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Who carries a firearm on Scout Outings???


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I don't know if the world is more dangerous.  Much of the statistics show it's safer now, homicide rates are dropping, etc. more people are trained and armed, etc.  There "appears" to be a greater threat, but I'm thinking a lot of that hype is due to the sensationalism of the media more than anything else.  If one wants to know if the world is more dangerous, all they need do is recollect back to the 1950's where all the little children knew what "Duck and Cover" was all about.  At least today, there might be a little something we can actually do about it.

 

How many people remember Cambodia? Rwanda? Ever wonder why America has a large Hmong population?  Those issues weren't addressed by the media as well as today's media covers ever little minutia of details on the Internet.

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I'd rock at the UN.     ....and from our father's father's father's father.   I'll give you the pint. The Imperial pint has not shrunk in 1000 years, whereas American beer bottles have gone fro

BSA also has policies in place about the mixing of males & females in Dens, Packs & Troops, but many here have no problem talking about how they work around those policies, often with an under

Which is more important: 1- The physical well-being of someone in my care, should the need arise for a firearm in the backwoods.  2- My continued membership in BSA.   If I lost som

Today it's ADD

 

Avoid

Denial

Defend

 

If you're in an office building that most large company insist on Weapon Free Zones, a pair of scissors or even a pen make a good weapon to defend yourself.  The crazy guy with the AR-15 will wait for you to find one.

 

Everyone needs to take Dept of Homeland Security active shooter webinar, training, etc.  Those kinds of training aren't being taught very much to the general public.  Every scout unit should go through one.  Have your local police put on the training  THEY have all had the training.  My CHURCH held such training for it's members.  The church is a CO for a Boy and Girl Scout troop, and a 4-H Club.  No one under the age of 50 showed up.  

 

I'm thinking a lot of people are really complacent about this whole issue. 

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I'm thinking that in a large shopping mall with an active shooter, if I have to draw my gun, it is comforting to note there may be a handful of other armed conceal carry "gun-nuts" out there to help and I don't have to worry about the unarmed bobbies coming to my rescue getting there on time.  We live in two different worlds.  :)

The problem here is you can quickly get into a situation where you have no idea who is who. Of the people with guns, which ones are the "bad guys" and which ones are the civilians responding to them? It still might be better then if there are no armed civilians, but it's still a nightmare scenario (OK, any active shooter is a nightmare scenario).

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That brings to mind the old saying: "What is the safest place to be during a gun fight? Somewhere else!"

If I know I'm going to a gunfight, I'll bring a rifle.  A scoped Ruger Number 1 in .270 will effectively put me somewhere else!  (by about 300 yards...)

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Everyone needs to take Dept of Homeland Security active shooter webinar, training, etc.  Those kinds of training aren't being taught very much to the general public.  Every scout unit should go through one.  Have your local police put on the training  THEY have all had the training.  My CHURCH held such training for it's members.  The church is a CO for a Boy and Girl Scout troop, and a 4-H Club.  No one under the age of 50 showed up.  

 

I'm thinking a lot of people are really complacent about this whole issue.

Is it really complacency, or just a good analysis of risk? In a nation of over 320 million people, the odds of finding oneself in an active shooter situation is very low (I haven't read any good analysis on that*. According to the Nation Weather Service, the average odds of getting hit by lightning in a person's lifetime is 1/12,000. But those odds very a lot based on where you live and your life style. The odds for people that spend significant amount of time outdoors are much higher.). So the question is, given the odds, how much time and resources is it worth it to spend on active shooter training? Would it be better too spend that time and resources on other things? I don't have a good answer to that. I guess it depends (I know, real helpful :)).

 

*This is an interesting question. Based on the data from the Mother Jones investigation, in the last ten years (2005-2015) there have been 38 mass shootings with 331 dead and 250 injured (total 581). Lets use the 10 year average population of 308 million which gives us around a 1 in 930,500 of being killed, a 1 in 1,232,000 of being injured and 1 in 530,100 of being either. Given an 80 year life span (the same assumption used by the NWS for lifetime lightning strikes) you get something like 1 in 6,630 of being injured or killed in a mass shooting during your lifetime.

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Having taken the Homeland training, I was surprised that the media seems to be picking up only on the mass shootings that have certain characteristics.  Those that involve children, i.e. schools, those that are super out of the ordinary, i.e. theater. those that involve foreigners, i.e. San Bernardino.  What people don't realize is that over half of the shooter incidents occur at a person's place of work, one of the places that prohibit weapons.  The old expression "going postal" seems to be the real threat and those statistics aren't calculated in because only 2-3 co-workers might be killed.  It's the random, don't make sense shootings that get the press.  Otherwise they are just "normal" homicides", i.e. disgruntled workers, gangs, etc, but unless there is a large amount of collateral damage, media doesn't pick up on it.

