Texas church shooting

[Moranis]

Until folks really confront the reality that the extreme volume of guns in this country is tightly correlated with our extreme rates of mass shootings, these conversations will tend to go nowhere.

There are solid studies that show high correlation between mass shooting rates and per-capita gun ownership -- even if you exclude the United States!   The U.S. just leaps off the chart in both categories.

Some bizarro numbers that paint a rather interesting picture of "our" sick, extreme obsession with guns:

• The US currently has about 4.4 percent of the global population, yet owns 42 percent of the world's guns (non-military).    When you poke further, and realize that 32% of Americans own those guns, that means just about 1.4% of the world's population is holding 42% of the world's guns!
  
• Even more extreme, consider that the vast majority of gun owners only own one gun.   Just 3% of the US population (or about .13% of the world's population) own half the guns in the U.S., or about 21% of all the guns in the world!
  
• In absolute numbers, that means that about 9.7 million Americans own a combined ~133 million guns.
  
• For that segment of 'heavy gun ownership' of the population (less than 1 in 30 people), that's an average of over 13 guns per person!
  

What the heck do those few people need ALL THOSE FREAKING GUNS FOR??

Are they planning to repel a commie invasion?  Are they planning on forming a "militia" to take on the U.S. military in a coupe?  Preparing for the zombie apocalypse?  What?

This has gotten way past the insane point.

Do you know at least 30 people?  Do you find it a little unnerving to realize that chances are that one of those 30 people might have an arsenal of 13+ guns?  (Obviously, that's not evenly distributed geographically so the chances really vary from state to state).

When will the vast majority of the U.S. that actually _isn't_ obsessed with extreme hoarding of guns finally notice what is going on and stand up and say, "Enough!"?   

Sadly, probably never, given our complete lack of response to Sandy Hook.

It's as if the vast majority, some ~314M Americans ,are held hostage, forced to accommodate the manic obsessions of those few.

They are interesting numbers. And, a lot of those stockpiling weapons are crazies, like the Vegas shooter.

At the same time, I know a lot of “normal” folks who own double digit firearms. They’re almost all police and military, who shoot for recreation and are quasi-collectors.  I personally don’t think they “need” all those weapons, but I also think they’re exceedingly unlikely to ever use those guns in an illegal manner.

I think there should be more sensible gun control, but I also don’t want to punish responsible owners. Here, the system failed, and the only reason this wasn’t worse is because a responsible owner engaged the mass murderer with a firearm of his own.

So, by all means, let’s regulate / ban bump stocks and other devices that modify fire rate, regulate magazine clips, require safety courses, close transfer loopholes, etc. However, in the end it’s likely that nuts and crazies will still end up with a weapon one way or another.

Gun rights advocates frequently (pretty much in every instance of this debate) cite the idea of how, "if only citizen X was armed they could have stopped the shooter!").  This is the argument for arming teachers in schools!!!!   So, of course they are all over this aspect of this event.

The fact is, this is like the only time I've ever heard of such an 'armed good citizen' ever actually being able to engage and stop such a shooter.   Out of how many such mass shooting events?   There is a 'mass shooting event' happening practically every day in this country.   There are millions of gun owners out there.  You'd think more would be playing hero.

And another fact is, while the "armed good citizen" here may have helped end the carnage, his presence and actions did absolutely nothing to prevent it.   Those totally innocent people in the church are still dead.

He also led to the death of the shooter, which may have harmed things like motive, finding co-conspirators, etc.  It seems like this was an isolated incident with a more personal motive, but that didn't have to be the case.  What if the death of the shooter led to a more horrific crime that otherwise might have been stopped had he been taken alive?  What if he had heard gun shots and saw a man with a rifle and shot that man, but what if that was another person like him or an undercover officer who was engaging in the shooter?  Again, that wasn't the case this time, but it again could have just been luck.  What if he was engaging the shooter, and missed and killed some innocent bystander or multiple ones?  Again, that wasn't the case this time, but it again could have just been dumb luck.  It is a slippery slope to have citizens performing police like functions with guns.  A lot of bad things can happen when we let citizens take the law into their own hand.  Just because it seemingly worked out this time, that doesn't mean we should be promoting it.

While I understand the concerns about a vigilante conducting police business, I think the positives clearly outweighed any negatives here. The citizen used his gun responsibly and appropriately.

Which option do you prefer:

1.  Citizen engages mass murderer, causing him to flee and die (losing potential evidence in the process); or

2.  Citizen calls authorities, allowing mass murderer sufficient time to kill other people. Police arrive and engage in a fire fight or hostage situation, at which point the shooter may or may not be killed?

The first one is obviously better, but it still doesn't change the fact that he could have caused a lot of harm.  And I guess the part I have more of an issue with, is he chased down the shooter and followed him over the roads.  That certainly could have caused a lot of damage in a chase type scenario.  Again it worked out just fine here, but that certainly doesn't mean it always will and you can't just ignore the serious negative possible outcomes when discussing a scenario just because it worked out well.

[gift]

Until folks really confront the reality that the extreme volume of guns in this country is tightly correlated with our extreme rates of mass shootings, these conversations will tend to go nowhere.

There are solid studies that show high correlation between mass shooting rates and per-capita gun ownership -- even if you exclude the United States!   The U.S. just leaps off the chart in both categories.

