Mass shooting in Orlando - Politics

[Steve81]

I also understand that there are other ways to implement a massacre, but since they require some combination of creativity, research, purchasing substances which may or may not put you on a "watch list", a place to assemble your weapon, and the risk of the device not functioning properly; I believe the inconvenience of these things would be a barrier to many people. The "great" thing about using the assault weapon is you have done nothing illegal until you are there pulling the trigger - it is a no-risk situation until "it's on"!

That's one of the big problems with groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda combined with a communications platform like the internet. The person actually carrying out the attack doesn't need to be terribly creative, intelligent, etc. One also expects that people willing to carry out these kinds of attacks aren't really worried about risk.

 

[highfigh]

Training helps, but even with that training, real world accuracy is less than 20%. Believe it or not, but the real world is nothing like what you see on TV and in movies.

http://nation.time.com/2013/09/16/ready-fire-aim-the-science-behind-police-shooting-bystanders/

Hey, thanks! I would never have known that.

I realize training and a live fire event are different, but they had two cops there, one in uniform, one in plain clothes.

I remember reports from a bank robbery in NYC where 9 people who just happened to be in the area were hit and all of them were shot by police officers.

 

[highfigh]

That's one of the big problems with groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda combined with a communications platform like the internet. The person actually carrying out the attack doesn't need to be terribly creative, intelligent, etc. One also expects that people willing to carry out these kinds of attacks aren't really worried about risk.

I saw a cartoon with a group of perspective suicide bombers and one guy was wearing a bomb vest with the caption "OK, watch carefully- I'm only going to show you this once".

 

[Chu Gai]

Hey, thanks! I would never have known that.

I realize training and a live fire event are different, but they had two cops there, one in uniform, one in plain clothes.

I remember reports from a bank robbery in NYC where 9 people who just happened to be in the area were hit and all of them were shot by police officers.

Ever read or listen to a sports athlete say something after a remarkable performance something like, "the basket just looked huge" or "I could tell it was a curve ball up in the strike zone"?
While athletes practice as do police officers or the Secret Service, how often they practice and under what conditions has a bearing on how well they perform. Psychologists and others have conducted studies as to what happens when people undergo stress. As things like respiration rate, heart rate, breathing increases, certain senses are sharpened to a large extent because other senses are diminished in their relative importance to the task at hand.

Now, there is an optimum area, a zone of you will, where we perform best. If you're below this zone, you've got irrelevant senses clouding the issue. If you go above, you literally start to break down and make inadvertent bad decisions.

So the thing is when it comes to police is to have practice under simulated conditions so that they not be rattled such that their heart rate is in a range where they perform at their best. This sort of training doesn't come at a shooting range and needs to be done on a regular basis.

 

[Steve81]

I realize training and a live fire event are different, but they had two cops there, one in uniform, one in plain clothes.

There are a few other factors to keep in mind. First and foremost is initiative, which would have been in Mateen's favor. Second is a matter of range. Police officers obviously get a regular amount of practice with their weapons, but the majority of it tends to be at a range of ~7 yards or so, simply because that's the range at which most encounters occur. Accuracy with a handgun tends to fall off much above that anyway for various reasons. Depending on how the confrontation(s) unfolded, that could also be in favor of Mateen. Last but not least, there's simply the matter of bad luck.

 

[Rickster71]

......but you are entirely missing my point,................

Well yes, this seems to be the thread for that.

 

[KEW]

We're relying on an ineffective, wasteful government to save and protect us. As a distraction, they get the political parties to oppose each other with the usual Dog and Pony Show. We pay government more and more money and they become more bloated and ineffective.

I think I agree, but I question your wording.
Are you saying that the government manipulates the parties to oppose each other? Because as I see it the parties are the government!

 

[KEW]

One also expects that people willing to carry out these kinds of attacks aren't really worried about risk.

