This is why the “good guy with the gun” BS needs to die. The real world isn’t a movie: there are no designated heroes and villains. Everyone’s a good guy in their own mind until they point a gun at a 6 year old.
I've always wondered how people thought the "good guy with a gun" would work in a chaotic real world situation. Suppose you're armed and there's a mass shooting event. You pull out your gun and keep a look out for the shooter as you hear gunfire getting closer. Then you spot a guy holding a gun. You quickly take aim and fire...
... And hit another "good guy with a gun" who was trying to take out the mass shooter the same as you.
Oh, but then you get shot by a third "good guy with a gun" who thought YOU were the mass shooter.
Arming everyone and telling them to be "good guys with guns" just seems, at best, like it would lead to MORE injuries and deaths.
Or, as has actually happened before, a good guy with a gun kills the bad guy and then gets shot by the cops who arrive thinking the guy with the gun is the bad guy:
Yup, this is how it goes down in my head, and why I don't carry a gun. I think there's a decent chance that I could take down an active shooter (not sure if I have the guts to, but that's beside the point) because I have the element of surprise on my side, but there's an even bigger chance I get shot either in the crossfire or by the police. Most of the time it'll be a single shooter, but I have no guarantee that's the case, so I'd need to be ready for a second shooter.
I've run through a few options, and I just don't see a clear way to distinguish myself from an active shooter.
Yeah, my coworkers said how great it would have been after the Colorado movie theater shooting (Batman movie) if everyone was armed. They just knew the original shooter would have been killed right away.
So,
Dark theater
Smoke filled (by shooter)
Bullets suddenly flying
Who in their right mind thinks basically everyone wouldn't have been mowed down in a hail of gun fire?
Yeah they picture it as a very specific scenario with one mass shooter and one retaliatory shooter. Any more than one retaliatory shooter and it all falls apart as OP described though lol.
You see, this is why nobody takes sentiments like yours seriously. If you can't defend yourself, and don't have others to protect you, then you'll always be at the mercy of whoever is the strongest.
Something tells me all the 'guns and cops are bad' people don't know how to fight.
I've been looking at your other comments and have some things to say.
Clearly your your out of your mind defending cops on Lemmy.world, for real when is calling the cops ever not put you the caller in a new type of danger? Fools with guns is bad regardless of the context and I for one cannot trust someone I have never met, especially the armed paramilitary we call police here in America.
Nice 'something tells me comment, always makes someone's comments feel real sincere.
Most people can't defend themselves, that's reality. I'm actually pro gun but anti-idiot, and most people are idiots and that deeply complicates your arguments.
Thanks for coming to my Ted talk, I'm not a professional nor frankly good at most things, if you have problems with my arguments please, comment it don't save it to yourself.
I was hoping they would say more, at least try to argue but they blocked me. I have yet to find a pro copper on Lemmy that has the balls to defend them fully.
I sure as fuck don't wait around for the cops to show up and decide I'm the threat and kill me while the guy breaking into my house has been gone for 20 minutes.
I'll defend myself how I see fit and the cops will only be called if it results in death.
Personally, I think if someone broke into my house, it would be dark...I'd have probably just been woken from a dead sleep. There will be dogs barking...possibly kids also just woken from a dead sleep who are now scared and either calling for me or running towards me. There's no way I can put myself between my family and the bad guys in that situation. If I just start shooting, I'm liable to be shooting in the general direction of a pet or child. Even in the very best scenario, where somehow my kids, my pets, my wife, and my MIL who lives with us all happen to be in my bedroom in the middle of the night I'm still very likely to just shout that we're armed and the police are on the way. Whether they steal a TV or I shoot a TV still results in me needing a new TV...but I also know that statistically, even me having a gun in my home escalates an already tense situation where I'll be groggy but hopped up on adrenaline and not be a reliable shot. Even if it played out how folks like to imagine... one shot, one kill, I've still taken a life in front of my family. That'll result in years of therapy for all of us. I'd rather just get a new TV or whatever. We're more likely to get struck by lightning as a family than have a Richard Ramirez type who broke into the house just to kill us, and it's more likely still that I'll get depressed and use the gun on myself than it is that I'll successfully defend my family with it.
I say all that as someone with military firearms training, family members in the local PD, and as someone who's been woken up in the middle of the night by an emergency (in that case, our house was on fire).
I don’t recall saying cops are useless. Are you sure you’re replying to the right person?
The police do illustrate over and over again that even trained professionals make bad decisions when issued guns. And of course the solution isn’t to escalate things by raising the threat of officers being shot, but instead in finding ways to have less people with guns, so police aren’t on alert all the time and aren’t as tempted to use their guns as their only solution.
As a thought experiment: If we gave every adult in the world access to fire the entire planet’s nuclear payload and destroy everyone, do you think we’d all be safer? Would the world even last 5 minutes?
The more people you give access to deadly weapons, the more likely you are going to run into someone who is stupid, impulsive, or downright crazy and is going to use that weapon to harm themselves or others.
I got pulled over for not seeing a stop sign at night in a bad neighborhood. I remember the young cop watching my hands with the flashlight and the light was shaking slightly while I searched for my registration.
That was not an enjoyable experience for me or him and it shouldn't have to be anything except mildly annoying. He shouldn't be thinking that I am ready to kill him and I shouldn't be worried that he will make a mistake and me getting shot.
You should be asking if society is safer if people have guns than if they don't. Of course, answering this isn't so simple because which society matters.
I think you're confusing "rural America" with a movie called "Mad Max".
Which would have been safer without guns.
In any case, it sounds like what you mean to say is "the lawless hellscapes of the USA need to be civilized by an accountable organisation of some kind", not "guns fix everything, hyuck".
I don't think cops are useless, I think they are a flawed institution that we as a society can fix by reforms. And I don't even see the big deal in this, nothing is perfect, everything can be made better or more appropriate for the situation. Long run it would be better for police unions to agree to some changes in training, scope, and methods because it would restore and gain more public trust. And the public will benefit as well.