Since nobody else has commented, I will. That's insane.

I think people should be more accessible, not less. More metal detectors? More security? Insane.

What defines a "public figure" anyhow? What defines a public gathering?

An elected politician's speech?
A non-elected candidate's meet and greet at the supermarket or commuter station?
A ball player signing autographs after the game?
A retired ball player signing autographs at a card show?
A concert?
A stand up comedian?
A book signing?
Church service?
A public company's shareholders's meeting?
A galley opening?
A lecture at Border's books?
A college level engineering class?


It could get pretty out of hand real quick. I don't want to live in that kind of society. I'll gladly avoid a crowd because I don't want to be in a crowd, but not because I'm afraid of random shooters.

We can only take *reasonable* precautions to keeping ourselves safe.

I understand, but that has only been the case since mid-2010, so the number of ccw permits should be a decent indicator of the number of law abiding citizens potentially carrying prior to then. And, as shown, if the 2010 law caused the number of carrying citizens to increase five fold in less than a year - which would be an enormous, improbable increase - it still means a crazy guy's chance of encountering a carrying citizen during his rampage is minuscule.



I have a ccw permit, carry sometimes, own guns, been shooting since a small boy, etc. I think law abiding people should carry if they want to, though I'd like some reasonable level of training and screening. I just don't think that ccw has much impact on safety or crime rates except for the carrying person himself - which is all I really would care about. Add in the fact that this guy was a crazy - not real likely to be calculating the odds - and I can't see where AZ's ccw laws could have made the slightest difference here.

Speeder,

"Suppose I blow up your house ith an RPG" = bad for your argument.

But hypthetically suppose '...he had a squeky clean record..." = good for your argumant

And get a clear shot in a crowd and be loaded with rounds that won't go through and through at close range. So many variables had to line up for a firearm to be helpful there. By the time all the variables lined up he could easily have emptied a magazine. This ain't the movies.

Randy,
I don't mean the killing. In that regard I agree with you. But it's the rhetoric and the threats that passes as idle/normal discourse. It's like the former SOP during an airline high jacking. It was to sit back and wait for the plane to land..... normally. No more. People have to be more proactive and denounce hate speech and physical threats from those sources..... including this forum, btw.

I'd like to think the US is a somewhat civilized society. I do agree with the perp in that illiteracy and ignorance is a good recipe for a disinterested and/or ill-informed society - not to support his warped views, but in order to understand and deal with a more complex world. However, like the perp, it's all in one's POV, hopefully not one as narrow, distorted and skewed as this guy's.

Sherwood

+1000
We aren't any safer having a bunch of "heros" spraying lead around.
We DON'T (edited) need the fed's levying more gun laws. This is a area where the states can experiment with their own laws and see what works. AZ is the land of easy CCWs and this happened there, so we have one data point.

VaSteve, Every one of your situations with the possible exception of the Church service could qualify. Why? They are all planned events and presumably advertised to lure the public to the event and there is no reason not to have security.

One of your examples already uses the approach. More and more concerts require security checks, As do college and pro sports. Many bars and clubs are also requiring people to go through security checks looking for weapons. If you are carrying you do not enter. That's the kind of gun/weapon control I would want to see.

Now you're talking about censorship.

What we have now is about as perfect as it gets - this guy decided to go on a shooting spree and it will most likely cost him his life, that's the price he chose to pay.

Editing speech isn't going to help anything until we fix the issue of lack of common sense and that isn't going to happen.

Blaming rhetoric isn't going to be an effective defense when this kid gets on the stand.

rjp

the other thing that was brought up in the other thread - if in fact you are going to be controversial you should invest in security.

Imagine if you walked down the street with hundred dollar bills glued to you. You think you'd make it a full day anywhere without being mugged?

rjp

Really now??

So if I want to blow-your house up with a nuke or kill someone a little more artistically with an RPG, I can do that in the near future even though I can't get those weapons due to some pesky laws? No amount of hell or high water is going to help me know where on earth to buy a fking RPG. I wouldn't know where to start looking.

What if I just really need to kill a room full of people quickly. I need some C4 or a ballistic missile and a way to launch it. No problem, right? After all, I'm "determined".

And save all of the knee-jerk gun rights responses. I'm in favor of gun rights but unless the arguments for gun owners' rights get a lot better than this, we're doomed...

"No criminal is going to obey/care/follow any gun law anyways..." NEWSFLASH: He wasn't a criminal. He probably had squeaky clean record up until yesterday, just like every post office or office cubicle murderer who's ever bought a gun on Friday and killed all of his co-workers on Wednesday.

Denis, If you were determined enough to find an RPG or C4 you would and if you couldnt you would find another way.

And that would be an incredibly false sense of security you'd have while making daily life here as miserable as getting on an airplane.

When I took my NV CCW class in October, the instructor told me he was going to hand me a few guns to clear and pass around the room. He was of average build, wearing black slacks and a black golf shirt. He was slightly printing one full sized Glock and yet proceded to pull out 10, yes ten, handguns from concealment. It was almost like a magic act. I couldn't keep up with them all. You think someone like that wouldn't have a gun or two to give up during a patdown to make the cop think he'd found them all?

