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Good guy with a gun actually shows up

bilby said:
Derec said:
bilby said:
Loren Pechtel is saying EXACTLY that, every time he refers to "good guys" and "bad guys".
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Those are shorthand descriptors, and are not metaphysical, but rather referring to the situation at hand.
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They are infantile oversimplifications, and lead to very poor thinking patterns.
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Those descriptors are often used by people like Derec and Loren to dehumanize humans, in Derec's case, almost always black people, which makes it easier for them to rationalize the use of disproportionate violence against such people. When a guy suspected of selling loose cigarettes gets "restrained" and choked to death by the police for "resisting arrest" (never mind that the police had no lawful grounds to arrest the man to begin with), they can claim that the dead guy was a "bad guy" and deserved to die. Derec in particular will go out of his way to dig up the past misdeeds of the victims of police violence to support this hypothesis, while ignoring the much more heinous crime committed by the police in taking the victim's life.
 
Loren Pechtel said:
bilby said:
Fuck me, you're not nine years old, so please knock it off with this pathetic "good guys" and "bad guys" shit.

Reality isn't a fucking saturday matinée Western with everyone wearing the appropriately coloured hats so you can tell who to cheer, and who to boo.
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We are using "good guy" and "bad guy" to describe the defender and aggressor respectively. While they might not always be easy to identify the roles generally exist. (Occasionally you'll have situations with only bad guys.)
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Why not just say "defender" or "aggressor" then?

Or can't you stomach tummy the use of grown up words?
 
Loren Pechtel said:
Copernicus said:
A Duke University social psychologist who specializes in gun violence explains what the difficulties are with treating gun violence as related to mental illness in the following CNN report. (The report only interviews one expert, and the expert doesn't just talk about mass shooters, despite the title.)

Experts question link between mental illness, mass shootings​

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Because most mass shootings do not appear to be due to mental illness. Rather, they are suicides.
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Which explains the body armor that they seem to sport while carrying the assault weapons as they take cover and run away from law enforcement. It's a lot easier to commit suicide just by pointing the gun at oneself and pulling the trigger. In any case, you should have watched the CNN video, which explained the difference between mental illness and mental health. You would have learned that most mass shootings are not due to diagnosable mental illness. That's the point that the Duke University psychologist was making.
 
atrib said:
Those descriptors are often used by people like Derec and Loren to dehumanize humans,
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Bullshit.
in Derec's case, almost always black people,
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More bullshit. I for exampled referred to the deadly home invasion in Connecticut which was perpetrated by two white guys.
which makes it easier for them to rationalize the use of disproportionate violence against such people.
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Defending yourself against a deadly threat is not "disproportionate violence".
When a guy suspected of selling loose cigarettes gets "restrained" and choked to death by the police for "resisting arrest" (never mind that the police had no lawful grounds to arrest the man to begin with), they can claim that the dead guy was a "bad guy" and deserved to die.
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I assume you mean Eric Garner.
There are so many things wrong with your assessment.
- Garner was restrained, not "choked to death". The only reason he died is that he was a very sick man already.
- Where do you get the idea that there was no probable cause to arrest him?
- I never claimed he was a "bad guy", and much less that "he deserved to die". Please apologize for making those blatantly libelous statements.

Derec in particular will go out of his way to dig up the past misdeeds of the victims of police violence to support this hypothesis, while ignoring the much more heinous crime committed by the police in taking the victim's life.
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I post the criminal history of such people to counter the media narrative of them as "gentle giants" and the like. It is relevant that Jayland Walker shot at police, or that he was wearing a ski mask. It is relevant that Michael Brown robbed a store before attacking the police officer. It is relevant that Keith Lamont Smith shot a man almost to death and was barred from owning firearms due to his felony conviction.
That actions of the police are "much more heinous" is your assumption, and not automatically true just because you dislike police.
 
bilby said:
They are infantile oversimplifications, and lead to very poor thinking patterns.
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What you and others who defend robbers and the like are engaging in are pseudointellectual overcomplications.
Take for example this case:
'Where are the keys B****?' | Delivery driver carjacked, struck with own car, say police
Fox Baltimore said:
After fleeing the scene, the suspect realized that the keys were not in the vehicle, which the family identified as a 2015 Nissan Rogue, and returned to the block where the victim was on the phone with police.
The suspect struck the woman with the vehicle and took her keys before fleeing again.
"After being thrown from the impact, lying in the street whimpering, she was approached by the assailant who said, "where are the keys B****?" before ripping them off her belt loop and driving away," Tiffany Nicolette continued.
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This perp is a bad guy, as relating to this crime. Possibly even metaphysically.
I do not care if you think that's "infantile". That's clear and to the point language. I don't care "how he gonna get his money" or any other excuses he has for his behavior. While real world is shades of gray, very dark shades of gray (or even just 0x00) do exist on every grayscale I know.
 
