I can’t tell if you’re being facetious or not, but I’ll bite.
Let’s say students had returned fire on these panicky troops. Do you think more of them would have survived or less? Because I’m thinking what ended up being a fubar situation would’ve have been even worse if you had panicking students and panicking troops exchanging shots. Lots of innocent people dying in crossfire, not to mention the troops would’ve taken more license (not less) to react with aggression.
The students might have been justified in shooting back, but I don’t see this an example of where adding more guns to the mix would’ve helped.
Oh, lots more of them would have died. I guess I was being semi-facetious. They would have been justified, but many more would have died, on both sides.
Yeah, really. Those national guard units have machine guns. Normally they wouldn’t have them for riot control but they are in the armory. It would have been justifiable to use them on active shooters.
In addition, the way the media would have portrayed it as 'violent traitors assault national guard soldiers, 5 national guard soldiers killed. Also 500 traitors did not survive"
Where do you live that you feel the need to CCaW? Was there an incident in your life where you feared for your life and which compelled you to CCaW? Have you ever felt the need to draw it in anger?
I think it would mean something to the jury that the guy you shot had five other people’s wallets on him and a couple of armed robbery and home invasion convictions, while all you had was a speeding ticket a couple of years ago.
I live in Utah, but the reason I carry is not because my place of residence is particularly dangerous. Frankly, it’s less dangerous than much of the country, but, and this is key, it’s not danger-free. I assess that the day-to-day cost and inconvenience of carrying around a firearm are quite minimal, and the benefits are something more than that, IMHO, so I do.
Yes, I suppose an incident years back was something of a motivating factor.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but Zimmerman shot first and was able to explain to a jury’s satisfaction why. You’re simply wrong if you think our laws dictate that I must wait until I’ve been shot at to shoot an aggressor.
You assess that an AR-15 platform weapon provides you personally with more safety. You base that not on the routine home invasion concern but on a scenario in which there is “local civil unrest” as the result of something like a natural disaster or political strife like the LA riots.
The fact that it can used fairly easily at long range by those with little training (and can fire many shots rapidly) with a high “level of effectiveness” is part of its appeal. In short the fact that fairly unskilled users can take out lots of people with these things quickly and from a distance is why you want one or more in your house.
For the sake of the discussion let us accept your perception that the risk of such an event is non-trivial. Let us further accept that “bad guys” in that “civil unrest” scenario do not target your household for your weapons cache. And accept that you and your wife will be able to accurately assess from that distance who is and is not a threat and not kill any multiple individuals who are not an imminent major threat to you.
Given all that is your personal safety increased or decrease by more or the average people out there dealing with and part of civil unrest and therefore rioting or desperate for food etc., having these weapons too?
Does your argument also apply to owning a fully automatic weapon? A bazooka?
IF, and accept this for the sake of discussion as I accept your assessments, the risk to society as a whole is significantly greater because that weapon’s efficacy at allowing fairly unskilled users to kill many rapidly and from a distance amplifies the harms of a bad guy event when one is used (even as the number of bad guy events stays constant) THEN is there a place for severely limiting how many of these weapons are out there, if such could be done?
If the charge against you is homicide, that sort of outweighs petty larceny, wouldn’t you think? You’d better have a damn good argument about why you *needed *to take a life. And that argument had better work not only a judge and jury, but on whatever deit(ies) you believe will judge you later on.
Zimmerman got off but lots of people consider him a murderer and shun him as such. His reputation is forever fucked up because he killed an unarmed teenager for reasons that have come under intense scrutiny (to say the least). No one sane would really want to be in Zimmerman’s shoes.
Bu yeah, if the only thing you’re concerned about is staying out of jail, then I guess he’s a valid example.
So it’s far better to *deter *them from occurring, isn’t it? Concealing your weapon doesn’t do that. Carrying it openly might. But that isn’t what the gun “rights” crowd is proud of doing, for some reason that just never gets explored. Is there something more than a desire, one even they won’t state and maybe not even to themselves, to live out the Good Guy dream? That’s looking for trouble.
I don’t get the adoration of the AR-15. A very good acquaintance of mine used to be a democrat and a gun owner. She enjoyed range shooting. When the fear arose that they (AR-15s) might be banned, her and her husband started buying them up. Now they are considering moving to a more AR-15 friendly state. She voted for and staunchly defends Trump. All she can talk about is guns and her beloved AR.
But it’s not just her. I know several people like that. And of course the media is rife with such stories. Take this OP for example. Without going back and rereading it answer this - is it about AR-15s or about justifying gun ownership for self defense?
I propose it’s about AR-15s. If it’s about self defense then then almost the entire OP case could be made without mentioning a caliber.
As a long time hunter and plinker, and as a looong time gun owner I just don’t get the mystique of that gun. I own two handguns - both for self defense. There are plenty of guns, long and short, that will do a better job than the AR. So what if it gets banned? There are better solutions. (Yeah I know, slippery slope right?)
I’m not necessarily for banning them I just don’t get the gaga over them.