The last of my grandfather's brothers was killed in a church shooting when I was six.  It was the first funeral I ever attended.  Messed up people everywhere.

http://www.safeatchurch.org/daingerfield-shooting.html

It's because he does NOT exist!!

There was actually a PASTOR who was killed in church near where I live a few years ago? Where or where was the mythical Jesus? Only in the delusions in their brains!

I could go on an anti gun rant and say how there are 30,000 gun deaths a year in America which is BY FAR the highest per capita on earth! England and Japan only have around 150 a year and (not surprisingly) a LOT fewer guns!!

Instead I'll just say this is just further proof that god doesn't exist!

  England is awash in murders where knives are the killing tool.   Murder is murder, methodology is secondary.  Guns may kill more quickly in a direct comparison but how long did it take the machete-wielding Hutus to massacre over 800,000 Tutsis in Rwanda.  A couple of weeks ?

                www.guardian.co.uk/uk/knifecrime

Well, I don't know about "easily", if you are practicing good gun control (steady hand, breath control and a good trigger pull) you should be able to double tap two or three before they are close enough to stab you. The most obvious problem of using a gun for self protection is having access to it when you need it. I have a concealed carry permit but most of the time I don't carry because quite frankly carrying a gun isn't exactly comfortable and needing to conceal it requires wearing more clothes than I care to wear when it is 100 degrees. Nor do I carry it around home so if anyone intends to do me harm they only have to stop me before I reach a gun.

I think it is safe to assume that most gun owners are the same and since the odds of ever needing it are really low and if you ever need it you are in a situation where it really has to be in arms reach right now, odds are if you ever need the gun you won't have it. I wouldn't even consider having my gun on me if I was taking a date to go see Batman. Even after this shooting I still won't simply because the odds of me needing it are so low that it is not worth the bother. 

Even with liberal gun laws it is highly unlikely that anyone else in that theater would have bothered carrying, unless one of them happened to be part of that small percentage of the population that is so paranoid they go everywhere with their guns but some of them carry guns illegally and I presume none were there. Besides the hyper-paranoid also tend to avoid large groups of people. 

Unfortunately, there is little we can do about nuts like this guy, if they want to kill a lot of people they can find a way be it gun, bomb or airplane. If you desire to kill random people it really isn't a difficult thing to do, the only difficult part is getting away with it, which this crazy obviously wasn't concerned with. Fortunately, people this insane are rare.  

Very good points, although I would like to say is was talking specifically about people invading your home. Where, I would hope, your gun would be within access lacking total ambush and suprise.

It is true people do not generally carry around guns in the situation this crime happened, but in many other situation where people would want to carry a gun to protect themselves, I feel that legally allowing guns is the superior alternative to prohibiting them.

I agree with your last bit, and actually states part of my argument I didnt quite include. Suppressing guns does little to stop murder, just moving the issue around and shunting the crime onto other categories and methods imo. Whether they make certain crimes easier or not may be outweighted by the crimes they make much harder.

Oh don't get me wrong, I'm a big supporter of legalizing all guns. I always thought it was absurd that people think that by passing gun laws you will somehow prevent criminals from breaking them. I'm pretty sure anyone intending to carry out a mass murder isn't going to worry about breaking a few gun laws and in our current fucked up system it would be easier for me to purchase an illegal handgun than it is to purchase one from the gun store.

Although, I think the most important reason for people to own guns is Watcher's point, we have the 2nd Amendment specifically because the founders intended that someday we might have to use them against our own government. While I am not one of the conspiracy theorists that is convinced Obama isn't going to leave the White House if he loses, it is important to recognize that no system of government is immune to becoming a tyranny. So even IF it could be demonstrated that making guns illegal would save a few lives compared to complete legalization (which most evidence I've seen suggests the opposite) it is still important to maintain our freedom to own high quality firearms. 

  What class of firearms have yet to be legalized ?  I don't understand. 

In the States one can legally own .50 caliber anti-material rifles with no extra legal requirements, and with the proper ATF approved paper work a law abiding citizen can legally own everything from select-fire assault rifles, fully-auto shotguns, belt-fed GPMG's as well as belt-fed Browning M-2's and that's still only a partial list.  

   Yeah, I'd love to have my very own M198 155mm towed howitzer but I don't think my Honda Civic is quite peppy enough to pull it around.

Depends on the state, many states have laws that ban the possession and in some cases even the transport of certain firearms. For example, here in Ohio I cannot possess a firearm with a magazine larger than 30. It also remains illegal to import foreign made full auto weapons. But cheers for the expiration of the AWB, lets hope that federal laws like that shit don't make a comeback. 

I think people should have guns if they want even if it's based in fantasy of vigilantism or defending themselves against government. If you were however in a crowded cinema and someone threw tear gas and started shooting indiscriminately, taking out your own gun to return fire would be a terrible idea.

   Obviously, guns are not the end all and be all for solving a crisis situation.  Nevertheless, what confounds me among those who reject out of hand the defensive use of firearms by citizenry is that they will resolutely reject the concept of a properly trained civilian employing firearms but will nevertheless embrace the concept of an armed police officer arriving on scene and using a firearm to take control of the situation.

