Shooting at the Empire State Building

Just for the record, federal law has required licensed dealers to report multiple sales of handguns to an individual within a five day period to the ATF (and local police) for more than 40 years....well before the Patriot Act.

There is absolutely no reason why it should not be extended to include all multiple sales of firearms to an individual (ATF extending the requirement to include the sale of two or more semi-automatic rifles greater than .22 caliber with detachable magazines in the southern border states last year - NRA had a fit) and no reason why it could not include a given (exscessive - tbd) quantity of ammunition as well.

 

Me too. I'm attempting to read off sentences and respond. If nothing else, threads like this make me wish I went after an English degree.

Please don't think I'm taking any of these comments personally. My response style is often too Travis Bickle.

We're all Romans and I'm not Zeraph.

 

Or you could go for a law or political management degree and become a gun lobbyist.

 

God, why would I do that? You know how it is... never mix your job with your hobbies. Ruins 'em.

I was going to go to law school after college, actually. Then I realized nobody would pay for it.

 

$200+K/yr? Buys a lot of toys and btw, well above the average lobbyist salary.

 

No, I was referring to the education itself. I don't go to school unless someone else pays for it. It's the key to success.

And $200k a year to do something I'd end up hating? I'll take that pay cut and do something I enjoy.

 

...but those people are crazy. We all know law enforcement gets all sorts of training and that's why they have all these scary guns.

 

first off i cannot imagine anyone in their right mind taking solace from the idea of lots of people walking around a city strapped. it is a sociopathic idea.


the idea that having a gun in your pants is a viable protest against police brutality and incompetence is just unbelievably stupid.

 

I concur. Only the police and criminals should have guns. That's been working out pretty well for the last 200 years.

Certainly. But how do you recommend an average citizen deal with a rampage shooter? I mean, these nutjobs are pretty much everywhere these days. Gun crime is at an all time high! Should they scream and point at someone else like Bugs Bunny? Cross their fingers and pretend to be invisible? I like running away as much as the next guy, but sometimes you get Virginia Tech'd. See, I think you're getting the equation confused: The in-the-flesh bad guy with the gun is causing normal people to want guns, not crazy people wanting guns to have shootouts with imaginary bad guys. Sure, you can't not have the psycho hero citizen militia warrior dreams crowd if you have gun rights, but the self-defense crowd is just as viable.

The best way to protest the police is to cut an album like NWA. Just kidding. No, the best way to protest is to file lawsuits and picket down at city hall.

 

straight outta compton is a fine record.

for the record, when i talk about gun regulation i don't have in mind removing all guns from everyone. i don't know where that idea comes from, except maybe as a function of the game of imputing positions to others the opposite of your own so you can go after something easy. the results of those moves are usually called straw men.

as for protesting police actions...fact is that the police are an arm of the state and that the consequences of their brutality and incompetence--and the patriot-act condoned extensions of their power to limit political dissent (yay america, land of the free blah blah blah)---are political issues. carrying a gun around is not a political action. except maybe in the narcissistic world of conservative ideology---you know, that place shaped by idiocy like margaret thatcher's famous "when i look around i do not see society. i see individuals."
police action is political. its opposition should be political. the theater of the police shutting down political dissent delegimates the police.

which is, btw, the main reason i have no patience with the haircut anarchist set. but that's another matter.

 

Relevant:

KirStang posted a pretty good link that explains the American gun culture.

It's nerdy and mentions video games, but the themes stand up without help.

 

I keep seeing these videos, YouTube I guess, where a group of officers unload their clips at some sole "trouble marker" and think WTF! This was never how I was trained. One of the first live action shooter courses the state paid for me to take day one was focused on "why and when to use deadly force." So was day two and three. Around day four we actually had real life shoot'em up guns in our hands. A major focus then became how many rounds and why. Sure we spent time on drawing, proper grip, line of fire etc.. But not knowing the number rounds you fired or the number of rounds left in your weapon were auto fail offenses. So was having another person in your line of fire.

I have a retired SFO officer who lives down the street from me and we've discussed this at length. He must have attended the type training as I because he's said not knowing the number rounds you fired is pretty crazy. I can't imagine these officers using the "spray and pray" method have any idea. Sure they can probably go back and count the number of rounds missing from their clip but without counting after the fact I bet they'd just be guessing.

I watch these video with 40+ rounds flying out of 5-6 officer held weapons and I'm stunned. Of the two officer involved shootings I was at the scene of I heard a total of 5 shots and that includes one round fired off by a suspect as he fell.

 

Threadjack:

Tully, I find it absolutely ridiculous that police officers are expected to count rounds fired in a lethal force encounter.

Threat identification, situational awareness, target and beyond, etc. would occupy my entire HUD during an incident.

I'm shooting until the target is stopped, not popping off shots in cadence and holding out fingers for each round I fire.

Counting rounds will get you killed. Just like all those cops that died in shootouts picking up their revolver brass.

I will likely never be a cop myself, but as a guy who has played GI Joe and spent some time in scenarios, I say "Pfft."

 

I never heard of picking up brass. Heard of circling it and documenting it's location after the fact. But knowing how many rounds you let lose and knowing the number rounds left in your weapon seem like good ideas to me.

Oh and I can actually count without using fingers or toes.

 

Dunno.

Seems like you should either fire until the target is no longer a threat or seek cover and top-up with one of the 2 or 3 reloads you have hanging on that Sam Browne. I mean, I understand the admin/legal logic behind this practice, but it makes zero tactical sense and likely goes out the window for a lot of guys when they're getting shot at. If you send cops to get solid marksmanship and gunfighting training, counting rounds would be less of an issue.

 

wouldnt counting rounds be one way of distinguishing police from military relations to shooting?

 

Please tell me the difference as it applies to a lethal force encounter.

If lethal force is initiated and thus authorized, that means you're fighting for your life.

Does counting beans really matter at 7 yards when you're exchanging slugs?

I assume you're taking the offensive vs. defensive stance.

And, no, the cops don't usually shoot first.

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