… with gun nuts carrying loaded weapons into a densely crowded public event? Nothing makes me feel safer than some insecure dim bulb from Kent waving around a handgun when he visits the big bad city.
Call me “some dumbass Seattle idiot”, but I think there is both experience and data on my side of thinking on the matter.
No one on that forum spoke about waving their gun around. Be fair.
I thoroughly approve of handgun ownership, but I agree that walking around the bite with a displayed sidearm is foolish. You’re more likely to drop it in a honey bucket or spill ice cream on it than protect yourself. If you are that scared of Seattle Center, stay in Enumclaw. It’s safer for everyone that way.
Even the goddamn gun nuts, some of them, seem to be dimly aware of the risk of walking around the Bite with your hands full of food and drink and an exposed weapon on your hip, surrounded by people within reach.
Dear gun nuts: you don’t like our city, and we don’t like you. Stay the hell out of it.
It’s proven that concealed carry is more effective than open carry. Only a fucking idiot that wants to wear a fake penis on their hip tries to claim otherwise.
Ah, but the gun nuts have to make up for their lack of something else….
Just this weekend I was out hiking with 2 other women when we came across a gentleman (term used lightly) who was evidently so threatened by 3 women hiking that he grabbed a hold of the (handle?) of his unconcealed weapon holstered in his fake-camo belt and stared us down as we walked past. If he wasn’t feeling threatened by us, then he either wanted to make sure we didn’t grab his precious gun away from him, or else that was his alternative form of masturbation. Pathetic, regardless.
Carrying a weapon in public areas is a problem for modern metropolitan police even. Check out the recent case of Las Vegas police killing a man with a legal permit at a Costco earlier this month: http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/jul…
Although a strong believer in individual rights… concealed WP is just that… concealed. There is no reason to advertise that you are a paranoid fool.
Could a the city order the lessee to ban, specific ethnic backgrounds, gay folks, disabled?
apparently gun nuts think guns=quadriplegic cocksuckers.
hooray!
i’ve always thought gun nuts wanted to be quadriplegic cocksuckers and now i have proof!
I don’t think we should consider all individuals with concealed weapon permits as paranoid, some carry them as part of their job. And, sure some are prone to act both silly and paranoid, especially as silly and paranoid is common to humans. Still, I’m guessing that the majority do not act that way, and that we are around those individuals all the time, unaware, because they keep their weapons concealed. I’m personally more concerned with illegal weapons, then with those who go about obtaining a concealed weapon permit. Just my $0.02 after a very long day.
Ahahahahaha the header image for that forum is the fucking funniest thing I’ve seen all day.
I don’t own guns and never will, but doesn’t experience and data rather clearly demonstrate that going to a densely crowded public event where a few people are carrying weapons is much safer than driving?
@10
No.
@10. No. Cars are used by the vast majority of people in the U.S., starting at age 16. The average car is driven 12,000 miles per year in this country, at an average speed of 30-40 miles per hour. That’s an hour a day, surrounded by hundreds or thousands of other such people for a typical urban commute. A densely crowded public event will be a few hours every year exposed to the 30% of adults who own a firearm, and the small minority of these who actually take one to a public event. It’s not even close; per minute of usage, cars are orders of magnitude safer. Motorcycles are safer. Hunting rifles are safer. Heck, cigarettes may even be safer.
I’d love to see some data on what percentage of guns, concealed or otherwise, are ever used successfully in one of the fantasy scenarios that justify gun ownership, e.g. defending one’s home or person from invasive criminal activity. As opposed to just using them to shoot your spouse.
Some issues.
Wearing a side-arm around in public is in itself enough to threaten and bully other people for all sorts of mean-spirited gains, as sane people will tend to avoid areas which are frequented by individuals openly carrying lots of firearms; furthermore, sane people will be intimidated simply by the sight of a weapon which can slay a person literally by tightening the grasp of one’s finger by millimeters.
In amazement to #4, I can’t see how going for one’s gun constitutes anything less than intimidation with the possible consequence of lethal bodily harm. If two individuals bearing side-arms in this manner were to walk down a hiking path, named A and B, and A were to place his hand on his side-arm while looking intently at B, B could be within his rights to draw out his own pistol and shoot A dead, in preemptive self-defense. B cannot be entirely sure as to the intent and state of mind of A, but can be pretty sure that he possesses a loaded weapon, is capable of drawing it at a moment’s notice, and is intent upon him in a lonely place probably without witnesses.
