Ultimately, this is why I’m against guns, other than the little factoid about being shot.
You will never have enough people carrying it around to make a case for effective deterrance, and you can’t force people to carry guns since that would be a worst violation of rights than taking guns away in the first place.
Yeah, in a situation like that it would be pretty difficult to hit the shooter before he got off a lot of shots and without harming someone else. In the case of a McDonald’s or cafeteria shooter, then I think an armed citizen would be better able to take them out and prevent a larger number of casualties.
They would still be in no good position to do that unless they were really close and the target was stationary,a nd there were no people behind or near the target.
And then a third shooter could whip out his gun to shoot the second(because all he might see is two people firing weapons into a crowd), then a fourth shooter follows suit, and so on.
Let me see if I’ve got this straight: You are against everyone carrying guns because not enough people do, and you think being made to carry guns (and who the hell is suggesting that anyway?) is worse than taking away our guns and our constitutional right to own them? And you are also in favor, I suppose, of allowing people to be robbed, raped and shot in their own homes by criminals with guns (because as we all know, when guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns :D) because they had no effective way to protect themselves after you took away their guns.
Got it. Wouldn’t you say that this creates worse problems than it fixes?
Which would pretty much be the case in a McDonald’s or cafeteria setting. I don’t think those types of gunmen race around inside the building. Generally they move slowly and deliberately, trying to make sure they cause the damage they want to cause.
And besides, my guess is that if a certain proportion of the populace could be counted on to be armed they wouldn’t try that shit in the first place.
I’ve already acknowledged that it would be difficult and dangerous for someone to try to shoot the bad guy in a crowd situation. But in the case of a gunman killing families in a McDonald’s or a cafeteria or something like that, I think it would be pretty obvious to most people who the bad guy is. After all, when one guy is shooting mothers and babies in high chairs and the other guy is aiming at the baby-shooter, it really isn’t all that hard to tell who you should be aiming your own gun at.
He was cornered by Hammond, an off-duty cop from Ogden who was in town with his wife for dinner. So no, he wasn’t really a civilian. It is still an example of that extremely rare case where many lives were saved because someone in the crowd was able to return fire. But I agree that most of the time it wouldn’t help the situation if a dozen people pulled out their guns and started shooting at everyone else with a gun. My Wikipedia link referenced another mall shootout (Tacoma) where the wannabe hero got himself shot 5 times. Most civilians just aren’t trained to handle a situation like this unless they are ex-military or off-duty cops.
The article says he’d already been cornered by other officers.
I think the idea that a chain of people each shooting the last guy to pull out a gun is pretty juevenile. The odds that that particular situation would crop up is pretty miniscule. And people generally will think and assess the situation before they start shooting someone. It’s about as likely as those shootouts over parking spaces that you all claim are going to start happening in mass any day now.
Being in a crowd is a tough situation to deal with. It depends entirely on circumstances. If the shooter allows himself to be somewhat isolated with no one behind him, then you could take a stab at it, otherwise, unless you’re immediately under threat, you’d wait it out.
They would come in far more useful in situations where there’s a bit of isolation and transition, like, say, a Columbine situation, where you could just hunker down in one classroom and wait and only fire as a last resort if they come their way.
Anyway, mass shootings are anamalous. It’d be stupid to argue them for the primary reason concealed carry should be allowed, and it’s a stupid reason to call it useless because it didn’t prevent a particular mass shooting.
I still say this thread is extremely lame and essentially a big straw man - attacking the position that people advocate concealed carry because it’ll stop all crime or all spree shootings or something.
Jeanne Assam of Colorado Springs
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/14817480/detail.html
Jeanne Assam Stopped Gunman At New Life Church
“I saw him coming through the doors” and took cover, Assam said. “I came out of cover and identified myself and engaged him and took him down.” Assam said. “I didn’t think for a minute to run away.”
Assam said she believes God gave her the strength to confront Murray, keeping her calm and focused even though he appeared to be twice her size and was more heavily armed.
Murray was carrying two handguns, an assault rifle and over 1,000 rounds of ammunition, said Sgt. Jeff Johnson of the Colorado Springs Police Department.
Boyd said there are 15 to 20 security people at the church. All are volunteers but the only ones armed are those who are licensed to carry weapons.
The security guards are members of the church who are screened and not “mercenaries that we hire to walk around our campus to provide security,” Boyd said.
About 7,000 people were on the church campus at the time of the shooting, said Boyd.
