Yet another shooting thread

[Loren Pechtel]

You'll have to take out an awful lot of legal guns to reduce supply of illegal ones. Why should we not believe that the primary effect is the real objective?

Because the real objective is to reduce the number of people who get shot.

If the number of legal guns falls dramatically, what problem does this cause for anybody?

Because you continue to stick your head in the sand about self defense.

We do not have good data on self defense incidents, but it certainly looks like a legally owned gun is quite a bit more likely to prevent a crime than commit a crime. (And note that most defensive uses of guns don't even involve drawing them. Somebody realizes they're being set up as a target, they reveal their gun, the bad guys take off.)

 

[bilby]

What you want to achieve (assuming that you want fewer people to be needlessly killed) is a situation where the average citizen reacts to seeing (or thinking they might have seen) a gun, by calling the cops; And where the cops respond to such reports as though that sighting were a major threat to public safety.

This cannot be achieved while legally carrying a gun is a ubiquitous activity.

The problem with your theory is that the bad guys keep their guns hidden.

It's not a theory, it's an observation.

If you see a gun not actively being used for criminal purpose the odds that it's legitimate is awfully close to 100%. Criminals do not walk around with visible guns!

That is only true where visible guns are likely to invoke an overwhelming police response.

And I am not talking about some fool walking around with an obvious and highly visible firearm; I am talking about some passer-by catching a glimpse of a poorly concealed gun.

 

[bilby]

And note that your second objective is the gun-grabber's holy grail--a list of all the guns out there.

Yeah, and the DMV are car-grabbers, so now that registration is mandatory, it's only a matter of time before legal automobile owners have their vehicles confiscated by the government.

Because that doesn't sound at all like the paranoid rantings of a crazy person who is terrified of government.

Nobody's suggested confiscating all the cars. Plenty of gun grabbers have suggested confiscating all the guns.

Maybe. You should have that conversation with them though - I am neither a spokesman nor a supporter of that position.

 

[bilby]

You'll have to take out an awful lot of legal guns to reduce supply of illegal ones. Why should we not believe that the primary effect is the real objective?

Because the real objective is to reduce the number of people who get shot.

If the number of legal guns falls dramatically, what problem does this cause for anybody?

Because you continue to stick your head in the sand about self defense.

Not at all. The use of lethal force as a first resort for self defence is immoral, unethical, and unacceptable.

Tou continue to stick your head in the sand with regards to the morality of killing people just because they scared you.

We do not have good data on self defense incidents, but it certainly looks like a legally owned gun is quite a bit more likely to prevent a crime than commit a crime.

No, it doesn't.

My evidence? Exactly the same as the evidence you presented in bold above.

Your guesses are not supported by the absence of evidence that contraducts them.

(And note that most defensive uses of guns don't even involve drawing them. Somebody realizes they're being set up as a target, they reveal their gun, the bad guys take off.)

In the movies, sure.

Movies are not an accurate depiction of reality.

 

[Toni]

You'll have to take out an awful lot of legal guns to reduce supply of illegal ones. Why should we not believe that the primary effect is the real objective?

Because the real objective is to reduce the number of people who get shot.

If the number of legal guns falls dramatically, what problem does this cause for anybody?

Because you continue to stick your head in the sand about self defense.

We do not have good data on self defense incidents, but it certainly looks like a legally owned gun is quite a bit more likely to prevent a crime than commit a crime. (And note that most defensive uses of guns don't even involve drawing them. Somebody realizes they're being set up as a target, they reveal their gun, the bad guys take off.)

How exactly does a legally owned gun prevent crime? Aside from the no crime of owning one?

Do you really think that people are scaring burglars away from their homes with their AKs that you insist are perfectly fine? Or their handguns in purses or holsters?

Never mind data—I just am not seeing anything in the news about such deterrence. I DO see stories of people shooting other people for entirely specious reasons, including a recent case in my general area where someone shot another person because the shooting victim drive past his car ‘too slowly’. No, this is not an area rife with gang shootings where that might be a semi-reasonable concern. BTW, my area is largely rural and local news reports EVERYTHING that happens. If my neighbor scared off a burglar with his hunting rifle, it would make the news, albeit slightly less quickly than the neighbors sharing his story—because we do that around here: mention if it seems like someone got into an unlocked vehicle or wandered into the wrong house,etc, or if an unrecognized vehicle is cruising the area or parked too long on the street.

