The best first responder, is one who is already there. The brave folks on the way aren’t irrevelant – but help that is on the way has never saved anybody until it got there. These mass rampage type active shooters only stop when either put down by force, or they do themselves.
In that environment, hits are hits and misses are hits on the wrong thing.
All very good points. CCW holders have the best chance of being “first responders” to this type of thing.
I wonder if there were any CCW holders (that were carrying) in the mall when the shooting started?
I wonder if any of the carrying CCW holders ran FROM the sound of gun fire?
I wonder if the carrying CCW holder had the thought as the first shots rang out, that they have never had any training with said pistol?
I wonder if the carrying CCW holder felt (as they were running to safety) that it wasn’t their job to protect women and children from a mass murderer?
I wonder if the mall has a sign on the outside that says “no weapons allowed inside?”
Train hard CCW holders as you are on the front lines as our society continues to go down the gutter.
C4
I agree with you. Picking a fight with an AK and you only having a HG is a bad idea. Pick your spot carefully and engage with as much force as you can.
Sometimes you have to step up to the plate and do what is right. Could you die because of it? Yes you could. Could you save a lot of innocent people from being killed? Yes you could.
I often think about what I would do if confronted with a scenario like the one we are discussing. As we know, we cannot always LEGALLY carry a firearm into public places. Having knowledge of the weapon being used against you, (accuracy, range, magazine capacity, reloading speed, etc) is very important. Use these things to your benefit and you have a very good chance of ending a bad situation (even though you don’t have a firearm).
C4
Yes it did. It has been reported in the media.
It does indeed, I’ve seen it in person. At the time, it was prominent. I thought I had a pic, but I can’t find it.
There are certain places in Ohio, enumerated in the OH Revised Code, where CCW is a felony. Elsewhere it is a misdeamenor trespass and I ignore them.
I will not be slaughtered like a fish in a barrel just because some corporate lawyer asswipes are trying to limit their employer’s liability exposure. Fuck them.
I snap pics of these signs where I see them. While looking for Westroads sign, I found one for the Mall of America, which is similarly posted:
Meaningless and worthless
Just in case anyone is wondering here is the article that Gabe wrote.
FIRST RESPONDERS ARE IRRELEVANT
This article was written long before Katrina and the debacle of N.O.
Not a day goes by where we don’t hear something about the training and deployment of First responders as if their presence somehow would change everything when evil comes to play. Calling 911 is an illusion of security that will usually deliver the false promise of safety too late. Recently, in my old neighborhood, evil did come to play. The first responders did as they are trained to do…they responded. But as is seen in almost all of these cases, the response comes too late.
Spree killer takes 3 lives in two-day county rampage
Los Angeles Daily News
Wednesday, June 01, 2005 - SIMI VALLEY – A career criminal shattered the calm of two of the nation’s safest cities in a vicious two-day crime spree during which he killed three people and seriously injured four others before committing suicide Tuesday in a Wal-Mart.
Toby Whelchel, 38, who has a rap sheet running from Florida, through Indiana and into California, apparently sought revenge against his former attorney in Thousand Oaks and then went on a rampage of carjacking and pistol-whipping and shooting innocent people.
It ended in the sporting-goods section of the discount department store where Whelchel intended to steal ammunition to carry on his spree. Cornered after panicked early-morning shoppers and sales staff had fled, he shot himself, authorities said.
Less than a half-hour earlier in a gated community just outside Simi Valley, Whelchel had pistol-whipped two children and shot their mother, Carole Nordella, as she pleaded for help in a phone call to her husband. She died later and the two children remained hospitalized with serious injuries.
“This is an act of unexplainable violence,” said Ventura County Sheriff Bob Brooks. “It certainly wasn’t the level of force necessary to steal a car, which was his intent (Tuesday morning). It was violence just for violence’s sake.”
The spree began in Thousand Oaks about 4 p.m. Monday as Tim and Janice Heyne returned a motorboat, borrowed for a Memorial Day weekend trip to Big Bear Lake, to the home of longtime friend Steve Mazin.
“He and Steve were A-No. 1 buddies,” said Tim Heyne’s brother-in-law, Mike Baumann. “They lived two blocks from each other. They played golf every week together. I don’t know how much closer you could get.”
As the two men and Heyne’s wife, Jan, stood outside talking, Whelchel ran up the driveway – “it appeared he was going to go up and give Steve a bearhug” – and instead pulled a gun, firing several shots, Baumann recounted from talking with Tim Heyne.
Authorities say Mazin, an attorney, had represented Whelchel in a 1999 dispute with a towing company, but after an unspecified dispute a judge in 2002 issued a restraining order. It was set to expire this December.
