How to get the sniper
(Int'l folks, a lone deranged sniper is killing people randomly in the DC area)
I'm lucky in that I don't live in the affected area. But if I did, I have a theory. If you're out there pumping gas and the guy next to you gets hit, try to figure out where the shot came from, and sprint that direction.
Since the guy only takes one shot you may succeed at flushing him out.
Hey, it's something. Everybody feels powerless...
Originally posted by Undertoad
try to figure out where the shot came from, and sprint that direction.
Except that we're dealing with entirely the wrong state here ... that SHOULD be "
Shoot in that direction".
I have, throughout, found it interesting that he/they chose to start in a state where you
can't shoot back.
Originally posted by wolf
I have, throughout, found it interesting that he/they chose to start in a state where you can't shoot back.
Maggie touched on this in another thread. But from what I've seen, I don't think it has anything to do with that. Maybe I'm asking a stupid question here, but
who are you going to shoot at?
Stoopid me...I wasn't even giving consideration to the fact that this sniper could make a fuck up.
D'oh! My bad.
Ok so the theroy is if he was in a place where people carried firearms you're going to instantly be able to work out where a SNIPER is hiding, fast enough before he has time to move and then randomly let off shots in the rough direction the shot came from, in the hope of hitting him? Well gee that sounds like a damn fine way to wing a bystander or 10.
The guy with the gun
Which one? ;)
Originally posted by wolf
I have, throughout, found it interesting that he/they chose to start in a state where you [B]can't shoot back. [/B]
Ja, das ist wahr. But here in Virginia, we <b>do</b> carry.
(Though not myself personally, 'cause it would be kinda pointless, because I can't possess weapons on company property anyway. Again, not me personally - company-wide rule. :) )
Which one?
Kind of makes you understand why we have gun control.
Not that the sniper himself doesn't give us a reason, but imagine everyone carrying around a gun in the Washington D.C. area, that would be scary, especially with everyone on edge.
Imagine if people were legally required to undergo very thorough training before being issued a CCP. And imagine that they had to undergo refresher courses every few years, and pass a test every few years that indicated they were mentally and physically healthy enough to carry a weapon. Sorta like a driver's license.
Imagine how much <b>safer</b> it would be.
ingenious, now why didn't our incredibly intelligent elected officials come up with that one.
Because the second most powerful lobby won't let them.
I'm lucky in that I don't live in the affected area. But if I did, I have a theory. If you're out there pumping gas and the guy next to you gets hit, try to figure out where the shot came from, and sprint that direction.
I live in VA and work in DC and cut through MD to get to work and lemme tell you - I'm nervous everytime I step out of my car. I long for the days of good ole' fashioned run of the mill serial killers. This guy has everyone scared - the randomness in victims, locations, time of day, etc. is just too much.
If the guy next to me goes down at the local Sunoco (and I recently gassed up at the site of the last killing), I'm gettin the helle out of dodge - and I'm no chicken either but I am NOT messing with a guy who can pop me from 150 yards.
This guy has killed 8 people with 10 bullets! He hasn't had to reload since he started!!
It's funny that Tony started this thread, 'cause I was thinking about it yesterday when Andrea and I were eating lunch, and I was thinking that if she got shot, I would try and figure where the shot came from... and then sprint in that direction. At least try to SEE something.
Ja, I might get killed. But what if I got the license plate number? Or if I got a good view of the shooter?
Now, he's already got this figured out... he's only shooting people that are by themselves. So no one can realize where the shot came from and then look in that direction. But... if that were to happen, that's exactly what I'd do.
By the way, I live in Fairfax City, and the guy at the Sunoco Wednesday night was some 8 miles from my house. So he's definitely close...
well, I live right in that area, near BWI.
I fel helpless because I don't have the means to shoot back, even though I have to agree with jag on this one point...I would not just randomly return fire into a blind range. I wouldn't take the chance of hitting someone else downrange.
But I don't do anything differently. I mow the lawn, I wash the car (at night so the water cops don't catch me) I walk my dogs and make my friends kid gas up my car. :rolleyes:
I do not fear the sniper. I take some comfort in knowing that he'll never be taken alive. He'll (notice the assumption of masculinity here) either kill himself when cornered or he'll be shot "trying to escape". Either way, he won't waste any more taxpayer money.
Brian
Ahh you all should move to Montana, not only can you shoot back, it's safer. As long as you stay off the highway :) .
He's quite possibly shooting from a truck, so "sprint THAT direction" or "shoot THAT direction" won't likely work. This seems more likely one which will be solved either
1) By accident -- e.g. sniper manages to get into collision by leaving scene
or
2) By cockiness -- sniper gets too bold with his little notes (like the tarot card) or starts taking multiple shots from a single location.
or
3) By old fashioned police work -- e.g. cops start canvassing service organizations and correlate locations of personnel with shootings. Or correlate a common factor in nearby ATM or security camera videos, that sort of thing.
Naw, but if you sprint in his general direction, even just by accident, you'll at least make him panic, and at most you'll get more information and other witnesses may get more information as well.
It's all about keeping your wits about you, though, isn't it. In the few occasions when I've had the occasion to make a police report, I have been an absolutely terrible witness. I guess I'm just naturally non-observant, blissfully unaware of my surroundings.
Either that or he'll fire a second shot. Has anyone though about just how hard it would be to work out the direction? The rifle is most liely supressed, and getting a direction qucikly and accurately on sound is hard enough, then you ahve the chaos after the shot, the body ins't going to be much use, iit's simply not that easy. As for dave's idea, i've heard time after time how criminals can get guns even when you legally can't, so having everyone carrying legally is just going to make it so much harder for crims to get one, right?
Originally posted by jaguar
As for dave's idea, i've heard time after time how criminals can get guns even when you legally can't, so having everyone carrying legally is just going to make it so much harder for crims to get one, right?
No. No one's ever argued that either.
I'm tempted to call you a "fucking retard" for making that comment, but I won't, because it does me no good. Instead, I'd like to ask you to think about what I actually wrote for more than three seconds. Of course criminals will get guns - criminals will ALWAYS have guns. The point is, why give them the upper hand by allowing <b>only</b> criminals to have guns?
Arming the citizenry with both firearms and good training on how to use them (as well as a respect for the weapon) is essentially equal to putting more undercover cops on the streets, protecting the less-than-adequately-armed from more baddies.
How exactly is this a bad idea?
There are plenty of trained, liscensed yet shitty, psycho, drunk, suicidal, asleep, and stupid drivers on the roads killing by operating equipment not specifically designed to kill. I dont see people brandishing guns, as they do cell phones, a terrific solution. Oh, but you specified "good" training, like a really, really hard test?
I like the idea of Columbia or Northface quickly introducing a bulletproof winter line of jackets, coats, and sporty body armor.
Dave did mention the fact that you should need to take a test every so often. I would think this should occur every year, or even every 6 months. . Drivers on the other hand get there liscense and unless they forget to renew it never have to take another test. Kind of a big difference there. Also driving tests are nothing, any person with a grain of commen sense can get there drivers license.
Then again this discussion is worthess, since the idea of liscensing and training gun owners is never going to make it's way through congress.
Originally posted by Cam
Also driving tests are nothing, any person with a grain of commen sense can get there drivers license.
Please....anyone who drives can tell you that common sense is clearly not required for a driver's licence. They see counterexamples every day.
Then again this discussion is worthess, since the idea of liscensing and training gun owners is never going to make it's way through congress.
Based on how good a job the government does training cops to shoot, I prefer to do my own firearms training, thanks.
Where do people get the idea that more government is the solution to every problem? Oh, that's right...they went to a government school..:-)
Where do people get the idea that carrying a gun is a solution to every problem?
After another weekend without a sniper attack, everyone is wondering what the sniper does on the weekend.
"He's a weekday warrior. Even snipers have jobs," said criminologist Jack Fox of Northeastern University in Boston. "They have to make time to kill, and obviously he doesn't have time on the weekends."
It's possible he's "doin' time" on the weekend but is released on a
Work Release Program throughout the week.
Originally posted by dave
Imagine if people were legally required to undergo very thorough training before being issued a CCP. And imagine that they had to undergo refresher courses every few years, and pass a test every few years that indicated they were mentally and physically healthy enough to carry a weapon. Sorta like a driver's license.
Imagine how much <b>safer</b> it would be.
Imagine people like myself licensed to carry guns. I may appear harmless, and generally I am but there are those times that make my friends wish I still took the meds. And guess what I lied to get off them just as I could lie through any other mental health screening cause I know what they are listening for. It's not really that hard to do, I have been doing it for a long time in fact. Now I'm really not trying to be foolish here, I am trying to make a point: passing a mental health screening by no means garantees that a person is sane. I wouldn't want me to have a gun, that I can carry when ever I wanted to. Along the same lines I know people who have gone through the rigamorol to get a ccp in NY (no small task) and then proceed to carry the guns when they go out drinking. But if you think you're safer if you have a gun too, remember you have to survive the first shot to be able to shoot back...
So your idea has changed from what originally sounded like some kind of gun control scheme into making everyone sorta undercover cops.
Wonderful.
So why would it be so much safer then dave? I'm curious. I thought it was becase it would mean only sane, capable people would have guns, but that obviously isn't your point. So the idea is the nutters have guns, and the non nutters have guns, so basicly, everyone has and if someone starts shooting, you shoot back. Well fuck that sounds just wonderful, i've always wanted to see what it was like in the wild west. Cut the passive-agressive comments, too, i mean i'd call you a fucking moron for making them, but that would be counter productive.
Originally posted by jaguar
So why would it be so much safer then dave? I'm curious. I thought it was becase it would mean only sane, capable people would have guns, but that obviously isn't your point. So the idea is the nutters have guns, and the non nutters have guns, so basicly, everyone has and if someone starts shooting, you shoot back. Well fuck that sounds just wonderful, i've always wanted to see what it was like in the wild west.
I fail to see how it could be so "obvious" yet you have, yet again, misunderstood my position.
Yes, of course only sane, capable persons should have CCP's. And while this may be the case, insane and incapable persons are going to come across guns as well. Now, here's the fun part - they're doing that now anyway. Insane people get guns now if they want them.
So... if they are going to get them anyway... why, exactly, should we disarm those that are both sane and capable (and fully understand and appreciate the responsibility that carrying a firearm demands)?
Cut the passive-agressive comments, too, i mean i'd call you a fucking moron for making them, but that would be counter productive.
I suggest you check your definition of passive-aggressive behavior. My comments may have been aggressive, but hardly passive-aggressive. Do you know what these big words mean, or do you just toss them around because you think you do?
warch
There are plenty of trained, liscensed yet shitty, psycho, drunk, suicidal, asleep, and stupid drivers on the roads killing by operating equipment not specifically designed to kill. I dont see people brandishing guns, as they do cell phones, a terrific solution. Oh, but you specified "good" training, like a really, really hard test?
Cut the fucking shit. You and I both know that licensing tests for the operation of motor vehicles are a <b>fucking JOKE</b>. Anyone can get a goddamned license. Answer a few common-sense questions, show that you can park a car without killing a baby and now you're legal to drive for the next five years.
Look, maybe you're just strong anti-gun at heart, but you know damned well that I wouldn't advocate some simple test every five years to "maintain" the "fitness" of someone to carry a firearm. Perhaps psychological evaluations would be a good place to start. Rigorous training in the use of a handgun. Government-issued handguns (that the citizen had to pay for, of course), so that it could be known when and where that gun was used (when coupled with a "fingerprinting" that would be done on every gun distributed, such that the authorities could easily match a fired bullet to a specific person).
You <b>know</b> that I'm talking about serious shit here, yet your defense is silly highschool rhetoric. Yes, you're right. The whole idea is bunk. Man, cops kill innocent people sometimes too. We should take guns away from them too! Of course!
Hey, here's a newsflash for everyone. Maybe this will help.
[SIZE=4]
THE GUN CANNOT BE UN-INVENTED[/SIZE]
Shittily enough, it is here to stay. Just like the NOO-KYOO-LAR bomb and biological weapons. They suck, and they should never have been invented, but they WERE and they're NOT GOING AWAY.
Now, what you're telling me is that, well hey, they should be removed from the hands of law-abiding citizens. Everyone, of course... but criminals give a fuck about laws? NO. THAT IS WHY THEY ARE FUCKING CRIMINALS. THEY DO NOT GIVE TWO FUCKING SHITS ABOUT WHAT THE LAW SAYS. IF THEY DID, THEY WOULD NOT BE CRIMINALS.
