Batman Shooting

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
21

[quote]anonym wrote:
As far as the “if more people carried guns…” comment:

Assuming several people WERE carrying guns for “self-defense” purposes – and were, say, recreational shooters who hit the range every so often to keep the rust off but have no actual experience operating in sudden, shocking, adrenaline-flooding combat situations… do we REALLY want them firing their weapons in a dark, crowded, panicked room?

I can see the argument being made for the societal benefit of police officers/soldiers packing heat off-duty, but I’m not sure how much “good” people with no actual experience shooting others – and being shot AT – would actually do in this sort of situation.[/quote]

Most people with guns go to the range quite a bit more often than “keep the rust off”. You don’t jump through all those hoops and take that responsibility to just walk around with one.

But I’m saying, how long does it take for Tear Gas to fill up a movie theater?

One guy or girl, in the front row with a .45. One shot in the 10 circle. I know he had a vest, but that shit is going to stop him from firing that shotgun for long enough to get close enough to put one in his temple.

I have shot all the guns this loony used. I have no idea how I would react in that situation. I would like to hope I would be awesome, but I don’t know. I also don’t like playing the what-if game either. What happened, happened.

With that said, it really doesn’t get much worse than this. One death, ten deaths, 100 deaths, innocent people were slaughtered. So when it comes right down to it, I would have preferred someone take him out, or at least tried. For some reason, and maybe I’m twisted, it seems like it would be better for the victims if someone fought for them, because they were helpless.

22

[quote]Bambi wrote:

[quote]ZEB wrote:
First of all I have a great amount of empathy for the families of the many who were killed in this horrible incident.

Secondly, I’ll take the contrary view to the liberals on this board. I think that more people should be carrying guns if so one of them would have cut this lunatic down before he did as much damage as he did. There were not these types of mass style shootings when gun toting was more popular in the 19th century. If you pulled out your gun with bad intentions you would have multiple guns pointed at you within seconds. [/quote]

In a cinema at midnight filled with tear gas, against a man in a gas mark with a bulletproof vest?

Wouldn’t matter if citizens were armed (perhaps if there were some soldiers off duty there but that’s outside your point) or not this man was going to kill some people and he did.

If you want to kill people that badly, you will, regardless of gun laws.

CountingBeans said it best in his post and I agree entirely with him. The thread should end there. But it won’t.[/quote]

My point still stands. How many shooters are that prepared?

23

[quote]Mufasa wrote:

[quote]ZEB wrote:
First of all I have a great amount of empathy for the families of the many who were killed in this horrible incident.

Secondly, I’ll take the contrary view to the liberals on this board. I think that more people should be carrying guns if so one of them would have cut this lunatic down before he did as much damage as he did. There were not these types of mass style shootings when gun toting was more popular in the 19th century. If you pulled out your gun with bad intentions you would have multiple guns pointed at you within seconds. [/quote]

I swear, Zeb…

You could turn baking Cornbread into a “Lib/Conservative”/ “DEM/GOP” issue.

(Now if you could just work Obama’s failed policies in as a reason for these shootings…we’ve got a WIN!)

Mufasa[/quote]

Did you complain about liberal Mayor Bloomberg complaining about needing more gun control this morning?

24

[quote]anonym wrote:
As far as the “if more people carried guns…” comment:

Assuming several people WERE carrying guns for “self-defense” purposes – and were, say, recreational shooters who hit the range every so often to keep the rust off but have no actual experience operating in sudden, shocking, adrenaline-flooding combat situations… do we REALLY want them firing their weapons in a dark, crowded, panicked room?

[/quote]

Yes. If I was in a theatre and some lunatic came in and started shooting dozens of people I would hope that other people in the cinema were armed regardless of how often they attend the range.

25

It seems to me that he chose a movie theater because it’s the one place where he could kill the most people. Think about it. If he went to a park, or a mall, or anyplace else for that matter, people would have been able to run away. In my local movie theater, there’s one entrance, and one emergency exit, both at the front of the room. Those people had nowhere to run but towards the shooter.

