Lincoln was shot with a.41 derringer, possibly using a rimfire cartridge filled with black power link
It consisted of a 130 grain lead bullet propelled at 425 ft/second and had a total energy of right around 52 ft. lbs. Everything I've seen shows he was shot with a.44 derringer, not a.41 derringer. Significant difference. Also, was it a cartridge gun or a muzzleloader? I've seen it, I just don't remember. If it's a muzzleloader then it's impossible for us to know what the ME was of that particular shot; someone trying to kill the President probably didn't follow the manufacturer's safe loading guidelines. I'm trying to find a link to the pics of the exact gun but they're blocked from where I'm at right now...
The Bill of Rights has nothing to do with conditions of employment. It enumerates what the government can or cannot do. A private employer can refuse to hire you because they don't like your shoes, or any other arbitrary reason. If pissing in a cup is a reason they choose, that is fully up to them.
No, it doesn't have anything to do with them. But the spirit still applies. In the United States of America I should not be held to account by my employer for something that I choose to do that has no impact on him whatsoever.
"No impact on him whatsoever"? If you're willing to break that law, which workplace rules are you willing to violate? It shows a certain character type that I may or may not want to tolerate, as an employer.
Especially compared with all of the actual Constitutional protections which really _are_ being eroded.
The attitude of "I choose not to worry about it" is why those protections are being eroded. Make a legitimate case for why my employer has the right to require a drug test and I'll listen. "They can do it and if you don't like it then don't work there" isn't a defense of this policy.
If that's what you got out of my post, then you missed my point. My point is, this is trivial stuff, and wrapping yourself in a flag to complain about it distracts from the real problems that _are_ worth getting worked up about. Either piss in the cup, or get out of my way so _I_ can take the job. I don't care which.
Look at it from the interviewer's side. You sit down in his office and say "I was fired because all my old co-workers were incompetent and dishonest and I took the blame for it, and there's nothing I could have done." Right. Anyone can get into a bad situation. My last place of employment lied to get people to work there (red flag: no in-person interview? Run away.) The VP of IT sent out frequent abusive emails to the entire division. The servers were a mess and we weren't allowed to patch. The morale was deep in the crapper. So, to the "Why do you _want to leave_ where you're at" question, the answer was "The job I'm at isn't as advertised, and I know that (this place) has a very different culture". Had the answer to "why did you leave the previous job" also been "Oh, that job sucked too..." and the previous "Oh, yeah, they sucked too...", then there's a pattern.
But, a single "I left due to not playing the politics" situation isn't bad. 3 in a row, well, the guy probably isn't going to play well with others here, either.
If you don't want to piss in a cup to get a job, feel free not to. Just realize that that decision (a) raises doubts about either your drug use or your judgement, and (b) makes you less marketable.
I don't think presumption of guilt is what the bill of rights was all about....
The Bill of Rights has nothing to do with conditions of employment. It enumerates what the government can or cannot do. A private employer can refuse to hire you because they don't like your shoes, or any other arbitrary reason. If pissing in a cup is a reason they choose, that is fully up to them.
Further, people who invoke Constitutional protections in situations like this where they are clearly not applicable, quite frankly, hurt their argument by both showing blatant ignorance, _and_ cheapen the Constitutional protections by doing so. Sorry, but you not wanting to take a drug test doesn't raise to the level of a Constitutional issue. Not even a little. It's the company's choice to require it, it's your choice to refuse it. (shrug) I choose not to worry about it, and if that means that my employer is hiring from a smaller pool of workers, then I am making more because of your decision. I'm fully in support of that, I just think it's a silly thing to get all worked up about. Especially compared with all of the actual Constitutional protections which really _are_ being eroded.
I was fingerprinted AFTER I'd already accepted the position.
Excellent point. I've been fingerprint screened for two jobs - a day camp counselor back in HS (they screen for pedophiles) and when I worked at GSFC/NASA -- and at GSFC it wasn't even my company, but the government. Both screening were after I had already gotten the job.
I've also been drugged screened, again, after I had accepted the position.
And you can bet that you would have been immediately fired if you failed the post-hire screening. Personally, if you're going to have me screened, I'd rather have it as pre-employment so if I fail for whatever reason, I'm still at my old job, rather than post-employment where if I fail, "my services are no longer needed by the company" and I'm out on my ass without a job.
It's a bad thing that in order to have a livelihood that people are forced to turn over biometrics that will sit (indefinitely) in a database somewhere.
