By Rob Morse
News of mass murderers hits everyone on both sides of the gun control debate hard. We all want to stop them, but the question is how. I’ve studied armed defense for about a decade. While I admit there’s more to learn, that makes me a veritable elite subject matter expert compared to the journalists and politicians who shape public policy.
We can stop most mass murders today. We have the tools. There are the solutions we should use, the solutions we could use, and the non-solutions that politicians have latched onto and already put in place.
Here’s the thing . . .we built this problem of mass murder and celebrity murderers. The good news is that we can fix it.
Society has changed in significant ways over the last three generations. We’ve destroyed families so too many young men grow up without fathers. No one taught these young men how to control their strength or their anger. We closed our mental health facilities and released mentally ill patients to live on the streets. More recently, we’ve refused to prosecute, convict, and incarcerate violent recidivist criminals. Each of these factors unquestionably contribute to our problem of increased violent crime and mass murder today.
We can disagree about what we meant to do as we enacted the programs and changed the public policies that got us here, but there’s no argument about the resulting outcome of more mass murders in recent decades. Each of those policy shifts are contributing factors, but they’re not the main causes of the increase. We still have to address the elephant in the room.
Something else has changed in our society. We’ve read the journals, the manifestos and the interviews with mass murderers and they’ve often told us exactly why they kill. They are willing to die so that they can be famous.
The biggest problem is the proliferation of dozens of 24/7 news outlets that give each mass murderer a $10 million dollar publicity campaign if they murderer kills enough of the right victims in the right locations. Those aren’t my words, but theirs. You don’t have to believe me, but you should believe them. We have created celebrity murderers, and we should demand that the news media stop turning these killers into instant celebrities.
We should, but we won’t. The media will continue to sell shock and outrage in order to deliver our eyeballs to their advertisers (and that publicity encourages copycats). And the murderers will keep on killing…if we let them.
The situation, however, is far from hopeless, but we first have to turn our back on the things that don’t work. We were told that mass murderers would stop killing us if we limited the weapons they could legally use. We were told that we would be safe if we put up plastic signs that declared our schools, our churches, and our businesses to be “gun-free” zones.
And, being the law-abiding types we are, we obeyed those rules. The good guys gave up some of their guns. They left their guns at home or locked them in their cars before entering these designated disarmament zones. Today, politicians get to issue triumphant press releases when they announce the establishment of yet another class of “gun-free” zones.
Mass-murderers may be crazy, but they can read. These celebrity-seeking murderers deliberately go to “gun-free” zones to hunt us. They may be broken people, but they aren’t stupid. They want to kill and they don’t want to get into a gunfight. They deliberately attack innocent victims where we are disarmed. Let me repeat that so I’m sure you understand.
Mass-murderers attempt to attack us in “gun-free” zones 48 out of 50 times.
Think about that. That statistic is far too big to be a coincidence. The so-called “gun-free zones” that we have created are where mass murderers go to kill us and rack up a body count so the mainstream news media will make them famous.
Yes, things have changed and we didn’t have as many gun free zones 50 years ago as we have today. It hardly matters what firearm the killer has in his hands once he faces a group of unarmed victims (82% use a handgun or a handgun along with another type of firearm). History proves the point since some of our worst mass murders were committed with a revolver, a firearms design that’s almost 150 years old.
The concentration of disarmed victims in “gun free” zones explains why the states with the most gun control laws have some of the highest rates of attempted mass murder. The weapon the murderers use doesn’t matter once we’ve given the wanna-be celebrity murderers perfect targets to make themselves famous. As horrific as that sounds, it also tells us how to stop mass murderers. We can stop them if we are willing to listen.
Mass murderers have told us what frightens them. They aren’t afraid to die, but they are deeply afraid to fail. We don’t have to stop every mass murderer, but we have to put every attempted potential killer in doubt. The great news is that we’ve already begun to do that.
It isn’t obvious yet, but we are closing the chapter on the brief history of mass-murders in the United States.
We’ve stopped them. Ordinary people like you and me have stopped actual mass murderers. We learned to attack the murderer if he attacks us in a bar where we are disarmed. We learned to shoot the attacker if we are armed. We found out that shooting back works really well.
Where we are allowed to go armed, ordinary armed civilians have stopped attempted mass murderers over 104 times since 2004, about 34% of shooting incidents. An armed citizen isn’t there at every attempted mass murder (again…”gun-free” zones). And if an armed citizen is there, they don’t choose to intervene every time. In the last few years have stopped about half of the attempted mass murders where we were allowed to go armed (and sometimes where we weren’t).
This wasn’t the mass murder they planned. Mass-murderers run away or shoot themselves when we confront them or shoot back.
Stopping half the mass-murderers is another vitally important clue and we should pay attention. To us it might feel like we let half of attempted mass-murders succeed. That’s because you and I are gutted by every report of a mass murder. Mass murderers already feel like they are failures.
Mass-murderers are not willing to take the chance and get shot in the back by grandma who was carrying her handgun in her purse.
Passing more gun control laws and putting more ink on paper is easy and politically expedient, but it hasn’t worked to stop mass-murderers. We know how to stop them if we’re willing to listen. We should take down those “no guns allowed” signs and stop disarming the good guys.
Thin plastic “no guns” signs may protect the property owners, but they don’t protect anyone else. That’s been proven time and again. The signs are there to stop lawsuits but they do nothing to stop bullets. Allowing armed citizens stops almost half of these killers before they can do more damage. That’s far more effective than anything the politicians have proposed so far.
The rest is up to us. One-out-of-a-dozen adults are legally armed in public today and that number is growing. Unfortunately, we won’t stop every attempted mass murder. The great news is that we don’t have to. We stop about half of them now and we’re doing enough to make the outcome in doubt if armed citizens are present.
Nothing is perfect. We’ll still have people who will want to commit suicide and take innocent people with them. As I said earlier, mental health services are important. I wish we lived in a perfect world where we could eliminate evil, but that’s utopia doesn’t exist. Until it does, a solution that stops more killers and plants the seed of doubt in others and changing their behavior is significant progress.
It’s time to take down the plastic signs.
This article originally appeared at Slow Facts and is reprinted here with permission.
If all mass murders occurred only where there were ‘signs’ this argument would make sense.
So, 98% isn’t close enough to “all” for you?
MyName — in what school did you learn that 48 out of 50 is 98%? The same one where the author pulled that ridiculous statistic from?
you missed the point.
if there are 50 gun free zones then the total percentage portion of gun free zones represented by the 50 is 100%
if there are 48 killers stopped in 50 gun free zones then 98% of the killers were stopped.
Did you not learn anything about portions of equations in 5th grade?
what I replied to you was an example by the way. Gun free zones are, mostly, free of law abiding citizens who carry guns. But since you like defenseless people being killed so much because you think the idea doesn’t make sense (even though fact shows you to be wrong) I used gun free zones to give an example
but to continue…
anti-gun agenda figures usually leave a lot out. The mostly do it but setting the definition for when an armed citizen stops a shooter.
The FBi and anti-gun use the same defining standard for this. They start by basically defining that an active shooter is only stopped by an ordinary armed citizen if the citizen actually shoots and hits the attacker and that causes the attacker to stop. They do not credit armed citizens that stop attacks by brandishing (and thus repelling) or firing on the attacker and suppressing the attacker so they can not continue but not hitting the attacker – these also stopped the active shooters.
It completely ignores and does not include that armed citizens also stop active shooters with guns simply because they acted in a defensive gun use manner without firing or without actually shooting or hitting the active shooter or would be active shooter. If they didn’t pull the trigger, even though brandishing and being able to engage repelled bad guy who ran off or committed suicide instead, its not counted as the law abiding armed citizen stopping the shooter.
Then there are the ones that simply are not included in the stats: While the FBI found that 4.4% of active shooting incidents between 2014 and 2021 were stopped by an armed civilian, the number is actually more than ten times higher. Between 2014 and 2021, citizens stopped 104 out of 204 potential or actual mass shootings where we could identify that guns were allowed in the area. So 51% of attacks were stopped by people legally carrying concealed handguns. Again, the most recent data is most accurate, and for 2021, 58% of the attacks were stopped IN AREAS WHERE PEOPLE WERE CLEARLY ALLOWED TO CARRY.
