After a high-profile shooting, the NRA goes dark. Whether you agree with that PR blackout or not, you’ve got to hand it to Veep Wayne LaPierre (or his copywriter) for his post-Sandy Hook admonition to gun control advocates: “the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” Over the last couple of days . . .

The civilian disarmament industrial complex has seized on the Las Vegas spree killing as “proof” that Mr. Lapierre’s “good guy” maxim is BS. Like this [via rollingstone.com]:

“The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” NRA chief Wayne LaPierre infamously said after Newtown.

But the shooter in Las Vegas, 64-year-old Stephen Paddock, was on the 32nd floor of a casino building, a quarter-mile away from the bulk of his victims down in a concert venue on the ground. Unless the NRA plans on advocating for carry licenses for F-16s or surface-to-surface missile systems, it’s hard to see how the “good guy with a gun” argument is going to fly this time.

Is it? Is it hard to see that Stephen Paddock was eventually stopped by a SWAT team equipped with . . . wait for it . . . guns? Apparently so, because NPR’s Morning Edition host tried to make the same argument: armed self-defense is delusional [5:05 below].

slate.com also went there, declaring  No Pistol Could Have Stopped This; The Las Vegas shooting demolishes the NRA’s “good guy with a gun” argument. Apparently, “Las Vegas exposed its complete illogic.” Only it didn’t. It simply exposed the obvious limitations of armed self-defense.

Speaking of illogic, if gun control advocates think that Americans are going to look at this black swan event and decide “well, I can’t protect myself from a hidden sniper so I don’t need to exercise my natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms,” the antis are [intentionally] delusional. As if you didn’t know.

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99 COMMENTS

  1. The silence from the NRA is deafening, we’re being sold out in congress with republicans saying they’re going to vote for that harpy’s gun ban bill (with Trump surely to sign it in hopes of currying favor with the leftist media) and now the NRA can’t be bothered to lift a finger, either that or the NRA is gonna sell us down the river as well, which is probably the case.

    The democrats lost huge in the last election and yet they’re still in control…

    Cowards, Traitors, and Worthless bastards all…

    • “The democrats lost huge in the last election and yet they’re still in control…” – Isn’t that the truth. The only difference is they can blame republicans for anything that goes wrong….wait, no they did that when they were in power also. Yep, no difference

    • Yes, because a lobbyist group has no other means of exerting influence unless is takes out national ads and shouts from the rooftops. /sarc (because after your comment I don’t believe you have the metal capacity to recognize sarcasm). Unlike you and your defeatist attitude the rest of us still have the will to fight for our freedoms. So go crawl into your bunker and lock the hatch behind you. When the rest of us are done doing the the real work we’ll let you know that it’s safe to come out. Maybe.

    • And no doubt they’ll be asking for more of our money to elect “pro-2a politicians” like the same group who will sell us down the river again, and they’ll no doubt push hard to get us all to vote to reelect Trump because the NRA cares more about the R after the candidate’s name than they do their actual positions on the second amendment (seriously, did no one ever read all the anti-gun comments he’s made before he got in to politics?). Never forget that for all the talk about fighting for us they’re really fighting for the big money that owns the manufacturers, and those guys tend to be fiscally conservative more than movement conservative. New restrictions being threatened? Great, panic buying and higher stock prices! New restrictions passed? Great, a chance to offer a special edition to fit those restrictions and charge more for it! Either way they make money, and either way the NRA claims credit for what a great job they did for us – bleh.

    • Well, he shot himself in the face, apparently after the security guard came to the door. So the SWAT team breached something like 40-45 minutes after he died. At least that’s the current supposition since he didn’t fire after that.

      It could have been worse, if he’d have known that he still had that much time, and still apparently had a crap load of ammo. It took an unarmed security guard knocking on the door to get him to the suicide. If only he’d have started with that. Sometimes its just a guy, no gun needed.

      But this isn’t going to change my self defense methodology, its so far outside of the likely that its not something I’m actively worried about. Some situations are such that the only option is to take cover.

      • This. Absolutely this, Rick. Spot on. Sometimes it isn’t a gun or ammo that saves lives (tourniquet anyone?), but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be prepared with a gun and ammo for the other cases. You can’t prepare for everything, and this case certainly isn’t one any of us could really prepare for, but you prepare for the ones you can prepare for and hope to god that you never encounter one of the ones you couldn’t prepare for. A friend of mine was asking if this changed my views on self defense and assault rifles (their words) and I told them, no. This doesn’t change my views. I carry for those times when I might be able to stop something bad, while knowing there are some things I won’t be able to stop. I explained that I look at something like this less like a typical shooting and more like a bombing, where no mater what you’re screwed if you’re one of the unlucky ones in the area. I explained that I can’t guard myself or loved ones against a bomb, but chances are I’m not going to run in to a bomb, I very well could run in to a mugging or a lunatic inside the mall though and that’s why I carry. It isn’t a magic talisman that will protect me from all evil, but it is a tool that can protect from some of the more common evil.

