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Smith117 -> RE: "Florida lawmakers pass "take your guns to work" law" (4/13/2008 5:13:17 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: missfrillypants
i understand people are taught, and they are able to practice, but most people aren't going to get the same kind of ability to shoot under extreme pressure that snipers, police officers and people in the military are going to have, and they probably aren't going to practice shooting in this kind of condition. firing at a stationary target on a shooting range when you're calm is very different from firing at a person who's shooting at you while trying not to get shot yourself... you're panicked, you're trying to stay covered, there are people screaming and running around and if the shooter has any wit at all, he or she isn't going to be standing still and probably not close up to you, either. in that kind of situation, making a simple but dangerous mistake becomes easy even if you've had gun safety courses and done everything right. even people who are in a field of work where they have to learn how to behave in a shootout don't always make it through them.
as for the "cowardly shooter" arguement, it's based on the wrong logic. the virginia tech shooter chose the school he attended because that was the place where the people were who he interacted with every day and the people who, in his mind, had done him wrong. schools get shot up the most because the people attending them are immature and overly emotional, with the fatalistic, overdramatic viewpoints us young people often have. high and middle schools get shot up the most because they are really horrible places to be, and i highly doubt there aren't those of you who remember thinking you'd like to do similar things to some of the people who were horrible to you when you were that age. the arguement of a police station isn't the same at all. yes, everyone knows there are guns there, but more importantly, most people who aren't police officers don't spend a lot of time there. even when someone is arrested they most likely aren't going to spend more than a day or so there if there's an attached jail, and so these places aren't as ingrained in us as places of evil filled with evil people we'd dearly like to hurt.
EDIT: to avoid a double post, which is often bad form, when i realized i had more points to make.
None of this post serves as a reason why people should not be armed. It only explains that they should be well-trained. Some chances against a crazed shooter is better than no chance.
And don't fool yourself about "the military" as a whole. Unless you're in the infantry or some other combat specific job, you have extremely limited practice with firearms. I was in a desk job and touched a gun exactly 4 times before I was deployed overseas. Once for basic training, for about half an afternoon. Twice at my first base, for qualifying on two different weapons, and once at my last base, for a competition I volunteered for. I've shot more weapons more times on my own, than I ever did with any sort of 'regulated training.'
Not every person in the military is a sniper-quality shooter.
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