Police say there’s an active shooter in Lewiston, Maine, and they are investigating multiple scenes
3 years ago by WhiteOakBayou to c/news
Still waiting for the good guy with a gun they keep repeating
EDIT: OK everyone, yes he was the good guy with a gun. Thanks to everyone for pointing this out
Apparently, the shooter was a firearms instructor. Aka, good guy with a gun turned bad guy with a gun.
This crap will never end until the tools they use to kill are off the streets.
Apparently, the shooter was a firearms instructor.
Every gun owner thinks they're a responsible gun owner.
Not my shocked face!!
...Support for Trump, among other politicians. As shown by the video, Card liked tweets from high-profile conservative figures such as Donald Trump Jnr., Tucker Carlson, Dinesh D'Souza. He also engaged with publications from former house speakers Kevin McCarthy and Jim Jordan, as per the video.
I think that's the same error in judgement that leads the vast majority of motorists to believe their driving skills are above average. Forgot what it's called.
Which is the key problem. Everyone is a "responsible gun owner" and "good guy with a gun"...... until sometimes they suddenly aren't anymore. At which point your protection is what was person able to keep under normal circumstances aka what they had in their possession on the moment they had a mental snap.
Was it a semi-auto shoot as fast as your finger pulls rifle with potentially hundreds of rounds in quick swap magazines or do they have a manual action hunting rifle or shotgun with fixed magazine, that need to be manually reloaded.
Do they have a pistol with again potentially hundreds of rounds of quick reload ammunition or don't or maybe a target pistol with fixed magazine.
That is why places around the world have magazine and type restrictions, since they exactly know "checking backgrounds isn't fool proof and now amount of background checking helps again sudden newly emerging situation after the checks have been done".
Sure that 5 round moose hunting rifle will absolutely wreck say those 5 people, but one can't exactly run amock shooting around endlessly with moose rifle. Damage limitation. 5 dead people is better situation, than 22 dead people. As cold calculating as that is.
Everyone is a “responsible gun owner” and “good guy with a gun”… until sometimes they suddenly aren’t anymore.
Yeah, and unpopular opinion likely but I think of this similarly to dogs turning on their owners.
And similarly I'd rather have a Yorkshire terrier go crazy on me than a Pitbull.
cough cough Uvalde cough
This guy is exactly the kind of person that the GOP considers a "good guy with a gun". He is a mentally ill veteran firearms instructor. Sounds like a boilerplate Trump supporter. Exactly who they want to have more guns.
Army vet and gun instructor... This was the good guy
There was a study published from data from the last like.. 10 years, I believe, that show that people with guns are more likely to run away, and people WITHOUT guns, are more likely to jump in and try to stop the shooter.
So ya. These good guys with guns are just pussies that never actually use them for good.
Well yeah if they weren't such gigantic cowards they wouldn't buy guns.
The real question is, of those ≈35 cases where an armed civilian stopped a shooter, how many did the cops then shoot the "good guy with a gun?" I know it's happened, and I think at least twice.
Also 35/thousands is a rounding error.
Mass shootings themselves are a rounding number, rounding numbers are what we're discussing. Also helps that they almost always choose gun free zones "for no reason" instead of "gun guaranteed zones." Almost like they don't want armed people shooting at them.
And one or two, but just because the cops make an error, doesn't mean the person was wrong to save all those people. That's also why you're told to put the gun away once you've secured the situation, and you're supposed to give a visual description of the shooter when you call it in. You really think it's better to just let people cause whatever harm they want to than for them to stop the violent attacker? Even if it's just a guy with a knife who can "only kill less people than a guy with a gun," "if it even stops just one" right?
Maybe be the change you want to see in the world instead of bitching, then.
edit: go ahead and keep downvoting me, when the right does finally manage a coup they'll be the only ones with any guns you stupid motherfuckers. For now, the 2nd amendment is your right -- you want to forgo it until they take it away from you (and only you), be my guest.
You alright buddy?
I'm pro-gun but anti-2A precisely because of fuckers like you who insist we can't do anything about this stuff because 2A so we just have to live with mass shootings.
Nope if 2A is standing in the way of sensible regulation, then get rid of it. Then I'll fight for reasonable laws around gun ownership. 2A is the problem.
Bingo, license (no test just who you are where you live like a DL) register (every firearm) and own a fucking tank of you want, I don't care. The biggest issue is you can pretty easily get ahold of one without anyone knowing you have one so the thought someone could get away is much more pervasive.
