Tweet
It is a common battle cry of gun rights extremists, reinforced by thousands of Dirty Harry faux heroes in movies and television, to claim that if only everyone carried firearms, and everyone knew that, murderers and crazy people would be stopped in their murderous rampages as armed, law-abiding citizens rescued the crowd by taking out the would-be shooter. It’s the ultimate male fantasy for those who have a need for that.
And no doubt one can conceive of scenarios in which the sequence of events made it possible for that to happen. Think of the Army base shootings, in which police fired back at the shooter and probably saved lives.
But I suspect that’s rare, and the scenario doesn’t seem to be true in the Tucson shootings. Instead, it seems that even though there were armed “friendlies” at Rep. Gifford’s event, their weapons were useless, and the real heroes were unarmed people who had the presence of mind and personal courage to stop the armed people from killing even more people.
On the Ed Show last night, one of these friendlies present at the shooting explained that he had a concealed weapon, had his hand on its safety, and would have been willing to shoot if others had not already subdued the suspect shooter. But he also noted that initially he had raced at another guy (presumably friendly) who was holding a weapon and had grabbed his wrist and made him drop the gun before others told him he had the wrong man. One can imagine the chaos and deaths multiplied if either had mistakenly shot the other, making it impossible to know who was on whose side.
So it seems there were at least two friendlies at the site with loaded weapons, one drawn, one about to be drawn, but neither of them could react fast enough to stop a crazed shooter from getting off some 30 rounds, killing six and wounding more than a dozen others. And they almost shot each other.
That’s not exactly the everything turns out well hero scene you see in the movies or tv, but when you stop and think about it, it’s probably the more likely scenario. Semi-automatic, rapid-fire weapons with 30-round clips seem to have been designed to allow crazies and/or thugs to kill a lot of innocent people before anyone can stop them. What other legitimate purpose do they serve?
Contrast the experience of the armed people with those who were unarmed. We had a brave young man who, when he first heard the shots, ran towards the shooting to help save Ms. Giffords, not by shooting anyone but by dealing with her wounds. We have others who tackled the shooter and held him, not with guns, but with their hands, their bodies.
And we have the lovely white-haired lady, Patricia Maisch, who appeared on KO’s Countdown. When the shooter was hovering over her and then thrown down on top of her, she prevented him from reloading. Unable to grab the gun from the shooter as he was being pinned, she reached over and grabbed the extra magazine the shooter had taken out to reload and then sat on the shooter’s legs to keep him from getting up. Once relieved by others, she ran into the store, not to get away, but to secure bandages for those wounded.
The unarmed kept the armed from killing more people. Deal with it, America.
114 Comments
Thanks, Scarecrow. And I would add that the unarmed folks on Flight 93 took care of the hijackers on September 11, as well. Add to that the successful end of the totalitarian governments in the Eastern bloc when masses of unarmed people took to the streets to state that the government was no longer legitimate, and we see that peaceful, unarmed people can change the world, even in the face of well-armed militaries.
What were two ‘friendlies’ doing at a political event with loaded concealed weapons?
Wasn’t that the same “argument/logic” used when that mentally unstable person sadly killed all those students at Virginia Tech?? That IF only all the students had been armed, then the unstable student could’ve been killed sooner & less students would’ve died.
Conservatives love to use such “logic” to push forward their insane use of guns ‘n ammo. I’m sure the “logic” is well-funded by the guns ‘n ammo industry.
If everyone starts firing guns in a crowd situation, like what the Tucson gathering was, the likelihood is that *more* citizens would’ve been killed or injured. This kind of “cowboy logic” needs to be put to bed forever.
I’m glad there’s more information about those who were unarmed helping to control or stop further shooting at this tragic event. Citizens should take note. We do not need to all carry guns to be safe.
This is not the Wild West and we are not constantly on the watch for a showdown. Guns do not make a man, but hinder him by addressing his fears.
Our society has a use for guns and I don’t feel that we have had a healthy view of protection. This was not an issue of protection but of assassination.
eCAHN — it’s Arizona. I don’t understand it either.
Very True!
Scarecrow. I wish this could get out on every mainstream media outlet. This effectively destroys the whole facade of the gun nuts movement. I thought at the time I watched that guy on Olberman he would have been better off just grabbing his dick.
LOL! ;-) Funny, and true.
The wild west was never as violent as Arizona would have it. At least there were laws written and unwritten about where to carry weapons. And they were not used for defense as much as by criminals to intimidate and the law to kill them.
The first reaction of a hero without military training even if they have a gun it seems is to run toward danger and stop it not reach for a gun a panic emotional choice made by the lizard brain.
Interesting the Lizard brain controls us when we just react in crisis logic like hey I got a gun is not the first reaction for most people even the guy at the scene with a gun.
So then real world example more guns won’t stop crime more heroes will assuming they are around.
