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Pretty incredible to see people making jokes in response to the tweet literally in real time. Journalists trying to get him to call them and give updates. Our s
by mattsfrey 9y ago
Pretty incredible to see people making jokes in response to the tweet literally in real time. Journalists trying to get him to call them and give updates. Our society is completely fucked.
- ggregoire 9y agoPretty incredible to see as first response “If you had a gun may not need to hide”. From an European point of view.
- dguaraglia 9y agoFrom any point of view. This is beyond fucked.
- dguaraglia 9y agoNothing screams "free thinking" and "tolerant right wing" than an angry comment getting downvoted. Hacker News has become a Trumpbot playground.
- rmdashrfroot 9y agoIs it not true? What did they do in response to an active shooter? They called the police and SWAT -- people with guns.
- toomuchtodo 9y ago> Is it not true? What did they do in response to an active shooter? They called the police and SWAT -- people with guns Qualified people with guns (ideally).
- rmdashrfroot 9y agoAmerica's obsession with credentials at its finest... these people are allowed to have guns because we say so, but no one else! (except those pesky criminals and shooters who don't abide by laws)
- toomuchtodo 9y agoI own an AR15 and a shotgun. Law enforcement is the right call for rapid response versus someone like myself with limited range time. I don't care about your credentials; if you have actual training, that's what matters. Your average civilian has almost no training, therefore law enforcement is the preferred response. Can you prove training without credentials? Certainly, but we're not all going to the range together to see who we are and aren't going to trust to respond to active shooters.
- aianus 9y ago> Law enforcement is the right call for rapid response versus someone like myself with limited range time. This may not be true if you're right there and SWAT is 5 minutes away.
- toomuchtodo 9y agoAgree, but edge case. Maybe you're armed, maybe you have the training, and maybe you're not going to panic. Can't base sound policy at scale on the stars aligning.
- aianus 9y agoI tend to think that mass shootings would turn out better if everyone was armed. It is so much harder to kill a lot of people if someone is shooting back at you. However, overall, it would be terrible policy because such a proliferation of arms in public would result in all kinds of extra mass shootings, suicides, homicides, accidents, etc. that would cause more deaths than any reduction in the lethality of a given mass shooting.
- FireBeyond 9y agoHow do you possibly plan for each of those people to know decisively who the "shooter" is? You're all shooters to each other, until proven otherwise.
- curun1r 9y agoMaybe more importantly, uniformed people with guns. In an active shooter situation, people in plain clothes are all suspects and suspects holding guns get shot.
- DanBC 9y agoAnd also, shoot everyone because guns just aren't accurate weapons unless you're in the calm situation of a range. See all the innocent bystanders shot by police who miss the alleged offender. https://www.popehat.com/2013/12/05/nypd-baby-you-know-we-love-you-why-do-you-make-us-angry-like-that/ https://www.popehat.com/2013/12/05/nypd-baby-you-know-we-lov...
- Washuu 9y agoMyself and coworkers joke about our "armory" of weapons ready to combat a shooter. However, we're not stupid enough to actually do that. We know the police that would show up within seconds would see us as targets as well.
- jakeogh 9y agoseconds? Nope. 5+ minutes (which is usually too late).
- dsfyu404ed 9y agoThe fact that it's common knowledge that you're armed means you'll likely never have to deal with that kind of situation.
- x14 9y agoUhm, have you seen our cops?
- humanrebar 9y agoYeah, I don't see how support for BLM and gun control mesh. If cops are corrupt and biased, then why would you want to wait on one in an emergency?
- dsfyu404ed 9y agoIt's hard to see minor details like that from high up in an ivory tower. Lower income urban voters tend to be split on gun control depending on the type. There's little support there for anything that would make it more costly or time consuming for someone without a record of violent crime to buy a firearm.
- Blackthorn 9y agoYou'd still need to hide if you happened to have a gun in the event that you don't, I don't know, want to get shot. A gun is a weapon, not armor.
- mywittyname 9y agoAlso, having a gun out might make you a target for the police. They don't know that you're a good guy. We had a shooter situation at my apartment complex not long ago and the police were on scene before I had time to unlock my pistol.
- rmdashrfroot 9y agoConsider, though, those living outside major population centers, where the police response time can be on the order of 10 to 30 (or more) minutes and there's an active shooter situation. There's very little that can be done to mitigate damage done by the shooter or prevent him from escaping in that span of time.
