Fatal stabbings on Portland light rail

[ATLANTIC CENTRAL]

Schlimm,

And once again, how do you know what skills I do or don't possess for such a situation?

Once again the assumption that no one in the general population can do anything without the "government expert" taking care of them.

Popgun? How much range time do you have on what weapons? I hit what I aim at......my Beretta 92FS is hardly a popgun.

Interesting that you did not respond to my post.

As for this incident, I was not there, I'm not second guessing or assuming anything. If any of those three good men had been armed, it may or may not have turned out better, but again, it would have been better odds.......especially had such a person been reasonably well trained, something I am in favor of requiring for carry permits.

Sheldon

[RME]

schlimm

n012944 cited several cases that debunk the NRA's alternative fact ala mode. Comment?

First, exactly what is this "ala mode" business supposed to mean - it's not proper English use of the French phrase to begin with, and even if correctly cited it makes pathetically little sense in this context.

So you think that two examples from public sites "debunk" many years of Armed Citizen reports?  You must not have much more understanding of statistics than you do semantics.  You also seem to think that the only use of firearms in a tense situation is to whip them out and start blazing away, which is one of the points that the NRA reports repeatedly dismiss.

Even out of the two pathetic references you think 'debunk' something, the victim himself in the one from Chicago said he would have used a firearm in the same way if in similar circumstances -- which makes it somewhat less effective anti-gun propaganda than you apparently think it is.  I would further suspect that the typical Chicago police reaction to being fired upon by an armed robbery suspect would involve considerably more "bullets" flying in stray directions than the shopowner fired ... and of course the story is, so far, silent on whether it was one of the robber's bullets that caused the injury.  Those things are not relevant to the incident that is the subject of this thread, but they are very germane to the issue you have now brought up.

Returning to the specific incident here, the 'real' issue has nothing really to do with guns at all: it appears to involve at least one of the 'victims' actively confronting a ranting nut after the subjects of his verbal attacks had retreated to another part of the train.  That's the situation that apparently tipped the guy 'over the edge' into murderous rage -- and it may be fair to ask the question 'would he have pulled the knife if the person arguing with him was visibly armed'.  Certainly two people are dead because they were unarmed in a fight against someone with a deadly weapon, and prospective harm to bystanders from putative misuse of firearms is little better than a red herring in this specific respect.

 

[In the interest of fair disclosure: yes, I think the 'appropriate' thing to do in the situation on the train would be to call in an empowered police authority and not accost the guy purely out of a sense of chivalry.  When I read this I thought of the United flight with the steward abusing the woman with the stroller, and the passenger who thought it was his privilege to argue with the little weasel.  We have police, in part, to do that sort of thing, fairly and equitably, for us.  At least in theory.]

[schlimm]

ATLANTIC CENTRAL

Schlimm,

And once again, how do you know what skills I do or don't possess for such a situation?

Once again the assumption that no one in the general population can do anything without the "government expert" taking care of them.

Popgun? How much range time do you have on what weapons? I hit what I aim at......my Beretta 92FS is hardly a popgun.

Interesting that you did not respond to my post.

As for this incident, I was not there, I'm not second guessing or assuming anything. If any of those three good men had been armed, it may or may not have turned out better, but again, it would have been better odds.......especially had such a person been reasonably well trained, something I am in favor of requiring for carry permits.

Sheldon

 

You seem to be incapable of discerning the major difference between defending your family in your own home and using a firearm on a crowded train.  If you do not understand the difference, then you probably are not mentally competent to own and use a firearm.  

Although the three "Good Samaritans" were well intentioned, the disturbed man did not pull out his knife until they intervened.  The two girls sensibly retreated to the other end of the rail car.  "Diffusing" potentially dangerous situations is a skill requiring training.  Pulling out your gun on a crowded train because someone is shouting racist abusive language is a dangerous overreach that likely will lead to tragedy.

[DSchmitt]

There are cases where an intervenion by a civilian, armed or unarmed saved the day.  There are cases where the intervention resulted in harm.  Each situation is different and one cannot know beforehand how a situation will end. We know what the outcome was, not what it would have been if actions had neen different.  Anecdotal evidence (news stories) prove nothing.  

Government statistics don't give an answer. Actual record keeping is poor and incomplete (even in the US). Records specifically pertaining to the issue not kept. I looked at the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting web site and been unable to find any numbers clearly pertaining to the issue.   There is are no categories " good samaration killed", "good samration saves police officer", etc.

Statistics on agenda websites and University studies are often based on compiling news articles and are subject to errors like missing incidents or counting the same incident multiple times, and to the interpetation and bias of the people gathering the data. 

