Monday, July 25, 2011

Speaking of bloody shirt waving...

Found in my email news alerts this AM:
We were reminded again that a gun in the hands of a true believer like Breivik is still the greatest weapon of mass destruction of them all. We are conditioned now to think of terrorism as planes flying into our buildings, or explosions in the London subway, or a stupid little amateur trying to blow up a car in Times Square. All it still takes is one guy with a gun.
This from a newspaper writer in New York. It amazes me that anyone who could stick their head out the window and notice a gap in their skyline could still type that with a straight face.

Based on the numbers, I think box cutters are still the heavyweight champs.
.

39 comments:

Marty said...

And all it takes to stop it is one person with a gun.

Dave said...

Never mind the fact he broke all kinds of gun laws in one of the strictest antigun nations around, obviously piling more gun laws on will fix the problem. Yep, no murderers are gonna use guns when they're double plus illegal...

On a more serious note, none of the old media morons wallowing in children's blood seem to care about the fact that he used a cop uniform and people's trust to gather victims.

Tam said...

Dave,

"Never mind the fact he broke all kinds of gun laws in one of the strictest antigun nations around..."

Actually, Norway's gun laws are, on balance, not really any worse than, say, New Jersey's...

Robert McDonald said...

One guy with a gun in societies that generally are too stupid to go armed, or who are just plain insane and make it against the law to go armed, is a very troubling thing. Arm everyone. Then one man with a gun will always face at least one other person with a gun. As soon as the prick in question did, he surrendered.

Odysseus said...

One might argue the whole maximum of 21 years in prison(Norwegian prisons aren't exactly San Quinton) would also do little to deter only mildly crazy would be murderers.

I'm sure some of the same people in Norway who used to look upon Texas as barbaric are now wishing they had the same ability to seek justice.

The Duck said...

Well I think the writer means gun deaths are worse than other kinds of death like being flown into a target aboard a liquid fuel bomb, or being killed be the concussion of a car bomb, or even being stabbed to death, and drowning on your own blood. Of course dead is dead. If he had been a bit more clever with his bombs and his timing he could have had a lot more with his explosives.

Bram said...

One guy with a gun in a camp for Labour kids.

My summer camp had a range with .22's and an Vet who ran it. Even if we couldn't get to the rifles, we would have figured out how to rush the guy with axes and knives while he reloaded. Running from a gunman is the worst idea.

Bubblehead Les. said...

Not sure about the box cutters. Maybe as a single event, but I think the largest number killed for the least expenditure would be the paper and ink used to publish Karl Marx's Crap. How many hundreds of millions have died over the last 150 years to perpetrate that miserable waste of sperm's "Communist Manifesto?"

Mulliga said...

Actually, Norway's gun laws are, on balance, not really any worse than, say, New Jersey's...

Maybe this used to be the case, but guns laws in Norway seem to be fairly restrictive nowadays. You need to take a multi-day course to even own a gun legally, and it's verboten to actually have a gun for self-defense in the home.

staghounds said...

How about we

STOP PUTTNG THEIR GOD DAMNED FACES AT THE FRONT AND CENTER OF EVERY NEWS MEDIUM ON THE PLANET????????

Fame and a soapbox drives these creatures. The front page of the New York Times is the weapon.



In the tool used class, depending on how you define "terrorism", I think Mosin rifles still win, followed by Royal Navy ships and B-29s.

Woodman said...

I've found a couple of items that state he had a license for a Ruger Mini 14 and a "Glock" handgun.

The witnesses, and press, claim it was an assault rifle, shotgun, machine gun, automatic rifle, everything but an RPG. I assume it's the lack of a gun culture that makes it impossible to identify what he was using. The photo I saw of him with the rifle has so much crap bolted on to it I'm surprised he could lift it.

I don't know how a single gunman can attack at will an island with over 600 people on it. With no apparent resistance. Everything I am reading has people walking and running up to him for help, well after he started shooting people.

Survivor accounts state that there were several people hiding mere feet from him several times during the shooting. And apparently they all just kept their heads down. He would leave an area and then come back later, and it's not like the whole island was a flat football field.

The police get there, with no guns, and just stand on the shore? I would have grabbed my buddies and some damn trashcan lids and been going at it anyway. At least then you have cops getting shot instead of kids. I would have problems sleeping at night if I just stood on the shore and waited for the cavalry. The police were even stopping people who were going out in boats to rescue kids.

theirritablearchitect said...

"Based on the numbers, I think box cutters are still the heavyweight champs."

Dunno. You are probably right. Might want to check out what's being used most often in Russia these days.

WilhelmDurand said...

Pretty sure the greatest weapon of mass production of them all is the Tsar Bomba.

Just sayin'.

og said...

