RL gun copying Shadowrun: individualized safety., Or "$10,000 gun won't shoot when unless near an ugly watc Options

[Sengir]

Sad. Just sad. You can't defend your own views, so all you can do is create straw men to attack. Maybe you can't prove that your ideology is true, but everyone who disagrees with you wants the government to control EVERYTHING! OOoooOOooo!

QFT.

[darthmord]

Good luck to your classmates. I heard about that earlier today, and -- like always -- it puts a cold, hard, ball in the pit of my stomach.

I hope someday, and soon, the powers that be realize a "no gun" sign only stops folks who wouldn't misuse the firearm in the first place.

Therein lies the problem. Gun-free zones (or criminal protection zones / victim creation zones as I like to call them) only serve to disarm the law-abiding. Those who follow the laws aren't the problem. It's the ones who DON'T follow the laws that need to be reigned in, not the guy who is minding his own business being a legal, lawful citizen exercising his rights in every day life.

GFZs only serve to enable and protect the criminal(s) from the law-abiding citizen. Sadly, too many of our political leaders believe this to be a good thing! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/eek.gif)

[pbangarth]

So, instead of spending billions of dollars on a gun control system that doesn't keep people from shooting others, or spending billions to arm everybody, which will have us all shooting each other, how about we spend those billions on removing the root causes of crime and social disaffection, so that nobody wants to shoot anybody?

The first two don't work, so give the pipe dream a try.

[Sengir]

You don't win elections with that, elections are won with "lock them up and forget about them" polemics. Even more so with privatized prisons, nobody sponsors the guy who wants to reduce their "customer base".


PS: And I don't even want to know how a school shooting would end if 50 armed people are roaming the buildings when the police make their entry...

[Critias]

PS: And I don't even want to know how a school shooting would end if 50 armed people are roaming the buildings when the police make their entry...

I don't know, why not take a look at the church and mall shootings where armed resistance has gotten there well before the uniformed police arrived, and see what happened there? Or at the much less publicized (because the body count was so much lower) Virginia school shooting at the Appalachia School of Law, a few years before V-Tech?

Armed resistance stops shootings, either through physically stopping a shooter (at best), their arrival encouraging the shooter to commit suicide (it works), or -- at worst -- by engaging the shooter and drawing fire. Sometimes the armed resistance is the cops, sometimes it's not. Given average 911 response times, why not hedge your bets?

No one's suggesting arming everyone on a campus as they show up for class...but -- just as a for instance -- why shouldn't folks with CCW permits be allowed to carry on a college campus? If they're mature, responsible, and law-abiding enough to get the training and to carry that gun everywhere else they go, why are they -- as a student or as a faculty member -- suddenly no longer capable and safe once they set foot on a campus?

[Penta]

Heated arguments, tenure denials, thesis rejections....All of these things, and guns?

Have a sad history of not mixing well.

[Critias]

Heated arguments, tenure denials, thesis rejections....All of these things, and guns?

Have a sad history of not mixing well.

Yeah, you mean like the tenure denial shooting that just happened at UA Huntsville? Good thing there were snazzy "no gun" signs posted all over to keep her from doing that, huh? Nice of 'em to make sure the six people she shot were completely incapable of even attempting to defend themselves.

But what's to stop the same thing from happening at an office meeting? A heated debate at a Bible study class? A shoving match in the grocery store? Someone cutting in line at a movie theater? And yet day in and day out, all those things (and more) happen to people who lawfully carry a concealed weapon, and all these shall-issue states have yet to deteriorate into the "Wild West" with "gutters full of blood," especially when compared to the strictly gun-controlled inner city areas that consistently top the country's murder charts.

So, again, what is it about a college campus that should make it -- innately -- a "gun free zone" (except for the criminals)?

[Sengir]

I don't know, why not take a look at the church and mall shootings where armed resistance has gotten there well before the uniformed police arrived, and see what happened there?

Schools are not open halls...completely different story

Or at the much less publicized (because the body count was so much lower) Virginia school shooting at the Appalachia School of Law, a few years before V-Tech?

The one where the shooter seemed to be already finished and left the building, was tackled by an ex-marine while and two police officers off duty happened to be near by and helped arrest him? Damn lucky.

No one's suggesting arming everyone on a campus as they show up for class...but -- just as a for instance -- why shouldn't folks with CCW permits be allowed to carry on a college campus?

So you are a mature, responsible, and law-abiding student with a CCW permit and now disaster has struck and a school shooting happened at your place. You are roaming the building with your gun drawn and suddenly a fellow student comes around the corner with his gun drawn and at the ready - what do you do? Assense his aura to tell his intentions?
Also consider the same situation from the perspective of the police officers making the entry. The average school shooter has no intention of surving and will gladly take another person with him, so how would you instruct them? To risk their lives and those of their comrades by assuming that the guy with the gun is firendly, or to shoot any armed person they encounter, thereby potentially killing dozens of innocents?


It's the same reason which makes partisan warfare so bloody, and why the laws of warfare devote so much text to the classification of combatants and noncombatants: If the distinction between combatants and civilians goes to hell, both will have a far higher death toll.

[Wounded Ronin]

Uh, SWAT actually has procedures about that kind of thing. Remember, "SWAT is a lifesaving organization". Basically they are supposed to give you a chance to surrender (even if only one brief chance) before they blow you away. So theoretically you could drop your gun and put your hands up.

Think about it another way. SWAT doesn't know that any given person doesn't have a gun. They operate as if everyone present is potentially a suspect. So even if you're an unarmed civilian they'll still ziptie you and detain you. That way a shooter can't pretend to be a hostage and shoot one of them in the back of the head when they're paying attention to something else.

Basically, according to theory, SWAT treats everyone as if they had a hidden handgun, even the hostages.

[Critias]

So you are a mature, responsible, and law-abiding student with a CCW permit and now disaster has struck and a school shooting happened at your place. You are roaming the building with your gun drawn and suddenly a fellow student comes around the corner with his gun drawn and at the ready - what do you do?

What the Hell makes you think anyone will be "roaming" anywhere? I'm not Bruce Willis, and my campus ain't the set of Die Hard. I'm not a cop. I don't go looking for trouble (just the opposite, in fact, as with most CCW holders). If I see someone wildly killing the shoppers at my mall, the worshippers at my church, or the students/faculty of my university, and if I've got a clear shot, I'll fire at them and stop the threat. If I don't? I'm sure not going to stalk the halls and act like I'm the hero of an action flick.

You're working off the assumption that CCW holders plan to stalk a building like a SWAT team or a bunch of kids playing a Team Deatchmatch on their X Box, which tells me you're yet another person with no real idea of how guns work (or rather, how people trained with guns work), but who doesn't let that stop them from trying to take mine away from me.

Believe me, if there's one thing a wise, law-abiding, gun owner knows its how much the media already hates us, and the whims of a district attorney can be the only thing between us and a jail cell. We don't go flying off the handle at the drop of a hat, eagerly looking for an excuse to start gunning people down. We do carry to protect ourselves and others if and when we feel we can do so safely.

Also consider the same situation from the perspective of the police officers making the entry. The average school shooter has no intention of surving and will gladly take another person with him, so how would you instruct them? To risk their lives and those of their comrades by assuming that the guy with the gun is firendly, or to shoot any armed person they encounter, thereby potentially killing dozens of innocents?

You think they don't train for this shit? They've got rules to follow, and they're supposed to follow them. Their job isn't to "shoot any armed person they encounter." They point a gun, identify themselves, and shout for your to drop yours, and guess what? You drop yours. That's how they know you're not the piece of crap killing innocents. It happens all the time -- law enforcement approaches someone for a "man with a gun" call, or follow-up to a self defense shooting -- and 99% of the time everything goes smoothly. The good guys do what the cops tell them, the cops sort out the details after folks are in cuffs, and it never makes the evening news.

You only hear about it when it doesn't go smoothly, which is probably what's left you with the impression that that's the norm, not the exception.

[AndyZ]

Not going to read this entire thing, so apologies if someone else already said this.

How about a special glove that you put on and that has to be in contact with the gun for the gun to fire? You won't have a glove fall off, close proximity isn't as important since you'd have to be holding the gun, it's relatively easy to block a wireless signal, etc.

[hyzmarca]

So you are a mature, responsible, and law-abiding student with a CCW permit and now disaster has struck and a school shooting happened at your place. You are roaming the building with your gun drawn and suddenly a fellow student comes around the corner with his gun drawn and at the ready - what do you do? Assense his aura to tell his intentions?

