Oslo Blast Gun Derail

[Seth]

*** Split from http://rationalia.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=29539 ***

7 dead 2 injured. Live coverage here http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... erage.html

The death-toll at the Labour party summer camp for kids stands at 30.

Fuck these people. I hope they're fucking annihilated.

Well, that's what you get when you disarm everyone except the bad guys.

Interesting factoid: Most of the major mass shootings in both Europe and the US have occurred in places that are supposed to be "gun free."

I've said it once, I'll say it again: When someone starts killing people, you don't have six minutes to wait for the police, you might have three seconds to pull your weapon and engage the killer, so you'd damned well better be packing heat or you're going to be just another victim.

[Geoff]

7 dead 2 injured. Live coverage here http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... erage.html

The death-toll at the Labour party summer camp for kids stands at 30.

Fuck these people. I hope they're fucking annihilated.

Well, that's what you get when you disarm everyone except the bad guys.

Interesting factoid: Most of the major mass shootings in both Europe and the US have occurred in places that are supposed to be "gun free."

I've said it once, I'll say it again: When someone starts killing people, you don't have six minutes to wait for the police, you might have three seconds to pull your weapon and engage the killer, so you'd damned well better be packing heat or you're going to be just another victim.

Wouldn't have made any difference in either incident, but do carry on...

[Seth]

7 dead 2 injured. Live coverage here http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... erage.html

The death-toll at the Labour party summer camp for kids stands at 30.

Fuck these people. I hope they're fucking annihilated.

Well, that's what you get when you disarm everyone except the bad guys.

Interesting factoid: Most of the major mass shootings in both Europe and the US have occurred in places that are supposed to be "gun free."

I've said it once, I'll say it again: When someone starts killing people, you don't have six minutes to wait for the police, you might have three seconds to pull your weapon and engage the killer, so you'd damned well better be packing heat or you're going to be just another victim.

Wouldn't have made any difference in either incident, but do carry on...

Wouldn't have made any difference in the bombing, but to say that one or more armed citizens at the scene of the camp shooting could not have made a difference is just ignorant.

There's no guarantee of course that an armed citizen will be around (which is why YOU need to be armed...to defend yourself and your family and perhaps others) but even one armed citizen in the right place at the right time can (and has) saved lives.

Trust me, if I'd been there, and armed, and someone dressed in a police uniform opened fire on unarmed innocent citizens, I'd do my level best to take him out, which would give others a chance to escape.

That's precisely why I've been carrying a handgun every day for a quarter of a century.

[Don't Panic]

7 dead 2 injured. Live coverage here http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... erage.html

The death-toll at the Labour party summer camp for kids stands at 30.

Fuck these people. I hope they're fucking annihilated.

Well, that's what you get when you disarm everyone except the bad guys.

Interesting factoid: Most of the major mass shootings in both Europe and the US have occurred in places that are supposed to be "gun free."

I've said it once, I'll say it again: When someone starts killing people, you don't have six minutes to wait for the police, you might have three seconds to pull your weapon and engage the killer, so you'd damned well better be packing heat or you're going to be just another victim.

An armed society is a polite society?

[Seth]

7 dead 2 injured. Live coverage here http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... erage.html

The death-toll at the Labour party summer camp for kids stands at 30.

Fuck these people. I hope they're fucking annihilated.

Well, that's what you get when you disarm everyone except the bad guys.

Interesting factoid: Most of the major mass shootings in both Europe and the US have occurred in places that are supposed to be "gun free."

I've said it once, I'll say it again: When someone starts killing people, you don't have six minutes to wait for the police, you might have three seconds to pull your weapon and engage the killer, so you'd damned well better be packing heat or you're going to be just another victim.

An armed society is a polite society?

Generally speaking, yes.

[Seth]

So, would you ever wear a peace brassard?

No, I'd wear a .45 (and do).

[Gawdzilla Sama]

So, would you ever wear a peace brassard?

No, I'd wear a .45 (and do).

There's no situation where you would wear the brassard?

