It's sad to say, but mass public shootings like the recent Virginia Tech massacre are an all too common American experience. The Associated Press recently reported that at least 100 Americans have gone on public shooting sprees since August 1, 1966, when sniper Charles Whitman hunkered down atop a tower on the University of Texas campus and started picking people off.
To put that in perspective, in the last forty years the number of mass firearm murders in the United States rivals the combined total of Super Bowls played, NBA champions crowned, and Olympics-summer and winter-held. If you're not in the habit of marking time by the passage of major sporting events, perhaps it's more relevant for you to consider that public shooting sprees in that time period outnumber the combined total number of Miss Americas crowned, Oscars for best picture presented and nominees for President of the United States selected by both major political parties.
Any way you look at the numbers, the apparent inability of government at all levels to prevent mass slaughter is frightening. That's why it's not surprising that many concerned gun owners would like to take matters into their own hands, suggesting, for example, that some of the victims of the Virginia Tech massacre might have been spared if students and professors had been allowed to carry guns on campus.
There is certainly truth in the claim that armed citizens have on occasion averted crime and saved lives. But given the nature of a firearm encounter and the variety of potential outcomes, it's very difficult to know if return fire from an armed citizen would turn out to be a good thing or a bad thing.
Even well trained law enforcement professionals occasionally make mistakes in the chaos of a shootout. It's uncommon but not unheard of that threatening but unarmed individuals are mistakenly shot when deadly force wasn't even necessary. And when guns are blazing from both sides, there is always the chance that victims who would have otherwise avoided danger are caught in the crossfire. The chances of such unintended consequences increase considerably when the crossfire is initiated by a shooter who doesn't have the experience or training that might minimize deadly mistakes.
Some have argued that even the possibility of armed response would be enough to deter many would-be killers. That seems overly optimistic to me. Nearly every one of these episodes has a very predictable and violent ending-the murderer is killed by either external or self-inflected gunfire. These murderers are obviously not afraid of facing the business end of a gun. It's even likely that some would prepare for and enjoy the challenge of a shootout against a relatively under-equipped and less prepared opponent.
Ultimately, it's impossible to mathematically determine if the possibility of return fire from potential victims is a net positive or a net negative. Historical data is non-existent and projections of lives saved and lost would be entirely subjective. But this is a decision that shouldn't be determined by that mathematical calculation anyway. That question-how many lives are saved by return fire from potential victims-isn't even the right question to ask. The question that ought to be asked is this: Is return fire from armed civilians the best we can do to prevent or impede mass shootings?
Unfortunately, that's a question our leaders in Washington have decided to ignore. There are a variety of reasons for their silence. Many believe government intervention would do more harm than good. Others believe it's a problem that should be dealt with at state and local levels. But too many have made the political calculation that it's a topic too hot to handle in the run-up to a presidential election.
That's too bad. I don't know if serious debate and discussion in Washington would make a difference. But I do know that there's got to be a better way than every man for himself.
Your column recycles some very old and tired arguments by the anti-gun crowd. Furthurmore, you suggest that an armed populace would not even deter a would be murderer. The facts of many encounters do not support your assertion. Only in the most extreme cases (like Va Tech, and Columbine) would it not deter the shooter, but at least the victims have a fighting chance.
While of course it is mere speculation to suggest what might have transpired if say, 10% of the students and faculty were carrying, I doubt you would have had close to the number of deaths, even considering bystanders picked off in a firefight.
by
Jim Clark (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1 comments)
on Thursday, June 7, 2007 at 9:55:57 AM
Dear bruce As a gun owner from texas I would like to thank you for a very balanced arguement. This was a great article it did not blame it asked questions and said we need to talk about. But the 2 other comments from guns owners is what puts most owners in a bad light. Just mention that we need to look at the gun issue and these guys blow up. I am tired of anytime someone mentions some kind of minor restriction such as 3 day waiting period or background check the NRA goes nuts. Yes they want to keep guns out off the hands of nuts an criminals but dont want to allow anyway of finding these people. And then on the other side you have the pie in the sky of if there were no guns no one would get killed. Except criminals and nuts dont care about the law. And until this goverment gets off its ass and starts to take care of this country and spend some money on law enforcement I will keep my guns. I just stupid that this gov will spend billions to try and make iraq secure when you need just about as much backup and fire power as McCain had to walk thru some of our intercities.
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mike (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 92 comments)
on Thursday, June 7, 2007 at 3:25:06 PM
I am descended from a 1000 years of Italian noblemen. they were always armed, yet seldom had to use their weapons except in wars. I am professor emeritus. Once many years ago our campus security went from the hands of a tough "cop" to a "politician" in charge of security, and our entrance requirements dropped to increase enrollment as a political gesture.
