For all its foibles and peculiarities, the US’ apparently almost fetishistic relationship with guns is far and away the hardest for me to understand as an outside observer.
Trust me, I live here and I don’t get it either. And when you ask people they’ll tell you they have guns because other people have guns so they need it for protection. So you guys all have guns because you’re scared other people have guns?? Great recipe.
If only the crazies have guns, they’re going to start acting a lot crazier. Does it magically make everything safer to have your own? Obviously not. Statistically you’re more likely to shoot yourself.
But until we pass actual gun control, it’s hard to judge someone for having a gun.
I bought my first gun right after the fat dipshit won the 2016 election. I realized that there were many more hateful, violent, dumbasses here than I’d ever imagined. I lived in a very red county at the time and I didn’t think it was impossible that they might “leak” lists of registered non-Republican voters’ info along with stochastic terroristic speech like “it’d be nice if my supporters who also support the 2nd amendment could do something about these misguided people.”
I’m less worried about that now for various reasons, but we’re not completely out of the fascist woods yet. There’s a deep, festering rot and we’ve only treated symptoms. Until we address campaign finance, education funding, disinformation, and stronger market regulation and trust busting, we’re just kicking the can down the road.
Why not buy a bulletproof vest instead? Fighting fire with fire is not always the most efficient…
I remember seeing some sort of huge bulletproof blanket used by Japanese police to apprehend armed peoples. They hide behind that blanket and run towards the gunner to wrap them in it. The good side is that the gunner can be arrested alive for trial.
I don’t know if it was just a concept or of its really in use…
I have an honest question for you. Have you ever seen a bulletproof vest?
Also, the person you’re replying to gave a very frightening scenario: being hunted down at your own home. If you’re not shooting back, what do you think the enemy is going to do? Give up and go away? Molotov cocktails are an easy, low-tech solution to a barricaded enemy you don’t care about taking alive.
Now, if we assume you’re in public, there are still issues with a bulletproof vest. They’re not really all that great at being concealed. If you truly have a bulletproof vest that can fit underneath clothing, it’s not going to stop many bullets. You can look through the wikipedia page on different levels of body armor, and do a quick search to see how bulky the different types are. Police armor is rated for most handguns, and is super bulky already. Military armor can hopefully stand up to a rifle bullet, but they’re often ceramic plates, which don’t last against multiple rounds, and are very obvious and stand out. Your slim-fit vest may be able to handle a very small subset of rounds. If you go the route of more protection, you’re going to find yourself targeted by the gunman due to your visibility and because your potential as a threat is large compared to others. Even a very high quality, military vest/suit is not going to cover you well enough to make a difference if a single person is shooting at you and A) you don’t have buddies to give you cover fire and make them put their head down and B) space because you knew the shooter was an enemy before he pulled out a gun and started shooting at you.
I was once advised never to discuss this topic with Americans because it’s impossible to have a normal logic discussion… But I’m a bit dumb so I’ll do it anyway! (Assuming you’re American, sorry if I’m mistaken!)
A couple of points:
You’re right, I’ve never actually seen a bulletproof vest in real life. Notice that your laser focus on the technicality of some vests is very interesting and explains why they are not very common. Yet it doesn’t really implies that it couldn’t work. For example, the slim-fit c’est you’re taking about would be an excellent solution to give a chance to run away. In a similar vein, ABS brakes on a car do not perfectly prevent collisions but still help reduce the severity of accidents.
Regarding your imaginary scenario, please re-read the thread… It seems to me that you’re the first one mentioning the “very frightening scenario”. I’ll skip this one for now since it’s a different topic.
In public, would a concealable vest be good enough against concealable guns? Would a concealable gun be effective against a non-concealable big gun? It seems to me that all your arguments against vests also applies to guns…
Replacing guns by non-lethal tools would probably be just as effective to disable an attacker, while at the same time being a good first step to detox from this gun addiction, hopefully leading to a reduced number of gun accidents.
