Post Ft. Lauderdale Gun Control Proposals: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

1. Which one was supposed to be the good one?

   • I found and corrected a few typos in her message. I think she meant to say “Once again, innocent American were forced to stand defenseless against a mass murderer because Congress won’t stand up to the anti gun morons.”

2. Where’s the “good” one that allows citizens to carry in airports and planes??????

   I didn’t see any “good” in that list.

3. Oh, yes. Here we go. Let’s take the “gun grabber” technique and use it for our advantage. Really, old man, is this the best you can do? No discussion of combinations that could work? No declaring airports entirely secure areas, with numerous checkpoints for travelers to move in and out? No discussion (as in justification) for why convenience should shove improved safety aside? No. Let us pick a few narrow comments, and make superficial comments to satisfy our self-righteousness.

   You still have a right to “keep and bear arms”, but nothing says you may keep them anywhere, anyway you like, regardless of circumstance. If people are so bloody incompetent they cannot be separated from their guns for more than a few hours (ship guns to locations well off airport grounds), have those guns finally been identified as the adult pacifiers they actually are? Gun owners as “special snowflakes” who have not sufficient imagination to study the safety problem posed by corralled people (large crowds focused on the complications of modern air travel), and pose a complex solution?

   Given airports (or malls, or football pitches) are “target rich environments”, is it so difficult to manage a vision where dangerous people cannot get in to wreak havoc? The notion that “if you cannot stop all criminals (or about to be criminals) with guns from every attempt at killing large numbers of people, then nothing should be done atall is simply childish and selfish.

   (I really must learn to restrain myself here; you lot are making it too easy to expend time addressing the gun debate. Oh, so many attractions, so little time.)

   • I really need to stop feeding trolls, BUT….

     The only way to make the entire airport secure would be to have border patrol style checkpoints on all incoming roads searching every car, and all that would do is create a mile long line of cars full of people that could be easily mowed down or blown up. In short, any proposal would merely move the location of the attack rather than prevent or mitigate it, which would do absolutely nothing to help or save anyone.

     • Afraid not, chap. Roadways are not really much conducive to the style attack you imagine. Too crowded and congested, too many variables. People penned-up in a central area allows concentration of attack; much more effective, as we have been shown. Yes, inconvenience would likely increase, but to simply fall back to the fruitless slogan, “nothing to be done” discounts human life as to be nothing more than ten pens; not worth the thought.

       As to “troll”, it is simply amusing that when faced with opposite opinions, POTG become like those (am I overusing?) “special snowflakes” they so despise. Thank you for overcoming base instincts, and presenting a cogent thought about the implications of increased airport security.

       • Once again, you fail to see the obvious.

         Nobody’s saying “there’s nothing that can be done.” There is something very clear and obvious that can, and should be done — eliminate the “gun free zone” designation for the airports.

         • Yes, if everyone is armed and shooting at the armed people, things will be better. Once a crowd becomes unruly, the original instigators are often no where to be found, but the damage ensues, anyway.

       • Engaging in controversial and divisive rhetoric with the primary intention of agitating and eliciting an emotional response is the definition of trolling. Please at least be honest enough to admit your true intentions on here. You aren’t fooling anyone.

         • Hello there. I have never attempted to disguise my intentions…to engage POTG in spirited debate and exchange of ideas (which many POTG seem to have trouble conducting).

           If you and your mates get emotionally agitated, it is not because that was my intention. If you are saying that countering herd mentality and group-think is simply an exercise in twanging the string, perhaps you should take the wraps off your “special snowflake” banner and admit you are too emotional to have light shinned onto your thinking. Or better yet, if debate is too troubling, simply delete the comments. My feelings are never hurt by people who chose not to engage (or even engage, for that matter).

       • “Roadways are not really much [sic] conducive to the style attack you imagine.”

         IED’s and VBIED’s are the things of Sci-Fiction. They’ve never happened in reality and never will. No one has or ever will be harmed by one. They’re just pure fantasy.

         Further, in the unlikely event that someone did bend/break the laws of physics and create such a device it would be puny and unable to do damage past, perhaps a few meters. Something that could say…. take the entire front of a building off, kill 168 people and wound nearly 700 more is just laughable and if someone was to suggest that such a fantasy device might effectively level a building and kill 305 people while wounding 70-some… well, even Issac Asimov would cackle with laughter at such an absurd suggestion, right?

         • A pre-planned, pre-positioned attack on a fixed location can and will be devastating (OKC). IEDs as an effective weapon is problematic in modern Western cities. In “the sandbox”, you have thousands of people moving about, night and day, who are all possibly planting bombs. In Western cities, you may have a small group (Boston) who can manage a few IEDs, but you do not have a large portion of the populace potentially laying explosives along any given route.

       • Pull the other one, it’s got bells on…

         Roadways not conducive to such an attack because they’re too crowded and congested? The ideal target-rich environment is “contrarily” a penned-in lot of captive audience? Do you bloody read what you type before you hit post?

         • Oh, brother.

           Roadways disrupt, interrupt, interfere with mass shooting success. To the contrary, on the other hand, masses of people enclosed in a crowded, confined space make a more attractive and easily destroyed target.

           How’s that?

       • What about the Highway of Death? I guess roadways are terrible targets:

         https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-HqxoAj2DsHc/VyoL7WzV83I/AAAAAAABNRU/DOpwjP5xFK4/highway-of-death-iraq-116.jpg?imgmax=1600

         • America (and other Western nations) are not an open war zone. The hiway of death was the result primarily of air strikes, which pose no danger to traffic in the Western nations.

           Yes, airplanes are a very good instrument of war.

   • What’s childish is to think that just because a gunman can’t “get in” to a secure area doesn’t mean they can’t attack outside the gates. Imagine a gunman at the World Series gate never getting past security and inflicting mayhem. Had far does the secure bubble have to get? There will always be a non secure area just outside.

     • As just previously posted, large crowds in open spaces are not the simple targeting proposition as large crowds penned in confined areas, plump for the slaughter.

       • Wow, so a large crowd standing in line to get through the first point of security isn’t a prime target. So your logic tells me the safest place to be is outside of a secure area in a large crowd. I guess you’re right because then I’d have the opportunity to be armed.

       • 2Asux,

         Your assertion regarding an “open space” versus a closed space (e.g. an airport baggage claim):
         (a) a large crowd of people in the open are free to escape
         (b) a spree killer would not be able to kill as many people in the open

         Your assertion is absolutely wrong. If an armed spree killer suddenly starts shooting in the middle of a crowd, the crowd itself prevents the members of the crowd from freely running away. Just as cars in the middle of a traffic jam cannot simply drive away, a person in a human jam (crowd) cannot simply run away. People would be tripping all over each other and they would be easy targets on the ground.

         • In the middle of a traffic jam, a car full of shooters is hemmed-in as much as the potential targets. If you’re of the mind that it is just as easy to kill crowds in a field as it is in a barn, you have never been to a farm.

       • False, the preferred weapon just changes to Bombs (Boston Marathon) or trucks (Marseilles or Berlin)

         • The bombings and truckings you cite did not result in anywhere near the carnage experienced in Paris or Orlando.

           Did they?

       • 2Asux,

         In the middle of a crowd, the crowd indeed hems in a spree killer … that is a positive for the spree killer and enhances that spree killer’s ability to kill all the people who tripped over each other and are now trying to wiggle, claw, and crawl away through the pile of other people trying to do the same.

         • Your description fits, whether in open field, or enclosed venue. My observation is that a crowd compressed by walls and doors presents a more attractive target than a crowd in an open field. Indoors, such as Pulse, the killer can simply walk about shooting at leisure all those who are scrambling, clawing, pushing. In an open field, the targets will present a more random distribution of targets, who are not constrained by walls and doors.

       • Wrong again. Casualties, that means WIAs as well, wereliable far higher than comparable incidents with guns.

         • Your posing that the casualties in Boston were higher than Paris or Orlando? With Boston, you must include wounded. Paris and Orlando were entirely deaths.

           I may have missed your intent.

       • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Nice_attack

         nuff said.

         • “https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Nice_attack

           nuff said.”

           Please compare and contrast the death toll in Paris and Orlando to the death toll in Nice.

       • I am comparing apples to apples — total casualties. The Boston bombing was all about placement. If they got the backpack in the middle of the crowd the death to wounded ratio would have been a lot higher.

         You infantry example is apples to oranges. We are talking about large crowds not a dispersed 40 man platoon. One wonders if you have ever been at an outdoor concert.

         And I have spent more time under indirect fire than you have had having sex — about 90 seconds.

         • apple: crowd in open field
           apple: platoon in patrol configuration, or in defensive positions

           apple: crowd crammed in confined venue with few exits
           apple: platoon crammed into small, one-story mud home in “the sandbox”

           apple: event; armed shooter
           apple: event; artillery shell explodes amidst patrol or house

           comparison: which will more likely result in more deaths? large number of people crammed in a small venue, or large number of people congested in an open space

           the analogy is valid.

     • Yes I am. Casualties = KIA+MIA+WIA. There were 270 casualties in Boston. An the Marseilles truck attack had far more deaths and injuries than Orlando and was comperable to Paris in toral casualties. Berlin exceeded Charlie Hebdo.

       • Let’s compare like to like: death to death. (Hebdo was not in mind when citing Paris).

         If you insist on including injury, we must compare sample sizes. What was the audience count in each location? If there is an audience of 500, and 100 are killed, that is a greater ratio than 130 in a crowd of 5000. And so on. What was the size of the street-level crowd at the Boston bombing? (I do not have that figure) I suspect it was thousands. How many racers were on the street at the time of the bombing? What is that ratio?

         Inescapable, when people can flee, the total carnage is less than when they cannot. So in Nice, if the crowd was 20,000 how many (and what ratio) were able to escape being attacked? In Orlando, how many were able to escape?

         How can this be so difficult? When you lock people into a compact space, the amount of damage a single attack can inflict is naturally larger than when people in open spaces are confronted with attack. Go as an infantry officer if his platoon is more likely to be annihilated by a single artillery round if the platoon in enclosed in a single building, versus a platoon deployed in patrol or defensive positions outdoors.

   • You still have a right to “keep and bear arms”, but nothing says you may keep them anywhere, anyway you like, regardless of circumstance

     Shall not be infringed! You liberals better strap in the rides going to get bumpy.

     • Oh please. Every “right” is constrained in some manner. There are no absolutes, mate. If it weren’t so, the US constitution could never be amended. The founders knew, recognized and accepted that life is too complex to set down immutable phrases and clauses.

       Not in a hundred lifetimes will you get a Supreme Court ruling that the second amendment is permanently and immovably “absolute”, in any and all circumstances. We’ve had this discussion. Once any limit is placed on a “right” is is not absolute, but merely constrained a bit by “reasonable restrictions” of the type determined most appropriate by the majority of voters (whatever venue). At that point, we are no longer discussing the woman’s virtue, but merely negotiating price.

       • Keep counting on that bullshit.

         • “…that bullshit” being that the founders did not construct a constitution with provision for amendment? .

           If the founders had not recognized that they could not adequately foretell the future, would not the constitution declare itself immutable, unchangeable?

           Prior to Prohibition, Americans had the “natural, civil and human right” to possess and drink alcoholic beverages. Then that “right” was removed by subsequent amendment. And the “right” was reasserted, again by amendment. So much for “absolute rights”. So much for “rights” not being constrained.

   • You can crack down on security and location all you want – you’ll only move the massacre somewhere else. The root problem must be addressed, and if it cannot be, then reality must be accepted.

     • “The root problem must be addressed.”

       Hear, hear !

       The root of the problem is too many clearly dangerous people can too easily obtain firearms to the great endangerment of the public.

       • So does that mean you leftists are going to backtrack on deinstitutionalisation?

         The root of the problem is too many clearly dangerous people can too easily obtain firearms?

         The root problem is there are crazy people who sometimes seek to hurt others. The root problem is there are sometimes non-crazy people who want to hurt others. Another problem is sometimes government wants to coerce people by leveraging a gun into their discussions. Another root problem is technology and how today there are 3D polymer printers and tomorrow there will be 3D sintering printers. The problem is you can’t control everyone and everything. There is another problem in that controlling everyone and everything isn’t moral. Maybe you need to accept those.

         • “So does that mean you leftists are going to backtrack on deinstitutionalisation?”

           Of course not. What a silly notion. Those facing mental health challenges need more community support to help them cope, recover, learn more appropriate social skills. Understanding mental illness, after all this time, is still a long way in the future, things being left as they are.

       • Really, 2sux? I expect better from you.

         This is the easiest to refute, and lamest gun control argument ever. It has been roundly, thoroughly, and completely disproven by ISIS worldwide. If guns don’t exist, they will use suicide vests, or machetes, or really big trucks, or bombs. Or a can of gas and a match. In fact, the Nice attack in France killed twice as many people as the Orlando nightclub shooting, in far less time.

         You were so close too. You had hit on the real question… “The root of the problem is too many clearly dangerous people “. Yes. That is the root of the problem. It is not the gun, or the access to it. It is the guy who walks into the FBI’s office and tells them that he’s hearing voices telling him to fight for ISIS, and they send him to a mental hospital, and then THEY TURN HIM LOOSE TO WALK AROUND IN SOCIETY, AND GIVE HIS GUN BACK TO HIM.

         THAT is the problem. Just like Chicago is not a problem of “gun availability”, it’s a problem of letting known dangerous violent felons loose in society.

         • We don’t actually disagree. The Florida shooter should have been inducted into the mental health system, and his guns confiscated. The assignment to mental health treatment would take the immediate threat (firearms) out of the equation. Treatment would also separate the patient from all dangerous weapons (tools of any sort) for the duration of treatment. Once determined no longer a threat, the patient could be re-integrated into society, with new social skills negating the need for weapons to attack others.

       • I think this is where we differ.

         While those who present a danger to themselves and others should be restrained in their access to weapons, I suspect that this is not the root cause. Removing access to firearms does nothing to stop the lazy criminal from producing napalm or TATP (although the volatility of the latter may solve the problem before harming others). The more enterprising will certainly find more ways to harm.

         There is a root cause that sparks different varieties of crime, but misuse of firearms is a symptom. Limiting access might mitigate that one symptom, but doesn’t resolve the underlying disease.

         • Actually, we agree.

           Removing firearms from people needing mental health care does mitigate one symptom, historically the most devastating in impact and number of events. If you take another look at my response, I noted the root is “people” who shouldn’t have firearms in hand, or available. There is no reason that mental health treatment should not include removal of firearms. The lack of access to firearms does not lessen the effectiveness of any course approved mental health treatment. Indeed, you have the example of the misguided belief that people with mental health issues should, indeed, have firearms, and use them (Chris Kyle).

