Are more guns helpful? In Wal-Mart shooting, armed shoppers hinder police investigation
Most shoppers crouched behind checkout counters or bolted toward the back exit. But as a gunman fired inside a Wal-Mart store in a Denver suburb, some patrons took a more defensive approach: They grabbed their own guns.
They were the proverbial "good guys with guns" that gun rights advocates say have the power to stop mass shootings.
But police in Thornton, Colo., said that in this case the well-intentioned gun carriers set the stage for chaos, stalling efforts to capture the suspect in the Wednesday night shooting that killed three people.
None of the armed civilians fired their weapons, and the suspect managed to flee the store.
Police began combing through store security camera footage to identify him and determined whether he had an accomplice.
"Once the building was safe.... we started reviewing that [surveillance video] as quickly as we could," Victor Avila, a spokesman for the Thornton Police Department, told reporters.
But the videos showed several people in the store with their guns drawn. That forced detectives to watch more video, following the armed shoppers throughout the store in an effort to distinguish the good guys from the bad guy, Avila said.
Investigators went "back to ground zero" several times as they struggled to pinpoint the suspect, he said.
Five hours after the shooting, police identified 47-year-old Scott Ostrem as the gunman. He was arrested Thursday morning.
The assessment by police that armed civilians hampered their investigation is being embraced by gun control advocates, who argue that more guns on the scene of a shooting add up to more problems.
"Especially civilians with weapons - it does nothing but possibly cause more chaos and harm," said Tom Sullivan, who became a gun control advocate after his 27-year-old son, Alex, was killed along with 11 other people by a gunman who opened fire inside a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., in 2012.
He said he resents suggestion that those deaths could have been prevented if more movie-goers had been armed.
On the other side of the debate, Dudley Brown, president of the National Assn. for Gun Rights, said the conclusions by police in the Wal-Mart shooting are misguided.
"This is a part of the job of police - to investigate what happened, not highlight that patrons were legally armed," he said. "In that situation, what are people supposed to do? Lay down on the floor and draw chalk marks around themselves?
"I'd rather be armed with a gun and not need it, than to be not armed and be in a situation where one is needed," he said.
The National Rifle Assn. did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Gun rights advocates point to cases such as that of a Chicago Uber driver who in 2015 shot and wounded a gunman who opened fire on a crowd.
But studies suggest such cases are rare.
In a 2014 FBI report, researchers examined more than 100 shootings between 2000 and 2012 and found that civilians stopped about 1 in 6 active shooters - usually by tackling the gunman, not shooting him.
Maria Haberfeld, a professor of police science at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, said using a gun for self-defense should be a last resort.
"If their life is in immediate danger and they cannot run or hide, then they can move into the fighting mode and use their weapons," she said.
Bystanders shouldn't pull their weapons unless they're members of law enforcement, or used to be, she said, because without training they can't properly assess the situation and could end up causing more deaths.
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I'd just like to point out that these are just three of the dozens of articles written today and yesterday about gun crime in the US. They are all in Texas.
Good thing other costumers where there with guns.That’s probably what stopped the carnage and they were able to protect themselves.
You might want to read the article first. Not a single shot fired by "the good guys", just a bunch of bumbling gun nuts to confuse the police.
I wish I could find an old article from a few years ago in Texas, where an old lady shot an intruder. When the cops arrived, she was still waving her gun around and they shot and killed her. I searched for it, but there are simply too many Texas gun death stories. It's a needle in a haystack.
I figured as much! You probably can't come up with 5 cases where an innocent bystander erroneously shot someone during a mass shooting event.
That is likely the most bizarre request ever submitted to NT. Is that how we measure second amendment success in the US? By how many times a gun toting good Samaritan does not shoot innocent people during a mass shooting event? Wouldn't it make more sense to compile the number to times gun toting good Samaritans are shot by accident?
Why the fuck can't we actually have a real discussion on this subject? I don't want to ban guns, we have guns. We used to have somewhat of a real conversation about how to best regulate firearms for the health of all Americans, but somewhere along the way the NRA decided to go balls to the wall and make it insane, no regulations, no barriers to carry, no barriers to those deadly bullets, bump stocks.......and so on. What really pisses me off is that we ALL PAY for this violence, in multiple ways, fear, heatlhcare costs, deaths, and so on, but the NRA and gun companies just whip up the fear and take the profits, not paying one cent for the damage their products do and making sure every mentally ill, violent person can get and carry guns.
The answer is simple really, there is considerable influence and effort to make sure we don't........from both sides.
Wasn't much of that conversation put into legislation in Chicago? You remember Chicago don't you, tightest weapons laws in the country with the highest murder rate in the country.
Guess where they get there guns?
Why can't we just start having a rational discussion about how best to make America safe again? Not taking your guns, not ignoring the second amendment, just making sure the wrong people don't get the worst firepower.
And that is further proof that tighter legislation DOES NOT WORK.
I will give you some credit for trying to pass the blame though.
Being what is called a ''Winter Texan'' spending the winters in Port Aransas and having lived in the Dallas area twice during my working career I consider myself to know a bit about Texas. I have also lived in NV, CA, WN, MN and OR..And have lived in numerous foreign countries.
As to the crimes rate in Texas I didn't see any difference there then in the other states I've lived in. Each state has it's nuts, Texas is no exception.
The only real difference I saw in crime/gun deaths was when I lived in Australia, Samoa, Guam, Singapore and HK..There were virtually none compared to the U.S. But we are not comparing the U.S. and foreign countries.
Our society has more then it's share of nuts and they are spread through every state in the union.
