I don’t live in fear. I live 99% of my time not carrying a concealed pistol. I happen to live only a few blocks from the police station, fire station, and two major hospitals. Not everyone is so lucky. My fastest first responder is 5 min to 10 min away. Have you ever actually called the police what was the response time 20 or 30 min? Have you ever experienced having death threats? The cops don’t sit outside your house like the do in the movies.
Wow, you’ve somehow managed to avoid telling me what you actually think about it.
Was it justified or not?
Is the threat of a physical altercation sufficient justification for permanently ending a life?
While we’re not Mr. Reeves and we weren’t there, we are also not Mrs. Oulsen or her daughter. We do have imaginations and consciences, supposedly. Do you think it’s fair or reasonable that the one should lose a husband and the other a father over this? I know you have parents – can you even imagine never really having gotten to know your father because when you were two he was shot to death because of a verbal disagreement? I don’t know if you have a spouse, but if you do – can you even imagine losing a spouse over something like this?
Do you think it’s reasonable for anyone to escalate a verbal altercation into a life or death situation?
If we replay the same situation in the absence of the gun, Mr. Oulsen throws popcorn at Mr. Reeves. Mr. Reeves was in his own words quite scared so he shuts up about the cellphone after that. And that is the end of it. No one dies. Mr. Reeves probably gets over his fear pretty quickly when he leaves Mr. Oulsen alone and Mr. Oulsen does likewise.
Or alternately, the worst case scenario: Mr. Oulsen loses his head and punches Mr. Reeves in the face. Security comes in to detain him while another employee calls the police. Mr. Oulsen is arrested and charged with battery.
Either outcome seems much better to me than the outcome that actually happened.
Is that not a pretty good case that guns frequently make situations more rather than less dangerous?
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For the gunwatch.blogspot.com, the second example was not a mass killing. The third incident listed links go a yahoo group discussion, not an article, and it’s not clear how to get to any article or other corroboration for the incident from the yahoo group discussion. Let’s call that one “unconfirmed”. In the fourth incident listed, the “mass killing” (two were killed, seven injured I think?) was not stopped by the high school principal; he shot the suspect while the suspect was fleeing after the attack was done.
I don’t think I need to work any harder to show that your sources kind of suck and are incredibly biased. Again, you have no grounds to accuse the researchers using the NCVS of bias if this is the kind of trash you are bringing to the table.
Not only that, but this can’t possibly prove your point. You need to find 800,000 of these from the same year to prove your point. This is anecdotal evidence and that won’t suffice for the claim you’re trying to prove.
Instead of asking you to improve the quality of your sources, let me ask what kind of evidence would it take to convince you that DGUs number more like 200,000 per year than 800,000 per year? Or are you not willing to concede that point no matter what evidence is provided?
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Innocent till proven guilty. Justified or not. Personally I don’t think it was.
[quote]Is the threat of a physical altercation sufficient justification for permanently ending a life?
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That has been something the courts have made decisions on time and time again. In this case I bet the defense will say it escalated past a threat. Throwing an object like a phone may be seen similar to throwing a punch. The threat of a physical altercation a lone is not sufficient justification. Put a knife, baseball bat, or rock in someone’s hand lifted to hit you it changes. Posture, intentions, and your own abilities to evade should all be taken into account.
No this isn’t fair. The loss of her husband and raising her daughter is not fair. The escalation of events by a man with so much life before him willing to physically threatening then attacking a much older wasn’t fair either.
No
[quote]If we replay the same situation in the absence of the gun, Mr. Oulsen throws popcorn at Mr. Reeves. Mr. Reeves was in his own words quite scared so he shuts up about the cellphone after that. And that is the end of it. No one dies. Mr. Reeves probably gets over his fear pretty quickly when he leaves Mr. Oulsen alone and Mr. Oulsen does likewise.
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That’s one of the many out comes. Another is Mr. Oulsen throws popcorn and his cellphone. Mr. Reeves punch’s back. Mr. Oulsen punches Mr. Reeves. Knocking the man down. Mr. Reeves hits the ground and has a heart attack or maybe hits his head hard enough to be fatal. 71 years old. Or maybe Mr. Reeves and Mr Oulsen go throw for throw. The police arrived many minutes or hours later. Mr. Reeves suffers internal bleeding or dislodges build up on his arteries. Yes many possibilities end with both alive and even able to watch the movie. There are also some that end with one or both injured or dead with or without a gun.
Yes that would have been ideal. That would require Mr. Reeves to also not be a hot head. I think his years being a police officer took over his decision making. I’m not agreeing with his decision to shoot. I’m trying to find reasons he did.
Yes everyone would agree your outcomes would be preferable. Problem is people don’t always deescalate. I’ve seen bar fights over the stupidest things. People nearly the same age. Some end up in the ER some go home with just a bruised pride. I’ve witnessed teens jump an old man for no apparent reason. I have no clue what happened to the man after the police arrived. I’ve been in line outside a theater to see a movie when someone stepped out of line and opened fire on someone. Luckily not was shot but also nobody was ever arrested. I have been robbed and attacked. I’ve never been arrested and love living in cities. I’m not afraid but I’m also very aware of what is happening around me. I’ll cross a street if I don’t feel comfortable with what is ahead. I’m not looking down at my phone ignoring all the signs around me.