[Seth]

it's unlikely that such isolated venues will be used again.

Totally agree.

From the Guardian
Deadly shootings worldwide

July 2011: At least 84 killed at a summer camp on the Norwegian island of Utoeya, hours after bomb blast in capital Oslo
April 2007: Seung-Hui Cho, 23, kills 32 people and himself on Virginia Tech campus in the US
April 2002: Robert Steinhaeuser, 19, kills 16 people before killing himself in Erfurt, Germany
April 1999: Students Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, open fire at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado killing 13 people before taking their own lives
April 1996: Martin Bryant, 29, kills 35 people in the seaside resort of Port Arthur in Tasmania, Australia
March 1996: Thomas Hamilton, 43, kills 16 children and their teacher in a school in Dunblane, Scotland - before killing himself

Things to note:-

1) None of these killers were muslims
2) It will happen again and the locations will be random
3) There needs to be more emphasis on escape routes

On point 3) it looks like the death toll was a function of the total lack of escape routes. This probably will become a regulatory aspect of building and venue design in future, and will save more lives than putting more guns around. We might have to accept that living in high-population zones, and high-conformity societies, is so stressful that some people lose it completely from time to time. We need to look at the conformity I think, but escape routes in all gatherings should be at the forefront of venue management from now on.

Escape routes are nice, but as we see in both the Oslo, Columbine and the Virginia Tech incidents, the killers planned the attacks to block escape routes. However, in all three incidents, if ANYONE other than the killer had been lawfully armed, like teachers at Columbine, adult college students at Virginia Tech, or counselors at the Oslo camp, things might have turned out very differently.

The more armed citizens the better in fact, as demonstrated by the shootings at the New Life Church in Colorado Springs in 2007, where 2 were killed and four wounded outside the church before Jeannie Assam, a church volunteer security officer and concealed-carry permit holder displayed extraordinary courage in advancing upon and firing at the shooter as he tried to enter the church, wounding him, which caused him to kill himself.

Or Pearl, Mississippi, where assistant principle Joel Myrick retrieved his .45 pistol from his car and put a stop to the murderous rampage of Luke Woodham, who had killed three and injured seven others and was trying to drive to another middle school to continue his rampage.

Or any of a number of other like incidents where armed citizens intervened and stopped attempted mass killings...or didn't because the law disarmed them, such as at the Luby's cafeteria in Killeen, Texas, where 23 people were murdered and 20 more injured. Suzanne Gratia-Hupp watched helplessly as her mother and father were killed because she obeyed the then-existing Texas law that disarmed concealed carry permitees like her because Luby's sold beer. Hupp has testified before Congress that if she had not been disarmed by the law (she left her handgun in her truck in the parking lot) she would have had several opportunities to shoot the killer and stop the rampage.

And then there's the 800,000 to 2.5 million times per year that armed citizens in the US use their lawfully-carried firearms to thwart individual violent crimes, most of the time without firing a shot.

So yes, the unarmed need to escape, but nothing will substitute in such a situation for armed citizens willing and able to intervene on behalf of their fellow citizens.

It is utterly immoral and repugnant for any government to disarm its citizens and leave them at the mercy of deranged killers and/or terrorists.

[Seth]

This is so sad :/



On the bottom left, that's a child begging for his life.

It's sad indeed. Pity he wasn't a camp counselor returning fire with his legally-carried concealed weapon.

[Lozzer]

This is so sad :/



On the bottom left, that's a child begging for his life.

It's sad indeed. Pity he wasn't a camp counselor returning fire with his legally-carried concealed weapon.

Because having more guns is the solution to everything, isn't it? Do you know how this fuck-bag Nazi attained his cache of weapons in the first place? through a license.

[devogue]

Just ban all guns, and rule that anyone found in possession of one with live and viable ammo should expect life imprisonment with no chance of parole.

There.

[Magicziggy]

Just ban all guns, and rule that anyone found in possession of one with live and viable ammo should expect life imprisonment with no chance of parole.

There.

