On mass shootings and gun rights.

[The Heretic]

Well, I did say I wasn't offering any solutions at this point, but how about this: what if each gun owner starts a conversation with a friend, co-worker, or any other person with whom they have a trusted relationship. Maybe even convince them to come to the range and shoot a gun (0.22 LR to start).

I trust very few people to even know I have guns, much less invite them to go shooting. My neighbors know I have guns because I shoot them, and talk about them - was just talking to my one neighbor about my 'SIGness' but outside of the very few trusted friends/family, I don't tell people I have or shoot guns. For many of the people I work with, inviting them to go shooting would be similar to having a Jehovah Witness knock on their door - not welcome.

I have seen gun owners so discriminated against that most will not voluntarily admit to owning firearms to anybody they work with for fear of issues in the workplace. I suspect that minor conversations about gun tech at one place I worked was at least partially why two gun owners were on the short list for being laid off.

Where I work now (huge corp in public building that has security personnel, but is just like any other corporation, not a target for anything) is rather paranoid about 'active shooter' scenarios and has meetings about them with the 'floor wardens' (the people responsible for evac in case of fire or earthquake or shooters).

 

[arakboss]

I trust very few people to even know I have guns, much less invite them to go shooting. My neighbors know I have guns because I shoot them, and talk about them - was just talking to my one neighbor about my 'SIGness' but outside of the very few trusted friends/family, I don't tell people I have or shoot guns. For many of the people I work with, inviting them to go shooting would be similar to having a Jehovah Witness knock on their door - not welcome.

I have seen gun owners so discriminated against that most will not voluntarily admit to owning firearms to anybody they work with for fear of issues in the workplace. I suspect that minor conversations about gun tech at one place I worked was at least partially why two gun owners were on the short list for being laid off.

Where I work now (huge corp in public building that has security personnel, but is just like any other corporation, not a target for anything) is rather paranoid about 'active shooter' scenarios and has meetings about them with the 'floor wardens' (the people responsible for evac in case of fire or earthquake or shooters).

I trust very few people to even know I have guns, much less invite them to go shooting. My neighbors know I have guns because I shoot them, and talk about them - was just talking to my one neighbor about my 'SIGness' but outside of the very few trusted friends/family, I don't tell people I have or shoot guns. For many of the people I work with, inviting them to go shooting would be similar to having a Jehovah Witness knock on their door - not welcome.

I have seen gun owners so discriminated against that most will not voluntarily admit to owning firearms to anybody they work with for fear of issues in the workplace. I suspect that minor conversations about gun tech at one place I worked was at least partially why two gun owners were on the short list for being laid off.

Where I work now (huge corp in public building that has security personnel, but is just like any other corporation, not a target for anything) is rather paranoid about 'active shooter' scenarios and has meetings about them with the 'floor wardens' (the people responsible for evac in case of fire or earthquake or shooters).

That is no lie. Gun owners are definitely looked at with distain among many these days.

 

[Andy54Hawken]

That is no lie. Gun owners are definitely looked at with distain among many these days.

I find it ironic and sad , that many of the same folks that look at gun owners with disdain...can be the same folks that say not to judge a whole group of people , by the actions of a few ...
Andy

 

[bbbass]

That is no lie. Gun owners are definitely looked at with distain among many these days.

We're still the majority here, but it's a slim majority compared to what it used to be. "Got yer elk yet?" used to be the common way to say hello. Now discussing ARs is not automatically safe. I still love to wear my firearms hats and shirts... hoping somebody gets annoyed! Maybe take a MAGA hat up to the college and see what happens.

 

[Herb g]

We're still the majority here, but it's a slim majority compared to what it used to be. "Got yer elk yet?" used to be the common way to say hello. Now discussing ARs is not automatically safe. I still love to wear my firearms hats and shirts... hoping somebody gets annoyed! Maybe take a MAGA hat up to the college and see what happens.

Try an ICE hat at the DMV. Go right to the front of the line.

