Eloquent stomping of a dumbass wrong pro-gun message that went viral [View all]

[WilliamPitt]

Found on Facebook:

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I am sure you have seen this message, as it has gone viral. I immediately questioned it, and upon further research, it does not hold up to scrutiny. The message goes as follows:

"Did you know.....

• A 1997 high school shooting in Pearl, Miss., was halted by the school's vice principal after he retrieved the Colt .45 he kept in his truck.
• A 1998 middle school shooting ended when a man living next door heard gunfire and apprehended the shooter with his shotgun.
• A 2002 terrorist attack at an Israeli school was quickly stopped by an armed teacher and a school guard.
• A 2002 law school shooting in Grundy, Va., came to an abrupt conclusion when students carrying firearms confronted the shooter.
• A 2007 mall shooting in Ogden, Utah, ended when an armed off-duty police officer intervened.
• A 2009 workplace shooting in Houston, Texas, was halted by two coworkers who carried concealed handguns.
• A 2012 church shooting in Aurora, Colo., was stopped by a member of the congregation carrying a gun.
• At the recent mall shooting in Portland, Ore., the gunman took his own life minutes after being confronted by a shopper carrying a concealed weapon. 2500 times last year alone legal gun owners stopped violent crime when confronted with it long before any police assistance"

1. The shooting in Pearl, Miss., was not halted. The gunman, Luke Woodham, had already shot the school up, killed 3 people, and was fleeing the scene when he crashed his mother's car into a tree. The Vice Principal then retrieved his handgun from his car and held him there until the police arrived. There was no John Matrix/Rambo style shootout.

2. It baffles me that whoever created this message would try to bring Israel into this, considering that in Israel, gun ownership is considered a privilege, not a right. The process to obtain a firearm is far more vigorous than it is here. The rate of private gun ownership is also far less, at around 8 per 100 people, compared to 88 per 100 people in the U.S. Gun Homicides are also far lower, and went up when gun sales spiked roughly 10 years ago. Compare 9.20 gun related deaths in the U.S. per 100,000 people to 1.86 in Israel. Ownership in Israel has decreased as well. It's also odd to include Israel, given their proximity to hostile countries, and cultural differences from the U.S.

3. The Appalachian School of Law shooting in VA is a case where there is more than one account of what happened. One account states that the two students heard gun fire, ran to get their pistols, and approached him from different angles and ordered him to drop his weapon, which he did. The other version, however, states that the 3rd student, who was unarmed, and was a former marine and police officer, physically confronted the shooter, and knocked him down and subdued him, and the other two students showed up with their weapons later. Several witnesses, and the man who confronted the shooter, state that they did not see the other two armed responders until after the shooter had been subdued and handcuffed. Police also stated that his gun was empty by this time as well. The carnage had already happened, and the man who subdued the shooter was specially trained to do so, not some yahoo who was trying to live out his action movie fantasies.

4. I could find no records of a school shooting in 1998 in which a neighbor heard shots and stopped it with his own gun. However, I did find a case in Oregon involving Kip Kinkel, who shot his parents, then killed 2 students, and wounded 25 others at his school. He was then subdued by 11 other students at the scene, and held until police arrived. He had been exposed to guns from a very early age, and had taken gun safety courses as well.

5. The Mall shooting in Ogden Utah and the Church shooting in Aurora, Colorado were stopped by people with weapons, but they were off duty police officers with training to deal with this sort of thing, and who were fulfilling their duty to the fullest. It was not Uncle Cletus trying to be Rambo. I also wonder about bringing up a shooting in a place like Texas, where gun ownership is known to be especially high.

6. I am curious how they come to the conclusion that the person in the mall shooting in Oregon killed himself because somebody had a concealed weapon. The carnage had already happened with three people dying, and who is to say that he would not have shot himself anyway, as has happened on more than one occasion, including the most recent case? The armed responder was also a former security guard at the mall, and never once fired a shot himself, for fear of injuring an innocent bystander.

7. This message states that in 2500 cases in 2011, armed citizens stopped violent crime. Yet, 8583 gun relate homicides happened that same year. Is it really worth it to have that many people dying, so that you might have a chance to live out your favorite Schwarzenegger or Stallone movies the next time a psycho decides to start mowing down innocent people? "Regulate" does not mean "to take away."

Not surprisingly, none of this held up to scrutiny. Yet, it has managed to go viral. You can do your own research on any of these cases, and you will see that this message is full of half truths. I find it disturbing that people will omit facts, and blatantly lie, just to keep their misguided version of the 2nd amendment alive. In almost no case listed was a shooting "halted," and innocent people were killed in each case. I am not anti-gun, but you should at least have all the facts when chain emails like this go viral and so many people cling to it as if it is gospel.

http://www.facebook.com/TeabagTerminator/posts/435905809797601

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...and more on the topic:

Do Armed Civilians Stop Mass Shooters? Actually, No.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/12/armed-civilians-do-not-stop-mass-shootings