on. The only shot I would have tried (and that anybody would have had a chance of making) would be center mass. Dear Senator, guess where the fucking armor is (police reports also say he had a helmet, leg protectors, and throat, neck and face protectors). The only way to have dropped him would have been a head shot, or arm or leg shot (see comment about extra protection, probably wouldn't have been successful anyway). Damn difficult shots to take quickly in the best of circumstances, impossible in those.

And I hate to tell you this, but your hero worship is woefully misplaced and the result of brain washing from watching too many John Ford type westerns while grown up. You've been telling yourself lies about what people actually do. It takes a lot to rush a cabin that has someone with a knife inside. It takes a hell of a lot more to rush an active shooter.

2 comments:

Nathan said...

I don't care what he claims he meant. That's just reprehensible.

Eric said...

Thanks to firearm restrictions at airports and on airplanes, the terrorists on Flight 93 were only armed with knives and not with an assault rifle with 100-round drum and two pistols, along with body armor and some kind of smoke grenades.

It seems to me that if you're going to compare apples and oranges by comparing Aurora to September 11th, the conclusion you have to reach is that gun restrictions level the playing field because knives are far-more-limited in their ability to cause harm than handguns and rifles. That five maniacs with knives are more easily stopped than one guy with an assault rifle--surely that isn't a shocking discovery?

One of the things we don't know, of course--and this is part of what is so vile about Pearce's Twitter rants--is how many people were felled--whether killed or injured--running towards the shooter. I think there's some likelihood that the answer was more than one, but it would have been as quixotic as chivalrous. (I do know at least one person was wounded trying to apply first aid to his girlfriend, who was fatally injured and died in the theatre. Another three men died shielding their girlfriends with their own bodies. Yes, indeed, where were the brave men? Pearce is a fucking rat.)