Where did the gun regulations sticky go?
Moderators: pilkguns, m1963, David Levene, Spencer, Richard H
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Isabel1130
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Propose something specific, YOU think will work, and then provide some evidence to back up your belief. Throwing out words like "try" without any specifics is the equivelent of handing them off to the tooth fairy.william wrote:This is the perfectly reasonable appearing but monstrously deceptive straw man regularly set up by the NRA and similar organizations. No law can PREVENT any bad act from occurring. What a good law can do is to remind those who choose to obey the law what society expects of them AND to provide mechanisms that make it more difficult for those with other than good intentions to carry out their plans or more costly should they try.Also, I have yet to hear anything that will actually PREVENT a mass shooting from happening again.
PREVENT - unlikely. REDUCE - why not try?
Here, I will start: End the drug war, and no knock raids. No knock raids have killed several innocent people, and statistics indicate almost half the homicides in this country are gang related, drug turf warfare.
Thats a very strange logical progression. You can't say a study is flawed because you don't like the result.Raymond odle wrote:Any study's conclusion that attacks person freedom is obviously flawed.
Maybe I'd like the freedom to paint childrens toys with lead paint? So long as they read the instructions and don't swallow them everyone is happy.
America already has one gun for every citizen - how is giving them another one going to help?I believe that in this casedoubling the number of guns in the hands of prepared people would obviously have the students safer.
James the opposite could also be said, if there is one gun for every household do you really think just because there were 2 somehow it would drive people to homicide?
The argument is really silly, you must believe that the presence of a gun some how drives ordinary law abiding citizens to commit murder. If you don't believe that than taking the right of law abiding citizens to own firearms away wont do anything.
The argument is really silly, you must believe that the presence of a gun some how drives ordinary law abiding citizens to commit murder. If you don't believe that than taking the right of law abiding citizens to own firearms away wont do anything.
quote:The argument is really silly, you must believe that the presence of a gun some how drives ordinary law abiding citizens to commit murder. If you don't believe that than taking the right of law abiding citizens to own firearms away wont do anything.
the above is a reduction to extreme, so the obvious reduced to extreme answer is "if you don't have access to guns you can't shoot anybody."
the above is a reduction to extreme, so the obvious reduced to extreme answer is "if you don't have access to guns you can't shoot anybody."
For my part it's nothing to do with guilt, as I've never owned a firearm and never will (barring a zombie apocalypse, and then I figure getting a gun in Canada would instantly become 10x as difficult so I STILL wouldn't have a firearm), just an air pistol shooter here. Moderately concerned about gun safety still of course, but since they only leave their locked case for target practice the risk seems rather low. If I ever tuck an air pistol into my waistband and go outside with it, someone, please, call the cops and get them to check me into the madhouse, 'cause I'll have flipped and the bodies are gonna drop... it's insane the damage one can do with a 0.177" calibre, 0.5gram projectile!
But seriously, I do not believe that any sane person is advocating for an outright ban on all guns in the US nor anywhere else. There will always be an idiot fringe who do say just that, and at moments Dianne Feinstein worries me in that general direction, but hey, she worried me way back in the late 1970's when I was living in California (did grade 12 in Marin County where my dad was living) and she took over from the infinitely more intelligent and subtle Gerry Brown. So glad to see Brown back in office. But back on track...
I think it's unlikely once the dust has settled that sporting/competition firearms are going to be on the banned list. Unless one considers rapid-fire, high-capacity rifles as sporting weapons. Blasting the bejeezus out of things with hundreds of rounds isn't sporting, and as someone earlier in this thread (I think, or perhaps in a related discussion elsewhere) in game hunting a single shot is generally considered all you get, with maybe one follow-up shot if you're skilled and lucky enough. Mostly that first shot has to be a kill shot or you've messed up and the animal is either uninjured or wounded and suffering. So there's no argument to be made from the hunting community that high-capacity, rapid-fire weapons are a necessity. Slaughtering large numbers of animals isn't hunting. We're beyond the mass killing of bison, right?
