Another Movie Theatre Shooting

[Balta1701]

I wonder what those numbers look like if you excluded Chicago. It seems to be the one place where it's getting worse. (And Milwaukee )

using the FBI definition of mass shootings, 4 or more in a single event, Chicago doesn't show up as a hotbed in the last couple years. It has a couple but doesn't stand out like it does with its normal murder rate.

[greg775]

Be honest and think here.

 

In a movie theater, under fire, it's dark, only light is from the screen. You really think that under fire, probably from behind, you could turn around, aim, and get a clean shot off without accidentally hitting the wrong person? While the person has a semi-automatic handgun and can keep pulling the trigger?

 

Per the police, as the crowd was leaving the theater this guy snuck into it and almost got out of the theater before someone stopped the crowd/stopped him. The people fleeing the room didn't identify the shooter as he left the theater with the group. They couldn't tell. Now you're telling me you could honestly figure out who the shooter was with enough accuracy to pull the trigger?

 

The closest example of a mass shooting interacting with a person carrying a weapon I can think of is the Gabrielle Giffords shooting and the person across the street who had the gun nearly shot the wrong person. And that was in the daylight.

Well, I have confidence in Tex, that he'd get the guy.

Just kidding (sorry, on a sensitive subject). But you make some good points, I'll give you that. I just want to see some progress on this problem. I mean, f***, you are risking your life going to a movie nowadays. Thank goodness he picked a night there were only 25 people in the damn theatre, not 225.

[caulfield12]

Be honest and think here.

 

In a movie theater, under fire, it's dark, only light is from the screen. You really think that under fire, probably from behind, you could turn around, aim, and get a clean shot off without accidentally hitting the wrong person? While the person has a semi-automatic handgun and can keep pulling the trigger?

 

Per the police, as the crowd was leaving the theater this guy snuck into it and almost got out of the theater before someone stopped the crowd/stopped him. The people fleeing the room didn't identify the shooter as he left the theater with the group. They couldn't tell. Now you're telling me you could honestly figure out who the shooter was with enough accuracy to pull the trigger?

 

The closest example of a mass shooting interacting with a person carrying a weapon I can think of is the Gabrielle Giffords shooting and the person across the street who had the gun nearly shot the wrong person. And that was in the daylight.

 

And he had bright dyed orange hair...and it was still not easy in the dark.

[EvilMonkey]

http://nbc4i.com/2015/07/23/armed-citizens...ruiting-center/

http://www.people.com/people/mobile/articl...0902537,00.html

The don't just 'go off' without someone, or something, pulling the trigger. The old movie cliche where someone drops a gun and it goes off is very wrong. Doesn't happen. People claim it 'just went off' because they are too embarrassed to say they tried to grab the gun when they dropped it and grabbed it in the wrong place. Or pulled it from the holster and put there finger on the trigger before clearing the holster.

 

"Reed said he attempted to clear the ammunition from the gun, and accidentally fired it into the pavement"

 

"She was looking down at it and accidentally discharged the weapon."

 

The guns just didn't decide to go on killing sprees. Nice try.

Edited July 25, 2015 by Alpha Dog

[Jake]

A movie theater is in so many ways an awful place for a shooting to happen and nobody should be able to say with a straight face that a gun carried for self-defense would be useful in that particular situation. Sight is terrible so seeing the gunman will be difficult. Combine the sight problem with the crowd issue and you are taking a huge risk by firing a weapon because there are so few situations in which you can be sure that your bullet will miss innocents if it misses the active shooter. Then we have the secondary issue in that any other heroes in the audience may struggle to figure out which person firing their gun should be trusted. As people start standing and firing their weapons in the crowd, how should everyone else evacuate without waking in front of one of the several active shooters?

 

It's just a very vulnerable position.

 

As for this particular situation, I have some hunch that it may not have been all that premeditated. We know the guy was a hardcore right-wing type, but I don't see how this would accomplish much of anything. He didn't seem to conduct himself like he had a plan. I wonder if this is a situation where this already unstable person heard some audience member make a comment or something and just lost his cool. In the excitement of the moment and in realizing what had been done, he killed himself rather than face the consequences, which is not all that uncommon in these situations.

[Jake]

Also, I think the most practical gun regulation that could make a difference to the overall homicide rate, but probably not mass shootings, is putting restrictions on all transactions. We know that a huge portion of the guns used in crimes were purchased from private individuals, which conveniently is a method in many/most jurisdictions that requires no paperwork or oversight whatsoever. We like to talk about bad guys and good guys. Bad guys will get a gun on Craigslist or, more likely, just go to the shop with their friend or relative without a record and use them as a straw purchaser.

 

There's a lot of mixed information about the exact sources of the guns used in crime and almost none that is up to date because the Republican Party has decided to disallow any federally-funded research on these topics. This is driven by the same fear that has so far prevented any sort of regulation in this area, which is that it will lead to a grand firearm registry which will somehow then lead to everyone losing their guns. I have to say, from a persuasion/communication standpoint, the gun registry boogeyman is especially brilliant. Things like prohibiting undocumented transfer of guns don't sound very unreasonable until you have been informed that this will facilitate a registry and that a registry will take your guns away.

 

What we do know is that very few guns used in crimes are stolen, which at one point was assumed to be the prevailing source. In some areas, it seems that the main source is straw purchasers. In others, gun shows seem to reign supreme as a place for criminals to acquire weapons (sometimes still using straw buyers). What seems universal is that the vast, vast majority of guns used for criminal activity were originally purchased from a very small portion of FFLs (this includes gun shops and private individuals that sell guns bought from distributors/manufacturers). One study in the late 90s done by the government (once again, these studies are illegal now) found that 80% of dealers had never sold a weapon used for a crime and that half the guns use in crimes were sold by 1% of dealers. In some metros, one or two FFLs sold huge majorities of the weapons used illegally. The ATF was not allowed to do anything to these dealers or even share their names with the public. To my knowledge, the few legislative efforts to deal with "bad dealers" have all been rejected because gun registries.

[StrangeSox]

The guns just didn't decide to go on killing sprees. Nice try.

 

Nobody is arguing that, but you're either being deliberately obtuse or

[StrangeSox]

The shooter in this case was a man with a history of mental illness including an involuntary commitment for bi-polar disorder, violent outbursts and threats towards those around him and extremist ideology. Nevertheless, he was able to legally purchase a gun.

[StrangeSox]

IIRC the CDC site I was looking at earlier said it was like 1,600/year. Laws are already on the books in like 30 states to "prevent" that. It still happens.

People still fight strongly against any sort of law that requires you to keep a gun unloaded and locked up. The whole Heller case was over mandatory trigger locks.

[Texsox]

They don't die just because a gun is present. A human action is required. Guns are inanimate objects and do not just go off and hunt people down.

 

Exactly. Of course you could also say that about land mines, bombs, etc. In balance guns were developed and improved to kill things not put holes in paper targets. They were used for survival. You eat better with a gun than a stone tipped spear. The fact that they are versatile and can do other things does not obscure the fact that they are the most efficient killing "inanimate object" that Americans can legally own and use. They kill and they kill really good.

 

Someone mentioned that there are laws on the books to prevent that from happening.

 

Laws do not prevent anything. They never have and never will. If we judge a law by how many people break it, and decide if people break the law it is bad and we don;t need it, we would eliminate every law. We have laws against murder, murder happens. We have laws against robbery, robberies happen. All laws do is establish a punishment for those that break the law.

[Texsox]

Be honest and think here.

 

In a movie theater, under fire, it's dark, only light is from the screen. You really think that under fire, probably from behind, you could turn around, aim, and get a clean shot off without accidentally hitting the wrong person? While the person has a semi-automatic handgun and can keep pulling the trigger?

 

Per the police, as the crowd was leaving the theater this guy snuck into it and almost got out of the theater before someone stopped the crowd/stopped him. The people fleeing the room didn't identify the shooter as he left the theater with the group. They couldn't tell. Now you're telling me you could honestly figure out who the shooter was with enough accuracy to pull the trigger?

 

The closest example of a mass shooting interacting with a person carrying a weapon I can think of is the Gabrielle Giffords shooting and the person across the street who had the gun nearly shot the wrong person. And that was in the daylight.

 

You paint a scenario that makes you right. Actually 100% right and without any room for argument. Based on your situation there would be little or no chance of helping and a prudent person should not add to the problem by shooting. Your example is so tight that 99% of people would agree with you.

 

Now how about it's the guy in front of me who just stood up and is shooting people in front of him. He's close enough for me to see and touch? I like my chances in my scenario. At some point he is going to turn around and start shooting behind him and I'm next in line. Of all the possible scenarios we can start arguing I will agree that probably 90% would result in fleeing or hiding being the much better option than pulling the trigger. I'll concede that point. But it becomes a rather worthless argument.

 

You can hypothetically argue that every person carrying is going to take stupid shots based on your knowledge of gun owners who have qualified to carry. I'm going to argue that people who are carrying in your situation would not return fire in that scenario. I'll also argue that if you were standing next to the guy and he was aiming for your head, you would wish someone would shoot him first.

 

My approach will be much better than the people who are not carrying who will stand up and run towards the nearest exit, in some cases right at the killer, making the killer's shot even easier. You see if you can make gun owners do stupid stuff in your example why can't I make those not carrying do stupid stuff? Does that prove my case any better?

[Texsox]

A movie theater is in so many ways an awful place for a shooting to happen and nobody should be able to say with a straight face that a gun carried for self-defense would be useful in that particular situation. Sight is terrible so seeing the gunman will be difficult. Combine the sight problem with the crowd issue and you are taking a huge risk by firing a weapon because there are so few situations in which you can be sure that your bullet will miss innocents if it misses the active shooter. Then we have the secondary issue in that any other heroes in the audience may struggle to figure out which person firing their gun should be trusted. As people start standing and firing their weapons in the crowd, how should everyone else evacuate without waking in front of one of the several active shooters?

 

It's just a very vulnerable position.

 

As for this particular situation, I have some hunch that it may not have been all that premeditated. We know the guy was a hardcore right-wing type, but I don't see how this would accomplish much of anything. He didn't seem to conduct himself like he had a plan. I wonder if this is a situation where this already unstable person heard some audience member make a comment or something and just lost his cool. In the excitement of the moment and in realizing what had been done, he killed himself rather than face the consequences, which is not all that uncommon in these situations.

 

Y'all are perfect at creating a scene where a gun would not be useful. It is also not very useful when held by a cop ten minutes away. It isn't useful in arguably 90%+ of situations in a theater.

 

With a straight face here are a couple situations where it is useful. If I am close enough to see the shooter clearly, perhaps within 10' to 15' a gun would be extremely useful. If you are hiding between the seats pissing your pants and the gunman turns down your row and is standing over you aiming for your head, a gun is extremely useful to you. If they are aiming at your spouse or child, you will really wish you had one. But if you are too far away to safely take a shot at the murderer in the crowd, you are also safer hiding because he will also have little chance to kill you. His best chance is also your best chance, close up. The only situation worse than a shooting in a movie theater would be sitting in front of a guy shooting in a movie theater. All the environmental factors you mention make it a terrible place to shoot someone.

 

To help your hiding you may wish to wear black clothes.

 

But bottom line y'all are thinking about the person carrying and protecting everyone. I'm thinking about carrying and protecting the people immediately around me. If we are far enough away that I don't have a shot, either will the murderer, so we keep hiding, taking cover, trying to flee. If we come face to face with the killer, then y'all hope for the police to save you, I will, with a straight face, believe my gun will be more useful than your ability to do whatever.

[Jenksismyhero]

Exactly. Of course you could also say that about land mines, bombs, etc. In balance guns were developed and improved to kill things not put holes in paper targets. They were used for survival. You eat better with a gun than a stone tipped spear. The fact that they are versatile and can do other things does not obscure the fact that they are the most efficient killing "inanimate object" that Americans can legally own and use. They kill and they kill really good.

 

Someone mentioned that there are laws on the books to prevent that from happening.

 

Laws do not prevent anything. They never have and never will. If we judge a law by how many people break it, and decide if people break the law it is bad and we don;t need it, we would eliminate every law. We have laws against murder, murder happens. We have laws against robbery, robberies happen. All laws do is establish a punishment for those that break the law.

 

We've been over this before and you're still wrong. Laws don't have a singular purpose. They can be for punishment and prevention, or something else (e.g., money). We pass laws all the time to curb behavior X with the goal of preventing Y.

[StrangeSox]

Yeah, discounting the deterrence and cultural/social signaling effects of laws to zero seems pretty silly.

[Iwritecode]

If we are far enough away that I don't have a shot, neither will the murderer

 

I don't think this is necessarily true. Only one of you is going to care about collateral damage and actually hitting what you are aiming at.

 

While you may not have a shot, he can just point in your general direction and get lucky.

 

[greg775]

You paint a scenario that makes you right. Actually 100% right and without any room for argument. Based on your situation there would be little or no chance of helping and a prudent person should not add to the problem by shooting. Your example is so tight that 99% of people would agree with you.

 

Now how about it's the guy in front of me who just stood up and is shooting people in front of him. He's close enough for me to see and touch? I like my chances in my scenario. At some point he is going to turn around and start shooting behind him and I'm next in line. Of all the possible scenarios we can start arguing I will agree that probably 90% would result in fleeing or hiding being the much better option than pulling the trigger. I'll concede that point. But it becomes a rather worthless argument.

 

You can hypothetically argue that every person carrying is going to take stupid shots based on your knowledge of gun owners who have qualified to carry. I'm going to argue that people who are carrying in your situation would not return fire in that scenario. I'll also argue that if you were standing next to the guy and he was aiming for your head, you would wish someone would shoot him first.

 

My approach will be much better than the people who are not carrying who will stand up and run towards the nearest exit, in some cases right at the killer, making the killer's shot even easier. You see if you can make gun owners do stupid stuff in your example why can't I make those not carrying do stupid stuff? Does that prove my case any better?

Great post.

 

Y'all are perfect at creating a scene where a gun would not be useful. It is also not very useful when held by a cop ten minutes away. It isn't useful in arguably 90%+ of situations in a theater.

 

With a straight face here are a couple situations where it is useful. If I am close enough to see the shooter clearly, perhaps within 10' to 15' a gun would be extremely useful. If you are hiding between the seats pissing your pants and the gunman turns down your row and is standing over you aiming for your head, a gun is extremely useful to you. If they are aiming at your spouse or child, you will really wish you had one. But if you are too far away to safely take a shot at the murderer in the crowd, you are also safer hiding because he will also have little chance to kill you. His best chance is also your best chance, close up. The only situation worse than a shooting in a movie theater would be sitting in front of a guy shooting in a movie theater. All the environmental factors you mention make it a terrible place to shoot someone.

 

To help your hiding you may wish to wear black clothes.

 

But bottom line y'all are thinking about the person carrying and protecting everyone. I'm thinking about carrying and protecting the people immediately around me. If we are far enough away that I don't have a shot, either will the murderer, so we keep hiding, taking cover, trying to flee. If we come face to face with the killer, then y'all hope for the police to save you, I will, with a straight face, believe my gun will be more useful than your ability to do whatever.

Another great post. Tex is right. If the bastard comes up to you and you have a gun ... bang, the perpetrator is DEAD. Tex is the man.

[Texsox]

I don't think this is necessarily true. Only one of you is going to care about collateral damage and actually hitting what you are aiming at.

 

While you may not have a shot, he can just point in your general direction and get lucky.

 

No doubt the criminal has the advantage, they always seem to. But the criminal also isn't always aiming. They tend to be spraying bullets and hoping to hit something. But no reasonable person would take a shot across the theater and if they did, they deserve to be punished, severely.

 

As they say, it's personal protection, not crowd protection. You have to leave that up to the professionals.

[Texsox]

Yeah, discounting the deterrence and cultural/social signaling effects of laws to zero seems pretty silly.

 

I'm reacting more to the idea that since a law didn't prevent something it's an unnecessary law.

[Texsox]

We've been over this before and you're still wrong. Laws don't have a singular purpose. They can be for punishment and prevention, or something else (e.g., money). We pass laws all the time to curb behavior X with the goal of preventing Y.

 

Again, when we say that a law did not prevent a crime from happening discounts what you've mentioned in punishment, money, curbing behavior. Too often people claim we do not need a law because it would not prevent a crime from happening.

[Texsox]

Great post.

 

 

Another great post. Tex is right. If the bastard comes up to you and you have a gun ... bang, the perpetrator is DEAD. Tex is the man.

 

Maybe dead, but at least you have a fighting chance instead of hoping he doesn't see you in the dark or decides that you should live instead of die that day.

[StrangeSox]

the only way to reduce gun violence is to continually increase the number of people carrying guns everywhere they go

[Texsox]

Reading through the comments one thing becomes clear. Most of the non gun owners believe that non criminals with guns will act like criminals with guns. Criminals do not follow the same laws as the rest of society. Some criminals have severe mental disease or defects. You also assume non criminal gun owners will do the stupidest possible thing. In the theater they will just stand up and start shooting in any random direction like some cartoon character. Remember these are really normal people. They are doctors, lawyers, professors, truck drivers, construction workers, secretaries, and from every walk of life and background. They don't suddenly veer their cars into traffic, they don't randomly start killing people. But somehow many of the people here suddenly think I'm as crazy as the criminal that is killing people. It just isn't so. There are millions and millions of very responsible gun owners who just would not do the things that some people here think they would.

 

Your caricatures would be laughable if they weren't so wrong.

[Texsox]

the only way to reduce gun violence is to continually increase the number of people carrying guns everywhere they go

 

The way to reduce gun violence is to reduce the number of criminals that are carrying guns. If you removed all the guns from people who will not commit a crime in their lifetime, how will that reduce gun violence?

[StrangeSox]

The way to reduce gun violence is to reduce the number of criminals that are carrying guns. If you removed all the guns from people who will not commit a crime in their lifetime, how will that reduce gun violence?

this is not knowable, and reducing the overall number of guns makes it 1) harder for criminals or the mentally ill to get their hands on a gun and 2) for the "good guy" with a gun to screw up and do something stupid, irresponsible or malicious.

[StrangeSox]

Reading through the comments one thing becomes clear. Most of the non gun owners believe that non criminals with guns will act like criminals with guns. Criminals do not follow the same laws as the rest of society. Some criminals have severe mental disease or defects. You also assume non criminal gun owners will do the stupidest possible thing. In the theater they will just stand up and start shooting in any random direction like some cartoon character. Remember these are really normal people. They are doctors, lawyers, professors, truck drivers, construction workers, secretaries, and from every walk of life and background. They don't suddenly veer their cars into traffic, they don't randomly start killing people. But somehow many of the people here suddenly think I'm as crazy as the criminal that is killing people. It just isn't so. There are millions and millions of very responsible gun owners who just would not do the things that some people here think they would.

 

Your caricatures would be laughable if they weren't so wrong.

that's an impressive takedown of a straw man, well done!