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Shooting at an Orlando Gay Night Club

Junebug said:
The only thing worse than people trying to shut down discussion based on technical definitions of cartridges, clips, magazines, etc., is someone trying to shut down discussion based on typos.
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you'd be right if JH were 'furthering a discussion' with his terrible [sic] joke.
 
MysteryMen said:
Ok so we've now gone from "we wouldn't be talking about this" to "there's about a 50% chance we'd still be talking about this." Just want to make sure I'm hearing you right?
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My original post said we "likely" would not be talking about this. As I thought I explained, likely means "more likely than not." My position has not changed. If that is what you are hearing, then you are hearing me right.
 
Junebug said:
The only thing worse than people trying to shut down discussion based on technical definitions of cartridges, clips, magazines, etc., is someone trying to shut down discussion based on typos.
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Give ITC a break. These types don't do well when the narrative breaks. Southern homophobe? Oh, he's got an app for that. This one gets a little tricky for his crowd.
 
jhmd2000 said:
Give ITC a break. These types don't do well when the narrative breaks. Southern homophobe? Oh, he's got an app for that. This one gets a little tricky for his crowd.
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what's the narrative again? lawyer with a terrible sense of humor?
 
ImTheCaptain said:
you'd be right if JH were 'furthering a discussion' with his terrible [sic] joke.
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Exposing the epic failure of the gunphobic approach isn't the least bit funny. Learn to take constructive criticism.
 
gunphobic? i have a concealed weapons permit and 3 different firearms.

what were your policy suggestions to reduce gun deaths in the United States?
 
Junebug said:
but we should at least be honest about the fact that good guys with a gun are going to stop bad guys with a gun.
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Evidence? And its sad that the solution from one side is "deaths, but maybe fewer deaths?" instead of "let's get the guns out of the hands of bad people so we can prevent the situation from happening at all"
 
Wrangor said:
I am not arguing for the 'more guns is the solution' but I can pretty much guarantee you that if a some idiot opened fire in a regular Mississippi juke joint, that he would be put down within about a minute or so. He would probably kill a few, but there would be way too many people packing heat in there for him to survive more than a momentary barrage. The idea that trained gun owners would have a difficult time hitting such a large target from a short distance isn't very realistic. That is certainly not the answer on a large scale in my opinion, but in an isolated case I think the odds are very higher that a shooter would not have near the impact in an environment where multiple adults are carrying firearms. In a 1 on 1 situation the edge is slightly to the advantage of the citizen defender, but if 2,3,4 citizens are carrying then it is almost a certainty that the assailant would be put down.
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tough guys in Mississippi :eek:hnoes:
 
Junebug said:
Do you see that little word "likely" in my original post? It's small, so you might have missed it, but it means that chances are greater than 50% that something happens. The implication is that the odds are less, and, in truth, much less, than 100%. Here, I'll use it in a sentence:

"It is likely that 923 is so adamant about limitations on gun rights that he can't think clearly about practical measures to reduce gun violence."

Answer me this: other consequences aside, do you think it is more or less likely that the killer would have killed 49 people and wounded 53 if just 10% of Pulse patrons had been carrying?
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This post makes use of a huge number of unproven and unprovable assumptions, then piles on top of them unspoken assertions that are contradicted by data.

Let's leave aside for a moment the implications of a society where, at all times, at least 10% of the civilian populace is toting a deadly weapon, and the question of whether such a society is a place where normal people want to live, work, and raise children. Such a society has lost all faith in its fellow citizens and the ability of the government to keep the peace. I personally don't believe such a society is healthy, prosperous, or ideal.

I note that Junebug carefully stated "is it more or less likely that the killer would have killed" the same number of people. Perhaps it is marginally less likely that the killer would have killed as many, but it is entirely possible that the overall number of casualties would have been the same or greater due to friendly fire from people other than the killer. Other posters have already raised the very valid question of whether all these armed people are going to be accurate shooters, and how the citizen-heros and the responding police are to tell the "bad guy with a gun" from the "good guy with a gun". In the dark, while possibly intoxicated, in a crowded nightclub.

We can look to the recent Waco biker shooting for some evidence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Waco_shootout The Waco police have been very, very cagey about this event, and many people strongly suspect a cover up. This was in broad daylight, in the outdoors. Many accounts suggest that once gunfire erupted, the Waco police started firing more or less indiscriminately at anyone who looked like a biker. There were "good guy" bikers who carried weapons for self-defense, they were targets just the same as the "bad guy" bikers. This was the supposedly highly trained Waco SWAT unit, and it is very possible that they killed or wounded a majority of the victims. Gun advocates always display great confidence in the ability of civilians in chaotic environments to pick off the "bad guy" with video-game precision. The evidence suggests otherwise.


Further, guns and gun policy do not operate in a vacuum. Increasing the gun carry percentage to some arbitrary number, say 10%, has knock-on effects that are entirely separate from mass shooter incidents. Mass shooter incidents are, thankfully, relatively rare. The Waco incident demonstrates what can happen in an environment where a large percentage of people are armed with deadly weapons - disrespect leads to gunfire, and then it's real hard to tell who the "bad guy" is. The fact that the US already has more guns than any other country by orders of magnitude, and also has more gun deaths by an order of magnitude, is extremely strong evidence that large numbers of guns increase gun deaths.

This basic fact gives the lie to the assertion that more guns would have a deterrent effect on these mass shooters. This is already the most heavily armed society in the world, and we have the most mass shootings. How much more heavily armed do we have to be to stop them? The answer from the gun absolutists is always "more guns" but common sense, history, and basic logic tell us that a populace armed to the teeth is not a peaceful or harmonious society. Plentiful evidence from around the western world shows clearly that less guns = less mass shootings. That's data. The assertion that more armed civilians is the solution is, at best, a fantasy based on wishful thinking about the efficacy of civilian shooters in a crisis, and at worst, flatly contradicted by the evidence of the rest of the world.

Finally, the post makes the assumption that if just this one variable changed and everything else remained the same, the outcome would have been different. Perhaps so. But the world doesn't work that way. Ask yourself, if a mass shooter wanted to attack a nightclub filled with armed civilians, would he come in dressed in paramilitary fatigues with a rifle and make himself the most obvious target? Or would he, perhaps, come in dressed like a clubber and armed with the same weapon as the clubbers, hoping to start a panicked shootout with lots of casualties? Or would the shooter simply escalate his choice of firearm or switch to those explosives that (we hear from facebook) are so easy to make and will be the weapon of choice if guns are banned? Maybe he'd just pour gasoline at the exits and light the place on fire. Or - and this is the most likely - the shooter would just pick a softer target. There is always a softer target. Security and civilian armament measures extensive enough to put plentiful guns at every site where large numbers of people congregate would change our society to something completely unrecognizable.

TL;DR - it's a crock of shit, and a massive deflection from the real problem. Which is that there are too many guns in America, they are too easy to get, and all the "solutions" put forward by gun absolutists fly in the face of real world evidence and common sense.
 
Junebug said:
That's funniest typo I've seen all week.

I have shot guns. Shotguns, rifles, and handguns. I don't regularly shoot guns.
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not a typo. Winger and I are pals.

So you assertions about shooter accuracy and arming the populace as a deterrent are based on what exactly?
 
ImTheCaptain said:
gunphobic? i have a concealed weapons permit and 3 different firearms.

what were your policy suggestions to reduce gun deaths in the United States?
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Apparently you're not going to read the posts where I said we should restrict access to magazine capacities and restrict access to guns to people who shouldn't have them, while preserving the inalienable right of self defense (and the useful defense of others). That's too bad. That would have been a more fun than your tired act. Actually, most things in life are more fun that your tired act.
 
Wrangor said:
I am not arguing for the 'more guns is the solution' but I can pretty much guarantee you that if a some idiot opened fire in a regular Mississippi juke joint, that he would be put down within about a minute or so. He would probably kill a few, but there would be way too many people packing heat in there for him to survive more than a momentary barrage. The idea that trained gun owners would have a difficult time hitting such a large target from a short distance isn't very realistic. That is certainly not the answer on a large scale in my opinion, but in an isolated case I think the odds are very higher that a shooter would not have near the impact in an environment where multiple adults are carrying firearms. In a 1 on 1 situation the edge is slightly to the advantage of the citizen defender, but if 2,3,4 citizens are carrying then it is almost a certainty that the assailant would be put down.
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a MS juke joint is nowhere near as big as Pulse. Next it is illegal to carry guns in MS bars.

You are also assuming that the guy(s) with a gun will be close enough to get a clear shot. This club is quite big.

It's insane to allow guns to be carried in bars. Yep, let's have drunks carrying loaded weapons in dark and semi-dark venues.
 
"lets's restrict access to people who shouldn't have them" is not a policy suggestion, that's a goal.

kudos for mag restrictions. i guess you're done being helpful, then.

and no one has a more tired act than #neverfails; excepting the bobs, perhaps
 
I see that while I was putting together my long post, we have had several more displays of blind faith in civilian shooters. They have an "edge" in a 1:1 encounter, eh? They have the "element of surprise" against a guy who's coming in loaded for bear who has planned ahead of time and surely is alert for anyone trying to defend themselves? Well I guess the odds didn't work out for the off-duty cop at the Pulse. Seriously, where's the evidence for this assertion? One video of an old guy surprising some thugs who were there to rob the place, not commit mass murder? That's all you have? Child, please.
 
guess which is more accurate: a rifle in the hands of a security contractor or a pistol in the hands of a guy who puts 50 rounds down range once every few weeks and has never trained for a gun-combat situation
 
Wrangor said:
I am not arguing for the 'more guns is the solution' but I can pretty much guarantee you that if a some idiot opened fire in a regular Mississippi juke joint, that he would be put down within about a minute or so. He would probably kill a few, but there would be way too many people packing heat in there for him to survive more than a momentary barrage. The idea that trained gun owners would have a difficult time hitting such a large target from a short distance isn't very realistic. That is certainly not the answer on a large scale in my opinion, but in an isolated case I think the odds are very higher that a shooter would not have near the impact in an environment where multiple adults are carrying firearms. In a 1 on 1 situation the edge is slightly to the advantage of the citizen defender, but if 2,3,4 citizens are carrying then it is almost a certainty that the assailant would be put down.
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And for the other 99.99% of the time when there isn't a mass shooter - how many people are going to be killed, either accidentally or in a drunken rage, when you have a bar full of armed people.
 
ImTheCaptain said:
guess which is more accurate: a rifle in the hands of a security contractor or a pistol in the hands of a guy who puts 50 rounds down range once every few weeks and has never trained for a gun-combat situation
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Accuracy doesn't even enter the equation if the shooter nails Mr. Hero before he can drop his drink and get his gun out of his pants. But Mr. Hero will have the "element of surprise" i guess.
 
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