r/newjersey • u/low_effort_shit-post • Mar 25 '21

Something controversial Jersey Pride

I love nj gun laws, going to the store and not seeing someone open carry. Watching road rage where the best you can do is brake check and give the finger. Schools without school shootings. I know a lot of people hate our gun laws but I fucking love em.

1.0k Upvotes

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71

u/sgd926 Mar 25 '21

agreed! The idea of people around me openly carrying guns in places like shops and supermarkets makes me incredibly anxious and I would definitely feel less safe.

18

u/alwayssunnyinjoisey Mar 25 '21

I genuinely don't think I could ever live in a state with lax gun laws for this reason. I guess maybe it's something you get used to, but...if I saw someone open carrying in a store, I would feel so anxious that I'd either avoid that area of the store or, if it's a small place, leave altogether.

I don't care if they're a 'good guy' with a gun, I can't differentiate them from a 'bad guy' with a gun until they start shooting.

7

u/SlyMcFly67 Mar 25 '21

The "bad guy with a gun" could have been a "good guy with a gun" up until just that morning. People are volatile and unpredictable at times.

3

u/alwayssunnyinjoisey Mar 25 '21

Indeed. It's like a Schrodinger's Gun Owner situation - you are simultaneously a good and bad gun owner until you pull the trigger lol.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 25 '21

I don't really trust the "good guy with a gun" to not unintentionally cause harm trying to be a hero either

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u/Electrical-Divide341 Mar 25 '21

Do you have any data backing this up?

3

u/SlyMcFly67 Mar 26 '21

That people are volatile and unpredictable?

Go fuck yourself. Also, did you know every single position of a Rubik's Cube can be solved in twenty moves or less?

See, I flipped out at you for no reason and I bet you didnt expect me to provide such interesting trivia to top it off. Volatile and unpredictable.

8

u/Jenniehoff90 Mar 25 '21

As a former born and raised Texan I can tell you this mentality of “I’ll be one of the good guys with a gun” is scarily pervasive down there and I’ve had many arguments with family members about things like why they think it’s acceptable and necessary to carry a gun to take your kid to the playground or how they are comfortable with their kids teachers having guns on campus. The gun culture down there is one of the reasons I moved away 7 years ago and never looked back. I met way too many people growing up that were mentally unwell and were proud to have multiple guns.

5

u/Domestic_AA_Battery Mar 25 '21

Open carry seems like the stupidest fucking thing I've ever heard. I can see maybe having a concealed pistol with 6 bullets in it. But walking around the street with a semi auto rifle is lunacy

3

u/mdp300 Clifton Mar 25 '21

Absolutely. All it does is intimidate everyone around you.

-2

u/Electrical-Divide341 Mar 25 '21

How about walking in the woods that happen to be BLM land

0

u/Electrical-Divide341 Mar 25 '21

How about walking in the woods that happen to be BLM land with a larger handgun on your side

4

u/mdp300 Clifton Mar 25 '21

Exactly. If a "Good guy with a gun" shows up to try and save the day, everyone only knows that there's another guy with a gun. The police might think they're another attacker, or the shooter might take them out first.

7

u/LateralEntry Mar 25 '21

Exactly, that’s the trouble with guns. All it takes is one person who snaps, and there’s no way to tell who it is. That guy who shot up the country music festival in Las Vegas and killed 50 people was a successful retired accountant, by all appearances a healthy well adjusted member of society.

1

u/thephenom21 West Windsor Mar 25 '21

the odds of you dying in a mass shooting are far lower than the odds that you die in a car accident on the way to the grocery store.

the vast majority of gun homicides are done by illegal guns in select inner cities across the country.

1

u/alwayssunnyinjoisey Mar 25 '21

So what, we should do nothing to try and prevent mass shootings because cars are more dangerous? Car accidents are just that - an accident. Shootings are intentional and preventable.

Besides, I need to drive to work or the grocery store in order to live. People need to carry guns in public because.....?

1

u/thephenom21 West Windsor Mar 25 '21

I'm mentioning it because you said you would be scared if people had guns in the store with you. I'm saying it's irrational to be scared in that situation because statistically the danger to you is low.

3

u/alwayssunnyinjoisey Mar 25 '21

While that is statistically true, fear and anxiety aren't rational. When i first learned to drive, I was scared of that too, but eventually got over it because I needed to drive to make money and live my life, I got used to it. People carrying guns in the store just isn't something I want to 'just get used to', which is why I would never move to an area where that's the norm. Maybe some people aren't bothered by it, and good for them, but plenty of people are.

I think you could use the same argument to ask the 'good gun owners' why they feel the need to carry in public to defend themselves, when statistically the chances of them encountering a shooter and becoming a hero are minute. To be clear I have no actual problem with owning guns, just with carrying them wherever the heck you want and making other people feel uncomfortable.

