How would you feel if someone was illegaly carrying a gun and ended up stopping a massacre?

[Lightspeaker]

And to throw something into the mix here...this very month a new study came out demonstrating that the use of guns in self-defense does pretty much nothing to help reduce the chances of either being injured or losing property.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0091743515001188

"Conclusions

Compared to other protective actions, the National Crime Victimization Surveys provide little evidence that SDGU (self-defense gun use) is uniquely beneficial in reducing the likelihood of injury or property loss."

So there's that whole "ah need mah gun to prevent all those criminals from robbing me" thing out of the window. You get the same reduction in property loss by using any weapon at all, with no increased risk of harm, so no you don't need to carry around that concealed sidearm for self-defense.

 

[Chris Moses]

I'd feel fan-fucking-tastic. I would still advocate for more gun control and be absolutely hunky dory with fire arms being banned in certain places and with people facing jail time for breaking those laws, but in that one instance I would be glad.

I would feel equally ecstatic if a massacre was stopped if a person legally or illegally carrying a gun was randomly murdered for no good reason before they committed the act, or was hit by a bus, or was arrested for the illegal gun they were carrying...

 

[Chris Moses]

I have a related story to tell...

In South Texas, a friend of mine was stoned, drunk, and on Xanax. While he was driving his car, he hit someone. Except that person had just stolen beer from a convenience store. Now I don't know how aware the cops were of how fucked up my friend was, but instead of arresting him for DWI and hitting a pedestrian they patted him on the back and sent him on his way. It is still illegal to get fucked up and drive and still illegal to hit people with your car in Texas. It would appear that the law and the universe itself survived this transgression not being punished.

I don't advocate driving while intoxicated, carrying weapons illegally, or hitting people with your car. I just bring this up to point out that the law does not need to be enforced at every transgression. It can survive the discretion of fallible people just fine.

 

[RedDeadFred]

I'd feel lucky/thankful.

Even though I lean towards being against people being allowed to carry guns, my initial reaction is not going to be "you broke the law and should go to jail", it's going to be "holy shit, good thing you were here, stranger!" Unless you're suicidal, I don't really see how you could have a reaction that's very different from that. The media would probably ignore it for the most part since it's not a big enough disaster. That, or they all blow up and everyone takes the usual sides without discussing anything new. It would just reignite the same, tired debate.

Edit: I don't really see why so many of you are jumping around the question. Just acknowledge that the scenario is an unlikely fantasy, and answer the rather simple question. I know there's not a lot of discussion value in that, but it's what the OP asked for.

 

[frizzlebyte]

Oh yeah, that's what we need during a shooting, more people firing into the crowd.

What if there were more than 1 person who had that idea? Now you've got 3+ shooters and it's getting pretty hard to tell who the person who initiated the massacre is. What if someone came in from a different room or outside and was also carrying a gun, now you have someone who doesn't even have any idea what's going on firing at 2+ shooters. What about when the police show up, how are they to know who to neutralize? It'd be utter chaos.

Really, it would probably get more people killed than if there was just the one shooter.

The issue with this point is, that there's only one person in that room *wanting* to kill people en mass. Assuming that you have five people with weapons in a room of, say, 50 people, and one rises to shoot into the crowd but is stopped by one of those other people, you're going to actually say that *more* people will likely get killed by accidental fire, than by the lunatic who was *intending* to fire into the crowd and was stopped?

Assuming the shooter is stopped, the worst case scenario I can see is the five getting killed, plus some strays (maybe), but I'd rather take my chances with being a stray casualty in a room where someone's at least trying to protect me than with being bottled up in a room with an uncontested mass shooter.

EDIT: Also, since I'd drop to the floor the second someone started firing and I'm assuming most people's reaction would be the same, I think it would be pretty clear to see who needed to be shot at, instigator or not.

 

[TallanKhan]

But how would I feel if someone broke that law and then was the one to save my life?

Good question. Personally I would be grateful to the individual but it wouldn't change my belief that people shouldn't be illegally carrying guns. To my mind there is no contradiction in accepting that occasionally good things can come of breaking gun laws and that in this instance I was the beneficiary, while maintaining a belief that the net overall impact of illegal weapons is negative and that if people didn't break this law, as a whole society would be better off.

 

[Thaluikhain]

EDIT: Also, since I'd drop to the floor the second someone started firing and I'm assuming most people's reaction would be the same, I think it would be pretty clear to see who needed to be shot at, instigator or not.