Unless the GOP wants to introduce the draft and give everyone gun training so pulling a gun becomes something the Lizard Brain would consider an option.
More Guns won’t save people my idea more people with guns who go to the army is just a theory.
Still real world experience the guys with guns didn’t save the day the unarmed people did.
How many more lives could have been saved if the shooter had a smaller ammo clip?
Yeah, I made the same point wrt some one who asked why there were no cops present, namely that if there had been, it seems possible, if not likely, that even more innocents would have been killed.
Right after 9/11, National Guard showed up at U.S. airports, armed with really scary looking weapons. I asked one when he had last practiced firing it in crowded circumstances, he colored up, and answered honestly as I had caught him by surprise: “Never.”
it seems arizona and the shooting scene was perfect place to disprove the allied theory that if everyone had guns then the wild-eyed would be more cautious about using violence.
“wild west was never as violent as Arizona would have it”
Well, I guess that depends on the color of your skin. Indigenous Americans might not be of the same opinion.
And we have the lovely white-haired lady, Patricia Maisch, who appeared on KO’s Countdown. When the shooter was hovering over her and then thrown down on top of her, she prevented him from reloading. Unable to grab the gun from the shooter as he was being pinned, she reached over and grabbed the extra magazine the shooter had taken out to reload and then sat on the shooter’s legs to keep him from getting up. Once relieved by others, she ran into the store, not to get away, but to secure bandages for those wounded.
The question of Women in combat has been answered are women are still banned from direct combat? Newt will be running for president his women have infections speech and can’t fight will come up as an issue.
Joe Zamudio is creepy. If there are hundreds or thousands like him wandering around Arizona, I’m never going back.
So it seems there were at least two friendlies at the site with loaded weapons, one drawn, one about to be drawn, but neither of them could react fast enough to stop a crazed shooter from getting off some 30 rounds, killing six and wounding more than a dozen others. And they almost shot each other.
Logical brain needed to shoot someone slowed them down
I think you’re talking about Zamudio and he was on with Schultz. Yep, he might have just waved his crank if it wasn’t so pathetically little.
*Think of the Army base shootings, in which police fired back at the shooter and probably saved lives.” But didn’t PREVENT deaths, even though the shooter knew everyone (or at least a lot of people) around him was armed.
The phrase that keeps coming to mind when I see these “armed heroes” is “fog of war.”
There is a crowd of people around and suddenly shots start are being fired.
First someone has to recognize that they are hearing gun shots.
Then they have to determine where those shots are coming from.
By this time, all the other “armed heroes” in the area have pulled their weapons and are looking around frantically trying to determine the source of the gunfire.
Now all the “armed heroes” are seeing each other with weapons drawn and start firing at each other indiscriminately.
Since most of the “armed heroes” are probably not spending a lot of time at the range qualifying with their weapons, the shots are going everywhere.
Good luck to the forensics people matching all the shots fired with all the weapons used
Great point eCHAN guns don’t deter crime.
One of the biggest diffs I see between this event & the litany of other similar “unimaginable” ones in Rachel’s list last night, is that the perp didn’t commit suicide. Furthermore, he seems to be enjoying his 15 minutes of fame. I’ll be curious to see what, if anything, that fits into his profile.
I guess I was thinking of the civilian obsession with guns was not as prominent. And the mythology as represented in our entertainment industries is just that.
It was our Federal military that led the genocide of Native Americans.
I admit to not being very knowledgeable as to the specifics of Arizona history but my impression in general as to the cleansing of the west is that farmers did feel the need for defense in areas where retaliatory raids by Native Americans were frequent.
I don’t think anybody was armed at the scene of the shootings at Ft Hood. Weapons are usually under lock and key and soldiers don’t go around the base armed. MPs, those on guard duty and the base police would be armed but that’s about it.
Yes. You are right. It was on the Ed show. Thanks for the correction.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TV2TJ6SjwK0
“Since most of the “armed heroes” are probably not spending a lot of time at the range qualifying with their weapons, the shots are going everywhere.”
Making the same point as above: practicing in the firing range does not qualify you to open fire in crowded conditions, even if you’re professional. I am unaware of anyone who is trained to fire in crowded civilian circumstances.
Good point about being able to sort out the forensics and bring justice after the fact.
Excellent point. I think that Eugene Robinson and others have made a point – and RM discussed it last night – about the now defunct law banning these kinds of magazines (??) that permit the firing of many bullets rapidly. These types of “extras” for weapons are used only & solely to kill people.
Perhaps if that law could be re-implemented, we might see fewer of these types of rapid-fire tragedies.
Someone who’s willing do such an act – usually due to mental instability – will do so whether there’s others with guns in the vicinity or not. If we could reduce the capacity of the bullets that are rapidly fired from guns, we might just save some more lives.
I was going to point out that all personal weapons are kept strictly in the armory on any kind of military base but you beat me to it. Not even all of the guards carry guns. Sometimes it’s just a billy club.