“IN AREAS WHERE PEOPLE WERE CLEARLY ALLOWED TO CARRY” – is an important point. Its important because those who follow the law tend to not bring their guns into no guns zones so obviously would not be able to engage a shooter. However, anti-gun looks at it and says “Huh, no concealed carriers stopped a shooter in those areas so it must be a myth.”
The numbers indicate If we didn’t have gun-free zones, we would have more people stopping these attacks.
Then there is a very bogus study thing …. in the very biased Texas study…
The Texas study numbers:
* Of the 433 active shooter attacks in the study 249 ended before the police arrived.
* In 64 of those attacks a bystander subdued the attacker 42 times and shot the attacker 22 times
*12 of the shooting bystanders were citizens, 7 were security guards, 3 were off duty police officers
so lets go on… with their numbers
*In 185 of the 249 that ended before police arrived 133 of that 185 left the scene before police arrived and 72 committed suicide. The study does not tell you that of the 113 that left 108 of those left because an ordinary citizen (not security or law enforcement) with a gun brandished their firearm and repelled the attacker thus stopped the active shooter without firing a shot. This study also does not tell you that of the 72 that committed suicide 68 did so either while under fire by a citizen with a gun and they could not escape or keep firing being suppressed by the citizen weapons fire but were not hit by the citizen weapons fire or the citizen brandished and the active shooter simply stopped their attack and killed their selves when seeing the citizen brandish.
some math: 185 – 72 = 113 attackers left to subdue but they departed the scene before being subdued and before police arrived …. so 249 – 72 – 113 = 64 attackers left to subdue on scene.
This 64 is interesting because you will notice it includes two categories of defenders as if there are those with firearms and those without – those that shot the attacker (22) and those that subdued by physical force (42). Of those defenders that shot 12 were citizens, 7 were security guards, 3 were off duty officers. Its interesting because it does not mention that of those subdued by physical force that the shooter was stopped first in 18 of them by a citizen (not security or law enforcement) brandishing a gun but not firing but the attacker stopped their attack when confronted by that armed citizen then the attacker was able to be subdued by physical force.
So of the 433 attacks in the study armed citizen (not security or police) stopped the attack …
108 + 68 + 12 + 18 + 25 = 231 attacks stopped by an armed citizen (not security or police) with a gun
Notice how the Texas study only credits an armed citizen (not security or police) with stopping the active shooter if they actually shot the attacker. This is the slanted biased part of such studies – they start by basically defining that an active shooter is only stopped by an ordinary armed citizen if the citizen actually shoots and hits the attacker and that causes the attacker to stop. They do not credit armed citizens that stop attacks by brandishing (and thus repelling) or firing on the attacker and suppressing the attacker so they can not continue but not hitting the attacker – these also stopped the active shooters.
433 – 231 = 202 and of that 202 … 7 were shot by security and 3 were shot by off duty police. 7 + 3 = 10
53.3% of these 433 active shooter attacks were stopped by ordinary armed citizens engaging with their firearm either by actively firing or by brandishing thus presenting a hard target defense capability.
1.6% of these 433 active shooter attacks were stopped by armed security.
0.69% of these 433 active shooter attacks were stopped by off duty police officers.
The study uses only one one category of an armed citizen stopping an active shooter and that is only when the armed citizen actually shoots the attacker. It completely ignores and does not include that armed citizens also stop active shooters with guns simply because they acted in a defensive gun use manner without firing or without actually shooting or hitting the active shooter or would be active shooter.
The FBI also uses the same thing, that a citizen with as gun only stops an active shooter if they actually shoot and hit the attacker and the attacker then stops. This is also the definition used by anti-gun. But police are credited with stopping an active shooter if they show up then act after the fact of the shooter firing.
In other words there are a lot more active shooter type incidents stopped by ordinary citizens with guns than are credited to citizens with guns in the media and by anti-gun and in statistics. This Texas study was just looking at 433 of them.
.40 Cal Booger — why would anyone believe your statistics in your long winded diatribes when in your own words “if there are 48 killers stopped in 50 gun free zones then 98% of the killers were stopped”? Did you even read the article? Even the author didn’t come up with 98% in his example. You’re just a big gas-bag. Keep blowing gas, you don’t know what you’re talking about.
Like I told you, if you would have read the post below it, I was giving you and example in reply to your own post of gross misunderstanding when I gave the 50 and 98% examples, since you seemed several grades shy of an education.
I’m sorry you have a short attention span and can’t understand complicated subject matter. So let me make is simple for you…keep out of discussions for which you have no understanding.
Go troll somewhere else, maybe you will find someone who gives a flying fart about your trolling nonsense.
The difference between 98% and 96% is well within statistical error therefore insignificant statistically speaking.
48/50 is 96% but close enough.
Mea culpa.
Is *96%* not close enough to *all* for you?
Did you buy a lottery ticket this week? Think you’ll win? (In other words: not gonna happen = not gonna happen)
“Did you buy a lottery ticket this week? Think you’ll win? (In other words: not gonna happen = not gonna happen)”
Isn’t it settled science that there have been zero lottery winners who didn’t have a ticket?
NoName — so if I told you *all* mass-murderers attempt to attack us in “gun-free” zones 50 out of 50 times, wouldn’t you think that might not be a true statement? Doesn’t that sound a little far fetched to you? The U.S. Department of Justice denied a mass murder as “A mass murder is defined as the killing of three or more people at one time and in one location.”. So you honestly believe that even 96% of all mass murders only happen in gun free zones like the author suggests?
My point is don’t be such a lemming as to believe without thinking even if it follows the echo chamber you live in
RE: “By Rob Morse News of mass murderers hits everyone on both sides of the gun control debate hard. We all want to stop them, but the question is how. I’ve studied armed defense for about a decade. While I admit there’s more to learn, that makes me a veritable elite subject matter expert compared to the journalists and politicians who shape public policy.”
Unfortunately Rob Morse by saying “we all” you gave Gun Control sickos respect they do not deserve. After 10 years of study you should know to give credit where credit is due and no credit should ever go to criminal coddling ratbassturds especially ratbassturds whose Gun Control agenda history confirms is rooted in racism and genocide. I mean to give Gun Control zealots respect in any shape, matter or form you might as well be saluting nazis and the kkk.
Actually Rob when you pen such an article and you fail to define Gun Control by its confirmed history of rot the journalists and politicians you claim to be a step ahead of applaud you.
AS USUAL, HERE IS DEBBIE W. PICKING THE FIRST THREAD OF A DISCUSSION TO GIVE AN INCOMPREHENSIBLE COMMENT THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH WHAT IS BEING DISCUSSED.
Well Debbie W probably has a penis and did get the words racism, genocide, nazis and the kkk into the incomprehensible rant.
It didn’t get Jim Crow in there though but it did read the article that was 1300 words long by Rob Morse and then inserted it’s own opinions in it, changing the crux of the article.
Scroll up and you’ll see .40 cal Boogers Ritalin kicking in and him writing a missive where he tries to do simple math and literally gets lost in his own babbling rant then gets mad because he’s high and his numbers don’t work out. It gets boring and people on here just ignore it. There is something wrong with the both of them, they are two fucking mental cases who don’t even read any of the posts, they just babble with no attention span.
Scroll down and .40 cal Booger is still trying to make a point, this time with links that he has posted at least 10 times before.
Talk about the DSM-5, I’m reading somebody who has disorders that are in it. Basically both are just needy attention starved idiots that ruin the forum.They are the dacians and Miner49ers of this thread.
You really struggle with preponderance of evidence portions of equations don’t you?
send ’em back to Africa?…wait, we tried that…most didn’t want to go…would make a significant difference, though….
mass murderers seek out concentrations of people…who often cluster behind the false security of “signs”…
The SIMPLE FACT is that gun-free zones are really just killing zones. Legislation should be passed that makes any owner of a gun-free zone legally responsible for the safety of anyone who enters that zone. Just putting up signs only affects those who obey our laws. These signs do nothing to stop mass shooters. If you want a zone to be truly gun-free, you have to install metal detectors at all entrances to these killing zones. Just like they do in airports, courthouses, and other locations where they are serious about keeping weapons from being brought into these zones.