One cannot use a fire-arm to attempt to avoid a confrontation by threat of retaliatory violence, alone. If one handles a gun, in that manner, one is obligated to shoot the aggressor or not handle the gun at all. The likelihood of all sorts of violence out of mutual fear and confusion in open-carry circumstances makes it seem, to me, undefendable.
@10: Depends who those “few” are, I suppose.
But ask the right question. Is “going to a densely crowded public event where a few people are carrying weapons” safer than going to a densely crowded public event where no-one is carrying weapons (or where the only people carrying are trained, professional enforcers of the law, in the course of their employment)?
what the fuck are you even talking about
worst slog post in a while, can’t even direct your hate correctly
I second what Kimmie said way back @8. There are hundreds of thousands of people with concealed carry permits. At best, you can point to no more than a handful of times where that legal carry caused any problems at all. And I’ll guarantee you that there are many more instances where it’s saved a life.
@14 – No, B would not be within his rights to shoot A. That’s just ridiculous. And I know plenty of people with carry permits, and not a one of them would say otherwise, or do such a foolish thing.
@15 – Of course it is. Police aren’t always able to respond when some crazy starts threatening people – even if the police are already at the event. The more responsible citizens who are armed and know what they’re doing, the better. And even if the police respond, in a crowded area, they’re not necessarily going to do that much good. Police don’t get as much practice in with their firearms as they should, and many of them aren’t that great a shot. Most people who are licensed carriers, however, practice a lot, and are much more likely to be able to accurately defend themselves.
@8 & 17 – Thank you!
for the record, i’m pretty sure that the ‘no firearms allowed’ signs went up after a gun incident at folklife a few years ago. A gun incident wherein some dingbat with a gun started waving it around to look tough and accidentally shot two random, uninvolved people.
so yeah, if you’re so butthurt that you can’t bring your stupid gun to the bite of seattle (you need a gun at the bite…why?) you oughtta just go to the shooting range instead.
Why would you want to go to Bite anyway? It’s ghetto.
There are absolutely no assurances that someone with a gun is responsible with their gun. Gun people want to create fantasy scenarios where they might need the gun in public. Non-gun people have the very easy fantasy of gun owners doing ANYTHING with their guns.
I get a small relief that cops are trained in the use of firearms and have psychological evaluations. Its not much, and I don’t exactly trust in them 100% but at least its SOMETHING.
If you needed a gun at the Bite of Seattle and didn’t have one, I’m gonna say I am OK with whatever situation would have happened. If some terrorist shoots up the place, so be it.
well, if 1 person pulls out a gun, don’t you want the others that have theirs to pull them out and protect themselves?
wait, that’s what happened in issaquah last weekend…
Fifty-Two-Eighty and Kim In Portland:
Thank you. It’s nice to read a few sensible comments/questions now and again. Level-headed healthy skepticism is useful against rabid morons on BOTH sides.
The Sammamish incident over the weekend spooked me because I was tent camping in Eastern WA with my 12 year old son, near Cle Elum on Saturday night and a drunken brawl erupted at 1 AM between two groups of guys on either side of our tiny pup tent that escalated to the threats to break out their guns and settle things. We’d been hearing, um, recreational gunfire up on the bluff above our campground all evening (I’m sure that was just a group of duly licensed, responsible citizens lawfully discharging their weapons for some perfectly valid reason, over and over) so we couldn’t be sure if these chucklefucks really were armed or just bluffing. Luckily, one group finally opted to just become vehicular weapons by tearing out of the campground in their pickups, drunk (God help anyone driving around the area roads north of Roslyn late at night; there’s nothing but taverns in that town, and 97 must be like a drunken demolition derby)…
@17, maybe you could read the link for a change. The guy in it isn’t talking about concealed carry, he’s talking about OPEN CARRY, with a gun on his fucking hip in a huge crowd of people.
Gun nuts are full of shit, full stop.
Yes, Fnarf, I read the link. But since I’m already on record as thinking that open carry in crowded urban areas isn’t a very smart move, I didn’t feel the need to repeat myself.
gun nuts!
Can we call gay marriage proponents Gay nuts then?
bias is fun, lets make a list
abortion nuts!
interracial nuts
pit bull nuts
frye apartments are commies nuts (wait… )
etc
Why to people feel the need to take their guns to an event (or for that matter to the grocery store, or out to get coffee) is totally beyond me. Perhaps they have small man parts and are using it as an extension of their penis?
@13 There are approximately two million defensive gun uses (DGU’s) per year by law abiding citizens.
I find it funny that they don’t allow unregistered comments. So if they can’t track me by my IP address, or at least have a sidearm clearly visible, they don’t want to talk to me.
One thing people seem to forget about open carry is that it changes power dynamics – “Open Carry” is blanket intimidation. It is a display of incredible destructive power, and an insinuated threat to use it, however the conditions for use are undisclosed. Sure, you can tell me all day long that “most carriers are responsible people” etc, blah blah blah – but I Don’t Know That. This could be one of the many carriers who’s gonna go home and shoot his wife in a domestic dispute for all I know, and he’s got a gun! In the meantime, if Mr. Glock is a jackass and cuts the line at Bite of Seattle, the hell I’m going to say anything, dude’s got a gun!
@30, you don’t have to register to post, but if you don’t, we don’t have to see you. 🙂
@29:
That 16 year-old statistic (Handy Tip: if you’re going to crib a quote from another source, it helps to do a little rewording before posting, or else provide proper citation, in this case, by mentioning you lifted it verbatim from guncite.com) has been thoroughly debunked.
Based on much more recent data, the actual number appears to be more on the order of about 110,000 – 200,000 Defensive Gun Uses per year; not an insignificant number by any stretch, but nowhere near the statistically inflated numbers that came out of the Kleck-Gertz survey.
What exactly are anti-gun nuts so scared of?
One guy causes a problem at folklife and you want to ruin every event for everyone.
I don’t see anyone excited to bring back prohibition… If we want to talk about danger to society, let’s talk about alcohol.
@27, don’t forget Deez Nuts.
@33
There is absolutely no reason for you to be packing at a very crowded event at the Seattle Center. If that “ruins your enjoyment” of an event then perhaps you are due a major reassessment of your life. You comment is a pretty sad statement of who you are.
Um, maybe @33 it’s because “one guy causing a problem” with a loaded firearm in a public setting = the potential for death and carnage for quite a few other people.
(And yes, I realize the same could easily be said for automobile drivers, but at least we require them to pass a freaking TEST before getting behind the wheel.)
Not to get off track (and comparing cars and guns really is off track – apples and oranges – but do you have any idea how many unlicensed drivers there are on the roads out there, Comte?
@14 – totally agree. The rest of you rationalizing carrying weapons in public places like this are crazy. These laws perpetuate a culture of fear, paranoia, and the latent violence. That’s not the kind of society I want or can be part of.
@37:
Probably quite a few. But, at least they’re getting some practice in on a regular basis. What’s the percentage of gun owners who regularly take their weapons to the range to brush up on their skills?
I don’t get the purpose of open carry in most situations. I’ll go on record as being a gun owner, although I don’t have a concealed carry permit, and don’t have a handgun. I’m not a fan of most gun bans and restrictions, because I think most of them are counterproductive. However, open carry is just … weird, if you’re not an LEO or in some similar situation.
Case in point. I live in the most sedate of suburban neighborhoods. The worst crime we’ve had in more than 10 years was a couple cars getting their tires slashed about 8 years ago. I happen to look over into my next-door neighbor’s back yard the other day, and here’s the neighbor’s son-in-law, playing out at their backyard pool with his two-year-old daughter, and he’s open carrying. Why? I don’t get the rationale.
@40:
Pool sharks would be the obvious answer…
A gun is the entirely wrong weapon to defend oneself with in a crowded space anyway. If someone were to attack you, you’d have a good time trying to shoot them without hitting innocents, due to recoil and bullet penetration. A small knife is easier to carry and, if wielded competently, almost impossible to injure bystanders with.
@41: That would explain a harpoon gun, not a sidearm, COMTE.
While I support reasonable gun ownership, open carry just makes absolutely no sense. Having a gun out in the open is just a tool of intimidation, and if you’ve got your hands full, it’s just asking for some yokel to snatch it out of your holster, or pants (as I’ve seen too many IDIOTS carry their guns).
@18: I call bull on your response to 15.
one: Police Officers do have to train with their firearms, so they’re not as out of practice as you think.
two: If you suddenly got a bunch of guns pulled out – guess what? It’s going to cause massive panic. The reasonable person won’t know if these guys pulling out guns are trying to stop the whackjob, or are going to join in, and either way they’re going to want to get the fuck out of the way, as is the next reasonable person, and so on. In a crowded enough space, you’ll end up with a potentially deadly stampede.
three: You assume a gun owner who can stay calm under pressure, while some may do so, others will be in a state of panic and may miss from nerves.
@43 very good points.
It’s very easy to pull the trigger. Way too easy.
@42:
Obviously, we hang out in very different pool halls…
@45 – *groan*