Good Guy with a Gun

[Karha of Honor]

Name some, please.

Less cohesion among the people at the margins because of the large number of immigrants, population, the number of big cities that are hard to police, spillover from Mexico that has larger Cartel related massacres than the number of US war casualties in this century...

[Admiral X]

The whole "Good Guy with a Gun" thing is a really goofy defense for lax gun control,

The process necessary to get a CCW permit is hardly lax.

because even if you accept the premise, a Good Guy with a Gun can only ever be reactionary. That is, the Bad Guy with a Gun has to have already begun his criminal act before the Good Guy can stop it. So either way, Good Guy or no, people are going to die or be injured at the very least. It isn't a form of prevention, so it's not even a solution to the problem. It's a thought terminating cliche.

The police are also only reactionary, and the difference is that it takes a while for them to get there. So, yeah, some people are going to get shot, but hopefully not as many as if no one was armed. You know, like that dance club in Orlando, which happened exactly as you advocate, because no one there was carrying, and the police were the ones to finally shut him down. Of course, a lot of people died by then. Compare that to this shooting or that other recent example I brought up.

Now if only there were proactive solutions to gun violence, ones that had perhaps been tried in other countries and been shown to work.

Ah yes, we must ban all the guns and make it so that only the government we accuse of being corrupt and racist and criminals have them. Yeah, pardon me if as a Native I'm a bit leery of the government disarming me.

If only, but as we all know, every country has exactly the same amount of gun violence as the United States.

Because every country is exactly the same as the US - oh wait....

[J!!]

https://gimletmedia.com/episode/guns/

https://gimletmedia.com/episode/gun-control/

[Wild_Kraken]

The police are also only reactionary, and the difference is that it takes a while for them to get there. So, yeah, some people are going to get shot, but hopefully not as many as if no one was armed. You know, like that dance club in Orlando, which happened exactly as you advocate, because no one there was carrying, and the police were the ones to finally shut him down. Of course, a lot of people died by then. Compare that to this shooting or that other recent example I brought up.

Indeed. Which is specifically why I stated we need proactive solutions that address the fundamental factors of gun violence. Pretty much anything else wouldn't actually solve the problem of mass shootings.

As an example, let's imagine the Pulse shooting in this kind of perfect gun utopia. Even if there were no restrictions on it, why would you assume that anyone else in the building would have a gun? Unless your solution is to literally force everyone to be armed at all times, there will always be situations where the Good Guy with a Gun is not present, and so could not intervene. You would be waiting for the police either way. Now let's assume that there is a Good Guy with a Gun at Pulse. What's the guarantee that they're not one of the first people killed when the Bad Guy opens fire? The Good Guy with a Gun scenario relies on so many factors:

1. That they'll be present at the scene of a shooting.
2. That they won't be incapacitated in the opening moments.
3. That they'll actually know what to do in that situation.
4. That they won't just run away or hide.
5. That they only injure/kill the Bad Guy.
etc. etc.

Having a public safety policy contingent on so many factors in order to be successful, and even in the best case scenario still resulting in injuries at the least, is completely inexcusable, and to be blunt, immoral.

Ah yes, we must ban all the guns and make it so that only the government we accuse of being corrupt and racist and criminals have them. Yeah, pardon me if as a Native I'm a bit leery of the government disarming me.

You know what other people are leery of? Randomly being shot as they go about their day to day lives. Why should your feelings trump theirs?

Because every country is exactly the same as the US - oh wait....

In a very real sense, yes, countries are mostly the same as each other. Despite cultural, religious, legal, and traditional differences, people are essentially the same wherever you go. And so there are various broad policies that will have basically the same effect wherever they are tried, with at most minor tweaking for specific circumstances. As an example, no one would seriously argue that two countries could be so different that a policy of dumping vinyl chloride into the drinking water of one would be good, while dumping vinyl chloride into the drinking water of the other would be bad. The idea that America is just too different, too exceptional that policies that other countries have consistently shown to be successful won't work is special pleading bullshit.

[Antiboyscout]

You want to know a country that tries to emulate European style gun control?

Mexico

What's that about cultural differences not making that big of an impact?

Also, there is a big difference between putting chemicals in the water (effectiveness is based on biology not culture) and deciding whether or not to take away a civil right.

[TGLS]

The whole "Good Guy with a Gun" thing is a really goofy defense for lax gun control,

The process necessary to get a CCW permit is hardly lax.

Unless you live in one of the dozen or so unrestricted concealed carry states, like Vermont or Alaska.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

Name some, please.

Less cohesion among the people at the margins because of the large number of immigrants, population, the number of big cities that are hard to police, spillover from Mexico that has larger Cartel related massacres than the number of US war casualties in this century...

Australia, the UK, those get plenty of immigrants. What do you mean by "less cohesion" exactly, and how does that prevent meaningful gun control?

Do you think other nations don't have criminal activity on their borders? Do you have evidence that cartel-related massacres make up any significant portion of the shootings? Cuz almost every time I tune into the news, the shooter is one creepy white guy with a strange grudge, and not part of an organized criminal syndicate.

China is packed full of big cities. Ditto Japan. When was the last time you heard about a mass shooting there? I bet it wasn't a week away from the last mass shooting.

[Wild_Kraken]

You want to know a country that tries to emulate European style gun control?

Mexico

What's that about cultural differences not making that big of an impact?

Also, there is a big difference between putting chemicals in the water (effectiveness is based on biology not culture) and deciding whether or not to take away a civil right.

The problems Mexico has with its violence isn't anything inherent to the culture of Mexico. It's the direct result of American policies in the drug war. In some sense, the conflict is really an American one that has been externalized to Mexico. End the war on drugs in the US and the drug war in Mexico would end.

And then European style gun control would work.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

Couldn't we at least TRY some kind of gun control? Like, enact TEMPORARY legislation set to expire after a year unless we renew it, then SEE if the massive deaths stop.

Wouldn't it be worth it, even if we could just reduce the mass shootings to "Once every two months"? Isn't it worth the attempt if it saves countless innocent lives?

[The Romulan Republic]

A bystander with a gun can stop a criminal in some situations, certainly.

However, it does not follow that this is the ideal solution in all circumstances. Take the Aurora Colorado theatre shooting, for example, or the Pulse Nightclub shooting. In a dark, crowded, chaotic room, where the only thing to aim at is probably the flashes or sounds of the other shooters' gunfire, what do you think would have likely happened if multiple bystanders had been armed and had returned fire?

Yeah, think about that for a minute.

Or the Vegas shooting a month ago. How many civilians are going to be able to pick off a sniper the window of an overlooking building, as opposed to a) doing nothing or b) panic-firing into the crowd?

What it comes down to is that most civilians are not trained to deal with an armed opponent, do not have experience in such situations, and stand a very good chance of just making things worse.

I mean, think of all the problems we have with cops and soldiers firing when they shouldn't (or not firing when they should). And that's after the training.

That said, I for one have no problem with legalized private ownership of firearms, and even if I did, I would recognize that any reform on the issue in the United States must be done legally, within the bounds set by the 2nd. Amendment and the courts' interpretation of it, or via a Constitutional Amendment.

What I do have a problem with is a toxic culture which is so paranoid about losing their guns that they will not even accept minimal regulations to keep massive firepower out of the hands of people known to be criminals or violently unstable in the name of public safety, and a lobby interest which, to push a far Right agenda, constantly whips these people into a frenzy of fear and rage while maintaining such a lock on our political institutions that even having an open, honest debate on the issue is effectively impossible.