 
 
Copernicus said:
Jason Harvestdancer said:
Houston would-be robber shot and killed by victim: report

St. Louis man shoots and kills robbery suspect while stopping at gas station for bathroom break

Largo Homeowner Shoots Intruder That Police Say Invaded Two Homes Wednesday

Florida sheriff says man will 'absolutely not' face charges for defending home with 'AK-47-style' gun
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Someone thinks that posting lots of anecdotes cancels out the fact that guns are more often used to commit aggression than to defend against it.
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This thread started with an anecdote to say "look it actually happened" in order to imply that it was a one time occurrence.

Apparently it isn't a one time occurrence. That offends some people.

We don't know how often they are used to defend. Reliable statistics aren't kept on that.
 
Jason Harvestdancer said:
Copernicus said:
Jason Harvestdancer said:
Houston would-be robber shot and killed by victim: report

St. Louis man shoots and kills robbery suspect while stopping at gas station for bathroom break

Largo Homeowner Shoots Intruder That Police Say Invaded Two Homes Wednesday

Florida sheriff says man will 'absolutely not' face charges for defending home with 'AK-47-style' gun
Click to expand...

Someone thinks that posting lots of anecdotes cancels out the fact that guns are more often used to commit aggression than to defend against it.
Click to expand...
This thread started with an anecdote to say "look it actually happened" in order to imply that it was a one time occurrence.

Apparently it isn't a one time occurrence. That offends some people.

We don't know how often they are used to defend. Reliable statistics aren't kept on that.
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When you say "look it actually happened", that implies that it isn't a very frequent occurrence. There are not a lot of news stories about armed citizens stopping a crime, but they are sure to make the news when they happen. Both the OP and you are pushing a fallacious  Argument from anecdote:

An argument from anecdote is an informal logical fallacy, where anecdotal evidence is presented as an argument; without any other contributory evidence or reasoning. This type of argument is considered as an informal logically fallacy as it is unpersuasive – since the anecdote could be made up, misconstrued or be a statistical outlier which is insignificant when further evidence is considered. This fallacy can often be found in conjunction with the hasty generalisation fallacy – where the hasty generalisation is made from unsubstantiated anecdotes.
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Jason Harvestdancer said:
Copernicus said:
Jason Harvestdancer said:
Houston would-be robber shot and killed by victim: report

St. Louis man shoots and kills robbery suspect while stopping at gas station for bathroom break

Largo Homeowner Shoots Intruder That Police Say Invaded Two Homes Wednesday

Florida sheriff says man will 'absolutely not' face charges for defending home with 'AK-47-style' gun
Click to expand...

Someone thinks that posting lots of anecdotes cancels out the fact that guns are more often used to commit aggression than to defend against it.
Click to expand...
This thread started with an anecdote to say "look it actually happened" in order to imply that it was a one time occurrence.

Apparently it isn't a one time occurrence. That offends some people.

We don't know how often they are used to defend. Reliable statistics aren't kept on that.
Click to expand...
I think the it actually happened was someone with a gun stopping a mass shooting, not merely a self defense case. However, I seem to recall reading about other stopped mass shootings--it's just they don't get the press coverage they would if successful.
 
Jason Harvestdancer said:
Copernicus said:
Jason Harvestdancer said:
Houston would-be robber shot and killed by victim: report

St. Louis man shoots and kills robbery suspect while stopping at gas station for bathroom break

Largo Homeowner Shoots Intruder That Police Say Invaded Two Homes Wednesday

Florida sheriff says man will 'absolutely not' face charges for defending home with 'AK-47-style' gun
Click to expand...

Someone thinks that posting lots of anecdotes cancels out the fact that guns are more often used to commit aggression than to defend against it.
Click to expand...
This thread started with an anecdote to say "look it actually happened" in order to imply that it was a one time occurrence.

Apparently it isn't a one time occurrence. That offends some people.

We don't know how often they are used to defend. Reliable statistics aren't kept on that.
Click to expand...

Yes, the thread started with an argument from an anecdote, and we can all post all sorts of anecdotes to confirm our biases. There are lots of web sites out there that are full of these anecdotes. However, nobody is arguing that guns are never used to stop violence, save lives, or scare off criminals. Literally nobody. What offends people isn't just you pointing out that defensive use of weapons happens more than once. What offends people is using relatively rare anecdotes to try to give the impression that they disprove the claim that guns are relatively rarely used for that purpose. Rare isn't never.

The question is always going to be whether guns in the hands of the public leads to better or worse outcomes for the public as a policy. When you just look at homicide and suicide statistics in the US and other countries, the US tends to stand out as having both a highly armed public and an excessive amount of deaths and suicides that also happen to involve guns. And much of it is attributable to privately-owned guns, because that turns out to be the main supply for guns that end up being used by criminals. It seems impossible to arm a lot of so-called "good guys" without ensuring that the so-called "bad guys" also have easy access to guns. And that scares even more of the public into thinking that they need guns to protect themselves from other people with guns.
 
