Joe Zamudio "It's Been Horrible! The Worst Thing That's Ever Happened..."

[democracy1st]

Run time: 03:21 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZ46P_XwJGw   Posted on YouTube: January 16, 2011 By YouTube Member: MOXNEWSd0tCOM Views on YouTube: 969   Posted on DU: January 17, 2011 By DU Member: democracy1st Views on DU: 2679

 
Gabrielle Giffords and the perils of guns: How an armed hero nearly shot the wrong man.

Does the Tucson, Ariz., massacre justify tighter gun control? Don't be silly. Second Amendment advocates never look at mass shootings that way. For every nut job wreaking mayhem with a semiautomatic weapon, there's a citizen with a firearm who could have stopped him. Look at the 1991 slaughter in Killeen, Texas, where 23 people died in a restaurant while a patron's handgun, thanks to a dumb law, was left outside in her car. Look at the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre, where 32 people died because under the university's naïve policy, nobody in the invaded classrooms was allowed to carry a firearm. Guns save lives. So the argument goes.

Now comes the tragedy in Tucson. And what do gun advocates propose? More guns. Arizona already lets people carry concealed weapons without requiring permits. The legislature is considering two bills to expand this right, and as Slate's David Weigel reports, the Arizona Citizens Defense League is preparing legislation that would require the state to offer firearms training to politicians and their staff. The bill is tentatively titled the Giffords-Zimmerman Act in honor of the wounded congresswoman and her slain aide. "When everyone is carrying a firearm, nobody is going to be a victim," argues the state's top pro-gun legislator. Beyond Arizona, at least two members of Congress say they'll bring guns while traveling their districts.

http://www.slate.com/id/2280794/

[SheilaT]

1. If carrying guns made everyone safe,

then this must be the safest country in the world, with the fewest gun deaths.

Since the death penalty is a deterrent, we must have the lowest murder/homicide rate in the world.

Am I missing something here?

[fascisthunter]

3. it's a cultural/social experiment, and We the People

are the guinea pigs.

[ProudDad]

6. I think you're missing "gunnie" logic...

Even though the statistics prove that the easiest to get and carry a gun states have the most gun deaths per-capita (fact-based thinking)...

More guns mean more safety (NRA/gunnie irrational, wishful-group-think)...

Statistically, death penalty states have more homicides (fact-based thinking)...

The death penalty deters "criminals" from doing murder (NRA/gunnie irrational, wishful-group-think)...

Got it now... :hi:

[AtheistCrusader]

12. Arizona and Alaska fit your statement, but Vermont does not.

Moreover, Vermont has been much lower on the list for a long time, whereas, Alaska and Arizona have been near the top for longer than they have had unlicensed carry.

Enacting unlicensed carry laws has been a reaction to high murder rates, not the other way around.


Something broken in your causal link there.

[Atypical Liberal]

20. It's about freedom, not safety.

"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." - Benjamin Franklin, 1759

[MindandSoul]

2. In this case. . .there were gun carrying people who witnessed this. . .

and felt powerless, even with their gun in their pocket, to intervene!

That should put the story straight about "carrying guns for safety!"

[mrcheerful]

4. It won't though the true gun believer will never see or admit that a gun is not the answer

to all US woes. Even here on DU there are true believers that thinks having a gun means they are less likely to be victims of crime and you can't change their minds away from that belief. They will continue with that belief until the day they run into that one person willing to risk everything rather then go back to prison. Until that day they will continue with their belief no matter what happens to show they are wrong in holding that belief.

[jjewell]

9. They WOULD have responded, but...

they weren't carrying their "extended magazines" and were thus "out-gunned"...

*sarcasm*

[Atypical Liberal]

19. Not true.

In this case. . .there were gun carrying people who witnessed this and felt powerless, even with their gun in their pocket, to intervene!

