Reports are that the single shot came from ~200 yards/meters away, which is basically the worst case scenario for good-guy-with-a-gun. In an active shooter situation, an armed bystander could in principle stop an attacker from continuing, but the only way that an armed bystander could hope to stop an assassination is if they were walking around looking for trouble.

Regardless of where you stand on the subject of concealed carry, I don't think its controversial to say we shouldn't be encouraging untrained/unvetted folks to go seek out would-be assassins before they have demonstrated themselves to be a danger. That's exactly how "armed security" shot and killed an actual bystander at the Salt Lake City 50501 demonstration earlier this year.

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Zigurd 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

I'm certainly not encouraging armed individuals in a crowd to do anything. My point was that having a significant number of armed people in a crowd like that makes finding a shooter that much more difficult. I am not surprised the wrong person was grabbed. It could've been much worse.

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petsfed 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

I misunderstood you then. I wholeheartedly agree with you.

Even so, most folks who carry prefer concealed carry for tactical reasons, one of which being that unless you have your rifle in a ready position, its not very useful in a self-defense situation, and simply marks you as "shoot this one first". And it turns out that walking around with a rifle in a ready position is generally perceived as aggressive, regardless of actual intent, even by those comfortable with firearms (consider a police officer approaching with a holstered weapon vs one in their hand).

So in the context of this shot, it ought to be relatively easy to pick out the shooter in the moment, the problem is that a ~200m radius around the tent where Kirk was speaking covers a lot of territory, and that's a lot of ground to cover effectively without obviously interfering with students' free movement about their college campus.

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Aeolun 5 days ago | parent [-]

You don’t need someone in all of that space though. Just in the locations that give you a decent shot at the tent.

	▲	ethbr1 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		College campuses are not known for their well-shielded outdoor spaces.

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koolba 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

The shot was clearly with a long gun (a rifle). There’s no way to make a shot at 200 yards with a hand gun (okay yes it’s possible, but disqualifyingly difficult and unlikely). And nobody concealed carries a long gun because it’s not physically possible.

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_rm 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Correct, no right to bear arms people think it stops bad guys shooting people, only that it caps the deaths - i.e. you'll have a few killed then the bad guy is dropped, rather than they get to go killing dozens of people at leisure without resistance until the cops arrive (and presumably, wait outside while the bad guy continues killing, to "secure the perimeter" or whatever).

The theory then is that this will act as a deterrent - an angry bad guy wants to go out taking dozens of people with him - a few people wouldn't be "enough" for his grandiose end.