If you look at the word “disaster,” there are clues about what the word means to us. The beginning part, “dis-” is a Latin root for “bad” or “negative”. The “aster” part means “star”. So it literally means bad star, or a “bad sign”. Or, in other words, ancient superstitious people thought of disasters as just really bad luck.
We often see the same thing today. When something bad befalls people, we frequently chalk it up to bad luck. “It must’ve been their time” is a common one after a “freak accident.” It’s also common to call a natural disaster an “act of God”.
After the shooting at the Greenwood Park Mall in Indiana, we’re seeing something similar. While most of the focus has been on the 22-year-old man who saved the day with his excellent marksmanship and quick action, there was another man there that day who also had a pistol.
Sadly, 30-year-old Victor Gomez was the shooter’s first victim, and reportedly “simply had no time to react.” Police found a pistol on him when they were processing the crime scene and removing his remains from the scene.
While it may be absolutely true that he had no opportunity at all to react (we haven’t seen any surveillance footage or other more detailed evidence yet), we do sometimes hear that when it wasn’t really true at all.
For example, a writer who I won’t name here said that the first victim at the Buffalo shooting had no opportunity to do anything, but the video (you can see it in this article) shows us that the victim wasn’t paying attention. She never saw the attack coming, not even for a split second. Had she noticed a man in full tactical gear stepping out of his oddly-parked car carrying a rifle, she might have had a few precious seconds to to take cover or at least move. Or return fire had she been carrying a gun that terrible day.
A Better Way To Look At Disasters and Terror Attacks
There’s a better way to look at these terrible tragedies…as a threat that comes in contact with a vulnerability. You can’t have a disaster without both of those elements coming together, and that idea gives you many opportunities to avert tragedy, even if it’s literally unavoidable at the last second like it may very well have been in Indiana that day.
For example, let’s look at the idea of a giant avalanche happening in the middle of nowhere in Alaska, with no human beings present. It could be the most epic avalanche of snow the world has ever seen, but if there are no vulnerable people or other valuable things in the way. As such, it can’t be a disaster.
But, add the proverbial busload of nuns to the equation and even a relatively small avalanche could become a disaster. If you’re the bus driver and you see all that snow coming down the hill, you probably have no chance of escaping and surviving, but that doesn’t mean nothing could have ever been done.
Removing Dumb Luck From The Equation
Taking this idea of keeping vulnerable things out of the paths of threats, we can learn a lot from the tragic death of the Indiana mall shooter’s first victim.
As I said, we don’t know how much time he really had. Maybe he had a few seconds, but didn’t notice the threat until it was too late like the first victim in Buffalo. If that were the case, the thing we could learn from this is that situational awareness is key. Carrying a gun does you no good if you never notice the threat and don’t have the training to appropriately react.
But, let’s assume commentators are right and there just wasn’t time to react. The shooter could have rounded the corner coming out of the bathroom and Gomez may have walked right into his sights. Even if that’s true, and there was no time to do anything at all, there are still things to learn from this.
The point here is that we can’t rely on a few good guys with guns combined with some well-timed good luck. It’s certainly a better answer than nothing, as the number of victims was certainly reduced, but that doesn’t do the three people who died a bit of good. It’s also a better answer than relying on cops, who won’t arrive for minutes and may sit around for over an hour while people die.
In other words, good guys with guns is a good answer, but it’s not a complete answer. The application of armed self-defense should be the answer of last resort, after all other reasonable efforts to prevent or mitigate a violent attack have failed or didn’t apply.
There are other things to do.
For one, we need to get property owners to take security more seriously. Inviting a big crowd and providing no security is a very bad call. Just having a few prominent visible security measures can deter a shooter, and get them to pick someplace else for their attack.
Want proof? Look at the Pulse nightclub shooting. Most people still think the killer targeted a gay club because he was a militant anti-LGBT Muslim, but the truth is he drove around that night looking for targets. He decided to abandon plans to shoot up another club because he saw security there and chose Pulse because the cop guarding it had gone down the street to write some petty ticket instead of doing what the club paid him to do.
That other club didn’t host a disaster because they kept threats away from the vulnerable.
Instead of targeting guns, society should be looking at the broken homes and irresponsible parents who raise these menaces. Not every kid from a bad situation becomes a killer, but it’s not like there’s some great advantage to being a kid from a broken family. There are common throughlines for many of these broken people who frequently sound alarms long before they open fire.
There’s also the problem of radicalization, especially among white supremacist groups online. We obviously can’t and should not shut down freedom of speech, but that doesn’t mean we can’t do better at helping young men stay away from that kind of garbage.
Shootings don’t happen without shooters, or in other words, there’s no disaster if there’s no threat. If you have other ideas that we could use upstream to prevent or mitigate them without violating constitutional rights? Be sure to share them in the comments.
I doubt anyone here is in the “social rehabilitation” business. I’m certainly not. Nor am I a preacher, priest, etc. I’m just an old Marine living alone out in the woods, and minding my own business. Society can take care of itself – or not. I don’t care.
Well, gunny, since I have four kids building their lives in this s***show, I kinda care. And I offer my kids my advice when they ask for it. We DID create (or at least allow) the mess they are growing up in. At this point, my thoughts are more for my grandkids-to-be. As for me, if they leave me alone, I’ll PROBABLY leave them alone. Eff with my kids or (soon, I hope) grandkids, and I’ll end you as painfully as possible.
LampOf Diogenes,
“At this point, my thoughts are more for my grandkids-to-be.
Eff with my kids or (soon, I hope) grandkids, and I’ll end you as painfully as possible.”
I sure hope that your children/grandchildren live in hyper-conservative communities, with hyper-conservative school districts, and hyper-conservative school teachers. If not, their communities and especially their schools are already seriously messing with your children/grandchildren.
Of course I hope that your children/grandchildren are not using social media applications, either. If they are, then that entire ecosystem is messing with your progeny.
How to reply in a dramatic hyperbolic fashion, by uncommon_sense.
Quote: “There’s also the problem of radicalization, especially among white supremacist groups online.”
So, again, white supremacists are the main suspects.
Let’s see a chart of shooter demographics and political persuasion
There is a lot of random chance involved in all incidents. Paying attention to your environment will help some but is not a cure all.
I learned a long time ago that when bullets are flying you do what you can but it is still random chance who the next one will hit.
Most so called Mass Shootings occur in the Hood/Ghetto and involve 2-4 victims either wounded or Killed. Since there is no consensus on what defines a Mass Shooting. It is left up to the individual organization or media group. The vast majority of so called mass shootings never make the National News and unless you live in a particular city you rarely hear about them. so the claim that White Nationalist are the predominate cause is Pure Political Hyperbole, but Keep Trying Sweetie.
Actually the FBI has a definition for “mass shootings” and if you use the FBI’s definition, there are far fewer such happenings than mainstream claims.
Unfortunately, I cannot accurately recite their definition from memory and am too lazy tonight to look it up but if interested, I am sure a quick search on line will reveal it verbatim.
Almost ALL mass shooting have Not involved NRA members or Right Wingers. Truth be known, most mass shootings involve individuals with a Liberal/Democrat/Progressing outlook. Shooting of the Republican Ball Players comes to mind.
Odds are that the writer, Jennifer Sensiba, is a dimocrap.
People are cocooned in electronic widgets all day. I see folks blindly walking with their devices in their faces as they’re texting or talking or whatever they are doing.
I go for walks every day. I’m in and out of stores quite a lot. The folks around me are literally turning into zombies around me because of the distractions they impose on themselves.
Knowing what is happening around you is crucial to your survival. Walking Darwin awards waiting to happen.
“People are cocooned in electronic widgets all day. I see folks blindly walking with their devices in their faces as they’re texting or talking or whatever they are doing.”
OMG, +1000 for that. I absolutely cannot fathom the minds of people around me as they completely tune out their surroundings. The worst is the family near me in the restaurant who are all on their phones at the same time. Every once in a while, some ding dong in the store is pushing a shopping cart and texting the on phone at the same time, and I’ll purposefully stay where I am and not move out of the way, so that the person will run into me and be embarrassed.
jwm,
Situational awareness is a learned skill. Some are better at it than others, but ANYONE can achieve basic skill at this, if they work on it.
OTOH, we have been denying (or more accurately, postponing) Darwin’s reckoning for far too long – which is how we achieved a world that nurtures such as MajorStupidity and dacian the dunce. “Take all the warning labels off everything; let Nature sort that s*** out.”
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Well said and very true.
A young lady walked into my grocery cart in the market today while busily engaged with her cell phone. I jokingly told her not to drive and text at the same time and she laughed but continued to focus her attention on her electronic device.
Hyper vigilance has its uses.
Good security in malls, I like what I saw long ago in Israel. Men and Woman with Uzi and everything planned out.
Security station was a sandbag pile, radio net status / update discipline.
I saw an unattended bag, gave precise location, got a chilling evaluation by stare,
Radio call and mall empty in say 60 seconds.
The soldiers with the Uzis, including the middle aged women among them, were obviously combat vets just in the way they handled themselves. You are very safe there. No indecision. Planned aggressive action. When police level a gun and give a warning, everyone knows it’s a one time thing, comply or die.
Something like 30 years ago, in a small airport in Texas, I noticed an unattended bag in the waiting area before one went through the security checkpoint. I had to chase down the security people, who weren’t manning the checkpoint because there were no flights boarding, to report the bag. They were more concerned that I had walked through the unmanned checkpoint than they were about the bag. When my flight boarded, they checked me over more carefully than any of the other passengers. Nobody did anything about the bag.
The use and/or sudden changes in prescriptions of mind altering drugs also seems to be a factor in some cases.
I know there’s a lot of attention on that lately. It could also mean that those anti-depressants just don’t work. Those people or their parents know something is wrong, so they ask their medical provider for help. The medical provider says, here take one of these every day as if that’s a treatment. It isn’t. At best, it’s a band aid while you’re getting help. The medical community failed us. It has become painfully obvious that at worst they’re nothing but shills for Big Pharma. At best, they’re ignorant or cowardly followers.
Dude says “It could also mean that those anti-depressants just don’t work.”
I have an alternative theory. Head doctors have little idea WTF they are doing. Every “treatment” is an experiment. They know that this, or that, works sometimes, for some people, under some circumstances, but they have zero idea how the mind drugs will affect any specific patient until they experiment. Side effects are simply written off, they just switch up drugs and dosages until they find that the guianea pig is compliant.
It’s the same kind of pseudo-science as lie detectors, witching, phrenology, some notorious fire forensics methods, and so much more. All of those drugs should be outlawed, and the head doctors put out of business.
There was actually a study that just came out saying the whole theory of depression being a result of brain chemistry was wrong and the meds prescribed for depression are useless. This had been brought up by doctors in the past that there was no real scientific evidence that anti depressants worked, but had been largely ignored by the scientific community. Now they can’t deny it
You are 100% correct. That is exactly how they have treated my wife for migraines over the last 4 years. Try this, it may work. Didn’t work? Try that. We’re on to botox injections all over her head now, and muscle relaxers that knock her out all day when she takes them.
When they ran her through all of the SSRI anti depressants a few years ago she was off her rocker. I even locked up the gunms for a while, more out of a concern for suicide, or murder suicide. Under the influence of SSRIs she might kill herself and/or me, though I still can’t imagine her ever shooting strangers. But if you had any homicidal ideation going in then I am certain SSRIs would exacerbate it.
Have any of those psychotropic drugs ever been tested for effects when mixed with alcohol, nicotine, weed, or meth? Because many prescribed those drugs will self-medicate with those other substances.
Not that I’ve ever run across.
Interesting fact; in 2013 John Noveske’s last post just before his (mysterious and strange) death, posted the findings of an investigation he had taken upon himself to conduct. In which he showed that all of the school shooters as a common thread up until that point at least, had been on SSRI’s.
Where it gets weird. While on an extremely familiar to him road he traveled nearly daily not long after the post, while in nominally perfect weather, his vehicle veered violently of the road while negotiating a right turn impacting two giant boulders, and he was killed. Connected? Idk. Suspect? Definitely.
Was investigated as a homicide with “inconclusive” findings.
https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/john-noveske-killed-in-car-accident/
It’s been known for a long time that mood enhancers and anti-depressants can alter the state of mind, usually toward aggressive behavior, especially when washed down with alcohol.
That’s why it’s a question on the DUI traffic stop routine.
But nobody really gives a shit. They still prescribe like candy it to any patient, especially cancer patients who wants them. On some prescription bottles it even directly cautions against drinking while on the drug.
To “I Will Deny” Get a Holistic ND who is an expert in Herbal cures instead of your nitwit doctor and try the Alternative Medicine Naturopathic treatments for migraines. There are a lot of them. But many things can cause migraines. It could be as simple a nutritional deficiency, or allergy or as complicated as a brain tumor. Try to get better diagnoses.
John Correia (Active Self Protection) advises simply paying attention to what’s happening around you. Like looking both ways before stepping into the street. He’s had people bump into him because they were engrossed in their phones twelve inches in front of their faces. A bad guy could walk up and shoot them in the face and they wouldn’t know it until the bullet hit.
“John Correia (Active Self Protection) advises simply paying attention to what’s happening around you.”
That’s good advice, but a lot easier said than done.
I’ve become guilty of since I’ve started carrying a smart(er) phone. Day-to-day life out-n-about is full of waiting. Waiting in line, mostly. And that’s an ideal time to pull out the device and stare at it. You can be responding to emails, or seeing what’s new on TTAG. Or whatever.
It’s an easy trap to fall into… 🙁
Simple acts of forethought in public like not sitting with your back to the bathrooms (common place for NIMHs* to prep) and having a view of the parking lot, can go a long way. Approaching where to be in a public place like a hunter would approach where to set up a blind.
*NIhilistic Mass Homiciders
drednicolson,
Oooh. Good point on not sitting with your back to bathrooms. I have always been inclined to sit with my back to a wall so that I can see the entrance of whatever public facility that I visit. Now I have to add consideration for bathroom visibility as well.
There’s that tatted, fat a$$ ATF agent again. I’d bet dollars to donuts she’s a lezzbo.
How dare you insult Agent Lia Thomas like that!
and left handed.
“lezzbo”
I will be glad when summer vacation is over, so you kids can return to middle school.
Thats OK, MajorStupidity, they’ll let you “graduate” from kindergarten, someday. Maybe. If you’re extremely lucky.
Feel free to return to your circle jerk; you will NOT be missed.
Yeah,yeah. My guess is tough guy if you square up with that agent you’re not going to like the outcome
“…ATF agent again.”
