This incident pretty much kills the "Good guys with guns"/"Gun free zones are bad" myth.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

Here we have a crowd of several thousand people on the ground. We have a shooter several hundred feet away with either an automatic/semi-automatic gun spraying down from 32 stories up. He's situated in a hotel with hundreds of other innocent guests. It's night time.

Now, say a fraction of the crowd--maybe a couple hundred--are the prototypical "Good guy with a gun" CCW carriers who have glocks strapped to their ankles.

The ground is getting sprayed with bullets. There's chaos everywhere. Even if the people who stand up are recognized as "good guys", essentially they'd be shooting blind with a pistol from far away hoping to hit, in the dark, an unknown shooter, while also hoping to avoid innocent guests in the hotel room around said unknown shooter.

If that were the case, the Law of Unintended Consequences would probably have added a dozen or two extra fatalities to the shooting.

[Lee-Lee]

1. So one extreme example means it's the standard for everything?

Is that how we roll now?

That's as big a fail of logic as the right wingers finding a few examples of people who didn't get proper medical care in places with universal health care and screaming because of those few examples all universal health care is bad and will never work.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

5. After every mass shooting we're inundated with "good guy" fantasies....

....and blame of gun free zones as the reason there were fatalities. And there's much lecturing and finger wagging about how we let this happen because not enough people are armed and able to shoot back.

The "good guy" scenario has never truly manifested itself in a mass shooting situation. By their nature they are so chaotic and happen so quickly it doesn't allow for that type of dream response.

You might call this an extreme example but it's pretty much typical of what we've seen of mass shootings.

[Lee-Lee]

10. It never happens?

Hmm

https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/uber-driver-shoots-man-who-allegedly-fired-at-group-on-logan-square-sidewalk/

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-military-member-concealed-carry-shoots-attacker-20140706-story.html

https://www.dallasnews.com/news/arlington/2017/05/03/two-people-killed-third-wounded-arlington-restaurant-shooting-reports-say

http://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/deputies-man-opens-fire-in-sc-bar-draws-return-fire

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/07/27/cincinnati-man-shoots-at-1-year-old-boy-is-shot-by-man-with-concealed-carry.html

I could keep going in with many more examples, but that's enough to show the claims it "never happens" are just untrue.

[NRaleighLiberal]

7. how many more extreme examples do we have to endure?

[gratuitous]

8. James Holmes was just another extreme example too, right?

As for problems with the Affordable Care Act, every piece of major legislation needs to be amended and tweaked as the real world applications of the law become apparent. The ACA has not been amended at all, and the majority party has shown no desire to fix any problems that have cropped up in seven years. The fact that the ACA works as well as it does this far out is a testament to the robust legislative effort that went into it in the first place.

[HAB911]

2. There are NEVER any good guys with guns to save the day

It's proven they run like all the unarmed do

[Skittles]

3. and if they didn't

who would not assume they were just another shooter?

[HAB911]

4. Yes and that day is coming

when the cops shoot some wannbe superhero brandishing his little gun

[Lee-Lee]

11. Its "proven" huh

That's a flat out lie...

Hmm

https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/uber-driver-shoots-man-who-allegedly-fired-at-group-on-logan-square-sidewalk/

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-military-member-concealed-carry-shoots-attacker-20140706-story.html

https://www.dallasnews.com/news/arlington/2017/05/03/two-people-killed-third-wounded-arlington-restaurant-shooting-reports-say

http://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/deputies-man-opens-fire-in-sc-bar-draws-return-fire

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/07/27/cincinnati-man-shoots-at-1-year-old-boy-is-shot-by-man-with-concealed-carry.html

I could keep going in with many more examples, but that's enough to show the claims it "never happens" are just untrue.

[HAB911]

12. I stand corrected, should be "rarely"

You chip away at this while I wash my truck:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Mass_shootings_in_the_United_States_by_year

[Tommy_Carcetti]

15. New FBI Report Casts Doubt on NRAs Good Guy Stops Bad Guy Nonsense

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-weisser/fbi-report-active-shooters_b_5900748.html

Most of the media coverage of this report will no doubt focus on the FBI’s claim that the number of incidents and victims totals of these shootings has of late been going up, with the annual number of incidents averaging 7.5 between 2000 and 2006, and jumping to an annual average of 16.3 between 2007 and 2013. The increase in casualties each year is even more dramatic, with the totals (not including the shooters) going from 247 between 2000 and 2006 up to just under 800 over the following seven years. It should be noted, incidentally, that the FBI defines an “active shooting” as an incident during which “both law enforcement personnel and citizens [my italics] have the potential to affect the outcome of the event based upon their responses.” Which is exactly what Wayne-o claims his gun-toting compatriots are all about.

Here’s how these incidents ended. More than half (56 percent) were terminated by the shooter who either took his or her own life, simply stopped shooting or fled the scene. Another 26 percent ended in the traditional Hollywood-like fashion with the shooter and law enforcement personnel exchanging gunfire and in nearly all of those situations the shooter ended up either wounded or dead. In 13 percent of the shooting situations, the shooter was successfully disarmed and restrained by unarmed civilians, and in 3 percent of the incidents the shooter was confronted by armed civilians, of whom four were on-duty security guards and one person was just your average “good guy” who happened to be carrying a gun.

[gopiscrap]

6. yup

[trotsky]

9. Not to mention the incredible burden you put on law enforcement...

who arrive on scene with perhaps no more information than "active shooter" - only to see multiple men with guns aiming and perhaps firing. What are they supposed to do?

[brooklynite]

13. But what if we allowed people to carry bazookas?

[hack89]

14. The festival banned all weapons including guns

the good guys would have been disarmed because they obeyed the law.