I’ve heard alot of people ask, “Why shoot up a movie theater?” Well, I can understand why he chose a theater, of all places as explained above, but it seems odd that he apparently had no motivation to kill those specific people. Most of the time, mass killings have some kind of motive, right? I mean, it seems like this guy just woke up one morning and decided he wanted to kill a bunch of people. But apparently, he planned this for weeks. He seems to have really put some serious thought into what he was doing. It would be different if he had some kind of motive, but I just can’t understand why someone would go through all that planning just to kill a bunch of strangers.

26

[quote]anonym wrote:

[quote]squating_bear wrote:
Ya I just made all that up, actual military people can be more realistic and show my flaws if they disagree[/quote]

So, you’re a Counter-Strike QB, at best?

Have you never shot a gun at all, much less under extreme duress?[/quote]
Yes, I have shot plenty of guns, plenty of times. Though not often enough, and no - never under extreme duress

hah, and yea I’ve played my fair share of Counter-Strike, but that’s really irrelevant.

I think you should just quit on this one while you are behind. There is no way you could look someone in the eye and say that you would take scenario 1 above scenario 2 that I laid out. I can see why you would want to imply it just out of stubbornness since I said ridiculous one too many times in my post, but it really is.

That wasn’t meant as a personal attack against any of you. More like me running up to some temporarily brainwashed fellow humans, shaking the hell out of them, and yelling

WAKE UP, SNAP OUT OF IT

Because - I mean seriously

its ridiculous

27

[quote]BeefEater wrote:

[quote]squating_bear wrote:
I think you guys are being ridiculous when you say that people with handguns couldn’t do anything

body armor isn’t like you’re playing a video game with infinite health. You can still get shot

As far as comparing a relaxing time at the shooting range vs. life and death - yea there is a difference, but I’m not sure that it would negatively impact performance. I would actually expect the adrenaline to increase accuracy and aiming speed, while also causing inexperienced people to forget the basics. (am I properly loaded? what about the safety?) There is also the obvious issue of people targeting the wrong people - but hold on - two scenarios to show the ridiculousness

  1. Guy in the front with basically infinite ammo. 200 people trying to jet for the exits

  2. Guy in the front with basically infinite ammo. 190 people trying to jet for the exits. 10 lightly trained people shooting at the one.

Ridiculous. I blame this ultra weak / “liberal” type idea of only the gov’t or experts / “authorities” can ever do anything positive. You yourself or random, regular old people cant. Even on T-Nation, no less. Whats this world coming to?

Ya I just made all that up, actual military people can be more realistic and show my flaws if they disagree[/quote]

Tear gas is a serious game changer here. Even if there were 10 individually armed people in the crowd they are still contending with tear gas and he isn’t. The body armor may not make him invincible but it’s yet another huge advantage for him.[/quote]

Hmmm yea tear gas is no joke. I once had a watered down form of an experience with it, and I’ve never experienced the full effect, but its definitely no joke.

Its not even about who would win between the 10 vs. the one guy anyway. You couldn’t possibly take scenario 1 over scenario 2.

That anybody would try to imply it is truly mind boggling, but such is our current political landscape

I’ve got a strange feeling a military person is about to disagree with me by claiming some authoritative knowledge. Let me preempt that. 10/200 = 5%. That’s still low. How about if there were 50 guys unloading? How about 100? It’s not about the numbers, nor the tear gas, nor any of the equipment / setting. Scenario 1 represents straight victim mentality. Any other scenario will be better, even if it’s just half a guy with missing legs, and also cross eyed to boot

28

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

  1. This is awful
  2. all the guns used were legally bought
  3. guns kill people like spoons make people fat
  4. he woudl have gotten the weapons even if they weren’t legal, you can’t regulate crazy.

[/quote]

nuff said.

