Usdk wrote:
I heard it was tear gas, not flash bangs. Tear gas you have a few seconds to act. Flashbangs you're just out of commission for a good while.
Distinction is silly and you know it. React's assessment is 100% right. More guns would have just meant more incidental deaths.
These people (including you) who actually think that whipping out your piece when someone else does is a solution likely to reduce the body count are examining reality with a unbalanced mentality. They are driven by fantasies of being a badass like something out of a Clint Eastwood film. This is a crazy attitude, and no one with such an attitude - and it is a common one in America - is going to make sane and responsible decisions with a gun.
Simply put, if you have a hammer, everything you see is a nail.
EDIT: Given a certain set of social conditions, crime is inevitable, gun violence is not. People who commit crimes are either desperate or insane. At this point in time, there is a strong
disincentive for criminals to carry or use guns, because their victims are typically unarmed and carrying or using a gun in a crime is a strong aggravating offense and cops are trained to shoot to kill if a suspect is armed. Tuhl - it is so, is it not?
But if gun ownership were universal, as you suggest, then that would trigger an all-around escalation. Criminals, who are going to commit crimes no matter what, would feel compelled to carry - and use - weapons. And cops, who would be operating in a gun-rich environment (just like rural Afghanistan with the "Kalashnikov culture" - Google the term) would in turn feel compelled to ensure they have a dramatic superiority in firepower in any situation. So they wouldn't even bother with Berettas, they'd carry M16s everywhere they go.
The probable winner of any firefight is going to be the guy who shoots first. Criminals would not wait to see if their victims are armed, and cops wouldn't wait to get decent intel and sort a situation out before going in guns blazing. After all, everyone has guns and no one wants anyone else to get the drop on them.
Cops consider the brandishing of a weapon in public proof of hostile intent. This is a sane and rational policy. So when they come up to a theater at night and they see a bunch of people are waving semiautomatics around, do you really think they're going to put their lives at risk sorting out which guns are aimed at them and which aren't? And with a big crowd of ornery people, how long do you think it would take for someone to make a tragic and/or fking stupid mistake?
Does that sound safer to you?