That's just fine. Feel free to not compete for jobs which require background checks, security clearances, drug tests, and all that. It makes those of us who are willing and able to pass the same, that much more valuable to our next employer. Annoying? Sure, but a hell of a lot less annoying than, say, having to wear a tie every day. And from a protection of sensitive data standpoint, hell yes, I want my bank, my kids' schoolbus company, and other organization whose handling of my assets is important, to make sure they're not hiring a criminal who might harm those assets in one way or another.
If you don't want to piss in a cup to get a job, feel free not to. Just realize that that decision (a) raises doubts about either your drug use or your judgement, and (b) makes you less marketable.
Just don't deny me the right to choose a different approach that might, just might, save my life _and_ yours. Because your approach doesn't do a thing for me.
And your approach might INCREASE his chance of losing his life. Now who's hurting other people's right to life?
Read your own words. "Might". As in, speculation on your part. The nice thing about this, is that we have 40-some states in the US which have done this little experiment for you, so you don't need to speculate. The data is all out there. Think about it - if one, even one time, CCW laws had increased violent deaths or attacks, don't you think the gun control crowd would be pointing at that as a "see, we told you so!"? They're not. They can't. It hasn't increased crime _anywhere_. Can you imagine some scenario where some hypothetical alignment of the planets, bad luck, and a cooperative criminal cause someone to be shot who wouldn't have been? I suppose, but google for "accidental CCW shooting" and see how often it just plain isn't happening.
(Yes, I'm aware you're not the one putting people into the situation where these choices have been made, but you're also being utterly disingenuous to suggest your approach can only have a zero or net gain outcome, too. That's why there's such a wide gamut of opinion on this, because it's the furthest thing from black and white). Good people outnumber murderous madmen by thousands to one. I'll take those odds. But leftist lawmakers won't let me, they want to "feel safer" like the leadership of Virginia Tech when they banned CCW holders from carrying on campus. Yeah, I bet those 32 people sure felt safer right until the point they got killed by someone who, you know, violated that little rule about not having guns on campus. Oh and the whole "don't murder 32 people" thing too, he seemed a bit casual about that rule.
Let people like me defend ourselves, and people like you, from people like that. Banning CCW carriers from carrying when they're legally entitled to, is like banning firefighters from taking water on their trucks, so fires won't start.
I love it how alot of people on the Internet claim they will automatically go 'die hard' on the rampaging shooters if they were there. I have never served in the military, never (thankfully) have my life threatened by someone, never been in the same situation as those in VT. The question is, have you? I consider myself reasonably courageous, I know martial arts, but don't we tend to over estimate our capabilities, even if we're carrying a gun. No, I've never been in a life-threatening situation involving a gunman. I have been in fire-related situations that could be described that way, though. I have training and equipment to deal with that, and I do. The problem is, rules like Virginia Tech's which ban people who _have_ the equipment and training from using them on-campus, deny those of us who are able to defend ourselves and you, from doing so.
If I was to find myself in the same situation as at the VT, I would probably piss my pants and run away if I can. I would probably put myself first and forget the others. The military takes 6 month to drill people to overcome their natural aversion to killing and to be killed.
Actually in this case it'd be "kill or be killed". When someone is proficient with the tools and understand the implications of failing to act, well, some chance is better than zero.
Do you think you will have the same reflexes, proficiency and tactical knowhow without the same training? So, before others like you spew out more macho talk and dream of becoming heroes, take stock of your own capabilities. Will you make the ultimate sacrifice? The whole point of allowing me and other honest people to be armed, is that hopefully NOBODY will have to "make the ultimate sacrifice". The murderer will be less safe in their rampage, someone just might put a premature end to it. It's happened several times in the recent past in the US, after all.
Will you put yourself in the line of fire to save people you barely know while equally knowing that you might leave your wife and children forever? My decade and a half as firefighter and EMT seem to indicate I'm willing to take certain risks for people I barely know, yes.
Will you accept the responsibility if by your actions, you have made the situation worse? Worse than an unchallenged murderer systematically killing everyone he can, in complete safety? I'm not sure there's much worse than that.
For example, you can use duct tape to muffle fan noise... Just remember; wrinkle free duct tape is a sign of good craftsmanship. And if the women don't find you handsome, they can at least find you handy.