Threats against profs by nutcases skyrocketed. Criminals and the criminally insane made threats (wanting better Grades) against many professors, I carried two revolvers to class for weeks because of the cowardly security chief. As an ex GI, I know well how to use my weapons, though I pray I never have to. In short order many profs, especially women were asking me to see them to their autos each evening. I let it be widely known on campus of my packing and my skill with revolvers. I also announced in my classes that if anyone need to be ushered to their autos I would do so. Soon the treats, which the head security fellow chose, to ignore and as I predicted, crime came home to roost and a faculty member was beaten up over grades. I spoke loud and clear and soon we had action but almost too late.
In the hands of competent, coolheaded men and women, a weapon is simply a tool. however, under some current laws too many kooks have guns. That does not mean we should turn ours in. I averted several breakins by being armed. However, in some sense you have a point . The gun laws need to be perfected or there would be, if all were armed, gun fights at traffic lights and at little league games. It is a stickey wicket, but the story I told you is not about an inner city College, it is about a wealthy, suburban college, where lots START at $350,000 and Ferrari's and Bentleys are not unusual to see in the College parking lot, some driven by faculty.
It is a strange time, once we left our doors oepn even at night, not any more.
Sorry but you need to recognize this fact: the gun culture in the US is pervasive, burned into the DNA of people, permanent, irreversable. There will continue to be tons of killings but that has proven to be a small price to pay for the great pleasure of owning guns and blowing people brains up. Why there're lots of video games available to practice for pleasure, teach the young generation of vital skills of killing. Nearly every movie made continue to have the stars shooting guns for everybody to admire. Look, would the Roman Empire do away with the gladiators and circus killings because they're short on lions. No. They sent armies to Africa, conquer some countries and bring back more lions. America has sufficient number of people so there's no need to bring in lions.
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TomK (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 235 comments)
on Thursday, June 7, 2007 at 10:28:54 PM
There are nations with most people armed which do not have a significant problem with this.
The problem we have is not guns, but the gun culture -- the violent culture. It's part of being an empire, of looking to war, violence, and force as a solution to any old conflict that arises. We have cops stun-gunning small children and old ladies, swat teams with military arms serving a warrant, private mercenaries patrolling the streets of a city hit by a hurricane, and vast injustice. Of course violence as a problem is expressed with guns as in the rest of the culture.
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Blue Pilgrim (0 articles, 3 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 997 comments)
on Thursday, June 7, 2007 at 11:53:42 PM
Government: Soviet Union Year Citizens Disarmed: 1929 Targets: Anti-communists / Anti-Stalinists Murder Victims: 20 Million
Government: Nazi Germany Year Citizens Disarmed: 1928 Targets: Jews, Gypsies, Anti-Nazis Murder Victims: 13 Million
Government: China Year Citizens Disarmed: 1935 Targets: Anti-Communists Murder Victims: 20 Million
Unfortunately, "gun control" has become a euphemism for "disarm law abiding citizens."
By extension, gun control literally translates into: "Empower criminals." -And that includes the MOST DANGEROUS kind of criminals; The Hitlers, Stalins, and Maos of this world...responsible for the murder of millions upon millions of disarmed, defenseless human beings.
You want to greatly reduce violence in the world? Start by disarming The State. --Disarm the people, and you increase the threat from every angle.
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Joe Plummer (8 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 14 comments)
on Friday, June 8, 2007 at 1:13:31 AM
In Israel in the 1st century, my ancestors of Rome, and the Herodian Kings were ultraconservatives, who lopped off the head of the "Liberal" John the Baptist and hung the "Liberal" activist Jesus from a cross. Jesus was considered by Right wing Rome and the Macho consrvative, saber rattlers, sons of Herod, Antipas especially, a radical, low life who hung with and pardoned whores, drunkards, gulttons theives and assassins. Jesus The Liberal, Son of the Most High Liberal God!
