Another fucking spree shooting. Great.

If there is no national registry and there are so many ways to be sneaky about buying a gun (and one presumes many gun owners may be more reluctant than most to share info about whether or not they have a gun in the first place), how can they know how many guns are out there and how they are consolidated? The data could be wildly off in every direction.

Yes, looks like this isn't a fruitful direction. NRA membership stats/data might work, though whether they publish that is another problem (particularly if it were to undermine their position of influence and power)

NRA stats are bullshit. It is reportedly hard as hell to extricate yourself from a lifetime membership, so they are just listing all these people as members who really aren't. Kind of like the classic Mormon church.

how can they know how many guns are out there and how they are consolidated? The data could be wildly off in every direction.

On consolidation, perhaps, though I think the number of people who'd lie to polls is fairly small and the consolidation trend predates the hyper-paranoia of the gun culture post-2000.
On guns in existence, even wildly off wouldn't be that telling. Is there a meaningful difference in 200 million vs 300 million in telling people how to proceed?

From a rhetorical standpoint it might.

"I've heard there there are millions of guns in the United States. I bet most of you didn't bring any here tonight. I bet most of you don't have any at home, either. I bet most of you that have one at home don't keep it loaded. So who are we protecting? Which of you has a gun with you, with ammunition? That's not a lot of you. So if there are so many guns in our country, how come so many of us don't have any?"

etc fucking writes itself

fwiw, I had the misfortune of being present at that building yesterday(it is my place of work), although thankfully I was far away from the incident. Not something I would want to live through again.

Separately, I've been prodding my mother to dispose of a handgun my slowly-fading-into-dementia father bought long ago. This is surprisingly difficult, especially since state required licenses lapsed years ago. One thing we should do is make gun disposal always easy everywhere.

I was always nervous that the v old colt in my dad's closet lockbox would come to a bad end for him/us, esp as he faded into dementia. he's in memory care now, years later. Anyway at one family-style division of property sesh, I saw the small metal box brought out. I figured the pistol was still in there, and had little idea which kid or in-law would want it- def not i. i don't think many, or evenly any, knew the gun was there. we all awaited the box being opened. after some embarrassed manipulation my very elderly dad shrugged and said "I have no idea what's in there or why it's locked.it's a mysterious old box that was in my closet, I've never opened it" (obviously untrue, he would occasionally show it, and the contents, to younger me). Nobody knew the combo, we all looked around. So I stepped forward and tried my first guess, and opened the box. the colt was there. It was claimed by my brother-in-law.

seconding everyone who had the immediate “someone angry about video monetization” thought, because of the online video socialization index

I just don’t get guns. It’s a normal part of life for a number of people, because there are any number of reasons: someone might be born into a family with hunters, ex-military, sport shooters, or some relative who had a pistol and it was just a known quantity. But any time I am in a room, I feel infinitely safer if I believe there are no guns there, and infinity plus one if I know it. Sitting in my bedroom right now in that situation.

I work not far from a national guard facility and cops go there for training all the time. So if I go out for lunch, I see sherrifs, cops from around the state, and national guard people in uniform and it’s interesting to see (and worrying) who keeps their gun on their belt regardless of whether they’re on duty at home or eating a burrito halfway across the state.

i feel the same way when I'm out at McDonalds or something and see three security guards all with their guns on their belt, not reassuring

do any of you see armed people like non cops when you’re out? I haven’t been back to the USA in three years but I’m gonna visit next year and im dreading seeing gun people out

saw one at a grocery store a while back

ironically I wound up stealing a vegetable on accident (yes I went back and paid for it) but not before having visions of this 20 year old get wasting me in the parking lot for shoplifting

hardly ever but i think ohio is a concealed carry state so i just assume that people are likely armed

I think it very much depends on where in the US you might go. Like when I lived in AZ I'd see random dudes walking around with a holster, but I haven't seen that anywhere else I've lived.

I live in LA and the most armed people I see regularly are guards outside of Synagogues. I think in response to this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_Jewish_Community_Center_shooting

I can't think of the last time I've seen someone armed who wasn't a cop tbh

https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/San-Jose-Family-Comes-Home-to-Find-Estranged-Son-Stole-Their-Shotgun-Left-Manifesto-to-Attack-SF-478892723.html

Uh, this guy is currently in the wind.

ok thanks

my mom told me recently about eating at applebees in their dumb suburb of atl & the people next to them had their handguns on the table & it was really jarring for me, like, people live this way in "civilized" places? ugh.

hey, in uncivilized places they hold them under the table

if he has a shitload of tattoos up and down his arms he looks an awful lot like the guy I saw hogtied by the Emeryville PD this morning on San Pablo ave

def see the occasional sidearm out here in nm, but not as frequently as what i experienced in montana

idk I guess that's not helpful. it's weird as hell, all of it

Dont see it in the northern front range of CO personally.

they have guns that shoot out ink to tye-dye the squares iirc

I'm (pleasantly) surprised that I don't see guns on people in and around Chicago. Last time I was really forced to acknowledge one was when I was following a cop up the stairs to the L and realized the exposed barrel of his holstered weapon was pointed pretty much between my eyes. It was...sobering.

