.

[nine naked men]

jason bourne is not a real person

[Ember]

.

[Alg]

Okay? I don't know what your point is.

Just a comment, I'm not sure if I actually have one. Violence is violence, whether the victim is dead by the end or crippled. One's better than the other, but they're both terrible.

[nine naked men]

Well then I guess I'm pretty cool with both those comments I think, thanks for elaborating.

[Ember]

.

[Omar]

Guns vs other weapons - I'll assume that you mean 'weapons' as in knives etc. Give me something to work with. I've already asked for evidence about homicides. Let's start with that. What weapons dominate US homicides? We'll work it from there. If you ask me to compare guns with cars it doesn't work as I was asked to do because "a car can be used as an offensive weapon". Jason Bourne can use a biro pen as one so should be discuss those too. Do you see what I'm getting at here? It totally derails the topic completely and ends up with stupid conversations. I just know *Cough*

Apology accepted, but I'll let the people who actually know about guns make these points. Let me just focus on black markets:

 

Black Markets - Tough one. I believe that if you're going to ban something then follow it through. Better that than doing nothing at all. I think guns are too embedded in american culture to ban completely imo. If it was a ban I'd support it. You will get casualties as with anything like this. More deaths than currently - I've no crystal ball on the subject.

It's not nearly as simple as following through. To take the example of drugs, absolutely nothing that has been tried hasn't gone completely wrong, as was the case when alcohol was illegal; you've got people in prisons for smoking innocuous bits of vegetation, just like you'll have shopkeepers in prison for defending themselves from burglars, or Z_Berenices incarcerated for defending their family from a dude with a machete. The state does not control society; that's creationism. The guns exist; now we need those who could be victims of attacks to be able to defend themselves.

 

To comparisons made between rampages using different weapons: note that the reason why shootings happen in schools is that you're not allowed to bring guns in. Note also that it's more likely that people will get struck by lighting. Considering how effective gun control would be, I think we should bump it down the list and focus on preventing lightning strikes.

[Guest Smelly Paws]

It's not nearly as simple as following through. To take the example of drugs, absolutely nothing that has been tried hasn't gone completely wrong, as was the case when alcohol was illegal; you've got people in prisons for smoking innocuous bits of vegetation, just like you'll have shopkeepers in prison for defending themselves from burglars, or Z_Berenices incarcerated for defending their family from a dude with a machete. The state does not control society; that's creationism. The guns exist; now we need those who could be victims of attacks to be able to defend themselves.

 

To comparisons made between rampages using different weapons: note that the reason why shootings happen in schools is that you're not allowed to bring guns in. Note also that it's more likely that people will get struck by lighting. Considering how effective gun control would be, I think we should bump it down the list and focus on preventing lightning strikes.

 

Just because a black market will be create doesn’t mean you shouldn’t ban it if you think it’s right to do so. Of course you’ll have casualties. You have to draw a line somewhere. Your stance on drugs isn’t the same as mine. Stick the veg smokers in prison as far as I’m concerned. Better that than smoking dope in front of kids. Yes there is a black market for it and in certain ways we may not do a great job in fighting that but better that than giving up.

 

Now, on-topic with guns. There already is black market. I’m not convinced that it would grow if there is a mass ban on them. You already have a market there due to current restrictions. You won’t have shopkeepers in prison for using reasonable force and Z_Berenice will not go to prison if, again , he uses reasonable force. If the guns exist then putting them in the hands of those of the ‘victims’ doesn’t solve anything. You just increase the number of guns on the streets and we’re back to square one.

 

I’m all in favour of stopping lightning strikes. Rampages with guns don’t happen because guns are banned in schools. Should we lift the bans on them and all will be well? Lightning strikes are only the tip of the iceberg of this gun issue. They account for a small % of a larger issue. Effective gun control starts with the gun owner and like I’ve always said you need more responsibility and liability for them to consider “am I responsible enough to own this and am I prepared to take the consequences if it fell into the wrong hands”.