PS-2, I own dozen guns was raised on them, mostly single action, Colt .357 mags. Was quick draw cahmp high school college, veteran, but also College prof and LIBERAL, as was Jesus- see below:
From several college and free-dictionary sources Lib·er·al (lbr-l, lbrl) adj. 1.a. Not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas; free from bigotry. More likely to rebel against dictatorships or authoritarian rule. b. Favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; broad-minded, like the framers of American laws, Constitution and Bill of Rights. c. Of, relating to, or characteristic of liberalism. More likely to die for a cause, vis-ed-Jesus d. Liberal Of, designating, or characteristic of a political party founded on or associated with principles of social and political liberalism, especially in Great Britain, Canada, and the United States. 2. a. Tending to give freely; generous, empathy for the lame, sick and poor: a liberal benefactor. b. Generous in amount; ample: a liberal serving of potatoes. 3. Not strict or literal; loose or approximate: a liberal translation. 4. Of, relating to, or based on the traditional arts and sciences of a college or university curriculum: a liberal education. 5. Respectful of women, sensitive to the problems of others, empathetic to the woes of others
con·ser·va·tive (kn-sûrv-tv) adj. 1. Fears innovation, favoring of "the old ways" stale views ; tending to oppose and fear change. 2. Traditional or restrained in style: seemingly paranoid about differences, likely to be bigoted, untrusting of things new 3. Moderate, cautious, timid, socially fearful, unadventurous 4. Unlikely to be innovative, fearful, seldom intellectual, more likely to be hubristic, and accepting of authoritarian and dictatorships, out of fear of being ostracized from prominence 5. Threatened by things they do not understand or comprehend, which are many, vis-ed: Homophobic and denigrating of women. Unsympathetic to the lame sick and poor. 6. Envious of those smarter than they and often slanderous of that which they are incapable of comprehending. 7. Uncharitable, selfishness, fear and avarice tends to make them unmoved by the suffering of others.
In the early 1980s I was in a tavern in Salem Oregon when Larry Moore entered with a 9mm pistol and shot 24 people, killing four. He was subdued only four feet from where I was seated with numerous people at adjacent tables getting wounded. I wish I had had a pistol with me at that time.
Several weeks later, about 200 miles south, in the city of Klamath Falls Oregon, another maniac entered a tavern and started shooting. Several other patrons used their sidearms to send that SOB straight to hell.
Privately owned firearms are used innumerable times each year to stop crime.
In the future, please educate yourself about topics prior to commenting on them.
Sincerely,
Mark Bennett
Bonney Lake, WA
by
M. Bennett (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 85 comments)
on Friday, June 8, 2007 at 11:27:57 AM
Before there were guns and still today, people used swords, knives, rocks, poisons, boiling oil, racks, pits, hammers, bear traps, arrows fires, and still do today.
Far more people are killed by idiots in high speed pick-up trucks and SUV's and by Bombs than by guns in the hands of mature, people who do not believe in unnecessary killing. I have had to draw my pistols on 5 occasions and never was forced to shoot, but helped in several arrests of dangerous homebreakers and one peeping tom who carried knife and was peeking ito the shower room of my neighbors daughter. He is still in jail for raping another girl after I covered him while police arrested him and was charged with peeping and carrying a concealed weapon, My neighbors daughter is still alive and unraped thanks to my trusty Colt single action .357 Magnum, which thank God I have only fired in shooting galleries never at a human target... so far, and I pray to my God I never have to, but my guns stay.
A few years ago someone brike into my wlak out basement while we were still in bed at 5:30 AM. I trew on a pair of jeans and grabbed a pair of pistols raced down the stairs and into the basement, they escaped, I did not fire. Later the police said when they break in that early they are not robbers, Seeing my wife, a beautiful woman, they said, "she was the target no doubt. We are glad you are armed, had they come upstairs they would have been in for a rude awakening." Our home walks out into fifty acres of woods. There is planty of cover approachng it so we installed movement spotlights. They suggested to keep a loaded gun in the bedroom, which we do. The fact that we are armed and I am a crack shot was then well publicized, they said that is a good defense. Since that episode a number of my neighbors whose homes walk out intothe woods have bought guns also and learned to use them. So have some of the wives, so has one of our adult daughters and her husband and they have taken shooting lessons.
As to the family murders, very true. but in lieu of guns they drown, knife, poison etc. As far as they guns in the hands of kids who shot other kids, how did they get them? Were they legal? Few legally obtained guns in the hands of men and women who know what they are doing are implicated in murders. Check it out, there would be murders with other weapons. It is, however, the fault in most of the cases I have seen that school authorities were not enlightened and failed to act on evidence, as just a week or so ago.
There are more than 80,000,000 legal guns in the hands of Americans right now. How many have been used for murder? That is enough to arm most of the armies of the world. It is relatively peaceful considering that. Of the most publicized murders of late, quite a few involved knives and were clearly crimes of passion. In my upscale suburban neighborhood a woman killed 5 of her kids with knives and poison. In other cases in other suburbs a woman drowned her children, another choked hers, in California a guy chopped up his wife and threw her parts into th sea.
There are 300,000,00 people here, how many are murdered each year and how many with guns? How many with automobiles?