I agree with this, but I do believe they are very worried (even obsessed) about being successful in the execution of their act of terror. I don't pretend to understand what they are about, but I do believe to get caught before they can execute their plan is a major fear (IOW, they are a "wanna be" instead of a terrorist) I think there is a need for grandiose behind these acts, and to end up being labeled as impotent is perhaps their biggest fear!
So effectively, the security of being legal until they walk in the door and pull the trigger almost guarantees they will succeed to at least make the local news (as a killer, not as a failure)!

 

[j_garcia]

What good is making the local news if you're dead?

What needs to be banned is ALL media coverage of these incidents.

 

[Steve81]

So effectively, the security of being legal until they walk in the door and pull the trigger almost guarantees they will succeed to at least make the local news!

One other slight problem: it's not exactly legal to plot a terrorist act, whether you're planning to use a few Molotov Cocktails or an AR-15. Do you seriously doubt that if Mateen's wife had turned him in before the attack, lives would have been saved and Mateen would be in FBI custody?

 

[highfigh]

There are a few other factors to keep in mind. First and foremost is initiative, which would have been in Mateen's favor. Second is a matter of range. Police officers obviously get a regular amount of practice with their weapons, but the majority of it tends to be at a range of ~7 yards or so, simply because that's the range at which most encounters occur. Accuracy with a handgun tends to fall off much above that anyway for various reasons. Depending on how the confrontation(s) unfolded, that could also be in favor of Mateen. Last but not least, there's simply the matter of bad luck.

I don't know about the officers in Orlando, but some are gun hobbyists and competitive shooters- after all, it's in their best interest to be able to hit what's in front of their sights. Granted, some will act like Barney Fife when the time comes to shoot, but I have watched and listened to police when in stressful situations and the majority acted and sounded extremely professionally, with hardly any audible stress in their voice. For some, it was very obvious that they were completely stressed- for one, whose head had been grazed, it was definitely something I would expect. Regardless, they're supposed to train for active shooters to the point where the training takes over and their normal instincts are pushed back.

I would also think the guards would be posted at the doors- I wonder if they had left their posts and he waited for that, possibly calling in with some kind of false report of a problem in a different area of the bar.

 

[highfigh]

What good is making the local news if you're dead?

What needs to be banned is ALL media coverage of these incidents.

If you mean they shouldn't report in real time, I absolutely agree.

 

[highfigh]

Ever read or listen to a sports athlete say something after a remarkable performance something like, "the basket just looked huge" or "I could tell it was a curve ball up in the strike zone"?
While athletes practice as do police officers or the Secret Service, how often they practice and under what conditions has a bearing on how well they perform. Psychologists and others have conducted studies as to what happens when people undergo stress. As things like respiration rate, heart rate, breathing increases, certain senses are sharpened to a large extent because other senses are diminished in their relative importance to the task at hand.

Now, there is an optimum area, a zone of you will, where we perform best. If you're below this zone, you've got irrelevant senses clouding the issue. If you go above, you literally start to break down and make inadvertent bad decisions.

So the thing is when it comes to police is to have practice under simulated conditions so that they not be rattled such that their heart rate is in a range where they perform at their best. This sort of training doesn't come at a shooting range and needs to be done on a regular basis.

Perception depends on the individual, but I can attest to the saying about when in an extremely stressful situation, it seems that time passes more slowly and sometimes, it seems that the event occurs almost instantly. Depends on the event and I have experienced both.

Different departments have access to different training facilities- the PD where I live (suburb of Milwaukee) usually goes to a place in Racine County because they have buildings for various situations and the main range is outdoors, so they can practice at greater distances. Because of what's coming in from Milwaukee, they need this more than ever.

 

[Steve81]

I don't know about the officers in Orlando, but some are gun hobbyists and competitive shooters- after all, it's in their best interest to be able to hit what's in front of their sights.

I would presume they probably spend more time at the range than I have, and could probably shoot more accurately under ideal and less than ideal circumstances than I could. Sometimes, that's just not enough, especially at 2AM, with a guy walking down the street who breaks out a rifle and opens fire, potentially before they even have a chance to draw their own weapon.