Or, she’s a screaming nymphomaniac, but you’ll never know… 🙂
I hate the ATF as much as the next patriot, but criticizing her for her ink and presumed sexual orientation strikes me as a bit… misguided. Seems to me that it would be far more relevant, and specific, to criticize her for being a willing enforcer for a rogue agency that locks up, and sometimes even murders, citizens who have broken no laws.
Unless you truly believe that having tattoos and possibly being gay are just as bad as being an ATF agent (in which case I’d just shake my head at you and move on because you have some skewed values)
I won’t comment on her sexual orientation or her Tats, but I do believe she’d have a hard time running 20 feet, let alone 200 feet.
Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed the increasing girth of Law Enforcement?
The Sheriff’s Department in my county, put up a poster of their “SWAT” Team,.and 5 out of the 6 member Team had to be wearing 4XL Ballistic vests. While it was meant as a warning to potential malfactors, it looked miee like a “D.A.R.E To Keep A Cop Off Donuts” poster
Wasn’t real inspiring in my mind.
Are the two female ATF goons actually holding hands at a crime scene or is that just the way the photograph makes it look?
“He decided to abandon plans to shoot up another club because he saw security there…”
It’s been mentioned here how police don’t prevent crime, they just clean up the aftermath. They actually do prevent crime when there’s a heavy police presence. Gas stations will often give cops a discount and free coffee so they’ll stop by often. Would-be robbers will move on to another gas station if they see a police cruiser there.
I just don’t go to malls, or theaters, or outdoor concerts, or any other gathering, if I don’t have too. I haven’t been to a mall or a theater for over a decade.
You can also be murdered while on a hike, in your tent, or in your home. You can even be tackled while mowing your lawn. It happens.
“…There’s also the problem of radicalization, especially among white supremacist groups online…”
What a f’ing straw man argument. “White supremacist” radicalization is a minuscule problem, especially when compared to all the online violent left wing extremism that liberals have absolutely no problem with. Not to mention the 50 years of liberal’s soft on crime and family destroying policies responsible for the dystopia that exists now in the inner cites.
We’re engaged in a cold civil war. The Left is doing everything they can to delegitimize anyone who opposes their “transformation” of this Country. Don’t buy into the premises they put forth to justify what they’re doing.
Agree. White supremacy has become the bogeyman for the left to justify their interference in others lives.
I had a lefty history teacher in junior high (in the 1980s) that was really scared of white supremacists. Even as a 13 year old, I knew she was totally overestimating that problem.
Modern day “white supremacy” is mostly driven by the feds and the media. It’s also important to note the history those two entities have of working together.
“Modern day “white supremacy” is mostly driven by the feds and the media“
Interesting, so you’re asserting that the group below was “driven by the feds and the media” to attend the TP-USA convention?
“Nazi Protesters Show up Outside Young Conservatives Meeting
A Holocaust center in Florida and others condemned the presence of protesters holding Nazi flags and posters with antisemitic imagery outside a convention of young conservative activists that drew as speakers President Donald Trump, Florida Gov, Ron DeSantis and several Republican U.S. senators.
By Associated Press
July 24, 2022“
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/florida/articles/2022-07-24/nazi-protesters-show-up-outside-young-conservatives-meeting
Yes, Miner. Well, there is the third very likely possibility that it’s just non-fed left wing activists. The media is still implicated because they did their job to promote it without questioning the motives. I’ve read your comments for a few years now. You continue to fall for all propaganda that fits within your worldview.
Lincoln Project claims responsibility for fake ‘white supremacists’ at Glenn Youngkin event
https://nypost.com/2021/10/29/glenn-youngkin-aide-accuses-terry-mcauliffe-team-of-fake-white-supremacist-stunt/
Read the NY Post story. Those activists didn’t claim responsibility until they were busted by being identified. Why do you think these “white supremacists” are covering their faces now? What are the motives? Are they protesting TP-USA? If they were really white supremacists who were for TP-USA, then they would know their presence there would make TP-USA look bad. I refuse to believe you’re really dumb enough to keep falling for that.
Yes, you lying sack of weasel excrement, I AM asserting that they (the “protestors”) were false-flag “crisis actors”, who we TOTALLY motivated by politics, the media and the DNC. Now, read the ACTUAL news reports and analysis on this “incident”, and stop trying to blow smoke up my @$$ – you ain’t NEARLY smart enough, and I don’t swing that way.
Sod off, swampy.
Sorry, MINOR MIner49er, but “white supremacy” is in reality a figment of the Feds and the Leftist Lame Stream Media. Sure there are a few “white supremacists” but there are just as many Black supremacists. Maybe more.
Agreed the author overplays the white supremacy crap. But, let’s not downplay it either. It happens, and it’s more than miniscule. White supremacy seems to less a terrorist problem than Islamic jihadis world wide, but here in the states, we have at least as many white supremacist incidents as we have jihadists. Hate groups are a problem, no matter their political or religious alignment.
However, most mass shooters have no politics. I’m too lazy to find it, but there’s a study indicating most shooters don’t really care about politics, and those who do care, are pretty evenly split between militant right wing and militant left wing.
