...is a good guy with a gun.
Not so much.
In the wake of the massacres this year at a Colorado movie theater, a Sikh temple in Wisconsin, and Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, we set out to track mass shootings in the United States over the last 30 years. We identified and analyzed 62 of them, and one striking pattern in the data is this: In not a single case was the killing stopped by a civilian using a gun. And in other recent (but less lethal) rampages in which armed civilians attempted to intervene, those civilians not only failed to stop the shooter but also were gravely wounded or killed. Moreover, we found that the rate of mass shootings has increased in recent years—at a time when America has been flooded with millions of additional firearms and a barrage of new laws has made it easier than ever to carry them in public places, including bars, parks, and schools. [Emphasis SFDB]
[Source]
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18 comments:
There are many flaws in the Mother Jones analysis. The biggest flaw is sample size, artificially created by focusing solely on "mass shootings" and ignoring gun fights generally. Specifically:
1. The "study" wholly and completely ignores the thousands of successful, lawful, defensive civilian uses of firearms in gunfights every year:
http://www.americanrifleman.org/BlogList.aspx?cid=25&id=21
Therefore, the premise that armed civilians can't hit what they aim at, or can't beat a bad guy in a gun fight is false. Cherry-picking a small sample size where the bad guy won is intellectually dishonest.
2. The "study" dismisses many instances of successful armed intervention solely because the civilian at issue had former police or military training. But why would an armed civilian with private training necessarily not have succeeded if placed in those same situations? Given the overwhelming evidence that armed civilians can and do win gun fights, why the presumption that had a civilian without military or police background been present, that civilian would not have succeeded?
3. The fact of the matter is that in organized shooting competitions, civilians perform as well or better than law enforcement and military. Why is this fact ignored?
Nobody is saying good guys always win the fight. Cops and soldiers get shot all the time. But this is another reason to be wary of sample size and cherry-picking.
The Mother Jones analysis wasn't a poll, JM. It was a study of 62 mass shootings over 30 years because they were studying mass shootings like the one in Newtown. They weren't "sampling" anything.
No one disputes that guns are used to successfully ward off attackers, but again, this study was looking at how guns are used by ordinary citizen in mass shooting situations.
As you know because of your depth of knowledge, mass shooting situations in large public buildings differ greatly from one on one confrontations in confined areas, so comparing the two is comparing apples to oranges. But you know that.
The study demonstrated that in mass shooting situations over the last 3 decades, not one mass shooting was stopped by a civilian using a gun. The whole theory of arming teachers to stop these school shooting becomes demonstrably questionable because of it.
Facts are facts.
Where is your study to say otherwise?
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"mass shooting situations in large public buildings differ greatly from one on one confrontations in confined areas, so comparing the two is comparing apples to oranges."
Says who? I have never said that. Why would it be so? Why is an armed civilian less likely to succeed when he is not the only one being shot at, and potentially, not the only one trying to defeat the bad guy? Why are the nuances so extreme to warrant "apples and oranges?" I know you are too smart to simply read an article on line that agrees with your premise and accept it at face value, so defend your statement above.
"not one mass shooting was stopped by a civilian using a gun."
No, you did not read the article and all of its links. The article links to another MJ article:
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/12/armed-civilians-do-not-stop-mass-shootings
which acknowledges *several* instances of civilians succeeding, but attempts to dismiss civilian success, and I address that in point #2 above in my original comment...which you ignore.
"The whole theory of arming teachers to stop these school shooting becomes demonstrably questionable"
What does "demonstrably questionable" mean? Even trained police officers get killed if a bad guy has the jump on them. But either way, when armed, they have a fighting chance.
You also fail to grasp that the biggest problem is the "gun free zone," and I don't mean Miguel's blog. The psychopathic mind, including mass murderers and terrorists, target gun free zones with a predator's instinct. When schools are guarded and hard to enter, the *knowledge* that there will be armed resistance will deter attacks on them.
