Guns, Guns Guns

TFLYTSNBN wrote: It has been reported that one armed citizen at the El Paso Walmart who was excorting a large number of people to safety was nearly shot by the police.

There was an unidentified random person with a gun running around an active shooting.

OF COURSE he was almost shot by the police.

Wecome back fly. A couple of decades ago I used a friend's Ruger 44 mag carbine, and agree that it was a powerful short range gun. Our anti terrorism police practice with AR 15s, which I believe are the wrong weapon for close work. In our only terrorism siege to date the death toll was three, one hostage killed by the terrorist's shotgun, and both the terrorist and a female hostage killed by the same 223 police bullets.

gcomeau wrote:

TFLYTSNBN wrote: It has been reported that one armed citizen at the El Paso Walmart who was excorting a large number of people to safety was nearly shot by the police.

There was an unidentified random person with a gun running around an active shooting.

OF COURSE he was almost shot by the police.

One of the arguments made against armed citizens is that they allegedly lack the professional training to exercise proper discernment in employing deadly force.

Any cop with even half a brain should understand that in a State like Texas where many citizens carry guns, any mass shooter will be provoking defensive responses from citizens who do not volunteer to be victims. I guarentee you that even in El Paso Texas which voted overwhelmingly for Beta Beto, there were far more armed citizens than mass shooters at the Walmart.. As such, the cops need to evaluate threatening behavior, not just mere possession of a gun to decide to shoot.

Unfortunately; armed citizens have learned that to many police will very eagerly shoot them without considering the possibility that they are the victim. As a result, many armed citizens have decided that while they will shoot to kill any mass shooter that threatens them or their family, they will keep their weapon concealed while attempting to flee rather than attempt to rescue other people.

Daryl wrote:Wecome back fly. A couple of decades ago I used a friend's Ruger 44 mag carbine, and agree that it was a powerful short range gun. Our anti terrorism police practice with AR 15s, which I believe are the wrong weapon for close work. In our only terrorism siege to date the death toll was three, one hostage killed by the terrorist's shotgun, and both the terrorist and a female hostage killed by the same 223 police bullets.

I actually believe that the AR-15 or equivalent is an excellent weapon for police. However; they have to be trained how to shoot properely, have the weapon sighted in properely, and become familar with how the offset between the sight axis and barrel affects targeting. One big issue with the AR-15 is that the sight axis is so high above the barrel. Assuming that the weapon is zeroed at 100 meters, the rifle will shoot 3" low at 10 meters. Some departments zero their AR rifles at 10 meters which results in them shooting 1 meter high at 100 meters.

One local incident in which members of a local SWAT unit confused a security guard who had located a recently active shooter and called 911 for the bad guy. They engaged the citizen at a range of 110 meters. The cops fired about a couple dozen rounds and fortunately scored only one marginal hit.


My personal record is putting a bullet throughthe spine of a running elk at 950 meters. I confess that I was aiming for the heart and I hit the spine right in front of the pelvis. Perhaps it wasn't such an impressive shot?

Of course the lowly lever action rifle has the sight axis just a few centimeters above the bore axis which simplifies sighting in and targeting.

BTW, I frequently practice simulated hostage situations. The goal is to be able to reliably shoot a bad guy in the head while he is holding someone hostage. Think Arnold Schwartzeneger and Jamie Lee Curtis in TRUE LIES. I am a slow shooter but accurate enough to reliably to reliably make this shot.

I can not resist the temptation to post this:

https://gellerreport.com/2019/08/mass-s ... hite.html/

Of course this tally is based on a data set that employs an expansive definition of mass shooter that includes gang members doing drive by shootings.

Of course most "mass shooters" are groups of armed assailants attacking a lone victim.

TFLYTSNBN wrote:
Unfortunately; armed citizens have learned that to many police will very eagerly shoot them without considering the possibility that they are the victim. As a result, many armed citizens have decided that while they will shoot to kill any mass shooter that threatens them or their family, they will keep their weapon concealed while attempting to flee rather than attempt to rescue other people.

Nah, it's actually quite simpler. Most of armed citizens have no training, no preparation & never actually though about being caught in real shooting. So, they react exactly like unarmed citizens; they flee.

P.S. And it is actually a good thing. Because untrained shooter, trying to get the bad guy with the terrified bystanders all around would probably doubled the casualties. Since the absolute majority of American gun owners have no training besides shooting range (and many did not even do that), the only situation in which armed good guy could reliably took out a mass shooter, is when the good guy is standing directly behind bad guy and could shot him in the back.

Reminds me of an Irish firing squad. First form a circle.

Hello,

i'm so happy to be raised in Europe. We don't have to be in the fear of a mass shooting like it seems to happen in the, by the way, less crowded USA, every day.
(In the EU are 88 people living on the area of 1km². In the USA there are just 34 people living on the same amount of space.)
I never owned a weapon, i never will own one and i never ever had the fear that anyone near me is armed.
I always read about 'the right to defend myself'. I don't know anyone who was in need of that.
Whats going wrong in the USA?

Something else:
In another thread someone complained about beeing respectless against David Weber, when cominig in his Forum an critizising the USA.
I wouldn't be here and i wouldn't read his books if in his books would be racist or fascist ideology proclaimed.
And interestingly - the racists and fascists want to keep their weapons.
What does that tell us about them?

Hans wrote:Something else:
In another thread someone complained about beeing respectless against David Weber, when cominig in his Forum an critizising the USA.

Don't take it to heart. It's TFLYTSNBN, do not took him too seriously.

Hans wrote:Hello,

i'm so happy to be raised in Europe. We don't have to be in the fear of a mass shooting like it seems to happen in the, by the way, less crowded USA, every day.
(In the EU are 88 people living on the area of 1km². In the USA there are just 34 people living on the same amount of space.)
I never owned a weapon, i never will own one and i never ever had the fear that anyone near me is armed.
I always read about 'the right to defend myself'. I don't know anyone who was in need of that.
Whats going wrong in the USA?

Just the situation of longstanding problem becoming too political, so no effective compromise between opposing sides could be found.

I still think that one possible solution is an inverse link between population density and firepower allowed. In a city, you can have a .22 six-bullet pistol at most. In the howling wilds, rifles, shotguns and powerful pistols are fine as Americans have to worry about feral pigs, bears, angry moose, buffalo etc.

Since gun-nuts tend to prefer living in isolated areas (back to red-in-tooth-and-claw nature!), this should not seriously inconvenience the majority of the law-abiding citizens.