Some bizarro numbers that paint a rather interesting picture of "our" sick, extreme obsession with guns:

• The US currently has about 4.4 percent of the global population, yet owns 42 percent of the world's guns (non-military).    When you poke further, and realize that 32% of Americans own those guns, that means just about 1.4% of the world's population is holding 42% of the world's guns!
  
• Even more extreme, consider that the vast majority of gun owners only own one gun.   Just 3% of the US population (or about .13% of the world's population) own half the guns in the U.S., or about 21% of all the guns in the world!
  
• In absolute numbers, that means that about 9.7 million Americans own a combined ~133 million guns.
  
• For that segment of 'heavy gun ownership' of the population (less than 1 in 30 people), that's an average of over 13 guns per person!
  

What the heck do those few people need ALL THOSE FREAKING GUNS FOR??

Are they planning to repel a commie invasion?  Are they planning on forming a "militia" to take on the U.S. military in a coupe?  Preparing for the zombie apocalypse?  What?

This has gotten way past the insane point.

Do you know at least 30 people?  Do you find it a little unnerving to realize that chances are that one of those 30 people might have an arsenal of 13+ guns?  (Obviously, that's not evenly distributed geographically so the chances really vary from state to state).

When will the vast majority of the U.S. that actually _isn't_ obsessed with extreme hoarding of guns finally notice what is going on and stand up and say, "Enough!"?   

Sadly, probably never, given our complete lack of response to Sandy Hook.

It's as if the vast majority, some ~314M Americans ,are held hostage, forced to accommodate the manic obsessions of those few.

They are interesting numbers. And, a lot of those stockpiling weapons are crazies, like the Vegas shooter.

At the same time, I know a lot of “normal” folks who own double digit firearms. They’re almost all police and military, who shoot for recreation and are quasi-collectors.  I personally don’t think they “need” all those weapons, but I also think they’re exceedingly unlikely to ever use those guns in an illegal manner.

I think there should be more sensible gun control, but I also don’t want to punish responsible owners. Here, the system failed, and the only reason this wasn’t worse is because a responsible owner engaged the mass murderer with a firearm of his own.

So, by all means, let’s regulate / ban bump stocks and other devices that modify fire rate, regulate magazine clips, require safety courses, close transfer loopholes, etc. However, in the end it’s likely that nuts and crazies will still end up with a weapon one way or another.

Gun rights advocates frequently (pretty much in every instance of this debate) cite the idea of how, "if only citizen X was armed they could have stopped the shooter!").  This is the argument for arming teachers in schools!!!!   So, of course they are all over this aspect of this event.

The fact is, this is like the only time I've ever heard of such an 'armed good citizen' ever actually being able to engage and stop such a shooter.   Out of how many such mass shooting events?   There is a 'mass shooting event' happening practically every day in this country.   There are millions of gun owners out there.  You'd think more would be playing hero.

And another fact is, while the "armed good citizen" here may have helped end the carnage, his presence and actions did absolutely nothing to prevent it.   Those totally innocent people in the church are still dead.

He also led to the death of the shooter, which may have harmed things like motive, finding co-conspirators, etc.  It seems like this was an isolated incident with a more personal motive, but that didn't have to be the case.  What if the death of the shooter led to a more horrific crime that otherwise might have been stopped had he been taken alive?  What if he had heard gun shots and saw a man with a rifle and shot that man, but what if that was another person like him or an undercover officer who was engaging in the shooter?  Again, that wasn't the case this time, but it again could have just been luck.  What if he was engaging the shooter, and missed and killed some innocent bystander or multiple ones?  Again, that wasn't the case this time, but it again could have just been dumb luck.  It is a slippery slope to have citizens performing police like functions with guns.  A lot of bad things can happen when we let citizens take the law into their own hand.  Just because it seemingly worked out this time, that doesn't mean we should be promoting it.

I don't know. How's the police record on not shooting innocent people or preventing suicide by cop or taking active shooters alive? Seems less great than the "could have gone wrong" statistics we have of citizen defenders.

I'm unaware of the police shooting an individual in a confrontation with a mass shooting suspect.  If you are aware of those, please post them.  And sure sometimes the mass shooters are killed by police or commit suicide, sometimes they aren't.  Depends a great deal on the shooter, but I would absolutely trust the trained police a lot more than some random citizen in those situations.  And there are absolutely citizen defenders that cross lines.  Perhaps you remember Trayvon Martin.  Or maybe you recall that lady that shot at someone in a Wal-Mart parking lot.  Situations like this are heated and bring out emotions, a trained officer is much more likely to deal with and control their emotions than an untrained civilian.

Just a simple Google search will give you examples of police shooting bystanders.

My criticism is that your argument provided reasons why citizens should not defend with arms, without providing evidence of those things actually happening WHILE saying the police should handle it for those very reasons when we actually have evidence of police causing the problems you listed. The argument as stated doesn't make sense.

I agree with you. It sounds like a job for the police. But I'm not opposed to trying to determine whether that intuition is in fact true.

[Vermont Green]

I think this "good guy with a gun" discussion is missing the point.  In this case the good guy had a hunting rifle.  No one is suggesting that additional restrictions be applied to hunting rifles.  The discussion is about restrictions on military rifles.  If military rifles were somehow magically fully banned, this good guy Texan would still have his hunting rifle and he still could have acted in the way he did.  The difference would be that the bad guy would be shooting at the church with a hunting rifle also instead of an assault rifle.  He would probably have only killed a few people instead of 26 (or whatever the number is now) before the good guy shot him.

Somehow these discussion always seem to go immediately from from "let's ban assault weapons" to "liberals want to take away all guns from everyone".  It would not be that hard to fix this if people just tried a little.

[Moranis]

Until folks really confront the reality that the extreme volume of guns in this country is tightly correlated with our extreme rates of mass shootings, these conversations will tend to go nowhere.

There are solid studies that show high correlation between mass shooting rates and per-capita gun ownership -- even if you exclude the United States!   The U.S. just leaps off the chart in both categories.

Some bizarro numbers that paint a rather interesting picture of "our" sick, extreme obsession with guns:

• The US currently has about 4.4 percent of the global population, yet owns 42 percent of the world's guns (non-military).    When you poke further, and realize that 32% of Americans own those guns, that means just about 1.4% of the world's population is holding 42% of the world's guns!
  
• Even more extreme, consider that the vast majority of gun owners only own one gun.   Just 3% of the US population (or about .13% of the world's population) own half the guns in the U.S., or about 21% of all the guns in the world!
  
• In absolute numbers, that means that about 9.7 million Americans own a combined ~133 million guns.
  
• For that segment of 'heavy gun ownership' of the population (less than 1 in 30 people), that's an average of over 13 guns per person!
  

What the heck do those few people need ALL THOSE FREAKING GUNS FOR??

Are they planning to repel a commie invasion?  Are they planning on forming a "militia" to take on the U.S. military in a coupe?  Preparing for the zombie apocalypse?  What?

This has gotten way past the insane point.

Do you know at least 30 people?  Do you find it a little unnerving to realize that chances are that one of those 30 people might have an arsenal of 13+ guns?  (Obviously, that's not evenly distributed geographically so the chances really vary from state to state).

When will the vast majority of the U.S. that actually _isn't_ obsessed with extreme hoarding of guns finally notice what is going on and stand up and say, "Enough!"?   

Sadly, probably never, given our complete lack of response to Sandy Hook.

It's as if the vast majority, some ~314M Americans ,are held hostage, forced to accommodate the manic obsessions of those few.

They are interesting numbers. And, a lot of those stockpiling weapons are crazies, like the Vegas shooter.

At the same time, I know a lot of “normal” folks who own double digit firearms. They’re almost all police and military, who shoot for recreation and are quasi-collectors.  I personally don’t think they “need” all those weapons, but I also think they’re exceedingly unlikely to ever use those guns in an illegal manner.

I think there should be more sensible gun control, but I also don’t want to punish responsible owners. Here, the system failed, and the only reason this wasn’t worse is because a responsible owner engaged the mass murderer with a firearm of his own.

So, by all means, let’s regulate / ban bump stocks and other devices that modify fire rate, regulate magazine clips, require safety courses, close transfer loopholes, etc. However, in the end it’s likely that nuts and crazies will still end up with a weapon one way or another.

Gun rights advocates frequently (pretty much in every instance of this debate) cite the idea of how, "if only citizen X was armed they could have stopped the shooter!").  This is the argument for arming teachers in schools!!!!   So, of course they are all over this aspect of this event.

The fact is, this is like the only time I've ever heard of such an 'armed good citizen' ever actually being able to engage and stop such a shooter.   Out of how many such mass shooting events?   There is a 'mass shooting event' happening practically every day in this country.   There are millions of gun owners out there.  You'd think more would be playing hero.

And another fact is, while the "armed good citizen" here may have helped end the carnage, his presence and actions did absolutely nothing to prevent it.   Those totally innocent people in the church are still dead.

He also led to the death of the shooter, which may have harmed things like motive, finding co-conspirators, etc.  It seems like this was an isolated incident with a more personal motive, but that didn't have to be the case.  What if the death of the shooter led to a more horrific crime that otherwise might have been stopped had he been taken alive?  What if he had heard gun shots and saw a man with a rifle and shot that man, but what if that was another person like him or an undercover officer who was engaging in the shooter?  Again, that wasn't the case this time, but it again could have just been luck.  What if he was engaging the shooter, and missed and killed some innocent bystander or multiple ones?  Again, that wasn't the case this time, but it again could have just been dumb luck.  It is a slippery slope to have citizens performing police like functions with guns.  A lot of bad things can happen when we let citizens take the law into their own hand.  Just because it seemingly worked out this time, that doesn't mean we should be promoting it.

I don't know. How's the police record on not shooting innocent people or preventing suicide by cop or taking active shooters alive? Seems less great than the "could have gone wrong" statistics we have of citizen defenders.

I'm unaware of the police shooting an individual in a confrontation with a mass shooting suspect.  If you are aware of those, please post them.  And sure sometimes the mass shooters are killed by police or commit suicide, sometimes they aren't.  Depends a great deal on the shooter, but I would absolutely trust the trained police a lot more than some random citizen in those situations.  And there are absolutely citizen defenders that cross lines.  Perhaps you remember Trayvon Martin.  Or maybe you recall that lady that shot at someone in a Wal-Mart parking lot.  Situations like this are heated and bring out emotions, a trained officer is much more likely to deal with and control their emotions than an untrained civilian.

Just a simple Google search will give you examples of police shooting bystanders.

My criticism is that your argument provided reasons why citizens should not defend with arms, without providing evidence of those things actually happening WHILE saying the police should handle it for those very reasons when we actually have evidence of police causing the problems you listed. The argument as stated doesn't make sense.

I agree with you. It sounds like a job for the police. But I'm not opposed to trying to determine whether that intuition is in fact true.

I did a google search before I asked and nothing came up with respect to mass shootings (I realize bystanders get shot in other situations, but those are vastly different situations).  That is why I asked you for these situations you aware of. 

[Roy H.]

I think this "good guy with a gun" discussion is missing the point.  In this case the good guy had a hunting rifle.  No one is suggesting that additional restrictions be applied to hunting rifles.  The discussion is about restrictions on military rifles.  If military rifles were somehow magically fully banned, this good guy Texan would still have his hunting rifle and he still could have acted in the way he did.  The difference would be that the bad guy would be shooting at the church with a hunting rifle also instead of an assault rifle.  He would probably have only killed a few people instead of 26 (or whatever the number is now) before the good guy shot him.

Somehow these discussion always seem to go immediately from from "let's ban assault weapons" to "liberals want to take away all guns from everyone".  It would not be that hard to fix this if people just tried a little.

What’s the distinction between hunting rifles and assault rifles? Do you want to ban anything with a magazine?

[gift]

Until folks really confront the reality that the extreme volume of guns in this country is tightly correlated with our extreme rates of mass shootings, these conversations will tend to go nowhere.

There are solid studies that show high correlation between mass shooting rates and per-capita gun ownership -- even if you exclude the United States!   The U.S. just leaps off the chart in both categories.

Some bizarro numbers that paint a rather interesting picture of "our" sick, extreme obsession with guns:

• The US currently has about 4.4 percent of the global population, yet owns 42 percent of the world's guns (non-military).    When you poke further, and realize that 32% of Americans own those guns, that means just about 1.4% of the world's population is holding 42% of the world's guns!
  
• Even more extreme, consider that the vast majority of gun owners only own one gun.   Just 3% of the US population (or about .13% of the world's population) own half the guns in the U.S., or about 21% of all the guns in the world!
  
• In absolute numbers, that means that about 9.7 million Americans own a combined ~133 million guns.
  
• For that segment of 'heavy gun ownership' of the population (less than 1 in 30 people), that's an average of over 13 guns per person!
  

What the heck do those few people need ALL THOSE FREAKING GUNS FOR??

Are they planning to repel a commie invasion?  Are they planning on forming a "militia" to take on the U.S. military in a coupe?  Preparing for the zombie apocalypse?  What?

This has gotten way past the insane point.

Do you know at least 30 people?  Do you find it a little unnerving to realize that chances are that one of those 30 people might have an arsenal of 13+ guns?  (Obviously, that's not evenly distributed geographically so the chances really vary from state to state).

When will the vast majority of the U.S. that actually _isn't_ obsessed with extreme hoarding of guns finally notice what is going on and stand up and say, "Enough!"?   

Sadly, probably never, given our complete lack of response to Sandy Hook.

It's as if the vast majority, some ~314M Americans ,are held hostage, forced to accommodate the manic obsessions of those few.

They are interesting numbers. And, a lot of those stockpiling weapons are crazies, like the Vegas shooter.

At the same time, I know a lot of “normal” folks who own double digit firearms. They’re almost all police and military, who shoot for recreation and are quasi-collectors.  I personally don’t think they “need” all those weapons, but I also think they’re exceedingly unlikely to ever use those guns in an illegal manner.

I think there should be more sensible gun control, but I also don’t want to punish responsible owners. Here, the system failed, and the only reason this wasn’t worse is because a responsible owner engaged the mass murderer with a firearm of his own.

So, by all means, let’s regulate / ban bump stocks and other devices that modify fire rate, regulate magazine clips, require safety courses, close transfer loopholes, etc. However, in the end it’s likely that nuts and crazies will still end up with a weapon one way or another.

Gun rights advocates frequently (pretty much in every instance of this debate) cite the idea of how, "if only citizen X was armed they could have stopped the shooter!").  This is the argument for arming teachers in schools!!!!   So, of course they are all over this aspect of this event.

The fact is, this is like the only time I've ever heard of such an 'armed good citizen' ever actually being able to engage and stop such a shooter.   Out of how many such mass shooting events?   There is a 'mass shooting event' happening practically every day in this country.   There are millions of gun owners out there.  You'd think more would be playing hero.

And another fact is, while the "armed good citizen" here may have helped end the carnage, his presence and actions did absolutely nothing to prevent it.   Those totally innocent people in the church are still dead.

He also led to the death of the shooter, which may have harmed things like motive, finding co-conspirators, etc.  It seems like this was an isolated incident with a more personal motive, but that didn't have to be the case.  What if the death of the shooter led to a more horrific crime that otherwise might have been stopped had he been taken alive?  What if he had heard gun shots and saw a man with a rifle and shot that man, but what if that was another person like him or an undercover officer who was engaging in the shooter?  Again, that wasn't the case this time, but it again could have just been luck.  What if he was engaging the shooter, and missed and killed some innocent bystander or multiple ones?  Again, that wasn't the case this time, but it again could have just been dumb luck.  It is a slippery slope to have citizens performing police like functions with guns.  A lot of bad things can happen when we let citizens take the law into their own hand.  Just because it seemingly worked out this time, that doesn't mean we should be promoting it.

I don't know. How's the police record on not shooting innocent people or preventing suicide by cop or taking active shooters alive? Seems less great than the "could have gone wrong" statistics we have of citizen defenders.

I'm unaware of the police shooting an individual in a confrontation with a mass shooting suspect.  If you are aware of those, please post them.  And sure sometimes the mass shooters are killed by police or commit suicide, sometimes they aren't.  Depends a great deal on the shooter, but I would absolutely trust the trained police a lot more than some random citizen in those situations.  And there are absolutely citizen defenders that cross lines.  Perhaps you remember Trayvon Martin.  Or maybe you recall that lady that shot at someone in a Wal-Mart parking lot.  Situations like this are heated and bring out emotions, a trained officer is much more likely to deal with and control their emotions than an untrained civilian.

Just a simple Google search will give you examples of police shooting bystanders.

My criticism is that your argument provided reasons why citizens should not defend with arms, without providing evidence of those things actually happening WHILE saying the police should handle it for those very reasons when we actually have evidence of police causing the problems you listed. The argument as stated doesn't make sense.

I agree with you. It sounds like a job for the police. But I'm not opposed to trying to determine whether that intuition is in fact true.

I did a google search before I asked and nothing came up with respect to mass shootings (I realize bystanders get shot in other situations, but those are vastly different situations).  That is why I asked you for these situations you aware of.

I didn't limit my search to mass shootings because I didn't see why it would be relevant which type of conflict was involved. Can you tell me why it would be relevant?

I'm saying we have evidence that police can mess up in the ways you assumed citizens might. If police already mess up in situations other than in mass shootings, why wouldn't they also mess up during mass shootings (or more so)? I'm looking for proof that police handle these situations better than a theoretical citizen on the scene. Sounds right, but we can't overvalue our assumptions especially when we have glaring evidence that police make the very mistakes we're afraid of citizens making.

[Vermont Green]

I think this "good guy with a gun" discussion is missing the point.  In this case the good guy had a hunting rifle.  No one is suggesting that additional restrictions be applied to hunting rifles.  The discussion is about restrictions on military rifles.  If military rifles were somehow magically fully banned, this good guy Texan would still have his hunting rifle and he still could have acted in the way he did.  The difference would be that the bad guy would be shooting at the church with a hunting rifle also instead of an assault rifle.  He would probably have only killed a few people instead of 26 (or whatever the number is now) before the good guy shot him.

Somehow these discussion always seem to go immediately from from "let's ban assault weapons" to "liberals want to take away all guns from everyone".  It would not be that hard to fix this if people just tried a little.

What’s the distinction between hunting rifles and assault rifles? Do you want to ban anything with a magazine?

Yeah, that is a great question if your goal is to just shut down the discussion.  Back when I used to hunt (albeit never in Texas), there were very specific rules about what guns you could use to hunt what animals during specific seasons.  You could start there.  I bet even Texas has rules about what types of firearms you can hunt with.  But as I said, if you even tried just a little, this would be an easy thing to solve (kind of like defining p0rn).  Deciding what is a hunting rifle and what is not is not the issue.  The issue is that as soon as anyone even tries, the talking points come out to antagonize the base.

[Roy H.]

I think this "good guy with a gun" discussion is missing the point.  In this case the good guy had a hunting rifle.  No one is suggesting that additional restrictions be applied to hunting rifles.  The discussion is about restrictions on military rifles.  If military rifles were somehow magically fully banned, this good guy Texan would still have his hunting rifle and he still could have acted in the way he did.  The difference would be that the bad guy would be shooting at the church with a hunting rifle also instead of an assault rifle.  He would probably have only killed a few people instead of 26 (or whatever the number is now) before the good guy shot him.

Somehow these discussion always seem to go immediately from from "let's ban assault weapons" to "liberals want to take away all guns from everyone".  It would not be that hard to fix this if people just tried a little.

What’s the distinction between hunting rifles and assault rifles? Do you want to ban anything with a magazine?

Yeah, that is a great question if your goal is to just shut down the discussion.  Back when I used to hunt (albeit never in Texas), there were very specific rules about what guns you could use to hunt what animals during specific seasons.  You could start there.  I bet even Texas has rules about what types of firearms you can hunt with.  But as I said, if you even tried just a little, this would be an easy thing to solve (kind of like defining p0rn).  Deciding what is a hunting rifle and what is not is not the issue.  The issue is that as soon as anyone even tries, the talking points come out to antagonize the base.

There are different classes of guns: shotguns, muzzle-loaders, handguns, rifles

But in terms of rifles, I’m not sure that there’s a good line of demarcation between what a hunting rifle is and what isn’t. 

If asking “What is the difference between what you want to ban and do not want to ban?” is an unfair question, then obviously discussion is impossible.

