No, there shouldn’t have been more guns in Tucson.
Adirondack property rights activist Don Sage sent an email to a colleague of mine, arguing that the big problem in Tucson, Arizona was the lack of enough firearms at the event where Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot and six others were killed.
“The shooting in Arizona is just further proof that every citizen must have the right to concealed carry in all 50 states and between states. If the people attending this rally had been armed then Bloomberg/King/McCarthy/Slaughter’s pot-head lunatic would not have been able to kill or injure so many people.”
Sage then veers off into a rant against “constitution, bill of rights hating pro-communists, leftists” and others.
But rather than wrestle with his political views I want to question the basic science and logic of his premise.
First, I do think it’s fair to argue that the Tucson event should have had better security of some kind. Members of congress aren’t usually attended by a police detail, but Giffords had been the subject of repeated threats.
A trained law enforcement officer might, conceivably (I know, I’m being optimistic here) have detected the shooter’s erratic behavior before he began his rampage.
But regardless of whether it was a cop or a civilian, would it have helped if someone other than Jared Loughner had been armed in that crowd after the first shot was fired?
Obviously, we can’t be absolutely sure, but the answer is almost certainly no.
Jared Loughner wielded a Glock 19 semi-automatic pistol with an extended 33 round clip. The weapon is popular in part because it’s easy to draw and fire quickly and efficiently.
He was stopped by unarmed civilians before he was able to reload.
Could a “good samaritan shooter” have gunned Loughner down before he emptied that first clip? It’s very, very doubtful. In this video, a man is able to fire fifteen well-aimed and chosen shots with an identical firearm in about six seconds.
I can’t find details of exactly how long the Tucson shooting lasted, but I’m guessing that it was not much more than ten seconds.
For a good-guy shooter to have intervened effectively, they would have needed to a) draw their weapon and release the safety; b) accurately identify the shooter, not always easy in a chaotic situation; c) find a clear shot that wouldn’t have threatened other innocents; and d) fire accurately enough to hit or disable Loughner without accidentally shooting someone else.
All that in ten seconds, with very little margin for error. The vast majority of armed civilians would have no training in this kind of combat-like setting, especially one that involves a crowd of civilian innocents. In Afghanistand and Iraq, our best-trained soldiers have struggled to avoid “collateral” damage in situations that are far less confusing.
If we followed Sage’s suggestion to the letter, the situation would have been even more chaotic, with multiple individuals wielding (and possibly firing) weapons at the same, with little clear understanding of who might be a perpetrator and who might be another armed innocent.
Bluntly, it’s possible that in the mayhem, those unarmed heroes would have been unable to subdue Loughner. He might have been able to reload and continue his rampage.
Tags: gun rights, legal, poltics, tucson
Just wondering why my post last night at about 6:38 PM, or thereabouts, was held for moderation and then not posted. It contained a couple of links and next to zero opinion. If I’ve been banned for some reason, I would appreciate an email letting me know.
And, Bret, there’s another big difference. You need cars to get to work, chainsaws to cut up trees, etc. etc. You don’t need handguns except to kill people.
As for booze, they did try outlawing that, remember? And Mace, in the form of bear spray, will stop a charging grizzly, so I don’t think I’d need much luck to drive off coyotes with it.
Seems to me that you’re the one with your eyes closed. Peoples lives are worth more than property. Period.
“People die every day from cars, no one talks about outlawing them or restricting them. Same for booze”
We don’t restrict the use of cars and booze?
And, Bret, there’s another big difference. You need cars to get to work, chainsaws to cut up trees, etc. etc. You don’t need handguns except to kill people.
As for booze, they did try outlawing that, remember? And Mace, in the form of bear spray, will stop a charging grizzly, so I don’t think you’d need much luck to drive off coyotes with it.
Seems to me that you’re the one with your eyes closed. Peoples lives are worth more than property. Period.
I think the more Bret post the more he proves the opposite point. Most people have never heard of these incidents but everyone knows someone who has been shot at or killed by a gun, whether it is an accidental shooting or suicide or murder.
