Erm, has everyone forgotten Virginia Tech already? You know, the highest death toll by a single shooter ever? VT has a huuuuge gun culture. Most Virginia Tech students I talk to either have guns, or have practiced on the free student gun range right on campus. Lot of help that did.
As Tom pointed out, your memory stinks. Just as an example, a guy pulled out a gun and shot two people in a crowded mall in Seattle a few weeks ago. People ran in all directions and the guy got out of the mall and wasn’t captured until a few days later. And that’s a small-time incident where I don’t disagree that armed citizens could have an impact, assuming they didn’t end up shooting innocent people in a chaotic situation. But if you think that one or two bad guys with handguns equals 10 guys armed with assault rifles, a few citizens armed with pistols would be insane to even try. Even trained cops will not engage in those circumstances; they will wait for better armed tactical or military forces to arrive. Go look at what happened in that famous LA area bank robbery about ten years ago where two guys in body armor and armed with assault rifles caused all kinds of cop and civillian injuries before they were taken down. And LA is a city that has experience with gang violence and other big issues.
Because when someone points a gun at you, there is absolutely no expectation that they won’t use it? Have you ever seriously considered someone pointing a weapon at you NOT a threat of using it?
Sure it’s a threat, but in most cases you are better off just going along with whatever is demanded of you because most of the time the perpetrator isn’t planning to kill anyone. From the standpoint of most of the victims in Mumbai, they had no reason until it was too late to think these guys were simply out to kill people. If your approach to having a gun aimed at you is to act like you are about to die, you are more likely to die than if you submit to the situation and do what you are told.
Right. And how do those usually work out when there are armed citizens present?
So you’re saying that Israel should be happy with all the civillian deaths they’ve had as a result of terrorist acts because it “could have been worse”? Besides, terrorists adjust. Even if every citizen is trained and carries a firearm, you are still going to have terrorist acts if you have an enemy that is willing to die to kill a bunch of people to make a political statement. As Israel proves.
Yes, that is exactly like what happened in India. Exactly the template we need for the discussion to advance. Moreover, we can regard that as a shining example of how gun ownership actually leads to being shot! I have it on good authority that every single mass gun homicide is a direct consequence of a concealed carry permit and legal guns being owned by someone, somewhere. In fact, yesterday I was cleaning my rifle and the very act of touching a legally owned weapon caused an entire kindergarten to drop dead 400 miles away as a result of the Brady Butterfly Effect. It’s true, I saw it on TV.
The most immediate consequence of the attack will be increased cooperation from the Pakistanis with regard to U.S. military operations within their borders.
In the spirit of “not wasting a crisis,” this is a perfect lever for the U.S. to use to pry open better access to the Pakistani countryside for the purpose of targeted airstrikes and commando operations.
This will have some obvious happy consequences, as well as the added bonus of possibly placating the understandably-pissed Indian government. If the U.S. and Pakistan can jointly assure the Indians that Americans are on the ground in stronger numbers, it could go a long way toward obviating a need for any ratcheting-up of military tensions between the neighbors.
His memory stinks? Everybody’s does when we take political arguments and pretend we are addressing them in a tactical context.
Sure it’s a threat, but in most cases you are better off just going along with whatever is demanded of you because most of the time the perpetrator isn’t planning to kill anyone. From the standpoint of most of the victims in Mumbai, they had no reason until it was too late to think these guys were simply out to kill people. If your approach to having a gun aimed at you is to act like you are about to die, you are more likely to die than if you submit to the situation and do what you are told.
Lots of people are unhappy with that as a solution, no matter what is more likely. It’s not your fault you feel one way and I do another, but it’s not something you are going to convince across the aisle. The only option that works is to find compromises that can be dealt with by both kinds of people (or separate into radically different state laws and the like, as has occurred in the past), and as a corollary I would suggest not turning every exceptional crime or act of terrorism into a valuable precedent setter. The second phase is (by all that is holy) not acting like stuff that blossoms in America’s situation is in any way relevant to how most other countries do business. Because it’s not.
So you’re saying that Israel should be happy with all the civillian deaths they’ve had as a result of terrorist acts because it “could have been worse”? Besides, terrorists adjust. Even if every citizen is trained and carries a firearm, you are still going to have terrorist acts if you have an enemy that is willing to die to kill a bunch of people to make a political statement. As Israel proves.
Israel doesn’t “prove” that. All you’ve managed to prove is that you’re willing to take your argument ad absurdum without a shred of self consciousness. You’re right, in the face of adaptable terrorists the correct answer is absolute passivity because you are still going to have terrorist acts. This is so productive.
You’re probably thinking of the one in Salt Lake city:
But… the guy that had the gunner pinned down with his concealed pistol was a cop!