Interesting commentary, yet it overlooks the “gorilla in the room”: Mass murders are exceedingly useful for totalitarians.
Sambo…I knew you had potential…well said.
“Sambo…I knew you had potential…well said.”
As a 2A absolutist, it is sometimes difficult to be nuanced.
it is a good commentary but there’s one thing left out that is very important. our country has fallen away from God we need God back in our society or it’s never going to get healed.
True, good choice of screen name given the topic of the comment.
My understanding is that if one reads the last chapter of the book, this country (or any other) will not be “healed” by any effort of the populace; the end is not speculative, but ordained, unalterable. Thus, “healing”, as used in the comment, is not national, but individual, in preparation for “the end”.
“the last chapter of the book“
If you’re speaking of the Bible I am quite surprised.
I’m wondering why any free American citizen would consider what King James of England could possibly know about “healing our country”
You’re a Pavlovian dog, miner. Any talk of faith and you start drooling and growling.
Fascinating.
Miner49er:
Your comment betrays a belief that King James is somehow the author of the English bible. If that is your belief, you are mistaken. Anyway, having brought up this (complicated) subject, you might be interested in a lesson in biblical history. To save you the trouble, I have looked up a source for you, as follows:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_James_Version
Enjoy!
MinorLiar,
And, ONCE AGAIN, you pull some pathetically irrelevant nonsense out of your ass, pat yourself on the back for being clever, . . . and the rest of us are left shaking our heads that you thought you made a point.
You are a pathetic assclown, MinorLiar, and we are all sick of you, your Leftist/fascist nonsense, your anti-religious bigotry, your COMPLETELY misplace sense of your own importance and ‘intellect’, and your sanctimonious nonsense.
You don’t like Christianity? Why should I give a fuck? You don’t like Trump? Why should I give a fuck? You don’t like Republicans? Why should I give a fuck? You want to regulate MY guns? I only give a fuck to the extent you try to advance your idiocy through laws. If YOU want my guns, little tiny man, feel free to come get them, any time. But you want your fascist buddies at ATF to MAKE ME live the way YOU think I should live. Not going to work out well for you, Chief. Not at all.
You go be you, assclown . . . but please spare the rest of us from you insanity . . . we simply don’t give a fuck. Now, go die in a hole.
If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways and I will hear from heaven and I will forgive their sin and I will heal their land. 2 Chronicles 7:14 we have to keep up the good fight till the end, the way it’s looking lately it’s not too far off.
Of course, there have been people saying that since a hundred years after the death of Christ. It was believed at the time that Judgement Day was going to happen almost immediately.
Still waiting.
Have you read the Bible? 😂
I’m not sure if this question was directed to me or not but yes we read the Bible everyday.
TJ,
MinorLiar frequently quotes from the Bible (always inaaptly), and HINTS that he’s read it, but his understanding is like a rain puddle on the sidewalk after a spring shower – a foot wide and 1/32 of an inch deep. 99% of what he THINKS he ‘knows’ about Christianity is complete, errant horseshit.
Oh, and he lies about everything. MinorLiar is living proof of the dangers of ‘public education’. The boy is dumber than Balaam’s off ass.
As with blaming households without fathers, doesn’t account for the 49% drop in gun homicides from the high in the mid-1990s. Were the late 1990s and early 2000s a period with a drastic increase in 2-parent homes or increase in national faith???
The miscommunication is they believe the way to stop it is by making guns harder to get so they keep pushing these stories in the media. Our society is not like those countries over in Europe. It never will be. We value our freedoms too much. We don’t care that you chose to focus on the small percentage of crazies. The majority do nothing wrong and don’t deserve to have their rights taken away. It’s that simple. So until you address the issue you created in society by making them famous, and continue to make them famous, we will continue pushing that everyone should carry to defend themselves. Only, we don’t tell people what to do, we simply advise it. If you don’t want to carry, then don’t. But stop blaming others for not protecting you if that is your choice. You, the leftists and their media, tell people to “give them up to keep everyone safe” when in reality, that will never happen. We value our choices and right to defend ourselves and our family too much to believe your utopian safety will protect us. It’s your choice, but please ffs, stop acting like you can solve violent natured people by passing more laws. You will not make it harder on them. It doesn’t matter to them if they only take one or one hundred with them. You have the ability to defend yourself and you chose not to in the misguided hope you can save one person. Your chances of saving someone are higher if you carry the most capable means of self defense.
we’re a highly individualistic society…they (Europeans)…focus more on the collective….nothing wrong with either…just different
“nothing wrong”
Stalin, et al, would disagree.
And likely have you shot, just for saying it.
There is not a single Democrat that actually wants to correct this problem. What they DO want to do is make it worse.
Well last night in Chiraq a mass shooting occurred on I-57 near 111th. A baby & 2 teens murdered among others shot. About 10:30 PM. I’ve been there years ago coming back from an auction. We “need” swift & severe punishment for the usual suspects. Since that ain’t happening SHOOT BACK!🙁🙄Fun fact: 3 dead=the dead in East Lansing.
You’re right – Us “gun control folk” want mass shootings to happen more by taking your guns away.
You’re an Idiot.
That is exactly what happens. Gun Control makes people helpless. Gun Free Zones is just an aspect of it.
The entire idea of gun free zones needs to go away.
You got it backwards, Dave. You want more of these tragedies so you can “wave the bloody shirt” and browbeat politicians into taking the guns away from everyone else who didn’t commit the atrocity.
Your goal is to take away peoples rights and freedoms, by taking away their means of resistance and protection. Your method (in addition outright lying) is to stand on the bodies of those murdered by evil people.
The more mass shootings there are, the more likely, they believe, that their gun ban philosophy will finally prevail. How many times have you heard, “We must do something…” and every time that something is more gun control?
not all of you dummycrats think that way.
but the George soros backed DA definitely do think that way.
thanks for playing
largely because they don’t want to break the problem down into its separate components…wacky white guys with mental health issues?…perfectly ok to discuss that…black on black is a no-no even though it greatly increases the stats…preferring to offer endless excuses for the latter…while showing no tolerance for the former…
Folks, it is never been about the guns. It’s always been about the control.
true enough…they lust for it…sometimes you can’t see the forest for the trees….
For one thing, I don’t really care about “mass shootings.” Why? Well, statistically speaking, they barely exist. Sure, they get hours upon hours of media coverage but, they represent a tiny fraction of firearm involved killing. What I do care about is how they are used to color the gun control “debate.” (I put that in quotes because it is not actually a debate, it is two sides shouting at each other) Mass shootings, if you do the math, represent a fraction of the population so small that, in any other arena, they would be regarded as insignificant noise. The only reasons they are prevalent on the big screens we all fix our attention to is because they are emotionally disturbing and possibly useful to some who would like to move the public opinion needle in their preferred direction.
Now, I have been told that data, mere facts, do not change people’s minds and, while I accept that as supported by available evidence, I do not approve of that state of affairs. Facts should matter. In that vein, the facts show, that virtually no one is killed in a mass shooting. Sure, some small fraction of people actually are and each of those lives lost is lamentable but, on balance, it does not happen. Delving into the the emotion vs. facts realm, it is apparent that most people don’t really fear dying in a mass shooting because most people still go to work, to school, to the mall, to the movies, etc. If people *actually* thought there was a significant chance that they would be shot when leaving the house, well, then, they would not leave the house. The very fact that almost every American gets up and walks out the door each day is the strongest piece of evidence I have that they are not afraid of dying when they do so – regardless of what they claim. I am told, by many, that they fear the guns out there but, they don’t. I know this because they still go “out there.”
We have been told countless times that it is the *quantity* of available guns that causes the unusually high body count in the U.S. There are a couple of prominent problems with that assessment. First, the U.S. does not have an unusually high, or low, “body count”. As a proportion of the population, in the U.S., you are neither the most likely nor the least likely to die from a gunshot wound. In the U.S., however, you are at the bottom or, at least, very near the bottom (only because data is so scant in some parts of the world) of the list of those that would be killed by a given gun. You see, the U.S. has, by far and away, the greatest number of guns per capita (an order of magnitude or more greater than others) and yet does *not* have the highest rate, or even close to it, of intentional homicide with a firearm. One who is inclined to reflect on the relationships between available data and reality might reasonably conclude from such data that homicide rates and gun availability are not proportionally related. (Such a person would be correct.) That notwithstanding, the most prominent opening argument of the gun-control crowd is that it is the fact that the U.S. is awash in guns that cause the crimes with guns. If that were the case, we should have between 10 times and 100 times as many murders as we do but, we don’t.