[ATLANTIC CENTRAL]

[quote user="schlimm"]

 

 

ATLANTIC CENTRAL

Schlimm,

And once again, how do you know what skills I do or don't possess for such a situation?

Once again the assumption that no one in the general population can do anything without the "government expert" taking care of them.

Popgun? How much range time do you have on what weapons? I hit what I aim at......my Beretta 92FS is hardly a popgun.

Interesting that you did not respond to my post.

As for this incident, I was not there, I'm not second guessing or assuming anything. If any of those three good men had been armed, it may or may not have turned out better, but again, it would have been better odds.......especially had such a person been reasonably well trained, something I am in favor of requiring for carry permits.

Sheldon

 

 

 

 

You seem to be incapable of discerning the major difference between defending your family in your own home and using a firearm on a crowded train.  If you do not understand the difference, then you probably are not mentally competent to own and use a firearm.  

Although the three "Good Samaritans" were well intentioned, the disturbed man did not pull out his knife until they intervened.  The two girls sensibly retreated to the other end of the rail car.  Diffusing potentially dangerous situations is a skill requiring training.  Pulling out your gun on a crowded train because someone is shouting racist abusive language is a dangerous overreach that likely will lead to tragedy.

 

[/edquote]

And I NEVER suggested anyone should pull out a gun simply because of the verbal threats. You read that into my comments, I suggested just the opposite, that most with carry permits would be VERY resevered about displaying or using their weapon. They would also generally be very careful in how they intervened, knowing the risks you state. Everyone I know with a carry permit would have gone to considerable effort to defuse rather than draw.

But unarmed good samaritans often overlook these risks........

Sheldon

[RME]

DSchmitt

I looked at the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting web site and been unable to find any numbers clearly pertaining to the issue.

In no small part, it's because no 'crime' statistics even hint at the role deterrence of crime may have played.  That, again, is a point the NRA column often makes: the presence of the weapon deterred a would-be 'perpetrator' long before the actual use of deadly force in a deadly manner was employed.  And most of the incidents of deterrence, even when formally reported (what good would it do in our current system?) are only encountered in anecdotal (e.g. news) reports.

In my opinion, the only long-run solution to problems of analytical bias is to educate people in the ways truth is spun, manipulated, misstated, and cut to fit some Procrustean narrative or other -- including detecting, and amending, the ways they find distortions of that kind in their own thinking.  And that is becoming a more and more unlikely thing generation by generation...

[DSchmitt]

RME

In my opinion, the only long-run solution to problems of analytical bias is to educate people in the ways truth is spun, manipulated, misstated, and cut to fit some Procrustean narrative or other -- including detecting, and amending, the ways they find distortions of that kind in their own thinking.  And that is becoming a more and more unlikely thing generation by generation...

[schlimm]

RME

 

 

schlimm

n012944 cited several cases that debunk the NRA's alternative fact ala mode. Comment?

 

 

First, exactly what is this "ala mode" business supposed to mean - it's not proper English use of the French phrase to begin with, and even if correctly cited it makes pathetically little sense in this context.

So you think that two examples from public sites "debunk" many years of Armed Citizen reports?  You must not have much more understanding of statistics than you do semantics.  You also seem to think that the only use of firearms in a tense situation is to whip them out and start blazing away, which is one of the points that the NRA reports repeatedly dismiss.

Even out of the two pathetic references you think 'debunk' something, the victim himself in the one from Chicago said he would have used a firearm in the same way if in similar circumstances -- which makes it somewhat less effective anti-gun propaganda than you apparently think it is.  I would further suspect that the typical Chicago police reaction to being fired upon by an armed robbery suspect would involve considerably more "bullets" flying in stray directions than the shopowner fired ... and of course the story is, so far, silent on whether it was one of the robber's bullets that caused the injury.  Those things are not relevant to the incident that is the subject of this thread, but they are very germane to the issue you have now brought up.

Returning to the specific incident here, the 'real' issue has nothing really to do with guns at all: it appears to involve at least one of the 'victims' actively confronting a ranting nut after the subjects of his verbal attacks had retreated to another part of the train.  That's the situation that apparently tipped the guy 'over the edge' into murderous rage -- and it may be fair to ask the question 'would he have pulled the knife if the person arguing with him was visibly armed'.  Certainly two people are dead because they were unarmed in a fight against someone with a deadly weapon, and prospective harm to bystanders from putative misuse of firearms is little better than a red herring in this specific respect.

 

[In the interest of fair disclosure: yes, I think the 'appropriate' thing to do in the situation on the train would be to call in an empowered police authority and not accost the guy purely out of a sense of chivalry.  When I read this I thought of the United flight with the steward abusing the woman with the stroller, and the passenger who thought it was his privilege to argue with the little weasel.  We have police, in part, to do that sort of thing, fairly and equitably, for us.  At least in theory.]

