When he says he knows the threats. Is that, you think, specific to his choice of career or a general societal observation?

I lived in the US for a decade. I've lived on 4 continents in 5 countries and have yet to go through my daily existence feeling as threatened as some people apparently do.

Either I am naive or they are paranoid........

I agree with his broader point though.......

i can't say. it seems to me a general societal observation. i think it speaks to the issues raised in this OpEd.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Bulimia and anorexia, have rates decreased?

I read that editorial in another thread.

Girls self harm, get eating disorders and in general do not take guns to school and kill other people

The article suggests girls are knocking it out the park whilst boys are melting down and unloading ar-15's with huge regularity but that's not a reasonable comparison

Are boys left behind? This one killed 17 BUT he was one individual.

The issue here is incidence, how many boys have done this. How many have not and how many girls have developed other disorders as a result of their own issues.

There is a gun accessibility problem

There is a access to mental health services problem

I have seen no one prove that there is a huge difference in the incidence of mental health problems between boys and girls

If more girls self harm, die of eating disorders or are institutionalised as a result of mental health issues than boys kill others in school shootings do we really think the problem is boys and girls are still knocking it out of the park?

One is massively obvious in the news coverage. The other - girls self harming or with eating disorders - gets nothing.

If boys expressed it in another way no one would give two shits about them and they could keep their guns.

The gun problem needs to be resolved. The mental health access needs to be resolved and we need to compare like with like with respect to rates of mental health problems between the sexes. School shootings is not a proxy for a difference in mental health incidence rates

Two things from Congressman Mast's comments.

"The Second Amendment is unimpeachable. It guarantees the right of citizens to defend themselves. I accept, however, that it does not guarantee that every civilian can bear any and all arms. For example, the purchase of fully automatic firearms is largely banned already, and I cannot purchase an AT-4 rocket, grenades, a Bradley fighting vehicle or an Abrams tank. Therefore, I support the following: Defining what constitutes an assault or tactical firearm and not allowing them for future purchase — just as we already prohibit the purchase of fully automatic firearms."

The NRA (and some of their members) would look a lot better to other people if they would show some flexibility when it comes to restrictions on guns and gun ownership.

"I am confident I can eliminate an active shooter who is attacking with a pistol because the attacker would have to be close to me. But the defense my concealed 9-millimeter affords me is largely gone if the attacker is firing from beyond 40 yards, as he could easily do with the AR-15."

A question for the folks who do a lot of shooting. How many people are capable of hitting something at 40 yards with a handgun? (Unless they're talking about shooting paper silhouettes on a controlled range.) Hitting someone even at 25 yards seemed pretty optimistic based on my experience shooting handguns in the military. I agree with his point about not wanting to take on someone with a rifle if all I had was a handgun.

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"Human existence is based upon two pillars: Compassion and knowledge. Compassion without knowledge is ineffective; Knowledge without compassion is inhuman." Victor Weisskopf.

I agree with his point about not wanting to take on someone with a rifle if all I had was a handgun. ///


So now we are going to arm the teachers, janitors, and cafe workers with AR-15's?? Eye for an eye, gun for a gun...(-;


Of course I'm joking, but wanna bet on whether the NRA takes his comments and runs with this line of thought??

x2 on this. have never lived in the states but have traveled there often. otherwise i've lived in canada, spain, germany, australia, switzerland, nepal, kenya, namibia, south africa and sierra leone. never thought i'd want to carry a gun.

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____________________________________
https://lshtm.academia.edu/MikeCallaghan

http://howtobeswiss.blogspot.ch/

x2 on this. have never lived in the states but have traveled there often. otherwise i've lived in canada, spain, germany, australia, switzerland, nepal, kenya, namibia, south africa and sierra leone. never thought i'd want to carry a gun.

I lived in Canada, Bermuda, Thailand, Philippines and the U.S for 5 years in addition to traveling in a lot of poor countries around the world. Many of the places I was in were places where I was repeatedly warned about the imminent danger to my life and I was completely defenseless. In my 56 years, I've never once wished I had a gun and was never in a situation where having a gun would have been an advantage.

I'm convinced that people who insist on carrying a weapon "to be safe" are either paranoid or spend way too much time reading about and focusing on crime. I think people carry guns because they like guns and like carrying one and it has nothing to do with keeping you safe.

Ditto on this sentiment, and I'll add that I can think of a handful of incidents when I was pretty glad that some crazed knuckle-dragger did not have a gun. The prospect of living in a country where powerful people from the President down will go to the wall to ensure that every angry budding sociopath will experience zero impediments to having a gun somehow would not make me feel safer at all. Kinda the opposite, actually.

I guess I must have been “really paranoid” when I went into a high crime area early this week to shoot a rental with a concealed 9mm when I saw gang bangers hanging next door. I guess I was “really paranoid” when my Spidey Senses went up as I pulled up to the property. I guess this 5’3” 135lb white guy must be “really paranoid” if he wants to protect himself and his gear too. Do I like carrying? No, but I do like personal protection.

