Want to rant about rightwings and conservatives? This is your thread.

[Muizer]

According to the article, one in four "active shooter" situations was ended by the killer being shot at the scene by someone other than himself (i.e. by a "good guy with a gun"). This not to mention that shooters flee the scene to evade armed law enforcement and will later have to be detained by armed law enforcement.

You can include the police in "good guys", but that invalidates the phrase's relevance to citizens' rights to bear arms. Pick one or the other, but not both.

Setting that aside, the article does not comment on how active shooters pick their targets. Presumably shooters are deterred by the knowledge/expectation/prospect that a potential target is immediately protected by firearms, even if they have no fear of death.

I suppose they are, if they're police, military or armed guards (although the latter are nearly absent in the stats of how shootings are stopped).

P.S. I'm not actually advocating gun control. It works fine, but only in a society with little private gun ownership to begin with. The US is going to have to live, and comparatively often die, with it.

[Heathen Hammer]

Citizens having access to guns and right to carry them means that it will be more likely that good guy with a gun will be there to stop the shooter. Especially given how recently law enforcement has proven to be largely ineffective in dealing with such threats, making rational demand for more armed populace even higher.

[PointOfViewGun]

Time and time again good guys with guns were present during mass shootings and they failed to do much. There is no substance to back up the idea that good guys with guns can stop mass shootings effectively.

[Heathen Hammer]

Cope cited the statistic that 1/4 of mass shootings are literally stopped by another guy with a gun. Seems like lives saved in that statistics do justify allowing citizens to own firearms, while anti-gun sentiment is a luxury belief for ignorant rich people that scoff at the idea that regular folks may be in situation where they need to defend themselves.

[PointOfViewGun]

Not sure how you reach that conclusion based on the article, cited by Muizer, not Cope. The very first graph shows that a bystander only managed to stop an attacker by shooting at him in 22 cases out of 433 active shooting cases. That's about 5% of all active shooting cases, not 25%. You're off by a factor of 5.

[Cope]

You can include the police in "good guys", but that invalidates the phrase's relevance to citizens' rights to bear arms. Pick one or the other, but not both.

I suppose they are, if they're police, military or armed guards (although the latter are nearly absent in the stats of how shootings are stopped).

P.S. I'm not actually advocating gun control. It works fine, but only in a society with little private gun ownership to begin with. The US is going to have to live, and comparatively often die, with it.

The right to bear arms covers an extensive array of self-defence scenarios, not just a narrowly defined, and comparatively rare, circumstance (i.e. "active shootings"). The criminality in someway prevented (either deterred or stopped at source) by lawful use of firearms is not established by the article. The number of "active shooter" incidents ended by armed citizens is likely low (low still being better than nothing) because shooters deliberately pick so-called "soft targets" (schools, shopping malls, places of worship etc) for maximum damage.

As for policing, we know that in 2020/21 there was a significant increase in the murder rate across the US (including from firearms) after the relentless vilification of the police based on tiny minority of well-publicized brutality cases. This vilification was often followed by policies which restricted PDs from adequately protecting the public.

[Muizer]

The right to bear arms covers an extensive array of self-defence scenarios, not just a narrowly defined, and comparatively rare, circumstance (i.e. "active shootings"). The criminality in someway prevented (either deterred or stopped at source) by lawful use of firearms is not established by the article. The number of "active shooter" incidents ended by armed citizens is likely low (low still being better than nothing) because shooters deliberately pick so-called "soft targets" (schools, shopping malls, places of worship etc) for maximum damage.

So in a country where everyone can carry arms, there are still soft targets. Conclusion?

As for policing, we know that in 2020/21 there was a significant increase in the murder rate across the US (including from firearms) after the relentless vilification of the police based on tiny minority of well-publicized brutality cases. This vilification was often followed by policies which restricted PDs from adequately protecting the public.

Your point being?

Not sure how you reach that conclusion based on the article, cited by Muizer, not Cope. The very first graph shows that a bystander only managed to stop an attacker by shooting at him in 22 cases out of 433 active shooting cases. That's about 5% of all active shooting cases, not 25%. You're off by a factor of 5.

It's even lower if you discount security guards, off duty policemen and so on, though it's arguably fair to include the latter as regular citizens.


Again not making the claim that gun control is going to work in the US. Just that it would be incredibly stupid for a society with low gun ownership to go down the US path. It was a big mistake, and now they're stuck with it,a situation where "a few good guys with a gun" are better than nothing. Not good, but slightly less disastrous.

[Heathen Hammer]

So in a country where everyone can carry arms, there are still soft targets. Conclusion?

Maybe creating designated soft target zones is not a good idea.

Just that it would be incredibly stupid for a society with low gun ownership to go down the US path.

Why?

