Guns at the grocery store

[Brian Roth]

https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/14/us/georgia-deputy-shooting-decatur/index.html
I guess I need to become "gun trained" so I can visit the local Kroger and have a shoot-out with drunks/meth heads/MAGA maniacs.

Bri

 

[analag]

Fools like these makes it hard for responsible gun owners

 

[JohnRoberts]

It appears the wrong person died... The store security returned fire but the clerk died.

Dekalb is (was) a nice suburb of Atlanta... It seems a little different than when I lived in the area.

@Brian if worried maybe invest in a bulletproof vest

@analag maybe more responsible gun owners in the store could have prevented the tragedy, but that was not a rational act so difficult to prevent.

JR

PS; This shooting will trigger yet another officer involved shooting investigation because the store security was an off duty officer.

 

[hodad]

Dekalb is (was) a nice suburb of Atlanta... It seems a little different than when I lived in the area.

Dekalb is a lot of things--it has more than its share of million dollar McMansions along with some pockets of poverty. The spot where the shooting took place is maybe 5 miles from where I live--gentrification is closing in on that spot, but it ain't there yet. Not far from a couple of pawn shops I used to frequent, and a mall that is "anchored" at this point by the Dept. of Driver Services. Not a particularly scary area of town, but belligerent/crazy idiots with guns seem to be popping up everywhere these days.

 

[rock soderstrom]

https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/14/us/georgia-deputy-shooting-decatur/index.html
I guess I need to become "gun trained" so I can visit the local Kroger and have a shoot-out with drunks/meth heads/MAGA maniacs.

Bri

Ok, it's your country and you decide how to handle weapons. From my point of view, the situation is clear. The more weapons, the more victims. (and yes, nobody needs assault rifles or Cal. 50 for hunting!).

It seems that every society has its own problem zones. In Germany, we have a too aggressive use of cars.

The following video shows how that would turn out on our highways if almost everyone carried a gun.

Wild shooting over nothing. Because someone is tailgating you or because he is not wearing a mask. Nothing...



You have to disarm. The absurd thing is, with the current situation in the U.S., I would probably also buy a gun, because the threat level is so high, due to the many weapons. Really absurd!

 

[Brian Roth]

Rock, you make some great points.

In many states in the USA, it is legal to openly carry a firearm in public without a required permit. Remember the old "western" movies loosely based on real facts from the 1800's? Matt Dillon in Dodge City (1960's TV show called Gunsmoke) , Have Gun Will Travel, etc etc.

I sometimes see a guy with a holster and gun here in public. My theory is that they have a small......ahhhhh..."pee pee" <g> which is also why they drive large and loud pickup trucks.

Bri

 

[Brian Roth]

As a followup...I used to be a avid reader of sci-fi. In 1969, Harlan Ellison wrote a short story called "Along the Scenic Route".

In that story, all autos were equipped with guns, lasers, etc. If someone cut you off in traffic, you would "radio" to a government authority for permission to open fire/have a duel, and kill the offending driver unless the other guy killed you first.

Bri

 

[user 37518]

Ok, it's your country and you decide how to handle weapons. From my point of view, the situation is clear. The more weapons, the more victims. (and yes, nobody needs assault rifles or Cal. 50 for hunting!).

It seems that every society has its own problem zones. In Germany, we have a too aggressive use of cars.

The following video shows how that would turn out on our highways if almost everyone carried a gun.

Wild shooting over nothing. Because someone is tailgating you or because he is not wearing a mask. Nothing...



You have to disarm. The absurd thing is, with the current situation in the U.S., I would probably also buy a gun, because the threat level is so high, due to the many weapons. Really absurd!

Good points, however, I bet that if we were allowed to carry guns here in Mexico, armed robbery and violence would decrease significantly, afterall the police is doing nothing, so we better do it ourselves. We are only allowed to have weapons inside our homes and to carry them to a shooting range but you have to proove that you are registered in one. The only ones allowed to carry a gun are the police and the military.

Getting a gun here (legally) is no joke, you need to make a formal request to the Secretary of Defense, you need to have completed the military service and after some months of waiting, you are only allowed to buy very small calibers, like a 38 revolver, .380, .22 and that is basically it, forget about a 357 or an assault rifle.