  Another point to consider is that police officers, being human, miss their intended target.  Despite liability concerns relating to stray bullets hitting innocent civilians, police officers are still called upon to use deadly force and I don't see "progressives" calling for police to be barred from using firearms. 

Proficiency with a firearm, or even knowing when to use one, is not tied to wearing a badge and a radio.

Um... I would just as soon police officers did NOT carry guns for most situations.  The only time I can see the value is when a swat team would be called out.  That is, you have a crazy or two shooting up some place and you really need fire power right now.

Otherwise, most incidents officers handle do not require fire power.  The gun on their hip doesn't reassure me, it only makes me nervous that they might mistake me for someone who is carrying.

   Well, given the "dark, crowded room filled with gas"  what do you expect a dozen police, even "working together" to do differently ?  You don't think the police could mistake a bystander for the bad guy and shoot some innocent person by mistake ?  We all know that's never happened before.

  That kind of blunder would never happen cj because the police "are at least working together" and that changes everything. 

No one has.

Cross talk all you want. Perhaps I've seen too much coverage on this. Time to go watch a movie and forget about it.

Have a good one PZDW.

   Thanks.  You, too.

  I'm sorry but I was going to answer you point for point as we frequently do but it is just one huge block of text in my window and I don't have time at the moment to manually space everything out.

  Let me jump ahead for a moment.  You have identified yourself as ultra-liberal.   So instead of winnowing over such issues as smokiness and uniforms and such ( all valid issues ) I would like to know if there exists any situation where a legally armed citizen firing in self defense would be acceptable to you.   I have to leave now but I will return shortly.

I'd rather risk getting shot by another armed but innocent civilian while I'm defending myself from a criminal than standing there like an unarmed sheep getting slaughtered or shot in my back as I try to scurry away.

My 69 year old mother packs a .45 with hollow points and 15 round clips.

She's a good shot too.

Disarming innocent civilians does not increase the safety of the innocent civilian.

America's forefathers knew this.

Regardless, once again, WE CAN'T KEEP GUNS OUT OF THE U.S..

That works pretty well for the UK which is an island.

We have millions of illegal immigrants in this country.  If people can smuggle themselves in, guns are no problem.

So any talk of disarming our population is retarded.   Now move us all to an island and we can talk.  But in our geographical spot?   Dead conversation.

   Okay, I'm back.   I'm trying to trap a mother cat and her two babies and the process is time consuming.

    You're apparently not against the use of deadly force even if it involves the use of firearms ?     Anyway, situations involving mass shooting are more the exception than the rule in terms of personal defense statistics.  Throngs of bystanders only complicate the options available to either armed police or armed citizens.  Every situation would have to evaluated individually as there is no cut and dried response and it's always easy to determine what should have been done but only in retrospect ( which is too late ).

 Also, there will never be perfect conditions in which the defenders will not have to risk making the wrong decision.  Hitting innocent victims is always possible and it does happen no matter if you're law enforcement or not.  It's a matter of choosing the lesser of two evils.  As a trained civilian the choice is either try and fight back and risk making a serious mistake ( and possibly civil / criminal prosecution ) or do nothing and hope the police get there before you start exhibiting rigor mortis.  It's a phrase that carries some real meaning but "When seconds count, the police are only minutes away."

Lastly, my comment about criminals wearing police uniforms to deceive their victims wasn't stated simply to provoke you ( although I admit to not always being emotionally detatched when replying ).  It's a tatic that is repeatedly used in Mexico for instance and sadly it works.  Also, in the panic of being threatened by an armed assailant how would a potential victim know a civilian from a plain clothes cop ? 

That's all for now.

Actually, on a related note about law enforcement choosing the lesser of two evils is an article I read last week about the state of California debating whether they should allow police to engage in car chases.

Something like 3000 innocent civilians have died in California over the past decade or something because of car chases.

And something like 90% of the car chases did not involve a violent offender.   Just mundane things like not having a driver's license and things like that.

The need for thoughtful discretion will always be a necessary requirement.  Still you only refer to"arguments" as a basis for wielding a firearm as if the only context for their use would be limited to some superficial motive.  Nevertheless the Texas Penal code establishes what qualifies as legally defensible and that includes "Defense of a Third Person" among other categories.  

  Yes, if I saw some wack job threatening to kill his girlfriend in a store parking lot ( it happened in Dallas where a guy named Todd Broom shot and killed  a guy threatening with a pistol ) I could take your advice and just run away and hope the cops show up before he blows her brains out.  If he kills her in the middle of my 911 call, well too bad for her, hunh ? 

  I see, because in your view it should be assumed that the altercation was the fault of the victim and your use of the term "concerned upstanding citizen" is only used jokingly.   It would never devolve into a legitimate case of self defense.  If a female CHL holder were the victim of a rape attack it would probably be her fault for provoking the rape as well.  

  That's a good point, actually.  Couldn't a real police officer be deceived as well ?  How far do you want to take this ?

   Would you say the same thing to the victims at the Aurora Movie-Plex ?    "Hey guys why didn't you just run away, then you wouldn't have got shot" ?

