I don't know how to frame this without sounding like an asshole, but is your assertion here that due to the lack of training with guns in his childhood, your step son didn't understand that putting a gun to his head and pulling the trigger might lead to death? And that were he to have had training, he would have understood that sometimes people die while playing Russian Roulette? Much like VI, I'm confused as to how this is the lesson to draw from the events, if there is one. I don't see what the key fact that he would have learned was, besides "guns shoot things, and those things can kill people." Which one doesn't need gun training to decipher. Your loss is absolutely tragic, but I don't see what it has to do with gun training.
I'm afraid I'm not being terribly eloquent in trying to explain this. I think logically he knew that guns can and do kill. He did not however have the practical lessons in how to put that logical knowledge to proper use. Think of someone who took a class in automotive mechanics completely from reading and listening to lectures. They have logical knowledge of how an internal combustion engine works and the theory behind it, but they have no hands on experience as to what they're actually doing. They have no way of applying the knowledge to actually fix a car. Now imagine someone who has seen a car and has no training whatsoever. Logically they know it's a car, it can break, and it can be fixed. Somehow. They are at an even greater disadvantage then the person who took the above fictitious class. That would be my son. If my son had actually been taught how to handle a firearm, including target shooting, he would've had first hand knowledge of a) the power behind pulling the trigger, and b) seeing the destruction bullet create. I'm not implying that 100% this would've avoided the ultimate conclusion, but I think that it might have played a factor in possibly avoiding it.
I think I can answer this. Guns are destructive tools and that's all that they are- tools. To many of the inexperienced, however, they seem fall somewhere between unpredictable death machines and glorified toys. From my point of view, Toy Toy's stepson leaned towards the toy side of the spectrum. I think this happens for a lot of reasons. Rational people understand that the movies and media in general don't work very hard to accurately depict reality. Handguns kill bad guys instantly with one shot while the hero can take a half dozen to the chest and still limp home. Shotguns blow people through walls. All black rifles are fully automatic and have limitless ammo. For many, this is as far as their firearms knowledge will go, but they do know that a lot of what they are seeing is bullshit in one fashion or another. How does someone sort out what to believe? I can understand the fear and mystery surrounding guns when this is all that you know. So, yes, this does go back to knowledge and training. The three rules of firearms safety are as follows- 1- Always keep your gun pointed in a safe direction. 2- Always treat every gun as if it were loaded. 3- Never put your finger on the trigger until you are ready to shoot. I think it's pretty easy to see how many rules are broken when someone plays Russian Roulette. At this point, I believe all 50 states have adopted a mandatory hunter's safety class for anyone under the age of 50 or so who wishes to purchase a hunting license and these rules are repeated over and over. They are also printed on ammo boxes, hunting licenses, Boy Scout material, covered in training classes, printed on hunting rulebooks, ad nauseum. This brings us all the way around to the real-world destructive nature of a firearm. Anyone who has shot or processed game larger than a rabbit can attest to how destructive a firearm can be. It's kind of hard to ignore the small hole and surrounding tissue damage. A gun can and will kill things, sometimes at great distance. Even someone who has shot a watermelon or milk jugs can attest to how destructive a firearm can be. The point that I am making is the average firearms owner will have an oh shit moment when they realize that the tool they are holding is fully capable of killing. I'm not trying to sound cliche, but of course people are more likely to be injured by a firearm when a firearm is in the home. Additionally, automobile owners are far more likely to die in a car accident. Pedestrians are far more likely to be hit by a car. So, just like any other tool, it all comes down to knowledge and training.