 

Well gee willikers, Mr. RME, excuse me!!  It was a typo in a bit of silly sarcasm. I foolishly assumed that someone with your polymath background should have seen that without resorting to a "cheap shot" [intended word play]. à la mode =  in the current fashion, in this use, referring to the NRA's current rationalization for virtually zero regulation.  Remind me to proofread more carefully and explain my lame attempts at humor more completely in the future.  "Armed Citizen" reports?  Is that akin to "Clean Coal?"    "Covfefe, y'all!!"

One can say with a fair degree of confidence that three large people confronting a clearly disturbed individual might well have pushed him over the edge and led to his pulling his knife.  In fact it did. That strategy is the opposite of how professionals are trained to deal with such people. Defusing the situation is the correct methodology, not pouring gasoline on the fire. You and Sheldon are understandably not trained.  Had one or more of the three had a handgun, the mere sight of it might not have caused him to not pull out the knife or to drop it, as it would with a rational individual.  What then?  Shoot him?  Are you so sure a stray shot or ricochet might not strike an innocent bystander in a crowded car?

[Backshop]

I find it highly amusing that anytime someone tries to be a grammar nazi, they make a mistake of their own in the next post.  Not to mention this world class run-on sentence--"The thought of you or Sheldon attempting to manage a dangerous situation armed with a popgun that you might start firing on a crowded rail car would be hilarious if it were not so dangerous to innocent bystanders."

[Backshop]

schlimm

You seem to be incapable of discerning the major difference between defending your family in your own home and using a firearm on a crowded train.  If you do not understand the difference, then you probably are not mentally competent to own and use a firearm.  

Now you're calling others mentally incompetent.  BTW, what is the difference between the two situations?  The law remains the same and, so do your skills.

[RME]

schlimm

à la mode = in the current fashion, in this use, referring to the NRA's current rationalization for virtually zero regulation.

But this is not a Second Amendment issue.  The only "concern" here is the utter strawman argument that the three large 'confronters' would pull out handguns and start blasting away like ... well, like Chicago police ... perhaps even before the ranting nut produced a weapon.  And while I can't say that one or more of the responders "might" have done more than use firearms as a deterrent, you similarly can't say they would have been as responsible as most licensed, carry-permit-holding handgun owners are.  Blaming guns for a situation that turned lethal in the absence of guns is little better than sophistry.

"Covfefe, y'all!!"

Thanks for this -- it had completely escaped my notice until now.

(BTW, it's kinda fun to watch all the innuendos in the newsworker coverage that are trying to associate Trump with this nut.  It will probably work, too, which is something of a pity.  Where are the Walter Lippmanns now that we need them more than ever?)

One can say with a fair degree of confidence that three large people confronting a clearly disturbed individual might well have pushed him over the edge and led to his pulling his knife.

And that, in fact, was not only the situation, but (in my wimp's opinion) an example of why people should not intrude on this kind of situation with confrontation or the threat of opening cans of whup-ass.  If ever there were a time to involve the police power in a situation, this sort of thing would be it -- particularly since the women that were affected removed themselves from the situation.

That strategy is the opposite of how professionals are trained to deal with such people. Defusing the situation is the correct methodology, not pouring gasoline on the fire.

Conveniently discarding, again, what would happen if the nut gave the likely 'first responders' to an actual 911 call ... likely either what Chicago uses for transit police, or actual city police ... a ranting or backtalking attitude, or (heven forbid!) tried pulling out his knife.  Hint: trained negotiation would not have taken place, and I doubt much care for 'range safety' past his location in the resulting fusillade. 

Or are you saying that Chicago now trains police in hostage-negotiation skills and a kinder, gentler attitude towards demonstrated right-wing loonies?  If so, how can you type when your nose keeps bumping the monitor?

You and Sheldon are understandably not trained.

And you know this ... how?

I in fact have been, in different contexts, and the skills involved often do translate to the foreign-policy context.  What we can say is that the two people who were killed, and perhaps the third, were not so trained, and might well have been relying on some sort of bullying force majeure to teach the guy a lesson; that attitude, were it present, might well have been exacerbated by the presence of firearms and might have, although clearly not provably, led to use rather than just threat of deadly force.

Had one or more of the three had a handgun, the mere sight of it might not have caused him to not pull out the knife or to drop it, as it would with a rational individual.

I'm not sure that this sentence is entirely rational ...

Relax, this is not going to turn into gratuitous ad-hominem insults like that other thread that shall not be named.  In the present case, we don't know whether a show of deadly force would, or wouldn't, have sobered the nut up enough to back down.  He certainly wasn't dissuaded by folks who didn't even bring a knife to a knife fight, which tells us little about whether he was suffering serious irrationality (you know far more than I do both about the syndromes or attitudes they provoke) or was chemically impaired. 