Now. What is to deter them from attacking innocent people and doing as they please?
Yes, that makes about as much sense as the U.S. military disarming. No, that's not INVITING AN ATTACK.
Yeah, so Atticus Finch said "The easiest way to get shot is to carry a gun." Well, he forgot that "The easiest way to neutralize a rapist is to shoot him in the fucking head. And the easiest way to get raped is to have nothing to protect yourself when some escaped convict pulls a gun on you and orders you into his van."
This is fucking stupid, and here's why. I'm not going to convince you, because deep down, you are afraid of guns. It's not a rational thought, it is emotional. And it is not going to be changed. And you're not going to convince me, because your argument makes absolutely no fucking effort to present any type of valid point. It is all based on fear and a vague promise of some utopia that, in reality, will never exist because we don't have the power to undo such fuckups as the invention of the gun and the nuclear bomb and rape and murder.
Although I don't want to enter this argument for obvious reasons (despite assurances to the contrary, tempers are and will be riding high), I'd like to make two statements. Maybe it'll make some people think, maybe they are too tangential to the issue - make your own decision, as usual.
1. The genie can't be stuffed back into the bottle; gun ownership cannot be undone. Or can it? Britain outlawed all handguns and most rifles after a deranged man walked into an elementary school and indiscriminately shot about a dozen children about five years ago. There is some discussion whether gun-related crime has increased in the last few years, but it is certainly an incredible deterrent to 'random' gun-related murders and accidents.
The US isn't Britain, but to make a general statement that guns are here to stay is illogical: if there was a will, there'd be a way. The silent majority probably doesn't support giving any drug users in average higher jail sentences than rapists, but it happens anyway. Most people don't like the highway speed limits, but they are enforced anyway. Constitutional right or not - where there's a will, there is always a way. Freedom of speech is also a constitutional right, but it's being infringed upon and removed bit by bit as the pressure from authoritarians grows. (is the War on Drugs successful? Not really. Would a War on Guns ever be? Probably not; although - psychologically speaking - people want pleasure more than they need guns, the gun lobby is powerful enough to easily derail most anti-gun legislation)
2. If I am being attacked or robbed, with the assailant probably having to use a weapon in order to intimidate me (which is easily the most likely scenario if I was to be robbed), the attacker's default reaction if I were to go for a gun is to escalate the situation, and most likely either grievously injure me or kill me, in order to avoid getting shot himself. If I had a hip holster and publically displayed my guns, then maybe it would be a deterrent, since I could easily and quickly go for my gun. Maybe. But since the robber doesn't know for a fact that I am armed, he won't be deterred. Certainly, you can argue that robbery will descrease if everybody is armed, since most would-be robbers don't want to risk people pulling their guns, with the resulting consequences.
But that's nonsense. Theft and robbery will always exist, especially as a society's norms tend towards the violent and confrontational. If everybody was armed, robbery would become more violent, in order to forestall any retaliation. All that could be prevented would be an insignificant number of non-armed robberies. For a while. Until the escalation of violence would put citizens on the defensive, with no way of defending themselves.
Of course, I may be wrong, but guns seem on the most part to be a throwback to a society where violence escalation, not de-escalation, was the solution to its ills. The reality of everyday life may seem to demand protection, but should the solution not be in the enforcement of the social contract, rather than a throwback to an age where guns were necessary because they were the only realistic means of protection?
These days, it sometimes appears that guns are more a placebo, a comfort blanket providing protection from imaginary demons as much as real threats. There are quite possibly studies out there demonstrating that gun owners are more rarely the victim of robberies or violent crimes. Good for them.
But then I guess that every country in the world ought to have very short-range nuclear weapons as well. If another country abuses them, the neighbouring states can instantly destroy it.
What? You say that much evil can come of such weapons if placed in everybody's hands? You say that innocent people can be harmed by the actions of few?
I wonder what the shooting victims' families think of that.
X.
I really couldn't have said it better, X. I would like to add a few thoughts though.
I've seen the NRA try to use scare tactics a hundred times, but the most blatant was a recent report saying that mandatory waiting periods were inherently bad because they would not allow newly independent battered wives to protect themselves. (The press release degenerated from there into random and disgusting rhetoric that I don't feel like getting into.) What it doesn't say, though, is that these waiting periods are just as exclusionary toward the pissed off husband. It also doesn't consider the idea of a newly single woman who is completely clueless about a gun. Would it not be advantageous to train someone? Obviously, it would have to be a graduated program; first time gun buyers would go through something more intensive than someone with his third or fourth gun.
The other part of my idea is that a dramatic effort has to be made to convince people that there's no point in having guns. There are statistics to prove that most gun owners don't know how to use them, and that a significant percentage of robberies where the owner has a gun result in the owner's injury. The cat may be out of the bag, but that doesn't mean we can't skin it.
As a final note, I never used to care about guns. I had a boy's fascination with them in the "loud things that go boom" sense. But after having one held to my head, and having a slug's entry into the ceiling above me rain plaster onto my hair, and having another one enter the wall about an inch from my head, I cannot accept them as anything but tools of the weak to impose their disproportionate will on others. I may be a bit biased, but I am steadfast in that belief. If I could destroy every weapon on the planet, I would. I would dedicate my life to doing so. But in the meantime, I think the measures I described above are fair, and the only reason the NRA opposes it is the simple-minded fear of the slippery slope, as if everything was black and white.
I only see out of one eye because I got shot in the fucking face when I was 14.
Some<b>one</b> shot me. He used a gun in a wholly inappropriate manner and I paid the price. But it's not the gun's fault - it's his fault.
I sure as shit don't want that to happen again because I couldn't defend myself.
So there's my bias.
Originally posted by dave
He used a gun in a wholly inappropriate manner and I paid the price. But it's not the gun's fault - it's his fault.
I sure as shit don't want that to happen again because I couldn't defend myself.
So there's my bias.
Sure. But how were you attacked? If you had a concealed firearm yourself, could you have prevented it? You say he used the gun inappropriately - how could 'everyone' having guns have prevented that?
The 'it's not the gun's fault' line is understandable, but perhaps misguided: Without the gun, it wouldn't have happened. He wouldn't have had a way of 'mishandling' anything to half-blind you from Lord knows how far away. (maybe he was standing next to you, I don't know) It's a
lot more difficult (even accidentally) to kill, maim, or blind people without a gun. Sure, it can be a tool for good, but how often is it a tool for evil, even out of sheer negligence?
If everyone had guns, unless everyone had to undergo ridiculously stringent testing beforehand (which we know isn't going to happen), there would be more gun-related accidents, not less. Simply due to sheer numbers. More people would be injured. More people would abuse guns, use them in anger, use them when hit by an attack of anxiety or depression (often undiagnosed), or use them drunk.
More people would become victims. More people would lose their sight, or their lives.
X.
PS: I said what I had to say; going any further wouldn't sway anyone's opinion, and cause disagreement rather than consensus. I'll read, but I'll refrain from posting unless I consider something to be objectively wrong.
Originally posted by hermit22
I've seen the NRA try to use scare tactics a hundred times, but the most blatant was a recent report saying that mandatory waiting periods were inherently bad because they would not allow newly independent battered wives to protect themselves.
Yep, they've been using that line for quite a while.
What it doesn't say, though, is that these waiting periods are just as exclusionary toward the pissed off husband.
Actually, some NRA writing on the subject addresses this point. They point out that an abusive husband is usually physically larger and stronger than the abusee. The person being abused is, as you later point out "weak" (in the physical sense), and might very well need a tool like a gun to impose her "disproportionate will" (to be left alone) on her abuser.
It also doesn't consider the idea of a newly single woman who is completely clueless about a gun. Would it not be advantageous to train someone? Obviously, it would have to be a graduated program; first time gun buyers would go through something more intensive than someone with his third or fourth gun.
There's something which gets lost in all the 'training' propaganda put out mostly by anti-gunners, but also by well-meaning pro-gun people. And that's that the gun is a very simple machine to operate. Particularly a revolver, but it doesn't take a genius to figure out how to load a pistol either, or even load and cock a single-action pistol. And once that's taken care of, actually using the thing is just release safety (if applicable), point, and shoot.
there's no point in having guns. There are statistics to prove that most gun owners don't know how to use them, and that a significant percentage of robberies where the owner has a gun result in the owner's injury.
There are? The figures I've seen show that resisting a robbery with a gun results in LESS injury than most other actions, including not resisting.
Originally posted by Xugumad
Britain outlawed all handguns and most rifles after a deranged man walked into an elementary school and indiscriminately shot about a dozen children about five years ago. There is some discussion whether gun-related crime has increased in the last few years, but it is certainly an incredible deterrent to 'random' gun-related murders and accidents.
That's great. Impose a law. When things get WORSE instead of BETTER, tout the laws benefits ANYWAY.
russotto
That's great. Impose a law. When things get WORSE instead of BETTER, tout the laws benefits ANYWAY.
Please read what I wrote, and get some information on the subject first before replying. The law was intended to stop 'random' murders. Britons very rarely carried guns for self-defense anyway, due to the CCP laws there. I mentioned that there is some "discussion" whether gun-related crimed increased or not. The correlation to individuals carrying weapons is completely unproven - Britons wouldn't normally pull out guns to defend themselves if mugged, anyway.
The laws benefits are obvious. Things didn't get 'worse'. That kind of uninformed attack is
exactly why I'm not getting involved in this anymore.
I was trying to be fair by presenting all possible sides to the story. Live and learn, I guess.
X.
Laws preventing or restricting access to weapons affect only the law-abiding...to their great detriment, especially when confronting the lawless. Gun prohibition is no more effective than alcohol prohibition, or drug prohibition.
"Things" overall are indeed worse in the UK, and the accounts of people there being procecuted for defending themsleves against footpads and burgulars are apalling. When advocating a law you have to consider *all* consequences, not just the intended ones, before you can claim "things didn't get worse"...that's not "fairness", it's tunnel vision.
There's something which gets lost in all the 'training' propaganda put out mostly by anti-gunners, but also by well-meaning pro-gun people. And that's that the gun is a very simple machine to operate. Particularly a revolver, but it doesn't take a genius to figure out how to load a pistol either, or even load and cock a single-action pistol. And once that's taken care of, actually using the thing is just release safety (if applicable), point, and shoot.
Yes guns are simple to operate, but that isn't the point of training, training should give people a healthy respect for guns. Every hunter that handles a firearm takes a hunters safety class. They are trained on not only how to use a gun, but also how to clean it, keep it from firing, the differences between different guns, and how not to handle a gun. There is much more to training, then just teaching someone how to pull a trigger, everyone who has ever watched TV can figure out how to shoot a gun.
Stop ranting dave, it jsut undermines your point.
I suggest you check your definition of passive-aggressive behavior. My comments may have been aggressive, but hardly passive-aggressive. Do you know what these big words mean, or do you just toss them around because you think you do?
How would you define passive-agressive? Generally i've seen it defined as a roundabout or indirect way of being agressive, but in a way that seems agreeable. Meh i used the term very loosely i agree. I'm not getting into this thread, its a waste of time.
I'd have to second Cam's thoughts here. I hate to use the car analogy, but it is appropriate - anyone can get behind a wheel and steer, but it takes training to figure out the rules of the road. Obviously, it would be pointless to require extensive training for someone's 35th firearm. It is the duty of government to protect its citizens from itself and each other. I think this is the appropriate medium.
And Rusotto...
The weak, in the case mentioned above, is the abusive husband, who is more likely to take up a gun in the first place simply because of psychology. It is the weak who must use a deadly weapon to enforce his/her will. It is not weak to respond as such. So, by that logic, it is the husband who is the weaker, and who can very easily run to the local Guns'R'Us in a blind rage. I really fail to see any plus side to not having mandatory waiting periods - but that's just me. Go ahead and try to convince me. I'm willing to listen.
[QUOTE]Originally posted by hermit22
And Rusotto...
The weak, in the case mentioned above, is the abusive husband, who is more likely to take up a gun in the first place simply because of psychology. It is the weak who must use a deadly weapon to enforce his/her will.
You're using a strange meaning of the term "weak". I'm 5' 7" and 150 pounds. Fact is, should I choose to be abusive to e.g. a 5' 2" 110 pound woman, all other things being equal, I'm not going to NEED to use a gun to impose my will upon her. By the same token, a 6' 220 pound musclebound ex-con robber won't need a gun to impose his will on me. So yes, it's the weak who must use guns to enforce his or her will -- but that's "weak" in the physical sense, not in the pejorative one you're using.
