Guns: how much longer will it take ....

It’s been shown to you several times that over the last 10-15 years, semi-automatic rifles have been the weapon of choice for school shootings, night club shooting, office shootings, concert shooting, etc.

Where’s your data for handguns?

The difference between you and the people you're arguing with is that you happen to be someone who owns a gun. They are people whose very existence is defined by them owning a gun. Take away the gun and there's nothing left. That's why they're so frightened.

Actually it has been Glennn who has shown that handguns are used in most mass shootings.



http://able2know.org/topic/267070-439#post-6601262

No, it is the minimum (for handguns at least).

Any restrictions on revolvers will have already gone beyond that minimum.

He was addressing my post I think.

Constitutional rights can be restricted if there is a good reason for the restriction, and if the restriction is not so severe as to impede the exercise of the right.

It seems likely that some restrictions on gun magazines would pass muster with the courts based on the deadliness of shooting sprees.

However, restrictions beyond what is necessary to curtail shooting sprees would not pass muster with the courts because there would no longer be any justification for such a restriction.

And restrictions so severe that they impeded self defense would also not pass muster.

So we have two questions. How much firepower is necessary for adequate self defense? And at what point do the restrictions go beyond the goal of curtailing massacres?

I think that five rounds in a detachable rifle magazine and ten rounds in a detachable handgun magazine is enough to satisfy self defense requirements. I also think that such restrictions will do as much as can be done to reduce the severity of shooting sprees, meaning that restrictions beyond that point will have no justification.

I don't think there is a chance in hell that the NRA will ever permit the government to pass such a law. But Constitutionally speaking, I believe that such a law would pass muster with the courts while a more restrictive law would not.

Well, the gun banners really are out to keep banning guns a little bit at a time.

They are. But the concealability and portability of handguns is such an advantage that a lot of criminals prefer them despite their being underpowered.

I’ll respond with “good post” for now because I appreciate the dialogue we’ve been having and because this was a good post but I don’t have time to respond more thoughtfully at the moment.

It might surprise you, but I mostly agree.

Okay, bring me a list of the school shootings you're referring to, and we'll look into them. I just perused a very long list of school shooting from a site called Everytownresearch. After looking at most of them, I see that handguns have, by far, been the weapon of choice. So let's see if you know whereof you speak.

By the way, I think one consequence of limiting detachable rifle magazines to five rounds and detachable handgun magazines to ten rounds is that future spree shooters will choose handguns almost exclusively, which will avoid the more grievous injuries of rifle rounds.

That isn't why I came up with the different treatment of rifle and handgun magazines. I came up with the numbers by thinking about how many rounds would be used in a typical self defense scenario. But I do think that this would be a side benefit.


I didn't address rifles without detachable magazines, but the M1 Garand has eight rounds and the traditional lever action .30-30 has something like seven or eight rounds. I'd hate to limit either of these guns so I'd suggest ten round limits for rifles without detachable magazines.

Or perhaps the simplest way to state the proposal is: five round limits for detachable rifle magazines, and ten round limits for everything else.

I don't really have much to add to this (especially the no-chance-in-hell this gets passed into law part)

If we are discussing America as it exists today (with the Heller decision on the 2nd Amendment as setting precedent) then I think this post is spot on.

These aren't the only changes I'd like to see made, but it's about what I would like to see happen with magazine size.

The courts role is to interpret the law. When the courts interpret the law, that is the interpretation that all must follow.

If you make a claim and the courts have ruled the opposite of you, it is only the courts' ruling that will be followed by officials in the government. They will ignore your argument because you have no legal standing.

Citing the courts is not an appeal to authority because the argument is not that I am right because the courts agree with me. Citing the courts is a statement of fact.

I am curious where you heard this. Who said it that you can claim it is a general principle that applies to all Constitutional rights?

I don’t know if it’s a rule or guideline laid down by other laws or SC decisions, but in general I agree that is how it should be.

There is still room to argue where restrictions should be though. But this is a good general principal if not already precedent elsewhere.

The following piece will not please everyone, but one of my neighbors retired as the Sheriff of Prince Georges County Maryland and he sent this article around to the neighbors. ((We live in a different county)) Sheriff Aluisi supports the second Amendment, I know he owns firearms.... I don't really know how many but he has spent his entire career in law enforcement......and I find it reassuring to hear the views of someone who has actually served in a law enforcement position.

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Thursday, March 1, 2018
Arming Teachers: The Perspective of a Former Secret Service Agent
For several days, social media has been in the grips of a debate on how we can protect our children. One of the suggestions bandied about is to arm school teachers. If you follow J.J. Hensley on Twitter, @JJHensleyauthor, then you've had a little bit of education on the problems with arming teachers (or anyone) to take down the perpetrator with a gun in a school. J.J. is the author of several books, the most recent being Bolt Action Remedy, published by Down & Out Books, and a contributor to the new anthology The Night of the Flood. He is also a former police officer and former Special Agent with the U.S. Secret Service. I asked JJ if he would write something around the idea of arming school teachers. Much thanks to J.J. for taking the time to write this guest post. - David Nemeth


Firearms instructors at the James J. Rowley Training Center. (USSS Instagram)
By J.J. Hensley

About seven months. That's how long one has to train to be a Special Agent in the U.S. Secret Service. The first step is to complete a basic criminal investigator training program at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center. Next up is the Special Agent Training Course at the Secret Service Academy in Maryland. Throughout the training, agent candidates are instructed in relevant topics such as investigative techniques, the appropriate use of force, defensive tactics, legal procedures, physical fitness, and the proper use of firearms. The firearms training consists of shooting tens of thousands of rounds in a controlled environment as well as going through a myriad of scenarios in which the trainee must exercise the proper judgment. The drills are repeated over and over again so as to create what is called muscle memory; where one reacts automatically – and correctly – in a stressful situation. The reason for this is because people will often react inappropriately when potentially dangerous circumstances present themselves or they will not react at all.