 

What I don't understand is why you claim to be worried about going off-topic while legitimately discussing the issue, but you're okay with posting completely unrelated content in the same post. If I were a suspicious person, I might suspect that you are unable to support your position; instead resorting to claiming to know better than anyone who disagrees with you, without actually being willing to follow even your own suggestions through to reasonable conclusions.

 

Claiming that your position is supported by common sense with no further explanation is tantamount to saying "I'm right, but I'm not going to show why so you can understand my position, and you're just stupid if you don't agree with me." In good faith, I'll accept that you believe in your position, but I don't share it and you're either unable or unwilling to support it with reason.

 

You really want your own thread littered with conversations about items that are not sold as offensive weapons? You seriously don’t understand this? You may as well compare poodles with guns. That’s why I’m not wasting my time. I’ll stick to common sense.

 

Now, you could point out where I claim to know better than everyone else. It’s a forum where I’m supposed to have an opinion about something. My opinion is different from yours. So what? That’s life. I’ve told you my position on things so you’re wrong to suggest I don’t. I have posed the issue in post #221 directly to you with my thoughts about it. You’ve chosen to ignore it. Stop complaining about none-existent things. Now, do you want to debate or continue along this line? If it’s the latter save your breath and don’t respond.

 

 

jason bourne is not a real person

Yes he is. James Bond says so. :P

[Z_Berenice]

Just because a black market will be create doesn’t mean you shouldn’t ban it if you think it’s right to do so. Of course you’ll have casualties. You have to draw a line somewhere. Your stance on drugs isn’t the same as mine. Stick the veg smokers in prison as far as I’m concerned. Better that than smoking dope in front of kids. Yes there is a black market for it and in certain ways we may not do a great job in fighting that but better that than giving up.

 

Now, on-topic with guns. There already is black market. I’m not convinced that it would grow if there is a mass ban on them. You already have a market there due to current restrictions. You won’t have shopkeepers in prison for using reasonable force and Z_Berenice will not go to prison if, again , he uses reasonable force. If the guns exist then putting them in the hands of those of the ‘victims’ doesn’t solve anything. You just increase the number of guns on the streets and we’re back to square one.

 

I’m all in favour of stopping lightning strikes. Rampages with guns don’t happen because guns are banned in schools. Should we lift the bans on them and all will be well? Lightning strikes are only the tip of the iceberg of this gun issue. They account for a small % of a larger issue. Effective gun control starts with the gun owner and like I’ve always said you need more responsibility and liability for them to consider “am I responsible enough to own this and am I prepared to take the consequences if it fell into the wrong hands”.

And this is why I keep insisting on you reading the thread. Not trying to be a prick or something, just been trying to tell you that these points were discussed before. When they say some dude was chasing my niece with a machete, they actually meant that. Now, on that ocassion and the burglars I had the "time to think" and didn't go full lethal, on the stalker tho... What's reasonable can vary.

 

As for your view on guns in schools, this ridiculous "gun-free zone" thing only applies to public schools; look at the schools of the sons of senators, congressmen, etc...

 

On the gun stealing subject, as I lawyer, all I can tell you is "there's a law for that" (you're forced to report the gun as stolen the moment it happens, you'll be getting in a lot of trouble if you don't). Altho I sorta agree with your point. Now if you wanna know something funny about it, a good % of stolen gun cases happen because of anti-guns stealing guns from pro-guns because they considered them "too dangerous". Thanks God in my country we've only seen 4 incidents with stolen legal guns, but I've worked through at least 12 that didn't end in anything, as they were events like "some mom spotted my cc, and she actually followed me around, sadly for me, I had to enter a hospital and since she knew I was carrying, she actually broke in my car and stole my gun while I was inside the hospital" < that really happened last week to some very unlucky dude... luckily, she didn't know how to remove the safe...

[Omar]

It's not nearly as simple as following through. To take the example of drugs, absolutely nothing that has been tried hasn't gone completely wrong, as was the case when alcohol was illegal; you've got people in prisons for smoking innocuous bits of vegetation, just like you'll have shopkeepers in prison for defending themselves from burglars, or Z_Berenices incarcerated for defending their family from a dude with a machete. The state does not control society; that's creationism. The guns exist; now we need those who could be victims of attacks to be able to defend themselves.

 

To comparisons made between rampages using different weapons: note that the reason why shootings happen in schools is that you're not allowed to bring guns in. Note also that it's more likely that people will get struck by lighting. Considering how effective gun control would be, I think we should bump it down the list and focus on preventing lightning strikes.

 

Just because a black market will be create doesn’t mean you shouldn’t ban it if you think it’s right to do so. Of course you’ll have casualties. You have to draw a line somewhere. Your stance on drugs isn’t the same as mine. Stick the veg smokers in prison as far as I’m concerned. Better that than smoking dope in front of kids. Yes there is a black market for it and in certain ways we may not do a great job in fighting that but better that than giving up.

 

a) everyone has seen someone smoke weed, the law has done little to stop that

b) you'd rather have people getting killed (over 50k in Mexico!) and incarcerated than have the virgin eyes of children see reality?

 

Now, on-topic with guns. There already is black market. I’m not convinced that it would grow if there is a mass ban on them. You already have a market there due to current restrictions. You won’t have shopkeepers in prison for using reasonable force and Z_Berenice will not go to prison if, again , he uses reasonable force. If the guns exist then putting them in the hands of those of the ‘victims’ doesn’t solve anything. You just increase the number of guns on the streets and we’re back to square one.

 

But the thing is "one extra gun on the street" tells you nothing. As you conceded, there is such a thing as reasonable force. Like in the Cold War, an extra weapon doesn't necessarily mean more destruction; the opposite happened. Now, to be sure, the Cold War was an awful waste of people and wealth. But it would have been worse had both sides not had WMD (cf. Hiroshima, Nagasaki). That Vice video Z-Berenice posted in which Mexican civilians are forming militias is a great example of guns being used properly. Similarly, you would probably have no problem with the police having more guns.

 

I’m all in favour of stopping lightning strikes. Rampages with guns don’t happen because guns are banned in schools.

 

Lol, really? You think a guy who shows up to a school with several rifles and wants to kill as many people as possible is going to see the sign and say "Oh dear well I guess I have to pick another school..." ? The reason why he shows up to that school is that guns are banned, and no one can stop him. Same thing happened with the Aurora shooter--I remember a similar incident happened around the same time, except a guy shot the murderer and all was better.

 

Should we lift the bans on them and all will be well? Lightning strikes are only the tip of the iceberg of this gun issue.

 

I feel like you thought I was calling rampages lightning strikes, but I was just being snarky and saying thunderstorms kill more people annually and that we should prioritise that.

 

They account for a small % of a larger issue. Effective gun control starts with the gun owner and like I’ve always said you need more responsibility and liability for them to consider “am I responsible enough to own this and am I prepared to take the consequences if it fell into the wrong hands”.

 

If I steal a knife from IKEA and kill someone with it, is IKEA responsible? Has the notion that I would be irresponsible occurred to you at all?

[nine naked men]

spree killers 99% of the time don't choose their targets based on whether or not there will be people with guns there. just like they're not stopped by "no guns allowed" signs, they're mostly not motivated by them either.

 

no mass shootings in the usa in the past 30 years have been stopped by an armed civilian. 2 civilians attempting to intervene w/weaponry were shot, one killed one gravely wounded. most of the people who are lauded as stopping mass shootings were either police or former police, or intervened once the shooter had finished shooting. a civilian attempting to stop a shooting almost shot an innocent civilian.

 

mexico is a failed state managed by a corrupt government. i would hold more faith in the USA.

 

i feel if something's not stored as safely as its deadliness dictates, then yeah, there might be something there.

[Guest Smelly Paws]

Misandrist has covered a fair amount here quite well so I won’t take up too much of your time.

 

a) everyone has seen someone smoke weed, the law has done little to stop that

b) you'd rather have people getting killed (over 50k in Mexico!) and incarcerated than have the virgin eyes of children see reality?

I don’t think many parents would dismiss it as nothing. Mexico is a different system, different government and different culture. If you want to discuss that start a new thread. I’ll be very happy to discuss it.

 

But the thing is "one extra gun on the street" tells you nothing. As you conceded, there is such a thing as reasonable force. Like in the Cold War, an extra weapon doesn't necessarily mean more destruction; the opposite happened. Now, to be sure, the Cold War was an awful waste of people and wealth. But it would have been worse had both sides not had WMD (cf. Hiroshima, Nagasaki). That Vice video Z-Berenice posted in which Mexican civilians are forming militias is a great example of guns being used properly. Similarly, you would probably have no problem with the police having more guns.

So your solution is “they got guns, we get more guns”. Powder keg.

 

Lol, really? You think a guy who shows up to a school with several rifles and wants to kill as many people as possible is going to see the sign and say "Oh dear well I guess I have to pick another school..." ? The reason why he shows up to that school is that guns are banned, and no one can stop him. Same thing happened with the Aurora shooter--I remember a similar incident happened around the same time, except a guy shot the murderer and all was better.

So you think people who rampage through schools with a gun do that because the school has banned guns? Oh dear.

 

If I steal a knife from IKEA and kill someone with it, is IKEA responsible? Has the notion that I would be irresponsible occurred to you at all?

No. Apples and oranges again. Deflection tactics won't work. Stick to firearms.

[Omar]

Actually, I just found the story:

http://beforeitsnews...ng-2524596.html

 

So, unless you don't count a case in which someone was stopped from shooting a lot of people as a mass shooting, it has happened before. Technically the officer was not a civilian, but she was off-duty, which is essentially the same.

 

"No guns allowed" signs don't give you an incentive to go back. I mean, you're going to shoot as many people as you can. That extra charge isn't going to change your decision. They do, however, give you an incentive to go in that specific location, because they're a signal that your rampage will be greatly facilitated. It's not that shooters don't respond to incentives at all, it's just that "no guns allowed" is a perverse incentive.

 

@Smelly:

 

Mexico doesn't exist in a vacuum, it's right below the United States and the drug trade between the two are very much related.

 

My solution is "bad people have guns, we need good people with guns". There's no argument in what you wrote, anyway.

 

Yes, I do think the fact that no one will stop a shooter from killing people until the cops show up in certain places is an incentive to choose those places to go on a rampage. It seems like the efficient thing to do if you want to kill as many people as possible.

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/09/10/did-colorado-shooter-single-out-cinemark-theater/

 

I think you started off pretty well saying "apples and oranges". Prove that they are apples and oranges and that the difference is relevant and I'll drop it. Stop assuming I'm in it to convince you of false things; it's nothing short of calling your opponent a liar.

[Guest Smelly Paws]

All you're trying to do is to cure the symtoms instead of attacking the cause here. "More guns" isn't a convincing argument.

 

I'm not calling you a liar, you're just using knives to deflect away from firearms, as if it makes a good counter-argument. You know exactly what the difference is, you just don't want to admit it. You'll find all you need to know by looking up US homicide stats and the weapon of choice.

[Omar]

You're ignoring a point I've made twice already. Guns are not the same depending on whose hands they are in. What you don't realize is that you too want more violence. You want violence by the state against the individual. It is veiled by threats and laws, but that is what a state is--an institution which has a monopoly on the initiation of force. Gun control cannot exist without a sword of Damocles hanging above your head. Gun control laws are more guns, more violence, more incarceration, and more expropriation.

 

----

 

It's the "tactics" that bothers me, not the "deflection". Truth doesn't need bad arguments. By saying I'm deliberately using arguments I know to be unsound, you're essentially claiming that I'm wrong and that I know it, yet won't admit it--that I'm not telling the truth.

 

Because, you know, it's not possible that I could think what you listed is irrelevant. Of course I know knives and guns are different. The point is that it seems to me the reason why you want people to be liable for damage done with their property is that otherwise, it will cause harm (but to be fair you haven't actually stated it). But why do you not say the same for other things? Sure, knives cause less deaths, but then the liability can be lesser. What you should be able to do, if your point was as consistent as you think it is, is have a content-agnostic principle by which you gauge a weapon and deduce what the legal implications are. But I've yet to hear it.

[Ember]

.

[sees_all1]

no mass shootings in the usa in the past 30 years have been stopped by an armed civilian. 2 civilians attempting to intervene w/weaponry were shot, one killed one gravely wounded. most of the people who are lauded as stopping mass shootings were either police or former police, or intervened once the shooter had finished shooting. a civilian attempting to stop a shooting almost shot an innocent civilian.

That's a convenient argument you've got. But you're horribly wrong.

http://gunwatch.blogspot.com/2012/12/mass-killings-stopped-by-armed-citizens.html

[nine naked men]

no mass shootings in the usa in the past 30 years have been stopped by an armed civilian. 2 civilians attempting to intervene w/weaponry were shot, one killed one gravely wounded. most of the people who are lauded as stopping mass shootings were either police or former police, or intervened once the shooter had finished shooting. a civilian attempting to stop a shooting almost shot an innocent civilian.

That's a convenient argument you've got. But you're horribly wrong.

http://gunwatch.blogspot.com/2012/12/mass-killings-stopped-by-armed-citizens.html

dang, feel like i need to take a shower after reading through that site. but i concede, about six of those, good stuff. definitely a failing of the data i was using was shootings prevented where a lesser amount of people were killed.

[Ember]

.

[Omar]

Or a catch-22.

[Ember]

.

[Guest Smelly Paws]

That’s a lot to reply to so I’ll take some main points:

@Omar – When you accuse me of advocating state violence because I believe less guns are good your argument becomes much more desperate and irrelevant. You’d learn a lot by looking at the UK guns are nowhere near as common as the US, yet the police are only armed in emergencies. Your view is anti-state, yet it is probably the state that gives you the lifestyle you’re accustomed to, gives you freedom of speech and provides a barrier of protection between you and anarchy. Time to grow up.

 

@Nyosuht - I appreciate you’re trying to defend your right to bear arms to the hilt, no matter what. You also don’t like the idea of being liable and responsible. Repeated attempts to distort it by bringing in other items to be liable for just proves you cannot be talked to. You will not deal with it. You cannot even concede that a firearm is bought, sold and used as a weapon (“Even if I were to grant” – your words). The US government knows there’s a problem but you won’t recognise it. Nice chart but doesn’t paint the whole truth. Hope both of these clear this up for you, including why the homicide rate with guns might be dropping.

 

 

Chart 1 - Declining gun homice rate compared with gun ownership, sourced from the BBC:

 

 

 

Chart 2 - Homicde murder weapons in the US 2011. Sorry couldn't find the stats for 2012 on short notice. I think cars comes under the 9% :rolleyes: . Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/jan/10/gun-crime-us-state

 

 

 

 

I shall leave the discussion here. There isn't much point in debating with you guys much further. Good luck. ;)

[Omar]

That’s a lot to reply to so I’ll take some main points:

@Omar – When you accuse me of advocating state violence because I believe less guns are good your argument becomes much more desperate and irrelevant. You’d learn a lot by looking at the UK guns are nowhere near as common as the US, yet the police are only armed in emergencies. Your view is anti-state, yet it is probably the state that gives you the lifestyle you’re accustomed to, gives you freedom of speech and provides a barrier of protection between you and anarchy. Time to grow up.

Oh wow, you just called all of classical liberalism childish, and to boot you don't know what the word "anarchy" means. You refuse to discriminate between guns in the hand of good people and guns in the hands of bad people by calling it a powder keg, but the difference between guns in the hands of the state and guns in the hands of criminals is so obvious to you it needs no explaining, and anyone who questions it needs to grow up.