Originally posted by BrianR
I fel helpless because I don't have the means to shoot back
What the heck do you mean you don't have the means to shoot back ... YOU?????
Originally posted by Cam
Kind of makes you understand why we have gun control.
Not that the sniper himself doesn't give us a reason, but imagine everyone carrying around a gun in the Washington D.C. area, that would be scary, especially with everyone on edge.
Actually, gun control is the PROBLEM, not the solution.
Everyone in DC proper (okay, I'm exaggerating) is carrying a gun. Illegally. They have the highest murder rate in the country still, I believe. (too lazy/busy to look up stats at the moment. I'm at work, in between patients).
Allowing legal concealed carry has the effect of having the murder and crime rates to DROP.
Chicago's got highest murder rate.
Originally posted by dave
Chicago's got highest murder rate.
I know, I know. Correlation does not imply causality, but ...
Illinois is an extremely restrictive state with respect to gun ownership and concealed carry.
Only the "bad guys" got guns there.
'sallgood. I just toss out facts whenever it looks like they could be used. My memory for numbers is particularly good, so I tend to remember things like murder rates, muslim populations, etc.
Originally posted by wolf
What the heck do you mean you don't have the means to shoot back ... YOU?????
Yes. Me. I live near Baltimore now.
Grumble mumble communist politicians mumble grumble
Brian
...from
http://www.northbridgetraining.com/beltway/fact_sheets.html
<h3>Beltway Killer Attacks - Firearms Fact Sheet</h3><p>Much of the reporting on the Beltway Killer has contained numerous technical inaccuracies regarding firearms. While primarily due to the reporter's unfamiliarity with firearms rather than any intended bias, certain inaccuracies lead to inadvertent but serious distortions of the story. For example, media articles often report the killer as striking from a long distance using a high-powered assault rifle. In fact, the killer appears to be striking from a very short distance using a low-powered common rifle. In an effort to clarify some of the unfamiliar aspects of firearms and assist in accurate reporting that best serves the public, we have prepared this media fact sheet.
<h4>FACTS ABOUT THE WEAPON USED AND SHOOTING TECHNIQUE</h4><p>THE ROUND
<p>Ballistic information has apparently led the police to believe the killer is using a .223 caliber cartridge (5.56mm in metric), which is commonly used in rifles - although it is also used in some large handguns. All rifle cartridges are more powerful than smaller handgun rounds. However, the .223 is not a high-powered cartridge - rather it is the lowest power cartridge in large-scale commercial use. By comparison, the 30-06 (pronounced "thirty aught six") cartridge, the round fired by the rifle Sarah Brady bought her son for Christmas of 2000 (described in her book "A Good Fight"), is over twice as powerful and can penetrate approximately 18" of oak. The .223 is used primarily to hunt small (rabbit-sized) game and is illegal for hunting large animals in many states because it is not sufficiently lethal to reliably kill the game. <p>The United States military uses the military equivalent, the 5.56mm round, in its rifles. Our military chose this round specifically to wound, rather than kill, an enemy - wounded soldiers require care that consumes an enemy's battlefield resources. The Beltway killer is so lethal because he or she is shooting at close range, not because he or she is using a large round.
<p>THE RANGES
<p>The killer appears to be shooting from 30-150 yards (essentially, across a parking lot). While long for small handgun range, this distance is very short for rifle shooting. Military snipers usually shoot from 300 to 1000 yards. Rifle enthusiasts usually shoot around 200 yards and up. Police snipers, who shoot at much shorter distances, are the only group of trained shooters who regularly shoot rifles in the 100-150 yard range. A competent instructor can teach any previously untrained reporter to make shots similar to those the killer is making with an hour of instruction - see this story on Fox News in which reporter Alisyn Camerota, who has never fired a rifle before, makes a head shot at 25 yards on her first shot before receiving any instruction whatsoever:<a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,65868,00.html">
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,65868,00.html</a>.
<p>THE WEAPON
<p>The killer's weapon is often described as possibly being an "assault rifle". However, it is highly unlikely that the killer has access to an actual assault rifle. An assault rifle is a military rifle capable of firing more than one round when the trigger is pulled - essentially a light machine gun. What the media often terms "assault rifles" are the semi-automatic commercial versions of military rifles. Like all other semi-automatic rifles, they fire one round every time the trigger is pulled. They may look like assault rifles, sometimes prompting the designation "assault style rifle", but there is no mechanical difference between a semi-automatic rifle with "assault style" cosmetic features and a semiautomatic hunting rifle. The correct designation for such a rifle, regardless of what it looks like, is a "semi-automatic rifle".
<p>Further, there is no indication that the killer is using a semi-automatic rifle. Bolt-action and single-shot rifles in .223 caliber are readily available and more common, and the killer has to this point never fired more than one round.
<p>Also, several long pistols fire the same round, also accept telescopic sights, and would produce similar results at the short ranges the killer is striking at.
<h4>FACTS ABOUT THE KILLER'S SKILL AND "SNIPERS"</h4><p>The killer's shooting skill is not unusually good. Shooting from a prepared position with a rifle, almost anyone who has had basic instruction can accurately hit a target at the short ranges the killer strikes from. However, the killer's skill at planning the attacks, hiding the weapon, and escaping without notice are unusual and it is these skills that make him or her such a fearsome criminal. <p>Real military and police snipers, who shoot for a living, are highly offended to be associated with the Beltway area killer. Actual trained snipers belong to a highly skilled subset of shooters and are capable of much more demanding shooting than the Beltway killers have used. Like black belt martial artists, they have invested great effort to acquire great power, and their ability is tempered with great responsibility. Military and police snipers shoot as a last resort to save the lives of innocent civilians or the soldiers behind them, not to wreak terror. They find referring to the Beltway area killer(s) as a "sniper" to be as offensive as referring to the September 11th hijackers as "pilots". <p>For reference, see the CNN article "Real snipers resent D.C. shooter": <a
href="http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/South/10/14/snipers.mind.ap/index.html">
http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/South/10/14/snipers.mind.ap/index.html</a>
<h4>THE BELTWAY KILLER AND DEFENSIVE USE OF GUNS</h4><p>Nancy Hwa of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence (recently renamed from Handgun Control, Inc.) has responded to the Beltway killer by claiming "This shows that carrying a gun doesn't make you safer." (MSNBC article,
<a href="http://www.msnbc.com/news/819677.asp?0bl=-0">
http://www.msnbc.com/news/819677.asp?0bl=-0)</a>. There are several problems with this statement. Obviously, the beltway murders are an extremely rare type of crime that is not indicative of the common crimes people generally face, where defensive handguns can effectively end the crime. However, while
the initial victim of the Beltway shootings has no chance to defend his or herself and would not be helped by carrying a gun, these shootings take place at close range in suburban areas where there are often people around who can respond. A recent eyewitness claims to have seen the killer flee. Had the shootings taken place in a city where more citizens commonly carry
lawfully concealed firearms, such as Dallas, the killer would be less likely to be able to escape without return fire. At the short ranges that the killer strikes at, a lawfully armed citizen could realistically hit the killer with a handgun. <p>Armed citizens do regularly stop serial criminals - for example, in
Pittsburgh a woman recently shot a serial rapist who had terrorized the city with 6 prior attacks over a two week period
(<a href="http://www.post-gazette.com/neigh_city/20021015arrest1015p1.asp">
http://www.post-gazette.com/neigh_city/20021015arrest1015p1.asp</a>). Armed citizens have even prevented terrorist attacks with explosives (see
<a href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/comment/2002/06/17/ncguest2.htm">
http://www.usatoday.com/news/comment/2002/06/17/ncguest2.htm</a> for a description of an attack where an Israeli woman shot a supermarket bomber before he could detonate his bombs).
The Beltway killer has chosen to attack in an area with strict gun control, possibly to minimize the threat to his or her person.
<h4>ABOUT THE KILLER(S)</h4><p>We do not know if there is one killer or several, but police theorize that the killer(s) work in teams, with one shooter and one driver, who may change roles. We are not sure about the killer's gender (one eyewitness account has mentioned one male, but little information is available). We do not know the killer's ethnicity, national origin, or motivation. Even the ballistic evidence about the round may be incorrect, as the killer may be intentionally planting evidence from firearms not involved in the crime. This would give the killer the ability to use the police's ballistic imagery against them to beat court charges by raising reasonable doubt as to whether the firearm used in the crimes was really connected with the killer.
Originally posted by hermit22
[B]
So yes, it's the weak who must use guns to enforce his or her will -- but that's "weak" in the physical sense, not in the pejorative one you're using.
And that's my whole point. Guns offer a sense of power that no person should have the right to wield: the power of life and death over another person. So, in a theoretical world, those tools should be taken away - because, all rhetoric aside, the guns and the bullets fired from them enable the gun-related murder. Several European states were able to remove guns from the civilian population, but, unfortunately, that would never work here. In the meantime, measures to prevent misuse are the only option we have. The people who complain that their rights are being trampled on because they can't walk around downtown with the gun they just bought are simply whining, weak people. maggie, your post noted that the Beltway is one of the areas that isn't so hot on concealed weapons. Do you really want the DC police to not be able to prosecute for carrying a gun near a presidential motorcade? Or someone who sees a senator they don't like in a local bar? Legalizing the universal use of concealed weapons is directly related to such crime. There are just as many statistics to prove this as there are statistics to prove otherwise. Since statistics then, are an invalid argument, we're all building our arguments on normative analysis. As such, I'll never convince you and you'll never convince me.
Originally posted by hermit22
Legalizing the universal use of concealed weapons is directly related to such crime. There are just as many statistics to prove this as there are statistics to prove otherwise.
Please cite these sources which <I>prove</I> universal concealed weapons are <I>directly</I> related to the crimes you mention.
As soon as you cite the statistics that show otherwise. You said it first. :)
Actually, I haven't done research on it in a few years, although I'll look back into it if I get a chance. It's awfully hard to find unbiased statistics on the matter.
Put out a can of Sniper Food. My Sniper likes beef and cheese flavor.
Call out "Here Sniper, Sniper, Sniper! Come and get it!"
Go back in the house.
Works every time...
Actually, my buddy Kenny says that the numbers are the only thing both sides <b>can</b> agree on. The trouble is reading them without reading the spin.
...except this: the rifle is probably not suppressed, but is merely being fired from inside a sizeable metal box: the van. This distorts and rather muffles the shot and makes it difficult to get a fix on exactly where the shot was fired. Compound the mischief with echoes of the report and the sonic "crack" of the supersonic bullet's passage all bouncing off various concrete surfaces and you've really got a tangle of stimuli to sort out. This guy is a middling good shot with a real knack for getting away fast and subtle. No wonder he's giving us a pain.
Originally posted by hermit22
And that's my whole point. Guns offer a sense of power that no person should have the right to wield: the power of life and death over another person.
When everyone gives up their muscles, their fists, their feet, then I'll consider this. Until then, it's ridiculous.
Originally posted by Urbane Guerrilla
...except this: the rifle is probably not suppressed, but is merely being fired from inside a sizeable metal box: the van.
If he's firing an unsuppressed rifle inside a van, we know one important thing about him: He's deaf.
Originally posted by russotto
If he's firing an unsuppressed rifle inside a van, we know one important thing about him: He's deaf.
From a .223? I doubt it.
I dunno. I used to shoot my .22 in my basement (against a big stack of phonebooks, which always did a good job stopping the bullets) and it was pretty fuckin' loud, even for a basement. If it's a relatively empty van (not shielded to absorb noise, as it may be), then I can imagine the sound being pretty substantial. Also consider that a .223 packs a much larger charge than a .22, so it's a fair bit louder.
I haven't shot a .223 in my basement or anything, but I'm guessing that in an enclosed space, it will definitely make your ears ring.
Originally posted by hermit22
As soon as you cite the statistics that show otherwise. You said it first.
You said that there are statistics "proving" that there is a "direct" relationship between the two. My point is that there is no <B>proof</B> that concealed-carry laws <B>directly</B> relate to crime.
There may be data that <B>supports</B> an <B>indirect</B> relationship, but if a direct relationship had indeed been proven, as you suggest, then this debate would pretty much be over.
If this guy's going so far as to plan his escape route and attack location so far in advance, don't you think he'd bring a set of ear plugs if he's shooting from inside the van?
Originally posted by Tobiasly
You said that there are statistics "proving" that there is a "direct" relationship between the two. My point is that there is no <B>proof</B> that concealed-carry laws <B>directly</B> relate to crime.
There may be data that <B>supports</B> an <B>indirect</B> relationship, but if a direct relationship had indeed been proven, as you suggest, then this debate would pretty much be over.