That said I’m with Dave C or whoever it was who said he was thinking about getting a handgun. In fact I’m advocating to all my liberal friends to arm themselves.
Peter, IME any post with links get’s the “held for moderation” tag. Dale could tell you for sure.
Mervel, “need” is subjective. When working in the fields it’s far, far more convenient for me to carry a light handgun than to lug a rifle, even a 22, around. To me that’s a need. I’m not a Glock fan, but since they shoot just as accurately as most others, why should I be limited? Especially since I HAVE COMMITTED NO CRIME. As far as self defense goes, in the event someone is in a position where they need to protect themselves or their property should they be limited to an ineffective or less effective weapon? Why shouldn’t a citizen be able to use the same weapon as the police? Is your life worth less because you’re not a cop? Makes no sense to me.
An “assault rifle” is a term used to describe what exactly? I’ve seen everything from AK variants and Uzis to lever and pump action deer rifles. These days any bolt action rifle with a scope is a “sniper rifle”. It’s ridiculous.
And again, we’re coming right back to people who don’t feel the need to exercise a right wanting to apply their values to other people who do and limit those peoples right. That’s simply wrong, or at least that’s the impression most of you here have given me.
Dave, yes, and as I pointed out in another post, there are already reportedly 28,000 gun laws in use across the nation already. I don’t know if you’re up on NY’s gun laws for instance, but it’s not like you can simply walk into a gun store and buy a Glock with the 30 odd round magazine. Now if you’re a crook then that doesn’t matter, it’s the law abiding guy that follows the rules that will always bear the brunt of the law, no matter what it affects. We already have the laws in place, we just need to enforce them, kinda like our immigration laws.
Walker, baloney. You don’t NEED a car to get to work. You could move closer, to within walking distance, ride a bike or horse, or take a bus or train if available or car pool with someone who owns a car. We want cars because it’s convenient, because we don’t want to live close to work, because we don’t want to be limited in what we do. We don’t NEED chainsaws, it’s just faster and easier. We don’t NEED most of what we think we need. We NEED food, water, shelter and clothing. It’s very nice if we can access health care and a way to heat our homes, have a job to purchase goods and services it’s inconvenient or difficult for us to produce. We don’t NEED chocolate, alcohol, tobacco, internet access, malls, a flat screen TV or swimming pool, a lawn mower or ATV, NASCAR, the NFL, Dancing with the Stars, Tango with Todd, Gummy Bears, pot, porn, pizza or 99% of the other things we say we NEED. Gays don’t NEED to marry, they WANT to. We don’t NEED Obamacare, we WANT a cheaper alternative to footing the bill ourselves!
We have certain unalienable rights we recognize in the country. A right and a need are two different things. There is no justification needed for us to have a right, we don’t need them, we simply have them. Those rights are limited, yes, but that has nothing to do with need. We don’t have to exercise them, but the gov’t is not supposed to be able to keep us from exercising them either. Remember? “…life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness…”. You tell me I can’t protect myself or my property then you are limiting my right to life and liberty, to say nothing of my pursuit of happiness. If that is too difficult to grasp I suggest you get a copy of the Federalist papers and work your way through the thoughts of our Founders and why they did what they did. Read Jeffersons or Madisons thoughts. For that matter read Cicero or the other ancients the Founders based their thoughts on.
Good luck stopping a charging grizzly with mace. I just barely stopped the moron that was trying to lop my head off with a sword with pepper spray and I can tell you for certain it has zero effect on Jersey bulls. The joke out west is that one way to identify grizzly scat is that it has bits of Gore-tex and little bells in it and smells like bear spray. As for how you think someone would mace a coyote tearing up a lamb 200 yards away…must be you’re a lot faster runner than any other human I ever saw.
Whoops, forgot this part.
Peoples lives ARE worth more than property. And when someone intent on taking your property decides your life is worth less than the property he’s trying to take from you…well just what do you do then? Tell him you don’t believe in guns? Tell him to go ahead and murder you and your family? Sorry, but curling up and dying isn’t on my top 10 list of things to do.
I just think we don’t need military weapons and I think the state has the right to stop us from owning military hardware.
I am fine with handguns, rifles and shotguns. We have the right to own them. But even on your Glock handgun, do you need a 33 round clip?
Personally I would not use my guns for home self defense, I keep them unloaded and locked up. We have had one break in attempt in 15 years in this home and it was a drunk college student who didn’t know where he was. My dog was a very good deterrent on this guy and I simply called law enforcement and they plus my dog biting him; ran him off. I could have shot him; he was drunk and menacing and tried to push in my back door when I opened it up; but then instead of a funny drunk story my life would be changed because I ended someone’s life even if it was justified. I think you being in law enforcement have had the training to use a gun in that situation so I think that is fine, but most of us would be worthless at it.
So anyway I just think we in the pro-gun movement have gone to far we need some restrictions on who can buy guns and what weapons people can own.
Mervel there was a similar situation near Buffalo last year where a young teacher originally from Old Forge left a party and returned later but went into the wrong house. The home owner shot and killed him. Sad.
Bret: “You know, I can understand the feelings you guys have on this.”
No you don’t. You keep bringing up the gun control thing, like that was the point I was making it wasn’t. I was making the point that over the past two decades, NYC’s violent crime had fallen. Didn’t state a reason. And even with the 2010 murder increase, NYC’s violent crime rate is nowhere near where it was in 1990. It’s still one of the safest places, per capita, in America. I was arguing your facts, not your causality, and not your ideology. There’s no arguing with your ideology. If liberals are for anything, you’re against it. Got it.
Mervel, again, “need” has nothing to do with a right. And I’m not in anyway advocating anyone use deadly physical force unless they absolutely have to. I’m fairly certain I’ve put as much thought into the “what if’s” of that issue as anyone else here and it’s the very last thing I ever want to face. But I also don’t want anyone barring me from being able to protect my family if it ever came to it, or my property. I’ve been through the “drunk kicking my door at 3:15AM” thing a few times too. I’ve also been through finding people in my garage where they never should have been attempting to remove things that were most certainly not theirs! I didn’t shoot anyone then either, or the times I found trespassers well inside my fence lines. I did briefly consider some of Granny Clampetts rock salt when I found snowmobilers had cut a brand new 4 wire fence when there was an open gate not 100 ft away I left open for them to use!
I understand what you’re saying, it’s just that you have to draw a line in the sand sometimes. I’m not budging anymore on this issue.
OA, yes, I realize that, I get going on things sometime and drift. My bad, sorry, I morphed your figures, which are correct, in with someone elses thoughts. However, my point about the Sullivan Law, being one of the most restrictive in the nation, having little effect stands. I did include a paragraph that outlines the “whys” of the crime rates fall. It was Mayor Gullianis efforts at taking a firm stand and the action the NYPD undertook that put the biggest dent in crime.
“Dave, yes, and as I pointed out in another post, there are already reportedly 28,000 gun laws in use across the nation already.”
Right, and how many laws are there relating to cars?
Answer: A whole lot more.
If you want to continue to try to compare guns to cars. Then fine, let’s run with your idea. Let’s restrict gun use exactly the way we restrict cars.
Would you be ok with that?
OK, one last post, and then I shut up.
This Tucson shooting happened in gun-happy, concealed-carry Arizona. If there was ever going to be armed citizens ready to stop a murder in progress, it shoulda been here. And, lo and behold, there WAS a guy packing, and he pulled his pistol, took off the safety and THEN decided that the person holding the gun wasn’t the shooter. He himself said he was real lucky that he didn’t kill the guy who had just taken the gun off of the killer.
Now just imagine another armed citizen or two coming on the scene at the same time. Now there’s two guns drawn for the newcomers to make sense of in a split second. Get the picture? What are the odds of someone other than the killer’s victims ending up dead?
This won’t make the leftist media.
Only right-wing wackos make the leftist news.
[Jan 15th, 2011]
One of the Arizona shooting victims was arrested Saturday and then taken for a psychiatric evaluation after authorities said he took a picture of a tea party leader at televised town hall meeting and yelled: “you’re dead.”