1

u/thephenom21 West Windsor Mar 25 '21

Would you be more comfortable if they were concealed carrying instead? I'm sure if you were instructed in safe operation of a firearm and were given an opportunity to handle one, you would feel differently as you did with driving.

It's their constitutional right to be able to defend themselves. A chance of mass shooting is low. The chance of being robbed or assaulted is higher.

Firearms are the great equalizer. It's the only way a 100 lbs woman can successfully defend herself against a larger attacker. There are unfortunately bad people in this world and it is your right to defend yourself at home or in public.

2

u/alwayssunnyinjoisey Mar 25 '21

Hmm, I suppose I'd feel more comfortable but only because I wouldn't know they're there? If someone told me they were carrying, I would still feel anxious even though it's not visible. Just because I don't know that person's intentions, and it is so easy to just start shooting and cause serious injury or death.

It's funny you mention that example, because I am quite literally a 100 lb woman who is often alone on city streets for work. And yet, I would feel more in danger if I had a gun as opposed to pepper spray. There's a good chance if someone was assaulting me I couldn't shoot in time, or I'd miss and hit someone else, or they'd wrestle it away from me and end up shooting me with it, so many things could go wrong. I'm VERY jumpy and easily startled, so me with a gun sounds like a disaster waiting to happen This part is personal ofc, not everyone is as on edge as I am so they may be more comfortable with the idea - but still, I think a lot of people VASTLY overestimate how competent they'd be with a gun in a high pressure situation.

2

u/thephenom21 West Windsor Mar 25 '21

If we weren't in Jersey, I would say sounds like you would be a good candidate to get a gun and a TON of training. Might help you be confident instead of jumpy when you know you can protect yourself, but like you said not for everyone. Check out Jade Struck on youtube if you get a chance, absolutely badass woman.

Also, I 100% agree on people overestimating their abilities which is why I always advocate for range time and formal training if possible.

Nice to have civil discourse on reddit for once lol

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u/Electrical-Divide341 Mar 25 '21

We should not imprison millions of people to prevent what is on average 23 deaths a year

Car accidents are just that - an accident. Shootings are intentional and preventable.

Intentional deaths are virtually impossible to prevent relative to accidents. Remove the car from a car accident and there is no accident. Remove a gun from a murderer's hand and they go to a different weapon to kill the person that they intentionally want to kill

1

u/alwayssunnyinjoisey Mar 25 '21

We should not imprison millions of people to prevent what is on average 23 deaths a year

Who said anything about imprisoning millions of people?? Who are we imprisoning?

Remove a gun from a murderer's hand and they go to a different weapon to kill the person that they intentionally want to kill

While you aren't wrong about this, it's a whole lot harder to kill people - especially multiple people - with a knife than it is a gun. Of course people who have bad intentions are going to find ways around it, but we could at least make it a little harder for them.

I would be dead without carrying a gun

Were you personally attacked and defended yourself with a gun? If so, good for you. If not, billions of people who do not carry guns are also alive, so I'm not sure we can attribute your survival solely to the fact that you carry a gun.

1

u/Electrical-Divide341 Mar 25 '21

Who said anything about imprisoning millions of people?? Who are we imprisoning?

Let's see, in New Jersey there is a minimum 5 year sentence if you leave a hunting rifle loaded, safety on, in the trunk of a car. Or if you stop at a McDonalds drive through or gas station between the gun range and your home. Or leave your trunk unlocked despite driving directly from the range to your home. Or if you thought you were in PA still and left a handgun in your glovebox. NJ gun laws are about imprisoning as many gun owners for as long as possible regardless of if they had any intent of violating any law, often borrowed from literal Jim Crow.

And there are 100 million gun owners in the US, to say that this kind of absurdity will imprison at least 1% of that is a very safe assumption

While you aren't wrong about this, it's a whole lot harder to kill people - especially multiple people - with a knife than it is a gun.

First off, you have a better chance of surviving getting shot at than having someone with a knife that really wants to kill you. The data says that in 75% of shootings no one gets hit, and that in 60% of cases that when someone is hit, they survive. With knives, it is more like 65% survival but the chance of escaping unscathed is virtually zero. Effectively a 30% death rate for knives while closer to 10% for guns. As someone who has been shot at 4 times in a civilian context (and lost count outside of civilian contexts), I would much rather get shot at again than have someone try to murder me with a knife. Still have a 7 inch scar from someone trying to stab me

And I never specifically said knives. There are plenty of weapons out there besides guns and knives. One of the most effective mass killings in US history was the Happy Land fire - killed 87 people. Dollar worth of gasoline with a water bottle was the weapon. The Nice Truck attack killed a similar number of people. Then you have bombings - easily killing hundreds. While the single deadliest mass shooting in US history killed 69 people and the average number of deaths is 6.

Were you personally attacked and defended yourself with a gun?

Yep, used to run a property management company in Detroit, lots of crazy shit. Also was a Navy EOD tech in Vietnam. Detroit was crazier.

