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Lessons from Colorado
We need to remove guns from people’s hands, just as should happen in the US, to make society a safer place.
Holmes was a neuroscience graduate student — in the process of withdrawal from the programme — with no previous criminal record. PHOTO: REUTERS
The shooting in a movie theatre in the US state of Colorado that killed at least a dozen people and wounded over 50 others, is the stuff of nightmares. It is hard to imagine the fear that must have filled the darkened hall as a man dressed in a helmet and body armour stepped out from behind the screen playing the latest batman movie, The Dark Knight Rises, and created true darkness as he opened indiscriminate fire at the audience. The mental state and possible motives of the man identified as 24-year-old James Holmes are being examined. Holmes was a neuroscience graduate student — in the process of withdrawal from the programme — with no previous criminal record.
But what is also under scrutiny, once again, as in fact happens after any such incident, are the gun laws in the US and the ease with which people are able to acquire arms. All of Holmes’ four guns and thousands of rounds of ammunition were apparently bought entirely legally. Calls have come in for tougher gun control laws but there is already much scepticism as to whether these will ever be implemented given the power of the gun lobby in the country and the backing it receives from politicians and others in powerful places.
This brings us to our own country. Gun laws are not as relaxed as in the US, but due to their lack of implementation, the end result is the same. Pakistan is rated as a country with one of the highest number of weapons in circulation; Karachi is said by international agencies to have more small arms than any other major city in the world. It is true that we may not have seen the kind of psychotic killings the US has experienced over the years, but the easy flow of guns through society is responsible for the repeated gun fights in Karachi and violence of all kinds elsewhere. In this age of the internet and instant TV coverage, we may not even be far from a ‘copycat’ killing spree such as that carried out by Holmes. We need then to remove guns from people’s hands, just as should happen in the US, to make society a safer place.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 22nd, 2012.
Reader Comments (12)
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If James Holmes was a muslim then he must be mentioned as a terrorist. When they do something like this it is projected as psychy problem. What a dual standard of the west people and media. Shame
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At least they are brought to justice in the US. THAT is the main difference you see!
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This is the failure of family system in USA, computer/other gaming machine games where some hidden hand is playing behind the scene, drugs which are available in middle and high schools, restrictions for parents not to touch or punish, law enforcement agencies. The youngster are detached from parents and loosing value of tolerance.
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YAwnnnnn…. boring
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The only thing being left out in the gun control debate is the fact that if you want to kill people bad enough, you’ll find a way. They’re a convenient way to do it, though. While that killer did have legal possession of those guns, most gun related crime involves ones that are illegal. If they can’t be stopped, stricter gun laws are just a distraction to finding an actual solution. Do I have a plan? No. I haven’t given it much thought. Does it mean I can’t if I try? Also, no. But you won’t find me causing a scene for better car locks if mine gets stolen when I know they can find a brick.
Personally, I don’t own any nor do I intend to purchase any in the future. So, whichever way it goes doesn’t change enough for me to really care that they get restricted. But, if I hypothetically was dead set on killing a bunch of people, it wouldn’t stop me or hinder me. It wouldn’t even be able to stop me from getting one, anyways. If someone is willing to go so far as to commit a crime like that, what’s breaking into a place and just taking one beforehand to them?
The human imagination is quite a thing and the human body is vulnerable to a whole lot more than bullets.
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There is a saying: ” If arms are outlawed only outlaws will have arms”. Gun’s don’t kill people, people do and people who need guns will always be able to get them. Why try to stop the common people from bearing arms?
And why should guns be banned in the US? There are hundreds of cases where they have been used in self defense.
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Can Liberals call this guy a terrorist or they will still be a mouth piece of Fox/CNN and call only Muslims as terrorists?
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I thank Allah he was not a Pakistani.
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American culture is a synonym of gun culture.they tend to solve every problem with guns.watch Hollywood movies, they have a ready-made solution in the form of guns to tackle any problem.bigger the problem ,bigger becomes the gun.be it a enlarged reptile,a ghost,a badman,a zombie,a robot everyone is annihilated by capt America by their strange looking guns.easy access and a glorified view of guns have brought such condition where mass killings by some gun-totting nut-job has become a regular phenomena.
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@Whats_wrong: Every mass murderer is not a terrorist. That applies to Muslims and non- Muslims. The question is what was motivating the individual. Someone who murders in the course of promoting a political or religious agenda is a terrorist. Someone who murders for a uniquely personal reason is generally not labeled a terrorist, even though they create terror by their actions. Crazy people are not considered terrorists. Brevik in Norway was a christian terrorist. This guy appears to simply be a lunatic, although I will admit that if he had been muslim, lots of people would be calling him a terrorist due to negative perceptions of muslims arising from the frequency and magnitude of the Muslim terrorism in today’s world.Recommend
It is easy to hide the failure by saying it was psychotic case……We now what US has done with the world but now it is there time ….it remindes me the old saying Before digging hole for other dig one of ourself.
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In whose name he killed? he killed in the name of freedom, secularism and democracy. Believe it or not!!
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