Most of us don't understand it either. The majority of citizens support some degree of gun control reform and yet congress refuses to act. And even if they did, it seems like the supreme court has decided to interpret the 2nd amendment in such an obtuse manner that any reform at all would likely be unconstitutional.
No, this is completely false, for the general population [1]:
> Do you think there should or should not be a law that would ban the possession of handguns, except by the police and other authorized persons?
> 2024 Oct 1-12: Yes: 20% No: 79% No opinion: 1%
Your next sentence
> The majority of citizens support some degree of gun control reform and yet congress refuses to act.
is somewhat true, at 56%. But, this question involves things like more restrictions for those with mental illness, criminal backgrounds, etc. Any conclusion about this question must understand how broad it is, and have the 79% support of gun ownership, above, in mind. See the rest of the results for a more wholistic perspective.
Is it when it does or when it does not benefit your particular position on whatever issue? I am not being difficult, I am tryign to understand your frame of mind. It is possible you are already too far gone.
It's when the minority functionally has more rights/say in things than the majority. Take the electoral college for instance, I consider the fact that you could win an election with only 23% of the population voting for you makes it fundamentally flawed and should be removed.
The same can be said for how we distribute seats in the senate and house. The difference in population between the largest and smallest state when the constitution was ratified was around 12x. It's now 70x and I consider that to be unacceptable in terms of weight of power wielded by those smaller states.
Interesting. If you know how this country was created, you likely know why senate looks the way it looks and why house looks the way it looks. If you are suggesting update, it is well within your rights to argue for that change. However, there are enough people, who think it is important to keep senate seats limited.
I obviously disagree with you on civics, but what would you suggest? I already think there is way too much concentrated power ( I absolutely do not want it ruled by biggest available mob per given state ), but I think we disagree over why.
It's more like tyranny of inalienable rights which is a good thing in my opinion. Every society should have a bill of rights that the public nor state can't change. That's how you protect against fascism.
If our bill of rights was truly immutable, slavery would still be legal and women wouldn't be able to vote. Doesn't sound like protecting against fascism to me.
We've banned this account. You can't post like this here, regardless of who you're attacking.
If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
I know you're just willfully dumb, but other people reading might think you actually have a point.
No army in the world including the US could stop a civilian uprising of even a million people who have just rifles and the will to fight. They don't need nukes, tanks, or airplanes. If a large enough percentage of people, say 2% of the population, decided to fight a civil war, the US army/gov would fall in a few months if the rebels knew what they were doing.
It would be a guerilla war. And all of the critical infrastructure in the US could be destroyed in a month. No gas. No electricity. Smaller uprisings would be easily squashed.
Now, would this ever happen? Unlikely. Americans can barely get their fat asses out of bed much less do military operations for weeks at a time. Things would have to get incredibly bad and a leader would have to organize it. But it is possible.
My problem with this thought is that a civil war = government forces vs cilivilan militias.
I imagine it more a weakened government (but still with a functioning military) supported by civilian militias backing the government, versus various large and small insurgencies possibly with foreign backing.
I mean, don't color me surprised if a civilian uses a drone to commit an act of violence in the future. We're on the precipice of autonomous drone assassinations.
I don’t mean to be snarky or insensitive, but it is really ironic to ask that question in a thread discussing the assassination of a far-right political figure.
I would have agreed with you but look at what is happening in some Asian countries right now. Imagine a situation where the thugs knock on your door with their guns. I will probably never own guns but there is an argument to make.
When those thugs show up at your door with all of the weapons drawn and at the ready, what do you think you and your little hand gun or even riffle are going to do? Wound the first person at the door before you get lit up? To what purpose?
This argument is always kind of silly to me. You really think they'd use a weapon of mass destruction just to take out a few people they don't like? On their home soil? I mean, I find myself being surprised by Trump daily, but still... It's far more likely that they'd use more surgical means, like the ICE raids, to root out people they don't like. In that case, I'd say being armed would make at least somewhat of a difference, or at least give pause.
Some guys with AK-47s kept the world's most powerful military pretty busy for 20 years, so I wouldn't underestimate the value of a few rifles against authoritarianism.
Do you think they’d bother shooting anyone themselves?
Either of these situations are going to be stochastic and with difficult attribution.
And don’t forget - they want a degree of unhinged shooting back, it feeds the authoritarian tendencies and ‘justifies’ the increasingly unhinged violent responses.
> you US guys can live in an environment were your next door neighbor, the person beside you in the supermarket etc can carry a lethal weapon that can end your life.
Something to consider is that even though one can, the vast majority do not. Typically, the only time I see people utilizing their right to open carry are the exact types of people you think would do that. They are a very small number in the real world. However, they get so much attention that it distorts the perception that everyone does it. I'm certain there are more people carrying concealed weapons than I pay attention to, but it's not like it is the Old West where you have to leave your weapons outside before entering the saloon.
If this is how you think it is, then you have fallen for the hype machine. Yes, lots of people own weapons. Some of those people own lots of weapons. Only a small number of them carry like you seem to think.
Most of the mass shooting events are not these open carry types. That seems to also confuse things
again, just because you are permitted/licensed does not mean that you do all of the time. there are enough places where it is posted that you are not allowed inside if you are carrying. people often get it so that if they ever need to they can, but not that they will 100% of the time
a lot of people in Texas do not bother with a conceal permit because it is already an open carry state yet the vast majority of people do not walk around with a pistol on their hip or a rifle slung on their chest.
I'm not here to defend the US, but here's one way to look at it: the death toll of alcohol abuse is much higher, so how can one conceivably defend a society that allows its consumption? Almost everywhere in the West, the answer is basically "we like it, we like the freedom of being able to drink, and it's an acceptable price if tens of thousands of people die".
It's essentially the same thing, except unique to the US. I'm not saying it's good or bad, but your exasperation is essentially the same as my exasperation, as a non-drinker, that I or my children can be randomly killed by someone driving under the influence - and everyone is somehow kinda OK with that.
It's much higher because of the US unique car culture and car-centric infrastructure:
14.2 deaths / 100K inhabitants in the US
4.8 / 100K in France
3.35 / 100K in Germany (despite autobahns)
2.1 / 100K in Japan
Sure, drinking is a problem. But people drink in other countries too (as much or more). But they don't have to drive a car everywhere because they have more sensible infrastructure.
Let's compare with the homocide rate in the US:
5.9 - 6.8 / 100K (depending on source)
Yes, that's half the car fatality rate, but not all car fatalities are due to alcohol abuse.
But the big takeaway is that you have 3 times as much chance of dying from a gun in the US as dying from a car in Japan.
Am also in Europe but consider how as a pedestrian you're passed by hundreds drivers daily each of whom can end your life any moment at a whim. Not saying that weapons carry is a great idea just explaining how it works.
There is no but. There are 700x more gun homicides in the US vs the UK, with just 5x the population. You are the only developed country in the world where active shooter response training is a thing. Tools do make it easier, so it should be hard to get them, especially when they are specifically made for no other use than killing people.
This is not a good argument. How many people in Japan die from gun shots in a typical year. Tools are absolutely the problem. With that many craY guns out in the US you are simply significantly increasing chances of shit happening.
Your next door neighbor already can end your life, though. Believe it or not, a gun is not the only way to kill someone. The question is, do you trust your neighbor (or do they have a life-long history of mental health issues, bullying, extreme politcal views, etc)
It's a cultural thing & very hard to explain to people outside it. Imagine banning cheese and wine in France or something. For a very large part of America that's what its like
It genuinely comes down to an American belief that "the individual is the primary unit" and must be equipped with tools to secure his safety, security, and well-being through his own actions. ALL of the idealogues around gun ownership loop around this single virtue. To take several examples:
- "When seconds matter, police take minutes"
- "Guns are the last line of defense against tyranny"
- "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun"
- "Your home, your property, and your family must be your right to protect"
To some degree, it comes from the same reason high speed rail doesn't work here in the US while it's a pleasure in Europe. The vast majority of places in this country are truly out in the sticks, and defending yourself from wildlife or humans with bad intent are real worries. In our cities, we have gun control laws similar to Europe.
Open and concealed carry, both unlicensed, extremely common in Phoenix which is the 5th largest city in the USA. 3d print yourself a frame, mail order the unregulated parts, stick it down your waistband, and you are legally good to go.
Interesting interpreting those as individualist. First can be read as a concern for family. Second is community and society. Third is also protection of community, you would be making a choice to intervene (an individual would leave). Fourth also is not the individual but again, family.