I would think that the assholes use of tear gas was primarily meant to incapacitate or diminish any form of resistance or counterattack from the cinema audience. It’s really hard to aim a weapon with watering eyes, and the gas cloud would further conceal the shooter. A flash-bang wouldn’t have been as effective because of the rows of seats in the room, which makes the choice of tear gas, sadly enough, rather well thought out.

Unfortunately when crazies start using attack-oriented military or police tactics, lightly armed untrained people returning fire within a mass panic situation, can only contribute to the carnage.

29

Fair enough, man. My initial reaction to the whole, “this is why we need more people carrying” comment was that more bullets in the air isn’t invariably going to do more help than harm.

If some guy seated 20 feet to my left gets up and starts firing into the crowd, it would be helpful if the fellas seated 20 feet to my right are at least semi-competent in that sort of situation. While I certainly would appreciate their intention, having them dump their clips at a target 30 - 40 feet across a dark theater, in a panic and while choking on tear gas might not exactly help.

I mean, I wouldn’t want them to mow some kid down before I could grab him and use him as a shield, ya know?

But, I DO support concealed carrying because I don’t doubt that it would make most people think twice about this sort of thing. Wanting to shoot up a room of 200 people and realizing that even 5% - 10% might be packing heat should make most people reconsider.

30

[quote]Cuso wrote:

Unfortunately when crazies start using attack-oriented military or police tactics, lightly armed untrained people returning fire within a mass panic situation, can only contribute to the carnage.
[/quote]

So you’re saying the casualties would have been higher if some of the people in the audience had been armed with handguns? Are you are against concealed carry? Do you believe that civilians shouldn’t have the option to defend themselves even in an attack where they are cornered like rats and picked off with an assault rilfe and a shotgun? Wouldn’t everyone have run away from this guy when he started shooting, likely leaving a clear target as he came in a side door?

31

[quote]SexMachine wrote:

[quote]Cuso wrote:

Unfortunately when crazies start using attack-oriented military or police tactics, lightly armed untrained people returning fire within a mass panic situation, can only contribute to the carnage.
[/quote]

So you’re saying the casualties would have been higher if some of the people in the audience had been armed with handguns?[/quote]

Yes.

No.

No.

Yes and no. In a panic situation everyone runs away from danger, which creates a more dense mass of people in one place. This is why when a disco or theater burns down, so many victims are found dead at the jammed exits.

Do you think there was enough time after he opened fire, that you could have waited until everybody ran away from the perp (and past you who then would be a prime target), just so you could step up into the then cleared field of fire and take the shot?

32

Some guys have digested too much gun propaganda.
The wild-west argument makes little sense.

A shooter will always have an advantage you cannot nullify.
You cannot preemptivly shoot him.
So he will always kill first.

And as he is (let’s say 99%) a loon, he won’t be deterred at all.

33

[quote]Schwarzfahrer wrote:
A shooter will always have an advantage you cannot nullify.
You cannot preemptivly shoot him.
So he will always kill first.
[/quote]

For whatever reason I feel like your use of absolute language makes this a false statement.

And people need to understand, America isn’t Europe. Our cultures are different. Europe doesn’t understand why we understand we need guns.

It has nothing to do with propaganda.

34

[quote]Cuso wrote:

Do you think there was enough time after he opened fire, that you could have waited until everybody ran away from the perp (and past you who then would be a prime target), just so you could step up into the then cleared field of fire and take the shot?
[/quote]

I wouldn’t know.

35

Many of you don’t realize that there is an opportune time to strike back against someone, even if they’re using tear gas. Tear gas does not have an effect on the entire room immediatly. As soon as it hits the ground a certain area is immediately effected. It becomes obvious from across the room that those people are coughing and suffering the effect of tear gas. He then began shooting anyway. There was a window of opportunity for someone who was armed and not immediately effected by the gas to take this psycho out.

In addition to that a well armed populace would deter the next lunatic from perpetrating such an act.

Those of you who want to throw your hands up in the air and say that there is nothing that can ever be done to prevent these wackos from succeeding in such a stunt are absolutely wrong!

36

I think we are much better off armed than unarmed. That is all.

37

[quote]countingbeans wrote:
So when it comes right down to it, I would have preferred someone take him out, or at least tried. For some reason, and maybe I’m twisted, it seems like it would be better for the victims if someone fought for them, because they were helpless.[/quote]

This resonates with me a lot.

38

[quote]anonym wrote:
Fair enough, man. My initial reaction to the whole, “this is why we need more people carrying” comment was that more bullets in the air isn’t invariably going to do more help than harm.
[/quote]No, not invariably. I would guess that it would in the vast majority though

[quote]
If some guy seated 20 feet to my left gets up and starts firing into the crowd, it would be helpful if the fellas seated 20 feet to my right are at least semi-competent in that sort of situation. While I certainly would appreciate their intention, having them dump their clips at a target 30 - 40 feet across a dark theater, in a panic and while choking on tear gas might not exactly help.

I mean, I wouldn’t want them to mow some kid down before I could grab him and use him as a shield, ya know?
[/quote]Yes I can see that going actually worse. In this case, he is actually part of the crowd. I would hope someone will sneak up on him, or tackle him or something. If not, then I’ve gotta say that I would still hope there were concealed carriers in there - even though they very well could mistarget, or just straight up panic and not aim at all

But I’ve got to point out that he chose the front because he thought it out and imagined it would maximize his effectiveness. Sounds true - but - that’s gotta be the worst spot if there are a significant number of people shooting back. In other words, kinda force him to play another (weaker) hand. Or maybe just fold and do his thing somewhere else entirely.

[quote]
But, I DO support concealed carrying because I don’t doubt that it would make most people think twice about this sort of thing. Wanting to shoot up a room of 200 people and realizing that even 5% - 10% might be packing heat should make most people reconsider.[/quote]
Well, if you support concealed carrying then I don’t have much to argue.

I’m sure it would cause many reconsiderations - but I don’t really think it would prevent these situations. Maybe sometimes, but probably not even in most. Like Schwarz said, we’re not in the wild west. People back then didn’t conceal carry to prevent mass shootings. It was just a default position of some healthy self reliance.

It wouldn’t prevent crazy people from acting crazy, but I think it would take the word ‘mass’ out of ‘mass shootings’

Oh yeah, and lulz

[quote]I mean, I wouldn’t want them to mow some kid down before I could grab him and use him as a shield, ya know?[/quote]I almost missed that in my state of super seriousness

39

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]Schwarzfahrer wrote:
A shooter will always have an advantage you cannot nullify.
You cannot preemptivly shoot him.
So he will always kill first.
[/quote]

For whatever reason I feel like your use of absolute language makes this a false statement.

And people need to understand, America isn’t Europe. Our cultures are different. Europe doesn’t understand why we understand we need guns.

It has nothing to do with propaganda.[/quote]

I do admit that past a certain point -when pandora’s gunbox has been opened wide- you cannot simply go back.
Israel, probably the US, paperstates like Afghanistan for sure.
If overnight, Florida gunlaws would apply here in Germany, I’d have to move for sure. The neighbourhood would become too dangerous.

The biggest issue I had was scumbag teengangster brandishing (what was probably) a gasgun over some teenager dipute about 100 yards from me.
Apart from that it’s knives, so not really different from the stone age.

Thus we only had a small handful of school shootings in Germany (three or four in the last hundred years, the first happened ~1912), although it’d be probably an even better candidate, cultural-wise.

Again, are there MORE scenarios where a concealed carry sheriff shoots a psycho preemptively?
My uneducated guess is that at least ten shootings happen for every single “NRA hero saves the day”.
Also, what is your stance on the Zimmerman-Martin case?

40

I think the leftists will try to exploit this rare event to try and push for greater gun control. So in the interest of balance I would like to point out that this happened just a couple of days prior. At a minimum just one person shooting back at the gunman would have probably diverted his attention from shooting at random to dealing with that threat. Which would have enabled others to escape.