That would be the sensible thing to do, yes. Whether or not people would do this, or freeze or panic is another matter.

 

[Loonyyy]

The issue with this point is, that there's only one person in that room *wanting* to kill people en mass. Assuming that you have five people with weapons in a room of, say, 50 people, and one rises to shoot into the crowd but is stopped by one of those other people, you're going to actually say that *more* people will likely get killed by accidental fire, than by the lunatic who was *intending* to fire into the crowd and was stopped?

Assuming the shooter is stopped, the worst case scenario I can see is the five getting killed, plus some strays (maybe), but I'd rather take my chances with being a stray casualty in a room where someone's at least trying to protect me than with being bottled up in a room with an uncontested mass shooter.

EDIT: Also, since I'd drop to the floor the second someone started firing and I'm assuming most people's reaction would be the same, I think it would be pretty clear to see who needed to be shot at, instigator or not.

I think that's pushing it. Once people are running, diving to the floor, and there's gunfire, I think it's a very unlikely that people will differentiate what's going on. Everyone thinks they'll be the one to remain calm in a fight, and they are almost always suprised that they do not. Adrenal responses are suprising. You can practice fighting, shooting, whatever. When it happens for real, it will be different, and you won't react how you expect. The people who most commonly win fights are people who fight more, who want to fight, who are accustomed to it. It's just not a particularly realistic scenario. People don't go into a room loaded up with their gear and sit down, before rising with their stock of weapons. A lot of these people try to prepare the area, and enter, or stalk the place. Look at Oregon, look at Columbine, Aurora, Sandy Hook, Virginia Tech. These people often engage in the same rhetorical, supposed tactics. They're not planning on sitting in a classroom before standing up and opening fire, very often they're barring doors, coming into classes in progress, putting crowds in front of them. This is a very specific and stupid mass shooter.

And when we're talking mass shootings, you have events like the ones I've listed, among others shootings, particularly school shootings, where the shooting started in another room, another area, and people did not know who the shooter was. Like you said, the shooter *wants* to kill people en masse. So anyone else who wants to bring a gun needs to be ready to shoot anyone they see with a gun, because they can't expect the other guy not to.

And it is the proliferation of firearms that supplies these shooters. The market that arms the "defenders" also arms the aggressors, and the people who want them for defense justify the existance of the market, the sale to the people who want to shoot others.

If someone illegally carrying a firearm saved me from a mass shooting, I'd be thanking my lucky stars, but I'd wonder what the fuck makes them think they can do that, and what sort of completely and utterly fucked up situation it is when you're relying on some asshole with a gun to protect you from another asshole with a gun, at the complete and utter whim of both assholes. It is an entirely fucked up world when someone can get a gun, or a stockpile of them, and set out to kill their fellow man, and it's a response that is almost equally fucked up to carry a gun on your person waiting for that scenario, or a similar one. I'm presuming that this whole scenario is cooked up to justify the arming the populace to prevent these things, the "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun" bullshit. Ironically, that line was once uttered in a speech by an NRA spokesman condemning violent video games, whilst of course, promoting unrestricted access to firearms.

Yeah, in this delusional fantasy I'd be thankful, and I'd walk away hoping that the jokers with guns and the people who sold them to them all get hit by a bus. Presumably someone would pull a gun from their anus and proceed to save them from that too.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

Both should be illegal. It's well and good to save lives and stop an attacker, but if guns were illegal to start with then there would be no guns in that room instead of two. Smuggling a gun into a classroom, even one used to save lives, puts a lot of lives at risk. Doing a good thing a bad way is still bad. TBH, I think mass shootings need to keep happening in America, but preferably in red-states. Eventually some second-amendment nut will lose his child to gun crime and realise that maybe, just maybe, his child's life is more valuable than crazy people's right to bear arms. That's what it comes down to right now...gun owners value these rights more than the lives that are lost because of them.

Why is drink driving banned? Because it can cost lives. Why are there speed limits on the roads? Because lives have been lost due to speeding. Any given individual might not die from speeding or drink driving, but it happens often enough that a blanket ban on it saves lives. Guns are the same. One gun owner might well be responsible, but it's the crazy who kills innocents that is the issue. The responsible drivers have to stay below the speed limit, just like the irresponsible ones. Similarly, responsible gun owners should be banned from owning them, same as the crazy ones.

