How many accidental shootings, like the idiot firing at a mouse in his kitchen, shooting one of his roommates in the adjoining bathroom? People in civil and civilized societies don't do that kind of thing.
In more civilized societies where there is a greater reliance on fewer weapons and the rule of law, including law enforcement rather than individual vigilantes, there are far, far fewer incidents like this one.
Looking at the equivalent data in the, their Police Roll of Honour in the UK shows mostly deaths related to vehical accidents, a couple of heart attacks, and one death from leukemia. The only death by any kind of criminal violence, as distinct from an accident or illness, was this one:
From MSNBC.com and the news services:
Cop killed, 5 colleagues shot during drug raid in Ogden, Utah
Married father of two young children dies; suspect also hospitalized
OGDEN, Utah — A police officer was shot dead and five colleagues were wounded as they tried to serve a drug-related search warrant late Wednesday, authorities in Utah said.Gunfire erupted around 9 p.m. MST (11 p.m. ET) after police converged at a residence in Ogden, police spokesman Lt. Tony Fox said.
In a statement released early Thursday, Ogden City Police Department said that Agent Jared Francom had succumbed to injuries.
"Agent Francom has served the citizens of Ogden City with honor for seven years," the statement added. It described Francom as a married father of two young children.
Authorities said that five officers "from multiple agencies" remained hospitalized with serious to critical injuries.
The suspect was also being held at a local hospital with non-life threatening injuries, police said. Officials confirmed that no additional suspects were being sought.
Citing an official at the Ogden Regional Medical Center, NBC News earlier reported that one officer was listed in stable condition.
Chris Dallin, a spokesman for McKay-Dee Hospital Center, said that several off-duty doctors and nurses were called in to help in the aftermath of the incident.
The suspect was surrounded near a backyard shed, police said.
'Put your hands up' Witnesses said they heard three quick pops followed by a two- to three-minute pause, then a barrage of gunfire.
"We came running outside to see what was going on," Janessa Vanderstappen, who lives nearby, told the Deseret News. "Officers told us to go back in our house."
Vanderstappen said she went back inside, and minutes later heard yelling coming from the backyard.
She said she walked onto the back porch to see officers addressing a person hiding in a nearby shed.
"There's cops telling him to 'put your hands up, put your hands up,'" she said.
The Associated Press, NBC News and msnbc.com staff contributed to this report.
The police were executing a drug-related search warrant--doesn't that tell you anything? It tells me that we are taking the wrong approach to drug control, and it also tells me that nevertheless, the person whose house was to be searched is likely not a member of the civilized good citizenry. As always, if you can show me a way to keep guns away from this person without also keeping them away from good citizens, I'll listen. What you've proposed so far won't do that.
ReplyDeleteGood grief, Janessa Vanderstappen was practically begging to be hit by a stray bullet.
ReplyDelete"as they tried to serve a drug-related search warrant late Wednesday,"
ReplyDeleteNow there's your problem. I suppose as a gun owner I am partly to blame when militarized police units get shot at after knocking down the doors of crack dealers whose sky-high profits are driven by the US government's war on drugs.
I can actually see the connection now. Thanks!
Headline could very well read:
ReplyDeleteKnight-errant goes looking for trouble - and finds it.
So, are all you brave souls volunteering to fight crime?
ReplyDeleteGreg, we have shown you, but you choose to ignore it.
Laci the Dog,
ReplyDeleteYou've shown me? When was that? You've never shown me a system that will catch bad gun owners without taking guns away from good gun owners. You've never shown me a system that will allow good people to carry handguns, but will prevent bad people from doing so. You've never even shown me a system that will at least prevent bad people from carrying. Thus, there's nothing for me to ignore. You just don't have anything to show.
Well I think a huge part of the problem is our culture of violence and disorder in the U.S. This all became apparent when I watched the horrible Tsunami strike Japan in 2011. The destruction left huge areas and populations of people in a mess. Had that happened in the U.S., there would have been massive looting, fighting, and the like. But in Japan, people were calm, quiet, composed, and even sharing extremely limited food supplies with journalists. Kind of the polar opposite response that I would expect had a Tsunami hit a heavily populated area in the U.S.
ReplyDeleteBut is the violent culture and disorder in the U.S. any surprise? How many times a day do television programs show and even glorify anti-social behavior? How many stars glorify and glamorize anti-social behavior? The anti-social behavior takes on many forms from extreme selfishness to wanton violence. And the really sad part is that people are desensitized to it.
Like I pointed out in other posts. Firearms were only used in about 30% of violent crimes in 2010. Even if you could magically make all guns disappear, that's still a lot of violent crime.
On a technical note, I believe that the law enforcement officers were totally irresponsible. That doesn't excuse the criminal in any way that shot at everyone. First of all, they should have taken down the criminal on his way to his car or even better when he was at a store or something. That would have reduced the risk to the officers immensely. (Such a tactic leaves the criminal with at most a hand gun and no cover or concealment.) Second, the police put all of the neighbors in harm's way: they didn't have the perimeter of the home secured and the man ran outside; and the firefight put bullets all over the place. What if the criminal ran into a neighbor's home and took them hostage? What if one of those bullets hit a neighbor?
Crunchy wrote: Well I think a huge part of the problem is our culture of violence and disorder in the U.S. This all became apparent when I watched the horrible Tsunami strike Japan in 2011. The destruction left huge areas and populations of people in a mess. Had that happened in the U.S., there would have been massive looting,
ReplyDeleteAnd yet you cite a culture which has actively banned handguns dating back to the 17th century during the Tokugawa period, and where from 2008 onwards, they have been seeking even MORE stringent regulation (actually - more stringent enforcement with some small changes to regulation).
So, part of that cultural peaceful difference you noted is also part of their demands that people do NOT go about armed -- their prohibition extends to knives and swords as well as firearms.
You have it backwards Crunchy. We make the determination to be unarmed people who resolve their conflicts with other than violent means. We do not arm ourselves more, and seek greater violent alternatives, and then moan that we aren't a peaceful culture like Japan.
YOU are part of the problem. You define reactionary rather than being proactive.
The reality is that relatively few crimes are committed with firearms anymore,which are a highly lethal weapon. Look at the weapon stats for other kinds of weapons as well.
The exception has been a slow but steady climb in homicides, and we still have a sadly high suicide rate. And we still have a seriously bad murder/suicide rate where the two are combined in a violent individual killing others and then -usually - himself. It is relatively rarely women who are killing others and themselves in these violent acts.
Police, even our military, increasingly are seeking non-lethal or less lethal alternatives to deadly force.
Your insistence on it, and the castle doctrine insistence on not retreating is stupid, it is a large part of what makes us as violent as we are.
You and people like you, who fail to recognize that you are not in control of a loaded weapon while asleep, and who seek to kill someone you could as safely avoid, ARE the violent culture.
People like you and the Mt. Rainier shootist who like to have their pictures taken with their guns displayed as fetish power items ARE the violent element in our culture.
dog gone,
ReplyDeleteMy understanding of the history of Japan, going back several hundred if not over a thousand years, paints a picture of disarmament for the sole purpose of tyranny. No one said, "Hey, let's disarm everyone because that will lead to a peaceful society." Rather, warlords disarmed the populace so they could more easily control and exploit the populace.
What you are saying is somewhat analogous to the saying, "We went to a fight and a hockey game broke out." So adapting that saying, "Warlords conquered the populace (disarming them in the process) and peace broke out." There wasn't "peace" because the populace was disarmed, there was "peace" because someone CONQUERED the populace and ruled with an iron fist. Thus "peace" came at the expense of liberty.
And you are asserting (whether you realize it or not) that correlation (a disarmed Japan and a peaceful society) equals cause and effect. But we know that doesn't fly because we can point to heavily armed societies (Switzerland) that are very peaceful and we can point to heavily disarmed societies (Mexico, South Africa) that are very violent.
Japan is a "peaceful" society because Japan is an honorable society. When a person breaks a law, they not only dishonor themselves, they dishonor their entire family. The magnitude of the shame associated with such events often led (and even today still leads) to ritual suicides to restore family honor. That monumental emphasis on personal and family honor goes a long way to virtually eliminating crime.
As for the notion of Japan being a peaceful nation, I beg to differ. The brutality they inflicted on foreign nations that they invaded prior to and during World War II is unspeakable. And how can we reconcile a peaceful Japan with pervasive martial arts, Ninjas, Samurai, etc.?
Peace and liberty can only reign when both the populace and government have a deep sense of honor and a profound respect for fellow citizens. Sadly, all of that is waning in the U.S. and what we see today is the result.
Dog Gone Conflationist,
ReplyDeleteThere you go, mixing up people again. Check your automatic comment reply machine. It's using the reflexive responses to me instead of the ones to Capn Crunch.
On your actual points, though:
1. Japanese culture is significantly different from ours. They have a highly structured society that would never work in America.
2. The trend in violent crime in general is downward, and homicides are at a low since the early 90s.
Your radical solutions aren't the kind of thing that we need.
"People like you and the Mt. Rainier shootist who like to have their pictures taken with their guns displayed as fetish power items ARE the violent element in our culture."
ReplyDeleteYet out of the people who post on this board who is likely to be the only one that sent at least two people to the hospital by beating the shit out of them with a baseball bat? It doesn't sound like you looked for a way to avoid that violence. Did you consider fleeing out the back door or did you just wait for the dude's head to line up for your first swing?
"On a technical note, I believe that the law enforcement officers were totally irresponsible. That doesn't excuse the criminal in any way that shot at everyone. First of all, they should have taken down the criminal on his way to his car or even better when he was at a store or something. That would have reduced the risk to the officers immensely. (Such a tactic leaves the criminal with at most a hand gun and no cover or concealment.) Second, the police put all of the neighbors in harm's way: they didn't have the perimeter of the home secured and the man ran outside; and the firefight put bullets all over the place. What if the criminal ran into a neighbor's home and took them hostage? What if one of those bullets hit a neighbor?"
