Colorado has been the site of some high-profile mass murders. One thinks of the massacre at Columbine High School in 1999, which involved 15 deaths plus the two shooters. The massacre at a movie theatre in 2012 in Aurora, which involved 12 deaths. The massacre at a supermarket in Boulder, where 10 people died. Five people died at a gay nightclub in Colorado Springs in 2023. Curtailing access to guns may be one way to limit future killers.
Colorado would ban the sale, transfer and importation of so-called assault weaponsunder a bill introduced Tuesday in the state House.
The measure, HB24-1292, is similar to legislation that a House committee killed last spring in its first hearing, but this year’s version may have better chances. The new bill would define assault weapons as including semi-automatic rifles and pistols with fixed large-capacity magazines or the ability to accept detachable magazines, along with several other types of high-powered firearms.
It would not ban the possession of the weapons but would prohibit the “manufacturing, importing, purchasing, selling, offering to sell or transferring” of them, with exemptions for police and the military. It also would prohibit the possession of rapid-fire trigger activators, Seth Klamann reports.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
MASS SHOOTINGS aren’t a mental health problem — every industrialized nation in the world has approximately the same level of mental health problems in its population — yet no other nation has the daily mass slaughter that takes place in the United States, and that’s because guns are strictly regulated in all those nations. The mass murder problem in the U.S. isn’t a mental health issue — it’s a gun control issue; namely, the lack of effective gun control in America.
THE U.S. SUPREME COURT HAS INVITED LAWMAKERS TO CRAFT SPECIFIC GUN REGULATIONS — here’s how the Court laid out the outline for lawmakers to follow in crafting gun control that the Court will approve as constitutional:
SUPREME COURT’S BLUEPRINT FOR GUN CONTROL:
The U.S. Supreme Court has provided a clear blueprint for laws or a constitutional amendment that will put restrictions on gun ownership and usage. Here is the blueprint the Court laid out in its Heller decision:
“Like most rights, THE RIGHT SECURED BY THE SECOND AMENDMENT IS NOT UNLIMITED…” [it is] “…not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.” Those are the words of the CONSERVATIVE MAJORITY of the U.S. Supreme Court justices in their Heller ruling.
Lawmakers must take time to read the rest of what the conservative justices wrote on pages 54-55 of the Heller ruling, as follows:
“We also recognize another important limitation on the right to keep and carry arms. Miller [an earlier case decided by the Supreme Court] said, as we have explained, that the sorts of weapons protected were those ‘in common use at the time’ [when the 2nd Amendment was written]. We think that limitation is fairly supported by the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of ‘dangerous and unusual weapons’.” The Second Amendment became part of the Constitution more than 230 years ago in 1791. The very first semi-automatic gun was not invented until nearly a 100 years after that, in 1885. Most guns in use at the time that the Second Amendment was written were single-shot muzzle loaders.
The conservative Court went on:
“Nothing in our [Heller] opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or on laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.”
The CONSERVATIVE majority DID NOT HAVE TO write these things into their ruling — but they did because they were INVITING Congress and state lawmakers to craft laws that fit the Court’s stated outlines to control the sale of guns in general and especially control and limit the sales of assault rifles and high-capacity magazine cases. But Congress doesn’t have the moral integrity or the decency to do that, even in the face of repeated slaughter of school children.
So, why aren’t legislatures in Blue States crafting gun control laws that fit the standards provided by the Supreme Court? Tell lawmakers at every level right now that they have been given clearance by the Supreme Court to craft effective gun control laws — and hold lawmakers accountable at the ballot box if they fail to act.
You can read the Court’s Heller ruling at:
Click to access usrep554570.pdf
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“The mass murder problem in the U.S. isn’t a mental health issue.”
Yes, it is. . . the collective mental health of Amurikans has been destroyed by religious faith beliefs which engender a tribal attitude that allows for the massive killing of others who aren’t part of that tribe.
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Until this country ends its love affair with everything military. . . until this country ceases to be the world’s largest exporter of death and destruction. . . until we get the Military, Industry and Congressional Congress under control. . . the death and destruction blowback will continue in myriad forms.