What then? Shoot him?

And that's the crux of any credible deterrent - what happens when the deterrence fails?

And yes, in this particular case, "just shooting him" (after the apparently frequently-documented manner of threatened police) would not be particularly justifiable, at least by private citizens who had arguably provoked and aggravated him.  They'd have to wait until he attacked them with the knife out to have any claim of self-defense, and I have not yet seen how he came close enough to knife two large men in apparently good physical condition lethally ... in that close contact, use of a firearm is far less likely either to produce 'misses' or ricochets around the car structure, but of course there is no guarantee of 'bystander safety' or, in fact, how a mortally-wounded gun user might handle their weapon.

A moral here (and it is, in fact, a fairly common theme in NRA materials) is to avoid getting into situations involving deadly force whenever you can, and only fire the weapon when there is literally no other recourse.  This is one key difference between Sheldon's situation, as I understand it, and the situation on a crowded transit vehicle ... or on the street outside a store, or "responding" to a carjacking: it's not appropriate for private individuals to actually use lethal police power when not essential to self-defense in a public situation.  That actually answers the question "what then?" -- you don't fire unless and until there is clear, present, and immediate danger of death, not just mere presence of a weapon, nonconformance with 'orders' you bark, or whatever.

[zugmann]

Backshop

Not to mention this world class run-on sentence--"The thought of you or Sheldon attempting to manage a dangerous situation armed with a popgun that you might start firing on a crowded rail car would be hilarious if it were not so dangerous to innocent bystanders."

Not trying to be a grammar nazi, but I don't think that's a run-on sentence.  Correct me if I'm wrong - but I don't see two independent clauses. 

[Paul of Covington]

   What do you people think of the idea of having the moderators set up a sticky thread on gun debate?   When a discussion degenerates into an emotional rant pro and against guns it can be diverted to that site.   Then we can go back to discussing train related subjects.

[RME]

Paul of Covington

Then we can go back to discussing train related subjects.

Actually, most of the discussion has been related to the 'train-related' topic of 'fatal stabbings on Portland light rail' -- as far as that actually concerns light-rail trains.  I expected early that there would be some Godwin analogue involving gun control, even though no guns were actually involved, and I was not disappointed.  It has certainly gone on in exquisite detail, and I have not helped shorten the way.  But no one clicking on that thread title is expecting a discussion of the ease of cleaning blood out of low-floor transit cars or whether there should now be metal detectors in the cars or stations: it's going to be about what made the stabbings fatal, and by extension if the altercation could have been made less deadly.

[n012944]

 

RME

Even out of the two pathetic references 

Pathetic?  I am sorry they don't match you expectations, however they were exactly what the poster asked for.  As I stated there were far more examples out there, however I was not about to spend a wonderful May afternoon doing someones reasearch.  I get it, the idea that guns don't solve everything seem to really hurt the gun fanatics ego,  but good lord....

RME

 

When I read this I thought of the United flight with the steward abusing the woman with the stroller, and the passenger who thought it was his privilege to argue with the little weasel.  We have police, in part, to do that sort of thing, fairly and equitably, for us.  At least in theory.

 

 

That was on American, not United.

[DSchmitt]

schlimm

One can say with a fair degree of confidence that three large people confronting a clearly disturbed individual might well have pushed him over the edge and led to his pulling his knife.  In fact it did.

Actually no.  All one can say is that is what appears to have happened in Portland.  There is no way of knowing that he wouldn't have pulled the knife anyway. 

All we can know is what actually happened in an incident and even that is often open to dispute. 

True we can look for overall patterns and make judgements on how things should be handled for the best outcome in the most cases, but cherry picking individual examples proves nothing. 

Properly trained police are generally better than civilians at handeling  potentially lethal situations, but they usually are not and cannot be there when needed.

[schlimm]

DSchmitt

schlimm 'One can say with a fair degree of confidence that three large people confronting a clearly disturbed individual might well have pushed him over the edge and led to his pulling his knife.  In fact it did.'

Actually no.  All one can say is that is what appears to have happened in Portland.  There is no way of knowing that he wouldn't have pulled the knife anyway.  All we can know is what actually happened in an incident and even that is often open to dispute. 

Of course we cannot know what he would have done with absolute certitude.  Trained folks make behavioral predictions on probabilities based on clinical knowledge every day. That is their job.

"In your face" confrontatations are generally not the methods of choice for successfully resolving crisis situations involving mentally disturbed individuals. If someone has taught you otherwise, I would be very surprised.

[RME]

 

n012944

That was on American, not United.

So it was.  Thank you.  (I musta been thinking of big dead rabbits!)