Not necessarily. You have to weigh the odds of some sort of accident or of someone overpowering him and taking and using his weapons.
The presence of the weapons is itself a danger. The question is, are they more likely to cause, or prevent, death or injury?
And keep in mind that by carrying so conspicuously, he makes himself the very first target for anyone looking to make trouble.
Why on earth would how many drug cartels storm JCP be relevant? The fact it hasn’t happened yet doesn’t mean people shouldn’t have the right and means to defend themselves should it happen.
Sounds like we’re all going to have to drag some kind of wheeled truck or platform behind us to carry all of the equipment we’ll need when we confront the dangers of shopping at a J. C Penny.
You don’t have to weigh those odds at all. Those odds are none of your business. The only person you’re entitled to decide the odds aren’t worth it for is you. This guy? His choice.
Similiarly, it’s his choice if he wants to risk making himself a target.
See Ethilrist’s post #80.
Yes, I was being tongue in cheek about the drug cartel, but seriously, how many conceivable dangers can one prepare for, and is a danger that can be conquered with a gun more likely than, for example, a fire, or a natural disaster?
Isn’t a fire more likely? How about a heart attack. I’d bet that there are more heart attacks in shopping centers each year then attacks that can be met with a gun. So wouldn’t it make more sense to carry a portable defibrillator than a gun? I’m guessing that, if all the people who carry guns instead carried portable defibrillators, they’d end up saving more lives each year. Isn’t saving lives the point?
He may also be making the people around him a target, and he is also risking his weapons being take and used against others. He’s risking making his surroundings into a shooting gallery where the bullets don’t distinguish between him and those around him.
Plus, as I show in my other post, it’s a bad use of resources. You can only carry so much. If you’re interested in saving lives, you’d do better to carry a portable defibrillator.
I know this has been posted elsewhere, not sure if it’s been posted here, but what should I do when I see someone walking into a mall with a weapon like this. Do I need to wait for them to open fire before deciding that maybe I should report their unusual behavior? Or should I give them the benefit of the doubt until the first body falls?
My issue with all of this is that we’re trained as a society to report suspicious behavior. In airports and subways, we’re supposed to report unattended bags! I don’t know if we have a constitutional right to leave baggage unattended, but regardless, I’m fairly certain that a guy walking around a mall with an AR-15 falls into the category of “things you should, you know, report to the police.” So this guy may have alerted the cops first, but everyone else in the store, if they’re doing their job as citizens, has to take the time to call the cops. What fun!
He has no obligation to prepare for all dangers. The threat of attack by another is a danger that concerns him, so he prepares for it. If he chooses to carry a first aid kit, or some of the useful things Ethilrist listed on page one, it’s his right, but it’s also his right not to.
Again, likelihood is irrelevant. If he wants to be prepared for something that has a .0001% chance of occurring, it’s his right.
Saving lives might be the point for some gun owners. For others it’s about saving themselves (and/or others) from being raped, mugged or burgled.
And you can’t see how the two of these things aren’t mutually exclusive? In fact, you appear to me to be contradicting yourself, unless your ideas of gun safety are as loose as this guy’s.
Walking around with a rifle in JC Penny =/= practicing good gun safety. Slung over his back like it’s a Jansport backpack is very different from carrying it deliberately and carefully as all military personnel do. (he was in the military) Even hunters out in the field carry their weapons with the barrel pointed down when there’s other people around. He’s not Rambo, he’s not a Terminator, he’s not anyone’s bodyguard, he’s got no legitimate reason beyond his political statement to be doing this, and so it draws negative attention.
It’s not just that he’s exercising his rights. He’s getting awfully close to the part which says that we’ve got the right to do X until it infringes upon another’s rights. He’s not there yet, but it’s a fine line. When there’s a stampede of over-reacting soccer moms running away from what they perceive to be the next Adam Lanza - the tune you whistle may be different.
It is perfectly reasonable for me (and many others) to get upset at this and to be afraid of the possible negative outcomes - because “shit happens”. And when “shit happens” with a gun, people can get dead. Do not insert a pointless limpdick comparison to vehicles and unintentional deaths; it would be neither appropriate nor welcome.
