Remember When Reagan Got Shot in Broad Daylight, Surrounded By Security Pros Packing Heat?

[stopbush]

If you do, remind the RWer sitting next to you, because he seems to have forgotten that fact when he brings out his "if more people had been armed, this guy coulda been stopped" meme about the shootings in Aurora.

[nanabugg]

1. ++1,000 nt

[TheCowsCameHome]

2. Excellent point.

It's a fantasy to most of them.

[Mimosa]

3. Remember who Reagan's Veep was?

Last edited Fri Jul 20, 2012, 11:54 PM - Edit history (1)

And...weren't John Hinkley's family part of that Veep's social circle?

*edited for misspell by Mimosa *

[Politicalboi]

5. Yes and

Yes. Poppy and Babs were friends of the Hinkley's. But that just "conspiracy" stuff. Same Bush who couldn't remember where he was on Nov 22nd 1963.

[arely staircase]

24. if he really couldnt amswer where he was when he found out jfk was shot

that's suspicious. the problem with drawing conclusions about the Reagan shooting based on the (true) relationship between the bush's and the hinkleys is the fact that bush survived politically even after Reagan did physically. Reagan wasn't with Alzheimer's that early in his term. If you swing at the king you had better be sure you kill him goes the old saying.

[markpkessinger]

26. Actually, it's hard to say when Reagan's Alzheimers began...

... Having watched two relatives develop the disease, the onset can be so gradual that someone can have the disease for a long time before anybody happens to notice the symptoms.

[tanyev]

18. Now, now. That shooting interfered with Neil Bush and Scott Hinckley's dinner plans.

Demmed inconvenient timing, it was.


"Bush Son Had Dinner Plans With Hinckley Brother Before Shooting "
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3520718

[Drunken Irishman]

4. I said the same thing.

[cthulu2016]

6. That is foolish.

If your argument is that a secret service detail in the theater would not have reduced the number of people shot then it preposterous. The secret service had Reagan's shooter disarmed within about three seconds.

If you knew a gunman was going to walking up and down the aisles shooting people then it would be an excellent idea for some of the theatergoers to be armed. It would save net lives in that instance. (And those who argue it wouldn't are really too dense to even talk to.)

The reason it is wrong for theatergoers to be armed is that 99.9999% of movie showing do NOT feature a gunman walking up and down shooting people. (Just as 99.999% of airplanes are not hijacked and flown into buildings.)

The net harm of everyone being armed all the time is greater than the benefit of everyone being armed in one freakish scenario.

[stopbush]

9. That's not the argument I'm making.

The argument is that a team of highly-trained security people (Secret Service, etc) who were all armed and who had Reagan surrounded and whose ONLY job it was to neutralize shooters before they could take a shot failed to stop Reagan and others from being shot. Their job was to always be anticipating an attack, every second of the day. Yet, even on highest alert, they couldn't stop the main target from being shot.

Did they keep the shooting victims to a handful? Yes. But they failed in their main task, which was to keep the president from being shot.

Fast forward to Aurora, in a situation where no one is expecting a shooting, where it is no one's job to protect any particular person. Is it plausible to believe that if more people in that audience - ie: not a SS detail anticipating an attack - were armed, that the number of people shot would have been reduced?

Don't think so.

If it took Reagan's highly trained detail 3 second to disarm a shooter wearing nothing but street clothes, how long would it take a bunch of INDIVIDUALLY ARMED AMATEURS, none of them knowing who else in the theater was armed, to coordinate an effort in the dark and the smoke to disarm a guy wearing body armor, carrying 3 major weapons and firing randomly?

[cthulu2016]

15. I understood your argument and it is just wrong.

If everyone in that particular theater had been armed the death toll would have been lower.

If, however, everyone in every theater was armed the annual death toll in theaters would be much higher.

That is why it is undesirable for everyone to be armed all the time.

The contention that an armed audience in this particular case would have been worse than the alternative is really not worth discussion.

[Zoeisright]

29. No, it is not wrong.

There was an armed person in the crowd when Gabby Gifford was shot too. He almost shot the wrong person. More armed people do not make a safer place. Period.

[treestar]

35. That's the assumption

But is it really so certain? It would depend. On how much they could see and how good they were with the gun. It looks too easy when we see it on TV.

Possibly more people could get shot in the long run. Especially if there are several people trying to shoot the original shooter.

[arely staircase]

42. i disagree with you about this

the death toll being lower in the theater, especially since.the guy was wearing full body armor. But your reasoning for not allowing people to pack in such scenarios is spot on.

[TeamPooka]

12. I disagree because now 11 people with guns = who's the bad guy?

You pop up with a gun and I have one too.
Are you WITH the guy shooting people?
Columbine was a team kill.
So I shoot you, then him and anyone else with a gun because I KNOW I'm not there to kill people but not too sure about the rest of you.
Now 11 people are thinking that at the same time armed and pointing....
This why guns make good offensive weapons but unreliable defensive ones.

