On Jan 11, 4:25*pm, RicodJour wrote:
On Jan 11, 1:41*am, DD_BobK wrote:

On Jan 10, 11:38*am, RicodJour wrote:

Guy with a
gun ready to die, and scared people with guns shooting back - some
might hit the gunman and some will hit other people.

R-

I believe your "innocent bystanders hit by random shots from armed
citizens " is a near zero probability event.

You mean like the near zero probability event of having a shooter
suddenly open up in a crowd? *That is the first near zero probability
event, and without that first zero probability event occurring, my
zero probability event is of course pegged at zero, but let's run with
it - it happens, and other people start shooting, too. *Do you
honestly believe that everyone is going to stand around to let the
concerned citizen get off a clean shot? *What if there are a number of
armed concerned citizens standing on all sides of the shooter, which
is the usual state of affairs in a crowd. *Would the concerned
citizens communicate wordlessly and decide who had the best shot, hold
off and let that guy take the shot? *Or would it be everyone take
their best shot? *Wouldn't the bad guy be trying really hard not to
get shot?

If such a thing happened, it would have be reported in the news over &
over again.

Bystanders getting shot is usually a "poor *******, but look what that
crazy guy with the gun did to start the whole thing!" *Back seat news,
perhaps. *Much like friendly fire statistics everywhere else they're
footnotes and back page fodder.

It is my opinion (based on very little data) that armed citizens
responding to bad guys are much more careful shooters.

We're not talking about one guy pulling a gun to stop a robbery.
We're talking about pandemonium in a crowd. *People running, ducking,
hitting the deck, screaming, and that cool, calm, definitely blue-eyed
citizen calmly pulls his gun, waits for a clear shot and picks off the
bad guy standing behind his hostage human shield. *Could happen. *In a
movie.

They lack the "legal cover" that police officers enjoy. *A cop can
empty his gun at a target and few question it.

There's a lot of truth in that.

In a suburb of LA, LA County Deputy Sheriffs (10 of them) fired 120
shots at a guy in a Suburban.
He turned out to be unarmed, luckily they only hit him with four shots
but they did manage to hit one of their own.

And these were trained professionals, right? *So even the pros can
miss the mark - but that isn't a surprise.http://www.schlissellawfirm.com/blog...ander-shot-by-...

Total lack of fire discipline...
maybe cops should go back to revolvers, with fewer rounds they might
be more careful or at the very least have fewer total misses.

You should be viewing this in a more analytical way, Bob. *It's more
akin to physics and statistics than it is about guns, gun control,
terrorists or any of that.

The more people firing, the more misses and the greater the likelihood
of people getting hit. *Friendly fire on home soil at a shopping mall
doesn't make it more palatable. *The people standing around when the
stuff goes down are not going to calmly look for the exits. *Everybody
who has ever been shot at unexpectedly has had a massive rush of
adrenalin, which does not make for clear thinking and steady hands.

Carrying a gun with you at all times based on the extremely, extremely
remote instance that something really bad is going to happen, and that
a gun can fix it. *That is just another form of delusion. *It makes
_way_ more sense to know basic first aid and have a defibrillator on
hand as those type of occurrences are far more likely to happen. *But
that doesn't sell in Peoria, does it? *Which of the following
headlines is going to make it to the front page?
Guy with defibrillator saves life
Armed citizen kills terrorist at pep rally

R

Ah. Sanity at last.