A lot of people own guns in my town and surrounding area.

 

[Tigers!]

A little snippet popped up in my news feed at work.
It stated that 109 people were shot in Chicago during the July 4th weekend and that 19 died. Is that correct?

If true I cannot imagine that level of violence.

 

[Elixir]

Only 109? I bet other cities did better than that. I mean, with those newly re-legalized bump stocks, 109 bullets takes less than a minute. And we’re talking about a whole 24 hour period!

 

[Shadowy Man]

We do not have good data on self defense incidents, but it certainly looks like a legally owned gun is quite a bit more likely to prevent a crime than commit a crime.

if you don’t have good data then it is fallacious to come to that conclusion because it “looks” to be true.

 

[Politesse]

A little snippet popped up in my news feed at work.
It stated that 109 people were shot in Chicago during the July 4th weekend and that 19 died. Is that correct?

If true I cannot imagine that level of violence.

It's true, unfortunately:

Chicago shootings: At least 109 shot, 19 fatally, in citywide holiday weekend gun violence, CPD says

When pressed to address what adjustments need to be made to keep the community safe, Mayor Brandon Johnson's response was simply that the city needs more support.

abc7chicago.com

CPD Supt. Larry Snelling and Mayor Brandon Johnson both called for accountability for those responsible for the shootings during a press conference on Monday.

When pressed to address what adjustments need to be made to keep the community safe, Johnson's response was simply that the city needs more support.

"I am urging all of you across the entire city to step up and say, 'We've had enough,'" Johnson said. "And I'm hopeful that our ongoing discussions will ensure that our state partners, as well as our federal partners, will swiftly come into the support of the city of Chicago. The city cannot afford to wait any longer."

Police and civic government are pretty much useless.

 

[Derec]

Police and civic government are pretty much useless.

Police are useless because they are hamstrung by the civic government - Brandon Johnson is an anti-police mayor and Kim Foxxx is a soft on crime fauxgressive DA. Johnson even cancelled the contract for the shot spotter technology.
City Council votes to keep ShotSpotter, but Mayor Brandon Johnson insists it will still go away

 

[Derec]

Only 109? I bet other cities did better than that.

Doubtful. Chicago tends to have most homicides because of the combination of 3rd largest population and high homicide rate.

I mean, with those newly re-legalized bump stocks, 109 bullets takes less than a minute. And we’re talking about a whole 24 hour period!

We went over this already. Most homicides are done using handguns, very few use rifles, with of without "bump stocks".

 

[Loren Pechtel]

What you want to achieve (assuming that you want fewer people to be needlessly killed) is a situation where the average citizen reacts to seeing (or thinking they might have seen) a gun, by calling the cops; And where the cops respond to such reports as though that sighting were a major threat to public safety.

This cannot be achieved while legally carrying a gun is a ubiquitous activity.

The problem with your theory is that the bad guys keep their guns hidden.

It's not a theory, it's an observation.

If you see a gun not actively being used for criminal purpose the odds that it's legitimate is awfully close to 100%. Criminals do not walk around with visible guns!

That is only true where visible guns are likely to invoke an overwhelming police response.

And I am not talking about some fool walking around with an obvious and highly visible firearm; I am talking about some passer-by catching a glimpse of a poorly concealed gun.

And how often do you think that would happen? Concealed under a loose and moderately thick garment is all but invisible. They aren't going to be noticed until they draw.

I've seen a few open carry idiots. I have seen a few people armed on our local mountain--but only on people clearly planning to spend the night out there and it is cat country. I have never seen anyone's concealed gun.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You'll have to take out an awful lot of legal guns to reduce supply of illegal ones. Why should we not believe that the primary effect is the real objective?

Because the real objective is to reduce the number of people who get shot.

If the number of legal guns falls dramatically, what problem does this cause for anybody?

Because you continue to stick your head in the sand about self defense.

Not at all. The use of lethal force as a first resort for self defence is immoral, unethical, and unacceptable.

The problem with your position is that there usually aren't intermediate steps.

Tou continue to stick your head in the sand with regards to the morality of killing people just because they scared you.