OK, Paul, I’ll bite – name three ACTUAL “white supremacist” acts (of terrorism or at least serious criminality) in the last three years. Go ahead, I’ll wait.
Oh, you got nothin’??? Quelle surprise.
You are either a Leftist propagandist, or one seriously naive mofo.
Quote:”We’re engaged in a cold civil war. The Left is doing everything they can to delegitimize anyone who opposes their “transformation” of this Country. Don’t buy into the premises they put forth to justify what they’re doing.”
I’m more inclined to call it a “warm” civil war. The left is waging a hot war on their own, conservatives have just refrained from responding yet.
It is coming, don’t know where or when or why but it is coming. Not a good thing.
Be prepared !!!
Several recent shooters were from the 4chan cesspool. Ignoring a cesspool that turns troubled young men into Nazi shooters (yes, they display Nazi symbols) isn’t a great idea. Conservatives should have no sympathies for losers who embrace neo-Nazi ideology and go kill innocent people.
The other thing you need to keep in mind is that white supremacist neo-Nazi ideology isn’t far right. It’s an outgrowth of progressive ideology. You’d be a fool to not think these guys are your enemy if you’re against progs.
Since I was born in 1948 the Population went from 147,000 to 332,000. That does not mean the number of psycho’s and criminals doubled because studies show that when the population doubles the maladjusted people increase at a far greater rate than 2x.
We have today a sea of deadly weapons of war on the streets as compared to a much smaller number of U.S. surplus military semi-auto’s that were available to the general public 60 years ago. And the firearms’ industry marketing practices made semi-auto’s appeal to the psycho’s and criminals and white supremacists who often commit the most mass murders.
Wages of the working man have stagnated in the last 50 years and benefits have almost dried up for many people. We also have millions forced to work part time minimum wage jobs that do not pay the bills. Wages are still so low that many people who work still qualify for welfare. Only a National “livable wage” would force the greed monger businessmen to pay a fair wage to their workers. The decline of strong Unions also let greedy businessmen enslave workers with low wages and zero benefits.
Because the cost of living rose so high women were forced into the workforce resulting in a high divorce rate and a total breakdown of family life leaving children to grow up almost on their own. They became latch key children having little guidance or little loving care.
Drug addition has soared not only among working and non-working parents but among children as well. The U.S. is one of the biggest consumers of illegal drugs on the planet. Rather than treating drug addiction as a disease the stingy tightwad Republicans chose to throw people in prison resulting in a higher percentage of people being in prison in the U.S. than in any other country including dictatorships. You actually have more of a chance staying out of prison in a dictatorship than in the U.S. The drug addition only continues to get worse because of the Neanderthal Republican criminals.
The internet has been both a blessing and a curse at the same time. Because of the U.S. inferior level of primary and secondary levels of education in the U.S. the average educational level of the average American is at the 6th grade level leaving them very vulnerable to online propaganda promoting political and racial hate so that unscrupulous politicians like Donald Trump could worm their way into power and at the same time exacerbate an already high level of unrest and racism in the country which produced many of the racist mass murders.
The lack of affordable health care, drug care and affordable mental health care has resulted in people not being able to get the help they need when they need it in order to survive and live a normal life. Many mass murderers would never have progressed to all out madness if they had been able to afford mental health care.
Guns of course get all the blame but they are the symptom of a society gone mad and disintegrating, not its cause.
Never the less banning or restricting guns is the easy and cheap way out for politicians and most civilized societies realize more lives are actually saved than lost when guns become difficult to get and for the most part are kept out of the hands of crazies and criminals. The much lower mass murder rates and homicides and suicides when there are less guns in society has been proven by multitudes of studies. And before the Far Right nut cases scream about the higher suicide rate in Japan, studies prove that their suicide rate would be probably be double what it is now if suicide was made easier and more deadly if they had access to handguns. Most first responders will tell you they have saved many suicide victims from hanging, drug overdose, drowning or wrist slitting than saving a person who blew his brains out.
The Naked Ape simply cannot be trusted with deadly weapons because he will use them on his family and his neighbors for the most trivial of reasons. An armed society is not a polite society.
A gun in the house makes it far more likely someone in the home will be shot and killed either accidentally or on purpose and the studies prove that beyond all doubt. The majority of homicides are not done on the streets or in break-ins but occur in the home, something the Far Right vicious paranoids reject with the wave of a hand.
Gun bans are seldom overturned. Even in Australia when all of the Liberals’ were voted out of power because of their draconian gun bans the incoming Conservatives did not rescind the anti-gun laws that were passed showing that the conservatives in power feared guns as much as the liberals do. Much the same has happened in the U.S. and will happen in the future as gun laws become more numerous as has been happening in the last 50 years.
Only at the Federal level has the government failed the American people and only at the Federal level will gun restrictions work and keep, for the most part, deadly weapons out of the hands of criminals and psychopaths. History has already proven it in other countries.
Not a true word in that garbage. And who taught you maths?
Lot of words to say you have no idea what you are talking about.
“Since I was born in 1948 the Population went from 147,000 to 332,000.”
Population of what? You are starting out confused, and then you steadily taper off from there.
Duck season!
“Gun bans are seldom overturned.”
Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce the Assault Weapons Ban of 1994?
“Gun bans are seldom overturned.”
Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce the Assault Weapons Ban of 1994?“
The 1994 AWB was never “overturned”.
The bill, as written, had a sunset provision that would allow the law to Sunset if not renewed.
“Only at the Federal level has the government failed the American people and only at the Federal level will gun restrictions work and keep, for the most part, deadly weapons out of the hands of criminals and psychopaths.”
You’re an idiot. Our government sucks so they should regulate weapons..
Of everyone that comments on TTAG the thought of you with a weapon scares me the most. Thankfully I’m always armed.
“the firearms’ industry marketing practices made semi-auto’s appeal to the psycho’s and criminals and white supremacists” I would counter that it was the MSM and the Democrats that marketed those guns as the `Soup de Jour’ for the miscreants and mendicants of society. The AR was first marketed in 1964 and the first mass shooting using one occurred in 1989. The media and Democrats went `full retard’ on `weapon of war’ and `assault weapon’ (which semi-auto weapons are neither). The fact is that the Democrats and MSM have sold more guns than all the manufacturers marketing combined. Look at sales numbers every time they babble on about new restrictions, they consistently break new records. The fact is that they don’t really want to control the real problem (which is crime and mental health) they want to control everyone (which is the very reason our founders included the 2nd Amendment in the first place). The rest of your argument is also full of falsities, inaccuracies and slippery slope logic as well………….but look at the time…..I got to go!
Deadly weapons of war: machine guns; mortars; rocket propelled grenades; hand grenades; TOW weapons; artillery; tanks; flame throwers; satchel charges; bangalore torpedoes; explosives of all manner and shape; anti-personnel mines; anti-vehicle mines; all kinds of improvised explosives; napalm.
A semi-automatic rifle has not been an implement of war for about 75 years. While bolt action rifles may be used for long range sniper fire, even there, semi-automatic rifles have generally superseded bolt actions. As for individual defense shoulder weapons, the weapon of choice is either a fully automatic, select fire or three-round burst weapon. While I have shopped Dick’s, Big Five, Walmart, and other chains which deal in firearms of all types, I have been unable to score my favorite select fire 3-round burst semi-auto rifle yet.
I guess you missed the former prime minister of Japan getting fatally shot with a black powder, electronically initiated, home made shotgun. Japan, the country everyone like to point to with a low murder rate by firearm. Now if we include poison gas, poison curry, gasoline, knives (numerous kindergarten students and teachers stabbed to death/numerous elderly patients in a care home stabbed to death) suddenly Japan’s murder rate zooms skyward. As Mark Twain is reputed to have said, “Figures don’t lie but liars figure.”
“providing no security” is pablum for/from someone that has never stood guard duty.
In related news, the MS Board of Education has voted (finally) to allow local school districts to set their own policy on guns in their schools. This has been in work for years, and many schools have been quietly arming up prior to this “official blessing”. There will be many more do so now.
https://www.wapt.com/article/mississippi-public-schools-can-make-their-own-gun-policies/40709385
Clarification:
MDE revised their weapons policy in order to bring it into alignment with current state law. A 2011 law A
Already allowed licensed individuals to carry guns on public school campuses. Teachers and staff and others have been carrying concealed on school grounds for a long time already with an enhanced permit. The change in school board policy allows the districts to disallow teachers and staff or allow and the school board will pay for the training of they require it. Others not school staff (general public) are not affected and can carry legally with enhanced permit with no permission needed, however the district may limit to area on school grounds if they so choose.
Students are still prohibited if K-12.
Whether it’s from riding a motorcycle, shooting 3 gun or just paranoia I’m always scanning 360 and checking for exits and cover.
My wife thinks I’m just looking for T&A all the time. I don’t know which I prefer her think is true.
When we first met my then future wife would ask me “What are you looking for?” when she would see me looking around scanning an area for threats. I’d already had two encounters of the bad kind that wanted to kill me before I met her so I had learned my lesson to be more vigilant.
When she would ask me “What are you looking for?” I’d tell her “I’ll let you know when I see it.” and she would say “Ok.”
About three months after were were married, one day I was doing that scanning thing again while we were out and sure enough I had to let her know what I saw when the guy started towards us with a drawn gun (that later turned out to be fake replica 1911) so I drew and came up on target. At which point my wife screamed, the bad guy screamed, and a lady about 20 feet away screamed. The bad guy dropped his gun, dropped to the ground, then tried to crawl away, I did not fire, then he got up and ran away leaving the replica 1911. He had robbed thee other people that day in various areas with that fake replica 1911. The cops caught him a block away trying to wash out his pants with a garden hose outside a small business building. He was so scared that he peed in his pants and pooped a little.