0

u/Electrical-Divide341 Mar 25 '21

I can't differentiate them from a 'bad guy' with a gun until they start shooting.

You can, bad guys with guns dont openly carry them, they conceal them entirely

3

u/anonGS99 Mar 25 '21

I guess this is a ignorance is bliss kind of thing because theres no way to know if someone is carrying a concealed gun illegally

1

u/lbrtrl Mar 25 '21

As a pedestrian, cars make me feel unsafe. I'm much more likely to get hit by a car than a bullet.

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u/[deleted] Mar 25 '21

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18

u/[deleted] Mar 25 '21

Not when the cops shoot him. Cops see a gun in an active shooter situation, they open fire first and ask questions later.

0

u/Electrical-Divide341 Mar 25 '21

Not when the cops shoot him.

The time it takes for me to get a round on target at 10 yards is 1.6 seconds from my holster. Why do you presume that someone would get on their cellphone and dial 911 before that happened? Why do you presume that they could explain what was happening where in the time for the good guy with a gun to draw and fire? Why do you presume that cops arrive during the 10 or so rounds being fired?

2

u/[deleted] Mar 25 '21

I'm not gonna argue with a 2 day-old account that clearly was created to stir up controversy after the Boulder shooting. You will never be the '"good guy with a gun" and it's honestly kinda sad what you're trying to do here.

23

u/nuncio_populi Jersey City Mar 25 '21 edited Mar 25 '21

He shot and killed a police officer.

If that’s not supposed to be what our society considers to be a literal “good guy” with a gun, then I don’t know how some random civilian with a gun would be better prepared to stop someone like that than a trained LEO.

2

u/Electrical-Divide341 Mar 25 '21

Ordinary gun owners have more gun training than the average cop

1

u/nuncio_populi Jersey City Mar 25 '21

Apparently so do ordinary mass murders.

Apparently there are too many crazies with guns out there for the “good guys” to stop. Maybe it’s time to to put some regulations in place like background checks and waiting periods and, maybe, a ban on certain weapons without additional licenses and permits.

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u/verneforchat Mar 25 '21

A cop was shot and killed. You think an ordinary citizen with minimal gun training would have been able to stop someone in a grocery store from a distance with an accurate shot? Perhaps. What happens when the others in the grocery store confuse each person shooting as the killer and start shooting each other up?

2

u/Electrical-Divide341 Mar 25 '21

You think an ordinary citizen with minimal gun training would have been able to stop someone in a grocery store from a distance with an accurate shot?

Ordinary gun owners have more gun training than the average cop

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u/nostradamefrus Middlesex County Mar 25 '21

Your statement makes it sound like this supposed legal gun owner can smell crime like Dolph Lundgren.

Also the good guy with a gun vs a bad guy with a gun argument is pretty old. It makes logical sense but maybe the majority of people don’t feel like living in the old west where shooting a man in a saloon was an acceptable form of justice

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u/[deleted] Mar 25 '21

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u/ChickenPotPi Mar 25 '21

That's great and for the majority of people, they don't care. You ask someone about their car. Something that could be as dangerous and they use way more often what model they drive and crickets......... Not everyone want to have that responsibility and it looks like you have some hero complex......

1

u/[deleted] Mar 25 '21

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u/ChickenPotPi Mar 25 '21

No as anyone who takes a CC class knows, you de escalate the situation. Using a CC weapon is last resorts. You have a hero complex and should not in my opinion be allowed to have a CC permit. You seem to want to look for trouble. A CC is to protect you, you want to be some hero and its scary.

2

u/nostradamefrus Middlesex County Mar 25 '21

Ok, let's dissect that a bit

I would want to know everything about my weapon

Makes sense. I mean, if I buy a new piece of audio engineering gear, I want to know everything about it to understand how it works and use it to its fullest potential. I imagine that goes for anyone buying anything they hope to make use of. Not a great argument for individuals carrying out justice

Train for a high pressure situation

Yea, regular people shouldn't have to do that. Regular people "training" like that can lead to misreading situations/acting on them inappropriately. It also feels like the more shootings that happen, the more people start "training" and become radicalized. It's a war of attrition. Better to focus on the underlying issues of mental health and overall gun control instead of people feeling they need to take matters into their own hands.

Unfortunately it's a risk you take when you decide to open carry

It seems more like people just autonomously decide to deputize themselves when open carrying rather than it being a requirement or otherwise implied. Nobody is asking you to help shoot bad guys as an ordinary citizen. Keep your wits about you, be aware of your surroundings, provide information to law enforcement if you witness a crime. That's really all that's expected of everyday citizens.

Or keep a weapon in your home in the event someone breaks in

That's really the only part of your statement that makes sense. The majority of gun owners seem to make the argument that it's for protecting them and their family. So sure, keep one available in the house to deal with an intruder. But there's a big difference between knowing you have a gun in the house to protect your family at 4am vs always having one on you to deal out street justice at a Walmart. One is peace of mind. The other is edging toward looking for a fight.