Of course many of the trainees have had previous training either through prior law enforcement or military experience. So before a new agent hits the street, it's likely he or she has been exposed to not only countless hours of classroom lecture reinforced by practical exercises that simulate actual hostile situations, but also real-life experiences. Additionally, law enforcement agents and officers are vetted through mechanisms such as background checks, drug tests, polygraphs, and psychological evaluations.

For agencies like the Secret Service, the scenarios trained on include those in which an individual or individuals must be protected from an assailant. It's difficult to express the importance of these exercises because it is difficult to train the students to act contrary to their natural inclination toward self-preservation. Additionally, those with previous law enforcement or military experience were trained to take cover when the bullets start flying, not to become the cover. As anyone who has been through similar training can attest, unlearning a set of movements is nearly always harder than learning them in the first place.

As someone who underwent the training and worked countless protective assignments during my time in the Secret Service, I recall being involved in plenty of events in which there were multiple people in one place, all designated as "protectees" of the Secret Service. For example, every Presidential Inauguration, Christmas tree lighting at the White House, or United Nations General Assembly will involve multiple protectees in close proximity to one another. So, how does an agent respond when an active threat appears?

There are a few basic rules to remember when working protection. One important one is that the minimum number of agents will address the problem (threat) and the maximum number will move to the protectee. This is Protection 101 and is a philosophy used by government and private sector security details all over the world. If you have every agent trying to take out an attacker, then your protectee could be left out in the open and vulnerable to another attacker. Another rule is to "sound out" the threat. This is done by yelling "gun" or some other word that the rest of your security force will recognize as the code word identifying an imminent threat. Then, if you are the security professional closest to the attacker, you address the threat. But what does this mean? You might be surprised that an agent drawing his or her weapon is likely a last resort. Why is that?

Remember how I gave examples of multiple protectees being present at an event. Well, events like campaign rallies and awards presentations can involve large crowds. So try to imagine you are an agent working an inauguration event and you spot an armed man who is twenty yards away from you. Imagine the man begins firing into the crowd. Imagine addressing a threat by pulling a gun and, through the crowd, taking aim on the attacker. Keep in mind that law enforcement hit rates in a shooting are somewhere between 18 to 30 percent.

Imagine the unpredictable nature of a gun battle around a panicked crowd.

Imagine not only having to worry about trying to hit your target center mass, but also having to account for what is behind the shooter, should your bullet miss or pass through the assailant.

Imagine not knowing if he is a lone gunman or if there may be another gunman who is maneuvering into a position to shoot you.

Imagine not knowing if an innocent person will run in front of your gun sights just as you pull the trigger.

Imagine you aren't at an inauguration event.

Imagine the venue is a school.

Imagine the members of the crowd are young school children.

Imagine you never had seven months of training.

Imagine you did not spend hour after grueling hour going through shoot or don't-shoot scenarios.

Imagine you don't have the muscle memory developed through training and experience.

Imagine not knowing if you should try to cover and evacuate your young protectees, or to go after the threat.

Now imagine you aren't there. Imagine your child is at the school and the person attempting to respond appropriately to a shooter is Mr. Stanley the third grade teacher who may or may not have taken a week-long firearms training course. He's raising a gun as screaming children rush by in front of him and he thinks the shooter is aiming at him.

Imagine.

For my last few years with the Secret Service, I worked on the Protective Intelligence side. The agency wisely dedicates massive resources to intelligence and advance work. This is because the best way to take care of your protectees is to prevent weapons from being present in the first place. As one former Secret Service Director liked to say, "If the guns come out, we've already lost."

Right now, in our schools, we are losing and the nation is divided on how to address this crisis. I don't have all the answers, but I know one thing: If someone sneaks a weapon into a Secret Service venue tomorrow, the response the next day won't be, "Well, we should add more guns."

David Nemeth at 3:00 AM

Great find . . . when Omsig used to bleat about how an armed society is a polite society and respond to every shooting by saying that had the victims been armed, I used to point these things out to him. It went in one ear and out the other. The Virginia Tech shooting brought the gun loons out of the woodwork. So many of them babbling that if only the victims had been armed . . .

Imagine your a police officer, a SWAT team member and you arrive on a campus filled with students, dozens of whom are armed and waving the guns around. What do you do? Start shooting indiscriminately?

Imagine you're an armed student, and suddenly a police officer shouts at you to drop the gun . . . and you freeze up? What are your last thoughts before you die? Die you inevitably will. They won't be shooting you in the leg, to take you down. They'll be shooting for the center of mass. You're dead at that point.

The fat boy has said hundreds of stupid things--many have been entertaining. But when Plump said that about arming teachers, that was not just stupid, it was dangerous. I think it's senile dementia. He should be in a home for the criminally clueless.

letter from the retired secret service agent should be rfequired reading for oralloy and all the NRA gun crazies before they are allowed on social media. ,Guns for teachers is loony. Guns for everybody is crazy to0.

I was so pleased when Jimmy posted that piece.

So you were just posting idle trivia?

If it isn't related to the argument, I guess it doesn't matter and I didn't need to address it.

The courts have a range of standards that they use to determine whether a right is Constitutional.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strict_scrutiny
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermediate_scrutiny
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_basis_review

From the strictest to the loosest, they amount to requiring that there be a good reason for restricting a right.