I'm convinced you are a sheep and not a sheep dog.

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If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went. - Will Rogers

Emery's Third Coast Triathlon | Tri Wisconsin Triathlon Team | Push Endurance | GLWR

So if it was concealed, presumably they didn't see it. All they saw was the 5’3” 135lb white guy with all his gear, yet they did not approach? Does this not imply you were being paranoid and in that particular instance you did not need to be carrying?

My contention is that (as he said) there are currently limitations on which arms we can bear. They are constitutional. Further, that we all support limitations on arms citizens can bear. We just disagree with where to draw the lines.

The last AR ban had almost zero impact on shootings. I think the government should focus on enforcing the laws in place and come up with a better response to reported threats.

slowguy made the same point. he wrote, "As has been repeatedly pointed out, more of these mass shootings (more than 3 times as many incidents since 1982) have been perpetrated with other types of weapons, handguns mostly (by an almost 2/1 ratio). Again, facts, knowledge, evidence. "

then i decided perhaps the thing to do was to go back and look at mass shootings, and i started with the election of obama, because that's when the gun sales really started to ratchet up. and this is what i found - and i just started with the mass shootings with the most fatalities, and drifted down until it got into the single digits:

las vegas, 2017, 58 killed, tactical rifle
orlando, 2016, 49 killed, tactical rifle
sandy hook, 2012, 28 killed, tactical rifle
sutherland, tx, 2017, 25 killed, tactical rifle
parkland, 2018, 17 killed, tactical rifle
san bernardino, 2015, 14 killed, tactical rifles + semi auto pistols
fort hood, 2009, 13 killed, semi auto pistol
washington navy yard, 2009, 12 killed, tactical rifle
aurora, 2012, 12 killed, tactical rifle
kinston, al, 2009, 10 killed, tactical rifle

i must conclude, based on this, that the assault weapons ban did make a difference, if what slowguy writes is correct.

not only are the stats what they are (i just provided them), but i think it's notable that if you are a mass shooter, this is overwhelmingly the weapon you choose, unless your shooting spree requires concealment until the spree commences.

but this is just what my best sense tells me. i don't have any talking points on this. i'm not on anyone's mailing list. i did my own research. i formed my own conclusion.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Someone has been reading Brad Thor novels ...

drn92

Arming school people is not something I am in favor of personally. When law enforcement shows up who are they to know who the “good guy” is vs the “bad guy.” It is entirely possible a cop would shoot a teacher not knowing who they are, and that isn’t something I think we want to risk. There is way too much risk in arming schools in my book.

Also how soon before a student somehow gains access to the guns and uses it for a school shooting?

Shootings are very emotional and facts cannot address feelings but we cannot ignore the facts when passing laws or we'll have bad laws.

Assuming the identified problem is murder you would be much better off banning handguns and knives than you would semi automatic rifles. According the FBI rifles account for 2.07% of all homicides. Hand guns account for 47% of murders and knives or cutting instruments 13%. Nearly three times the amount of people are murdered with hands, fists, and feet than are murdered with rifles.

Sick people do bad things and our law enforcement has failed us, not the NRA or the millions of people who own semi automatic rifles. The FBI was warned about the shooter twice. The Broward County Sheriff's office was called to the shooters house either 39 or 23 times (depending on who you believe) since 2010. In November the sheriff's office was told that the shooter "could be as school shooter in the making" and those idiots didn't even make a report. A relative of the shooter called and urged the sheriff to take his guns. Finally, the armed police officer at the school didn't even enter the building until until minute 5 of the six minute shooting. The people who were paid to protect the children and the community failed.

agreed. but assuming the identified problem is mass shootings you'd be much better off banning tactical rifles. as you note, there is a lot of emotion invested in the issue, but we cannot ignore the facts.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

And you?

A sheep dog.

Good boooy!!

Keep at it.

Maybe your master will give you a second biscuit tonight.

Sorry dude.

I appreciate having a genuine sheep dog around.

How many rounds did you unload into the property? :)

So you're using a situation where no one bothered you or gave you any trouble as a case study for justification of concealed carry? :)

I'd have borrowed one of the monthly good-guy-with-gun stories out of American Rifleman.

Who are you talking about? It would be easier to follow if you put it in the subject line or in the first line of your post.

The problem with the opinion that an AR-15 should be banned because it allows an attacker to hit targets beyond 40 yards is that ALL long weapons have that ability. Even a muzzle loader from the Civil War has the ability to accurately hit targets at 100 yds., and there were plenty of sharpshooters in the Revolutionary War who could do the same. Even a shotgun has the ability hit targets at 100 yds or more if properly set up, and getting hit with an ounce of hollow point lead from a sabot round will do a lot more damage than a .223 round, even if it hits high level body armor.