Well the thing is, that there is this deep psycological connection between blinking lights and technology in our culture. In the old days, computers in movies often had excessive amounts of this. But even today, you see similar things in movies. If the lights are blinking, it must be doing something! True, but it can't be simply blinking, like the 12:00 on an old, un-programmed VCR. It has to be blinking in an irregular pattern, which indicates activity of some sort. A simple on/off/on/off 50% duty cycle LED looks like a gratuitous blinkylight. Now, give me a blinkylight that flashes irregularly, or even better, in synchronous ways with other blinkylights, now we're talking. Big disk array full of drives, all blinking somewhat in unison, is what I'm trying to say. It's a thing of beauty, several racks of storage all blinking in busy activity...in a darkened server room... brings a tear to any self-respecting techie's eye, it does...
This argument keeps coming up again and again. Isn't US one of the most armed countries in the developed world? And yet we have more gun rampages than any one else. That could mean free availability of guns leads to rampages. It _could_, but it doesn't. The core problem in this case, is that the law forbid ANYONE from being armed on that campus. The madman, obviously, violated the law. The law insured that his potential victims would be disarmed.
I don't have any numbers for the above. Feel free to correct me. A criminologist with anti-gun history investigated that a few years back, hoping to back up his case. Seems he found out that more guns = less crime. google "more guns less crime" for details. Peer-reviewed and all that of course. If you need a pointer I can dig it up but it should be pretty much immediate in a google search.
It's not the quantity of guns that causes problems or not, it's the quantity of guns in the hands of the wrong people, coupled with laws like the one in place for VT which ban good people from protecting ourselves.
(snip of much pointless back and forth disagreement...let's just focus on this part: )
It's easy to be an internet hero of course, but people who truly do manage to be heroes in real life are few and far between, it's not something you can choose to be, it's a case of being in the right place at the right time, being able to overcome your instinct to escape and then finally being able to actually carry out the plan - sadly many that do get this far even end up failing, all to often making the problem worse. The thing is, I've been a firefighter and EMT for 15 years now. I _know_ how I respond to a stressful, and yes, even life threatening situation. Have I been shot at? Nope. But, without that CCW, I'm guaranteed to be at the killer's mercy; with a CCW I'd at least have a chance. Some chance is better than no chance. You can talk about ballistics, what-if this and what-if that, but at the end of the day the only thing stopping me from legally defending myself has changed, is that the only one safe is the murderer.
let me get this straight then, your solution is to put a gun in teachers hands ? oh boy, you MUST be american. Absolutely, my solution is to allow people who have shown themselves to be worthy of a concealed carry permit, to carry a gun if they so choose. Hell yes. Are you saying you trust the murderer more than you trust a teacher who you're allowing to teach your kids?
Not sure what the right to self-defense has to do with someone's country of origin. Maybe it's a cultural thing..."Oh, very well, it seems that you are keen to kill me. Carry on, toodle-pip and cheerio and all that, by all means don't let my screams of pain cause you any distress."
Outlawing self-defense for good people only harms good people
It also protects "good people" from being killed by your hero's friendly fire.
I'll take my chances with an accidental friendly fire, vs. a your approach which leaves a killer perfectly safe to methodically kill everyone in the room.
This is wrong. While I support the idea that everyone should be versed in self defense, I don't believe guns are the answer. Firearms are too unpredictable, too uncontrolled, and too final. If I hit you in the head, Sorry, but relying on physical strength to survive a conflict gives the advantage to the stronger person, who very likely is the aggressor, not the victim.
Your assumption that concealed carry laws don't work is based on the premise that the bad guys are completely, 100% bad. If they're shooting up my classroom, they're 100% bad. This isn't subtle.
In cities with ghettos, violence definitely goes down with gun control, simply because there are less guns floating around, which means the police have an easier time not just apprehending, but also identifying the criminals.
Show me ONE instance of this fantasy being true. Show me ONE case where CCW laws were passed and crime went up. Hint: don't waste your time, it's never happened. Not once.
I don't care for laws against other weapons, like knives or such, but guns are just too unpredictable. Also, for the record, I'm divided on whether to openly teach firearm handling regardless of gun control laws. That's fine, feel free to remain ignorant.
And just how would the group decide who would have the privilige of "taking one for the team?" A vote at the beginning of the school year? Or maybe they could rotate the responsibility like they do so many other positions:
Do you understand the nature of a CCW permit? People who want the choice to defend themselves, decide to apply and pass the requirements, and decide if they want to carry on a given day. All I'm saying, is don't force everyone to choose to be sitting ducks; let those who have decided that they can actually function in an emergency situation to defend themselves (and others), to let them do so.
