[Gorefest]

I just completely fail to see the point that Nico is trying to make. Sorry about that.

If you have a lone gunman, first of all: where did they get a gun from? Having guns freely available to almost everyone, which appears to be the case in (some parts of) the USA, means that you already dramatically increase the number of people that will grab a gun in an emotional state instead of a knife or a baseball bat. So straight off the bat you have a worrying increase of unneccessary deadly violence.

That usually gets followed up by the argument that, if people really want to cause harm, they can get guns anywhere from the black market, no matter what the local legislation is. This may be true, but at least that means you have already eliminated a vast swathe of people who grab their gun out of an emotional outburst. So for the 'bad' people who are now left, we are talking extensive planning here, which usually means that even if you'd have a big armed troop of police at the site of the incident, they'd still manage to do quite a bit of damage before they get gunned down or detained.

Furthermore, replace trained police in the above situation with a bunch of often poorly trained civilians with guns, who will start shooting in response to the gunman. Suddenly you have a situation where we go from a single shooter which can hopefully be quickly localised and contained by the authorities to a mass shooting with bullets flying all over the place and lots more innocent bystanders potentially getting caught in the crossfire.

For every instance where the gunman gets taken down by a civilian without any other casualties, I can almost guarantee that there are several instances where the whole thing will turn into a bloodbath. It seems a popular thing in American (Western?) culture to champion vigilante justice. From 'Death Wish' to ' 'Batman', the lone heroic well-trained civilian armed to the teeth fighting crime that their corrupt local authorities do not stop is an image that we get shoved down our throats from childhood, but the reality doesn't work that way. Arming bystanders to avoid a rare (and it still is still relatively rare, despite it appearing a lot in the news these days) incident does not have a higher benefit return than having those bystanders misusing those guns or themselves going loopy and turning into perpetrators. In modern society, we have handed the responsibility of protecting innocents over to trained police and military forces so we do not have to do this ourselves.

To me, the above rationale is so obvious that it boggles my mind why the NRA and like-minded individuals are such a potent force in the USA. But I can only imagine that it stems from a very deep mistrust of your own local authorities and police. And if that is the case, I think it pays to think about whether that mistrust is validated or whether it is a result of years and years of Western culture (movies, comics, etc) indoctrinating you.

This post has been edited by Gorefest: 20 June 2016 - 11:50 AM

[Gorefest]

Small edit, I just stumbled upon this news snippet. It appears even the NRA has some common sense that seems to be lacking in the new republican candidate and which addresses my above vigilante point.


On Friday, Donald Trump publicly imagined a scenario in which armed bar-goers stopped the Orlando shooter by firing back at him in the darkened club, successfully making a pro-gun argument too stupid for even the NRA to defend.

“If we had people where the bullets were going in the opposite direction, right smack between the eyes of this maniac,” said Trump at a rally in Houston. “That would’ve been a beautiful, beautiful sight, folks.”

Speaking to ABC on Sunday, however, chief NRA lobbyist Chris W. Cox suggested that such a thing would not have been a beautiful sight at all and actually sounded pretty dumb.

“No one thinks that people should go into a nightclub drinking and carrying firearms,” said Cox, forgetting about one person who, at least in passing, does think that. “That defies common sense. It also defies the law.”

This post has been edited by Gorefest: 20 June 2016 - 11:51 AM

[Andorion]

To add to Gorefest's point above, just imagine the Orlando scenario where some of the club goers were armed.

The shooter fires some shots. Person A has a gun and fires back. Hearing the shots, person B who also has a gun comes running and is confronted with two people with guns. Both are shooting. How does B decide whom to shoot?

Lets expand this scenario a bit. The shooter is at the club to kill people. He has no specific targets. He just wants to shoot people. The more people die the better. So he doesn't need to worry about crowds, dim lighting, loud noise etc. In fact all of these are bonus points for him

Now person A is an innocent guy with a gun. He hears shooting. He takes cover and draws his weapon. The dim lighting, the loud noise are still there. The crowd now panicked is rushing around. So person A now has to negotiate the crowd, find the vantage point from where he can actually see and determine who the shooter is and open fire. This means he has to keep his cool in a deadly situation, in a semi-mob and work against his environment. Normal people don't react like that. Police and military are trained to react like that and even they mess up.

But its not over yet. There are several others B C D E who are also armed. They also start looking for the shooter. B sees a man jump out from behind a chair and fires. Thats not the shooter, thats A, But B can't know that. Everybody starts shooting. More bystanders get hit. More panic ensues

The police break in. They see a number of shooters and they take them down. End result: still a high bodycount and some Samaritans die as well.

How is this a good scenario?

[Gnaw]

 Screen Shot 2016-06-20 at 11.43.44 AM.jpg (288.97K)
Number of downloads: 0

[amphibian]

My best friend has been complaining to me about the process of getting a handgun license here in NY for a couple months now.

The complaints are not about how long it takes or how many references it takes etc, although it's definitely onerous. The complaints are about how throughout the entire process, nobody actually takes the students to a firing range and physically trains them in the use of firearms and safety. It's a "talk" course with lots of paperwork.