I was actually working from a proposition you agree with, namely the idea that we need a state. If that is the case, then we need guns, because that's where the state gets its power. Therefore not all guns are bad. Whichever side you're on when it comes to gun control, you can't escape this admission, because gun control requires the initiation of force.

Also, chart 1, correlation is not causation. Maybe the fact that crime is dropping is causing the gun ownership rate to go down.

[Randox]

My issue with people, civilians, responding with a gun, is that people in a state of panic don't make good choices. The brain is able to cut out a lot of the logical and analytical processes to accelerate action time. You body is on a hair trigger to respond to life threatening situations, but the systems controlling your actions are now the unconscious systems that handle information preprocessing, that is you are running on bare bones instinct. Cops and soldiers train so hard because when their brain goes into panic mode, the idea is that rather than blindly firing at everything that moves in a panicked frenzy, their training has become their instinct (much like training for many sports where you need to move faster than you can normally think) and they do something useful.

 

It also hits me that a single gun shot wound has a fatality of about 5%, assuming timely medical attention. As long as you don't take a shot through the head, or directly through the heart, then chances are your heart will still be going long enough to be beating when you hit the ER, which seems to be a defining point in living or dying. So if you take a single shot and manage to fall to the floor, thus probably being assumed dead and not getting shot again, you have a pretty sporting chance of walking away from the hospital in a couple days. If you draw your gun, you are going to get shot way more than once, and you are almost certainly going to die because your chances of living drop off very quickly with each shot (though the record seems to be nearly 40 shots over 6 hours, which probably means they are a prototype terminator).

 

It is also worth thinking about making them panic. People gunning down a crowd are probably in a pretty tenuous situation upstairs already, so if you cant make that kill shot (which between not really thinking, and being dosed by enough adrenaline to make the shock you are about to go into life threatening doesn't seem like a good chance), than all you have really done is made them more aggressive which only makes the situation worse for everyone.

 

It's a revenge fantasy, one I don't see very many people being functionally able to make good on. That's my two cents.

 

 

My thoughts on gun control are that it weeds out the spur of the moment stuff. As with suicide, if you can delay people even a day or two, the spur of the moment stuff mostly goes away. I think that's pretty awesome. Mostly, it actually just means no hand guns, or smaller automatics and other fire arms that can be easily concealed, because to work with anything else probably means planning, which gives you the delay. Sure people can still get their hands on them, but you need to wait a day or so to get them from the store, and to get one off the street you need to know the right people. Most people don't have those kinds of contacts, and it's going to take time as a result.

 

 

Bernice, since you talk about the system in Panama so much, I am interested if it's different than the States. Are their cases of civilians (that means no police or military, present or former, because they have training) being able to successfully intervene in shootings? I am also holding criminals stopping a shooting as an exception on the grounds that they would likely be better conditioned to deal with the situation through experience than an ordinary law abiding citizen, though I would still be interested in examples of that as well, since at the very least it shows potential for the concept (excepting criminal on criminal violence without third party civilian intervention).

[Z_Berenice]

Bernice, since you talk about the system in Panama so much, I am interested if it's different than the States. Are their cases of civilians (that means no police or military, present or former, because they have training) being able to successfully intervene in shootings? I am also holding criminals stopping a shooting as an exception on the grounds that they would likely be better conditioned to deal with the situation through experience than an ordinary law abiding citizen, though I would still be interested in examples of that as well, since at the very least it shows potential for the concept (excepting criminal on criminal violence without third party civilian intervention).

It is different in 2 things:

1. Gun culture in Panama is sort of poor. Most people simply get a revolver or a shotgun and don't really know much about guns. However, there's a good amount of legal ones, let's say, for every 5 houses on some suburb, at least 1 has in the very least a shotgun.

 

2. Psychiatric tests for permits, possession and carry both require diferent psychiatric tests. I guess this is the reason why pretty much anyone who owns and carry in Panama is reliable. Not only that, you must also prove that your gun works and that you know how to use it. By tests I don't mean just some theoric exam, you get evaluated to prove you're a sane person but what gets you the permits is how well you prove to react on a sitation that requires a gun. If you want to get a gun but know nothing about them, you have to pass some classes/basic training, etc...

