Hive: can you help point me to some stats on active shoot

[Totem Polar]

Specifically the pertinent info on pacing in these events. I have a memory of convincing arguments made regarding the fact that a high-cap magazine ban would make little difference in most active shooter events, since they are moving unopposed, at a casual pace, literally plinking people to death.

Asking because I am in the middle of some debates on recent events in the arts community, and this is the one counterpoint that I can’t dig up numbers on instantly.

I appreciate the input in advance.

[Darth_Uno]

Not hard stats, but good arguments here: https://www.cato.org/publications/legal-policy-bulletin/losing-count-empty-case-high-capacity-magazine-restrictions

[BillSWPA]

Do a YouTube search for Dr. Suzanna Hupp’s testimony before Congress. She describes her experience during the Luby’s Cafeteria shooting, and makes some very good points regarding magazine capacity.

How fast can you do a magazine change? Is that enough time for someone to perceive that the gun is empty, make the decision to act, cover whatever distance separates them from the shooter, and attempt a disarm?



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[0ddl0t]

Not really related to mass shooting, but here are three self-defense shootings described by Judge Benitez in his ruling overturning California's mag ban:


As two masked and armed men broke in, Susan Gonzalez was shot in the chest. She made it back to her bedroom and found her husband’s .22 caliber pistol. Wasting the first rounds on warning shots, she then emptied the single pistol at one attacker. Unfortunately, now out of ammunition, she was shot again by the other armed attacker. She was not able to re-load or use a second gun. Both she and her husband were shot twice. Forty-two bullets in all were fired. The gunman fled from the house—but returned. He put his gun to Susan Gonzalez’s head and demanded the keys to the couple’s truck.

When three armed intruders carrying what look like semi-automatic pistols broke into the home of a single woman at 3:44 a.m., she dialed 911. No answer. Feng Zhu Chen, dressed in pajamas, held a phone in one hand and took up her pistol in the other and began shooting. She fired numerous shots. She had no place to carry an extra magazine and no way to reload because her left hand held the phone with which she was still trying to call 911. After the shooting was over and two of the armed suspects got away and one lay dead, she did get through to the police. The home security camera video is dramatic.

A mother, Melinda Herman, and her nine-year-old twins were at home when an intruder broke in. She and her twins retreated to an upstairs crawl space and hid. Fortunately, she had a .38 caliber revolver. She would need it. The intruder worked his way upstairs, broke through a locked bedroom door and a locked bathroom door, and opened the crawl space door. The family was cornered with no place to run. He stood staring at her and her two children. The mother shot six times, hitting the intruder five times, when she ran out of ammunition. Though injured, the intruder was not incapacitated. Fortunately, he decided to flee.

...

When they occur, mass shootings are tragic. Innocent lives are senselessly lost while other lives are scarred forever. Communities are left shaken, frightened, and grieving. The timeline of the tragedy, the events leading up to the shooting, and the repercussions on family and friends after the incident, fill the national media news cycle for days, weeks and years. Who has not heard about the Newtown, Connecticut, mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, or the one at a high school in Parkland, Florida? But an individual victim gets little, if any, media attention, and the attention he or she gets is local and short-lived. For example, who has heard about the home invasion attack on Melinda Herman and her twin nine-year old daughters in Georgia only one month after the Sandy Hook incident? Who has heard of the attacks on Ms. Zhu Chen or Ms. Gonzalez and her husband? Are the lives of these victims worth any less than those lost in a mass shooting? Would their deaths be any less tragic? Unless there are a lot of individual victims together, the tragedy goes largely unnoticed.

That is why mass shootings can seem to be a common problem, but in fact, are exceedingly rare. At the same time robberies, rapes, and murders of individuals are common, but draw little public notice. As in the year 2017, in 2016 there were numerous robberies, rapes, and murders of individuals in California and no mass shootings. Nevertheless, a gubernatorial candidate was successful in sponsoring a statewide ballot measure (Proposition 63). Californians approved the proposition and added criminalization and dispossession elements to existing law prohibiting a citizen from acquiring and keeping a firearm magazine that is able to hold more than 10 rounds.

[0ddl0t]

In 2017, the most recent year we have FBI stats, there were only 151 homicides committed with a rifle of any kind - including the 58 killed in one incident in Las Vegas. For perspective, deer kill about 200 Americans every year (source: IIHS motor vehicle collision study). Murderers used knives 545 times, their hands/feet 319 times, and cars 183 times in 2017.

40961

[the Schwartz]

For perspective, deer kill about 200 Americans every year (source: IIHS motor vehicle collision study).

Uh oh. :eek:

Looks like it is time to ban deer. ;)

[Hambo]

Specifically the pertinent info on pacing in these events. I have a memory of convincing arguments made regarding the fact that a high-cap magazine ban would make little difference in most active shooter events, since they are moving unopposed, at a casual pace, literally plinking people to death.

Asking because I am in the middle of some debates on recent events in the arts community, and this is the one counterpoint that I can’t dig up numbers on instantly.

I appreciate the input in advance.

I think you're going to be arguing against videos of Vegas and Dayton.

[Yung]

To go with what BillSWPA said about reloading.

https://blog.krtraining.com/the-reloading-pause-fallacy/

[whomever]

Just as a Fermi estimate, you can frequently find the time interval between first 911 call and the last shot. It's not a perfect metric, because the shooting can start a little before or after that call, but it's a rough estimate of the timeline. And you can usually find the total number of shots fired. Dividing those gives you an average time between shots.

The 'fastest' one Ive seen was Sandy Hook. There are some differences in the reported start/stop times, but it comes out to 2 seconds between shots (IIRC the range between different sources is 1.7 to 2.2 or some such, just from dim memory).

A couple of points:
1)For Sandy Hook in particular, fewer shots probably wouldn't have affected the death toll. He apparently walked around shooting the second graders repeatedly - IIRC one was shot 11 times.
2)There have been high fatality shootings with smaller magazines - Va Tech was a mix of 10 and 15 rounds mags, and from the accounts he wasn't on any time pressure.
3)Manual actions aren't slow: the Brit 'Mad Minute' record was 30 odd rounds in a minute, but the standard everyone had to meet was 15 per minute, or a round every 4 seconds. That was at 100 yards with a full power rifle. I have a Ruger Ranch (short action, 3 lug so 60 degree bolt throw, full diameter bolt so slick). I just set the kitchen timer to 1 minute and managed to cycle it 43 times before the bell rang. Try it with your slickest bolt action. That's not something I practice, so I bet many people will be faster. To me, this implies just banning semi-autos, which I think is the current flavor of the month, isn't likely to work - you'd have to ban everything but single shots. And even then, a few years ago I remember seeing a youtube vid of Clint Smith (Thunder Ranch) working a single shot break action shotgun. It was one of the models that ejected on opening, and he must have had shells in belt loops or something. He was cranking out a round every 2 or 3 seconds.




Gary Kleck has a deep dive: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1525107116674926
This is the classic 'Sheriff does mag size comparison' video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCSySuemiHU