1hundredsixty8

Just want to get this out of the way, since it's come up in a few conversations recently.

"Barring the fact that the guy who shot up the club in Orlando was a "Good Guy With a Gun" until he became a Bad Guy With a Gun, have you ever seen someone react in a combat situation? I was a rifle and pistol coach in the Marines. These are men who are highly trained to go into a combat situation and be effective at taking out the enemy. I can't tell you how many Marines I've seen shoot the ground in front of them, shoot something they aren't supposed to, and, in one or two cases, shoot themselves, all because adrenaline starts flowing. And that's in a controlled environment where nobody is shooting back. Unless you've had extensive combat training, you're almost definitely going to do more harm than good in a situation like that, and potentially kill someone other than the shooter, and you'll definitely complicate things for the police when they show up. Sure, I could take out a target while there are people screaming and running around, and while being shot at, but that's because I spent 8 hard years practicing to do so. Most people are shit with a pistol at distances beyond 20 feet even in shooting range conditions. This whole approach [armed civilians], from a practical and tactical standpoint, is absolute nonsense. Sure, you can point out a few cases where someone has managed to stop a shooter, but those are the exception, and always will be. You don't make rules for the people in the center of a bell curve based on the outliers.

"If you want to make a case for the "Good Guy With a Gun" approach, then you should support sweeping changes to gun legislation where people are required to have extensive training if they want a CCW [Carry Concealed Weapon]. You should support strict licensing for people to buy and sell firearms. People should have mandatory firearm insurance, thorough background checks, and there needs to be vigorous enforcement of any regulations if anyone is to take them seriously. Can someone pass all of that and still abuse their privilege? Yes. Nothing's stopping you from plowing your legally owned and operated car into a crowd of people aside from you not being a psychopath, but if you drive drunk, you lose your privilege. If you show a history of irresponsible behavior with it, you lose your privilege. If you don't buy insurance or register it properly, you lose your privilege."

Elijah Collins

Via Facebook

June 13, 2016