Because I know people that used to do that sort of thing that managed to grow up into reasonable responsible adults. I knew some of them in high school, and I know some of them as middle aged adults with college degrees and kids and all.
I never thought it was a good idea, but breaking into houses and stealing stuff is something that teenagers do. My parents house has been broken into twice (that I am aware of) and most of their neighbors. Interestingly, I’ve never had my house broken into, but I have a dog, a far superior defense system, IMHO.
All I said is that we shouldn’t be celebrating their deaths. YMMV.
I’m curious: what do you perceive are the different requirements between the two situations you’ve provided? I haven’t thought about a wannabe mass school killer’s requirements, though I’m thankful that so many of them are abysmal at crafting explosives, but I admittedly haven’t considered what would great for a school shooter but bad for a home defender.
Upthread, I’ve provided some reasoning as to why an AR-pattern 5.56 rifle is quite well suited for home defense vs using a handgun or shotgun.
I think we ought to adopt measures that we are confident will reduce the net costs of gun violence. I’m not convinced that banning AR-15s or high capacity magazines are such measures. AR-15s and similar guns don’t seem to be used in that many crimes, even if some of the worst recent crimes involved them. The stockpile of these types of guns means that anyone who wants one for the coming decades will be able to get one pretty easily. Even if we could effectively ban them, people might substitute other arms pretty easily. Handguns are used in a lot more crimes and this does nothing to address that issue. I don’t see the point of fighting so hard to ban something for what seems like a completely immeasurable theoretical gain.
I think we are approaching this situation from an insurmountable moral and epistemological gulf. I am flabbergasted at the idea that “breaking into houses and stealing stuff is something that teenagers do,” and frankly I don’t care to live anywhere near the type of environment where that behavior is considered normal.
Toilet-papering someone’s tree, flaming bag of dog shit on the front step, other teenage hijinks and petty vandalism: fine, I can see that as ‘normal’. Annoying, not to be condoned, and hopefully their parents beat their ass when caught, but normal. You are saying the same thing for burglary of a home as a group while armed.
No. You do not get the chance to explain it as a goof or teenage high spirits. You are a disgusting thief, invading my home, and you frankly shouldn’t be surprised to be shot when you do so. Don’t come to Texas if you are the kind of person that likes to steal people’s things at night. I think it is reprehensible that a homeowner is required to ascertain to your satisfaction that a group breaking into a home has intent beyond theft in order to defend himself. Is he supposed to engage them in a friendly question and answer session? I thank God I don’t live in such a place, and again, I’m glad the three he shot aren’t going to be breaking into any more homes. Just how many more burglaries are we supposed to consider normal before they get it out of their system?
Burglars ignore dogs, or just kill them, if they want what you’ve got bad enough, FWIW. A large breed, “home protector” will dissuade some though, if this news account of a survey of 86 burglars is to be believed. Most dogs are shitty at guarding or personal defense, though many can make great watchdogs. Most attempts to burglar proof a home are intended to just make the guy pick an easier target, which a large barking dog can certainly do.
One thing to point out before I begin, is that we’re talking about school shootings specifically at this point in the thread, but for no apparent reason. Why not discuss the differences between a weapon useful for firing at an outdoor concert vs home defence? But Ok.
School shooting
You’re in a relatively large building or outdoor area. You first few minutes count for a lot, as people will scatter and hide: you need a fast rate of fire to gun down as many people as you can before they become difficult to find. A bump stock may be useful for this.
Accuracy is not important: you don’t have time to carefully aim, plus your targets will be sprinting.
Since you likely want to cause maximum carnage / bodycount, powerful rounds that will shread bones and hollow out flesh are preferred.
You have the luxury of preparation time, so you can bring plenty of extra ammo and whatever accessories you like. The only limit is what you can sneak on to the site.
Defending the home
In the vast majority of situations you’re just looking to brandish the weapon as a deterrent, not actually get into a shootout.
But if you’re going to shoot, you want something very comfortable and portable that you can pick up and aim rapidly, and won’t hinder your movement in any way. Accuracy is important; you don’t want to be spraying bullets around your home and increasing the chance you hit something or someone you didn’t want to hit.
There’s no requirement for powerful rounds, unless you’re a sadist.
Clip size is not important: you are not going to be in a gunfight with multiple mooks, but if you were, the sensible thing would be retreat. The answer to the question “What if 12 armed men attack my home?!” is “Get out the house” not “Make sure you’ve got a gun with a 40 round mag”.