Come on. Indeed. But that's OK, you keep cowering under your desk hoping for the cops to show up. Just don't deny me the right to choose a different approach that might, just might, save my life _and_ yours. Because your approach doesn't do a thing for me.
I don't think relying upon potential victims carrying weapons of their own choice is a sound strategy (most people don't bother, so most of the time a situation comes up even if they had the option, chances are no one would be equipped to stop them). My point is, the VT leadership forbid valid CCW holders from carrying on campus, which deprived them of the choice one way or the other, and guaranteed the killer a "safe work envirionment". I don't have a problem with someone choosing not to carry, but I _do_ have a problem with someone telling me I may not, because they want me to "feel safer" (yeah, I can dredge up the news article with that quote from the VT leadership if you'd like).
Another thing I've heard suggested is that people should be *required* to be armed. Admittedly, I don't hear this argument out of many reasonable people, but it has come up. Not here, so no point in going over that part.
Probably some program to deputize, train, and arm some number of officials in areas of concern is potentially a prudent action. You have a known set of people to rely upon without indiscriminately putting guns in the hands of random people who may be prone to anger. Great idea. This, in effect, is what CCW is. A set of people who are of good moral standing with clean records, who have the interest, ability, and training to safely protect themselves and, by the nature of protecting themselves, protect those around them.
Short of bombers, potential mass-killing attempts outside of schools are cut short if happening over a short period of time. Generally because police or private security companies that are armed are closer at hand, not because random people happened to be armed to stop it. There have been a number of school shootings that were stopped by armed potential victims putting an end to the rampage, actually. I won't speculate on why more people don't know this, but to me the reasons are obvious. I can dig up the links - one was a law student in the eastern US, another was a principal in Pearl Mississippi: http://www.davekopel.com/2A/OthWr/principal&gun.ht m
Point is, armed folks _have_ stopped school shootings, despite the fact that they had to bring a gun onto campus to do so. Seems to me that a good person with a gun is less of a threat than a murderer on a rampage, but maybe that's just my bias showing.
Are you suggesting that the same people who decided to pull this stunt should be armed in schools? Something tells me that the group of people who would choose to get a CCW license, and the group of people who would do stupid shit like this, don't have much if any overlap, so no. Anyone who has gone through the CCW training would know better, and anyone who would think like this isn't the kind of person who would go through CCW.
Seems to me the fact that you'll never stop every last madman is reason enough to let the honest citizens defend themselves if they choose. Outlawing self-defense for good people only harms good people.
Um...no. This is real life, not a video game. Bad people aren't conventiently identified, Really? Seems to me he identified himself pretty completely by going into classrooms and, you know, killing people.
Scenario: crazed gunman walks into a school and starts shooting people. Ten not-psycho people randomly distributed building are packing heat. You now have eleven people walking around the building with guns. One is happy to see everybody die. The other ten are stressed and most likely don't know anything about the situation other than the fact that there's another armed person somewhere in the building. Given the heightened tension of the situation, your other ten are as likely (if not more so) to start shooting at one another as the gunman, letting off rounds as soon as they see someone else with a gun, You seem to have a fantastic (as in fantasy) understanding of CCW, who carries, and how well it works.
I appreciate that you want to defend yourself, but your self-defense is, to the rest of us good people, most likely just a lot more bullets in the air. Don't worry - it's fine that you don't understand the reality, really it is. But don't force me to be a sitting duck because of your uninformed preconceptions. It's really not that hard to tell when someone is a threat - they're the one coming into the classroom shooting people. A defensive use of a firearm will be over before there can be any confusion as to which guy is the bad guy. You'll be fine. Us good people outnumber the madmen and badguys by thousands to one. I'll take those odds.
I don't think he was suggesting that anyone hide under a desk, because that's equally as stupid as going after a gunman - both are only reasonable options when you have no other choice. So you are claiming that duck and cover is equally as bad a choice, as someone taking a direct approach and stopping the shooter? Seriously?
I think he was suggesting more to get the hell away from the area via a safe route, or otherwise get somewhere the gunman can't get to (i.e. blockade yourself into a room much like the students that survived Virginia Tech did).
Right. That's how at least one of the professors got killed, by him shooting through the door. Better chance than sitting and waiting, sure, but so much less effective than if he'd had the means to effectively defend himself.