Sengir, if you're not equipped to do recon in force then you don't do recon in force and if you're not equipped to clear rooms then you don't clear rooms. Roaming the building looking for the bad guys is recon in force, and it is an activity that requires you to clear rooms.

A concealed pistol does not turn you into a one-person SWAT team and it isn't meant to. What it is meant to do is provide you and those immediately around you with a defense. While it is true that the correct procedure is the one that saves lives, and thus it is impossible to make a hard and fast rule that will always apply, the most sound procedure in such situations is to get as many people as is reasonable into a defensible room and defend it.


And as WR stated, patrolmen will not go into that building. A SWAT team will. That SWAT team will be equipped for both recon in force and room clearing. They will have Class IIIa armor with Class III or Class IV inserts. They will have submachine guns or assault rifles. They will have flashbangs and tear gas. And they'll have a whole host of other equipment and weapons intended to give them the best possible picture of what is going on and the best possible protection from attacks.

[Critias]

Not going to read this entire thing, so apologies if someone else already said this.

How about a special glove that you put on and that has to be in contact with the gun for the gun to fire? You won't have a glove fall off, close proximity isn't as important since you'd have to be holding the gun, it's relatively easy to block a wireless signal, etc.

It'd be a lot better than a watch, but I think it'd still require some miniaturization to work and to be turned into something comfortable enough to wear that any police force would consider it. I can't imagine many cops wanting to spend their whole day wearing a Nintendo Power Glove -- and I can't imagine how hard it would be to make a glove that bulky contain electronics sturdy enough to survive a fistfight (and still be able to link up to your gun).

And as WR stated, patrolmen will not go into that building. A SWAT team will.

To be fair, with the new-ish Active Shooter protocols in place in many departments (spurred on by Columbine, America's most publicized gun-free zone), patrolmen may be the ones that enter the building. It all comes down to what size a campus/church/mall/whatever we're talking about, who's on scene first, and the individual training, protocols, and adherence to both practiced by whatever department's involved.

In lots of places, first on scene means first indoors, depending on building size, how far away SWAT is, and stuff like that. So it could be a standard patrol officer...but, well, that would still mean SWAT-esque training specifically to handle an active shooter, so it's most a semantics thing. I'm putting off homework by posting, instead, so I'm allowed to nit pick. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

[Wounded Ronin]

Not going to read this entire thing, so apologies if someone else already said this.

How about a special glove that you put on and that has to be in contact with the gun for the gun to fire? You won't have a glove fall off, close proximity isn't as important since you'd have to be holding the gun, it's relatively easy to block a wireless signal, etc.

What if you're shot in the right hand and the glove is damaged? It would suck if you weren't able to shoot using your left hand in an emergency.

[Sengir]

What the Hell makes you think anyone will be "roaming" anywhere?

Mostly previous discussions with proponents of armed campuses, I apologize if I wrongly accused you of dreaming about playing Rambo. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

You think they don't train for this shit? They've got rules to follow, and they're supposed to follow them. Their job isn't to "shoot any armed person they encounter." They point a gun, identify themselves, and shout for your to drop yours, and guess what? You drop yours.

That's the standard routine. But a person who is intent on killing as many people as possible and actually wants to die in the process is hardly a standard case...

And yes, ordinary beat cops are the ones who enter the buildings, that's the procedure devised from the experiences at Columbine and other places. Go in, disturb the shooter and drive him away from the scene if possible.

You only hear about it when it doesn't go smoothly, which is probably what's left you with the impression that that's the norm, not the exception.

Speaking of norms and exceptions, school shootings are about as rare as getting struck by lightning. Stupid, irresposible or agitated handling of a gun on the other hand is rare, especially when talking about trained permit holders, but still far more likely than a school shooting...simple cost-benefit analysis.

[nezumi]

And yes, ordinary beat cops are the ones who enter the buildings, that's the procedure devised from the experiences at Columbine and other places. Go in, disturb the shooter and drive him away from the scene if possible.

Can you give an example of where this happened? Because at VA Tech, for instance, the cops stood outside for half an hour until the SWAT teams could arrive.


The glove problem doesn't require you get shot in the hand. Just stand with a wall on your right side as cover. Ideally, you shoot with your left hand, to take the most advantage of cover. A glove made for your right won't fit on your left (and changing gloves in the middle of a firefight is a bad idea anyway).