As for home defense/street self-defense applications; there is no practical reason why any civilian should need more than a 5-shot magazine in any weapon. If you find yourself confronted by 2 or more armed men, and allowing that 2 shots per target is about all you'll have time for while also being an acceptable level of impact to effectively disable an attacker, then it would seem exceedingly unlikely that having more than 5 shots in the gun (pistol or rifle) isn't really going to come into play. By the time you've dropped the first, and maybe if you're incredibly well trained the second attacker, the third (if there is one) has already shot you. If it's a one-at-a-time scenario (where 3 or more attackers are politely taking turns like in all cheezy martial arts movies) then surely you'll have time to load a second 5-shot magazine, and a third, and so on. So again, no 30-shot capacity needed. No competition I've heard of requires more than 5 shots in quick succession, but I may well be very ignorant here so please advise of any ISSF or whatever disciplines which do. It could be that a special permit could be applied for in such an exceptional case, just as with police and military uses for larger capacities.
I agree, talking about magazine capacity is far from the central issue. There are loads of issues in our culture which need addressing, most are much more complex than the mere banning of hardware. But we do ban certain behaviors. Here in BC, following other locales which had the foresight to do so much earlier, we now have a ban on cellular phone use without a hands-free setup, and an outright ban on texting while driving. People still do it, but not nearly so much as I was seeing a few years ago. We have an idling ban (2 minutes maximum except for delivery/chauffeur vehicles), and I see far fewer cars idling now, even in winter. We have a ban on smoking indoors in public spaces and within 6 metres of bus stops. Most observe this ban, and there's word it'll soon become virtually impossible to smoke in public generally, restricting it to homes only. And since most landlords don't allow smoking the numbers of smokers will continue to shrink, and the resulting costs to our health care system will be further reduced. A few examples of how regulation coming from common sense, for the safety and well being of a society at large, can actually work. There are now less than 1/3 the numbers of smokers compared to 50 years ago, at least in North America. Un-regulated gun use could be similarly reduced over time, as so much of it is simply a dangerous addiction and serves no healthy function in our society.
No one ever bothered to answer the question I put to Pilkguns in my (more or less forced by his demand for answers to very specific questions) answers in that thread which inspired this one. So I'll ask it again, in condensed form:
Pilkguns (Scott) had asked as his main question what I would do if an attacker were shooting at me or at my child. I answered with a few variables as options, since he didn't make any conditions of the scenario clear, as I did not want to disappoint him with an incomplete answer. But my primary response to his intended question, which seemed to be more like 'wouldn't you rather have a gun so you could shoot back?', I answered 'no, because once a gunman has a gun pointed at me and is already shooting there is NO HUMAN ALIVE WHO COULD GET OUT A GUN AND SHOOT BACK IN TIME.'
It's that simple, in most cases. Of course there's the odd time a gunman might jam (Oregon mall shooter recently) but this is rare. There's the odd time he might be an absolutely terrible shot, in which case I'd have as much luck throwing a chair at him as shooting him. But barring one openly carrying in a special quick-draw holster, and being as miraculously fast and accurate as the recently departed Bob Munden (RIP - he seemed like an okay guy in a showbiz kind of way), which no one else is apparently, if someone's already shooting at you or even just has their gun up and pointed within a fairly wide arc of your position, you're a dead man. More so for your kid, as it's slower getting to and pusing a kid out of the way than it is dropping behind cover yourself. I'm not talking about someone threatening to pull a gun. I'm talking about someone who's got a gun out and is either using it already or threatening to use it. For reference, look to situations where mass shooters are already underway and police are attempting to intervene - Columbine, for example, where trained police could not disable the shooters either while in the same parking lot or later through a library window.
So the question; does anyone seriously believe they can out-gun an active shooter, except in rare, exceptional circumstances?
