GOP Senator Reacts To Movie Theater Shooting: 'This Isn't An Issue About Guns'

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Democratic senator Dianne Feinstein and Republican senator Ron Johnson squared off over gun control in the context of last week's shooting at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado. Feinstein argued that there should be some kind of limit on high-capacity magazines, while Johnson continued to insist that this is not an issue about guns, but about 'sick, demented individuals' who go out and kill people.

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Feinstein, a proponent of the assault weapons ban, said that since it expired, 650 people have been shot and 300 were killed from assault weapons. Wallace turned to Johnson and asked him if Holmes has a constitutional right to buy an AR-15 assault rifle and a high-capacity magazine. Johnson said that Holmes is nothing more than a 'sick, demented, evil individual' who could have easily obtained some other weapon to kill people with.

'I don't think society can keep sick, demented individuals from obtaining any type of weapon to kill people. I mean, somebody who wants to purposely harm another individual is going to find a method of doing it' This isn't an issue about guns, this is really just an issue about sick, demented individuals.'

Wallace pressed Johnson on what people can do to protect themselves from crazy people like Holmes. Johnson admitted he didn't have an easy answer for that, though he did say that 'we should be examining our education system' and 'reinstill values in our children.'

While Feinstein has been a strong voice on the left for gun control, Wallace pointed out that many Democrats have not been that vocal about this issue, and asked the senator why this is the case. Feinstein pointed to the gun lobbys 'pouring money' into campaigns to support pro-gun politicians, and questioned why any law-abiding citizen would need high capacity magazines in the first place.

Johnson rebutted by saying that Feinstein was really talking about semi-automatic weapons, which he claimed people use when they go hunting. He insisted once again that 'this is not really an issue of guns' and more about the kind of person who would be sick enough to want to kill someone in the first place.

Watch the video below, courtesy of Fox:

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• 'This Isn't An Issue About Guns'

  This is an issue of a society that is filled with such hatred for each other.

• THank you Sen Johnson; people completely ignore that YET AGAIN the killer is a drugged up individual.

• Why is it such a horrible idea to limit magazine size? If you need dozens of rounds to take down a deer perhaps you need to spend more time at the shooting range.

• Take a look at a few of the last shootings'

  Holmes (Colorado) ' we are finding that he was not right in the head. The question will be who saw the deterioration but said and did nothing. This one still in process'.

  Loughner (Arizona) ' Videos, FaceBook postings, people who dealt with him.

  Breivik (Norway) ' He has been deemed mentally ill. A little late in the process.

  Major Nadal (Ft Hood) ' There were questions of behavior. Though it may not rise to the level of 'crazy' their were warning signs. Any questions on this one ask the FBI.

  Seung-Hui Cho (Virginia Tech) ' 'In December 2005 ' more than a year before Monday's mass shootings ' a district court in Montgomery County, Va., ruled that Cho presented 'an imminent danger to self or others.' That was the necessary criterion for a detention order, so that Cho, who had been accused of stalking by two female schoolmates, could be evaluated by a state doctor and ordered to undergo outpatient care.

  The good Senator might be on to something here'

• This is standard RepubliKKKan Party subterfuge.

  The NRA has issued talking points on how the elected officials it owns are to intimidate the public and the press from daring to talk about gun control.

• Republican stupidity is on display here. No issue is ever about guns for them.

• Tell that to the people trying to dodge the bullets.

• Dude I am a crazy person and I am focusing my ADD on how to change gun magazines faster since you won't let me have the bigger one. I am down to 1.9 secs working on my goal of 1.5 secs'

  Dude, keep focusing one thing and you will just be hit with something else. The best statement I heard on these boards' 'crazy will find a way' 

  So true, catch them before they head for a night at the movies, shopping, school, dorm, processing centers and secluded islands'

• Low IQ Republican logic.

  Sick and twisted people will always find a way to get guns so we should start selling guns at 7/11

• Your skill at changing out magazines is admirable but doesn't suggest what is wrong with reduced magazine size.

• We should follow the High IQ Democrat logic (Jocelyn Elders) and come up with 'safer bullets'.

• Tell that to the people trying to dodge the bullets.

• well the hatred you refer to is the democrat hatred of Americans. I bet a dollar that the murder pig holmes is a democrat. It will not be reported though. If he was republican, they would never shut up about it.
  Democrats are Anti-human, as evidenced by abortion(mass murder of the unborn Americans). Anti-Law, as evidenced by their evil greedy theft of investments via insider trading, and the treasonous health care usurpation treason, voted upon before it was even fully written! Democrats ARE EVIL.

• Crazy will find a way' we need to find ways to prevent people from heading off the deep end. 

  Go ahead and reduce magazine size but you will not accomplish what I am assuming you hope to accomplish ' reducing the number of deaths that trend suggests is at the hands of crazy people.

  I am not saying we should not try. But the focus should be on people not things. They are the ones that build them, set them and operate them.