So was the 18th century musket. So what?
The inanimate object used is of no difference when some nut has murder in his heart.
This is what eventually stopped the mall shooting in Utah, sort of, as the citizen turned out to be an off duty cop who IGNORED the sign on the door about weapons in the mall. Hmm. So did the bad guy. Guess those signs are stupid either way!!!
Here’s the point - I’ll say “pkbites, because you had an abortion last week you are going to suffer psycological problems down the road and end up institutionalized. Plus you’re going to hell.”
Now you might say “But I didn’t have an abortion last week. Plus, I’m a man.”
Me: “I don’t care, it is my favorite argument and I am going to continue to use it.”
This way you can roll out all your well memorized talking points regardless of whether anyone is arguing against you.
Alright, let’s can the stupid arguments, the political correctness, and the beating around the bush.
Guns are designed to kill or incapacitate. They are designed to do this very effectively. That is precisely why the right to own them is protected: because they are effective tools for the defense of life and liberty.
There’s no such thing as a safe gun. In the hands of the wrong person, a firearm can be used to commit horrible atrocities. But denying everyone the right to bear arms because of the actions of a few irresponsible or imbalanced individuals is not the answer, and it is even worse when such restrictions impair the right of honest citizens to defend themselves while doing little to stop determined criminals. Restricting civil rights in the name of safety is not the justifiable action of any who value liberty: it is by its very nature a strongly authoritarian stance.
I won’t try to justify the right to bear arms based on sporting, or hunting, or hobby collecting (although those are all perfectly legitimate reasons to own guns), because that’s not what it’s about. It’s about every person’s right to defend themselves from harm, and about the duty of a people to preserve their freedom.
That’s my position on private gun ownership. No need for waffling, and no room for compromise.
Quarreling about the nuanced differences between various classes of firearms may seem counterproductive, but I think it’s understandable when you consider that the anti-gun crowd have repeatedly attempted to spread and exploit confusion about firearms to use as an emotional crutch to push their agenda.
I don’t think you’ll understand the issue until you appreciate that ignorant stereotypes are not a substitute for critical thought. :dubious:
Are you somehow assuming that all firearms enthusiasts are right-wing fundamentalists? I’m what you might call a “gun nut”. I’m also a libertarian atheist, and I’m just as willing to fight for the right to bear arms as anybody else.
Almost any cartridge-firing rifle can fire c.30 rounds in a minute, you realise? Most manually operated repeating rifles can manage at least one shot a second in the hands of an competent shooter- including hunting rifles. Even a single-shot rifle like a Ruger No. 1 can fire 15 rounds a minute.
As pkbites says, so were Brown Bess muskets. What’s your point? Various militaries also use RemChester bolt-action rifles- which are identical (or near enough so) to the rifles used to hunt deer, pigs, goats, and so on- as marksman’s rifles. There’s an argument that pretty much any non-specialist target rifle or handgun made since WWII has been designed with possible police or military use in mind somewhere along the line- in fact, it’s pretty much an economic necessity nowadays.
I’d be interested to see how people would react if this guy had shot up a mall with an M1 Garand, though. I don’t think you’d have all the “OMG EVIL ASSAULT RIFLEZ!!11!Shift+one!eleventy” rhetoric, for a start- even though the only practical difference between the M1 and the SKS is the calibre and that the SKS can get two more rounds into the magazine. (BTW, for the non-shooters, the M1 Garand fires a more powerful round than the SKS.)
The guy used an SKS they scream ban “assault” ( :rolleyes: ) weapons.
The guy uses a 1911 Colt .45 with a 7 round magazine they scream ban semi-autos.
The guy uses a 5 shot snubby revolver they scream ban all handguns!
The guy uses a single shot shot gun they scream ban all guns period.
The guy uses a cross bow they scream ban all weapons.
THe guy uses a rock to kill his brother Abel and they scream ban everything!
You cannot win these arguments with liberals because they always blame the inanimate and not the defective human being doing the horrible deed!!
And since the begining of time none of these bans or other restrictions have stopped anyone from trying to kill others. They have only served to prevent victims from defending themselves.
I have one of those. 
(Nitpick: The AR-15 you mention is not Chinese or Russian, and they were available for a long time. A friend of my dad had one in the mid-70s.)
I’m pretty sure off duty policemen can carry their guns pretty much anywhere.
Not true. I’m a police officer. Per state law and department policy there are places I cannot carry off duty. However, that guy was in Utah so theres no way of knowing if he was in violation or not.
My point was the bad guys will always ignore those stupid signs. So how exactly do they make the place any safer?
You are of course correct. Through editing the point that this rifle was not generally available to civilians in 1966 was obscured. I mentioned the AR-15 because it was used in several high profile mass murders, and, while it gets points for being expensive, is a rifle the gun haters would love to see taken off the market.
In fact, my whole point refuting the notion that the choice of weapon increases the carnage got a bit muddled.
Most police forces have switched from revolvers to high capacity semi-automatics…dispite strong evidence that 6 rounds were more than enough in the overwhelming majority of cases where officers fired thier weapons, and also ignoring the greater reliability and accuracy of revolvers. Current fashion holds that revolvers are obsolete, and the police don’t want them.* Crazed killers don’t seem to want them either. There is plenty of evidence that revolvers are every bit as effective (and possibly more) as semi-autos.
Like the police, the sickos are choosing thier weapons based on current fashion. I can well imagine that they believe that these guns will maximize the carnage they cause, but the evidence doesn’t support this. If anything, the high magazine capacity encourages a “spray and pray” tactic, rather than the careful aiming required to reliably hit a target. The same negative emotional reaction that the “ugly & evil” look these weapons generate in gun haters appeals to the sickos.