I’ve had to wear bulletproof vests, and now choose not to because they are a massive pain. So that’s why I felt like I should explain why they aren’t a good solution. They won’t be of any help in the majority of cases, and will likely slow you down. Unlike the ABS example, the amount of help a vest that would fit underneath your typical clothing is so small that it would be next to useless. At the distance you’d have to be from a shooter in order for it to be effective against a round it isn’t meant for, the reason you’d survive is because they can’t accurately aim at you. Anywhere within reasonable accuracy distances, it would be worthless. Most individuals aren’t going to be accurate with a pistol past 10-15 yards, well within the range that a 9mm, .45, .40, etc. are effective against level I or level II armor.
You’re right, I looked quickly and it looked like you were replying to MrVilliam’s post, where he said he was afraid the locals would leak his home address. Obviously, on a re-look, that’s not the case. So… oops.
No. Concealable guns (handguns, for the most part, leaving aside the ridiculous sweatpants video) easily penetrate all but the best armor. The Ft. Hood shooter, for example, used a pistol that was chambered in .223, the ‘civilian’ version of the 5.56.
3b. Also, yes. While I wouldn’t want to use a handgun against a rifle or shotgun, I’d still much prefer to have one, especially in the situations where the majority of shootings happen. It wouldn’t help at all in the Las Vegas shooting, but in the rest? Schools, grocery stores, large chain stores? A pistol would work well. The range you’d be engaging the shooter at will likely be within those 15 yards that people can accurately aim a handgun. That kind of carries into your last, unnumbered point. Right now, non-lethal (which should really be called less-lethal, but that’s a whole thing I personally roll my eyes at) options don’t have anywhere near a large enough range. The longest Tasers reach around 40’, I think, while the 37mm or 40mm bean-bag shooters are never going to be carried around by a civilian casually. The taser almost certainly won’t be effective at that range. I think it’s an 8 degree spread between the two probes, which works out to about 1 foot of spread every 7 feet of distance to the target. At the maximum range of 40’, that’s nearly a 6 foot spread. A taser isn’t going to be super accurate either, so you’d have to aim for the head and get lucky, and also get lucky that your nearly 6 foot spread of the barbs hit the other guy’s foot. Otherwise it isn’t going to be very effective at stopping the shooter from shooting you.
As an aside, sure, I’m an American. I think I’m pretty logical about everything, though. I think societies that don’t have guns outnumbering folks are great and wish we could get there. I also think that we’ve gotten ourselves into a shithole, and it is at the point where the first person to disarm is fucked. It’s just like this stupid nuclear weapon situation. Can you really imagine America, Britain, France, etc. giving up their nuclear weapons after seeing how Russia is acting? That’s what it’s going to be like for at least a decade if we vote now to get rid of civilian ownership of guns. ‘The Purge’ wouldn’t be a good depiction of what it would be like, but I don’t want to wait 30 minutes for the police to come help when my meth head neighbor decides to get revenge for all the ‘slights’ I’ve ever given him (like asking him not to dump his tires and burn them next to my chicken coop because he thought it was funny) with his little dump gun in hand and here I am having turned over my guns to the sheriff.
Thanks for the enlightening discussion! I still think it would be better to try anything but guns to try and protect against guns… Yet you made me understand that the situation is to far gone to just take a chance and go defenseless!
I mean, my next door neighbor is the closest to a “methhead” in the neighborhood, but he’s only a violent alcoholic and never displayed aggression towards strangers… He’s nice and shares his free run eggs with us, so I don’t fear for my life living next door!
It’s a chicken and egg problem, but your neighbor may not come at you with his gun if he didn’t feel threatened by the one he fears you own! From his perspective, don’t go knocking at the door of someone who might point a gun at you without bringing your own…
Imagine a defensive tool which would make you feel safe without making people around you scared of you!
For all its foibles and peculiarities, the US’ apparently almost fetishistic relationship with guns is far and away the hardest for me to understand as an outside observer.