Now that’s some revolutionary thinking there!
So it’s ok if I stockpile ICBM’s since it’s entirely possible that another country may invade my personal property? I may need to make a pre-emptive strike. The fact that it hasn’t happened yet doesn’t mean people shouldn’t have the right and means to defend themselves should it happen.
This is a hyperbolic comparison, and you shouldn’t try to pick it apart. Like any paper-mache argument, it will fall apart. The analogy is the point. If this guy is using drug cartels as HIS reason for packing this level of heat - then he’s gonna get ridiculed. He’s gonna get mocked. And for as long as he lives, he’ll NEVER be able to justify his paranoia. Not once will this happen where his presence with an unloaded ar-15 slung over his back will prevent unwanted deaths. I promise it. Maybe on a border town near mexico, a strip mall may be over run by drug dealers. But they’ll leave once they realize that oops, the made a left instead of a right and ended up in a country that doesn’t tolerate that kind of shit.
This thread is about a guy who said that he is doing what he is doing to protect other people. So that is the context within which we’ve been having this discussion. If your concern is solely for yourself, that’s a different discussion. Okay, fine, we’ll go with that.
As I see it, you’re taking an extreme libertarian position. You’re saying that it’s your right to protect yourself against any threat, large or small, real or imagined, regardless of any threat or burden it may place on those around you. Am I characterizing your argument correctly?
Ridicule and mockery are one thing. Taking away his right to defend himself is another. Sure, he’s unlikely to be involved with any drug cartels, and I have no idea why he brought them up, but there was also the little matter of “other bad guys”, who do exist.
Grow up. Rapists, muggers, etc exist and can be run into on the street, where there is no guarantee a cop will be able to get there in time, if a victim even has time to call the cops and give their location at all. The government is perfectly capable of dealing with international threats; not so much a woman getting jumped walking home at night.
Uh, no, it’s not a different discussion. This guy claims he’d be willing to protect others, you think he wouldn’t protect himself too? Some people might not want to risk themselves defending others, but whether one does or not makes no difference to their rights.
No, you’re not, you’re attempting to get ridiculously vague in the hopes you can make some ridiculous scenario. What I am saying is that the current rules work fine and don’t need changing - and when something isn’t clear or goes wrong, the courts will deal with it and punish if necessary - but banning guns is unacceptable.
Thank you for clarifying. You answered exactly what I asked.
I don’t want to debate the point (since this isn’t the right thread or forum for that sort of things) but I will point out that there are those who have a different opinion. Some people carry a gun for personal safety even though they don’t fear for their safety. After all, a whacko can strike anywhere, even in a “safe” place. The Aurora theater was not a high crime location and there was no reason for people to feel afraid there, and yet someone struck there. Downtown Detroit may have a high crime rate, but stores get robbed even in small towns with low crime rates. It happens much less often in small towns, but the chance of it happening isn’t zero. Some people prefer to be able to defend themselves at all time, just in case. It’s not fear, in their opinion.
Like I said though, I don’t want to debate it and that’s all I will say about it.
Merely carrying around a gun is not unsafe, just because a bunch of people go “ooh scary”.
Gun safety means:
These are the four basic rules of gun safety and anyone who owns or uses a gun should have them memorized.
Merely carrying around a rifle does not violate any of these. Slinging the rifle carelessly over your back and paying no attention to where the barrel is pointing violates the first two of these.
If he had carried it properly instead of slinging it over his back I wouldn’t have had a problem. There’s no contradiction.
If you do something, anything with a gun that results in another’s injury, have you acted unsafely with your gun?
If you’re carrying a gun there’s a heavy burden of responsibility on you to ensure that it doesn’t happen because if it does, IF it does, it’s gonna be very bad for you in court. This guy isn’t being responsible. Not with the way he carries the gun, as I mentioned; and I believe it’s also irresponsible to be carrying a rifle like that into a department store in the first place. Mostly because of his stated reasons for carrying it. It means he’s a terrible assessor of risk. If he’s living in fear of being attacked by drug dealers or cartels and that his holding of an unloaded ar-15 is going to save him then he’s living in a fantasy land. That’s NOT the type of person I want to be holding a gun in a public place. Take the imaginary threat management to the rifle range.