Sensible regulations would be rubber bullets for newly minted firearms owners. Keep it empty, but if the day comes that you think about going on a mass shooting spree, you'll probably change your mind when you remember that you'll be loading rubber bullets and have to explain yourself after you've shot someone.
So... go buy a gun and shoot him myself? No thanks, voting is my weapon of choice and I use it like a machine gun
Predicting a failure in background checks here allowing him to get a gun:
Edit
"The weapon believed to have been used in the attack was a sniper rifle with .308 caliber bullets, and it was purchased legally this year, officials said."
"Maine court records show that a man named Robert Card who was born on the same date as the person of interest was charged with speeding in 2001 and 2002. No other criminal records were listed in the state's electronic court records system or in several other public records databases."
But also:
"It added that law enforcement said Card 'recently reported mental health issues to include hearing voices and threats to shoot up the National Guard Base in Saco, ME.'
The bulletin said Card was reported to have been committed to a mental health facility for two weeks this summer and then released. NBC News has not been able to independently verify the bulletin's statements about Card's history."
In previous incidents, people committed to mental health facilities didn't have it turn up on their background check unless it was ordered by a judge. That needs to change.
I'm seeing varying reports that he was also convicted of domestic abuse, but this link shows no such charges.
That would violate the 1st amendment right to religion.
As the late great Christopher Hitchens once said (paraphrasing here):
When god hears you that's prayer. When you hear god that's mental illness.
This is a common misconception.
If you talk to the imaginary being in the sky that is sane and you should be able to buy a tank or a machine gun.
If the imaginary being in the sky talks to you, you are a crazy person and should be limited to 6 rifles or less.
Good
Agreed, including all the Evangelical preachers claiming "God spoke to me..."
Not very many people have argued that people who have actually made violent threats and been institutionalized should be buying guns.
The 5th Circuit Court (with at least one judge appointed by Trump) has ruled that removing the guns from a violent domestic abuser violates his rights: https://www.texastribune.org/...
The key point is that he was also recently institutionalized after making threats and SHOULD have had his guns seized, even under existing law.
Agreed, but we haven't been enforcing red flag laws consistently since people start bitching about "mah rites" whenever you try to disarm someone threatening to kill their ex-GF.
What was his ratemyprofessor rating?
Gallows humor really does hit different when your 2 hours into doom scrolling lol
True, but continuing to vote for representatives who refuse to have any conversation about gun control still makes them complicit in this behavior.
Someone once told me, be careful of your thoughts for your thoughts may affect your words, be careful of your words because your words may come to become your actions, be careful of your actions for your actions may reflect on your character.
If you ask me, owning a firearm and making violent threats don't necessarily mean actions, but I agree that there's a definitive correlation. I guess that I still believe that the action itself is the most honest and serious commitment to something a person can express.
I think the fundamental issues with guns is that they SUBSTANTIALLY shorten the time and effort to put thoughts into action. Thinking "man, i want to kill everyone here." is a pretty abstract thought, until you actually have the means to kill everyone there right at hand.
And Republicans will still refuse to do any sort of enforcement law.
It doesn’t matter. Not what you say or how many people get slaughtered because of their powertripping fantasies.
The last time I argued with these folks, it was on r/Europe I think. Besides the rabid antics their arguments were…interesting? My favourite was „Imagine needing another man to protect your home“. Some time later one of them, a young English man, even became famous. By killing his mother and a couple of others. And of course it was a super incel with a multitude of mental health issues.
The point I’m trying to make is, they don’t care. Or at the very least they are deluded to a point that they don’t see what damage it does.
There are so many guns in the US right now that it's ridiculous. Gun control here would be great... If it were done a hundred years ago. I'm not saying I'm against common sense laws, but like... Pandoras box is open here.
There are 120 firearms for every 100 civilians that live in the U.S. We have 46% of the total worldwide statistic for civilian ownership. The US makes up only a meager 331.9 million out of 7.89 billion people worldwide. That means 4.2% of the world owns 46% of the guns... And those people are all American.
On top of this, some of the most heinous shootings in US history were performed with illegally obtained weapons. Columbine is one of the examples most will recognize.
I'm not leading up to anything here, I just wanted to educate everyone on how fucked we are.
I'm not leading up to anything here, I just wanted to educate everyone on how fucked we are.
Definitely, but your argument is unfortunately what keeps us from ever doing anything about it. Thinking that it can't be done is just not good enough.
Age limits and rubber bullets for veterans would probably help
People have vices, violence is a vice too
You may be blind to it, but it's there.
Your past failure to learn from these continued atrocities is your complicity. Your current preference to protect the tools of violence over lives is your complicity. Your future vote to keep the status quo even as history repeats itself is your complicity.
