These ‘we need more people with guns so they can stop the bad people’ fetishists never seem to consider that life isn’t a movie or video game where it’s obvious who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. Let’s say you have 30 ‘good guys with guns’ in a crowded theater when a mass shooting starts. Those 30 good-guys don’t know or recognize each other, they’re scared, their adrenaline is spiking, and they’re probably a dozen times more likely to shoot each other than shoot the ‘bad guy’. Plus you now have 30 times the crossfire going through the rest of the crowd.
I’m a gun owner and I grew up in the rural south so I have no particular aversion or fear of guns in general, but honestly I think I’d prefer to take my chances with the ‘bad guy’ being the only armed person in the room.
RJW: yes, his previous description of what he wants schools to look like is literally the description of a prison. Metal detectors, armed guards, secured areas with locked doors, etc.
musubk – absolutely. Maddow did a good job of pointing that out yesterday. Suppose gun-wielding teacher is out there in the hall heroically toting the gun and the SWAT team shows up – then what happens? They shoot the teacher, duh.
She also pointed out that the cops DO NOT just go charging in when there’s a shooter. They find out where everyone is FIRST, including other cops. It wouldn’t work for teachers to go charging around either, because they’d shoot each other and students. It would be a disaster.
A gun-free zone, to a killer, or somebody that wants to be a killer, that’s like going in for the ice cream. That’s like, “here I am, take me”. We have to get smarter on gun-free zones. When they see it says “this is a gun-free zone”, that means that nobody has a gun except them. Nobody’s going to be shooting bullets in the other direction. They see that as such a beautiful target. They live for gun-free zones. I think when you allow a person who’s been in the marines for 20 years who’s done nothing but handle guns and handle them safely and well, because you can’t just give a teacher a gun.
[…]
If they have the aptitude, I think a concealed permit for having teachers, and letting people know that there are people in the building with a gun, you won’t have, in my opinion, you won’t have these shootings, because these people are cowards. They’re not going to walk into a school if 20% of the teachers have guns. It may be 10%, it may be 40%. What I’d recommend doing is the people that do carry, we give them a bonus. We give them a little bit of a bonus.
[…]
We need to let people know, you come into our schools, you’re gonna be dead, and it’s gonna be fast. Unless you do that, you’re gonna always have this problem.
(emphasis mine)
What the heck? Does he think that there are serial school shooters out there? People who prey on schools, shoot one up, and move on to the next? Does he think that school shooters generally “get away with it”?
As far as I can tell, these people already get caught or get killed by the authorities. What’s more, it seems like most of the perpetrators know this going in. They’re know they’re heading in with a significant chance of being shot by the cops, if they don’t catch a break and get a chance to surrender at some point. (Anyone have any stats on how many school shooters get away/are caught/are killed?)
I would raise the question as to whether there’s any evidence at all to suggest that adding more guns into the mix would really deter any would-be shooters. Is there a danger that turning the situation from a slaughter of unarmed kids into an shootout with the teachers – like those exciting fillums on the teevee – will make it seem more attractive to would-be perps? Any expert opinions from suitably-credentialed youth psychologists on the matter? Never mind; I strongly suspect that that’s a ridiculously optimistic question to ask. President Fuckface von Clownstick has his opinion, no doubt pulled out of his presidential ass, and that’s going to be good enough for him.
A study of officer-involved shootings (summarized here) showed that NYPD officers hit their target just 18 per cent of the time.
I mention this not to dump on the NYPD, but to point out that even trained, reasonably fit (insert donut jokes here) members of “New York’s Finest” are not terribly accurate in a live fire situation: the challenge of a moving target, a chaotic environment, adrenaline surging through the officer’s system, etc., mean that even these highly trained professionals shoot more like Imperial Stormtroopers than Dirty Harry. And in a densely populated environment, those 82% of shots that are missed each have a non-trivial chance of hitting a bystander or fellow officer. Anecdotally, I’ve seen some veterans on Twitter mentioning the dramatic difference between when they got their rifle range certification (where they were all rated “expert”) and doing a simulated live fire exercise (where their accuracy rate plummented).
Imagine shoving guns into the hands of semi-trained school teachers, and ask yourself what their hit rate is likely to be, and what’s going to happen to all those stray bullets.
Agreed and the ‘bad guy’ is usually armed with a semi-automatic. As a former owner of a semi-automatic weapon, I’d put my money on the bad guy. Are the ‘good guys’ expected to be carrying, pistols, semi-automatics or something else? People watch too many Westerns.
As best I can recall, school shooters almost always have a connection to the school they shoot up. They’re either a current student, or a former one, or a family member or ex is a student or staff member, or it’s in their neighborhood. I don’t think there’s any evidence to suggest that school shooters select their targets based on the local gun laws or presence of armed security.
By Trump’s logic on gun-free zones, we should do away with all the checks and scans at the airport and just hand everyone a Glock as they board. As the president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence said, “If having more guns in more places made Americans safer, then we would have the lowest rates of gun violence in any developed country in the world, and the exact opposite is true.”
musubk, I think the answer’s obvious; if they want to turn schools into spaghetti westerns, just make sure that the good guys wear white hats. It worked in the movies that Trump seems to have used for research.
Not too long ago (just this side of my memory horizon) after a church shooting the local pastorage figured it a good idea to have some weapons training in connection with next service. Of course shots were fired by mistake and people were hurt. By “The Good Guys, Armed”.