And if your answer isn't a solidly honest, provable 'yeah, that's easy' then I wonder why carrying a concealed pistol would make you feel so secure? Back in the wild West days there were virtually zero gunfights of the kind so common in the movies. Most shootings were of the bushwacking kind, or in the back while coming out of a bar, or under the table, or guys getting shot while busy or sleeping in bed. 'Honourable' gunfights were almost unheard of. And the outcomes when they did happen (were there really more than 1 or maybe 2 cases recorded?) were anybody's guess. Too many variables. In earlier European or Southern US pistol duels things weren't much better, and that was in a context where honour actually meant something to a significant percentage of those involved. Not so with modern shooters with high tech equipment and a will to do a lot of damage to anyone in the vicinity.
With a Glock and big magazine any office psycho with a grudge can take down a half-dozen or more workmates far too easily. Isn't that a simpler part of the problem to deal with, compared to overhauling the mental health system, massively supporting community and family based reforms, even an overhaul of the economic system such that people are not forced into various sorts of less-than-healthy relationships? These are all going to happen eventually, but why not start with the relatively simple stuff? Show me why a gun needs to shoot more than 5 bullets per loading? Prove to me that having in excess of a maximum 5-shot magazine is necessary for any civilian usage. I'm asking this fairly well apprised of the context, which in no small measure includes Dianne Feinstein being on the warpath and being well supported. Prove it to her. (And yes, I have run across the picture of her holding something nasty looking with a drum mag and her finger on the trigger, safety off, waving the damned thing at the audience. Oi vey. Who voted for her anyway? What an idiot.)
But seriously, I do not believe that any sane person is advocating for an outright ban on all guns in the US nor anywhere else. There will always be an idiot fringe who do say just that, and at moments Dianne Feinstein worries me in that general direction, but hey, she worried me way back in the late 1970's when I was living in California (did grade 12 in Marin County where my dad was living) and she took over from the infinitely more intelligent and subtle Gerry Brown. So glad to see Brown back in office. But back on track...
I think it's unlikely once the dust has settled that sporting/competition firearms are going to be on the banned list. Unless one considers rapid-fire, high-capacity rifles as sporting weapons. Blasting the bejeezus out of things with hundreds of rounds isn't sporting, and as someone earlier in this thread (I think, or perhaps in a related discussion elsewhere) in game hunting a single shot is generally considered all you get, with maybe one follow-up shot if you're skilled and lucky enough. Mostly that first shot has to be a kill shot or you've messed up and the animal is either uninjured or wounded and suffering. So there's no argument to be made from the hunting community that high-capacity, rapid-fire weapons are a necessity. Slaughtering large numbers of animals isn't hunting. We're beyond the mass killing of bison, right?
As for home defense/street self-defense applications; there is no practical reason why any civilian should need more than a 5-shot magazine in any weapon. If you find yourself confronted by 2 or more armed men, and allowing that 2 shots per target is about all you'll have time for while also being an acceptable level of impact to effectively disable an attacker, then it would seem exceedingly unlikely that having more than 5 shots in the gun (pistol or rifle) isn't really going to come into play. By the time you've dropped the first, and maybe if you're incredibly well trained the second attacker, the third (if there is one) has already shot you. If it's a one-at-a-time scenario (where 3 or more attackers are politely taking turns like in all cheezy martial arts movies) then surely you'll have time to load a second 5-shot magazine, and a third, and so on. So again, no 30-shot capacity needed. No competition I've heard of requires more than 5 shots in quick succession, but I may well be very ignorant here so please advise of any ISSF or whatever disciplines which do. It could be that a special permit could be applied for in such an exceptional case, just as with police and military uses for larger capacities.