 

  I think for you it would indeed be a terrible idea.  Thank you for sharing Gauche, always a pleasure.

I think the biggest problem with the average citizen carrying and opening fire defensively in most of the situations laid out is that the average citizen has little to no training on the use of the gun (when compared to a police officer or especially a soldier), or guns in general, let alone guns in crisis situations. If even trained cops can screw up, the likelyhood of extra casualties increases exponentially for someone who's only shot a few pop cans in the back yard, and more so if the person has never even fired a gun.
They are also taking a big risk. What if ten different people had guns and started opening fire, and started mistaking the other defenders for other assailants? Cops are generally easy to identify for more than one reason. A bunch of random gun carriers in a crowded theatre are not easily identifiable as defenders.

 The vast majority of crimes prevented by armed citizens are prevented without even firing a shot. Most criminals are cowards and tend to run away when faced with the possibility of being shot. There is almost never a "shootout" where prolonged gunfire is exchanged, that type of shit pretty much happens in the movies or when the BATF is involved, armed civilians generally only fire a couple shots. Generally personal defense situations occur at extremely close ranges in uncrowded areas, by far the most common places are homes and then places of business and I believe the car is next. The most common crime it prevents is robbery, which makes sense since the odds of some random person murdering you are extremely low compared to the odds of you being robbed. 

Gauche's idea that you can simply "run away" while it is certainly a good idea if possible, is obviously not always possible. I am sure that every rape victim has attempted to run away and failed. I am sure that every unarmed person who has been assaulted by a mugger has attempted to run away. Since these crimes still happen, obviously running away didn't work. I suppose there is an argument that many of these armed robbers have no intention of actually using their weapon and so the armed citizen shooting them creates a violent situation but it is impossible to discern which person waving a gun around is actually going to use it and which is just using it to intimidate. Either way, I have no problem with either one being shot. If you are going to point a gun at someone that is a clear threat to kill them regardless of whether you actually intend to kill them and you deserve to have a little lead injected into your body.  

The idea that you are going to have dozens of people pulling out guns is absurd. In states where concealed carry permits are tracked only about 0.5% of the population gets them, when you consider that many of those people don't carry 24/7 the odds of having even two people in the vicinity of a crime being armed are slim. As it turns out, Colorado is actually a right to carry state and a "shall issue" state, apparently no one in the crowd was carrying- or if they were they were not in a position where they judged they could do any good. It is quite possible that the movie theater has a "no gun" policy and in some states it is illegal to carry into a store that has signs posted, I know many movie theaters here have those signs. Not sure about this movie theater or Colorado law. No sign is going to stop a murderer and I'm willing to bet that Holmes did not have a concealed carry permit. (I tried to google it but apparently the news media doesn't think it is relevant.... reporters are so worthless.) Gun laws only stop people who desire to follow the law.  

I could construct hundreds of scenarios of being in that movie theater and whether or not having a gun would have been able to stop this maniac. Obviously, the confusion, darkness and smoke add in a number of factors that make it less likely you could do anything practical. Any attempt to shoot him would require you to be rather close. From most of the witness accounts I heard, the vast majority of people never saw the shooter because of the confusion and seeing the shooter is a prerequisite to shooting him. Someone actually carrying their gun to the theater and being seated in a position where they could get a clear shot on the shooter would have been extraordinarily lucky. However, at least if there is a chance at saving a few lives it is worthwhile. We know what happens when no one is armed and a killer can go on a spree unopposed- it makes that national headlines every time. 

I said you can flee a shooting, not a rape or mugging. If someone is going to rape or mug you then they will not come in and shoot you first. Maybe the NRA has a list of things you should say like if someone comes at you with a gun then you don't know if it's a shooting, rape or mugging. If they are shooting then it's a shooting.

Have you ever tried to out run a bullet ?  Besides your continued insistence that one can simply run away borders upon lunacy.

 

   Jesus Christ Gauche are you just too terrified to take a risk in order to preserve someone else's life ?   You will do nothing unless the outcome is guaranteed ?

 

     You steadfastly cling to this "you deserve to get shot at" scenario, why is that ?  

  How magnanimous of you to say, lol.  

Based upon your nonsensical interpretation ( who shoots a rape victim first anyway ? ) as opposed to my easily understood example of a female CHL holder attempting to thwart a crime it is obvious that your replies are based simply upon your distaste for armed citizens. 

The police have certain advantages based upon training and support systems, of course.

 Perhaps you should lobby the "idiots" who passed this law, who by the way usually are accompanied either by armed body guards or carry hand guns themselves (  Politicians, judges, etc )  Incidentally, I enjoy the irony of "progressive" politicians who pass laws that disarm their constituents but nevertheless rely upon armed defense to protect their own lives.

Yes, but as you previously suggested, what if you accidentally killed a gang member by mistake ?  Do you think they'll forgive you because you only used your hands ?

  And at this point Gauche you may have the last word.  It is obvious that your fine intellect is fading into the background and you are simply grasping for any desperate scenario that would indicate that defending one's self ( or others ) is not a viable option.    Nice talking with you. It was fun.