So what? How do we communicate this to the anti-gun person. Sadly, I don’t know. I can’t seem to move them with facts and, though I know that people are emotional creatures, I can’t seem to figure out how to steer those emotional responses toward reason. I suppose, that is the so-called “human condition”.
As to the implied question of the OP, “how to stop it?”, my response is: Overwhelming opposing force. That response is apparently, however, disliked by many. I can’t fix that. I will, however, when asked, “How would you respond to an active shooter?” continue to reply, “Take cover and return fire.”
“For one thing, I don’t really care about “mass shootings.” ”
You’re the problem, then. Why should anyone listen to your opinion if you are just openly stating the fact that you have no regard for the life of the innocent?
Note that I did not say I don’t care about lives lost, I do. I do not care about the mode causing the loss. Whether or not the mode is “mass shootings” does not interest me because that particular mode is no more meaningful than “plane crash” or “hurricane” or “starvation”. Your response indicates that you are one of the types who neither read nor comprehended the rest of the post. The emotional impact of “mass shootings” is large but the numerical impact of them is vanishingly small.
I never stated that I had no regard for the life of the innocent – I lament every innocent life lost – regardless of how. You have, as is typical, created a narrative in your mind that simply does not exist.
“that particular mode is no more meaningful than “plane crash” or “hurricane” or “starvation”.”
It ABSOLUTELY is more meaningful. Mass shooting is blatant disregard for human life (arguably, so is starvation) – however deaths due to mass shootings are targeted and vile. If you can’t parse the difference between a 6 year old being shot and killed at school and someone dying in a hurricane, I really don’t know what to say.
@ Disgusted
Nice try with the emotional appeal to the 6 year old (which is 0.0000000001% of the deaths you are feigning outrage about) but it still does not change the fact that you A) failed to comprehend my argument and B) have completely validated it by your inability to discuss anything in a reasonably dispassionate manner.
Disgusted let me save you a lot of time given how government control over things goes. All of them and even then over as much dead as needed.
Disgusted,
You are quite stupid. Is a six year old killed by a tornado inOklahoma LESS of a tragedy than a six year old killed by a random, drive-by shooting? Or, say, a train full of toxic chemicals derailing in his town and being ignored by the people SUPPOSEDLY there to prevent such tragedies? What if he dies of juvenile leukemia? Or his mom has one too many glasses of wine before she picks him up at school, and crashes on the way home?
ALL deaths are tragedies. The source/cause of the death is . . . irrelevant. Is a kid dying in a pool drowning somehow LESS of a tragedy than a kid dying of cancer? Why (show your work).
Take your sanctimonious horseshit and shove it where the sun don’t shine.
many occur where there are no signs prohibiting firearms, but state or locallaws DO prohibit them and the killers know this. Of course, this tend to convince the law abiding that NOT taking my gun into that place might be safer for me……. or not going there armed, or not going there at all.
My state flat prohibits firearms i n bars and places where more than half the revenue is from booze. Next door state does not prohibit arms inside the bars and similar places, but DOES tell me when I am in there and have my defensive sidearm I may NOT DRINK. I almost never go to bars in my hoe state, but I DO go into them in the neighbour state, armed, and am fine with not drinking. In my home state there have been a number of armed robberies in bars, but hardly ever i the neighbour state.
I’ll figure you pid attention to Rob’s piece above and thus can figure out WHY the marked difference between the two states.
We KNOW for certain that the Aurora Colorado movie murderer deliberately selected THAT theatre because he knew THAT theatre prohibited arms inside. He KNEW that NO ONE would be armed in there. COlorado law provides that if anyone violates a gun free zone policy there are serious criminal penalties. So we who would carry our handgun everywhere don’t go there. And THAT is precisely WHY no one could shoot back..because the STate of Colorado SAID SO. My state is different. If a place of business is posted no guns I can walk on in anyway and as long as the staff there are unaware of my armed status everything is fine. If they DO happen to realise I am armed the worst they can do is ask (ASK, not demand) that I remove my firearm from the restricted area. If I do not they can then call the coppers who will then “ask” me to leave. IF I were silly enough to refuse the worst can happen is being charged with “criminal resspass” a misdemeanour offense. If I leave no one can do anything. I can even take my gun out to the car put it there and come back in without it.
There was one incient stoped in progress in a mall with “no guns in here” signs. Killer brought in a gymn bag with his rifle and about 400 rounds for it, all prepped in mags in his bag. He shot and killed two innocents, another man heard the gunfire and quickly moved TOWARD it. He drew and aimed at the kiler who saw him, turned, took his rifle and went down a hallway and killed himself. We all knew the signes were mere suggestions. That was 12 years ago, those same bogus signs are still there, and still ignored by everyone know who goes there, including myself. No question that perp was ready and determined to take out a few hundred if he could. He knew those gun free zone sjgns were there, and figured everyone else would observe and obey them. He was tpo stupid to bother to learn those signs had no “teeth”. Silly goofus figured he’d be the only one armed in there. He is forever wrong on that score.
How much regard to YOU have for the 100,000 lives “lost” each year by the means of fantanyl overdose? I would guess you do as well support programmes to take care of “homeless” people as they go about their chosen lifestyle……. learn of the connexion between these twofactors.. homelessness and fentanl overdose deaths. At well above TEN TIMES the rate of ALL firears deaths other than deliberate suicide by gun. YOUR tx dollars almos certainly hepo support publically funded drug injection sites in or near the homeless camps. HIGHLY illegal activity anyway but somehow this gets a pass. And prolongs the battle against this drug.. taken across the southern border with Mexico sometimes over a tonne per day.
There IS no cnstitutional right to poisining yourself with narcotoc drugs. There IS one that guarantees our right to arms, unfettered.
“There IS no cnstitutional right to poisining yourself with narcotoc drugs.”
Liked your challenge regarding lives lost at 2 – 3X that related to firearms. Not sure you are correct about no constitutional right to use drugs.
Laws need constitutional authority. One wonders at the delegated authority to regulate drugs. The full list of “constitutional rights” are contained in the 9th and 10th Amendments. Drug/poison regulation is not specifically delegated to the central committee.
Lacking direct delegation of power from the then States, to the central committee, such authority must be derived from some other delegated authority. Deriving authority is strictly a matter of “majority rules”, i.e. classic democracy. Deriving authority is simply an opinion backed by coercive force.
Sam,
Hear, hear! I have no interest in doing drugs – I just vehemently deny that whether I do or not is any of the government’s damn business.
Why I can’t be a “conservative” – unless you can show DIRECT impact from my behavior on YOUR life? You are welcome to your opinion, and you are welcome to go peddle it somewhere else. Unfortunately, you don’t always get to pick your allies.
While it may be true that mass shootings represent a small fraction of firearm-involved killings, they still have a significant impact on our society. The emotional toll they take on victims and their families, as well as the fear they instill in the public, cannot be discounted. Additionally, while mass shootings may not be the leading cause of gun deaths, gun violence overall is still a major problem in the United States. In 2019 alone, there were 39,707 gun deaths in the US, including homicides, suicides, and accidental deaths (source: Everytown Research).
The argument that the quantity of available guns does not cause a higher body count is not supported by evidence. A study published in The Lancet found that countries with higher levels of firearm ownership have higher rates of firearm deaths. The study also found that the United States had the highest firearm ownership rate and the highest rate of firearm deaths among developed countries (source: The Lancet).
The suggestion that the solution to gun violence is “overwhelming opposing force” is not only impractical but also dangerous. Studies have shown that individuals with firearms are more likely to be involved in lethal altercations than those without firearms (source: JAMA Internal Medicine). Additionally, armed bystanders are often mistaken for the perpetrator by law enforcement, leading to further confusion and potential harm (source: The Trace).
While mass shootings may be a small fraction of gun deaths, they still have a significant impact on our society, and gun violence overall is a major problem in the United States. The idea that the quantity of available guns does not cause a higher body count is not supported by evidence, and the suggestion that the solution to gun violence is “overwhelming opposing force” is both impractical and dangerous. It is important to have a fact-based discussion about gun control and to consider evidence-based solutions that prioritize public safety.
Sources (if anyone cares)
Gun ownership and homicide rates: A comparison of U.S. states – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3828709/
The relationship between gun ownership and firearm homicide rates in the United States, 1981-2010 – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4318286/
“Gun ownership and homicide rates: A comparison of U.S. states – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3828709/
The relationship between gun ownership and firearm homicide rates in the United States, 1981-2010 – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4318286/”
Both have been debunked by independent researchers, Rand, and Pew.
but you did a nice dacian’esq copy-n-paste job.
🤣👍
“In 2019 alone, there were 39,707 gun deaths in the US, including homicides, suicides, and accidental deaths (source: Everytown Research).”
In 2019, there were 36,096 fatalities in motor vehicle traffic crashes. (https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/nhtsa-releases-2019-crash-fatality-data)
Where’s the outrage? Where is the Everytown Against Automobile Deaths organization?
Why are deaths from “mass shootings”, more immoral than deaths from automobile operation? Every death from firearm usage is due to human activity. Every death from automotive vehicles is due to human activity; different categories of death, but the same source.
If only one life is saved by a someone legally in possession of a firearm, legal firearm ownership is worth it.
Sam: I thinkz mos’ of doe’s killa carz are P.O.N.T.I.A.C.’s and dat stans’foe Por ole mis’undastood Opressed peopul,tinks itza kadalik and dea be pro’tekted by the gvment ’cause they been unda da thumb of the White massa’s foe 2 long and de shud git rep-ar-ationz because de are damaged by da hole or-deal….. So the Dimz throw money @ them because the FEEL Sorry for their ancestors treatment of the …potential..voters…I mean pea-pul.
Too much?
I’m just callin’ a spade a spade here….
Now, Too Much?
Nobody talks about what REALLY is the friggin’ problem here. Its all S*** stirrin’ and CONTROL here. If the Dimz really gave a…Hoot about anything ( mass murders, Crazy Trains,Bizarre US-man made earthquakes) but THEIR TOTAL DOMINATION AND CONTROL over US things could possibly change for the better. But it won’t because the woke-sters when trying to talk to them, reason w/ them are already jammin’ finga’s in their ears and chanting La, La, la, la, la!I can’t hear you!
Very irritating.
“Additionally, while mass shootings may not be the leading cause of gun deaths, gun violence overall is still a major problem in the United States. In 2019 alone, there were 39,707 gun deaths in the US, including homicides, suicides, and accidental deaths (source: Everytown Research).”
I challenge your notion of “major problem”. Ignoring, for a moment, that you have included suicides, which I consider to be independent of means, (and, btw, upends your Lancet study), the total, still, is 39,707 out of 330,000,000. A rate of 0.00012. What percentage of the population confers the status of “major”?
If, as we should, we eliminate suicide from the equation (unless you think people who wish to take their own lives are too stupid to figure out how to do so without a gun) then we are talking about roughly, historically speaking, 2/3 of those deaths. That is, .66667*39,707 = 26,471. So, 13,236 homicides. Some intentional, some justified, some accidental but, we’ll ignore those distinctions and go with the total. So, 13,236/330,000,000 = 0.0000401. That is your chance of being killed by a firearm you aren’t holding in the U.S. in a given year. Again, define “major problem”.
(Please note that I didn’t even mention that “Everytown Research” is not exactly an unbiased source.)
“In 2019 alone, there were 39,707 gun deaths in the US, including homicides, suicides, and accidental deaths (source: Everytown Research).”
around 50% of “Everytown Research” ‘homicides’ were valid legal justified self/home/other defense by defensive gun use, AKA ‘justified homicide’. the like to conflate and give the impression it was all murder and thats not true. about 18% of their ‘research’ was criminal-on-criminal. the rest were a combination of justified police shootings and murder/manslaughter types of killings by others.
No longer relevant unless we have an overthrow of the rule of law and a lot of Americans realizing disarmament is not in their best interests. If you want better numbers focus on the causes of social ills not the tools some misuse.
I’m really sorry “Curious Gun Owner” (If that’s who you really are😋)…But after you stated: ….”.including homicides, suicides, and accidental deaths (source: Everytown Research”). I must have developed a brain bleed, serious TBI or just plain old IDGAF! You seriously come on here with stats and s*** using Bloomdead’s “Everytown”! ??? Really??? That may get you drinks bought in your local Marxist/ Satanist watering Hole but here you just get filed away under my favorite heading of dacian/ Minerva blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah
Um, what were you just sayin’? See we already moved on.
But thanks for playin’
every single thing you state is incorrect.
Curious,
A fair observer might suggest that these “events” have an impact out of proportion to their ACTUAL statistical significance because of the way we react to them. The MSM goes apeshit, and we get wall-to-wall coverage (complete with pictures and life story of the perp) . . . in a week where a couple dozen teenagers and young adults died from gang violence in Chiraq, or St. Louis, or Atlanta, or Detroit.
This nonsense about how muFch “worse” mass shootings are is emotional blackmail. I have NO obligation to feel differently about a kid getting shot at school in a “mass shooting” than I do about a kid dying in a drunk driving accident.
Don’t presume to tell me how I am supposed to react to a death, because of how YOU feel about it. You can f*** right off with that, chief.
“The suggestion that the solution to gun violence is “overwhelming opposing force” is not only impractical but also dangerous”
Really? How do you know? Where has this strategy been implemented? Where has it failed?
Why don’t you just say what you want to say? “I don’t like guns and no one should have them or use them.”
That is, after all, just as well supported a statement as ” “overwhelming opposing force” is not only impractical but also dangerous.”, according to you.
what’s changed is one’s personal sense of safety…and the likelyhood of becoming a victim of an individual criminal act…not a mass shooting that most of us will never experience…are you as safe venturing out of your house as you used to be?….or in your house, for that matter?…probably not…and perception has become reality..
“How do we communicate this to the anti-gun person.”
It cannot be done on any measurable scale because “If gun control saves only one life, it is worth it.”, trumps all other considerations.
Well, yeah, that is kinda the problem. i have countered with, “If uncontrolled gun possession saves only one life, is it worth it?” The response is usually something along the lines of, “guns are for murder-death-kill and are evil,” so, I’m not sure if that is the proper approach – even though it is an air-tight logical trap.
Really, the best I have come up with is to question the anti about their knowledge of guns and their various uses and capabilities. They usually, sometimes proudly, profess ignorance. At that point, I invite them to learn – in the form of a trip to my house to see and handle some guns, learn how they function and are used and/or a trip to a range to fire a few. Many, probably most, have refused. Some, however have accepted, a few have learned and a couple have changed their minds. I think that is all I can hope for.
“…and a couple have changed their minds. I think that is all I can hope for.”
Recommend starting here, and watching all five videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlDWzN6TW5Y
Ha, I’ve actually already seen all five and they are fantastic. There is some real truth, and a bit of fanciful fiction, in that series but, overall, I say 10/10, would watch again.
people died to preserve your right to have that gun…it was a core issue in the founding of this nation…therefore it is precious and should be defended…whatever the cost…
“people died to preserve your right to have that gun…it was a core issue in the founding of this nation…therefore it is precious and should be defended…whatever the cost…”
No argument, here.
YES!
Leftists don’t care about “gun violence” victims; only the useful idiots believe the politicians. Leftists want to disarm us so they can control us, and are using the blood of the victims to achieve that end. Leftists don’t want to solve the problem; the dead bodies are way too convenient to use for their nefarious ends.
gun free zones, defined:
“gun (gŭn) free (frē) zone (zōn)
* Trap in which people congregate and are falsely promised safety by a make believe force field of a ‘No Guns” prohibition.
* A place where people are disarmed and not permitted self-defense with firearms.
* Hunting grounds for predator criminals where defenseless prey is guaranteed by law.
* Place where existing laws against violent crimes do not work to prevent violent crimes the laws are touted to be able to prevent.