And now you see the fallacy in the NRA argument. Thank you for falling into the trap.
Originally posted by hermit22
And now you see the fallacy in the NRA argument. Thank you for falling into the trap.
Uh, Hermit, there's a fallacy? Actually, it is pretty well proven, and would be even better proven if eighteen states wised up and liberalized their concealed-carry laws. The experience of all of the 32 states in the Union that have reworked their concealed carry of weapon (CCW) laws from "authorities may issue" to "authorities shall issue" CCW permits to all who meet the qualifications, which are mostly knowing when to shoot and when not to, is that crime goes down and stays down, for now there is a greater degree of "criminal control" being exerted, day to day. You are just plain safer when you yourself can dispose of deadly threats to your life, health, and property, then and there. Owning and carrying guns works for thoughtful people.
The gun-restrictors immediately raise the specter of the thoughtless and the certifiable wielding deadly force. What the restrictors avoid understanding (frequently moving heaven and earth to avoid understanding, to the regretful head-wagging of the knowledgeable) is that the very same properties that allow arms to serve the evil are the properties that allow arms to serve the good. An evil man wielding deadly force is not a big problem
if and only if the good people have deadly force with which to reply. Problems tend to crop up only when the good folks can't avail themselves of the tools needed to solve that kind of emergency. We must retain the option of deadly force to cope with this end of the spectrum of trouble. What makes this a big deal is that at this extremity, deadly force is the only thing that will bring the desired outcome: the saving of innocent life. If we do not have this option for this extremity, than we aren't doing all we could be to save the lives of innocents. Now does that sound like the sane or the righteous way to go? -- I didn't think so, either.
Gun-restrictors, official or un-, it's really time for you to get the hell out of our way. We can save you; you can't save us, thanks to the demonstrable criminal determination to do wrong even unto mass murder. Stop biting the hand that saves you (and where do you come off being that resentful, anyway?); indeed, the morally superior path is to become one of the saviors, is it not, all things considered? We have that ambition, and you can too -- we've not used it all up.
The problem with all of that is even good people do bad things. You are using a flawed methodology : people are good or bad, no in between, and the good need guns to protect themselves from the bad. This is discounting the police and thousands of years of human nature that shows almost no one is strictly good or bad.
And finally, with the statistics - no, there is no such proof. There has been opposite proof released as well, it's just not shouted as loudly as the well-funded NRA shouts their proof. Why do you think that, despite all of the NRA's blustering, we still have gun control laws, and more are coming on the books? Statistics can be manipulated in any way, but sometimes people actually see past that.
I know I don't want to live in a world where anyone can carry a concealed weapon. That right should be reserved only to the few who need it. The average Joe walking around the IE doesn't need a glock in his belt, and I suspect the same applies most everywhere there is a large concentration of people.
Originally posted by hermit22
Why do you think that, despite all of the NRA's blustering, we still have gun control laws, and more are coming on the books?
Because some folks let emotion overrun logic.
And what logic is that? the logic from the statistics that can be shown to go both ways? or the well-funded 'logic' that buys its way into the mainstream consciousness?
The logic is quite simple from where I'm standing.
Guns aren't killing people. People are. What kind of people? Criminals. Most law-abiding citizens are not going to misuse their guns. Will some of them? Absolutely! But very few.
Banning guns is an easy fix. Oh my God! Look at people shooting each other on the streets of SE DC! Well! We better ban guns! Better yet, we should sue gun makers for ever putting those guns out there! If it weren't for those damned guns, we wouldn't have any violent crime!
Bull-fucking shit. It's impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are ingenious. In reality, the good guys (i.e. Joe Q. Public and friends) are losing out. The actions of a few fuck-ups are ruining it for everybody. How fair is that?
And even if every single gun were taken out of action (including the one from Moses's cold dead hands), what are you left with? A bunch of violent criminals that will use their hands, feet, body, rocks, knives, etc. to get what they want.
The problem is not guns, it's people. What is causing a person (or persons) to randomly shoot at people in the Washington, DC area? What caused 2 guys in body armor to rob a bank in Los Angeles, resulting in a massive gun battle between them and LA police? Is it bad brain chemistry? Socioeconomic factors? A bit of both? THESE are the factors that we really need to look at...not the guns.
Here's my suggestion. But the police hung up on me....
* Close deer season.
* sell sniper licenses.
* put a bounty on snipers of, say, $10,000.
* require proof that you actually killed a SNIPER and not a hunter.
* turn loose all those pissed off hunters.
Problem solved!
Brian
Now lemme get my tongue out of my cheek...
Originally posted by hermit22
I know I don't want to live in a world where anyone can carry a concealed weapon.
Then you'd better find another world to live in. No matter what laws may be passed by well-meaning but deluded people, <b>anyone</b> can carry a concealed weapon...and wishing for your "theoretical world" can't change that.
"Good people do bad things" is semantic sillyness. Do you believe that within every person lurks an evil spirt that might at any moment sieze control and make them "do a bad thing"?
Is your solution to this terrible situation a vast system of futile laws that magically protects you from evil? How could this ever ensure that the rest of the world is made as helpless as you feel yourself to be? *I'm* certainly not willing to live within the tangles of "safety nets" you would construct. No law will ever shield you from the unresolved anger you project onto the rest of the world.
Originally posted by sycamore
The logic is quite simple from where I'm standing.
Guns aren't killing people. People are. What kind of people? Criminals. Most law-abiding citizens are not going to misuse their guns. Will some of them? Absolutely! But very few...
Quite true of course as far as it goes. Guns are a tool that make killing easier. People could use bows, knives, swords, clubs, poison, and even just bare hands. However the job is more difficult. England which bans guns has dramaticly less murders per thousand of population then the
US while at the same time having more
violent crime
That means the English have a more difficulty getting murder done because they lack the tools to do so. The sniper could use a crossbow if he/she didn't have a rifle, but his/her killing efficency would be reduced considerablely and he/she would have more problems with concelment and excape. If the sniper were pegging rocks he/she would already be in custody and there is a good chance there would be many less dead if any dead at all.
I only make this argument for the sake of good logic. I'm not for the banning of guns in the US at least until there is real democratic reform. We may need the guns for the revolution.
So, we get rid of guns, and people start using bows to kill people, then we get rid of bows and people are using knifes to kill people, we get rid of knives and people are killing people with clubs. People have been murdering each other since the Stone Age. Banning a certain weapon is not going to solve the problem. If someone gets it in their head that they are going to commit a murder, they are going to commit the murder one way or the other.
Banning guns is not the answer. Then again having everyone carry guns is not either. Finding the middle ground is necessary. Giving well-trained individuals handguns and attempting to keep guns out of everyone else’s hands is about the best we can do. The problem with Gun Control laws though is that they are just that laws, and they are only as good as the people enforcing them.
We may need the guns for the revolution.
I sense that is a facetious comment. ;)
However, it's really quite amusing how Americans maintain two indefatigable opinions:
1. There is no country or group of countries in the world that could withstand the military might of the US government.
2. We the people have a right to bear arms to ensure freedom from oppression by that government.
Nic Name
However, it's really quite amusing[...]
Not that I disagree with you entirely, but you are either an individual of indefatigable fatalism or a fan of black humour if you consider those beliefs to be 'amusing'. The vast, vast majority of non-US Americans seem to find them disturbing and worrying, judging from personal experience.
But then, if anyone is to induce the end of western civilization as we know it, it may as well be the leaders of the free world. In a sense, it is as fitting an end as any.
X.
Originally posted by Nic Name
1. There is no country or group of countries in the world that could withstand the military might of the US government.
2. We the people have a right to bear arms to ensure freedom from oppression by that government.
Since Americans can point with some justice to historical occurrences to support both opinion 1 and opinion 2, with some of us going so far as to say that opinion 1 makes it a necessity to supply a check-and-balance in the form of opinion 2, small wonder these are "indefatigable."
Hermit22's postulation of carry guns for elite persons only as his preferred way to approach CCW is a viewpoint essential to oligarchy or dictatorship. It is absolutely antithetical to a republic, which requires the electorate to be the ultimate source of power in all things, life and death included, to be delegated by the electorate to its political representatives, or its public servants, who must serve at the suffrance and pleasure of the electorate, which may withdraw said suffrance at any time for cause.
Hermit22 does not himself recognize any individual right to self-defense, that is certain. Hermit: friendly notice -- that is one biiiig booboo. Don't screw up like that; it embarrasses you to demonstrate so clearly that you prefer totalitarianism to any other sort of social order, for only totalitarian regimes delegitimize self-defense in the way that you do, that they may the more conveniently assault anyone they deem inconvenient to their interests.
Hermit, do not let your discomfort with killing tools, and the morally responsible martial-arts mindset that should and usually does accompany them, lay the groundwork for social oppression of yourself, or others, or of our descendants. Too much of this already goes on, with the sinners all unconscious of their sin, and it has eroded our freedoms to a degree that requires repair and an altering of certain insufficiently freedom-friendly paradigms. If you desire in your heart to be a free adult human being, rather than a shackled slave (and you know how childish slaves get), then do not be anti-gun.
Have you noted how you seem unable to conceive that you might be of that armed elite you postulate? I can conceive of that for myself -- what's stopping you, in 25 words or less?
Originally posted by hermit22
And finally, with the statistics - no, there is no such proof. There has been opposite proof released as well, it's just not shouted as loudly as the well-funded NRA shouts their proof.
Try your statistical understanding on the study that was the foundation of John R. Lott's
More Guns, Less Crime which covers all 3015 counties in the United States over a period of 15 years -- not exactly a small or narrow study. It convinced me that the gun carriers have a real point -- in short, I think it's proven now. There have been allegations that Lott's work has been debunked, but every such allegation I have seen fogs into such a haze of erudite-sounding polysyllables that may or may not be terms of art in the discipline of statistics that I end up being unconvinced. These allegations fail of being comprehensible enough to persuade me that Lott's method or thesis is fundamentally flawed.
I know I don't want to live in a world where anyone can carry a concealed weapon. That right should be reserved only to the few who need it. The average Joe walking around the IE doesn't need a glock in his belt, and I suspect the same applies most everywhere there is a large concentration of people.
I propose an experiment, Hermit: move to the most urbanized portion of the state of Vermont, which is a state where anyone can carry a concealed weapon, and without the officious bother of keeping a carry permit on their person as well. Remain there for five years, and then take stock as to how nervous you felt during that time. Since Vermont's crime rate looks like prewar England's, or North Dakota's, I think you will find it really a very placid experience. You may find it congenial to carry, yourself, with all those shining examples before you.
... or Virginia, to keep on topic.
The presence of guns in the hands of the citizens does change the balance of power.
In order to use the military, first a US government would have to violate Posse Comitatus rules which prevent the use of the military against civilians. If this happens and is not an isolated incident (such as Waco), the shit must really have hit the fan.
Up until that point, the effect of deadly force in the hands of the citizens does act as a check on the amount of power that any particular government agent is willing to use. That's my theory and I'm sticking to it.
For example, during prohibition 1 (alcohol), there was a significant cultural note of southerners protecting their home-built distillers with shotguns, on the lookout for "revenuers" -- federal agents using the power of taxation to investigate and prosecute people producing alcohol.
Knowing that one's ass might be peppered with buckshot is enough to prevent agents from being willing to do house-to-house searches and such. This in turn changes the political will for different things, and the political ability to do different things. Maybe I need significant armor to do that search, or significant numbers of agents, or light violation of Posse Comitatus (Waco again).
It's not a perfect situation by any means, but IMO it means that there's only about one Waco per decade and not one per state per year.
The image that came to my mind wasn't the prospect of the US military rounding up southern white boys for moonshinin'.
It was the prospect of using the military to round up Muslim Americans and locking them up in military facilities without American Justice en masse like they did to the Japanese Americans during WWII.
Posse Committal that, Jose Padilla.
Utopia is still not an option.
What came to my mind was the political last resort, armed federal troops escorting black teenagers into Little Rock High School or interstate greyhound passengers in the face of state and local kkk militias. Fed power, in my mind, used for good.
but back to topic kinda- Like Syc said, he's a predator, he is hunting. Riflesport. How easy is that line to cross?
It's been interesting to note the spread of the opinion amongst people who have been studying the operational aspects of these attacks that there are at least two people involved: a shooter and a driver/lookout, who may exchange roles from one incident to the next.
So "How to get *the* sniper" may be a misnomer.