Regardless, they're supposed to train for active shooters to the point where the training takes over and their normal instincts are pushed back.

SWAT teams are certainly extensively/regularly trained and equipped for responding to this kind of situation. That doesn't necessarily apply to all officers.

I have watched and listened to police when in stressful situations and the majority acted and sounded extremely professionally, with hardly any audible stress in their voice.

Controlling your voice and acting professionally in a stressful situation is a great deal different than totally suppressing the physiological effects of your fight or flight response when you're actively being shot at by a psychopath.

 

[j_garcia]

If you mean they shouldn't report in real time, I absolutely agree.

Yes. I understand people want to know and the way media is today, we like to hear what is going on now, but for an incident like this it is no benefit. The media wants their viewers and traffic on their websites knowing that the sensationalism sells and try to capitalize off it. It also gives these crazies a venue. I don't agree with it.

 

[KEW]

One other slight problem: it's not exactly legal to plot a terrorist act, whether you're planning to use a few Molotov Cocktails or an AR-15. Do you seriously doubt that if Mateen's wife had turned him in before the attack, lives would have been saved and Mateen would be in FBI custody?

Of course not, but I also do not expect them to tell someone about their plans unless they trust them to keep quiet.

 

[Steve81]

Of course not, but I also do not expect them to tell someone about their plans unless they trust them to keep quiet.

It's hard to say what one can expect from a group largely composed of mentally unstable individuals. Mateen didn't seem to have too much trouble involving his wife with the planning. While she ultimately kept quiet, it was a massive risk for him to assume she would do so. None of the info released on her thus far indicates she was a "true believer".

Can you ever really trust another person with the knowledge that you're a terrorist and a psychopath intent on mass murder? Even co-conspirators can have a change of heart, chicken out, or turn out to be an undercover FBI agent. This to say nothing of what friends and family may notice without being explicitly told what you're up to.

 

[Chu Gai]

You can keep a secret between two people so long as one of them is dead.

 

[KEW]

What good is making the local news if you're dead?

You are asking to apply logic to a massacre. Thankfully, you do not have the same values!
It is the grandiose thing!
Perhaps he was pissed off because the FBI kept discounting him as not being a serious threat!
Perhaps he was really gay and could not get it up for a female and blamed the gay guys for giving a "sinful temptation" that eliminated his ability to perform heterosexually. Being impotent, he may have needed to prove himself powerful.
Sure he dies, but before he died, he knew that he had struck fear in the hearts of those in the club and had gained notoriety! That is a form of power and, I believe, for this type of personality, a prime driving factor. I think dying was his expected outcome from this. Not too many other ways for it to end. So rule that out as a "concern". You can look at it as he "needed" people to remember him and it didn't matter if it was after he died!

 

[KEW]

It's hard to say what one can expect from a group largely composed of mentally unstable individuals. Mateen didn't seem to have too much trouble involving his wife with the planning. While she ultimately kept quiet, it was a massive risk for him to assume she would do so. None of the info released on her thus far indicates she was a "true believer".

Can you ever really trust another person with the knowledge that you're a terrorist and a psychopath intent on mass murder? Even co-conspirators can have a change of heart, chicken out, or turn out to be an undercover FBI agent. This to say nothing of what friends and family may notice without being explicitly told what you're up to.

I agree with you. However, your last sentence is exactly my point! There may be people who saw him with the weapons, but how can they report him for legal activity? Unless they have knowledge of his specific plans, there is nothing to report. They may have recognized him as someone they did not feel should have access to any gun, but that is not the basis to report him to authorities (unless they had some real specifics).
The gun shop that denied him purchase of firearms and body armor did report him as suspicious, and that was probably the best opportunity to stop him, however, he has been interviewed by the Feds before, so I don't know it would have mattered. They really can't do anything beyond "watching" him until he commits the crime (unless, as you point out, his wife were to betray him).