Guns in America
[Headlines by DRJ]
Walmart faces pressure to stop gun sales after latest U.S. mass shootings:
Walmart Inc said on Monday there has been no change in its policy on gun sales after two mass shootings over the weekend, including one at a Walmart store, left 31 people dead in Texas and Ohio.
Years of public pressure led Walmart, the largest U.S arms retailer, to end assault rifle sales in 2015, and in 2018 to raise the minimum age for gun purchases to 21. Some gun control activists and Walmart customers now want the retailer to drop sales of guns and ammunition altogether.
If the El Paso and especially the Dayton shootings taught us anything, it is that the quicker a person with a gun shows up, the sooner the shooting ends and the more lives that will be saved. In Dayton, the police arrived in less than a minute and lives were saved. In El Paso, the response time was 6 minutes but the shooter may not have been confronted for 20 minutes — the timeline and details are still unclear. If someone in El Paso had been armed, maybe fewer people would have died. (This is not a criticism of the El Paso police. They can’t be everywhere and high-paying oilfield jobs in Texas have led to a shortage of police that is affecting response times, as well as frequent overtime shifts.)
We count on our police but we also need to be armed. Asking Walmart to make it harder for citizens to arm themselves is the wrong thing to do.
— DRJ
If you want to own a gun, take gun training and get a concealed carry permit.
DRJ (15874d) — 8/5/2019 @ 3:11 pmIf Walmart is the biggest firearms retailer, then mom and pop gun stores probably hope that Walmart gets out of the business.
norcal (b50285) — 8/5/2019 @ 3:26 pmKind of like getting a Drivers License. Though I don’t think owning a car is covered by the constitution specifically.
Colliente (05736f) — 8/5/2019 @ 3:28 pmPressure by who? WHO is applying this pressure? It certainly isn’t their gun buying customers. I and I love this:
Some gun control activists and Walmart customers
Well, y’know SOME PEOPLE want pretty much ANYTHING. One shooting the whole liberals establishment goes fascist and starts shutting down EVERYTHING they don’t like. Amazing.
rcocean (1a839e) — 8/5/2019 @ 3:33 pm3. Driving is a privilege that can be revoked or suspended at the whim of the state. Self-defense is a fundamental human right and the 2nd amendment is at least in part an official recognition of that right.
Gryph (08c844) — 8/5/2019 @ 3:36 pm… and Putin smiled.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/5/2019 @ 3:38 pmNo, this is the lesson learned:
What the shootings in El Paso and Dayton should teach you is even in a state w/conceal/open carry rights and a state citizenry proudly festooned with firearms, nobody moved to stop him; no ‘good guys with guns’ showed up for 20 minutes and 22 died w/more injured. In Dayton, police response was an incredibly swift 24 seconds and by 30 seconds, the shooter was neutralized– you can’t ask for a better police response time than that to assess, evaluate and act… yet in those brief seconds, 9 people were killed and 25 or so injured.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/5/2019 @ 3:57 pm@7.Postscript- per CNN; death toll in El Paso has risen to 31.
Sleep well, America.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/5/2019 @ 4:00 pmI never studied as thorough for a test like I did for that first gun permit.
mg (8cbc69) — 8/5/2019 @ 4:19 pmWell, we know of at least one good guy with a gun who was on scene in El Paso, and thought his job was not engaging the killer, but getting himself and others to safety
Kishnevi (e931a3) — 8/5/2019 @ 4:21 pmhttps://dailycaller.com/2019/08/03/el-paso-hero-soldier-carried-kids-safety/
(Link originally supplied by mg)
Interesting:
https://www.smh.com.au/national/more-guns-in-australia-now-than-before-the-port-arthur-massacre-report-20190327-p5188m.html
Narciso (72d34b) — 8/5/2019 @ 4:27 pm20 minutes! There were probably good guys with guns but once they put 2 + 2, they were probably not only “‘whew” but also “attaboy”.