Alright, I've held my tongue long enough. I'm going to rant. Fourteen people were shot and killed in a movie theater in Aurora Colorado recently. It is a tragedy and a sad waste of life. However, there was another day recently when 30 people were shot and killed in a single day that has received zero media coverage. What day was that? Every day. Gun homicides in this country average more than 30 a day, and that's before adding on accidents and suicides. If you want to have the gun debate, that's where it's located. Now I don't know what the right answer is to gun control. I don't own a gun and I don't spend a lot of time thinking about them. What I do know, is that centering the debate around the rarest, least predictable and least preventable type of gun crime, just because the media finds it a juicy story and we respond like hysterical idiots, is fucking stupid. What are the usual gun control policies? Background checks (he had no record and would have sailed through it), waiting periods (he'd been stockpiling arms for weeks, I don't think he'd have a problem waiting three days), restrictions on ammo type (he's firing at unarmored civilians, BB's would have pierced). This goes just as much for the "If I'da been in that theater I'da had my gun and shot him and saved the day" types. No, no you wouldn't have. He would have gotten off nearly an entire clip before you even realized the gunshots weren't part of the soundtrack, and your gun is an order of magnitude or four more likely to be involved in a fatal accident than to ever be in the presence of a spree killer. "But these things are happening all the time! It's a pattern!" No, they're on your TV all the time, because the media is shit. Please tell me what "pattern" exists, and by that I mean use that pattern to make a prediction. A white guy between the ages of 15-70 is going to shoot 1-50 people in a location where people congregate somewhere in the United States, for reasons ranging from mental imbalance to racism, to political motives, sometime in the next few years? That's a helluva prediction there shitstain. Here are a few other predictions: A small caliber handgun will be used in a fatal shooting by a young black male of another young black male, sometime in the next week. The location will be urban, in a high crime neighborhood, the motive will be related to drugs and both individuals will have gang associations. Or another one: An adult male will murder a woman to which he has an ongoing or recently terminated romantic relationship. There will likely be a history of abuse in the relationship, and the murder will occur within the next month, but more likely within the next two weeks. It will happen in your home state. Those are patterns. Spree shootings are just something that makes the media cream its pants, because they know you'll watch it like a network cop show. So seriously, shut the fuck up about how suddenly "something must be done." You don't care about gun violence, you care about hype.
For someone that doesn't know or think about guns, that's pretty self-assured statement. Not everyone that handles firearms would fumble it around in their hands like Barney Fife when there's trouble. It's completely impossible to predict how someone would react in that situation either way. The point is better made with whether or not he would have done it in the first place if he had thought that a handful in the audience might be carrying (whether they were or not). But you are dead on about the inner city violence point. But it doesn't fit the narrative and since no one can discuss cultural/racially-based issues outside of their own, it gets ignored. And yes everyone, I'm saying this is a black thing.
I was referring to the fact that multiple people in the theater have said they didn't even realize the gunshots weren't part of the movie for several seconds. Also, spree killers are notoriously "I don't expect to survive this" to begin with. Pretty much every argument for and against gun control fails on these types of shootings, because they're so far outside the norm.
Ahh I see, yeah agreed. It seems to be just a knee jerk reaction that goes on with these kinds of things. People have a need to tie horrible events to some cause because people can rationalize that such things just happen without a discernible "why?" and it throws everyone's complacent universe into a tailspin.
Look, know a lot of gun toters like to pretend that they are batman, neo and eric bana from black hawk down rolled into one awesome package, but there's plenty of good examples of trained and armed personnel fumbling when the shit hit the fan (Rex Grossman's On Combat deals with this). There have been cases of trained police officers being found dead with casings in their pockets because shooting range habits took over when they were shooting for real. And before you respond, know that I've done both typical target shooting and snap shooting with rimfire .22s and assault rifles. I know how to handle a firearm safely - better than most gun owners on the board, I would wager(seeing as we've had more than one member post often and repeatedly about using firearms in conjunction with alcohol, that statement doesn't mean much). Put me in a dark crowded theatre with one of those things, and I'd kill more than a few movie-goers before the shooter.