Amurika’s obsession with being the supposed top dog will be its downfall.
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Duane,
I wonder if you would have said the same in 1939?
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I have no idea what I might have thought as I wasn’t alive at the time. We didn’t have a “love affair with everything military” at the time.
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Duane,
In a better world, we would destroy all weapons of war. We would beat our swords into ploughshares.
Sadly, there is evil in the world. I can think of several nations that would destroy us if they thought they could, and that already possess nuclear weapons. There are terrorist groups that butcher people in Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere.
We need the military to protect us in a very dangerous world.
There were many who agreed with you in the 1930s. They stood for isolationism and disarmament. My dear friend Bayard Rustin spent time in federal prison because of his Quaker pacifism. Later, however, he regretted his pacifism because he didn’t realize how evil Hitler was.
I wish the world was a better place. I wish that there were no evil people and leaders.
But in the real world, I’m grateful for the service of those who defend our freedoms.
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Well said! And spot on!
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Defend our freedoms?
Really, blowing up innocents is defending “our freedoms”?
No, that’s just militaristic propaganda.
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So you agree with Trump: let Putin do whatever he wants to our allies in Europe.
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I didn’t say anything about Putin. So, no.
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This is treasonable idiocy on your part. I am profoundly, deeply offended. The United States military is the reason why Russia hasn’t long ago tried to overrun Europe. It is the reason why North Korea has not bombed South Korea into the stone age. It is the reason why China has not invaded Taiwan. It is the reason why Hitler did not take all of Europe and the United States. It is the reason why Imperial Japan didn’t take all of Asia. And on and on and on. Your take on the U.S. military is shameful. You dishonor the many, many people in uniform and the millions of workers here at home in the defense industries who give their lives to the noble cause of protecting us and the rest of the freaking world. Your comment is abominable, shameful, disgusting, and imbecilic.
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Treasonable. . . ???? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ad infinitum. Oh, please Mr. Patriot beat me until I agree with you. . .
. . . or your arm falls off. . .
which would come first.
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I stand by what I have stated.
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Exactly. A LOT of people imagine that the world is a LOT safer than it is because they have not YET lived in a war zone. The Pax Americana that exists right now is because of the American military. Period. We are the guardians of the entire civilized world. We are the only thing that stands between ourselves and that world and decimation and absolute tyranny.
Walk softly and carry an overwhelmingly devastating deterrent. That’s sanity.
No one else is going to carry this burden. No one else has this ball.
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Diane: my father was a pacifist in WWII. Growing up in the wake of the horrible mistake they called The Great War, it was easy for a person to suggest that pacifism was preferable to war. I always wondered what he thought about his stance thereafter, but he was disabled by the time I matured enough to ask. I think his opposition to the Soviets was, like so many, born of his horror at Hitler and the Holocaust. But by the time I was old enough to pose these questions, he was too emotional to treat tension bearing topics.
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Diane Ravitch, if you can find video footage about this so-called massacre at Columbine, that might convince more people that it happened as it is described. Even eyewitness accounts would be more believable than just claiming that it happened without proof.
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Gosh, can you believe that no one made a video at Columbine? I should think the dead bodies and the eyewitness accounts matter.
How do we know that there was a Civil War? There are no videos.
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The United States is the shield of the civilized world. Thanks be to all the gods that we are able to do that. Yes, it’s costly. But the cost of not bearing that burden would be far, far, far greater. If not for the United States military, the world would be plunged into brutal, lawless, internecine chaos of the like that has not been seen since the European Early Middle Ages. Why is there safe international trade? The US military. Why is the United Nations able, generally, to insist on international law, such as the conventions on genocide, and the territorial integrity of UN member states? Because in general, when rogue states go rogue, the US has the firepower to intervene, to play cop. Why has NATO kept the Soviet Union and then Russia at bay? Because NATO can depend upon the overwhelming power of the US military. Why have we not had nuclear war? Because the United States has a powerful nuclear deterrent. And so on. Everywhere, around the world, when malefactors consider a course of action, they have to worry about whether the US can intervene. NO OTHER COUNTRY CAN SERVE IN THIS ROLE. Only we can, because of our vast military capability. If that capability were gone or reduced, all hell would erupt worldwide. Nothing would work. There would be wars and wars and wars. Whole peoples would starve because of trade disruptions.