In another perhaps even more memorable incident, a police officer while teaching kids about gun safety accidentally discharged his weapon, in class, with full attendance. This time the only casualty was pride.
And as a drive-by before hitting the road: Which shit fired would y’all most like to see? Me too. Maybe the dux are lining up now?
“…harden our schools”? What an impressive example of lateral thinking.
So all US schools will resemble a maximum security prison?
These ‘we need more people with guns so they can stop the bad people’ fetishists never seem to consider that life isn’t a movie or video game where it’s obvious who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. Let’s say you have 30 ‘good guys with guns’ in a crowded theater when a mass shooting starts. Those 30 good-guys don’t know or recognize each other, they’re scared, their adrenaline is spiking, and they’re probably a dozen times more likely to shoot each other than shoot the ‘bad guy’. Plus you now have 30 times the crossfire going through the rest of the crowd.
I’m a gun owner and I grew up in the rural south so I have no particular aversion or fear of guns in general, but honestly I think I’d prefer to take my chances with the ‘bad guy’ being the only armed person in the room.
RJW: yes, his previous description of what he wants schools to look like is literally the description of a prison. Metal detectors, armed guards, secured areas with locked doors, etc.
musubk – absolutely. Maddow did a good job of pointing that out yesterday. Suppose gun-wielding teacher is out there in the hall heroically toting the gun and the SWAT team shows up – then what happens? They shoot the teacher, duh.
She also pointed out that the cops DO NOT just go charging in when there’s a shooter. They find out where everyone is FIRST, including other cops. It wouldn’t work for teachers to go charging around either, because they’d shoot each other and students. It would be a disaster.
(emphasis mine)
What the heck? Does he think that there are serial school shooters out there? People who prey on schools, shoot one up, and move on to the next? Does he think that school shooters generally “get away with it”?
As far as I can tell, these people already get caught or get killed by the authorities. What’s more, it seems like most of the perpetrators know this going in. They’re know they’re heading in with a significant chance of being shot by the cops, if they don’t catch a break and get a chance to surrender at some point. (Anyone have any stats on how many school shooters get away/are caught/are killed?)
I would raise the question as to whether there’s any evidence at all to suggest that adding more guns into the mix would really deter any would-be shooters. Is there a danger that turning the situation from a slaughter of unarmed kids into an shootout with the teachers – like those exciting fillums on the teevee – will make it seem more attractive to would-be perps? Any expert opinions from suitably-credentialed youth psychologists on the matter? Never mind; I strongly suspect that that’s a ridiculously optimistic question to ask. President Fuckface von Clownstick has his opinion, no doubt pulled out of his presidential ass, and that’s going to be good enough for him.
A study of officer-involved shootings (summarized here) showed that NYPD officers hit their target just 18 per cent of the time.
I mention this not to dump on the NYPD, but to point out that even trained, reasonably fit (insert donut jokes here) members of “New York’s Finest” are not terribly accurate in a live fire situation: the challenge of a moving target, a chaotic environment, adrenaline surging through the officer’s system, etc., mean that even these highly trained professionals shoot more like Imperial Stormtroopers than Dirty Harry. And in a densely populated environment, those 82% of shots that are missed each have a non-trivial chance of hitting a bystander or fellow officer. Anecdotally, I’ve seen some veterans on Twitter mentioning the dramatic difference between when they got their rifle range certification (where they were all rated “expert”) and doing a simulated live fire exercise (where their accuracy rate plummented).
Imagine shoving guns into the hands of semi-trained school teachers, and ask yourself what their hit rate is likely to be, and what’s going to happen to all those stray bullets.
musubk @2
Agreed and the ‘bad guy’ is usually armed with a semi-automatic. As a former owner of a semi-automatic weapon, I’d put my money on the bad guy. Are the ‘good guys’ expected to be carrying, pistols, semi-automatics or something else? People watch too many Westerns.
Karellan @6,
As best I can recall, school shooters almost always have a connection to the school they shoot up. They’re either a current student, or a former one, or a family member or ex is a student or staff member, or it’s in their neighborhood. I don’t think there’s any evidence to suggest that school shooters select their targets based on the local gun laws or presence of armed security.
By Trump’s logic on gun-free zones, we should do away with all the checks and scans at the airport and just hand everyone a Glock as they board. As the president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence said, “If having more guns in more places made Americans safer, then we would have the lowest rates of gun violence in any developed country in the world, and the exact opposite is true.”
musubk, I think the answer’s obvious; if they want to turn schools into spaghetti westerns, just make sure that the good guys wear white hats. It worked in the movies that Trump seems to have used for research.
The numbers may be old, but its reported that HALF the police killed in shootings are shot with their own service weapons.
And what about a deranged, armed, ‘Kristian’ teacher who goes berserk when a student doesn’t stand for the pledge?
More clowns with guns: Not needed.
Not too long ago (just this side of my memory horizon) after a church shooting the local pastorage figured it a good idea to have some weapons training in connection with next service. Of course shots were fired by mistake and people were hurt. By “The Good Guys, Armed”.
In another perhaps even more memorable incident, a police officer while teaching kids about gun safety accidentally discharged his weapon, in class, with full attendance. This time the only casualty was pride.
And as a drive-by before hitting the road: Which shit fired would y’all most like to see? Me too. Maybe the dux are lining up now?