So yeah, an almost entirely opposite sets of requirements.
I disagree on both these points. There’s nothing ‘sadistic’ about wanting a round that will effectively stop a threat (ie “powerful”) if someone is breaking into your home in the middle of the night. You’re not trying to tickle the intruder, you’re trying to stop him before he can harm yourself or your family.
As for magazine size, in the example I’ve given there were three intruders. A larger magazine is definitely preferable. Not every shot fired hits the intended target, and not every hit stops a threat.
As for your suggestion that one should just retreat, that’s not always so simple. It might be easier if one lives alone, but imagine a family with multiple children in different bedrooms, sometimes on different floors of the house. Retreat isn’t so easy when it means collecting people from various locations around the house.
Strawman here, I did not say it was normal or acceptable, I just said it was something that teenagers sometimes do. I have absolutely no problem with them being caught and prosecuted. Many did get caught, went to juvie and straightened up their life. Some didn’t.
Nope. I will refer your questions to the strawman currently situated about a mile away from anything that I actually posted.
Like I said, I don’t celebrate their deaths, I see them as a tragic consequence of stupid mistakes. You are welcome to take whatever joy you wish in the knowledge of the deaths of these kids that you like to. Differing opinions and all that.
People don’t like messing with dogs they bite, they maul, they can’t be intimidated by pointing a gun at them, and they don’t go down as easily as a person. Yes, a barking dog will dissuade most people, they don’t know if when they open the door the dog will beg for treats or bite their face off. Unless they are actually coming to your house for a particular reason, they will avoid the house with the dog. If nothing else, a dog is much better at waking you up to alert you that something is wrong than your AR-15 in the corner is.
On your points: Most victims historically are not running. Those that are, usually don’t get shot, as it’s difficult to hit running targets. Rather, they are usually confined in a small location (classroom, cafeteria, library) and the shots are delivered at close range. A bump stock is not important for this, and in fact has not been used AFAIK in any mass shooting other than Las Vegas. Las Vegas is an outlier for several reasons which don’t really get to the topic of a school shooting.
“Powerful” rounds are desired in both situations. As someone potentially using deadly force to stop a threat of serious bodily injury, I want the threat stopped as soon as possible. Should the threat require stopping through actually shooting them until they are no longer a threat, then this happens either through central nervous system disruption—good luck, it’s a small target—or through exsanguination. Bigger holes make them leak faster than smaller ones.
Let’s see, what’s next. “Brandishing.” Yep, ideal for it to stop there, and where it stops in the vast majority of armed self-defense confrontations . (Someone’s been reading Lott!) Doesn’t really help us distinguish between the two situations though.
Next “comfortable and portable,” ARs are that, especially if short-barreled. Compare to a typical bolt rifle or, even worse, Joe Biden’s “double-barrel shotgun”. “Accuracy” is important. Good thing most ARs are among the most accurate of rifles, and accuracy under stress is laughably greater for someone with an AR vs a pistol or most shotguns. Powerful rounds is addressed above, and by Hurricane upthread.
Magazine size is, au contraire, quite important for the home defender. I’ve just been arguing in this thread with k9befriender about a shooting involving multiple assailants invading a home. There’s plenty of youtube or liveleak showing the same thing. I’ve also been discussing with iiandyiii, either in this thread or another here, that the home defender actually needs a larger magazine than a spree shooter, for the reason you mentioned: the spree shooter has the opportunity to prepare by simply bringing more magazines. Further, the spree shooter is shooting at unarmed cowering people, and can spare the time to change mags; the homeowner may be facing multiple armed assailants, probably with only the mag in the weapon, and can’t afford the time to change magazines anyway.
As for retreat, the bad guys get a vote on that, and may not allow you to. And just because you can get out, what about your kids, or your loved ones?
Anyway, as I was writing to Andy, all of this is angels on a pin stuff. Largely impractical and beyond astronomically unlikely that any of us will ever personally experience this sort of violence. I was just curious what criteria you were using for your statement, and thank you for satisfying that curiosity.
The example that you gave was a rather poor one, to be honest, as the homeowner was not actually in danger.
Had have people been coming in to cuase him harm, they would have been more quiet about it, and surprised him, rather than dicking around in the kitchen for him to be able to surprise them. I do maintain that the only reason that he was able to kill them is because they had no intention of killing him. Th AR-15 was sufficient for him to kill the people in the kitchen, but if he were defending himself from actual danger, it would have been a poor choice.