I agree, talking about magazine capacity is far from the central issue. There are loads of issues in our culture which need addressing, most are much more complex than the mere banning of hardware. But we do ban certain behaviors. Here in BC, following other locales which had the foresight to do so much earlier, we now have a ban on cellular phone use without a hands-free setup, and an outright ban on texting while driving. People still do it, but not nearly so much as I was seeing a few years ago. We have an idling ban (2 minutes maximum except for delivery/chauffeur vehicles), and I see far fewer cars idling now, even in winter. We have a ban on smoking indoors in public spaces and within 6 metres of bus stops. Most observe this ban, and there's word it'll soon become virtually impossible to smoke in public generally, restricting it to homes only. And since most landlords don't allow smoking the numbers of smokers will continue to shrink, and the resulting costs to our health care system will be further reduced. A few examples of how regulation coming from common sense, for the safety and well being of a society at large, can actually work. There are now less than 1/3 the numbers of smokers compared to 50 years ago, at least in North America. Un-regulated gun use could be similarly reduced over time, as so much of it is simply a dangerous addiction and serves no healthy function in our society.
No one ever bothered to answer the question I put to Pilkguns in my (more or less forced by his demand for answers to very specific questions) answers in that thread which inspired this one. So I'll ask it again, in condensed form:
Pilkguns (Scott) had asked as his main question what I would do if an attacker were shooting at me or at my child. I answered with a few variables as options, since he didn't make any conditions of the scenario clear, as I did not want to disappoint him with an incomplete answer. But my primary response to his intended question, which seemed to be more like 'wouldn't you rather have a gun so you could shoot back?', I answered 'no, because once a gunman has a gun pointed at me and is already shooting there is NO HUMAN ALIVE WHO COULD GET OUT A GUN AND SHOOT BACK IN TIME.'
It's that simple, in most cases. Of course there's the odd time a gunman might jam (Oregon mall shooter recently) but this is rare. There's the odd time he might be an absolutely terrible shot, in which case I'd have as much luck throwing a chair at him as shooting him. But barring one openly carrying in a special quick-draw holster, and being as miraculously fast and accurate as the recently departed Bob Munden (RIP - he seemed like an okay guy in a showbiz kind of way), which no one else is apparently, if someone's already shooting at you or even just has their gun up and pointed within a fairly wide arc of your position, you're a dead man. More so for your kid, as it's slower getting to and pusing a kid out of the way than it is dropping behind cover yourself. I'm not talking about someone threatening to pull a gun. I'm talking about someone who's got a gun out and is either using it already or threatening to use it. For reference, look to situations where mass shooters are already underway and police are attempting to intervene - Columbine, for example, where trained police could not disable the shooters either while in the same parking lot or later through a library window.
So the question; does anyone seriously believe they can out-gun an active shooter, except in rare, exceptional circumstances?
And if your answer isn't a solidly honest, provable 'yeah, that's easy' then I wonder why carrying a concealed pistol would make you feel so secure? Back in the wild West days there were virtually zero gunfights of the kind so common in the movies. Most shootings were of the bushwacking kind, or in the back while coming out of a bar, or under the table, or guys getting shot while busy or sleeping in bed. 'Honourable' gunfights were almost unheard of. And the outcomes when they did happen (were there really more than 1 or maybe 2 cases recorded?) were anybody's guess. Too many variables. In earlier European or Southern US pistol duels things weren't much better, and that was in a context where honour actually meant something to a significant percentage of those involved. Not so with modern shooters with high tech equipment and a will to do a lot of damage to anyone in the vicinity.
With a Glock and big magazine any office psycho with a grudge can take down a half-dozen or more workmates far too easily. Isn't that a simpler part of the problem to deal with, compared to overhauling the mental health system, massively supporting community and family based reforms, even an overhaul of the economic system such that people are not forced into various sorts of less-than-healthy relationships? These are all going to happen eventually, but why not start with the relatively simple stuff? Show me why a gun needs to shoot more than 5 bullets per loading? Prove to me that having in excess of a maximum 5-shot magazine is necessary for any civilian usage. I'm asking this fairly well apprised of the context, which in no small measure includes Dianne Feinstein being on the warpath and being well supported. Prove it to her. (And yes, I have run across the picture of her holding something nasty looking with a drum mag and her finger on the trigger, safety off, waving the damned thing at the audience. Oi vey. Who voted for her anyway? What an idiot.)
