I agree that people who do this are sick. I know I am in a minority when I say that I believe that it is a spiritual sickness, but mentally ill is as good a label as any.
I just think saying “insane” provides lawyers with a convenient tactic. Most people don’t understand the difference between “insane” and “mentally ill”, and some of them sit on juries.
You know. This another I see both sides issue. It’s real easy to look at video tape and see that the “black object” was a wallet. But, I’m not there dealing with someone who isn’t listening to me and freaking out because they won’t stop walking towards me and aren’t taking direction while reaching into their pocket.
I watched the one in LA, kid wasn’t doing shit when he was shot, he was waving his hands around his waistline. But, he kept moving towards the officers, he kept forgetting to keep his hands up, he was getting mouthy, and he looked like he wanted to kick someone’s ass. I might have shot him.
The thing I notice in all the videos I’ve seen is that the person talking to the police isn’t listening to them. They are pleading their case, arguing, ignoring, flipping out, whatever.
OTOH, I know people are trained to shoot until the threat is over, why the hell are police mag dumping on someone 10 feet away? The threat is over when the dude falls down and drops the rubber duckie. Michael Brown, I fill that dude with lead, charging at someone is a deadly attack, but these guys that are just standing there looking dangerous? Nah.
You know you want to watch this over and over.
I haven’t fired a gun in… 30 years or so… but I was taught “When in doubt, empty the magazine.” Of course that presupposed I had more ammunition available and was only shooting one target. My guess is some people got a lot of doubt.
Well, New York just got permission from the courts to weed out police academy candidates with high IQs, so that trend will continue.
I suppose my response is look at civilian justifiable shootings. One or two shots, almost no one else gets hit, and the bad guy is still dead half the time.
The police act like they are scared and aren’t sure of themselves. An awful lot of these there are multiple officers screaming over sirens, and traffic, and people yelling. A lot of this really seems like a training and drilling issue. Take some of the money from reconditioning that MRAP and use it to buy some time in a paintball arena, play loud music, run around a lot in uncomfortable clothing and then alternate being arresting team and perp. Keep going all day. Start off by giving points to perps that kill cops, then in the afternoon give points to perps that survive being arrested.
Maybe a little less sensitivity training or working on how to hide your cruiser behind the A&P sign.
Interesting data:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2015/06/19/an-nra-board-member-blamed-a-murdered-pastor-for-the-deaths-in-charleston-yes-really/
In 2012, there were 8,342 criminal gun homicides, compared to only 259 justifiable gun homicides, according to the report.
And last year, an FBI report on mass shootings found that unarmed citizens were three times more likely to successfully stop an active shooter than armed private citizens. Armed civilians stopped only 4 percent of the mass shooting incidents in the FBI’s study.
I think the FBI uses 3 people as a mass shooting. So any shooting that stops at 2 isn’t a mass shooting. I think this is under reported.
Heh, headline is massive click bait. Yes, often people will point to a gun free zone and say that’s why it happened, and if someone can be found that is personally responsible for that zone, they’ll be called out. I don’t think that means he blames him.
Most defensive gun use either requires no shooting, or only enough rounds are shot to make the criminal stop. Unlike the police, most people don’t mag dump then reload and shoot some more.
From the FBI report;
Regardless of the overall trend, these events are still relatively rare. The overall rate of gun homicides is down sharply over the past 20 years, according to a Pew Research Center analysis. Active shooter incidents account for roughly three-tenths of one percent of all gun homicides in the United States.
So more guns cause more crime, but gun crime is down. If you hadn’t put the name of the paper in the link I would have guessed NYT or Washington Post. They only reported from one set of statistics and skewed those their direction.
Lies, damned lies, and statistics. I doubt if anyone will come up with a truly neutral analysis of this sort of thing for another 200 years, if then, since those reports will be used to justify whatever position the analyst is trying to make in the future. I personally feel safer knowing that I could carry a gun if I felt it necessary. And switching murders from Gun Violence, to Knife Violence doesn’t make me feel better.
OTOH, the shooting in France was stopped by three men without weapons. I bet dollars to donuts they would have much preferred to have been armed though.
In a tight, enclosed space? It may have been a liability, especially considering the advantage of 3 vs. 1.