On the contrary. I believe the tools of violence are the only things that will allow us to protect lives.
Gun control has historically been used as a tool to oppress further those who resist oppression. You can see it today, every murder by the police is defended with "they reached for my gun" or "they had a gun". The gun control laws you want will be enforced by the police and they will be enforced selectively against minorities. The atrocities you reference are almost universally committed by right wing straight white men. I can assure you no gun control will stop them from acquiring firearms.
There is an explicit example of this in Israel today. The settlers are allowed and encouraged to possess firearms while the Palestinians are explicitly disallowed.
It's ahistoric to say that gun control will save lives. This country only implemented gun control when indigenous and black people began carrying firearms in self defense. Many black men concealed carried pistols to defend against lynchings which is how we have concealed carry restrictions. Because it became illegal to conceal carry, the lynchings continued. Atrocities continue.
While I appreciate your effort to sound informed, you're wrong.
The US is the only developed country in the world with a serious gun violence issue and it's also the only developed country where firearms are flooding the streets.
The US is not more mentally ill than other developed countries. The difference is access to weapons. You can choose to live in denial about that, because you prioritize your weapons over lives, but, like I said, that makes you complicit.
Your past failure to learn from these continued atrocities is your complicity. Your current preference to protect the tools of violence over lives is your complicity. Your future vote to keep the status quo even as history repeats itself is your complicity.
Yup my failure to learn is my complicity, it's all my fault. You sure know a lot about me. I'm going to need a few to come up with a better reply though, I've been coughing up straw all day.
Guns three hundred years ago were only slightly more dangerous than a guy with a rock and a mean your mama so fat joke. It isn't hundreds of years it's like 150 years.
Literally not even remotely relevant to what the conversation was but go off.
I'd also rather get hit with a semi truck today with modern medicine than get run over by a horse and carriage in 1840.
But I don't see what that has to do with the fact that a semi truck traveling at max speed can level a small building vs a carriage just kinda flattening it's own horses on impact.
Yes it is literally just you. You are the only person on earth gaming out situations where you have a choice between getting shot 300 years ago or shot today.
You dropped this chief /s
A truck is not designed specifically to kill as many people as possible in as little time as possible. Most firearms are. This type of firearm certainly is.
You can't sit in a hotel room in Las Vegas, hundreds of yards from a crowd, and kill 60 people and wound more than 400 with a truck or a knife. Very different tools.
And I really don't care about your gun "pastime" or "rights." I care about getting my kids safely home from school and how having 5-year-olds do active shooter drills. Insanity.
Did you even read my comment? Try throwing that truck from a hotel room in Vegas and see how many people it kills. It does not do the same job and it's not designed to do the same job.
A couple points.
One: No armed militia is going to stop the US 7bn dollar military apparatus on home territory. Don't bring up Vietnam. Don't bring up Afghanistan. If you think gravy seals navy is anything compared to the Viet Cong you are deluded.
Two: using the France terrorist road vehicle attack as a counter is disingenuous use of stats/numbers. You can't compare a singular attack to the average gun based attacks in the US. What you would do -if you really cared to compare them- is take the average per capita road rage incident or vehicle based murders and compare them to the gun related mass shootings / deaths. You can control for many factors too (time frames, region, age, etc). Something about guns being readily available makes them more likely to be used. We have millions of people driving and only so many intentional terrorist attacks using vehicles.
Yes. The theme is your inability to understand stats. If cars, which are more readily available than guns are able to cause more damage every shooter would go for that but reality is guns are easier. Sure, if they're determined they will find a way, but people tend to go for the easiest path. Deterrents tend to slow the process as studies have shown. That's why looking at stats is so useful for understanding circumstances and deterrents. That's if you really wanted to have an unbiased honest conversation.
Waco is not serving your argument. Firstly, the military was not involved. Second, we're talking 4 ATF agents lost compared to 76 adults. Soooo....I don't see the relevance. The Xbox gravy seals is not going to live up to it's expectations. Shit, is proud boys the best example of the 2a crowd because they look like they can't run a mile either (that's must my opinion though, maybe the photos are deceiving).
The military didn't drop bombs on Waco.
That's because the FBI dropped tear gas and then in the confusion, Waco militia accidentally set the entire place on fire.
gas chambers in Germany. That blood is on the hands of gun control supporters.
The "nazi gun control supported the holocaust" argument has been debunked for a very long time. Argument debunk Nazi gun control laws
Frtuermore, gun control supporters of today are not the same as NAZI gun control supporters - who disarmed Jews.
