I’m curious, do you know of any historical situation(s) where a CCW permit holder shot a bystander while confronting an active shooter? I can see how theoretically that’s possible, but I’m not aware of any situation where that was the actual, real-world outcome, at least that I can recall off the top of my head.
Full automatic weapons were banned in the 30’s…and accounted for a miniscule number of gun homicides even when they were legal. And most gun deaths in the US are actually handguns, not rifles, semi-automatic or otherwise. I think rifles are actually behind shotguns, but just going on memory there so maybe not. They certainly are behind handguns though.
I don’t think that the regulations passed since the 80’s have done much of anything, since most of the really hard legislature was passed in the 60’s and 70’s, especially at the state and local levels. Most of the legislature passed in the time frame you are talking about was feel good stuff that dealt with cosmetics such as the AWB and the like…which had either zero or very limited effect.
Okay great, so despite the nitty gritty points you want to flip this to.
Guns are the problem, people are just being themselves. In countries like switzerland for example, they don’t arm mentally ill people with semi-automatics. In america you can buy a gun from your buddy no problem he wont even ask if you’re a felon. The topic is arming people is stupid, it doesn’t protect them in this environment, it just causes them to inflict harm onto themselves or others.
However you want to debate this, nothing will change the fact school shootings, mass shootings, etc… will still happen and increasingly happen as corporate media airs it and more people buy guns. All of this is suspiciously beneficial to gun manufactures and investors who just so happen to give the NRA their money who just so happens to donate to politics and run ads on the media. So maybe instead of beating around the bush we should address the problem. First, stop allowing people to bribe politicians. Second, talk about comprehensive gun reform. Neither of these things are going to happen so long as people are too busy arguing about the zing and not the substance.
Good question! I found only one instance, in Houston in 2015, when a bystander shot at carjackers and hit the victim in the head. Then again, there have been few cases where a CCW bystander fired his/her weapon, period, so in all honesty, we can’t determine probability from actual cases.
The school board in my district is about to pass a policy arming teachers. Plan A was to get each teacher CCW licnensed and arm them. When the overwhelming majority of teachers–most of whom are gun owners and hunters–said, “No way,” the board decided teachers could volunteer to carry guns. Volunteers would have a mere 12 hours of police training–not nearly enough.
“…killing another human being, even a “bad” one, is not easy. This is not “Call of Duty”: Despite the damage that modern weaponry can inflict, there is a reason that soldiers and law enforcement officers receive thousands of hours of training in firearms and tactics. This training is physical, mechanical and, most importantly, psychological, because in order to efficiently and effectively kill other human beings in high-stress situations, one must be conditioned to negotiate that stress.”
A sincere thanks for pointing out this story. I wonder if you have more info than me: Every story I read on the subject said the witness / shooter / bystander fled the scene before police arrived (after picking up his shell casings :smack: ), so I don’t know if the man actually possessed a CCW permit or not.
Either way, it’s a crappy situation for the victim, I’m glad that he survived (or at least it sounded that way from the “stable condition” status.
The trouble with your perceiving this as a problem is that it actually works. For instance, a terrorist tried to shoot up a school in Israel and was stopped by armed teachers. Then there was that attempted church shooting in the US. Again, someone with a gun responded.
Again, your favourite search engine is your friend.
Isn’t the high rate of Swiss gun ownership directly tied to military service? In other words, average Swiss gun owners are more likely to be highly trained and disciplined than the average US gun owner. Also I imagine the kinds of guns owned will be slightly different overall.
Switzerland citizens have a rifle culture, not a hand-held machine-gun culture. Long-range, long non-automatic rifles are what a soldier gets to take home after his military training ( Switzerland still has the draft) to use at home should his country be under attack. Rifles are what people use for practice shooting. Rifles are what the Swiss use for hunting.
Try to hide a rifle under your coat, walk into a school, and try to shoot more then one person with it. See the difficulty? Time article on Swiss gun culture.
I’m not a psychologist but it would be different for LOTS OF REASONS. The urge for something sweet in the middle of the night is not the same as the urge to kill a few dozen people. One means the person is hungry, the other means the person is insane. It’s a little disturbing that you see both as ordinary impulses.
It’s someone who uses a gun lawfully to defend against another person or persons who are acting unlawfully.
If arming people doesn’t protect them, why do defensive gun uses outnumber gun deaths in the US by four or five to one? Have a read thru this thread for some examples.
Those seem like odd numbers to compare (uses to deaths rather than uses to uses and deaths to deaths). How do defensive gun uses compare to offensive gun uses? How do defensive gun deaths compare to offensive gun deaths?
I wasn’t the one who couched the OP in broad brush terms. Yes, afaik Swiss gun ownership is tied to a lot of things, one of which is the defense of the country. So…would arming all their citizens be a stupid idea for the Swiss? Would that be a yes or no from you?
No, I don’t see the difficulty wrt the question the OP is asking. I think a lot of you are so hung up on the US that you aren’t actually thinking this through. Simple question…is ‘arming all your citizens’ a ‘stupid idea’, flat out and all the time? Or does what you (and the OP) REALLY mean is it stupid that Americans are allowed guns?