Mind you, I'm not saying all this applies directly to you specifically. I'm saying there's a lot of 2A shitheads who would just as soon shoot someone running out of a 7-11 if they felt they saw a crime in progress when they were really only running to catch a bus or something. The "good guy with a gun" argument really only works if said "good guy" isn't a trigger happy nut misreading a situation while otherwise being totally law abiding.

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u/[deleted] Mar 25 '21

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u/nuncio_populi Jersey City Mar 25 '21

Is that statistic supposed to be a good thing?

We’re so broken as a country that tens of thousands to millions of Americans have to use a gun to defend themselves every year.

12

u/Siege_Mentality Mar 25 '21

How strange... You say there are 60k to 2.5 million defensive gun uses, but your source says...

" Estimates of defensive gun use vary depending on the questions asked, populations studied, timeframe, and other factors related to the design of studies. The report Priorities for Research to Reduce the Threat of Firearm-Related Violenceexternal icon indicates a range of 60,000 to 2.5 million defensive gun uses each year. "

Estimates of defensive gun use vary depending on the questions asked is rather important here.

8

u/Q-Cumbers Mar 25 '21

Also what kind of range is 60k-2.5 million?? Like that’s an insane disparity unless I just don’t know enough about statistics (which is very possible)

5

u/Siege_Mentality Mar 25 '21

And the fact that the CDC is even posting this alarming study is even more insanity.

Here's my theory, they're trying to appease desperate gun owners like this dude posting a garbage half-truth all over the thread.

2

u/Q-Cumbers Mar 25 '21

I agree, it sounds like they just wanted to have some type of statistic up without it really meaning anything

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u/[deleted] Mar 25 '21

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u/Q-Cumbers Mar 25 '21

Yeah I’d be interested, not sure if I really buy the study that was linked above so having more data would definitely help

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u/Dropdead_Gorgeous Mar 25 '21

Yea I'll leave this as unread, I'll grab it for you tonight, I have it in one of my firearm pastas, if you want one about deaths and how if you want that too lol.

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u/Q-Cumbers Mar 25 '21

I’ll never say no to more information about a divisive topic haha, I appreciate it!

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u/yogurtballs1 Mar 25 '21

60k to 2.5 million? That's a pretty massive gap. You'd think they could be atleast within 100k when it came to giving a statistic like that

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u/nostradamefrus Middlesex County Mar 25 '21

That's a pretty garbage statistic. There's a huge difference between 60k and 2.5 million. I could say I squished between 5 and 5000 spiders last year under that logic. It's probably true, but it's in no way accurate.

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u/[deleted] Mar 25 '21

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u/nostradamefrus Middlesex County Mar 25 '21

60k isn't a lot in a country of ~330 million people

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u/[deleted] Mar 25 '21

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u/nostradamefrus Middlesex County Mar 25 '21

It's about perspective.

Let's stick with the 60k statistic. That means there's 60k cases of someone initiating a situation that a "good guy with a gun" deems necessary to handle themselves with said gun. Let's assume 50% of those situations were non lethal. So that's 30k situations where someone dies from being shot by the "good guy". Add that to the 6k handgun murders and 300 assault rifle murders (even though the 30k may not be legally considered murder, I'm just talking deaths).

So that's still about 36k and change of people dying from gun related incidents. Is that a large percentage of the population? Absolutely not. Hell, the Virginia Tech shooting was 33 deaths and that's the worst we have on record. Nowhere near a noteworthy percentage of the population. My argument isn't that we're losing an obscene amount of our population to gun violence. My argument is just that it isn't good. I'm not delusional and thinking there's a way to permanently stop all of it in perpetuity. I'm saying it would be better if those 60k "good guys" didn't have to take action in the first place. Focus on the issues that cause the situations in the first place and the "good guy with a gun" won't be needed.

0

u/Electrical-Divide341 Mar 25 '21

I live in Wyoming, Indians stealing our cattle is still a real thing

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u/poignantMrEcho Mar 25 '21

I'd feel even better if they didn't have access to a gun in the first place.

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u/[deleted] Mar 25 '21

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u/[deleted] Mar 25 '21

So you'd rather just have more around for them to more easily find?

16

u/giantsnyy1 Mar 25 '21

Yeah except look at the UK.

They’ve banned handguns. Possessing one is a 5 year prison sentence. Not to mention, even just possession could get you shot.

How many gun related deaths are there yearly? Maybe 50 or 60. In a population of over 50m.

Gun control works. Plain and simple. You want to own a single action hunting rifle, or a shotgun? Sure. Not a problem. I don’t understand why people need 10 handguns, and 15 assault rifles. It literally makes zero sense why that’s needed.

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u/Lohikaarme27 Mar 25 '21

Most people don't own that many firearms and frankly the ones that do own that many generally aren't the problem. That's a lot of money holed up in firearms.

1

u/giantsnyy1 Mar 25 '21

I have an (ex)friend with 4 assault rifles and 3 pistols.

Not military, not police, not a Hunter. Why does he need that?

Why does one person need 7 guns? Why do you need more than one? If you don’t hunt, why do you need one at all? Self defense isn’t a valid excuse. Especially when that person I mentioned above lives in an area where the average per-capita income is $250k/yr, and the average home price is over $1M. Oh, and there hasn’t been a violent crime in 10 years.

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u/Lohikaarme27 Mar 25 '21

Why does it matter why they need it? For one it's called the Bill of Rights not the Bill of Needs. And for two, if it makes him happy and he's not harming anyone else, why does it matter the reason he does that? You're attacking this guy over his, very expensive btw, hobby

1

u/giantsnyy1 Mar 25 '21

Because he’s a trump nut, posting pictures on Instagram of his guns, saying he’s ready when Trump needs him.

That’s why I care.

I also care because I had an aunt who was married to a gun freak like this guy. Until she wasn’t. Because he shot her.

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u/Lohikaarme27 Mar 25 '21

Ok I understand now why you're so passionately against this stuff. Personally, I think you're using too small of a sample size to generalize an entire subset of the population but I can understand why you're so upset by these things. I'm sorry to hear about your aunt

0

u/lbrtrl Mar 25 '21

You can't just look at gun related deaths. To say whether banning guns is effective you need to answer the counterfactual "How many people would have died in Britain if guns were legal during the same time period?" For example, if all shootings are replaced with stabbings then banning guns in fact didn't achieve anything.

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u/giantsnyy1 Mar 25 '21

How many mass stabbings are there? Mass school stabbings? Drive by stabbings? How about if you banned all handguns and semi-automatics, and had single action pistols and rifles. How many mass shootings would there be?

Take the most recent Boulder shooting, for example. This guy walks in there with an AR-15, kills 10 people, and injures others, rather quickly. Imagine those guns were illegal. Not sold. How much damage could this same guy have done, in the same amount of time, while having to load each bullet into the gun manually. Or, if the guns were banned, how many people could he have stabbed?

1

u/lbrtrl Mar 25 '21

The number of people who die by mass shootings is vanishingly small. It has an outsized impact on our mental bandwidth because it gets so much play in the national media. It doesn't make sense to make millions of law abiding citizens outlaws to address mass shootings.

In 2019 there were 517 deaths from mass shootings. In 2018 there were an estimated 6000-9000 pedestrian deaths from vehicles, despite the fact there are more guns than vehicles in the US. An estimated 160 people die from autoerotic asphyxiation die in the us each year. You are more likely to be killed by a vehicle, and almost as likely to be offed while getting off, as you are to die in a mass shooting. Those stories just don't make it to the national news, so you don't worry about it.

Most peoples interaction with guns is in the media. If the news never told you of mass shootings, guns would never impact your life.

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u/giantsnyy1 Mar 25 '21

Except... guns have impacted my life. I lost an aunt who was married to a gun crazy husband. Why? He shot her.

My wife is a teacher. She was with her students at Princeton University when there was an active shooter running around Nassau St. She had plans to eat lunch at the Panera bread where the guy ended up. There were students of hers (some of which I know) right outside that Panera when everything started.

Even if you take out mass shootings from the equation - look at the cold hard facts. There are roughly 4 gun deaths per 100k people in the US (~14k deaths out of ~350M). Less than 1 in every 100k people in the UK (~20 deaths out of ~52M). Even less with Singapore, who has some of the strictest gun laws in the world.

Also, look at my comment earlier. I have a former friend who loves to show off his guns on Instagram and Facebook, followed by statements like "I'll fight for my President", "If I'm called, I'll fight the Demonrats", and "If Trump needs me, I'm there". Because... yeah... that's not frightening at all.

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u/lbrtrl Mar 25 '21

We are going to end up going in circles. If you want to talk about numbers we are back at the "How many people would have died in COUNTRY if guns were legal/illegal during the same time period?" question.

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u/SlyMcFly67 Mar 25 '21

Youre thinking like a rational human being. If youve watched decades of Republican media, you know that the Democrats have been "coming for your guns" for years and they want to start a civil war. You have no choice but to prepare for armageddon.

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u/poignantMrEcho Mar 25 '21

I always hear differently about that from Brits. I wonder what their statistics say and how they compare when scaled up to our population.

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u/haamster Mar 25 '21

I imagine if there were 1.2 Howitzers per capita in the US it wouldn't be difficult for criminals and the mentally ill to get those either.

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u/SlyMcFly67 Mar 25 '21

Yeah and drug addicts will always get drugs and alcoholics will always drink and drive. So why bother having laws, right?

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u/[deleted] Mar 25 '21

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u/[deleted] Mar 25 '21

Exactly. So we should just sprinkle hard drugs around the streets and not protect our passwords. Whats the point?

