The gun thing - a question from a European

[Sarcelle]

I think it was on an online philosophy forum I participate on, a European stated that Americans view the gun as a symbol of power. You would agree?

I don’t agree. I know a lot of gun owners view the gun as a symbol of security.

I think this outsider to the U.S. might have a valid observation about the typical U.S. psyche and U.S. culture in general.

Isn’t there a sense of “emasculation” (for lack of a better expression that is more gender neutral) for many of Americans with the notion of being legally disarmed?

I’d be very suspicious if the U.S. Government starts taking firearms from law-abiding citizen. I grew up in a foreign country with a record of dictatorial governments. The first thing any aspiring dictator does is disarm its citizens. I should know. I’ve lived it.

 

[oldcatholicguy]

Seems most on this Forum do not accept:Matthew 26:52.

Strange - can one pick & choose? I thought it was all sacred text?

You must be using a non-Catholic Bible that lacks the educational footnotes at the bottom of the pages. The footnote in my Catholic Bible indicates that passage was about Peter trying to interfere with God’s plans, not about violence or weapons. Then of course there is also the portions of the CCC concerning the just and unjust use of violence.

 

[LisaA]

Law abiding citizens in the UK do not carry guns and never have. Even before additional restrictions were put in place. I call 39 gun homicides a year a great success and crime is now at its lowest level for 30 years. It is disingenious of the US gun lobby to use UK stats over a limited period to support its aims. Bottom line is in Europe gun homicides low, in USA gun homicides, (and general homicides) high -simple as that.

Your facts on Switzerland are out of date. I spoke to a Swiss guy tonight and he said “Don’t you dare compare us to those crazy Americans.”

Merry Christmas.

One thing to point out (have not read every post so maybe this has been said) is that designated “gun free” zones have been the site of most of the mass shootings. IOW because the shooters know they will not face someone with a concealed carry, they know they can maximize the damage. The shooting at our local mall was stopped by someone with a concealed carry who was unaware it was a “gun free” zone. All he did was pull his gun and the shooter committed suicide. Most of these shooters are cowards…the Newtown shooter for example killed himself when he realized police (with guns) were closing in.

Also with respect to the UK, because law abiding citizens don’t have guns, they have far more “hot burglaries” where robbers enter while people are at home. Unlike the US, they know they can just come in and not face someone’s Smith & Wesson. In the US, 'hot burglaries" are very very rare.

Someone said it early on, guns are written into the DNA of Americans. No one is going to take them away. Even Obama knows it would be foolish to try, even in the light of the emotion of the Newtown shooting. We like our cars and we like our guns. Attempts to re-create Americans as Europeans will fail miserably.

Lisa

 

[BK7154BK]

Some say guns don’t kill people, people kill people.

There have always been psychos in this world. But psychos wielding knives are different than psychos with automatic assault weapons. The psycho in China that had his own school massacre on the same day Adam Lanza did his, was “only” able to wound 22 children - there were no deaths. Also, he was chased away by a couple of adults with brooms.

Here is a conservative judge advocating a ban on assault weapons.

I really don’t understand the gun thing. Why would any civilian need weapons that kill dozens of people in a matter of seconds, anyway?

Because gov’t have tried to murder their citizens before. In other words, for protection.

 

[liturgyluver]

One thing to point out (have not read every post so maybe this has been said) is that designated “gun free” zones have been the site of most of the mass shootings. IOW because the shooters know they will not face someone with a concealed carry, they know they can maximize the damage. The shooting at our local mall was stopped by someone with a concealed carry who was unaware it was a “gun free” zone. All he did was pull his gun and the shooter committed suicide. Most of these shooters are cowards…the Newtown shooter for example killed himself when he realized police (with guns) were closing in.

Also with respect to the UK, because law abiding citizens don’t have guns, they have far more “hot burglaries” where robbers enter while people are at home. Unlike the US, they know they can just come in and not face someone’s Smith & Wesson. In the US, 'hot burglaries" are very very rare.

Someone said it early on, guns are written into the DNA of Americans. No one is going to take them away. Even Obama knows it would be foolish to try, even in the light of the emotion of the Newtown shooting. We like our cars and we like our guns. Attempts to re-create Americans as Europeans will fail miserably.

Lisa

Lisa, until I read your thread today I didn’t even know what a hot burglary was as the term is unknown in the UK, and I know no-one who has been burgled while at home. When I checked the British Crime Survey, they estimate that 20% of burglaries in England happened when a householder was present, but in 70% of those cases the burglar was known to the victim. According to this link crimeinamerica.net/2010/09/30/28-percent-of-burglaries-involve-people-at-home-good-doors-windows-prevent-violent-crime/
the hot burglary figure in the USA is 28% and this seems to be borne out elsewhere by many on this forum who feel they need their guns for protection.

But I agree with everything you say in your final paragraph above - the bottom line is a cultural difference between Europeans and Americans. The only thing I hope we can agree on is to thank God that overall crime on both sides of the Atlantic is continuing to fall sharply. God bless.

 

[LisaA]

Lisa, until I read your thread today I didn’t even know what a hot burglary was as the term is unknown in the UK, and I know no-one who has been burgled while at home. When I checked the British Crime Survey, they estimate that 20% of burglaries in England happened when a householder was present, but in 70% of those cases the burglar was known to the victim. According to this link crimeinamerica.net/2010/09/30/28-percent-of-burglaries-involve-people-at-home-good-doors-windows-prevent-violent-crime/
the hot burglary figure in the USA is 28% and this seems to be borne out elsewhere by many on this forum who feel they need their guns for protection.

But I agree with everything you say in your final paragraph above - the bottom line is a cultural difference between Europeans and Americans. The only thing I hope we can agree on is to thank God that overall crime on both sides of the Atlantic is continuing to fall sharply. God bless.

The info was from an Atlantic Monthly article. I will try to source it for confirmation.

You are right, these are cultural differences that date back to the founding of our country. Given it was a wilderness, self protection was ingrained in our collective souls. Of course the 2nd Amendment refers to protection against a tyrannical government but I don’t think it’s necessarily the only source of our personal gun culture.

You are right, violent crimes are being reduced and in this country tend to be geographical. The irony being that cities with the strictest gun laws (Chicago for example) have high rates of gun violence. The further irony is that all of the talk of restricting guns has done more to SELL guns than anything else. We were Christmas shopping at Cabelas a store with sports, camping, hunting and fishing gear/clothing. The shelves were PICKED CLEAN of guns and ammunition. The more politicians talk about restricting guns, the more demand is ginned up. Hopefully cooler heads will continue to prevail and the talk of bans and such will die down.

Lisa

 

[ProVobis]

You are right, these are cultural differences that date back to the founding of our country. Given it was a wilderness, self protection was ingrained in our collective souls.

I’m glad you pointed that out. Perhaps it explains why many immigrants associate much better with those who speak against guns and less with the trigger-happy crowds.

It’s somewhat ironic though that the right to bear arms was originally an English idea. Parliament needed to be protected from its king.

Somewhere down the line things went into different directions.

 

[Cristiano]

I’m glad you pointed that out. Perhaps it explains why many immigrants associate much better with those who speak against guns and less with the trigger-happy crowds.

It’s somewhat ironic though that the right to bear arms was originally an English idea. Parliament needed to be protected from its king.

Somewhere down the line things went into different directions.

You should also explain why many immigrants associate much better with those who support the 2nd amendment. Probably a lot of you have not grown up in European families that were potential targets of terrorist groups.

 

[Zooey]

One thing to point out (have not read every post so maybe this has been said) is that designated “gun free” zones have been the site of most of the mass shootings. IOW because the shooters know they will not face someone with a concealed carry, they know they can maximize the damage. The shooting at our local mall was stopped by someone with a concealed carry who was unaware it was a “gun free” zone. All he did was pull his gun and the shooter committed suicide. Most of these shooters are cowards…the Newtown shooter for example killed himself when he realized police (with guns) were closing in.

Exactly.