Scarecrow says,
“It is a common battle cry of gun rights extremists, reinforced by thousands of Dirty Harry faux heroes in movies and television, to claim that if only everyone carried firearms, and everyone knew that, murderers and crazy people would be stopped in their murderous rampages as armed, law-abiding citizens rescued the crowd by taking out the would-be shooter. It’s the ultimate male fantasy for those who have a need for that.”
When Archie Bunker ran for president some years back, he wanted to arm all passengers as they got on a flight, to keep the plane from being hijacked. His theory was that nobody would be stupid enough to hijack the plane if everyone was armed.
Is this what we are becoming? Have become?
WayneC
Is there someway to get a list of his visitors and callers while incarcerated?
America would be very interested to see who is coaching this mentally unstable shooter.
Exactly. Excellent facts which are *conveniently ignored* by the 2d Amendment gun-nut types. WHO gets training to fire in a crowded civilian situation? HOW do you determine who’s the real shooter, and who’s there to stop the shooting?
Lack of logic & facts never stopped conservatives from whining out their talking points, however.
Maybe he never wanted to kill himself and he is a new kind of GOP shooter? All the old shooter profiles go out the window likes attention after getting caught, plans to live, does not care about killing innocent people as long as he gets his famous target?
I bet if he got a press interview he would talk about everything if so the GOP has a bunch to be worried about this new kind of shooter.
I was thinking the same thing. Of course he may have been intending it and just got stopped before carrying it out or before being killed by one of the gun toters.
I may be interesting to see the discourse that evolves. One question I have from what I know today. Just how does his thinking differ from Glenn Beck’s… or even what we see on the so called “History” channel? As we speak, in addition to Nostradamus reruns, and alien visitation “documentaries.” they are running series called something like Decoder….. looking for hidden messages in virtually everything. Isn’t that one of Beck’s and this guy’s preoccupations.
We not only need to figure out how to better treat the mentally ill but how to define the condition.
Well my point about the range is even folks who are used to firing the weapons under controlled environments are not going to be all that much in control due to adrenaline rushes and such.
People who are not used to firing the weapons are going to be far worse off about being able to maintain control of the weapon and aiming it properly, thus spraying their shots all over and endangering more bystanders.
I believe he is now a hero to many. Spit.
I hope not, but certainly the weapons industry would like for nothing more to happen. For me, it’s always “follow the money.” Who makes money if all citizens “have to” be armed?
Plus that one plane on 9/11 was “derailed” (for lack of better terminology) by citizens who did NOT have guns. How does “Archie Bunker” explain that?? (my question is rhetorical).
I’m thinking the same, but interested to see if any of the rightwingers have called him to specifically promise him some type of reward for not pointing a finger so to speak.
He needs to be watched, for sure. Not just due to mental problems but also for the political reasons behind it.
Something that often goes unacknowledged by the concealed or open carry folks in their advocacy of gun-toting as a defense against someone on a shooting spree is that just having a gun is not only ineffective but also potentially more dangerous. What having a gun on your person effectively accomplishes is to increase the chances that the carrier or someone they know will get shot. Effectively using a gun to kill someone requires conditioning one’s body to react thoughtlessly, similar to how an athlete might train. I see folks at the gun range shooting paper targets and talking about how they have their handgun to shoot home invaders. This activity doesn’t translate to the desired result, in much the same way that the majority of soldiers during World War II who were trained on paper targets did not end up firing their weapons in combat. What I suspect the open or concealed carriers are producing is the semblance of security to assuage feelings of insecurity and powerlessness.
I wonder how much play the actions of these unarmed folks will get in the media and public debate?
That’s horrible, but sadly, I can believe it. Awful.
I think that’s why RM made such a big issue on her show last night to identify the political leanings/party membership of the innoncent bystanders who were killed. Many were identified as “staunch Republicans.”
To be redundant (from my prior posts), conservatives need to realize that their incendiary & violent language will encourage others to go on rampages, and it’s not “just liberals” who will be hurt… these rampages are “equal opportunity” almost every time. So short-sighted, so inhumane, so stupid, so disgusting, etc.
I am unfamiliar with that episode, but there is a very old joke that makes the point somewhat more ironically.
Passenger gets stopped by metal detector from carrying a gun onto a plane. When asked by authorities why he tried to do that, the A was: “Well, if the odds are 1:one million of being on an airplane with one gun, can you imagine what the odds are of being on a plane with 2 guns?”
I live in TX, where tons of people have guns. I heard a bunch of automatic weapon firing one day right next door…I was scared that someone was being shot, and I was scared that stray bullets would hit my house or animals…I called 9/11, and the cops came within a couple of minutes…thing is, they came to MY house. Then they gave me this big schpiel that the neighbor had a right to target shoot. Blah, blah, blah. Oy.
And thanks for covering this, Scarecrow.
Diary
Target shoot in a residential area? JEEBUS!