    • Police that showed up at his door at about 10:21p. He could see them w/ the remote cam and shot himself apparently.

    • Shortly after shooting through the door hitting the first responder on scene (a security guard) he popped his brain box.

      Therefore the maxim remains true. Once confronted by force, yet another coward cancelled his own ticket.

      Logic is beyond antis. It does not serve ‘The Narrative’. Only The Narrative matters to them.

  3. It’s more along the lines of “I can’t defend myself against a well funded and prepared left wing terrorist.” As a reward for trying to use one of their own terrorist acts to push their agenda, we need to ram home every pro-gun law we can down the throats of the DNC.

    • You are assuming we have allies, the only problem is is that every single republican rep and senator have proven themselves to be worthless commie sellouts. Even the NRA is selling us out on this one.

      As they will the bans and gun grabs that will be rolled into this bill…

    • I don’t think this guy had a wing, other than nut. But he wasn’t stupid, nor unprepared. Did he lose all his money gambling and take it out on “Vegas”? Who knows, but he seemed to be a functional human for 64 years, so he got triggered by something, he has no evidence of political motivations, so money, love, health, that’s kind of it, you don’t think of 64 YO wanting to be a fame whore, but that too I guess.

  4. Honestly, I’m not terribly worried about a bad guy with a gun, you can prepare but sometimes the bear eats you.

    However, it’s cars that scare me, but then we just accept motor vehicle deaths apparently…

    Year / Total / Divided to per day
    2012 – 33,561 = ~92 per day
    2013 – 32,719 = ~90 per day
    2014 – 32,675 = ~90 per day
    2015 – 38,300 = ~105 per day
    2016 – No firm numbers, but estimated close to 40,000 = ~109 per day.

    • Not to mention 3,536 annual drownings in the US (source: CDC) which is 9.6 per day.

      The media needs to be called out on their fear mongering and grandstanding when it comes to firearms “stats” and dangers. They pale in comparison to any number of ignored daily activities that cause 10-100x more deaths every year. Hell you want to be scared? Let’s not even bring up food and preservatives.

      The fact is, we are all hypocrites. Firearm politics has never been about lives, because DGU stats blow any other stats out of the water regarding the good firearms and gun owners provide to society. This is about power and controlling people.

      A better discussion would be focusing our efforts on getting all of these would’ve tyrants out of office and having a consequence for trying to blame law abiding citizens for the actions of murderers.

      • Comparing the number of murders committed with guns to car accidents and drownings does not seem to be a very good argument to me. No one on either side of the gun debate can argue that automobiles are unnecessary in this society or that people should be forced to avoid bodies of water. On the other hand, people who do not like guns see no reason for people to have them. We may feel differently, but we are unlikely to persuade anyone with these examples. On the other hand, alcohol kills 75,000 a year. Tobacco kills 443,000. The victims of those drugs include many innocent people who do no use them. Those factors definitely are unnecessary to society. Why worry so much about guns when assault beverages kill almost ten times as many people as are murdered with guns?

        • FWIW

          CDC lists death by accidental gunfire as number 100 on the hit parade of causes of death. homicide by gunfire is number 107. Why is that relevant? Take a look and see all the causes where people were doing unnecessary things that led to their deaths. The risk of death by gunfire is absolutely relevant when talking about laws and bans designed to somehow reduce or eliminate a risk source of death.

        • It’s relevant because it invalidates the premise that these laws are being pushed to save lives.

          Nothing else is being banned that can lessen the death tolls on much more deadly items that kill more people per day by comparison.

          So, if it’s not about effective measures to saves the most lives, then why focus only on the lives taken by murderers that happen to use firearms? Gun control is already proven ineffective so then they have to provide another reason for restrictive gun laws and banning accessories.

  5. Surely, the NRA is writing this stuff for NPR!

    Seriously, there has to be a mole somewhere because you could not have written a better pro-gun argument given the limitations of NPR’s apparent requirement for circular logic and absurd hyperbole.

    I bet the NRA lifts the quote verbatim into a solicitation email.

  6. What goes missing is that the shooter was “a good guy with a gun”, right up until he wasn’t. And this is the threat anti-gunners fear the most. They know that if they stay out of “bad areas”, the avoid the risk of being shot in a mugging, or drive-by, or gang cross-fire. In essence, they observe a control over the dangers in their lives. But the average person with a gun, who could “snap” at any minute terrorizes them.