It's the right to have a capacity for individual action, which is expected to be exercised for the good of society - this has been an original premise for as long as Western Originalism has been a thing. Locke advocated for individual capacity for action, and believed people enter into social contracts to protect those rights for themselves and others. Rousseauist beliefs include the idea that liberties exist within the context of serving the common good.
> It genuinely comes down to an American belief that "the individual is the primary unit" and must be equipped with tools to secure his safety, security, and well-being through his own actions.
That's understandable if you look at the US' history - it wasn't called the "wild west" without reason!
Up until a century, give or take a few decades ago, there was nothing coming even close to the "universal rule of law" of today. In contrast, Europe and its systems of public order are hundreds of years older.
Yeah. As an American these arguments are really absurd though. When was the last time a lone hero with a gun stopped gun violence? I think those arguments are really just the gun companies trying to market this idea of the "lone individual" as a hero protecting their personal space. It helps them sell more guns. But when the rubber meets the road, a "good guy" packing is more likely to shoot a bystander than an assailant.
The marketing seemingly appeals to men on the same grounds as video games -- there's some great protagonist who saves everyone with their powerful and timely shooting.
My man was only 22 year old, no CCW license, even broke the rules of the mall and carried anyway. And he smoked a mall shooter before he could barely even get started, with a pistol from like 60 feet away.
That simply isn't true and the statistics on "good guys with guns" do not show that they are more likely to shoot a bystander. I dont; want everyone on the street packing, either, but at least use real info to make arguments.
Are you asking me to accept a country where parents have to consider sending their kid to school in a bullet proof backpack because the school shootings are a matter of course? How high should I be willing to accept? Should I be okay with shootings in traffic, or at bars, or at concerts?
What do you think should be done about that? Should I just accept that my son might not live to adulthood because some maladjusted kid gets a rifle from their parents and decides to start shooting their classmates? This is the only country in the world where that regularly happens.
If guns are the last defense against tyranny then they bloody well better get to work. Unless that was all BS and they’re on tyranny’s side.
Thought I’d provide a follow on. They could make noise, protest, support court cases, criticize politicians, …. All short of actually using the arms. Crickets.
“You will never live in a society when you have an armed citizenry and you won’t have a single gun death ... I think it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights. That is a prudent deal. It is rational.”
I'm sure when he said that, he never thought he'd be the one paying for that right. Would be interesting to see if this does or does not affect that stance
>I'm sure when he said that, he never thought he'd be the one paying for that right. Would be interesting to see if this does or does not affect that stance
Exactly.
When you have shot and killed a man you have in some measure
clarified your attitude toward him. You have given a definite
answer to a definite problem. For better or worse you have
acted decisively. In a way, the next move is up to him.
-- R. A. Lafferty
Audience member: “Do you know how many transgender Americans have been mass shooters over the last 10 years?”
Kirk: “Too many.”
The same audience member went on say the number is five, and proceeded to ask if Kirk knows how many mass shooters there have been in America over the last 10 years.
Kirk: “Counting or not counting gang violence?”
Seconds later, the sound of a pop is heard and the crowd screams as Kirk gets shot and recoils in his seat.
Remember: The vast majority of mass attacks in the US have no connection to transgender people. From January 2013 to the present, of the more than 5,700 mass shootings in America (defined as four or more victims shot and killed), five shooters were confirmed as transgender, said Mark Bryant, founding executive director of the Gun Violence Archive.
Exactly, you can't just change the law or constitution. You can but it wouldn't do anything.
Fact is the cat is out of the bag. FGC-9 can be 3d printed and the barrel and bolt carrier made out of unregulated parts available anywhere with shipping access to China, or with a bit more effort anyplace with a lathe.
Gun powder is more an issue, but even then black powder is easy enough to make and with electronics can be ignited electrically without any sort of special cap or primer.
It can be culturally changed, but even then, if the criminal culture doesn't changed -- now you have a bunch of criminals with guns smiling that the rest of people are disarmed.
It's really not that large. A lot of people need guns; folks who live in super remote areas where wildlife needs managing, folks who enjoy actual hunting, but these types of gunowners are generally fine filling out their paperwork and getting licensed. They see guns as tools.