       • Treatment would also separate the patient from all dangerous weapons (tools of any sort) for the duration of treatment.

         So does that mean you leftists are going to backtrack on deinstitutionalisation?

         • Institutionalisation, as you call it, is a relic of the past whereby people were literally “dumped” forever in mental health hospitals (prisons), and left without much hope of ever being released. There was little treatment, and a lifetime in arguably a “crazy house”. Many were put there because they were inconvenient (or even too difficult) for family. Having people in a facility receiving care designed to prepare them to lead less tortured lives in society is not “institutionalisation”.

       • The Florida shooter should have been inducted into the mental health system, and his guns confiscated.

         Yea, but unless he is in an “institution,” couldn’t he just, instead of shooting the place up, pull the fire alarm and turn on the gasoline sprinklers in the fire alarm congregation area? I mean.. he is the problem here, not his methods – right?

         • Not following this one. Could you provide a bit more information?

       • Well, apparently not, according to 2Asux. He seems to think that the firearm is the actual problem.
         “would take the immediate threat (firearms) out of the equation”

         • “He seems to think that the firearm is the actual problem.”
           “would take the immediate threat (firearms) out of the equation”

           The root is a mentally disturbed individual who has possession of, according to people on this blog, the most deadly tool of personal defense in existence. Placing such person in a facility where behavior modification is possible removes that “most deadly tool” from the equation. As it does less deadly tools.

       • “The root of the problem is too many clearly dangerous people can too easily obtain firearms to the great endangerment of the public.” — 2Asux

         So 2Asux, easy access to firearms is the problem, right? And if there were some way to make all firearms disappear and never reappear, spree killers would never kill in large numbers again, right?

         How does eliminating “easy access” to firearms stop a spree killer from discreetly locking the doors (with chains) to a crowded room and tossing in a Molotov cocktail? How does eliminating “easy access” to firearms stop a spree killer from taking a job at a restaurant or food processing plant and adding lethal quantities of rat poison to their products? How does eliminating “easy access” to firearms stop a spree killer from hijacking an oil tanker truck and driving down a major freeway with the spigot open just before rush hour? (Alternative: a water tanker truck and driving down a major freeway on frigid, clear morning where the water will freeze on contact on the pavement and no salt trucks are out.) There are countless ways to easily kill dozens/hundreds of people. Shall I continue?

         Here is the fundamental problem. If we eliminate “easy access” to firearms and push spree killers to use alternate methods, there is no way to mitigate their attack once they commence their attack. Bombs, fires, poison, large trucks plowing into a crowd … once those start, there is no stopping them before ALL the energy/toxins are released and take their toll. On the other hand, if a spree killer with four firearms and 400 rounds of ammunition starts an attack in a crowd where just 1 in 10 people are armed with a simple handgun, that spree killer is guaranteed EVERY TIME to fail to expend all 400 rounds. In fact I would be surprised if that spree killer would be able to fire off more than 10 rounds before he/she started taking return fire and had to abandon their attack.

         • You pose a tired shibboleth, but a useful one.

           What is to prevent a person from quietly locking down all the exits at an NRA convention, filling the passageways with gasoline and igniting the room? All those people with all those guns, burn’t to a crisp. All those good guys with guns could not stop a deranged person from incinerating the building.

           So here is the inescapable fact: if the shooter in Florida did not have access to a firearm, five people would be alive today, six others unharmed by gunfire. Why is that never a consideration?

       • You pose a tired shibboleth, but a useful one.

         I had to look up shibboleth. In fact, I had never read it or heard it before.

         What is to prevent a person from quietly locking down all the exits at an NRA convention, filling the passageways with gasoline and igniting the room? All those people with all those guns, burn’t to a crisp. All those good guys with guns could not stop a deranged person from incinerating the building.

         Nothing. So stop wasting your time with legislation on guns or gasoline.

         So here is the inescapable fact: if the shooter in Florida did not have access to a firearm, five people would be alive today, six others unharmed by gunfire. Why is that never a consideration?

         It’s not a consideration because we like our guns, we don’t like paperwork, we like our privacy, we don’t like government with with 2Asuxers staring us down, and like you suggested, the problem is the person not the method. You suggest that with magically controlling or uninventing firearms (which in 10 years will be printed from 3D sintering printers) 5 people would be alive today, but who knows – he may have used a different method on those people or other people elsewhere, which may have been more or less effective.

         • Yes, the Florida shooter “may”, “might”, “could’ve” used a different weapon. Fact: he didn’t. Fact: without the gun, that day, at that time, he would not have killed and injured with the gun.

           I really liked this part of your response:
           “It’s not a consideration because we like our guns, we don’t like paperwork, we like our privacy, we don’t like government…”

           Thank you for being honest. It is all about selfish interests, after all. Others can go hang; they are insignificant, not worthy of consideration.

       • Yes, the Florida shooter “may”, “might”, “could’ve” used a different weapon. Fact: he didn’t. Fact: without the gun, that day, at that time, he would not have killed and injured with the gun.

         These are all facts, true, but they don’t refute or even address my argument at all.

         I really liked this part of your response:…
         Thank you for being honest. It is all about selfish interests, after all. Others can go hang; they are insignificant, not worthy of consideration.

         I try to be an honest guy. Yes, it is about selfish/self interests – but that’s why you are here, right? And furthermore you misrepresent my statement by putting words in my mouth – others are significant and worthy of consideration. They are welcome to take steps to protect themselves, and their loved ones, and I support our individual rights so they can do so.

         • “…others are significant and worthy of consideration. They are welcome to take steps to protect themselves, and their loved ones.”

           Implying that you have no concern that you or another gun owner are putting those same people at risk exercising your “right” to present a deadly risk to them?

           It would be proper to note that your statements seem to be quietly constructed, with fair thought. However, my holding is that selfishness/unenlightened self-interest is not a good thing from which to build a life principle. America is no longer primarily (overwhelmingly) an agrarian society. 160 million people live along the Atlantic seaboard. Cities are teeming with short tempers, irate residents, and short-fused bullies. The threat of occupying British armies is long gone. The overall populace is too numerous for any central government to become “tyrannical” to the point of forced labor camps. The number of DGUs does not “prove” that the country is so soakingly hostile, dangerous and wild that only the carrying of personal firearms stands between the citizen and a potential mugger.

       • “Placing such person in a facility where behavior modification is possible”

         Someone, somewhere, actually believes that behavior modification is possible? Anywhere? You have to be kidding. If it were possible at all, not a person here would know the meaning of the word “recidivism”, it would be a meaningless term.

         • In America, there is no difference between “possible” and 100% assurance?

     • 2Asux your simplistic view of MH issues, particularly de-institutionalization and community mental health is laughable. The fact is that with the advent of D-I many patients were discharged without aftercare. Or is they did have some form of targeted Case Management the funding slated for the State Hospital only followed the client for so many years before capitation. With DI comes a whole lot of freedom, and so follow-up is very difficult. Patients may be placed in a long term structured rehab but can come and go as they want, they can stop taking meds, they can live on the street.

       As for presenting to a MH center for paranoid delusions, unless the client is a danger to himself or others (imminent and real) the client will not lose their rights, nor should they. Even if there were it does not preclude them from stealing weapons or improvising them.

       • My family presented a close and personal view into the mental health care problems. Even in kneepants, I found it nonsense to push the mentally ill outside without further attention. As time progressed, the folly of that movement laid bare any notion of “helping”. On the whole, it was an overreaction to an assumed, but unproven, crime against people. So, I found/find no harbor in the blind belief that wanting to do good actually results in same.