 

As for cases of civilian defending themselves, they are somewhat common. What's curious is that they rarely end up on someone dying. Most are just people shooting burglars on their property/neighbors property, or some public place close to where they live. We've had incidents that ended in shootings on crowed places, due to "class-clash" (drug dealers shooting each other with armed civilians around) that ended before the police arrived. Just last year there was a shooting on a club's avenue that was stopped by 3 civilians who were carrying and ended with no casualties (only 12 rounds were shot), I guess it also helps that we simply don't let the media get anywhere close to the names of who shot / was injured / died / etc (familiars are dealt exclusively by authorities); altho the incidents are reported, it rarely goes into any other detail than saying "a shooting happened in x place" or "a burglar was captured after a recident of x neighborhood shot him". (ofc, there's propaganda-media that base its sources on rumors, but nobody takes these seriously).

 

Now criminal vs criminal, those happen daily as they are "hermetic" incidents (they only happen on violent places that only affect the people living in there). Most of the cases of people shooting burglars happen because people from more violent places go to steal to less violent/calm/safer neighborhoods (safer in great deal because of armed civilians).

[nine naked men]

My issue with people, civilians, responding with a gun, is that people in a state of panic don't make good choices. The brain is able to cut out a lot of the logical and analytical processes to accelerate action time. You body is on a hair trigger to respond to life threatening situations, but the systems controlling your actions are now the unconscious systems that handle information preprocessing, that is you are running on bare bones instinct. Cops and soldiers train so hard because when their brain goes into panic mode, the idea is that rather than blindly firing at everything that moves in a panicked frenzy, their training has become their instinct (much like training for many sports where you need to move faster than you can normally think) and they do something useful.

 

It also hits me that a single gun shot wound has a fatality of about 5%, assuming timely medical attention. As long as you don't take a shot through the head, or directly through the heart, then chances are your heart will still be going long enough to be beating when you hit the ER, which seems to be a defining point in living or dying. So if you take a single shot and manage to fall to the floor, thus probably being assumed dead and not getting shot again, you have a pretty sporting chance of walking away from the hospital in a couple days. If you draw your gun, you are going to get shot way more than once, and you are almost certainly going to die because your chances of living drop off very quickly with each shot (though the record seems to be nearly 40 shots over 6 hours, which probably means they are a prototype terminator).

 

It is also worth thinking about making them panic. People gunning down a crowd are probably in a pretty tenuous situation upstairs already, so if you cant make that kill shot (which between not really thinking, and being dosed by enough adrenaline to make the shock you are about to go into life threatening doesn't seem like a good chance), than all you have really done is made them more aggressive which only makes the situation worse for everyone.

 

It's a revenge fantasy, one I don't see very many people being functionally able to make good on. That's my two cents.

 

 

My thoughts on gun control are that it weeds out the spur of the moment stuff. As with suicide, if you can delay people even a day or two, the spur of the moment stuff mostly goes away. I think that's pretty awesome. Mostly, it actually just means no hand guns, or smaller automatics and other fire arms that can be easily concealed, because to work with anything else probably means planning, which gives you the delay. Sure people can still get their hands on them, but you need to wait a day or so to get them from the store, and to get one off the street you need to know the right people. Most people don't have those kinds of contacts, and it's going to take time as a result.

 

 

Bernice, since you talk about the system in Panama so much, I am interested if it's different than the States. Are their cases of civilians (that means no police or military, present or former, because they have training) being able to successfully intervene in shootings? I am also holding criminals stopping a shooting as an exception on the grounds that they would likely be better conditioned to deal with the situation through experience than an ordinary law abiding citizen, though I would still be interested in examples of that as well, since at the very least it shows potential for the concept (excepting criminal on criminal violence without third party civilian intervention).

Try >15-20%, based on the stuff I've read, and that's assuming quick medical response which is not always feasible in a prolonged engagement.