This is completely untrue. This fellow has been interviewed numerous times, so his story is clear. He was inside the store when he heard the gunshots. He came out of the store with his hand on his firearm, ready to act, but discovered that Loughner had already been apprehended. He has stated that he was quite ready to shoot if necessary, and if other bystanders had not taken Loughner down, that very well may have happened.

[Peace Patriot]

5. Sounds like a goddamned madhouse to me!

Crazed gunmen like Loughner don't care if they die. They will not be deterred. And if everybody has guns at a targeted location, you're going to end up with a lot of "friendly fire" deaths--everybody shooting, bullets flying, bullets ricocheting, poorly trained people shooting each other.

Madness!

I frankly don't think the answer is banning guns either. Then we will just have a lot of illicit guns. It will be just like "Prohibition" and the corrupt, murderous, failed, useless, socially corrosive, but highly profitable to war profiteers and private prisons, U.S. "war on drugs."

I think the solution is SANE regulation and also a sane, and decent, and progressive society, in which everyone can make a living, everyone has hope of improvement and the weak and the ill, including the mentally ill, are taken care of.

Regulate the type of guns available and the ammunition. Put numbers on the bullets! Stiffen up the qualifications for gun ownership--aimed at excluding those who are unstable. Make the wait much longer. Raise the qualification age to 25. Maybe even require a serious psych evaluation and taking a serious psych class.

A zoo full of armed monkeys is not the answer! Serious social reform is the answer, including legalizing all drugs--thus eliminating the profit that draws criminals to the drug trade as well as enticing the poor into it--emptying the prisons of about 70% of their prisoners (all non-violent crimes, mostly drug-related), because they shouldn't be there and to TONE DOWN the anger, violence, vengefulness, vast injustice to the poor, racism, tribal warfare, fascism and brutality, and other corrosive impacts of our prison system, that spill, like toxic ooze, into society as a whole.

And we should be using the billions and billions of dollars wasted on petty drug crimes and imprisonment to help people bootstrap out of poverty and to improve their lives and everybody else's lives.

We need to CHANGE from a punitive, fear-ridden society, in which more and more people cannot even make a living, and in which the rich/poor discrepancy has reached epic proportions, and in which the LEADERS of our society kill, torture and steal, use our military for profit, milk our government to fill their own pockets and sell us out in every respect. It is no wonder people become unhinged!

As this squeeze--Great Depression II-sucks the life and sanity out of more and more people, just now we're going to make gun ownership EASIER?

That is nuts!

Make it harder. Keep it legal. FIX OUR BROKEN "NEW DEAL"!

[ProudDad]

7. By George, I think you've got it!

Thanks...

[Atypical Liberal]

18. "numbers on bullets"

Crazed gunmen like Loughner don't care if they die. They will not be deterred. And if everybody has guns at a targeted location, you're going to end up with a lot of "friendly fire" deaths--everybody shooting, bullets flying, bullets ricocheting, poorly trained people shooting each other.

Since 1986, most states now allow concealed carry of a firearm. Yet the prediction of confused good Samaritans gunning each other down has not come to pass.

I frankly don't think the answer is banning guns either. Then we will just have a lot of illicit guns. It will be just like "Prohibition" and the corrupt, murderous, failed, useless, socially corrosive, but highly profitable to war profiteers and private prisons, U.S. "war on drugs."

Not to mention the fact that since there are some 300 million firearms in this country, you are talking about the destruction of some $50 billion in private property.

Regulate the type of guns available and the ammunition.

What sorts of firearms and ammunition would you make unavailable?


Put numbers on the bullets!

Would Loughner have been stopped by numbers on bullets? No. All this does is raise the cost of bullets, creating a layer of bureaucracy. You are going to track billions of rounds of ammunition when less than 30,000 of them are used in violent firearm crime every year.

Stiffen up the qualifications for gun ownership--aimed at excluding those who are unstable.

The requirements today are that you cannot have been adjudicated mentally incompetent, and you cannot have been involuntarily committed to a mental institution, by due process in a court of law.

