IL Church Shooter had "arsenal" of guns

[Zeriel]

@Simplicio

The article didn’t say he had 30 rounds of ammunition at his house though, it said “Authorities said Sedlacek also brought to the church [in which he shot the pastor] enough ammunition to perhaps kill 30 people.” Still semi-sensationalist, but I think we can agree that while having 30 rounds of ammunition in your house is not scary, bringing 30 rounds of ammunition to go shoot up a church is.

I’d say bringing ANY rounds of ammunition with intent to use them on human targets is pretty damn scary, myself. But it’s the intent that scares me, not the quantity of ammo carried.

I can think of a few times that myself and three other guys took two shotguns and probably 500 rounds and clays with us to the range, and I often wonder what the person next to us at the Sheetz (with the pro-gun-control bumper sticker) would have done had she known what was locked in a lockbox in the trunk of the car. Probably not let us coo over her sheepdog, that’s for sure.

[Simplicio]

@Zeriel

I’d say bringing ANY rounds of ammunition with intent to use them on human targets is pretty damn scary, myself. But it’s the intent that scares me, not the quantity of ammo carried.

I think the point is that you don’t need three clips to kill an unarmed pastor, and had his gun not jammed allowing parishioners to stop him, he very well may have kept shooting people. The OP is being overly sensitive, the article wasn’t making the guy scary because he owned guns, they were saying he was scary because he owned guns and used them to shoot up a church.

[Fish]

A million auto accidents fail to happen every day. A hundred million houses fail to burn down. Ten thousand towns and cities have no news of consequence to report. News is always sensational, and like a cat it drags in the bloodiest, sexiest, most offensive thing it can find and lays it on your doorstep, no matter how far away it has to go to get it. If nothing happened nearby, there’s always something stupid or outrageous or immoral that happens in another country.

To a large degree, I concur that guns aren’t the problem: idiots are the problem. 'Cept, we don’t seem to lack those.

[ExTank]

Here’s the thing about an “arsenal.” Using the “guns are tools” analogy, there’s no “one-size-fits-all-purposes” firearm.

Rifles of various calibers are used for hunting various sized game.

Shotguns of various gauges, ditto.

Recreational shooting will also involve various calibers and gauges, potentially different than hunting weapons. I have a double-barreled 12 ga. I bought with the intention of using for Cowboy Action Shooting. It’s merely “Okay” for home defense, not suitable for hunting.

Home/self defense firearms will be yet another category of handguns/rifles/shorguns, often in calibers, gauges, or configurations not suitable for hunting.

There is some overlap; I have several handguns that were, at times, available for home/self defense, but that I also routinely use for purely recreational shooting at the range.

I don’t hunt (though I have nothing against “meat hunting”), but I do have one rifle suitable for hunting, though it’s a bit over-powered for most local game.

I also have a few suitable for “When The Revolution Comes!” Not military-grade firearms, these are the classic “Assault Weapons” some folks would like to ban, but they are also suitable for recreational target shooting, if not much else.

Until The Revolution comes. Viva la Revolucion!

So, I have an arsenal, by the definition Kalhoun provided. I don’t

Given the cost of ammunition, I do keep my eyes open for “bargains,” and will load up on ammo (heh) when the price is right. Not in anticipation of going on a killing spree or fending off hordes of Black Helicopters; just common-sense consumerism of “buy cheap in-bulk whenever possible.” I apply the same philosophy to paper towels, socks, and toilet paper.

[jayjay]

Really, I can’t get too worked up over ammo. I grew up in a house with two black-powder muzzleloading rifle competitors for 20-some years. We had probably at least 20 or 30 pounds of black powder (loose in cans) in our basement (and sometimes in the car trunk) at all times. Nowadays my parents would probably be investigated for trying to buy that much.

[buttonjockey308]

@Argent_Towers

Jesus, if these people saw my gun collection (which has grown exponentially in the past year) they would have a heart attack.

Mine too. What’s more, I consider the things about useless minus the ammo, so I have that too, and plenty of it. Spooky.

I imagine a veteran “reporter” were he or she ever invited into my closet would likely crap a little ring around themselves and pass out from fright.

Morons.

[Boyo_Jim]

Sorry, there is no minimum or maximum size of an arsenal. Say what you like but the term is perfectly acceptable.

American Heritage definitions:

1. A governmental establishment for the storing, development, manufacturing, testing, or repairing of arms, ammunition, and other war materiel.
2. A stock of weapons.
3. A store or supply: an arsenal of retorts.

[Simplicio]

@buttonjockey308

Mine too. What’s more, I consider the things about useless minus the ammo, so I have that too, and plenty of it. Spooky.