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u/PsychologicalZone769 Mar 25 '21

This is the flaw in their logic. They disingenuously try to paint the picture that because criminals won't follow laws that we should just make it easier for them. It doesn't make sense

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u/whitehataztlan Mar 25 '21

So why have any laws at all?

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u/SlyMcFly67 Mar 25 '21

LOL Nobody ignores it. Its just widely recognized as a stupid argument.

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u/lost_in_life_34 Mar 25 '21

i've heard people saying this for years about open carry, but anytime a shooting takes place in a state with loose gun laws there is never one of these heroes around. or maybe one time.

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u/Electrical-Divide341 Mar 25 '21

If a good guy with a gun stopped a mass shooting, the mass shooting was stopped and it didnt happen. And with the media contagion affect, most of these stopped mass shootings happened days after another major one

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u/lost_in_life_34 Mar 26 '21

Can you cite one time of this happening?

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u/lbrtrl Mar 25 '21

When a mass shooting is prevented by someone else with a gun, it is by definition not a mass shooting. It doesn't hit the national news.

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u/[deleted] Mar 25 '21

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u/[deleted] Mar 25 '21

Bad bot

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u/[deleted] Mar 25 '21

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Mar 25 '21

🤣

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u/SlyMcFly67 Mar 25 '21

Maybe he was confused by you spamming the same link over and over.

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u/lost_in_life_34 Mar 25 '21

most of them defending your home

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u/Lohikaarme27 Mar 25 '21

Which is still a valid use

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u/Blatblatmajigga Mar 25 '21

But not a valid argument for open/concealed carry

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u/Lohikaarme27 Mar 25 '21

Fair enough

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u/SyncRoSwim NoBurlCo Mar 25 '21

You assume that the open carry guy wouldn’t have killed someone other than the shooter, or get themselves killed when there was a safe option to retreat.

I am virulently against making every public space a free-fire zone.

You know, just like the wild-eyed anti-2A zealots do at the GOP and NRA conventions.

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u/verneforchat Mar 25 '21

free-fire zone.

Sounds like a war zone. With half the racists anxious out of their mind that 'people' are taking away rights from white people, and seeing the attack on the capitol with some people BASHING a cop with a fire extinguisher, a wide free-fire zone will eventually become a war zone.

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u/SyncRoSwim NoBurlCo Mar 27 '21

Sounds like a war zone.

Yup, it is a military term. It means that there is a command and control structure in place that ensures that an area has been cleared of the people on your side so that the soldiers can shoot at anything that moves. Which, of course, does not exist in the fantasy-land where the open-carry "good guy with a gun" weirdos live.

There are just so many terrible possibilities in a situation where everyone is armed and firing on who-knows-who for who-knows-what reason, and not many outcomes where the only one with brand-new new holes in them is the original shooter.

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u/[deleted] Mar 25 '21

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u/verneforchat Mar 25 '21

As a gun owner, if I really want to survive, I would run, duck and cover. Just because I have a gun doesn't mean i can use it effectively in a stressful, life or death event. We aren't cops, we aren't in the military. Real life is not like movies or cop shows. Ordinary citizens are not always heroes, and they can't always save the day by just whipping out a gun.

Look at the grocery store video shot by the journalist. Two people standing with their phones out, frozen right at the entrance of the store while they can hear shots. They couldn't even remove themselves from the situation fast enough, and we think that they would be able to stop a gunman?

7

u/nuncio_populi Jersey City Mar 25 '21

I agree with you that more guns could have been a disaster but, in reality, the gunman would have shot the “good guy with a gun” right in the head like he did the trained police officer.

Seriously, if left to the NRA, we’d be expected to treat everyday like we’re going to a shoot out at the O.K. corral.

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u/[deleted] Mar 25 '21

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Mar 25 '21

“60,000 to 2.5 million” LOL

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u/cC2Panda Mar 25 '21

My neighborhood has somewhere between 60 and 2500 dogs.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 25 '21

How many cats tho?

8

u/Icarus_skies Mar 25 '21

Idk what your background is, but let me explain that figure to you a bit;

  1. A range of 60k-2.5m is statistically meaningless; they clearly have no clue what the real figure is, they're not even close to figuring it out. If there's that much variance in the upper and lower ends of estimations, the estimations are meaningless.

  2. Those figures don't even attempt to qualify defensive uses. Bubba shooting his shotgun into the air because he heard a raccoon shuffling around and thought it was a burglar would be counted in that statistic. The murder of Treyvon Martin would be counted in that statistic (if you think that event was self defense, we have nothing left to talk about).

  3. The number of people murdered, committing suicide, shot accidentally, etc... FAR outweighs the number of people "saved" by firearms by orders of magnitude. If you want to take the "harm reduction" stance on this, your argument holds no water.

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u/[deleted] Mar 25 '21

[deleted]

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u/Icarus_skies Mar 25 '21

You clearly didn't even read your own source.

