This is why the “good guy with the gun” BS needs to die. The real world isn’t a movie: there are no designated heroes and villains. Everyone’s a good guy in their own mind until they point a gun at a 6 year old.
I’ve always wondered how people thought the “good guy with a gun” would work in a chaotic real world situation. Suppose you’re armed and there’s a mass shooting event. You pull out your gun and keep a look out for the shooter as you hear gunfire getting closer. Then you spot a guy holding a gun. You quickly take aim and fire…
… And hit another “good guy with a gun” who was trying to take out the mass shooter the same as you.
Oh, but then you get shot by a third “good guy with a gun” who thought YOU were the mass shooter.
Arming everyone and telling them to be “good guys with guns” just seems, at best, like it would lead to MORE injuries and deaths.
It’s deflective rhetoric so they don’t have to address the truth:
We don’t know who is going to make a bad decision with their gun until after they do it.
Yeah, my coworkers said how great it would have been after the Colorado movie theater shooting (Batman movie) if everyone was armed. They just knew the original shooter would have been killed right away.
So,
- Dark theater
- Smoke filled (by shooter)
- Bullets suddenly flying
Who in their right mind thinks basically everyone wouldn’t have been mowed down in a hail of gun fire?
I’ve always wondered how people thought the “good guy with a gun” would work in a chaotic real world situation.
They picture it pretty much how it went down here:
Personally, I would just prefer to have a pistol in hand if I ended up in the last part of ‘run, hide, fight’.
Yeah they picture it as a very specific scenario with one mass shooter and one retaliatory shooter. Any more than one retaliatory shooter and it all falls apart as OP described though lol.
It’s either that, or the people with guns are afraid to use them when the time comes and they hesitate too long to do any good.
Well if there is one thing a chaotic and violent situation needs is more guns.
“There are no good guys with guns.”
also
“Cops are useless.”
You see, this is why nobody takes sentiments like yours seriously. If you can’t defend yourself, and don’t have others to protect you, then you’ll always be at the mercy of whoever is the strongest.
Something tells me all the ‘guns and cops are bad’ people don’t know how to fight.
Yeah cause when I call the cops about my stolen possessions and raped daughter they do so much to bring justice.
What if you are currently being threatened?
I sure as fuck don’t wait around for the cops to show up and decide I’m the threat and kill me while the guy breaking into my house has been gone for 20 minutes.
I’ll defend myself how I see fit and the cops will only be called if it results in death.
Do you think you would have a better chance at defending yourself with a gun?
Personally, I think if someone broke into my house, it would be dark…I’d have probably just been woken from a dead sleep. There will be dogs barking…possibly kids also just woken from a dead sleep who are now scared and either calling for me or running towards me. There’s no way I can put myself between my family and the bad guys in that situation. If I just start shooting, I’m liable to be shooting in the general direction of a pet or child. Even in the very best scenario, where somehow my kids, my pets, my wife, and my MIL who lives with us all happen to be in my bedroom in the middle of the night I’m still very likely to just shout that we’re armed and the police are on the way. Whether they steal a TV or I shoot a TV still results in me needing a new TV…but I also know that statistically, even me having a gun in my home escalates an already tense situation where I’ll be groggy but hopped up on adrenaline and not be a reliable shot. Even if it played out how folks like to imagine… one shot, one kill, I’ve still taken a life in front of my family. That’ll result in years of therapy for all of us. I’d rather just get a new TV or whatever. We’re more likely to get struck by lightning as a family than have a Richard Ramirez type who broke into the house just to kill us, and it’s more likely still that I’ll get depressed and use the gun on myself than it is that I’ll successfully defend my family with it.
I say all that as someone with military firearms training, family members in the local PD, and as someone who’s been woken up in the middle of the night by an emergency (in that case, our house was on fire).
Yes
If you think the cops are actually going to protect you if shit goes down, you’re naive as fuck. They’re not even obligated to do so.
Yeah. That’s why you should have a gun to protect yourself.
Until you become the shooter yourself.
Does that happen to everyone?
Every mentally unstable person with a gun I supposed.
I don’t recall saying cops are useless. Are you sure you’re replying to the right person?
