How do you know he’s not the knife thrower from the local Ren Fest, or the butcher from the local supermarche’, out with a fuckload of cutlery?
Yeah, but if he shoots at you from 40 feet away, he probably won’t hit you, either.
Seriously, unless there’s an unfrozen caveman pedestrian walking around, no one can be surprised about this kind of shit any more.
I’m starting to wonder if we’ve reached and passed some kind of cultural “tipping point” and mass shootings will become almost as common as … car wrecks or date rapes.
Whenever something is in the media, it happens more because it’s in people’s minds. If there was a story about a bunch of kids licking toads, within a month there would be 50 stories about kids licking toads. If there was suddenly a story about someone being poisoned randomly by having something dropped in their drink at a bar, within a month there would be at least a dozen similar stories.
So, if you shoot him from 40 feet away…
My cunning plan is to shoot him from 25 feet and totally confuse him.
Sir, you have been on the SDMB for ten years. I am honestly shocked that this surprises/disappoints/arouses you at all.
I am SHOCKED that anyone on the SDMB is shocked by what other people are shocked about.
and shit.
The definition of metashock:
It’s a continuum.
Horror-------------Shock-------------Metashock------------Recreational Outrage------------Meh
Conceded that he was “somewhat less lethal” - though even so there were still nearly the same number of deaths in his incident, not to mention the number of injuries he caused by plowing his truck into the crowd. And all without the benefit of a firearm.
So very rarely, someone without a gun succeeds in killing roughly the same number of people as many others with guns do much more easily, effectively and frequently.
The sensation of reassurance is like a warm blanket tucked up under my chin.
According to this story, everyone shot out on the street except the disgruntled guy, was hit by the police. Not everyone was hit by direct fire, some may have been hit by ricochets, or by shrapnel (like shards of concrete chipped when a bullet hit the sidewalk).
There is video of the shooting, and apparently the police hot him dead before he could fire his weapon at all. (Not including of course, at the ex-boss he shot to start the whole thing).
Video of the cops killing the shooter:
Looks pretty simple. The two cops fired 16 shots at very close range and ended up hurting a lot of people behind the murderer. If this were a TV show, I’d say the killer’s death swoon looked fake and over-done.
It’s amazing how quickly the whole thing goes by - from the guy pulls the gun on the cops until he’s on the ground it’s just a few seconds. Also, notice how everybody instantaneously freaks out and runs the instant someone sees the gun - the area clears like a flock of birds from a tree when a loud noise goes off. So much for the advice I read yesterday about what to do when you’re near a shooting - namely, take cover, don’t run, as you can’t outrun a bullet. Yeah, right. By the time you’ve had time to remember that or even think, your fight-or-flight instinct has already gotten you on your feet and half a mile out of there.
It didn’t look like there was any place to take cover. It is surprising the cops got 16 rounds off in just a second or two. Panic shooting I suppose.
I was looking for a thread about this. I was there after it happened.
I walked up the stairs from the 33rd street PATH with my 9yo yesterday and into a crowd with cameras and camera-crews everywhere. I thought people were shooting a movie. We crossed through the first camera crew camp at 33rd as we were trying to cross 6th.
The barriers were up on 33rd on the far side of 6th and police weren’t letting anyone through. We were going to Toys R Us on Broadway, so I hailed a cab for us (it was the reason we needed to cross; you need to be on the east side of 6th to hail a cab heading north).
Later in the day, a construction worker we were passing was relating how he’d seen the initial killing first hand. His statement matches the news: a guy in a suit walked up & specifically killed the other person.
IIRC they are generally trained to empty the gun at the target, which is why shootings by police tend to involve a lot of bullets.
I saw it on TGN. The Gun Network. All guns, all the time.
Only the places change.
Given that none of the innocent bystanders’ wounds are life-threatening, do I have permission to laugh about that?
Please?
And on a related note, from the article Boyo Jim linked: