Shooting at the Empire State Building

Surely this is last we need to hear about the benefits of DIY ammunition making or - does someone else need to chime in with more of the same?

No, he purchased six thousand rounds all at one time online.

James Holmes was a PHD student with no prior history of gun ownership and was not a member of the wider shooting community. He was seen on three different occasions by the Univ of CO mental health professionals prior to his dropping out of the PHD program and purchasing his weaponry. What perspective is required that would alter the fact that his unusual behavior was no more notable than a usual gun and ammo purchase?.

There is no wider, narrower, or medial problem. Nor is there an attempt to address one incident to distract from another. The shooting problem pretty much deserves recognition and attention no matter the specifics. The main distraction I see is the refusal of some gun owners to discuss the problem beyond the abstract or outside of their fall back 2nd amendment rhetoric.

 

Yea, I've analyzed that shoot a million times. I think the officers' actions weren't too tactically sound. You'll notice that they went in to each other's line of fire at one point. Also, they were shooting one handed.

 

I had this idea that Johnson was standing in a crowd of people when police opened fire. Not quite the case as the video shows. People were in the area but most look as though they got away before the shooting started. I can only imagine the gunshot victims were injured by bullets that had ricocheted off the sidewalk as none look to be in the line of fire with the possible exception of the men on the bench.

I also heard that a couple of the victims claiming to be injured were wounded by shards of pottery that was hit by a bullet.

 

News reports say 3 of the 9 were directly hit. 6 were hit by shrapnel.

 

I'm not sure I understand exactly what you're trying to say here. If a person doesn't have a history of buying lots of ammo of many weapons and suddenly decides to buy a few thousand rounds or three, four or maybe five weapons then they should be denied their purchases until they've been "checked out?" Is that about what you're saying? Who is going to do the checking? Who's going to pay for it? It's sounds a little "big brother" to me but a "little big brother" isn't always a bad thing in my book. In this case I'm not sure it would be constitutional, workable or even affordable. It might be and I'd be willing to listen to more.

I think you're getting close to an area that may make an actual difference... increased mental health services across the board. Obviously not all needing mental health services and up purchasing firearms and start offing the general public. But let's face it it does happen and it's not alright. as a nation we've turned on back on the mentally ill. Often they end up being dealt with in ER's where a Dr. might throw some thorazine at them and send them on their way. Often they end up in a correctional institution where they're locked up and left to stare at a wall until a judge decides they're either are or are not guilty of some crime. Those convicted of a crime are sent to longer term correctional facilities where they often get crap care until they're let out one day. Whenever they're let out it's usually not good for them or the community mainly because they've never really received treatment for their actual problem. So I seriously think fully funding mental health services would do more then your big brother idea (but, again, I'm willing to listen to more details regarding your ideas) when it comes to violence as a whole and that would include gun violence.


I haven't purchased or sold a firearm in several years but the holes in the system, in my opinion, are many of the restrictions to purchase a firearm are basically self reported. "Are you addicted to illegal drugs?" "No, of course not. I mean sure I'm missing several teeth and have sores all over my face and I may smell like cat piss but "Meth?" Never heard of it." Seriously who's going to walk into a gun store, try to buy a firearm and answer yes to that question? Same thing with the mental illness questions. "Are you now or have you ever been diagnosed or committed for a mental illness or found mentally incompetent?" "Yes, yes I have and I'm a complete lunatic... can I have my rifle now?" Close those two loop holes and I think we'd reduce a lot of gun violence. How do we close them, not sure but it's a starting place for a rational discussion in my opinion.

I'd also say removing weapons from people who have restraining orders issued against them isn't a bad idea. If you've threaten to kill your spouse, co-workers, boss etc... I really think it might not be a good idea if you have 12 firearms and 8k rounds of ammo at your disposal.
--- merged: Aug 26, 2012 at 9:02 PM ---

Who's training the police these days?

 

1.) The problem is restraining orders can be had ex parte, that is, without any hearing or chance for the respondent to defend themselves. Can you imagine a jilted lover deciding to fuck you over by making up some sh*t in front of a Judge? Because it happens sometimes.

2.) I think Police are semi-social workers these days. Although they have the aura of gun slinging badasses, I think they carry their guns a lot more than they shoot them (well, you can enlighten me if you know better). My thought for why the shoots are always so wonky is because the majority of funds and training is spent on things like Compstat. (Crime in cities: America’s safer streets | The Economist).

Regardless, it was a split second decision. Since I wasn't in their shoes, I can't fault them that much.

 

Well you know the law way better then I do but if people can lose their driver license while they wait to go to trial on a DUI it seems to me if a judge finds there enough evidence to issue a restraining order (at times they are not that easy to get) that same judge probably should be able to determine if you should not be in possession of a firearm. Then again maybe that's not constitutional, again I'm not an attorney.

LEO are in general babysitters. I'm not even sure I'd say they have the "aura of gun slinging badasses." I carried a weapon for years and never once fired it at anyone... ever. I've always found talking to someone for a long time beat filling out a shit load of paper work and as an added bonus everyone goes away unharmed.