urbanleftbehind (8fbfb8) — 8/5/2019 @ 4:28 pm@0. Right. And no fault due him; but it is indicate of the ‘fatal’ flaw in the ‘good guys with guns stop bad guys with guns’ rant.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/5/2019 @ 4:28 pm^#13– for 10. For K. Typo.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/5/2019 @ 4:29 pmThe pressure comes from one side: stop selling guns, eating meat, driving a car, wearing a hat that triggers us, going to a rally we don’t agree with, using a plastic straw, posting comments we don’t like, contributing to people we don’t like, having opinions we dislike, . . .
Harcourt Fenton Mudd (6b1442) — 8/5/2019 @ 4:37 pm@15. You forgot ‘video games.’
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/5/2019 @ 4:39 pmDCSCA that 31 death toll is for both Dayton (9) and El Paso (22)
Bendover2 (aa5a9b) — 8/5/2019 @ 4:39 pm8: let’s not stop with half measures! a controlling body for movies, media and speech will help prevent bad thoughts too.
Harcourt Fenton Mudd (6b1442) — 8/5/2019 @ 4:41 pm@17. Yeah, CNN corrected the chyron to ‘total.’
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/5/2019 @ 4:43 pmThat’s only one of the flaws. The other main one is that it assumes the good guy who chooses to engage the killer has enough training and equanimity (ie, keeping calm under pressure) to actually shoot the killer and no one else.
Kishnevi (e931a3) — 8/5/2019 @ 4:44 pm8. No, no no. The CBS Evening NEws said the number in El Paso had risen to 22 because two people died Monday in a hospital. You get 31 by adding the 9 killed in Dayton.
Sammy Finkelman (d542b2) — 8/5/2019 @ 4:44 pm@21. Right- see 19. August must be intern month at CNN. Just like at Fox, where a ‘host’ declared mass shootings ‘a fad’ on air.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/5/2019 @ 4:46 pmI wouldn’t call it a “fatal flaw”, but it does showcase that not everybody reacts the same in these situations. Perhaps getting people to safety was the best option for this person in that situation.
Has there been any word that any of the casualties are people who chose to confront the killer and paid the price?
To be honest, I have absolutely no idea how I would perform if I found myself in the middle of one of these mass shootings. I do know, that if I was, I would certainly want to have the option of being armed, to think otherwise would be foolish.
Colliente (05736f) — 8/5/2019 @ 4:51 pm@23. Except it pretty much is; it was put to the ultimate ‘test’ in real time— and w/20 minutes to work with, failed.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/5/2019 @ 4:52 pm@23 I said this a couple of days ago, but I think it bears repeating. A live fire situation is very very different from target shooting and a great many people who carry don’t even put in enough time at the range to have the muscle memory to reliably shoot in a situation where they are in adrenaline overload and they or their loved ones are in danger (even if their thoughts are working quickly enough to think of it).
Most of the trained professionals I know are extremely uncomfortable with the idea of a well meaning civilian trying to “take out” a bad guy with a gun.
Nic (896fdf) — 8/5/2019 @ 5:06 pm24. How do you know that? I mean, is any outcome other than 0 dead, 0 injured considered a failure to you?
Gryph (08c844) — 8/5/2019 @ 5:07 pmTrump to visit El Paso on Wednesday.
Has he ever been to a Walmart?
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/5/2019 @ 5:11 pm28. Oh, come on. That’s not even a serious question!
Gryph (08c844) — 8/5/2019 @ 5:12 pmis any outcome other than 0 dead, 0 injured considered a failure to you?
Well, it would be considered a failure by the dead, injured, and their families.
A little less rhetorically loaded way of saying it would be this: the aim should be to stop the killer before he ever starts shooting.
Kishnevi (e931a3) — 8/5/2019 @ 5:24 pm30. Keeping a killer from killing before he ever starts shooting is like keeping guns out of killers’ hands with legislation. It’s an ideal we all want to shoot for, but we must recognize at the same time we don’t live in a perfect world.
