catsittingstill

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Report on NPR this morning (summary available but for the full thing you'll have to download the mp3.)

The parts that interested me:
1) Big clips like the one that let Giffords' would-be assassin get off 31 shots before he had to reload are flying off the shelves in at least one gun store.
2) Owners of 9 mm pistols are flocking to gun ranges to shoot them. Apparently there is a lot of interest in seeing if they can better the killer's reload time.

Interesting.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

paiyatamu.livejournal.com

On February 12, 2007, a lone man with a shotgun and a pistol and a backpack full of ammunition walked into the Trolley Square mall in Salt Lake City. As people were cowering, he would walk up to them and shoot them point blank. He killed 5 people this way, including a 15-year old girl. An off-duty policeman having dinner with his wife, heard the shots, drew his concealed weapon and shot back at the gunman, pinning him down until SLC police could arrive.

One of the requirements for concealed carry in Utah is knowing your target and what lies beyond the target and to NOT fire if there's danger of hitting some innocent bystander. Those of us who've received military and/or law enforcement training know the difference between wolves and sheepdogs (although sheep don't trust either because both have teeth).

Unless you've had a gun at your head (like I've had--during a robbery when I was a teenager), not knowing what the guy with the gun was going to do (because he was chaotic evil and he could have killed us all once he had us lying face down on the floor), then you cannot possibly know what it's like to be completely helpless at the hands of someone who has the means to kill you. Imagining what you would do in such a situation flies completely out the window when the reality of that gun barrel is pointing at your face.

I've seen a wolf in people skin. I've also know that when seconds count, the police are just minutes away.

The man with the gun in Tucson approaching the crime scene did not come in with his gun blazing. In the fog of war, with the madman already subdued, he acted responsibly. No one else got hurt and all the "well, what if he had fired..." fantasizing poses a disservice to all those who did act responsibly in the aftermath of a horrible and chaotic situation.

True, guns are easy to get. Some people who have them, shouldn't. The genie is out of the bottle, though and the best we can do is minimize the chances that we or our loved ones will become victims of some delusional lunatic. /soapbox

From:

catsittingstill.livejournal.com

My problem is not with concealed carry, which requires taking classes and passing a test. Gifford's attacker probably couldn't have gotten a concealed carry license--I imagine someone would have twigged to his detachment from reality during the classes.

My problem is that it's way too easy for irresponsible people, or even mentally disturbed people, to get their hands on guns.

I have known of careful, responsible people, like at my church in Knoxville, where we had a member with a concealed carry license and his weapon on him when the crazy with the shotguns attacked. Our church member's gun was useless, of course, because he couldn't get a clear shot, but he had the cool head and presence of mind to hold his fire and I'm very glad and grateful. He's a gun owner. Sure, he counts.

There was, of course, also the killer. He was a gun owner too. He also counts. And because of that gun owner we had 2 church members dead and 6 wounded that day. And you know what stopped him? Unarmed people sitting in the pews who rushed him and took his guns away.

Guns don't protect people. People protect people.

I've known careful responsible gun owners like my dad and my brother, who keep their guns secured except when they're taking them to target-shoot, and who spend a day in a clear-cut shooting skeet or paper targets, and I have no problem with that. They're gun owners. They count.

I've also known a complete doofus who took his (loaded) pistol to a party in a girl scout camp, got drunk, and lost the gun somewhere in the bushes, where despite assiduous searching it probably remains to this day. He's a gun owner too. He counts.

So some gun owners are careful, responsible people, and some careless or even malevolent. I would like to see guns restricted to careful, responsible people like my dad and my brother, and that member of our congregation. I would like to see guns out of the hands of the careless and the mentally disturbed.

No system is perfect. But I think ours could be a whole lot better.

I don't think it's going to happen anytime soon, of course. As Tom Tomorrow says. (http://www.salon.com/entertainment/comics/this_modern_world/2011/01/10/this_modern_world)

And I think we will get along better if you don't refer to me as a sheep simply because I do not worship guns.