James Holmes Copycat: Blaec Lammers Foiled Twilight Shooting Plot Will Not Change Gun Control Debate

Two weeks after an election, with zero talk about gun control, a mother has thwarted a mentally disturbed man from shooting a theater full of preteens. 

Blaec Lammers had bought two guns earlier in the week, and then planned to shoot the audience of the new Twilight movie. He then changed his mind and decided to randomly shoot at a WalMart instead, because he could just conveniently reload with the store's own large supply of ammunition. The one thing we can expect from this is a lot of lame jokes about Twilight fans, and no serious talks about gun control.

Lammers was committed in 2009 for 96 hours for a mental health examination. Three years later he walked into a store and bought two guns and four hundred rounds of ammunition. The story is still unfolding and Lammers' mother undoubtedly deserves attention and kudos for bringing her son's plans to the authorities. A tragedy was averted, and America will learn nothing. There were 11 mass shootings in America this year alone, and a national dialogue about gun control did not emerge. I hope the NRA is paying its lobbyists well, because they are doing a hell of a job.

Gun control as an option became erased from public discourse by relying on a few fictions. There is a fiction that whatever guns you may own can somehow protect you, if for some reason the government comes to take said guns. There is a fiction that owning a gun makes you safer. There is a fiction that owning guns is an unalienable right. There is a fiction that big government can be held at bay by a bullet. In the end guns are a placebo for the national conscious. A sugar pill prescribed to those feeling a lack of control and free will.

The debate over gun control is all but over. Guns will continue to be too easily obtained and too many people will die from them. We have been convinced that guns and freedom go hand in hand. Some people may try to enact legislation that will protect them. Some people will purchase their own guns to protect themselves from other people with guns. I just plan on spending all of my money on body armor. That way I can properly enjoy a movie opening as well as have extra pockets to sneak candy bars in with.