[quote]Is that not a pretty good case that guns frequently make situations more rather than less dangerous?
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Yes guns are dangerous. Having a gun near during an altercation does increase the danger.
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People should have a right to self-defense, but that self-defense must be commensurate with the nature and extent of the attack on you. You don’t get to shoot someone dead with a gun when that person is minding their own business while they’re about to pass you on the sidewalk, even if you believe they possibly look vaguely threatening.
The problem with guns in this context is that if you’re carrying, almost everything in the “possibly vaguely threatening” category becomes a reason to get the gun out just in case, and the distance from brandishing a gun about to actually pulling the trigger is suddenly not all that far anymore. There may be cases where a real threat develops out of a “possibly vaguely threatening” situation – probably a minority of all cases –, but if your only available response if you don’t want things to actually get that far is “shoot to kill” then there is a real chance that innocent and perfectly harmless people will die.
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Neither does brandishing firearms.
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By some you mean two. Two against all the other possibilities, in which neither of them brought a gun.
Nobody gets shot if nobody brings a gun
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People who think they need to carry a gun because they think a mass shooter could burst into their workplace or shopping experience, well, living in fear like that must be terrible. People who think they need to carry a gun should first explain why they are so afraid.
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Thing is, it’s not fear, it’s a power fantasy that a lot of gun nuts have that they can be the heee-roow. They want to so badly stop that bad guy that it gives them an ego trip that short circuits reason and data. If they win that lottery they won’t be able to get their gun out in time, won’t be able to target things properly, probably will die in the process or kill a bystander. It’s sad that the religion of guns has trumped every other option in the US.
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From like comment 2…
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Fear is the mind killer.
I think they’ve seen what people can do, mostly. I think many don’t fully realize that they too are people.
I see what you did there. I like what you did there.
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TBF, I was so looking for other words, but why does that asshole have to have that last name. 
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Yeah, that’s part of it. They think they are free of every problem, needing of constant and intense training, and bias that every other human being is subject to. It’s all this crap “you’re better than everyone else” myth that I see portrayed a lot in the US. News flash: we are all the same, majorly flawed, people trying to do our damn best. let’s just all try to get a long and stop assuming we’re better than anyone else.
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I think if I lived in a place that was so broken that it was necessary to carry a gun everywhere, I’d be asking a lot of questions about how to fix those problems so that I didn’t need to.
Not that I’m saying people aren’t asking those questions, but so often the answer seems to boil down to “More guns.”
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They mostly aren’t. As @mewyn mentioned in another post, it’s not about fear. It’s about fantasy. At least in my neck of the woods. People talking about "gotta buy our guns before Obama takes 'em away (which they’ve been doing since November whatever 2008) tell me these vivid hypotheticals about them shooting up people breaking into their house.
After a point, it becomes clear that they really want someone to break in so they can shoot the burglar. The statistical probability of an armed intruder bent on hurting people is so low …
I don’t feel comfortable asking them if they’re aware how they sound.
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And you wonder: have any of these people ever killed someone? Over stuff? Would they be able to gather the will to do so within less than a second?
On a much more minor note, do they know how unmercifully loud an indoor gunshot is? The burglar loses their life (maybe), the inhabitant loses their hearing. Over stuff. Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but my impression is that the vast majority of burglars want to get in, get out, unrecognized, with as little trouble or bloodshed as possible.
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Perhaps we’re looking at the problem from the wrong perspective. If the firearm debate is too galvanizing to be productive; Perhaps other issues would yield better results. If we know violent crime is perpetrated most often by people below the poverty line; Perhaps working to lift people out of poverty would be a better use of time. If we know the poorly educated are more likely to commit violent crime; Perhaps that is a better use of resources. If we know that tragedies such as these are born from hate; Then perhaps we should cultivate respect and tolerance.
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Also presumably if somebody burgles your house and carries off your big-screen TV, your insurance company will buy you a new big-screen TV. If for whatever reason you miss the burglar, they run away, and your 9mm round drills an unsightly hole into the middle of your big-screen TV instead, your insurance company will very politely tell you it’s your own fault. Stuff, indeed.
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No one’s going to do that. Burglars grab stuff you can fit in pockets or backpacks. A big screen TV is hard to carry, hard to move around discreetly, basically requires you to bring a van to do the job, forces you to drop it if someone catches you and you have to run, etc.
They’ll take cash, jewelry, mobile phones, tablets, and smaller model laptops, but they’ll pretty much never grab anything TV-size. It’s like in Skyrim where it’s really not worth grabbing anything with a value/weight ratio lower than 30.
They’ll also not break into your house if you’re in it in the first place. Pretty much no burglars want to bump into someone who might cause problems like shooting them or even just calling the cops. Burglars mostly don’t want to become murderers, kidnappers, or even add assault and battery to the trespassing or larceny charges. No one wants to take your stuff from your house while you’re there.
If someone does invade your home while you’re there, shooting them would actually probably be a good move. Because they are probably after you personally. People who are trying to get your stuff don’t want to be in your house as the same time as you.
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