If there *are* two or more in this ongoing operation, how likely is it that they are nutcases sharing a common delusion? Or is it more likely that they're part of a larger organization? The *methods* are surely terroristic, whether there is a clearly stated political goal or not.
OK, that's the major premise.
Minor premise:
See: "Osama 'gave Bashir money for Bali bombs''"
http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/topstories/story/0,4386,150180,00.html
As a footnote to a story claiming that Al-Queda financed the purchase of three tons of C4 by JI from a source in the Indonesian military, this article reports:
<i>" The Sunday Times said Faruq had also told the CIA of other plots which had been considered. These included: The random shooting of Israelis and Americans at hotels across Indonesia. This was abandoned because it would have only 'minimal impact'..."</i>
Perhaps they found a way to have more than "minimal impact".
Originally posted by Cam
So, we get rid of guns, and people start using bows to kill people, then we get rid of bows and people are using knifes to kill people, we get rid of knives and people are killing people with clubs. People have been murdering each other since the Stone Age. Banning a certain weapon is not going to solve the problem. If someone gets it in their head that they are going to commit a murder, they are going to commit the murder one way or the other.
Banning guns is not the answer. Then again having everyone carry guns is not either. Finding the middle ground is necessary. Giving well-trained individuals handguns and attempting to keep guns out of everyone else’s hands is about the best we can do. The problem with Gun Control laws though is that they are just that laws, and they are only as good as the people enforcing them.
Again, bows and knives are less efficient tools for killing then guns, both from a physical and from a psychological point of view. Physically there is less power to these other weapons and a single strike is less likely to kill especially with modern medical procedures. Psychologically (except for sociopath individuals) it much harder to stick a knife into a person than it to shoot him at a distance (I know this from personal experience -Vietnam- and from scientific studies such as
On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society
by Dave Grossman)
Banning guns would reduce the killing by making killers less efficient. However the fact that banning guns will not eliminate murder entirely is no argument against a ban. Never the less the right to carry arms still must be defended for political reasons. And further everone must have the right or no-one has it.
Originally posted by MaggieL
It's been interesting to note the spread of the opinion amongst people who have been studying the operational aspects of these attacks that there are at least two people involved: a shooter and a driver/lookout, who may exchange roles from one incident to the next.
Which is standard sniper doctrine, as I understand it.
If there *are* two or more in this ongoing operation, how likely is it that they are nutcases sharing a common delusion? Or is it more likely that they're part of a larger organization? The *methods* are surely terroristic, whether there is a clearly stated political goal or not.
If there's more than two people, I'd say almost a certainty there's a larger organization. If there's two, I think there's probably a larger organization.
Originally posted by Chefranden
Again, bows and knives are less efficient tools for killing then guns, both from a physical and from a psychological point of view. Physically there is less power to these other weapons and a single strike is less likely to kill especially with modern medical procedures. Psychologically (except for sociopath individuals) it much harder to stick a knife into a person than it to shoot him at a distance
Stab wounds are actually slightly more lethal than bullet wounds, I believe. As for the psychological argument, that goes straight to hell because of your parenthetical note. What's the point of making it harder for everyone BUT the sociopaths? It's the sociopaths who are doing the murdering!
Again, bows and knives are less efficient tools for killing then guns, both from a physical and from a psychological point of view.
Yes, they are less efficient, but if that is all anyone has to either commit the crime or defend themselves it becomes a moot point. If I have a gun and you have a bow and you want to kill me it requires much more effort on your part to actually commit the murder. If I on the other hand only have a bow it comes down to whether I have the training to stop you.
I would guess, though I have no statistics right now, and any statistics would be invalid, that before guns were mass-produced more murders were committed per person then there are now. Guns make killing easier yes, but once again only if the killer has a gun and the victim does not. If every person on the street possibly has a gun concealed on his or her person, a random killer would most likely think twice about just randomly striking. If everyone only had a bow or a knife on them, it makes it easier to just walk up and kill someone because the chances of them being fast enough to use these weapons is minimal and they are far less likely to strike a fatal blow.
Of course, in the case of the sniper it does not matter because he is striking from a distance and the victim has no chance to defend him or herself.
Originally posted by warch
but back to topic kinda- Like Syc said, he's a predator, he is hunting. Riflesport. How easy is that line to cross?
Warch, it's a hard line to cross when it's your own species. I've been in an unpleasant situation -- psycho roommate -- where I thought I might have to pull a pistol out of a drawer and cap the guy. It felt
terrible. I was praying I wouldn't have to. Fortunately, I never had to, and a couple weeks later, psycho roommate checked into Saint Elizabeth's, the DC-area mental hospital for the not well fixed.
Cocaine is not your friend. That's all I've got to say.
Originally posted by Cam
Yes, they are less efficient, but if that is all anyone has to either commit the crime or defend themselves it becomes a moot point. If I have a gun and you have a bow and you want to kill me it requires much more effort on your part to actually commit the murder. If I on the other hand only have a bow it comes down to whether I have the training to stop you.
I would guess, though I have no statistics right now, and any statistics would be invalid, that before guns were mass-produced more murders were committed per person then there are now. Guns make killing easier yes, but once again only if the killer has a gun and the victim does not. If every person on the street possibly has a gun concealed on his or her person, a random killer would most likely think twice about just randomly striking. If everyone only had a bow or a knife on them, it makes it easier to just walk up and kill someone because the chances of them being fast enough to use these weapons is minimal and they are far less likely to strike a fatal blow.
Of course, in the case of the sniper it does not matter because he is striking from a distance and the victim has no chance to defend him or herself.
If what you say is true and the reason for not banning fire arms is self defense then everyone should carry - like in a Heinlein book. That means there will have to be gun subsidies for the poor to make it fair. Every one should get a nine mm auto of some sort so as fire power would be equal. If the government issued them to everyone when they turn 18 then they could buy in bulk and save a bundle. There will have to be ammo subsidies too so everyone gets and equal chance to practice.
The gun ban in my mind is hypothetical i.e. you don't have a gun but neither do I. If that happened the number of killings would go down for the same reason that farmers would grow less food if they went back to plowing with a mule. (The ban is hypothetical in this country because the government wouldn't enforce it. The government doesn't even bother to keep drugs out of prision.)
The argument that people need to carry against random killers is absurd. Most murdered people are murdered by
someone they know The argument for the right to bear arm is political. It is not a crime issue! The crime issue is meant to be divisive and it works. It helps keep the people from realizing they could band together to force the government to provide health care instead of cluster bombs for instance.
Originally posted by Chefranden
If what you say is true and the reason for not banning fire arms is self defense then everyone should carry - like in a Heinlein book. That means there will have to be gun subsidies for the poor to make it fair.
Boy, it sure stopped being "like a Heinlein book" really fast. Like in the very next sentence.
See here: it's nort my job to feed, clothe and house the poor, and it's not my job to arm them either. You've perhaps mistaken this for a socialist country. I do understand your confusion.
If you are in favor of arming the poor, do you support repealing the "make guns too expensive" type of prohibitionism? Like frivolous tax-funded liability suits against manufacturers, the "smart gun" (boy, there's a misnomer) requirement currently being proposed in the People's Republik of New Jersey, and the "Saturday Night Special" bans? Or are you only in favor of "arming the poor" when it's at taxpayer expense?
The argument that people need to carry against random killers is absurd.
What's absurd is arguing that it's the *only* reason. I don't have fire extinguishers in my house *just* in case it's hit by lighting, but itf it *is* hit by lightning I'll be glad I have them..
It is not a crime issue!
Nonsense.
The crime issue is meant to be divisive and it works. It helps keep the people from realizing they could band together to force the government to provide health care instead of cluster bombs for instance.
You really *are* a Socialist at heart.
The government doesn't "provide" anything. The taxpayers do. This is why they don't band together to insist the government "provide" health care...because so far enough of them still realize who will actually *pay* for it.
The argument that people need to carry against random killers is absurd. Most murdered people are murdered by someone they know The argument for the right to bear arm is political.
You do realize that completely validates my point. If guns were banned then most murders would not be prevented. If in the heat of the moment someone decides to kill a person, they know then they are just as likely to use a knife or other weapon, as they are to use a gun. Guns don't commit the crime the person does, Banning guns does nothing other than make people find other ways to do what guns do, that's the downside of human ingenuity.
(The ban is hypothetical in this country because the government wouldn't enforce it. The government doesn't even bother to keep drugs out of prision.
It does not matter if the government enforces it. Anyone who thinks that the government can stop people form getting guns thinks that all people are idiots and that the government has all the answers. This is obviously not true.
you don't have a gun but neither do I. If that happened the number of killings would go down for the same reason that farmers would grow less food if they went back to plowing with a mule.
Once again, human ingenuity comes into play. If I decide to kill someone, I am going to do it unless that person or someone else stops me. If I have a knife and get to the person I'm trying to kill he's just as dead as if I shot him. If that person has a knife and tries to stop me, it just depends on who is more skilled. All guns do is give you another tool. Killing may go down, but it is unlikely, because as you pointed out most murders are not random, but are acts of rage against an acquaintance.
That means there will have to be gun subsidies for the poor to make it fair. Every one should get a nine mm auto of some sort so as fire power would be equal.
Now you’re just blowing what I said out of proportion. The possibility of someone carrying a gun is a deterrent. If you walk down the street and see me and know I could have a gun your as unlikely to try and attack me as if you know everyone has a gun. It is what neighborhood watch accomplishes. You do not know if someone is watching you but you cannot be sure. The same applies to removing your faceplate from your car stereo. There is a good chance the person stuck their face into their glove box but the idea that they took it with them is enough to deter most thieves.
This
Reason piece about the increasing crime rates in GB goes into the differing beliefs about ones right to self defense.
Originally posted by Griff
This Reason piece about the increasing crime rates in GB goes into the differing beliefs about ones right to self defense.
Ovbiosuly an NRA propogadna piece.
Dave is ovbiosuly giving us Jaguar's propogadna, while he's busy with his studies.
Originally posted by Griff
This Reason piece about the increasing crime rates in GB goes into the differing beliefs about ones right to self defense.
The article is a good summary of the larger work by the same author published earlier this year.
It throws a strong light onto the process of creeping coercive collectivism that gun prohibitionism is a significant part of. Coerceive collectivisim is also a component of "shame culture"....see the links out of the threads here on that topic.
<blockquote><i>
Man :"Awright. It's a fair cop, but society is to blame"
Detective Parson: "Right! We'll be charging them too."
---Monty Python "Dead Bishop" shetch
</i></blockquote>
Originally posted by dave
Ovbiosuly an NRA propogadna piece.
:)
(Truth be told, I thought it was a fine article. But I figured jaguar's view needed to be represented as well... :) )
From that article:
Cultural differences and more-permissive legal standards notwithstanding, the English rate of violent crime has been soaring since 1991.
The British gun ban was passed 4-5 years ago.
Violent crime was 'soaring' before people's guns were taken away.'
The article is staggering in its desire to link private gun ownership and rising crime, in the process utterly disregarding cultural factors. It's strange how the article admits that general gun ownership was severely restricted by the 1953 Prevention of Crime Act, but only points out that violent crime increased sharply in the 1990s. It would invalidate much of the author's argument is cultural reasons, rather than reduced private gun ownership, were to blame.
Except for murder and rape, it admitted, "Britain has overtaken the US for all major crimes."
Yes, if it's only murder and rape the US is ahead in, it should be OK.
As a result the English and American murder rates are converging. In 1981 the American rate was 8.7 times the English rate, in 1995 it was 5.7 times the English rate, and the latest study puts it at 3.5 times.
The link to gun ownership being implied, and non-obvious. But as long as it's only 3.5 times, it's still OK.
The example of Britain teaches nothing, especially seeing how emotionally manipulative that article was. The examples of robbers being shot, killed, etc. in the middle of the article were injustice, rather than examples of why guns are good.
Not that the magazine itself would be biased, of course. The banner ad currently is for "The leading libertarian and conservative titles."
Unsurpringly, the author is a Professor at a Business College. With the amount of Post Hoc fallacies committed in the article, I'd find it surprising if he wasn't laughed out of any serious academic convention. The MIT link only suggests that he provides data for a research program.
Here's another example of a pro-gun Post Hoc fallacy:
"The only policy that effectively reduces public shootings is right-to-carry laws. Allowing citizens to carry concealed handguns reduces violent crime. In the 31 states that have passed right-to-carry laws since the mid-1980s, the number of multiple-victim public shootings and other violent crimes has dropped dramatically. Murders fell by 7.65%, rapes by 5.2%, aggravated assaults by 7%, and robberies by 3%."
("The Media Campaign Against Gun Ownership", The Phyllis Schlafly Report, Vol. 33, No. 11, June 2000.)
I just wonder if Malcolm is part of the DHorowitz' oft-invoked liberal academic mafia that's making life so difficult for conservatives... :-)
The article is mostly emotional manipulation with no proof of the links drawn between the statistics and the results. The meat of the article is blatant in its failure to demonstrate how widely available gun ownership would have prevented most crimes, and instead focuses on how 'unjustly' British law treats those who seek to protect themselves.
Naturally, it focuses on Britain, which is an exception to the whole situation, based on Europe. In most other European countries, gun ownership has never been an issue, and crime mirrors (to a lesser, less dramatic extent) the British experience.
But I suspect the author wouldn't want to let facts get in the way of good argument. He has a book to sell, after all.
Fine distractionary tactic, too. Instead of the thread's title of 'how to get the sniper', where general firearm ownership would have done very little, the subject is being diverted to matters of principle. Very well and good, but how exactly are more liberal gun laws in the US vs. Britain preventing a criminal or insane individual from using his probably legal firearm to kill a large number of people?
Surely at this point, concerned citizens ought to be swarming all over that sniper, knee-capping him with their nifty new Glocks. What? People are hiding in their houses, schools are being shut down, and real terror is being struck into their hearts? Why? With your trusty pistol at your side, nothing can happen to you? At this point, pro-gun advocates are claiming that if everybody was armed, they wouldn't be afraid. Which is patent nonsense: your sidearm isn't going to stop a sniper's bullet, and a murderer who is willing to kill indiscriminately and in cold blood isn't going to be stopped by the knowledge that his victim is armed.
The illusion of safety that firearms provide is all good and nice, right until the moment when somebody shatters is. Which is exactly what the sniper is doing. Period.
X.
Links:
http://gncurtis.home.texas.net/posthocf.htmlOriginally posted by Xugumad
Naturally, it focuses on Britain...
How stramge, especially since the book is called <i>Guns and Violence: The English Experience</i>. The UK is always being held up as an example of how successful gun prohibition is. The article, and the book it is based on, show how bogus that argument is.
Unsurpringly, the author is a Professor at a Business College. ..I'd find it surprising if he wasn't laughed out of any serious academic convention."
Ah, <i>Serious</i> Academics. Like Michael Bellesiles, perhaps? Or your own lofty perch in the sociology tower?
Bently is indeed "a business school" (horrors!)...but Joyce Lee Malcolm ("she" not "he") is indeed a Visiting Scholar at the MIT Securuty Studies Program, and Harvard University Press sees fit to publish her books. No one has yet found falsification and fabrication of data in her work, which distinguishes her from the Serious Academics like Bellesiles.
MaggieL
Or your own lofty perch in the sociology tower?
You choose to answer criticisms regarding his methodology with ad hominem attacks on me. As far as I'm concerned, the discussion is over, since I'm not going to fall for flamebait. (I'll counter your points below)
As an aside, I've never studied sociology. (but it's the most commonly-attacked academic study subject, which you predictably pick on to attack academics as a whole)
Bently is indeed "a business school" (horrors!)
Business schools, like "Bently" [sic], don't often teach the same stringent methodology that science-focused schools do. This is what I have gathered from personal experience, not an overall judgement. And indeed, her argument is easily shown to be fallacious.
[...] is indeed a Visiting Scholar at the MIT Securuty Studies Program, and Harvard University Press sees fit to publish her books.
Name-dropping means nothing, especially in the academic world. If you use academic names as a means of support, you need to provide quality of publication at the same time. What I've seen her publish (that one article) is nothing. That an MIT "Securuty" [sic] program has her as a co-operator, and that HUP published her works means very little if the quality of the work doesn't stand up. The latest works by Francis Fukuyama were fairly irrelevant as well, even though his earlier works were highly-acclaimed in the academic world (mostly isolated to US academia). A name is nothing unless it's backed up by solid publication.
No one has yet found falsification and fabrication of data in her work
No, it's just shoddy and poorly reasoned. I never claimed it was fabricated. Your argument can be based on truths, but if it's foolish, it won't stand up. Please address the issues that her argument is based on Post Hoc fallacies, and that absolutely no proof is provided between her data and her conclusions.
You didn't address a single one of my actual points, but instead sought to bring additional, tangential individuals into the argument. Also, if you are going to crucify jaguar in another thread for his misspellings, at least make an attempt not to do the same here.
If you wish to continue this argument, and provide factual counter-points to my criticism of her methodology, please take it to email. I have no intention of dragging this thread into a flamewar.
X.
Originally posted by Xugumad
Fine distractionary tactic, too. Instead of the thread's title of 'how to get the sniper', where general firearm ownership would have done very little, the subject is being diverted to matters of principle. Very well and good, but how exactly are more liberal gun laws in the US vs. Britain preventing a criminal or insane individual from using his probably legal firearm to kill a large number of people?
The illusion of safety that firearms provide is all good and nice, right until the moment when somebody shatters is. Which is exactly what the sniper is doing. Period.
I assume that the nut hides himself well so a hail of return fire is unlikely, however, its made more unlikely by the supresion of carry rights in the involved region.
The illusion of safety that government provides is all good and nice, right until the moment when somebody shatters is. Which is exactly what the sniper is doing. Period.
Originally posted by dave
Jag loves my prodding.
Shush, he's trying to study.
Well, since X doesn't want to talk here, I'll let him be. I could have sworn he'd claimed academic expertese in sociology, I must be rmisrembering.
Speaking of ad-hominem, X seemed inclinded to sniff at the author's "business college" affiliation as though she were some typing instructor. Personally I'm not particularly impressed by academic name-dropping, but I pointed out that her academic credentials are pretty much in order. Bellesiles I brought up because he's an example of what the prohibitionist "Serious Academics" (the ones X sets so much store by) have been producing on RKBA issues.
I ignored all the handwaving about post-hoc because it is is exactly that: handwaving. Absent a controlled experiment or a time machine, a charge of post-hoc can always be levelled at a historian's analysis. Bellesiles, we have the goods on, because he claimed to have evidence supporting his own prohibitionist analysis that later independant investitgation proved couldn't possibly have existed. Emory is still trying to sweep *that* one under the rug.
The point about the UK gun prohibition is that it's held up as an example of how successful gun prohibition is. Malcolm's point is that it *isn't* successful at all, and further, it has fostered abrogation of personal responsibility for self-defense to a government that can't do the job, while *prosecuting* those who actually attempt to defend themselves. Those are post-hoc conclusions too, of course, but this is politics, not physics.
Yes, I misspelled Malcolm's employer's name. I did manage to get her gender right, though....you've now blown that one twice, X.
Here, maybe this will help:
<blockquote>Professor of History, Bentley
BA, Barnard College; MA and PhD, Brandeis University.
Author of <i>To Keep and Bear Arms: The Origins of an Anglo-American Right, Guns and Violence
The English Experience</i> and a nationally recognized authority on the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Primary field is early modern Europe, with emphasis on England. Research and writing focus on the impact of war on society, the popular attitude toward personal liberty, law and religion. Areas of specialization include early modern Europe, 17th Century England, colonial America, warfare in European history, Reformation, Renaissance and constitutional history. Recipient of Bentley College Award for Excellence in Research. Formerly taught at Boston University and Northeastern University. Prior consultant, National Park Service, Boston. </blockquote>
Just curious, X, what do you feel are the underlying cultural factors producing the increase in crime?
Indeed i do, grow the fuck up ;) :rattat:
The article is interesting and raises some good points, even if it's use of individual cases stinks of emotional manipulation over statistical evidence, which can be done to support pretty much anything if you try hard enough. The use of the stat of 3.5 times the violent crime rate as proof of failure was a little…..curious too. The recent monash shooting has been interesting, the main fallout has been that handguns, the only thing not banned under the last gun reform bill were used and there has been a huge increase in the use of handguns in crimes and a huge drop in the use of shotguns and rifles in crimes, suggesting the bans were rather effective. There also has been a large increase in knife based weapons, suggesting oddly enough, that the effect was just to change what weapon was used. The media, particularly the more….tabloid elements have been frothing at the mouth for a blanket ban on handguns.
I still don't think people should be able to conceal-carry a Beretta Tomcat or a S&W .357 Magnum but a right I would support the right to carry some weapons, particularly non-lethal weapons such as pepper spray and legal protection for self defense. It's a thin line. Britain has gone too far, I’d agree, but I don’t think the US should be used as a model either.
Attention Entertainment Editors:
Portfolio Entertainment secures rights to life story of geographic profiler Kim Rossmo
...
Joy Rosen and Lisa Olfman, Portfolio Entertainment Presidents and
Founders, say: "Kim Rossmo is in such high demand these days. His dogged work
with the Washington sniper shootings is a clear testament to the importance of
the new, scientifically based geographic profiling technique he created.
The ban on non-lethals makes me wonder about the intentions of the legislators. It really does relate to an abdication of personal responsibility in favor of collective responsibility. I don't want enough cops to make us perfectly safe but that is the logical outcome of this kind of thinking.
Originally posted by jaguar
There also has been a large increase in knife based weapons, suggesting oddly enough, that the effect was just to change what weapon was used.
Gee, not to say "I told you so", but...I told you so. :-)
Pepper spray is a joke as a defensive weapon. Cops use it to try to subdue someone unarmed who's resisting while avoiding the legal and PR hassles of actually drawing their real weapons and without closing to physical contact.
When we had our own campus shooting pretty much identical to the Monash shooting, the perp was apprehended by two students who had to run to their cars to get their handguns. Once confronted with armed opposition, the perp surrendered.
Of course the students had to go to their cars to get their weapons because an enlightened university administration had banned legal weapons carry on-campus, and the students, being law-abiding, complied. The administration's enlightenment probably cost at least one life.
Originally posted by Xugumad
From that article:
Cultural differences and more-permissive legal standards notwithstanding, the English rate of violent crime has been soaring since 1991.
The British gun ban was passed 4-5 years ago.
Violent crime was 'soaring' before people's guns were taken away.'
ROTFL. You know, it's really hilarious to see the arguments gun freedom supporters normally use used by gun controllers. Of course, they are just as valid -- or would be, if the article was trying to claim that the gun control alone caused the increased crime. But it doesn't, at least not directly. Rather it is arguing that gun control is part of a whole set of public policies opposed to self defense which have lead to the increased crime.
In fact, the author uses this argument in its usual sense within the article, pointing out that even before Britain had gun control, it had a far lower crime rate than the US had. It's not the guns.
Not that the magazine itself would be biased, of course. The banner ad currently is for "The leading libertarian and conservative titles."
The magazine is, of course, biased. It's a political magazine. It's tagline is "Free minds, Free markets", which should give you some idea of its bias.
Unsurpringly, the author is a Professor at a Business College. With the amount of Post Hoc fallacies committed in the article, I'd find it surprising if he wasn't laughed out of any serious academic convention. The MIT link only suggests that he provides data for a research program.
It's a magazine article, so the reasoning isn't as well developed as in an academic study. However, it doesn't even make the "post hoc" argument, let alone accept it as a fallacy.
Here's another example of a pro-gun Post Hoc fallacy:
"The only policy that effectively reduces public shootings is right-to-carry laws. Allowing citizens to carry concealed handguns reduces violent crime. In the 31 states that have passed right-to-carry laws since the mid-1980s, the number of multiple-victim public shootings and other violent crimes has dropped dramatically. Murders fell by 7.65%, rapes by 5.2%, aggravated assaults by 7%, and robberies by 3%."
Not every exampe of post-hoc reasoning is a fallacy. This one happens to be backed up by a number of studies on the subject.
Originally posted by Xugumad
From that article:
Surely at this point, concerned citizens ought to be swarming all over that sniper, knee-capping him with their nifty new Glocks. What? People are hiding in their houses, schools are being shut down, and real terror is being struck into their hearts? Why? With your trusty pistol at your side, nothing can happen to you? At this point, pro-gun advocates are claiming that if everybody was armed, they wouldn't be afraid. Which is patent nonsense: your sidearm isn't going to stop a sniper's bullet, and a murderer who is willing to kill indiscriminately and in cold blood isn't going to be stopped by the knowledge that his victim is armed.
The illusion of safety that firearms provide is all good and nice, right until the moment when somebody shatters is. Which is exactly what the sniper is doing. Period.
X.
And I'd like to point out that here in the Peoples Republic of Maryland, the right to carry our nifty new Glocks has been denied us. So we're guaranteed to be unarmed. Coincidence?