One thing we should do is make gun disposal always easy everywhere.

― fajita seas, Wednesday, April 4, 2018 10:31 PM (yesterday)

a large federal buyback program makes a lot of sense to me

Texas legalized open carry but I haven’t noticed a single person actually doing so. Maybe in redder areas but I’ve barely set foot in rura Texas over the last couple of years.

Had a guy throw a fit the day I installed the no open carry signs in my stores but not a peep since.

did he actually have a gun or no?

I was in some east Dallas suburbs years ago and there were some “no guns allowed in the establishment” signs on some restaurants, I think? it was also a dry county

i have never seen anyone open carry in west texas

did he actually have a gun or no?

I've seen exactly one person open-carrying, once, in a diner in Wisconsin, and he seemed like the sort of peckerwood dork I would make fun of ... if he didn't have a handgun strapped to his body.

I've never seen anyone who open carries here in Austin, but I have known various dudes with unreasonably large arsenals of firearms including a former misanthropic co-worker, head of computer dev, who kept a bunch of modded semi-automatics in the trunk of his Corvette Stingray.

I used to see people open-carrying sidearms at least once a month in North Idaho - without exception they were 20-40 year old skinny white dudes in polo shirts and khakis or cargo pants and looked like IT guys or college republican nerds and I felt were just trolling liberals and itching for people to confront them about it so they could argue about RONPAUL and THEIR FREEDOM. I'm pretty sure that all of them could have inspired the "I studied the blade" meme.

I guarantee that there were lots of concealed carry people around and my impression is that they disliked the open carry types for making them seem crazy despite their own perpetual fantasies about being crime victims and/or about being the good guy with the gun when something finally happened to allow their true heroism to be exposed.

Yes, here's an example of the perspective joygoat describes:

http://www.gunsandtactics.com/unintended-consequences-in-your-face-open-carry

lmao at this milquetoast pleading for civility when our rights are being threatened. change only comes as a consequence of direct action. i'm taking my business to caribou coffee, hardee's and green burrito and I encourage you all to do the same!!!

oops wrong board

Teachers in Erie County district get bats as a reminder to fight back in a shooting https://t.co/oKQgQbqBat

— Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (@PittsburghPG) April 10, 2018

sure

Be way better if it was these and they could just fling them in the shooters' faces.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/imageserver/image/methode%2Ftimes%2Fprod%2Fweb%2Fbin%2F1dddfcdc-ba42-11e6-b28e-c605a5afd90f.jpg?crop=2179%2C1226%2C0%2C113&resize=685

One should never bring a fruit bat to a flying-fox fight iirc

Teachers in Erie County district get bats as a reminder to fight back in a shooting

Yes, it is important to remember that, when confronted by a heavily armed person using your immediate environs as a free-fire zone, that you should always run at the shooter, holding whatever object comes quickly to hand, whether it's a bat, a cell phone, or one of your shoes. The essential thing is to engage the shooter! That's the kind of quick-witted reaction that will put an end to a show of deadly force in a hurry.

they weren't even full-size bats

the school dsitrict's not made of money, you know

xxp You joke, but there are constantly active shooter workshops I've been exposed to that espouse "run, hide or fight" as your options

note the order of preference

if you must fight, they say do exactly what you just said - pick up random objects and throw them :(

^ certainly that's a much better tactic than frowning, finger-shaking and tut-tutting, but it's still is a last-ditch option when your assailant has such a massive advantage in weaponry, planning and surprise. Evasion will always be more reliable for your chance of personal survival, when there is any kind of escape route at all. If the choices are passively submit to die or else fight, the exact odds of winning the fight don't matter much.

actually you’re supposed to barricade and shelter in place before trying to escape

then run, then fight (if cornered)

yup the hide part
i want to tut-tut a man to death now that you mention it

meanwhile, back at parkland http://www.miamiherald.com/news/article208653029.html?via=newsletter&source=CSAMedition

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-waffle-house-shooter-20180423-story.html

jeepers it's hard to believe a guy like this slipped through the cracks of our already too-restrictive gun laws...