How about while he's shooting at someone else in your crowded office, mall or whatever you draw and shoot him? Or while someone who has the fore thought to actually be carrying engages the shooter you and anyone you care about can move, get cover or get out. There's a couple of scenarios for you.
If you are total caught unaware and are the one targeted immediately by a human than no theres little likelihood that you could engage the target before being shot at. That said you can move draw and shoot, luckily most spree shooters aren't very good, so you do have a chance. Some chance is better than no chance which you seem is better.
Why do you need 5 rounds, why not three, or single? I guess just because you don't participate in sports that actually use more than 5 rounds then it's ok to ban it in your own selfish opinion. IDPA, PPC, IPSC to name a few use more than 5 rounds.
If you are total caught unaware and are the one targeted immediately by a human than no theres little likelihood that you could engage the target before being shot at. That said you can move draw and shoot, luckily most spree shooters aren't very good, so you do have a chance. Some chance is better than no chance which you seem is better.
Why do you need 5 rounds, why not three, or single? I guess just because you don't participate in sports that actually use more than 5 rounds then it's ok to ban it in your own selfish opinion. IDPA, PPC, IPSC to name a few use more than 5 rounds.
Gerard wrote:
NRA highpower rifle competition requires "service rifles" (including the AR15 you think has no sporting purpose,even tho it does not need one) to be fired, reloaded, and fired again for a total of ten shots in 60 or 70 seconds (depending on shooting position). Now you have heard of one. The M1, when used, requires loading and firing two rounds, then an additional eight rounds.No competition I've heard of requires more than 5 shots in quick succession,
Yes, I have done so, albeit in a combat setting. Also, much of actual shooting comes down to "mind-set" and most "gangster wannabes" don't have the necessary mind set to kill, nor, judging by their supposedly intimidating twisted grip style of pistol shooting, do they have good marksmanship skills. They expect to frighten, and control their targets, and usually flee when confronted with resistance (especially armed resistance). I would rather face an armed street hoodlum, than a cornered mother animal protecting her young, when I am armed.does anyone seriously believe they can out-gun an active shooter, except in rare, exceptional circumstances?
I didn't say that at all, I was responding to the comment that if people had more guns that would decrease the crime rate with guns.Richard H wrote:James the opposite could also be said, if there is one gun for every household do you really think just because there were 2 somehow it would drive people to homicide?
The argument is really silly, you must believe that the presence of a gun some how drives ordinary law abiding citizens to commit murder.
It seems fairly obvious that a madman with a gun is going to inflict more damage than a madman without a gun.
I don't see how making guns more widely available - when there is already a gun for every man, woman and child in circulation and presumably any 'good-guy' who wants one already has one - achieves anything at all.
Reducing firearm availability to the criminal community seems like a no-brainer.
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BenEnglishTX
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Happily.Gerard wrote:No competition I've heard of requires more than 5 shots in quick succession, but I may well be very ignorant here so please advise of any ISSF or whatever disciplines which do.
Looks like fun and apparently a big deal for quite a few Dutch shooters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_wKJDz ... re=related
3-Gun is definitely fun, even if I'm too fat and old to take part: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cakpLdxcvJI
IPSC definitely qualifies, though this vid looks a little different than what I'm accustomed to since it's in Greece. I love seeing the way things are done elsewhere: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWe1a_PQ_s4
Most people think of IDPA as a pistol game but it's not always. I love the way the Range Officer helps the somewhat inexperienced shooter in this video make his way through the course - firm, fair, corrective without being an ass, basically being a good Range Officer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wi0NrItQLO4
There are a bunch more but that should give you a taste.
Last edited by BenEnglishTX on Mon Jan 14, 2013 3:28 am, edited 1 time in total.