The police do illustrate over and over again that even trained professionals make bad decisions when issued guns. And of course the solution isn’t to escalate things by raising the threat of officers being shot, but instead in finding ways to have less people with guns, so police aren’t on alert all the time and aren’t as tempted to use their guns as their only solution.
As a thought experiment: If we gave every adult in the world access to fire the entire planet’s nuclear payload and destroy everyone, do you think we’d all be safer? Would the world even last 5 minutes?
The more people you give access to deadly weapons, the more likely you are going to run into someone who is stupid, impulsive, or downright crazy and is going to use that weapon to harm themselves or others.
so police aren’t on alert all the time
I got pulled over for not seeing a stop sign at night in a bad neighborhood. I remember the young cop watching my hands with the flashlight and the light was shaking slightly while I searched for my registration.
That was not an enjoyable experience for me or him and it shouldn’t have to be anything except mildly annoying. He shouldn’t be thinking that I am ready to kill him and I shouldn’t be worried that he will make a mistake and me getting shot.
I think you’re asking the wrong questions.
You should be asking if society is safer if people have guns than if they don’t. Of course, answering this isn’t so simple because which society matters.
Uh, this has already been answered. Every developed nation with strict gun control is safer.
Every developed nation with strict gun control is safer.
Lots of rural America is still very underdeveloped. The only protection these people have from threats is the protection they can provide themselves.
This is what I mean by ‘which society matters.’ There are many differences between nations than just their gun laws.
I think you’re confusing “rural America” with a movie called “Mad Max”.
Which would have been safer without guns.
In any case, it sounds like what you mean to say is “the lawless hellscapes of the USA need to be civilized by an accountable organisation of some kind”, not “guns fix everything, hyuck”.
No, I’m not.
I think you are inexperienced with life outside of major cities.
Society is never safer with guns, and the more society you have the fewer guns you need.
If you live in barbarism, sure, you might need a gun, but barbarism is antithetical to a healthy society.
I don’t think cops are useless, I think they are a flawed institution that we as a society can fix by reforms. And I don’t even see the big deal in this, nothing is perfect, everything can be made better or more appropriate for the situation. Long run it would be better for police unions to agree to some changes in training, scope, and methods because it would restore and gain more public trust. And the public will benefit as well.
🎶 This is America 🎶
Don’t catch you slipping now
“Praaaaaise the loooord and pass the ammunition!” https://youtu.be/TUOPvtVZwo8
(Those aren’t just the lyrics, that’s the name of the song.)
Before clicking, I thought you were quoting from “Sin Wagon,” and I thought you really missed the point of the song.
“I’ll trick or treat your sorry ass if you don’t leave my porch right now, motherfucker!”
“He also shared that just the night before the incident, two people had knocked on their door severally and ran away before he opened the door.”
This is what had him terrified
This guy needs to move to someplace remote if someone knocking on his door scares him enough to point a gun at a 6 year old.
Seriously… if you’re ready to shoot a couple kids ding-dong-ditching you then you don’t need your gun, you need a fucking psych ward.
He needs to be moved to a prison.
Terrified? What does he think the 6 year old is going to do to him?
Well, the kid did threathen him with a “Trick” if he din’t gave him a “Treat”.
He wasn’t trick-or-treating.
But surelly it was valid for the grown man with a gun to, given the day of the year it was, fear becoming yet another victim of the blackmail and intimidation of children like that 6 year old and thus having to preventivelly protect himself and his family?!
(/s, by the way)
Maybe he thought it was the “two people that knocked on the door before,” not the “6 year old.”
See what happens when you use your brain? Life starts to make sense, lol.
You certainly don’t open your door with a gun out before even knowing who’s on the other side if you’re using your brain. lol.
What if you’re in fear for your safety?
We don’t know what this guy was going through or who he may have angered.
What if you’re in fear for your safety?
Then I don’t open the door. If it’s a real threat I can pew pew after my door gets kicked in and be pretty sure I’m not shooting a six year old.
Although if a six year old manages to break down your door, shooting them is not really unreasonable.
And if they continue harassing you, then what?
Oh, well then the reasonable thing to do is point a gun at a small child, obviously
Then grab the gun and don’t open shit, if you thought you were in danger why open the door and let them have easier access to you? Make them break in.
Makes sense to me, but this guy might not be thinking clearly.