[jpotter33]

I think this "good guy with a gun" discussion is missing the point.  In this case the good guy had a hunting rifle.  No one is suggesting that additional restrictions be applied to hunting rifles.  The discussion is about restrictions on military rifles.  If military rifles were somehow magically fully banned, this good guy Texan would still have his hunting rifle and he still could have acted in the way he did.  The difference would be that the bad guy would be shooting at the church with a hunting rifle also instead of an assault rifle.  He would probably have only killed a few people instead of 26 (or whatever the number is now) before the good guy shot him.

Somehow these discussion always seem to go immediately from from "let's ban assault weapons" to "liberals want to take away all guns from everyone".  It would not be that hard to fix this if people just tried a little.

What’s the distinction between hunting rifles and assault rifles? Do you want to ban anything with a magazine?

Yeah, that is a great question if your goal is to just shut down the discussion.  Back when I used to hunt (albeit never in Texas), there were very specific rules about what guns you could use to hunt what animals during specific seasons.  You could start there.  I bet even Texas has rules about what types of firearms you can hunt with.  But as I said, if you even tried just a little, this would be an easy thing to solve (kind of like defining p0rn).  Deciding what is a hunting rifle and what is not is not the issue.  The issue is that as soon as anyone even tries, the talking points come out to antagonize the base.

A) You're completely mistaken with your initial premise. Willeford used the exact same type of gun that the gunman used, that is an AR-15.

http://beta.latimes.com/nation/la-na-texas-shooting-guns-20171106-story.html

https://www.google.com/amp/amp.nationalreview.com/corner/453470/texas-hero-reportedly-used-his-own-ar-confront-sutherland-springs-shooter

B) Your claim that he would've only killed a few with a hunting rifle is nonsense. Both guns below are the exact type of caliber with the exact capacity and overall level of deadliness, and both were equally capable of performing what occurred in Texas, even though I'm sure you'd consider one a "hunting" rifle and one a "military" rifle. The only real difference is that one is "black and scary" with more possible modifications that have a negligible effect on its deadliness (none of which were reported to be used in this instance, such as bump stocks or super high capacity magazines).



You've made this argument before in other threads, and I've thoroughly explained to you why this notion just isn't as clear cut as you're arguing. Perhaps the reason there are these "talking points" regarding your argument  is because it's  just a bad argument that doesn't play out in reality.

Yes, there's absolutely certain restrictions that we should already have, such as on these bump stock modifications and super capacity magazines, and we should probably ban all private sales of firearms outside of FFL dealers. But this notion that there's this huge class of "military" rifles out there that are so conceptually distinct from "hunting" rifles that aren't already banned or very tightly regulated is just a fantasy. The overwhelming majority of these acts are committed by AR-15s, which when not modified are essentially just black ranch rifles that are used to hunt coyotes, deer, pigs, and many other animals due to being one of the most popular guns/calibers for medium to big-sized game.

[mmmmm]

Until folks really confront the reality that the extreme volume of guns in this country is tightly correlated with our extreme rates of mass shootings, these conversations will tend to go nowhere.

There are solid studies that show high correlation between mass shooting rates and per-capita gun ownership -- even if you exclude the United States!   The U.S. just leaps off the chart in both categories.

Some bizarro numbers that paint a rather interesting picture of "our" sick, extreme obsession with guns:

• The US currently has about 4.4 percent of the global population, yet owns 42 percent of the world's guns (non-military).    When you poke further, and realize that 32% of Americans own those guns, that means just about 1.4% of the world's population is holding 42% of the world's guns!
  
• Even more extreme, consider that the vast majority of gun owners only own one gun.   Just 3% of the US population (or about .13% of the world's population) own half the guns in the U.S., or about 21% of all the guns in the world!
  
• In absolute numbers, that means that about 9.7 million Americans own a combined ~133 million guns.
  
• For that segment of 'heavy gun ownership' of the population (less than 1 in 30 people), that's an average of over 13 guns per person!
  

What the heck do those few people need ALL THOSE FREAKING GUNS FOR??

Are they planning to repel a commie invasion?  Are they planning on forming a "militia" to take on the U.S. military in a coupe?  Preparing for the zombie apocalypse?  What?

This has gotten way past the insane point.

Do you know at least 30 people?  Do you find it a little unnerving to realize that chances are that one of those 30 people might have an arsenal of 13+ guns?  (Obviously, that's not evenly distributed geographically so the chances really vary from state to state).

When will the vast majority of the U.S. that actually _isn't_ obsessed with extreme hoarding of guns finally notice what is going on and stand up and say, "Enough!"?   

Sadly, probably never, given our complete lack of response to Sandy Hook.

It's as if the vast majority, some ~314M Americans ,are held hostage, forced to accommodate the manic obsessions of those few.

They are interesting numbers. And, a lot of those stockpiling weapons are crazies, like the Vegas shooter.

At the same time, I know a lot of “normal” folks who own double digit firearms. They’re almost all police and military, who shoot for recreation and are quasi-collectors.  I personally don’t think they “need” all those weapons, but I also think they’re exceedingly unlikely to ever use those guns in an illegal manner.

I think there should be more sensible gun control, but I also don’t want to punish responsible owners. Here, the system failed, and the only reason this wasn’t worse is because a responsible owner engaged the mass murderer with a firearm of his own.

