Do you think ...

[davjohns 1]

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... if you had a paintball gun that you could shoot another individual in the face while they move around shooting their paintball gun into a dark, crowded theater filled with tear gas without hitting anyone else in the crowd?

it's a marker, not a gun, and yeah, it's easy. Gimme my old automag and I'll hose the guy down. Upper end markers can throw out some serious paint in short order with plenty of accuracy.

Now, change it to an old, singleshot pump, and things get interesting ;)

When I used to play in the NPPL it was a paintball gun. You can have whatever marker you want but you only get a limited number of paintballs and I doubt given the situation any of those paintballs are going to hit the target.

PS: Why do the pro-gun expect the anti-gun to be realistic in regards to criminals being able to get guns regardless of a ban but the pro-gun won't be realistic in situations like this?

Come to the theater with me. You can come in the emergency exit, throw CS and start shooting at the front seats. I'll sit in the back and shoot at you. We'll see what's realistic and what's not. Heck, you can spray the whole place if you like. I'm pretty comfortable with the odds of a guy looking at a crowd and shooting vs me looking at a shooter and shooting. The shooter who came through the emergency exit is pretty obvious. Me in the back? Not so much.

All in all, I'm more comfortable in a theater filled with people packing than in a theater filled with unarmed people and one armed coward. I'm more comfortable in that theater just knowing one good person is armed. Doesn't have to be me.

Armed men with good intentions usually results in good things. Armed men with bad intentions usually results in bad things. When the two meet, any dead good guys tend to inspire other good guys; dead bad guys tends to discourage other bad guys. Still a win in my book.

I know it just wouldnt be right to kill all the stupid people that we meet..

But do you think it would be appropriate to just remove all of the warning labels and let nature take its course.

[Southern_Man 0]

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Some what? Get specific, for a change. I don't see how you're going to identify people who are now mentally ill and present a danger to society. And I certainly don't see how you can prevent them from finding ways to hurt others.

We ask Kallend all the time - he has no fucking idea either. We're in a free society. We don't have Stassi or informers watching over our every move. That would be great for identifying off behavior, though in that regime, they didn't wait to find out if it was a real problem or not, they just hauled your ass away. Not really a solution for America - the cure is far worse than the disease.

If you want to make a change, you need to propose one that is 1) actually effective and 2) doesn't do more damage/cost than it helps. When you look at the Colorado shooter - he may be a nut, but he was a finely functional nut and in his case, I don't see a way in the world to have prevented him from killing people. He was highly intelligent and motivated, and could have stooped to age old fire if he had to.

Prevention of the illness - ie, improved mental health care - may actually pay out. But the rest - just gun grabbers dancing on the graves again, long before we even hear all the details of the incident.

Honestly we are going to look back on how we treat mental illness these days the same way we look back on the way physical medicine was practiced a couple of hundred years ago. Out understanding and tools are so primitive we are essentially treating with leaches.

"What if there were no hypothetical questions?"

[davjohns 1]

I have some small knowledge of the mental health system and have to agree with you here.

I know it just wouldnt be right to kill all the stupid people that we meet..

But do you think it would be appropriate to just remove all of the warning labels and let nature take its course.

[SkyDekker 1,465]

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If you want to make a change, you need to propose one that is 1) actually effective and 2) doesn't do more damage/cost than it helps.

And to efefctively do that you need cooperation from all parties. This is often accomplished through discussions that are reaonable and thoughtful, with all parties willing to work towards a solution.

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just gun grabbers dancing on the graves again,

That clearly isn't going to work.

[kelpdiver 2]

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And if there was any consensus, or even half decent ideas among the national leadership in the field, wouldn't we have heard it by now?

Not at all sure we would considering the grip the NRA has on the leadership of this country.

so this membership funded organization is SO POWERFUL that it can squash the publishing ability of the collective expertise of mental health academia? That's amazing....no wait, completely delusional.

Get a better shovel, Quade. The NRA couldn't stop quacks like Kellerman and he's producing pure garbage.

[jcd11235 0]

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I always sit in the back. … It still would have taken a while to get to me from the front.

Assuming you would have been able to find a seat in the back at the first local viewing of a highly anticipated movie, it would have taken the CS a while to get to you if the canisters remained at the front of the theater. Sitting in the back might have delayed your CS exposure, but would have also significantly reduced your chance of having a clear line of sight to the shooter, as well as decreased your chance of hitting your target. (I know, I know; you're incapable of missing, even when taken by surprise with gunfire. )

Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!

[quade 4]

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Some what? Get specific, for a change. I don't see how you're going to identify people who are now mentally ill and present a danger to society. And I certainly don't see how you can prevent them from finding ways to hurt others.