What mechanisms would you put in place besides these? Do you want a system like the Federal No-Fly list, where people outside the due process of law can put your name on a list that would revoke your Constitutional rights? Who would have this authority in your vision?

Make the wait much longer.

To what end? Today when you purchase a firearm through an FFL dealer you are run through the National Instant Check System (NICS), usually in minutes. Once your illegibility has been confirmed, what purpose will a waiting period serve? Most firearm homicides are not "spur of the moment" activities where someone just "snapped". Most firearm homicides are committed by people with extensive prior criminal histories, including, on average, 4 felonies:

http://www.cardozolawreview.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=138:kates201086&catid=20:firearmsinc&Itemid=20

Loughner allegedly bought his firearms back in November, 2 months ago. Seung-Hui Cho bought his weapons two and one month prior to his shooting.

How long a wait would you prefer?

Raise the qualification age to 25. Maybe even require a serious psych evaluation and taking a serious psych class.

How do you do this without creating a registry of firearm owners? How do you do this without negating the due process of law?

[ProudDad]

8. How about a 100% tax on those guns and ammo

to finance statewide public mental health initiatives...

There was PLENTY of advance notice that Loughner was unbalanced but here in the New Mississippi...

Arizona is not just dead last in education funding but is also...

Dead last in funding for public mental health...!!! (surprise!)


Or even better a Progressive tax system in this state instead of the heavily regressive one we have now!

[Atypical Liberal]

17. You'll just drive more people to reloading and private sales.

I've just recently taken up reloading because of the cost. By reloading, I can cut the cost of 50 rounds of .45 ACP from $24 to about $4.

[ProudDad]

10. I consider Mr. Zamudio another "hero" of the Tucson Massacre

He's as responsible for diminishing the carnage as the 4 people who subdued and disarmed Loughner...

By being able to accomplish something that the rabid gunnies here in Tucson are incapable of: Exercising Rational Judgement.

Way to go, Joe!


But of course, he's trained and certified. Here in the New Mississippi that's no longer a requirement to carry a concealed weapon...

[Atypical Liberal]

16. What makes him "trained and certified?

But of course, he's trained and certified. Here in the New Mississippi that's no longer a requirement to carry a concealed weapon...

What makes him trained and certified? For the last year in Arizona, anyone can carry a concealed weapon without a permit.

[peace13]

21. Just because the law doesn't require doesn't mean that people don't get trained.

How hard is that to understand. Some folks just do the right thing. They want to be smart about carrying a gun. I know people who have taken the concealed carry course and have learned much that will keep them safer while carrying.

[Atypical Liberal]

22. Of course

But how do we know that this fellow was?

[peace13]

23. In the video the Interviewer states that the gun training this young man had...

had an impact on his response here. Does training have to be formal from a stranger or can an uncle or dad or mom or aunt do the job? I don't know the answer to this. From the written article it appears his training was not formal. From the video I had guessed otherwise.

[Atypical Liberal]

25. Ah, I see, I missed that.

Thanks.

[ProudDad]

26. He was certified to carry and trained BEFORE the execrable new gun law was passed (n/t)

[JJW]

11. Flawed logic

So let's say Joe comes out and shots the shooter but, then someone else comes onto the seen and thinks Joe is the shooter, so they shoot Joe, then another person comes on the seen and shoots the person who just shot Joe, etc., etc.

[AtheistCrusader]

13. Curious: How often do undercover officers get shot by uniformed officers?

[Atypical Liberal]

15. But this friendly fire scenario never plays out.

Since 1986, most states now allow concealed carry of a firearm. Yet the dire predictions of confused shootouts by multiple good Samaritans doesn't happen.

[Atypical Liberal]

14. Why do we keep seeing this misleading headline?

Here we have yet another case of someone carrying a concealed weapon who, once again, correctly evaluates the situation he is in before deciding whether or not to use his firearm.

[peace13]

24. Agree. n/t