Thanks for those, and yes, that can theoretically happen, and it appears that it sort of did happen in the recent Oregon mall case when a young man took the opportunity of the assailant's rifle jamming to threaten him with his handgun at which the shooter withdrew and shot himself a short time after. Very rare. I see wildly different numbers thrown around in support of concealed carry, anything from 80,000 in one report to 1,800,000 in another, these being the numbers of attempted assaults/robberies averted by law-abiding citizens reported to authorities by use of their own weapons, in most cases un-fired. By 'reported to authorities' it seems unclear what is meant. In most of the cases where such numbers are thrown around the context has been rampant promotion of the right of concealed carry; hardly likely to offer a neutral perspective, and in not one case so far have I seen any scientific or government case cited.Richard H wrote:How about while he's shooting at someone else in your crowded office, mall or whatever you draw and shoot him? Or while someone who has the fore thought to actually be carrying engages the shooter you and anyone you care about can move, get cover or get out. There's a couple of scenarios for you.
I'll say to this what I said to Scott in the now-deleted discussion where he demanded an answer; almost every respected author I've read on the subject of self-defense says the same thing, that running away is the single most effective tool you have in saving your life. It's faster and less likely to get you hurt or killed than confronting the attacker, whether they have a knife or a gun. And by 'respected author' I refer to people who cite actual experiences, verifiable experiences, not wannabes with nifty AOL-style websites and trying to sell their video tapes showing how their personally tailored method of Krav Magaa or whatever it's called is the be-all and end-all most bad-ass method, period. You know the ones. They stand out like bloody sore thumbs from the first few lines of BS.Richard H wrote:If you are total caught unaware and are the one targeted immediately by a human than no theres little likelihood that you could engage the target before being shot at. That said you can move draw and shoot, luckily most spree shooters aren't very good, so you do have a chance. Some chance is better than no chance which you seem is better.
I was suggesting 5 because Olympic rapid-fire competition and pentathlon competition require 5 rounds, and these seemed (pardon my ignorance) to be reasonable limits for such sporting use. As I said, it seems perfectly reasonable that if such a maximum capacity were implemented under law, that a process for exceptions for specific sporting uses would be offered. No need to inhibit currently legitimate uses, only to adapt the law such that regulation and enforcement would remove most illegitimate use from the table. Make it an automatic $100,000 fine and/or 1 year in prison for any dealer caught selling an infringing weapon/magazine without due process, for example. Look, you're living in a country which enforces laws with extreme penalties for such things as selling a bag or marijuana, right? Or what about the case of Aaron Swartz, who took his own life yesterday, a few weeks shy of his court date where he was facing a possible 50 year prison sentence for conspiring to share a few million scientific articles for free? That was the most serious charge against him, and his motives were noble, even if his methods were debatable in their legitimacy, and no profit motive was evident, nor likely considering his activist background. The guy wanted information to be free for the betterment of human kind, but under the law he was worse than a terrorist, apparently. If your government is ready to put the hammer down that hard around information sharing, why not bring that same sort of bullying to the arena of weapons designed to kill people? If someone commits any crime using any weapon discovered to violate certain restrictions, there could be a set of automatic penalties applied similar to your 'three strikes' rule in the war on drugs. Loss of properties, loss of liberty, these deter crime, right?Richard H wrote:Why do you need 5 rounds, why not three, or single? I guess just because you don't participate in sports that actually use more than 5 rounds then it's ok to ban it in your own selfish opinion. IDPA, PPC, IPSC to name a few use more than 5 rounds.
Okay, so I'm being a bit facetious in that last sentence. My personal belief is that there is little if any serious deterrent effect in the threat of incarceration or fines. People lash out, people plot, people do bad things and think about the consequences later. The solutions are complex and long term, involving massive shifts in the way we run our society. But in the short term, in the case of violent crimes, do we really have to make it easier for such people do murder large numbers of people in a short period? Do a few rapid-fire shooting sports justify this availability?
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BenEnglishTX
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- Location: Texas
Can we all stipulate that active shooter scenarios are, pretty much by definition, "rare, exceptional circumstances"?Gerard wrote: So the question; does anyone seriously believe they can out-gun an active shooter, except in rare, exceptional circumstances?