[Lord Thesaurian]

Again not making the claim that gun control is going to work in the US. Just that it would be incredibly stupid for a society with low gun ownership to go down the US path. It was a big mistake, and now they're stuck with it,a situation where "a few good guys with a gun" are better than nothing. Not good, but slightly less disastrous.

Why would it be a mistake for gun ownership to decrease even more? That seems to imply the opposite of what you’re arguing.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Cope]

So in a country where everyone can carry arms, there are still soft targets. Conclusion?

As mentioned, the purpose of the law change appears to be to create fewer soft targets (not everyone can carry arms at all places).

Your point being?

That the politicians/activists who complain bitterly about firearms/2A are routinely responsible for rhetoric and prescriptions which facilitate violent criminality and suppress law-abiding citizens. This is reflected in the exaggerated focus on rare incidents of "active shootings", AR killings, or police brutality and an ignorance of gang, drug or theft related shootings which constitute the overwhelming majority of homicides.

Again not making the claim that gun control is going to work in the US. Just that it would be incredibly stupid for a society with low gun ownership to go down the US path. It was a big mistake, and now they're stuck with it,a situation where "a few good guys with a gun" are better than nothing. Not good, but slightly less disastrous.

Only if the purpose and function of the 2A isn't understood.

[Coughdrop addict]

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/26/u...rs-emails.html

Donald Trump is proof of the two-tiered justice system in America. Were he not a Republican he would already be serving a life sentence for his many crimes.

[Muizer]

That the politicians/activists who complain bitterly about firearms/2A are routinely responsible for rhetoric and prescriptions which facilitate violent criminality and suppress law-abiding citizens.

It's possible to be right about one thing and wrong about another.

Only if the purpose and function of the 2A isn't understood.

To be fair, looking at the text and the current interpretation, it's no surprise people don't.

2nd amendment: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

SC in 2008: The language and history of the Second Amendment showed that it protects a private right of individuals to have arms for their own defense, not a right of the states to maintain a militia.

But even if they did, it wouldn't stop people buying guns under false pretenses.

[Heathen Hammer]

The problem can be easily sold introducing some basic firearms training course in high schools and making it mandatory to graduate.
At the end of the day, guns are reality of life, people will own guns everywhere, legal or not, so might as well come to terms with this reality and adjust the state to it, rather then to dumb utopian fantasies of delusional statists.
Overall it should be part of some general survival skills course which should teach many things from how to live off land to firearms, hunting and things of that nature.

[PointOfViewGun]

When car accidents started killing people through various injuries they passengers face when they fly off inside the car the solution was not to teach people basic reflexes to avoid dangerous positions. What Heathen Hammer is advocating above is akin to that. Instead, thankfully, seat belts became mandatory.

[Heathen Hammer]

When car accidents started killing people through various injuries they passengers face when they fly off inside the car the solution was not to teach people to never use seat belts themselves and just let it happen and wait for paramedics. What PointOfViewGun is advocating above is akin to that. Instead, thankfully, seat belts are present in every car.
See I can do dumb sophistry like that too.

[PointOfViewGun]

When car accidents started killing people through various injuries they passengers face when they fly off inside the car the solution was not to teach people to never use seat belts themselves and just let it happen and wait for paramedics. What PointOfViewGun is advocating above is akin to that. Instead, thankfully, seat belts are present in every car.
See I can do dumb sophistry like that too.

You dumbed it beyond logic though which shows the point of the simile was lost on you. The cars are akin to guns and belts are akin to gun control. Crying over simple gun control measures is akin to crying about how a seat belt limits your movements in a car. You literally using sophistry while accusing me of sophistry is just ironic.

[Heathen Hammer]

The cars are akin to guns and belts are akin to gun control.

Wrong. Guns are the seat belt. Crying about civilian gun ownership being allowed is like crying about seat belts being present in cars. I'm not using sophistry, you are.

[PointOfViewGun]

Wrong. Guns are the seat belt. Crying about civilian gun ownership being allowed is like crying about seat belts being present in cars. I'm not using sophistry, you are.

That's not how similes work. You have to play nice and make your own. Nobody is crying about civilian gun ownership either. People are criticizing unchecked gun ownership. It's one of those snow flake situations where some people think their obsession with guns trump everything else.

[Heathen Hammer]

It's one of those snow flake situations where some people think their obsession with guns trump everything else.

So why do you think that irrational obsession of those people with disarming population should trump everyone else safety and property rights?

[PointOfViewGun]

So why do you think that irrational obsession of those people with disarming population should trump everyone else safety and property rights?

Asking for ATF to be allowed to have a searchable digital gun registry database is obsession to disarm the population? You are distorting the premise that you're standing on to make a case for yourself. It does not largely exist in reality.