[darthmord]

It's been proven that shooters like those at Columbine, VT, and other places will continue killing so long as they can do so without armed resistance. The interesting thing is based on historical data, it was determined that ANY armed resistance was enough to make them give up / commit suicide.

As such, a law-abiding armed citizen would be just as useful as a trained SWAT... in *those* sorts of situations.

But seriously, for those who are avid proponents of gun control... Answer me this:

Your wife / daughter / son / loved one is but moments away from being killed by a bad guy.

You can wish for them to have one thing and they'll have it.

Do you want them to have...
1. A cellphone so they can call you to say goodbye
--or--
2. A firearm they can use to defend themselves.

It may mark me as a radical but I've gone so far as to teach three of my four daughters how to use a firearm. In the event I'm not home, they are, and someone is breaking in, they know how to use my handguns. The youngest will be taught once she's old enough to hold a gun. She's already learned they aren't toys to play with.

Funnily enough, gun grabbers don't like answering that question. I wonder why? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[Critias]

That's the standard routine. But a person who is intent on killing as many people as possible and actually wants to die in the process is hardly a standard case...

So you're saying...what? In an active shooter scenario (school shooting, church shooting, etc), you think the cops don't announce their presence and demand a surrender? Because that's what I'm getting from your sentence. Are you implying, instead, that they turn into Shadowrun-themed kill teams, whose sole purpose is to murder any armed civilians they come across?

Because (a) you're obviously not familiar with their training, (b) you're thinking pretty low of our trained officers, and © you're just flat out wrong. There are plenty of instances where I wish the cops had acted like Dirty Harry, but the simple fact is they don't. What's more, there are some who are overtrained NOT to, so much so that officers don't fire their weapons even when they really, really, should. There's a video that curdles my blood to this day, where a decent, hard-working, cop is casually gunned down, all while brandishing his weapon and just shouting for the man to drop his gun -- as he's shot over, and over, and over again, a limb at a time.

Cops aren't any more trigger happy than law-abiding, gun-toting, CCW holders.

Speaking of norms and exceptions, school shootings are about as rare as getting struck by lightning. Stupid, irresposible or agitated handling of a gun on the other hand is rare, especially when talking about trained permit holders, but still far more likely than a school shooting...simple cost-benefit analysis.

If school shootings are so rare as to be statistically improbable enough we won't allow law-abiding citizens to prepare for them...why are they held up, time and again, as examples of the monstrous violence firearms are capable of, and used as reasons to further disarm my country's citizenry? They're either negligible statistical blips that aren't worth considering, or they're not. You can't really have it both ways.

[Larme]

But seriously, for those who are avid proponents of gun control... Answer me this:

Your wife / daughter / son / loved one is but moments away from being killed by a bad guy.

Well, you can play to peoples' emotions, or you can take a sober look at reality. The fact is, this kind of situation almost never happens. The fact is, guns shoot friends and family more often than they shoot bad guys. You can design the perfect imaginary situation where you really want a gun, but it requires you to ignore the risks inherent in being an untrained person who owns a gun. Now, if we were like Israel, where 100% of the population gets military training by age 20, then maybe everyone having a gun wouldn't be so bad. They'd all know how to use one, and how to differentiate friendly from enemy. But divorcing gun ownership from the skills required to successfully operate a gun, that's not such a good idea, is it? It's like letting people drive cars or speedboats or airplanes without a license. I'm not saying that guns are bad in and of themselves. But just like cars, they're very problematic when you give them to people who don't know how to use them.

[Smokeskin]

The question of gun control or not isn't answered by just looking at the situation of "your daughter is about to be attacked, do you want her to be trained and armed or not?"

There are a lot of downsides to lax gun control:

1) a large proportion of gun owners will not have the training to handle their weapons safely
2) a large proportion of gun owners will not secure their weapons properly and kids will get access to them
3) a large proportion of gun owners will not be able to use their guns responsibly or with competence the day they might have to use them
4) some persons are unstable, have bad tempers, go through rough patches, etc. If they don't have access to guns, they can't do much harm. If they have access to guns, they can easily hurt a lot of people, and that capability makes it more likely they will lash out.
5) a person with a gun will be more tempted to commit a crime for the first time if he has a gun, because it is much easier. Being criminal isn't black and white for lots of people, it is a matter of convenience - the difficulty of committing robbery without a gun will deter many. If he didn't have a gun, he wouldn't commit the crime
6) with civilians armed, criminals are more likely to armed too, and they're more likely to shoot first at the first sign of trouble.

