Disarming The Law-Abiding, Arming The Criminals

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails in re Aurora, and provides a quote that the NRA or the GOA should put on a T-shirt:

Orc: The Aurora theatre was a gun-free zone but it didn’t matter because the shooter wore body armor, he was Invincible!

Joe: Not so much. The initial media reports thought “tactical vest” meant “bulletproof vest.” No, he wore the cop version of a pheasant hunting vest, with the pockets modified to hold pistol magazines instead of shotgun shells. It affords no protection to the wearer whatsoever.

Orc: Well that doesn’t matter. The theater was dark and noisy and full of smoke. Even if theatre patrons had been allowed to carry pistols, nobody could have made a shot to stop the threat under those conditions, it’s like a battlefield.

Joe: Four military veterans died in that theatre..

Orc: Yeah, but not every veteran can shoot. They’re just Air Force computer clerks, unlikely they had experience in war or handling weapons.

Joe: Jon Blunk died in that theatre. He threw himself on top of his girlfriend to save her life.

Orc: Yeah, but he was only a sailor. Could he shoot? Would he have had the guts to shoot in a dark, noisy smoky theatre? With someone shooting back at him?

Joe: Blunk already had three tours in the Middle East under his belt and had plans to re-enlist with a goal of becoming a Navy SEAL. That’s what SEALS do – they go into dark, noisy smoky places where people are shooting at them, and they kill bad guys. Would he have had the guts? Listen to someone who knows him:

“Gill, who lived with Blunk several years in the Navy and later in Aurora, described his friend as an avid outdoorsman and gun rights advocate.

“Pretty much every weapon the guy in the theater used [Blunk] owned,” Gill said. “If you asked if he was still alive, he would have said his only regret is he didn’t have his sidearm with him and he couldn’t do anything to stop him.”

This part should be on the T-shirts and bumper stickers:

Gun-free zones don’t stop bad guys from killing good people; they stop good people from killing bad guys. That’s why they matter.

Joe Doakes

Como Park

25 thoughts on “Disarming The Law-Abiding, Arming The Criminals

  1. Yeah, because shooting in the dark, at someone in matte black, in smoke, where you can’t see where your bullets will go — like into the next theater where they could wound someone – as the bullets of the shooter did — is a GREAT IDEAS. NOT.

    That suggested solution to the shooting in Aurora Colorado violates the essential rules of gun safety; it is stupid, and it perpetuates the same hero fantasies that gun nuts like to believe, but that don’t hold true in practice.

    There aren’t any instances of guns stopping mass shootings anywhere, including an armed police officer at Columbine High school, or when Jared Loughner shot up Gabby Giffords and a lot of other people. Instead the armed citizen nearly shot the wrong people, but thank god didn’t shoot ANYONE when in doubt.

    In countries with effective gun control, there aren’t shootings like this — which was the second one in this country in one week (the other was in Tuscaloosa Alabama). In those countries you might have one problem shooting every twenty years – notably the UK, Australia, etc. Meanwhile, Canada has had two in the last two months, and blames the guns used as coming from the U.S. — we’re a bad neighbor as regards guns; our problem is becoming their problem.
    On their own, their system works quite well except pretty much for when our lax laws screws that up.

    The reality is that states with more firearms have more shootings — more murders with guns, more domestic violence with guns, more homicides and suicides, more accidental shootings. Wal Mart accidental shootings alone are running at a rate of what — every three weeks now, if you follow their incidents?

    An estimated 40% of all gun sales do not go through ANY kind of background check to determine of the person buying is prohibited or not because of mental illness, criminal records, violence – restraining orders etc. rather than convictions, drug use or mental illness. That results in a LOT of guns in the wrong hands that could be prevented from getting there.

    If you look at New York City, which is larger than the entire state of Virginia, they have a much lower rate of gun violence than VA has — AND 85% of the guns recovered in crimes come from out of state, particularly from Virginia. The comparison is stark – gun control works to the extent is is able to be effective gun control not circumvented by lax states nearby.

    Having uniform gun laws, including training, registration, background checks, and restrictions on assault-style weapons and accessories could help tremendously.