Thank goodness. I mean, I disagree with you that using this “perfect lever” to engineer that outcome would be wise or really desirable for Indians, Pakistanis, or Americans in the long term, but at least you’re on track.
I think if anything American foreign policy needs to stop being predicated on a crisis->solution no one would have agreed to before crisis mentality. We’ve got enough to dig ourselves out of as is because of that approach.
To me, ideally Mr. President will sit on his hands through this one and do his best to listen to what both parties propose and offer American assistance where requested. But I suspect he would disagree. A few questions:
Why would Pakistanis be any less hostile to American intervention? We’ve managed to destabilize the country to the point where even Musharraf with all of his tricks couldn’t stay in charge with exactly those kinds of moves. Why would the government cut off its head to cure a headache?
Indians want heads on spikes, I assume. If anyone other than the Pakistanis deliver them, we have an American controlled outcome that everyone resents at some level and does not serve to advance the cause of India-Pakistani relations. Wouldn’t cooperation between them, with the crisis as a facilitator of something that everyone agreed was necessary beforehand but lacked the political capital vs a means of strengthening the American hand against all local instincts in the short run, be an ideal outcome? That seems to me exactly the kind of thing American should be brokering, or the EU, or anyone that wants a piece of this action.
Massive invasions and genocidal actions have far reaching consequences.
I think you’re misunderstanding Scrax’s point. He’s refuting the argument, put forth earlier by Anti-Bunny, that North Hollywood and Columbine weren’t prevented because California and Colorado are supposedly more hostile to gun ownership. VT was smack dab in the middle of gun culture country, yet it didn’t seem to play any role in thwarting the gunman.
-TomWon’t all parties be sitting on their hands for a bit longer? I’m just assuming – perhaps incorrectly – that there will be some unraveling done in terms of the Pakistan’s role in the attack that could make the situation worse or better. Or are we getting pretty much all we’re going to get in terms of information about ISI’s involvement, or lack thereof?
-TomThere’s no question that the conflation of tactical, cultural, and legal issues goes much farther than just that post. But thanks for clearing that up, I tend to skim when I see this argument already in full swing.
I thought college campuses were an automatic -10 penalty to the gun culture stat? What they’re saying is that if the VT guy had tried that in a Piggly Wiggly off-campus, then there wouldn’t have been a massacre to speak of!
So it turns out that nobody I knew was hurt, although the mother and grandmother of an ex-girlfriend were shopping only about a mile away from someplace that got shot up.
Dude, -10 to gun culture in VA is still a net +40 compared to gun culture in CA!
-Tom
You realize that a predoctoral fellow is someone who just graduated from college, but hasn’t started grad school, right? So you’re basically referencing someone’s senior thesis as authoritative. It’s an interesting idea, but hardly accepted wisdom at this point.
One incident among dozens. The odds do not support your argument.
They’d still be praying that the gunmen would spare their lives.
Oh, now we’ve moved from the US to Israel. Israel is the way it is because it is such a relatively small country. You can’t possibly compare what they do with what might be possible in a country with a population the size of India.
Whatever. Please continue to argue about VT, where grown adults who have passed CCW requirements STILL are not allowed to carry, as proof that a CCW can’t “thwart” anything. That situation definitely proves something. Just not what you think.
Sure, but it fits what I know of the data better than the other explanations. It’s also got the grand unified theory thing going on where it explains all these previously strange little details.
…and that research/comment is not exactly new to the theory community. I’ve read similar before, elsewhere.
And even so, I think it’s wrong when it comes to Islamic terrorists. It definitely applies to political terrorists, but what possible political goal is there in the Mumbai attacks? There were no demands, no statements. They were killing simply because they hate everyone who isn’t their kind of Muslim. Killing is their goal, the proof of their faith in Allah and the here-after, the proof of their salvation (in a circularly logical sort of way*) and an expression of perceived collective revenge.
The sometimes-exception to this can be found in Palestine where a political economy element crop up: suicide bomber families getting cash and support for their martyred child. But my pick is these guys will be educated and from relatively middle-class Pakistani backgrounds and they will have fallen in with extremists preachers for one reason or another and then radicalized. Lets not forget that LeT and friends have been doing this recruiting for years and years to the kids it has sent in to Kashmir and Afghanistan. This attack differs only in the extreme audacity. For every one of these guys there are dozens that have died shooting up Indian police stations, army posts, etc etc.
- The “success” of the attack proves Allah willed that it happen. This is what people forget about 9/11 in my mind. It was, of course, a demonstration to the West of extremist hatred, but it was also designed as a demonstration to Islam that Al Qaeda was on the right path and Allah backed their view of the world. The plan Mumbai plan was audacious. Audacious plans only happen with God’s approval. Therefore, India deserved it somehow. There isn’t a political message. It’s a religious war between Islam hard liners and moderates.