I'm sure that in any situation I'm safer with a gun, but that certainly doesn't apply to everyone, and that's the view we have to take.

Will you overall be safer without gun control, where joe average has a gun and goes on a shooting rampage because he got picked at in school, or where your kid gets hold of his friend's dad's unsecured gun and shoots himself with it, but where you're also able to protect yourself? And are you morally ok with all the people who don't acquire guns or don't have proper training, who are certainly at greater risk (which translates into many deaths) without gun control?

Those are the real questions to answer. Just pulling out the one situation that you'll be better of with a gun (trained and being attacked) and using that as an argument is very one eyed.

[Smokeskin]

Double post

[nezumi]

Well, you can play to peoples' emotions, or you can take a sober look at reality. The fact is, this kind of situation almost never happens.

I'm sorry, people facing thugs who have a preponderance of force 'almost never happens'? Where are you living?? That happens like ten times a month over where I am.

The fact is, guns shoot friends and family more often than they shoot bad guys.

There was a study that proved this, until its sample methods were examined and were found to be completely made-up in order to create a political point. If, however, you go visit the NIH web site, you can find your own information, which shows that gun deaths among children are basically negligible in the US (hence why it's a news item, while drowning in a 5 gallon bucket is not). It is strictly impossible to see how many crimes are stopped by gun ownership (because studies seem to suggest that the majority of those crimes never happen at all, due to the deterrence effect, ergo can't be counted), but the numbers I've seen are pretty high - and even looking at major news outlets, you can find twice as many 'little old lady scares off mugger with desert eagle' articles as 'kid finds loaded rifle and accidentally shoots self in head twice'.

[Critias]

So just out of curiosity, how do you guys rationalize to yourself the high violent crime rates in cities like New York, Los Angeles, Detroit, Chicago, Philadelphia...which are also bastions of strict gun control? Or the fact that Great Britain and Australia top the US for overall violent crime rates? Or the fact that even Australia's Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research acknowledges that the gun ban had no significant impact on the amount of gun-involved crime?

That's the thing that really gets me about all this. It's not just that good people -- law abiding citizens, who pay the fees, leave the paper trail, and jump through the hoops required to get a CCW -- are disarmed, it's that the disarming doesn't do any good. The assholes still get ahold of guns when they really want them, and when they don't they still find ways to victimize, abuse, assault, rape, and steal from the decent people around them.

Is it really worth throwing the rest of your violent crime victims under the proverbial bus, just to get a "murder by firearm" stat down a little bit?

[pbangarth]

Just an aside: Those folks who use 'studies suggest' as a support for their argument, whether pro or con, could you please give us a pointer to at least one actual study that supports your position? Maybe even a news article that itself might redirect to a study? It makes the reader feel more confident in your argument and allows us to see for ourselves what the study actually says.

[Sengir]

So you're saying...what? In an active shooter scenario (school shooting, church shooting, etc), you think the cops don't announce their presence and demand a surrender?

No, I'm saying that the officers will adapt their tactics depending on the situation at hand. If the situation at hand is somebody who wants to kill as many people as possible and is perfectly fine with dying in the process, they will take a far more aggressive stance and when in doubt subdue the suspect before reading him his rights.

If school shootings are so rare as to be statistically improbable enough we won't allow law-abiding citizens to prepare for them...why are they held up, time and again, as examples of the monstrous violence firearms are capable of, and used as reasons to further disarm my country's citizenry?

For the same reason the other side uses incidents where a bunch of thugs on parole invade a house, kill the owners, rape their daughter and kill their dog as a reason to further arm your country's citizenry. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)
Personally, I think that somebody who wants to kill people will always find a way no matter what is banned and how many people are armed.

Or the fact that even Australia's Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research acknowledges that the gun ban had no significant impact on the amount of gun-involved crime?

That's one half of the statistic. The other half would be that gun bans don't cause a rise in the overall level of violent crime because the poor, defenseless people a preyed upon, the usual result is nothing statistically significant at all.


@nezumi: So? During the same month several times as many people will be killed by traffic accidents or sudden heart failure - yet nobody runs around with an airbag to his chest and few have an AED implant. Oh, and statistically more than half of those tehn murder victims were actually killed by their friends or loved ones.