Then there are the ammosexuals and they're the ones that honestly scare the shit out of me and need their guns confiscated. Like I'm all for the purchase and enjoyment of stupid shit, God knows I own my share of things other people would call ridiculous; but guns are unique in that inflicting harm to others is literally why they exist. It's the only reason you'd have one, and the way these guys (and it is far and away mostly guys) talk with GLEE about the notion of being able to legally kill someone for breaking into their houses... if I wasn't already a hermit, this shit would make me one.
Its not a cultural thing, its marketing, this did not exist, it was completely created out of thin air. Americans were not buying assault rifles and posing with guns out of the army, people have been made to believe this is normal, natural and "cultural" and its absolutely not.
There's an attitude of, to quote Charlie Kirk, "It’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment."
I don't. People are rarely objectively good or bad. Good people can have a bad day. Good people can have a drink or two and turn into bad people. Good people can have their guns stolen from them by bad people. Good people can leave their guns unlocked where their children can find them and do who knows what with them. etc.
> America is...objectively the best place to live in the world rn
I'm American and a frequent international traveler, and I could not disagree more. Almost every other country I've been to has been superior in every way that truly matters. The only reason I stay here is because I don't want to abandon my loved ones.
"objectively the best place to live in the world rn"
I feel like you were just patronizing the crowd and this is pablum, but the US is one of the angriest, most dissatisfied countries on the planet. It always does poorly on happiness metrics, doesn't do great on corruption indexes, and has a median lifespan and child mortality rate more in the developing country range.
In no universe is there an objective reality where it's the best place to live.
But too much is made about deadly weapons. Every one of us has access to knives. Most of us drive 5000lb vehicles, with which a flick of the wrist could kill many. We all have infinite choices in our life that could take lives.
But we don't, because ultimately there are social issues at play that are simply more important than access to weapons. Loads of countries have access to weapons and it doesn't translate in murder rate at all.
Please outline how you would go about changing policy and removing the approximately 400 million firearms in civilian hands within the US. Ignore any political complications like financial cost, or uncooperative media.
There are people willing to go on murder sprees, and they number in the tens of thousands (or more) if anyone attempts this. Many of them are waiting, nearly holding their breath, hoping that the government tries such a thing. Quite possibly, a few of the mass shootings you've heard of were just those who "jumped the gun" (forgive the expression).
Visited Europe a few years back for the first time.
There was a day when I woke up, a few days into the trip, and felt very, very light. Just "weight off my shoulders" lighter. Oddly euphoric.
Took me a few hours to realized that it was the subconscious realization that it was extremely unlikely that anyone around me, for miles and miles, was armed with a gun.
To answer your question: we survive it the same way any human being under perpetual stress survives it. We get on with our day and we don't even notice how bent-out-of-shape we are until and unless we're in a circumstance where we aren't anymore.
Their argument is that the biggest cause of preventable deaths in the 20th century was governments killing their own citizens (genocides in Nazi Germany, communist Russia and communist China led to over a hundred million deaths), and widespread firearm ownership makes it very hard for that to ever happen in America.
Statistically it’s really not an issue. Most gun violence are suicides and gang violence. Yes it’s there and innocent people get shot on occasion but it’s not a big risk for most people.
> if you want to assassinate a culture warrior jerkwad at a public event
The root post's comparison was to someone beside you at the supermarket, rather than "sniper at a distance". The capacity to kill is almost universally distributed, it's just that the vast majority of us are not murderers.
But sure, it's actually one of the justifications for the 2nd amendment. Firearms really are sort of an equalizer, and do more equally distribute the risk to even the most powerful.
You can't make a targeting killing at a supermarket any easier with your car or cleaning products either. Not sure how that changes the calculus. If you want to kill someone with non-gun products, it's very difficult: the evidence being the notably higher number of gun killings over poisonings or deliberate collisions.
With guns, it's literally just a button push kind of UI. That this is controversial is just insane to me. Every 2A nut knows that guns are effective killing machines, that's why they like guns. Yet we end up in these threads anyway watching people try to deny it.
Please try citing numbers if you want to make a numeric argument. The USA has four times as many guns per capita as Finland. And in fact Finland has a much higher gun death rate that the rest of industrial Europe (about 3-4x that of the UK or Germany, for example), which has fewer guns. Finland is, to be sure, safer than the US, with about half the per-capita-per-gun fatality rate. So sure, you can do better than the US without reducing guns.
But clearly guns are the obviously most important driving variable here, and to argue otherwise is just silly.