    In this latest case, we have a certified “good guy”, legal gun owner (passed 30 background checks), who was reclusive, had no criminal record, left people alone, kept to himself, caused no trouble for anyone. What better description of “a good guy” who owned lotsa guns? As it happens, we can no longer disparage the anti-gunner fear that even a “good guy” can kill you without warning of any kind, all the while looking normal. This is a construct we cannot dismiss with a shrug and a scream of RTKBA. We better come up with better responses than in the past.

    • Well all politicians try to be the “good guy” until they aren’t. Difference being politicians don’t have to common courtesy to shoot themselves when they are caught being tyrants and murderers.

    • Logical. I agree with you, “Sam I Am.”

      Perhaps the best argument is pointing to the statistical odds of being killed by a crazed mass shooter. Sources should be provided for such an argument. I don’t know the number at the moment, but I imagine we are almost as likely to be killed by lightning as in a mass shooting. I would not say that, however, unless I could back it up with good sources.

      • According to the NOAA, over the last 20 years, the United States averaged 51 annual lightning strike fatalities, placing it in the second position, just behind floods for deadly weather. In the US, between 9% and 10% of those struck die, for an average of 40 to 50 deaths per year (28 in 2008).

        • ” In the US, between 9% and 10% of those struck die, for an average of 40 to 50 deaths per year (28 in 2008).”

          OMG. We gotta do something. Government’s gotta do something. OMG. Climate change. Gun owners. NRA. Somebody do something. 50 deaths per year that could be prevented if Repugs would legislate enough money and time to give scientists the means develop adequate protection against weather. Why is CDC not doing something to improve outdoor safety so we can be free of worry that we may be the next to be struck by nature?

        • The lightning comparison isn’t the best then. It appears we are more likely to be killed by a mass murderer using a firearm than we are by lightning. Still, the odds of any one of us being killed in either scenario is exceedingly low. Being able to explain to people just how unlikely they are to die in a mass shooting is perhaps a worthwhile point to make when gun control comes up.

      • I do not have stats for events such as last weekend. However, CDC rates accidental death by gunfire at number 100 on the list of causes; homicide by gunfire at number 107. And the non-gun deaths include much more “normal” activities as being a higher risk to people in the US.

      • On the scale of rare (but overblown) causes of death, lightning is apparently in the running. This figure was from during some Clinton-era gun grab frenzy: for any NON-celebrity who feared they’d meet their demise via lightning, it seems they were 400% more likely to appear on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

        (So, statistically, after their 3rd completely random Tonight Show appearance as a non-celebrity, they should begin to worry about lightning.)

        And none of that could compare with drowning in abandoned 5-gallon buckets.

        For people who weren’t gang members in Dem-controlled cities, firearms were essentially nil.

        Still though that never stops lefties from hysterically demagoguing about them.

    • The chance of getting killed by somebody who has just gone over to the dark side of mass murder is about the same as that of getting killed by lightning. It is an astonishingly low probability event. People intentionally take magnitudes worse chances every day. In a population of 323 million, 50 deaths a year is a pitiful reason for doing anything. Over 8000 people die every day for God’s sake. This is a tiny problem in a world with endless very large problems.

      • I wouldn’t pay one dollar to eliminate the chance I’d get killed by lightning or a mass murderer in a year because that would a waste of money that could be much more productively spent. It would be 3.2 million years before I reached the point where I would have had a 50% chance of saving my life, no?

      • You are correct, but the comparison is irrelevant. Anti-gun people believe they have leagues more control over all the other elements of their lives. Thus, their fear is real, natural, reasonable, rational. We make a huge mistake to dismiss the power of perception vs. fact. And we are losing. The fact that there is a near even split in America regarding “gun rights” indicates the majority does not respect the gun owner’s needs, reasons, rights. If the majority did respect gun owner rights, we would not be having these discussions. A tie is not a victory, especially not a definitive or moral victory.

        • Public education has been an awful thing. People can’t even find their country on a globe, expecting them to understand probability is laughable, I get it.

    • Sam, there are two flaws in your argument. Perhaps you could work on them:

      1. Surveys show that there are approximately 300 million guns in civilian hands. Of course thousands of these are illegally in the hands of gang-bangers and the mentally ill. Assume 299 million are in “good guy hands.” Note that only a few out of those millions ever go over to the dark side. Very very few. The worry about them is statistically unfounded.

      2. It is a stretch to say the Vegas shooter was, in prior days or months, a “good guy with a gun.” Anyone in close contact with him, for example his girlfriend who shared both the Mesquite and Reno homes with him, knew he was piling up weapons “like crazy.” I suggest he was, to them, obviously not stable. A guy who isn’t content with his first three or four DDM4 rifles, but feels he needs a few dozen more, is not stable. Were he truly a collector or active competitor, he would be much more open and sociable with other collectors and target shooters. He wasn’t.

