Colorado Springs

Warrigal

Warrigal

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Sydney, Australia
I had heard of Colorado Springs before because there is a church there that exports its particular brand of evangelical Christianity to Australia.

This article is from The Guardian Australia and I'm wondering whether it is a fair assessment of Colorado Springs.

Colorado Springs: a playground for pro-life, pro-gun Evangelical Christians Anti-abortion rhetoric is not hard to find in the city where the ‘fortress-like’ Planned Parenthood centre is the subject of regular protests

Saturday 28 November 2015 19.24 AEDT
Last modified on Saturday 28 November 2015

  • Colorado Springs, the location of an attack on a Planned Parenthood clinic that left three people dead, is a centre of rightwing Christian culture with a “wild west mentality” when it comes to guns. The attack, by a lone gunman carrying a rifle or shotgun, took place at a clinic that is the site of regular anti-abortion protests by the city’s pro-life Christian groups.

    Planned Parenthood, aware of hostility about their work, recently moved to the new facility, hoping it would provide more security for staff. The building has been likened to a fortress by anti-abortion campaigners and Friday’s attacks revealed that it is equipped with “safe rooms” for staff to shelter in the event of such an event. It also has an extensive security camera system.

    With anti-abortion policies supported by many Republican presidential candidates such as Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Jeb Bush, rhetoric attacking Planned Parenthood and other such organisations is not hard to find in the city.

    Last spring, following the gruesome attack on a Colorado woman who had her unborn-baby ripped from her womb with a knife, state representative and Springs resident Gordon Klingenschmitt said the attack was “the curse of God upon America for our sin of not protecting innocent children in the womb”.

    Colorado’s second largest city, with a population of 445,800, has built itself a reputation as a playground for white, pro-gun, pro-life Evangelical Christians. It is also home to one army base, two air force bases, and an air force.

    Colorado Springs featured in the documentary film Jesus Camp, where evangelical Christian children were taught to engage in anti-abortion protests. Two of the film’s lead characters travelled to the New Life Church in Colorado Springs, where they met church pastor Ted Haggard, a one-time leader of the National Association of Evangelicals who had weekly communications with president George W Bush. Haggard resigned from his position later that same year following revelations that he purchased methamphetamine and the services of a male prostitute.

    The city’s pro-gun contingent flexed its muscles in 2014 with an unprecedented recall election, ousting state senator John Morse. The recall was primarily motivated by new gun control laws in Colorado – following the Aurora cinema shootings in Denver – which banned magazines holding more than 15 rounds, and demanded a universal background check for all gun purchases.

    As the first state to legalise abortion and the first to implement a regulated marijuana market, Colorado is a state that doesn’t take kindly to government infringements on personal rights.

    Three weeks before Friday’s Planned Parenthood shooting, a man was seen brandishing a rifle while walking down the streets of Colorado Springs on Halloween morning. A concerned citizen called the 911 Emergency Line to notify the police, but was told by the operator: “Well, it is an open carry state, so he can have a weapon with him or walking around with it,” referencing state laws that allow the brandishing of a firearm in public.

    Shortly after the call the man shot and killed three people before being shot dead by police. (Unbelievable! :banghead:)

    Following the Halloween shooting, Colorado Springs resident Jessie Pocock organised a vigil with her fellow citizens, who expressed a mix of grief and outrage at the deaths. She feels that there is a “wild west mentality” when it comes to guns in Colorado Springs.

    “It’s important that we can go to the grocery store and not be worried about someone randomly shooting us down on the streets, and right now that is not the case in Colorado Springs, said Pocock, who lives close to the abortion clinic. “You’re not safe on the streets here, and that is a problem.”

    Colorado Springs’ year of violence began last January when a bomb detonated outside the local chapter of the NAACP. No one was harmed in the attack, but the incident put many in Colorado Springs on edge.

    “I’m a little overwhelmed with the war zone that is my home,” says Pocock.
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Very sad.... but it happens so often here in the States... I get pissed because all the news coverage of all these shootings disrupts my regularly scheduled TV viewing.. I'm like... "Oh crap.... here we go again."
 
So sad. How long before people open their eyes? If things deteriorate sufficiently, what is next? Martial law in many areas? Terrifying--how do people stay sane?
 

Nothing wrong but the ignorant ones that think they must attack all abortion clinics. They call themselves to be Christians. What a joke that is as Christians are taught to be tolerant of other ideas. Christians are not authorized to go threaten others and cause such concern as done yesterday. It was not the gun that was the problem. Just a whacko that thought he was on some sort of Christian mission. But instead he was just creating death and needs to die himself for doing so.
 
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[h=1]Obama On Planned Parenthood Shooting: 'Enough Is Enough'[/h]http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/obama-planned-parenthood-shooting


President Obama weighed in on Friday's Planned Parenthood shooting in a statement released Saturday morning. He condemned the gunman "for terrorizing an entire community" and praised the University of Colorado Colorado Springs Garrett Swasey, who was among the three people killed in the attack.

"This is not normal. We can’t let it become normal," the statement said. "If we truly care about this -- if we’re going to offer up our thoughts and prayers again, for God knows how many times, with a truly clean conscience -- then we have to do something about the easy accessibility of weapons of war on our streets to people who have no business wielding them. Period. Enough is enough
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/obama-planned-parenthood-shooting
 
The GOP and the Candidates have incited this by their constant rhetoric about Planned Parenthood and the unrelenting attempts to shut it down by defunding. Including the lie told by Carly Fiorina regarding the bogus "baby body part selling" video. It was just a matter of time before some nut-job decided to take the matter into his own hands. Of course you will not hear a peep out of the candidates because denouncing this violence against PP will likely cost them the votes of the 30% of Republicans that agree with them. Can't have that...
 
Has anyone here ever watched the program on Discovery ID called "The Homicide Hunter" with Joe Kenda as the main player? Joe is a retired detective and a Lt. that was in charge of the Colorado Springs' Police Department-Major Crimes Unit. Joe's record speaks for itself and while I only vaguely know of him, but from what I have read and from what I have seen of him on TV, (He does not read from a script. Every line he articulates is from memory.), I have come to the conclusion that Joe would have been successful at whatever he had decided to do in life. BTW, Joe is originally from the Pittsburgh area.

Anyway, after watching many of his shows, I have come to the conclusion that if I were to shoot someone Colorado Springs may be the place to do it. At the end of each show they tell the audience what the defendant was charged with and then give the verdict and sentence. All too many times, I have noticed that the original sentence was over-turned for whatever reason and a new sentence was imposed. Just this past week, I saw a show where a woman killed a man in cold blood and was given a 4 month sentence, plus a $500.00 fine. Now, this one was at Fort Carson, which is also located in CS and would have been a court-martial. However, I have seen many cases where the sentences that were imposed in criminal court were dramatically reduced to near nothing compared to what PA doles out for the same crime and pretty close to the same set of facts. This is by NO means a reflection on Joe. I think he is a sort of super cop, in my book. I have a lot of respect for this man. His show is real. Very little, if any Hollywood stuff.

But my point is that although the real issue here is the fact of another douche-bag going off of his rocker and shooting up a place and killing innocent people, Colorado has a been a lot less than a perfect model on how to deter shootings. I have never seen so many reduced sentences as I have in Colorado since watching this show. Having said all of this, I think this guy is going away forever, unless he is found to be mentally incompetent to stand trial.
 
Warrigal said:
I had heard of Colorado Springs before because there is a church there that exports its particular brand of evangelical Christianity to Australia.

This article is from The Guardian Australia and I'm wondering whether it is a fair assessment of Colorado Springs.

[/LIST]
Click to expand...

I grew up in Colorado, and still visit relatives in the Denver area, frequently. I would have to say that this "Guardian" article is fairly accurate. The Denver area is pretty Moderate, but Colorado Springs seems to have become a real magnet for the "Evangelicals". There are many large such churches, and headquarters for these types in the Colorado Springs area, and that part of the state is a really Far Right/religious extremist enclave.

