Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Unseen on December 16, 2012 at 8:17pm

Not like an armed security would matter. By the time you hit the armory, punch in the code, get the weapon, suit up with your body armor, and run out, the shooter is already taken out most of his victims.

Why is it that so many people continue to think that if you can't save every potential victim, just wait for the SWAT team. By that time the shooter may have run out of just enough ammo to pop himself.

I think your timeline is ridiculously long and dragged out. I don't see why arming oneself should take more than two minutes at most and at most another minute or two locating the shooter by following the reports from his gun. This shooting took place over 10 minutes. A three minute response could easily have saved 12-14 kids.

If it were me (as the respondent), I think I might forget about the body armor, figuring that someone intent on shooting kids would probably be occupied enough for me to sneak up on him. Also, I'd realize that the more steps I can eliminate from preparation (like my body armor), the more kids I could potentially save.

And gosh, it always helps, doesn't it, when you can cite some oddball exceptional case to bolster a weak argument.

Permalink Reply by Adam on December 16, 2012 at 8:46pm

So you can't counter my example, it must be a weak argument?

I think your timeline is ridiculously long and dragged out

Your statement is based on what evidence?

If it were me (as the respondent), I think I might forget about the body armor, figuring that someone intent on shooting kids would probably be occupied enough for me to sneak up on him. Also, I'd realize that the more steps I can eliminate from preparation (like my body armor), the more kids I could potentially save.

Just put away the John Wayne movies grandpa, reality isn't a movie

Permalink Reply by Unseen on December 16, 2012 at 11:55pm

I think your timeline is ridiculously long and dragged out

Your statement is based on what evidence?

Myself. I can open a combination lock in about 15 seconds. Grabbing the gun and checking to make sure it has ammo, another 15 seconds (loading ammo might take perhaps 15 to 30 seconds depending upon what the weapon is and what needs to be done). Body armor, if I decide I'm going to use it, another 30 seconds. Let's say it takes me a minute to find the shooter in a school the size of the one in question. Total time, around 2 minutes and 15-30 seconds. 

I'll let some of the military folks here criticize my timeline. I don't know what makes you think yours counts. What's YOUR evidence BTW?

If it were me (as the respondent), I think I might forget about the body armor, figuring that someone intent on shooting kids would probably be occupied enough for me to sneak up on him. Also, I'd realize that the more steps I can eliminate from preparation (like my body armor), the more kids I could potentially save.

Just put away the John Wayne movies grandpa, reality isn't a movie

Hey, why not talk like an adult not some character from Grease. That's a movie, too, BTW.

I would do whatever it took to save lives. If you think risking my life to save others is ridiculous, well that's you.

Permalink Reply by Marc on December 17, 2012 at 7:24am

I agree with you about speaking in terms of absolutes, saving all of them vs. none of them.

The observation that I have is that we are speaking in absolutes when the world is not. It is quantifiable. And the differences in the available methods in killing people is also quantifiable.

Guns are certainly the most efficient and effective way of killing available to most people. Also shooting a gun at someone is quite impersonal and detached relative to other methods. You can be 10, 20, 50, 100 feet away from someone and kill them with a gun.

If you were to kill them with a knife, or a blunt object, these are very up close and personal methods of killing. Your physical attributes now factor into the scenario more your stamina, your aim.

Killing someone with their bare hands is more personal still requiring more strength endurance and factoring in body size to the likely success rate. Again these differences are quantifiable in terms of the relative success you will have in killing large numbers of people, and now you are required to be in intimate contact with a person to kill them.

Guns are more effective, than knives and blunt objects which are more effective, than your bare hands. These differences are quantifiable. Unfortunately, the quantification in this case means human life.

All of these mass killing have been very impersonal and symbolic. The details have yet to come out but it appears that this guy did not go to into that school to kill Ana Marquez-Greene for example, he was angry and the school was the target of his anger. The guy in Colorado did not go into the theatre to kill a specific audience member, he attacked a symbol. Of the methods of killing available to these nut jobs the most detached and least personal method, guns line up quite well with the mindset of the perpetrator.

Again these differences are quantifiable. If I was a parent in Newtown and that quantifiable difference in method meant 10 dead instead of 20, and one of those 10 to survive was my kid or your kid, the statement that guns don't kill people, people kill people, would seem awfully shrill to my ears.

So I agree, lets lock doors, arm guards, police patrols, improve mental health treatment and availability, but I think we owe it to the families in Newtown, that we don't take any options off the table as we have this discussion on how to address this problem.

Permalink Reply by Unseen on December 17, 2012 at 10:10am

Guns are certainly the most efficient and effective way of killing available to most people. Also shooting a gun at someone is quite impersonal and detached relative to other methods. You can be 10, 20, 50, 100 feet away from someone and kill them with a gun.

I don't know. If I could drive what seems like a delivery truck into a crowded area, park it, and detonate a truck bomb from around the corner with a cell phone, that could kill many more people and it could be made from materials available from grocery and hardware stores.

If you were to kill them with a knife, or a blunt object, these are very up close and personal methods of killing. Your physical attributes now factor into the scenario more your stamina, your aim.

