Posted on 10/03/2017 4:06:28 AM PDT by servo1969
Country music star John Rich handed over his own firearm to a police officer who used it to defend civilians in a bar during the Las Vegas strip massacre.
Rich, who is the star of Big & Rich, explained how it all went down on Fox News.
“I had an off-duty police officer, it was a Minneapolis police officer, off-duty, was in my bar hanging out. He came up to me and showed me his badge, and he says, ‘I’m officer – I forget his last name – and I’m [a police] officer and I’m not armed for the first time ever. I can’t believe it. Are you armed?’ I said yes I am armed. I had my concealed carry. He asked, ‘can I have your firearm so I can hold point on this door?’ So I handed over my firearm to him, everybody got behind him and for two hours he held point on that door without flinching,” Rich said during his appearance on Fox News.
This is such an incredible story. Of course Rich, a huge pro-America guy, had a gun and gave it to the police. I would be surprised if he didn’t have a gun. Good for him. Is there any genre of music more likely to have armed singers than country music? Didn’t think so.
Like i said, in this case it wouldnt have mattered much..
but I was mostly talking about the people on the ground.. they could have all been armed and it wouldnt have been any use to them...
Blown out windows, muzzle flashes from them, somebody open up and keep him ducking while the SWAT guys go in.
I think the elevation prevented that. Shooting up like that is not something most folk do. I would imagine there would be quite a fair amount of collateral damage as they dialed in the target. Would you want to risk innocent lives in the rooms below and above where the shooter was?
“I had an off-duty police officer, it was a Minneapolis police officer, off-duty, was in my bar hanging out. He came up to me and showed me his badge, and he says, ‘I’m officer – I forget his last name – and I’m [a police] officer and I’m not armed for the first time ever. I can’t believe it. Are you armed?
The windows (target) are about six feet tall.
The distance was about 200 yards.
200 yards for a 5.56mm is basically point blank - there would be no dialing in (fire and adjust).
The ceilings/floors (backstop of my inbound rounds) are made of concrete.
If I were an responding officer with a optic-equipped AR (I am NOT talking about a 200 yard shot with my service sidearm) that I knew and trusted and people were dropping all around me, you're damn right I would be shooting back (although I'm sure it would also be outside department policy).
Those who responded to the UT sniper might have missed the tower and their rounds would be landing on the other side of Austin, maybe hitting someone. That didn't stop them from trying to stop the guy.
Reading -- give it a try... Might keep you from making an @$$ of yourself... '-)
Ok doofus. Go back and read EVERY one of my replies on this thread. I have acknowledged the oversight several times. It happens. Can YOU not read???
Good gawd! What is your problem? Did my original post trigger you to the point of name calling? Was the tone of your reply really necessary?
Good advice is always good advice... Live with it.
Are you kidding me?!? You frigging pick a fight with someone for no reason and don’t even have the decency to acknowledge when you are out of line?!?
You need a course in self awareness, bud. That, or anger management/smart alec awareness. Truly, why are you even here? Just wanting to piss people off?
I would certainly hope I were not in the vicinity of any rooms above, below or behind the target. Your particular skills might be up to it, but from personal observation most police officers would be a danger to anyone for quite a distance around the shooter, especially at that range, 30 floors up, such that ballistics are not quite the same as one might be used to on a flat firing range.
You got me good there. In seriousness, I was alluding to the stateside moral equivalent of airstrikes - aimed shots in a built-up area fired by law enforcement personnel using AR-15's from hundreds of yards away, with occasional errant shots (and collateral damage) from dodging incoming fire.
I do get your point, though. It's triage time. The question is whether to risk killing innocents with your gun or risk having innocents killed by the bad guy's gun through your inaction. In real life, most cops have probably war-gamed this scenario and concluded that it's not worth losing a career and risking negligent homicide charges if they screw up and kill innocents. And I fully understand their perspective. It's really up to the higher-ups to have worked up a plan beforehand for scenarios like this, and provided emergency response teams with clear instructions as information filtered in.
Note that there's also a fog of war problem here. It's not so much that decision-makers are afraid of danger as they are of screwing up and killing innocents who had nothing to do with the attack. What if the guy was shooting at the real sniper, and they end up shooting a good guy with a gun while the bad guy got away?
Would not have mattered if they were armed. One of the most nefarious parts of the plan is that he picked a hotel as a nest.
Firing back on his position would have endangered people in the rooms adjacent to the shooter.
So true.
No; I'd just sit there and get shot.
Terrorists hide in among non-combatants all the time.
Some innocents will ALWAYS get killed this way.
I saw an article - don’t have a link to it, about a vet who was in a room 2 floors above, IIRC. Said he heard explosions too. I am not sure on timing - article did not say. Might have been SWAT went into the room?
"Might have been when SWAT went into the room?"
“I have wondered, watching the coverage, why police didn’t lay down suppressive fire on those windows.”
It happened fast.
Spraying bullets up 32 stories at a huge building at night in a confusing situation would have been s poor choice
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