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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   38381 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 27, 2023

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wielding two assault-style rifles and a pistol

What video game logic is this? Not to make light of tragedy or offer constructive criticism to mass killers, but this is silliness.

As American society has a long and difficult talk about the intersection of trans ideology, mental health, religion, education and the second amendment in the wake of the Nashville shooting, we cut to The Motte

"6 magazines motherfucker! Count it, 1 2 3 4 5 and 6 extra magazines! That's what you want to take on your mass shooting, not another gun!"

"No you dumb piece of shit, who the fuck needs six extra magazines? What are you fucking blindfolded? Do you have parkinsons? An extra rifle is what you need, in case your first one breaks down and you are shit out of luck!"

"An extra rifle?! An extra RIFLE?!"

This is by far the funniest themotte comment ever.

Rather than reciting pro- and anti-gun arguments from memory, but now with added trans debate, I'd honestly rather dispute the wisdom of the "two rifle plan". This is absolutely abhorrent, why also is it informed by video games? You want some piercing critique of our culture? It's right around here.

What is this fixation on "video games"? I've also seen 1 second no fail reloading in video games, doesn't mean it's relevant. I believe others have provided enough arguments in favor of slightly less optimal action (switching guns) being better than an optimal action that requires practice to be optimal (reloading). Plus weapon breakdown risk.

In this specific case, a particular line from Call of Duty is a deep meme of the post-GWOT, heavily video game influenced gun culture. Two long arms, three weapons with different manuals of arms, three different non-cross compatible magazines across two ammo types is in-line with the type of abstractions that video games use (until Halo most shooters had unlimited weapons, simplified ammunition management) and immediately calls to mind that reference.

Honestly, I think we should all be thankful that most mass shooters aren't this logical. Then again, if they were this logical, maybe they wouldn't be mass shooters in the first place, perhaps.

And this is why I love you guys!

Video game logic is right. These are, broadly, mentally unwell people making decisions they think will make them ‘cool’ to themselves. If they were rational actors they would not be mass shooters.

It gets weirder. The load out as reported was a Keltec Sub2000 used as primary, an (10.5 by the look) AR15 pistol as the secondary and a S&W M&P Shield EZ as the pistol. Maybe the Keltec was favored over the AR because short barreled ARs indoors are excessively loud and headache inducing. From what I remember of the Shield line the full size pistol magazines don't work in them unless they're the Shield+ subline M&P9c (and cross compatibility between EZ and regular Shields is questionable) so there isn't even magazine compatibility between the Keltec and the pistol.

Edit: Shield Plus, EZ and regular Shields all seem uniquely non-compatible for magazines. I was thinking of the M&P9 Compact which is compatible with full size M&P9 pistol magazines that variants of the Keltec Sub2000 and the new S&W M&P FPC can also use. Four separate (sub|micro|)compacts, all under the same M&P general branding (as opposed to the CSX, SD and Equalizer lines) none of which play nice with each other, that's some market differentiation.

Okay, that actually sounds somewhat reasonable in terms of carry weight. The SUB-2000 also folds up, making transport easier.

Somewhat lightweight but not much more than a basic AR pistol at 4.25lbs unloaded compared to 5-6lbs. The folding aspect seems pointless in this context, given that they drove to the school then had everything at the ready by the time they got from the parked car to the front doors. Folding is usually more useful for something like a backpack (although the way the S2K folds makes optics much more complicated), not showing up at the front door in camouflage pants wearing a shooter vest. There's also three different manuals of arms to consider.

Hmm. Maybe more video game logic. The logistics of incompatible mags doesn't come up in shooting games. So the lunacy of using three kinds of guns with no shared magazines doesn't occur to someone trained by GTA and CoD.

But they almost made a defensible choice if the sub2000 and the Shield could share mags. Should have googled before buying.

I take it the shooter is the sort of person who says their computer is broken, but really a simple googling would hand them the solution. They should teach basic solution finding through internet search in school.

If you're in your last days, why not buy an extra gun? More is more. It's not like they're infantrymen who'll be running around and fighting for a long time, they don't need to be especially mobile.

Weight is the limiting factor. More loaded mags is top priority.

I like shotgun sports. They are good fun. A loaded shotgun is way too heavy to possibly justify.

What if the gun breaks down though? How heavy is it really to carry an extra ar15? Googling it seems like it weighs about 3.5 kg.

It doesn't seem that ludicrous..

The backup gun is the handgun, not another rifle.

That's ~6 more fully loaded 30 round magazines they could have brought instead

Are you aware of any active shooter situation where the shooter actually ran out of ammo? On the other hand, north hollywood is at least one case where a double-feed disabled the shooter's longarm.

Are you aware of any active shooter situation where the shooter actually ran out of ammo?

I guess not, but apparently they bring less ammo than a guy who's going to the range might bring, as per BJ Campbell.

one case where a double-feed disabled the shooter's longarm.

If I've learned anything from watching Forgotten Weapons, it's that the magazine and feeding reliably is far more important to professionals than magazine size, and that often the magazine gets more engineering effort than the rest of the gun. But from pop culture you'd think the magazines were single-use and disposable.

But from pop culture you'd think the magazines were single-use and disposable.

In fairness, both America and France had the idea of making magazines cheap and disposable (for the original M16 and FAMAS, respectively), but both militaries backed off of the idea really quickly (which probably contributed to the perception of the M16 and the US-issue magazines as unreliable--you have these cheap, easily-bent aluminum magazines serving from Vietnam all the way to the Gulf War, I imagine), because the idea of a cheap magazine just being thrown away probably offended some bean counter or desk officer somewhere. Ian has talked about this before.

They already had a sidearm that was plenty sufficient for engaging unarmed children and senior citizens.

The overwhelming majority of mass shooters are not gun people. If they were, we'd expect to see illegal rifles constantly (illegal magazines are a bit more common but even that's not guaranteed) because the anti-gun side is actually correct about short-barreled rifles being more conducive to increased lethality over a handgun without sacrificing much concealability.

But that observation only appears to be correct in theory: illegal rifles and pistols never show up despite all the parts necessary to create one common to every single gun store for the last 10 years (the "braced pistol" thing), and we've never heard of anyone getting stopped because their rifle was poking out of their bag.

What video game logic is this?

If one stops working, only a gun person will actually know how to fix it. Unreliable equipment run incompetently has ended many sprees, and someone doing research on past shootings would know this.

So might as well have one more; it's an extra 10 pounds and a thousand bucks on a credit card you're not planning on paying off anyway. (Come to think of it, I suspect that loadouts of mass shooters are generally dictated by how high their credit card limits are; if you're planning on suicide, why would paying it back be a concern?)

An experienced shooter (who isn't suffering from a brain tumor) would... well, we don't really know what they do because we've yet to see a conclusive example of one committing this kind of crime and most of the time body count comes from "medical attention was delayed because the police failed to breach and clear in a timely fashion". I guess the Vegas shooter counts; medical attention was timely and that body count is what I'd expect from someone competent (though the number and types of weapons used suggests significant incompetence) but we don't know if he just planned to shoot up the concert or if there was something else going on.

What about the Christchurch shootings? Anders Breivik? Both managed to get very high body counts.

I assume those were the first major shooting sprees in their respective countries. If it's never happened before, the first time could be quite bad.

Unreliable equipment run incompetently has ended many sprees, and someone doing research on past shootings would know this.

Columbine also involved unreliable equipment, although in that case it technically started rather than ended the spree (it was supposed to be a bombing, but the bombs didn't go off).

Would Virginia Tech count as an experienced shooter? 32 killed, all with handguns.

And oddly enough most killed with a 22 using 10 round mags.

Which I take as compelling evidence that semi-automatic rifle and standard capacity mag bans have nothing at all to do with mass shootings. A 22 handgun will 10 round mags, the minimum viable product of modern firearms, is sufficient to kill dozens of people.

That's just East Asian superiority in action. I would expect a Korean-American to actually do his homework and research the best approach to a mass shooting.

Unreliable equipment run incompetently has ended many sprees, and someone doing research on past shootings would know this.

Yes. The 2012 Aurora, Colorado shooting involved some silliness regarding a non-standard oversized mag jamming the gun.

it's an extra 10 pounds

10 pounds of loaded mags is massively too valuable to exchange for a second loaded long arm.

If one stops working, only a gun person will actually know how to fix it.

Yeah, but we are friendly and helpful. Just join a shooting group and they'll help. I've shot with immigrants who own a gun but do not know how to clear pistol jams. I show them tap tap rack. It's not that hard.

But I get we are over analyzing a severely mentally unsound person.

10 pounds of loaded mags is massively too valuable to exchange for a second loaded long arm.

To a gun person, yes.

