He is dogshit, one of the absolute worst. Ever since his fake story about being hit with a milkshake (the horror), he has only exclusively reported on antifa and how much he hates them. Literally nothing else. It’s not journalism, nor is it difficult to go find a bunch of angry mentally ill people in Portland and walk around playing the “I’m not touching you” game with them until they assault you. That proves no point, and only the dumbest of fringe fuckheads think you’re reporting “news” in any way.
I think anything political coming out of Portland needs to be taken with three vegan supplements, an organic micro-brew, 18 oz of dingleberry kombucha and an edible sold by BIPOC disabled homeless cats.
I mean, the answer we’re uncovering, and that has been apparent for a while, is that none of them were good guys, except for the one who finally made a decision.
Could have been 30. Mall was a gun free zone, guess it wasn't as soft a target as the shooter had hoped. 400 million guns in the country it'd be a hell of a lot easier to shoot back than the fantasy we are going to get rid of guns in actual numbers that would actually do anything. Less casualties, less to report on, less infamy, less events. Shoot back.
Sure, there's no consequences at all to untrained civilians handling violence. That's never been an issue, I mean, fuck why even bother with cops, right? Just whip out the cold steel and get hard dispensing the ol' citizen's justice, am I right? It's not like it's still murder, and God only lets good bullets hit bad guys, and I'm sure the local cops will really appreciate their gun laws being broken just this one time. Prevention is how this gets solved. No one is confiscating guns. I've never heard of that as a credible solution to any of these issues. That's like saying the cure for abortion is putting astroturf in every pussy in America. It's not real, it's political maneuver that really needs to stop working so effectively. These shooters do not expect to survive, and are generally just waiting around until they are executed if they do. You're not intervening in a ritualistic suicide by shooting them mid-rampage. You're helping them finish it. The interventions that are successful happen months earlier, when their mental health is questioned, when their community is questioned, when their increasingly radical political outlook is questioned. These things are successfully prevented and thwarted by having things intervene in these young men's lives before they decide to commit a ritualistic suicide and "take a few of (them) down with" them. You do realize these shooters, as a group, are leveraging the 2A outrage as a precise means to keep murdering civilians, right? That their ability to do this, constantly, unimpeded and unhindered, is something they knowingly and cynically use 2A arguments to mantain. The shooters themselves see it as asinine: their God-given right to commit wanton acts of murder is zealously defended by the people that have stepped on them, belittled them, called them a 'faggot', denied them entry into professions, bullied them, and abused them. It's the ultimate perversion of the values: they commit atrocities and their right to be able to do so is one of the leading political issues of our time. It's fucking hysterical to them. It's so fucking absurd, it's one of the reasons they continue to shoot people. The more people they kill, the more the 2A crowd defends their right to...buy the means to kill people. Literally in any other country, when this has happened, they couldn't buy guns anymore. Here, in a society that has shit on them in everyway possible, and couldnt' value them less, they can buy more guns, with fewer restrictions, seemingly the more people they kill. Fuck, every time this happens, they explain the loopholes in the gun laws the killers exploited in detail, so the next guy knows how to fill out the fucking paperwork.
In the counties around me, you have to attend classes in order to get a CCW. I've thought about applying for a CCW but first, it's never going to happen in my county and second, I've been in emergency situations and did not respond well. At all.
Did someone other than the active shooter break a gun law? Or was there a "mall policy" the concealed carry guy violated? That policy didn't seem to work keeping the shooter's guns out, either.
I've heard it explained that the mall's gun free zone isn't law. The mall guards can ask you to leave the mall and if you do, they can't do anything. If you refuse, they can call the cops who will arrest/cite you for trespassing.
These "classes" are inconsistent at best across jurisdictions let alone states. Also, many are just that...sit in a class for a few hours and here's your CCW...no range time, no shoot/don't shoot practical exercises, etc. We can't get police departments to require more in depth training and look how much cops fuck up lethal encounters. I agree with DD in that prevention is the best way to address mass shooters. There's a multitude of studies on pathways to violence and all identify prevention as best. Break the chain before their grievance--whether real or perceived--turns into action.
