A good guy with a gun story

[dolphins4life]

December 2019. A shooter tried to carry out a massacre at a Texas church. Seven people drew their guns. One of them shot him.

Doesn’t this prove every gun control argument false?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Freeway_Church_of_Christ_shooting

[Phishfan]

No

[Spider-Dan]

No

Correct

[Spider-Dan]

Oh look, here's something that happened in a different church TODAY:

Police: 2 dead, 1 hurt in church shooting; suspect detained

VESTAVIA HILLS, Ala. (AP) — A lone suspect fired on a small group meeting at a suburban church near one of Alabama’s major cities Thursday evening, fatally wounding two people and injuring a third before being taken into custody, authorities said.

The attack occurred at Saint Stephen’s Episcopal Church in the Birmingham suburb of Vestavia Hills, Police Capt. Shane Ware said. He said officers rushed to the church after dispatchers got a call reporting an active shooter at the church at 6:22 p.m.

“From what we’ve gathered from the circumstances of this evening, a lone suspect entered a small church group meeting and began shooting. Three people were shot. Two people are deceased. One person is being treated for an unknown injury at a local hospital,” Ware said at a late Thursday news briefing.

He added that a suspect was in custody and that there was “no threat to the community at this time.”

---

No worries though, several years (and several dozen mass shootings) ago, one of the many (would-be) mass murderers in this country was taken down by a Good Guy with a Gun, so when you think about it, none of the other shootings count.

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

Approximately 2% of all bad guys with a gun are stopped with a good guy with a gun.

Despite the lies of the gun manufacturers lobby (NRA) comprehensive gun control would NOT prevent good guys from having guns, it would make it harder for the bad guys to get guns.

A background check doesn’t stop a nonviolent individual from purchasing a gun for home security, but closing the gun show loophole will prevent people who shouldn’t be buying them.

Mandating guns be secured when stored doesn’t prevent good people from having guns, but does prevent accidental shooting and theft.

Not allowing people with a history of DV from having guns is keeping guns out of the hands of bad people.

[Phishfan]

Care to elaborate?

No elaboration needed. You asked a yes or no question with an incorrect premise.

[Spider-Dan]

That's because most shootings occur in areas where there are not good guys with guns.

I just linked a shooting that happened yesterday in Alabama. Are you arguing that Alabama has too much gun regulation?
How about South Carolina, where Dylann Roof shot up a church full of elderly black people?  Or the schools that were shot up in Parkland, Florida, and Uvalde, Texas?

Where is this mythical land that has enough armed good guys to stop mass shootings?

[dolphins4life]

I just linked a shooting that happened yesterday in Alabama. Are you arguing that Alabama has too much gun regulation?
How about South Carolina, where Dylann Roof shot up a church full of elderly black people?  Or the schools that were shot up in Parkland, Florida, and Uvalde, Texas?

Where is this mythical land that has enough armed good guys to stop mass shootings?

The place I cited in my first post.

SEVEN people drew their guns on this guy.

Let's compare

Sutherland Springs.  Nobody had a gun there.  Shooting lasted several minutes.  26 people died.

Original post:  Seven people drew their guns.  Shooter was killed in seconds.  Only two fatalities.

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

More guns only benefits gun manufactures. 

Owning a gun increases your risk of being a victim of gun violence. 

Robbed at gun point.  If you are unarmed you will lose your wallet.  On the other hand if you pullout a firearm unless your are extremely well trained AND lucky the robber will shot you before you have a chance to shoot him.

Own a gun:  You are more likely to accidentally shoot yourself or someone else than you are to stop a crime.

Let's take this fantasy of a world where everyone is armed to its logical conclusion....  Now, Black Friday arguments over mall parking spots are now longer shooting matches but shoot outs.  Everyone will see themselves as the "good guy" fully justified to shoot everyone else in self-defense and stand your ground. 

Bar fights are no longer just a black eye or a few stiches.  They are now gun fight with bystanders getting shot too. 

I have been in my share of fist fight.  In a fist there is only a very slight tactical advantage to throwing the first punch.  It is so small most people don't even see it as an advantage at all.  So many people (myself included) are extremely reluctant to throw the first punch, preferring to have the moral high ground of letting the other guy throw the first punch.
 Multiple times in my life I have stood face to face with someone as we each verbally provoking the other to throw the other punch until others intervened and we went our own ways.  Likewise many times in my life I have broken up fights, both before they started or after they were going on and in some case I got injured in the process.  But the dynamics of a gun fight is vastly different than a fist fight.  In a gun fight whoever shoots first win, so stare downs are less unlikely.  Also others can't break up a gun fight, unlike a fist fight.   