A gun doesn’t give you a force field. The bad guy may approach you from the back. The bad guy could have you in his sights before you even notice him or can draw. You simply might lose the gunfight with the bad guy. The bad guy might ambush or snipe you. While you’re dealing with the bad guy, bad guy #2 could sneak up behind you. You can’t always be sitting with your back to the wall and your eyes on the access points, or have an armed partner watching behind you. You can’t be at condition red with you’re head on a swivel all the time. Even if you were, you could still be looking the wrong way when things go down.
More bad news: The fire extinguisher in your kitchen isn’t going to guarantee the house doesn’t burn down. The fire may grow too quickly. You may be out of the kitchen or asleep when it starts. The fire could start in a different room. However, just like the gun, it gives you protection if you have the opportunity to use it correctly. It doesn’t succeed 100% of the time, but it works 0% of the time when it isn’t there.
Uvalde proves you can’t rely on 74 cops either. I’ll take my chances with my gun thank you.
370 is the correct number of cops…
Different sources, LOL. In any case 2-3 should have been enough, one with a shotgun to blow the door off it’s hinges, and the other to take out the perp.
Only until you run out of donuts.
The Uvalde murderer shot 100+ rounds before any cop arrived. I’m not taking them off the hook, I find their behavior immoral and horrific. But even if they had killed the guy within the first three 3 minutes, they would have been too late to stop that carnage.
The kids that bled out in the time they were sitting on their thumbs could have had a chance if they had gotten to triage.
Correct, we don’t know how many could have been saved but I bet it would not have been zero. What happened to them was pure evil.
All I’m saying is that unless a cop is right there when the shooting begins, no cop is gonna stop it. I think a lot of people still believe most or a lot of the shooting in Uvalde took place after the cops got there. The shooting was mostly over by then, except when he was shooting at police. When you have unarmed people trapped, you can do a lot of damage in two and a half minutes.
Well in Another news apparently the ATF only hires thick, big booty chicks!!
Thar’s treasure in that thar parking lot!
“society should be looking at the broken homes and irresponsible parents who raise these menaces. ”
Well, yeah, but then we are talking about changing society back to the way it used to be, in many ways though I doubt any of us want to go back in all ways.
You need to end the fed and let interest rates set themselves, eliminate the artificial creation of money and back it with precious metals, let deflation resume, eliminate all of the government regulations that drive good paying jobs overseas (minimum wage, unemployment insurance, and the host of bureaucratic bull$hit that has piled onto what were originally intended to be safety measures), eliminate all of the government regulation of business and healthcare, and insurance, etc. Eliminate all public services including welfare, education, public housing, WIC, food stamps (access card), etc.
Hell, just eliminate government.
How about a level playing field – the manufacturers have to work with the same restrictions – no coal fired plants, all OSHA and workers’ rights, no child or slave labor. They can’t do it. The safety records are bad, on and on. American workers have always been more efficient and productive than any other workers.
After reading the actual statistics rather than making unsupportable and self justifying suppositions. those stats tell us that if yopu attempt to use a handgun in any sort of ‘self-defence’ situation you are a far and away more likely to become a victim yourself that you are to prevent you a or anybody else to become one. The only way a handgun is truly effective for self defence is if YOU Have the initiative and YOU have a literally a ‘gun-in-hand and ‘locked-and-loaded at all times- just like a Soldier in enemy territory. Then of course it’s not even Self Defence it’s ATTACK mode. Most of the rubbish talked about self defence is nothing more than industry backed myth to sell the gullible, frightened and mentally unstable [and unsuitable] even more unsuitable and unnessessary hardware.
Even in the Old WEst those US Marshals and successful Sheriffs certainly DID not give a sucker an even chance they shot ’em down and without warning if possible. Relying on a fast draw was for the birds. That’s whyTHE most successful Frontier Police Force of the Era was the Royal Canadian Mounted Police They trained for marksmanship and even had covered holsters to PREVENT the kind of mindset that goes for a draw
Rubbish, dacian.
Nah. Just nah.
Duck season!
Rabbit season!!
Chris T in KY,
It’s not “rabbit season”–it’s “wabbit season”.
Your Queen wears ugly hats and her dogs are short legged mongrels.
Hehehe! 🤣
According to an article in an NRA publication: The first belt holsters appeared in the 1840s. Most early holsters protected the cylinder and barrel. Triggers were exposed because the revolvers were single action. Many included a piece of thong or a strap to retain the revolver when on a rank horse. Ammo pouches were relatively rare at the time, since most revolvers were cap-and-ball; if you needed a reload, a spare pistol—known popularly today as a “New York reload”—was how it was done. These first holsters were open at the top and bottom. As farmers and miners made their way west, they wanted a holster with a closed bottom to keep out dirt, debris and snow.
A decade later saw the first flap holsters—a holster made with an elongated back that folded over the pistol and snapped into place, thus maximizing the protection of the piece. Flap holsters became de reguerre for the military, not only to protect the pistol but to prevent its loss while on horseback. There was little need of a quick draw during most mid-19th century military encounters, so the flap was no detriment.