People need to live in the freaking real world.
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I got to thinking about this view of world order after reading this. The fact of great power after World War II led the United States into and out of the Cold War. There have been times when we have made good decisions about how to use our power, and times when our use of the military has undermined the very diplomatic advantage it gives us.
One thesis on the expansion of The Roman Republic holds that the Roman Empire was born of defensive imperialism. The larger and more powerful the empire was, the more it was the target for attacks. They would return these attacks by demolishing their foes and dominating the new territory.
In general, power creates responsibility that requires increasing sophistication in its exercise. The reason is that power creates the temptation to simply crush opposition with a powerful military. The resulting peace is more of an occupation, which creates more strife. The towering power thus becomes the object of a sort of secondary hostility, born of the occupation rather than the original grievances. Administration of the peace is always more difficult than military victory, and requires long term dedication to the promotion of social order and human rights.
This is why the empire works better than the republic. The empire does not have to worry about the human rights part. People conquered by dictatorship are simply put to the sword. If the ultimate goal is peace and human rights, there is a problem.
The United States finds itself on a position of having the great military power. It has occasionally used this power effectively. It has sometimes used it unwisely, casting doubt on its real intentions. We desperately need wise voices to explain in good faith our motivation for using our military might, and sophisticated voters to tell the difference between leadership that would use this power for short term peace and not for personal gain.
As Shakespeare had old Gobbo say in Merchant of Venice: twill be a hard way to hit.
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Interesting, Roy. A couple of points:
First, as you know, Rome was able to be as far-flung as it was at its height because it did not try simply to impose its will everywhere. Instead, it choose local governors from among local persons, who in turn had their own governmental apparatuses, backed by Rome WHEN NECESSARY. The situation is similar today. Japan does not have to worry about being invaded by China or about its shipping of goods to Europe and America because it knows that it is, rather than being occupied, under the U.S. umbrella. It is to some extent, as the entire civilized world is today, a U.S. protectorate.
Second, as you hint at, with the reality of the U.S. serving as the de facto police force worldwide comes the high moral responsibility of using that force responsibly and to the common good. Consider a police force in a city. If it is, as such forces have been at times, itself corrupt–if officers are dealing heroin and getting kickbacks from brothels–then it is not doing its duty. It is a criminal organization. And such officers within a police department who behave in such a way need to be hunted down, tried, and imprisoned. This is just what made people like Richard Nixon; Henry Kissinger; George Bush, Jr.; and Dick Cheney so vile, so loathsome. They were like cops who are dealing heroin and protecting illegal gambling–they were violating their duty. The duty of the U.S. is to keep the Pax Americana, not to violate the peace and international law by supporting dictators like Pinochet, Marcos, the Shah of Iran, Suharto, etc., conducting illegal wars like the First Iraq War., and conducting wars illegally like the War in Vietnam. NB: It is my contention that it is not only possible to oppose misuse of military might by the U.S. but necessary on the part of those who accept, as I do, the the necessity of maintaining overwhelming military American military might, might sufficient to serving in its role as the protector of democracy and economic flourishing worldwide.
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So, a couple realities:
a. If the United States loses the military might to act as protector of the free world, then all hell breaks loose. There are innumerable wars, dislocations of populations, disruptions of trade to such an extent that whole countries begin to starve, and possibly nuclear disaster. That cannot be allowed to happen. The U.S. must be able to enforce the peace, which means being able if necessary to fight on simultaneous fronts, which means having an overwhelming deterrent force, which means spending A LOT on its military. And, ofc, that spending is almost all within the United States.
b. When the United States dramatically misuses its power, as under Nixon, Reagan, and George Bush, Jr., it invites criticism and dissent and opposition from protectorate countries, and this undermines the role of the United States, which is to protect and serve democracies and their economies, worldwide. So, that’s why we must be vigilant in our fight against the emergence of “crooked cops” at the head of our government.