      We, you, Sam, keep forgiving the (mother in Sandy Hook, the wife in CA, etc.) the one or two people with reason to raise an alarm….because…why? If I know a family member or close friend looks to be on a bizarre path involving a mass of essentially duplicate guns, I’m going to inquire. If making an inquiry draws an unsatisfactory response, I’m going to call the police. Same goes for a near-me “bomb collector.” And I have more than a few guns, for hunting, for clays, and for self- and home-defense. They aren’t secrets. Each has a rational sporting or SD function. Those around me are aware of my shooting sports interest. I’ve twice in thirty-two years stopped a very bad incident, once apprehended a fleeing felon as the cops chased him around my very safe neighborhood. (He got lost after robbing a store…)

      Good guys with guns repeatedly prove capable of, and willing to, stop a bad guy with a gun. They have to be able to see the bad guy, and his expression of intent, first. So we need the “good guy that sees the bizarre unfolding” to start an inquiry. Good guys with guns are willing to talk with those close to them about “what it’s all about.” And that talk has to make sense. Just my view. And I have to say, the SWAT industry has done a horrible job of engineering a process to move in fast. As soldiers we HAD to move in fast. If SWAT teams can’t figure a bullet-resistent moving-wall method, they should find another role in the PD. I’ve seen the defect again and again.

      • You are missing the target. Your point of view, my point of view, our point of view is irrelevant. The point of view of the anti-gunner is all that matters. If we dismiss that point of view as irrelevant, we damage only ourselves. We are not who we think we are, we are not who we think they think we are, we are who they think we are, and we better understand that dynamic.

        A “good guy with a gun” is not restricted to an individual who uses a gun in defense against an attack. A “good guy with a gun” is a member of “the most law abiding segment of society”; gun owners. A “good guy with a gun is someone who owns guns legally, can buy guns legally, who can carry a gun legally. That “good guy with a gun” is who we hold ourselves out to be; people who have guns and have committed no crime. That is the image we advertise, and the image the anti-gunner does not believe. Their idea of a “good guy with a gun” is a legal gun owner who has yet to be caught in a crime, and/or a legal gun owner who has not been pushed to the breaking point, yet. The shooter in the latest incident met all the requirements of “a good guy with a gun” (so far as has been determined, he committed no crime prior to the first shot).

        You/we can comfort ourselves all we want with the idea that anti-gunners are needlessly in fear, but in fear they are , and remain. Our perception, our logic, our claims of RTKBA do absolutely nothing to overcome the fear anti-gunners experience. We ignore that at our peril. While we have been seeing some victories in legislation and court cases in the last two/three years, those are so narrow a victory as to be lost in the margin of error. The recent victories are not sufficient to overwhelm the anti-gun politics, much less convince or convert the fearful.

        The “good guy with a gun” was a mantra only waiting to be upended by an event like last weekend. The phrase will be rammed down our throats, and the public’s, over and over, and it will be a compelling campaign. We are in a tenuous position, and it will take more than bumper slogans to effectively counter the onslaught of demands to “do something”. Already, we have seen public faces demanding that doing “anything is better than doing nothing”. “Anything” means anything that has an appearance of effective action, whether it is or not. The anti-gunner crowd, and their adherents do not care if the next “good guy” attack (or even “bad guy” attack) is prevented. The anti-gun crowd just wants to keep pushing and pushing to make themselves feel good that the public is rallying to the “guns are bad” position.

        The pro-gun voices and faces the public sees paint the picture that we are smug, self-satisfied and arrogant. I fear we have no means of effectively presenting a different picture. And it just might be the end of our freedom to have “guns everywhere”. Legislative victories are merely one more session away from evaporation. If a constitutionally protected right is seen as elastic by the courts, what is the real value of legislation that can be overturned by the opposition?

        We can no longer depend on, “yeah, but…” to support and move our agenda.

    • Dr. Stanton Samenow is a renowned expert on criminal psychology. He is very critical of the myth that some criminals are “regular guys” who “just snapped”. His response to that idea:

      “What I do know is that in 47 years of evaluating and treating offenders, an “out of character” crime does not exist. We hear it again and again that a perpetrator of a terrible crime had no criminal record, that he was a “nice guy,” that he didn’t cause trouble in his community, that he was employed, and so forth. So the initial appearance is that he must have “snapped” (whatever that means), or for some other reason was driven to engage in behavior that was completely alien to his character.
      A house cannot fly. It is not within its character. A skyscraper cannot swim. It is not within its character. However, when a human being appears to have done something out of character, if we are patient enough and the investigation is sufficiently thorough, a context for the crime eventually comes to light.”

      • “So the initial appearance is that he must have “snapped” (whatever that means), or for some other reason was driven to engage in behavior that was completely alien to his character.”

        Yes, of course. This is the point. All the reasoned, dispassionate analysis by experts is completely and utterly irrelevant. The vast majority of people in the country do not have access to, or interest in academic and psychological research. If it were otherwise, the published information that the killer in Connecticut was known to be mentally struggling before the spree would have stopped the anti-gunners in their tracks. But it didn’t. The condition only reinforced that you can never be sure that someone will not just “snap”, crazy or not.

        Let’s imagine that John Schmuckenheimer is known to have a short temper, and does not manage simultaneous challenges well. John also is an amiable guy, who doesn’t let his temper control his every mood and action. John is know to “blow a fuse”, yet almost immediately “get over it”. John has never injured another person in his life. In fact, he usually retreats from confrontation. Then one day we find that John has a legally-owned pistol stored in trunk of his car. What action do we take, or does government take?

        As time goes by, it turns out that John and his distantly located brother (with whom we are unaware John has a running feud of long standing) are “fighting” over terms of the will of a shared grandmother. But we do not know that, yet. One day, John has one of his blown fuse moments, and simply walks away from the event, down the hall, and out the door of the business. Moments later, John walks back in and promptly shoots the first person he sees. According to the source you quoted, his character flaw that would allow him to kill someone would become obvious….postmortem. How does that revealed knowledge help prevent the attack, or help relieve the trauma to the gunshot victim, or demonstrate to the co-workers that, in layman terms, John didn’t “just snap”? Simply put, John was a generally good guy, liked by pretty much everyone, and was a legal gun owner. Whether John truly “snapped”, or plotted his entire adult life to one day shoot and kill someone, for all practical and political purposes, John “just snapped”. A “good guy with a gun”, just “went off” and killed someone. It is this perception that controls, not reason, reflection and knowledge. We ignore this at great risk.

  7. As I recall, Charles Whitman was pinned down by civilians with rifles, allowing potential victims to escape and police to move in. Things could have been very different if there had been even a few riflemen in that crowd.

    On a related note, an outdoor crowd of 20k+ surrounded by tall hotels with clear sight lines is to sniper fire what an underground nightclub with combustible furnishings and a single exit is to arson. It’s a situation that’s so vulnerable that it’s essentially criminal not to take corrective action. For the nightclub it’s additional exits, non-combustible interior, and a sprinkler system. For the outdoor concert on The Strip, it’s countersnipers.

    • “For the outdoor concert on The Strip, it’s countersnipers”.

      How many? Where? Would the target be unambiguous? If the snipers had been routine at such events, do you think the shooter would not have considered that in his planning?

      “For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, elegant, cheap….and wrong.”
      – H.L. Meneken

      • A handful would have been plenty, one would have been a hell of a lot better than none. Where exactly they were also wouldn’t have been critical, as long as they weren’t all in the same wing of Mandalay Bay as the shooter.

        Don’t pretend that countersnipers aren’t a thing. We can and do already employ them to guard high-value targets at public appearances. It’s just a matter of finally admitting that tens of thousands of ordinary people, not just the ruling class, can be a high value target.

        • That would only work if something were to occur to change liability laws. If they’re public employees, who defines the rules of engagement, and if they’re private, I don’t know how current laws would look at it. If it worked and they took out the sniper, then I’m sure they’d get a pass, but it only takes one screw up and hitting a bystander and we’d seesaw back the other direction. Any large public event is going to have a risk…unless your at a LA Rams game, then its not a mass anything, any chance to ding the Rams.

          I’m personally going to chalk it up to there’s a certain amount of you take on with everything you do. Driving, coffee, bbq, you just can’t prepare for everything, personally or as a business owner.

      • Sam, I think you’ll agree that from a standard security point-of-view, it is absurd to hold an event with 22,000 attendees in a flat ground-level cattle pen….in full view of thousands of windows in high-rise hotels full of transients. We don’t allow that for major sports events, because it would be impossible to secure. And….transients. Imagine the Super Bowl was held in an exposed stadium over which four or five hotels towered. Hopeless. We always have quite a few “good guys with guns” securing major sports and political events. Perhas the Vegas promoter’s judgment was overridden by the the cheapness of the venue?

        As for the comment above about Whitman, the Texas Tower Shooter….the Vegas event was exactly a careless replication of that setup, but 1,000 times more risk-filled, and with no good guy rifles at ground level. As many commentators have noticed, Paddock could have killed as many with manual-action rifles, give or take a few.

