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Just got home seconds ago from an incident minutes ago, that was the quintessential American experience.
We were in the car after dinner and a pint in our local area, When I hear a series of fireworks going off almost immediately behind us, its only when I see the vendors and customers at the food stalls across the junction running and hiding that I realize those fireworks are gunfire. I tell the wife to drive, dont care, just drive, a guy running at full speed runs out in front of us, he doesnt stop, he doesnt slow down,, I assume he was either the target or associated with the target, although I suppose he could be the shooter.
Its odd how it just happens, out of nowhere, how close the lines are between night out and danger, how just turning the corner people are getting about their lives as if nothing has happened, the bus continues on its slow way, with us stuck behind it, caught between panic and adherence to normal rules and behavior. My wife is a nurse, and I am glad our child was with us as she knew she could not return to help anyone injured and risk them, if our child was not with us, I know she would have turned around.

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Several years ago now, we were driving home, not through the best part of town, when we saw blue lights ahead. With the benefits of hindsight we should have stopped and turned around, but didn't. When I reached the blue lights, two police cars were entirely blocking the road, but there was no sign of the officers. Then we realized that they were behind us, arms drawn, two with pistols, one with a shotgun raised to his shoulder, surrounding someone they were trying to arrest. :eek: So going back was inadvisable and going forwards wasn't possible. Luckily I was able to drive over the curb to one side, across the sidewalk, around a corner, and leave the area, quickly! Thankfully we never heard gunfire that night, but I was prohibited from taking that route through town at night again. Mrs P won't drive that way during daylight either.

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30 year old found by police with a gun shot to knee, he is being being uncooperative according to the police

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Really sorry to hear that you and your family had this terrifying experience kimilseung. Thank goodness you're all ok.

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Terrible This gun business would put me off the US.

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I was tempted to blame the USA, then remembered my mum saw a shooting, while she was waiting for the bus, in Southport, two years ago.

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something similar happened to us. We drove along a road that wasn’t in a bad area, but perhaps not the best area of a nearby town. Suddenly there were patrol cars across the road, doors open, cops crouched behind the doors, guns drawn. It was like something out of a movie. Hubby quickly jumped the pavement and turned around.

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I see cops going about their business all the time, but usually if they think there's a chance of shooting they'll block the road and alley with police cars, sometimes for a 2 block radius, and a couple of times I've seen the SWAT team do their thing. The next day it'll be in the paper, escapee arrested, robbers caught, meth, guns and cash seized, that sort of thing. When I hear shooting it's almost always the gang-bangers trying to kill each other or shooting into each other's houses. The police here don't get in many gunfights.

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I hate to hear this. Glad you are all safe and ok.

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Shooting doesn't even make the city newspaper web pages, just the neighborhood blogs.

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Scary.

I had a shooting in the neighborhood I grew up in once, an out of control party some teens had while their parents were out of town, some rival gang members showed up and a shoot out occurred, only injuries were other gangsters but our house was hit by one bullet, my dad found the whole in the wall in the morning, luckily it was about 12" high so it missed me.

I had a gang banger pull a gun out on me on the train in San Diego back in 2010, I worked graveyards and the route I had to take to get downtown goes through some questionable areas, at the end of the line not far from the border with Mexico there is a prison, when the prison releases people they do it at night and drop them off at the train station, and of course some are met by their gang banger friends, after that I refused to take the train again after dark, chose the bus instead even though it took double the time.

The last few nights someone has been shooting a gun off in our area, into the air, clearly not fireworks, and the police always respond, they shoot the gun 1-2 times and then nothing, but still scares the life from me.

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Sorry you had such a scary experience kimilseung.

Not at all condoning gun use in the USA but this report from pbs.org may be somewhat reassuring.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/...the-u-s-stands

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I don't know if it is all that reassuring to know that the US is slightly safer than most of the countries it destabilised in the last century. The list is mostly South America, the US is the only developed country in the top 20.

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And of the 37,200 gun deaths in the US, 23,800 of them were suicides.

"suicides linked to guns occurred in the U.S. at a rate of 6.4 per 100,000 deaths — a total of 23,800 people — the second highest rate worldwide."

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...and almost 30,000 gun injuries on top of the murder and suicide deaths (in 2019).

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Karma for that sentence.

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Just last year there was 2 different 'domestic' gun killings in my road. First was a young lady shot late at night on her driveway by her ex partner. Couple of weeks later at the community swimming pool on a Friday afternoon during a child visitation handover the ex partner/father pulls out a gun and shoots the new boyfriend. I actually heard the 3 shots and a few minutes later watched the police cars arrive. Pretty sure both were not reported on local news channels only local neighbourhood forums.

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I can think of at least one 2 shootings within a 20 mile radius of my home in the last 18 months. One was a Sheriffs Deputy shot by a suspect fleeing from a crime in Atlanta that had been cornered, the other was a brother shooting another brother to percent him inflicting injuries on the 2nds spouse.

Every day occurrence in the US. I personally don't think about it. I train with my pistol on a weekly basis, and it's always within 4 feet of me, but the training is something that I enjoy rather than do it just because I might need it.

As always, if you stay in the 'decent' parts of town you are very unlikely to encounter gun violence.

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Gun violence is highly localized, there is data to support that.

thanks for the insult though. Sticks and stones.