That said, a sidearm will NOT protect me or anyone else from a sniper at long range. But it WILL protect me from the trailer trash living across the highway from me.
I have been forced to draw my sidearm in my own defence twice in my life, and although I hope it never happens again, I want the ability to draw it should the need arise. The first time I was under fire and the second, I was saved from a serious beating. Who knows what's next?
Brian
Originally posted by dave
Ovbiosuly an NRA propogadna piece.
"Propogadna" -- what "propaganda" sounds like if you have a really bad cold.
Since NRA-ILA is a civil-rights organization, working for the greater freedom of thee and me, roll on, "propogadna!"
Originally posted by Xugumad
The example of Britain teaches nothing, especially seeing how emotionally manipulative that article was. The examples of robbers being shot, killed, etc. in the middle of the article were injustice, rather than examples of why guns are good.
Injustice?? My God,
injustice?? Do you, Xugumad, grasp the monstrousness of what you've just said? These people were committing
crimes, and were being fought against in accordance with good morals, which call for opposing evil acts. One of those cases was a case of
attempted murder. To call fighting against someone who has no right to take your life "injustice" is not merely morally confused: it is downright evil, Xugumad. With that one sentence, you range yourself on the side of crime. You become not only a spokesman in favor of evildoing, you are exerting every fiber of your being to spread evil around more generally. You here try to persuade us evil is good, black white, that Ignorance Is Strength.
Well, we reject that and you should too. If you can't, may I suggest suicide? Evil should not be suffered to live, let alone to flourish.
Fine distractionary tactic, too. Instead of the thread's title of 'how to get the sniper', where general firearm ownership would have done very little, the subject is being diverted to matters of principle. Very well and good, but how exactly are more liberal gun laws in the US vs. Britain preventing a criminal or insane individual from using his probably legal firearm to kill a large number of people?
The illusion of safety that firearms provide is all good and nice, right until the moment when somebody shatters is. Which is exactly what the sniper is doing. Period.
X.
If that were such an "illusion," Xugumad, how then do you explain the savings of an estimated 2.8 billion dollars US annually to crimes stymied by the use of private arms? 2.8B is a shot in the arm for any economy, and keeping that 2.8B in remunerative circulation rather than as a defensive overhead expense or lost productivity and wealth from dead workers is a dollars-and-cents argument for keeping arms around. If it were such an illusion, Xugumad, how then do you explain that policemen everywhere go to the bother of carrying between one and two and a half pounds of gun on their hips? Over an entire workday and into the night, that adds up to a burden -- if it's some "illusion," would that burden be necessary? No, Xugumad, the "illusion" is that such keeping and bearing is somehow useless.
Originally posted by dave
Did you miss the joke?
No, I did not, though admittedly the humor was some few minutes and posts a-dawning. I'm just dryly adding a bit to the jest.
'salright man. I just wanted to make sure that you knew I wasn't a typo-ing left nut. :)
Originally posted by Urbane Guerrilla
Injustice?? My God, injustice?? Do you, Xugumad, grasp the monstrousness of what you've just said?
I think what he meant was that "injustice" best describes being jailed after defending your home... not the actual defense of the home.
Well, on general principles one hopes so, but you sure couldn't prove it by me, the way Xugu put it. I wouldn't be caught writing it like that, for sure.
Originally posted by BrianR
And I'd like to point out that here in the Peoples Republic of Maryland, the right to carry our nifty new Glocks has been denied us. So we're guaranteed to be unarmed. Coincidence?
That said, a sidearm will NOT protect me or anyone else from a sniper at long range. But it WILL protect me from the trailer trash living across the highway from me.
I have been forced to draw my sidearm in my own defence twice in my life, and although I hope it never happens again, I want the ability to draw it should the need arise. The first time I was under fire and the second, I was saved from a serious beating. Who knows what's next?
Brian
Curiosity compels me to wonder if your brushes with violence have anything to do with your attitude towards other people. For example you appear to label people as trash based on where they live. I spent a year killing and avoiding being killed with various weapons, but I haven’t felt the need to carry since nor be belligerent towards my neighbors based on who they are or where they live. I haven’t been shot at for 33 years. And I’ve been able to defuse beating situations with my mouth at least twice. Before you ask, I’ve never been able to afford to live in the “nice neighborhoods” until this last summer. I realize my experience is not universal, but then neither is yours, so I’m hesitant to base public policy on such narrow data aren’t you?
Originally posted by Chefranden
Curiosity compels me to wonder if your brushes with violence have anything to do with your attitude towards other people.
Funny, I'd wondered if your brushes with veteran's benefits had anything to do wuth your advocacy for socialized medicine. :-)
Originally posted by MaggieL
Funny, I'd wondered if your brushes with veteran's benefits had anything to do wuth your advocacy for socialized medicine. :-)
:confused: Hmmmmm no, but I don't remember posting anything about socialized medicine on this site -- Yet! But I am for a single payer system. Why?, brushes with 60 hr/wk jobs with no medical, brushes with 44 million citizens with no care and 40 Million more with inadequate care. Knowing the the US spends 14% of GNP on health care and the other industrialized nations spend and average of 7.5% of their GNPs and can provied care for everyone. I suppose that you have good bennies or enough dough to buy your own. Many don't!
Originally posted by Urbane Guerrilla
Well, on general principles one hopes so, but you sure couldn't prove it by me, the way Xugu put it. I wouldn't be caught writing it like that, for sure.
How about asking for clarification rather than instantly flying into a rant that equates my opinions with pure evil?
The examples given were examples of injustice. Since the outcome of the examples given was how people defending themselves were punished by the justice system, the examples document something that is unjust, in my opinion. Thus, examples of injustice.
I wonder what the sniper victims' families think about gun control. I think some of them are on Donahue (today? this week?). I am sure it'll be easy to explain to them how the sniper's most likely legal firearm had nothing to do with destroying their lives. After all, the attacker could as well have murdered lots of people with a knife, and still remain unidentified and safe from a distance. Oh. He couldn't have, could he. Oh dear.
This thread was about the sniper. Its focus shifted to firearms. If anything, the fact that the sniper is being very careful suggests that he knows someone could shoot him with their legal concealed weapon, and is taking precautions. Which invalidates the theory that firearms provide protection from potentially insane people like him/them. The casual armed robber may very well kill you if he sees you going for a weapon, and the well-prepared attacker isn't even going to be affected by it, since he may very well land a fatal blow first to avoid retaliation. If anything, a well-armed populace will escalate the situation to where any robbery will start by attempting to subdue or neutralize any defensive capability.
Hurray. The solution to violence is more violence.
X.
After all, the attacker could as well have murdered lots of people with a knife, and still remain unidentified and safe from a distance. Oh. He couldn't have, could he. Oh dear.
He easily could have, he just would have had to go about it much differently, such as attacking people at night or in their homes when they are alone. People can always come up with different ways to do things, no matter what tools they have. Obviously this man is smart, if he wanted to do what he's doing with a knife he probably could. It might have taken longer but then again it would have been harder to link the killings.
Originally posted by Chefranden
:confused: Hmmmmm no, but I don't remember posting anything about socialized medicine on this site -- Yet!
Well, go back and read your posts in this thread. ON 10/22 you cited RAH, and then turned right around and suggested the government should buy guns for the poor. You said at the end of the post that if the people simply got together and demanded it the government would "provide" health care. You never responded to my point that the government never actually "provides" anything; it simply forces taxpayers to pay for stuff.
I suppose that you have good bennies or enough dough to buy your own. Many don't!
Acttually, no, I'm unemployed, and my COBRA has just run out. I sure don't have enough money to pay for someone **else's** health care.
Or their firearms. So you can peddle your socialism elsewhere.
Originally posted by Xugumad
After all, the attacker could as well have murdered lots of people with a knife, and still remain unidentified and safe from a distance. Oh. He couldn't have, could he. Oh dear.
A great big straw man argument again.
A bomb would have worked just as well (as it recently did in Finland). Or poisoning consumer products (remeber Tylenol?). Derailing a train. There's lots of ways to kill randomly without guns. Happens all the time.
Recent news suggests strongly that the perps of these shootings are attempting extortion--they may not actually be insane, but rather simply sociopaths.
Rant as you will, *I* don't think it's an accident at all that most of the early shootings happened in Maryland rather than Virginia. Of course, now that their confidence is up after so many successful shootings they're now getting cocky and operating closer to home. I think they're ultimately going to be apprehended there.
Or shot. Depends who gets to them first.
Originally posted by Xugumad
How about asking for clarification rather than instantly flying into a rant that equates my opinions with pure evil?
I see your point, but I stand by my remarks -- and recommend that you avoid writing paragraphs that are that easily misinterpreted, especially when read within the context of your entire post in this entire thread.
The examples given were examples of injustice. Since the outcome of the examples given was how people defending themselves were punished by the justice system, the examples document something that is unjust, in my opinion. Thus, examples of injustice.
And such injustices amount to active support of evil by the legal apparatus and judiciary of the United Kingdom. What periwigged sons of bitches. What idiocy. What immorality.
Hurray. The solution to violence is more violence.
X.
When violence is occurring, countervailing violence is not at all wrong -- pacifists notwithstanding. People with martial-arts backgrounds such as myself understand this. One gets it in any self-defense class, armed or otherwise, and the principle is the same regardless of the tools used.
Pacifism isn't a sustainable philosophy. It is only practicable within bounds guarded by non-pacifists, for one; but what really keeps pacifism from taking over the world is that under lethal assault, either the pacifism or the pacifist must die. If you can manage to crowd a pacifist hard enough, they hoist the Jolly Roger anyway.
Cam
He easily could have, he just would have had to go about it much differently, such as attacking people at night or in their homes when they are alone.
You quoted my post where I said 'from a distance', and then went on to answer like you did...
People can always come up with different ways to do things, no matter what tools they have.
And that's a good reason for giving a means to anonymously and easily murder from afar?
Ah, I forgot - guns can be used for good as well as evil.
It might have taken longer but then again it would have been harder to link the killings.
It would have been a lot
harder for him to do so. (you cite breaking into somebody's house at night as comparable, which it isn't: it requires personal physical involvement and locational presence, both of which are absent in the sniper case)
If I got a rifle with a noise/flash suppressor and got on the roof of my house, I could easily kill several people, and most likely nobody would ever find out that I did it. The sniper is doing something very similar. I can get a rifle from a local gun show, no questions asked. All that stops me from being a successful serial murderer is the motive. All the tools are
right there, it'd only take me a couple of minutes to do it.
It was only a matter of time until somebody cunning started exploiting a very obvious means of terror. Now that it's begun, and that everybody realises how pathetically easy it is to terrorize millions and millions of people using only a rifle and a van, whilst displaying the inability of state and federal law enforcement to deal with it, the genie will never be stuffed back into its bottle.
MaggieL
A bomb would have worked just as well (as it recently did in Finland).
A bomb requires knowledge of assembly and materials involved, as well as the know-how to make it, place it, get away unnoticed, and detonate from afar. While a smart individual can do most of that reasonably easily, I can - as mentioned above - become a successful murderer with much greater ease using a rifle.
There are no 'Bomb Shows' for private citizens - they are reserved for heads of state and ministers of war. I wonder what the FBI would do if I built a couple of bombs and started selling them to the highest bidder in my backyard. Apples and oranges.
Derailing a train. There's lots of ways to kill randomly without guns. Happens all the time.
Strange. I don't see CNN reporting 24/7 about that. Terror is being inflicted right now in your backyard, and all it takes is a gun and a van. Pandora's box has been opened, and it contained FMJ rounds.
Sure, you can easily derail a train. But
what tool is being used to intimidate millions, kill (potentially) dozens, and get a nation to hold its breath? It's not al-Qaeda training camps, it's not American Airline jets flown into buildings, it's not WMDs being stockpiled by a dictator at a secret Middle East location. It's a guy with a rifle.
As an aside, I think your flame baiting ("rant as you will", which is an obvious provocation) requires a bit of moderation. Maybe dave/dhamsaic is willing to mod this forum, and bring his well-exercised tempering approach to your posts. ;-)
X.
PS: I'd love to see some of the people voicing their pro-gun beliefs going up to the families of the murdered victims, looking into their eyes, and saying "Guns don't kill people." Especially to the husband who saw his wife dying right in front of his eyes, or the six (?) children of the man shot at the Manassas gas station.
from Reuters
He said he could not confirm widespread media reports that one of the two was John Allen Muhammad, a former U.S. soldier, also known as John Allen Williams. "Attempts to verify their identities are being made right now," he said.