        • Whitman was a daytime event, and people were not shooting at him from 500yds away. How effective would the locals have been if Whitman had chosen night? How effective would they have been, at night, at 500yrds? Indeed, how effective would police snipers have been, in the dark, at the latest shooting? NVG? for hours, for three nights? A blanket of snipers might eventually have seen something, I guess (but don’t place credence). The idea of a citizen using a trunk rifle to make 500yrd shots (uphill, at night) just doesn’t make sense.

          As to masses of people at open venues where snipers are not covering every conceivable line of fire, Macy’s New Years Parade, Times Square News Years celebration (yes, we are told snipers are present, but really? Covering very lane of fire? I remain skeptical that NYPD has sufficient resources for that.

          The idea that Americans cannot gather in large numbers, in the open, (state/county fairs?) because there are not enough snipers to cover them, should be downright scary.

      • Has TTAG waisted it’s time talking about “truck guns”???
        It was people with Truck Guns that suppressed the Texas Tower shooter. He had cover. The hotel sniper had no cover. Just glass windows. The problem for todays is very few people have a Truck Gun.

        Up to the early 1970s a truck gun could be a 30.06 or at 30/30. They could have gotten the sniper at the hotel.

    • So now we’re going to have police snipers at every decent sized event? Who’s paying for that? Who foots the bill for a larger SWAT team and the money to pay them overtime for hanging out at a concert? Who decides which events are worth sniper protection? Are events cancelled if SWAT officers aren’t available?

      • The event promoter pays, obviously. It costs a pittance compared to the revenue. The TV studios and others already accept the cost of security. I might add, sarcastically, that NYC taxpayers already pay a squad of plain-clothes cops to guard former mayor Bloomberg, one guy…. And again, the venue chosen in Vegas was impossible to secure, which is why it was so inappropriate, but cheap. Vegas has quite a few large venues.

    • DaveL wins the Intertubez for the year!!!

      Neither “easy availability of firearms” nor evil “assault weapons” nor slidefire stocks are to blame. First and foremost, the attack takes a huge chunk of the blame. The rest of the blame goes to the venue as DaveL explained.

    • I sent an email to TTAG earlier today making many of these some points. Anyone in a significant leadership position would have had a counter sniper team as cover in such a venue. 22 thousand regular Americans are not worth that much trouble. 3 or 4 two man teams would be ample and they could be useful for other reconnaissance as well. We live in a dangerous world.

      What would we be blaming if he had crashed his airplane into the crowd using a fast low angle approach? The results would have been just as devastating, but honestly, I’m not certain of how I would secure against that eventuality. Maybe you can’t foresee or control everything, but it doesn’t take much imagination to be able to counter a lone gunman.

  8. Congress will go after bump fire and other mechanical trigger manipulation. Sadly, the whole reason bump fire is legal is that people use the gun’s recoil to perform that trick. The only way to keep that from happenning is to collect all guns with self loading systems, that is NOT a good idea. Remember that a shoestring or a belt loop can do the same thing.

  9. Note also that the concert was held at a Live Nation venue — and company policy is ‘no weapons’ – even for off duty LE.

  10. There are plenty of cases a defensive use for a gun isn’t going to do much good. Elevated sniper, suitcase bomb in TSA screening or airline checkin line, poison gas attack, ambush, etc. Just because something isn’t always effective doesn’t mean that it is never effective. Bullet proof vests that police wear are useless against rounds higher than their rating, or head/groin/arm hole/leg shots. That doesn’t mean that bullet proof vests are useless.

    • ” Just because something isn’t always effective doesn’t mean that it is never effective.”

      Oh, but it does. That is the entire logic for leftists, liberals, Demoncrats, statists. They demand that anyone who challenges or resists their ideals, morals, programs or ideas must be perfect, because leftist, liberals, Demoncrats never hold themselves out as perfect. Which is why intentions are more important than results. If they are not perfect, and they have self-claimed moral superiority, then you cannot be perfect, meaning your whatever you claim is invalid because you, if you are not perfect, are morally inferior.

      Alinsky tells radicals to hold the opposition to perfection in the opposition standards, making the opposition always on the defensive. In this life, once the accusation is lodged, the public demands the accused defend themselves by proving the accuser is wrong. Attacking the accuser for being wrong, unfair, disingenuous, evil is not considered proof the accused is not guilty. It is the old trial by combat. And it is reality. It is also why it is so difficult to get juries to understand the defendant does not have to mount a defense at all. It is counter-intuitive to nature and “common sense”.

      • “That is the entire logic for leftists, liberals, Demoncrats, statists.”

        Leftists, liberals, Democrats, and statists do not deal in logic. They simply vomit words until something sticks: it is their desperate attempt to get you on their side.

        Remember, leftists/Progressives/liberals operate on Altruism, Fantasy, and Emotion — to which you alluded when you said that intentions are much more important than results to such people. Intentions reflect a person’s Altruism.