Trust me, I live here and I don’t get it either. And when you ask people they’ll tell you they have guns because other people have guns so they need it for protection. So you guys all have guns because you’re scared other people have guns?? Great recipe.
That’s what my wife says. I want to sell our gun and she’s anti-gun too. But she doesn’t want to get rid of our gun until guns are banned.
Play by the rules of the game you’re playing.
Not the rules of the game you want to play.
If only the crazies have guns, they’re going to start acting a lot crazier. Does it magically make everything safer to have your own? Obviously not. Statistically you’re more likely to shoot yourself.
But until we pass actual gun control, it’s hard to judge someone for having a gun.
I bought my first gun right after the fat dipshit won the 2016 election. I realized that there were many more hateful, violent, dumbasses here than I’d ever imagined. I lived in a very red county at the time and I didn’t think it was impossible that they might “leak” lists of registered non-Republican voters’ info along with stochastic terroristic speech like “it’d be nice if my supporters who also support the 2nd amendment could do something about these misguided people.”
I’m less worried about that now for various reasons, but we’re not completely out of the fascist woods yet. There’s a deep, festering rot and we’ve only treated symptoms. Until we address campaign finance, education funding, disinformation, and stronger market regulation and trust busting, we’re just kicking the can down the road.
Why not buy a bulletproof vest instead? Fighting fire with fire is not always the most efficient…
I remember seeing some sort of huge bulletproof blanket used by Japanese police to apprehend armed peoples. They hide behind that blanket and run towards the gunner to wrap them in it. The good side is that the gunner can be arrested alive for trial.
I don’t know if it was just a concept or of its really in use…
I have an honest question for you. Have you ever seen a bulletproof vest?
Also, the person you’re replying to gave a very frightening scenario: being hunted down at your own home. If you’re not shooting back, what do you think the enemy is going to do? Give up and go away? Molotov cocktails are an easy, low-tech solution to a barricaded enemy you don’t care about taking alive.
Now, if we assume you’re in public, there are still issues with a bulletproof vest. They’re not really all that great at being concealed. If you truly have a bulletproof vest that can fit underneath clothing, it’s not going to stop many bullets. You can look through the wikipedia page on different levels of body armor, and do a quick search to see how bulky the different types are. Police armor is rated for most handguns, and is super bulky already. Military armor can hopefully stand up to a rifle bullet, but they’re often ceramic plates, which don’t last against multiple rounds, and are very obvious and stand out. Your slim-fit vest may be able to handle a very small subset of rounds. If you go the route of more protection, you’re going to find yourself targeted by the gunman due to your visibility and because your potential as a threat is large compared to others. Even a very high quality, military vest/suit is not going to cover you well enough to make a difference if a single person is shooting at you and A) you don’t have buddies to give you cover fire and make them put their head down and B) space because you knew the shooter was an enemy before he pulled out a gun and started shooting at you.
I was once advised never to discuss this topic with Americans because it’s impossible to have a normal logic discussion… But I’m a bit dumb so I’ll do it anyway! (Assuming you’re American, sorry if I’m mistaken!)
A couple of points:
You’re right, I’ve never actually seen a bulletproof vest in real life. Notice that your laser focus on the technicality of some vests is very interesting and explains why they are not very common. Yet it doesn’t really implies that it couldn’t work. For example, the slim-fit c’est you’re taking about would be an excellent solution to give a chance to run away. In a similar vein, ABS brakes on a car do not perfectly prevent collisions but still help reduce the severity of accidents.
Regarding your imaginary scenario, please re-read the thread… It seems to me that you’re the first one mentioning the “very frightening scenario”. I’ll skip this one for now since it’s a different topic.
In public, would a concealable vest be good enough against concealable guns? Would a concealable gun be effective against a non-concealable big gun? It seems to me that all your arguments against vests also applies to guns…
Replacing guns by non-lethal tools would probably be just as effective to disable an attacker, while at the same time being a good first step to detox from this gun addiction, hopefully leading to a reduced number of gun accidents.
