Who knows what was happening inside the room. For all we know, several people did try to rush him and were killed.
So, Ralph, what would you have have our politicians do about this? What did GWB and other prior presidents do after shootings occurred during their times in office?
No need for snark. What I am amazed at is not even a hint of resistance (at least none reported). And it’s not just this case. The Breivik massacre:
“Some of them are completely paralyzed. They cannot run. They stand totally still. This is something they never show on TV,” Breivik said. “It was very strange.”
…
Some teenagers were frozen in panic, unable to move even when Breivik ran out of ammunition. He changed clips. They didn’t move. He shot them in the head.
The Columbine massacre - AFAIR, no one tried to resist the two gunmen.
etc. etc.
There are witnesses, and they do not report anyone trying to resist.
It’s entirely possible, but I have not heard or read any in-depth, step-by-step witness accounts (only snippets and general accounts). According to Wikipedia’s article, one younger congregant (a young man) tried to protect an older woman but they were both killed. I’ll note that only 13 people were present, 9 were killed, and at least two probably saved their own lives by feigning death.
This early we often don’t have a detailed, minute-by-minute picture.
The only people who know exactly what they would do when a mad man starts shooting at them are people who have had mad men shooting at them. You can speculate all you want about how you’ll roundhouse him like Swayze when he stops to reload, but you have no idea what sort of freezing up and/or pants-shitting you might do.
Au contraire: I know exactly what sort of pants-shitting I would do: all of it.
A news article I read this morning said the father did not buy the gun, he provided the money and the killer bought the gun himself.
I guess even if you’ve been indicted for felony drug possession in South Carolina, you can still buy a gun.
According to this:
in SC the crime he was indicted for is a misdemeanor, not a felony, and carries the penalty of a fine of up to $1,000, up to six months in jail, or both. Which means that under federal law he’d have been still allowed to purchase firearms.
Well thissays it’s a felony charge, but it also says that his father gave him the gun, which contradicts the earlier article I read.
That is a news article. The site I gave you is a legal web site that documents what SC laws are. News sites quite often get things wrong. First offenses are misdemeanors. Second offenses may be felonies, but not for the drug (which is Schedule III) that he was caught with.
Here is an article from AP where the reporter apparently bothered to research the facts:
According to the report, the officer searched him and found strips of suboxone — a drug that is typically used to treat addiction to heroin and other opiates but can itself be used to get high. At first, Roof said they were Listerine strips. When pressed, he admitted they were suboxone and said he had gotten them from a friend and did not have a prescription for them, the report said.
Roof was arrested on a misdemeanor drug possession charge, and his Hyundai, the same car he was arrested in after the church shooting, was towed from the parking lot.
To both sides: I don’t think we really need to worry too much about whether he could legally buy the gun right now. All that does it bend the story to fit a narrative it doesn’t need yet.
Have you looked at the ages of the victims? Only one of them was under 40, and he died trying to shield his aunt. I don’t think a 54-year-old female librarian has much of a chance rushing a healthy 21-year-old shooter. One of victims was almost 90.
Well at least the honoured Confederate battle flag still stands proud, despite these two racist warriors being confined.
What a pathetic excuse for a society.
Yes, she had a lot better chance waiting to be shot, didn’t she?
Guns, god and racism. Truly disgusting.
This presumes that there are only two choices in a situation like this: sit passively and wait to die, or charge the attacker. But the real world is far more chaotic. Do you play dead? Do you attack? Do you call for help? Do you run? Do you dive for cover? Do you pick up something to use as a weapon? Do you try to help someone who is wounded? Do you try to shield someone else with your body? Do you try to talk the shooter down? Do you try to distract him? Are there other shooters? Is he intending to shoot everyone? Or will he flee after he shoots his intended target? Different situations call for different tactics.
Realistically, even a young man doesn’t stand much chance of rushing someone with a ready gun. So if you’re going to rush him you need to do it as a group. But you don’t have time to organize anything. When he stops to reload, you only have a few seconds to lunge for him before he starts shooting again. There’s not even enough time to shout “He’s reloading! Get him!” Or if you do shout it, how many other people in the room will register what you’ve said and be able to act on it before the shooting resumes?
Yes, if a group of unarmed people has time to properly assess the situation and work out a few tactics, they should be able to rush a lone shooter and overpower him. (Look at what the passengers of flight 93 were able to do when they had time to regroup and get their wits together.) But a group of people caught totally off guard, some of them elderly, some of them cut down in the first volley … it’s completely unrealistic to expect them to mount a coordinated defense.
I have no idea what I would do in a shooting. Do any of you? How does anyone even get to say how people should have reacted?