Highlight, bold, underline this. Everyone should know how they react in an emergency before carrying a gun. Zero compromise on that. Not that you should go and recklessly place yourself in one of these positions, but you should wait until after you’ve had enough life experience to know what type of person you are under extreme duress. Some who think they’ll be heroes end up getting in the way. And thank you, personally, for understanding that emergencies are not your thing. That’s okay. I wish more people were like you and could just get the fuck out of the way when shit happens rather than trying to fight their nature and making things worse. case in point, when I had to do chest compressions on my neighbor, her husband — ex military, actually a door gunner in Vietnam who got shot in a Huey — was worse than worthless. He lost his shit and got in the way. He was not helpful, and dealing with him actually took time away that could have been spent focusing more on his wife. We used to go target shooting all the time. Wanna guess how many times I’ve gone since? i… do react well in emergencies, but they still really fuck me up mentally afterward. I wish that I was the kind to freak out so I could GTFO, but sadly I am one of those that gets super calm and just triages the situation and deals with the emotions and shit later. So I always keep my truck fully stocked with first aid for basically everything, I do carry, and I stay current as to best practices and training. My being calm can and has helped people, so I just lean into it and deal with the anxiety and shit that happens when I decompress after. Sadly even first responders take minutes too long sometimes.
Given cops training and hit ratio, the general public is not far off "the professionals." Then you have their response time (lets just ignore the monstrously fucked up Uvalde response) that makes relying on them to save you in these situations next to useless. It comes down to two things, if you were trapped in one of these situations, active shooter wantonly and in indiscriminately shooting people, you want you (or someone) with a gun that could possibly stop them or just let them have free reign to slaughter? Even the possibility of friendly fire is a better outcome than letting said maniac continue racking up the body count. I dont care if it is finishing their ritualistic suicide stopping the killing in the moment is paramount.
You're still not seeing the point, here. This is a no-win scenario. You get that right? By the time this person has decided to start shooting people, it's a race to the bottom to prevent the worst case outcome. When any of this horseshit of yours even remotely becomes relevant, we've already lost, and the outcome is basically left to chance. That's the part that's unacceptable to me. I disagree that the general public is not far off from the professionals, but you see how fucking nightmarish that "logic" is, right? I disagree that we should ignore the Uvalde response because that response or the massive cock-up therein was not an isolated incident, that kind of paralysis happens all the time. It's literally part of police doctrine: don't act until ordered to do so. THEY ALREADY HAVE FREE REIGN TO SLAUGHTER. That's what having a gun IS. The fact that most of us choose not to do it isn't some cosmic accident, it's how society works. Christ, it's like you wonder why everthing with a dick just isn't out there racking up a rape count. We don't because there are consequences. These folks believe those don't matter, and therein lies the issue. The fantasy that you're engaging in simply isn't relevant to the issue. "If I was trapped", dude the training is literally "Run, Hide, Fight." In that order. There is no "If I were trapped". In the case of an active shooter, I want there to be NO SHOOTING. That's the thing you're missing. I want to avoid this whole fucking nightmare, not race to the imaginary scenario with the "right" bullets hitting the "correct" target. The good guy with a gun isn't something I want to risk my life on, or be around. I don't trust the general public to wear a fucking mask, drive sober, turn the gas stove off, or not kill dogs/children out of negligence, I damned sure don't trust some asshat who thinks they are going to save the day, so they better sport a pistol. Stopping the killing BEFORE IT STARTS WORKS WAY BETTER FOR ME, MY GUY.
Yes stopping them before they happen is the fantasy ideal. In the reality we live in it isn’t going to happen to anyones satisfaction. I do think the run, hide, fight approach is backwards. The terrorist already took over the plane. The only times these have been stopped mid attack are when the shooter was confronted by civilians or the police. Limiting the death toll is a good thing even if it isn’t the perfect thing.
I think we fundamentally disagree on which is the fantasy. We have lived in a world where mass shootings weren't a common facet of life. Millions, if not billions of people do, every day, live free of this fear. I think the fantasy of an active shooter being neutralized by some bistander who just happened to be armed themselves, with no consequences, fallout or mishaps is a more unrealistic one. And the run, hide, fight approach is designed to keep as many people as possible alive for as long as possible, not provide the "based on true events" fodder for the next Mark Walhberg movie. The simplest of concepts is if you're not a combatant, get the fuck out of there. Only fight if your survival is threatened. The fact that you think this doesn't apply to you speaks to how deep this heroic, violent fantasy of yours runs, and how divorced from reality this "debate" is.