A knife can make it easier not to miss the way a bullet can. But of course you need to get up close and personal. Not hard when you're killing small children.

Killing someone with their bare hands is more personal still requiring more strength endurance and factoring in body size to the likely success rate. Again these differences are quantifiable in terms of the relative success you will have in killing large numbers of people, and now you are required to be in intimate contact with a person to kill them.

Strangulation has never been popular with mass murderers. Serial killers, yes, not mass murderers.

All of these mass killing have been very impersonal and symbolic. The details have yet to come out but it appears that this guy did not go to into that school to kill Ana Marquez-Greene for example, he was angry and the school was the target of his anger. The guy in Colorado did not go into the theatre to kill a specific audience member, he attacked a symbol. Of the methods of killing available to these nut jobs the most detached and least personal method, guns line up quite well with the mindset of the perpetrator.

But if Plan A isn't available, I'm sure he'll go to a Plan B method. The theater shooter could have taken a backpack full of explosives into a theater and detonated it from the lobby and enjoyed the mayhem that followed.

So I agree, lets lock doors, arm guards, police patrols, improve mental health treatment and availability, but I think we owe it to the families in Newtown, that we don't take any options off the table as we have this discussion on how to address this problem.

Sadly, simply banning guns isn't an option due to the 2nd Amendment, and I doubt if psychological barriers will pass Constitutional muster. I also doubt if they'd even be effective. Most nut jobs are rational enough to know how to tell their evaluator what they want to hear. Not perhaps the ones who are so mentally disorganized that they can't dress themselves, but most of these shooters seemed to live ordinary lives other than perhaps seeming a little odd to their associates.

Obviously, we don't want to start oppressing people who don't quite fit the perceived "norm" (goths, punkers, bikers, atheists). In fact, that might simply feed their paranoia and CAUSE a massacre by the ones who were on the edge!

Permalink Reply by Marc on December 17, 2012 at 2:34pm

That was a carefully worded sentence Unseen. We do not have a huge number of deaths attributed to running trucks into a crowd of people and then detononating. People are using what is easily available, efficient and effective. I don't see 20 year old suburban kids building bombs to get back at the 3rd grade teacher they don't like at the corner grammar school.

If it is a competing option, it is not proving itself statistically.

I am not sure that if Plan A is not available he will go through with Plan B and I wonder what makes you so sure. I will grant you that the Aroura guy demonstrated the ablity since he rigged his apparment up. There is nothing to point that the typical person would. It is similarly likely that he could not see it worth his effort, be uncomfortable with the technology, or get needed help along the way before he takes it that far.

Not every pissed off kid is an Internet bomb builder, but when Mom's gun is handy and available in the hall closet and the requirement is simply to curl your index finger back to your palm to result in death, the requirements to vent anger are pretty minimal.

I did not for one second suggest an out right ban, but I will had at the Constitution is not infalible has a history of being changed and the only reason that make it off the table is our insistence on taking off the table.

I think that we have a responsibility to make a reasonable attempt to protect the lives of our citizens, I don't see how a conversation violate anyone's rights. Perhaps the conversation will catch some real mentally deranged folks, I'll accept that.

Perhaps it may instigate an incident but we have a significant enough series of meaningless death now it would be hard to tell the difference as to what triggered a given nut job to go off at a given time.

Permalink Reply by Adam on December 17, 2012 at 1:14am

Myself. I can open a combination lock in about 15 seconds. Grabbing the gun and checking to make sure it has ammo, another 15 seconds (loading ammo might take perhaps 15 to 30 seconds depending upon what the weapon is and what needs to be done). Body armor, if I decide I'm going to use it, another 30 seconds. Let's say it takes me a minute to find the shooter in a school the size of the one in question. Total time, around 2 minutes and 15-30 seconds

Yea right.......

The only thing you would do is get yourself in the way of getting 2 to the chest and 1 right  in your head.

I feel like Im talking some kid who has been playing too much video games.

Permalink Reply by Unseen on December 17, 2012 at 10:16am

I'm 66, don't play almost any games, and have a lot more life under my belt than you do. You talk like a very aggressive person who pushes people around or bullies them in everyday life. It won't work here. It'll just mark you as another one of the kids who sign up here and haven't learned how mature adults talk yet.

Permalink Reply by kOrsan on December 17, 2012 at 3:52pm

He should be better at not talking back to his elders and betters then, since all they get trained in is killing effectively and following orders. Godspeed Private Sheee-e-e-eeple.

Permalink Reply by Unseen on December 17, 2012 at 7:28pm

Can we conclude he's a Marine based on his icon when he talks like an insecure 16 year old wanting to impress his buddies out under the bleachers talking about girls? If icons are to be trusted, I'm Max Headroom!

Permalink Reply by Adam on December 19, 2012 at 1:06am

Hahhahahahhah apology?

For what? Talking to someone who deliberately baits you in and then tries to bash you when you don't see his way. Get real

Permalink Reply by Adam on December 19, 2012 at 1:09am

Im sorry am I supposed to be offended here? Especially coming from a 64 year old man with the self proclaimed genius attitude that still haven't gotten past the 5th grade bully mentality.

Righttttttttttt

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