 

[The Heretic]

We're still the majority here, but it's a slim majority compared to what it used to be. "Got yer elk yet?" used to be the common way to say hello. Now discussing ARs is not automatically safe. I still love to wear my firearms hats and shirts... hoping somebody gets annoyed! Maybe take a MAGA hat up to the college and see what happens.

I don't even wear my SIG hats to work, no bumper stickers either.

I just don't care to let anybody know I am a gun owner anymore. At this point it wouldn't really matter at work now; I have 18 months until I retire, maybe 2 years at the most, and being the only guy there who knows all the code inside and out they are worried about what will happen when I retire so I am not worried in that respect anymore (every day that passes I am less worried about my job). But I just don't like anybody knowing I own guns with all the politics going on.

Tomorrow I could wake up and find that Salem has passed some new law. Then there are the feds and the unreliable pols in DC, regardless of party. I have no real trust in the judicial branch either.

 

[bbbass]

I don't even wear my SIG hats to work, no bumper stickers either.

I know what you mean... got run out of a job I really liked as a Rep for Air Life medical transport because I was the only conservative/libertarian in a sea of liberals. Torpedos in the water!!!

 

[The Heretic]

I know what you mean... got run out of a job I really liked as a Rep for Air Life medical transport because I was the only conservative/libertarian in a sea of liberals. Torpedos in the water!!!

First real job out of college had a guy 'back-stabbing' me to the corp. president when I wasn't in the office because he didn't like my political or religious views. My manager heard about it and warned me, but I left soon after for a better job. People hold grudges (I know I do), especially at workplaces. They will use anything they can to put you down. Not that I know of anybody at my current workplace like that, but you never know what they say about you behind your back. I just prefer not to give them anything at all if I can avoid it.

 

[DivCurlGrad72]

Here's an interesting discussion on the topic of being "othered": Gun Owners Are Being Othered, And We're Letting It Happen - Ricochet.

 

[arakboss]

Here's an interesting discussion on the topic of being "othered": Gun Owners Are Being Othered, And We're Letting It Happen - Ricochet.

Great article and it can relate to other points going on in other threads.

 

[BSG 75]

Well, I did say I wasn't offering any solutions at this point, but how about this: what if each gun owner starts a conversation with a friend, co-worker, or any other person with whom they have a trusted relationship. Maybe even convince them to come to the range and shoot a gun (0.22 LR to start). If every gun owner can change just one person's opinion, suddenly the 30%-40% who support our position is doubled to 60%-80%. The main point of my post was that we are facing an existential threat and we need to come up with better ways to bring more people over to our side. That would make for an interesting new thread. You, on the other hand, give me the impression that you've already given up and concluded it's not possible.

Everyone I work with knows I'm a gun owner. I have taken many new shooters to the range, at my expense. Nothing wrong with that. But all of us doing that is not going to convince tens of millions of people "to accept a certain level of vulnerability to mass shootings."

30-40% of adults might be gun owners but we aren't a monolithic block who are all gun rights activists. There are many of that 30-40% who support gun control as long as their guns and their favored shooting activities aren't affected.

78% of the US population of 327 million is 18 or older (255 million adults). How many gun owners do you want to think there are in the US? 30% of 255 million is 76 million. 40% is 102 million.

How many are NRA members? Only 5 million. And even some of those NRA members support some gun control, especially if it doesn't affect them.

Gun rights supporters are a very small minority of the voting population. The numbers are what they are. Without control of the means of mass communications you are not going to be able to even try to convince a large segment of the public "to accept a certain level of vulnerability to mass shootings."

Pointing out the obvious flaws in your idea doesn't mean I've given up. I have already listed things (i.e. Israeli-style school security) that I think make more sense than trying to convince the public "to accept a certain level of vulnerability to mass shootings." Not only is that not possible, it's a tone-deaf strategy.

No, I said "mass public shootings are rare events, and that they represent only a vanishingly small fraction of homicides", and "it only takes their misuse by a handful of people out of an estimated 100 million firearm owners to reignite the gun-control wars."

