ABC TV in Australia reported that police evacuated shoppers at Westfield Shopping Centre in Bondi Junction.
A man stabbed six people to death at a busy Sydney shopping center Saturday before he was fatally shot, police said, with hundreds fleeing the chaotic scene, many weeping as they carried their children. Eight people, including a 9-month-old, were injured.
New South Wales police said they believed a 40-year-old man was responsible for the Saturday afternoon attack at the Westfield Shopping Centre in Bondi Junction, in the city’s eastern suburbs and not far from the world-famous Bondi Beach. They said they were not able to name him until a formal identification had taken place but that they weren’t treating the attack as terrorism-related.
The man was shot dead by a police inspector after he turned and raised a knife, New South Wales Assistant Police Commissioner Anthony Cooke told reporters.
No it's not, the majority of Americans are ok owning firearms. The view that we shouldn't be able to own firearms is a minority one and is more so prevalent on the Internet in echo chambers that lean left.
Also, we made a comment because automatic weapons are basically non-existent here in the USA, which is something the anti-gun crowd continually is ignorant on.
There is a clear majority of Americans that don't believe automatic weapons should be legal - generally America is pro hunting rifle (with the common impression those are akin to old bolt action or breech loading rifles in fire rate). The semi and fully automatic weapons poll unfavorably - especially handguns.
We don't have access to automatic weapons, they're effectively banned via price here. And no, the majority of Americans own firearms for self defense. Stop making up crap.
To clarify, I'm not them - but I said the majority of Americans support hunting rifle ownership. When you get into auto or semi-auto that shifts to a minority. And yea, America outlaws fully automatic weapons but rapid fire semi automatic firearms are quite legal.
Do you know that the majority of hunting rifles are semi automatic? Like 80% of all the firearms Americans own are semi automatic. The majority of Americans are ok with firearm ownership. Those who are against firearms for civilian ownership is a minority.
The anti-gun crowd is also ignorant of the practicalities of automatic vs semiautomatic. What they mean is "civilians shouldn't have mostly unrestricted access to firearms, especially ones with no use for hunting" and getting hung up on technical minutia misses the point entirely.
"Unrestricted" is quite a leap, I have to pass background checks, and depending on state, there is a waiting period before I can take the firearm home. Concealed carry also requires classes with certificates and gun range proof with instructors, and FBI fingerprint check and storage in their database forever.
Why? Less people would have probably died. Automatics are stupid hard to shoot accurately. The military uses them for suppression even. They're not designed to be accurate just to keep the enemy down.
Cool the UK said the same thing, and now they have bans on knives in public. Just as Australia has bans on paintball guns and airsoft. The Overton window keeps getting pushed to one extreme or the other.
Bullshit that you keep repeating doesn't make it true. The legislation our govt passed in the wake of the Port Arthur tragedy makes our country a safer place for everyone.
Did you read the article, or are just cherrypicking a headline that suits your agenda?
The article states that we have more guns in the hands of fewer shooters. Not great, but at least we're keeping guns out of the wrong hands. Australia licences guns appropriately, so hunters, farmers and hobbyists can still access the firearms that they need to. Your headline isn't the mic drop you think it is.
What organ isn't vital? I am pretty sure if you shot any part of my body I could quite easily die from it. If not directly from blood loss or infection. It isn't like evolution gave us random spots that are safe to be hit.
First, infection isn't even needed in this scenario, you don't die from infection in 30 seconds.
Secondly, the majority of people who are shot with a firearm via violence do not die. It's not even close. In numbers.
Third, firearms unless they hit you in the heart or head is not going to immediately kill you. This is why in war most of the casualties are injured and not death.
Liver, kidney, lung, stomach, arms, legs, want me to go on? Or do you need a human biology lesson to understand that you can lose a lot of shit before you die.
60 deaths with 413 wounded and 867 injured due to panic. Look at the dead vs wounded. The crowd was huge and even a semi automatic would have done just as much damage if not more.
Yes bullets don't stop after 20 feet... what's your point? The spray into a crowd that size and that packed together, it's surprising more weren't killed.
Again, the ratio of injuries vs deaths is way higher than when someone with a semi automatic has walked around and shot people. I don't understand why that's hard to understand.
Hell look at this gang shooting that just happened
Lol ok sure. I own an automatic, it was stupid expensive and is wildly inaccurate. It's a collection piece and barely gets used because of how silly it is
Tell me again how little I know...you being antigun telling me that I don't know about firearms is hilarious.
Never said I was. We really need a /r/justbootthings here on Lemmy. Your military experience doesn't magically make you an expert. Usually it's the opposite.
Yes because we all know that mentally ill people who intend on killing people usually get a gun and train with it. Almost all shootings happen directly after getting the firearm.
The nutter who shot up that LA concert spent a lot of time training, and spent years buying his firearms and ammo.
Australian's have zero interest in going down the route that America has with school shootings. The stabbing is a tragedy that could have been much worse.
And unlike in the US UNARMED civilians were able to intervene and slow the attacker down.
Fuck you brainwashed cretins who would rather have children dying than give up your precious penis extensions.
Cool, we like our guns, stay over there or w/e you are and let your nanny state tell you that you cannot own paintball or airsoft or gelsoft guns cause they're dangerous lol
We don't have automatic weapons available here. That's how disconnected you all are from understanding the issues. Just as Republicans here want to ban abortion without knowing anything about women. You want to do the same with firearms without knowing anything about them.
It isn't required to know every single random trivia fact about guns to know they are designed to kill people. None of us need perfect knowledge before we do anything. Do you have any inkling how crazy the physics/chemistry of fire is? No? Guess you have no opinion on your car catching on fire.