Box cutters? Slick Willy did more damage (metaphorically speaking) with his dick. he may not have killed anyone with it directly (Doesn't he wish!)but the results of his actions sure made other countries think we were a paper tiger, and, well, at the moment, we are.

Mark Alger said...

But ya know... Windows are like minds -- they work best when they're open. I would bet you COULD not get a window open at the New York Times.

M

NotClauswitz said...

Windows in buildings need to be fixed shut so that the HVAC works properly and everybody breathes the same Lotus-scented air.

Unknown said...

So far, governments seem to hold the record for dead bodies. Disarm government people, not citizens.

jimbob86 said...

"I don't know how a single gunman can attack at will an island with over 600 people on it. With no apparent resistance. Everything I am reading has people walking and running up to him for help, well after he started shooting people."

I can explain it in a single word:

"Eloi"

jimbob86

Marty said...

Please be careful out there.

Events like this give other Crazies encouragement, thanks to the media coverage. Just enough to tip them over. Just enough good ideas to increase the body count.

"Hey, Dress like a cop!"

"Hey, Pick a controlled access gun free zone!"

Be careful out there.

Anonymous said...

Somebody 'splain somethin' to me.

Norwegian doctors have been quoted as saying the shooter used "dum-dum bullets," as if they were some sort of extra-lethal bullets that were tested on baby seals or something. Are they not just talking about plain old hollow-point or soft-point ammunition? You know, the ammunition carried by most if not all CCW holders to minimize the chance of wounding an innocent bystander?

Tam said...

southeasttexaspistolero,

Reading between the lines, it was maybe some .223 varmint load or another. Ballistic Tips, Blitzkings, V-Max, something like that.

Anonymous said...

Ah, okay. For some strange reason I was thinking of pistol ammunition, but either way it's aggravating to hear them not give a less biased explanation.

Anonymous said...

I just assumed he was getting some tumble on the .223's.

Woodman said...

They keep calling the weapon used an assault rifle, or a machine gun...

I can't imagine them getting the ammo used correct.

Tam said...

"I just assumed he was getting some tumble on the .223's."

That's a possibility, too, but I think hollowpoints are probably more likely.

Anonymous said...

It should be noted this is one of Mike Lupica's tamer moments. He previously blamed the death of Steve McNair on the American gun culture. (Which is odd, because it was McNair's mistress who actually pulled the trigger.)

Lupica's still full of it, though.

Drang said...

I don't know how a single gunman can attack at will an island with over 600 people on it. With no apparent resistance. Everything I am reading has people walking and running up to him for help, well after he started shooting people.

The Japanese used to be Samurai.
Scandanavians used to be Vikings.
Lots of parallels in Europe.

Anonymous said...

According to the NBC nightly news, apparently "right wing bloggers" are responsible for this "hate crime", and Homeland Security is "investigating" the connection.

That means they're reading this blog. Talk about dancing in blood...and attacking gun rights ain't the half of it. Chilling.

AT

Michael Z. Williamson said...

The Tsar Bomba didn't kill anyone. It was a very silly PR stunt on uninhabited ground.

I think the record is either the FN Model 1912 in .32ACP, killing 37 million people with two bullets, fired into Archduke Ferdinand, or the 1895 Nagant revolver, with 14 million victims kneeling 6" from the muzzle.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/andrewbrown/2011/jul/24/norway-anders-behring-breivik-beliefs?intcmp=239 And I think this moron and all the commenters should be fed into a logchipper. Especially given the English HISTORY of outbreeding the enemy as a strategy.

Ian Argent said...

Nah - NJ is a gun-onwer's paradise compared to Norway, based on what I've been reading. With a very nearly shall-issue lifetime piece of paper, I can buy many different longarms (though it's possible that this dude's tacticool Mini-14 is verboten in the Garden State, depending on the accessories, oddly enough), as many as I like, without any kind of training or storage requirement (other than a vaguely worded law about allowing unsupervised access to a loaded firearm to a minor under 14; which, while I don't believe ought to be a law, is still a good idea).

The Glock 17 is a bit more of a bear to get ahold of, but the paperwork to purchase is again very nearly shall-issue, and I'd personally rather get the G19 if I was bent on mayhem, as due to the quirks of NJ law vs other AWB, I can legally purchase a higher capacity magazine for the -19 than the -17...

I will note that almost all of the "we don't want to ban firearms, just ensure "responsible" people own and possess them" laws were in place in Norway (belong to a club, demonstrate need for sport, mental eval, &c.) None of that stopped this guy

Anonymous said...

...and today it's vid games.

Guns, right-wing blogs, and WoW.

Keep in mind it's not the freak himself desperately laying this blame, it's media and...???

Funny, because the truth is a punchline, but you'll never hear it mentioned.

That's right; the devil made him do it.

AT

Anonymous said...