Gryph (08c844) — 8/5/2019 @ 5:30 pmJeez. NBC News reports El Paso shooter killed some victims ‘execution style’ as they pleaded for their lives. I’m violating my own rule of thumb wasting electrons on this topic. If Sandy Hook, or Vegas, or Pittsburgh or the various bars, nightclubs, malls and high schools– or spraying Congress-critters at a softball game and so on and so on didn’t motivate Americans to act, El Paso and Dayton sure as hell won’t. This will be old news and all but forgotten in ten days.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/5/2019 @ 5:43 pm32. “Act?” As in, what do you mean? It hasn’t motivated us to give up our 2nd amendment rights? As for how long it will take for this past weekend to be forgotten, I give it two weeks.
Gryph (08c844) — 8/5/2019 @ 5:46 pmWhat seems clear is the vast majority of these “mass shooters” – since around 1966 – came from broken families without a consistent biological father throughout their rearing and development. Very few had good, stable fathers present.
Our society (including media, marketeers, popular culture) have been increasingly devaluing fatherhood for several years, perhaps decades. This is not helpful and it needs to stop.
Colonel Haiku (c49ed8) — 8/5/2019 @ 6:19 pmBreaking – Kim’s NorKo fires more missiles landing in Sea of Japan.
[“=ring-ring= ‘Kim! Need a ‘favor…'”]
Told ‘ya.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/5/2019 @ 6:29 pmSomebody oughta tell Kim we ain’t got time for his sh!t this week. If he doesn’t take the hint, Trump should drop half a dozen 480 kiloton Tomahawks on his pallid ass. Do you know that that is perfectly legal under the Non-Proliferation Treaty>
nk (dbc370) — 8/5/2019 @ 6:34 pmThe el Paso punk was in soecial education, I’m familiar with the type, the Dayton one was a porngrind (dont let Josh Marshall find out) or so I’m told
Narciso (72d34b) — 8/5/2019 @ 6:44 pm@33 This might be a bit controversial, but dads need to step up. In the last 10-15 years, in my observation, there have been a lot more shared custody or custody granted to dad cases than there were in the past and in the shared custody cases the number of times when dad has just disappeared from the kid’s life is heart-breaking. Even when the school tries really hard to get dad to come to meetings, often times he’s a no show or will call and say that his ex will take care of it. And a lot of times the VP will say that they are calling the kids dad and the kid will say that it doesn’t matter, dad doesn’t care and they haven’t even heard from him since their birthday 4 months ago, and the kid is right, dad doesn’t really care and “their mom will handle it.”
(don’t get me wrong, I work with some great dads too who are working really hard to stay involved, but the ones where dad is a non-presence are very very common)
Nic (896fdf) — 8/5/2019 @ 6:44 pm1. The Cielo Vista Mall and Wal-Mart were posted gun-free zones by property owner.
2. The only armed man we know of so far who apparently didn’t see the signs, was in the Mall area which is another building and a good-sized parking lot away from the shooter at the Wal-Mart. He did what he could in the locality that he was in, which was get unattended children to safety.
Ingot9455 (0433d6) — 8/5/2019 @ 6:55 pmAnd some people were born to be hanged.
nk (dbc370) — 8/5/2019 @ 6:55 pmWhilst Kim pops rockets, Russia narrowly averted a Black Tom/Port Chicago incident:
urbanleftbehind (2db30e) — 8/5/2019 @ 6:57 pmhttp://abc7chicago.com/video-blast-at-russian-ammunition-dump-injures-4/5444822/
Fwiw:
Narciso (72d34b) — 8/5/2019 @ 7:02 pmhttps://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/08/on-trumps-excellent-speech.php
His name was Glendon Oakley and folks should use his name. I hope at the end of the day he is 1000 times more remembered than the coward shooter.
Dustin (6d7686) — 8/5/2019 @ 7:03 pmhttps://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2017/06/22/the-demographics-of-gun-ownership/
“What are the numbers, Stoney?” – Jim Pruitt [Richard Crenna] ‘Marooned’ 1969
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/5/2019 @ 7:21 pm37… there’s no excuse for abandonment. There’s no doubt ALL dads need to step up, these are perilous times with evil influences never more prominent.
Colonel Haiku (c49ed8) — 8/5/2019 @ 7:25 pmHere’s a word I learned today but didn’t want to: “Pornogrind.”
Ew.
Paul Montagu (35419a) — 8/5/2019 @ 7:30 pmSimon manages the mall and it is a gun free zone, but I would appreciate a link that the Walmart was a gun free zone. I don’t think it is.
DRJ (15874d) — 8/5/2019 @ 7:33 pmYes tmi:
https://mobile.twitter.com/paulsperry_/status/1158382580883959808?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet
Narciso (72d34b) — 8/5/2019 @ 7:38 pm@46. A gun free zone that sells guns- assuming that particular Walmart sold them– would be odd. Besides, once all hell broke loose for 20 minutes, plenty of ‘good guys with guns’ were likely jaywalking– or running- so those kind of ‘rules’ don’t really mean much- especially if ‘good guys with guns’ were coming to help. Which clearly didn’t happen.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/5/2019 @ 7:41 pmHe’s a Frum-ite? Or a Mickey kaus disciple?
urbanleftbehind (2db30e) — 8/5/2019 @ 7:57 pm34. I can’t help but wonder what percentage of these monsters were taking mood-stabilizing drugs. Broken homes are nothing new. SSRIs are.
Gryph (08c844) — 8/5/2019 @ 8:14 pm@50 Generally speaking, the negative side-effects of ssris are far more likely to cause suicidal rather than homicidal tendencies and mostly in teenage girls.
Nic (896fdf) — 8/5/2019 @ 8:27 pm52. Okay. Be that as it may. what do you think is the over-under for the percentage of male mass shooters who are on SSRIs, or some other newer mood-stabilizing drug? 60%? 70%? Higher? Lower? I’m just asking for an opinion here. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was north of 80%. We’re doing more to screw around with the human brain chemically than ever before, and doing it to school-age children as well.
Gryph (08c844) — 8/5/2019 @ 8:30 pmI would be more likely to guess that it’s more a combination of modern living and mental illness than the drugs themselves. Back in the day there was a lot of hard physical labor, routine, space, and small towns of people who knew each other. People who were bipolar and manic worked off a lot of their manicness on the job and had space for what they couldn’t work off. People with paranoid psychosis had space to run off into (or that they lived in) and knew most of the people around them. Now we do jobs that are more sedentary, don’t necessarily have the same routines, we often don’t know the people around us, and we tend to live more in crowded places. Routine, excercise, being outside in the sun, and having strong social connections are as much a stablizing factor for mental illness as SSRIs, so a lot of times we are substituting drugs to make up for modern living.
Which, I guess, is a long way of saying that it wouldn’t surprise me if a lot of them could have been on some kind of mental health medication, but I don’t think the meds are the cause.
Nic (896fdf) — 8/5/2019 @ 8:44 pmAre you saying he is ADD, ADHD, etc.?
DRJ (15874d) — 8/5/2019 @ 8:48 pm1. The Wal-Mart is on the Mall’s property.
2. The Wal-Mart sells alcohol, so you can’t Texas concealed carry in there.
It is posted as a no concealed carry zone.
Ingot9455 (0433d6) — 8/5/2019 @ 8:53 pmI believe you are misstating the 51% rule in Texas. You can’t LTC conceal carry in Texas establishments where most of the profits are from sales of alcohol. Wal-Mart isn’t one of those.