And as someone who goes to a lot of concerts and club gigs, the security at those things is a total joke. A quick "open your purse" or "raise your shirt" or get wanded. Puhleez. Do you think anyone who plans on committing mayhem is going to be caught like that? I could easily defeat those lame security measures. I know people who've gone through the mags at airports while carrying, forgetting they were carrying and then wondered how they were going to get the gun back home. The only thing making sure a crowd is mostly unarmed does is make them a more inviting target for the one bad guy.

And one last anecdote I've told here before. When I checked a gun in my luggage at Jacksonville, the captain summoned me to the cockpit AFTER we had landed and asked if I was the sky marshal. He said he had me on a list as having brought a gun onboard. Yes, he waited until we landed to ask me that. Metal detectors, unless they're being run by the Secret Service, are window dressing to make people think they're being screened and that no bad guys with guns get through. Hardly the case.

Uh.... I disagree. But, before I go further...the only person I KNOW CCW's all the time are the guys on this board. I personally know Rick and I assume he's carrying when we hang out....but I don't think about it. I really don't have an opinion on the gun laws. Guns are not really a part of my life for hobby or protection

I personally don't want to go through my life caught up in checkpoints to defeat dishonest people while ensnaring the rest of us. As it stands, my employer has us queue up to go through metal detectors each day. It's a pain in the ass. Any nut who wants, could pop off a whole bunch of people waiting in that line. I have been in the pat downs for concerts, IIRC it was more to keep out liquor than guns/weapons. I have not been to a patdown/security screening for college classes, random shopping (say if some other event is going on), church, etc. Sometimes local pols show up shaking hands and kissing babies on my way to the commuter train...I don't ask them to be there, but I don't expect them to have extra security. Maybe there's a cop or two once in a while, but like others have said they can only react. You could just as easily take out a bunch of people walking to that train with a car as a weapon.

Santa Claus at the mall has a lot of people gathered. Some folks don't like Christmas...should he have security? When does it end?

Police officer killed during dramatic caravan park standoff - Telegraph

Happened about 3 miles from my house. The killer was a law-abiding citizen.
We live in a culture where a lot of people believe gunfire is the answer to problems - some of them are good guys and some of them are bad guys, but they have that belief in common.

Rick- I'm not really sure what point you are trying to make in your last post? Are you saying there shouldnt be any security? You see while I think you should have the right to own guys and even carry I don't think it should be the Wild Wild West either.

This kind of event couldn't have happened in the wild west because most of the people in the crowd would have been armed. What so many of the anti's like to refer to as the "wild west" was actually a lot more peaceful than things are today. Disease was exponentially deadlier then than gun violence. (Probably still is today, actually.) "More security" is a misnomer. Some people will think they're more secure if they see metal detectors or rent-a-cops. They're not.

I ask again, how can you stop a determined lunatic other than waiting for him to run out of ammo or praying the cops show up before that happens?

VaSteve- Why would you be caught up in check points every where you go? As I said there are certain things no matter how hard you plan, no matter what laws you pass somethings you just can not prevented 100% of the time. If someone is bound and determined to do a certain thing it is going to be near impossible to stop that person unless someone is tipped off or they make a mistake before completeing their task. However, certain steps can be taken to lessen the risk and protect the public in certain cases and there are certain places you should feel safe. For one is a school. Columbine, VA Tech Those places should be safe havens. Every day walking through a mall not so much.

Now some things are a given. Public figures are targets of violent acts and assisination attempts all the time. That's why they pay body guards. becuase they are aware of this fact That's why many carry weapons, some illegal weapons. P-Diddy, Plaxico Buress, Tupac. This particular Congresswoamn received threats in the recent past and her office was vandalised. Hello!!! Red flags are a waiving every where.

What do her people do? Put her in a tent in the parking lot and announce it to the world days in advance. Now she wants to put herself in that position fine. That's her right. But her recklessness got 6 innocent people killed and several injured.

Passing a law compelleing anyone that wants to assemble crowds need take certain steps some incidents can be prevented. Not all will be eliminated but some will.

Now put the Congresswoman inside the store, in the back. With a visibly armed police officer/bodyguard trained and prepared. Anyone entering the store needs to pass through a metal detector x-ray what ever it takes to make sure no one is armed. If you are armed go lock your gun in your car and come back. This guy may have thought twice and looked for a different opportunity. 6 people may not be dead today.

Would that have prevented the Congresswoamn from being shot? Maybe it would have prevented it yetsetrday but maybe not another time.

BTW- these measures would be at the expesne of the individual holding the event not the tax payer.

US Rep Giffords is a liberal democrat. Slim chance that anyone in her posse was carrying, CCW or Open. These people are gun haters...

As for turning the USA into a "police state" so that we can all be "safe?"

Go have relations with yourself.

Rick, People got ambushed all of the time back in the day and many places required you to check your gun at the door.

I agree and have posted your sentiments exactly "you are not going to stop a determined lunatic". If this guy was determined to take down the Congress woman little was going to stop him. However if she wasn't sitting in the parking lot without security 6 innocent people may not be dead. Even minimal security may have turned him away until a better opportunity presented it self. One report stated he was told by a staffer he had to wait his turn and he went to the back of the line. If he was observed by someone trained in security he may have been singled out and questioned.

silverwhaletail, who said anyhting about turning the US into a police state? So right back at ya!

Got to disagree on her being Anti-gun, I haven't seen anything to reflect that, as a matter of fact just the oppisite..