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The access to a gun was something we considered, in our family debrief. First the shots came unannounced and unseen, though heard.
Then the conflicting feedback, the Sound definitely sounded behind to our left.
But ahead to our left was where people were diving for cover.
They dived to our left, which suggested the the threat was from the right.
The escaping person came from behind to our right.
All this conflicting data in just establishing were a shooter is, who already has a gun out, pointed, and pulling the trigger. the bullets find their destination according to physics. We went to our right, trusting our ears, I think that was correct. But the bullets were flying, from a never seen source. I don't think having a weapon within a few feet would have changed that.
2 incidents within 20 miles? Almost a war zone

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Indeed. Who exactly would you have shot?

I have been at close quarters to gunfire several times, in Chicago, the closest being in a holdup in a hardware store. Any attempt to actually shoot someone would probably have resulted in multiple innocent people getting hurt. The guy behind the counter sensibly handed over the cash. I had nipped behind a stack of five-gallon paint drums. Stickup guy left, nobody got hurt.

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Two good points.

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That would have been scary as hell LiW. Very sensible counter guy. No inanimate object is worth getting killed for, nor killing for.

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I’m not suggesting that I would have shot anyone. Simply that you can’t avoid the risk, and therefore should be as prepared as possible.

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You also said, by any reasonable inference, that hundreds of thousands, no, millions of people, should just suck it up, including my family, because they can't afford to be a nice enough bourgeois. In a nice bourgeois neighbourhood.

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.... that’s quite an inference. It’s also complete crap. By my own admission, there have been several incidents in my own area recently.

i wouldn’t consider it a war zone. It’s the cost of living in the US. I don’t spend any time worrying about it.

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We were in one of the wealthiest parts of South Houston visiting a Mall with family visiting from England. It was early Sunday afternoon, the Mall opened at noon so not too busy. We heard gunfire and screams. The security guards were telling everyone to get into stores. We ran into a large Dillards with lots of other scared shoppers. The metal doors closed and we were all told to move back into the store.
The gunfire was a holdup in a jewelry store and the bad guys fired randomly as they ran towards the exit.

So good or bad areas really make no difference.

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with a mere 2 incidents within 20 miles, and the finances to be away from such places, one wonders why you are unable to avoid it. You almost sound paranoid.

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Quite the opposite. I’m very comfortable and prepared but not paranoid.

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We've been to Florida twice on holiday and never heard any trouble the first time (hubby has been all over on business). The second time (3? years ago), we took our youngest who hadn't been before. We told her not to worry as we'd never had any trouble and it was very unlikely we'd have any again. Coming out of the Arby's (first food place once we got off a flight that evening) we told her - keep your head down, shut the door as soon as you're in the car, don't stop lying down until Dad says you can. It is purely situational and I'm sure pretty rare. But when it happens it scares the daylights out of you. Glad your family is ok, Kim

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It's like that here in NL (for now). If someone is shot, it's either gangs shooting other gang's king pins (do they still say that?), or deranged police/forces doing murder/suicides (not quite the same vein). That is why I will always, always believe that guns belong only (stored securely) in the workplaces of those who require them during their working hours - otherwise, they owned are criminals, and therefore all those who use one are culpable, or need to answer for their actions. It works in the rest of the world, but unfortunately it is too late for the USA

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Crime rates in WA are much lower than in GA. When you look at gun crime/deaths, WA is much safer than GA. I guess you could move to Alaska (JK, they're killing the shit out of each other up there). Probably better just move to Rhode Island. Otherwise, you're really just asking for it.

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You'd love being in Mississippi. 2 incidents within 20 miles is like it happened in another county, if not state. We hear gun shots here every weekend. People are allowed to shoot their guns on their own property at targets or animals. We have shootings involving people as close as 3 miles from our house. Is it a bad neighborhood. No, it isn't.

Don't worry about diving to the left or right. Just dive down.

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Depicted here is a guard deployed today to protect the Nevada State Governor from a motley crew of "Covid-19 is a hoax" troopers. I don't know anything about guns, and am curious as to what this device is. Any er, armament enthusiasts who can say what this is?

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/british...0e8198b32e.jpg

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Penn 37mm or 40mm grenade launcher; he probably has tear gas and maybe smoke.
That cylinder looks like it holds 5, so I'll say 40mm.
On the other hand, because I have no way of knowing, it could be 37mm and for all I know he could have rubber bullets as well. The upside of having multiple types of ammunition is adaptability to the situation, the downside is possibility of confusing what you're using in the heat of the moment.

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I'm not certain exactly what the device is, but I agree with Caretaker, it's designed to fire something non-lethal, and I would lean towards smoke/tear gas as the cartridges are large diameter and short - a rubber bullet of that size would have a very short effective range if foam, and be potentially lethal if it had enough density to have much range.

ETA It looks similar to an M32 grenade launcher, but the front of the magazine appears to be open, whereas the M32 has a solid circular cover. Also the stock is hollow (in the above picture you can see his shoulder through it), but that could be changed fairly easily.

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I don't know if you can get frags for these or not, but they have a wide variety of impact and gas options.
https://www.combinedsystems.com/products/?cid=146
Edit: Yes, of course you can get fragmentation rounds for this. It didn't take a lot of searching. Both high and low velocity options in HE that will fit. I doubt the police in Nevada would take the HE rounds to a public demonstration. If they have to kill someone they would use a more selective method.
PS: Now I don't think it's a Penn; I think it's an LG 440 that's been accessorized with a rangefinder sight.

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Use of anything other than gas or smoke against heavily armed covidiots would likely provoke an immediate return of live fire. :(

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I think it's a given that as soon as anyone starts shooting there would be a response.

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He seems to be well tooled up.
I had to google for the yellow flag with the snake. I had never heard of the Gadsden flag.

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/british...32fc2812da.jpg