To someone incompetent, I think it's something that, given you know that malfunctions happen but not necessarily why, would mean a second gun (or third, in this case) would sound like a better option.

I'm really just taking the assumption that non-tech people have about computers, or that non-car people have about cars, and applying it: that they're mostly magic black boxes not worth learning the ins and outs of before using one for your task. Tap-rack-bang is absolutely not that hard; neither is asking ChatGPT what to do about Googling an error message.

In all honesty, the criminal just standing there, fumbling about for their extra magazine in their pocket or bag (and the only reason they know they need to reload is because the gun locked open and the trigger's dead) is probably what ends most sprees. By contrast, I wouldn't put good odds on most people if they're up against someone with a fully populated belt liberally dragged through the DAA catalog, even if they're not wearing armor, simply by what wearing that implies.

The 2012 Aurora, Colorado shooting involved some silliness regarding a non-standard oversized mag jamming the gun.

Non-gun people just see that 100 is greater than 30. Gun people will claim coffin mags are named that because trusting them to work flawlessly makes it more likely you'll end up in one (the 60 round Surefire and Magpul drum are more reliable than the 100s, and while I don't remember if he had a C-mag or a Surefire 100 I distinctly remember reading it was one of those two).

Just join a shooting group and they'll help.

I don't think that someone who buys a rifle for the sole purpose of committing a mass shooting would have enough patience to make use of a shooting group (either because they're mad now, or because they tend to get booted if they do certain things suggestive of mass shooter-hood).

I don't think that someone who buys a rifle for the sole purpose of committing a mass shooting would have enough patience to make use of a shooting group (either because they're mad now, or because they tend to get booted if they do certain things suggestive of mass shooter-hood).

This is perhaps the most relevant to the discussion at hand - gun nuts aren't the people doing these shootings. If you know a guy that owns a half dozen rifles, hangs around the local range, maybe has a GOA bumper sticker, and can explain what MOA and parabolic trajectory, you probably know a guy that will almost certainly not fire that weapon in anger. I've never seen a clear study on it, but going by the basics of what we see from spree and mass shootings, it's pretty much never the people that putatively need to be disarmed for everyone's safety.

we don't know if he just planned to shoot up the concert or if there was something else going on

Did we ever find out much of anything about him or what was going on with that?

The state's final investigation report is available here. tldr, no, not really.

... except apparently 'final and complete' is a synonym for 'close enough?!'

EDIT: I don't buy it, but it's at least the sorta thing that should have been mentioned at length.

Yeah, maybe I've just been exposed to one too many conspiracy theories, but "rampage of revenge over losing big money in Vegas" feels...unsatisfying as an explanation.

Why? A rifle to dump and drop followed by a second one, with a pistol as backup. Assuming 30 round magazines that's 60 rifle rounds before the first reload. Considering you are, at least in theory, going door to door shooting children I don't see what's so obviously silly about it.

As an example of this in practice, Brenton Tarrant carried a shotgun and a rifle. A shotgun he fired until empty which he then dropped for an immediate rifle follow up.

A rifle to dump and drop followed by a second one

Yeah. This part right here. Reload rather than dumping your longarm and carrying an entire second long arm. This is the silly part.

Tarrant was strictly suboptimal since carry weight is the limiting factor.

I'm still at a loss as to why it is silly. On the other hand I can see a very clear benefit in minimizing the time you are not able to fire. Considering the most immediate threat before police show up is being tackled by someone who is unarmed, the only time you are vulnerable to that threat is if you are not capable of firing. Other than that you are, in theory, going door to door shooting children. What is 8 pounds of extra weight on your chest compared to a rifle backup that is quickly and easily presentable? For a cost benefit analysis I don't see the obvious cost and lack of benefit that render the approach silly.

What is 8 pounds of extra weight on your chest compared to a rifle backup that is quickly and easily presentable?

Weight is everything. A true cost benefit analysis rejects excess weight with extreme prejudice. Here's where I'll assert that weight is a consideration so powerful that "I'll carry a second long arm" is ridiculous. "Quickly and easily" is reserved for swapping mags, not silly video game switching from one rifle to the next.

It didn't look like something out of a silly videogame when Tarrant did it in practice. He, in fact, looked far more vulnerable when he had to reload his rifle compared to when he had to chuck away an empty shotgun to present a loaded rifle. And as I stated before, I don't see the focus on weight being relevant here. You are not traveling long distances. You are not shooting and scooting like John Wick. You are walking door to door shooting children. Worst case scenario is either that you are unable to fire at someone tackling you or that your gun stops working. Carrying an extra gun, ready to fire, solves both of those issues.