Well people get put in jail for “not thinking clearly” every day, so he should “get good.”
Just like the police always shoot first because they fear for their safety.
If you don’t have a peephole, invest in a chain lock. Or a Ring. You don’t have the right to point a gun at someone just because they’re outside your door.
I totally agree, but we don’t know what this guy was going through or who he may have angered.
You don’t point a gun at a six year old. Full stop. He didn’t open the door with his gun drawn and stop when he saw who it was, he waved it in his face to try to scare him. Inexcusable.
Umm not answer the door?
It could be cops, then you end up either shooting a cop (no big loss, but you’re not likely to live through it) or just getting shot.
What a fucking pussy
You probably don’t know what he’s dealing with or who he’s angered.
Yeah, give a paranoid man a gun.
Should he rely on the cops for protection?
From six year olds?
From threats.
Just cause this kid wasn’t a threat doesn’t mean threats don’t exist, lol.
So what did he point the gun at? A threat? Which was a six year old?
Remember the guy that shot the woman that was backing out of his driveway? Also remember the guy who shot a door to door salesman? Also remember the guy who shot a kid playing hide and seek?
Take his fucking guns away!
Can’t. 2nd amendment. You have to give him more guns. Also give a gun to the 6yo.
If we armed all 6yros this wouldn’t happen
Glocks for tots!
If every movie I’ve seen has told me the truth, then little kids should be able to take out bad guys much bigger, stronger, and better armed than they are. It should be super easy, barely an inconvenience!
Good kids with guns stop bad guys with guns.
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Were there a bunch of snickers and Reese’s in that bag or was he just insane
They better have been king sized.
Imagine doing time for “fun” sized
Idk quantity has a quality all its own, let’s hear more about total ounces
Well, then he’ll be enjoying some “fun” sized in jail.
Airheads and Sourpatch kids
So he chose the trick.
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He also shared that just the night before the incident, two people had knocked on their door severally and ran away before he opened the door.
“WTF is severally?”
Severally: separately or individually; each in turn.
Guess that’s my new word for the day.
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I thought so at first as well, but it’s an actual word.
Right? This is the first time I’ve heard this word used like this in my life, and I’m fairly well read and educated. Like I don’t doubt it is grammatically correct, but in my opinion, a writer’s job is to communicate effectively - especially in a news article. Because using the word like this caused general confusion among the readers, it is a failed communication.
It’s apparently more commonly used in legal documents - explains why we haven’t encountered it before.
Yeah you’ll often see it when co-signing a loan for example, where both parties are “both jointly and severally responsible” for the loan.
Opposite of jointly!
I would have thought that “separately” served that purpose just fine.
“Severally” connotes separated by intent. Separate and independent.
Wen reportedly told cops that he “just wanted to scare them.”
Because the best way to do that is by brandishing a lethal weapon.
Well, it probably is the best way to scare them
If only there was some socially acceptable way to scare six year olds at the end of October in North America.
a resident of the infamous Long Island,
IANAA, what is long island infamous for?
Put simply, shenanigans.
what does not being an accountant have to do with it?
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That explains why somebody who says I Am Not An Alcoholic would not know what Long Island is famous for.
It’s more than famous. It’s not just famous, it’s infamous!
So many Martins and Stevens in that movie.
Amy Fisher? Iced Tea? The Montauk monster? The New York Islanders? Brooklyn?
Think there may have been some high profile serial killers there at some point.
thank you for actually trying to give an honest answer
Anytime :)
IIFFBINYABAI.
I Ingest Four Fries Because I Never Yeeted A Burger Across Idaho?
Could be Forty Fries
Jesus fuck.
Finally, some good news on News@lemmy.world!
Wow, reminds me of this:
The shooting happened when Hattori, on his way to a Halloween party, went to the wrong house by mistake. Property owner Rodney Peairs fatally shot Hattori, erroneously thinking that he was trespassing with criminal intent.
Game is game, kid.
Username checks out.
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Guy’s gotta have hobby.
https://youtu.be/Y2RMSpTsMUU?si=LTLtChImzwAt5wix
Not so fast
Sounds like a movie where his friend gave the candy that had intelligence sent by the CCP and now he really needed it back to make it to the drop off on time.
But I’m just daydream at night