If so, then, having actually been in an active-shooter situation where I was the specific target, I can answer with a "Yeah, it *would* have been easy." It was back in the late 1970s and concealed carry was not legal in Texas. I was unarmed. Luckily, the shooter was probably drunk and simply emptied his shotgun in the general direction he presumed I was (along with nearly 100 other people), didn't hit anything, realized his shotgun was empty, then jumped back in his car and sped off. Had I been armed and had an eyeline (he was actually shooting into the wrong part of the crowd to hit me), the shot would have been easy. (My presumption that he was drunk was based on his marksmanship. He hit cars, he hit the sides of buildings, he even hit a roof but didn't manage to actually put a single pellet on a human being. I was amazed, truly.)
OTOH, some situations aren't so simple. Before cell phones when I was serving as an Officer for a US TLA, my boss sent me out on what should have been a milk run to talk to someone who was in a bit of trouble. It should have been a 5-minute chat to answer a few questions, more of a public relations outreach than anything else. The guy turned out to be a psycho who held me with a gun (next to him on the side table; he never touched it but the threat was clear) for most of a day. The job was civil in nature and we did not carry firearms or badges, just commissions that opened all kinds of doors but just enraged this guy. I spent 8 hours talking, making friends, bonding, using every bit of my training to help him view me as just a cog in a big machine, commiserating with him over our shared lot in life, that of powerless underlings oppressed by a big government.
Eventually, his alcohol intake and my painstaking attempts to instill in him a sense of me as a person seemed to kick in at roughly the same time and he just said "I guess you're OK. Go ahead and go." I backed out, ran to my car, and burned rubber. He was gone by the time I could get the guys with badges and guns to the site since he had lured me to an abandoned house and, frankly, I didn't have enough to give them except a description and the fake ID info provided by the guy.
In both cases, I would have been much better served if I had been armed. In both cases, the bad actor didn't actually hurt anyone due to their own incompetence or lack of *real* motivation. If, however, either of them had been just a bit more determined, I wouldn't be here today because in both cases I was unarmed in accordance with Texas law at the time.
I strongly believe that I should be allowed to carry a concealed firearm anywhere and my experience leads me to conclude that such a firearm could be productively used during at least some dangerous scenarios.
All in all, I prefer to deal with crazy people by running away. I also realize there are some situations where you simply can't do anything; I've lost co-workers to bombs on two occasions and I witnessed the complete emotional destruction of a group of people temporarily officed near me on 9/11 as they watched all their co-workers, the ones who hadn't been sent out on this particular job, die right in front of them on TV.
But there are situations where a gun in the right hands is just what's needed. I prefer that such an option remain open to me.
You're not really familiar with the problem of wild hog infestations in the southern and southwestern U.S., are you? Yes, it's hunting, and it's best done with .308 semi-autos with 20-round (or more) magazines and night-vision optics. The whole idea is to slaughter large numbers of the damn things.Gerard wrote:...there's no argument to be made from the hunting community that high-capacity, rapid-fire weapons are a necessity. Slaughtering large numbers of animals isn't hunting. We're beyond the mass killing of bison, right?
See my response above regarding the cost/benefit and the number of specialized shooting sports affected (or not, if exceptions under strictly controlled permits were adopted as they would be by a sensible and comprehensive set of new rules).Pat McCoy wrote: NRA highpower rifle competition requires "service rifles" (including the AR15 you think has no sporting purpose,even tho it does not need one) to be fired, reloaded, and fired again for a total of ten shots in 60 or 70 seconds (depending on shooting position). Now you have heard of one. The M1, when used, requires loading and firing two rounds, then an additional eight rounds.
So your experience with out-drawing another shooter is military? And what has that got to do with civilian life? Do "gangster wannabes" go around murdering dozens of children, or even adults in malls? That would contradict your statement, with which I agree, that that's just not the type to do spree killings. Does your military background somehow make this reasoning about gangstas apply to spree killers, which is kind of the central theme of this discussion and the one from which it sprang? I doubt it. A spree killer does not fear opposition, he courts it. They're suicidal, going into situations not expecting to come out alive, and armed confrontation will not likely deter them unless completely successful.Pat McCoy wrote:Yes, I have done so, albeit in a combat setting. Also, much of actual shooting comes down to "mind-set" and most "gangster wannabes" don't have the necessary mind set to kill, nor, judging by their supposedly intimidating twisted grip style of pistol shooting, do they have good marksmanship skills. They expect to frighten, and control their targets, and usually flee when confronted with resistance (especially armed resistance). I would rather face an armed street hoodlum, than a cornered mother animal protecting her young, when I am armed.
And sure, had one of the teachers in Sandy Hook happened to be carrying a pistol, and happened to be well trained in its use in a highly stressful situation (at least basic military training, preferably more, as we've surely all read accounts of just how many young soldiers completely fail to respond during their first encounter with enemy fire), and happened to be within a minute or less from the scene of the shooting, that killing spree might have been successful. That's a lot of of 'ifs' and all would have to be in place for a slightly less disastrous outcome to have been accomplished. By this logic, it would seem that ALL school teachers should be trained fully in combat scenarios, armed at all times while on duty (teaching - let's not forget that teaching is their job, not shooting at people), and mentally prepared to draw and return fire at all times. Either that, or the only other logical course of action seems to be placing armed guards at intervals throughout ALL schools, preferably no further spaced than something like 1 guard per 8 classrooms considering how rapidly a high-capacity weapon with semi-auto fire can deploy dozens of rounds into students... or paper, whichever, as the bullets really don't care what their target might be. So which is it to be?
Is LaPierre's plan of having one or two cops or retired soldiers in every school (with what, a 400 student capacity each on average?) really an effective proposition? I doubt it. Unless of course the attacker is a complete imbecile, and the record shows that this is entirely unlikely, most spree shooters being possessed of well above average intelligence. So while the guards are scrambling, the students are falling, and the outcome might shift a body or five either way depending upon how the eventual shoot-out goes. I don't see a big win here for the more guns lobby, unless it's implemented on a much bigger scale. And as it's been said by a lot of folks over the past month, do we really want to turn our schools into armed camps? Is that the path towards a brighter, more free-thinking generation to come? An education under continuous lock-down doesn't strike me as much of an education at all. I think home schooling would become much, much more prevalent within the first couple of years under such a regime. Hey... maybe I'm arguing the wrong side... I'd actually like to see parents teaching their kids, being more involved with their lives... But nope, the relentlessly inflating spiral of capitalism isn't going to allow for that. So armed camps it is, right?
And a high-capacity magazine is somehow better for intimidating gang-bangers than a revolver or 5-shot magazine/maximum capacity pistol? Did I say CCW should be banned? I happen to think that that too should be under discussion, but I haven't argued it here as it seems more likely that other controls would provide more immediate benefits in terms of harm reduction. My thoughts on de-weaponizing society at large are more long term, and I'll concede that any wholesale ban on concealed carry is unlikely in the extreme in the present climate - especially considering the war on drugs and its many harmful contributions to the culture of violence, especially in the US. Take away the profit motive on drug sales and you'd see an overnight shift in that culture, with the motives for gang violence rapidly fading to almost non-existent. Turf wars? Please. Without the profit motive from drug sales, and if prostitution were added to the mix taking away that portion of profits, most larger-scale organized crime would vanish. But the church-inspired 'morality' around psycho-active substances coupled to that very profitable, payola-inspired decision to abandon hemp for nylon rope, both make for a big roadblock on more sensible, humane laws.
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BenEnglishTX
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I couldn't agree more. Gotta give ya props when you hit one right on the head.Gerard wrote:Without the profit motive from drug sales, and if prostitution were added to the mix taking away that portion of profits, most larger-scale organized crime would vanish. But the church-inspired 'morality' around psycho-active substances coupled to that very profitable, payola-inspired decision to abandon hemp for nylon rope, both make for a big roadblock on more sensible, humane laws.