Megan McArdle writes:
Unlike many libertarians, I am fine with a ban on automatic weapons.and
As a proponent of reasonable gun control that in some ways goes farther than current rules (I'd like to require that people pass a shooting and gun safety test before they can own a gun), these rules don't strike me as crazy.Pass a shooting test? Doesn't this last McArdle proposal sound like she would like to see people be better shots and to know how to better handle a gun. Personally, I'd rather be up against a nut job that can't aim skilfully and is very likely to jam his gun. But wait, it gets worse
Here is how McArdle would handle a crazed shooter:
I'd also like us to encourage people to gang rush shooters, rather than following their instincts to hide; if we drilled it into young people that the correct thing to do is for everyone to instantly run at the guy with the gun, these sorts of mass shootings would be less deadly, because even a guy with a very powerful weapon can be brought down by 8-12 unarmed bodies piling on him at once.Oh yeah, that's going to work, especially against a well armed man shooting kids in kindergarten.
As Jonathan Chait writes:
Teaching even fairly aggressive young boys who are learning football to avoid their self-preservation instinct and crash into their opponent full speed rather than shying away from contact usually takes rigorous, lengthy training. This is when they’re wearing a helmet and full-body padding and going up against a kid their age. Trying to get them to fling their bodies into danger in a situation where they’re in shock, have no protection, and are facing an adult with a gun rather than a kid with a football is beyond impossible.Yikes.
And thus, with admittedly tough competition from within the beltway, as there always is, the Beltarian Gone Bonkers Award goes to Megan McArdle for the kindergarten "gang rush" solution to crazed killers.
What a libertarian.
ReplyDeleteLooks like Ms. McArdle had a second bowl of stupid this morning.
ReplyDeleteA gang rush, Megan? Sheesh.
She's long been a skunk posing as a cat.
ReplyDeleteSure, I want to spend my days and nights drilling my child about what to do when they are shot at in the state prisons- I mean schools.
ReplyDelete"Unlike many libertarians, I am fine with a ban on automatic weapons."
ReplyDeleteThis lunkheaded woman is no libertarian and she doesn't even know that automatic weapons have been strictly regulated since The National Firearms Act of 1934. These beltarian know-nothings don't even realize that so called assault weapons are semi-auto. What an ignoramus.
Certainly gang rushing a gunman is inadvisable but huddling together in a corner is just as ineffective. Fish in a barrel. The other self-preservation instinct would be to run away and spread out as fast and far as you can.
ReplyDeleteUtilitarian, unprincipled libertarianism is not libertarianism at all.
It irks me that this birdbrain calls herself a libertarian. I think it is time to use a word that will never be co-opted by statists, like "anarcho-capitalist" or "free market anarchist."
ReplyDeleteHas she ever backed down from a fist fight? Probably. And likely as an adult, yet she wants 6 year olds to attack an adult with a gun. How high was she when she wrote that?
ReplyDeleteMcArdle is just another hopeful dictator in waiting.
ReplyDeleteShe's not wrong about the body-rush, though. A gun is only effective while you can aim it. A gun in a wrestling match is just as dangerous to the person holding the gun as to his opponent(s).
When the shooter is less than about 20 feet it is flat out possible to deck him before he can shoot. That's one shooter and one opponent.
If there is more than one opponent w/in 20 feet, only one of them will be shot.
Before you scoff, go rent or buy a paint-ball gun and try it.
No kidding.
Even the Army & Marines teach that the best thing to do when in the kill-zone of a close ambush is to rush the shooter - and that's when they have real machine guns.
Truly.
If the shooter wants to shoot you, it is truly your only real chance. (You will not run faster than his bullet.)
Oh... one more thing...
Full-Auto is actually a disadvantage to the shooter in that circumstance: Little bullet, Big world, Small target.
Go to WalMart. Buy your paint gun and try it.
I'm not asking for your faith.
