Tuesday, July 12, 2016

Have we finally put to rest the silly notion that good guys with guns will stop mass shootings?

We keep hearing over and over from the pro-gun goof-balls that if they only had guns, if they were only there at the time, they would heroically, even magically, stop the bad guys.

Except there is no evidence that has ever been true or that it ever will be true. 

There is concrete evidence that a whole bunch of pro-gunners openly carrying loaded weapons like AR15s or similar weapons did nothing but run away from the shooting in Dallas. So much for the blustering claims of heroism!

The cops did not run away.  The cops did their jobs.

The open carry guys ran away. And after the event they claim the mayor and the chief of police are wrong. 

They were not wrong; the mayor and the chief of police know exactly what happened, and are supported in their conclusions by the rank and file of law enforcement officers who were present.

From the Dallas News:
He [the mayor] said Friday that about 20 people in "ammo gear and protective equipment and rifles slung over their shoulder" participated in the Black Lives Matter rally downtown on Thursday night.
"When the shooting started, at different angles, they started running," he said. "We started catching."
Then police interviewed them.
Rawlings said open carry brings confusion to a shooting scene.
"What I would do is look for the people with guns," he said.
Max Geron, a Dallas police major, talked about the confusion during the shooting in a post on a law enforcement website.
"There was also the challenge of sorting out witnesses from potential suspects," Geron said. "Texas is an open carry state, and there were a number of armed demonstrators taking part. There was confusion on the radio about the description of the suspects and whether or not one or more was in custody."

...Senior Sgt. Chris Dyer, president of the Dallas County Sheriff's Association, said large cities like Dallas should pass ordinances that would ban the open carry of firearms during large events like protest marches.
"Normally in a protest, you're going to have two opposing sides at least," he said, noting that tensions can result in violence.
Bringing guns into that situation, Dyer said, is "very distracting" for officers.
"Even open carry proponents will see the common sense in restricting open carry in environments like a protest," he said.
Rawlings said such a measure would make sense.
"This stuff should be common sense and not driven by ideology," he said.
No, Texas Open Carry rejected such a common sense move.

Expecting any rational response from the open carry crowd is wishful thinking. They do not possess common sense, they are totally driven by ideology, and that is in large part why their judgment in a situation is at best questionable.

So however much the crazy open carry wish otherwise -- they were a nuisance, a part of the problem, a complication that potentially endangered themselves and others at worst, and a hindrance to the response to the active shooter at best.

But as to that good guy with a gun rubbish? Even the open carry crowd doesn't apparently believe or support that whole thing about stopping bad guys.  Here is part of the statement from Open Carry Texas after the Dallas mass shooting tragedy:
Second, if you find yourself in the vicinity of an active shooter and your life is not in danger, do not get involved, if possible.

Third, if your life is in immediate danger, defense [sic] yourself with judicious marksmanship. The risk at that point of being shot by law enforcement is no different than the risk of being shot by an active shooter.
So, NO, if you are an open carry fool, your fellow gun nuts don't think you should be actively stopping those bad guys with guns, and if you do try to stop the bad guys..........expect to be shot by the good guys AND the bad guys.

Wow.
NOTHING like the claims of the pro-gunners about how THEY would have stopped shootings, and NOTHING like the claims of Wayne La Pierre and the NRA about how more guns are going to make us safee because of those good guys, blah blah blah.

Reality and truth are not on the side of the pro-gun conservatives; but then the facts rarely are found in their arguments.  THIS incident however should put and end to their ridiculous arguments once and for all.

Because it is silly.  And bad.  By bad, I mean dangerous.

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