- Cyph0n 9y agoProfessional people who are formally trained to use guns in situations involving other people who have guns. It's both funny and sad that you think that being a SWAT member boils down to "here is a gun".
- imtringued 9y agoWell they not only have a gun. They have something far more important: body armor. Even a completely untrained SWAT member is going to be more successfull than a random citizen with a gun.
- Cyph0n 9y agoEven a SWAT member without body armor is way more effective than a random dude with a gun.
- eli 9y agoAnd if the assailant didn't have a gun, you also would not need to hide from an active shooter.
- humanrebar 9y agoYou'd need to hide no matter the weapon.
- sincerely 9y agoPeople who are specifically trained in the use of guns as a group in responding to active shooter situations. Not just "people with guns".
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- mikeash 9y agoI’m not SWAT. If I had a gun and there was an armed maniac going around shooting people, I would still hide.
- naasking 9y ago> Is it not true? What did they do in response to an active shooter? They called the police and SWAT -- people with guns. People with guns that will take down anyone else brandishing a gun in that area. Still think it's a good idea to have a gun in this situation?
- Animats 9y agoThe big edge the SWAT guys have is armor and shields, and sometimes armored vehicles, along with enough tactical training to use them. This lets them survive getting close enough to do something. Regular cops have guns too, but that's not enough. The Parkland shooting had an armed sheriff's deputy in the school, but he wasn't armored up to take on someone with an assault rifle.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- Buldak 9y agoIt's an axiom of American political discourse that any argument to restrict guns is logically equivalent to an argument to proliferate guns.
- dsfyu404ed 9y ago"If it was common knowledge that there was a non-trivial number of armed people at the location in question this probably wouldn't be happening" would be more appropriate. People committing violence choose soft targets over hard ones when they can.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- drewrv 9y agoSo does every location in the country need to have armed people around? There can be no "soft targets" anywhere? There is a better way, other countries have figured it out already.
- kgwgk 9y agoYes, nobody does ever kill anyone in other countries.
- jazoom 9y agoWe have individual murders, but our last big mass shooting was in the 90s. USA has one every day. Your comment seems to deliberately misinterpret the situation.
- kgwgk 9y agoWho is “we”? This was a few days ago: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carcassonne_and_Trèbes_attack https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carcassonne_and_Trèbes_attac... (Edit: nevermind, I guess you’re talking about Australia and not Europe)
- jazoom 9y agoI'm genuinely interested what message you were trying to send with that link? I'm Australian.
- deleted 9y ago
- matte_black 9y agoThe active shooter has a gun and isn’t hiding.
- yongjik 9y agoI'm sure the shooter is also wearing pants. And he/she isn't hiding. Ergo, if you had pants, you may not need to hide.
- my_ghola 9y agoIf you have a gun and shoot at the active shooter, you become the active shooter.
- CompanionCuuube 9y agoDefinition of an active shooter: "an individual actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a confined and populated area; in most cases, active shooters use firearms(s) [sic] and there is no pattern or method to their selection of victims."
- jstarfish 9y agoSemantics wasn't the point. When police get reports of an active shooter on campus, you don't want to be the one seen holding a gun when they arrive.
- Whitestrake 9y agoA person who attempts to shoot an active shooter therefore satisfies the definition of an active shooter.
- crabasa 9y agoMade me sick, but on the flip side made for some very satisfying blocks.
- thsowers 9y agoWhile situations like this definitely magnify the bad in our society, I think there is also some bit of good (however small) that can be witnessed, such as the dedication of first responders, the outpouring of support and love from the community etc
- musage 9y ago> When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping." -- Fred Rogers
- jamestimmins 9y agoWhile a lot of it is people trolling or just being antisocial, it's worth noting that a lot of people joke about tragedy as a way of coping with it. 'Gallows humor' and whatnot. So my default assumption is not that the person is a sociopath, but that they are attempting to cope, and don't necessarily have the EQ to know what the time and place for that response is.
- jstarfish 9y agoI'd accept that from a nervous survivor who makes an off-color joke, but making fun of someone else's tragedy while it's happening to them is not a coping mechanism, it's being an asshole. Even gallows humor requires some amount of time to pass before it's socially acceptable.
- dragonwriter 9y ago> Even gallows humor requires some amount of time to pass before it's socially acceptable. No, that doesn't work for gallows humor. Gallows humor requires that you be on the (at least metaphorical) gallows. Making fun of someone else who is in a desperate or hopeless situation when you are safely on the sidelines isn't gallows humor.