        • “Leftists, liberals, Democrats, and statists do not deal in logic.”

          Oh, but they do. Their logic is that illogic can defeat rational logic. Their logic is they are superior in every way, so whatever is needed to win enduring power is necessary, permissible, and logical. To rule, one needs unlimited power. To gain power, one must do whatever it takes. Might makes right. Logical.

        • I think its that feelings trump facts. That’s not a left/right thing, I saw a R congressman saying that you have a much greater chance of being murdered today than any time in history, which is wrong and just stupid, and he’s far from the only one. Data trumps feelings.

          Modern society has allowed people to believe that they have the right to their own opinion, and so do you, seemingly even though some things are just patently true or untrue. If the facts are unknown and you have an opinion, fine, but you can’t have an opinion that the rises in the west and sets in the east, the earth is flat, etc. Feelings aren’t even as valid as an opinion, feelings are…feelings. I feel happy, scared, stressed, that doesn’t change objective reality.

  11. A good guy with a gun, like a decent AR kept in the trunk of a car equipped with quality optics would have at the very least kept the bad guy’s head down if not taken his head off, and stopped him from causing the carnage that he did. 400 meters is well within the range of the M855, heck, under the right conditions, even the M193 would’ve sufficed. Didn’t Micaulek score a body shot with a 9mm pistol at 1,000 meters?

    • “A good guy with a gun, like a decent AR kept in the trunk of a car equipped with quality optics would have at the very least kept the bad guy’s head down ”

      If, if, if, the good guy with a gun was experienced at night shooting, experienced at long range shooting at high angle targets, experienced at picking out targets in a darkened location while the good guy was in a lighted ares, good at a whole bunch of ballistic challenges that the average gun holder never experienced.

      Not every problem has a handily available solution.

      • “Not every problem has a handily available solution.”

        Yeah… No kidding, Sherlock! 🙄

        In fact, having a SWAT team there didn’t solve the problem very quickly either. (That does NOT mean that we should ban SWAT teams, by the way.)

        • Being close enough to the car to reach a rifle in time to stop the mass slaughter is another counter to the “good guy with a gun” argument. I think what “Sam I Am” is trying to tell us is that no one who is uncertain about gun rights is going to accept an argument that does not sound logical. Nevada has very liberal gun regulations so it’s hard to argue that a lack of gun rights is the reason why no one stopped this mass murderer. It’s just not a good or logical argument in this case. We have to make sure we are presenting logical arguments.

        • Perhaps I should have typed a bit slower, to make it easier to understand.

          What you proposed as a potential solution is on the edge of fantasy, and even dangerous. This (and I am typing slower) incident was one where defensive gun fire from the crowd would have been useless, if not impossible. That’s all. There are situations where a rifle in the trunk or handgun on the hip just will not change the dynamic. LV was one of them.

  12. An outdoor venue jam-packed with people in condition white — imagine the carnage if Paddock had used a big truck instead of guns.

    It would have made the Nice attack look like bumper cars.

  13. Everyday life is a crapshoot. You and I don’t and cant control anyone who is around us.
    If someone is going to snap. Its just going to happen. A good guy with a gun in the wrong place at any given time cant change a thing. In the right place right time………..maybe.
    Nor will any new laws in a so called free society change anything.
    Me I wont and am not giving up any of my property without compensation.
    Unkle Sam wants my HyperGat. Pay me for it..
    When all is said and done.You cant control crazy.
    Show me one law that can, and maybe Id be willing to give up something.

  14. It simply exposed the obvious limitations of armed self-defense

    exactly!
    when was the last time an active shooter ensconced him-self in a bunker in a tower?
    think it was early 1960s @ that University in Texas…..
    the overwhelming majority of mass shootings are done in close proximity and could have been easily stopped by a concealed-carry citz….

    (for the record: i do not believe the official story of this incident…has way too many holes in it)

  15. Gungrabbers whine that armed citizens at a mass shooting would only make things worse. But when armed carriers don’t spray bullets everywhere, they complain that armed citizens didn’t make things better. No point in trying to debate these people.

    • Exactly! The gun-grabbers are insincere, bad-faith debaters. They are “any means to an end” zealots. Any concessions you make to them will make them more rabid and demanding. Oh, and don’t forget that they HATE us, and they DESPISE the kind of people that attended the LV concert, and are inwardly GLEEFUL about this atrocity.

  16. The best way I’ve seen this summed up is that a gun is not a guarantee. It won’t protect you against everything. But if you take the time to practice–rarely, even if you don’t–it can be enough to even out the odds some.