Again I never fired at anything other then paper targets and simulators and I never worked in a large urban area. But in my little corner of the world the, just in day to day personal interactions with hostile or non-compliant citizens all the people I worked with worked as a team and if the need for spray, tazer or more lethal force was needed we would communicate that through non verbal signals and everyone on scene knew well in advance who was going to take that action and who was going to be primary back up etc... I just can't imagine a situation where it digressed to "let's all unload our clips in the general direction of the suspect and in doing so hold your firearm with one hand." But like you said I wasn't there so who knows what I would or would not have done. It's always easy to be the Monday morning quarterback.

 

I think that it's a safe bet the cops had probably played too many violent video games. Probably listened to Marilyn Manson too.

 

What is the NYPD protocol for firing a weapon at a suspect when there are innocent bystanders in the near vicinity? Obviously the suspect had his own pointed directly at the officers.

Is the 1st consideration for their own safety and the safety of fellow officers or are they expected to hold or manage their fire if innocent bystanders are in the firing path? I'd always assumed it was the latter.

Are officers instructed to empty their clips at/into a suspect or are they expected to stop firing when the suspect is down or ceases to be a threat? And what happened here? Which bullets fired brought the suspect down? Was it the first couple of bullets fired (and they kept on shooting) or were they the last bullets fired by the officers that finally brought him down?

Did these officers act appropriately or react inappropriately? From what I'm hearing here, it seems they reacted to this situation as I might rather than as they'd been trained to.

As Tully says, not ever being in the situation, it's easier to judge than understand but without knowing how they were meant to act in the situation it's difficult to know how to feel about the way the whole thing went down.

 

For all sorts of good reasons, I'd be astonished if they are not taught that their own safety is the priority. It should be.

I'm sure the police themselves will look at the whole situation to find lessons to learn, but I'd hate to try and get into second-guessing their actions from the safety of my computer seat. I feel sorry for the guys concerned who I am sure will be reliving this for some time to come.

Should they have approached him on a busy street? Who knows? At the time, did anyone know whether he was about to start shooting another person, looking for random victims? Hindsight is always 20-20.

In any event, once he pointed his gun at them all bets were off and these guys are only human.

 

just to note the obvious, this footage was released by nypd. for example, there could be multiple angles and, after review, this one was chosen as the closest to exculpatory for official release to the press. because nypd had an image problem to manage. remember the context for this release is marketing, not forensics. just a thought.

it pays to remember about sources.

in this case, there's no hidden other infotainment to proffer. but still, it's like information handling 101.

 

That's not exactly what I'm saying. First of all, it doesn't appear as if this sort of historical vs current data is even being filtered and compiled anywhere - no dots being connected, so to speak, outside of criminal record checks on applications for new gun registrations. If close monitoring were to start occurring, those purchases fitting a certain profile could be flagged (rather quickly I'd hope) for further research into the buyer's personal history such as education, employment, incidents of psychological intervention, etc . If the weapons were purchased in the past and there's been a significant increase in the amount of ammunition the gun owner has purchased recently, an updated criminal background check would be in order as well. These more sophisticated profiles created would either require or negate the need for further action and inquiry in the form of some sort of official contact with the buyer.

If the buyer fits anywhere in the "moderately to highly suspicious" profiling range, only then are the weapons confiscated, pending evaluation - most likely of the psychological sort and only after the buyer has had the opportunity to explain his purchases in person with authorities and authorities have had the opportunity to suss him out in person. A computer database system is no match for human intuition - it's only a tool to narrow down a broad field.

The individual databases already exist (except for ammunition purchases). It would be a matter of bringing them together - the cost of that? No idea. But it would require very little in the way of manpower to monitor the results, at least in the early stages of data compilation. Computers can be programmed to make these connections in their sleep.

Who does the checking? Who's going to pay for it? Homeland Security has a budget of almost 60 billion. What portion of that could be used for monitoring, researching and following up on "suspicious" purchases of deadly weapons? Maybe a portion that is currently being spent on compiling and monitoring vast amounts of data on US citizens looking for needles in haystacks?

Or the ATF maybe. What is it they do anyway?

Intervention and treatment of the mental illness or psychological episode that lies at the heart of the problem. The ultimate solution. Is there any greater political will to find solutions to the problem down this avenue? It falls into the whole healthcare issue and providing care to patients who often have no means of paying for treatment. Are we, as a society willing to pick up the tab, even as it's in our best interest to do so. When discussing the issue in terms of cost and manpower, this is unfortunately the more expensive and time-consuming option but one that holds greater promise in the long run.

The idea is not to leave such things up to the potential gun buyer to answer honestly but rather to rely on information already on file about any past or current problem with addiction or mental illness, providing any data exists, which it won't always. There will be holes in the process.

Agreed, at least until a judge has had a chance to view the particulars of a restraining order, which wouldn't normally occur but possibly could/should if the gun owner were to request a hearing to have his firearm returned on the grounds that the order was flimsy or unwarranted or when the order has expired without renewal. I would hope any judge considering this would err on the side of extreme caution in his decision.