Also with respect to the UK, because law abiding citizens don’t have guns, they have far more “hot burglaries” where robbers enter while people are at home. Unlike the US, they know they can just come in and not face someone’s Smith & Wesson. In the US, 'hot burglaries" are very very rare.

Areas of this country where just about everybody has at least one gun in the house have very low instances of this type of crimes; even people who aren’t in their right minds prefer robbing the helpless to robbing the armed.

Someone said it early on, guns are written into the DNA of Americans. No one is going to take them away. Even Obama knows it would be foolish to try, even in the light of the emotion of the Newtown shooting. We like our cars and we like our guns. Attempts to re-create Americans as Europeans will fail miserably.

Lisa

We like our freedoms. The British have never “gotten” that–which is no doubt why it took us not just one but two wars, to get them out of here. They still assume that we are all just dying to “come on home”. The UK is not my home. Never was, never will be, God willing. Not the home of my ancestors, either.
“On the whole, gentlemen, I believe I will go to Texas”. [Representative David Crockett, to the assmebled US Congress].

 

[TimeEntrance]

One thing to point out (have not read every post so maybe this has been said) is that designated “gun free” zones have been the site of most of the mass shootings. IOW because the shooters know they will not face someone with a concealed carry…

How do they know that, Lisa?

I’m never 100% certain in many if not most settings I’m in who - if any - persons are illegally or legally concealing a firearm.

I used to carry a pistol illegally concealed. If you were sitting next to me on a Greyhound bus, in a bar, or in a gun free zone theater and just “knew” I didn’t have a firearm on me then you would have been wrong.

But lets take your position of what criminals can know to it’s logical conclusion. What does your proposition seem to logically suggest about the U.S. Federal Government not making it law that every non-criminal citizen must always be armed with at least a pistol anytime they step off their property?

 

[LisaA]

How do they know that, Lisa?

I’m never 100% certain in many if not most settings I’m in who - if any - persons are illegally or legally concealing a firearm.

I used to carry a pistol illegally concealed. If you were sitting next to me on a Greyhound bus, in a bar, or in a gun free zone theater and just “knew” I didn’t have a firearm on me then you would have been wrong.

But lets take your position of what criminals can know to it’s logical conclusion. What does your proposition seem to logically suggest about the U.S. Federal Government not making it law that every non-criminal citizen must always be armed with at least a pistol anytime they step off their property?

Don’t be deliberately obtuse. What do you think TimeEntrance; that one is more likely to encounter someone with a concealed carry in a posted gun free zone or in the same environment without such designation. As the saying goes…do the math. Or to quote Clint Eastwood…“Do you feel lucky? Well do ya punk?”

These mass shootings that have captured the headlines have been carefully planned in advance. Futher, the shooters seek out places where they are unlikely to face someone who is armed. For example the Batman Shooter had the choice of seven theaters in the same general area. He chose the theater with the gun free designation. Our Portland shooter also chose the one large mall with a gun free designation. By chance someone DID have a gun and stopped him. But like Virginia Tech, chances are the gun free zone is just that. Do ou think the Newtown shooter expected to be faced with an armed school teacher or ten year old packing heat? Let’s be real OK?

And no it does NOT suggest that all should be armed. In fact that would be counterproductive. It is the CHANCE that one may face an armed opponent that sends would be shooters to easier targets. Not knowing about the guy next to you in Starbucks or at the theater or in a classroom is a far better deterrent than a dopey sign that just asks for trouble.

Lisa

 

[sw85]

“Assault rifles” aren’t automatic weapons. Automatic weapons have been largely banned in the United States since the 1930s IIRC, and you have to jump through millions of hoops to be able to own one, and even then I’m fairly confident the automatic capacity has to be disabled.

“Assault rifles” are semiautomatic weapons, like 99% of all guns currently in circulation. That means they fire one bullet for each squeeze of the trigger, no need to cycle a round by hand (i.e., with a pump or lever action). The Bushmaster rifle pictured on the first page of this thread is literally as “semiautomatic” as the handguns pictured there.