So - we’ve substituted an entirely different asinine comparison from which to draw points which hold no merit? I think there’s a word for that type of argument.
His unloaded and carelessly slung ar-15 WILL NOT help him against a street mugger. Nor will he be able to stop an alleyway raping. Because these types of things are only happening in the fantasy of his mind. He’s at a JC Penny. Not a dangerous alleyway.
If he wants to patrol the world being a vigilante then perhaps he should go to where the threats are, and see how the police respond to his “assistance”.
Ridiculously vague? No, I’m trying to tie you down and get a cogent and specific argument out of you rather than letting you dance all over the place. That’s the opposite of “ridiculously vague”.
You tried to steer the argument away from the safety of other people because that brings other people and their rights into the conversation and that doesn’t fit your narrative, because any fair minded person would then have to admit that that gives others some rights regarding your actions.
So now you’re saying that no, it isn’t just about self defense.
But since that takes us back to the rights of others you abandon the whole argument and resort to bald assertions such as “the current rules work fine” (tell that to those parents). Then you use a strawman assertion that “banning guns is unacceptable” when I haven’t even been arguing for any all out banning of guns. Not allowing people to carry guns in public is not the same as an all out banning.
No man is an island. When you carry guns in public, you introduce certain risks into the situation. Those risks do not just involve you. They also involve the people around you. That gives the people around you some say in the situation. That gives us the right to weigh risks versus rewards.
It’s obvious that you rebel at that idea.
Well guess what? Many of those around you rebel at the idea that you have a right to put them at risk in order to protect yourself against some unlikely scenario. They also rebel at the idea that you claim the right to play vigilante protector of them and their children. They didn’t ask you to do that. They don’t know you and have no clue as to your competence or sanity. This isn’t a comic book or a movie. You’re not Batman or John McClane.
In a democracy, people have a right to have a say about actions others take that may affect them. The fact that you rebel at that idea; the fact that you want to assert your rights and the hell with everyone else; doesn’t negate the rights of those around you.
Call me crazy, but I would feel safer walking the streets of London with nary a gun in sight than in Mogadishu where everybody open carries. If the guy is acting within the law, then the law needs to change. If he thinks he’s in danger of being stampeded by a herd of pink elephants wherever he goes, then he needs a fucking shrink, not an assault weapon. It’s assholes like him that are going to change the public opinion to be more in favor of gun control, so in that sense I’m indebted to him. He’s still a major league, USDA choice asshole.
You created as open ended as possible a set of rules to attribute to me, when I am not saying anything different from the law as it currently stands. You don’t need to use bullshit entrapment tactics; all I’m saying is the current rules work fine.
Engineer has addressed the safety issue. If you’re still worried about the bad mean guns randomly exploding, see a shrink.
Not allowing people to carry guns is the same thing as banning them. It puts a restriction on people’s right to defend themselves wherever they go, which is unacceptable.
Again, Engineer addressed the safety concerns; carrying a gun does not equal a safety risk if proper gun safety is observed. So no, you have no right to dictate what anyone else does with a gun, only yourself.
And even if guns WERE dangerous when safety is observed, it’s still no one’s business but an individual’s whether or not they’ll take that risk. Maybe you wouldn’t value protecting yourself from being raped or mugged over a small chance of the gun shooting someone of its own accord, but I would.
Guns are dangerous when we have no idea about the intention of the person carrying them. Would you have minded your own business if you’d lived in Omaha in 2007? Care to address post #87? What’s the proper course of action if you see someone walk into a JC Penney doing something highly out of the ordinary like shouldering an AK-47 or an AR-15?
Mind my own business and continue shopping? Out of the ordinary does not mean wrong or illegal. Sure people aren’t used to seeing people carry assault rifles, so what?
You probably pass by plenty of people carrying a concealed weapon on the street every day. Just because you can see this guy’s is no reason to panic about him any more than any of the less obvious owners.