I didn't make myself clear. There is a big difference between the majority of people who own and use cars every day, who find them useful in their daily lives, and their willingness to accept that people die in automobile accidents, and the majority of people who don't own so-called "assault weapons" (including the ones who own other kinds of guns), don't find them to be useful in their daily lives, and are therefore not willing "to accept a certain level of vulnerability to mass shootings" if there are politicians telling them they can reduce that risk by banning guns that they don't own and have no interest in owning.

 

[DivCurlGrad72]

But all of us doing that is not going to convince tens of millions of people "to accept a certain level of vulnerability to mass shootings."

OK, your point is well taken, and I appreciate your feedback. Explicitly, word-for-word asking the public to "accept a certain level of vulnerability to mass shootings" indeed would not be a good external strategy. But, if you accept the premise that calls from the public for stricter gun laws and bans are almost exclusively the result of, and reaction to, mass shootings, and if we are trying to avoid this reaction, then in the end I don't see that there is any other way to describe, at least internally to members of the firearms community, what we need to do than trying to convince the public to accept the vulnerability.

Maybe I could have avoided the whole issue had I written the post so:

Mass public shootings are rare events that represent only a vanishingly small fraction of homicides, even when compared only to those committed with a firearm. In stark contrast to their small number however, these events, and the horror and fear they have instilled in a significant portion of the public over the years represent the main driving force behind calls for stricter gun laws and bans that needs to be reckoned with.

The firearms community needs to better address the question of mass public shootings because, lacking the protection of a new Supreme Court decision to finally and explicitly protect all commonly-used firearms, it is the community's main existential threat.

As ignoring or deflecting the question of mass shootings is no longer possible, what, if anything, can be done to address the issue and help minimize the impact on the firearms community?

Again, I appreciate the opportunity this forum provides to actively voice my opinion and thoughts on a topic that is important to me, and enjoy reading the feedback.

 

[awshoot]

Until voters realize that gun bans don't actually affect criminals and don't make anyone safer ....

USDOJ, pdf report: https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/suficspi16.pdf

See Table 7, page 9:

About 1% of all state and federal prisoners used a firearm during the offense that they obtained from a retail source (table 7). About 2% of prisoners possessed a firearm that they obtained from a retail source, including a retail store, pawn shop, flea market, or gun show.

See Table 5, page 7

Among prisoners who possessed a firearm when they committed the offense for which they were imprisoned and who reported the source from which they obtained it, the most common source (43%) was off-the-street or the underground market (table 5). Another 7% of state and 5% of federal prisoners stole the firearm, and 7% of state and 8% of federal prisoners reported that they obtained the firearm at the location of the crime.

Just finding a gun is bigger than stealing one (though nothing comes close to the black market).

 

[BSG 75]

But, if you accept the premise that calls from the public for stricter gun laws and bans are almost exclusively the result of, and reaction to, mass shootings, and if we are trying to avoid this reaction, then in the end I don't see that there is any other way to describe, at least internally to members of the firearms community, what we need to do than trying to convince the public to accept the vulnerability.

Not mass shootings in general, but specifically mass SCHOOL (K-12) shootings.

Think about some of the notorious recent mass shootings.

• Ft. Hood 2009 - 14 dead, 33 wounded
• Tucson 2011 - 6 dead, 15 wounded, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords
• Aurora 2012 - 12 dead, 70 wounded
• Wisconsin Sikh Temple 2012 - 6 dead, 4 wounded
• Washington Navy Yard 2013 - 12 dead, 8 wounded
• Ft. Hood 2014 - 3 dead, 14 wounded
• Charleston Church 2015 - 9 dead, 1 wounded
• Umpqua Community College 2015 - 9 dead, 8 wounded
• San Bernardino 2015 - 15 dead, 22 wounded
• Orlando Nightclub 2016 - 49 dead, 53 wounded
• Congressional baseball 2017 - 4 wounded including Rep. Steve Scalise
• Las Vegas 2017 - 58 dead, 422 wounded
• Sutherland Springs Church 2017 - 26 dead, 20 wounded
• Pittsburgh synagogue 2018 - 11 dead, 6 wounded
• Thousand Oaks 2018 - 12 dead, 12+ injured

We had mass shootings in movie theaters, nightclubs, military bases, places of worship, and music events. We even had two members of Congress wounded in mass shootings. Did we see the big national push for gun control that we saw in 2013 and that we're seeing now in 2019? No we didn't. We had a mass shooting in Oregon in 2015. Did we see a big push for gun control and gun bans in Oregon after that the way we are seeing now? No we didn't.