Yeah, the army and marines train infantrymen to rush the enemy in the hopes that a few might kill an enemy or two; not because it will save their lives. The idea that children ought to rush shooters like that is so ridiculous it pains me to even type a comment.
DeleteIf you are close enough and if the shooter is bad enough, or if you are willing to end your own life. Most shots are not instantly fatal. You can take a mortal wound while closing the distance and get a few good hits in, then you die. Would you want to be that guy? Do you think many people would want to be that guy? Full auto would be stunningly effective if 12 people began to rush you, provided you had a large enough magazine on the weapon. A 12 gauge would likely be the most effective way to deal with a group of people rushing you, but if you are capable of controlling a fully auto gun, and a full auto .223 is not difficult to control, you could easily take down 12 charging people.
DeleteIf you try it out for us (in a real shooting spree) and end up dying, i'll send you my condolences.
DeleteNo kidding.
Truly.
"I'd also like us to encourage people to gang rush shooters, rather than following their instincts to hide....."
ReplyDeleteThe military gives awards to people who do that. Posthumously, of course.
McArdle has bothered me for as long as she has been spewing her, ahem, "libertarianism" in the public domain.
ReplyDeleteIt's pretty apparent she knows next-to-nothing about firearms either.
"Automatic" weapons have not been widely available to the public for many years. Yes, one can obtain one, legally, with a $200 tax paid to the BATFE, as well as a sign-away of most of your rights so as to permit the BATFE to inspect the weapon at their leisure.
As a result of a law signed during the Reagan Administration, the newest automatic weapon a member of public may own would have been manufactured before May 1986.
I'm curious to know if Mrs. McArdle can show any instance in which an actual, legally-owned automatic weapon was used by a civilian in the commission of a crime. I'll bet she can't come up with one.
Sure would be nice if Megan would just go away....
McArdle's bootlicking notwithstanding, have you ever been tackled by a mob of kindergartners? I have, as a Summer camp counselor, and it's like being trapped in a Lovecraftian void.
ReplyDeleteIn all seriousness, McArdle's right about the mob rush tactic. The single biggest misunderstanding about guns is that hitting a target is easy. Not the case -- especially if the target is moving and the shooter is under duress. Marksmanship is incredibly difficult, assuming the victim isn't cowering under a disk, nice and still, like public school drills have conditioned them to do in any emergency scenario, from nuclear war to tornadoes.
And consider the typical school shooter: a mouth-breathing wiener who couldn't catch a football without getting a nose blood. A trench coat and impressive rifle don't make him a crack shot; his kill count is contingent upon how much time his victims afford him to line up his shots. Sitting still and hoping for the best is all he needs.
But had two people rushed this kid he would've had an asthma attack. Given his duress and lack of training, it's entirely possible he couldn't have squeezed off a shot before being tackled, much less kill a dozen more people.
A Kung Fu master I know described a good strategy to follow in school shooting scenarios. First, get the hell outta there, if possible. If escape isn't an option, several students should arm themselves with text books/laptops, etc. and surround the entrance, pressing against the wall on both sides of the door, right in the shooter's blind spots.
As soon as the shooter clears the door threshold, one side of the door should grab the rifle and twist, using the momentum to snap his fingers and pull him downward with very little force, while another student swings an iPad square into his face. Alternately, with enough bodies, multiple students could twist his gun and proceed to swarm him from one/both sides of the door as soon as he crosses the threshold, ending his killing spree in the blink of an eye.
The worst lesson our public schools instill is that deference to aggressors will always yield the optimal outcome.
It is amazing how none of the people calling for a ban seem to know the difference between automatic and semi-automatic.
ReplyDeleteI'd love to see these two clowns and watch their aggressive reaction to a shooter and see them bullrush instead of charging. Yeah, that makes a lot more sense than having someone with a firearm nearby to stop the criminal. Maybe if all the Jews in the concentration camps had just bullrushed the Nazis, they would have been able to escape, right?