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Comment by _delirium | Hacker News Reader

In particular in crowded events: one worry is that civilians playing hero will just end up shooting more innocent people, as they try to shoot at this guy in a crowded theatre and hit someone else.

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Shooters of this sort being confronted by citizens who carry guns has happened several times in the past, and in no cases I'm aware of has anything even remotely similar to this super hypothetical come to pass.

In more general incidents, the numbers I can find suggest that about 2% of armed-citizen-response-to-crime shootings shoot an innocent person. Mostly it seems actually pro-gun advocates quote this, as 2% is supposed to be a lower figure than the police's error rate.

For high-profile ones, the only example of a quasi-successful confrontation I can think of only through sheer luck avoided an innocent person being shot: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/human_natur...

> 2% is supposed to be a lower figure than the police's error rate.

That's not very surprising. Many police officers only practice with their weapons once a year when it's time to qualify.

The average concealed carry permit holder shoots for fun, thus practices often.

Also, an armed citizen if far more likely to suffer consequences if they shoot the wrong person by mistake. And the training they get is going to be much more "Don't shoot unless you're really sure" rather than "shoot first to protect yourself".

And I would expect thee preparedness of the average concealed carry permit holder to decline if we do more to reshape the US around the notion that an armed society is a polite society.

This article is heavily slanted and calling the sound judgment of Zamudio in the events described nothing more than "sheer luck" is patently insulting at best and fear mongering at worst.

Also, your second paragraph is somewhat ambiguous, I'm not sure if you mean to imply that the incident described is the only incidence of a confrontation with a deranged shooter. That is most definitely not the case. There are many examples of this happening:

http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_20457445/2-die-sho...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appalachian_School_of_Law_shoot...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Colorado_YWAM_and_New_Life...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_High_School_shooting

http://articles.latimes.com/1992-01-01/local/me-1021_1_publi...

The characterization of it as "luck" is Zamudio's, who referred to it as such repeatedly, in multiple interviews on multiple occasions, not my own, so I fail to see how it could possibly be insulting to call it "luck". He seems to believe that only luck kept him from making a significant mistake, and he can imagine it just as easily having come out the other way in a split-second wrong reaction.

You are relying on anecdotes. However, given that shooters of this sort are quite rare, is there even enough data to reach statistically significant conclusions about the risks from people returning fire?

In any case, if we were to follow this argument further, we would expect that many more citizens would be armed, which would likely change things. Given the inherent confusion of such a situation, I would expect we would start seeing armed citizens accidentally shooting other armed citizens because they misread the situation.

Even trained, battle seasoned soldiers make mistakes.

I'm much more concerned about the impact higher carry rates would have in relatively more common situations, like disagreements between motorists, etc.

Many people with guns feel empowered to double down in situations they would otherwise walk away from, and the involvement of a gun adds to the opportunities for a deadly outcome. Some gun advocates argue that an armed society is a polite society. I have my doubts about that, but I don't doubt that the consequences of impoliteness would be much more extreme.

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