         As it happens, the matter at hand is not to propose a detailed, fail proof, pleasing program of mental health, but to put before the court the idea that it is time to explore the entire landscape of gun violence.

   • Make the entire airport secure and have numerous checkpoints? They can’t get the passengers through in a reasonable time now and imagine if they had to do it to everyone. Do you go through checkpoints often? I can’t take a pocket knife with me and I have carried one since 1960. I have to take it to my car if I forget. I then have to empty my pockets before I go through the scanner and I get a patdown more often than not.

     • Been outside the US in the last 25 years? Long security waits are not as uncommon as you think. But why remain stuck in the past? Perhaps it would be prudent for people to present their baggage at secured satellite locations hours before flight time (perhaps the day prior?), then arrive at the airport sans carry on items, and move much more quickly through checkpoints?

       This is what I mean by gun lovers being unimaginative. Not capable of thinking beyond what is beyond their noses.

       • I have spent more time out of the country than 99% of the population and have flown 7 digits worth of air miles. The biggest two factors in length of lines is traffic and season. The only place where security was the issue was Heathrow when the IRA was a threat.

         • And?

       • Perhaps it would be prudent for people to present their baggage at secured satellite locations hours before flight time (perhaps the day prior?)

         Uh… no. I used to fly to Houston at 5:30am – do my job – then jump on the 6:30pm back. Your satellite idea, hours or days before flight, time isn’t going to work.

         Isn’t it much more efficient if I just carry a gun, and in the event of a psycho shooting the place up, I just cap him in the dome? I like that method much better. It’s cheaper, and allows the most freedoms for the most people.

         • Your idea seems to pose a situation where you are the only other person with a gun, you can accurately identify the threat, you are not running for cover, you can deploy your firearm, you can eliminate the shooter with a single head shot from whatever range you find yourself, all without any risk to self or others. Implicit in the scenario is that the original shooter is not also shooting at you. You want to bet all those factors will be solely in your favor, such that I, and others, should be willing to risk being shot by both the original shooter, and you?

           Again, we are talking about convenience vs. life.

       • TSA has made a bad situation worse. Lines in Europe, Japan and Korea move faster than here even though many airports have tighter security than US airports.

       • “You want to bet all those factors will be solely in your favor, such that I, and others, should be willing to risk being shot by both the original shooter, and you?”

         OH ****** HELL YES I do!

         Because what is the alternative? The alternative is to leave the murderer absolutely unmolested, free to murder as many people as he possibly can, for as long as he can. Witness Columbine. Or Fort Lauderdale. Or the Orlando massacre.

         Yes, I will take ANY concealed weapon holder firing back, versus the absolute worst possible case scenario, which is a determined murderer who is literally unopposed.

         • You make a fine argument for hardening areas of public transportation. Thank you.

       • Your idea seems to pose a situation where you are the only other person with a gun

         Nope. Others are welcome to have guns. Hopefully they will assist me in my time of need.

         you can accurately identify the threat

         It’ll be the person shooting unarmed women, children, senior citizens, random people walking around. Pretty easy.

         you are not running for cover

         What’s wrong with running for cover? I have no problem getting behind cover before popping him in the dome.

         you can deploy your firearm

         Are you being serious here?

         you can eliminate the shooter with a single head shot from whatever range you find yourself

         I was applying a certain amount of satire to my statement. Obviously my intention is take him down with a firearm, regardless of headshot.

         all without any risk to self or others.

         So, what you are actually suggesting is that I should not interrupt the shooter killing as many people as they possibly could… because my shooting might put someone at risk?

         Implicit in the scenario is that the original shooter is not also shooting at you.

         I agree with this. Action beats reaction. My purpose is to get the drop on him, not him get the drop on me. If i’m his first target i’m probably not going to fair well.

         You want to bet all those factors will be solely in your favor, such that I, and others, should be willing to risk being shot by both the original shooter, and you?

         So … what you are asking is if a deranged madman is killing people and shooting at you, or trying to stab you, etc, I should just… do nothing and let you get stabbed?

         Again, we are talking about convenience vs. life.

         I would say we are talking about safety vs freedom. But based upon your statements above, maybe we are not, maybe we’re talking about cowardice vs sacrifice. We know which one you stand for.

   • Shannon W, is that you? Report to Daddy Bloomberg immediately for your bonus.

     • Well, here is the clear intellectual winner of the day. Good argument, there. Pip-pip, good show, and all that rot.

   • Every point you made was addressed and countered in the original post. Why even bother opening your bilious maw?

     • No, the original post took items in isolation, and pushed them off with opinion. There was no real analysis of whether any of the ideas could be made workable alone, or in combination. The most compelling reason given was inconvenience. The article looked remarkably like a re-worded insult to what gun lovers think the “sensible regulation” side does.

       • That’s because every proposal, once again, chases the “symptoms” but doesn’t do a thing to affect the “cause.”

         By the way, I’ll start believing the Brits and French are serious about the virtues of being “gun free” when they give up their nuclear weapons, okay? Because at the government level, they have acknowledged that the ONLY thing that keeps them safe, from invasion is the threat of mutually assured destruction. You want to preach to me about getting rid of my weapons? Get rid of yours first. All of yours. Then we can talk.

         • Perhaps when you have a real and present threat that your country is about to be invaded by another armed nation, guns for citizens might make some sense. Have you been up in the North Church and seen the boats of invaders just off shore? If the national military and all its weapons were eliminated tomorrow, then you might have a case.

       • “If the national military and all its weapons were eliminated tomorrow, then you might have a case.”

         Has the national military and all its weapons made the cities secure from the threat that’s already in them (gangs, drug trafficking, home invasions, muggings, robberies, rape, “the knockout game”, school shootings, mass shootings, streetside bombings, and on and on and on…)

         My weapons are to defend me and mine from the threats that absolutely do exist, and to which there is NO protection available. The police do not protect people. The government does not protect the individual citizen. It is up to the citizen to protect themselves.

         Perhaps you’ve never been victim of a violent crime?

         • Well, one might venture that losing a successful, cross-ocean economic dynamo through gun violence might qualify as being victim of a violent crime. Though it is only a familial connection, not a direct experience.

           About those violent crimes. According to accepted statistics on this blog, violent crime of all types is on a continuing decline in the US. And what about avoiding “stupid people, in stupid places, winning stupid prizes” ? Guns cannot be determined to be the causal factor in falling crime rates.

   • Oh, you didn’t hear old bean? The gun debate ended on November 8th. None of this progressive liberal stupidity will pass. I hope you will be posting on TTAG when the HPA passes….get ready to clutch some pearls.

     • I suspect you will be wonderously shocked when you see Senator Sessions crack down on gun crime, and much of that target to “law abiding” gun owners who take “one toke over the line”. Indeed, I rather expect the president will see that the well-heeled have their personal firearms, while more “reasonable” restrictions are placed on the rest of the population. You see, when a populist takes control, power flows to the properly positioned, for the good of the people, of course.

       Enjoy your one term hell.

       • And the way to avoid that is to … disarm the public?

         Surely you see how asinine your position is?

         • Not getting the point of a riposte to your comment. You noted that “things are gonna get better, girl”, when Trump and his posse take over the government. The implication being that all those nasty ol’ gun restrictions will be overturned in his one term. I simply cautioned you to be skeptical. But, perhaps it is best you remain in dream state because that is to our advantage.

