I am so tired of this "good guy with a gun" bullshit. The Dayton shooter was dead 30 seconds after

[PaulRevere08]

he fired the first shot and he still was able to kill 9 people and injure 17 more. Is that the best case scenario now?

"With a weapon in his backpack, Betts walked toward an alley and began firing into Blind Bob's at 1:04 a.m., authorities said. Based on a timeline pieced together from security cameras, police engaged with him after less than 20 seconds and Betts was killed 32 seconds after his first shot."

https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/13/us/dayton-mass-shooting/index.html

[Mike 03]

1. Somebody either here at DU or on Twitter posted advice from law enforcement

experts on what you should do if your armed (a good guy) at a mass shooting, and the advice was don't shoot, don't even brandish your firearm.

They advised that because all sorts of bad things can happen, especially when police burst in and see two people with guns firing in a crowded location. Also, innocent people can get shot. Nobody knows who the bad guy is.

[Thomas Hurt]

2. The right does not want to understand that, they think the world is a 50s Western or

they are spec ops action hero. They will always know who the bad guy is, shoot straight and not p&ss themselves.

They think they are already heroes.

[GaYellowDawg]

16. I call it "John McClane syndrome"

They’re all convinced that they will someday be the hero of a real-life Die Hard.

[fescuerescue]

5. I don't carry a gun but I can't imagine

where if for some strange reasons I had one, that I would just hunker down and watch someone murder a bunch of people - including possibly me - without trying to stop it.

IN that situation, innocent people ARE getting shot. Bad things ARE happening.

Like I said, I don't carry one. But if I found myself in that situation and a gun became available and no cops were around. Id use it. Worry about something bad happening at that point is just hoping for a time machine to few a minutes earlier.

[ret5hd]

8. You would think a Texas Walmart would be a...

perfect example of your hypothesis.

[fescuerescue]

9. My hypothesis is pretty out there. So I doubt it.

My hypothesis is extremely unlikely first of all. I can't really imagine a likely scenario where a loaded gun would just (near) magically become available.

Maybe if Walmart's guns were all unlocked and all the ammo was unlocked and someone was unattended near them and someone nearby knew that. Then I suppose some extremely sharp minded person could move quickly - or least make an attempt.

I'm just thinking through the advice that someone who DOES carry a gun (which is not me), should just hide and let the murders happen.

[ret5hd]

10. The hypothesis I was referring to was that...

in a crowded, chaotic, adrenaline crazed scenario, that a "good guy with a gun" is gonna be of any help.

What, you think there weren't any concealed-carry people at that walmart? Oh, maybe there were? Well, what did those rambos do? Nothing. They shit their pants and ran out the door as fast as they could just like everyone else. Real tough guys/gals, every one.

[fescuerescue]

12. oh that one.

Yea one. Oh I agree, it's mostly a gun lover fantasy.

I'm not quite prepared to make fun of the survivors of the shooting though. Just being at the scene when bullets start flying makes them a victim even if they did have foolish notions before life got very real.

Everyone there was a victim and survivor in the same sense that David Hogg was and we know how the right likes to ridicule him. It's not right IMO.

[ret5hd]

14. I would just like to know who the concealed-carriers were so they could be interviewed...

debriefed, if you will. Analyzed by trained psychologists. Studied. Asked if their attitudes have changed. If not, why not? Do they still think they are rambos? If so, why?

Not saying that I want to know personally who they are, but the cops probably got everyones ID that day. Compile a list. Compare that list to concealed carry license. Politely invite those that match to attend a "victims seminar" to discuss that day. Ask them why they didn't "help".

[Azathoth]

6. Not to sound right-wing, but of course LE will say that

Their first priority is their own safety and convenience, not the well-being of the citizenry. (And yes, the courts agree.)

That of course doesn't mean that a cowboy shooting wildly in a crowded bar is an ideal scenario, but there are situations where being able to return fire, or at least being able to credibly threaten to do so, could save lives.

[Midnightwalk]

3. Agree but not on premise

I reject the premise that having to be armed in order to be safe in public is compatible with living in a civilized country.

I don’t think you are defending that premise and agree with what you wrote. I just hate the premise that the good guy argument assumes.

[Girard442]

4. "Good guy with a gun" is like a lot of rightwing tropes.

Glib bullshit that they toss out as an argument that doesn't stand up to the slightest scrutiny.

[VOX]

11. Precisely. Every "good guy with a gun" is a potential "bad guy with a gun."

The “good guy” aspect gets sorely tested when life delivers some hard blows, as it it does to all of us at times: job losses, cheating spouses, family feuds, difficult neighbors, depression or other emotional problems, indebtedness, racism and other resentments, etc.

Too many “good guys” are unable to handle these inevitable issues, and then that other chestnut, the “legally purchased firearm,” gets inserted into the volatile mix, with deadly results.

[dsc]

13. The police likely saved dozens of lives

by keeping him from getting into that bar with the gun and armor. This could have been a Pulse redux quite easily.

[Straw Man]

15. Exactly.

I don't know how or why anyone would want to deny that.

[Duppers]

22. Are there people denying that?

Wow.

[Straw Man]

23. The OP downplays the police response ...

... and characterizes it as inadequate. The police are, after all, "good guys with guns."

[PaulRevere08]

25. Not at all. My point was that even with police engaging

The shooter within 20 seconds and quickly killing him, he still managed to slaughter so many. It debunks the whole good guy ....

Cops did their job but it will never be enough when up against a lunatic with military grade weapons.

[Straw Man]

27. Yes, at all.

My point was that even with police engaging [t]he shooter within 20 seconds and quickly killing him, he still managed to slaughter so many. It debunks the whole good guy ....

It does nothing of the kind. He would have killed many more if there had been no "good guys with guns" on hand. Many, many more.

Cops did their job but it will never be enough when up against a lunatic with military grade weapons.

It didn't save everybody, but it saved many. I don't see why you are so insistent on downplaying that.

An assailant will always have the element of surprise. It's impossible to stop an assault before it happens, even if you could make all firearms magically disappear. The single largest mass killing in the US to date -- outside of 9/11 -- was the Happy Land Social Club fire, where 87 people were killed. The weapon was a few gallons of gasoline.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

28. you may have missed the point

One of the rationalizations given by RWNJs is that an armed civilian -- a good guy with a gun -- can stop the bad guy with a gun.

It is not a reference to police carrying guns; police are presumed to be "good guys with guns", but cannot be everywhere at once. The speed shown by Dayton police in this case is amazing, but not typical in mass shootings.

RWNJs argue that an armed populace reduces "soft" targets and increases the likelihood that would-be murderers are stopped immediately.

[Straw Man]

29. I don't think so.

All the references in the OP are to police.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

30. brb, gotta feed my garage toad

[Duppers]

21. +100

[Vinca]

17. You can have every person in a public place armed, but unless their weapon is out and aimed

at the door, a shooter with an assault rifle will kill them all in under a minute. The rabid gun nuts have a false sense of security and usually end up shooting a Girl Scout selling cookies at the door or their kid coming home from a late night out.

[PaulRevere08]

20. Exactly my point. The police responded in 20 seconds and still 9 people were killed.

Every radical gun-nut should be confronted with the question "How many deaths are OK in a shooting so you can have your military grade weapons?"

[mercuryblues]

18. There was a good guy with a gun at the Giffords

mass killing.

A guy heard the shots, and ran towards them with his gun. He admits he was lucky. As he rounded the corner he saw a guy with a gun. That guy had already de-armed the killer. The good guy with a gun almost shot him. He had taken the safety off, placed the gun in hispocket, with his hand on it.

https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona/2018/02/22/good-guy-gun-gabby-giffords-shooting-touts-training-if-teachers-armed/364647002/

Noticing the detail

Recalling the 2011 shooting on Thursday, Zamudio said when he reached the scene, he saw a man holding a handgun up in the air.
The man shouted, according to Zamudio: “I’ll kill you.” He then shouted an expletive.
“I think: 'plug him,'” Zamudio said.

But Zamudio quickly noticed an important detail: The slide on the gun was locked back. That automatically happens when a gun has fired its last bullet.

“It was empty,” Zamudio said, “You could see that.”


So instead of drawing his weapon, Zamudio grabbed the man’s arm and slammed against the wall, disarming him.
Others shouted at him that the man wasn’t the gunman. Zamudio then helped hold down the gunman, later identified as Jared Loughner.

[Liberal In Texas]

19. The murderers always have the advantage of the ambush...

not caring where the shots go and being armed with military weapons.

The ONLY solution is to (at least) get rid of the military weapons as the other elements are impossible to change.

[PandoraAwakened]

24. K & R. n/t

[Beartracks]

26. IKR? People praise the speedy police response, but...

... that is never the point. Because it's never fast enough to save every life. And that bears remembering when politicians praise the first responders after a mass shooting murder, alongside their "thoughts and prayers" for the victims. We don't need to praise first responders for doing their jobs when people died because Congress won't do theirs.

Politicians always say that the actions of police saved countless lives, which is in fact true. But that's disingenuous when it is the inaction of Congress that allows so many of the deaths that still do happen. Weekly. They seem grateful that the body count is contained only because it keeps casualties within what they must consider to be the "acceptable" cost-of-freedom range. But what kind of political calculus determines that the killing of unwitting American citizens is acceptable national policy?

========

[NCLefty]

31. "26 shot in 32 seconds"

.81 persons per second.