 

[JohnRoberts]

Dekalb is a lot of things--it has more than its share of million dollar McMansions along with some pockets of poverty. The spot where the shooting took place is maybe 5 miles from where I live--gentrification is closing in on that spot, but it ain't there yet. Not far from a couple of pawn shops I used to frequent, and a mall that is "anchored" at this point by the Dept. of Driver Services. Not a particularly scary area of town, but belligerent/crazy idiots with guns seem to be popping up everywhere these days.

Stay safe... I lived in Dekalb county briefly in the mid 80s, and again briefly in Gwinnet county this century. Seems different now.

JR

 

[JohnRoberts]

I'm not sure which logical fallacy to cite (perhaps "reductio ad absurdium") Blaming the guns for shooting events is like blaming cars for car crashes. Perhaps when self-driving cars become normal we can start doing that. Ironic perhaps the defund police movement, and renewed talk about seizing guns from legal citizens, has once again bumped up gun sales to people worried about personal security (try to buy ammo these days). Rich people hire bodyguards, poor people buy guns.

I don't discount that availability of firearms is "a" factor, but not the root cause. We have seen disturbed individuals kill people the old fashioned way (knives), when they didn't have access to firearms.

Violence inside cities is not exactly a new trend... I recall growing up in NJ 60 years ago hearing about killings in NYC on the evening news. This is the nature of news (if it bleeds it leads), but there is statistical evidence that recent defunding of the police, early police retirement because of insufficient job support, catch and release bail reform policy, failure to prosecute many crimes, discharging violent prisoners from jail (so they don't catch covid ), liberalized enforcement of petty street crime, increasing homeless populations.

I once had a knife pulled on me in a back alley in Boston back in the 60s, but he was a punk and I didn't stick around to get stuck. If I was living in a city today, I would be concerned.

I won't repeat the conservative talking points about cities run by liberal politicians for decades, because you have probably heard them.

JR

PS; How come in all those hallmark movies set in Portland, they never have an Antifa character, or show burning buildings? I guess it really is just a philosophy.

 

[hodad]

Seems different now.

JR

In the early 80s my brother briefly worked in the neighborhood where that shooting occurred, and guess what? It's probably less different now than most of Dekalb. It had at least as much crime and poverty then as it does now.

Now, the neighborhood where I work, that is different. What used to be poor and working class is now full of college-educated professional types in houses that run from $600K to upwards of a million.

Less woods, more people, better restaurants, less poverty, more diversity(ie, larger Latin & Asian American populations), higher housing costs--those are some ways Dekalb has changed since you were here.

Driving may be scarier than it used to be. but that's about it.

 

[hodad]

but there is statistical evidence that recent defunding of the police, early police retirement because of insufficient job support, catch and release bail reform policy, failure to prosecute many crimes, discharging violent prisoners from jail (so they don't catch covid ), liberalized enforcement of petty street crime, increasing homeless populations.

How about this statistical evidence: US gun sales hit a record high in 2020.

But the NRA assures me there's no connection whatever to increased gun violence.

 

[hodad]

Violence inside cities is not exactly a new trend...

Violence inside cities like Albertville, Alabama (pop. 21,000), where someone just killed 2, injured 2, and then shot himself?

 

[Gold]

I think it’s a logical fallacy to think that reducing the number of guns available wouldn’t decrease the number of shootings. It’s hard to six people is six seconds with a knife.

 

[JohnRoberts]

I think it’s a logical fallacy to think that reducing the number of guns available wouldn’t decrease the number of shootings. It’s hard to six people is six seconds with a knife.

Just like it is a fallacy to think that taking guns away from legal owners will stop all shootings.

How is reducing the number of police because of a handful of high profile arrest incidents working out for public safety?

Sadly I can imagine a dystopian future where only criminals have weapons and police are employed privately to police only wealthy neighborhoods. Thats kind of how they got started before citizens embraced community policing, to protect poor people too.

This is a mature discussion with multiple interrelated factors that need to be addressed. The elephant in this room is mental health. How often when we to a post mortem on a shooting we find mental imbalance as a factor. The shooter was showing symptoms that were ignored or unable to be acted upon.

I conceded in my earlier post that gun availability is "a" factor in the margin but not the root cause.

@hodad nice whataboutism, with a little digging you surely could have found some shooting events even closer to me... Hint: Search Jackson, MS or Meridian, MS. Meridian where I worked for 15 years last century was notorious for unsolved murders.

I look at trends and I don't like how I see modern culture going. Gun ownership is trending up not because people suddenly want to shoot a co-worker, but because trust in the police to protect us has been eroded by media, and even some local governments.

I don't see a simple answer to this. I wish it was simple. Sadly we were on a trend line of falling crime rates but seem to have flipped that upside down with a number of simultaneous changes that almost seem intended to encourage criminal behavior. When police see the criminal they just arrested not prosecuted or released without bail, they are less motivated to arrest more. What lesson does the criminal take from getting away with bad behavior? (Rhetorical, we can see what is happening).

JR

PS: I don't embrace the theories that this is a concerted effort to destabilize civil order but the evidence is accumulating. This morning I saw a clip of a criminal robbing goods from a drug store in broad daylight, while the security guard stood by and recorded the event on his phone. Walgreens has already shuttered 10 stores in SF and will likely close more. Who does this hurt? Honest residents in those neighborhoods.

 

[Gold]

Just like it is a fallacy to think that taking guns away from legal owners will stop all shootings.

Straw man. No one is advocating that. No one thinks anything will stop all shootings. It’s like advocating that there shouldnt be a law against theft because it won’t stop all theft.

How is reducing the number of police because of a handful of high profile arrest incidents working out for public safety?

Reallocating funds to better serve public safety is what defund the police is about.

 

[rock soderstrom]

In many states in the USA, it is legal to openly carry a firearm in public without a required permit. Remember the old "western" movies loosely based on real facts from the 1800's? Matt Dillon in Dodge City (1960's TV show called Gunsmoke) , Have Gun Will Travel, etc etc.

I sometimes see a guy with a holster and gun here in public. My theory is that they have a small......ahhhhh..."pee pee" <g> which is also why they drive large and loud pickup trucks

I have also seen this. Scary, no doubt. Just like the guys who come with assault rifles to political demonstrations in some states. Totally unthinkable on my side of the pond. Really scary!

On the subject of guns as the root of evil. I think there are some reasons for the high level of violence in American society, but in fact the many guns are the major driver for the extremely high number of victims.

The example of the grocery store shooting illustrates this fairly well. We had exactly the same incidents here, with lots of violence but no deaths because of no available firearms.

Carried weapons, if an argument escalates, will be used. Firearms are much more efficient killers than knives.

I personally believe that the founding fathers of the USA would have designed the gun laws differently if they had known today's technical possibilities.

One should not forget that the usual firearm had a cadence of one shot per minute in those days. Today's guns achieve a fire rate up to a thousand times or more.

I think the old guys would decide differently with today's knowledge. The suffering caused by firearms cannot be overlooked and in large parts it is completely unnecessary.

 

[crazydoc]

I think the old guys would decide differently with today's knowledge. The suffering caused by firearms cannot be overlooked and in large parts it is completely unnecessary.

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

The first phrase is completely divorced from the second now. The well regulated militia has devolved into unregulated chaos. The amendment needs to be amended, but that will never happen - the shit will just keep getting worse, and will be part of the fabric of American society.

 

[Gold]

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

The first phrase is completely divorced from the second now. The well regulated militia has devolved into unregulated chaos. The amendment needs to be amended, but that will never happen - the shit will just keep getting worse, and will be part of the fabric of American society.

I've read the 2nd. Amendment many times. The only thing I can say for certain is that its meaning is vague at best. The current interpretation which equates it to unfettered access to firearms seems like one of many ways to interpret it.

 

[JohnRoberts]

OK old well covered ground...

Indeed the 2nd amendment was written to protects citizens and states from the federal government.

Personal gun ownership was not addressed by our founders because it was unthinkable to deny early settlers the ability to protect and provide for their family (by hunting game) when living in the wilderness (not to mention the occasional Indian attack). Gun (long rifle) ownership was considered a natural right. Police forces in cities didn't even exist until almost a century later. Handgun popularity in the old west came about as a force equalizer for individuals.

Now centuries later the world has changed, and the original intent of our founders (and their world perspective) is forgotten and conflated with modern arguments.

I am open to tighter regulation but not the sweeping restriction of gun ownership from responsible citizens.

I find it harder to trust the government every day.

JR

PS; Not to pile onto Atlanta (I liked Atlanta) but now Buck head, a wealthy suburb is talking about succeeding from Atlanta over inadequate policing complaints. I understand the Atlanta mayor is not running again, so maybe Buck head should support their own mayoral candidate.