[Spider-Dan]

The place I cited in my first post.

SEVEN people drew their guns on this guy.

The place you cited in your first post was Texas, the same state in which a classroom of schoolchildren were slowly executed as well-armed good guys with guns stood around outside the classroom for an hour.  And I doubt the magical unnamed city in which your citation-free church shooting purportedly took place has meaningfully different laws regarding gun ownership than Uvalde does.

So, again: in which mythical land does this "just arm everyone!" strategy actually work to decrease gun violence?
Certainly nowhere in the US, as we have far worse gun violence than other nations that severely restrict gun ownership.  (For some unknown reason, most criminals in those countries seem to have decided that they don't want guns!  This is a mystery that may never be solved...)

[stinkfish]

I went out last night to shoot some pool with a couple of buddies. One of these guys turned into a gun but for some reason a couple of years ago. He’s amassed quite the collection. Anyway, he’s frustrated about the weird gun laws in Boston. Even if you have your LTC, you can’t carry in Boston. And if you have guns in your house in Boston they have to be locked up. Which is sort of antithetical to the whole idea of having guns for protection in your home. To me, if you have a piece for home protection then you should have one readily available in case the unthinkable happens at your door at 2AM. So, like, I mean, why make gun ownership available at all if you’re going to have laws in place that don’t let you have one readily available for protection? To me the only reason to have a gun is for personal and property protection. Boston really has gun owners handcuffed for good or for bad.

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

And if you have guns in your house in Boston they have to be locked up. Which is sort of antithetical to the whole idea of having guns for protection in your home. To me, if you have a piece for home protection then you should have one readily available in case the unthinkable happens at your door at 2AM. So, like, I mean, why make gun ownership available at all if you’re going to have laws in place that don’t let you have one readily available for protection? To me the only reason to have a gun is for personal and property protection. Boston really has gun owners handcuffed for good or for bad.

The safe storage requirement is not specific to Boston but state law.  However, your statement of it is misstating what is permitted and not permitted.  It is basically the same law as what I proposed and discussed with Phishfan is the Uvalde thread.  You can keep a loaded gun on your night table while you sleep as long as no one in the house is under 18.  If someone is under 18 you can still sleep with a firearm on your nightstand, but you must secure it with a trigger lock.  

Here is what you can't do:  Have an unlocked gun on your nightstand in your bedroom when you aren't home.  Nor can you have an unlocked gun on your night stand in your bedroom while you are in the kitchen.  

If it takes you more than 2 seconds to remove a trigger lock....you need to become more proficient with your weapon.  And if you are not willing to gain that level of competency your weapon will be a liability at 2 am during your hypothetical home invasion.  Also having an unlocked gun on the other side of your house during the hypothetical home invasion is as useless to you as having the gun locked in a gun safe, however, it greatly increases the chances that the home invader who may have broken in unarmed is now armed.  And certainly leaving your weapon unsecured when you are not home does absolutely nothing to keep you safe, and endangers society as the unarmed punk who broke in to steal your TV when you weren't home now has a gun.    

I would also caution you that while having a gun for personal protection is justified, having one for property protection is not.  E.g.  If someone breaks into your house and you shoot them it is justified *if* you had a reasonable fear of harm.  However, lets say someone breaks into your house and by the time you go and get your gun on the other side of the house and by the time you get it the burglar is fleeing out of you home with your TV in his arms if you shoot him you have committed murder and your self-defense argument will fail because you are no longer in personal danger and lethal force is not permitted to protect property. 

[Spider-Dan]

If you browse to the link D4L recently added to the first post, you will understand why we haven't heard other gun nuts throwing this event in our faces:

"The perpetrator shot and killed two members of the church before he was fatally shot by Jack Wilson, the head of the church's armed security department, ending the attack within six seconds."

To the best of my knowledge, none of the gun control proponents on this forum have argued against the existence of armed security personnel.
This thread has absolutely nothing to do with deregulation of guns among private citizens, and even if it did, "He only killed two people" - a fact that went totally unmentioned in the original post - is not a compelling argument.

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

Another relevant thing left out was the shooter had an extensive history of violent crime, yet in Texas this is not a barrier to gun purchasrs.

I tend to agree with the statement "I am a responsible law abiding citizen I should not have my right to own a gun infringed".

However, background checks don't infringe on law abiding citizens owning guns.  They verify you are law abiding. 

Requiring you verify the person you are selling your gun to is legally permitted to own one doesn't infringe on you owning a gun.

Safe storage laws don't prevent you from owning a gun they just require you act responsibly.

Nothing I proposed on the other thread infringes on responsible law abiding citizens who are over the age of 21.  But it does require gun owners be responsible law abiding citizens.