Do you keep them in your bedroom next to your “Last Day Will” while you go out to shoot up a church, an event you’ve marked in your day planner as “Death Day”… If so, that is indeed spooky. If not, then its not really relevant to what the linked article was reporting on.

[Duke]

@buttonjockey308

I imagine a veteran “reporter” were he or she ever invited into my closet would likely crap a little ring around themselves and pass out from fright.

Morons.

If I’d known you’d just shot up a public place, I’d probably be freaked out too. That’s usually the only reason a reporter would be lurking around your house anyway.

It’s no different from when the police display an “arsenal” of some drug kingpin they’ve just busted. It’s not the weaponry, it’s the intent that’s meant to frighten.

[Stealth_Potato]

@ExTank

I also have a few suitable for “When The Revolution Comes!” Not military-grade firearms, these are the classic “Assault Weapons” some folks would like to ban, but they are also suitable for recreational target shooting, if not much else.

Until The Revolution comes. Viva la Revolucion!

You know, if complete social destabilization and/or the zombie apocalypse ever does occur, I’m sure I’ll find my AR-15 handy in a pinch, but you better believe I’ll also be keeping my WWII surplus Mosin-Nagant carbine close at hand too. It’s practically unbreakable, totally reliable, fires a much more powerful cartridge, and as a bonus, works well as either a spear or a club even if I don’t have an “arsenal” of ammunition handy.

[SenorBeef]

@Marley23

Not where I went.
What’s “underreporting good uses?” There aren’t enough programs about how target shooting is nice? .

For example:

But much more than a bias toward bad news and drama goes into the media’s selective reporting on gun usage. Why, for instance, does the torrential coverage of public shooting sprees fail to acknowledge when such attacks are aborted by citizens with guns? In January 2002, a shooting left three dead at the Appalachian Law School in Virginia. The event made international headlines and produced more calls for gun control. Yet one critical fact was missing from virtually all the news coverage: The attack was stopped by two students who had guns in their cars.

The fast responses of Mikael Gross and Tracy Bridges undoubtedly saved many lives. Mikael was outside the law school returning from lunch when Peter Odighizuwa started shooting. Tracy was in a classroom waiting for class to start. When the shots rang out, chaos erupted. Mikael and Tracy were prepared to do something more constructive: Both immediately ran to their cars and got their guns, then approached the shooter from different sides. Thus confronted, the attacker threw his gun down.

Isn’t it remarkable that out of 218 unique news stories (from a LexisNexis search) in the week after the event, just four mentioned that the students who stopped the shooter had guns? Here is a typical description of the event from the Washington Post: “Three students pounced on the gunman and held him until help arrived.” New York’s Newsday noted only that the attacker was “restrained by students.” Many stories mentioned the law-enforcement or military backgrounds of these student heroes, but virtually all of the media, in discussing how the killer was stopped, failed to mention the students’ guns.

I agree that generally the media wants sensationalism. That’s why they wouldn’t do a report on safe gun usage at a rifle range, but that’s not what I meant.

In this case they were already covering a story - but they deliberately went out of their way to fail to mention that (legally) armed civilians stopped a potential massacre. That the idiotic “gun free” zones in the might’ve cost lives since they delayed the good guys having access to their guns while doing nothing for the bad guys.

When the media is already discussing something gun related, they’re far more likely to have a gun control advocate interviewed than a gun rights advocate. I’ve seen when gun rights advocates actually are interviewed, they might speak argue eloquently and yet by the time their segment comes out of editing, it’s a gross distortion designed to portray the gun advocate in a bad light.

Often they’ll report things like “a new study from The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun violence indicates that…” but say “The NRA would have us believe that…”

The media almost universally push by the gun control agenda in any way they can.

[PatriotGrrrl]

Only 30 rounds? A normal combat load for modern carbines (like mine) is like 5 or 6 mags, innit? That’s 150-180 rounds…

[Cat_Fight]

Why resort to a knife after the gun jammed? Why not try one of the other two? (Okay, this could be one for the criminologists.)

Three guns and ammo, whatever words are used to describe them, offer a little insight into his intent. If he had one target in mind, or wanted to commit suicide in public, one gun would do, wouldn’t it? He obviously foresaw a situation in which he’d be killing (or would ‘need’ to kill) a few dozen people.

[R.P.McMurphy]

Look, if you want to complain about media bias and sensationalism, the poster child is Rupert Murdoch’s (News Corp.) New York Post. Look at the front page 64(?) point headline every day and tell me, after reviewing and vetting the stories for a few weeks that there isn’t massive bias. Do the same thing with Murdoch’s Fox News.