Half of the people going through the actual classes (presentations etc by an NRA guy) have never fired a gun before. These are the people that would be carrying and firing back in Nicodimas's hypothetical. I do not want that scenario in the slightest. Nope, nope, nope.

[Andorion]

amphibian, on 20 June 2016 - 03:57 PM, said:

My best friend has been complaining to me about the process of getting a handgun license here in NY for a couple months now.

The complaints are not about how long it takes or how many references it takes etc, although it's definitely onerous. The complaints are about how throughout the entire process, nobody actually takes the students to a firing range and physically trains them in the use of firearms and safety. It's a "talk" course with lots of paperwork.

Half of the people going through the actual classes (presentations etc by an NRA guy) have never fired a gun before. These are the people that would be carrying and firing back in Nicodimas's hypothetical. I do not want that scenario in the slightest. Nope, nope, nope.

Exactly. They need to be trained in many ways. Firstly how to actually fire your weapon properly. Secondly how to clean your weapon. Thirdly how to store your weapon. Fourthly when is the use of your weapon appropriate. This needs to be a very practical hands on course.

Who is going to fund this?

[Macros]

Fifthly.
How to react appropriately and calmly in a crisis situation.
Cause that'll just come naturally to everyone wont it?

[Nicodimas]

@ Amphiban-> It would not be that hard to apply a tax on all gun's and have a use it or lose it training program offered to anyone. I am all about finding ways to train the general populace and making them comfortable. I am for restrictions and all that, but sometimes logic and knowledge must be applied. Also wouldn't it be wonderful if everyone could make the arugment from pro-control to anti-lethality with powerful non-lethals. I see this happening soon. People would leave there lethal's to hunting and go out with self-protection and be safe.
That's the future compromise IMO.

Quote

If you have a lone gunman, first of all: where did they get a gun from?

This isn't important, the importance in a mass shooting incident, is how do we stop them? Some nutter will always find a way...A gun is at least stopable...a bomb however.../yikes

Macros, on 20 June 2016 - 04:27 PM, said:

Fifthly.
How to react appropriately and calmly in a crisis situation.
Cause that'll just come naturally to everyone wont it?

To Expand on this logic as I see this comes up. I don't understand this too. Your already giving up and to the bad guy and made the decision that he wins? Why?

Remember in this event it's not "chaos" of other's drawing on each other, like some would make it seem, once a event like this occurs every single person should instead consider themselves dead. The only way to fix a Mass Casualty scenario will be to *fight back* to claim your life. Once this logic becomes prominent the soft target's will change....

On Defense: Some people are completely comfortable placing themselves in a situation where they draw they know someone could shoot and kill them, police or otherwise. That is their decision.... They value their fellow people and are worth the exchange. They know if that bad guy doesn't go down...more people will die. They are willing to die in defense of others. This doesn't create more confusion. There is a ton of confusion as people are dieing in the above scenario from an active shooter at defenseless people. Now you are limiting the dieing to the bad guy and most likely the person that draws.

That is a very fair exchange.

Ok im out and taking a step back from this thread. I just wanted to share, so maybe y'all will consider a different vantage point. This is clearly just a message board forum so y'all take it easy. I totally understand where some of you are coming from and always consider it carefully.

Ill be back when I hear whatever regulations that are drawn from this in the next several weeks.

This post has been edited by Nicodimas: 20 June 2016 - 07:46 PM

[Gorefest]

Sorry, Nico, but you take one sentence out of my entire argument, dismiss it, and then continue with the flawed reasoning that is exactly what I argued against in the rest of my post. I already explained to you why your reasoning makes no sense in my view and you haven't given me a single argument to counter it, you just rehash the same old nonsense about everyone being saver if we are all armed. Poor showing.

[Vengeance]

Nico I know you are still looking at this thread. Nobody on here was attacking you personally I would have stepped in if they had been and like Worry I know that you can argue well with thought out arguments. True on this particular board you are facing an uphill battle as you admit. Personally I think that you are assuming that everyone is the country is as active in guns and how to react with them as you are. When the opposite is true. Furthermore I don't believe the majority in this country want to or care about the proper ability to handle fire arms.

Just to show you how dangerous it is to teach someone how to handle a fire arm.

During Target Practice with his dad

[Vengeance]

To reiterate my points from my rant earlier.

Kids deaths in 2015


It is outrageous that the CDC is able to track and gun deaths and the behaviors linked. Think about how many kids could still be alive, and how many more will be dead before we have data on the causes and know how and what to do to prevent them.

[Primateus]

Andorion, on 20 June 2016 - 04:01 PM, said:

amphibian, on 20 June 2016 - 03:57 PM, said:

My best friend has been complaining to me about the process of getting a handgun license here in NY for a couple months now.

The complaints are not about how long it takes or how many references it takes etc, although it's definitely onerous. The complaints are about how throughout the entire process, nobody actually takes the students to a firing range and physically trains them in the use of firearms and safety. It's a "talk" course with lots of paperwork.

Half of the people going through the actual classes (presentations etc by an NRA guy) have never fired a gun before. These are the people that would be carrying and firing back in Nicodimas's hypothetical. I do not want that scenario in the slightest. Nope, nope, nope.