Carrying concealed guns seems like dick compensation or something for men and women. Sort of like some women who wear really sexy underwear, but only they know they’re wearing it and nobody else ever sees it anyway (for some of them). It seems to make some people feel better about themselves. Go figure.
Ding!
I live in a CCW state, and since the wake of the Virginia Tech shooting there has been a bit of discussion by some students at the univeristy where I work about how the campus should allow CCW as well. Silly, silly, silly.
True. And if the truth be known, none of them would actually want to stand in the middle of a gun fight even if they had one.
“Guns do not make a man, but hinder him by addressing his fears.”
Great summation.
I think it’s all mostly ego driven.
I think many realize it. They thirst for violence. Too many run their personal lives with violence. I promise you if someone can clearly paint a villain and create just the right incident many will pick up their guns and start killing. In fact many of us and I think many in our government live in unacknowledged fear and intimidation. The right wing primitives such as Gingrich and the Neo Cons are winning.
Seriously, we need to know who may be contacting this man while incarcerated. I’m not talking about legal council or family. I’m wondering if any of the rightwingers have contacted him and promised him something or have asked him not to point a finger at them.
As one of my “extra” duties in the USAF, I had to receive law enforcement training. Part of that was to actually be a cop for three nights per quarter.
I had to carry a 38 but was not allowed near one until I had qualified with it. Took me five tries to actually qualify.
Not an easy thing to do for most folks, even if they grew up with weapons.
I would think they are laying low if there are any at all.
“It is a common battle cry of gun rights extremists, reinforced by thousands of Dirty Harry faux heroes in movies and television, to claim that if only everyone carried firearms, and everyone knew that, murderers and crazy people would be stopped in their murderous rampages as armed, law-abiding citizens rescued the crowd by taking out the would-be shooter.”
___
Another of their cute sayings is “an armed society is a polite society.” Right. Yeah. Examples abound. Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen…
Absurd.
I recommend to all Richard Slotkin’s “Gunfighter Nation.” From a blurb on Amazon: “Slotkin unmasks frontier mythmaking in novels and Hollywood movies. The myth’s emphasis on use of force over social solutions has had a destructive impact, he shows, on our handling of urban violence, racial conflict and the “drug war.”"
Retaliatory? So you need to defend yourself against the people who you slaughtered because they might decide to fight back?
Don’t we call that self defense.. not retaliation?
I’d like to add something to the ‘women in combat’ question (and thank you Scarecrow for an excellent post, and this comes from a pro gun ownership person who was totally pissed off when they let the Brady Bill lapse in 2004). We had a crazy man come into the lobby of the company where I work and shoot a bystander who happened to be in the lobby at the same time. The people who responded, without regard to their own safety? 3 women and 3 men – many of the young men in one area had locked themselves in an office for safety. Two women and one man immediately fell to assisting the victim (and he is alive and cognizant now because of it). Another woman and man went to keep a lookout for the shooter.
Just saying – in an area of 200+ people, 6 brave people responded, half were women. Of course, none of us were armed at the time.
What is the logic in having concealed guns as a deterrent if no one knows you have a concealed gun.
Note another incident in which quick thinking and courage helped saved a lot of folks as one man threw himself through a picture window so many could escape a gunman with an automatic weapon:
“The Luby’s massacre was a mass murder that took place on October 16, 1991, in Killeen, Texas, United States when George Jo Hennard drove his pickup truck into a Luby’s Cafeteria and shot 23 people to death while wounding another 20, subsequently committing suicide by shooting himself. It was the deadliest shooting rampage in American history until the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre.” (link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luby%27s_massacre )
Most arm-chair heros haven’t a clue about what an actual, real “situation” is like. Confusion reigns, and it is damned difficult to really determine WHAT is going on, specifically Where it is happening and, most significantly, WHO is doing “it”.
Arming everyone to the teeth simply means more casualties, more senseless tragedy, and more grief.
In the actual event, most people are simply unable to react reasonably and quickly, and possessing a gun has NOTHING whatever to do with the ability to keep one’s head (first, DOWN! and secondly, such that one may determine the three “things” mentioned above).
For most people, flying bullets, do not lead to clarity of mind or certainty of purpose, but to confusion, and reasonably, fear.
I realize that too many political “leaders” rely on confusion and fear, but it is NOT their own, and as a general operant “policy” for most everyone else … it is, often, self-defeating and self-destructive … not to mention hard on everyone caught up in the madness, for that is what we are contemplating … nothing more and, certainly, nothing less.
One wonders why so many Ameericans appear so willing to add to that madness and to claim it as their very own?
It may be but bravada, on the surface, but underneath, it is the end of civil society.
DW
You’re describing a made-up popularized version of what happened to Flight 93. There are several versions, the earliest — during the flight and the crash –have been scrubbed. I was in Pittsburgh listening to near-real-time reports, including first-hand accounts of mobile phone calls, which subsequently were reported differently by third-hand accounts. Yes, possibly some passengers made an effort to take over the hijacked plane (after more than hour, but not sooner?), but the official Commission Report omitted eye-witness accounts from the crash scene, omitted several of the mobile phone reports, and altered the first-hand account of at least one of those phone calls.
The assumption is that anyone may be carrying. It is the unknown factor that is supposed to make it effective.
Isn’t that interesting? On a military base full of people trained in using weapons, most are not armed. But crazy gun lovers want everyone armed on any street corner or school classroom?
Just curious, but what is the rate or percentage of deaths in AZ from these kinds of situations? Is it higher or lower or mid-range in the national picture?
“One can imagine…”
If most of the people there were armed, in the confusion and fear, it would probably have turned into a full-on firefight.
Good post. But, I hardly think it’s only a male fantasy when we have the likes of Palin, Angle, and Bachman, to name just a few who, I suspect, have the same fantasies. There are plenty of female gun nuts out there.
So if a bystander took him out with a weapon before he emptied his clip you would now be supporting concealed carry permits right?
What if he was a hundred yards+ away picking off people with a hunting rifle, do you think you could run a hundred yards and tackle him while he was reloading?
Maybe your next diary should be the disarming of law enforcement. After all, in this case unarmed civilians were enough, imagine what a couple cops with billy sticks could do…
I remain simply amazed that everyone has some topic about which they completely throw out all rational thought.
It’s a useful debate, but it’s restricted to small firearms that anyone can buy, and only rational arguments get presented. The society has grown huge in a relatively short time — the US population has doubled in only three generations, it was about half its present size when JFK was murdered. The focus is on the deranged, sociopathic personality or on the uncontrollable, pathetic person who snaps. This kind of person would use a vehicle or a home-made incendiary device to destroy lives randomly if that’s his intention. We’ll never be made safe by legislation. As ever, the root causes are either unknowable, or they are well-known and largely preventable in a society where care and sympathy come naturally.
The argument against more stringent gun conrol is a myth perpetrated by the NRA, and another example of how our government has become inept at dealing with national issues due to the influence of monied special interests.
I keep seeing this suggestion.
I have some weapons training, a little tactical handgun training, but mostly assault rifles. Not being an expert with handguns, I can still empty to 12 round Glock magazines, including a reload, in about 7 seconds. And be on target to about 50 feet. Counting one in the chamber at the start of fire, that’s 25 rounds downrange in the time it would take someone to realize what was happening and act to stop it.
The extended magazine isn’t the problem here. A gun or its magazine are inanimate objects and left to their own devices will do no harm. The fact that this person was able to get a gun and carry it concealed should be the issue at hand. I see some legal issues there.
But IANAL.
I’d suspected there would be other armed people at the event, given Arizona’s attitude about such things. I also suspected that they wouldn’t have been able to react until things had already gotten out of hand. Having a gun is one thing, being able to aim and fire it accurately another, and reflexively knowing when to fire is a third. Unless someone has all three attributes, he most likely would spend some time just figuring out what was going on around him. Most of us have never been in a situation where people are shooting at other people. It’s not something we’re used to.
Which is why I think firearms would be of limited value in such situations. Certainly far less value than some gun advocates would have us believe.
A rifleman a hundred+ yards away isn’t likely to be stopped by someone with a pistol. The latter individual would probably have to spend considerable time finding the rifleman, and would then have to take careful aim without his being shot.
So, no, it wouldn’t change my opinion if someone with a concealed weapon got lucky in such a situation. Luck doesn’t change the odds.
I am not too sure what you point is with this post (I guess that unarmed people stopped this guy), but I would like to make a couple points being a concealed carrier myself:
1) I literally pray to God every time I holster my firearm that I never have to take it out. Most other carriers feel the same, and we do not have a ‘”Dirty Harry” complex. It simply gives us a option should the worst happen.
2) If this maniac was standing even 15 feet further away, these people probably would not have gotten too him before he reloaded. Thus these two gentleman’s talents would have been welcomed.
3) The gun, clips and anything else this guy was carrying are simple inanimate objects. You set any one of them on the ground, they will stay there for all eternity without doing anything. The shooter could have used a shotgun, car, airplane or any other object to kill these people, it wouldn’t have mattered.
I find it interesting that this Joe guy is making the news rounds. According to the video clip, Patricia says it was Colonel Badger and Roger Saltzgeber who took Loughner down and Patricia grabbed the magazine. Acc. to news accounts, Joe Zamudio sat on him after the fact, which is a good citizen thing to do, but perhaps not as heroic as the Col. and Roger that Patricia kept mentioning.
Actually you are incorrect. The FBI released its crime statistics http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2009/crime2009 which showed that violent crime is down over 7% since 2008 when Obama came in and gun sales sky-rocketed.
Then make it 25 yards with a shotgun instead of a hundred yards and a rifle, Fritter’s point is still the same. The people would not have gotten to him before he reloaded.