> The USA has four times as many guns per capita as Finland
42% of US households have one or more guns. 37% of Finland households have one or more guns. That US collectors are aficionados doesn't seem relevant. Access to guns is similar.
> And in fact Finland has a much higher gun death rate
This is an amazing claim given everything we've talked about. Finland's homicide rate is the same as Germany's, and significantly lower than the UK. Do you understand how catastrophic this is for your very argument?
There are more guns so murderous people use them, but murderous people have other methods otherwise, as seen by the UK having over 40% more murders despite having 1/7th the number of households with guns...
No, it doesn't, not in the context we're talking about. A quick Google says per capita knife deaths in the UK are 4.9/Mpop, gun deaths in the US are one hundred thirty seven per million.
Europe should absolutely solve the "knife problem", sure. But even eliminating it entirely would equate to like a 3% reduction in US deaths. Arguing, as you seem to be, that the US should do nothing because Europe has a comparatively tiny problem seems poorly grounded.
First, just from a "danger" standpoint - more people in the EU die from heat than from guns in the US. And roughly 8 times more people die from cold than heat in Europe. So, I would say, that we live in an environment where our neighbors are armed the same way you live in an environment where you're often dangerously hot or cold - i.e. we get used to it.
Second, you can walk or drive on a street. Every passerby in a car could kill you if they wanted to by colliding with you. It rarely happens. Stand next to a tall ledge or overpass with crowds walking by and watch the teeming masses - you're unlikely to see any of the thousands of people walking by leap off to their end. Similarly, in life, even though basically anyone could kill you, it's very rare to encounter someone who is in the process of ending their own life, and killing you would basically end, or severely degrade, their own life. Almost nobody wants to do it.
Charlie Kirk is/was kind of an extreme example. He said many things that severely angered hostile people. He went into big crowds and said provocative things many times before being shot. I think in most situations you have to push pretty hard to get to the point where people are angry enough to shoot at you. If you can avoid dangerous neighborhoods and dangerous professions (drugs and gangs) and dangerous people (especially boyfriends/husbands) then you are pretty unlikely to be shot and you benefit from being able to carry guns or keep guns in your home to protect yourself and your family.
For one example, consider the "Grooming gangs" in the UK, where thousands of men raped thousands of girls for decades with the tacit knowledge/permission of authorities - and despite the pleas of the girls and parents for help. Such a thing could be handled quite differently in a society that was well armed. If the police wouldn't help you, you might settle the matter yourself.
This narrative isn't helpful. Even in this specific case, it's extremely unlikely anyone would have been able to get close enough to him with a knife to kill him without someone noticing.
Guns allow you to kill 1) multiple people, 2) from a distance, and 3) with nobody aware of the imminent threat.
Of course other weapons can also be used to harm people. Of course no solution is perfect. But it's absolutely incorrect to say "the problem isn't so much the tools." The tools undeniably and irrefutably play a role in every study that has ever been conducted on this topic.
See here for the impact of Australia's gun buyback program, which saw zero mass shootings in a decade after their removal, after 13 mass shootings in the 18 years prior the removal, as well as an accelerated decline in firearm deaths and suicides:
https://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/12/6/365
> it's extremely unlikely anyone would have been able to get close enough to him with a knife to kill him without someone noticing.
What do you mean? If you go to any public place in the world, you can get very close to hundreds of people in a very short time. Knife assassinations happen all the time.
You could have quoted the beginning of the sentence, where the point was about this specific case, and how in this particular case, a gun clearly allowed an assassination that would have been challenging to pull off with a knife.
That is not a way as saying killing someone with a knife is impossible. It's a way of saying that guns allow you to kill people in ways and distances that knives do not.
While true, Australia reclaimed ~650k guns by 1997 and then another ~70k handguns in 2003. By comparison the US is estimated to have around 400M guns, with law enforcement alone having 5M guns (as the “fast and furious” scandal showed, law enforcement guns often end up in the hands of criminals as well).
I don’t know what the answer is for reclaiming the guns, but I think logistically it’ll be hard to implement in the USA even if there wasn’t bad faith attempts to try to thwart regulation (and arguing that there’s still violence with knives and guns aren’t the problem is definitely bad faith/uneducated arguments)
Yeah I'm not suggesting the same process could apply in the US, I'm just trying to aggressively refute the point that guns are not the problem (or, at least, a major component of it). We need to be creative about solutions, but people have to want to find a solution to be creative about them, and right now many do not.