* Places designed to attract violently mentally ill predators.
* Places where police forces cease to operate to protect before the fact of a violent crime as they are touted to be able to do by politicians implying.
In the Journal of Threat Assessment and Management, 7(3-4), 135–156. (Lankford, A., & Cowan, R. G. (2020)) ( https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Ftam0000151 )
… Cowan writes of their research they “…closely analyzed public mass shooters who attacked in the United States from 1966 to 2019 and found that correlates of mental illness were approximately equally common among perpetrators, whether they had been coded as mentally ill or not.”
Forensic psychiatrists James L. Knoll IV, MD, and George D. Annas, MD, MPH, of SUNY Upstate Medical University in Syracuse New York, both leading authorities on the mental health aspects of mass shooters, summed it up for the issue for the mental health community various studies on various aspects in terms of mass shooters…. Although mass shooters may not meet DSM-5 criteria for a recognized disorder, “they do have an ill-defined trouble of the mind for which the mental health field has no immediate, quick-acting ‘treatment,’” – in other words, mass shooters do have mental illness driving them but not something clearly defined and for which the mental health community basically has no treatment.
mass shooters seek soft targets…simple axiom…yet so often ignored…a mass shooting in a room full of armed people is simply not possible…
@.40 cal Booger
“but to continue…”
Again with the statistics and facts. You (meaning anyone) cannot persuade people who believe in truth over facts; might as well be talking to a doorknob.
I’m not trying to persuade anyone. My time is not worth trying to persuade emotionally based confirmation biased people, especially the ones that post under two or three different names. Its like trying to persuade UFO conspiracy people that an advanced alien civilization with the technology to travel at close to light speed across interstellar distances did not arrive in Earth orbit unobserved and undetected to dispatch a fleet of small, easily detectable balloons into our atmosphere – they just can not comprehend its not aliens from another planet.
What? How could it possibly not be aliens? I guess you don’t believe in the Loch Ness Monster either, huh? I’m speechless.
(This is my feigned disbelief face)
foolish and gross denial to deny the mere existence of UFO’s…when they can fly over the nation’s capital and we’re powerless to prevent it…they’re there, all right…as to who or what they are, their point of origin, their purpose in being here and whether it ultimately affects us in any way all remain open to conjecture….
oooh, the quadfecta.
they’re there they are their
Don’t need guns to kill large amount of people in one time… Truck plows into crowd in Nice, France, at least 80 dead and scores injured https://news.yahoo.com/truck-plows-crowd-nice-france-many-injured-paper-213412656.html
@Disgusted
“Mass shooting is blatant disregard for human life…”
Dead is dead, regardless of the reason. No death, regardless of the cause, is greater than another. A dead child, or a dead adult, both are human lives ended.
If a legally armed person saves one life, legal firearm ownership is worth it. Just ask the persons who escape death by intervention of a legally armed individual, if those not dead would prefer the legally armed individual had not intervened.
You have, apparently, failed to understand that the “if it saves just one life” argument is a one way street.
“You have, apparently, \ failed to understand that the “if it saves just one life” argument is a one way street.”
Nah. Just refusing to forfeit that ground.
+1
“Nah. Just refusing to forfeit that ground.”
Doesn’t matter which way they point the arrow, you are only going one way. If it isn’t convenient for them, then they need to compromise and leave the sidewalks. After all they were all about compromise.
mass shootings are often attention getting devices…these people cannot tolerate their grievances being ignored…
“mass shootings are often attention getting devices…these people cannot tolerate their grievances being ignored…”
Kinda confused about my reaction to mass shooters (by whichever definition).
I am totally opposed to the death penalty (if the shooter is captured and convicted), but not unwilling to endorse shooting those captured in the back of each knew. The conflict is that I also endorse placing all prisoners on a national body part donor list; destroying knees would be wasting what could be valuable to a non-prisoner.
While our journalists should acknowledge that they encourage mass murders by giving the killers so much publicity, they should also acknowledge that the preferential publicity that they give to mass killers that utilize specific weapons influences what weapons mass killers chose. the nutcase who uses an AR-15 to kill half a dozen people will get ten times as much publicity as the maniac who uses a shotgun to kill two dozen people.
Shhh, you are using “counter-narrative” speak.
Well the only mass murderer that I can think of in the United States that was made famous by the media was Janet Reno.
Ba dum tiss and 1
Does anyone know why I can’t post a “plus” sign. I’ve tried several syntax variations and, it just won’t work. So, that was supposed to be “plus” 1.
++++++++++++++ Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm 🤐
Argh!
Florida sheriff Grady Judd advises shooting mass murderers “graveyard dead”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UP1tOCtHo0
Does not do us any good when the Rino’s after the event last summer through us under the bus only to pass more gun control. When the Rino’s know it will not stop anything. We need our elected officials to have the back bone to say no to more gun control that has never worked.
I’ve been thinking about this for a minute. For whatever reason, this thread has gotten my hackles up. For some time, as long as I can recall, we, the pro-gun, have been responding on the defensive to the anti-gun. (That is possibly only my perception, I accept that) I would like to propose a shift in attitude. To that end: To all you anti-gun, pro-gun-control people out there, propose your solutions. Post your best argument. Tell us exactly what it is you want, why you want it and how you propose that it will be implemented. In detail, and by “in detail” I mean everyday, nuts-and-bolts, where the rubber meets the road, detail. So, you want to ban a class of guns, fine, how, why? How will you identify them, how will you identify their owners, how will you collect them from those owners, what will you do to those who do not comply? Enough of the “Do Something” rhetoric – propose actionable ideals and implementable processes. What, *exactly*, do you propose and how, exactly, do you plan to implement those proposals? What, *precisely*, do you want?
If your aims are virtuous, you should have no reservations about stating them openly. What, exactly, do you want and what, exactly, are you prepared to do to realize your goals?
In case I have not been clear enough, I will ask the question this way: Do you intend to kill me if I do not acquiesce to your demands?
MyName –
“In case I have not been clear enough, I will ask the question this way: Do you intend to kill me if I do not acquiesce to your demands?”
Yes. Yes they do. Not only do the Fascist intend to kill you and any other gun owner who refuses to comply they want to erase your very point of view, and the history behind it, from existence.
In their twisted narrow minds the only way to “fix” the USA – with that fixing defined as finally calling the guilty to account for the original sin of “racism” and the minor sin of economic freedom (capitalism) – is a complete undoing of the Founding. And the only way they can create their Fascist/statist/leftist paradise on earth is by disarming those with a contrary viewpoint.
So there’s really no reason for any of the likely suspects to give you the answer you asked for – whatever systematic scheme they concoct to disarm the American people, there’s only one way to implement their Final Solution…same way it was done by all the other totalitarian governments during most of the 20th century – exterminate the “undesirables” standing in the way of (fill in the blank) lebensraum, worker’s paradise, purified society, equality of outcome, devotion to the Emperor…
Yeah, you might be right. Problem for them is, I have no intention of going quietly. Hmm. I guess I’ll have to conceive means to ensure the existence of me and mine under that totalitarian regime. I should get on that – cheers.
some people have a visceral distaste for guns…and i’ve always respected that…but respect for my position has to factor in, as well….disarming law-abiding people is an offensive act that must be resisted..the concept that “all gun owners are criminals or potential criminals”….is a commonly held fallacy among the anti-gun group… but it drives their thinking…and their actions..
@MyName
“…overall, I say 10/10, would watch again.”
Amazing it has yet to be deleted from YouTwitFace.
I think TwitYouFace already banned it but, some of them are behind the curve.
Disband the FBI so it can’t continue to groom these mass shooters
Put insane people, including trannies, back in insane asylums
And as I am sure many have pointed out, get rid of “gun free zones”
Illinois has one thing going for it and it’s this.
“GUN FREE” zones must be posted unless they are in Illinois statute.
The sign used MUST be a conforming sign.
https://www.ispfsb.com/Public/Signage.aspx
If the sign does not meet all of the criteria, it is nonconforming.
It can be ignored like the sign at the top of this article.
There a bunch of places that have nonconforming sings and I ignore them.
Shockingly most police know about this and the worse that can happen is you get trespassed.
If it’s a corporation with a phone call you can undo the trespass.