I’ve had to wear bulletproof vests, and now choose not to because they are a massive pain. So that’s why I felt like I should explain why they aren’t a good solution. They won’t be of any help in the majority of cases, and will likely slow you down. Unlike the ABS example, the amount of help a vest that would fit underneath your typical clothing is so small that it would be next to useless. At the distance you’d have to be from a shooter in order for it to be effective against a round it isn’t meant for, the reason you’d survive is because they can’t accurately aim at you. Anywhere within reasonable accuracy distances, it would be worthless. Most individuals aren’t going to be accurate with a pistol past 10-15 yards, well within the range that a 9mm, .45, .40, etc. are effective against level I or level II armor.
You’re right, I looked quickly and it looked like you were replying to MrVilliam’s post, where he said he was afraid the locals would leak his home address. Obviously, on a re-look, that’s not the case. So… oops.
No. Concealable guns (handguns, for the most part, leaving aside the ridiculous sweatpants video) easily penetrate all but the best armor. The Ft. Hood shooter, for example, used a pistol that was chambered in .223, the ‘civilian’ version of the 5.56.
3b. Also, yes. While I wouldn’t want to use a handgun against a rifle or shotgun, I’d still much prefer to have one, especially in the situations where the majority of shootings happen. It wouldn’t help at all in the Las Vegas shooting, but in the rest? Schools, grocery stores, large chain stores? A pistol would work well. The range you’d be engaging the shooter at will likely be within those 15 yards that people can accurately aim a handgun. That kind of carries into your last, unnumbered point. Right now, non-lethal (which should really be called less-lethal, but that’s a whole thing I personally roll my eyes at) options don’t have anywhere near a large enough range. The longest Tasers reach around 40’, I think, while the 37mm or 40mm bean-bag shooters are never going to be carried around by a civilian casually. The taser almost certainly won’t be effective at that range. I think it’s an 8 degree spread between the two probes, which works out to about 1 foot of spread every 7 feet of distance to the target. At the maximum range of 40’, that’s nearly a 6 foot spread. A taser isn’t going to be super accurate either, so you’d have to aim for the head and get lucky, and also get lucky that your nearly 6 foot spread of the barbs hit the other guy’s foot. Otherwise it isn’t going to be very effective at stopping the shooter from shooting you.
As an aside, sure, I’m an American. I think I’m pretty logical about everything, though. I think societies that don’t have guns outnumbering folks are great and wish we could get there. I also think that we’ve gotten ourselves into a shithole, and it is at the point where the first person to disarm is fucked. It’s just like this stupid nuclear weapon situation. Can you really imagine America, Britain, France, etc. giving up their nuclear weapons after seeing how Russia is acting? That’s what it’s going to be like for at least a decade if we vote now to get rid of civilian ownership of guns. ‘The Purge’ wouldn’t be a good depiction of what it would be like, but I don’t want to wait 30 minutes for the police to come help when my meth head neighbor decides to get revenge for all the ‘slights’ I’ve ever given him (like asking him not to dump his tires and burn them next to my chicken coop because he thought it was funny) with his little dump gun in hand and here I am having turned over my guns to the sheriff.
Thanks for the enlightening discussion! I still think it would be better to try anything but guns to try and protect against guns… Yet you made me understand that the situation is to far gone to just take a chance and go defenseless!
I mean, my next door neighbor is the closest to a “methhead” in the neighborhood, but he’s only a violent alcoholic and never displayed aggression towards strangers… He’s nice and shares his free run eggs with us, so I don’t fear for my life living next door!
It’s a chicken and egg problem, but your neighbor may not come at you with his gun if he didn’t feel threatened by the one he fears you own! From his perspective, don’t go knocking at the door of someone who might point a gun at you without bringing your own…
Imagine a defensive tool which would make you feel safe without making people around you scared of you!
Take care!