Both your suggestions are prime examples of what the person you were responding to meant when he mentioned lemmings - people who just sit and die and people who, well, go and die. Both are equally stupid when there's another more blatantly sensible option - get to safety and let well trained police/soldiers wearing bulletproof vests and armed with flashbangs deal with the guy with a gun. In the case of VT, there wasn't a _get to safety_ option, was there. The hallways were occupied by a gunman, the exits had been chained shut. Waiting for professional help is what got them killed. ONE teacher with a gun could have stopped it at something less than 32 deaths. Even knowing that his intended victims were allowed to carry if they so chose might have deterred his entire rampage - it was obviously directed at helpless people. If he didn't know his victims were forced by law to be helpless, maybe he wouldn't have started in the first place.
Lemmings aren't the ones fighting the killer and dying, lemmings are the ones dying while hoping that "well trained police/soldiers" will show up in time to save them.
or a teacher with a concealed carry permit, or _any_ non-passive response,
Nice try, but it is a violation of federal law to bring a fire-arm onto public school property.
(The one exception being Police Officers in the course of their official Duties)
Well, and that other exception, the homicidal maniac on a rampage. Pesky little thing, reality, isn't it? Seems to me the fact that you'll never stop every last madman is reason enough to let the honest citizens defend themselves if they choose. Outlawing self-defense for good people only harms good people.
I also remember hearing about a study that says having a gun in that sort of situation is a Bad Thing(TM) because it changes your first instinct to be "draw weapon" instead of "duck & Cover/Run/punch/etc" where a gunman would already have his weapon drawn, and presumably pointed at you Sorry, but state after state which has enacted concealed carry laws have shown the opposite of your vague "study from somewhere". Person on person crime goes down, and the only people less safe are the criminals. Me, I prefer to have the criminals afraid to attack good people.
Slashdot Mirror
It consisted of a 130 grain lead bullet propelled at 425 ft/second and had a total energy of right around 52 ft. lbs.
Everything I've seen shows he was shot with a
A .44 blackpowder pistol isn't underpowered.
The Bill of Rights has nothing to do with conditions of employment. It enumerates what the government can or cannot do. A private employer can refuse to hire you because they don't like your shoes, or any other arbitrary reason. If pissing in a cup is a reason they choose, that is fully up to them.
No, it doesn't have anything to do with them. But the spirit still applies. In the United States of America I should not be held to account by my employer for something that I choose to do that has no impact on him whatsoever.
"No impact on him whatsoever"? If you're willing to break that law, which workplace rules are you willing to violate? It shows a certain character type that I may or may not want to tolerate, as an employer.
Especially compared with all of the actual Constitutional protections which really _are_ being eroded.
The attitude of "I choose not to worry about it" is why those protections are being eroded. Make a legitimate case for why my employer has the right to require a drug test and I'll listen. "They can do it and if you don't like it then don't work there" isn't a defense of this policy.
If that's what you got out of my post, then you missed my point. My point is, this is trivial stuff, and wrapping yourself in a flag to complain about it distracts from the real problems that _are_ worth getting worked up about. Either piss in the cup, or get out of my way so _I_ can take the job. I don't care which.But, a single "I left due to not playing the politics" situation isn't bad. 3 in a row, well, the guy probably isn't going to play well with others here, either.
Take care, buddy.
New around here, eh?
If you don't want to piss in a cup to get a job, feel free not to. Just realize that that decision (a) raises doubts about either your drug use or your judgement, and (b) makes you less marketable.
I don't think presumption of guilt is what the bill of rights was all about....
The Bill of Rights has nothing to do with conditions of employment. It enumerates what the government can or cannot do. A private employer can refuse to hire you because they don't like your shoes, or any other arbitrary reason. If pissing in a cup is a reason they choose, that is fully up to them.Further, people who invoke Constitutional protections in situations like this where they are clearly not applicable, quite frankly, hurt their argument by both showing blatant ignorance, _and_ cheapen the Constitutional protections by doing so. Sorry, but you not wanting to take a drug test doesn't raise to the level of a Constitutional issue. Not even a little. It's the company's choice to require it, it's your choice to refuse it. (shrug) I choose not to worry about it, and if that means that my employer is hiring from a smaller pool of workers, then I am making more because of your decision. I'm fully in support of that, I just think it's a silly thing to get all worked up about. Especially compared with all of the actual Constitutional protections which really _are_ being eroded.
Excellent point. I've been fingerprint screened for two jobs - a day camp counselor back in HS (they screen for pedophiles) and when I worked at GSFC/NASA -- and at GSFC it wasn't even my company, but the government. Both screening were after I had already gotten the job.
I've also been drugged screened, again, after I had accepted the position.