The last “assault weapons ban” was a joke. The definition of “assault weapon” was utterly arbitrary. It actually wound up driving up ownership of those guns, as gun dealers slashed prices to empty their inventories of them before the ban took effect (note: it was a ban on manufacturing and, I think, sale, not possession).

And it made no dent whatsoever on anything. It was a feel-good measure. It was the government “doing something,” where “something” meant “anything.” Legislative busywork. It was silliness.

We don’t even need to talk about gun ownership as a right. As a matter of prudence, this kind of stuff is just dumb. It really is. People point to Europe as if its relevant. “But they have gun control in Norway!” Norway’s a sparsely populated nation of high-IQ white Lutherans. They don’t have to deal with a defective subculture of their population that fetishizes violence (the same subculture that’s made so many inner cities no-go zones for sane people). They don’t have to deal with sharing 3,000 miles of shared border with a failed narco-state. They don’t have to deal with a history of violent civil war that’s left like a third of the country utterly impoverished. Etc. etc. etc. The same is true of Britain, of France, of Italy, etc. None of these countries are America. Think about it scientifically. You can’t take two different populations, vary one variable, then pin any group differences on the variable.

Why do we keep going back to the same dry well, hoping that this time there’ll be water in it? The same people who insist we keep going to this dry well are the same ones who poisoned the other well. The leftists who foisted deinstitutionalization on the world didn’t do the world any favors. Society was worse off afterwards and so were the severely mentally ill. Literally everywhere but Japan (where family structures are still intact enough to provide for them), the mortality rate for the mentally ill skyrocketed after deinstitutionalization, as did the violent crime rate. Throwing dangerous psychotropic drugs at them without monitoring them, it turns out, doesn’t help, and probably even makes it worse. If we want to stop nuts killing people, the solution isn’t to take away guns. The solution is also not to increase gun ownership. The solution lay in the “nuts,” not the “killing people.” Adam Lanza should’ve been in a mental institution, heavily medicated and closely monitored at all hours.

Quit talking about gun control, it’s a red herring. Repent of the error of deinstitutionalization.

EDIT: And yeah, that’s just the proximal issue. People are right when they talk about the degeneracy of the present age as the distal cause, too. 80 years ago the big concern in schools was kids chewing gum and copying homework. Today it’s meth, 14 year olds sodomizing each other during lunch break, and suicide. There’s a deep pervasive sickness at the heart of society.

 

[ProVobis]

These mass shootings that have captured the headlines have been carefully planned in advance. Futher, the shooters seek out places where they are unlikely to face someone who is armed.

Fair point but in the Connecticut case the killer wore a bullet-proof vest. He didn’t care too much if someone else there had a gun; in fact he expected it.

 

[ProVobis]

We like our freedoms. The British have never “gotten” that–which is no doubt why it took us not just one but two wars, to get them out of here. They still assume that we are all just dying to “come on home”.

Nonsense.

The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution was heavily influenced by the English Bill of Rights 1689, which restricted the right of the English Crown to interfere with the personal right to bear arms. The 1689 Bill of Rights restricted the right of the monarch to have a standing army and to interfere with the personal right to bear arms. It did not create a new right to have arms, but instead rescinded and deplored acts of the deposed King James II which extended the right to Catholics and Protestant dissenters in addition to upholding prior legislation that limited the ownership of arms to certain social classes. The English Bill of Rights firmly established that regulating the right to bear arms was one of the powers of Parliament, and did not belong to the monarch.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_keep_and_bear_arms

 

[Zooey]

sw85:

The solution lay in the “nuts,” not the “killing people.” Adam Lanza should’ve been in a mental institution, heavily medicated and closely monitored at all hours.