  2. Yeah, because shooting in the dark, at someone in matte black, in smoke, where you can’t see where your bullets will go — like into the next theater where they could wound someone – as the bullets of the shooter did — is a GREAT IDEAS. NOT

    Right. That might get DANGEROUS.

  3. That suggested solution to the shooting in Aurora Colorado violates the essential rules of gun safety; it is stupid, and it perpetuates the same hero fantasies that gun nuts like to believe, but that don’t hold true in practice.

    Actually, your bit here exhibits more about anti-gunnies’ prejudices about shooters than what any real self-defense shooter, especially one that’s been through any sort of training, thinks.

  4. There aren’t any instances of guns stopping mass shootings anywhere,

    If a mass-shooter gets killed before he kills a “mass”, by definition there’s been no interruption of a “mass shooting”.

    And, er, FACT CHECK! You’re just plain wrong, and clearly either making things up, or cribbing your chanting points from the uninformed. There have been four that I can remember myself:
    1) The Pearl, Mississippi school shooting was ended by an armed civilian who apprehended the shooter.
    2) Richmond VA: A heavily armed man with LOTs of ammunition who apparently wanted to copycat the Luby’s Cafeteria massacre was killed by an armed security guard.
    3) Another heavily armed man with a bunch of ammo, not long after Columbine, was killed by a student with a permit at the Appalachian Law School.
    4) The Colorado Springs church shooting was ended by an armed volunteer security guard, Jeanne Assam.

    including an armed police officer at Columbine High school

    Wait – wasn’t the school cop (a trained police officer) supposed to be one of the people we do trust to take care of us with a gun? He ran like a scared bunny.

    or when Jared Loughner shot up Gabby Giffords and a lot of other people

    Close call there – a law-abiding man (Army reservist, if I recall correctly) with a pistol was just around the corner and inbound when he saw the hogpile of people taking Loughner down. He checked fire. Had Loughner been up and shooting, it would have likely ended there.

    For someone who supposedly prides herself on FACT CHECKING, you are singularly bad at observing facts that don’t conform to your prejudices.

  5. Instead the armed citizen nearly shot the wrong people

    That is a manipulation of context so gross as to be utterly dishonest.

  6. “That is a manipulation of context so gross as to be utterly dishonest.”

    Doesn’t that pretty much describe all of DG’s comments the past year or so?

  7. DG,

    This graf is further proof that you haven’t the foggiest idea what you’re talking about, and you’re taking chanting points from other mis-informed (and/or disinforming) people.

    In countries with effective gun control, there aren’t shootings like this

    Wrong again. The UK, comprehensive gun ban and all, had the the Cumbria shootings in 2010 (12 dead). South Korea, with tight gun controls? A disgruntled cop killed 56 and himself. Anders Breivik didn’t care much about Norways’ gun control laws, did he?

    In those countries you might have one problem shooting every twenty years

    Ah. So those victims “every twenty years” are acceptable losses then? Gotta break eggs to make an omelet, dont’ we?

    – notably the UK, Australia,

    Which haven’t actually banned gun for twenty years, so your theory is really a guess, isn’t it?

    we’re a bad neighbor as regards guns; our problem is becoming their problem.

    Time to get rid of Eric Holder, huh?

  8. our mistress of specious logic, DG, is quite clear about what she intends:

    “Just think how many lives we would save, how many lives would not be put at risk, how much safer we would be, and of course, last and least, how much money we would save if far fewer people owned firearms. “

    I wonder who she would take the guns away from first, given her continual and virulent racist rants against gun owners over on her blog.

  9. Finally, DG – and I’ve already devoted far too more attention to your screed than it deserves – your information about violence and guns in Virginia is so devoid of context that I have to assume that you just don’t know the facts. That, or you are frigheningly intellectually dishonest.

    Muchof the “Old South” is populated by Scots-Irish – descendants of Scots expelled from the UK after the Jacobite rebellion – and much of Southern society as we know it today is defined by that sociology, as passed down through 2-300 years of antebellum and post-war Southern society.