And you can bet that you would have been immediately fired if you failed the post-hire screening. Personally, if you're going to have me screened, I'd rather have it as pre-employment so if I fail for whatever reason, I'm still at my old job, rather than post-employment where if I fail, "my services are no longer needed by the company" and I'm out on my ass without a job.Are you telling me that's a bad thing?
It's a bad thing that in order to have a livelihood that people are forced to turn over biometrics that will sit (indefinitely) in a database somewhere.
That's just fine. Feel free to not compete for jobs which require background checks, security clearances, drug tests, and all that. It makes those of us who are willing and able to pass the same, that much more valuable to our next employer. Annoying? Sure, but a hell of a lot less annoying than, say, having to wear a tie every day. And from a protection of sensitive data standpoint, hell yes, I want my bank, my kids' schoolbus company, and other organization whose handling of my assets is important, to make sure they're not hiring a criminal who might harm those assets in one way or another.If you don't want to piss in a cup to get a job, feel free not to. Just realize that that decision (a) raises doubts about either your drug use or your judgement, and (b) makes you less marketable.
And your approach might INCREASE his chance of losing his life. Now who's hurting other people's right to life?
Read your own words. "Might". As in, speculation on your part. The nice thing about this, is that we have 40-some states in the US which have done this little experiment for you, so you don't need to speculate. The data is all out there. Think about it - if one, even one time, CCW laws had increased violent deaths or attacks, don't you think the gun control crowd would be pointing at that as a "see, we told you so!"? They're not. They can't. It hasn't increased crime _anywhere_. Can you imagine some scenario where some hypothetical alignment of the planets, bad luck, and a cooperative criminal cause someone to be shot who wouldn't have been? I suppose, but google for "accidental CCW shooting" and see how often it just plain isn't happening.
(Yes, I'm aware you're not the one putting people into the situation where these choices have been made, but you're also being utterly disingenuous to suggest your approach can only have a zero or net gain outcome, too. That's why there's such a wide gamut of opinion on this, because it's the furthest thing from black and white).
Good people outnumber murderous madmen by thousands to one. I'll take those odds. But leftist lawmakers won't let me, they want to "feel safer" like the leadership of Virginia Tech when they banned CCW holders from carrying on campus. Yeah, I bet those 32 people sure felt safer right until the point they got killed by someone who, you know, violated that little rule about not having guns on campus. Oh and the whole "don't murder 32 people" thing too, he seemed a bit casual about that rule.
Let people like me defend ourselves, and people like you, from people like that. Banning CCW carriers from carrying when they're legally entitled to, is like banning firefighters from taking water on their trucks, so fires won't start.
No, I've never been in a life-threatening situation involving a gunman. I have been in fire-related situations that could be described that way, though. I have training and equipment to deal with that, and I do. The problem is, rules like Virginia Tech's which ban people who _have_ the equipment and training from using them on-campus, deny those of us who are able to defend ourselves and you, from doing so.
If I was to find myself in the same situation as at the VT, I would probably piss my pants and run away if I can. I would probably put myself first and forget the others. The military takes 6 month to drill people to overcome their natural aversion to killing and to be killed.
Actually in this case it'd be "kill or be killed". When someone is proficient with the tools and understand the implications of failing to act, well, some chance is better than zero.
Do you think you will have the same reflexes, proficiency and tactical knowhow without the same training? So, before others like you spew out more macho talk and dream of becoming heroes, take stock of your own capabilities. Will you make the ultimate sacrifice?
The whole point of allowing me and other honest people to be armed, is that hopefully NOBODY will have to "make the ultimate sacrifice". The murderer will be less safe in their rampage, someone just might put a premature end to it. It's happened several times in the recent past in the US, after all.
Will you put yourself in the line of fire to save people you barely know while equally knowing that you might leave your wife and children forever?
My decade and a half as firefighter and EMT seem to indicate I'm willing to take certain risks for people I barely know, yes.
Will you accept the responsibility if by your actions, you have made the situation worse?
Worse than an unchallenged murderer systematically killing everyone he can, in complete safety? I'm not sure there's much worse than that.
For example, you can use duct tape to muffle fan noise...
Just remember; wrinkle free duct tape is a sign of good craftsmanship. And if the women don't find you handsome, they can at least find you handy.
Oh great. Now he's flashing, and (beep)ing. Nice going.