Thank you.
And his mother tried, desperately, to find help for him. The people who should have been helping her–and her son–by hospitalizing him, were the ones whining, “Oh, but he has his rights”.
And now they try to shift the blame, by whining that she shouldn’t have had guns. Well. OK, but she died for making the mistake of thinking she could control the situation by having weapons. I, for one, have no intention of blaming the first victim of Adam’s killing spree. I just wish **she **could have shot **him **before he shot her–and then all those other people.
As it turned out, Adam was willing to kill his own mother in order to get his hands on her guns. Anyone who thinks that her gun ownership made things somehow possible that would have been impossible without those particular weapons needs to do a wee bit of research. All the materials needed to build a bomb big enough to kill everyone in the entire school can be purchased at your friendly neighborhood mall.

Nonsense.

Maybe you all need to pay attention to the way our former colonial masters babble about “how sad that [we] left [them]”. Maybe people think they are joking. I don’t…but then, I’m Irish, & my ancestors were into centuries of fighting British imperioalism, by the time that Columbus sailed the ocean blue, so I may be a wee bit prejudiced.

 

[TimeEntrance]

Don’t be deliberately obtuse. What do you think TimeEntrance; that one is more likely to encounter someone with a concealed carry in a posted gun free zone or in the same environment without such designation. As the saying goes…do the math. Or to quote Clint Eastwood…“Do you feel lucky? Well do ya punk?”

I have no idea what that Clint Eastwood quote is suppose to mean in relation to your comments preceding it.

And my comment was no more obtuse than a challenging remark one could expect to come from a course in logic or by any philosopher let alone logician. Your assertion that these shooters know they will not encounter any armed resistance in the designated gun free zones are built on certain assumptions. That is not obtuse, that is simple logic. Your assumptions may not be accurate.

I once owned a sawed-off shotgun. I got the weapon by trading my .380 semiautomatic pistol for it. How that happened was a bit serendipitous. Visiting an old friend at his home at some point he pulled up his shirt to expose a pistol he had, at which point I pulled up my shirt to expose my .380 tucked in my belt or waistband. Prior to this neither one of knew each was carrying concealed.

He wanted my .380 and offered a trade for another weapon he had: a sawed-off 12 gauge shotgun.

Her is my point: you can’t know for certain who around you is armed or unarmed. Unless of course you can pat them down or maybe use metal detectors over them.

That’s not to say you can’t assume odds. I would say the odds are that a man or woman on a beach in Miami or in Rio de Janeiro are unlikely to be armed. Less so that at a gun range or police station. Can I be certain no individual is armed while sunbathing on those beaches? No. But the odds decrease even further if they leave the sands of sunbathing to go swim in the water.

These mass shootings that have captured the headlines have been carefully planned in advance. Futher, the shooters seek out places where they are unlikely to face someone who is armed. For example the Batman Shooter had the choice of seven theaters in the same general area. He chose the theater with the gun free designation. Our Portland shooter also chose the one large mall with a gun free designation. By chance someone DID have a gun and stopped him. But like Virginia Tech, chances are the gun free zone is just that. Do ou think the Newtown shooter expected to be faced with an armed school teacher or ten year old packing heat? Let’s be real OK?

What I think is you think you’re smarter than FBI profilers, forensic psychologists and others that investigate crimes.

To justify your opinions you card stack: permit only data that can be used to prove your point.

Why did the Batman shooter pick a batman movie to shoot people at? That would be my question. Why did the Virginia Tech shooter pick that no gun free zone over another? Why did the Newtown shooter pick Sandy Hook elementary school specifically? Why not a different school or some other gun free zone?

I don’t think those questions are much different from asking why a man that abuses his wife chokes his wife but not female strangers? Or why a married man that is a serial killer of women does not murder his wife but murders other women.

And no it does NOT suggest that all should be armed. In fact that would be counterproductive. It is the CHANCE that one may face an armed opponent that sends would be shooters to easier targets. Not knowing about the guy next to you in Starbucks or at the theater or in a classroom is a far better deterrent than a dopey sign that just asks for trouble.

Lisa

I don’t doubt easy targets and mass killings are part (though I doubt the whole) of the psychological motivation for mass shooters.