On that we’re 100% agreed. The science is exceedingly clear that guns are the reason for so much gun violence and mass shootings (which makes sense since without guns you couldn’t have either of those by definition).
The Charlotte attacker was a schizophrenic person who had been in and out of prison. Decades ago, public mental health institutions were closed down and the patients left out on the streets, or given a bus ticket to California.
If you want to have a society, you have to care about and for the people.
Yeah totally you know how people throw thousands of knives from a hotel window and kill a ton of people at a concert? Or at a gay club? Or at a school?
Stop this false equivalence argument, I absolutely despise it
yes knives are a problem, but they're multipurpose so a lot harder to eliminate. You can't afaik use a gun to cut parsnips.
I can't really think of any situation were someone done something evil with a knife that would have worked out better if that evil person had a gun instead.
> I dont get how you US guys can live in an environment were your next door neighbor, the person beside you in the supermarket etc can carry a lethal weapon that can end your life.
Knife killing can happen for the every-day citizen that doesn't have a security detail. The OP is scared about the neighbor having a weapon to kill them with... and every household already has one in the kitchen.
If you are scared about being killed in a given society, it's more likely a cultural problem rather than a tool problem. Yes, guns make it easier to do. The question is, why are more people doing it now adays? What changed?
Go back a few decades, and you can find plenty of kids in highschool in the US that would keep rifles in the back of their truck in the school parking lot. They would use those guns to go hunting after school. They weren't being used to shoot eachother.
Has there been a case where a single person killed hundreds with a gun? The worst I know of is the Vegas shooting, which was 60. There have been mass-stabbings that have reached ~30 people killed (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_stabbing#Examples_of_mass...).
> I get the good guy vs bad guy with a gun argument…
Trump was shot surrounded by (in theory) some of the best-trained armed guards on the planet. Uvalde saw several hundred "good guys with a shitload of guns" mill around for over an hour while schoolchildren got massacred by a single shooter.
Even in the cases where the ostensibly-good guy with a gun steps in, it's not necessarily a happy ending.
There was a shooting at a protest in SLC in June[0] in which a volunteer working with the group organizing the protest shot and killed an innocent man while trying to hit someone carrying an assault rifle. (Primarily due to a misunderstanding that could have been avoided.) His intentions were good, thinking he was saving people from someone else who had bad intentions.
I was personally about 50 feet away from the incident. It's hard for me to imagine what a good guy with a gun actually does in practice.
> It's hard for me to imagine what a good guy with a gun actually does in practice.
Something like this?
> A brutal stabbing at a Walmart in Traverse City, Michigan, left 11 people injured on Sunday, but a much larger tragedy was averted thanks to the courage of two bystanders. Leading the charge was former Marine Derrick Perry, now hailed as a hero across social media.
Verified video shows the suspect cornered in the store’s parking lot, motionless as Perry kept him pinned at gunpoint until police moved in.
> His intentions were good, thinking he was saving people from someone else who had bad intentions.
I find the characterization of the shooter having good intentions to be a bit too generous; the person he intended to shoot wasn't doing anything more threatening than just carrying a gun (as the shooter was also doing): https://bsky.app/profile/seananigans.bsky.social/post/3lrp66... . It wasn't being "brandished" or pointed at anyone.
I can't imagine any justifiable reason to fire a gun in such a thick crowd, when no one else has fired their weapon.
> It wasn't being "brandished" or pointed at anyone.
This is kinda missing the point, from my perspective. The reason the shooter thought Gamboa (the guy with the assault rifle) was a threat is because he was walking with an assault rifle in his hands rather than slung over his shoulder. It's the same difference as someone holding their handgun (down pointed at the ground) versus keeping it holstered and it's in how quickly the wielder could aim and fire. It didn't need to be brandished at the moment because it could have been in less than a second.
All things considered, I don't think Gamboa had bad intentions but I do think his actions that day were stupid. The shooter made a bad call for a bad outcome but it still doesn't make sense to pin the blame entirely on them.
The shooter here was a police officer firing on a civilian operating within the confines of the law. The shooter ended up missing and killing someone else.
Note, that to shoot this man, the police officer also held his gun in his hand. I hope you're at least consistent, and would also say "it doesn't make the sense" to put blame "entirely" on someone if that someone goes around shooting police officers as soon as their hands touch their guns.
