The reason we shouldn't all be armed

Oh bull(*)(*)(*)(*). One armed person could have drawn fire and made that (*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*) hunker down and take aim at a target shooting back. This would seriously narrow the field of fire. Taking the scumbags mind off of his intended victims and making him defend himself. This would have cut down on the munber of victims. Do you seriously think anybody is going to buy that assinine assertion that there would have been MORE than 77 victims?

Try and think things through before posting next time.

 

It's funny, this scenario is brought up all the time yet has not happened.

 

Stop projecting your failings onto other, more skilled, mentally tough, and situationally aware than you are.

 

You'd rather run away and let the perp do it for you. I actually have a backbone.

Do you have a conscience?

 

And you repeated the insult to make sure I'd see it? That will make it easier for the mods to know what to do.

 

I've thought this through quite well, thank you.

The fact remains that in a situation like that: low if any visibility of the target, standing in a sea of panicked people, yourself highly panicked, you'd be much more likely to hit bystanders then you would be to hit him; if that doesn't qualify as an irresponsible shot, what does? Even if you decided instead to discharge into the air in the hopes of forcing him to take cover or flee, you're running on blind hope. Maybe he'd jet, maybe he'd just start spraying your area.

He is not Alan Rickman, you are not Bruce Willis, this didn't happen in Nakatomi Plaza. Sometimes it's more responsible not to fire.

 

Lets hope the mods see what you posted as well. I have thick skin; guess you don't. btw thanks for pointing out the double post. As you know this website has a way of posting things twice, so, as i normally do, I removed it.

 

An unnecessary insult with zero evidence to support it. Can I take that to mean that you don't have a rational response?

 

Pure bunkum. If it's low visibility then how did the perp see his victims. You don't think things through at all. It's as obvious as the dead people in Aurora.

Me highly panicked? You assume too much!

 

You obviously are in panic mode. The wording is different in each post and I have locked your posts into quotes forever more!

 

You didn't post a rational thought in the first place.

 

That is not only an ignorant position but you are applying your (ignorant) opnion to everyone. You are not everyone. Because you wouldn't do anything or are not capable of doing anything, that doesnt mean others will justr sit still and take it.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4324997.../soldier-home-leave-thwarts-fla-bank-robbery/

Soldier home on leave thwarts Fla. bank robbery

Army staff sergeant says he sprang into action when his two young sons were threatened

SARASOTA, Fla. — An Army staff sergeant home on leave in southwest Florida chased down a suspected bank robber and held him until authorities arrived.

Eddie Peoples was at a Bank of America branch in Sarasota with his two young sons Tuesday when a man walked in with a handgun and demanded cash from the tellers, officials said.

Peoples told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune he sprang into action after the man, identified as 34-year-old Matthew Rogers, threatened his sons.

"The only thing that went through my mind was, 'Don't let them get hurt,'" Peoples told the paper.

Rogers went to each of the four bank tellers at the branch and instructed them to put money in a recycled grocery bag, and told them to leave out dye packs or any other trackers, according to the Herald-Tribune.

He waved his gun toward Peoples, who is black, and warned that "the big black guy" shouldn't try to stop him. Before fleeing the bank, he pointed the gun at Peoples' kids, Ikaika and Kioni. "The kid will get it" if anyone messed with him, Rogers said, according to the Herald-Tribune.

"I could not let that pass," Peoples said.

As the robber tried to make his getaway, Peoples left his sons inside the bank and ran to his rented van, which he used to block Rogers' car in the parking lot. Rogers drove his Honda into the van, trying to bust through it. When that didn't work, he got out and pointed his gun at Peoples, who twisted the man's arm, stripped away the gun and slammed him to the ground.

"I've been through five deployments. I've fought the Muqtada militia, everybody you can think of, so weapons getting pointed at me, it doesn't really bother me anymore," Peoples told FOX News in Tampa Bay. "I took the weapon away from him and put him on the ground and the rest was history." ​

The Batman shooter wasnt in smoke, he was walking around and deliberately shooting individuals. From the eyewitness accounts he was clearly visible. Body armor doesnt protect every part of a body, it may stop the bullet from entering the body but it doesnt stop the feeling of getting hit by a sledge hammer. I know many people who can with a handgun hit a person across a theater, and at a half theater could easily make a head shot.

nous defions.

 

this would be a YES!

 

I'm not trying to question your masculinity here, there's no need to defend it. The physiological response to a shocking situation (a category to which sudden gunfire could likely be applied) is it pump adrenaline. With adrenaline pumping through your blood, your body concentrates on pumping blood to your major muscle groups. This makes you faster and stronger for fight or flight, but it gives you tunnel vision, dulls the hearing, and inhibits marksmanship. This is something that even the most skilled of shooters have to combat.