The former Marine that recently shot up his wife’s place of work in Brooklfield, WI. could have easily picked the lake front of Milwaukee or a restaurant in downtown Wisconsin. But he choose to shoot and murder the mother of his child and her coworkers. I’ll hazard a guess there were psychological motivations beyond just “easy targets” why he picked his wife’s hair salon she worked at over places or facilities likely presenting as easy of targets.

There are those in America that become “shooters” motivated by other things like taking money, that do challenge law enforcement in gun battle rather than “easy targets.”

1. wisn.com/news/south-east-wisconsin/waukesha/4-dead-4-injured-in-Brookfield-shooting/-/10150328/17074464/-/9rwk3cz/-/index.html

4 dead, 4 injured in Brookfield shooting
Police said shooter was found deceased inside spa
UPDATED 6:41 AM CDT Oct 22, 2012

BROOKFIELD, Wis. —Three people plus a gunman are dead in a mass shooting that took place at the Azana Spa near the Brookfield Square Mall at about 11:15 a.m. Sunday, according to the Brookfield police chief.

1. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Hollywood_shootout

The North Hollywood shootout was an armed confrontation between two heavily armed and armored bank robbers and officers of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) in the North Hollywood district of Los Angeles on February 28, 1997. Both robbers were killed, eleven police officers and seven civilians were injured, and numerous vehicles and other property were damaged or destroyed by the nearly 2,000 rounds of ammunition fired by the robbers and the police.[2]

 

[LisaA]

Fair point but in the Connecticut case the killer wore a bullet-proof vest. He didn’t care too much if someone else there had a gun; in fact he expected it.

No you are wrong, he knew when he left he would not return. He killed his mother, smashed his computer and set about his deadly business. The point of the vest (which the Batman killer also wore as I recall) is to get as much done BEFORE “death by cop” or suicide which are the usual outcomes of these shootings.

Sure Newtown and Batman knew they would eventually face guns but the vests would keep them alive longer and give them more time to do their evil.

Lisa

 

[TimeEntrance]

Addendum to post #159.

This is a famous case covered to this very day in law enforcement and military security fields. I recall a class in Security Forces school in the USMC covering this incident briefly.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1986_FBI_Miami_shootout

The 1986 FBI Miami shootout was a gun battle that occurred on April 11, 1986 in an unincorporated region of Miami-Dade County in south Florida between eight FBI agents and two serial bank robbers. During the firefight, FBI Special Agents Jerry L. Dove and Benjamin P. Grogan were killed, while five other agents were wounded. The two robbery suspects, William Russell Matix and Michael Lee Platt, were also killed.

The incident is infamous in FBI history and is well-studied in law enforcement circles. Despite outnumbering the suspects 4 to 1, the agents found themselves pinned down by rifle fire and unable to respond effectively. Although both Matix and Platt were hit multiple times during the firefight, Platt fought on and continued to injure and kill agents. This incident led to the introduction of more powerful handguns in the FBI and many police departments around the United States.

Michael Lee Platt (February 3, 1954 – April 11, 1986) and William Russell Matix (June 25, 1951 – April 11, 1986) met while serving in the Army at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Mattix first served in the Marine Corps from 1969–1972 working as a cook in the officers’ mess and was later honorably discharged reaching the rank of Staff Sergeant. In 1973, Matix enlisted in the Army and served in the military police. Matix was honourably discharged from the Army in 1976. Platt enlisted in 1972 as an infantryman and served with the U.S. Army Rangers during the Vietnam War. He was honorably discharged in 1979. Both of their spouses had died under mysterious circumstances.[1] Matix’s wife, Patricia Buchanich, was stabbed to death along with a co-worker on December 30, 1983 at Riverside Methodist Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, where both women worked. Platt told investigators that he suspected Platt had carried on an affair with his wife. Matix was a suspect in her murder but was never charged.[2] After his wife’s death Matix moved to Miami at the urging of Michael Platt and remarried to a woman named Brenda and had one daughter, Christy Lou. After relocating to Homestead, Florida, Matix began a landscaping and tree removal business called The Yankee Clipper with Platt.[3] In December 1984, Platt’s wife Regina was found shot dead with a shotgun. Her death was ruled a suicide.[4]

Prior to embarking on their crime spree neither Platt nor Matix had a criminal record.[5] At the time of Platt’s killing, his wife had no idea that her husband and friend Mattix was a bank robber, and he was a father to an infant son that he never met.