England, France, Australia…have you checked the violence going on there?
Actually it is not “dick compensation” it is simply love for your family, friends, and community. When I had my first child, I decided at that point that nothing was going to hurt her without me being able to do something about it. Owning a concealed firearm is simply that, it gives you an option to do something should your life, or your family’s life be in jeopardy.
BTW, your vulgarity and ignorance on the subject is astounding.
==modnote: please don’t make it personal.==
Giffords has a Glock herself. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/11/us/11guns.html?_r=1&hp
Of course the right wing loony fringe is blaming “gun control activists” when the gun control lobby once again calls for stricter controls on gun ownership. The loony fringe will pull out the old “it aint the gun, but the person and leftists that cause murder” not us routine, whether or not the terrorist, convict, fellow loony or mass murder pulls another weapon out to commit murder. They say a few …scrafices “for the good of the right to bear arms” is the way things outta be. These people like Palin, Bohner and Dick Armey and Beck are insane and should be kept away from weapons too !!!
What are doing to ourselves as a country?
So by using this same logic, we should effectively dis-arm any and all police/peace officer? A huge amount of officers (in the high 90%) never pull their firearms for an armed conflict. They only shoot at paper targets, so why does your logic not apply to them?
Nonsense. Twenty-five yards is a small distance to cover. A healthy person can do it in a few seconds. In a crowded area, which any event like this in a supermarket shopping center would likely be, that’s not much at all.
Where this argument is going, BTW, is toward an increasingly unlikely scenario where someone with a weapon is much more likely to be useful. Don’t bother. If guns weren’t so damned easy to obtain, lunatics would be a lot less likely to obtain them in the first place.
We are not blaming you, we are just simply saying “you are wrong”. Interesting that the shooter is being described as a Liberal.
You don’t think Palin and Bachman don’t have fantasies of having a penis” Their whole philosophy is of seeking substitutes?
Then make it ‘X’ yards with ‘Y’ gun, it doesn’t matter. Your send paragraph is simply wrong. 1) You have no idea if someone with a firearm would be useful or not. If you did know this, you would need to know the persons past experiences which you certainly cannot. 2) Lunatics/criminals are going to get the object (gun/car/crossbow/ again ‘X’ is the object) no matter what the laws are in place. These people do no care about society or living lawfully in one.
I’ve shot a handgun once in my life and I can tell you for certain that even under ideal conditions I can reload a handgun well before you can run 25 yards, assuming you were actually crazy enough to charge me while I was reloading. You running toward me isn’t likely to interrupt my reloading, my only thoughts being wow they’re much easier to shoot when they run towards you. On the other hand if you were standing still and popping off shots towards me I would be at an immediate disadvantage. I’m pretty sure I’d be hit before I could reload.
That’s not the point though. The point is that a policy based on anecdotes is simply not rational, but afflicts those on both sides of the political spectrum far too easily. You’ve made up your mind and you’ll twist the situation to support your preferred outcome. If the gunman was a little farther away you would say it was a freak accident and real problem was that he could get a gun anyway. Where, if you were rational, you would be thankful that someone inclined to mass murder would pick such an inefficient weapon as a handgun, or any firearm for that matter.
So if a CCW holder were to stop an armed assailant using armed force, would that change your opinion?
It’s amazing the friendlies didn’t kill an additional 10 people.
Actually Joe was armed.
It’s sad that you have to live in such fear. There will be many more slaughters and manly because of this perverse culture of worshiping guns. And it’s sad that our so-called leaders are so terrified of the NRA (who represent such a small minority). Did the thought ever cross your mind that if mentally ill people weren’t given easy access to deadly weapons NO ONE would be dead? But no, that’s our right, to live like savages.Enjoy watching your cowboy movies Kurt.
Point is, they are females who are having these fantasies. If they are females having male fantasies, it starts getting a bit blurry to speak of “male” and “female” fantasies. It becomes a bisexual fantasy if you will. It’s about being a hero through the use of violence. You don’t have to have a penis, or want to have a penis.
Well, you may be right. However, the decline in violent crime along with increased gun sales is only a correlation not a cause and effect relationship. There may be a cause and effect relationship, but the data presented on the site does not establish one.
Kurt, in all kindness, I would like to know how you weigh the pros and cons of providing yourself with another “option should the worse happen”? What made you decide in favor of CC?
Great comment. I think the rub is this: perhaps for you or me, more folks with guns means more confusion, fear and casualties. But for many “arm-chair heros” those guns add clarity, security and safety, which, from that perspective, contribute to civil society.
I don’t know if anyone else might confirm this, but being for the first time in a situation where bullets are flying is very confusing and it is hard to think clearly. Only conditioning in such an atmosphere helps overcome these reactions.
