The Right Way to Keep Bare Gubs

[kriesel]

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

It is not logical, on the one hand to dismiss gun deaths as "not in the top ten causes" and state that it would be better to work on safe driving and healthy living; and, on the other, to call it "criminally shameful" to fail to provide security for an open-air concert that's on a par with protecting the President from assassination.

So, let's see. You've come up with two instances of a sniper shooting people in the USA from a high vantage point, prior to 2017. In fact, both were over 50 years before. Neither was a concert venue. I will say, though, that with the assassination of JFK, the fact that that vantage point wasn't covered by the Secret Service or local LEO was a shameful failure of security. This was supposed to be protecting the President, after all.

You need to be more careful with statistics. After all, you've already had to walk back your assertion that 33,000 gun homicides a year was an "oft-quoted statistic." it isn't.

The phrase "predict as a possibility" is nonsense. A possibility is something that can or might happen. It may even be something that inevitably will happen, but may not happen very often, and is not predictable in the sense of there being no way of saying when it will happen. A prediction is a statement that something will happen, usually in a specific period, sometimes with an precise time frame. Times of sunrise and sunset; rising and setting of the moon, stars, and planets; lunar and solar eclipses; tomorrow's weather -- these are predictions. Earthquake forecasts are a lot iffier about when. There is an x per cent chance that this fault will move in the next y years.

In any winter, there is a possibility that it will snow in places like Atlana GA, Miami FL, and Tupelo, MS. But it doesn't snow very often in these places, so they may not have fleets of snow plows and stockpiles of salt and sand for those rare occasions. I think the security for outdoor concerts takes a similar view of mass shootings. They've got much more likely hazards to deal with. Hot weather. Cold weather. Thunderstorms. Rowdy drunks. People getting into fights. Drug overdoses. Crowds panicking or otherwise frantic to get from A to B, and stampeding. The latter one hasn't happened at a US open-air concert recently AFAIK, but it did happen at a Who concert in Cincinnati in 1979, killing 11 people.

I didn't do a search for sniper nest occurrences, except in my own recall. There might have been more, in the US or elsewhere.
The after-action report which I provided a link to identified some ways in which the authorities evaluated the preparation for ordinary likely occurrences at such a concert were inadequate. One example: 7 cots for a population of tens of thousands.

Whenever I plan something, I make predictions or estimates about foreseeable possible events and outcomes. Wow you spent a lot of verbiage picking at my word choice. People make plans for low probability high consequence events all the time. Examples: life insurance, auto, home, health, liability, choosing to be armed, owning a fire extinguisher or 3, putting a backup cell phone in the vehicle. The question in my mind is why wasn't the equivalent of a full SWAT truck there already at the Harvest 91? What I read sounds like the nearest village to my residence is considerably better protected than that concert population of twice the size. (Officers separated from their gear by hundreds of yards, in a huge dense crowd, for appearance's sake, sheesh.)
Re stampede, the 1993 Camp Randall crush is considerably more recent. https://madison.com/wsj/news/local/r...41eac8cdc.html
Lots injured, no dead, the football team rushed over and helped pull live bodies off the pile rapidly while those near the bottom were suffocating.

One can pretty reliably predict that there will be another mass shooting somewhere, but not where, when, or by whom, but it will most likely (>90% historicallly) be where numerous people are gathered in a nominally "gun free" zone. Death toll in an attempt in such a zone is around a dozen higher on average than elsewhere.
Sniper style attack was a known issue before Harvest 91, per this article:
"Authorities have long discussed the threat of terrorism by a sniper in a crowded area and the reality that there are relatively few tools to prevent or quickly stop such an attack.
Los Angeles police have tried different tactics, including placing sharpshooters on rooftops during the Academy Awards. Earlier this year and for the first time, the LAPD had a police officer in a helicopter shoot a suspect who was firing from the top of a hill." https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/...005-story.html
There's something in that article for a variety of points of view.

[LaurV]

Originally Posted by kriesel

In the hands of the too-young, grossly irresponsible, insane, or violently criminal, yes.

This discussion is very interesting and we are watching it. We do not have an opinion, as we don't live there and we don't know which way is better. We were educated in guns and quite good with them in the army, which was centuries ago, but we were never attracted by guns, and never owned a gun, and we don't know anybody who owns one beside army guys or police officers, this side of the world... Generally, arguments on both sides seem reasonable to us when we read them. Most of them. We just want to point out that criminals don't need guns to kill people, we could kill you in \(2^{2^{127}-1}-1\) (which most probably is not a prime number) ways without a gun, and could also procure a gun to kill you if we were a violently criminal and using a gun would be the only solution, even if the guns were forbidden. The main issue here is access to guns for irresponsible people, insane, children, etc., as you said. Of course, such people should have no access to guns. But how do you tell, and where do you draw the line... this we have no freaking idea how to answer...

[Dr Sardonicus]

"On this day in history" reminds us that on December 8, 1980, Mark David Chapman murdered John Lennon by shooting him five times.

His lawyers originally wanted to try an insanity defense, but he decided it was the Will of God to plead Guilty. He was sentenced to 20-to-life, and provided mental health care in prison.

He became eligible for parole in 2000, but has been denied parole 10 times and is still incarcerated.

[kladner]

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

"On this day in history" reminds us that on December 8, 1980, Mark David Chapman murdered John Lennon by shooting him five times.

His lawyers originally wanted to try an insanity defense, but he decided it was the Will of God to plead Guilty. He was sentenced to 20-to-life, and provided mental health care in prison.

He became eligible for parole in 2000, but has been denied parole 10 times and is still incarcerated.

RIP John.

[xilman]

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

Wow. I would love to hear someone explain how more people with guns would help prevent such a crime

That story had a link to another story I hadn't heard about. Made my blood boil, it did:

#ThisIsOurLane: Doctors hit back at pro-gun group NRA
This also reminded me of a book I bought many years ago. It was done by photographer Eugene Richards who had, with permission of physicians and staff of the ER at Denver General Hospital, taken photographs to help tell stories of what went on there. The name given this ER by locals is the book's title: The Knife and Gun Club.

Still no response to this request, AFAICT.

Anyone wish to contribute? Kriesel, are you up to it?

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by kriesel

<snip>
Depends on the jurisdiction and situation, per https://www.quora.com/Is-there-ever-...riminal-courts

I think it supports your overall point, while your statement of no innocent verdict is a bit too broad.

I was, of course, referring to verdicts in ordinary criminal trials, not post-trial proceedings. The closest thing in the context of a criminal triaI I am aware of, is granting a motion for a directed verdict of acquittal, which means the Court instructs the jury that, as a matter of law, the prosecution failed to present enough evidence to prove necessary elements of its case.

In reviewing this, I ran into a related legal determination, granting a motion for a judgement notwithstanding the verdict, in which the Court has denied a motion for a directed verdict of acquittal, but grants a motion to set aside the jury's verdict in favor of a judgement that would have followed a directed verdict of acquittal, had that motion been granted.

An appeals finding of "actual innocence" is most likely to result in the original trial and verdict being "vacated," or set aside -- so that, in the eyes of the law, the trial "never happened." This permits the prosecution to retry the case, so is not the same as a verdict of acquittal.

However, if a post-trial motion to vacate a conviction (particularly if it is stated to be "in the interest of justice") is filed by the prosecution in the case, that's about as close as it gets to the State proclaiming the convicted person never should have been convicted.

I have a vague memory of the case of a man in New York who was framed for murder by a vengeful prosecutor, because he'd refused to perjure himself to help the prosecutor win a case, in exchange for the prosecutor's assistance to the man in a previous matter. The man was convicted and sentenced to death, but the sentence was reduced shortly before his scheduled electrocution, and he lived long enough to have the appalling facts of the case come to light. His conviction was set aside, he was released from prison, and, due to the circumstances, a special law was enacted which allowed the man to sue the State of New York for wrongful imprisonment. He was awarded (IIRC) ten million dollars, but didn't live long enough to enjoy it much.

[retina]

Gun deaths in US rise to highest level in 20 years, data shows

A steady rise in suicides involving firearms has pushed the rate of gun deaths in the US to its highest rate in more than 20 years, with almost 40,000 people killed in shootings in 2017, according to new figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CDC’s Wonder database shows that in 2017, 39,773 people in the US lost their lives at the point of a gun, marking the onward march of firearm fatalities in a country renowned for its lax approach to gun controls. When adjusted for age fluctuations, that represents a total of 12 deaths per 100,000 people – up from 10.1 in 2010 and the highest rate since 1996.

What that bare statistic represents in terms of human tragedy is most starkly reflected when set alongside those of other countries. According to a recent study from the Jama Network, it compares with rates of 0.2 deaths per 100,000 people in Japan, 0.3 in the UK, 0.9 in Germany and 2.1 in Canada.

Research by the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence underlines that the tragedy of gun violence and suicides is not spread randomly across the country, but is concentrated precisely in those places where gun ownership is most prevalent and gun laws at their loosest. When the fund analysed the new CDC statistics, it discovered the highest rates of gun suicides occurred in three states which also have the greatest gun ownership – Montana (19.4 gun suicides per 100,000), Wyoming (16.6) and Alaska (16.0).

Alaska has the highest rate of gun ownership in the US, with 61.7% distribution. Wyoming (53.8%) and Montana (52.3%) are also at the top of the league table.