At least the police were able to capture this latest Lunatic alive, and perhaps in coming days and weeks we will learn more about his motivations, etc.
 
Before the beginning of allowing planned parenthood in the US, the wife and I were discussing going to some other country if needed to stop a third pregnancy if necessary. But as it worked out some laws were changed and no need to go out of the country for personal decisions.

We are both the accused Republican's and I doubt if that is really true about blaming the Republicans. Usually we find that these attackers are not of any real religious groups but of some rather quirky religious groups. If blaming it on whom, we would need to attack the Catholic church as they do not approve of birth control or abortions. But it is not the Catholic church. And to blame the Catholic church is forgetting that many of the Catholic church are both Democrats and Republicans come election day and if so then they should all be denied abortions. What was this persons reasons for the attack and killings.

I agree that we should have those choices legally and tell the Churches to control their people and leave all others alone.
 
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Very true QS, just read a few of the comments in the article you posted the link to....you get a good sampling of 'baby body parts selling' thinking, one person talking about slicing up baby's bodies.....Sick!
 
It's sad the state of Colorado over the last fifty years. Denver used to have a way progressive music scene. One of the first states to legalize weed, loose gun laws and open carry permitted. But still in place are breed ban laws. That is you can be legally baked, locked and loaded...but the wrong breed of pup in the city limits and the Dog Nazi's will be knocking on your door.
 
The news I have read hasn't made any "Christian" connection yet. Just a garden variety wacko. Trouble is, if you're wacko enough, you get declared incompetent to stand trial. If that happens, I hope they put him in a hospital for the criminally insane forever.
 
Butterfly said:
The news I have read hasn't made any "Christian" connection yet. Just a garden variety wacko. Trouble is, if you're wacko enough, you get declared incompetent to stand trial. If that happens, I hope they put him in a hospital for the criminally insane forever.
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I hadn't heard on the news that he was a Chrisitian either, but definitely a mentally ill person, animal abuser, etc. Seems like he's had a lot of run-ins with the law in the past. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry...-parenthood-shooting_565925b3e4b08e945feb4375
 
Colorado certainly isn't the State I remember growing up in. But, then...neither is any other place. The mountains used to be pristine, but now, any place that they can build a road to has houses. The biggest change occurred in the 1970's....shortly after the Arab Oil embargo. There was a big push to start mining the oil shale, and huge numbers of people from Texas and California moved to Colorado, and pretty much changed the population...and not all for the better.

Insofar as these religious extremists are concerned....be they Muslim or Evangelical...I think an awful lot of them will be given front row seats at the fires of Hell.
 
I can't get past this piece of information in the OP

As the first state to legalise abortion and the first to implement a regulated marijuana market, Colorado is a state that doesn’t take kindly to government infringements on personal rights.

Three weeks before Friday’s Planned Parenthood shooting, a man was seen brandishing a rifle while walking down the streets of Colorado Springs on Halloween morning. A concerned citizen called the 911 Emergency Line to notify the police, but was told by the operator: “Well, it is an open carry state, so he can have a weapon with him or walking around with it,” referencing state laws that allow the brandishing of a firearm in public.

Shortly after the call the man shot and killed three people before being shot dead by police. (Unbelievable! :banghead:)

Following the Halloween shooting, Colorado Springs resident Jessie Pocock organised a vigil with her fellow citizens, who expressed a mix of grief and outrage at the deaths. She feels that there is a “wild west mentality” when it comes to guns in Colorado Springs.
Click to expand...

Someone is walking around brandishing (whatever that means) a rifle and someoe who witnesses it is concerned enough to ring the police and it doesn't even get past the switchboard? They don't even despatch a car to see what is going on or to question the armed man and subsequently three people are shot and killed?

Then there is this account on how people in the area of the clinic were affected, not counting those that were actually shot at.

Sydney Downey, 20, who works at Sally Beauty Supply nearby, said people inside the store heard gunshots about 11:45 a.m.
“A lot of gunshots,” Downey said, “like, too many to even count.”
She said police and firefighters swarmed Centennial Boulevard, where the clinic is located, and crowded around a nearby bank.
An officer came by the beauty supply store to make sure that the doors were locked and that those inside were safe, she said.
“He said, ‘Get back away from the windows,’ and left, and that was it,” Downey said. After that, Downey said, she remained huddled in a back room with the store manager and a customer.