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I know that there are those who reject the idea of American Empire, but those are profoundly foolish and ignorant persons because they are ignoring what is the de facto reality. As I wrote above, no one else is going to do this. No one else has this ball.
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Bob: you make salient points. When you have assumed the role or have had it thrust upon you by some fate, you must play the role or cancel the drama. Power vacuum is a creation that seems always to suck in the ilk of humanity.
There is, however, a point that I feel Acutely that occurs in the culture of the dominant paradigm. I use this word because I see the west as a paradigm set against the opposite paradigm personified by Xi, Putin, et al. When we live in a culture that is obliged by its preeminence to exercise force, it has a corrupting influence on values within the culture.
An example from history. I live ten miles from the site of the largest training facility in WWII. Camp Forrest (yes it was named for that Forrest) saw perhaps half of the troops who fought in the army. The effect of this on local
culture was a seedy community of rough bars and brothels that were in the process of dying when I was a boy. You could get into a fight there, and knives were sometimes augmented by guns in drunken raged. Even when we had idealistic goals, our culture created places where we stepped out of our values.
It is important to note that we cannot come through this unscathed, even as we must go through it.
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Great power invites corrupt action to achieve personal gain. No question about this. That’s why we must be ever vigilant. That vigilance begins with understanding, in a clear-eyed manner, exactly what role one is playing.
That’s why I have said the quiet part out loud here. America is an empire. The world is composed of its enemies and its protectorates. That’s simply the way it is.
First, we recognize that. Second, we work to keep hold the administrators of the empire to their duty. For example, to defending Ukraine.
Long live the heroes!
There’s a great book in this thesis for anyone who cares to write it. I would, were there world enough and time.
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Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ad infinitum.
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I meant, ofc, the Second Iraq War. That was the illegal one. The First Iraq War was in response to an illegal invasion of Kuwait by Iraq and so was legal under international law. It is perfectly legal to go to war to drive out a nation that has violated the territorial integrity of another UN state, as Iraq did that of Kuwait and as Russia did that of Ukraine.
Speaking of which, Congress needs to approve the aid to Ukraine NOW. This is urgent.
Slava Ukrayini!
Heroyam Slava!
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cx: treasonous, not treasonable, ofc
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treasonous. . . ? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ad infinitum.
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Wrong about measurement. Wrong about the military. I am seeing a pattern here.
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Must be looking in the mirror, eh!
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Oh, and thanks for the opening that you just gave me.
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opening?
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I did not mean to suggest that this sentiment is literally treasonous. It’s not, of course, as treason is collusion with an enemy against one’s country. However, I do think that it is a wrong-headed POV because of the importance of U.S. military strength to the freedom and safety and economic security of nations worldwide, including our own.
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That “U.S. military strength” causes far more problems than it solves.
What is the difference between a patriot and a nationalist?
Hint: I’m a patriot, you’re a nationalist.
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You and I share our disdain for standardized testing. You raise an good question, Duane. I would like to try to answer it honestly. I am with you that one can oppose things that the United States does and be a patriot, that in fact, patriotism sometimes demands this. That’s what I meant by the fact that with our great power and the necessity that has fallen upon us comes great responsibility NOT to act corruptly or selfishly but morally. To serve and protect. This is not what the nationalist thinks. The nationalist says, “My country, right or wrong.” I say, “My country must act in accordance with a higher standard BECAUSE it is so powerful, because it is the only country in the world with the power to act against evil–against genocide, against invasion of the sovereign territory of another state, against threats of nuclear or chemical war, and so on. I hope that I have made the difference between me and the nationalist clear. I am with you, Duane, that you can oppose atrocities like the Vietnam War and the First Iraq War, like arming the dictators of the banana republics, and so on, and be a patriot. In fact, patriotism requires this. We must be held to a higher standard. Does that make sense?