       • First you said Bernie would win….then Hillary was a shoe in due to all the libtards and illegals like you voting twice. I’m beginning to doubt your crystal ball old bean. Maybe time for a new hobby? The anti-gun bit and politics seems to not be working so well for you.

         Maybe CNN needs a new anchor…./chuckles/

         • Fair enough. I underestimated the treachery of the establishment. If Bernie had been given a fair shot, he would have energized the voters that Hilary could not. With Bernie eliminated, it did appear that the party would rally to the default candidate so as to ensure an intact base when Bernie, or one like him, ran again. Did not see Bernie’s people defecting to nullification.

           However, Republicans (and conservatives) do not yet recognize what Trump has done. Trump captured the traditional Democrat voters, is putting the traditional Democrat policies in place: strong defense, America-first, social safety net, jobs for everyone (car in every garage; chicken in every pot). Donald Trump is reminiscent of your old favorite, Huey P. Long. From my observation post, Trump can bring back the old Democrat Party under the banner of the elephant. That would mean the current, modern Democrats fail to cripple Trump’s agenda. The bright light is that whether Trump fails or succeeds, the Bernie wing will work quietly to bring more influence, and run a more viable candidate in 2020.

           The curve of history always bends toward social justice, social consciousness. Why do you think America remains alone in its old tyme theory of conservatism and raw capitalism? Reagan was correct, we are likely seeing the last of the generation who could keep America as it once was.

   • No declaring airports entirely secure areas, with numerous checkpoints for travelers to move in and out

     Secured with what? A stern look?

     Like so many gun grabbers, you’re fine with guns. Just not ours.

     • Armed security is armed security. Time-honored practice. At to “you” having guns, I don’t read anything about the US military asking “the militia” to conduct armed security of any military facilities, anywhere in the world.

       However, you inadvertently opened a door seldom considered. If America is so dangerous as to require armed citizens, shouldn’t you look to what is really wrong with that society, rather than resorting to solving every problem with a gun? Hammer look at everything as a nail.

       • You’re the one that’s suggesting increasing the secure areas, a problem solved with a gun.

         • You see no difference between guns in the hands of trained security personnel, and guns in the hands of the mentally ill?

       • Nice straw man. I’ll take that as an admission of your hypocrisy on the topic and ask: you’re claiming more than 100,000,000 million Americans are mentally ill?

         • “…you’re claiming more than 100,000,000 million Americans are mentally ill?”

           I am claiming that 100 million Americans have the potential to be mentally ill, and we have no means of knowing whom, prior to a crazed act.

       • Including your well trained government agents.

         • “Including your well trained government agents.”

           As best I can determine, in America, in government, there are approximately 107,000 potentially-armed employees. Can all of them be stumblebums with guns? Even a narrow majority?

       • In America there roughly 100,000,000 gun owners. Can all of them be stumblebums with guns? Even a narrow majority?

   • How’s the weather in the unfree UK chap? Bloody miserable I hope. Cherreo!

     • Quite the opposite. Montserrat is paradise, year ’round.

   • “A pre-planned, pre-positioned attack on a fixed location can and will be devastating…”

     And just what in the actual hell do you think the security checkpoint you propose outside an airport is?

     “IEDs as an effective weapon is problematic in modern Western cities.”

     They’ve been pretty effective in the past. Trains, subways, the occasional bus etc.

     “In “the sandbox”, you have thousands of people moving about, night and day, who are all possibly planting bombs.”

     And, if we’re going to talk about planting explosives as a trap, what exactly is different here? Are you not the very same one arguing that we need gun control because loads of people might be wandering around getting ready to shoot innocent people? It’s the same problem with a slightly different tool and any retard with an internet connection and access to a Home Depot can build a pretty effective bomb. The only way to stop people from potentially planting explosives, shooting innocent people or using a car bomb is to control the people is a massive security state like East Germany and even that isn’t very effective. Is that what you want? Stasi officers everywhere?

     “In Western cities, you may have a small group (Boston) who can manage a few IEDs, but you do not have a large portion of the populace potentially laying explosives along any given route.”

     VBIED. Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Device. AKA a “car bomb”. Are Ireland, Britain and other parts of the UK not Western any more? Is the United States not a “Western” country by your standards? What about Germany or Spain?

     • We have empirical evidence of the vast numbers of people with guns in America. We have no such empirical evidence of vast numbers of people planting roadside bombs (or even blowing up federal buildings).

4. When will the left see that the solution isn’t legislation. This guy was mentally unstable. When do these kinds of people follow laws?

   • “This guy was mentally unstable. When do these kinds of people follow laws?”

     Yes, well, perhaps “these…people” should be removed from society at the first inkling they are not quite full on their game. Wouldn’t that be just grand?

     • Our first inkling…..or his own flagrant demonstration of delusion? This psycho falls into the latter category and should have been institutionalized.

       • I believe we have no disagreement, here.

       • Unless 2Asux or someone just like him is the arbiter of determining who is mentally fit to possess a gun and who isn’t. Then all legal gun owners are screwed.

         • “Unless 2Asux or someone just like him is the arbiter of determining who is mentally fit…”

           No, no. Not a single individual deciding. It would be committees formed wherever mental health treatment is located. Doctor practice, hospital, agency. That sort of thing. Wouldn’t want to risk one day finding your lot is in charge, with single gun zealous individuals deciding which opposition opinion will be allowed to see light of day.

       • All “mental health treatment” is quackery, most all practitioners enter the study attempting to discover why they, themselves, are so screwed up. They are the LAST people to make such judgements.

5. All of these measures just shift the location of the problem, without solving it. They add greater expense, inconvenience, and further loss of liberty to others in the process. None of these is viable.

   Considering the shooter was, in a phrase we’ve become abundantly familiar with following spree shootings and terrorist attacks, “known to the police”, then this specific attack should never have happened.

   You show up at an Alaska FBI office claiming that ISIS is compelling you to do their bidding, you’re delusional. It’s time to lock you up and get you the help you need, or at least just keep you out of society. That’s a mental defective.

   This is government’s failure. I don’t support additional government power as a remedy for that.

6. Gun free zones work only if
   (1) all entrances are protected by metal detectors or whole body scanners,
   (2) there are also enough armed guards that a would be mass murderer can’t take out all of them before the surviving guards take him out, and
   (3) everybody, including workers, gets checked every time.

   Nobody, whether it’s an airport, a school or a shopping mall, is willing to pay what that much security would cost.

   • “Nobody, whether it’s an airport, a school or a shopping mall, is willing to pay what that much security would cost.”

     Then let us have that conversation, rather than pontificating and chest-thumping. Let “the people” be presented with the choice between life and convenience.

     • Good lord. If you licked boot any harder, you’ll have to get the shoe polish pumped from your stomach.

       • I’ll yield the point here, because I do not understand it.

       • Well 2A….if you got up off your hands and knees you might start to understand. However, years of inbreeding (jolly old England) and progressive brainwashing by your masters is probably something that can’t be undone. That’s boot licking by the way.

         I will say you are doing a commendable job as usual responding to almost each and every comment….most of them are meandering rambles and off topic….probably by design since you know a little about a lot…just not enough to be any kind of threat. Coherency is a virtue.

         • “Coherency is a virtue.”

           I thought it was, “Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”

           I get confused.

     • If people want more security in schools, public places, and the like, they are welcome to determine that by means of their local city councilman or state congressman, etc. Nobody is stopping them.