IOWs most “gun-free” zones are not legally gun-free so just kill the mass shooter.
Problem solved.
ignore the signs…just hide it better…absent an actual checkpoint, it’s sound advice…
I agree that concealed means concealed but if the business see’s your gun and wants to be pricks you can be charged with a Class B misdemeanor. Second time Class A. If you do it three times you lose your CCL and another Class A.
There are a lot of instructors and a website (Illinois Carry) that have the wrong interpretation of this law but when I took my refresher it was taught by a guy that was ex ISP and also taught ISP officers the nuances of the Firearm Concealed Carry Act and especially signage.
I’m not fond of handcuffs.
Yall got any “shooter-free zone” signs up there?
I have a Fuck the dog, Beware of Owner sign on my back 6 foot wooden gate.
It has a shotgun image on and I do have two German Shepherds.
It’s conforming.
“I’m not fond of handcuffs.”
mass shooters don’t mind “handcuffs” at all – and that’s the problem with ‘gun free zones’ and the laws that create/allow them and their existence.
Basically;
You will obey the law and disarm, and overall gun owners are more law abiding then any other sector of society including police officers. And you are that way, as are gun owners overall, because you have a personal stake and moral sense of right-wrong in terms of respect for the effect upon you personally of not following the law. That is the only real power behind the law, its not that a law exists which gives it real power but that there are people who will obey the law for what ever reason.
Mass shooters though, even if they might be a ‘gun owner’ or in the sense of possession, will ignore the law and arm up and violate the law not caring about the right-wrong in terms of respect for the effect upon them personally of not following the law and they are mentally ill.
The overall effect is the law and the gun free zones they establish, and ‘gun free zones’ without the force of law behind them (because the majority will still disarm not knowing the nuances involved), guarantees defenseless prey for mass shooters.
@YourName:
Taking away the constitutionally guaranteed right of a Citizen is VIOLENCE, and
Wokeness is all about assigning BLAME.
We need to hop on the WOKE wagon and monetize this MacroAggression.We should sue the crap out of Alec Baldwin, Joy Behar, Chuck Schumer and anybody else who helped advance this modern day slavery.
Wokeness is the GIFT of the Left. We need to use it on THEM.
“Innocent Bystander” Seriously? LOL. At least try.
@Guardian Angel
“Very irritating.”
But, very entertaining if you know what you are doing.
Yeah, this is great theater, but I don’t want to see this play again……
Concerning the idea of killers wanting to be celebrities:
give teachers and staff another option — net guns. They’re great for taking down four-footed animals and work just as well on the two-footed kind. If teachers don’t want to carry guns with bullets, train them with guns with nets.
And then once a would-be shooter gets taken down that way, just cuff him in the net and drag him out of the building like a nuisance animal pest, no nae given, just call the perp an animal and let the media show the picture of the captured creature being dragged away like so much trash. I wouldn’t even unbundle them to put in a police car, just toss the whole bundle in the back of a police van the same as for hauling away some road-kill.
As an in addition to kind of option sure why not. Would probably take a lot of additional development but it does appeal to fans of various comics and video games and would love to see such an option exist so long as it is not the only one. I would suggest an integrated taser system to further immobilize a subject within the net but one engineering puzzle at a time especially when having a lethal backup weapon would still be critical.
I actually looked for a net gun with built-in taser; no luck. But a taser would make a great secondary: if the guy moves while netter, zap him!
I was just thinking in terms of how many of these guys want to look like some sort of hero going out in a blaze of glory, and how humiliating it would be to be dragged out and tossed in a police van like so much meat — though if wildlife people would cooperate, toss the guy into a wildlife truck and tell the press they had to remove a predatory animal from the premises! I’d bet that mass killer rates would drop substantially if the picture on TV was would-be perpetrators of slaughter being dragged out like a wild animal. Knowing there are guns around isn’t going to be a deterrent for about a third of these guys because they plan on ending up like Butch & Sundance. If they instead envision getting dragged out in a net like carrion hopefully they’ll decide on a different hobby.
I was also considering the fact that a lot of teachers aren’t going to want to have a lethal weapon at hand, but would be willing to use a non-lethal one, along with school districts that aren’t going to go along with staff armed with guns but would likely jump at the option of non-lethal defense.
There are a number of producers and models, all intended to immobilize the target; they come with different-sized nets and different ranges — there are even net “rifles” effective up to sixty yards. The only concern I have about them is if the killer has a pistol in hand that the net might not immobilize, though the net wraps tightly since one of the goals is to ruin the target’s balance so they fall and that probably wouldn’t leave the target able to aim. And while they’re no match in speed for a bullet, the nets have velocities ranging from 45mph to 75mph, fast enough that unless the killer is looking and facing the right direction already there won’t be time to re-aim and shoot the defender.
One variety also has a bright flash that does nothing good for the target’s vision, and several have the weights that pull the net large enough to not just trip the target but knock him over. They all fire with a loud bang, but at least one actually sounds like a shotgun being fired (I can’t find it now but I recall seeing one that uses actually shotgun shells with slugs modified to pull the net). Heck, there are a couple of versions where the net loads in a barrel meant to replace a shotgun barrel! and I saw a smaller version that goes on a .45.
Oh — there’s a spendy version with the net coated in an air-activated sticky coating so it sticks hard to what it hits — clothes, arms, hands, guns, wall, chair….
Plus several police agencies have reported that armed bad guys stand down when one of these was just pointed at them; all said they were terrified of what it might be since it was plainly a gun but not any kind they’d ever seen.
So it’s psychological warfare in two directions: deter would-be Butch & Sundance types, and appeal to schools opposed to guns.
And successful uses would look great on the evening news!
Ideally would have teachers armed with whatever they were willing to carry but I do acknowledge the humiliation aspect for deterrence is worth exploring. My concern is a weaseling out of letting teachers being able to carry guns and being given only potential gimmicks. Or you know typical school board response to security
The same old Far Right paranoiac bullshit. More guns will make you safe. What a load of horseshit. If more guns made us safe the U.S. would be the safest nation on earth but we are the most violent industrialized country on earth because of the easy availability of unregistered guns and our lack of social safety net programs.
Other Industrialized nations have way less homicides and mass murders with guns because they have adopted social safety net problems long ago despite being much smaller and less rich they were willing to spend the money for social safety net programs. They have their crazy people too but they do not have unrestricted access to second hand guns sales which are 75 per cent of America’s problem.
Until we break the power of the Gangster Criminal Corrupt cheapskate Republicans we will never have affordable health care or common sense gun control to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and lunatics its just that simple.
Other nations have solved this gun problem and there is no reason we cannot as well but more deadly weapons are certainly not the answer as the history of a lack of gun control and implementation of civilized social programs in Capitalvania has certainly proven it.
LOL
LMAO even.
Utterly irrelevant.
Yessir. He was drowned by the tide of history. He just is too damaged to realize it. This is the enemy. Pathetic, ain’t he.
l have to wonder what makes people think this is not the safest nation on earth?
Gang violence, outside of that yes it pretty much is.
dacian the demented dips***,
Child, you are a broken record. I no longer need to read any dacian post, I can just imagine the teacher’s voice, in any Charlie Brown cartoon, saying “Capitalvania”, “rightwingers” and “civilized countries”, over and over again. ALL of the bullshit you just bored us with is exactly the same bullshit you’ve bored us with before (MANY, MANY times), that you stole from one of your Leftist/fascist friends, has been debunked (here and elswhere) OVER and OVER again.
Do us all a favor, turd-brain . .. MOVE to one of those “civilized” countries you wank off thinking about, and leave us in peace. You bore the f*** out of everyone here, and you are irredeemably stupid. In addition to being an uneducated moron.
The primary reason that “more deadly weapons are certainly not the answer” is that there are two many people out there with a psychotic fear of guns, so they don’t want other people to be able to defend themselves — even though over the last couple of years in the U.S., almost half of attempted mass shootings were stopped right at the beginning by an armed citizen.
And the problem isn’t guns anyway, it’s the antagonistic relationship between many entities in the U.S. where there’s a goal to “destroy” the other side/guy. That bleeds over into “how to solve a situation” includes violence in the U.S. — but even so, the U.S. isn’t even in the top 50% for homicides per capita, and isn’t in the top 50 for overall serious violent crimes.
