Shut-up Stupid Sunday: In the aftermath of horror, wanting more guns

The shootings in Colorado was simply horrifying. We will probably never know what the shooter was thinking. As a horror writer I'm pretty sensitive to real life horror. Even though I can write about someone doing incredibly violent things, like Doug in REPOSSESSING SANITY that is just my imagination, it has nothing to do with reality.

The real horror of the Colorado shootings is it was unpreventable.

In most cases of real life horror, there are clues about the person's sanity. Reports say that James Holmes was a pleasant person and no one thought he was insane. Even in countries with stronger gun controls, James Holmes would be able to buy guns.

I am personally fairly pro-gun rights. I watched the news from Palestine and Northern Ireland when I was young. In those occupied places they did house to house searches for clues of terrorism. The citizens couldn't do anything but watch in horror as the military searched through their belongings. After 9/11 I'm sure someone thought of doing the same thing to Arab neighborhoods. The cops probably stopped that idea, worried that they would run into a coked up drug user, whose paranoia would overcome him and he'd start shooting.

That being said, the horror could be minimized. James Holmes had a 100 round drum on his assault rifle. Outside the military no one needs that type of ammo clip. Ammo clips holding more than 10 rounds were illegal under the Brady Bill. Once someone pulls a gun and starts firing the best time to stop them is when they need to either reload or switch guns. Limiting ammo clips to 10 rounds means this happens sooner.

This is a common sense approach to limit the horror one person can do. But loons like Rep. Louie Gohmert think if more people carried guns it would be better.

This is simply insane. Imagine the horror of a dark crowded theater where everyone drew their guns to shoot at who ever is firing. The “friendly fire” would amplify the horror. Shooting at who ever was shooting would turn them into targets. In that situation James Holmes would just have to fire a couple shots and the audience would do all his work for him. One person would shoot at him, the next person would see that person firing and shoot at them, and so on.

So to Gohmert, the NRA, and all the other loons that believe that the way to stop the horror that one gunman can do is to have more people armed, I say, “Shut-up Stupid, we need some reasonable gun limits, like 10 round clips, to minimize the horror. Not doing away with restrictions so one person can make the victims do their work for them. I'm a horror writer and the bloodbath that would take place if we had everyone armed and ready shoot at any threat is worse than anything I could write about.”

By Darrell B. Nelson author of I KILLED THE MAN THAT WASN'T THERE