Whether or not it was practical, I bet they wished they had guns. You’re probably right, but I haven’t seen images of the car, considering the staff had room to run by everyone and lock themselves in a separate room I’m wondering how open it was. I’ve been in wide open cars and in claustrophobic ones.
And I’d be willing to bet that they didn’t wish they had guns. It’s not an automatic thing for most people elsewhere in the world to reach for their guns - if I was in that situation it wouldn’t even occur to me to wish for a gun.
I’d also be willing to bet that the other passengers would be thankful they didn’t have guns.
I’m not going to get into the debate about whether guns should or should not be banned in America as I don’t have strong feelings either way.
I will say though that the argument that having more guns and better gun availability will reduce gun crime is completely ludicrous. I know that most gun crime is committed with unregistered guns, but it doesn’t seem like a huge logical leap to assume that more legitimate guns available will also mean more illegitimate guns available.
Apparently, at least one of them was American military, so I’m guessing he had at least some training and familiarity with handling weapons.
Three American soldiers fresh out of the sandbox confronted with a jihadist with an AK47? I’d be very surprised if each of them didn’t wish they had a weapon. I’m not talking about 3 random Frenchmen on the train.
I believe that it is a huge logical leap. Because there are more legal abortions there are more illegal ones? Because there are more legal drivers there are more illegal ones? Because there are more registered cars there are more unregistered ones? I suppose the issue is the fact that most of the time it’s not the gun itself that’s illegal but the person who owns it. A pistol in my hand is perfectly legal, while one in Bob’s hand, who is a felon, is illegal.
In areas in the US where gun control has been strongest the criminal element has had near unrestricted access to guns, where law abiding citizens have had no access. Adding access to legal purchasers doesn’t increase access to criminals except only in the slightest of ways.
Fact is, in the last 20 years gun ownership has gone up, concealed carry has gone up, and gun crime has gone down.
I’m curious why you feel this way. I haven’t heard of any shootings where a bystander, beside the police, shot someone besides the bad guy. Someone who carries a weapon for self defense is a lot less likely to start blazing away than a police officer with legal immunity. I’m sure the other passengers are grateful, but I don’t understand their reasoning. Hell, wouldn’t this have been a lot better if this dude had raised his AK and taken a bullet in the face?
Had they been armed and fired on the guy - what was behind the target that could be hit if they missed?
Somebody who likely would have been killed anyway if no one had tried to stop him.
I’ve never understood this argument. Would I feel absolutely horrible if, in the process of stopping a spree killer, I shot and possibly killed a bystander? Yes. If I could thereby stop the spree right there, and prevent further deaths, I would shoot. I would hope someone would do the same if I were behind the target.
I’m not saying spray and pray is the best option, but the bystander behind your target is just one factor, not a trump card.
The idea that it is better to simply be a victim than risk harming another bystander is math I cannot get behind.
I blame movies for making guns look like bullet hoses where every shot is a kill shot and bodies fly for yards after taking a bullet. Marksmanship varies between can’t hit a barn wall at 5 feet to can shot the penis off a mosquito at 50 feet. Bullets will go through drywall, but a hollow tip pistol bullet will have issues even going through glass and hitting anything hard.
I’d rather get shot full on in the chest with a pistol than shot in the shoulder with an AK. You really have to try hard to kill someone with a 9mm, it’s not one shot one kill unless you are just that good, or lucky. OTOH, while people shot once with an AK aren’t guaranteed to die, their lives will never be the same.
This is insane on so many different levels.
He shoots a reporter, a camera-man, and the head of the chamber of commerce, live, while recording it himself, and then posts the video on Twitter and Facebook?
And is trying to excuse it (and claiming moral superiority?) by saying the reporter made racist comments.
Are we self-destructing as a species?
I don’t think so. One worthless piece of shit, several cowards, and 4 heroes sounds like a pretty good ratio still.
I saw a rerun episode of Hawaii Five-O (the original) a while back where the main character was a pistol.
Oh my god! How did a PISTOL get on our beautiful island?
And it was a one shot, one kill weapon. Even the accidental shootings were immediate kills.
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IT WAS .25 CALIBER