       • “If people want more security in schools, public places, … Nobody is stopping them.

         Except the NRA and those wanting to repeal federal “gun free zones”. Your elected representatives to the national government represent the people of their districts/states. Those people voted, on your behalf, to prevent unrestricted traffic of firearms in and around schools. Now your side wants those same representatives to remove that protection. Devolving the issue strictly to local control is opposed by POTG, who want anyone breathing to be able to carry firearms into places tailor made for mass shootings. Those same POTG ridicule the people of Newtown for efforts to secure their school after that terrible shooting.

       • “Now your side wants those same representatives to remove that protection.”

         Protection? My friend, seriously — you absolutely need to stop it with the whiskey and look at reality.

         School shootings have SKYROCKETED since the “gun free zone” was established. Every major mass shooting has taken place in a “gun free zone.”

         Who, exactly, does the “gun free zone” protect?

         • This is a bit tricky. I part ways with many over here regarding “gun free zones”. They are a matter of religion to many. I think the zones are half of a good idea. Truth is “gun free zones”, whether schools or businesses are not about safety. They are actually about declaring moral superiority, and having the privilege of condemning other people. That said, I think “gun free zones” should always (mandated?) include sufficient security staff to deter and prevent an armed attack. Which is rather sad. I do not see in history the frequency (existence?) of armed gunmen shooting up schools, businesses and entertainment venues prior to guns being generally available to the populace in America. If one can say that guns are the proximate cause for the decline in crime rate, then one must acknowledge that mass shooting arose only with the general availability of guns to the public. So, when few people were allowed private firearms, there were no mass shootings of public gatherings (or extremely few). If the public must have unrestricted access to guns, then places where people should be safe from attack (public places) must provide not signs, but armed security.

       • include sufficient security staff to deter and prevent an armed attack.

         Again, not against guns. Just our guns.

         • Against guns in the hands of someone who qualifies for ownership by merely continuing to walk the planet.

       • Except the NRA and those wanting to repeal federal “gun free zones”.

         Lame argument. If they repealed gun free zones, then private security and trained staff could provide additional security.

         Your elected representatives to the national government represent the people of their districts/states. Those people voted, on your behalf, to prevent unrestricted traffic of firearms in and around schools.

         Well. They voted for obamacare too, so they can’t be right all the time.

         Now your side wants those same representatives to remove that protection.

         Actually no, these are different representatives.

         Devolving the issue strictly to local control is opposed by POTG, who want anyone breathing to be able to carry firearms into places tailor made for mass shootings.

         It doesn’t address the root problem – so if you were implicitly touching on that you are correct. Having lots of armed staff and security at the school would likely move the massacre from the school to a shopping mall, etc. But I am OK with that trade. POTG are not united on this opinion. Some think staff should be allowed. Some think private security would suffice. Some even think government security would suffice.

         Those same POTG ridicule the people of Newtown for efforts to secure their school after that terrible shooting.

         ??? Show me. To my knowledge the Newtowners rejected budget increases for additional security.

         http://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/local/Newtown-Voters-Reject-Budget-With-Extra-School-Security-204458551.html

       • Which is rather sad. I do not see in history the frequency (existence?) of armed gunmen shooting up schools, businesses and entertainment venues prior to guns being generally available to the populace in America.

         Guns have always been generally available to the populace in America. When have they not been? Mass shootings really didn’t pick up until 1984. To my knowledge there was plenty of semi-automatic guns in existence prior to that date. Especially in civilian hands. In the depths of correlation you try to grab at something with meaning. Here – i’ve provided it for you right here. Guns aren’t the problem. Something happened with people to cause them to increase their frequency of mass killings (with guns as well as other methods). And the presence of a gun, didn’t cause it.

         • We agree that something happened to the people. We disagree that guns made the mass shootings more probable.When people prove they cannot manage the tool, either retrain and remove the incompetent, or remove the tool.

       • “That said, I think “gun free zones” should always (mandated?) include sufficient security staff to deter and prevent an armed attack.”

         Oh, HELL! Something I absolutely agree with! I am all for GFZs which include limited and controlled access, protected by armed security with metal detectors and really big guns, and equipped with locked storage facilities for storing my firearm while I am in attendance. No resistance at all. And neither you nor anyone else is going to pay for that. But, it is acceptable.

         • Since we agree on the concept, let us enjoy the moment.

     • “Let “the people” be presented with the choice between life and convenience.”

       The right to self defense is not subject to the voice of “the people.” They already made that choice, when they chose to join the USA.

       If “the people” want to vote on it, let them try to rescind the 2nd Amendment. If they can muster 2/3 of the Senate, and 2/3 of the house, and then win popular elections in 3/4 of the States, then hey, let their voices be heard.

       Until then, let’s try it the way the country has already approved: a 2nd Amendment that says that the right of “the people” to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

       • “The right to self defense is not subject to the voice of “the people.” They already made that choice, when they chose to join the USA.

         If “the people” want to vote on it, let them try to rescind the 2nd Amendment. ”

         You do realize, do you not, that the second amendment is subject to the “voice of the people” through the very means by which you contradict yourself…the amendment process ?

       • Yes, I realize it perfectly.

         Endless bitching and whining about wanting “common sense” restrictions is utterly useless. It will not happen. It is unconstitutional. “the people” have spoken — the 2nd amendment is part of the Constitution of the US of A, which is the highest law of the land, and is not subject to the whim of the people.

         If “the people” want to change it, then let them go about the business of changing it in the only way they can – the amendment process. Let’s see exactly where the support really lies. Until then, good lord, stop the insane blathering because it is utterly meaningless and it can never triumph.

         • The audience is not the committed.

       • Adherents to your fruitcake positions are so few and far between that the chances they could carry *one* state are all but nil. Pardon me if I am not worried.

         • I will not engage in the stupid discussion of “who won the popular vote”; Trump won the election properly. However….

           As pertains to your idea that there are not enough votes, can we agree that the popular vote for president reflects a general sentiment among voters? If we posit for the moment that the popular vote was arguably an even split, and combine with the latest national polling on “gun rights” that is also a near even split, is it really intelligent to believe that there is no public will for reining-in “gun rights”?

7. Once again, a larger number of people put their life in the hands of the broke di<K TSA and the Federal Government who both put them in BEND OVER AND TAKE IT FROM ALL COMERS due to a suck-a_ _ mentality of BS artists pushing global communism under the guise of group-think kum-bay-ah "progress" of "sustainable" "safety".

8. Any security checkpoint does little except create a bottleneck where crowds of people are forced to congregate and wait their turn to pass through into the “secure” area. That in turn leads to a compact group of obviously defenseless targets massed around a single point. Forget shooting into this crowd, which would be devastating enough, now you have ensure that they are also safe from being mowed down by some one in a truck. The solution is, as it has always been throughout history, that people need the ability to protect themselves, anywhere, at any time.

9. The shooter was a POS (D) plant, for last-ditch narrative shaping to promote their “progress” of global communism.

   Better dead than (Communist) red.

   • Joe, now you’ve just gone completely Alex Jones.

     And yes, this time I’m saying it — you’re wrong. Or do you have proof of who “planted” the shooter?

10. Remember when rome banned sword ownership and no one died a violent death until the invention of gunpowder? If we just ban isis from owning knives, bombs, vehicles, and guns, the wars in iraq and syria would magically end overnight.