 

[jimmy]

Some say guns don’t kill people, people kill people.

There have always been psychos in this world. But psychos wielding knives are different than psychos with automatic assault weapons. The psycho in China that had his own school massacre on the same day Adam Lanza did his, was “only” able to wound 22 children - there were no deaths. Also, he was chased away by a couple of adults with brooms.

Here is a conservative judge advocating a ban on assault weapons.

I really don’t understand the gun thing. Why would any civilian need weapons that kill dozens of people in a matter of seconds, anyway?

Why would any govt need them? I don’t have any guns, but I also don’t want the govtment saying I shouldn’t be allowed to have them because someone else is a psycho. We have a right to possess fire arms because our relationship to the govt isn’t one of slave to master. Saying they should ban guns essentially says the govt is there’s to keep us in check, as if we are unruly children who can’t take care of ourselves.

 

[LisaA]

I have no idea what that Clint Eastwood quote is suppose to mean in relation to your comments preceding it.

And my comment was no more obtuse than a challenging remark one could expect to come from a course in logic or by any philosopher let alone logician. Your assertion that these shooters know they will not encounter any armed resistance in the designated gun free zones are built on certain assumptions. That is not obtuse, that is simple logic. Your assumptions may not be accurate.

Why did the Batman shooter pick a batman movie to shoot people at? That would be my question. Why did the Virginia Tech shooter pick that no gun free zone over another? Why did the Newtown shooter pick Sandy Hook elementary school specifically? Why not a different school or some other gun free zone?

I don’t think those questions are much different from asking why a man that abuses his wife chokes his wife but not female strangers? Or why a married man that is a serial killer of women does not murder his wife but murders other women.

I don’t doubt easy targets and mass killings are part (though I doubt the whole) of the psychological motivation for mass shooters.

The former Marine that recently shot up his wife’s place of work in Brooklfield, WI. could have easily picked the lake front of Milwaukee or a restaurant in downtown Wisconsin. But he choose to shoot and murder the mother of his child and her coworkers. I’ll hazard a guess there were psychological motivations beyond just “easy targets” why he picked his wife’s hair salon she worked at over places or facilities likely presenting as easy of targets.

There are those in America that become “shooters” motivated by other things like taking money, that do challenge law enforcement in gun battle rather than “easy targets.”

1. wisn.com/news/south-east-wisconsin/waukesha/4-dead-4-injured-in-Brookfield-shooting/-/10150328/17074464/-/9rwk3cz/-/index.html
2. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Hollywood_shootout

Sorry but you continue to try to foist strawmen into the mix. Please read my post. I did not say the shooter KNEW there would not be anyone with a gun in a posted ‘gun free’ zone. But as you said, play the odds. Or as one psychiatrist noted, these people are crazy but they are not stupid.

Also you pointed out the obvious, that the shooters target people and places that have some association to them. The Batman killer was obviously mentally ill and had a Batman obsession. It was not simply chance that he picked a Batman movie in which to spring out like a would be Joker and murder a bunch of strangers. Apparently the Newtown shooter had attended the Sandy Hook School and his mother had volunteered there. So no, they didn’t pick targets JUST because they were gun free zones but clearly they picked targets where it was unlikely at best that they would be faced with someone packing heat.

The point being that designating places ‘gun free zones’ is if anything counterproductive to protecting innocent victims. One of the original mass shooting venues was the post office…why? Because postal employees are nuts? No, because post offices were among the first ‘gun free zones’ and former employees knew about that policy. You don’t see the same type of behavior in disgruntled former cops do you? Coincidence? I don’t think so. Further no gun restrictions or other laws have proven to be effective.

Your Marine example is not applicable to the discussion of mass shootings of strangers which is the issue that generated the thread. Obviously the Marine wanted to kill his wife, not simply shoot people.

So what’s your point here?

Lisa