The statistics speak to a brutally simple truth. Studies have shownd^[sic] that suicide attempts often take place in a moment of hopelessness that can last barely minutes – which means that easy access to a firearm can in itself exponentially increase the risk of self-harm.

“People often think with suicides involving firearms that there’s nothing we can do to prevent this,” said the Education Fund’s policy analyst, Dakota Jablon. “But looking at these numbers it’s clear that simply having a lot of guns around increases the danger.”

Jablon pointed out that access to a gun in the home increases the odds of suicide more than threefold.

So more guns equates to more deaths. That should not be a surprise to anyone except the gun lovers that want to ignore the figures and pretend they are safer with more guns around.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by retina

Gun deaths in US rise to highest level in 20 years, data showsSo more guns equates to more deaths. That should not be a surprise to anyone except the gun lovers that want to ignore the figures and pretend they are safer with more guns around.

According to the CDC Director’s Media Statement on U.S. Life Expectancy

“The latest CDC data show that the U.S. life expectancy has declined over the past few years. Tragically, this troubling trend is largely driven by deaths from drug overdose and suicide. Life expectancy gives us a snapshot of the Nation’s overall health and these sobering statistics are a wakeup call that we are losing too many Americans, too early and too often, to conditions that are preventable. CDC is committed to putting science into action to protect U.S. health, but we must all work together to reverse this trend and help ensure that all Americans live longer and healthier lives.”

— Robert R. Redfield, M.D., CDC Director

So... [travesty of gun-lover]So what if most suicides are gun suicides? Suicides are barely a blip on the radar compared to accidental drug overdoses. So obviously it's more important to get drugs out of the home. Besides -- the data show that one really major contributing factor to suicides is "country living." The suicide rate in rural areas is about 80% higher than in urban areas. So obviously the thing to do to reduce suicides is to get people out of the boonies and into town.[/travesty of gun-lover]

More seriously, according to Preventing Suicide: A Technical Package of Policy, Programs, and Practices (my emphasis),

Means of suicide such as firearms, hanging/ suffocation, or jumping from heights provide little opportunity for rescue and, as such, have high case fatality rates (e.g., about 85% of people who use a firearm in a suicide attempt die from their injury). Research also indicates that: 1) the interval between deciding to act and attempting suicide can be as short as 5 or 10 minutes, and 2) people tend not to substitute a different method when a highly lethal method is unavailable or difficult to access.

This also says that locking up your scrip meds can help.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by kriesel

• It sometimes happens that such a man knows or suspects his contemplated target or her new SO are able to repel an attack and he decides not to use violence.
• It sometimes happens that a woman successfully defends herself from such a person. (These women tend to be armed and familiar with use.)
• It sometimes happens that a woman is killed by such a person while waiting weeks or months for a gun permit to be issued as a preparation for self defense from someone, often an ex, that she has reason to believe is dangerous, or after her application to the restrictive state she lives in for permission to acquire the means to protect herself is denied.
• It sometimes happens that people obtain and depend on restraining orders. The police are not liable for failure to enforce such restraining orders after issuance and request for enforcement, even when it results in the death of all the children of the person who obtained it, or the person who obtained it.
• It sometimes happens that a person chooses to rely on the police to respond in time, and they don't, and bad things happen. (Search Brittany Zimmerman. The 911 dispatcher hung up on that promising young medical student, during a home invasion, did not send help, did not call back, and Brittany's body was found in their home by her fiance hours later. Years later, her murderer has never been identified publicly or charged. Or read about the case Warren vs. DC. The police have no duty, absent a special relationship, to protect any individual citizen, and have immunity from liability if they fail to protect or even respond, even when help has been promised, repeatedly, and the ongoing reported crime spree continues on for many hours.)
• It often happens that people go about their lives nonviolently. I like that one the best.

So you're basically saying, when it comes to domestic abuse/violence, law enforcement is useless, and we all need to become armed vigilantes.

In the case I mentioned, the perp was out in the street, and the victim was inside the house. Are you saying people with abusive SO's need to conduct 'round the clock surveillance of the area around their houses?

I would point out that one reason law enforcement is unable to act in these situations is, very often, the abused person is "uncooperative." That is, they refuse to file charges against the person who just beat them up; or, having initially made a complaint, change their story and say they want their abuser back. Where there's life there's hope. But if the abused person then files for a restraining order, that is likely to enrage the abuser, and there isn't anything thing the cops can do until the abuser acts, because the victim has tied their hands.

I would say that, if an abused person is going to file for a restraining order after refusing to prefer criminal charges, they'd better have a plan to get the heck out of Dodge.

[Dr Sardonicus]

I can hear it now. "We need to have manufacturing employees armed on the job, so workers can protect themselves from unhappy cow orkers!"

5 dead, 5 cops wounded in Aurora attack; suspect killed in shootout with police

[Xyzzy]

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