This misinformation disappoints me, but the nature of your comment is overwhelmingly correct.
The tools are not the problem. Indiscriminate murder is incredibly easy and will remain so regardless of what laws you pass.
Horrifying words that ring true. Gun control is in my opinion moot for many reasons. This guy deserved more healthcare.
Your arguments about vans are OK but your fascist talking points tell me you're not worth listening to.
This is like saying that cancer isn’t the only way you can die so we should stop trying to cure cancer
It's also like saying cancer is not the only way you can die and pointing to something like syphilis also killing people. Sure they both kill people but one kills way more people and is much less avoidable.
The mass shootings are the symptom of a larger mental health problem. Here in Canada where we have much more gun control we recently memorialized one of our most deadly attacks, The Toronto van attack which killed 11 and wounded 15 (some critically). How is gun control going to help the fact that some people out there want to kill as many lives as possible?
how is gun control going to help the fact that some people out there want to kill as many lives as possible?
By reducing access to a very powerful tool for murder. Here is a comparison of USA and Canadian homicide rates
Are you pointing to a single incident from 5 years ago as evidence that non-gun mass murders are common in Canada? Do you think that when gun control is enacted, all the people that would have committed murder via gun would instead commit as much murder using improvised weapons? If so, can you show any data that bears this out?
Even though other methods of murder can be devised, restricting access to the easiest, fastest method is effective in reducing murder.
Ah yes, the epidemic of van killings we all suffer from.
No one claims gun restrictions are going to stop every last murder.
And if folks were killing each other with Vans several times a week, you can bet there would be some Van Control legislation passed in a hot minute.
It's not really the same... There are people that like guns for a variety of reasons and 99% of them will never take a life. Their only reason for existing isn't to go on a murderous rampage.
This was the example where I just said "you know what, banning guns isn't going to fix it"
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kongsberg_attack
Another person replied about an attack with a van in Canada.
I think we genuinely need to treat this as a mental health crisis, but like for real. Not the Republican "thoughts and prayers" mental health crisis, but a real thought out use of resources to figure out why so regularly we have people in our society that want to kill a bunch of random people.
We should also do more background checks and close loopholes, even though that wouldn't have helped here.
It would have helped here. This guy was previously committed for mental health issues. That should have required him to give his guns to a friend or whoever for safe keeping.
So according to you just because we haven't figured out how to stop it we should just throw in the towel, right?
Gtfo with your fatalism.
Actually you are the one work the false equivalency.
You know why your comparison is idiotic? Because it is comparing a mountain (gun violence) to a mole hill (vehicular homicide). If what you said was at all accurate, people would be using those methods significantly more often in other developed countries. Guess what? They don't. They are used at basically the same rates as here in the US. The major difference is that those countries have much guns per capita.
So again stop pretending like the comparison is even close to a good one or that you have some sort of gotcha.
Here's some 🧀 with your whine.
If those were just as deadly and easy, people would be using them. A fertilizer bomb can easily kill the person making it and the spread of a truck is significantly slower and more obvious than a bullet.
You are correct that there are multiple ways to kill people. But the other methods are not as likely to kill and are harder to operate effectively. There is no comparison so stop acting like there is one.
Are you this dumb? Seriously? If you intent is to kill someone, it is significantly easier to do with a gun than with a fucking truck. If you miss with a truck, you think you can just ask the people to wait a bit while you back up and try to hit them again? How many hours do you think you can get in with one truck vs with one gun? You miss with a gun, it is easy to fire again.
As for a fertilizer bomb, it is not like the Anarchist Cookbook makes it out to be. Lots of people die while making explosives. Many die trying to set them off. How many people die purchasing a gun? How many people die using a gun compared to the number of bullets expended from guns. Going to guess the death ratio is a hell of a lot lower than fertilizer bombs.
What a stupid fucking argument. Gun violence is a sheer numbers game. The ease of access and use of firearms is a massive problem, and when you combine that with the serious socio-economic/political problems in this country that is how you end up with this on-going violence.
Yeah, there are other ways for people to commit violence such as the examples you provided, but they aren't used at the same scale or with the same frequency. Why? Well, partly because building a bomb is a lot more complicated than buying a gun. Does it still happen? Yes, but again with FAR less frequency.
Your argument that because there are other ways to commit violence that we should not do anything to combat gun violence is just so tired and misguided. We should do something where we can to combat problems that we know how to deal with. It isn't a fucking mystery how you limit gun violence. You need to limit the number of guns.
Look at smoking as an example. Everyone knows that smoking causes cancer now. There are still people who choose to smoke, but it has become much less prominent thanks to social enforcement of not smoking in public places among other things. It took a generation, but millions of lives have been saved thanks to the slow roll of common sense limitations and restrictions on tobacco products.
Quit using these fallacious arguments, and just say what you really mean:
"I don't personally care about people who die to gun violence because my personal desire to continue owning guns supercedes the need for any common sense gun reforms."
What gun control would stop this? 95% of our violence via guns is from handguns. 85+% is drug and gang related, 2/3rds is suicides. Shootings like this are a rounding error in the 40k a year deaths, and when compared to the police killing 1k~ a year (yes 1 in 40 of those 40k is from the police) shootings like this aren't an issue. They just get views because they cause more carnage. An AWB and background checks won't stop this. Our society is breaking down and it's not the firearms that are the root cause.
shootings like this aren’t an issue.
And yet they happen in the U.S. far more than any other Western country. Which sounds like an issue.
Stop putting words into my mouth.
First of all, make me.
Second of all, I only put the words there that you were too disingenuous to utter yourself because you would rather use fallacious arguments than to own your position outright.
argue against the ones I'm actually saying you stupid shit.
I did that too, but you didn't want to engage with that. I think that says a lot about the quality (or lack there of) in your arguments.
Do you think shooting up a public place is the action of a rational, sane individual?
No.
Do you think that maybe, just maybe, this country's healthcare system, especially it's mental healthcare, could maybe use some improvement?
Yes.
Do you think that the rights of innocent, sane individuals should be violated just because someone else unrelated to them committed a crime?
This is a bad argument. I never said "ban guns" because I know that is never going to happen in this country. However, I am also aware there are other ways to combat the problem like mandatory registration, increasing the age to buy firearms, better red flag laws, and many other enforcement options.
I'm sorry you don't like the truth, but the truth is that our existing regulations would work just fine if we actually had a functioning healthcare system that could, I dunno, maybe help these people before they go off the deep end. Crazy, I know.
Two things can need improvement at the same time. We can have better gun laws, and better healthcare. They are not mutually exclusive. Only knuckle-dragging half-wits think these problems aren't interrelated, and therefore a multi-pronged approach to solving them would obviously be necessary.
Then again, maybe you'd prefer another Oklahoma City instead.
More fallacious argumentation from you. What a surprise. This doesn't even justify engaging with.
You know that nobody has ever claimed it's the only way a nutjob would kill people
But for whatever reason, it's vastly more common to murder.people with a gun than with a truck or fertilizer bomb.
Coincidentally trucks are licensed, registered, and highly regulated. And while I'm sure you can get around it, the sale of ingredients that can be used in bombs are generally tracked/regulated as well.
I think the point you seemed to have missed is that building a fertilizer bomb is not as simple as obtaining a gun in many places in the US. There are no specific fertilizer bomb stores. There are no fertilizer bomb “shows”. They cannot be reused, you would have to build a new one every time…unlike a gun. They are illegal everywhere because they are bombs, and and every time you make a new one, you risk blowing yourself up first…which is a great feature!
Running a truck into a crowd, I mean sure, but I doubt you’d take out, say, 20 (just going off of what the current number of dead is in Maine), or 60 (Las Vegas) people. The Boston bombing “only” killed 3 people, so yeah sure I guess I’d prefer a relatively few people to take the time to make one and, assuming they didn’t fuck up, sure, I guess some innocent people could die here and there. It would suck, but I like trying to minimize easily preventable deaths. People escape from prison, too, but most don’t, and so we don’t just throw our hands up and say “oh well, guess we won’t investigate” every time that happens.
And I guess you could run a truck into an elementary school classroom somehow and manage to mow down 19 kids, but I really doubt it. I don’t have anything to compare that to, unlike…well yeah there’s been a lot of those in schools to look at over the past 20 or so years, so pick one.
It’s interesting that you bring up McVeigh, not too long ago I finished the book “Homegrown, Timothy McVeigh and the Rise of Right-Wing Extremism” by Jeffrey Toobin. It’s fantastic, highly recommend.
While he did have numerous weapons, his major beef was with the federal government, and it took him years to become as radicalized as he did. There were also other factors, like him failing out of a military special forces class, so he went awhile between jobs and sleeping at friends’ places just to make ends meet. And he was upset over Ruby Ridge and Waco.
