2aguy
Diamond Member
- Jul 19, 2014
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Here is this concern about training, accuracy and potential collateral damage caused by an armed citizen drawing his weapon and attempting to stop a mass shooter.
I find it very telling that all of these arguments pointing out foreseeable concerns about the armed citizen's judgment and proficiency are raised when discussing mass shooting scenarios:
As I pointed out in this thread earlier, the alternative is much more grim and hopeless. One armed civilian may have a < 30% chance of hitting the mass shooter and stopping the killing, but the argument from some people is that citizens should not be allowed to carry handguns for personal protection because the odds of success are so low, and a stray bullet from the armed citizen's handgun may hit one of the other would-be shooting victims.
- What if the armed citizen misses the mass shooter and hits someone else (another victim)?
- Trained professionals have a 30% accuracy rate in a shootout. How can a non-pro civilian ever expect to stop a mass shooting when they are less likely than trained professionals to actually make a bullet hit and incapacitate the mass shooter?
- What if two or more armed citizens mistake each other for the mass shooter?
In essence, the argument is that a 0% chance of stopping the mass shooter is better than a < 30% chance, where the armed civilian's stray bullet make kill a would-be victim, rather than the shooter's intended bullet.
The argument is that it is better to have all the would-be victims die from the mass shooter's intended fire with ZERO chance of stopping the shooter, than have a < 30% chance and the possibility that a stray, unintended shot from the armed civilian killing soon-to-be-killed-anyway, would-be victim.
The other argument is that it is better to have ZERO chance of stopping the mass shooter with NOBODY armed than to risk the highly unlikely scenario of having one armed civilian mistakenly kill another armed civilian, believing the other is the mass shooter, even though both of them, and everybody else would be dead anyway.
That sounds to me like a DELIBERATE bullshit justification for violating a very important basic human right. It makes me justified in finding that those proffering that justification are NOT interested i. public safety. I am justified in not giving them ONE FUCKING INCH of new/additional gun control. I am justified in wanting complete repeal.
I also find it interesting that the people pointing out that the accuracy of non-professional armed citizens being likely < 30% presents a collateral damage potential, are generally the same fucking people wanting to limit magazine capacity and expect these non-professionals to shoot like Marine Snipers in a home defense scenario and/or fumble around in the dark and die trying to find a second magazine, solely because in a MUCH LESS LIKELY scenario of a mass shooting, some mass shooter would be require to take his time and reload before shooting more unarmed and defenseless victims if his magazine capacity is limited.
I can only conclude that the people making those arguments are either illogical or they are dishonest and are trying to justify their proposed action and hide their true agenda.
Any gun grabbers care to comment?
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Actually, the success rate of armed citizens, who have their guns with them at the time of a mass public shooting is 94% success.....
Armed Citizens Are Successful 94% Of The Time At Active Shooter Events [FBI]
Of all the active shooter events there were 33 at which an armed citizen was present. Of those, Armed Citizens were successful at stopping the Active shooter 75.8% of the time (25 incidents) and were successful in reducing the loss of life in an additional 18.2% (6) of incidents. In only 2 of the 33 incidents (6.1%) was the Armed Citizen(s) not helpful in any way in stopping the active shooter or reducing the loss of life.
Thus the headline of our report that Armed Citizens Are Successful 94% Of The Time At Active Shooter Events.
In the 2 incidents at which the armed citizen “failed” to stop or slow the active shooter, one is the previously mentioned incident with hunters. The other is an incident in which the CCWer was shot in the back in a Las Vegas Walmart when he failed to identify that there were 2 Active Shooters involved in the attack. He neglected to identify the one that shot him in the back while he was trying to ambush the other perpetrator.
We also decided to look at the breakdown of events that took place in gun free zones and the relative death toll from events in gun free zones vs non-gun-free zones.
Of the 283 incidents in our data pool, we were unable to identify if the event took place in a gun-free zone in a large number (41%) of the events. Most of the events took place at a business, church, home, or other places at which as a rule of law it is not a gun free zone but potentially could have been declared one by the property owner. Without any information in the FBI study or any indication one way or the other from the news reports, we have indicated that event with a question mark.
If you look at all of the Active Shooter events (pie chart on the top) you see that for those which we have the information, almost twice as many took place in gun free zones than not; but realistically the vast majority of those for which we have no information (indicated as ?) are probably NOT gun free zones.
If you isolate just the events at which 8 or more people were killed the data paints a different picture (pie chart on the bottom). In these incidents, 77.8% took place in a gun-free zone suggesting that gun free zones lead to a higher death rate vs active shooter events in general
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One of the final metrics we thought was important to consider is the potential tendency for armed citizens to injure or kill innocent people in their attempt to “save the day.” A common point in political discussions is to point out the lack of training of most armed citizens and the decrease in safety inherent in their presence during violent encounters.
As you can see below, however, at the 33 incidents at which Armed Citizens were present, there were zero situations at which the Armed Citizen injured or killed an innocent person. It never happened.