Ian,

"The Glock 17 is a bit more of a bear to get ahold of..."

Damn things are hard to avoid here in America. For now.

AT

Ian Argent said...

Oh, they're not rare or anything; I have one myself. The paperwork required to purchase any pistols is annoyingly tedious to acquire, that's all.

Anonymous said...

"The paperwork required..."

Yeah, that was the point of my America crack...

Fla is way not perfect, but Monday in my son's shop an old fellow sold me his silver coin horde and asked who might buy a few handguns. I told him I'm not in the gun biz anymore but might be interested in a private purchase. Yesterday he brought in a non-Walther P-38 WWII bringback, a 576--- numbered S&W .38 (probably about 1927)...and a G17. I bought the first two and let him keep the Glock. Son has a 27 in the store, and I still have a long-slide .45 in the safe. I wrote him a dated and numbered receipt to sign and handed him $500, and that was the extent of the "paperwork".

Don't dislike Glocks as they are super-efficient at what they do, but I didn't need it. This area was awash in 17's in the 90's when the cop shops were switching to .40's and the wholesalers were dumping 9's for cheap, usually with 2 or 3 mags, which I crassly and capitalisticly sold separately for about $100 a pop...that was of course the days of the 2nd Salesman of the Year for FFL's.

AT

Ian Argent said...

If I wanted to purchase a longarm privately, that would be about the extent of the paperwork required as well. (There's a certificate of Eligibility that the seller has to keep, but it is available as a pdf). And if I was willing to keep up with rotating pistol permits (at roughly $10 every 3-6 months), it could be that easy for a pistol; the paperwork laws are surpassingly easy to game as long as your local CLEO isn't a total asshole.

I'm not trying to say that NJ's gun laws are good, or even constitutional. But, there are three changes that would make NJ's gun laws compare favorably with, say, PA's. Eliminate the FID and Permit to Purchase in favor of NICS, require a Permit to Carry to be shall-issue after passing NICS, and delete the 7-day waiting period for purchasing a handgun after applying for paperwork. Ok, 2 more: eliminate the state AWB and the restrictions on possessing hollowpoints in public.

All of these can be done by quite legally-conservative court rulings. There's a suit to force shall-issue in federal court now, with action expected in september.

I don't find hyperbole about NJ's gun laws to be helpful. They're plenty bad, but making them out to be worse than they are distracts from what can and what needs to be done.

Anonymous said...

It ain't hype if it's fact, whether you're talking NJ, NY, Mass, or Cali...

And unless the oppressed folks in those places want to work towards the precedents set in let's say, England, the more discussion, complaining, and "sunshine", the better. And that's helpful as hell.

AT

Ian Argent said...

Actually, Norway's gun laws are, on balance, not really any worse than, say, New Jersey's...

Maybe this used to be the case, but guns laws in Norway seem to be fairly restrictive nowadays. You need to take a multi-day course to even own a gun legally, and it's verboten to actually have a gun for self-defense in the home.


The bolded part is hyperbolic, considering the second part; there's no training requirement at all to own a firearm, and possessing a functional loaded firearm in the home is not forbidden. Having looked at some of Norway's laws as detailed at Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Norway) there's no comparison, even with the moronic anti-freedom "interpretations" of the laws by NJ's judiciary.

Handguns have some calibre restrictions. A Smith & Wesson Model 500, for example, is illegal due to its high power, but other, less powerful, guns are legal as they are used in sports shooting. Norway has a long tradition of high-end sports shooting competitions, especially rifle shooting. Each calibre must be used in some type of competition to be allowed. Also, there is a restriction on the number of weapons an owner can have for each calibre. For recreational shooters, only one gun is allowed in each calibre. For professional and semi-professional shooters, a spare gun is allowed. A recreational shooter is only allowed to own four different handguns. To obtain more, documentation on extensive involvement in sport shooting is needed.

NJ doesn't come close. (And you're speakign to someone who believes that NJ firearms law is marginally worse for legal firearms owners than, say, MA, due to the vagueness in the statutes and judicicial "interpretation".)

Anonymous said...

Ah. So it was Tams who ticked you off; I thought it was me. Either way, hang on to your humor, because you gotta laugh.

I was gonna say, who knew you Joisies were so easily hurt, but now I know you're a born Southron, and everybody knows we're the gentle, sensitive type. :)

AT

Ian Argent said...

It's one of my easily-pushed buttons; and one that I really ought to put a cover on...

There's so much misinformation about NJ gun laws out there; and a lot of it serves to discourage people from starting the process of becoming a gun owner. The process is tedious, but not especially difficult, and likewise bring a gun owner isn't a legally fraught endeavor, at least not to the extent many people think. There are gotcha's in the law, especially as "interpreted," no question. It's those areas I'd prefer to reserve my ire for.