**
Boyd said Assam’s actions saved the lives of 50 to 100 people**.
The obvious fact is that there is an unknown number of mass murders which never happened because the murderer was shot and stopped before he could do much damage.
Just how do you think you would have heard about the 80 people in Alaska who were NOT killed because the lunatic was shot and killed before he did any real damage???
It is usually not news when the criminal is shot preventing him from doing damage. Crime prevention is not newsworthy.
If Jared was shot by a bystander BEFORE he shot Gabrielle and 19 others, then this story would not get much coverage in the media.
There was an incident where a guy wandered a South Carolina? University Campus (about 10 years ago?)shooting at folks. When a student (or more than one?) ran and got their gun outa their parked car and pointed it at him, the shooter stopped cold and was subdued.
So, folks having guns certainly worked in that scenario. And, more interestingly, IIRC in that case all the major news outlets totally left out the part about the GOOD guys using evil guns to stop a bad guy.
Of course I am going totally on memory here so this may all be bogus info…
Majority of people are just unwilling to take a life, and that includes life threatening situations. There was a humorous Cracked article about it a while ago.
These were soldiers in war. I don’t think an unprepared civilian would fare better.
Most civilians who carry guns have never needed to fire them in a stressful situation either. I’ve been in the army, never been in a combat situation though, and had a lot of pistol training there. Now I wasn’t half-bad just leisurely shooting at the range, but the first time we practised firing under stress (running laps around the range first to get your blood pumping, instructors shouting insults in our ears etc.) I missed every single shot. To use a pistol effectively in a life or death situation you need to be calm and I don’t think most of us could be.
Link to Cracked article (it’s about Star Wars). Link (PDF) to article Cracked references.
How many people here on this thread of Straight Dope knew about Jeanne Assam BEFORE I posted her story on Post #90?
How many people here knew about the mass murder spree in the Colorado Springs church that did NOT happen?
Wow, when you say it, it sounds so much worse :rolleyes:
But you left something out. I’m not also ONLY in favor of allowing people to be robbed, raped, and shot in their own homes by criminals with guns, I’m also for animals attacking our helpless nurseries and daycare centers. Why should they have to savagely fight for food among each other when our babies are both delicious and helpless? As a liberal, I value the lives of animals and trees moreso than my fellow human beings and am outraged that you assume mere human on human violence is good enough for me. I don’t want simply criminals armed, but I want animals to be armed as well. Bears should have metal claws attached to their hands. Sharks should be grafted with lasers. Dogs should be able to shoot bees from their mouths when they bark. And a healthy diet should be forced on hippos so that they lose their extra weight and become lithe enough to chase down and bite any human within their grasp, using jaws filled with diamond-encased teeth. Once the real smartest animals on earth, the dolphins, force us into an aquatic slavery, then and only then, will I be satisfied.
As for me, I’m not terribly surprised at the stories of an off-duty or ex-cop stopping a crime. They’ve been professionally trained on what to do.
What makes little sense to me is the argument that if we have a critical mass of civilians carrying guns (the intent of the Arizona law which allows anyone to carry a handgun) will mean that an appreciable number of lives would be saved, crime will be greatly reduced, and accidental killings would be minimized.
That just doesn’t make sense to me, because all the heavily armed places in the world tend to suck. Look at Somalia, Iraq, Detroit, Southeast DC, etc. Heavily armed societies don’t seem to create a deterrent to murder, they seem to make murder easier.
Fairchild Air Force Base Hospital Shooting. Admittedly it was an airman providing base security, dropped the guy from 70 yards going 2 for 4 with hits in the head and chest.
Definitely saved lives
That’s because in places like those it’s mostly the outlaws who have the guns. Where are you getting your apparent information that the societies in these places are heavily armed themselves as they go about their daily business?
So you are saying that outlaws are scared to commit crimes when law abiding people are armed, but they are not deterred from crime if other outlaws are armed? Why would criminals be more likely to give up a life of crime if civilians are armed, but less likely to give up crime if they think that other criminals might kill them at any time? I can’t figure out the deterrence theory.
I’m also not saying that people do their daily business armed in each of these places.
I’m making the astounding connection between places that have lots of homicides by firearms, tend to have a lot of firearms around. It’s a shocking thesis, I know. I hope you were sitting down when I dropped that bomb on you.
Um… it did happen. The shooter hit eight people before he was subdued. And you keep posting links to images.
However, I for one was not aware of the incident before you posted it, and thank you.