Eventually he was able to convince Terry Nichols to help him, but quite a few told him to get lost before Nichols agreed. But he definitely already had plenty of guns if he had wanted to do something before OKC (spoiler alert, he is a “person of interest” in at least one, an infant), but he didn’t. He wanted to make a statement. And we haven’t seen anything on that scale other than 9/11 and maybe Boston (if you count straight up terrorism). So yeah, let’s do it. Seems like we already have people who want to make enough of a statement that they make bombs and kill people, in addition to all of the guns in this country.
I’d be cool with making at least one of those options much less accessible.
Ah right, the hundreds of fertilizer bomb attacks we have every year.
As if it wouldn't become a lot harder to buy fertilizer in days if that were the case.
(No I didn't miss the McVeigh reference, I just found it to be a ridiculous false equivalence.)
And if folks were running into crowds with trucks twice a week, we'd see some new restrictions there also.
Remind me the last time that happened
You're in denial. Stop being in denial. Seriously.
There's a reason why you can't buy bombs in the bomb store. These things are professionally designed to explode and kill as many people as possible.
Yet, you can go and buy an AR-15 or worse in a gun store. A weapon professionally designed to kill as many people as possible in as little time as possible.
This is an almost entirely American problem. It's not like the US is more mentally ill than every other developed country in the world. What distinguishes the US is the easy access to weapons. Take the tools of these killings away.
Definitely not for Maine though. This guy was a military weapons instructor for the army. My cousin was at West Point with him this summer and he is the one who got him a psych eval. One day on the shooting range I guess he had a psychotic breakdown talking about the voices in his head and wanting to shoot up places. The shooter was absolutely pissed about having to get a psych eval. The shooter is still at large and it's terrifying especially because he might be going after my cousin.
Well, my cousin's brother's sister's step-mom told me...
It's a very trying time, plz Bitcoin me your thoughts in my unverifiable time of need. 🙏
Damn, I was just trying to explain what happened but ok just insult me.
EDIT: I can see how it sounds fake lmao I just reread it. But this would be the most fucked up thing to lie about.
Yah but not for maine. It's a very quite state
This one shooter is likely to nearly match the TOTAL homicide rate for Maine last year (30). I think that when a state is looking at HALF THIER TOTAL MURDERS being from a mass shooting event, its time to stop treating them as an insignificant aberration and as a legitimate contributor to overall violence.
Problem is statistically they are an anomoly. You're more likely to shoot yourself than be a victim of any definition of mass shooting by any compiler.
Your point is more a point of "how statistics can be used to mislead." It sounds like a lot when you say you "doubled" something, for instance, but if there weren't a lot to begin with (say 2,) there will still not be a lot of the thing when doubled, (like 4).
Getting shot at all is an anomaly, but if its a big enough problem to care about AT ALL (and clearly anyone who owns a gun for defense cares about that anomaly a great deal) then mass shootings are indeed a significant contributor to that issue.
Also, a person's personal risk of suicide is highly dependent on their own health and choices. I can exert control over that risk by simply not owning a gun. How do I mitigate my risk of being the victim of a mass shooting? Just don't go outside?
Doubled , troubled, shmuttled. I think 🤔 You're all missing the point here. It doesn't matter if it happened in Maine , it doesn't matter who done it. The issue is people died from a mass shooting. So it means in general; no matter how high or low the risk of You personally getting shot in a mass shooting; you can be one of those victims at any time.
People literally died; and that means that You or I, our family/friends can be next. It's happened sooo many times that at the very least means that you might meet a victim of a mass shooting in your lifetime. And even if You don't; well we are all still effected by the news and knowledge that tomorrow "You or I" can be next. It's a fear and an issue that usually doesn't exist in full democracies. But here in USA we got a flawed democracy with no hope 😕😞 of ever fixing that problem.
Thx for reading.
While your argument is sound it doesn't dissuade from the point the preceding argument was trying to make. Which maybe you missed, or maybe you just like to debate? Guns as they are now in this country are a big fucking problem. Anomalies are just as bad, and likely preventable, as any other thing with a higher number on some chart. Many might argue >0 is a number to large when it comes to loss of life.
No, it really isn't.
Get rid of guns and you can stop this.
It’s the most basic solution that even conservatives can understand.
They seem to apply the following logic to everything else:
Stop immigrants? Build wall
Stop terrorists? Kill them
Stop homeless? Bus them
Stop poor? Tax cut
Stop mass shootings? Ban guns
Ok wait a minute. The conservatives are wrong on all 4 of those. So are you saying that logic would be wrong for banning guns also? Not sure which argument you are making here.
What I’m saying is that if you applied their logic it should hold true that they’d just ban guns.