Brigitte Wolfe, who works at a Japanese restaurant across the street from the clinic, said she first learned something was amiss when police SWAT and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives vehicles pulled up out front. She heard no gunshots.

“We just thought it was some random whatever happening, and then we turned on the news and started seeing what was going on,’’ she said.
Suddenly, about 3 p.m., police and ATF agents banged on the restaurant’s door “and told us to hide where there was no windows because the shooter was active,’’ Wolfe said. She and several employees and customers hid in the restaurant’s kitchen. Wolfe said the police and agents commandeered the restaurant’s dining room. Gunshots were audible as police used an armored vehicle to evacuate people from the Planned Parenthood clinic.

Wolfe said that the medical facility had been the scene of protests most weekends but that there had never been any violence until Friday.
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It is not normal to have to cower away from the windows of your place of work to avoid being shot. It is in fact outrageous and ought to result in some changes that are designed to prevent such things happening in the future.
 
For that person walking the street with a rifle to be openly connected to the standoff and shootings another time is not honest or actual either. Were those events on the same day? In the US it is OK to have a rifle or pistol and walk the streets. You better get after the Swiss as they do this all the time.

[bran-dish]

verb (used with object)
1. to shake or wave, as a weapon; flourish: Brandishing his sword, he rode into battle.

noun
2. a flourish or waving, as of a weapon.
 
BobF said:
For that person walking the street with a rifle to be openly connected to the standoff and shootings another time is not honest or actual either. Were those events on the same day? In the US it is OK to have a rifle or pistol and walk the streets. You better get after the Swiss as they do this all the time.

[bran-dish]

verb (used with object)
1. to shake or wave, as a weapon; flourish: Brandishing his sword, he rode into battle.

noun
2. a flourish or waving, as of a weapon.
Click to expand...

No, they were separate events. Each led to the deaths of three people.
How many such events are necessary before people start thinking about laws to protect innocent civilians?

If a person is walking down a street 'brandishing' a weapon, should the police consider this as nothing to be concerned about until people are actually shot at?
What would happen if the same person were walking down the street brandishing a Samurai sword or a scimitar? Would no-one be bothered by this?

We have seen incidents where police officers have shot to death unarmed people they thought were carrying a gun but when someone is actually walking around with a powerful rifle and behaving strangely enough to trigger a call to the police, nothing happens? Does this make sense to anybody?
 
[h=1]Planned Parenthood Shooting Suspect Made Comment About 'No More Baby Parts': Sources[/h]Planned Parenthood Shooting Suspect Made Comment About 'No More Baby Parts': Sources
NBC News

The day after a gunman killed three people and shot nine others at a Colorado Planned Parenthood office, officials tell NBC News a motive remains unclear, but say the suspect talked about politics and abortion.

Robert Lewis Dear, a North Carolina native who was living in a trailer in Colorado, made statements to police Friday at the scene of the Colorado Springs clinic and in interviews that law enforcement sources described as rantings.

In one statement, made after the suspect was taken in for questioning, Dear said "no more baby parts" in reference to Planned Parenthood, according to two law enforcement sources with knowledge of the case.

But the sources stressed that Dear said many things to law enforcement and the extent to which the "baby parts" remark played into any decision to target the Planned Parenthood office was not yet clear. He also mentioned President Barack Obama in statements...

Read more: http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...spect-made-comment-about-no-more-baby-n470706
 
Warrigal said:
No, they were separate events. Each led to the deaths of three people.
How many such events are necessary before people start thinking about laws to protect innocent civilians?

If a person is walking down a street 'brandishing' a weapon, should the police consider this as nothing to be concerned about until people are actually shot at?
What would happen if the same person were walking down the street brandishing a Samurai sword or a scimitar? Would no-one be bothered by this?