Look, I had to serve in the military. My family has owned guns forever, the last timea member of my family actually shot someone was in a legal duel a more than 100 years ago, defending the "honor" of a lady in Italy. Turned out she was not quite as virtuous as my great, great, uncle thought, but neither should she have been the victim of man who beat her when my uncle, many times removed, happened onto the scene. She lived on and so did the wounded scoundrel, who did not beat any more women. I do not know if she mended her ways, however, but I do know her and my uncle became an item after the life saving, and at her request.
Three ways to reduce an otherwise intelligent American man into a blabbering mass of mindless rhetoric.
Tell him his country isn’t the greatest nation on earth just the biggest bully
Tell him that God was homosexual.
Hint that there might be more control over guns
Well that’s the way it seems from my position from overseas.Seriously Ms Wilson’s bit was hardly Rabid anti gun yet all the idiotic half-baked pro gun arguments were trotted out!One author listed the disarming of the population as if it was somehow inevitable that mass extermination follows what he left out were the tens of countries that haven’t had mass extermination by their governments because of disarming the populous (Australia is but one). As was the argument about 1000 years of a family carrying weapons. I come from 1500 years of Vikings but I get seasick, I hate the sight of blood and all that raw fish offends my palate. I don’t know if he noticed but things are different now. It is not that I’m against guns it’s just that I’ve nothing for them either. I got over killing defenceless/or savage animals for fun about the time I first wore long pants. Where’s the thrill in shooting defenceless deer etc with a semi or automatic gun? Now if they could shoot back. Or maybe two-way rifle ranges, now there’s a thought.In the issue at hand, guns were the means not the problem. If it hadn’t been guns it would be fertilizer bombs, gas, God knows what. The problem is that the shooter got under the radar he simply slipped through the cracks. One could also point to a toxic culture. One where the individual is a unit of production, to be exploited at minimum wage, pushed around by big business (by the way businesses don’t can’t vote yet their control is pervasive). The individual is a target of consumption and lied to, cheated for maximum benefit to the business. He is a target of business generated peer pressure. He is an item of ridicule because of his non-conformism. What he is not is a person of worth someone who matters. Guns? They’re a nasty side issue. Why can’t the NRA support research or even a solution into this phenomenon? Answer, because they are as afraid as the rest of us in that the access to guns might be the villain. God help the American ethos of Entrepreneurialism and profit if this is proven the whole country might descend into primitive anarchy.
by
Andris (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 531 comments)
on Saturday, June 9, 2007 at 4:22:38 AM
scroll down the page to the links to Brit rags about what the "Liberal" scum have done to their country. When they were told to turn their guns in they should have started "Liberal" season. Now they're paying the price.
That will not be tolerated here. I'm looking forward to it.
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Barry Bright (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 27 comments)
on Saturday, June 9, 2007 at 8:25:33 AM
Barry seems to spend a lot of time cruising the Net picking fights about gun control. Some choice quotes follow:
Barry seems to spend a lot of time cruising the Net picking fights about gun control. Some selected quotes follow:
"After [Michael] bloomberg et al's treason trials are over, if you need someone to tug on the rope, flip the switch, pull the trigger or insert the needle, please let me know."
"And still the 'Liberals' lie about our rights and the form of govt. we're supposed to have. They will not give up until we are like the English, forbidden from defending our own lives and property even in our own homes. They will not give up until we have surrendered all our property rights in the name of 'environmentalism' or whatever cute cause they champion next. When guns are outlawed 'Liberal' season begins. Give me Liberty or give me 'Liberal' season.'"
"We need to get rid of vehicle licensing and registration as well so they can’t constantly throw that communist garbage up in our faces. ...This is AMERICA, founded by MEN, who gave their SWEAT and BLOOD and LIVES so we could enjoy our RIGHTS not our 'privileges.'"
"My Liberty, or what's left of it, was won through violence. If that's what it takes to keep and restore it so be it."
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Max Ward (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 43 comments)
on Saturday, June 9, 2007 at 4:18:49 PM
If Barry Bright was ever faced with a one-on-one situation with another man or a girl, or a Bunny-Rabbit, where both started walking toward each other 100 feet apart, armed holstered w/single action .357 mags or even squirt guns, he'd soil himself. When I was in the service I saw a great many of his type of hate filled, provoketeers, who once they provoked the wrong person and were called-out, needed an underwear change. Let him rant, no one here takes his type as anything but what they are. I doubt he ever served in the military. People who gain pleasefrom insulting others, have no clue as to what empathy means.If he bumped into Jesus in anywhere, he would not know him.