    • “If we just ban isis from owning knives, bombs, vehicles, and guns, the wars in iraq and syria would magically end overnight.”

      You are just now coming to the common sense conclusion? The solution has been there all along. However, I’ve read that the most successful gunfight is on you aren’t in. Extrapolating, the most successful war with a nebulous opponent is one where you aren’t there.

      • Please now explain yourself. Sarcasm doesn’t always translate to the web. So, two possible interpretations of your statement:

        1) If you believe eliminating weapons is stupid, then your arguments all along are obviously stupid. Colossally so.

        2) If you believe eliminating weapons is smart, then you proving yourself to be absolutely brain dead. Criminally so.

        The Bible wasn’t more than a few pages in before Cain killed Abel. With a rock. What’s next, banning rocks?

        • Is there any possibility under the sun that if guns and military weapons were not so available to ISIS, the threat might be greatly lessened? However, geopolitics and international warfare are not the subject of the TTAG blog. The question is whether banning, removing, eliminating, confiscating, making ineffective guns in the hands of the public will reduce “gun violence”. I submit that if you do not have the tool, you are most pressed to commit a crime with it. Given the statistics the gun lobby lives to parade, the likelihood of ever being attacked (with any weapon) is at a 30 year low. The likelihood of needing to use a gun to prevent an attack is the lowest since ’93 (?). Yet no one can directly assign the rise in gun ownership to any element of those declines. But year after year, hundreds or your fellows are killed by reckless gun owners. Banning guns is attractive when every other idea for common sense regulation is rejected.

        • “The question is whether banning, removing, eliminating, confiscating, making ineffective guns in the hands of the public will reduce “gun violence”.

          Good God. You’re serious. I’m aghast, I thought surely you were being sarcastic.

          Yes, I will grant you, if guns did not exist, there would be no “gun violence” at all. Can you make that happen, in a country with 300 million guns? No, you cannot. So why are we talking about it? It’s oratory masturbation, and it’s ridiculous to consider.

          Take it to the logical extreme: was there no violence on the earth until the invention of the gun? And the answer is: duh. Furthermore, prior to the gun, were the powerful empowered, and the weak disenfranchised? The answer, again, is “duh.” The gun is the great equalizer, giving all men a fighting chance, rather than just the physically endowed.

          “Given the statistics the gun lobby lives to parade, the likelihood of ever being attacked (with any weapon) is at a 30 year low. The likelihood of needing to use a gun to prevent an attack is the lowest since ’93 (?). Yet no one can directly assign the rise in gun ownership to any element of those declines.”

          Okay, look — I know you have enough mental capacity to put together sentences, so you’ve GOT to follow this: criminals commit crimes. Criminals look for the easiest targets. If you lock up or shoot criminals, they will not commit more crimes, right? So the more guns the public uses to defend themselves, the less attractive crime is, as the penalty for committing the crime is far worse. Net result? More guns = less crime. As has been definitively proven by John Lott.

          On the other hand — if you remove the obstacles and penalties to crime, you will get (you should have guessed by now) MORE crime. So look at Chicago: the police do not stop criminals. The public cannot shoot criminals, as they’ve been disarmed. And the judges release criminals back on the streets. The entirely predictable result? A bloodbath on the streets. More crime.

          This isn’t something you have to “believe”. This is something you observe by looking out your window. Gun ownership is at an all-time high. Concealed weapons permits are now the law of the land in all states, and a practical reality in many. People are defending themselves. Criminals are notorious for recidivism; one criminal commits many many crimes over his “career”. A shot criminal does not. When a criminal is shot in a lawful, legal case of self defense, then all those future decades of crime simply will not happen. Again: “duh.” It’s obvious to anyone who will look and see.

          • Watching for the obvious attack is where failure lies. POTG are uniformly single-minded to the point of presuming their “enemy” is limited the same. To give away the secret, the goal is not confiscation, but making the use of a gun illegal in virtually all situations. Most gun owners are not committed to a zealous idea. You have already seen valid taxing schemes successfully put in place. Intent is to drive cost beyond reasonable for most. Another avenue is nullification of state preemption laws. Local communities refusing to allow state law from creating gun regulation suitable for that community. Then there is the whole idea that making gun use illegal except for active militia and defense in the home will vastly reduce the number of people carrying weapons about town (the Supreme Court already ruled the individual right to guns is for home defense, not “guns everywhere”). Most people faced with a crime for using a gun in defense outside home and property will likely just leave the guns at home. We also have laws in California setting the example of making certain firearm types illegal (“safe gun list”).

            The move to further introduce common sense about guns is, and will be, multi-front. POTG are prepared (they say) for frontal assault; SWAT teams rounding up gun owners. POTG are not prepared mentally and emotionally to fight everywhere, all the time. Advantage us.

        • Sucker, are you volunteering to go and confiscate the firearms being used by ISIS? It sure sounds like it, but I have a difficulty believing you have a tenth of the balls required. If I am wrong, I apologize, I will await your obituary or your report of your glorious success. If you are not so volunteering, who do you plan to appoint to die in your place?

          • You responded to Ted, was the note intended for me?

11. No bill is going anywhere at the National level and no individual state can ban carrying a weapon in a checked bag. As such this article is a waste of electrons. If TTAG wishes to keep us informed of any futile attempt by gun grabbers to grab guns they should post it in the Daily Digest.

12. 2Asux:
    “Yes, if everyone is armed and shooting at the armed people, things will be better.”

    So, you are saying you are OK choosing to be unarmed when an armed criminal attacks. That apparently is a better scenario for you than being armed yourself. Good luck with that logic.

    You are welcome to disarm yourself, but you are not welcome to disarm others unless you want to accept full responsibility for their protection.

    • The militia historically enforced the local laws, and provided safety for the community. The militia, in that role, morphed into local police departments; same mission and responsibility.

      Armed attack? What is the likelihood? What is the likelihood if I avoid “stupid places” and “stupid people”? You want to put lives in jeopardy against the infinitesimal risk that you will be attacked and only a gun can save you. POTG consider 500 “accidental” gun deaths each year to be an insignificant risk which should be involuntarily born by those who dislike firearms. Yet, you insist on your need for a firearm to extricate you from a statistically insignificant event. (remove gang activity and suicides from your calculus).

      • 2Asux – I know this might come across as either disingenuous or morbid curiosity depending on where people are at with this, but I am asking authentic questions: What is your actual purpose in engaging the 2A supporters here? What’s driving this dialogue? What is your objective and why?

        • Good questions.

          The purpose is manifold: expose the superficial understanding of the responsibilities of gun ownership; expose sloganeering, and thoughtless chest-thumping about mythical absolute rights, especially as concerns guns; testing argument against the opponent; sussing out whether the moral, intellectual, political and social qualities of gun owners can actually manifest in defending “gun rights”; refining my notions about gun owners; seeking to interest those who may attend the blog who have yet to decide whether unbridled private gun ownership is useful, effective, or a reasonable approach to life; treat gun owners to a view of themselves, expressed by themselves.

          Thank you for the opportunity.

    • The more i think about it, from a “this is the only life i have” standpoint he actually seems to be saying “i’m not willing to get shot by mistake, and i’m not willing to let other’s safety depend upon them, rather than risk possibly a successfull outcome (bad guy stopped ).” Kind of an ingenious way of saying “be gentle big boy” as it were, without all the emotional guilt of deciding to just take it or having to say “i might die, but i’m going to die with your blood in my mouth,” Let’s face it, there are only two options and only one of those is actually in your control.