With very rare exception, no mass shootings have taken place where the killer would expect to encounter armed resistance. That is why schools, churches, etc. are the venues, because they are soft targets. This is why, for example in Israel, one rarely hears about mass shootings, and instead the terrorists are *forced* to rely on bombs. Whereas in Mumbai last year, armed terrorists used machine guns to attack a hotel because unlike Israeli hotels, armed resistance is not expected in India.
The line, JM, is:
"In not a single case was the killing stopped by a civilian using a gun."
Now, if you have have a study or studies to prove otherwise, then let's have them. I'm all ears.
But parsing my comments and deflecting to other non-related points does nothing to change the fact that:
"In not a single case was the killing stopped by a civilian using a gun."
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"In not a single case was the killing stopped by a civilian using a gun."
1. False. Read the Mother Jones article I link to. Until you address numbered paragraph #2 in my very first comment above, argument over.
2. Even if true (which it is not) the sample size is too small to conclude that civilians cannot effectively act. See paragraph #1 in same comment above.
I'm not going to debate the points that MJ wrote and in which they said:
"More broadly, attempts by armed civilians to intervene in shooting rampages are rare—and are successful even more rarely. (Two people who tried it in recent years were gravely wounded or killed.) And law enforcement overwhelmingly hates the idea of armed citizens getting involved.
Those pesky facts haven't stopped the "arm America more!" crowd from pressing the argument with alleged examples of successful armed interventions. The problem is, the few examples they keep using—in which they depict plain old folks acting heroically and with definitive results—fall apart under scrutiny."
They considered those instances that gun advocates inevitably raise and they came to the conclusion that...
"In not a single case was the killing stopped by a civilian using a gun."
You can disagree with Mother Jones analysis of 30 years and 62 instances of data or as you call it, a "limited sample," and certainly you're entitled to that. You're also, at any time, able to introduce similar studies that back up your argument and claims.
But it remains that after conducting an in-depth analysis of mass shootings over the past 30 years, it was determined that...
"In not a single case was the killing stopped by a civilian using a gun."
If you don't want to have an intellectually honest debate, just say so. Otherwise, here is essentially what you are saying:
Mother Jones is the gospel, and any challenge to their "study" is heresy.
BTW. I have previously directed you to the survey by Harvard professor Volokh:
http://www.volokh.com/2012/12/14/do-civilians-armed-with-guns-ever-capture-kill-or-otherwise-stop-mass-shooters/
Which as usual, you ignore and refuse to respond to.
"Here is essentially what you are saying:
Mother Jones is the gospel, and any challenge to their "study" is heresy."
You're kidding me, right? You're citing an MJ article in making your argument! On, Lord, what am I up against with this guy.
Oh, and "Every Jew a .22!".....seriously? I mean, uh, seriously?
As always, it was nice chatting with you, JM. At least time you didn't close with a reference to a ban on highly sweetened drinks.
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The much vaunted Volokh article mentions four examples, none of the four are mass shootings and in fact all four end with an acknowledgement by the author that is not clear whether the shooter was planning to kill others. So that's irrelevant to the argument MJ makes.
The other MJ article makes the same argument: in the five cases they looked at, the shooter was presumed to have been done shooting.
It is obvious that there's a big difference between a trained former cop or soldier and a civilian. No matter how much range time, it's not the same as training for situations when targets fire back.
It's is also very obvious why a confrontation with a shooter in the chaos of a mass shooting is very different than a one on one confrontation (like a home invasion.) Tons of innocent bystanders running around.
I'm sure JM thinks he'll react Rambo-like if the situation arises, but I've seen too many people who can't hit a paper target at 25 yards to believe they'll be able to take out a shooter in a dark, crowded theater. Especially since the NRA opposes any kind of mandatory training.
Alex...it's the exact same 5 incidents that the MJ article addresses and explains why they're not valid examples. JM knows that. He's just trying to run us in circles while he parses words and creates distractions.
