I’m quoting and paraphrasing a Washington Post article by Teo Armus in the next two paragraphs:

The Colorado State Shooting Association claims “emotional sensationalism“ about gun laws will cloud remembrance of the victims of the March 23, 2021 mass murder event in Boulder, Colorado.

“There will be a time for the debate on gun laws. There will be a time for the discussion on motives. There will be a time for a conversation on how this could have been prevented,” the group said in a statement. “But today is not the time.”

Color me outraged, and today is very definitely the time for that reaction.

The Colorado State Shooting Association has no right to dictate terms for the remembrance of the victims of today’s massacre. They are complicit in the terrorism of innocent people.

The Colorado State Shooting Association was one of the plaintiffs that sued the city of Boulder after it passed a law banning the “possession, transfer and sale of most shotguns and certain pistols and semiautomatic rifles” as well as “large-capacity magazines.”†

Ten days later—today—10 people were murdered in a Boulder supermarket by a 21 year old man with an AR-15, lightweight, semiautomatic rifle.

Welcome to Colorado. We hope our laws don’t get you killed.

Many Americans own guns. Far fewer of them brandish those weapons in fits of pique, and fewer still carry out mass executions such as the one committed in Boulder today. I’d like to take this opportunity to label the carrying of weapons into the halls of government by protesters for what it is: a terroristic attempt to get one’s way via threats of violent force.

The murderous jackass in Boulder is the same kind of creature as the seditious cretins who invaded Congress on January 6th and the common, low-life criminals who planned to kidnap the elected governor of Michigan in 2020: a terrorist. My flesh and blood doesn’t care, when torn and spilled, whether the terrorist is domestic or foreign.

I’m not trying to take your revolvers,‡ Colorado State Shooting Association, but your delight in making things go boom pales in importance to the protection of innocent people buying their groceries—or attending school, worshiping, or visiting a dance club—in peace.

Even with a would-be despot in the White House, I had less fear of tyranny by my own government than I do from lunatics bearing semiautomatic* weapons on our streets…or God forbid, in our schools.

Your emotional sensationalism is pathetic, Colorado State Shooting Association. Take responsibility for reaping what you’ve sown. Guns don’t kill people: you just did.

Again.

♦

† Defined by the Boulder ban as “any ammunition-feeding device with the capacity to accept more than 10 rounds.”

‡ Though my reading of the available statistics on the use of firearms by civilians convinces me that they are far more likely to injure their owners than to offer protection, I have also read the U.S. Constitution. There is legitimate debate to be had regarding the interpretation of our right to bear arms.

That said, the Founding Fathers did not have AR-15 rifles. In my view, the ability to spray bullets at a crowd belongs solely in the realm of military warfare. Frankly, I deplore it there, too.

A legitimate use for a 30 round magazine in peacetime eludes my comprehension. I object to police use of military equipment for precisely the same reason, and doubt law enforcement would require heavy artillery if lax gun regulations didn’t make it so easy for criminals to access such weapons.

* From Statista.com, “…semi-automatic rifles were featured in four of the five deadliest mass shootings, being used in the Orlando nightclub massacre, Sandy Hook Elementary massacre and Texas First Baptist Church massacre.