It seems like many of them also prefer ugly and evil goth music, another choice based on fashion trends. Take away goth music, and they would listen to rap or maybe even Bethoven. Take away “assault rifles” and semi-sutomatics and they will use hunting rifles and revolvers. There are plenty of sane, rational, well adjusted people who like goth music. There are sane, rational, well adjusted people who enjoy owning and shooting inexpensive, ugly, military derived firearms. Neither the music, nor the weapons drive people to mass murder. As long as there are any guns, and any music, psychos will find something to listen to and something to shoot.
*I “get” that public and criminal perception of the effectiveness of police side arms does and should play a role in thier selection.
I don’t know about that. I have a FL CCW and carry pretty much all of the time, but my 9mm against a RIFLE? I’m going to be pissing my pants at this scenario.
I also agree with the idea of no mention of these shooters’ names in the media. NO pictures, no manifestos, no poems, no history of him at all.
No decent burial, either. His body gets donated to the nearest prison to be passed around to all of the corpse fuckers to do with as they please.
It might give a troubled youth something to think about before doing this.
The media coverage almost gives INCENTIVE to a depressed person. If I am a 19 year old kid who is depressed and I just eat my pistol, then nobody outside my family ever knows my pain.
BUT, Hey! I can go to the mall, kill 10 or 15 people first and then my whole life story with my suicide notes and writings will be analyzed by scientists, politicians, and doctors forever. This obsession with WHY these crazy fucks do this keeps feeding it…
So would I, but a little piss in the pants is still more comfortable than a coffin.
Think about it:
Scenario #1: You’re at the mall, unarmed, mad man shows up shooting. You die with everyone else.
Scenario #2: You’re at the mall, armed, mad man shows up shooting, you piss your pants but shoot back. Mad man stops shooting because you A) hit him, B) he takes off because someone had the gall to fight back. Or maybe he doesn’t stop shooting but you engage him long enough until the police arrive. Theres a thousand different outcomes to scenario #2.
Scenario #2 is not perfect. It’s still a horrible, horrible situation for everyone involved.
But hands down it is better than scenario #1.
As an American living in Dubai, New Zealand and the Czech Repubic for more than 5 years I am shocked at how violent the US is in general… nobody has guns here and you know what? People don’t get shot. My wife can walk around the park at 3am by herself without fear.
We’re considering a move back to the US, but having to get re-used to “being free” yet having to lock your doors is all a bit odd. I think the US is more about freedom-to (eg to own guns) whereas much of the world enjoys freedom from (eg from being shot).
The front door is never locked here.
I agree 100%. My only objection was at the last posters idea that if everyone carried a concealed pistol that these situations wouldn’t happen.
Of course they would. These shooters are suicidal, depressed individuals who don’t care if they die.
And if you or I were in that store browsing at the clothing rack, with concealed pistol in our IWB holster, you would immediately duck and cover your loved ones at the sound of shooting.
These aren’t the situations where CCW is effective.
And to the American living in the UAE, sure you are safe at 3am. It’s a different culture and a different situation entirely. You can’t blame guns for it…
ETA: My front door is never locked here…
Sure it is. CCW is a way to stop these things when they happen.
Prevent them? No.
I’m not sure anything is going to prevent a mad man from doing what he feels he has to do. I think the only hope is to have the tools to try and stop them once they’ve proceeded.
I do have 2 other observations, though:
1)I’ve been all over the country, and they only place I have ever seen fully armed mall security (baton, mace, and firearm) was at the old Capitol Court mall in Milwaukee. I’ve seen mall security that had batons & spray, but with the exception of Capitol Court I’ve never seen mall security with firearms.
2)One of the strong points of CCW is that the bad guys don’t know whether or not a potential victim is armed. I myself prefer OPEN CARRY and do so whenver it’s legal. I’m wondering if more people who CCW would OC instead, letting maniacs know for certain there were armed people around, if that would help prevent these rampages. Or would they do it anyway and just shoot the armed people first?
As it turns out, the gun used in this shooting was not an SKS, but an AK 47. The original identification was wrong. The shooter stole the gun from his step father. I was at this mall this afternoon, The Store that was the scene of the shootings is still closed, but the rest of the mall store are open and there was a crowd waiting when the doors opened. There was an increased security presence, but the shoppers seemed to be there, rather than at another mall, to show community support. There is a very nice memorial at the closed entrance to Von Maur, and a store spokesman says the store will re-open very soon.
Cite? Because half the stories I read said AK47 and the other hald said SKS. Where does it confirm that it was an AK?
friend pkbites,
As you might guess, I am from Omaha. I am typing this post less than a mile from the mall. My cites are all from the local news coverage:
the original article that misidentified the weapon
from the local news section of the cox.net site
front page article from the Omaha World Herald with photo from the surveillance camera footage showing shooter with the gun leveled. The barrel and front site are pretty easily recognized.
one more artlicle from the Omaha World Herald. This is the article that, in the fifth sentence, states that the gun was originally misidentified.
this is a link to a page with all of the local newspaper articles dealing with the shootings.
That’s the one.
Hell, even the Brady Bunch got it wrong. Of course, they rarely get anything right! 
Where’d the stepfather get an AK from? That’s just odd. Probably an illegal war trophy shipped home from Nam?
You can buy them almost anywhere. They’re not illegal (with the exception of certain places like Kalifornia, etc…)