Ironically, it seems the public has become numb to mass shootings and has come to "accept a certain level of vulnerability to mass shootings". Except at two times:

• After the Sandy Hook Elementary School 2012 shooting - 28 dead, 2 wounded
• After the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School 2018 shooting - 17 dead, 17 wounded

Can you think of anything those mass shootings have in common?

After the Sandy Hook school shooting in 2012 there was a big push for gun control in 2013 including an "assault weapon" ban both nationally and in Oregon. After the Parkland school shooting in 2018 there is a big push for gun control in 2019 including an "assault weapon" ban both nationally and in Oregon.

While the public has come to "accept a certain level of vulnerability to mass shootings", school shootings are at a whole different level. You will never convince a majority of voters to "accept a certain level of vulnerability" to school shootings. Rather than waste time trying to think of "what we need to do [than trying] to convince the public to accept the vulnerability" we need to think of ways to actually reduce or eliminate school shootings specifically, not try to convince people to "accept" them. We need to push for Israeli-type school security because that has been proven to actually work.
Why school shootings are so rare in Israel, where guns are such a common sight
How schools in Israel keep students safe and prevent mass shootings

 

[arakboss]

Not mass shootings in general, but specifically mass SCHOOL (K-12) shootings.

Think about some of the notorious recent mass shootings.

• Ft. Hood 2009 - 14 dead, 33 wounded
• Tucson 2011 - 6 dead, 15 wounded, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords
• Aurora 2012 - 12 dead, 70 wounded
• Wisconsin Sikh Temple 2012 - 6 dead, 4 wounded
• Washington Navy Yard 2013 - 12 dead, 8 wounded
• Ft. Hood 2014 - 3 dead, 14 wounded
• Charleston Church 2015 - 9 dead, 1 wounded
• Umpqua Community College 2015 - 9 dead, 8 wounded
• San Bernardino 2015 - 15 dead, 22 wounded
• Orlando Nightclub 2016 - 49 dead, 53 wounded
• Congressional baseball 2017 - 4 wounded including Rep. Steve Scalise
• Las Vegas 2017 - 58 dead, 422 wounded
• Sutherland Springs Church 2017 - 26 dead, 20 wounded
• Pittsburgh synagogue 2018 - 11 dead, 6 wounded
• Thousand Oaks 2018 - 12 dead, 12+ injured

We had mass shootings in movie theaters, nightclubs, military bases, places of worship, and music events. We even had two members of Congress wounded in mass shootings. Did we see the big national push for gun control that we saw in 2013 and that we're seeing now in 2019? No we didn't. We had a mass shooting in Oregon in 2015. Did we see a big push for gun control and gun bans in Oregon after that the way we are seeing now? No we didn't.

Ironically, it seems the public has become numb to mass shootings and has come to "accept a certain level of vulnerability to mass shootings". Except at two times:

• After the Sandy Hook Elementary School 2012 shooting - 28 dead, 2 wounded
• After the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School 2018 shooting - 17 dead, 17 wounded

Can you think of anything those mass shootings have in common?

While the public has come to "accept a certain level of vulnerability to mass shootings", school shootings are at a whole different level. You will never convince a majority of voters to "accept a certain level of vulnerability" to school shootings. Rather than waste time trying to think of "what we need to do [than trying] to convince the public to accept the vulnerability" we need to think of ways to actually reduce or eliminate school shootings specifically, not try to convince people to "accept" them. We need to push for Israeli-type school security because that has been proven to actually work.
Why school shootings are so rare in Israel, where guns are such a common sight
How schools in Israel keep students safe and prevent mass shootings

Lots of good stuff going on with school security these days. Here is a pretty neat example:

These efforts need to be expanded nationwide. It won't be cheap but we can consider it part of the cost of maintaining our freedoms.

