How do people figure that allowing untrained, unreliable individuals to possess and carry firearms is the best deterrent to gun crimes?
Ok. I'm going with giving the questioner the benefit of the doubt. So, the person asking the question has a few built in assumptions which I am attempting to read into, really only addressing the “carry” part of the question: namely, that acquiring a CCW permit is ridiculously easy (at least for two of the states I've lived in: WI and NC), and that shooting well (not to mention in a hostile environment) is a perishable skill. I'm a bit surprised that neither of these points were mentioned or addressed by other answers here and while I don't have the statistics, it seems like a non-negligible number and I do think that this needs to be mentioned. Most people who are “pro-gun” will say that CCW permit holders are self motivated to train and model citizens. While I don't doubt that a large number of them certainly are model citizens with an in-depth knowledge of all things firearms, the concern is about the fraction who are not. I would hazard a guess that this fraction may be as large as 50% of CCW holders. Of course, this is a difficult number to qualify and I welcome any references or educated guesses to correct my figure. The “training” I am referring to would include physiological, legal and logistical aspects such as when it is appropriate (or wise) to draw your weapon, what clothes to wear to facilitate drawing your weapon, the appropriate type of ammunition in a given environment, etc.Also, shooting, like any other fine tuned skill, is perishable, and going to the range once a year doesn't quite cut it. It is not only perishable over time but also quickly degrades under the influence of adrenaline, which most CCW permits have not experienced but will be present if you have to draw your weapon.Without these bases covered, it can be difficult to argue that you are “trained” and “reliable”, which, I presume is where the questioner is (validly?) coming from.“Full” disclosure: I like guns, I have sat through the basic classes, I do not have a CCW permit nor do I think I really need one for various reasons. Other people obviously have their own reasons.I would welcome thoughtful and stimulating discussion on these points.
Someone is trying to shoot you with a pistol in an open field. How would you run to decrease the chances of being hit? You start 20 feet ahead of the shooter, who is slowly walking in your direction whilst firing, the pistol is semi-automatic.
I think your scenario is very similar to Trap shooting with a shotgun.A trap field’s layout looks like this.(Ignore the bottom line since each number on it represents an individual field)Within the field you have positions 1–5 and then the “trap house” where a clay pigeon is shot out from at a wide variety of directions and elevations. In your scenario the shooter is like one of the shooters standing at let’s say position 3 and you are the clay pigeon running away from the trap house.Now, you’re not able to fly to adjust your elevation and make the shot a 3-dimensional challenge to the shooter but you can move along the X and Y axis in a manner and speed that decreases your chances of being hit. You do have the option of pausing and changing speed though which can make you a harder target to hit.Having shot trap a time or two I can say one of the hardest shots for me has always been anything veering hard left out of the house because I’m right handed and have to bring the gun across my body to track it quickly. Straight out shots can be difficult too but that’s mostly due to misjudging their elevation gain/sink which isn’t a factor here.So, I’d start by running as fast as I could veering left across the shooter’s aim forcing him to accurately lead a quickly moving target that’s moving away from him and to the left. Add a quick zag to that so now I’m running still slightly left but more away from his location in an L shape where the angle is greater than 90* and the bottom of the L isn’t perfectly perpendicular to the shooter’s initial movement.Hitting a moving target at range with a pistol isn’t easy and if you’re a half decent runner you should be able to put a some distance between you and the shooter pretty quickly. Distance is going to be your friend here since the shooter can only walk forward and you can run, after 20 seconds or so you should be several hundred feet away and well out of range.
An armed school resource officer stops a Mid. high school shooter in his tracks. Is this proof that eliminating gun free zones saves lives?