So are we talking Gulf War Vet?
If thats the case, do we ever consider the impact on American society of constantly submitting fragile psyches to war making. X is right to a point about the circularity of violence. He IMHO is wrong however when it comes to allowing ourselves to be victims or in not trusting people to make their own decisions.
(Of course these two may have been setup by the real sniper, time will tell.)
One of the pics i saw (Wired Mag Online report i think) the guy was wearing a camo top, looked like a military mugshot.
Originally posted by Xugumad
Pandora's box has been opened, and it contained FMJ rounds.
No, it didn't.
Originally posted by Xugumad
Maybe dave/dhamsaic is willing to mod this forum, and bring his well-exercised tempering approach to your posts. ;-)
Well, fortunately, *this* forum is still part of The Cellar. A curious notion of "tempering", but then others have observed your philosophy leans toward coercive collectivism in other ways too.
If I got a rifle with a noise/flash suppressor and got on the roof of my house, I could easily kill several people, and most likely nobody would ever find out that I did it.
Not true. Take multiple shots from your roof and pretty soon the cops will be at your door; they know how to draw lines on a map. The shooter's location is known for each of these murders...these perps have evaded as long as they have through mobility.
There are all kinds of way of comitting mayhem.. When they occur, they all get their "15 minutes of fame" on CNN, whether train wreck or Tylenol. Too bad your memory is so short.
Now that suspects are in custody, perhaps anger can be properly focused on *them* rather than inanimate objects, which is as pointless as getting angry at the hammer after hitting your thumb with it.
You quoted my post where I said 'from a distance', and then went on to answer like you did..
I quoted your post where you said anonymously. And if you really want to get technical change what I said to bow and you can have your distance.
Originally posted by Xugumad
Especially to the husband who saw his wife dying right in front of his eyes, or the six (?) children of the man shot at the Manassas gas station.
I don't think there was much "dying". She was alive, and then she was dead. Such is the nature of getting shot in the head with an expanding/fragmenting round.
The man with six children was Kenneth Bridges, shot near Fredericksburg, many many miles from Manassas. The shooting in Manassas was of Dean Harold Meyers, of whom no children have been mentioned.
I know it's nitpicking, but I've been following the case closely. Plus, two of those people were shot ~8 miles from my house. So that kinda automatically puts me into the "interested in the case" group.
So are we talking Gulf War Vet?... If thats the case, do we ever consider the impact on American society of constantly submitting fragile psyches to war making.
...submitting to the US military... as opposed to the people who are supposed to defend the country if the military doesn't: the
militias? I'm sure you don't want to go there;
...or as opposed to paramilitary groups who are ANTI-U.S. -- as may be the *actual* case in this situation?
...and don't you maybe have it backwards: maybe the warlike are attracted TO the military instead of CREATED BY it, in which case:
...isn't firing rifle rounds at the enemies of the US really the most ideal place for them, especially for a guaranteed amount of time during their most angry youth? And isn't rigid order likely to improve their chance to learn to make it through life without killing those who aren't the perceived enemy? And anyway,
...if a handful of random people are killed, whilst 300 million people who represent the biggest voice for freedom in the entire world are defended, is that such a big problem?
It is my position that sending Americans into Iraq had no connection to defending the US but actually weakened us.
Lets consider the psycho, he joins the US Army for whatever reason, (maybe because he is warlike) he and his unit go to Iraq, he eventually realizes that he has been tooled. He starts noticing the big thank you the other Vets are getting when their GW Syndrome is denied, maybe notices the civilian body count in Iraq. He starts to wonder, who are the good guys? What drove him from sheep dog to wolf?
It is my position that sending Americans into Iraq had no connection to defending the US but actually weakened us
I understand the theory about defending the US. But don't quite see how it weakened us. It gave us more soldiers with real experience, that can't weaken the military.
That's an awful lot of fantasy masquerading as proof.
Assuming he's capable of, interested in, and motivated by such complicated moral calculus, the truth is that he could have come to similar conclusions following *any* military activity. There will be no world violence in where there is a 100% clear moral situation, especially for those who are directed to kill.
And no peace unless there is a set of people who are willing and trained to kill. Negotiations are backed up by force; that's how it works, that's how has to work.
But the US Military is 100% volunteer, and everyone who enters into it knows that they may be put into harm's way for political purposes.
Gulf War 1 created more enemies for the US, so we're weakened even if our military isn't IMHO. It could be argued that we used up a lot of equipment, weakening us as well, but I'm more concerned with our helping to radicalize the mid-East .
Originally posted by Undertoad
But the US Military is 100% volunteer, and everyone who enters into it knows that they may be put into harm's way for political purposes.
They just make the mistake of assuming that they've joined an organization that has something to do with protecting America.
Last time I checked the whole point of the military was to "serve" the country. That usually includes protecting it. Luckily for us our Military is strong enough that it doesn't have to spend a lot of time protecting us.
Originally posted by Undertoad
That's an awful lot of fantasy masquerading as proof.
True. Reminds me of Bush and Iraq.
Gulf War 1 created more enemies for the US, so we're weakened even if our military isn't IMHO. It could be argued that we used up a lot of equipment, weakening us as well, but I'm more concerned with our helping to radicalize the mid-East .
Oh, you mean the operation where by the request of the Saudi government, the major Islamic country that contains the two major Islamic sites, we turned back a non-Islamic-oriented dictator bent on threatening and/or taking over the middle east and 44% of the world's oil? I guess you're taking bin Laden's word on this one, but damn.
Originally posted by Undertoad
Oh, you mean the operation where by the request of the Saudi government, the major Islamic country that contains the two major Islamic sites, we turned back a non-Islamic-oriented dictator bent on threatening and/or taking over the middle east and 44% of the world's oil? I guess you're taking bin Laden's word on this one, but damn.
Yes, at the request of another unrepresentative mid-East government, whose rule is also threatened by radical Islam, we station mostly Christian soldiers in the heart of Islam. True, we did turn back a secular thug who we previously used against radical muslims from Iran. See how complicated things get when you expand the militaries role to protecting American "interests" rather than America. Yes, I understand we've done that since Jefferson but it doesn't make it right.
What Bin Laden claims, happens to be the outlook of the radical Islamists we have chosen to engage.
It's damn near impossible to tell the difference between defending the US and defending the US' interests without benefit of hindsight.
As far as coddling militant Islam goes, ha! ha! Yes, just being near them to defend their land is something they find unacceptable. It turns out that just breathing and living freely under something other than Sharia law is an offense punishable by jihadic death. If we hadn't pissed them off by defending their land, I'm sure they would have found something else to hate about us, just as they have with just about everyone, all around the world.
In comparison to the millions of military servicemen of the US *and* of the rest of the international coalition who returned home peacefully, satisfied with a job well done and with no beef towards their own countries. Ah, but those guys don't prove your point, do they?
No, they don't prove my point. Most soldiers can and do come home and are productive citizens. There will always be a few, however, that can't handle the stresses involved and will come back as trained killers with serious mental problems. I need to be careful here because I still think he's responsible for these murders but I want to point out that this event could be another unanticipated outcome of intervensionism.
Undertoad
If we hadn't pissed them off by defending their land, I'm sure they would have found something else to hate about us, just as they have with just about everyone, all around the world.
You seem to be finally coming around to understanding that many nations that don't subscribe to democracy and capitalism are mired in an endemic cultural and social problem that'll react very aggressively to interference.
You used the shame/guilt culture approach, which is all fine, but more importantly, many countries where religion plays an important role in public life are so strictly dogmatic in their cultural beliefs that any enemy is automatically demonized. Since the US has been at the forefront of - in their eyes - sometimes-questionable foreign initiatives (and this isn't the place to debate their worth), the US will be the enemy for a long time to come.
Everybody allied with the US and aiding them, i.e. pretty much everybody in the West who isn't categorically opposed to American support of Israel, the US invasion of Afghanistan, and US aggresion in Iraq - as well as US interests in the middle east - becomes associated with the enemy, and a target.
The only way to solve this is either by stepping back and not getting involved politically and financially in the Mid-East or Asia, or throwing the full force of the US military, hopefully backed by the UN, against every single militant dictatorship out there, taking them down one by one, and enforcing democracy on them.
Anything short of that will leave a worrying number of militant activists, who will - possibly with state-support - continue to create situations of terror and death. Even enforcing democracy will still leave considerable numbers of terrorists, but it's likely that extended periods of self-determination will reduce that factor. Supporting a dictatorship friendly to the US will lead to terrorism and prolonged anti-Americanism. (see also S-Arabia, Iran)
It's all or nothing. And since 'all' is essentially politically impossible in the US (and the UN, for that matter), it willl be a little war here, a little war there, a US general appointed as governor of Iraq, more agitation here, and increased militant muslim aggression over all of it. One day, when a terrorist group actually does get its hands on a nuclear device, we will reap the consequences of this approach.
Once more - the 9/11 terrorists were mostly Saudi-Arabian. Even the US stauchest allies (and I'd like to use 'our staunchest allies' at this point) have a large anti-American group of people who are breeding terrorists even as we speak. When acting, it must either be a complete victory, or a complete retreat.
X.
I agree with all of that. Maybe "nothing" would have been better, but at the same time, maybe inevitably impossible too.
A culture, a school of thought, is unproductive and winds up controlling only areas of the world that are seen as unneeded. The school of thought survives, however, because of its extremely insular and tribal nature. It protects its own at all costs because that is the only way to survive in the desert, or in the mountains, where so little else survives.
Other cultures or schools of thought become more productive, overtake desireable areas of the world, learn how to be even more productive. They struggle with how to divvy up the stuff they produce, and the power that comes with the new powers of production.
All of a sudden all that productivity learns to take advantage of the stored energy of oil, and almost by accident, the worst of that insular, unproductive, tribal culture gets the gift of half the world's most important resource. What had only been sand, the world's least important...
Perhaps Allah saw His guys falling behind and wanted to gift them back into being players? Nope. It was merely an accident. But now, they *have* to deal with the rest of the world, because it is too important to the rest of the world. What happens now?
How did Kissinger put it? "The oil fields are too important to be left to the Arabs."
paraphrase, can't find the quote.
Has anyone seen this
documentary? Was it any good?
Not the quote you were thinking of ... but an interesting one, nonetheless:
"The US must carry out some act somewhere in the world which shows its’ determination to continue to be a world power."
- Henry Kissinger, post-Vietnam blues, as quoted in The Washington Post, April 1975
(from the documentary web site) "Instead, the documentary exposes the White House and US State Department's hidden agenda in the Gulf as well as the Pentagon's use of radioactive ammunitions made of uranium 238."
It's not a secret that they use ammunitions made of U238, otherwise known as "depleted uranium". It's basically what's left over after the more useful U235 is taken out. It's a very heavy metal, twice as dense as lead and is used in munitions meant to pierce armor.
It's also used in civilian aircraft, and it's used to transport radioactive materials because it absorbs gamma radiation better than lead.
It is lightly radioactive, but almost all the radiation it produces is alpha or beta particles. It is dangerous if you find it IN your body; alpha particles are stopped by skin, and beta stopped by clothing. But if you find munitions inside your body, chances are you have a much worse health risk at hand.
It also produces a light amount of gamma radiation, but no more than you find in the background. DU is "60% as radioactive" as U235 but the 40% it's missing is the highly dangerous gamma particles.
It's not surprising that folks have pounced on emotionally-laden terms like "radiation" and "uranium" to produce scare pieces. Some will say that it's dangerous because if exploded it can be airborne and breathed in. That is the worst danger, I think, that is a legit concern. But you also get a dose of inhaled alpha particles if you smoke cigarettes, and the battlefield is not exactly a no-smoking area. It's dangerous by design.
Call me paranoid but i wouldn't want people living in areas full of depleted uranium shells and i certainly wouldn't want to wear a jacket made of the stuff, would you? Alpha and beta particles are like wrecking balls for your DNA, it's a risk i'd rather not take personally.
Originally posted by Undertoad
It's also used in civilian aircraft...
Gee...not in mine, I hope.
I suppose it's used for ballast and counterweights. I know there's a "bobweight" on the stabilator on "my" Cardinal (ownership shared with nine other pilots). I think that's made of lead or steel, though.
Sam Donaldson on cnn/wolf just said that if Muhammad is "convicted" he'll be kicked out of the Nation of Islam.
Now, that's a fate worse than death.
Nah, they'll just relegate him to passing out The Final Call at I-57 and Halsted in south Chicago.
