Ari Armstrong today proposed a simple and elegant way to increase security in movie theaters (and other public venues):

Within hours of the Aurora, CO, theater shootings, New York’s fascist mayor took time out from his efforts to control what New Yorkers may eat or drink to wave the bloody shirt and call for more gun control laws.

Earlier this week on CNN, he came within a few syllables of calling for a nationwide strike of police officers to promote gun control.

He’s now backtracked after it was pointed out that a police strike would be illegal in New York (and in most other places).

Such a strike will never happen anyway. Unlike the (politically appointed) police chiefs and union leaders Bloomberg pals around with, most rank-and-file law enforcement officers oppose civilian disarmament because they know that armed law-abiding citizens help their efforts to prevent violent crimes and to apprehend the perpetrators.

The online headline of the day was on a Doug Patton column at the GOPUSA site:

100 Million Gun Owners Didn’t Kill Anyone Last Week

The column begins with this quote:

“Laws that forbid the carrying of arms…disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.”
– Thomas Jefferson

After reminiscing about how, as a youth, he came to learn about and own guns, Patton says:

None of us has any way of knowing whether James Holmes, the shooter in Aurora, Colorado, is simply an evil genius putting on an act in court or if he is a loon who really believes he is Batman’s nemesis, the Joker. We don’t know if his father ever taught him how to use firearms, or if he got his knowledge from watching TV and movies, and playing violent video games.

What we do know is that a society that once lived in reality has evolved into a culture wallowing in fantasy violence, ruled by people whose goal is to disarm the good guys, leaving us all at the mercy of the bad guys.

We know that, like so many communities today, Aurora, Colorado, did not allow law-abiding gun owners to carry their weapons into the theater that night. Perhaps if they had, someone might have been able to stop Holmes before he killed a dozen innocent people and wounded scores of others.

Note: I believe it was purely the policy of the theater owner, Cinemark, not Aurora law, that forbade weapons in the theater.

Even in states that allow concealed carry of firearms, politically correct business owners can forbid the possession of such weapons in their establishments. A sign on the door of the Von Maur department store in Omaha, Nebraska, announces that guns are not allowed. On December 5, 2007, 19-year-old Robert Hawkins read that sign as follows: “Even our security guards are unarmed! Come on in and shoot us!” So he did, killing eight people and wounding five others.

Read the whole thing.

Commenting on the mass murder in Aurora, CO, Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert asked, “…  with all those people in the theater, was there nobody that was carrying that could’ve stopped this guy more quickly?”

No, there wasn’t. Because the Cinemark Century 16 theater has “no firearms” signs posted, so the honest, decent people who might otherwise be carrying a weapon left theirs at home or in the car. Cinemark reportedly aggressively enforces a “no firearms” policy at all its theaters.

Criminals, terrorists, and madmen of course aren’t deterred by “no firearms” signs. That’s why mass killings almost always take place in “gun-free zones.” Mass murderers may be crazy but they aren’t stupid — they seek out unarmed victims.

In places that are not “gun-free zones,” like the Palms Internet Café in Orlando, FL, would-be robbers or killers risk having their activities interrupted by an armed good guy. WOFL FOX 35 reported (and has the must-see surveillance camera video):

Two men who deputies say tried to rob a Marion County Internet café were both shot by one of the patrons.

It happened just before 10:00 p.m. Friday at the Palms Internet Café located at 8444 SW State Road 200.

When Marion County deputies arrived they found patrons outside the business who told them that two men in masks – one armed with a baseball bat and the other with a handgun – barged into the business. The robbers told the approximately 30 patrons to get on the floor, and they demanded money.

Investigators say Samuel Williams, one of the customers, pulled out his own handgun and shot the robbers. Both robbers began running toward the front door, and the patron fired several more shots as they fled.

Mr. Williams, the hero, is 71.