We have seen incidents where police officers have shot to death unarmed people they thought were carrying a gun but when someone is actually walking around with a powerful rifle and behaving strangely enough to trigger a call to the police, nothing happens? Does this make sense to anybody?
Click to expand...


You should read the stats in the US. In spite of your constant worrying the US is slowly lowering its rates of homicides.

http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/htus8008.pdf#page=27

Look to page 2 for most recent number and charts. The items on page 2 did not copy and reproduce well at all. See below. Best link and look. The numbers are steadily going down. We don't need to just eliminate guns from our existance at all. That is a false idea and it is in our Constitution to be OK. Only way to eliminate guns is to change our Constitution and that will be a tough job as both Democrats and Republicans like the ownership and use of guns for various reasons. Some is just like the Swiss in the gun clubs and shoot outs being held locally, in state competitions, and hunting for some. All this get rid of guns nonsense should be kept at home and not pushed in a different country that does not agree with your ideas. I will keep on looking as I once had similar links and they did copy and post.

P
AT T E R N S
& T
R E N D S
Long term trends and patterns
In the last decade (since 2000) the homicide rate declined to
levels last seen in the mid-1960s

e homicide rate doubled from the early 1960s to the late
1970s, increasing from 4.6 per 100,000 U.S. residents in 1962
to 9.7 per 100,000 by 1979
( gure 1)
. (See
Methodology
for
information on rate calculations.)

In 1980 the rate peaked at 10.2 per 100,000 and subsequently fell
to 7.9 per 100,000 in 1984.

e rate rose again in the late 1980s and early 1990s to another
peak in 1991 of 9.8 per 100,000.

e homicide rate declined sharply from 9.3 homicides per
100,000 in 1992 to 4.8 homicides per 100,000 in 2010.
The number of homicides reached an all-time high of 24,703
homicides in 1991 then fell rapidly to 15,522 homicides by
1999

e number of homicides increased steadily from the early 1950s
until the mid-1970s
( gure 2)
.

Between 1999 and 2008, the number of homicides remained
relatively constant, ranging from a low of 15,552 homicides in
1999 to a high of 17,030 homicides in 2006. ese homicide
numbers were still below those reported in the 1970s, when the
number of reported homicides rst rose above 20,000 (reaching
20,710 in 1974).
FIGURE 1
Homicide victimization rates, 1950–2010
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
2010200019901980197019601950
Rate per 100,000
Note: Data are based on annual estimates of homicide from
previously published versions of
Crime in the United States
. Data
for 1989 to 2008 re ect updated homicide estimates from
Crime
in the United States, 2008
. Data for 2009 and 2010 re ect updated
homicide estimates from
Crime in the United States, 2010
.
Source: FBI,
Uniform Crime Reports, 1950-2010
.
FIGURE 2
Number of homicide victims, 1950–2010
0
5,000
10,000
15,000
20,000
25,000
2010200019901980197019601950
Number
Note: Data are based on annual estimates of homicide from
previously published versions of
Crime in the United States
. Data
for 1989 to 2008 re ect updated homicide estimates from
Crime
in the United States, 2008
. Data for 2009 and 2010 re ect updated
homicide estimates from
Crime in the United States, 2010
.
Source: FBI,
Uniform Crime Reports, 1950-2010
.
 
Makes perfect sense, murder random strangers in cold blood because you think they're somehow connected to selling baby parts. Glad I'm not on his defense team.
 
Bob, homicides are not the total picture. I don't want to live in a society where people are frequently being shot at, whether or not they are being hit.
Talk about living in a state of constant nervous tension. Why would anyone want that?

Human beings can get used to anything over time and become rather fatalistic but why not do some things to reduce the risk to life and limb?
Who said anything about eliminating all guns? There are other measures between prohibition and open slather.

I remember years ago in my childhood, long before guns were registered, hearing that if someone was carrying a long gun, for safety reasons it had to be broken. This was to prevent accidental discharge. Shouldn't people who are carrying firearms be required to engage the safety mechanism ? How much of an infringement of their freedom would this simple measure be ? Not any more than requiring people in cars to wear seat belts IMO.
 

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