ReplyDeleteHere's a surpise, Cap'n, I don't think that the cops ARE well enough trained for this sort of thing. Unfortunately we don't have the ability to train a detachment of SWAT or similar tactical troops/police for every department. Local cops don't like non-local cops on their turf. The DoJ, the various states AG, DA and County prosecutors and the rest of the LE and Justice system are NEVER all on the same page. This would be a feature and not a bug of the limited powers of the fed over local LE and local courts.
Now, then, to the second point of your comments. Everything you fear happening with the cops shooting it out with the bad guys is EXACTLY what was brought up by dog gone re: vigilante shootists like Greg Camp (and you) throwing down on the perps. She said much the same thing, re: the Wal-Mart shooting of the guy who was stabbing his ex.
I know that you THINK you will be perfectly calm and in control when you are threatened by an assailant. What if it happens in a crowd? What if it happens when the assailant is between you and your family and moving toward them while shooting at you? Do you shoot to kill, regardless what else is happening? If you miss the perp and put one of your own down do you consider it justifiable collateral damage?
democommie,
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your response about the local law enforcement often not having enough training.
As for your concerns and questions, I believe there was a much higher probability of a stray bullet hitting a bystander in this case because there were something like 10 law enforcement officers that could have all been shooting and they were going after a known criminal who was presumably armed. And the criminal could have had multiple firearms and been returning fire in multiple different directions.
In a typical self defense situation, there are one or two criminals attacking a single victim. If the victim happens to be armed and draws to shoot, the criminals virtually always flee which by definition deescalates the situation. (Exception: I have heard of a few stories where a deranged husband/boyfriend goes after their wife/girlfriend regardless if they are armed. In those situations, the criminal closes the distance on the victim rapidly and the chances for stray bullets diminish with equal rapidity.)
But a criminal who is cornered in their home with potential access to multiple guns, with nothing to lose, and with multiple targets in multiple directions, they could shoot a lot more bullets in a lot more different directions.
If I faced a self defense situation in a crowd, no, I would not under most circumstances shoot at a criminal. That said, if the criminal was actively shooting indiscriminately into the crowd (e.g. a "spree killer" or a terrorist), then I would look for an opportunity to stop him/her. There would be tons of variables of course and I cannot say exactly what I would do sitting here in my chair.
If a criminal is between me and my family, shooting at me, and moving toward my family, what I believe I would do depends on the specifics of the circumstances. I cannot say that I would or wouldn't try to stop the criminal.
I understand and appreciate what you are saying. The idea is not only to try and save my own life and the life of my family, it is to save the lives of everyone around as well. I agree with that principle.
By the way democommie I am not asserting that I will be totally calm during an attack. What I do believe is that I will still be mentally functional in spite of the intensity of the attack. The only people who would be calm during an attack would be sociopaths or people with similar conditions.
ReplyDeleteCap'n Crunch:
ReplyDeleteWhat you believe about your abilities is fine with me--as long as your behavior is confined to YOUR property. Once you step over the boundaries of YOUR property, your behavior--and your bullets--are just as likely to hurt others as protect you and yours. Like it or not the fact is that you and others who want to "protect" themselves with gunz have no control over the final resting place of any bullets that miss the perp.
Democommie wrote ...
ReplyDelete"Once you step over the boundaries of YOUR property, your behavior--and your bullets--are just as likely to hurt others as protect you and yours."
I disagree for three profound reasons:
(1) Armed citizens stop most attacks without having to fire any shots at all. How is that "likely to hurt" a bystander?
(2) Most armed citizens responding to an attacker with their firearm are responding at "point blank range" (e.g. on the order of three feet). It is next to impossible to miss a person size target who is only three feet away when all you have to do is point. (Sighting is not necessary at three feet.)
(3) Regardless of any soundly reasoned arguments that I may make, the FACT that armed citizens are NOT injuring bystanders establishes with absolute certainty that armed citizens are not likely to harm bystanders.
No one can produce even one documented case per year of armed citizens hitting bystanders while defending themselves during an attack. And yet we know there are thousands of times a year that armed citizens defend themselves from attack. Until you can find credible sources with evidence that armed citizens are injuring thousands of bystanders with stray bullets every year, your claim that an armed citizen like myself is just as likely to harm a bystander as protect themselves is false.
The pro-gun voices never fail to get defensive whenever there's a gun misuse. They blame it on the War on Drugs, or on the Draconian gun control laws, anything but gun availability.
ReplyDeleteMikeb302000,
ReplyDeleteI blame it on the person who pulls the trigger. In this case, the whole operation sounds badly planned, but the suspect certainly is to blame for shooting.
It's funny the Capn said: "No one can produce even one documented case per year of armed citizens hitting bystanders while defending themselves during an attack."
ReplyDeleteFunny because just today I posted one.
http://mikeb302000.blogspot.com/2012/01/more-problems-with-gun-owners.html