The lack of social services doesn’t help, especially mental health care; in countries with robust mental-health system violence of all kinds is significantly lower.
Finally, if you look at crimes using guns per number of gun owners, the U.S. is doing pretty darned well, which also says it isn’t the guns.
Disarming their population and reducing that population to a state of NeoFeudalism, might seem an answer to a Commie like you, but I think you’d change your tune if you were actually forced to live under such a system.
Totalitarianism is the common denominator between Fascism, Communism, Socialism and all of the other isms, including Democracy. Doesn’t matter if it’s a Dictator or a group of Elites ruling. Imagine losing your ability to Troll a site such as this one. Why? Because this site wouldn’t be allowed under the systems you wish so fervently for.
Be careful what you wish for, because there is no Utopia under any form of government, but it’s completely absent under the systems you espouse.
shoot any attacking mfr’s, end of story
@Lamp
“Why I can’t be a “conservative” – unless you can show DIRECT impact from my behavior on YOUR life? You are welcome to your opinion, and you are welcome to go peddle it somewhere else. Unfortunately, you don’t always get to pick your allies.”
I lost the string here. Not seeing your response to me being associated with a comment by Tionico.
In the past, I have taken the position that results of an activity should be the issue, not the action itself. In doing so, I am aligned with your stance.
Possessing a firearm, even pulling the trigger, should not be illegal, but only the illegal result of possessing and pulling.
Possessing any drug, should not be criminalized. Consuming any drug should not be criminalized. If a drug abuser does harm as a result, the abuser should suffer criminal consequences.
Kinda interested in the original string that led you to state, “You are welcome to your opinion, and you are welcome to go peddle it somewhere else.”
Sam,
My apologies for stating it inaptly. Your point is exactly what I was getting at. What I do, without direct harm to you, is my own damn business. Illegal drugs lead to crime, because the junkie has to steal to pay for his fix? Make stealing illegal, and PROSECUTE those you do it. Drunk/stoned parents neglect their children? Child neglect is a crime everywhere, as far as I know. Tweakerds frequently get violent? Hey, let’s outlaw assault and battery.
If we buy into the idea that some other person can outlaw our behavior because THEY ‘feel some kind of way’ about what we’re doing, does that mean I get to do the same thing to them? That’s a slippery slope, indeed, and the Left is busy greasing the tracks.
Punish the actual criminal actions, not the pecadillos you disapprove of. I believe there should be no “malum prohibitum” criminal laws. If you can’t point to an actual victim, directly harmed by the specific activity? It ain’t a crime.
Thanks, as usual, for your insight and patience at my ham-handed effort to make a point.
“Your point is exactly what I was getting at.”
Good that we understand each other, but why did you first conclude we weren’t? Maybe it was I who was ham fisted, in the first place. (and how did Tionico become the example quote you used as a springboard?)
Sam,
And THAT’s where I was being ham-handed. I wasn’t disagreeing with you; we were in vehement agreement. My point, such as it was, is the focus on “morality” for public policy is a fault of BOTH the “left” and much of the “right”. Anyone can construct a “morality”, and claim it is superior to anyone else’s morality. Again, if I can’t point to concrete harm to you, what I do is nunya, even if (especially if?) you disagree. Which is why I ended up a libertarian.
“Anyone can construct a “morality”, and claim it is superior to anyone else’s morality.”
Naturally, my sense of morality supersedes anyone in the world. As the self-appointed Master of All, Second To None, anyone who dares to disagree with me is simply evil, wicked, mean, bad, and nasty.
Not to mention they are also Nudnicks.
And Dumb.
All a “Gun Free” sign means is a”TARGET RICH ENVIRONMENT “ to those who want to kill.
“All a “Gun Free” sign means is a”TARGET RICH ENVIRONMENT “
I think too many people misunderstand the actual intent behind the GFZ signs. The fact that people ignore GFZ signs and kill others is simply more justification for total gun confiscation.
It falls line with “We’ve done everything short of total gun confiscation, and nothing works. Banning firearms is the only answer.
“The only answer” will whip people up to passing a repeal of the Second Amendment. With a high enough body count, it will be possible to achieve the super majority needed to amend the Constitution.
I think everyone under 25 who buys a gun, who signs the atf form that they are not taking mind altering drugs, should be drug tested. Alcohol included. I wouldn’t argue if that was 21 and under.
People attest that they are not psychiatrically impaired, and they should all have their prescription meds checked and psychiatric diagnoses checked on insurance forms.
I think many of the mass shooters are impaired, there is NO psych care of use in the US. Most public psych hospitals are closed for cost savings reasons, and a psych discharge from a private doctors’ office or public hospital is not something that gets registered for a psych deferral. Used to be. Not today. I am a physician, life NRA member, my wife is a psychiatrist.
“I think everyone under 25 who buys a gun, who signs the atf form that they are not taking mind altering drugs, should be drug tested.”
The natural human right to self-defense by any means necessary is absolute, including anyone who can put a firearm into action when required.
Anything else is, “I support the Second Amendment, but…”. Once a single limit is acceptable, any and all other restrictions are valid; they are just opinions.
Requiring a drug test in that situation would be contrary to the 5th amendment because it would constitute testifying against one’s self. It would also be contrary to the 2nd, because the only test it allows is “Are you a member of the militia?”, to which if the person has not been adjudicated mentally unfit in a court of law and is of sufficiently sound body to hold and fire a weapon the answer is “Yes”.
If you want mental health care as a means of hopefully diverting some would-be killers, it can only be done as a program that everyone has to undergo, and it has to be community-based because the militia concept at the basic level is community-based. One approach would be to include a program of universal community-based mental health care based in drop-in centers staffed by trained volunteers and with at least one mental health professional on call, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, in a new Militia Act, which ought also to include a provision that any gun not in use — where “stowed to be accessible in case of criminal intrusion” counts as in use — must be securely stored; since this would be aimed to enhance the discipline of the general militia, and since secure storage for arms counts in the category of arms, this would require government funding, for which the simplest method would be a fully refundable tax credit of up to $1,000 no more than once every five years. “Securely stored” would include trigger locks, locked gun cabinets, locked vehicle trunks, locked gun safes, and other means that requires violating the law in order to bypass.
That would be a good start.
Debating ‘gun control’ with ‘anti-gun’ people is wasting your time and effort. For them, it is a political ideology. Facts, figures, percentages, etc. has no effect on their argument for banning guns. These people have a Communist agenda of wanting to disarm us in order to be able to take control over us without having to fight us. Every single ‘gun control’ argument, politician and organization has the bottom-line goal of disarming the American people so that they can grab power without too much resistance from ‘We the People’. That is why they constantly attack the Second Amendment. They know (better than some pro-gun advocates) that the Second Amendment was written to protect American citizens from their own government. It’s not about hunting, self-defense or protection from bad guys. It is about protecting our freedoms from tyranny by a corrupt government. We are just about there now. Don’t waste your breath on meaningless arguments that won’t change their mind.
Going back to the very first mass shooting at a school in 1966 by Whitman (I consider it the first in which the attack was upon random individuals and not specific targets by a gunman), the various Legislative efforts have failed in every single incident since at prevention. Making schools Gun Free Zones has completely failed, and it can be argued that it has had the opposite effect, and actually contributed to more shootings at schools and elsewhere.
Tha causes of this are Legion, yet there are many raised in the same circumstances that don’t go on to become criminals, thus posing a problem of saying just these circumstances always lead to a life of crime.
We could attempt to psycoanalize this to the point of ad nauseum, and still never come to a definitive answer, but an answer to why, won’t solve the problem.
The simple fact is that unless and until we make schools a near impossible target by hardening the school, and eliminating all vulnerabilities, mass shootings will continue. If that requires metal detectors and shaking down all who enter the school, including the students, then so be it. Train and arm selected staff. Get rid of Resource Officers just biding time till retirement, and employ only those willing to place their life on the line to protect their charges. Enlist responsible members of the community, in aiding the efforts. If paying them is an issue, then offer tax breaks for their service.
We’ll spend billions protecting the Sacks of Schit on Capitol Hill, but until we spend money protecting our children, shootings will continue.
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