Ramsey: Lawmakers 'lack courage' for gun control after 'Dark Knight' massacre
Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey, on "This Week" on ABC Sunday morning to talk about the Dark Knight massacre in Aurora, Colo., said that the death of 12 people in the movie theater is unlikely to have an impact on gun control.
Ramsey: Lawmakers 'lack courage' for gun control after 'Dark Knight' massacre
This post has been corrected.
Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey, on "This Week" on ABC Sunday morning to talk about the Dark Knight massacre in Aurora, Colo., said that the death of 12 people in the movie theater is unlikely to have an impact on gun control.
"Aurora, Columbine, Virginia Tech, Ft. Hood, the list goes on and on," Ramsey said when asked by host George Stephanopoulos whether Friday's incident will make a difference to the debate over gun control. "Unfortunately, in my opinion, the answer is absolutely nothing. There will be a lot of talk, alot of debate, but this will fade into the background like the other incidents that have occured. People will continue to get their hands on guns."
Ramsey said that Philadelphia police have been paying "special attention" to movie theaters and other locations where large amounts of people gather.
"But the issue for me is I can't put a cop in every movie theater for now on or on a shopping mall or college campus or high school," Ramsey said. "And these are all locations where we've had mass shootings in the past, so we have to find a solution to that."
Ramsey, who pointed out that the plague of gun violence is a daily worry in big cities across the country, said that gun control legislation would not "totally stop this sort of thing from happening," but that there need to be limits on the weapons that people can get their hands on.
He called for a ban on assault weapons and large-capacity magazines, a registry of guns and mandatory reporting of all sales of guns.
But Ramsey isn't hopeful that anything will actually happen.
Said Ramsey: "Many of our legislators unfortunately on the federal level lack the courage to do anything."
Later, former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell said that "reasonable gun control laws" won't stop this type of incident, but will reduce their frequency.
"No citizen should be able to have an automatic assault file, no citizen should be able to have" a clip with more than 10 bullets, Rendell said, adding that it was an "incredible act of cowardice" for Congress to let the assault weapon ban expire.
Everyone knows we need assault rifles and 6K rounds of ammo for protection. After all, if 10-11 people in the theater were armed, this whole thing could have been prevented......Yeah, there are idiots who actually believe that garbage.— CiceroSpuriousDeodatus- This comment has been deleted. — bedpan
- Call Dell. YOUR CAPS LOCK KEY IS STUCK.
— Ralph 1 - Please. Take your liberal garbage elsewhere. All it would have taken was one armed law abiding citizen to stop this madman. Instead, liberals like you want to use this type of isolated event as an excuse to further erode the Republic. Go live in the police states like Norway where they have massive gun laws and have no gun crimes...Oh wait that's right I forgot Breivik didnt get your memo.
- may i remind you, citizen92 that the shooter in norway was a right wing extremist(such as yourself) who bravely attacked a summer camp full of kids.
would you posit that children at camp should also be armed?— the lopez! - the lopez: there were adults at the camp as well who could have protected the kids, but logic like that doesn't fit well into the libs arguement. — Taxpaying Voter
- taxpaying voter,
what camp counselors would bring a gun to summer camp? should counselors pack hand guns or assault rifles or both just to give them the opportunity to be flexible?
also
do you posit that a gun owner should go into harms way to act as a cop even if you don't have training? isn that why the police say to leave the policing up to the professionals?
maybe thinking at all doesn't fit into your argument.— the lopez! 
Comment removed.- macdad
it was an easy leap to make
perhaps you should go and polish your gun to a john wayne movie.
you'll feel better after that.
— the lopez! - The summer camp I went to had counselors with M-16s, M-9 pistols and explosives. I had the same things too. The camp was called the U.S Army....... — Wildman Bill
- Small minds desire small solutions. People like you resort to penalizing the massess rather than focusing on protecting and empowering the masses. Like I said, one well armed empowered citizen with the protections of Castle Doctrine would have ensured this mad man made it no further than row 1.
- Need is irrelevant. Use is irrelevant. Politics is irrelevant. Relevance only comes from the rule of laws. The Constitution of our country and our state confirms upon a person the inalienable right to posses firearms.
As far as assault rifle bans go, who cares? The definition of an assault rifle is telescopic sights and pistol grips.— JoeinSouthPhilly - The supreme court ruled in DC vs. Heller that state and local restrictions on gun possession are constitutional. — mactruck16
- @mactruck
Actually, of Heller vs DC(08), the court ruled that no person could be denied the right to posses a handgun in their home arbitrarily, inside a federal enclave.
The issue was settle for the states in 2010's McDonald vs Chicago.
Saclia tied the right to posses a handgun(in the home) to the inalienable right of self defense in 08.
But hey that's besides the point. I'm an NRA member but I understand the need for certain sanctions. I don't know how they do things in Colorado, here in PA and Philadelphia they do things just fine. I have no problem banning 100 round drum magazines. I have a problem banning assault rifles. It makes no sense to ban a long gun because it has a pistol grip or a flip up sight. That's just lip service.— JoeinSouthPhilly - Cicero with another whiny crying negative rant? Never saw that before. I would think his cynical debbie downer attitude would be such a hit with the girls at the bar. — towelie