So, by all means, let’s regulate / ban bump stocks and other devices that modify fire rate, regulate magazine clips, require safety courses, close transfer loopholes, etc. However, in the end it’s likely that nuts and crazies will still end up with a weapon one way or another.

Gun rights advocates frequently (pretty much in every instance of this debate) cite the idea of how, "if only citizen X was armed they could have stopped the shooter!").  This is the argument for arming teachers in schools!!!!   So, of course they are all over this aspect of this event.

The fact is, this is like the only time I've ever heard of such an 'armed good citizen' ever actually being able to engage and stop such a shooter.   Out of how many such mass shooting events?   There is a 'mass shooting event' happening practically every day in this country.   There are millions of gun owners out there.  You'd think more would be playing hero.

And another fact is, while the "armed good citizen" here may have helped end the carnage, his presence and actions did absolutely nothing to prevent it.   Those totally innocent people in the church are still dead.

He also led to the death of the shooter, which may have harmed things like motive, finding co-conspirators, etc.  It seems like this was an isolated incident with a more personal motive, but that didn't have to be the case.  What if the death of the shooter led to a more horrific crime that otherwise might have been stopped had he been taken alive?  What if he had heard gun shots and saw a man with a rifle and shot that man, but what if that was another person like him or an undercover officer who was engaging in the shooter?  Again, that wasn't the case this time, but it again could have just been luck.  What if he was engaging the shooter, and missed and killed some innocent bystander or multiple ones?  Again, that wasn't the case this time, but it again could have just been dumb luck.  It is a slippery slope to have citizens performing police like functions with guns.  A lot of bad things can happen when we let citizens take the law into their own hand.  Just because it seemingly worked out this time, that doesn't mean we should be promoting it.

I don't know. How's the police record on not shooting innocent people or preventing suicide by cop or taking active shooters alive? Seems less great than the "could have gone wrong" statistics we have of citizen defenders.

I'm unaware of the police shooting an individual in a confrontation with a mass shooting suspect.  If you are aware of those, please post them.  And sure sometimes the mass shooters are killed by police or commit suicide, sometimes they aren't.  Depends a great deal on the shooter, but I would absolutely trust the trained police a lot more than some random citizen in those situations.  And there are absolutely citizen defenders that cross lines.  Perhaps you remember Trayvon Martin.  Or maybe you recall that lady that shot at someone in a Wal-Mart parking lot.  Situations like this are heated and bring out emotions, a trained officer is much more likely to deal with and control their emotions than an untrained civilian.

Just a simple Google search will give you examples of police shooting bystanders.

My criticism is that your argument provided reasons why citizens should not defend with arms, without providing evidence of those things actually happening WHILE saying the police should handle it for those very reasons when we actually have evidence of police causing the problems you listed. The argument as stated doesn't make sense.

I agree with you. It sounds like a job for the police. But I'm not opposed to trying to determine whether that intuition is in fact true.

I did a google search before I asked and nothing came up with respect to mass shootings (I realize bystanders get shot in other situations, but those are vastly different situations).  That is why I asked you for these situations you aware of.

I didn't limit my search to mass shootings because I didn't see why it would be relevant which type of conflict was involved. Can you tell me why it would be relevant?

I'm saying we have evidence that police can mess up in the ways you assumed citizens might. If police already mess up in situations other than in mass shootings, why wouldn't they also mess up during mass shootings (or more so)? I'm looking for proof that police handle these situations better than a theoretical citizen on the scene. Sounds right, but we can't overvalue our assumptions especially when we have glaring evidence that police make the very mistakes we're afraid of citizens making.

So ... where are you going with this? 

If the police have some number of screw-ups happen across a zillion different incidents where they might need to use force (especially since you are expanding the type of incident to be everything, not just mass shooting incidents) .. what?   Because they are not perfect, that leads to what conclusion?

There is never going to be 100% 'proof' that the police will be a better responder to a situation than a given 'armed citizen might be'.   But that's not a valid argument for why one should  place _dependency_ on the "armed citizen" to take on the responsibility (that current lies with the police) to be a forceful responder in these situations.

The police are trained, paid and charged by society with this responsibility.   A lawful society requires the legitimate agents of that society to have a monopoly on violence.    THAT is the reason for depending on the police to be the responders with force in these situations.  Not any imaginary expectation of perfection.

[Vermont Green]

I stand by my point that a distinction between hunting and non-hunting rifles could be solved if someone only tried.  Much like you have to define commercial and non-commercial vehicles for licensing.  There is always grey area in the middle.  18-wheeler, easy, Prius, easy, Vans and pickup trucks, a little grey, but this didn't prevent the application of reasonable regulation on who can drive what.

Here is a sample of hunting rules in Texas that address what firearms you can hunt with.  It took me 60 seconds to find this.  It is not the whole answer but an easy place to start.

Firearms

 Game animals and game birds may be hunted with any legal firearm, except:

white-tailed deer, mule deer, desert bighorn sheep, and pronghorn antelope may not be hunted with rimfire ammunition of any caliber.
shotguns are the only legal firearm that may be used to hunt Eastern turkey during the spring Eastern turkey season (see County Listing). Rifles and handguns may not be used to hunt Eastern turkey.
pellet guns and other air guns are not legal for the take of any game bird or game animal other than squirrel. To be lawful for the take of squirrel, an air rifle must be designed to be fired from the shoulder and use the force of a spring, air, or other non-ignited compressed gas to expel a projectile of at least .177 caliber (4.5mm) at a minimum muzzle velocity of 600 feet per second.
fully automatic firearms are not legal.
a shotgun is the only legal firearm for hunting migratory game birds (see Definitions - Legal Shotgun).
Silencers may be used to take any wildlife resource; however, all federal, state and local laws continue to apply.
Nongame Animals (Non-Protected) may be hunted with any lawful firearm, pellet gun, or other air gun.

[kozlodoev]

Broken clock Ted Cruz bumbles into the explanation of America's gun problem:

“Evil is evil is evil,” Cruz said on CNN, “and will use the weaponry that is available.”

This, it turns out, is exactly the point made by gun control advocates. There are bad people in every society in the world. The US is not unique in this regard, and I don’t think Cruz is saying that America is uniquely evil.

What Americans seem to have, instead, is extra stock of — and way more access to — incredibly deadly weapons in the form of firearms. And this stock and access give bad people an easier way to commit mass atrocities — more so than they’d be able to if they only had access to, say, a baseball bat or a knife.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/11/6/16615218/ted-cruz-gun-control-sutherland-springs-texas-shooting

[Roy H.]

I stand by my point that a distinction between hunting and non-hunting rifles could be solved if someone only tried.  Much like you have to define commercial and non-commercial vehicles for licensing.  There is always grey area in the middle.  18-wheeler, easy, Prius, easy, Vans and pickup trucks, a little grey, but this didn't prevent the application of reasonable regulation on who can drive what.

Here is a sample of hunting rules in Texas that address what firearms you can hunt with.  It took me 60 seconds to find this.  It is not the whole answer but an easy place to start.

Firearms

 Game animals and game birds may be hunted with any legal firearm, except:

white-tailed deer, mule deer, desert bighorn sheep, and pronghorn antelope may not be hunted with rimfire ammunition of any caliber.
shotguns are the only legal firearm that may be used to hunt Eastern turkey during the spring Eastern turkey season (see County Listing). Rifles and handguns may not be used to hunt Eastern turkey.
pellet guns and other air guns are not legal for the take of any game bird or game animal other than squirrel. To be lawful for the take of squirrel, an air rifle must be designed to be fired from the shoulder and use the force of a spring, air, or other non-ignited compressed gas to expel a projectile of at least .177 caliber (4.5mm) at a minimum muzzle velocity of 600 feet per second.
fully automatic firearms are not legal.
a shotgun is the only legal firearm for hunting migratory game birds (see Definitions - Legal Shotgun).
Silencers may be used to take any wildlife resource; however, all federal, state and local laws continue to apply.
Nongame Animals (Non-Protected) may be hunted with any lawful firearm, pellet gun, or other air gun.

Right. There’s no definition of “rifle”, and certainly not a distinction between hunting rifle and assault rifle.  That’s because it’s essentially a distinction without a difference.

[jpotter33]

I stand by my point that a distinction between hunting and non-hunting rifles could be solved if someone only tried.  Much like you have to define commercial and non-commercial vehicles for licensing.  There is always grey area in the middle.  18-wheeler, easy, Prius, easy, Vans and pickup trucks, a little grey, but this didn't prevent the application of reasonable regulation on who can drive what.

Here is a sample of hunting rules in Texas that address what firearms you can hunt with.  It took me 60 seconds to find this.  It is not the whole answer but an easy place to start.

Firearms

 Game animals and game birds may be hunted with any legal firearm, except:

white-tailed deer, mule deer, desert bighorn sheep, and pronghorn antelope may not be hunted with rimfire ammunition of any caliber.
shotguns are the only legal firearm that may be used to hunt Eastern turkey during the spring Eastern turkey season (see County Listing). Rifles and handguns may not be used to hunt Eastern turkey.
pellet guns and other air guns are not legal for the take of any game bird or game animal other than squirrel. To be lawful for the take of squirrel, an air rifle must be designed to be fired from the shoulder and use the force of a spring, air, or other non-ignited compressed gas to expel a projectile of at least .177 caliber (4.5mm) at a minimum muzzle velocity of 600 feet per second.
fully automatic firearms are not legal.
a shotgun is the only legal firearm for hunting migratory game birds (see Definitions - Legal Shotgun).
Silencers may be used to take any wildlife resource; however, all federal, state and local laws continue to apply.
Nongame Animals (Non-Protected) may be hunted with any lawful firearm, pellet gun, or other air gun.

As I explained before, there are 50 different states with 50 different sets of rules, and people hunt in differing states all of the time. It's just not practical.

Give us some examples. Should a .223 be classified as a "military" rifle? What about a more powerful, but much less common,  rifle like a .308?

[ImShakHeIsShaq]

Facts are facts, a "good guy with a gun" is overwhelmingly more likely to accidentally shoot himself or someone he knows rather than a bad guy. For all the statistics lovers there are studies upon studies on this very topic. In Dallas you couldn't get more "GGWAG" if you tried and how did that turn out? In fact, it didn't end with a "GGWAG" it ended with a "good robot with a bomb."