Better than facing 12 armed men, no matter what type of weapon that you have.
But *any *penetrating round is going to stop the threat. It’s not a video game where the boss needs fifty rocket shots to the head. By and large all you need to do is injure them and you’re done.
[quote]
As for magazine size, in the example I’ve given there were three intruders. A larger magazine is definitely preferable. Not every shot fired hits the intended target, and not every hit stops a threat.
OK, this point is more equivocal.
A larger clip could hypothetically be useful in the extremely unlikely case where a group of armed men are engaged in a shooting with you, and it’s not so many that a shootout is inherently suicidal. Anyway I guess it doesn’t hurt to have more rounds.
Yeah but I was talking about the absurd hypotheticals where there are many armed intruders and they’re willing to get into a firefight to continue whatever their plan was.
I guess we can stretch such hypotheticals to a point where all you can do is stand your ground even though it will mean almost certainly dying. So yeah, if a person bases their purchasing decisions on crazy unlikely scenarios then OK they need a huge clip and also tiger repellant.
That’s a guess you’re making that neither the law nor I agree with. The homeowner was exonerated precisely because the authorities determined that a reasonable person would feel threatened in his situation.
Huh? Are you saying that if someone(s) broke into your house and you had a child in a basement bedroom, you’d run away rather than confront the threat?
You keep making this statement throughout the thread, with little evidence beyond some rationalization that I can only guess is steeped in the belief that armed burglars rationally behave as law-abiding non-violent people do. They don’t. Go talk to cops or defense attorneys. Ask them how rationally their arrestees or clients behave on a day-to-day basis. You can’t make good inferences about criminal behavior from how you or I would behave in a similar situation, and to do so can put you at risk of some really serious harm.
But even if you could realistically make that inference about their non-violent intentions, nothing prevents them from changing their mind when they’re in your house. And there are plenty of cases where exactly that happened. Again, you are relying on the mercy and rational behavior of someone who’s already decided to ignore some pretty large moral rules and laws. Your comment about the firearm not protecting him from actual danger is inexplicable for me: had he been in “actual danger,” what would you rather he done instead or used instead of the AR?
As to the twelve armed men, fuck leaving my people behind for them. I might run if I think I can save my own ass; I’m not leaving anyone else. We’ll see how determined those 12 guys are when the first two die coming through the door. Hopefully my next dog can alert me to them coming around.
Right which is exactly why it is important for the shooter to get as many shots as possible off before people start running or dispersing.
Bump stocks weren’t really a thing until the vegas shooting advertised for them. Now they are very popular, and I don’t see why they will not be used in mass shootings in the future. Well, there is one reason, if the gun advocate crowd manage to get automatic weapons restrictions lifted, then mass shooters don’t need to use the workaround loophole.
But, we are comparing to handgun, so comparing to bolt action rifle or shotgun is irrelevant.
Accuracy at what range? I don’t have big house, sure, but there is no where in the house that someone could be more than about 15’ from me and have a clear line of site. For what purpose of defending yourself do you need accuracy at a range longer than any possible engagement?
That sort of accuracy somes in real handy if you are the one doing the attacking, though.
If they have guns and are shooting at you, you don’t get to keep going until your magazine runs out, you stop going when you have too many holes in you to keep going anymore. It doesn’t matter how many rounds are left in your gun when you are dead. If the “assailants*” had wanted the homeowner dead in HD’s example, magazine size would have meant nothing except that the invaders have a gun with more bullets in it than they would have had otherwise.
Why would people be cowering, rather than running away, finding cover, or even confronting the shooter? When he is taking the spare time to change mags, the people have a better chance of evasion or retaliation if he has to stop shooting.
If he is facing multiple armed assailants, he is likely going to be dead before he has a chance to worry about running out of ammo.
If the situation is as you say, where you have a dozen armed men coming to kill you and your family, then you are just dead. Maybe with an AR-15 rather than a handgun you manage to take one more them with you than you would have, but that’s unlikely, especially if your ability to have an AR-15 means that they have them too.
Of course, the chances of a particular person actually being in danger is extremely remote, which is why it is a bit odd that people take this much effort in securing themselves against it. You should worry far more about the potential of being bitten by a rabid bat than having multiple assailants that are coming to kill you.
