After the shooting in a Colorado theater, gun activists argued that an armed citizenship would have been able to protect itself. Here is the flip side to that argument. In the story below, a lone gunman shoots a co-worker and then points his gun at the police. When the shooting ended, nine additional people had been shot- all by the police. In their efforts to shoot the gunman, police peppered bullets into the crowd as well. These were all trained law officers. Now go back to that theater and imagine armed citizens shooting back at the gunman in a crossfire. Imagine the terror of the moment, and then imagine looking across the room at other armed people not knowing if they were with the shooter or not. In a moment of panic, might you point your weapon at them just to be “safe”? And could they possibly be having the same panicked thoughts about you?
What the police did here was very human, and it raises the question of whether well armed citizens in a crowded city are actually safer.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/26/nyregion/bystanders-shooting-wounds-caused-by-the-police.html?_r=1
I am confused by this post. When and where did police fire into a crowd killing nine civilians? Are you referring to the incident on Friday morning in front of the Empire State Building? I thought that the only persons killed in that incident were the intended target and the gunman, who was felled by police gunfire. Is there news of another mass killing?
I’m sorry, I reread your post and see that you are posing a hypothetical situation, correct?
I believe the police only killed the gunman. They did injure others. I have no comparable statistics, but this seems to be something that happens more frequently in NYC than other cities.
And I totally agree with your commentary on an armed population.
One thing I read recently though was interesting. Colorado evidently doesn’t have strict carry laws. It’s very possible someone else in that theater *did* have a gun. When it comes down to it, you generally have to to be pretty well trained to not just want to flee or freeze.
it does NOT say the police killed nine people: “where did police fire into a crowd killing nine civilians?”. That’s an incorrect reading of the post. it says nine people were shot recieving random wounds from the barrage of bullets and fragments. If there’s an inaccuracy it’s the possible inference that all nine were struck with bullets shot from the guns, when they might also have been broken pieces of objects struck by the bullets, a technical point you might make after forensics are reported.