Well, good. That's probably something better left to experts.

I'm not one, so I'm not going to propose something not properly researched, but you and people like you don't even want to have the conversation take place.

To me, that's stupid.

There are some things that I believe are off limits. Among those is the forced internment of those people who have committed no crime but are thought to be a threat because of a disease of the body.

Picture giving that authority to Dick Cheney and say, "That's a good idea. We'll trust him not to abuse it."

And in your opinion, there's no middle ground? It's a binary solution? Either you're 100 percent sane and therefore allowed to purchase and own anything or you're 99.99% sane and locked up in Gitmo? Please, that's a ridiculous stance.

Clearly there is a middle ground.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[DaVinci 0]

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Interesting you would state it like that. The armed person is simply carrying a tool. It is the actions of the person with the arms that could have helped or made the situation worse.

Just having an armed person would not have made any difference. The discussion centred on effectiveness of the actions of an average armed person, not just the presence of an armed person.

For somebody who is adamant about the guns are just a tool mantra, you just fell into the same trap.

Nope.... See the difference is that without the TOOL the PERSON will be less likely to act and would be less effective.

It is still a PERSON using an TOOL.

[DaVinci 0]

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I haven't said or implied anything about changing gun laws.

False, just look at your claims for SYG.

[DaVinci 0]

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but gun laws completely outlawing them and making them unable to be purchased via the Internet absolutely would have changed this scenario

#1, you can't just buy a gun off the internet (well I can, but I have an FFL) most people have to have the weapons shipped to an FFL in their home state and have them call NICS before they can transfer it to them.

#2. Outlawing something does not make it go away. If that were true we would have no murder at all and drugs would not exist.

[jcd11235 0]

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I haven't said or implied anything about changing gun laws.

False, just look at your claims for SYG.

You've grossly misread my comments if you think I've implied anything about changing laws pertaining to who can buy or own a gun.

Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!

[kelpdiver 2]

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And in your opinion, there's no middle ground? It's a binary solution? Either you're 100 percent sane and therefore allowed to purchase and own anything or you're 99.99% sane and locked up in Gitmo? Please, that's a ridiculous stance.

Clearly there is a middle ground.

nothing clear about it, given the silence around it. Shrinks aren't crazy about the idea of declaring people fit or not based on a few minutes of talking.

Is there a point to continually insisting there must be an answer, while not suggesting one* or a means by which experts (who?) could find it? Just seems argumentative.

(* but if you do suggest a good idea, my NRA cabal will leap into the DZ server and delete it)

[DaVinci 0]

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How many times were you expecting CS gas in those exercises?

Depended. There were times we knew it would be there, there were times we thought it could be there, and there were times we were just minding our own business and got gassed.

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The shooter had:
Superior firepower,
protective mask and tear gas,
body armor, and, very importantly,
the element of surprise.

Superior firepower.... Yep. You know what would be worse than facing a rifle with pistol? Facing a rifle with a bucket of popcorn and a small coke.

Protective mask and body armor.... Yep. The mask would not stop a bullet and getting shot with body armor still hurts like hell (My buddies told me... Luckily, I never took a round).

Element of surprise.... Only lasts as long as you let it. Once the first few shots are off and the threat has been identified... There is no surprise anymore. It is only a big deal if you are one of the first shot at.

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Those are drastically different scenarios than the one we are discussing.

Not really, all of them were surprised right?

[DaVinci 0]

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I think the first step would be an admission you have NO effective defense against them. That the theoretical pistol with two mags is about as effective against a determined looney as a packed parachute in the cabin of an airliner.

And there is the problem... There are plenty of examples where a citizen with a gun did stop a criminal with a gun. You jest refuse to admit that.

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Why let the nuts have access to the controls?

Why ONLY let the nuts have access to the controls?

[DaVinci 0]

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Did you not read the first post of the thread?

Do you not understand that a defensive stand is not the same as hitting a target?

[DaVinci 0]

Again, you said "I haven't said or implied anything about changing gun laws".

When you have in fact made suggestions.

[DaVinci 0]

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Some what? Get specific, for a change. I don't see how you're going to identify people who are now mentally ill and present a danger to society. And I certainly don't see how you can prevent them from finding ways to hurt others.

We ask Kallend all the time - he has no fucking idea either. We're in a free society. We don't have Stassi or informers watching over our every move. That would be great for identifying off behavior, though in that regime, they didn't wait to find out if it was a real problem or not, they just hauled your ass away. Not really a solution for America - the cure is far worse than the disease.

If you want to make a change, you need to propose one that is 1) actually effective and 2) doesn't do more damage/cost than it helps. When you look at the Colorado shooter - he may be a nut, but he was a finely functional nut and in his case, I don't see a way in the world to have prevented him from killing people. He was highly intelligent and motivated, and could have stooped to age old fire if he had to.

Prevention of the illness - ie, improved mental health care - may actually pay out. But the rest - just gun grabbers dancing on the graves again, long before we even hear all the details of the incident.

QFT

[jcd11235 0]

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Again, you said "I haven't said or implied anything about changing gun laws".

When you have in fact made suggestions.

I have not made any suggestions of changing the laws w/r/t who can purchase guns or what guns they can purchase. I'm not anti-gun. I'm anti-moronic_hero_wannabe_with_a_gun_getting_innocent_people_killed_unnecessarily.

Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!

[DaVinci 0]

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I'm not anti-gun. I'm anti-moronic_hero_wannabe_with_a_gun_getting_innocent_people_killed_unnecessarily.

Then you should be able to provide a bunch of data showing this is a common problem.....

[Butters 0]

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Did you not read the first post of the thread?

Do you not understand that a defensive stand is not the same as hitting a target?

Once again, did you not (or can you not) read the first post of the thread. I didn't ask about a defensive stand, I asked about hitting a small target and only the target in a given scenario ...

"That looks dangerous." Leopold Stotch

[davjohns 1]

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I always sit in the back. … It still would have taken a while to get to me from the front.

Assuming you would have been able to find a seat in the back at the first local viewing of a highly anticipated movie, it would have taken the CS a while to get to you if the canisters remained at the front of the theater. Sitting in the back might have delayed your CS exposure, but would have also significantly reduced your chance of having a clear line of sight to the shooter, as well as decreased your chance of hitting your target. (I know, I know; you're incapable of missing, even when taken by surprise with gunfire. )

I can't find anything in the OP about it being the opening night. I understand you are relating the hypothetical to the real, but I was not presented with the real. I answered the hypothetical. If you care to re-design the scenario and ask again, I will give you my honest opinion. Keep in mind, I have experienced quite a bit of CS. I know the smell. It would not alarm me like most. Also, the theaters I sit in are elevated in the back; thereby clearing fields of fire to the front more effectively. Why do you think I sit back there?

And of course I miss. Just not quite as much as some others might. I've been a competitive shooter since the high school rifle team; heck, I took my wife to the range last week - she shot the body and I shot the head.

I can generally make a target and a projectile connect. Thus, my answer to the original post. I'll also warn you that there are ordinary people walking the streets who can outshoot me regularly. Generally, when one of us drops a bad guy, it doesn't make the news. Not interesting enough.

I know it just wouldnt be right to kill all the stupid people that we meet..

But do you think it would be appropriate to just remove all of the warning labels and let nature take its course.

[rehmwa 2]

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Also, the theaters I sit in are elevated in the back; thereby clearing fields of fire to the front more effectively. Why do you think I sit back there?

I choose a movie seat for viewing the movie. I do not consider line of fire in my choice of movie seat selection. Careful you don't come across as more paranoid than you really are just to sell the debate.

...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[Butters 0]

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I can't find anything in the OP about it being the opening night. I understand you are relating the hypothetical to the real, but I was not presented with the real.

I appreciate that you can (and did) read and respond to the original post. It appears that many others either can't or didn't ...

"That looks dangerous." Leopold Stotch

[Butters 0]

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Also, the theaters I sit in are elevated in the back; thereby clearing fields of fire to the front more effectively. Why do you think I sit back there?

I choose a movie seat for viewing the movie. I do not consider line of fire in my choice of movie seat selection. Careful you don't come across as more paranoid than you really are just to sell the debate.

After reading some of the responses I was wondering why some people go out at all ... constantly thinking about who is coming from where to try to murder me might make it hard to enjoy what I'm doing.

"That looks dangerous." Leopold Stotch

[rehmwa 2]

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After reading some of the responses I was wondering why some people go out at all ... constantly thinking about who is coming from where to try to murder me might make it hard to enjoy what I'm doing.

Sunday at the DZ, I personally took out 7 different attackers that were aiming scoped rifles at you under canopy.

Just doing my duty. No thanks needed.

(actually, DavJ is very reasonable on these boards, I'm sure he was just trying to make a point about capability of a possible random guy in a public place and that it's a potential positive in terms of self defense if the right isn't ripped from us -

I tend to agree with him - maybe not everybody is capable of dealing with various situations, but that doesn't directly mean that NOBODY is.

remember, this Dropzone.com. For example, if someone in an incident report doesn't chastise a stranger for not being 100% perfectly prepared for a random canopy emergency, then the thread's not complete. Please help us if in giving advice, someone forgets the 3 word of the 2nd paragraph of some part of the SIM in terms of training.)

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Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants