Gun Control and Regulations

I can just imagine a scenario where it all goes horribly wrong. Gunman opens fire in a crowd. One "good guy with a gun" (GGWAG) pulls out his weapon to return fire. Another GGWAG notices the first GGWAG and— because it is a confused, high-tension situation, and most people, regardless of training, will freak out when suddenly thrust into a life-or-death situation—confuses him for the gunman and shoots at him. Then another GGWAG appears. See where I'm getting at?

Several potential "good guys with a gun" already pointed out this exact same conundrum every time they're involved in a shoot-out situation. The most high profile case may have been the L.A shoot-out, where people observed the general chaos meant they A) had no idea where to aim B) were sure they'd be shot in the ensuing mess if they pulled out a gun.

@Gaon: Got a link for that? I would like to quote them, when the occasion arises.

Have The Guardian.

Here's te direct quotes from the band that carried guns on their persons:

Edited by Gaon on Mar 20th 2019 at 7:23:08 AM

If I found a quote where someone was in a shooting who didn't have a gun and said that they wished they had a gun to shoot back, would that be a counterpoint?

Edited by Soban on Mar 20th 2019 at 3:15:01 PM

An article from last October that breaks down the "good guy with a gun" narrative:

Breaking down the NRA-backed theory that a good guy with a gun stops a bad guy with a gun

Most of the actual data (limited as it is) on the matter suggests that having more people carrying concealed guns just makes things worse.

IMHO this myth only persists because it gives people the illusion of control over their lives. They can think to themselves "as long as I have my gun on me I can avoid being a victim of a mass shooting." Too bad reality isn't like that.

It's a bit akin to victim blaming if one thinks about it. "Oh those people only died because they didn't have a gun to protect themselves."

Edited by M84 on Mar 21st 2019 at 3:23:43 AM

"Remember, guns dont protect people, people protect people."

So out of 160 of those incidents, how many had unarmed civilians present? Probably 160. so 21/155 = ~13% successful resistance rate. However, how many of those incidents had a armed individual who were not members of law enforcement present? I don't know, however, evidence suggests between 1% and 3% of Americans carry regularly. naively, then one would assume that roughly five of the 160 would have someone who had a gun. 5 out of 5 yields a 100% successful resistance rate.

My numbers aren't the best, but even if double or even quadruple the rate where someone had a gun, the successful resistance rate is roughly doubled.

Did they also take a look at in how many cases armed civilians were present but didn't or couldn't act, in how many cases someone was hurt by an armed civilian and in how many cases the intervening civilian ended up shot or hurt by police? Or how often unarmed civilians managed to distract the shooter enough that he couldn't do any more damage but he got apprehended by the police? Because the latter is what happened in New Zealand, and unarmed civilian simply threw stuff at the gun man to distract him until he fled. But since he didn't apprehend him, he wouldn't turn up in this statistic.

Plus, the time-frame is a little bit short for a complete picture.

Edited by Swanpride on Mar 20th 2019 at 12:52:28 PM

Those numbers are so unreliable as to be useless. For one thing, your assuming that 100% of people who were carrying guns attempted to resist the shooter. You are also attributing success to the civilian gun carriers, when the report doesnt say that (rather unlikely in the case of the shooters suicide). Five out of 160 likely lacks sufficient statistical power to allow confident conclusions. I should like to see a larger sample.

A better analysis would be, out of all armed and unarmed attempts to resist shooters, what percent of each were successful by some objective criteria.

Yeah, for a proper statistic you would need to know:

1. In how many cases was there resistance?

2. How many people resisted at once (was it one person or a group effort)?

3. What was the result of the resistance for the attacker? (meaning, did they save people, did they apprehend the shooter, was the shooter killed).

4. What as the result of the resistance for the people? (Did they get hurt, did someone shot them aso).

And then you need a bigger data pool, like, at least 100 events in which someone tried to resist. It would also be interesting to know in how many cases it was even possible to defend yourself (ie in the case of the Las Vegas shooter there were a lot of people with guns in the crowd, but they had no chance to attack anyone).

I don't think they did, but I'm quoting from the article M84 posted.

If they can't act, then it's just a unarmed situation.

I would be curious to know the don't act rate. My guess is that it's low given the self selection effect. (That is someone who is likely to carry a gun is also likely to try and stop as that's part of the reason they carry).

I don't remember where I heard it from, but my understanding is that the bystander injured rate is low because the the armed intervening civilian is in essence on the scene from the start compared to police who are often walking into a completely unknown situation. (Imagine for a moment that the shooter walks into a mosqe dressed as a muslim. Someone who is much more likely to know who was shooting or who shouldn't be there, whereas the police don't.)

I'd also be willing to bet that the armed intervening civilian getting shot rate is also low because the armed intervening civilian wants to cooperate with police. The police do try to take armed people alive if they can, and the armed intervening civilian wants to stay alive.

Regardless, I think we can group the aren't armed and the don't intervene group as one. I would think that the successful resistance rate of a armed intervening civilian is about fifty percent. However, that's ignoring the positive benefits of being a speedbump. The shooter taking time to deal with a armed intervening civilian is time that unarmed civilians can escape. Even unsuccessful and getting killed themselves, a armed intervening civilian can save lives.

Edite:

You edited your post while I was writing, sorry.

There are two kinds of people, people who can extrapolate from incomplete data.

My answers for most of them are "I don't know, I was just quoting from the article M84 posted." You are right that with that information, the data would be more complete and better. While I would personally like for us to never have anymore data about this, it's unlikely.

With a rate of roughly 12 per year and a rate of say 10%(that's being generous) that have useful armed bystander information, I'll get back to you in 80 years.

Edited by Soban on Mar 20th 2019 at 4:14:08 AM

And the article even has a whole section about mass shooting incidents where someone who was armed did not attempt to resist the shooter.

The article and the data it references as a whole comes to the conclusion that the whole "good guy with a gun" thing has little basis in reality. It's just advertising to sell guns.

It's a myth with a certain appeal for multiple reasons. But that's pretty much all it is — a myth.

Edited by M84 on Mar 20th 2019 at 4:15:51 PM

It’s not a matter of wanting to cooperate or not, if the police show up to the scene of a shooting and see a guy with a gun they assume he’s the shooter. In CCW classes they actually tell you not to pull your gun in criminal situations to avoid being hurt or misidentified by police.

People advocating for “good guys with guns” are either people who don’t know anything about firearms and think it sounds nice, or people who have fully drank the coolaid from the right. It’s not a position that holds up to even limited scrutiny.

Edited by archonspeaks on Mar 20th 2019 at 1:26:19 AM

Not remotely, because one case (that of someone with a gun realizing they're useless in a mass shooting) relies on someone having tested their theory while the other (someone who was unnarmed during a mass shooting wishing he had a gun afterwards) doesn't. The only counterpoint you could have to this scenario would be to find someone who actually managed to be "a good guy with a gun" who managed to kill his assailant and was happy about it.

So kill, not just stop? Just checking.

Edited by Soban on Mar 20th 2019 at 7:48:04 AM

Soban, the idea that guns are useful defensive tools for civilians is simply not correct, full stop. It’s a pernicious piece of misinformation. There are only a handful of situations where a civilian might actually need a gun, and none of those situations involve hostile shooters.

New Zealand announces a gun buyback plan.

Biggest counterpoint against the "good guy with a gun" narrative? That recent story where a black man who was ex-military pulled out his gun in response to a shooting and was shot in the back by police.

"You might get shot" isn't that great of a counterargument to "We're are going to get shot"

That's more a sign that police need to stop being trigger-happy around black people IMO.

You might get shot by jumpy cops and Good Sires with Yon Hand-Gonnes while also being shot at by an active shooter. And while racism in law enforcement is a huge issue, if your goal is getting everyone to be less trigger-happy, then putting more guns in the hands of more panicky, emotional, inadequately-trained people isn't the answer.

I think the real take away is that mass shooting incidents are so rare they make a poor justification for not regulating gun ownership. That would still be true even if 100% of mass shooting incidents were prevented by civilians with guns, and of course its nowhere near that.

Lol.

I’ve seen some knee jerk reactions (from a few Filipino facebook users in a defense group) wondering how the guy got his firearms and civilians with guns can stop him.

Still a minority though.

FYI, the Philippines is one of the few in SEA that you can get a gun. Like NZ, it’s not in the constitution if I remember my classes.

Edited by Ominae on Mar 21st 2019 at 7:15:04 AM

Teachers in an Indiana elementary school were injured by plastic bullets during an an active-shooter training exercise.