To add one more thing: a 19th century cavalry soldier’s handgun (with a flap holster) was not mounted on the right hip facing “backwards” (butt end forward) to slow the draw but because cavalry soldiers drew their sabers with their right hand and their pistol with their left.
Sometimes, though, your number just comes up. Still gotta live life…
Situational Awareness is the best way to live your life. You aren’t unaware of the world around you, you are living in it, noticing what is happening all around you. You don’t have your nose stuck in an electronic device to the point you walk into people or objects, you observe your environment and interact with it. Yes, sometimes you see bad things as well as the good things in life, but that allows you the chance to avoid the bad things or to do something about them. Sure, sometimes “shit happens”, and you don’t have the chance to do something, but if you have no idea of what is going on, you have zero chances.
I don’t want to rely on luck, but I will rely on preparation, observation and a gun to up my odds against an evil whacko trying to kill me, rather than hope the cops get there and do something before I get shot and bleed out.
Lots of good lessons from the OP.
Individual initiative is a “micro-” not a “macro-” solution. We need to be clear on this.
So, by all means, let’s urge every business proprietor and every friend to take prudent measures to be more secure. That will discourage a criminal from attacking his business or her personally. It will divert the criminal to attach a less-secure business or individual. That’s a really great MICRO- policy. It is altogether useless for MACRO-policy. We simply shuffle the victims from the more astute class to the less astute class. No change in the number of victims.
If an individual is a soldier, cop or guard he has sufficient motivation to hone his skills. If not, he will be among the first casualties; or, he will choose a different vocation. I don’t have this motivation. Most people lack sufficient motivation.
For these reasons, such advice as improving security measures and individual situational awareness just isn’t adequate public policy. And so, it shouldn’t be the lead element of our answer to the public policy issue of guns in polite company.
Instead, I think, we should find the more practical solution in the examples offered in the OP. What if there were zero armed targets in a venue? If there were just one? If there were a few? More than a few?
Clearly:
– If there are zero armed targets it’s:
“Call for a cop, ambulance, pizza and see which arrives first.”
– If it’s just one – a “professional” armed and uniformed cop or civilian guard – then it’s:
“Shoot me first”.
– If there are a few armed targets, it’s:
“The bad guy will be stopped by one of the armed targets pretty quickly.”
– If there are many armed targets, it’s:
“The deterrent effect”.
What are the public policy implications? Clearly, waiting for the cops is foolish. So is having a single uniformed and conspicuously armed guard. A single inconspicuous armed target has a chance. Still more clearly, a single attacker can’t realistically prevail over several inconspicuous armed targets who can shoot back from any direction. The attacker can take out the first responder, even the second. But by this point, the third will prevail.
Equally clearly, it’s not at all necessary for ALL the targets to be armed. If 10% are armed that should be sufficient. If 20% or 30% are armed, few attackers will wish to die an ignominious death. Arming EVERYONE is a false straw-man. We couldn’t achieve near 100% armed targets even if we adopted it as a goal.
Our stated goal ought to be 10% – 30% armed targets. Neither less nor more.
Why are we using the left’s language of “white supremacist threat”
We do not need to enable their gaslighting efforts on the American public, least of all in TTAG
I have to disagree with the premise of this article. Those people in the Mall were Damn Lucky that young man was there with his gun and more importantly was willing and knew how to use it.
LIKE HOLSTER DATA , THANKS
UUUM STOP CRAZIES FROM SHOOTING YOU , GET LTC ,
PRAY YA CAN SHOOT AND STOP THE CRAZY THREAT PEOPLE FIRST .
Have you seen the hourly wages paid to armed Guards? And anybody can take the safety – and more important legal culpability classes – after they’ve paid for their own handgun. There are lots of tactical training schools teaching shooting accuracy, use of environment etc. Which they have to pay for themselves. And then they’d be very well trained and worth a lot more than the wages schools, theaters, and malls are willing to pay. I fear it will take a major incident with lots of casualties, followed by a mega million lawsuit from the families to get the owners to realize that trained guards are cheap by comparison.
I haven’t been to a Mall in nearly 30 years. I did see the Mall Security Guards out and about as I managed a business for a few years, near the mall. Typically, I’d see two types of guards. Older, Overweight, and Out of Shape or Younger, Gung-ho Police Wannabe’s that couldn’t make it through POST training. Paul Blart Mall Cop could’ve used them for extras.
All, were paid barely over minimum wage at the time. None carried a gun. Pepper Spray, whistle, a tonfa, radio and cuffs were all they carried. The Turn Over rate was phenomenal. 3 – 6 months.
Not exactly confidence inspiring, to say the least.
Malls that post “Gun Free Zone” or no guns allowed” signs should be required to provide trained and armed security all over a mall in sufficient numbers to provide substantial security for shoppers. By posting such signs the Mall is taking responsibility for security all over the mall for all the employees and customers and should be held financially responsible for any shootings or other situations which require such security
I think, we should find the more practical solution in the examples offered in the OP.
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