But they don’t, which is weird.
One of the more common threads across these shootings is that the shooters tend to have some sort of mental issues that are painfully obvious and seem to get reported well before the shooting occurs. But the shooter's illness often festers in solitude, just circling a mental drain and getting more deranged until some sort of trigger sets them off. IMO, there needs to be a system that encourages gun owners to keep tabs on each other and vouch for each other (else lose their own license), and also require enlistment in the National Guard (with some sort of reduced requirements made for physical disabilities), with regular mental health screenings to check for stuff like this. Owning a gun should be treated as a huge responsibility, not something that just gets handed out to any dipshits just because they're 'Merican.
Getting rid of guns altogether would be great, but that just won't fly in America, there's just no chance of that happening anytime soon.
No one's even saying you have to ban all guns! Just common sense gun control would have prevented this! The dude was in an asylum and heard voices!!!
If they had taken the guns of this obviously troubled person, all those innocent people would have been unharmed...
They're cool with it.
I love how ppl who know nothing about guns are talking about how "it can't be full auto because $$$$"
Shut the fuck up u fools ..
U can buy a $20 auto sear online that makes any ar full auto. Yes its illegal. No one cares.
The big secret is ful auto or not doesn't matter, that gun will shoot as fast as you can pull the trigger. And someone like This I'm sure knows how to bump fire from damn near any position.
Yeah, people think that being able to fire off a whole magazine with one squeeze of the trigger means they can mow down 30 people like a gangster from an old black and white movie.
If anything, full auto would just make their shots less accurate and they'd run out of ammo faster in the heat of the moment.
I would use burst fire fairly often but otherwise semi auto was plenty effective. Outside of really rare circumstances fully auto would do little more than show of force and waste ammo.
Well isn't that a detailed thought process. Congrats man, you've thought this through deeper than I have
Agreed. I could speak for myself, and have done so in the past of my own good faith only to have many misunderstandings and misguided attempts to either scapegoat or pedestal my experiences.
But just as a general observation, sometimes human built systems tend to produce a minimum degree of suffering and chaotic human behaviour, e.g. familicide, war and crime, this is not on purpose or by design, but simply an example of bad systems engineering, malicious use of technology, etc, and at times incredibly bad faith, between people, where a degree of "human sacrifice" and suffering is normalised to push a dogma or maintain a certain status quo.
If humanity were to come across or produce another intelligent alien species that then turned around to criticize our very systems and methods of work, then it's important to consider that we would be stupid to ignore them, because ignorance is oftentimes bliss, but in certain cases can mean displacement.
The big risk in the near future, however is not necessarily displacement yet but the dismemberment of all of our systems or the opposite, the preservation of the status quo to the point of total failure. Finding the middle ground and creating as many opportunities for common ground and potential harmony as possible in order not only to avoid a direct conflict, but to work towards simply have a good working relationship for everyone's good
That poor ER
That's really not who needs your pity right now.
this happened at a crowded bowling alley
Lewiston, about 35 miles north of Portland, emerged as a major center for African immigration into Maine. The Somali population, which numbers in the thousands, has changed the demographics of the once overwhelmingly white mill city into one of the most diverse in northern New England.
any indication that the crowd was any particular complexion?
I haven’t read anything about it, so I can’t say for sure, but I work in the Lewiston area and I’ve heard both the bowling alley and bar to be more “local” oriented businesses.
The Walmart distribution center is a weird one though, because it’s not really a store front.
Whatever his motivations are, it breaks my heart to see it happen in our neck of the woods.
White military guy, firearm instructor, buzz cut, wrap around sunglasses. Bet he knew where he was going.
Ah yes, the Obama voter.
(I know - it makes this commie bullshit sub so mad lmfao)
Automatic probably would have had fewer since it would have missed with most the shots. Lethality like that requires controlled and aimed fire with individual shots.
I believe the suspect that the police have identified was a firearms instructor at a military base down in Saco.
Automatics are extremely expensive, rare and usually illegal to own. They also do not have much tactical use in a scenario like this. Continued fire is primarily for suppression in squad movements. Sainted individual shots will always be more effective for portable, handheld weapons.
Not sure where I claimed automatics were cheap and easy to obtain...
I am aware how they are generally used. They are also generally used in the military where the objective is not to kill a mass concentration of people. When your target is huge, pointed, individual shots are not going to better since accuracy is not really necessary.
That being said, it does not seem to be the case here since this was in a bowling alley. The guy was a firearms instructor.
Some photos I've seen show a extended clip and a scope.
He's also a firearm instructor. Fuckin rough combination for an active shooter.