It proves that it saved lives in that situation.It has a cost, though. A cost that we have to guess at because the NRA (of which I am a member with reservations but no regret) has lobbied for decades to prevent data from being collected on.https://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/PT.6.3.20171018a/full/That cost is the lives lost due to the presence of guns. You cannot say that the cost is “Zero lives” at this stage. Some people get shot every day. This variable we will call “X”The cost to be compared is the number of lives saved by the presence of guns. Again, this number cannot be argued as “Zero lives" at this stage of analysis. Cops and civilians save themselves and others every day using guns. This variable we will call “Y”Is X < Y ?I think so and you apparently do too.But we don't know.We can't know. Thanks to the NRA.We agree in principle. I am just critiquing your argument before anti-gun folk do.The winning argument for us here is the Constitution. We don't have to win a majority. Amending the Constitution requires an overwhelming, nearly unanimous supermajority.If they get a serious campaign up and running to repeal the Second Amendment, then and only then do we need to break out the deeper philisophical reasons for an armed electorate.Teach those fundamental reasons for the Second Amendment to any child that will listen, and any adult who seems to have never heard them before. Then let those seeds of wisdom settle in to their subconscious world view.Then remain silent on those seeds. They are planted deep in the psyche of anyone who hears them as a child. They will still be there, dormant, when an attempt is made decades later to strip the 2nd Amendment from us.It is at that crucial moment in future-history that we remind everyone of what they were taught as a child. A supermajority will be prevented. Say about 10% of people will hear and respond to an argument they were indoctrinated with as a child, but then never thought about again until it was time to vote. That 10%, added to the 25% of the nation that are “natural 2nd Amendment supporters” will be plenty to prevent 3/4ths of the States from ratifying an Amendment repeal.We do not make the “Citizens Check on Government Tyranny” argument every time a gun control law is presented. It is like over prescribing Antibiotics. Overuse will eventually make people immune to the powerful rhetorical medicine. Save it for times of true peril to the health of the body politic.
What does a gun shot in the street sound like when you hear it from a residence?
I've lived for many years in both Uptown in Chicago and the Tenderloin in San Francisco back in the days when crack was king so you'd hear gunshots every two or three months or so.The majority of times it sounds to me like someone took a hammer and hit it really hard against a thick sheet of steel. The sound is very short and a little bit higher pitched than you'd expect.Also, people tend to dump the whole load, shoot all of the bullets as fast as they can.I know they were guns because I had a police radio back then and as soon as I heard the shots I'd turn on the radio and hear the call go out from dispatch.A shotgun has a deeper, longer sound and rather than being a sharp sound it's a more round sound; it's hard to put it into words.One time, in Uptown (1325 W. Wilson) it was a kid on a bicycle and you could tell he didn't take any care of the gun because every time he pulled the trigger it would squeak, like it hadn't been oiled.Another time, in the Tenderloin it was the proverbial screeching tires as the car came around the corner of Eddy and Taylor and you could hear the girls screaming and the sound of their high heels as they were running away. Two of them got shot in the legs.We also had some sort of minimum security halfway house around the corner that a guy shot up with an Uzi or a Mac-10, that's what the police said on the radio. It had more of a machine tool sound than a gun sound.The most recent shooting was here in the South Park area of S.F. It was about 3 a.m. and as it woke me up I counted the shots, I believe five total. I called that one in because I thought there was a chance the victim might be just wounded but no such luck for him. He was a passenger in a car and was shot by someone outside the vehicle. The driver took off, traveled about three blocks and bailed.The case remains unsolved but I don't think the police are trying too hard as this involved people who don't matter in our society, if you get my drift.
I need world war 1 information by November 2 2007?
World War I, also known as the First World War, the Great War and the War To End All Wars, was a global military conflict which took place primarily in Europe from 1914 to 1918. Over 40 million casualties resulted, including approximately 20 million military and civilian deaths. The conflict had a decisive impact on the history of the 20th century. The Entente Powers, led by France, Russia, the United Kingdom and its colonies and dominions, and later Italy (from 1915) and the United States (from 1917), defeated the Central Powers, led by the Austro-Hungarian, German, and Ottoman Empires. Russia withdrew from the war after the revolution in 1917. The fighting that took place along the Western Front occurred along a system of trenches, breastworks, and fortifications separated by an area known as no man's land.[2] These fortifications stretched 475 miles (more than 600 kilometres)[2] and defined the war for many. On the Eastern Front, the vast eastern plains and limited rail network prevented a trench warfare stalemate, though the scale of the conflict was just as large as on the Western Front. The Middle Eastern Front and the Italian Front also saw heavy fighting, while hostilities also occurred at sea, and for the first time, in the air. The war caused the disintegration of four empires: the Austro-Hungarian, German, Ottoman and Russian. Germany lost its colonial empire and states such as Czechoslovakia, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Yugoslavia gained independence. The cost of waging the war set the stage for the breakup of the British Empire as well and left France devastated for more than a generation. World War I marked the end of the world order which had existed after the Napoleonic Wars, and was an important factor in the outbreak of World War II.