No, because what the argument of these students does not take into account is the downside to CCWs: the increased danger that CCWs present. Statistically speaking, far more US citizens die from friendly fire, so to speak, than die from sociopaths on shooting sprees. I’m not making a moral argument, I’m calculating odds.
With all due respect to those who love heroes: I don’t count them so; I call them Good Citizens or People with Heart. Have none of you ever risked life or limb to interrupt a fight or battle, or save a life? It’s not something you decide; it’s just something you’re compelled to do. If you stopped to think, you might not do it.
Elevating it to heroism, IMO, sells short the act as something ordinary but concerned-for-our-fellow-man humans do.
I don’t live in fear, I live in reality. A gun is simply a tool to me, something that I hope I will never need to use. It is like the emergency bag I have stored in a safe place should a natural disaster strike. It is like the CPR course I took shortly after my daughter was born to teach me how to dislodge a choking emergency, or help someone who is in cardiac arrest. It is like the spare tire I have in my car should I get a flat. Do you get the picture? I do not have a utopia mindset where things do not happen. I hope none of these things I listed happen, but if they do, I would be happy that I am prepared.
Plus, I try not to let fear dictate my behavior.
It does.
Good question & I am not being sarcastic here, but what are my options for self defense? I suppose I could carry a knife and get training, bows are simply unrealistic, hand to hand would be another option.
As far as how I weighed the pro’s and con’s? I am ex-military so I already have formal firearms training. Also I grew up with firearms.
Keep in mind, having a CCW permit is not a walk in the park, it is kind of a pain in the neck, especially if you have kids. First there are many rules in carrying and they differ from state to state. Second, you always have to plan on where you are going to be, can you lock it up somewhere (like if you go into a sports stadium…you cannot carry), etc. Third, kids are always going to be interested, so you always have to be vigilant & careful in carrying.
Only government officers should be allowed to defend themselves…
He/she is right about the WW II soldiers. Its one of the things that gives me hope for humanity on occasion.
Not sure I buy the gun range talk though, everyone knows a handgun is a poor defensive weapon for a home invasion. If you are walking down a dark alley however… different story.
Still, its interesting isn’t it. Argueing that its extremely difficult to kill another human being, but at the same time that they are somehow more dangerous because they feel safer because they have a weapon.
No statistics on being more dangerous. What are the murder rates of those with CC versus those without…
I agree.
I’m 63 and have lived in the suburbs all my life. I do not know anyone who has ever saved a life or been able to defend himself by having a gun. But as a child we all knew about the teenage boy down the block who shot and killed his best friend by mistake with a 22 on Christmas Day. And another friend whose two teenagers got into a fight and one shot the other in the stomach-thankfully he lived. An relative’s teenage son shot and killed himself at the age of 17 after a fight with his girlfriend. Another relative lived in fear because her husband was an alcoholic and she feared every time he went on a binge.
@SandorO. In all respect, that’s a distinction without a difference. You get attacked you retaliate in self defense. I was very clear in identifying the US Government as the aggressor. I add it was corporate shilling as well as the government policies to encourage development that has had lasting effect still reflected in politics today.
Those are all horrible tragedies, but what is your point? I assume you are making this statement in terms of banning guns. I also assume that you have heard similar family stories of parents back their car over their kid, dogs mauling the local neighbor boy, or some kid getting knifed in a gang fight. Do we ban all these items as well?
When these accidents happen it is horrible and should never happen. Gun training is like any other type of training (like driving a car). Parents that own guns should keep them safely locked away, or in a quick access device. Training kids at a young age should be mandatory whether or not someone believes in the ownership of guns. A child should know to leave a gun alone and let a adult know if one is found. Guns are in our culture and they will be here to stay in some form or another.
Hinder him by addressing his fears? Addressing or assuaging someone’s fears usually makes him calmer and more confident. I don’t understand your point.
In the US military, the greatest risk for women is sexual assault by their male comrades. Women can be great soldiers, but I’m not sure the US military can handle that.
Excellent point. If a poster suggests that people who carry concealed weapons have small dicks, and you carry a concealed weapon, please assume that the poster meant all people who carry concealed weapons but you. That way we can insult entire groups of people indiscriminately without “making it personal.”
Not to mention Switzerland, Germany and many other nations where firearms are commonly owned and kept in the home but mass shootings like this are quite rare.
As a gun owner myself, I hate the way guns and pseudo-patriotism and tea-party hate speech have gotten blended together in a stew of lunacy. It’s especially nutty in Arizona, as far as I can tell, and the notion that any loser or nutjob can carry concealed without a permit, or a brief test, or any adrenalin training whatsoever, is just plain nuts. I’m glad for Kurt’s contributions in this thread, because if we must live in a country where guns proliferate, the Kurts of America (and there are a lot of them in the gun community) are good role models for what responsible firearm ownership looks like. (As opposed to the dickless wonders who like to dress up in cammies and bandoliers and Glocks just to throw a scare into attendees at a political rally, for instance.)