Exactly. They need to be trained in many ways. Firstly how to actually fire your weapon properly. Secondly how to clean your weapon. Thirdly how to store your weapon. Fourthly when is the use of your weapon appropriate. This needs to be a very practical hands on course.

Who is going to fund this?

When I was in the military we used the G3A3 Assault Rifle. When we were first trained in its use we went through several hours of education in how to disassemble, reassemble, clean and handling the weapon before we were even allowed to fire blanks. We had to learn what ever part of as called (though I can't remember any of the designations today), how to unload a weapon correctly, how to ensure the weapon was loaded properly. And on and on it went.

This was an extremely powerful weapon, capable of shooting right through protective vests and even light armored vehicles. When at the firing ranges, it'd only take a slight laps of judgement and someone would be dead.


That situation that Amph describes sounds absolutely horrifying.

[worry]

It's official: the two gun control bills Chris Murphy led the filibuster over last week failed to advance in the Senate. The watch list one of course has issues (because the watch list itself inherently does), but the background check loophole one is such a basic common sense measure.

[Andorion]

Vengeance, on 20 June 2016 - 09:20 PM, said:

Nico I know you are still looking at this thread. Nobody on here was attacking you personally I would have stepped in if they had been and like Worry I know that you can argue well with thought out arguments. True on this particular board you are facing an uphill battle as you admit. Personally I think that you are assuming that everyone is the country is as active in guns and how to react with them as you are. When the opposite is true. Furthermore I don't believe the majority in this country want to or care about the proper ability to handle fire arms.

Just to show you how dangerous it is to teach someone how to handle a fire arm.

During Target Practice with his dad

That story you linked is quite confusing. How do you end up pointing a gun at your own head while trying to load it? It does not seem like the kid had been trained at all

[LinearPhilosopher]

Andorion, on 21 June 2016 - 02:00 AM, said:

Vengeance, on 20 June 2016 - 09:20 PM, said:

Nico I know you are still looking at this thread. Nobody on here was attacking you personally I would have stepped in if they had been and like Worry I know that you can argue well with thought out arguments. True on this particular board you are facing an uphill battle as you admit. Personally I think that you are assuming that everyone is the country is as active in guns and how to react with them as you are. When the opposite is true. Furthermore I don't believe the majority in this country want to or care about the proper ability to handle fire arms.

Just to show you how dangerous it is to teach someone how to handle a fire arm.

During Target Practice with his dad

That story you linked is quite confusing. How do you end up pointing a gun at your own head while trying to load it? It does not seem like the kid had been trained at all

could have been muzzle loaded weapon or simply he wasn't trained properly as to how to handle a weapon.

Gun safety 101, alwaystreat an unloaded weapon as if it was loaded

This post has been edited by LinearPhilosopher: 22 June 2016 - 03:34 AM

[Qcano]

Andorion, on 20 June 2016 - 04:01 PM, said:

amphibian, on 20 June 2016 - 03:57 PM, said:

My best friend has been complaining to me about the process of getting a handgun license here in NY for a couple months now.

The complaints are not about how long it takes or how many references it takes etc, although it's definitely onerous. The complaints are about how throughout the entire process, nobody actually takes the students to a firing range and physically trains them in the use of firearms and safety. It's a "talk" course with lots of paperwork.

Half of the people going through the actual classes (presentations etc by an NRA guy) have never fired a gun before. These are the people that would be carrying and firing back in Nicodimas's hypothetical. I do not want that scenario in the slightest. Nope, nope, nope.

Exactly. They need to be trained in many ways. Firstly how to actually fire your weapon properly. Secondly how to clean your weapon. Thirdly how to store your weapon. Fourthly when is the use of your weapon appropriate. This needs to be a very practical hands on course.

Who is going to fund this?

I have seen some wonderful and thoughtful discussions on this troublesome issue so I wanted to just express my appreciation to this community for being able to have a literate and intellectual discussion on a controversial issue. I have some opinions but I want to finish reading every post here so I can consider all points of view.

[worry]

Really nice interview with the Milwaukee Chief of Police Ed Flynn (not to be confused with Milwaukee County Sheriff Dave Clarke, aka the Arpaio of the North) on the problem of lax gun laws in urban areas, why there's a gamut of opinions nationwide, how localities bow to state interests which are distinctly "not urban" (he's knowingly calling out the dog whistle), and perhaps most importantly: why there's no hope.

https://www.themarsh...-carry-gun-laws

Somewhat pertinent to the Ferguson thread as well since that expanded to cover community/police relations/injustice more generally, but i think it mostly fits here.

[Macros]

Genuine question.
I see americans using the phrase dog whistle a lot in the discussion forums, what exactly does this mean, is it a handwave toward a topic or a subtle dig or what?

[Messremb]

Macros, on 19 August 2016 - 10:10 AM, said:

Genuine question.
I see americans using the phrase dog whistle a lot in the discussion forums, what exactly does this mean, is it a handwave toward a topic or a subtle dig or what?

I'd guess something along the lines of "can't be heard by humans but animals respond to it"?

[Macros]

How does this relate to us politics thread? (no trump/ass jokes please) or guns?