All the photos I’ve seen are normal magazines, I’ve also never seen an AR that takes clips. Optics are kinda standard for most rifles these days and even many pistols too. Nothing really out of the ordinary. He seems far more proficient with the weapon and tactics though, training is a much bigger factor in lethality than equipment.
It's a magazine. Clips are for another type of rifle that allow quick reloading. You aren't looking in a scope if you're shooting a full auto weapon.
As much as USA is pro-gun, I thought automatics are not sold?
Regardless as the other comment says, firing on full auto is a waste of ammo. Back in service our first range practice we were given the Rambo-fantasy; hip firing at full auto at 10 metres out. No one hit any of the targets. It was a lesson to us that firearms, as easy as they are to use, needed at least some skill to be effective.
They aren’t.
Caveat: There are ways to simulate full automatics (e.g. bump stock), and also some guns can be converted into full automatic.
Technically no. You can still get a fly automatic but they are expensive as hell. A cheaper solution would be a bump stock but that is even less accurate than an automatic. You could also illegally build your own.
As for ability to hit targets, how close together and how many were the targets? If it is a few targets spread out over 10-20 meters, yeah going full auto is going to miss a lot. Having dozens of people packed into a small area makes accuracy less important.
What's a bump stock? Went to read about them; the inventing company has stopped making them, are they still easy to get?
They popped up the range targets, so not as tight as a packed crowd, but you'd think at least one would get hit. My impression was that it was really hard to control the recoil making the barrel going up, so most of my rounds just went over the targets.
No because they are illegal. The only thing good to come out of the Trump admin.
Full auto guns can be purchased. Most often they’re prior 80s ban guns. They’re older generally, although there are some newer full auto guns that have been hitting the market lately. They all require you to have full background checks and they’re serialized to match. The ATF is the one though that you have to register through to legally acquire one and from what I’ve heard it’s kind of a bitch to get approval on them (as it should be).
How have there been newer full-auto weapons on the market? I thought everything registered after 1986 was banned (not technically, but the ATF wouldn't approve the tax stamp to register anything after 1986).
For the general public, there aren't. If you want a machine gun of new manufacture, you have to go through the whole process to be licensed as a manufacturer, SOT, FFL type whatever. I forget exactly. And you have to show you're actually doing business to get and keep that license.
Highly unlikely unless he built it himself. Machine guns (automatic weapons) are extremely expensive (anywhere from the cost of a new car to a new house, depending on the model) and require you to submit to a colonoscopy, administered courtesy of the ATF. The result is that it's extremely rare for a legally-owned machine gun to be used in a shooting (afaik it's only happened once or twice since the ATF introduced tax stamps for them).
The thing that confuses me is why it is the government is able to restrict automatic weapons and weapons above a certain caliber through what is effectively a license system, but isn't able to restrict anything else because it'd run afoul of the 2nd amendment.
Guns should be like cars. No one should feel like they need one (except if it's part of your work, in which case your work should be providing one), and like a car, different kinds of guns should have different licenses. You want a double-barrel shotgun? Okay. You have to go through a week of training to get a basic redneck license and show you have a gun safe (not a cheapo lockbox) to keep it in when not in use. You want a machine gun? Cool. You have to get the super-ultra-deluxe gun owner's license that requires a year of training, authorization from the ATF and FBI, and proof that you have a gun safe to store it in.
Oh yeah, and if your gun is stolen and it was improperly secured and/or you fail to report it in a reasonable amount of time then your license(s) are permanently revoked and you're considered to be an accomplice to whatever crimes were committed with it.
I'd be willing that the last bit would dramatically cut down school shootings specifically.
I can buy a car with cash, no bg check, no license, no insurance, no training, no age restriction and drive it and use it on my private property...I can also move it across state lines with no issue. I can also buy any size car or truck without anything as well. So no your car analogy doesn't work.
And no that last bit wouldn't cut down on school shootings, as most are done with handguns in the inner cities using illegally obtained firearms already, and are usually gang oriented.
Tons of other things would cut down on our violence issue, but they're harder to pull off and politicians like to have a virtue signaling single voter issue to rely on.
Nah the real issue isn't firearms, it's just that Americans have a culture that celebrates having a massive hateboner for things and can tend towards violence as a result, just look at certain parts of the Middle East, same thing
You're not wrong. We're a very divided group right now.
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At least 22 dead and 60 wounded.
To all of you out there who want no gun control. This blood is on your hands. Screw you and your 2nd amendment "rights."
Edit: 18 dead, 13 wounded
save