Janice Heyne, 51, died at the house; Mazin, 52, died later at a hospital. Tim Heyne, who was shot in the shoulder, remained hospitalized in critical condition Tuesday night.
Neighbors, who gathered around the home after hearing gunshots, reported seeing Whelchel smiling and waving as he drove away in a pickup.
The gunman abandoned the truck at a nearby supermarket and carjacked another truck, which was found about 7:45 a.m. Tuesday at Wildwood Park, near the exclusive Santa Rosa Valley neighborhood in Thousand Oaks, said Brooks.
A half-hour later in an unincorporated area Carole Nordella, a 48-year-old mother of three, summoned her husband, Jeffrey, by cell phone because someone was trying to break into the house.
As Nordella raced home, Whelchel pistol-whipped Carole and two young children. Carole was shot in the back of the head as well, and died later at a hospital.
“It’s random, one person who just went crazy,” said neighbor Wes Hoagland, who noted the area is usually so peaceful many residents don’t even lock the doors to their homes. Indeed in 2003 Thousand Oaks was ranked the safest city in the nation with a population over 100,000, according to annual FBI data. Simi Valley, which had been the reigning champion, was bumped to the No. 2 spot.
Jeffrey Nordella, upon arriving home, used his car to block Whelchel’s escape and was joined by Deputy Scott Ramirez, a 10-year Sheriff’s Department veteran. The deputy was hit twice in an exchange of gunfire with Whelchel, though Nordella escaped injury.
As authorities poured into the neighborhood, Whelchel escaped in a pool maintenance man’s black pickup that was parked in the Nordellas’ driveway. The maintenance man was also beaten but not hospitalized.
With deputies tracking him from the ground and a helicopter in the air, Whelchel sped away to a Wal-Mart store at Cochran Street and Madera Road.
The Wal-Mart store, just off the 118 Freeway in a quiet retail complex, had opened less than two hours before. The usually bustling retail chain enjoys a special calm around the early-morning hours.
Arlene Barnett, a six-year employee, was standing at the entrance to the door greeting customers when Whelchel ran past her.
“He looked like he knew exactly what he wanted. To be honest, he didn’t look like he was worried about anyone else,” she said. Witnesses said he ran into the sporting goods department and broke into a case containing ammunition.
Customers were rushed from the building as quickly as possible.
“People were panicked,” said Susan McWhorter, a 39-year-old mother of four who was in the shampoo aisle when Whelchel entered the store. “They were just leaving their carts, running. I heard yelling and then employees were just saying get out, get out,” she said. “It was really scary.”
Whelchel, who Brooks said has a history of violent crimes including assaulting a police officer and violently resisting arrest in Indiana and Florida, was found dead inside the store from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.
TIMELINE MONDAY
4 p.m.: Timothy and Janice Heyne return a motorboat to the home of longtime friend Steve Mazin. Toby Whelchel shoots the couple and Mazin. Whelchel speeds off in a white Dodge Ram pickup.
4:15 p.m.: Whelchel pulls into a Vons parking lot at the corner of Janss and Moorpark roads and hijacks a white Ford pickup.
Overnight : Authorities believe Whelchel may have stayed the night in Wildwood Park, hiding in the brush.
TIMELINE TUESDAY
7:45 a.m.: Residents of a neighborhood near Wildwood Park spot the hijacked Ford pickup and report it to police.
8:15 a.m.: On the other side of the park, Whelchel breaks into a large home in a gated community. He shoots Carol Nordella, 48, and pistol-whips two of her children (children are later treated for fractured skulls).
Deputy Scott Ramirez, 30, arrives and is shot twice by Whelchel as he flees in a hijacked black pickup.
8:20 a.m.: Patrol cars and a helicopter chase Whelchel to Simi Valley.
So here is our view of this. Laws denying citizens their ONLY TRUE LINE OF DEFENSE (carry of weapons) could not save any of these people. Laws putting serial numbers on bullets could not save any of these people. Federal funds for the training of first response units and SWAT teams could not save these people.
What could have saved them? If just one man had been carrying a gun with him…specially the first man, that may have been enough. How much killing and sorrow could have been prevented with a simple press of the trigger? One bullet for three innocent lives, and the destroyed lives of several others. Seems like a fair exchange to me.
Yet in California, I suspect that had any of these4 poor victims been armed and carrying in disobedience to the laws in that state, they would likely still be alive, but likely facing prosecution. Such is justice. Similarly in many areas of the nation, there are laws on the books denying these poor innocents the very right to live and defend themselves with firearms (as recognized in our Constitution).
While the evil criminal is responsible for these atrocities, equally responsible is any lawmaker that writes a law prohibiting good citizens from carry their only means of self-protection. There will likely be some fall out over this event. Rather than Wal-Mart taking ammo off the shelves, or another epidemic of “tough new laws” or more first responders, what we need to see is a class action lawsuit against the forces that denied these victims their only way to stay alive.
I wonder if anyone gets the message?
While the evil criminal is responsible for these atrocities, equally responsible is any lawmaker that writes a law prohibiting good citizens from carry their only means of self-protection. There will likely be some fall out over this event. Rather than Wal-Mart taking ammo off the shelves, or another epidemic of “tough new laws” or more first responders, what we need to see is a class action lawsuit against the forces that denied these victims their only way to stay alive.
I could NOT agree MORE with that!!! AHMEN!
How did I know that. :rolleyes:
So much for a “safe” zone.
C4
I was out of town, so just saw this thread. First off, I am from Omaha and the shooting happened less than a mile from my office. I could see the Helo circling and see the Police Cars responding from my window. I was actually going to be at that mall, just outside of VonMaur not an hour prior to the shooting as well. Also, my CCW permit is in the works so the CCW course is fresh in my mind.
The Mall, as mentioned prior, is posted no weapons. In Nebraska, our CCW law states that carrying in a posted establishment is a misdemeanor. The following is taken right from Nebraska State Patrols’ website: “The following offenses are classified as a Class III Misdemeanor for the first offense and as a Class I
Misdemeanor for the second or subsequent offense:
Permit holder carrying a concealed handgun into a prohibited place or premises.
(See § 018 in the regulations or §69-2441 in the statutes.)”
If a CCW holder is convicted of any crime in regards to weapons, he loses his CCW permanently. So, while, yes, I can carry places, and most would not know, I do so at the risk of losing a very basic right.
Second, I read an account earlier today of someone who was on the 3rd floor when the shooting started. This person has taken the CCW course, but does not yet have his permit. He was NOT carrying on that day, but based on wehre he was standing, he had a perfect head shot from less than 30 yds away. The shooter was facing forward with this gentleman approx. 90 off to the side.
In addition, the mall has, for whatever reason, now removed the signs that contained the prohibition. These were their “code of conduct” signs. They are now gone. It has been speculated they were removed at the request of lawyers, perhaps to try to head off a civil suit. However, as I understand it, there are pictures of the signs posted on the Internet.
Last night, while driving home from Kansas City with my wife, we heard about the shootings in Colorado. My wife turned to me and said “I want a gun”. She was 100% serious. She had been talking about taking the CCW course at some point, but these incidents have finally made it hit home, that stuff happens and we need to be prepared. She used to balk when I brought the pistol on vacation. She does not any longer. She didn’t even particularly care for guns when we got married, so this is a huge step for her.
Giff
Last night, while driving home from Kansas City with my wife, we heard about the shootings in Colorado. My wife turned to me and said “I want a gun”. She was 100% serious. She had been talking about taking the CCW course at some point, but these incidents have finally made it hit home, that stuff happens and we need to be prepared. She used to balk when I brought the pistol on vacation. She does not any longer. She didn’t even particularly care for guns when we got married, so this is a huge step for her.
Giff[/QUOTE]
Lucky you, MY wife grew up in Montana and still can,t stand guns. She did not like me getting my three grandsons BB guns this year for Christmas. And their dad is a LEO and said they didn’t have a choice and would learn SAFTY/HANDLING FIRST.
In my last “regular job,” I worked in an office building with 100 other employees. On the same property was a separate building open to the general public (for an admission fee). Company policy prohibited employees from carrying a firearm on the premises and, several years ago, the company’s president ordered that this sign be posted on the entry doors of both buildings:
A few months after those signs went up, a visitor from Pennsylvania took great exception to entering an “unarmed victims zone.” He threatened to pull his business from the company and began an aggressive letter-writing campaign encouraging NRA members and others to do likewise.
The president, underestimating the potential backlash and adamant that the signs should remain, convened a meeting of senior staff – essentially to brainstorm a public-relations push to convince our customers that the signs were necessary to “protect” employees and visitors from those intent on doing them harm. With a majority of the senior staff opposing the signs, we asked the president if he truly believed that someone bent on carnage would be deterred by a sign.
The signs came down. Employees still aren’t permitted to carry.
I believe in private-property rights, including the right of the owner to determine what’s permitted and what’s not. I don’t have the legal chops to discuss the intersection of (or the conflicts between) private property and public accommodation, but I think that guy from Pennsylvania may have given us a clue about one way to effect change, albeit imperfect change.