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This study was just released today:
http://86262a2d5a8678610839-0d14e49ee6aa00b4013e3b6293913ee7.r99.cf1.rackcdn.com/SchoolShootingSimFINALREPORT.pdf
The Truth shall set you free.
I have to wonder if JM read the Volokh article:
1. 16-year-old Luke Woodham stabbed and bludgeoned to death his mother at home, then killed two students and injured seven at his high school...
2. Andrew Wurst shot and killed a teacher at a school dance, and shot and injured several other students.
3. Ernesto Villagomez killed two people and wounded two others...
4. Matthew Murray killed four people...
It supports the argument that armed civilians didn't prevent these shootings. Sure, AFTER the these killers succeeded in killing people, civilians did prevent them from continuing.
But they didn't prevent the mass shootings from starting.
CLJ/the Volokh report doesn't give you the whole story on those "civilians" or important details that Volokh and the gun supporters conveniently leave out. You need to check the Mother Jones article for that.
CLJ- I agree with your analysis. However, I believe once it becomes common knowledge that schools are guarded, that awareness will deter attacks on them to some degree.
Finally, someone with intellectual honesty, thanks CLJ.
DEZ-See my very first comment on this post, numbered paragraph #2. I agree the successful responders were not untrained civilians, but I disagree that conclusions can be drawn that a trained civilian could or would not have achieved the same result. It would be nice if you read my comments, and not just Rick's.
JM - that's the dumbest argument I've ever heard. After all, guards didn't stop anyone at Colombine (two armed guards) or Fort Hood (a fully operational military base crawling with armed guards). So the argument that simply adding armed guards is a solution has already been proven to be incorrect.
That's the "intellectually honest" conclusion, as I see it.
So instead of knee-jerk stupidity, we have to examine the element common to all the mass shootings; they were all committed by mentally unstable people that had legal access to legally obtained weapons designed to incur a great deal of damage in a short amount of time.
It seems to me that the most logical approaches are to increase screening and help for mental illness, or to make it harder for the mentally ill to gain access to those kinds of weapons.
Uh oh...I think CLJ just moved from "intellectually honest" to ignorant, as far as JM is concerned.
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"It seems to me that the most logical approaches are to increase screening and help for mental illness, or to make it harder for the mentally ill to gain access to those kinds of weapons."
Wrong wrong wrong. The most LOGICAL and CONSTITUTIONALLY CONSISTENT approach is to give MORE guns to MORE mentally unstable people. Make it EASIER so they can DEFEND themselves. Damn candy-ass liberals.
CLJ-
"that's the dumbest argument I've ever heard."
Nobody is arguing that committed terrorists, assassins, mad men or whatever you want to call them can be perfectly stopped, by armed guards or otherwise. But we know that armed "guards" and armed civilians (with training) have successfully intervened to minimize casualties.
But a gunfight with a guard should be the last line of defense. We have the technology (cameras, electronic locks and computerized lockdown processes, etc.) to assist those guards to intercept potential attackers before the shots break out. In CT, somehow this guy walked onto school grounds carrying a rifle, then entered the building. Cameras and electronic locks can prevent these things.
Where I work, I cannot enter or move freely about the building without my electronic key card. There are certain secured rooms which will not open for my card. Why don't schools have these systems that businesses have been using for years?
So are guards the be all end all, no, but they need to be there along with other comprehensive preventive security measures. They shouldn't be just standing around, they should be monitoring cameras, managing doors, etc.
"It seems to me that the most logical approaches are to increase screening and help for mental illness, or to make it harder for the mentally ill to gain access to those kinds of weapons."
I agree, so long as we do not impose unreasonable restrictions on the mentally healthy. The Feinstein proposal the left has rallied around is an overreaction, will be ineffective, and in my opinion was motivated by punitive intent against a political opponent.
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