Our Early Entries in the List of 2012 Gun Violence Incidents - Another MASS Shooting

This is another one; another mass shooting by one of the gun nuts, this time in Colorado.

I would like to encourage our readers to consider the number of people who die tragically every year because of the bad decision to kill and injure made by people with firearms, specifically, and with dangerous weapons - NOT screwdrivers, spatulas, or plumbers helpers (in other words REAL tools) - generally.

The devastatingly high numbers of those people who are killed, including unarmed men, women, and children, and the increasingly high numbers of law enforcement officers in the performance of their duty, is enormous.  The number of credible, verifiable instances where a firearm saved the lives of someone in the hands of a civilian (as distinct from a member of law enforcement or the military in the course of their duty) is rare; the numbers are so low as to be negligible.

We are, all of us, held hostage by the gun culture and the gun nuts who insist and demand we have no EFFECTIVE regulation, no REASONABLE efforts to limit, restrict or prevent crazy people, drug users, or (effectively) criminals from having access to firearms.  We do not do nearly enough to prevent gun violence.  There is no plausible, OBJECTIVE need for weapons on the scale of what we have now in this country, and LEAST of all for the purposes of self defense or armed resistance to our lawful government.

We are held hostage by people who misuse and falsely define freedom, in a fantasy that in their minds equates to a power they do not in fact have.  It is the tyranny of the weak and delusional over the rest of us who are NOT making our decisions on emotional, not-objective and not factual grounds.

EVERY SINGLE ONE of the people who commit gun violence believe that it is desperately important that THEY have a firearm, that it makes them more powerful in a situation where they lack power and resources, and each and every one of them is convinced that they are correctly using the violent capability of that weapon properly, even when they subsequently kill themselves. They have sufficient conviction of their rightness, of the importance of that freedom to use lethal force against others, to kill or injure others.

EVERY DAMNED TIME.

They are oblivious and unpersuaded of any argument, no matter how valid, to the contrary, because their decisions and premises are not based in rational thought, but in emotions, particularly paranoia, defined as an unreasonable

There are too many gun deaths in this country, and NONE of the statistics on how many gun owners or how many guns we have negates those deaths, the injuries, or those who experience the threats made by gun owners.  All of thees problems are greatly reduced by simply having far fewer guns, and by far stricter thresholds for gun ownership, and FAR more rigorous securing of those firearms they possess.

We pro-guns with stricter accountability and regulation refer to those of you who object to and obstruct reasonable and effective regulation as 'gun nuts' and lunatics / gun loons, because you demonstrate paranoia, which has as common defining characteristics an unreasonable estimation or assessment of danger and risk to the reality, and an obsession that is not grounded in fact of some form of persecution or threat -- in your case, the notion that unknown, random bad guys are going to assault you on the street, or break into your homes, putting your life and limb at risk at some unknown or unexpected time in the future.  The bad guys are not specific individuals, the time is completely unspecific and open ended, the location for this risk------everywhere.  The defining belief - that these people intend to harm you, maybe even kill you.

Wikipedia describes paranoia in the following:

Paranoia [ˌpar.rəˈnoɪ.ə] (adjective: paranoid [ˈpar.rə.noɪd]) is a thought process believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of irrationality and delusion. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs, or beliefs of conspiracy concerning a perceived threat towards oneself. False accusations and the distrust of others also frequently accompany paranoia.
Historically, this characterization was used to describe any delusional state. In modern colloquial use, the term "paranoia" is sometimes misused to describe a phobia. ^[1] The general lack of blame in phobia disorders sharply differentiates the two. In other words, fearing that something bad or harmful might happen does not in itself imply paranoia. Rather, there is an irrational fear of malice by others (excepting rare cases of schizophrenia).

and from dictionary.com:

From the World English dictionary, I am using the term not in its most technical or diagnostic sense, but in the following informal sense because of the lack of correlation to actual risk of needing to respond with lethal force:

3. informal  intense fear or suspicion, esp when unfounded

The following definition is from the dictionary.com site medical dictionary,  and the meaning I'm using is the second one, but both apply. Part of the appeal of paranoia is that the belief that someone targets you for harm implies you are more important than those who are not targeted; it is part of the emotion involved, the self-importance of gun lunacy.

para·noia definition

Pronunciation:  /ˌpar-ə-ˈnȯi-ə/
Function: n
1 :  a psychosis characterized by systematized delusions of persecution or grandeur usually without hallucinations    2 :  a tendency on the part of an individual or group toward excessive or irrational suspiciousness and distrustfulness of others

 
The alternatives to a more rigorous threshold, to testing, to regulation and limitations on gun ownership are week after week after week, month after month, year after year, of individual shootings and mass shooting incidents like the mass shooting in the following article.

It is time that we, the hostages of the gun culture lunatics, to take back the power, that we limit the carrying of firearms to those who have a valid and OBJECTIVE need to do so, instead of some irrational, delusional, hysterical fear but do NOT have a realistic expectation of risk that justifies going armed with lethal force, accompanied by greater amounts of higher quality training and demonstrations of proficiency, with periodic follow ups to see that bot the need and their capability remains high.

Fewer guns equates to less gun violence, far fewer mass shootings, and generally FAR fewer crimes committed with firearms.  That is worth the limitation of regulation.  Prevention is cheaper. better, and far more effective than hoping for retribution afterwards.

From MSNBC.com and the AP:

New Year's shooting at Calif. condo leaves 4 dead

By ELLIOT SPAGAT

updated 1/1/2012 8:54:58 PM ET

CORONADO, Calif. — An early morning New Year's shooting left four people dead at a condominium near San Diego, authorities said Sunday.

Police responded to a 911 cellphone call of shots fired in Coronado, a wealthy seaside suburb of about 24,000 people on San Diego Bay. Officers found a man in the doorway of the condo. The bodies of two men and a woman were discovered inside the condo.
San Diego County sheriff's Lt. Larry Nesbit said homicide investigators have not determined how any of the four died, though Coronado police officers who were first to arrive believe the man found in the doorway was shot.
"They checked and he had no obvious signs of life. They tried to make contact with anyone else that might be inside the building and they got no response," Nesbit said.
A SWAT team sent in a robot to the first floor and later searched the second and third floors, Nesbit said. The three dead bodies were found in "different parts" of the three-story building.
The Naval Criminal Investigative Service was on scene, "in case any of the victims were members of the military," Nesbit said. NCIS spokesman Ed Buice said its investigators were participating in the probe, which was being led by the Sheriff's Department.
The victims' identities hadn't been confirmed.

Asked if the deaths are believed to be a murder-suicide, Nesbit said, "I'll let it infer what it does. We're not going to say that. Although it's very early in the investigation, we don't believe there are any outstanding suspects."
Nesbit said the 911 was placed by a male passer-by who heard gunshots. Authorities received a search warrant Sunday afternoon to enter the three-story condo, which remained cordoned off.
Neighbor Julie Kansy said was awoken at 2:15 am by six pops — three, followed by a short break, then three more.
"At first I thought it's too late for fireworks," she said. "Then I thought it was somebody being stupid and firing shots in the air."
The condo sits a few blocks from the famed Hotel del Coronado and a block from the main street, which is lined with boutiques and restaurants. Curious passers-by asked police what the commotion was about and expressed shock and surprise.
Coronado is home to Naval Air Station North Island and is a haven for Navy retirees. Homicides are extremely rare in Coronado — just one was recorded in 2010.