    It traditionally combines the clannishness Scots and Irish culture – complete with honor killing, family vendettas and a historical low threshold for violence – with all the pathologies that go along with a few h hundred years of virtual serfdom, first as sharecropper under the plantation system, or the equivalent in the mining business. Think about it – what need for education, of striving to better oneself, does a serf have? Southern society IS violent, and it (and its anscenstors) were violent long before there were guns, have been violent when deprived of guns (you take away their guns, they’ll kill people with pitchfoks or bats or gasoline and matches).

    If you want some actual facts – unlike the bilge you’re uncritically passing along – look at the series of posts I did statistically refuting the slander that “McCain states were more violent than Obama states” a few years back: Here’s the link to all three parts of the series.

    Give it a read. You’ll not only learn a little sociology you can use, perhaps to enlighten some of the people on your side who desperately need it. And maybe you’ll learn a little bit about how FACT CHECKING – as opposed to Googling to find a liberal commentator who agrees with you and calling that the dispositive fact) is done.

    You’re welcome.

  10. The big question here isn’r about firearms and shooting skills. The big question is how a guy who is nutty as fruitcake SPENT FIVE YEARS WORKING WITH CERTIFIED BRAIN SCIENTISTS WHO DIDN’T KNOW HOLMES WAS CRAZY!
    There is something fishy going on with UC Riverside, or UC Aurora, or both. UC Aurora is attached to a medical school, for God’s sake. Apparently he was living in on-campus housing at Aurora.
    People generally aren’t admitted to PhD programs on grants w/no tuition (as Holmes was) unless their academic work has been carefully vetted. If he drops out it’s a black mark on whoever admitted him. Sudden change in personality, perhaps? without his adviser noticing? Unlikely.
    The trial will be very interesting.

  11. Yeah, because shooting in the dark, at someone in matte black, in smoke, where you can’t see where your bullets will go — like into the next theater where they could wound someone – as the bullets of the shooter did — is a GREAT IDEAS. NOT.
    ————————————————————–
    The shooter had colored his hair FLAMING RED!
    It’s turning into an all-caps day for me.

  12. I couldn’t resist this one last parting shot (because Goddess knows DG won’t be back to view, much less defend, the shredding of her screed).

    Yeah, because shooting in the dark, at someone in matte black, in smoke bla bla bla s a GREAT IDEAS. NOT

    Gosh, d’ya think? Must be a crushing burden, being the smartest person in every room you’re in. Isn’t it?

    Every real self-defense shooter knows that that situation – in a dark theatre, people all around, panic in the aisles, choke-points everywhere – is the mother of self-defense nightmare scenarios. I don’t care if you are a SEAL – that’s a tough one. There are some situations, you are taught in carry class, where it’s best not to try to shoot back; this, barring some lucky breaks, verges on one of them.

    And yet I’m glad to have the option, however hypothetical it may be.

    So your condescension is grossly misplaced (not to mention utterly unearned).

  13. I have a suggestion for Dog — she should go back into the archives at Mitch’s place and look at what her comments were like 3 years ago. Now consider what they look like now. Then think about the difference in (1) tone, (2) cogency and (3) response from other commenters.

    Put it this way — the quality of Dog’s work hasn’t improved over the last three years.

  14. Put it this way — the quality of Dog’s work hasn’t improved over the last three years.

    Three years ago her guy was going to heal the oceans, overcome racism, and balance the budget before breakfast.

    These days she’s seen the policies she’s proposed bankrupt the nation, lead to open racial pandering, and her man’s run the executive branch in a manner that puts Pancho Villa to shame. Now, Pancho Villa caused more US casualties than Obama, but Obama has the lead on Pancho down in Mexico.

  15. These days she’s seen the policies she’s proposed bankrupt the nation, lead to open racial pandering, and her man’s run the executive branch in a manner that puts Pancho Villa to shame.

    And it’s all the Republican’s fault!

  16. Based on postings of hers I’ve read at the blog she contributes to regarding the rapes, assaults and deaths associated with the Occupy Movement… if instead of a movie premier the shooter had been an Occupy member mowing down fellow Occupiers, this would have been okay with DG.
    Break a few eggs? Damn straight.

  17. I agree with Dog Gone – the best solution would be for the magic fairies to load all the bad people on the unicorns and send them away. But until that happens, I have to consider the very real possibility that I’ll find myself in a dark, noisy, smoky theater with some idiot shooting at me and my grandkids.