  17. There are a few compelling anti-gun arguments. This isn’t fucking one of them. Alex Yablon is a fucking dumbass. I would be more concerned with what Evan DeFillipis and Devin Hughes have to say, and even then, those guys think that because you are at an increased risk for suicide once you own a gun, that the gov’t should protect you from yourself. If you’re worried about being overcome with the desire to kill yourself, don’t buy a gun, and don’t fucking tell us who want to otherwise.

  18. I would rather that the NRA remain silent than be like TTAG and give the antis the ammo necessary to attack us and the 2nd Amendment.

    The TTAG/CBS (Fake) News stunt went so well that the firearm ignorant now think there are “automatic rounds” (“bullets”?) https://twitter.com/CBSNews/status/915622557306548224 and that we can buy “fully automatic machine guns off the back pages of Gun/Firearm-related magazines”. Read the last sentence of the second paragraph https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bump-fire-stock-ar-15-stephen-paddock-guns-deadlier/

    You can criticize the NRA all you want and question whether they are correct in going “dark” but at least they aren’t screwing us over in order to get their mugs on National TV like someone at TTAG.

    As long as the anti-gunners are “politicizing” the Las Vegas shooting we are “winning”. With the politicians and the Liberal Media doing their anti-2nd Amendment voodoo dance around the caskets of on the unburied, waving bloody shirts while the wounded lay in hospital beds, they look just like what they are ie. “reactionaries” and “opportunists” who are exploiting a tragedy, playing upon people’s emotions, for personal, societal, and political gain..

  19. Now, if a group of riflemen had attended the concert, open- carrying their rifles, the good guys with their rifles would have stopped the bad guy with all of his rifles.

    If we continue to have terrorist attacks, by firearm, knife, or vehicle attack, we’ll need more riflemen out there. Isn’t Israel like that?

    I think I could have at least deterred or obstructed the shooter by returning fire with my M1 Garand. I think I can at least put rounds through a 4-foot square window reasonably accurately at 400 yards.

    • “I think I can at least put rounds through a 4-foot square window reasonably accurately at 400 yards with a Garand.”

      Under fire? At night? Aiming upward? With no warning or prep? With original sights? How would you have identified the target, and how long would you have needed to do so?

      C’mon. I shoot a Garand too. I know what I can do and what it can do. Under those conditions, maybe a squad of 20 guys with Garands might have put enough rounds near the target for him to know he was being shot at with 30 cal. Even that might not have stopped him. And you almost certainly would inflict casualties on friendlies in the other rooms of the hotel.

      Bravado is a really poor way to defend oneself.

    • Diane Rodham alias “Hillary Clinton” are your book sales so poor that you’re relegated to posting “spam” messages online for cash? It must suck to be “dead broke” (LOL) after spending $1.2 BILLION dollars of other people’s money to lose the Presidential Election.

  21. The vast majority of mass shootings occurred in gun free zones. The Mandalay Bay hotel is a gun free zone and hotel policy prevents private security personnel from carrying any type of weapon on the premises, including firearms. Common criminals and mass murders don’t care anything about gun free zone policies – they are criminals.

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  24. Smoke detectors and hand held fire extinguishers didn’t prevent the World Trade Center from collapsing, so clearly people should be BANNED from having them in their homes…

  25. Here in Ohio, at least, carry licenses are for concealed carry only, so they shouldn’t be required for an F-16. Maybe he was thinking of a pilot’s license?

    Also, no one would recommend a missile/rocket/etc. against a target in a hotel like this, because it would cause massive collateral damage, possibly worse than the shooting! I’m not sure why so many Democrats bring it up as if that’s the ultimate goal of gun owners.

    • Why do they bring it up? It’s called “P R O J E C T I O N”.

      Have you forgotten about when the BATF sought to acquire OV-10s?

      The anti-gun cult has wet dreams about bombing gun owners. Hell, they’re very open about it.

      Remember, they’re the Lon Horiuchi fanclub….

  26. A “Good Guy with a Gun” won’t always be able to stop a “bad guy” with a gun. . .

    . . .But they’ve planted (ass-up) a whole shit-ton of Socialist/Communist/and Facist, MF’s out there around the globe in the last ~ 100 years, and we can’t wait for the next one.

    It’s good that they’re all coming out of the closet lately [all the evil (D) were a known] now, at least it’s less difficult to discern who’s for the rights of Americans on the (R) side.

    • They, the members of the GOPe/RINOs, are showing their true colors, they are making it easier for us to “Primary” them, what bugs me is it’s going to cost us financially supporting other candidates and that there’s so many of them including Rep. Murphy (he announced his resignation) who posed as “pro-Life” yet said in an email to his mistress that he didn’t believe in it and only read what his staff and others wrote for him

  27. With so many people throwing statistics around, Has anybody compared gun ownership to crime rate in cities?
    El Paso TX where everybody carries is always listed among the top 10 safest large cities. This year it fell to the 7th place.

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