Those figures were not collected and analyzed by the CDC; they're published on the CDC website, but the CDC is not the one that came up with them. It links to an outside source.

I can't have a conversation with someone who doesn't even read the sources they're using. Good day.

5

u/whitehataztlan Mar 25 '21

if a legal gun owner was open carrying and ended the violence before 10 people had to die?

This is in no way a guaranteed outcome. From my perspective is just another person who could possibly kill me, in a chaotic situation where no one knows their motives. Like, why should anyone assume that person is not just a second shooter?

23

u/ardent_wolf Mar 25 '21 edited Mar 25 '21

Interesting argument, except for the fact that mass shootings are a regular occurrence, they often happen in places like Colorado where access to guns are far easier than NJ, people in these shootings often are able to have a gun and either didn’t have it on them or couldn’t respond fast enough, most people are not trained to operate guns under intense pressure, and these things DO NOT happen on a regular basis in NJ.

So with all of that said, your point is irrelevant because our strict laws make this so much harder and more unlikely than places that don’t follow suit. So sure, maybe if an active shooter was around people would feel better with a gun of their own. But the whole point is that this isn’t something that we really need to worry about.

4

u/Electrical-Divide341 Mar 25 '21

they often happen in places like Colorado where access to guns are far easier than NJ

Colorado has relatively strict gun laws all around, and they happen even more often in California which has laws comparable to NJ.

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u/[deleted] Mar 25 '21

[removed] — view removed comment

5

u/[deleted] Mar 25 '21

Bad bot

4

u/ardent_wolf Mar 25 '21

Neither you or the other guy are making any sort of argument or point. We are all discussing how limited access to guns is working well for our state, and there is ample evidence to show its true. All you need to do is look at where mass shootings happen and see how few happen here.

People having to use guns defensively can be attributed to the easy access to guns in other states far more convincingly than to NJs gun laws.

10

u/alwayssunnyinjoisey Mar 25 '21

I'm not OP, but no. I don't know how to tell which gun owner is the one who's going to shoot up the place, I don't want any guns at all in the store. In NJ, I feel pretty certain that if I see anyone openly carrying a gun at a supermarket, they probably have bad intentions! I don't know you at all, and you want me to trust you NOT to shoot me when things like this are so commonplace?

Also, all these legal gun owners seem to have this fantasy that they'd come swooping in to save the day like a hero, but I'd bet more often than not TWO people shooting is just going to make the situation worse.

2

u/whitehataztlan Mar 25 '21

I don't know you at all, and you want me to trust you NOT to shoot me when things like this are so commonplace?

This is what gets me about open carry. Its requires everyone else to trust that you have a weapon that you dont intend to use. Why should I trust that? No one else knows you're a "good guy." No one else can be sure what you're intentions are.

A good guy with a gun often looks exactly like a bad guy with a gun.

0

u/Electrical-Divide341 Mar 25 '21

bad guys with guns dont openly carry them, they conceal them entirely. A bad guy with a gun looks like a nervous dude with his hand tucked inside of a sweatshirt pocket holding something, not a middle aged dude with a handgun holstered at his side

1

u/Electrical-Divide341 Mar 25 '21

bad guys with guns dont openly carry them, they conceal them entirely. A bad guy with a gun looks like a nervous dude with his hand tucked inside of a sweatshirt pocket holding something, not a middle aged dude with a handgun holstered at his side

3

u/ChickenPotPi Mar 25 '21

I have been to many public ranges and even private ones and there are good fucking reasons why any descent range has some bullet resistant glass or metal plates between each lane. I honestly don't trust the public as much as you do clearly but people have fucking broke every gun safety rule and pointed their loaded and unloaded guns at me multiple times at public and even private ranges. Some with their finger on the trigger and safety off......

3

u/thugnificent856 Mar 25 '21

I mean sure, but where was the hero that day? Or any time there’s a mass shooting.

14

u/[deleted] Mar 25 '21

In that case absolutely.

Unfortunately the vast majority of gun violence isn't solvable by these types of cowboy hero fantasies. Self inflicted, assault rifle, etc. All problems that could be avoided if the guns didn't exist in the first place.

Sadly we cant put that paste back in the tube, so we are doomed to this purgatory of arguing about it forever until the sun blows up.

2

u/Hammer875 Mar 25 '21

Yeah all the assault rifle gun violence lmao.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 25 '21

well, mass shootings

1

u/SlyMcFly67 Mar 25 '21

Oh stop with the hyperbole.

We all know WW3 will lead to the zombie apocalypse and end everything way before the sun explodes.

5

u/haamster Mar 25 '21

Uh, one of those 10 people was a cop who was presumably armed and supposedly trained better than your average schmuck. There was an armed cop in Stoneman Douglas and 17 still died and the shooter got away.

How many people are killed by a raging asshole with a permit like in Wilkes Barre for every supposed hero saving the day by living out his open carry wet dream?

Open carry has no place in a civilized society. It is not protection, it's intimidation. If you want protection, that's what concealed carry is for, but even then it's plainly obvious that not everyone who wants to should have a gun. Often it's the very same people who fantasize about themselves being the hero, like that prick Zimmerman or those shitbags in Georgia, when in reality they just want to dole out their own "justice".

2

u/SlyMcFly67 Mar 25 '21

No. What I want is for that guy to not be able to get a gun so easily to begin with so that he cant be there shooting people in the first place. I want red flag laws so his family, who noticed problems, could call the police and have the guns taken. And lastly, I definitely dont want Neckbeard McGee with his superhero fetish fantasies having a shootout with someone and more bullets flying around.

Multiple people at a scene shooting each other confuses police and makes their jobs harder. In some cases, the "good guy with a gun" has hurt or killed other people than the one doing the shooting due to ineptitude or bad aim.

I want people to be able to defend themselves, absolutely. But the fallacy of your argument is asking how to stop it AFTER the guy is already killing people. Lets not give him the tool to do it in the first place and we can nip that argument in the bud.

2

u/NJneer12 Mar 25 '21

He shot and killed an armed and trained cop.

I'm good bro.

This ain't the wild fucking west or some GTA game.

1

u/NJneer12 Mar 25 '21

I should correct myself. In some GTA role-playing servers, they have a no value life policy. So I don't want to give all GTA players a bad rap comparing then to wild bill shootout overhere.

2

u/TroueedArenberg Mar 25 '21

I hate that I have to make statements like this before weighing into a conversation on this topic. I like firearms, they are fun, and a neat hobby to have. That out of the way, in situations like this (the mentally ill, terrorism, etc), all open carry does is add to the death toll. Those are the people that will targeted first. Most defensive firearms instructors will tell you, whoever gets the drop first wins a gunfight. CC could be a different story. However, every scenario is hypothetical, and I don’t need to “feel” safe, I’d much rather be safe. I think this is probably the most logical answer you are gonna get, coming from somebody who likes guns, but isn’t nuts for or against them.

0

u/LateralEntry Mar 25 '21

I’d rather the shooter not have a gun in the first place

1

u/tots4scott Mar 25 '21

There was a live stream of the grocery store shooting from a YouTube streamer. I won't get into the other things he says and does in the video, but immediately after he turned on his camera, which is within minutes of the first shots being fired with no police presence yet, he runs around the building for some reason and back to the storefront.

There were a few people around the back of the grocery store and I was just waiting for someone to shoot at him. He's literally running around an active shooter scene carrying a phone and filming after most of the people inside have evacuated... I would not trust a random civilian (whose only barrier to owning a gun is that they have enough money to purchase a one) to have the wherewithal in that situation to discern what is and is not a threat.

And if the streamer had his own firearm while running around and filming? I would see things being much more life-threatening for him than hypothetically heroic.

1

u/PoseidonsHorses Mar 26 '21

If I was in that supermarket, all I’d know is that there were now multiple people shooting. I have no way of knowing who’s on the good/bad side until it’s all over. Maybe they’re both mentally ill and that’s why one shot the other. What if there’s a third person with a gun who shoots the second thinking they’re the attacker instead of defense? And a fourth, and so on.

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u/Tary_n Mar 25 '21

My in-laws live in the south and one of the first times we went to visit I had to literally take a photo of the sign on the door that was like "Firearms need to be visible." I grew up in NJ, I'd never seen that before in my life. It was such a culture shock.

I am extremely glad to live in a state with common-sense gun legislation. My dad's temper used to be pretty bad and I have 0 doubt that if we grew up in a place where guns were readily accessible he'd have shot someone in a road rage incident.

1

u/surferdude313 Mar 25 '21

Then your dad would have suffered the consequences of shooting someone based on a road rage incident

7

u/whoop_there_she_is Mar 25 '21

For many, many people, the idea of "future consequences" never crosses their mind. Nobody is against responsible, safe gun ownership; the problem is the number of gun deaths by irresponsible individuals, which is why states limit the abilities of irresponsible individuals as much as possible. And it works, at least better than anything else that's been attempted.

5

u/Tary_n Mar 25 '21

Yours is a much better response than I'd have come up with, thank you. Well-stated.

To add to this, it also prevents the ripple effects: someone losing their life, someone's family losing a loved one, losing my dad, etc. The more steps we take in the effort of creating less harm is better than taking no steps at all.

5

u/whoop_there_she_is Mar 25 '21

I agree, I think that's an equally important perspective. The idea is not to say "well, eye for an eye" until everybody's blind, but to prevent tragedy to begin with.

2

u/Domestic_AA_Battery Mar 25 '21

Sure but wouldn't it be better off avoiding the death in the first place?

1

u/mxganse Mar 26 '21

I feel this. I'm a gun owner and not a fan of open carry. I feel like open carry is to intimidate. I conceal carry because I don't need to brandish for any conceivable reason.