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Let me give you an example and see if you agree with me, Duane. The United States had the power to intervene to stop the genocide in Rwanda. It didn’t. I was completely horrified that we didn’t because we are able and could have stopped this. To use Timothy Snyder’s analogy, our neighbor’s house was on fire, and we had a hose and didn’t use it. Clinton himself has said that this is his greatest regret from his time as president, that he didn’t intervene. Can we agree that we should have intervened? And then, can we agree that we need to have the military might to step in which such atrocity occurs?
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When did the US become the world’s policeman?
I don’t know (remember) enough about the particulars of Rwanda to say one way or the other but my initial response to your question is “No, I can’t agree.”
Are we stepping in, sending in the Marines to prevent the genocide in the Gaza Strip? I think you should agree that yes we should. I don’t agree with that either but we could at least quit supplying and paying for the Zionist war machine.
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I understand your position. We differ on these matters, but I understand it.
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My belief, Duane, is that the moment we stop playing the world’s police officer, all hell breaks loose. Wars everywhere. Nuclear exchanges. Famine due to disruption of trade. Etc.
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I’m not saying that this is ideal or right, but I am saying that it is the role we now play. We are like Rome during the Pax Romana, from in 27 BCE to AD 180 CE.
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We somehow managed to strictly limit the sale and ownership of machine guns or fully automatic weapons.
From politifact, 3-28-23: In 1986, President Ronald Reagan signed the Firearm Owners’ Protection Act, which barred the private sale and ownership of machine guns. The act grandfathered in machine guns that were registered with the federal government the day Reagan signed the law.
There are restrictions to owning a machine gun, including that owners must register with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Fifteen states have laws that generally prohibit the possession, manufacture or sale of all machine guns. end quote
It’s theoretically possible to own a machine gun (it is allowed in some states) but the restrictions are many and severe, thus no one wants to go through the hassle to own one. Fifteen states do ban machine guns, period.
Semi-automatics should be banned but I am not holding my breath for that to happen any time soon.
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Best of luck getting this passed, and if it’s passed, winning at the Supreme Court. It’s time for the pendulum on the 2nd amendment needs to swing the other way.
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too much bourbon
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I am looking forward to hearing your outrage now that you learned that David Weiss has known for many months, if not years, that a main witness against Hunter Biden was lying, and covered that up.
Especially when David Weiss didn’t make any effort to prosecute the Republicans’ favorite witness testifying about Hunter and Joe Biden’s collusion in crime until it looked like the judge would force him to hand over discovery that might make he, Bill Barr, and the host of biased Republican DOJ attorneys look bad.
Or perhaps your outrage and concern for “appearances” and conflict of interest is selective? I imagine you coming up with lots of rationales as to why David Weiss would not want anyone to know that a favorite Republican witness had no credibility at all.
That is, until he was afraid he would have to turn over material in discovery that he didn’t want to.
Is there any time that Fani Willis did what Republican prosecutors did and misrepresented the facts regarding the charges she was bringing?
It seems to me she is the ethical and upright one who didn’t realize that doing something that is NOT illegal may, in fact, be illegal because she is a Democrat. She should have known.
But if you are really concerned about partisanship and appearance of impropriety, the David Weiss filings to smear Hunter Biden are appalling.
But at least he didn’t have sex with a fellow lawyer at the DOJ. Or maybe he did. It is only a huge ethical problem when a Democrat did it.
If Fani Willis had done what David Weiss did, she’d likely already be brought up on some trumped up charges of obstructing justice to “get” Trump and his cronies. And if Weiss had an affair with someone else in his office and Hunter Biden’s attorney tried to make that issue, they would be laughed out of court.
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Diane Ravitch, thinking back in terms of history, your position could be equivalent to wanting what the Nazis did to subjugate the German population, especially the Jews, to be done to the people here. Take guns away under the guise of safety for society while omitting the fact that there are people who only use guns for hunting and sport and law-abiding citizens will fight back.
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Troll,
As a Jew whose family was eliminated during the Holocaust, I find your comments obnoxious and offensive. Also stupid. Do you really believe that if Jews had all had handguns, they could have beaten Hitler’s Storm Troopers? Please stop posting here. You are a vile idiot.
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