Put this one in the "dog bites man" file:
An interesting piece on changes to police tactics. The traditional response was bring up the SWAT team, plan it out carefully, then go in. As the matter was better understood, this switched to whoever gets there first goes in immediately -- seconds passing means people dying. To my mind, this is a powerful argument for allowing teachers to be armed. The article ends:
"The other statistic that emerged from a study of active killers is that they almost exclusively seek out "gun free" zones for their attacks.
Now why would that possibly be?
They may select schools and shopping malls because of the large number of defenseless victims and the virtual guarantee no on the scene one is armed.
As soon as they're confronted by any armed resistance, the shooters typically turn the gun on themselves."
Unfortunately, too many in the media and the gun-control community are too stupid to recognize it as obvious. You might think that this startling result could be the basis for a more sensible policy, but judging by the election results, I fear not. Particularly if someone like Eric Holder becomes Attorney General.
This is my shocked face! :o
Better to pretend to be safe and sacrifice children to the false god of the gun free zone than to take responsibility and actually save lives by ending this retarded failed concept.
"Keeping the children safe" by making sure a maximum of them die.
Yet more proof that Rusty Calley is a Democrat.
The difference is, in Case A, statistically 0.0X people will be killed, and politicians will get blamed for allowing guns. In case B, X.0 people will be killed, but no one will blame politicians. In neither case will any of the dead be rich or important enough to have a bodyguard.
Normally I would post something cynical here, but anything I said now would pale in its cynicism to Bob's comment. Good show, sir.
Methinks Bob is on to something.
Perhaps if gun free zones had a reasonably good chance of staying really gun free, the situation might be different? Of course, in a nation with at least one gun in private hands for every adult, it might be a little difficult to arrange that.
Also of course, if privately-owned guns were banned the gun industry would be a lot smaller, so there wouldn't be as many illegal guns either.
Second Amendment? Irrelevant - unless one ignores (which the NRA and fellow-travellers do) the first part.
Second Amendment? Irrelevant - unless one ignores (which the NRA and fellow-travellers do) the first part.
Please stop flaunting your monumental ignorance on this subject. A purpose clause does not nullify the amendment. The Supreme Court recently (and correctly) ruled that "the right of the people" means exactly the same thing in the Second Amendment as it does in the First Amendment.
They may select schools and shopping malls because of the large number of defenseless victims and the virtual guarantee no on the scene one is armed.
That may be. I suspect they also choose these venues because it is an obvious and logical place to find large groups of people. Since many of these shooters tend to like to die in the course of their rampages, I'm skeptical that the fact that the victims are likely to be unarmed is a key factor in their selection of targets.
III wrote: "I suspect they also choose these venues because it is an obvious and logical place to find large groups of people...I'm skeptical that the fact that the victims are likely to be unarmed is a key factor..."
Right. The many solo gunman attacks on places like police conventions, gun clubs, gun shows and such venues supports your ridiculous position.
Since many of these shooters tend to like to die in the course of their rampages, I'm skeptical that the fact that the victims are likely to be unarmed is a key factor in their selection of targets.
Regardless of whether or not they "like to die," they don't like to do so before killing as many people as possible. Having your victims armed tends to short-circuit the process (see the church shooting in Colorado Springs as an example).
Anonymous wrote:
Right. The many solo gunman attacks on places like police conventions, gun clubs, gun shows and such venues supports your ridiculous position.
How would the average gunman even find such a venue? The true equivalent would be to attack a police station, courthouse, or other relatively well defended government building.
Instead it seems more such targets are either convenience or where the gunman works or studies.
Having said that, it does appear that some shootings have been in cases where the gunman found a weak target (like a person not associated with a school in any way, attacking people at a school), but I doubt it is as common as is implied here.
Still, I think there's plenty of evidence given here to indicate the shootings are the result of a gun-free environment.
For example, the two most famous cases, the Columbine and Virginia Tech shootings were by students at the school in question. None of the shooters went after the police which indicates to me that the unarmed nature of the victims was an important part of the strategy behind the killings. Both attacks also seem to have some degree of corraling of unarmed victims. Supposedly, the Columbine attack involved use of thrown IEDs, propane bombs, etc to break up or channel fleeing crowds of students.
Meanwhile the tactic in the Virginia Tech shooting seemed to be first, to chain the exits so help (of the armed kind) couldn't enter. Then the killer walks in and out of classrooms calmly shooting people at almost pointblank range. This strikes me as something that only makes sense in the absence of any armed resistance.
> Perhaps if gun free zones had a reasonably good chance of staying really gun free, the situation might be different?
Like where? The last couple of times that I was in the UK, folks tried to sell me guns.
> Also of course, if privately-owned guns were banned the gun industry would be a lot smaller, so there wouldn't be as many illegal guns either.
The gun industry isn't that big.
FC seems to think that crime uses a lot of guns. It doesn't. A small fraction of the smuggling that brings in marijuana could supply a new gun for every with-gun crime in the US.
And then there's the fact that guns are low-tech. Some enterprising airplane mechanics ran an illegal machine gun factory at San Francisco airport, but the ability to ship for free was their big advantage, not the tools.
There was a time when almost any Englishman could make a decent gun with hand tools.
Also of course, if privately-owned guns were banned the gun industry would be a lot smaller, so there wouldn't be as many illegal guns either.
If privately-owned guns were banned the gun industry would be 3 times what it is today. The vast majority of non-gun-owning people don't own a gun because they don't feel the need. That would change in a hurry if a total ban of the type you describe were to ever take place.Karl? I don't know where you live but in every state I've been in, gun shows put up billboards and take out radio and TV ads.
Police, NRA, and gun-industry conventions tend to be big media events and get coverage all over the local stations.
And that doens't even include the wonders of the Intertubes.
The "average gunman" would have no problem whatsoever being aware of whichever he chooses.
All of that is beside the point, however. The killers go to schools and churches because that's where the Enemy (bully, ex-girlfriend, whatever) is; the body count ends up being very high because in these venues it's a sure chance that the Enemy and the targets of opportunity surrounding him/her/them will be unarmed and defenseless.
Second Amendment? Irrelevant - unless one ignores (which the NRA and fellow-travellers do) the first part.
Fletcher, the United States Supreme Court respectfully disagrees with you:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller
Also of course, if privately-owned guns were banned the gun industry would be a lot smaller, so there wouldn't be as many illegal guns either.
And if recreational drugs were banned, there would not be as many illegal drugs either......oh wait!
There are already hundreds of millions of guns and likely over a hundred billion rounds of ammunition in the United States as well as a black market that can import anything. All this will do is make sure only those who least need firearms have near exclusive access to them.
Is the reaction to armed resistance correct, though?
It seems that shooters' reactions fall into two camps:
When the cops come, the shooters shoot themselves.
But interestingly, in some cases (I'm thinking of the Utah shopping mall, and one of the campus shootings), when it's ordinary (armed) civilians who are trying to apprehend them, they seem to just surrender.
It's almost as though the shooters want the "glory" of going out, guns blazing, Butch Cassidy-style against cops---but don't want the "ignominy" of being taken down by civilians.
This would, again, suggest that if there were more folks with guns out there, that the crazier shooters would be deterred---not by fear of death, but by the "embarrassment" of being taken down by a civilian with a gun.