      • At the end of the day, it all boils down to this:

        Like it or not, firearms are modern day force equalizers. They can be used for great good or evil based on the user, not the tool.

        2asux simply doesn’t trust armed civilians to do the right thing even though the evidence supports that armed civilians consistently deter crime, end criminal behavior / violence, and save lives. Fact.

        Meanwhile, with the above facts well established, not all civilians are professional “operators” or have formal training. 2asux would rather disarm all the good armed citizens and forfeit all the lives that would have been saved (again these are already proven) because of hoplophobia and mistrust of fellow citizens training.

        All I have to say is this:
        Fuck your feelings.

        The facts are in, they have always been in. Armed citizens lower crime and we are all first responders now.

        You are free to your opinion, but not your own facts.

        • He’s ridiculous.

          Individuals shouldn’t be allowed to protect themselves because they might “accidentally” shooting someone else defending themselves.

          But… it’s ok if the cops show up, drive their vehicle through a building and hose the area with automatic fire. Something like this:
          http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-no-charges-lapd-shooting-newspaper-delivery-women-dorner-manhunt-20160127-story.html

          And.. apparently, in his twisted reality, its better that the deranged madman killing random people be left alone to kill random people, than for an individual to risk injuring or killing another by accident when stopping the madman – but it’s ok for the cops to do it though.

          • To oppose uncontrolled carrying of firearms in public is not equivalent to endorsing or tolerating irresponsible (and criminal) acts of the police force. Even people who encourage common sense gun laws are subject to unacceptable SWAT raids on the wrong address. Police receive entirely too much forgiveness for stupid acts that result in injury or death to innocent people.

            Deranged madmen conducting mass killings are not “OK”. Neither is an uncoordinated group of cowboys proving their manhood by having their guns kiss their skin, under their shirts. You must be aware of the incidents of police mistakenly shooting other police when it was impossible to understand which person with a gun was not a threat. There is force-on-force training that can show you just how unlikely you are to make the right decision.

        • Orlando was the best example, to me. The cops engaged the puke, then when he ran into a nightclub they stood back and allowed him to kill, and kill, and kill, for 3 solid hours without doing a damn thing, but listen to the gunfire. Thank you, I will keep my gun with me, it doesn’t bother anyone but me.

          • Based on published reports, police had separate procedures for “active shooter” and “hostage situation”. One can criticise the procedures quite properly. It is unfair to blame the outcome on lack of courage and intelligence of the police. The legitimate target (?) should be the owners of the club, who refused to provide adequate external and internal security in a place known for high density attendance.

        • “…the evidence supports that armed civilians consistently deter crime,”

          If your statement were true, it would be very persuasive. To date, no serious study has ever pointed to a direct link between guns and public safety. There is seeming correlation, but no direct evidence to support causation (I know that whole ball of fish entertains TTAG staff). Fact: no one knows all of the driving factors in the overall reduction in crime since 1993 (did I get that right?). Not only is there no identified causal relationship, there is not even a defensible casual relationship.

          The bulk of “proof” of how private gun ownership provides any utility on the whole (allowing for the documented “DGUs”) is completely contained in your sentence displayed below:
          “All I have to say is this:
          Fuck your feelings.”

          I think you summed up the totality of the basis for private ownership of firearms. As well as the entire intellectual support.

      • Well thought; well stated.

        Thank you for being serious.

13. What a pointless thread. It SUX…

    • I yield to obviously superior intellect and vocabulary.

14. what you are describing sounds a lot like a police state. no thanks.

    • Would you consider Western Europe to be a network of police states? “Gun rights” are limited there, but we do not see even the mere scratchings of a rise of the police state.

      • Uh yes, i would.

        The role of crime prevention should fall to the citizenry only. The role of police should be limited to either taking custody of the perp after a successful crime prevention, or cleanup, evidence collection, & perp capture after an unsuccessful prevention.

        • From the comment, one must conclude you’ve no had much contact with people who endured a real police state. Just like poverty, Americans have no ability to comprehend the abject poverty of most third-world, developing countries. Yet you border one.

          • The fact that there are worse police states than Western Europe is irrelevant to whether or not one could classify Western Europe as a police state.

            Yes i am aware that we share a very long border with a third world dictatorship, so why would I be in favor of enacting any policies here that they have there?

            • The point is you are blowing inconvenience into disaster. Western Europe is not a hotbed of police states; Eastern Europe was.One thing common was lack of so-called “gun rights”. Eastern Europe, Soviet Union, China, and the stewpot of Latin American dictatorships actually qualify as police states. The US is no where close. Of course, I know people who believe that any restriction or constraint on their desire constitutes a police state. I have no truck with blockheads.

              • I simply see no benefit in dancing on or even near the precipice. This nation has slid far too close to the edge in it’s short history already.

                Do not let the fact that things could be worse stop you from saying “things are bad as they are.”

              • I will grant that for you and yours, things might seem “bad enough”. However, language has consequences, as is said. Precision in writing (and thinking and speech) makes it easier to get your point across. Do you have any idea how many people around the world would love your version of a police state?

              • If they could comprehend true freedom they would dislike it too.

                We should not merely attempt to prevent things from becoming bad, we should strive to make things actually good. In other words stop grading on a scale, compare things to an absolute standard.

              • I would venture that America has not seen true freedom since the beginning, so it is impossible to grade on a totally objective standard, or scale. Unless one, perhaps, decides that the standard should be absolutely no rules.

              • Be that as it may. What I’m saying is being better than everyone else is not good enough.

15. Cessna. Beechcraft. Piper. Learjet.
    Charter, just like bush flying in Alaska. Learn how to fly yourself.
    Wichita employment is way down, we need to build more airplanes.
    Abandon the major airlines, General Aviation is the way to go. Screw TSA

    • I wish! A bit beyond my reach, now, I fly BMW instead, for the same reasons. Screw TSA, screw extra charges for carryon, extra checked, seat choice, all of it. Driving is FUN. Not as much fun as flying your own private jet, but hey.

16. Muslim Jihadists are not mentally ill. Their killing sprees are rational within their religion. The only “cure” is a lobotomy done chemically, surgically or ballisticly.
    Such killers can be deterred by hardening the kill zone.
    The only cost effective way to harden a kill zone is to allow all the people who carry daily everywhere else to carry at the airport.
    Armed guards are nice and expensive because you need at least three in every room or area, often more for large areas or when the area cannot be observed without obstructions.
    Just having a gun does not guarantee your safety. Police officers are murdered with some regularity. Killers don’t have any lag time. Guards and potential victims must be on high alert in any crowd. Think about how that little dog barks and nips at everything. They won’t be surprised.
    Airline passengers are busy looking for their baggage, talking on the phone to their ride or watching the pretty girls.
    Everybody in Israel knows they are on the front lines, In the USA most people are thinking about Grandma, Disney Land or the poker table.
    Hardening must begin with the passengers.

    • “Hardening must begin with the passengers.”

      I admit I was unaware that Israel allowed every citizen to carry a firearm everywhere, and that all passengers and visitors to airports were similarly attired.

      Israel is an entirely different circumstance. The US, and Western Europe are not surrounded by other nations with the present intent and willingness to wipe Americans and Europeans from the earth.

      • Israel is in quite a different scenario – we aren’t surrounded by other nations with the present intent to wipe us out. They’re rather far away, so we import them.

17. Because any of these would have stopped the guy from just waltzing into the Anchorage baggage claim instead and doing the same thing.

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