[cthulu2016]

16. Whatever. You want to believe something silly and nothing will stop you.

[TeamPooka]

25. what you believe is way sillier

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

34. As I recall, in the Giffords shooting....

There was a guy nearby who was a CC license holder. He said after the fact that he didn't draw his weapon because he didn't want to be taken as a second gunman and shot by the police. Which I thought was an uncommonly wise course of action.

[slampoet]

7. like when Sadat was killed while being surrounded by an ARMY.

[pkdu]

8. +100,000,000 n/t

[TeamPooka]

10. Guns make great offensive weapons

but if you need it for defense it's often too late to use it.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

43. Succinctly put.

[4th law of robotics]

13. Isn't the argument that guns are useless to stop such people?

Why then did the secret service carry guns?

[cthulu2016]

17. Don't bother.

Some people simply... can... not... think. (And don't much care to, either.)

[HiPointDem]

14. by that craaaazy hinckley, friend of the bush family -- coincidentally, of course.

just another craaaazy loner with no political motives whatsoever.

[Nye Bevan]

19. That guy shot one person. Not 12. (nt)

[loyalsister]

23. Actually Hinckley shot 3 people

James Brady (Ever hear of the the Brady Bill?), Timothy McCarthy, and Thomas Delahanty

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

36. Four

You're forgetting Reagan himself.

[loyalsister]

38. oops

I was thinking three other people. Thanks for the correction.

[arely staircase]

20. well they did stop him before he got off a fraction of the shots this guy did

not with their guns. but lets not pretend that having trained protection around can't protect a person. And no, I don't believe having a CC person there engaging the guy would have done anything but get more people killed.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

37. Hinckley used a single revolver...

Deadly dangerous, but quaint by modern standards

[arely staircase]

39. very good point

Hinkley could not have caused a fraction of the casualties this guy did. But my.pint still stands. The bodyguards did subdue him.

[ErikJ]

21. Reagan supported gun control

Michael Collins, in his Feb. 7 op-ed "The overlooked Reagan legacy: decency," overlooked the fact that the late president was a supporter of gun control laws.

As governor of California, Ronald Reagan signed the Mulford Act, which prohibited the carrying of firearms on your person, in your vehicle, and in any public place or on the street, and he also signed off on a 15-day waiting period for firearm purchases. After leaving the presidency, he supported the passage of the Brady bill that established by federal law a nationwide, uniform standard of a 7-day waiting period for the purchase of handguns to enable background checks on prospective buyers. He urged then President Bush to drop his opposition to the bill.

As reported in the media, after mentioning he was a member of the NRA, President Reagan stated the following at a George Washington University ceremony on March 28, 1991, marking the 10th anniversary of his near assassination: "With the right to bear arms comes a great responsibility to use caution and common sense on handgun purchases. And it's just plain common sense that there be a waiting period to allow local law-enforcement officials to conduct background checks on those who wish to purchase handguns." Enough said.

more http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/readersrespond/bs-ed-reagan-letter-20120210,0,1471722.story

[Canuckistanian]

22. Yup. This was an "ambush" type shooting

The guy fired off all of his shots in a matter of seconds in a dark theater (the movie NEVER stopped playing, nor were the house lights ever turned on)

Now, even if you were a military trained shooter, could you have reacted fast enough in such an unexpected situation?

[arcane1]

27. The sad number of friendly-fire deaths and injuries answers that question

[drmjg]

28. One point to recall is also debunked here

Many people believe that IF a shooter thinks many are armed, the shooter will think that he better not even try.

Crazy misguided people, legally, armed to the teeth will get in multiple rounds before an armed person has time to think and react. If the unstable person is not given pause because others MAY have a gun, the possibility of a multi round shooting still exists.

We need to come up with limits on the type of weapons available, and reliable ways of knowing WHO has the ability to buy a gun. Ok, I'll bite and somewhat accept the idiotic claim that the inanimate object, the gun, does not kill. However, I will not accept the illogical implied "therefore" that we, as a humane and civilized people, do not have the DUTY to take ever precaution to minimize by law the violence cause buy people who use such weapons.

Colorado is a rather unfettered concealed carry state. It is a state with a history of gun availability. So tell be, NRA, you have your perfect world here. How did it STOP the violence.?

But we, as a people who have the right to life and the right to be secure in our life, have the duty, yes duty, to make sure that not only we know who is able to purchase a weapon, but that weapons of mass murder, such as the AR-15, have a very very limited opportunity to get in the hands of such people.

[Lint Head]

31. I heard this today from Ronnie Reagan. Also policemen are shot when they do traffic stops and

they are carrying guns. The pro gun GOP argument is so full of holes it's absurd.

[McCamy Taylor]

32. If the children had been packing heat....

...they would have killed each other accidentally playing with their guns before the gunman got there.

[triplepoint]

40. I remember Hinckley Used a small caliber(22) handgun

--too small for the job...obviously.

[mckara]

41. Except, Holmes Shot 70 People More than Hinckley!