 

[Herb g]

We already know how to stop ( at the least, minimize) school shootings. As BSG 75 pointed out, the Israeli method. They had a school shooting 40 some years ago and fixed it. Now think, think hard, about why it hasn't been done. The brick wall of resistance from the left. Now why would they do this? After all, they always say, "it's about the children...if we can only save one". Because their paramount goal, beyond the children, is to collect the guns - all of them - in this country, before they can control us individually, and force us to conform to their ideology. They are willing to sacrifice children in the next shooting, and the one after that, until the easily persuaded by their propaganda masses scream - enough. We just don't have truthful media to refute their lies. Look what they did to the NRA. I hope Saul Alinsky is burning in hell.

 

[arakboss]

We already know how to stop ( at the least, minimize) school shootings. As BSG 75 pointed out, the Israeli method. They had a school shooting 40 some years ago and fixed it. Now think, think hard, about why it hasn't been done. The brick wall of resistance from the left. Now why would they do this? After all, they always say, "it's about the children...if we can only save one". Because their paramount goal, beyond the children, is to collect the guns - all of them - in this country, before they can control us individually, and force us to conform to their ideology. They are willing to sacrifice children in the next shooting, and the one after that, until the easily persuaded by their propaganda masses scream - enough. We just don't have truthful media to refute their lies. Look what they did to the NRA. I hope Saul Alinsky is burning in hell.

The Wilsonville/West Linn SD has plans to outfit all of their schools with enhanced security features.

 

[bikemutt]

To me, it's different this time around in WA; it's political. The hatred of the NRA is visceral, this is all about payback.

 

[Core]

Calls for stricter gun laws, or even outright bans, are almost exclusively the result of mass shootings and the horror they inflict on the public. In Australia, it was the Port Arthur massacre of 1996 that radically transformed the country's gun laws. In England, handguns were effectively banned after the Dunblane school massacre in the same year. Here in the US, it is the recent Las Vegas and Parkland shootings that have inflamed the discussions once again and led us back into a battle for our rights. One more shooting at a similar level of severity during the current legislative session in OR or WA could deliver the fatal blow.

Lacking the protection of a new Supreme Court decision, above and beyond Heller and McDonald, to finally and explicitly protect all commonly-used firearms, I think the time has come for gun-rights advocates to address the mass-shooting issue directly, loudly and unapologetically.

One idea that I find interesting was suggested by columnist John Daniel Davidson in his Feb. 2019 article Is The Second Amendment Worth Dying For?. In the article, Davidson asks the reader to think about the trade-offs between safety and freedom, and proposes a thought experiment:

What if we decided that a certain baseline vulnerability to mass shootings is part of the price of the American idea?

Should this be standpoint of the gun community: we will never be able to 100-percent protect ourselves from mass shootings. However, we value the the right to self-defense, as well as the ideas concerning tyrannical governments incorporated in the Second Amendment, and accept the necessary sacrifices, up to and possibly including the greatest sacrifice, to preserve these. It will likely not convince the opposition, but it's finally a message that puts us in an offensive position while weakening theirs, one that explicitly says we will no longer accept mass shootings as an excuse to take away our rights.

I don't have a further, in-depth analysis of the idea at this point, but in writing this post, simply wanted to get the idea out there and the conversation started.

Guns are used to save lives 1300% more than they are used to take lives in the US. This is just reported incidents. In-School shootings can be all but eliminated given investment into armed staff and better security. The Dems are using school shootings to garnish support and push for gun control, they are actually blocking measures to stop school shootings.

So screw them. Article VI the hell out of them! Defund, Disbar, and Discharge them from office!

 

[Herb g]