Police said the man set off two devices with some type of irritant or smoke, then started shooting. - The perp wasn't hunting specific people. He loaded himself down with ammunition, went into a crowded theater, inhibited visibility, and started firing at a big, fleshy mass of people.

I'm not eliminating the possibility that the situation could have gone down differently. Hell, some people were only feet away from the guy, if a couple people rushed him, possibly a few people could have been saved. It's also possible that someone close enough to get a decent shot could have drawn and fired, and if they're lucky they might have penetrated his ballistic defense gear and ended him. Pretty inarguable that he deserved it. But I stand FIRMLY that in this situation the vast majority of the theater-goers would have been seated in positions that would make drawing their firearm risky to the point of irresponsibility.

 

Didn't seem to stop him, did it...

 

He was described as being perfectly visible. No matter how you try to stretch this into some kind of credibility, making the perp concentrate on his OWN vulnerability makes it infinitely more survivable.
If what you say was true about the adrenaline thing, then the perp would react the same way. You still aren't inputting all the variables.
There would have been fewer victime by a factor of 10.

 

Hey, I'm being completely level-headed with you here, there's no need to get snippy because you disagree. As rational adults we can talk this through sensibly. My view on the issue is both informed and valid, and taking unnecessary cheap shots in no way advances the debate.

Saying that my opinion is ignorant is making an assumption that you have no basis for. My ignorance only extends so far as I wasn't there the night of the shooting to see it, but that ignorance extends to everyone else here in the conversation. There's no need to try to discredit me here, just focus on the debate.

As far as the comparison, I believe I've actually seen the footage of the event you listed and there are several major differences between the two events.

- Though the soldier did take action, he only did it after the robber was outside the bank so as to keep everyone in the bank safe from harm.​

- Not listed in your article, but according to other reports the gun that the robber was using turned out to be a replica. If it weren't, the situation might well have just escalated.​

- There were far fewer people in the bank, no visual obstructions, and the robber was relying on the situation remaining calm as opposed to relying on people to panic.​

Additionally, I've already provided an article that dictates that Holmes used some variety of smoke device, so arguing that he didn't is rather pointless. I'm not saying that everyone in the theater had a guaranteed 0% visibility of him, that would be asinine. Any reasonable obstruction to your sight picture with a crowd of innocents around, though, should give a shooter reason for pause.

 

The article that I provided said that to much of the theater he appeared as a silhouette. I will grant that is more than I had expected, and that those that were close enough to see him clearly, especially those in the first few rows, might have had a responsible enough opportunity. I still maintain that given all of the factors of the situation, however, that the majority of the theater would have been in no situation to take the shot.

I'm relatively certain that only twelve were killed, though, so assuming a reduction by a factor of 10 would be assuming that the situation would have played out so quickly that he would have only gotten one or two victims. If we're counting injuries into the count as well, maybe, but accounts are fuzzy on exactly how many of the injuries were directly from the shooting, and the media loves to play up numbers however they can.

Suffice it to say that there was a chance that things could have gone down differently, sure. For better or worse, with or without guns. That was never my argument. My point remains that a CPL holder (minus the exceptions that I've granted earlier in this post) would likely not have been in any position to responsibly discharge their firearm in that situation, and that the result would likely have done more harm than good.

 

Report away my friend.

 

Regarding the UNARMED soldier taking down the ARMED bank robber, some people dont sit on their ass because the odds are not clearly in their favor. And yes it was a REALISTIC fake handgun - good enough to fool everyone including a soldier who handles firearms for a living. So fake gun makes zero difference.

Regarding the smoke, as the last few posters have pointed out, there was smoke but it did not prevent a clear view of the shooter and would not prevent someone from returning fire. And if you cant see the shooter, then he most likely cant see you and you can either move to evade or move to interdict.

You assume an armed person who did happen to have his view impaired by smoke or with an obstructed view would just start shooting wildly. People are smarter than you think.

Its not your ignorance of the event that I am referring to, its your ignorance of people and their performance. You wrote

Thats a blanket statement, no room for doubt. You judge it irresponsible, I assume because of your personal ability and experience, many others are not overwhelmed by that situation and would act appropriately.

 

For me it is an issue of self protection and honoring the achievement of sovereignty. The right to bare comes from the idea that governments tend to control instead of serve. An armed society helps prevent that from getting out of control. If government does get out of control an armed society can stand up for itself.