 

I might have a 1 in 6,630 chance of being injured or killed in a mass shooting, but what about a regular shooting, like in an ally, or parking lot or home invasion, or at a robbery gone wrong at the local gas station.  We had an armed robbery on the news tonight, no one was shot, but that's not always the case.  I'm sure the story won't make CNN or NBC or even Fox, but it's a bit close to home for me.  If it takes even 10 minutes to respond in a large city incident, how long would it take the sheriff's deputy to get to a rural location in the county considering I live 25 miles of curvy hilly roads from the county seat.

 

Decisions about weapons is not an easy one, one not taken lightly.  I have an obligation to my family that I need to consider as well.

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No one is allowed to carry where I work except law enforcement. Didn't like that one bit when we had an active shooter next door a few months back, right before my accident. I remember  our hospital police manning entrances and patrolling the area. We have a lot of vets in our organization who are not hospital police and could handle the situation if it arose and were armed.

 

What I didn't realize was that the hospital had M-4s in the campus armory.

 

Thankfully they caught the gunman, about 16 hours later in another state,passed out on the beach.

 

 

You know, the stats are all fine and good until eight city blocks are shut down and you're calling your colleagues in the building being attacked to know if they are OK.

 

 

Agree 100% except I had to call the wife and tell her what's up and I'm OK. Scary thing is this: she used to work less than 50 feet from where the gunman killed his victim. Victim's office was through the library she worked at. The community college is another gun free zone. Again a lot of vets and active duty military on campus who could have handled the situation.

 

Forgot to add, when 9-11 occurred, cell phones  in the area surrounding the WTC were down and we could not get in touch with my sister. Scary feeling not knowing if a family member is OK or not. I admit I was stunned when it happened and at work. But when I found out my sister was in NYC and my mom couldn't get a hold of her, I as like a zombie until I got word she was OK. 

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Forgot to add, active shooter training is part of our annual training now. All personell have to watch a  video and answer questions. Ironically, it became required training just before the active shooting incident I mentioned above.

 

Hospital police on the otherhand have done those drills on a regular basis for a while now.

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Ian mentioned that the police in all of England shot and killed only 3 criminals.  So that must mean that a few of them have guns.   

 

Here's an interesting statistic, how many would be alive today had they been armed?

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_British_police_officers_killed_in_the_line_of_duty

 

Which doesn't need to be broken down by year.

 

Here's the list for the USA...

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_police_officers_killed_in_the_line_of_duty

 

It's all unanswerables and imponderables though, the what ifs. I mean, I could say...how many of those would still be alive if hardly anyone had a gun? But that might start an argument, so I won't. I do worry, and I do think it's changing a bit in the UK, or maybe it's the media coverage, that things are slowly escalating, that as more crims have guns, more police are armed, so more crims get guns, so more police are armed.

 

And yes, indeed, the image of the british bobby with his (or her) trusty truncheon is a little out of date. I have a friend that who worked for the police, and was armed, he had good reason. You go some places in London and it's quite right that the police you see are proper tooled up. Airports, Downing Street. They're the main two I can think of.

 

I blame the English. Had they not oppressed us for all those decades back in the 18th Century, we would not feel the need to carry weapons. Clearly it's their fault. ;)  

 

Then I shall have to be terribly British and apologise unreservedly for anything and everything that anyone may think we may have done.  :p

 

Ian

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Then I shall have to be terribly British and apologise unreservedly for anything and everything that anyone may think we may have done.  :p

 

Ian

 

Quite acceptable. ;)

 

You *did* bring us the Beatles, Dr. Who, Harry Potter, Monty Python, the Young Ones, Yes Minister, Downton Abbey, the Who and (proper) football.

 

All is forgiven, Now simply speak the language correctly, convert to our measurement system and all will be good. ;)

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You *did* bring us the Beatles, Dr. Who, Harry Potter, Monty Python, the Young Ones, Yes Minister, Downton Abbey, the Who and (proper) football.

 

But apart from all that...what did the British ever do for us?

 

 

 

All is forgiven, Now simply speak the language correctly, convert to our measurement system and all will be good. 

 

Ah, well, I do try and use a pint measurement on a regular basis.

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