This is due to a few things. 1. Most "training" that people do consists of going to the range and shooting at paper targets in a well-lit area. It's really, really easy to feel confident and badass when you're punching holes in Bad Guy silhouettes. 2. Owning a gun makes you feel powerful. It's a primal thing, similar to what you feel when you're holding an axe or a chainsaw. That "I can wreck some shit" feeling. It makes you feel in control and invincible. 3. They've never tried shooting a gun while tired and scared, so they have no idea what it's like to have that weapon become completely useless. If you've ever been attacked - seriously ATTACKED by someone who means harm, it's fast. You don't get a warning. Your attacker is not going to shake his fist and yell "I'm gonna get you!" One second you're carrying on with the plan of the day, the next moment you're on the ground getting the shit kicked out of you. I participated in a "culminating event" for some junior Marines doing martial arts training. They did a bunch of calisthenics and then sprinted half a mile into the desert, where I ambushed them from behind and started ground fighting. Most of them completely froze up. They lost all their technique and just flailed around, which was the entire point of the exercise. They needed to see what it was like to get hit from out of nowhere and have nothing but reflexes to defend themselves. No thought, just reaction. It's really easy to sit in your chair and type, "Oh, I woulda shot that guy!" Sure. No chance at all that you're going to freeze up, forget to take the safety off, or forget to chamber a round. No chance at all that you're going to have trouble acquiring the target. No chance at all that your shots on said acquired target (with your properly prepared gun) are going to miss. It's one thing to put rounds downrange on a paper target. It's another thing entirely to actually resist someone who is unexpectedly trying to kill you.
I live somewhere with pretty strong gun control. It's possible to buy an illegal fire arm here - but it's fucking difficult. Gun violence is really incredibly rare and most people just never consider it a possibility. Guns are largely reserved for people who need them for work, and older paranoid rednecks who's teeth don't meet. I've never met an Australian who felt the need to own a firearm for personal protection within Australia who wasn't involved with policing or out of their mind. And even most cops here wouldn't feel a need to carry off the job unless they're working in the 0.01% of police investigations that involve a tiny minority of organized crime psychos. I've read a lot of interviews with criminally dangerous types. I've had a few loved ones who were attacked, a couple of them quite badly. The common point for their stories is that the victim of violent crime usually didn't have a chance to do a fucking thing. They could have had a bazooka in their hand at the time of the attack and they would have still been fucked. A steel dumbell bar to the side of the head before you know that there's a threat means that you're just never going to draw your weapon. A much bigger attacker swarming you from behind means you're not even going to get MACE out of your purse. I get that a gun is a great defensive option when you have the time and clarity to prepare and orient yourself. I get using a gun as a tool to control wild animals or as part of your job to protect people. Guns make a world of sense for soldiers and cops. But my observation is that people trying to defend themselves very fucking rarely have the time and clarity to prepare and orient themselves. My understanding of the statistics is that deaths and injuries caused by accidents or as an unintended consequence of gun ownership than are vastly more significant than deaths or injuries saved by gun ownership in reported self defense situations, and that the accidental or unintended shootings massively outnumber intentional shootings. In the third world, where adequate policing is minimal - private gun ownership for safety makes a little more sense - but in the first world? I think it's just a fucking dumb idea. That said, I also think the United States has conditions unique to the first world relating to gun control that make the situation more difficult. A large, accessible and problematic border, a massive demand for illegal fire arms and massive existing supply of illegal firearms*, and a massively entrenched political group who see gun ownership as being as important as the right to vote. Trying to implement real gun controls in the US would be massively problematic in a way that I think makes the entire activity unfeasible. But I really think that's a case of 'so much stupidity for so long means that continuing to be stupid is the lesser evil.' it's certainly not an argument for reduced gun control - it's just an acknowledgement that the situation is so fucked that trying to fix it would probably cause more harm than good and I can't think of a harm minimization strategy that would counter enough stupidity to make it worth the impact. Given the choice, I'd much rather live somewhere with successfully implemented strong gun controls, than somewhere where strong gun controls just aren't a viable possibility. * For clarity sake, I don't think that the problem relates to firearms that are illegal by their nature (IE civillian owned stinger missiles), I mean owned by people who are not documented as the owner of those firearms, making the kind of weapons recalls that are central to gun control implementations non viable.