2013 America (and Friends!) Gun Violence Thread No Plows Allowed!

[arus2001]

ITT: People who have no clue how hard guns are to really shoot accurately, especially when emotions are high.

Having grown up redneck Ohio, I at least have enough experience to appreciate the potential difficulty at that age when using both rifles and handguns. On the other hand, trying to shoot cans or small birds at a distance is something I'd consider more difficult than a human in terms of target area, mobile or not.

For the most part, I got the vibe this was basically redneck Florida, down to gating the yard and silly dog sign. Kid knew where the gun was and had no doubt used it before, but I only ruefully criticized the use of the word "skill" when one of twelve shots hit. Was he scared? Probably. Jittery because of fear and adrenaline? Also possible. But this is more coming off as glamorizing his gun use when 11 misses could've had some gross repercussions in a more urban area. So, in both respects, he's fucking lucky. Maybe even thirdly so since he didn't actually kill the guy.

But yeah, yay gunz.

[FNH]

In Florida they have a pretty strong castle doctrine law, so anyone who breaks into your place is automatically assumed by law to be seeking to do you great bodily harm, and there's no duty to retreat.

The kid will be fine. The criminal who he shot can't even sue him by law lol.

Alabama's castle doctrine*

forgive my ignorance, is there no kind of law against leaving guns out for 11 year olds to use unsupervised at the least?

lol this is Alabama, I had my own personal shotgun at 7 or 8 yo.

[archibaldcrane]

Oh, I don't know why I thought this was Florida

erm, actually yes I do but that's neither here nor there

[Ghost_Wheel22]

Kid knew where the gun was and had no doubt used it before, but I only ruefully criticized the use of the word "skill" when one of twelve shots hit. Was he scared? Probably. Jittery because of fear and adrenaline? Also possible. But this is more coming off as glamorizing his gun use when 11 misses could've had some gross repercussions in a more urban area. So, in both respects, he's fucking lucky.

His accuracy is about on par with trained NYPD and LAPD officers.

[Blubbartron]

His accuracy is about on par with trained NYPD and LAPD officers.

That is a sad and horrifying fact (though slightly exaggerated). I remember reading about the weapon tests that officers had to pass each year, and they were pathetic. You only have to fire something like 50 shots per year, and simply hit the target on like 25-30 of them or some shit like that. It was a percentage under 70%, just hitting paper.

[dasva]

Wait is that for real? My bi annual quals as a submariner were way harder than that (well unless you had someone who was a good shot and nice next to you to "donate" some hits lol) and I didn't have any armed watch stations and being a nuke submariner had about a .0001% of ever even being issued a weapon let alone ever using one.

[Ghost_Wheel22]

When aiming at the thoracic cavity (5 rounds at 25 yards, 15 rounds at 15 yards, 30 rounds at 7 yards) 70% chance of hitting any part is supposed to be acceptable. To be fair range time isn't cheap, officers out-of-service isn't cheap, and budgets have an easier time justifying 500k payouts to collateral cases than 500k into training that may or may not have prevented said collateral cases.

Personally I do around 50 rounds (25 target/25 carry load of Federal HST) of pistol maintenance training per month. 600 rounds really isn't that much yet still comes out to a minimum of $225 in ammo alone.

[Melena]

That is a sad and horrifying fact (though slightly exaggerated). I remember reading about the weapon tests that officers had to pass each year, and they were pathetic. You only have to fire something like 50 shots per year, and simply hit the target on like 25-30 of them or some shit like that. It was a percentage under 70%, just hitting paper.

That is just bare minimum POST requirements. Most academies have much stricter standards. Where I worked required 1 night shoot and one day shoot at the range, and that was just for your standard service gun. If you wanted to use a rifle or AR-15, you had to do separate training's for that as well, and I believe those were something like either 16-24 hrs of training as well. Also with our range, it wasn't just hitting the target. Each part of the target had a separate score that when added up had to reach a bare minimum, so if you can't hit center mass, you are going to lose your certification quick.

[Talint]

George Zimmerman Auctioning Gun Used to Kill Trayvon Martin

Good guys with guns, y'all.

[6souls]

Gotta pay those legal fees.

[Ragnus]

Zimzam's gun got pulled off the market a minute before the auction was supposed to start.

[Niiro]

He's gonna make a killing selling that thing.

[Qeomash]

He's gonna make a killing selling that thing.

[Ragnus]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...tin/?tid=sm_fb

Appears to have been relisted today. Current high bid is probably another joke one at $65M. The first being pulled off the site because the name attached to it was "Racist McShootface". Proceeds are appearing to go towards staunching BLM violence against police officers.

[Ragnus]

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2...rtin?CMP=fb_gu

Bidding closed, seems the winning bid was for $138,900. I'm currently waiting to see how long it's going to take to file a lawsuit to take the money.

[Byrthnoth]

Not really worth its own thread and kinda fits in this one: http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/30/us/gorilla-shot-harambe/

Tragic, regrettable situation, etc.

They made absolutely the right call and if I was in their shoes I'd have taken the first clear shot. The suburban casuals making noise apparently have difficulty comprehending the behavior of animals less docile than deer. Gorillas have a lot of muscle and no social contract with humanity. They might as well be bears.

[BerenTebogo]

Not really worth its own thread and kinda fits in this one: http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/30/us/gorilla-shot-harambe/

Tragic, regrettable situation, etc.

They made absolutely the right call and if I was in their shoes I'd have taken the first clear shot. The suburban casuals making noise apparently have difficulty comprehending the behavior of animals less docile than deer. Gorillas have a lot of muscle and no social contract with humanity. They might as well be bears.

I actually just posted on fb the exact statement that pound for pound I think gorillas are far more dangerous than bears/lions/tigers etc. Males anyway.

[Tyrath]

Imo all the anger should be directed at the mom. Pay attention to your fucking kid.

They had no choice but to shoot the Gorilla. Tragic, but there were no other options.

[Aksannyi]

It annoys me that the amount of outrage over this gorilla being shot is higher than for some of the other articles we read in this thread (some of which have also trended on social media). A person dies? Meh, whatever. An animal though? WAIT STOP A GODDAMN MINUTE.

[Tyrath]

It annoys me that the amount of outrage over this gorilla being shot is higher than for some of the other articles we read in this thread (some of which have also trended on social media). A person dies? Meh, whatever. An animal though? WAIT STOP A GODDAMN MINUTE.

What annoys me is anytime people try to complain about the level of outrage over things. Some things become more viral and widespread than others. Stop applying meaning to "how much" outrage there is.