One final thought or question. Is any Big Brother infringement on privacy worth the outcome? The outcome here being that maybe a handful of potential mass murderers will be deprived of their vehicle to infamy. My answer, in this instance, is yes. We are constantly infringed upon for less a good outcome. Our phone records are sifted through looking for obscure terrorist connections rarely found, our internet activity roughly monitored the same way, our bodies are x-rayed and patted down, our personal belongings rifled through looking for bombs or weapons. All at great expense to the public at large and in the interest of public safety. I can find no logical way around the fact that weapons are in the possession of too many people who shouldn't have them - people who are a larger threat to public safety with these weapons than they would be without them.

Fix these people, get rid of these people or find a way(s) to prevent them from getting or keeping weapons they like to use to kill other people. The most reasonable option, at least in the short term, seems clear to me. It's better than throwing up our hands and reducing it all down to "They're crazy people - we can't do anything about them" every time this happens.

 

Your pop culture public safety once-a-year examples of how our 4th Amendment rights have been violated don't justify further violation.

USA PATRIOT was badwrongevil; you wanna make it worse? Here's your armband.

...

Yeah, I can't help but wonder if all the time and effort and buckets of money spent on this grand new internal ammo surveillance bureau would be better spent on, dunno, funding public schools, shaping youth into young adults with morals, problem solving skills and empathy for their fellow citizens. All this big talk about measures to prevent crime by removing things... what about adding things? All this energy directed at what we need to get rid of from the shelves instead of what we need to add to ourselves. You can't predict crazy 100% of the time, crazy isn't crazy 100% of the time.

All of us were once teenagers. Many of those teenagers did stupid emo crazy shit. You wanna label all of them? Judge 'n label yourself here.

Sure, we need to fix that part of the system, but I don't know about your methods.

I don't want to live in your country, Joniemack. Sounds like a bunch of scaredy cats that sit idly by and watch their neighbor bleed to death... rampage shooter or car crash. Why get involved? The Man'll take care of it. Always gotta think of The Man. He's watching. Judging. Controlling.

That played out quote about giving up so much liberty for safety that you deserve neither? Park that bad boy right here.

 

The whole idea, in case you missed it, is minimizing risk where risk can be identified. Sorry, if that runs counter to your one size fits all solution of more guns = less gun crime.

 

now we're creeping into that loopy space of neo-fascist conceptions of manly man-ness as a function of being participant in the militarized destiny of the folk. and then there's its inverse---castration through gun access limitation would reduce us all to the status of mollusks without shells. this viewpoint has a repellent ideological history. but maybe such things are not concerns.

if you want to get real about wasted money in the u.s. of a. i would suggest starting with the fact that the us has never stood down from the cold war and spends about 40% of federal outlays on the military. and this *before* one gets to the obscene levels of dough that are pissed away on heimat "security"---you know, the construction of the surveillance state that the bush people put into motion and managed to black box in terms of budgetary means. so i think the idea of some imaginary sum being spent on some imaginary "ammunition surveillance office" is a red herring.

besides, in theory all that would be required is a database. the problem is not the data or its organization. the problem would be figuring out criteria that could be used to make such a massive about of infotainment usable. it would only be the basis for proactive operations in a sci-fi novel space. the other matter---of gathering that level of infotainment at all---is already being solved in the context of the national surveillance state by way of those nice databases that process electronic traffic. which has the same problem, btw, of attributing weight to this kind of data. keywords, they say...ammunition tho? registration numbers are flat. how does one weight them? so the point would have to be to limit or choke off flows.

 

Well, if we're going off that... pretty sure attacking the obesity epidemic in the US would get us more bang for our buck.

Where did I say anything about more guns = less crime? We all know more disgruntled white people = more spree shootings.

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roachboy,

Did I say anything about throwing my AK-47 into the air and yelling "WOLVERINES!" here? I think not. Good distraction. Feel free to continue your tirade on neo-fascists, though. And did I not just mention how DHS / USA PATRIOT was a one of the biggest money pits in the history (not to mention the rape of individual liberties) of the universe? I think we both agree on that pricey placebo shell game. I think we have a lot in common.

 

yeah the nypd has been out of control for some time.
New York Cops Out of Control | Mostly Water

but i don't get that twelve pound trigger pull stuff. that has to make it very difficult to aim consistently.

 

The 12 pound trigger pull is to allow them more time to second guess themselves.

And it reduces accuracy under stress. It promotes rapid fire floppy muzzle syndrome.

It's a product of people that don't understand how guns work coming up with a solution.

No money to train an officer? Just make his hardware act like the decision making process!

 

first off, the remark about neo-fascism pertained to the hymn to an armed citizenry and its associations with manly virtues. you'd be surprised at just how vile that ideology has turned out to be historically. and to be clear, i am only reading off from the sentences. it wouldn't surprise me to find that it's just a way of writing for you and has little to do with what you might think as you sit back there making the sentences. so if you want to know where it's coming from, read the sentences with a bit of distance and maybe you'll see. these riffs i do aren't meant to be insulting personally. people write strange things, though, and sometimes it amuses me to play with that.

i have to do some stuff.