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Brian Hague
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Posted: 24 July 2016 at 9:32am | IP Logged | 1  

Well, of course, when the bad guys start throwing bullets around, you, the good guy, just open fire in his general direction. The people between you and him were all going to die anyway, right? And fuck 'em anyway. Why didn't they have guns? They weren't going to do anything to protect you! Why would you be obliged to do anything for them? Why should the lives of pacifistic weaklings who don't even have the sense to arm themselves matter to those who do? Collateral damage, at worst. At best, they were part of the problem! Good riddance to 'em!

Edited by Brian Hague on 24 July 2016 at 9:39am
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John Byrne
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Posted: 24 July 2016 at 12:56pm | IP Logged | 2  

A question has occurred to me... in all these gun shootings, has anyone ever actually been armed and stopped the shooters? Do we know of a case where NRA worshippers have been at one of these scenarios and been able to do anything effective?

Also - how fast can people react? Even if there were a room full of gun possessors, if a lunatic came in and starting shooting right away, how fast could someone get their gun, aim, and hit only the shooter? Seems that someone would get killed, no matter what. Unless people had their guns drawn and aimed at every single person who came in. Which sounds even crazier to me.

••

I can't answer the first question, but the answer to the second is something the NRA would prefer we did not think about. The key work is REACT. In any kind of scenario short of the shooter walking in shouting "I have an gun and in five seconds I am going to start shooting!" the hypothetically armed defenders would be reacting to shots fired, and most likely people already injured and/or dead.

But as we have seen, the NRA equations is that FEWER people killed is an improvement. NO people killed is not part of the math.

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Michael Penn
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Posted: 24 July 2016 at 1:58pm | IP Logged | 3  

...in all these gun shootings, has anyone ever actually been armed and stopped the shooters?

***



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John Byrne
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Posted: 24 July 2016 at 2:07pm | IP Logged | 4  

These example come down to the same thing, tho. The armed civilians are REACTING. To use a word I dislike, they are not being PROACTIVE -- ie, taking action before something (shooting) has already happened.

So, again we must ask ourselves, are FEWER people potentially being killed a fair trade for allowing people to be killed AT ALL?

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Brian Hague
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Posted: 24 July 2016 at 10:00pm | IP Logged | 5  

I have a friend who is very, very pro-gun and used to tell me about the dozens of letters each month in his gun-hugging magazines from people all across this great nation of ours who stopped gun violence by outdrawing the badguy or simply letting the kids who were ju-u-ust about to rob the store see the gun on their hip. Hundreds if not thousands of lives are saved by massive gun ownership in this country every single day, he'd maintain. The Liberal Media, of course, will not let these stories be reported...

I asked if these letters all started with, "Dear Penthouse; You know I never thought this would happen to me, but..."

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Bill Collins
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Posted: 25 July 2016 at 12:20am | IP Logged | 6  

A work colleague spent last week on holiday in Windsor,he remarked to me yesterday,that it was very disconcerting seeing police with automatic weapons outside Windsor castle,to you people in the U.S. guns are an everyday thing,to us in the U.K. they`re a rarity,guess where i feel safer?
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John Byrne
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Posted: 25 July 2016 at 6:43am | IP Logged | 7  

As many of you know by now, my maternal grandfather was a police officer. This was in England, and during his career of some forty years he did not carry a gun at any time. Nor did he own a gun in civilian life.

(Posh English Accent) It's just not done, Old Chap!

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Michael Penn
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Posted: 25 July 2016 at 7:03am | IP Logged | 8  

To use a word I dislike, they are not being PROACTIVE -- ie, taking action before something (shooting) has already happened. So, again we must ask ourselves, are FEWER people potentially being killed a fair trade for allowing people to be killed AT ALL?

***

And this is the point. It's practically impossible that even an armed police officer, let alone untrained civilian, could take the preventative initiative in the split seconds that a killer can pull a gun and fire. So instead of focusing upon matching killers gun-for-gun why not try removing guns as much as possible from any situation?

(Tangent: I hate "proactive," so I always try to substitute "take the initiative.")
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John Byrne
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Posted: 25 July 2016 at 7:07am | IP Logged | 9  

(Tangent: I hate "proactive," so I always try to substitute "take the initiative.")

••

Good choice. "Proactive" seems to take the place of a word we already have: "active."

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Peter Martin
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Posted: 25 July 2016 at 7:44am | IP Logged | 10  

There has been another nightclub shooting in Florida, one hosting a party for teenagers: LINK
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John Byrne
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Posted: 25 July 2016 at 7:49am | IP Logged | 11  

The NRA will now tell us 12 year olds should be issued open carry permits.
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Brian Miller
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Posted: 25 July 2016 at 8:30am | IP Logged | 12  

Not mature enough to drive a car, but they can handle automatic weapons. Great.
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