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/01/15/arizona-shooting-victim-arrested-threat/#ixzz1BAJPBizU
Yeah Bret I am not saying that you or I don’t have the right to use guns to protect our families from deadly harm, I also am not saying we can or should outlaw hand guns or long guns.
But don’t you think we should have some boundaries on weapons and who can have them? What is wrong with a waiting period or a background check or not selling machine guns?
typical baloney from jdm. right now the story is linked to on the front page of nytimes.com and is the most recent blog post at talkingpointsmemo.com. earlier today it was the topmost story on huffingtonpost.com, with a big blaring headline “YOU’RE DEAD”. (sorry no way to post screen grabs.)
JDM do you ever read “leftist news”?
Mervel! You can’t buy a machine gun without a special, expensive license. We have boundaries already and limits and laws. In NY we have what amounts to a waiting period of a couple days and that’s after the 2-12 month wait and cost to get a pistol permit, and that’s IF you get approved. What’s your magic answer to the problem? Laws only work for the law abiding.
Dave, in effect we already. We have age limits, limits of who can purchase ammo or guns, instant background checks (that aren’t all that instant), licensing provisions depending on State and locality, Federal, State, County and municipality. Laws on sales, manufacture, storage in some areas, discharge, where and when they can and can’t be carried, how they are used, under what conditions, magazine limits, appearance limits, caliber limits, limits on type and size, how many you can have, how many you can sell or buy.
I don’t have a problem with NY’s system, I grew up with it. Vermonts makes more sense to me and they have less crime/injury per capita. Why? I dunno. As far as your car issue we don’t limit how fast a car is capable of going, how many people it can hold, what it looks like, what powers it, what color it is, what it’s made of, etc. We don;t require a license to purchase it, but we do to operate it. That’s people control. An 16 year old kid can buy a crotch rocket motorcycle capable of going over 200 mph and as long as he insures it and passes a road test he’s on his own and free to go out and kill himself. Why does he need a bike like that? He doesn’t. If we follow your line of thinking we’d govern our autos to 55 mph, limit them to maybe 4 occupants, no 4 wd, turbos. 4 cylinder engines would be fine, they should all be made out of carbon fiber and magnesium alloy (too bad they cost $250K each!), etc, etc, etc,. Plus, you’d have to have a 6 month waiting period before you bought one and you could only drive it to and from work or to a store and all shopping would have to be scheduled and done on the same day each week and only at approved sites. In some localities you could own the car, but not actually drive. You’d be free to store it (under proper conditions and meeting the garage requirements) but if you start it you’d be arrested and jailed.
Far fetched? Yeah, but not too far from what some people have to go through now to own or use a gun.
Walker, your “what if” is no more valid than the “what if” the citizen carrying had been 2 feet from the bad guy when he started shooting.
Bret! Yeah it is state by state.
Bret, that’s not much of an answer.
It’s as much an answer to your “what if” as your implied answer. I mean, what if the shooter opens fire and the armed bystander is 2 feet or 8 feet away? What if the shooter is a good distance from other people? What if? What if the guy is trying to open your daughters bedroom door at 3AM? What if the guy is pointing a gun at you?
You simply refuse to believe anything bad can happen to people that could possible require action. Fine, believe what you will. I spent a lot of years seeing the things you don’t want to believe in happen over and over again.
Well I’ve been alive for 65 years so far, and I’ve never even come close to wishing I had a gun, and I’ve never known anyone who did either.
An important study published in 2009 by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine estimated that people in possession of a gun at the time of an assault were 4.5 times more likely to be shot during the assault than someone in a comparable situation without a gun.
“On average,” the researchers said, “guns did not seem to protect those who possessed them from being shot in an assault. Although successful defensive gun uses can and do occur, the findings of this study do not support the perception that such successes are likely.”
So because YOU feel no need, those who do wish to exercise their God given right, as endorsed by the same Constitution that supports your right not to exercise any right or all of them at your desire, should be disarmed, limited, licensed, imprisoned or whatever because YOU think so? And for every study that shows statistics saying guns don’t save lives I can show one that says they do.
We each choose to believe what we want to. The difference is I’m not advocating taking away anyones rights and limiting their freedom. You are.