I heartily wish there were controlled studies being made, in states that have adopted CCW laws, as to the rise (or decrease) of personal crimes, accidental shootings, and whatnot, because I’d really like to know whether instituting concealed carry has any measurable effect, positive or negative, on crime and personal safety. There’s lots of anecdote on both sides, but lacking rigorous and reliable studies, I think localities ought to require licensing, testing, and re-testing individuals with CCW permits, just as with motor vehicles.
The other failure here, though, was the lack of a way to identify people in mental distress, and then ENSURE they A) get help and B) are kept from becoming a danger to themselves or society. That’s a function of money, intention, and compassion, and I’m afraid our society doesn’t have those things on a governmental level any more.
In spite of the might of the NRA, lots of states still have mandated waiting periods and background checks. I hope that those don’t get repealed as the Tea Party gains power; in fact, I think those safeguards should be made even more fail-proof. I think gun owners are also going to have to start asking themselves whether accepting an additional measure of personal inconvenience, if it results in saving lives, isn’t morally the right thing to do–a small sacrifice to make their country a safer place.
Cops, with their disproportionate amount of power and legal protection, are the last folks who should be armed. If the power imbalance gets fixed, I’ll reconsider. :)
The US military has largely fixed the problem of conditioning soldiers to kill more effectively by switching to human silhouette targets and live fire ranges. When I was in, we used to bayonet rubber dummies of Soviet Bloc soldiers and explode claymore mines on them.
As far as the murder rates related to CCWs, what I am after is calculating odds in order to arrive at reasonable conclusions. I have not been able to find much data specific to this issue. There is just not a critical mass of research on this particular aspect of gun violence. Most of it revolves around the decrease in violent crime in the wake of CCW permits. However, this “evidence” is correlative and not causal, and therefore doesn’t help one arrive at conclusions. And one has to be careful with the data. The NRA has informed me many times that kids’ sports related injuries involving guns is below that of other sports. Technically, this is most likely true: more kids probably break their ankles playing soccer than are shot while hunting. But they’re not very likely to die playing soccer. So I am left with hypothesizing based on related data.
From what I can tell, in a nation of over 300 million, a US citizen has less than a one in one million chance of dying in an incident like the recent one in Arizona. I suspect more people win big state lottos every year. It is an extremely minor risk. So the argument that if more folks had CCWs in Arizona less people would have died seems specious if we include in an overall risk assessment the potential dangers that go along with CCWs. Here’s where gun accident data comes in.
In the last decade, annual accidental gun deaths were 1,000+. Non-fatal wounds are 5-digit figures. How many of these are related to CCWs, I can’t tell from the data. (Oddly, the link to the FBI’s data that Kurt provided had an FAQ that read, “Are more people murdered by a stranger or by someone they know?” but the data provided in now way answered that question.) What the data leads me to surmise, and there is research to back it up, is that gun accidents increase with gun ownership and that the number of yearly deaths from those accidents far exceeds at least those from incidents like Virginia Tech.
BTW, The Center for Disease Control and the Harvard School of Public Health are useful places to start in assessing the available research.
Generally, what I would like is to maximize freedom while limiting risk. And personally, being free is more important than avoiding danger. But here we encounter the perennial rub on this issue: It is not just a question of freedom TO but of freedom FROM. When does one’s freedom TO infringe on another’s freedom FROM? Or, what might protect citizens from the dangers involved with CCW carriers, especially the would-be hero types and those who, in my opinion, have grossly inadequate firearms training?
Tentative conclusion: The potential safety of CCWs does not outweigh the dangers of their profusion. Having folks with CCWs to save us from the Loughners of the world seems ill-advised. Again, statistically speaking one is much more likely to shoot themselves, a friend or family member than get shot by gun-wielding sociopaths. I like guns (I even have a Federal Firearms License), but we all have to live together.
Solution: Locate and fix our problems with fear, unhappiness and loss of community, and we won’t be talking about gun violence.
“There is no connection between having a gun and shooting someone with it. And you’d be a fool and a Communist to make one.” –Bill Hicks :)
Have you thought of plying the would-be assailant with a witty anecdote, thus disarming them? Or how about disrobing, screaming and running away? Jo Koy mentioned the effectiveness of slinging feces in a fight . . . ?
Seriously, and I’m including myself in this comment, but guns seem an easy out in pursuit of self defense and safety in general. Can we come up with no other options? Can we think creatively no further than resorting to guns, especially when they involve such an inherent risk? Can we face our fears in no other way?
Excellent points. Thanks.
Personal sacrifice for the good of the group seems to be waning in the US. Have you ever read “Why Nothing Works: The Anthropology of Daily Life” by Marvin Harris? Among other things, it address how increased mobility in the US has led to a decrease in the sense of community that fosters action on behalf of the collective good.
It’s a “utopia mindset” to think we can ever have a society where only well trained law abiding responsible citizens will have guns.