Many malls have 30.06 signage forbidding LTC conceal (and open) carry, and this was one of those places. I’m not sure what the basis for that decision is. Whether you agree with DCSCA about ‘good men with a gun’ or not, the fact is that these cowards really like to choose gun-free zones. There is some deterrent effect.
Dustin (6d7686) — 8/5/2019 @ 8:56 pm@54. Probably not. Attention deficit doesn’t usually cause homicidal tendencies either. Obviously someone who shoots up a bunch of people isn’t exactly operating on the same mental plain as the rest of us, but they don’t all have a diagnosable mental illness. And if you add on top of that the difference between personality disorders vs more biochemical mental illnesses, it makes for even more ambiguity.
Nic (896fdf) — 8/5/2019 @ 8:57 pmSimon has the Mall. What makes you think it owns or manages the Walmart property?
DRJ (15874d) — 8/5/2019 @ 9:01 pmSo you were only speculating about his medications?
DRJ (15874d) — 8/5/2019 @ 9:02 pm@59 I was answering gryph’s question re SSRIs.
Nic (896fdf) — 8/5/2019 @ 9:04 pmIt’s not an unreasonable supposition:
https://mobile.twitter.com/RealSaavedra/status/1158579012244873217
Narciso (72d34b) — 8/5/2019 @ 9:08 pmOk, I see that now. Thanks.
DRJ (15874d) — 8/5/2019 @ 9:12 pm@62 no problem
Nic (896fdf) — 8/5/2019 @ 9:13 pmI agree with you that the underlying conditions are more likely the issue, not the meds. In general, what conditions make people more prone to violence?
DRJ (15874d) — 8/5/2019 @ 9:15 pmWe should learn more about his mental health since this will be a capital case and the defense will raise any mental health issues to try to avoid the death penalty.
DRJ (15874d) — 8/5/2019 @ 9:19 pm@64 Fair warning that I haven’t worked directly with any of this in over 20 years (probably more like 25. Sigh). I worked at an, um, mixed type juvenile facility, between college and teaching (money being necessary for gradschool. 😛 ). Right now I mostly discuss mental health concerns in relation to admining IEP meetings of various kinds.
Most likely, in my opinion, for impulsive violence against another person (not necessarily meant to be fatal) would be manic bipolar, psychosis, Oppositional defiant disorder, possibly schizophrenia of certain types, narcissistic personality disorder and something newish called explosive anger disorder (which I’m not sure I believe in and think is mostly “doesn’t bother to control his/her temper”). Some of these might also allow for planned explosive violence.
For planned violence, again IMO, antisocial personality disorder (sociopathology), possibly depression in a suicide by cop way.
For violence against self, obviously depression, borderline personality disorder, and severe stress and anxiety.
PTSD can also cause any of the above especially in a situation where it’s linked with one of the other types of mental illness. Trauma causes physical changes in the brain that can have multiple effects.
Of course, people with any of these conditions can also be entirely non-violent as well. And people without any mental health conditions can just be violent, angry, hateful SOBs.
Nic (896fdf) — 8/5/2019 @ 9:35 pm@56. FWIW, NBC News reported tonight they have Walmart video of him coming into the Walmart first to ‘case the joint’ for the ‘population mix’ – then going out, arming up and coming back in on camera again for the slaughter. He knew who he was targeting.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/5/2019 @ 9:44 pmThere were other reports that he went in to eat because he was hungry, and they aren’t even sure he intended to target the Walmart.
DRJ (15874d) — 8/5/2019 @ 9:49 pm@68. NBC noted the time stamp between the ‘casing’ visit and arming up for the return hit through the front door again was 20 minutes difference; don’t know if that correlates w/t time period when he posted his ‘manifesto’ but it seems to suggest he’d zeroed in on Walmart.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/5/2019 @ 9:55 pmThanjs, Nic. This is interesting to me because my experience with mental disorders is limited. In theory, is there a correlation between the severity of a mental disorder and the propensity for violence?