IMO, the shooting has nothing to do with Texas but with the nut cases that inhabit the US.
Sadly I won't be going to Port Aransas this year since it and Rockport were destroyed by the hurricane.
I live in Corpus Christi and am the one who built that 3 story ranger station at the campground on the beach near the jetty.
that was my last build and am now what I like to call real-tired (retired) I might go back to work someday... but then again... why?
and yes.. port A is trashed but the building I built on the beach is still there, and not much worse for the wear
Know that building well. In fact I think I have some photos of it.
I was a surfer (long board) for years back in the 60's and 70's. I lived in Huntington Beach Ca. (surf city).
I'm a member of the Whooping Crane society and we have rebuilt the center in Port Aransas already and all with private donations. There is nothing more beautiful then seeing the Whooping cranes there for the winter after their flight from Woods Buffalo reserve in northern Canada. The only wild flock of Whooping cranes left in the world.
I still have the prints... that was one of the worst engineered drawings I have ever seen.
I caught and fixed every mistake on those prints before those problems became "real problems
did you know the building goes further into the sand than it does into the sky?
yepp... you only see less than half the structure. the beach could erode 30 or 40 ft below that building and it will still stand.
I lived in Huntington Beach,CA for awhile also. It was 1975/76. I was just a block or so from the beach and PCH. I can't remember the apartment complex's name, but it was just down the road from Pizza Hut. I hardly went to the beach though. I worked in Newport Beach at the time.
Didn't know that but it sure makes sense since it's nothing more then sand.
I lived at PCH and Atlanta, about 2 blocks from the beach. You lived there before they did the remake of downtown and turned it from a great surf city to a tourist trap.
I keep hearing how the NRA influences lawmakers. If that is true, which it is not in my opinion, then I would assume it would be because of the money the lawmakers receive from the NRA. Is the money lawmakers receiving from the NRA influencing lawmakers or are the people influencing the NRA instead? Some of these mass shootings have taken the lives of our children. Does the life of a child really mean anything if he or she were never here to live it? Who influences the lawmakers by the amount of money the most, the NRA or Planned Parenthood?
Planned Parenthood Far Outspends The NRA In Buying Influence
It’s often said that numbers don’t lie. Sometimes, though, they just don’t add up.
Since Stephen Paddock murdered 58 people and injured hundreds in Las Vegas last Saturday night, Democrats and the mainstream media have worked themselves up into a predictable lather about guns, gun control and the influence of the National Rifle Association (NRA).
The Washington Post’s Aaron Williams put together a graphic showing how the NRA has contributed $4.2 million to current members of Congress, primarily Republicans, since 1998. But then The Federalist’s Sean Davis came up with some very different numbers.
It seems Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion seller and recipient of half a billion dollars in taxpayer funding every year, spent $38 million on the 2016 election alone . Democrats were the recipients of the majority of that largesse, despite Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards’ laughable assertion that her organization is “non-partisan.”
I can hear some people now, complaining that we’re comparing apples to oranges, and that the Second Amendment, which spells out the right of private citizens to bear arms, is not nearly as important as the 14 th Amendment, which seven white men in 1973 interpreted to mean that women can legally kill their own unborn children right up until the day they are born. The right to privacy is paramount, more important than the right to life, ruled the misguided Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton.
Those of us in the pro-life movement are often told that Roe v. Wade is “settled law” – despite not actually being a law — and we should just fold up our tents and go home. Yet today, there are calls for the Second Amendment – adopted in 1791 and certainly settled from a historical perspective – to be repealed.
Has the NRA’s $4.2 million bought some influence over the last 19 years? Certainly. But it pales in comparison to the influence Planned Parenthood’s blood money has purchased.
Let’s look at some other numbers.
The ten worst mass shootings in the United States have claimed the lives of 265 people since 1984. These are senseless, tragic losses. Many of those killed were young people: First graders in Connecticut; college students in Virginia and Texas. While we mourn every lost life, somehow it always hurts more when those killed are young people. So much potential wasted, so many families left in tatters.
Now consider the lives lost, the potential wasted, thanks to legalized abortion. Since 1973, some 60 million children have been killed before their due dates. In recent years, Planned Parenthood has accounted for up to a third of the annual carnage. The potential wasted is incalculable. The numbers of families missing members is in the tens of millions. The shock waves of abortion are felt all over our country.
And yet Planned Parenthood continues on, opening mega killing centers in our cities, reaching into its deep pockets to fight every abortion restriction passed on the state or federal level, collecting $1.5 million in tax money every single day.
We can’t pretend mass shootings are not a problem for our nation, but neither should we continue to overlook an organization that takes the lives of more than 320,000 human beings a year and pays lawmakers to look the other way.
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the other Constitutional amendments are just as valid as the 2nd. all religions are equal and subservient to the US Constitution and no religious preference is equal to any religious preference. no religion has the right to impose it's beliefs on others through any physical or legislative action.
I don't know what your comment has to do with my comment but OK.
apologies. I thought I had started a new thread.
No problem. And I'm not against abortions either. I'm just not for promoting them. I understand abortions are necessary in some situations and are preferred in others, but I think they should be performed as early as possible in the pregnancy.
I've never seen an abortion commercial.
So, if these selfish legal gun owners would have simply allowed themselves to be victims in an active shooter situation, the detectives wouldn't have had to watch all that pesky video. /s
"Maria Haberfeld, a professor of police science at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, said using a gun for self-defense should be a last resort."
That is true.
That last resort must be available to use if needed.
Perhaps, it should be a last resort, however, I can tell you that if I or my family were being attacked it would be my first resort.
You stay out of my personal space and I will stay out of yours!