Sorted.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

If you want my guns, come get 'em. Bring only single men and ambulances when you come.

[Seth]

This is almost enough to make me wonder whether some of our US posters might be right...

If there was an "armed citizen" or two around, maybe they could have got the arsehole and reduced the death toll...

Firstly, I reckon it would be completely inappropriate to be armed at a youth summer camp.

Why? When I was at youth summer camp, marksmanship was one of the skills they taught at the camp. I gained my NRA Expert Marksman certification at summer camp. Moreover, there is a very good reason for at least some counselors to be armed at youth summer camps: the potential for deranged killers or kidnappers. Such camps are "in loco parentis" and have a duty to provide for the safety and security of their charges. And then there's wild animals... it's criminally negligent in my opinion for camp counselors NOT to be armed against bears and mountain lions around here. Don't know about Norway, but I believe they have bears there too.

Secondly, having a weapon and knowing how to use it doesn't necessarily translate to him sorting this one out. The man was wearing kevlar and had a machine gun and several handguns, according to reports.

Nobody said it was easy or guaranteed that an armed citizen will be effective, but it beats the alternative by a long shot. Sometimes you die, but I choose to die with bullets entering from the front as I return fire rather than in the back of the head or with my hands up pleading for my life.

Thirdly, we know plenty about guns being subject to tragic incidents in the home and whatnot, due to stupid or just plain tragic incidents, involving children, booze and whatever else that might trigger senseless play with or use of guns.

An incident like this alone should not be enough to abandon our general approach in this matter.

If an incident like this doesn't convince someone of the desirability of an armed citizenry, they are just terminally stupid and deserve to be slaughtered like sheep.

Doing a quick search I find a Guardian article from 09 stating that per 100,000 citizens in Norway we have 0.8 murders a year. The US, on the same list, has 5.9. Of course a shitload of things enter into that sort of thing, and we are a small country, but suggesting that another few guns would've sorted this situation out and would be advisable in order to make Norway safer in general is definitely not a suggestion that I would embrace.

Then quit fucking complaining about the death toll, nut-up and accept the murders as the acceptable collateral damage for your public policy position of a disarmed citizenry, because that's exactly what you're saying; that those children were acceptable casualties in your quest for moral superiority through disarmament. That's what your government, and virtually every government in Europe does. They decide that in the interests of appearing to be "civilized" they are willing to accept that individuals will be rendered helpless and will be murdered, but so long as the statistics are "acceptable," the lives and rights of those individuals are to be disregarded and disrespected and their murders are to be classified as politically expedient. Fucking morons.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog ... urder-data

edit: I have to add that I'm proud of how Norway seems to be coping. People seem to have been taking responsibility in saving themselves and others, locals came with boats to help pick people up from the waters, none of our significant news outlets have jumped at and embraced the terrorist angle with certain, and our Prime minister and others have championed our approach to politics and diversity, and has insisted that his intent to have us fearing our present should be foiled by our reluctance to give in to cheap and tawdry attacks on unsuspecting civilians. I've harboured many fears about the general tone in this country, our media and how we handled things like the Muhammed cartoons, but in this significant and visceral incident we've refused to be reactionary.

All I can say is get used to it, because it's not over. You can expect copycat incidents as well.

[Seth]

Just ban all guns, and rule that anyone found in possession of one with live and viable ammo should expect life imprisonment with no chance of parole.

There.

Good luck with that. The Soviet Union tried it and was unsuccessful. Japan tried it and was unsuccessful. The UK tried it and was unsuccessful. Every nation that's tried it has been unsuccessful. There's a reason for that.

Here's a clue: Criminals don't give a fuck what the law says, they will find a way to get a gun if they really want to. This is particularly true of suicidal deranged killers who are perfectly happy to commit suicide after they've killed enough people. And when you make gun possession a capital offense, there's no reason for a criminal with a gun not to just go ahead and kill anyone who finds out he has a gun because the penalty for killing everyone in sight is the same as it is for carrying the gun. Such laws merely increase the body count by giving the killer no motivation not to kill.