No it's basic knowledge, and it absolutely is akin to the abortion debate. You sound like that dumbass senator who said a woman's body knows if it was a legit pregnancy or rape and can get rid of it if it's rape. That's the level of ignorance the majority of you anti-gun people have.
I literally just did. The mass majority of users here and the mass majority of antigun people do not understand what they want legislated away. The same goes for prolife tools.
I definitely haven't, lol. My assumption is this guy wouldn't need to aim to hit folks in a shopping center, but that's just a guess. Given that automatics are illegal where I'm from they're kind of a mythical concept haha.
You most definitely need to be aiming to hit moving targets with a firearm, automatics are wildly inaccurate because the rate of fire creates a ton of recoil which has the rounds go everywhere. On top of that a 30 round standard size magazine, lasts about 2 seconds.
The reason semi-automatic hand guns are heavily used in 95% of murders in the USA is because they're easier to aim at close range, concealable and easy to toss once they've been used.
What I'm saying is that depending on the shopping center, you could very easily "shoot everywhere" and still hit many people, for example, the bump stock fueled 2017 Vegas shooting.
Yep but your odds of actually killing someone are lower than if you actually aimed and fired with a semi automatic.
Like I said in one of my other posts. There is a reason the military went to 3rnd burst and semi auto for their infantry rifles and SAWs used as suppression. Vietnam they found out that most soldiers would mag dump and not hit anything. So they went over to 3rnd burst and single shooting teaching the soldiers to fire deliberately when aiming to kill.
I'd say the reason the military did that is probably because they're not shooting into crowds of inattentive, unsuspecting bystanders, and you can't really compare military tactics to a dude shooting up a mall where folks are unarmed, but this is getting pretty far into the theoretical weeds.
Actually the main reason they did it was because they were dealing with a problem of psychology that they were trying to solve with technology.
Basically you've got a bunch of terrified conscripts who you've dragged off the streets and flown out into the middle of a jungle to fight a pointless war that they in no way care about or believe in.
The lack of accuracy was a combination of piss poor training and blind screaming terror.
The US military looked at this and said "Clearly the guns are the problem."
The 41-page complaint details dangerous and deadly incidents involving modified Glocks on the streets of Chicago in recent years, including police officers with department-issue Glock pistols facing off against criminals with machine-gun power. Bystanders and buildings have been struck by the bullet spray of modified Glocks, which cause a recoil that is difficult for unskilled or inexperienced users to control, the complaint alleges.
Even Chicago's own lawsuit details how inaccurate they are.
It's specifically citing modified handguns, which are not designed for automatic fire in the first place. An automatic rifle, with a stock and grip, is way more controllable than a fucking handgun doing something it wasn't designed to do without also adding stocks and grips.
The Glocks are %100 designed for automatic fire, a lower is all that changes it when you have a legal automatic firearm.
On top of that, the last time an automatic rifle was used was during the LA bank robbery. Rifles are rarely used in homicides, and automatic rifles are basically never used.
You have a really bad understanding of firearms and statistics for them.
The 41-page complaint details dangerous and deadly incidents involving modified Glocks on the streets of Chicago in recent years, including police officers with department-issue Glock pistols facing off against criminals with machine-gun power. Bystanders and buildings have been struck by the bullet spray of modified Glocks, which cause a recoil that is difficult for unskilled or inexperienced users to control, the complaint alleges.
Even Chicago's own lawsuit details how inaccurate they are.
Uhh why would it magically be less than lethal? It's still a firearm...and no the data is showing this throughout all the innercities where gang violence is high.
To put it succinctly, just because you can't hit your intended target with an automatic firearm doesn't mean the danger goes away - oftentimes bystanders get hurt, which is mentioned in the quote you brought up.
Hold up, let me just check with a professional soldier real quick...
Yeah, my wife says that in an urban combat situation like this (basically anything taking place in or around buildings, even a larger building like a mall), you almost certainly would be using full auto (if you have the option). At longer ranges however you would definitely switch to semi-automatic fire.
That's assuming you're up against armed resistance and know what you're doing, of course. If you're the kind of coward who goes and murders a bunch of innocent strangers, any self-loading weapon is going to be significantly more dangerous than not having one at all, be it semi-automatic or fully-automatic.
My wife is a reg-force infanteer. At the kind of distances you're firing at inside of a shopping mall she could comfortably dump a ten round burst into a person's torso and not miss a shot. Even an untrained shooter could easily land a lot of lethal hits if they were firing into a crowd. And yes, automatic fire is absolutely used in urban combat; at close ranges it is very easy to control a fully automatic weapon sufficiently for that. The standard strategy is to aim for the navel and let your fire carry up the torso; it's known as "zippering". When intentionally controlled by the shooter these weapons do not jump around anything like the way you've seen in video games.
Also, generally full auto is not that great for suppressing fire, unless you're talking about a machine gun. With an assault rifle you're better off maintaining steady suppression in semi-auto. It's not so much the volume of fire that keeps a target's head down as it is the consistency. Dumping a whole mag and then stopping to reload gives them plenty of time to set up and start laying hate on your position. There are exceptions like Aussie Peel Out, but they're rare. For the part talking guns is the way it's done.
That's without even getting into the fact that saying "automatic weapon" doesn't necessarily mean "fully automatic" (hence why the word "fully" is usually in there; if there wasn't any ambiguity, why is it necessary to specify?). It's much more likely that the previous commenter was referring to any form of self-loading weapon.
It’s so infuriating that people will use this as an example of “see, mass killings happen even without guns!1!1!!” without the logical step of “wow, that would have been so much worse with a gun!”.