The gun lovers (as we’ve seen on this message board) go nuts when something related to guns (ex: defining an assault weapon) is, in their minds, mischaracterized. Yet, when one of the largest media corporations in the world sets out on their agenda with no fact checking, no corrections and no apologies, that is acceptable.

(BTW, before you go off on the NY Times or the “liberal” press, the NY Times prints more corrections than the NY Post prints hard news.)

[Bobotheoptimist]

My car counts as an arsenal by that reasoning I probably have 3-400 rounds in there, but one box of .22lr is 500 - 550 rounds, so that’s just idiotic.

I would love to lay out my collection in front of some of those idiots, after two dozen or so they’d probably pee their pants in terror. I don’t even know how much ammo I have scattered around the house, but anyone who thinks anything less than 20,000 rounds is a lot hasn’t been around very much.

Of course these stories are written by the same idiots that think you can buy a RPG at a gun store.
Oh, and Spartydog, bitching about Fox news or Rush or anything else conservative around here is like spitting in the ocean. Why waste my time attacking those idiots when everyone else around here waits with breathless anticipation for their next stupid statement? DtC lives for that kind of thing, what am I going to contribute?

[SenorBeef]

@Spartydog

Look, if you want to complain about media bias and sensationalism, the poster child is Rupert Murdoch’s (News Corp.) New York Post. Look at the front page 64(?) point headline every day and tell me, after reviewing and vetting the stories for a few weeks that there isn’t massive bias. Do the same thing with Murdoch’s Fox News.

Have I ever defended Fox News as unbiased?

Have I said anything here about whether or not the media is biased against other topics?

Have I, or anyone else in this thread, said anything to which your response is remotely appropriate?

Fuck you and your retarded partianship knee jerk reaction which makes you think that because a gun advocate is displeased with media bias against them that they therefore must be your Ideological Enemy in every way, they must support republican propoganda and Rupert Murdoch, and that you must for some reason inject your misguided attempt at partisan countersniping into this thread.

Go waste someone else’s time.

[Dr.Love]

@Cat_Fight

Why resort to a knife after the gun jammed? Why not try one of the other two? (Okay, this could be one for the criminologists.)

Here’s what I don’t understand (not to pick on you Cat Fight, but you brought up the magic word): he had enough ammo to kill 30 people, but he only had a knife? Shouldn’t he have had enough knives to kill 6.7 billion people?! I mean, is there really a limit to the number a single knife can kill if you do it just right?

[Frank]

@SenorBeef

Have I, or anyone else in this thread, said anything to which your response is remotely appropriate?

In fairness - in fact - you, or anyone else, have not.

[Marley23]

@SenorBeef

The media almost universally push by the gun control agenda in any way they can.

I don’t believe this. My experience is that people in the press, even when they don’t know what they’re doing, generally place a very high value on being objective. And despite the high level of cooncentrated corporate ownership, “the media” is too diverse to push an agenda in most cases.

That said, you’re not totally wrong.

The Kansas City Star printed a particularly telling interview with Jack Stokes, media relations manager at the Associated Press, who “dismissed accusations that news groups deliberately downplayed the role gun owners may have played in stopping” the shooting. But Stokes “did acknowledge being ‘shocked’ upon learning that students carrying guns had helped subdue the gunman. ‘I thought, my God, they’re putting into jeopardy even more people by bringing out these guns.’”

I believe this probably happens a lot. It’s probably hard for these people to believe there’s a non-bad use for guns and they don’t want to be viewed as responsible for gun violence. The idea of no-carry zones - keeping guns away from schools, making them safer, it sounds right, doesn’t it? That’s likely about all the examination it gets. It sounds like, and may actually be, an unpopular topic to take a stand against and you don’t want to offend viewers and sponsors. And it’s probably seen as “too complicated” to tackle, all of which is unfortunate.

Speaking generally, reporters aren’t gun people. They don’t know what different caliber ammunition means, screw up the difference between rounds, and makes of guns, and, well, I may be screwing this up myself. If somebody coins the term “assault rifle,” it’ll be considered logical because it was made by an Expert or Advocate and the definition itself won’t be subjected to scrutiny because the scrutinizers don’t understand it. The NRA is seen as a group of fanatics just because its leaders occasionally make fanatical, kinda scary comments, so that viewpoint doesn’t get much representation. I’m not saying any of this is right, but I think that’s how it is.

[Chefguy]

If what he had was an arsenal, then my brother has an entire fucking armory and enough rounds to kill tens of thousands of people. It means nothing without intent.