Jason Harvestdancer said:
Copernicus said:
There are not a lot of news stories about armed citizens stopping a crime, but they are sure to make the news when they happen.
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They are sure to make the news?

I agree there are not a lot of news stories about it, but is it the case that every incident becomes a news story?
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Why would I take the absurd position that every incident becomes a news story? Do you take the position that every incident where someone uses a gun to perform a hostile action becomes a news story?
 
Copernicus said:
Jason Harvestdancer said:
Copernicus said:
There are not a lot of news stories about armed citizens stopping a crime, but they are sure to make the news when they happen.
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They are sure to make the news?

I agree there are not a lot of news stories about it, but is it the case that every incident becomes a news story?
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Why would I take the absurd position that every incident becomes a news story?
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In order to say that it seldom happens, and cite the rarity of news articles.

I found a news story of a bad guy with a gun to help balance this out. Clearly people like the one in the following news article should be disarmed.

Caught on video: Off-duty NYPD officer pulls gun during apparent road rage incident
 
The whole point, to the uninformed, is that the frequency or rarity of news articles is anecdotal, not quantitative.

Someone must have missed that memo, despite it being the overarching and repeated theme of the recent discussion.
 
Jason Harvestdancer said:
Copernicus said:
Jason Harvestdancer said:
Copernicus said:
There are not a lot of news stories about armed citizens stopping a crime, but they are sure to make the news when they happen.
Click to expand...

They are sure to make the news?

I agree there are not a lot of news stories about it, but is it the case that every incident becomes a news story?
Click to expand...

Why would I take the absurd position that every incident becomes a news story?
Click to expand...

In order to say that it seldom happens, and cite the rarity of news articles.

I found a news story of a bad guy with a gun to help balance this out. Clearly people like the one in the following news article should be disarmed.

Caught on video: Off-duty NYPD officer pulls gun during apparent road rage incident
Click to expand...

Because defensive uses of personal weapons are so rare, they are newsworthy and therefore likely to be overreported. People who own and carry guns for self-protection want to see them being used to defend against criminals more than they want to see mundane reports of armed robberies and muggings. Police reports would likely be a better indicator of what is frequently happening on the streets when guns are involved in any way.

It is true that we do not have reliable statistics, especially of crimes that never get reported, but home invasions are less common than domestic violence involving a gun. According to this Guardian article, guns are the number one weapon used in domestic violence and people who own guns are five times more likely to take a partner's life.

How the US fails to take away guns from domestic abusers: ‘These deaths are preventable’​


Of course, guns are also used in some households to defend against domestic abusers than to carry out abuse, but do you really think it likely that defensive uses are more common than offensive ones? I have an anecdote for how that came off in one household. One of my relatives married a divorced man who dropped off his young son with his mother one day. Later on, he learned that his son found his mother and her domestic partner dead and spent the entire day alone with the bodies before he was discovered. They believe that the partner had been abusing the boy. The mother took his rifle, killed him and then killed herself before the child was returned to them. There you have a use of a weapon and then a suicide--what is commonly called a murder suicide. Would you classify the murder as a "good guy" or "bad guy" shooting? How frequently does that kind of thing occur? I have no idea. It never made the newspapers. The child claimed he couldn't remember much about that day, but he spent many years in therapy.
 
Derec said:
bilby said:
They are infantile oversimplifications, and lead to very poor thinking patterns.
Click to expand...
What you and others who defend robbers and the like are engaging in are pseudointellectual overcomplications.
Take for example this case:
'Where are the keys B****?' | Delivery driver carjacked, struck with own car, say police
Fox Baltimore said:
After fleeing the scene, the suspect realized that the keys were not in the vehicle, which the family identified as a 2015 Nissan Rogue, and returned to the block where the victim was on the phone with police.
The suspect struck the woman with the vehicle and took her keys before fleeing again.
"After being thrown from the impact, lying in the street whimpering, she was approached by the assailant who said, "where are the keys B****?" before ripping them off her belt loop and driving away," Tiffany Nicolette continued.
Click to expand...

This perp is a bad guy, as relating to this crime. Possibly even metaphysically.
I do not care if you think that's "infantile". That's clear and to the point language. I don't care "how he gonna get his money" or any other excuses he has for his behavior. While real world is shades of gray, very dark shades of gray (or even just 0x00) do exist on every grayscale I know.
Click to expand...

Update on this case:
BPD arrests juvenile in connection to carjacking, running over delivery driver

Given that the perp is a "juvenile" and that this is Baltimore, the perp probably won't be charged with much, sadly.
 
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