I don't see the assertion of a 'true' cost benefit analysis being relevant unless substantiated. There is a very obvious benefit to carrying a secondary rifle. There is a cost that comes with that. But considering the situation I don't see why that cost would be so prohibitive as to be called silly.

He, in fact, looked far more vulnerable when he had to reload his rifle compared to when he had to chuck away an empty shotgun to present a loaded rifle.

Don't over-learn from one example. Reloading is massively faster than throwing away a long gun and drawing a second one. Tarrant be damned in many ways: he was doing the wrong thing and doing it wrong.

This whole discussion is so fundamentally wrong that I can only write it off as video game logic. I know I'm lapsing into "just trust me bro" territory, but this is just dumb. This isn't how it works. Learn to shoot and see how comically wrong this idea is.

reloading is definately more efficient, but clearing a double-feed or other serious malfunction is not. Six extra mags probably isn't all that useful, given that most shooters don't actually make it through more than a mag or two, but serious malfs can and do happen, and render the longarm dead.

Spree killing pretty clearly isn't like other tactical situations. the shooter is not playing the long game; they're almost certainly dead within a half-hour of initiation, probably more like ten minutes. they are not going to be traveling long distances fast. They don't even need a ton of ammo. lethal effect of the ammo isn't even a top-tier concern. there's (hopefully) no backup, and any delay or hindrance is deadly to the shooter's intentions.

I'm giving a single example to your no example after you made assertions that contradicted what happened there. Saying reloading is massively faster than throwing away a gun and presenting one that is strapped to your chest just isn't true. I'm sure it can be true if you are a smooth operator that reloads his weapon every time without hesitation or hitch. But if you are less than perfect at any moment during a reload I'd be much more inclined to say that dropping a gun for another that is strapped to your chest is faster.

Appealing to some greater understanding, be that the assertion of a 'true' cost benefit analysis, personal experience or framing the whole discussion as 'video game logic' just isn't relevant to me. There are plenty of obvious use cases for an extra rifle. And whilst there is a cost associated with that, I don't see why that cost is so obviously high that it renders the act 'silly' or 'comically wrong'.

Saying reloading is massively faster than throwing away a gun and presenting one that is strapped to your chest just isn't true.

I don't know what to say anymore. It just is true. I know I'm merely asserting, but I'm right, Tarrant be damned. That one bad data point of a guy purposefully making as much of a spectacle as possible doesn't change reality.

I wish we were on BLM land with a few rifles right now. We could compare the amount of fumbling and bumbling involved with throwing down a rifle and switching to another one vs swapping mags. You'd rock solid see I'm right.

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Reloading is massively faster than throwing away a long gun and drawing a second one.

It's faster if you have experience reloading a rifle. I have reloaded a rifle exactly once in my life, and I would probably take a second rifle with me as well if I went mass shooting. Well, I would probably take multiple handguns instead.

Well, I would probably take multiple handguns instead.

The Virginia Tech shooter did this to great effect.

Press the button to drop the mag, slam in the new one, pull the charging handle, and all of this is designed to be done fairly easily without taking your right hand off the pistol grip. You have to be really bad with guns for it to not make sense, and even then a pistol as your backup makes far more sense than a second long gun.

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Kids these days playing too much Call of Duty and not enough paintball.

Not that I'm complaining mind you, in this context any tactical incompetence on the part of the shooter is a godsend.

two is one, one is none? A spare longarm isn't all that much extra weight, and serious weapon failures aren't unknown in these sorts of situations. North Hollywood shootout comes to mind.

I doubt it's dispositive either way, but it seems improbable they were trying to dual wield.

Pack more glocks. Or MP7. Spare longarm while not much heavier is unwieldy and reduces freedom of movement. And we are talking close quarters anyway.

2 handguns seems much more reasonable by this thought process IMO...

More assault rifles = more dangerous

The 2017 Mandalay Bay Hotel, Las Vegas shooter needed no fewer than 14 AR-15 for maximal lethality (60 alleged victims from over 1000 bullets allegedly fired).

So that is defensible. He was extreme rapid firing from a fixed location. It is when weight and mobility considerations are involved that I start questioning the multi-rifle plan. And when "swapping guns is faster than reloading" comes up I start scoffing and accusing people of video game logic.

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