It takes more than "scared you". They have to have done something that would make a reasonable person fear for their life--you being a fraidy-cat doesn't let you shoot at something that simply spooked you. In almost all cases the bad guy has already committed a crime, usually a felony, before getting shot.

We do not have good data on self defense incidents, but it certainly looks like a legally owned gun is quite a bit more likely to prevent a crime than commit a crime.

No, it doesn't.

My evidence? Exactly the same as the evidence you presented in bold above.

We don't have anyone that's trying to do an honest count. We do, however, have a reasonable approximation:

Civilian self defense killings are a few hundred per year. It's in the ballpark of 10% of the time the trigger is pulled someone died. It's in the ballpark of 10% of the time that a drawn gun is fired. That says to me that there are at least some thousands of times a year where a gun prevents death or serious injury. And note that the ones where it's not fired are going to be very disproportionately the ones that weren't a deadly threat to begin with--armed robbers that had second thoughts when they realized their target could defend themselves.

Your guesses are not supported by the absence of evidence that contraducts them.

(And note that most defensive uses of guns don't even involve drawing them. Somebody realizes they're being set up as a target, they reveal their gun, the bad guys take off.)

In the movies, sure.

Movies are not an accurate depiction of reality.

I'm not talking about the movies. Movies way exaggerate the threat level because reality simply isn't that thrilling. They're not likely to show a bad guy run off by the sight of a gun.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Never mind data—I just am not seeing anything in the news about such deterrence. I DO see stories of people shooting other people for entirely specious reasons, including a recent case in my general area where someone shot another person because the shooting victim drive past his car ‘too slowly’. No, this is not an area rife with gang shootings where that might be a semi-reasonable concern. BTW, my area is largely rural and local news reports EVERYTHING that happens. If my neighbor scared off a burglar with his hunting rifle, it would make the news, albeit slightly less quickly than the neighbors sharing his story—because we do that around here: mention if it seems like someone got into an unlocked vehicle or wandered into the wrong house,etc, or if an unrecognized vehicle is cruising the area or parked too long on the street.

A lot of people own guns in my town and surrounding area.

Of course you don't see anything about deterrence--there's no news there. News is effectively useless for determining what doesn't happen.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

A little snippet popped up in my news feed at work.
It stated that 109 people were shot in Chicago during the July 4th weekend and that 19 died. Is that correct?

If true I cannot imagine that level of violence.

Wouldn't shock me.

But probably at least 108 of them were felons fighting other felons. Those high numbers are racked up in very small areas, most places never see any.

Simple test: At least locally criminals shooting at criminals doesn't make the newspaper. Innocents getting killed does. News reports are in the ballpark of 1% of the murder rate.

 

[bilby]

I'm not talking about the movies.

I don't believe you. You certainly aren't talking about reality.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Only 109? I bet other cities did better than that. I mean, with those newly re-legalized bump stocks, 109 bullets takes less than a minute. And we’re talking about a whole 24 hour period!

Rifles are rarely used in crime--they're simply too big.

 

[bilby]

At least locally criminals shooting at criminals doesn't make the newspaper. Innocents getting killed does.

No, it doesn't; For the simple reason that "Innocents" is an entirely fictional category, whose population is zero.

You really, seriously need to reign in your false dichotomies.

People cannot be sensibly divided good from evil, or criminal from innocent.

Perhaps actions can (though even then, the utility of such categorizations is doubtful); But not people, because people always indulge in a wide variety of actions.

If you imagine that they can, that absurdity will inevitably lead to atrocity.

When your fundamental beliefs lead you to defend the killing of a person while they are asleep, you are in dire need of some better fundamental beliefs.

 

[bilby]

Only 109? I bet other cities did better than that. I mean, with those newly re-legalized bump stocks, 109 bullets takes less than a minute. And we’re talking about a whole 24 hour period!

Rifles are rarely used in crime--they're simply too big.

Tell that to Donald Trump.

 

[Elixir]

Only 109? I bet other cities did better than that. I mean, with those newly re-legalized bump stocks, 109 bullets takes less than a minute. And we’re talking about a whole 24 hour period!

Rifles are rarely used in crime--they're simply too big.

They make it up in VOLUME!