Another Mass Shooting In The Us...

[GS_Dirtboy]

Guns don't kill people, video games and movies do?

Please don't dumb down what I wrote. Thank you.

I found this site http://www.globalresearch.ca/mass-shootings-in-america-a-historical-review/5355990 and found the statistics interesting. The earliest mass murderers used not only firearms but also killed with swords and axes. Also interesting in the change in the nature of US mass shootings pre-1960 that were mostly familial and after 1960 that seemed to shift to shooting unrelated/unknown victims in public places.

Note: I have not had time to independently verify the statistics and events of this site.

The argument of the gun control side is this: If guns were illegal then motivated individuals would not be able to access weapons and, therefore, not be able to kill lots of people. My logical brain says BS because there will always be ways for motivated individuals to get weapons.

However, this argument can also be made: In some cases of mass shootings (not all, granted) giving a bystander who is armed and trained a chance to intervene can significantly reduce the death rate.

 

[cwo4uscgret]

GS_Dirtboy the Texas Tower/Charles Whitman was in 1966...getting older - memory fading a bit?

Although I don't like open carry I support the right to do so where legal. As a retired LEO. I am not concerned when I see someone with a handgun in a holster but when I see someone with a rifle slung across their chest I become a lot more in tune to the situation. I don't like it when I see it - although legal I think it does more harm/damage for the rest of us. It's almost like they're making up for some other physical deficiency. And I am pro second amendment.

The Orlando mass murder was a terrible tragedy; but the US Government holds a candle to no one for mass murders; 1890, Wounded Knee, South Dakota over 150 killed by the Army; and in Waco, TX, David Koresh and 75 others were killed by the Feds. The initial assault ended with 6 Branch Davidians and 4 government agents were killed. This was the start of the 51 day Siege by the government that predicated the deaths.

 

[steveinbsas]

The only mass shooting I remember until the 1980's was the University of Texas shooting by Charles Whitman.

GS_Dirtboy the Texas Tower/Charles Whitman was in 1966...getting older - memory fading a bit?

Although I would have used the word "before" instead of "until" in GS's sentence, I understood that was the intended meaning when I read it.

 

[khairyexpat]

giving a bystander who is armed and trained a chance to intervene can significantly reduce the death rate.

Entire Dallas Police Dep. with close to 4000 Police Officers facing ONE gun, .... with devastating outcome.
I`m not saying that the Police were not adequately trained, not adequately armed, ill equipped or outnumbered.
It`s only unfortunate that out of close to 400 MILLION guns in the US, not a single one of those bystanders showed up to help the Police.

This is not quoting or tossing around whatever shady statistic, propaganda, straw man, distraction off topic or contortionist mind twisting game.
Nothing of the sort.
This is REAL.
And SAD.

And who gives a hoot ..... not for another 100 years, .... I predict !

 

[thorsten]

The self-defense argument is another NRA propaganda. The facts are pretty clear but I'm pretty sure someone can come up with some anecdotal evidence of a friend of a distant relative who read an NRA article describing that someone prevented a crime using his gun - which is clearly more relevant than any real scientific study for people who just want to see their point of view validated...

 

[StevePalermo]

In some cases of mass shootings (not all, granted) giving a bystander who is armed and trained a chance to intervene can significantly reduce the death rate.

That's not working out too well is it? Btw, is there any limit on the number of shooting massacres that you would tolerate before you'd consider a change to the law acceptable? Or is the right to own these assault rifles so sacrosanct?

 

[scotttswan]

http://newsthump.com...ss-the-midwest/

ISIS pledge to kill thousands of Americans by opening gun stores across the Midwest

The National Rifle Association both welcomed and condemned the plans, saying that it was a God-given right to sell guns to Americans but they’d rather people weren’t so blatant about the consequences, thanks very much.

:lol:

 

[GS_Dirtboy]

If you were inside a restaurant and a guy walked in and started systematically shooting people one-by-one would you rather be holding a pistol or a fork?

Let's take the Luby Restaurant mass shooting in 1991. George Hennard walked into the restaurant armed with a Glock 17 and a Ruger P89 - neither of which, by the way, are assault weapons. He shot and killed 23 people, some with kill shots to the head, and wounded another 27. He took his time. One of the survivors was Suzanna Hupp, a politician, who later went on to be a leading advocate of the right to carry concealed weapons. Hupp was eating at Liby's with her parents, both of whom were killed. According to her own testimony when the shooting started she reached for her pistol which she then remembered she left in the glove box of her car before entering the restaurant for fear of violating state weapons carry laws.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzanna_Hupp

And yes, there are other examples where mass shooting were stopped.

http://controversialtimes.com/issues/constitutional-rights/12-times-mass-shootings-were-stopped-by-good-guys-with-guns/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/10/03/do-civilians-with-guns-ever-stop-mass-shootings/

We could keep going with examples on both sides where shootings were stopped and where shootings were not stopped.

The question is: If assault weapons were made illegal would this prevent mass shootings? I say no only because 1) there would still be assault weapons on the black market available to mass shooters and 2) one does not need an assault weapon to kill lots of people.

I am sorry to ask but do you think a shooter has an easier time killing young children in a school because he/she has an assault rifle? The answer, as those of us who have experience with weapons will tell you, is no.

So the next question is: If all weapons were made illegal would this prevent mass shootings? I say no again because of #1 above. The only impact would be to prevent a guy like me from legally carrying a concealed weapon.

Then the next logical question is: If a guy like me legally carrying a concealed weapon is at the location of a mass shooting would that stop a shooter? I say yes but only under the right circumstances.

• If I was in a dark movie theater and a shooting started would I be able to intervene? Probably not.
• If I was in a classroom and a shooting started in campus would I be able to intervene. Probably yes.
• If I was in a restaurant and a shooter walked in would I be able to intervene? Probably yes.
• If I was on the street and a shooter with a rifle had a sniper position in a building would I be able to intervene? Probably not.

I answer these questions as a guy with a lot of weapons experience, both military weapons, assault weapons, as well as civilian weapons. I don't own an assault rifle and I don't hunt with guns so I actually have nothing personal to lose in an assault weapons ban.

It is just real-world logic to me.

 

[khairyexpat]

Hi GS:
It is not a fact she could have done something. Isn`t this only an assumption and an opinion ?
The fact is an entire Police Department COULD NOT and DID NOT do something facing ONE terrifying gun for hours before 5 dead.
My opinion: what could she probably have done that an entire Police Dep. could not do ?
Guns kill, indiscriminately regardless who is the good guy or the bad guy.

We all wish that only good guys win like the movies.
But it is not the movies.
It is REAL.

 

[clooz]

If you were inside a restaurant and a guy walked in and started systematically shooting people one-by-one would you rather be holding a pistol or a fork?
...
It is just real-world logic to me.

I appreciate your real world examples full of practical and realistic details. I do think the way to improve things is to work on understanding these situations by discussing practical models that can be tested by looking logically at evidence of what works and what doesn't. The next step in building a model that might work in the real world for people is to try to scale up models from the small-scale restaurant example to real world scale. In a small city there are say 100,000 people. If most of them carry weapons then the probability that a small number will be armed when having a bad day and losing their tempers with random strangers become real. In a sizeable population social dynamics are not what happens in a restaurant where each person can see the antagonist - the 50-person restaurant is not an adequate model of how people act in large scale. One of the factors affecting scale is that as a model is scaled up it has to model resource limits, that are typically not present in small scale situations. Large scale models also have to deal with closed-world assumptions that can often be left out in small models. People intuitively understand that these problems of scale are critical. The growth of events in social populations is not linear, it is typically exponential; including the comunication of fear and fear responses. As a simplistic counter-example to your recipe, following your restaurant shooting example, a surviving 1/3 of the diners being armed leave to find some people nearby to shoot. At a minimum the restaurant model needs to show how exponential growth of violence proceeds to be labelled real.