The Glade 4.0

I'm sure most folks here are already aware of this, but in case not:



Here's a video of the actual shooting: http://nyti.ms/NPViNQ

I'm curious if this kind of thing makes anyone here less confident that more armed civilians would result in a net decrease in body counts during public shootings (a la Aurora, VA Tech, etc.). If two trained cops, in broad daylight, on an open street, firing from about 10 feet away, manage to wound 9 bystanders, how much worse would civilians be in a much more crowded and frenetic situation like the Aurora theater or a university classroom? On the other hand, at least the return fire would distract the actual gunman. *shrug* Not sure how it would parse out, but it certainly makes me less inclined to think the presence of armed civilians would be a net benefit at the end of the day.

I am sure DE will chime in, but don't cops only qualify 1x per year? Perhaps that needs to be changed to a monthly/biweekly thing.

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Agreed on the likely need for more frequent range training/qualification. However infrequent their range training, though, I'm sure both of those cops could put all of their rounds on-target from 10 feet away at the range. More imporant than that, though, is the panic factor. I suspect basically all NYPD patrol cops have more experience in high-adrenalin confrontations (not at the level of a shootout, of course, but scuffles, arrests that get physical, etc.) than all but a handful of civilians, and these guys still seem to have lost their **** and fired a bit wildly in this situation.

I think it has been pretty well established that the average gun owner has more firearms experience and skills than the average cop.

Yes, but the average gun owner probably has less experience in 'tense' combat situations, be it h2h or melee or with firearms, than your typical beat cop.

Obviously those gun owners who have spent time in the military probably have more experience, but after seeing the way some people react to stressful situations (my ex-wife for example) I can't see how any amount of pure firearm training would prepare her for an actual shootout.

It has certainly not been well established that the average firearms owner has more experience than the average cop. People have asserted it by making claims about firearms owners based on the most avid shooters compared to police who shoot the absolute minimum, but it has not been established one way or the other if they do, or if so, to what degree, and even whether it's applicable. Lots of firearms shooters shoot only rifles, or fire only at circular paper targets that never move, while they themselves are not moving, in conditions that don't even attempt to simulate combat. On the other hand police qualifications always (nowadays) try to simulate combat by making the officer move, engage multiple targets in a particular order, dimming the lights, and other means.

Second, yes, most cops qualify once a year. Whether they get more practice or not depends on the situation of the officer, the particular agency, and the money available. In the case of my agency, we qualify every 3 months. However, basic qualification scores are high enough that an officer that does qualify is a reasonably accurate shot - and one that doesn't qualify isn't going to be allowed to go out on the road until he does. Trying to do it monthly or biweekly would be very expensive; you'd be pulling people out of work for a half or whole day 12 to 26 times more often, plus the need for additional instructors. It also would not result in massive gains in accuracy

Finally, everyone's accuracy, with the exception of extremely specially trained people who are a rare breed mentally to begin with (i.e. Delta Force operators, FBI HRT members) goes to **** in combat. Targets have a habit of simply not cooperating. Stress is exceedingly high. That's going to apply to the attacker as well as anyone trying to stop him. Worrying about "net benefit" is worrying about an unknowable; the presence of armed people resisting the attacker For this reason, it's always better to have fire going both ways. The attacker's accuracy will drop, and when people are hit by rounds that miss their intended target, they're a lot more likely to be wounded rather than killed by the unaimed fire. Note that while 9 people were wounded, none, other than the shooter, have died so far. Only 3 of them were even actually hit by bullets, the others suffered injuries from fragments or spall.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Well, look. What was this guy's intent? Rampage? Take Colorado for instance. The guy killed 12 and wounded 58. If several people opened up on him, some bystanders might have been hit. 70 though?

I'd be curious to see numbers on what percentage of former or current military are gun owners.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

Being in the military doesn't mean you're any good at shooting, unfortunately. This is especially true for the Navy and the Air Force where a lot of MOSs are simply not expected to engage in ground combat, including surprising ones like SeaBees that only go out of the wire with Marine or Army escort.

Shooting is a basic soldier skill, but a lot of soldiers simply aren't that good at it. Unlike a PD which takes a nonproficient officer off the road, the army has no qums about deploying a soldier that doesn't qualify. Of course pre-deployment training includes a lot of shooting which tends to remedy that somewhat.

Active duty units and MOSs that engage in ground combat tend to be significantly better. Infantry soldiers shoot more and better and Rangers and other special ops better still. Marines are, on average, probably better than the army.

Also, a lot of former military people are in law enforcement. I doubt the relative numbers would favor private gun owners enough to make a major difference.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I think a better question would be, would the civilian firearm owners have attempted to take that shot? Its a hard comparison to make since the police were moving to engage while a civilian would have been moving (for the most part) to extract themselves from the situation.

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A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ~ John Stuart Mill

Your also forgetting the deterrent factor of an armed populace that keeps some people honest. If you'll notice, you see these shootings in places where the law abiding are disarmed.

I think shooting in a crowded street is a tough prospect for anyone and it easy to play Monday morning quarterback. Also I don't think it's fair to call the six people hit by ricochet/ shrapnel as "hit by cops"

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

This was my reaction, too. The appropriate comment to make about the six people hit by ricochet and shrapnel is, "Shootouts and firefights are a dangerous place to be nearby."

This is, incidentally, why we have laws in place to minimize their occurrence.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Who remembers Monty's rants about the dangers of ricochet's? good times, good times

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"Life isn't divided into genres. It's a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know, with a bit of pornography if you're lucky."
— Alan Moore

I don't think, from the description of the article, anyone was actually hit by ricochet, which tends to imply a more-or-less intact bullet. Ricochets generally only happen when the bullet hits at certain oblique angles. Other than that, they tend to fragment becuase they can't hold together under the stress of impact.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Maybe the cops were took this as a way to practice skipping bullets.

Though I would have though city cops would be more likely to carry a frangible /glazer load or alternate load for instances like this. Change out the mag on the way rack it once and gtg.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville