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Big Spike in Colorado Background Checks for Firearms

I can’t help but find it interesting but after that terrible shooting in the Aurora, Colorado movie theater, background checks for gun purchases have spike some forty percent.   I am not saying this is good or bad, but I do find the reacting to this tragedy where 12 died and 59 were injured.

Like most, I have read yet again the arguments pro and con for gun control.  Nothing new has been said, and each side typically climbs upon its soapbox and spouts the same argument we already know.   Personally, I don’t believe that gun control would ever prevent this type of nut job from acquiring firearms.  Take his nut job buddy in Norway, a nation with strict gun laws…he was able to massacre some 77 persons before being taken into custody.  So, while I do believe in certain forms of gun control– and in Colorado it is legally mandated that the buyer undergo a background check– I do not believe it will prevent the determined hoodlum or homicidal maniac from getting access to weapons.

On the other hand, the argument that an armed movie theater would have prevented this homicidal lunatic from killing so many people, is another concept based in fantasy.   It has already been reported there was chaos and uncertainty with many thinking this gunmen was part of the show.  Given the confusion, the smoke, the multiple gunshots with the concern that there may be more than one shooter, people screaming, fleeing, any number of distractions in a dark theater, had armed patrons drawn down on the gunmen, the body count may well have been much, much higher.

According to the report on CNN.com…”Data supplied by by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation shows that from Friday through Sunday, a total of 2,887 people were approved to buy firearms. That’s a 43% increase over the previous Friday through Sunday, when 2,012 background checks cleared.”

I don’t know what all this means, really.  People are afraid the government will crack down on gun buying and they rush to get theirs before the ban takes effect?   Maybe.  But then the other argument, people feel unsafe and insecure, after such a slaughter, and rush to buy weapons in order to protect themselves and their loved ones.  Equally valid.

For now, I will leave it to conjecture.

By Gordon Basichis

Gordon Basichis is the Co-Founder of Corra Group, specializing in pre-employment background checks and corporate research. He has been a marketing and media executive and has worked in the entertainment industry, the financial, health care and technology sectors. He is the author of the best selling Beautiful Bad Girl, The Vicki Morgan Story, a non-fiction novel that helped define exotic sexuality in the late twentieth century. He is the author of the Constant Travellers and has recently completed a new book, The Guys Who Spied for China, dealing with Chinese Espionage in the United States. He has been a journalist for several newspapers and is a screenwriter and producer.

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