True, but it can't be simply blinking, like the 12:00 on an old, un-programmed VCR. It has to be blinking in an irregular pattern, which indicates activity of some sort. A simple on/off/on/off 50% duty cycle LED looks like a gratuitous blinkylight. Now, give me a blinkylight that flashes irregularly, or even better, in synchronous ways with other blinkylights, now we're talking. Big disk array full of drives, all blinking somewhat in unison, is what I'm trying to say. It's a thing of beauty, several racks of storage all blinking in busy activity...in a darkened server room... brings a tear to any self-respecting techie's eye, it does...
It _could_, but it doesn't. The core problem in this case, is that the law forbid ANYONE from being armed on that campus. The madman, obviously, violated the law. The law insured that his potential victims would be disarmed.
I don't have any numbers for the above. Feel free to correct me. A criminologist with anti-gun history investigated that a few years back, hoping to back up his case. Seems he found out that more guns = less crime. google "more guns less crime" for details. Peer-reviewed and all that of course. If you need a pointer I can dig it up but it should be pretty much immediate in a google search.
It's not the quantity of guns that causes problems or not, it's the quantity of guns in the hands of the wrong people, coupled with laws like the one in place for VT which ban good people from protecting ourselves.
The thing is, I've been a firefighter and EMT for 15 years now. I _know_ how I respond to a stressful, and yes, even life threatening situation. Have I been shot at? Nope. But, without that CCW, I'm guaranteed to be at the killer's mercy; with a CCW I'd at least have a chance. Some chance is better than no chance. You can talk about ballistics, what-if this and what-if that, but at the end of the day the only thing stopping me from legally defending myself has changed, is that the only one safe is the murderer.
Beats dying without giving it a good fight. Let's roll.
Absolutely, my solution is to allow people who have shown themselves to be worthy of a concealed carry permit, to carry a gun if they so choose. Hell yes. Are you saying you trust the murderer more than you trust a teacher who you're allowing to teach your kids?
Not sure what the right to self-defense has to do with someone's country of origin. Maybe it's a cultural thing..."Oh, very well, it seems that you are keen to kill me. Carry on, toodle-pip and cheerio and all that, by all means don't let my screams of pain cause you any distress."
It also protects "good people" from being killed by your hero's friendly fire.
I'll take my chances with an accidental friendly fire, vs. a your approach which leaves a killer perfectly safe to methodically kill everyone in the room.Sorry, but relying on physical strength to survive a conflict gives the advantage to the stronger person, who very likely is the aggressor, not the victim.
Your assumption that concealed carry laws don't work is based on the premise that the bad guys are completely, 100% bad.
If they're shooting up my classroom, they're 100% bad. This isn't subtle.
In cities with ghettos, violence definitely goes down with gun control, simply because there are less guns floating around, which means the police have an easier time not just apprehending, but also identifying the criminals.
Show me ONE instance of this fantasy being true. Show me ONE case where CCW laws were passed and crime went up. Hint: don't waste your time, it's never happened. Not once.
I don't care for laws against other weapons, like knives or such, but guns are just too unpredictable. Also, for the record, I'm divided on whether to openly teach firearm handling regardless of gun control laws.
That's fine, feel free to remain ignorant.
Do you understand the nature of a CCW permit? People who want the choice to defend themselves, decide to apply and pass the requirements, and decide if they want to carry on a given day. All I'm saying, is don't force everyone to choose to be sitting ducks; let those who have decided that they can actually function in an emergency situation to defend themselves (and others), to let them do so.
Come on.
Indeed. But that's OK, you keep cowering under your desk hoping for the cops to show up. Just don't deny me the right to choose a different approach that might, just might, save my life _and_ yours. Because your approach doesn't do a thing for me.
My point is, the VT leadership forbid valid CCW holders from carrying on campus, which deprived them of the choice one way or the other, and guaranteed the killer a "safe work envirionment". I don't have a problem with someone choosing not to carry, but I _do_ have a problem with someone telling me I may not, because they want me to "feel safer" (yeah, I can dredge up the news article with that quote from the VT leadership if you'd like).
Another thing I've heard suggested is that people should be *required* to be armed. Admittedly, I don't hear this argument out of many reasonable people, but it has come up.
Not here, so no point in going over that part.
Probably some program to deputize, train, and arm some number of officials in areas of concern is potentially a prudent action. You have a known set of people to rely upon without indiscriminately putting guns in the hands of random people who may be prone to anger.
Great idea. This, in effect, is what CCW is. A set of people who are of good moral standing with clean records, who have the interest, ability, and training to safely protect themselves and, by the nature of protecting themselves, protect those around them.