Have you seen this? I read the Stockholm study and I don’t think it totally applies in America (for reasons I won’t bore you with here) but the ADHD aspect interests me.
DRJ (15874d) — 8/5/2019 @ 9:56 pmHe obviously decided to focus on Walmart but we don’t know when he made that decision.
DRJ (15874d) — 8/5/2019 @ 9:59 pmI don’t claim to know how I well I would perform if I was a “good guy with a gun,” but I know the bad guy would also have the same problem when he sees that somebody is capable of shooting back at him.
DLT (9563a5) — 8/5/2019 @ 10:10 pm@70 Mental health is complicated and full of stuff we almost think we know. 😛
There isn’t really a correlation between severity of mental illness and violence in part because it’s difficult to quantify how mentally ill anyone is at any given moment and because exactly how a mental illness manifests is very very individual. Obviously there are commonalities, but it’s a pretty wide range. For example, one person in the manic stage of bipolar might spend thousands of dollars they don’t have shopping on-line or have an extreme amount of casual sex while another might have explosive anger outbursts and smash their roommate’s car with a baseball bat (or do any of the above in one episode and do one of the other examples in a different episode).
The psychology today summary of the Stockholm study makes sense for what I know and have experience with in autism. Oppositional defiant disorder, which I referenced earlier, is a type of conduct disorder and they tend to lead toward violence and criminality. I wouldn’t, personally, categorize autism as a mental illness any more than I’d say that down syndrome is a mental illness. Conduct disorders, though, are bad news, and it makes sense that most people with autism who commit a criminal act have a conduct disorder co-diagnosis.
Nic (896fdf) — 8/5/2019 @ 10:18 pmI was surprised at the claim of a link between ADHD and violence.
DRJ (15874d) — 8/5/2019 @ 10:41 pmI agree with you that autism is not a mental illness. I will go even further: I think it is a medical illness, not a mental illness.
DRJ (15874d) — 8/5/2019 @ 10:43 pm@74 and 75. ADHD can cause an impulsivity problem, so hitting, or opportunistic theft, that kind of thing. (and sometimes there is self medication, and drugs aren’t a great idea.)
There’s definitely a medical aspect to autism. There seem to be significant differences in brain development especially in sensory experiences. There may also be some digestive and non-brain neurological differences.
Nic (896fdf) — 8/5/2019 @ 11:00 pmYes and, in some, immune problems (although that is part of the gut issues).
That makes sense about ADHD and impulsivity. Thanks for educating me about several things.
DRJ (15874d) — 8/5/2019 @ 11:03 pmAny time. My knowledge is pretty field related at this point, though. Like I said, it’s been a long time since I did anything directly in psychology other than talk to our school psych. 😛
Nic (896fdf) — 8/5/2019 @ 11:06 pmI thought of one more question. A lot of these shooters are described as loners, nerdy, not sociable. It’s easy to think of the autism spectrum diseases with that. Are those qualities common with any mental disorders and, if so, which ones?
DRJ (15874d) — 8/5/2019 @ 11:37 pmA survivor in El Paso says the shooter was targeting Hispanics. He used soda cans to distract the shooter. His mother, who usually carried a gun, left it at home because they were just going to Walmart. A CBP off-duty officer was in the store. She likewise had not brought her weapon. I suspect many Texans won’t make that mistake now.
DRJ (15874d) — 8/6/2019 @ 9:51 am@79 depression, various neuroses and psychoses, bipolar in the depressive state, autism, anxieties, phobias of various kinds, schizophrenia, ptsd.
Nic (896fdf) — 8/6/2019 @ 4:49 pm@81 forgot- some kinds of obsessive compulsive disorder.
Nic (896fdf) — 8/6/2019 @ 4:50 pmThat’s a lot. Obviously not all are risks but some are, if not to others at least to themselves. But it is so hard to help adults who don’t think they need help.
DRJ (15874d) — 8/6/2019 @ 4:52 pm