    At that moment, what’s my best option? Heck, I can’t even call 911 and wait for the cops because my cell phone is off “for the viewing enjoyment of others” so by the time it reboots, we’ll all be dead. At that instant, I need self-defense.

    Also, DG, I just finished “My Brother Ron” by Clayton Cramer, an exhaustive analysis of well-intentioned changes to mental health laws that dumped sick people on the street to wander and worsen until they were picked up by the criminal justice system. The last 1/3 of the book is reference materials including an extensive list of mass killings in the US and other countries and makes clear that armed citizen response is AT LEAST as effective as police response to ending mass shootings. You need to FACT CHECK yourself more. My armed response might be all the defense anybody in that theatre gets.

    Last point: gun safety rules. You need to think about this more clearly. Rule 1, every gun is always loaded. No problem, I do treat my concealed pistol that way. Rule 2, keep your finger off the trigger until ready to shoot. Got it, agreed, I will. Rule 3, never point a gun at something you don’t intend to kill. Well, technically, I don’t intend to KILL the shooter, only to stop him from killing me. But the intent and spirit of the rule isn’t to prevent all killing (else, there’d be no deer hunting possible), but only to make sure I’m not waving my gun around recklessly or pulling the trigger at random targets. I won’t – I’ll only shoot at the guy who’s shooting at me. I can see him by his blaze orange hair and the muzzle flashes of his weapon. I can see him back-lit by the movie screen – he’s the guy in the aisle where the muzzle flashes are coming from. He’s the one I intend to shoot = rule obeyed.

    Finally, Rule 4 – be sure of your backstop and surroundings. That’s a tough one, for sure. He’s standing and I’m not so my shot should have an upward trajectory, which helps, but there may be people jumping in front of me to flee the theater and if he moves suddenly, I might hit someone behind him. I could wait until he gets right on top of me (and should, anyway, because my carry gun is a snubnose .38 with virtually no sights and I couldn’t see them in the dark anyway). Close range, me crouching in my row of seats, him standing in the aisle backlit, that’s about as good a situation as I can manufacture.

    Gun Safety Rules are not an advance suicide directive. I’m allowed to break them to save my own life, even if doing so endangers others but ends the threat. Cops do it all the time, for exactly that reason. And I would, too.
    .

  18. DG ever hear of laser sights or a tactical flashlight? Many handguns can be equipped with one or both. Both are made for exactly that type of environment.

    Be aware of your surroundings and have a worse case exit strategy. Hopefully you never have to use it just like most people with carry permits will never need their handgun.

  19. “Yeah, because shooting in the dark, at someone in matte black, in smoke, where you can’t see where your bullets will go — like into the next theater where they could wound someone – as the bullets of the shooter did — is a GREAT IDEAS. NOT.”

    Suppose the shooter’s letter had been delivered and the police notifed just in time to burst into the lobby when he started shooting. Shooter near the screen, cops coming in the door, a theater full of patrons in the middle, all of them politely leaving it to the professionals.

    Smoke, dark, noise, he’s shooting but the cops shouldn’t shoot . . . so what should the police have done?

  20. Believe me, if DG was in a theater and some madman jumped in front of the screen and started shooting people at random, the last thing she would ever want is for some armed guy to jump and kill him.
    The thought of that happening gives her nightmares.

  21. These driveby comments are getting annoying, the fact DG doesn’t respond to challenges anymore means she either doesn’t believe in what she says or thinks anyone who disagrees with her is a retard.

  22. POD,

    DG is demonstrating that I have, in all seirousness, noted for years, and moreso lately: Libs tend to be good for one round of factoids in a “debate”. If they encounter a conservative who’d not up on the issue, they hammer them with that single round of factoids.

    But if the conservative beats them on the facts? They’ve got nothing. They have to resort to name-calling, they have to take ad-hominem to the next level (like the guy at the U of M that’s been harassing me on Twitter) or they declare victory (to themselves) and scamper away, as DG does every time.

    That’s what I tell conservatives; when debating a lib, get past their first round of factoids. Then watch the panic well up in their eyes. (And then brace yourself for an attack, or watch their dust as they change the subject or scamper away).

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