2807

I spend a lot of time at the range. Recently took a class there. I’m pretty sure that, assuming home entry, that I would know how to handle a firearm. OTOH I hope that I will never be in that position. Because of the adrenaline issue. I hope very sincerely that I can handle that situation. But you never know. OTOH, I would rather have a firearm than not where I live. I follow all the rules, including not having the gun loaded on a regular basis. But I do have ammo near it. My luck, I’ll fumble a load and get killed.

2808

Cite? I’m not sure this is going to play out in the action-movie way that it sounds like you’re picturing.

Do you have a family/roommates/anyone else that could be moving around in the house in unexpected ways?

2809

If the answer to that is “Yes.”, then you’re doing it wrong. Families plan escape routes and emergency drills for home fires all the time, but no one calls them paranoid or crazy.

2810

Umm… cite every time there is a mass killing, once the cops show up the gunmen surrender/commit suicide?

It happened in every US school shooting barring Whitman iirc. Once someone with a gun shows up, they tend to off themselves. And by tend I mean, they do it damned near every single time.

2811

So could we just give teachers cap guns spray-painted black?

2812

Actually, that would probably work as long as no one knew.

2813

Offing yourself when face with overwhelming force with no chance of escape and having completed your ‘mission’ is very very different from Offing yourself when performing your massacre mid way and seeing somebody pop out a gun and shooting at you.

2814


[ul]
[li]There’s about 80 that appear on that list from the U.S. (it stretches back to 1863)[/li][li]about 30 committed suicide (including two who did so while awaiting trial)[/li][li]about 24 were killed at the scene of the crime[/li][/ul]

Here’s a list specific to school shootings:


Again, not the majority. A significant number, however.

2815

At one Clackamas Mall, there was an incipient mass shooting (using the FBI’s definition of ‘three’) in Oregon at the end of last year (which was discussed earlier in this thread, I think), which left two people dead. A concealed carry permit holder confronted the shooter, but didn’t fire. The shooter left the area and killed himself. One can certainly debate cause and effect (perhaps killing two and wounding one with ammunition to spare was all he thought he had to accomplish) or mitigating circumstances (someone who only fires sixteen shots over twenty minutes is probably getting off more on making people afraid than killing them), or indeed whether or not one anecdote is at all useful (since mass shootings are so rare, it’s hard to draw any conclusions about whether changes we make are having an effect statistically). It’s still an interesting story.

2816

I’m not personally a fan of arming teachers, simply because any broad program like that administered by the government and aimed at a generic group “teachers” is going to have the standard distribution of idiots receiving and passing the training. That said, the assertion that it takes some massive amount of training to successfully defend from a school shooter is demonstrably false, as there are several cases of it happening with no collateral damage. I would urge everyone before making assertions like that to consider the question, “Are there direct examples that contradict what I’m about to say?” All of this stuff is very easy to find on Google. Clearing houses of adults among other adults in a foreign land while maintaining small unit discipline and handling a full battle loadout is a different thing than “get gun, go find the guy shooting at the kids, shoot at him.”

2817

I don’t like the idea of arming teachers at all. I’d prefer a solution that allows weapons to be stored in a secure place and can only be opened by select personnel for a verified emergency.

When I go to the gun range, I see way way too much carelessness to be comfortable with the idea that my kids’ teachers might be packing.

2818

There was a guy who I went shooting with once. Because I never, ever wanted to be around him again while he had a pistol in his hand.

2819

No. I always know where my wife is. She doesn’t sneak around at night. She knows where the gun and ammo is kept. She also knows how to use it. We have both trained at the range. We have already discussed what would happen if the home alarm went off.

Basically we’d roll of of the bed to the ground. The gun is on my side with the ammo. I’d be loading the gun while she calls 911. Meanwhile the response from the alarm company would be them talking via the box on the wall. After that, all bets are off.

2820

This actually reminds me of a story:

A friend of mine from NYC came down to visit the wife and I.

Of course I want him to shoot. Right? I ask him, “Have you ever fired a Magnum load in a handgun?”

Him: Sure I have, no problem.

So I get a box of .38+P and a box of .357 Mag rounds.

Regardless of what he says, I show him the rules. You all know them, I don’t have to repeat them here.

Then I start with a target at 20 feet. Six mag rounds in my GP-100.

When I’m done I look around. My NY friend is way back at the wall behind me. I’m like, “Are you okay?”

He says, “I didn’t expect that.”

Then some guy next to him says, that was a .45 auto.

I started laughing. “No my friend, that was a .357 mag.”

So I gave him a load of .38s and he tried firing them one handed!

That’s when I said, time to go home. You might kill yourself or someone else.

2821

I think that we should teach gun safety in schools the same way we teach driver’s education. By that I don’t mean, poorly, and by the teacher with the most seniority and most savage drinking problem. I mean, guns are a thing, they are dangerous, just like a car or a penis. People need to have proper safety techniques explained to them so they don’t kill other people later in life. Also, people romanticize guns too much in our society. They aren’t the worst thing and they aren’t the greatest thing. They didn’t create all our problems and they can’t solve all our problems. But people need to respect what they are and what they can do for their limited ability to exacerbate or alleviate certain statistically rare life and death situations.

I also think it’s absurd that we make every single kid learn how to make shitty paintings for at least two hours a week for twelve years straight and never take the time to teach them how to do CPR or stop bleeding. Priorities, I guess. Eh, maybe now they teach that, in between forcing children to take methamphetamines and declaring everyone the winner.

2822

Oh, and by the way. If they want less gun deaths, you know and I know and they know that they could end the war on those few recreational drugs which exist outside the control of the patent system.

2823

Two of my favorite ideas. I’d even be willing to bargain for more regulations if we got those two things. It’s easy for me to offer that deal because I know it would never happen, and more education will reduce regulation in the long run anyway.

2824

My high school required that we learn CPR as well as some other basic first aid. Which unfortunately was taught by a gym teacher out of a book, and they were teaching neutralize swallowed acids (e.g. drain cleaner) with baking soda, which I had recently read was a damned bad idea because the reaction is usually exothermic. I brought this up and the article with the teacher, and he was only interested in teaching the book. Standard practice now is dilute (water or milk) rather the neutralize.

Gun safety classes in school would be an interesting can of worms. It doesn’t take long, since there really isn’t much to it, but you’d probably offend more people than sex education.

2825

Gun safety!?! Pshaw!

Hurray for antidiscrimination laws:

Iowa Grants Gun Permits to the Blind!

2826

Hmm. The live-fire test sounds appropriate to me.

Someone with, say, a restricted visual field could engage in target shooting safely without being able to drive, for instance.