A good argument against loosening gun laws occurred in Arizona as well:
It's all fine and dandy in many gun-advocates examples where the enemy is obvious, but I do wonder, what about a situation where people have trouble identifying the enemy?
I also wonder what would happen if some crazy guy started shooting amid a busy crowd of people, many carrying concealed weapons. The prospect of misfired shots and "shooting gallery" come to mind.
REF: http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jan/14/...g-20110115
Addendum: f-ing LAtimes and their poor sense of using paragraphs.
Quote:Joe Zamudio was out buying cigarettes last Saturday when he heard what sounded like fireworks but quickly realized were gunshots. He reached into his coat pocket for the 9-millimeter semiautomatic pistol he carried, clicking the safety off.
He heard yelling around him: "Shooter, shooter, get down!"
Zamudio saw a young man squirming on the ground and an older man standing above him, waving a gun.
Zamudio, 24, had his finger on the trigger and seconds to decide.
He lifted his finger from the trigger and ran toward the struggling men.
As he grabbed the older man's wrist to wrestle the gun away, bystanders yelled that he had the wrong man — it was the man on the ground who they said had attacked them and U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.). The gun the older man was holding had been wrestled away from the shooter. Police later identified 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner as the suspect.
"I could have very easily done the wrong thing and hurt a lot more people," said Zamudio, who helped subdue the suspect until authorities arrived.
...
"It's easy to say we have an easy fix here: All we need is more law-abiding citizens carrying guns," said John J. Donohue III, a law professor at Stanford University. "But in the real world, it's not that clear-cut."
Zamudio does not understand why some think it's so horrible to allow people to carry guns.
"If you never had a gun, never seen a gun in your life, maybe you shouldn't buy a gun," he said. But if you're scared, "you shouldn't live in that fear."
Zamudio said he realized that the same laws that allowed him to conceal his gun also allowed the Tucson shooter to get within feet of the victims. But he said more restrictive laws would not stop such determined criminals.
"They act like the government can control this," he said. "It's not about the government. It's about people failing each other."
Zamudio admits being conflicted about some of Arizona's more extreme gun legislation, including a proposed law allowing college faculty and students to carry concealed guns on campus. State legislators plan to take up the issue this month.
He imagined students might get angry during a debate about some controversial topic like religion and draw their guns.
But at the same time, he worried about a replay of the shooting rampage at Virginia Tech in 2007 when a student killed 32 classmates and faculty before committing suicide.
"There can be the Virginia Tech guy pushing the door open and maybe you're sitting in the audience ready for him," Zamudio said. "It's all about who's holding them. The person holding the gun is the factor. It's not the gun."
It's all fine and dandy in many gun-advocates examples where the enemy is obvious, but I do wonder, what about a situation where people have trouble identifying the enemy?
I also wonder what would happen if some crazy guy started shooting amid a busy crowd of people, many carrying concealed weapons. The prospect of misfired shots and "shooting gallery" come to mind.
REF: http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jan/14/...g-20110115
Addendum: f-ing LAtimes and their poor sense of using paragraphs.