*Calling them assailants is a poor choice of words. Robbers, thieves, burglars, sure; even scum. But an assailant is one who attacks.
No. I picked the two that were most obvious to me. I disagree with others as well.
Not necessarily true. Certainly sometimes merely brandishing a weapon, or firing a warning shot, or hitting an attacker once will be enough to deter them, but not always. Sometimes the attacker is more determined, or mentally ill, or under the influence of drugs, and physically disabling them is necessary. In those cases, a more powerful round would be preferable.
Not talking about the legal or the ethical implications here. Just the practical.
No, I’m saying that if 12 armed men are coming to kill me, then they are going to succeed, no matter what weaponry I have. It doesn’t matter if I have a child in the basement or not, parenting doesn’t give you magic resistance to bullet holes.
I say that because if they had wanted him dead, they would have killed him in his sleep, rather than waking him up making noise in the kitchen and not paying attention to their surroundings until he surprised them.
Ummm, like I sad a few times, a handgun. If they had actually come at him in his house attacking him, he would have had an easier time shooting them using a handgun than an AR-15.
Unfortunately, because AR-15’s are so easy to get, they are all armed with them. They aren’t going to be coming at you with handguns, those make poor assault weapons. I don’t think that you will be running away from them, and leaving your family, I am saying that you be leaving behind your mortal coil and going on to whatever is next.
I don’t think you understand how firearm accuracy works. Do you know what MOA means?
Possibly because the standard school procedure is to lock the doors and turn off the lights and wait. This has been a recurring theme in all sorts of mass shootings: Columbine, Aurora, Newtown, Virginia Tech, Pulse nightclub, etc all had victims hiding rather than running. Even in Vegas, people would stop running and drop to the ground when the shooter opened fire.
Absolutely incorrect. Go talk to cops, ER doctors, pathologists: anyone with experience in penetrating trauma and its effects on human beings. They will tell you that most people shot with handguns live, and that most people shot have quite a bit of useful time before they are incapacitated from the wound. (Per this video from an ER M&M conference, it’s about 6 out of 7 people shot with a handgun that live.)
The vast majority of people shot, are not immediately stopped by the gunshot wound. Unless they choose to be, which you can’t ascertain ahead of time. Especially if the wound is caused by a handgun. They aren’t usually immediately stopped by multiple wounds, unless you hit them in the head or spine. Even then, it’s not certain. Which is, among other reasons, why you get cases where the cops think the guy’s a suicide bomber, and they end up dumping the magazine into his head.. Or why cops will often nowadays shoot the magazine empty on an armed suspect if he doesn’t drop before then, and he often won’t. They can’t be assured the guy will stop otherwise, and until he’s stopped, he’s just as able to put holes back into them.
As to what level of force will stop an impending violent crime, it depends. Most criminals will pick someone else if you don’t look like prey. Those few that do, usually won’t pick you if you’re armed and have the weapon readied for use. Hearing a gunshot will cause more still to find something better to do. Maybe injuring one of them will be all that it takes, but then there are those who just won’t stop until they’re incapacitated. Which again, you don’t get to know which one it’ll be ahead of time. Anyway, to stop the latter takes a lot more trauma than “any penetrating round,” and why cops, and anyone else that looks at the situation critically, should prefer bullets that do damage that might be considered by others to be sadistic.
In the Petite murders in Connecticut, I don’t think the home invaders originally intended to rape and murder the wife and daughters. It was originally a burglary attempt, that they sort of made up the ending to as they went along, with tragic results for the family.
As that has as much relevance as having precision when your engagement range is under 15’.
And when he stopped to change magazines, they would start running again. We are not talking here, about the final stages of a mass shooting where the shooter is wandering empty halls looking for someone to shoot. We are talking about the first few seconds to a minute, when people are unaware of what is going on and are presenting themselves as better targets. If you have a group in the cafeteria, and you start unloading, are you going to be more or less successful about killing the maximum number of people with 10 rounds, or with 50? If you are attacking a group of people, do they have a better chance of retaliating if you have to stop after every 10 rounds or every 50?
I am not saying anything about possible outcomes or what might have happened if they had gotten the upper hand in a confrontation with the homeowner. I am saying that the homeowner would have been more able to defend himself from them with a handgun than with an AR-15. I am saying that because their motivations did not include harming him, that is what allowed the use of a poor choice of defensive weapon to kill them.