Short of bombers, potential mass-killing attempts outside of schools are cut short if happening over a short period of time. Generally because police or private security companies that are armed are closer at hand, not because random people happened to be armed to stop it.
There have been a number of school shootings that were stopped by armed potential victims putting an end to the rampage, actually. I won't speculate on why more people don't know this, but to me the reasons are obvious. I can dig up the links - one was a law student in the eastern US, another was a principal in Pearl Mississippi: http://www.davekopel.com/2A/OthWr/principal&gun.h
Point is, armed folks _have_ stopped school shootings, despite the fact that they had to bring a gun onto campus to do so. Seems to me that a good person with a gun is less of a threat than a murderer on a rampage, but maybe that's just my bias showing.
Are you suggesting that the same people who decided to pull this stunt should be armed in schools?
Something tells me that the group of people who would choose to get a CCW license, and the group of people who would do stupid shit like this, don't have much if any overlap, so no. Anyone who has gone through the CCW training would know better, and anyone who would think like this isn't the kind of person who would go through CCW.
Um...no. This is real life, not a video game. Bad people aren't conventiently identified,
Really? Seems to me he identified himself pretty completely by going into classrooms and, you know, killing people.
Scenario: crazed gunman walks into a school and starts shooting people. Ten not-psycho people randomly distributed building are packing heat. You now have eleven people walking around the building with guns. One is happy to see everybody die. The other ten are stressed and most likely don't know anything about the situation other than the fact that there's another armed person somewhere in the building. Given the heightened tension of the situation, your other ten are as likely (if not more so) to start shooting at one another as the gunman, letting off rounds as soon as they see someone else with a gun,
You seem to have a fantastic (as in fantasy) understanding of CCW, who carries, and how well it works.
I appreciate that you want to defend yourself, but your self-defense is, to the rest of us good people, most likely just a lot more bullets in the air.
Don't worry - it's fine that you don't understand the reality, really it is. But don't force me to be a sitting duck because of your uninformed preconceptions. It's really not that hard to tell when someone is a threat - they're the one coming into the classroom shooting people. A defensive use of a firearm will be over before there can be any confusion as to which guy is the bad guy. You'll be fine. Us good people outnumber the madmen and badguys by thousands to one. I'll take those odds.
So you are claiming that duck and cover is equally as bad a choice, as someone taking a direct approach and stopping the shooter? Seriously?
I think he was suggesting more to get the hell away from the area via a safe route, or otherwise get somewhere the gunman can't get to (i.e. blockade yourself into a room much like the students that survived Virginia Tech did).
Right. That's how at least one of the professors got killed, by him shooting through the door. Better chance than sitting and waiting, sure, but so much less effective than if he'd had the means to effectively defend himself.
Both your suggestions are prime examples of what the person you were responding to meant when he mentioned lemmings - people who just sit and die and people who, well, go and die. Both are equally stupid when there's another more blatantly sensible option - get to safety and let well trained police/soldiers wearing bulletproof vests and armed with flashbangs deal with the guy with a gun.
In the case of VT, there wasn't a _get to safety_ option, was there. The hallways were occupied by a gunman, the exits had been chained shut. Waiting for professional help is what got them killed. ONE teacher with a gun could have stopped it at something less than 32 deaths. Even knowing that his intended victims were allowed to carry if they so chose might have deterred his entire rampage - it was obviously directed at helpless people. If he didn't know his victims were forced by law to be helpless, maybe he wouldn't have started in the first place.
Lemmings aren't the ones fighting the killer and dying, lemmings are the ones dying while hoping that "well trained police/soldiers" will show up in time to save them.
Nice try, but it is a violation of federal law to bring a fire-arm onto public school property.
(The one exception being Police Officers in the course of their official Duties)
Well, and that other exception, the homicidal maniac on a rampage. Pesky little thing, reality, isn't it? Seems to me the fact that you'll never stop every last madman is reason enough to let the honest citizens defend themselves if they choose. Outlawing self-defense for good people only harms good people.
I also remember hearing about a study that says having a gun in that sort of situation is a Bad Thing(TM) because it changes your first instinct to be "draw weapon" instead of "duck & Cover/Run/punch/etc" where a gunman would already have his weapon drawn, and presumably pointed at you
Sorry, but state after state which has enacted concealed carry laws have shown the opposite of your vague "study from somewhere". Person on person crime goes down, and the only people less safe are the criminals. Me, I prefer to have the criminals afraid to attack good people.