 

[Leg End]

Both should be illegal. It's well and good to save lives and stop an attacker, but if guns were illegal to start with then there would be no guns in that room instead of two.

The situation by default assumes there is someone armed in the classroom. Plus, that is not even remotely what would happen should confiscations happen.

Smuggling a gun into a classroom, even one used to save lives, puts a lot of lives at risk.

... How?

Doing a good thing a bad way is still bad.

Doing the bad thing or the bad method totally sullying the good thing?

TBH, I think mass shootings need to keep happening in America, but preferably in red-states. Eventually some second-amendment nut will lose his child to gun crime and realise that maybe, just maybe, his child's life is more valuable than crazy people's right to bear arms.

Or they would have reinforcement in their belief that the second amendment is still very much needed to protect against nutjobs.

That's what it comes down to right now...gun owners value these rights more than the lives that are lost because of them.

Or they value their rights because there are infinitely more cases of firearms being used to protect oneself and others, not even taking into account illegal firearms typically being used in these shootings in which laws would do squat to begin with.

Why is drink driving banned? Because it can cost lives. Why are there speed limits on the roads? Because lives have been lost due to speeding. Any given individual might not die from speeding or drink driving, but it happens often enough that a blanket ban on it saves lives. Guns are the same. One gun owner might well be responsible, but it's the crazy who kills innocents that is the issue. The responsible drivers have to stay below the speed limit, just like the irresponsible ones. Similarly, responsible gun owners should be banned from owning them, same as the crazy ones.

This entire argument doesn't quite line up. A closer analogue would be banning cars outright because people crash like idiots or drive while intoxicated. Your right to drive is nothing to my right to not get hit by a car when a nutcase is on the road. We have public transportation, you don't need private means of transportation when buses and trains are readily available. We'd save countless lives each year.

And don't get me started on pools.

Better yet, why don't we just make alcoholic beverages illegal? Your right to put what you want in your body doesn't trump my right to not be beaten by you in a drunken fury!

the "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun" bullshit. Ironically, that line was once uttered in a speech by an NRA spokesman condemning violent video games, whilst of course, promoting unrestricted access to firearms.

I have never understood how someone can support the second amendment while at the same time shit on the first.

 

[Lightknight]

If the pro-guns everywhere argument were sound, it wouldn't be based on these stupid fantasies.

Right, because the reality of gun-free zones where only the criminals are the ones with guns has worked out so fantastically...

I'm sure the friends and family members of the people killed in the [insert school name here] shooting are so glad that people like you made sure those schools didn't allow guns on campus. It clearly deterred the people who went on there and killed people anyways... [/sarcasm]

It is utter ridiculousness that people honestly imagine that these rules and regulations are somehow going to stop criminals from breaking them. They are axiomatically people who break laws. All this does is prevent actual law abiding citizens from being armed. This rhetoric you're pushing has a cost and it is measured in the amount of lives lost while waiting for the good guys with guns to show up and put the gunman down.

I'd feel lucky/thankful.

Even though I lean towards being against people being allowed to carry guns, my initial reaction is not going to be "you broke the law and should go to jail", it's going to be "holy shit, good thing you were here, stranger!" Unless you're suicidal, I don't really see how you could have a reaction that's very different from that. The media would probably ignore it for the most part since it's not a big enough disaster. That, or they all blow up and everyone takes the usual sides without discussing anything new. It would just reignite the same, tired debate.

Edit: I don't really see why so many of you are jumping around the question. Just acknowledge that the scenario is an unlikely fantasy, and answer the rather simple question. I know there's not a lot of discussion value in that, but it's what the OP asked for.

Civilians do and have stopped massacres. Maybe you should have paid closer attentions to the actual soldier who spoke up in this thread than trying to speak on behalf of them.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/10/03/do-civilians-with-guns-ever-stop-mass-shootings/

People with a legal handgun and a conceal permit do undergo training and likely do practice with said handgun. You are ignoring the fact that in these scenarios where no one except the gunman are armed that the body count goes up and up until the other people with guns show up. Is it possible that a civilian will make mistakes and shoot the wrong person? Sure, but are you honestly trying to make the case that cops and soldiers don't do this too? Please remember that your alternative here is to let the mass murderer continue his spree unchecked for fear that a civilian will miss the target.

 

[twistedmic]

Even if someone stopped a mass-shooting using an illegally held gun (either lacking the proper license and permits, or violating a gun-free rule/law) they still broke the law and should be held accountable for it. Breaking the law to do good is still breaking the law. If yo start letting people break the law to do good, where does it stop? Do we allow people to deliberately lure gang members or criminals in to a situation where they can be shot and killed? Do we let police forces obtain evidence and confessions through illegal means to put away killers and drug dealers?

And on a related note, if unrestricted access to guns or letting everyone who wants a gun have a gun makes for a safer civilization, why aren't places like Somalia, Burma/Myanmar, Afghanistan and Nigeria the safest places in the world to visit? Guns are practically everywhere in those countries.

 

[Flames66]

I think you're struggling with the concept of discussion actually, but that's not really something I care about. In any case, you've given me all of the information I need. You're too young to have an opinion on this, based in life experiences.

What I am doing:

Discussion: an act or instance of discussing; consideration or examination by argument, comment, etc., especially to explore solutions; informal debate.

What you are doing:

Insinuation: an indirect or covert suggestion or hint, especially of a derogatory nature. A usually bad or insulting remark that is said in an indirect way.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

The situation by default assumes there is someone armed in the classroom. Plus, that is not even remotely what would happen should confiscations happen.

Laws forbidding private ownership of guns would mean there is no one armed in the classroom since they wouldn't have access to a gun. Therefore a second gun wouldn't have been useful since there wouldn't have been a first.

Smuggling a gun into a classroom, even one used to save lives, puts a lot of lives at risk.

... How?[/quote]In one scenario there is a deadly weapon in the classroom. In the other scenario, there are no deadly weapons in the classroom. Having one deadly weapon in the classroom is many times more risky than having no deadly weapons in the classroom. I wouldn't want to be in a classroom with (or visual range of) someone with a gun, much less so someone who smuggled it in secretly.

Doing the bad thing or the bad method totally sullying the good thing?

For the most part, yes. While I don't doubt that some lives may have been saved, that doesn't excuse breaking the law in the first place. The attitude is dangerous, encouraging everyone to carry a deadly weapon "just in case". While I'm all for playing "chaotic good" in D&D games, it cannot work IRL.

Or they would have reinforcement in their belief that the second amendment is still very much needed to protect against nutjobs.

That's what it comes down to right now...gun owners value these rights more than the lives that are lost because of them.

Or they value their rights because there are infinitely more cases of firearms being used to protect oneself and others, not even taking into account illegal firearms typically being used in these shootings in which laws would do squat to begin with.

No there are not. There are infinitely more cases of firearms being used to murder, steal, threaten and commit suicide than there are of self-defence. The fact is that as long as pro-gun nuts hold on to the second ammendment, innocent Americans can and will be shot dead. There lives will end, their families will be shattered and orphans will grow up without parents. By protecting your right to own a gun, you are protecting every nutjobs right to do the same. Heaven forbid you should ever know the tragedy of losing someone to your country's rampant gun violence.

This entire argument doesn't quite line up. A closer analogue would be banning cars outright because people crash like idiots or drive while intoxicated. Your right to drive is nothing to my right to not get hit by a car when a nutcase is on the road. We have public transportation, you don't need private means of transportation when buses and trains are readily available. We'd save countless lives each year.[/quote]Right...I'm not going to try with this one, you simply cannot understand. If you cannot understand the reason for these laws my words would just be wasted.

 

[9tailedflame]

I'd be happy and relieved, and regard that person as a hero.

Honestly, the cops are all busy throwing middleschoolers to the ground by the throat, or killing unarmed people, or giving out frivolous parking tickets to provide any real safety to the average person, and even if they do decide to respond to real threats, it takes precious time. I think most people having a gun on them is a great way to let the crazies out their know that if they try something, they won't get very far with it, and i'd feel safer if everyone around me had a gun than just one person.

 

[9tailedflame]

I'd be happy and relieved, and regard that person as a hero.

Honestly, the cops are all busy throwing middleschoolers to the ground by the throat, or killing unarmed people, or giving out frivolous parking tickets to provide any real safety to the average person, and even if they do decide to respond to real threats, it takes precious time. I think most people having a gun on them is a great way to let the crazies out their know that if they try something, they won't get very far with it, and i'd feel safer if everyone around me had a gun than just one person.

Poe's Law. I'm pretty sure that this is an attempt at satire, but it's impossible to know for sure.

I was being serious, what part do you take issue with may i ask?