Mall shooting kinda close to home

[Pilot]

Most of you have probably heard about the shooting at the mall in Oregon that happened today (Tuesday). Reportedly, an idiot went into the mall, shot & killed 2 people and then killed himself, considerately saving the people of Oregon millions of dollars in legal & confinement costs.

My day started with a bunch of retired Forest Service folks getting together and the husband of the woman who sat next to me is a gunsmith. Kidding, I asked her if she was packing heat today and she jokingly said, "No, but I probably should".

A couple hours later I was a block from the mall, but didn't go there. The shooting happened 3 hours after I left the area, but an hour after it happened, my wife drove past it on a road that overlooked it. She could see cop cars all over the place, turned on the radio and heard what happened.

I don't know if anyone carrying a concealed handgun could have stopped the guy after the first shots were fired, but if I had been there I would have felt naked without a pistol. And I don't carry.

BTW, the sheriff's HQ is 1 block from the mall. Didn't stop him, did it?

 

[JoeBuyer]

Very sad day there in Oregon.

 

[texasjohn]

Sad day, and too close to your home.
Anywhere is too close.


Situations like this are half of the reason I do have a CCL and do carry, all the time. One can be minding their own business and in a supposedly safe area and somebody can show up with a weapon and start using it. The other half is for personal protection at home, on the ranch, from carjackings, etc. where for some unknown reason an unknown perp decides to present a deadly threat to me. I believe in the "better to have it and not need it" thinking.

Once something like this starts happening in your immediate area, literally there are only split seconds for fight or flight. Sure 911 and LEO's are available but they take time when all you have is a second or so to react. We all hope we are never in that terrible situation.

I had heard about the event, but your account makes the details vivid, particularly about LEO proximity.

 

[dmccarty]

Any idea on why the shooter was at the mall? Just to randomly kill or did he have a target? The reports I have read made it seem random but it is early.

I know of a shooting that took place right in front of an officer. The officer had just parked his vehicle when a man ran out of a building being chased by another man with a gun. The guy with the gun shot the man he was chasing right in front of the officer even though the shooter knew the officer was there. It happened to fast for the officer to stop the shooting. I think many people try to apply rationality to irrational acts made by irrational people. Best case, is that some people's rationality is different than others, but many people are just plain Coo Coo for Coco Puffs.

Later,
Dan

 

[Pilot]

Update: Sheriff's office gave a pretty good news conference this morning--couldn't reveal everything and still didn't know everything.

The weapon was a stolen AR-15, stolen from the shooter's friend the day before.

The gun jammed shortly after he started shooting, but he was able to clear the jam. That gave people time to get farther away.

Victims included a store owner and a middle aged woman who were killed and a 15 year old girl who survived and even ran outside to the cops after being shot in the chest. Her prognosis is good--no vital organs hit.

Mall management had procedures for dealing with this kind of thing and most of the stores were able to lock up and hide everybody in back rooms, etc.

The cops had done a training exercise for this kind of event within the last year in the same mall.

First cop arrived at the mall one minute after the 911 call came in. Eventually there were more than 100 cops. Several agencies sent cops. As cops arrived, they paired up, regardless of agency and headed inside looking for the perp. They spent all night clearing the area, looking for evidence and searching for more victims or survivors who might still be hiding out. Cops who arrived yesterday were released at 7 this morning.

The mall covers 1.4 million square feet in store space, or about 32 acres. A lot of area to search for a killer. Total area of the shopping center including the parking space is about 101 acres.

Supposedly there were about 10,000 people in the mall--but any time round numbers like that are used it means it's someone's wild guess.

 

[texasjohn]

I thought I heard that the shooter was also dead...dunno if it was suicide or by cop.

 

[Pilot]

Suicide

 

[Ken45101]

I don't know if anyone carrying a concealed handgun could have stopped the guy after the first shots were fired, but if I had been there I would have felt naked without a pistol. And I don't carry.

I have heard that this mall was posted against conceal carry. We know how well that worked.

The shooting at the Salt Lake City mall a couple of years ago was stopped by an off duty cop who was not supposed to be carrying (out of his jurisdiction and against department policy IIRC.) He pinned down the shooter until reinforcements arrived.

I have a quote from the Cincinnati area prosecutor:
The more law-abiding people that have guns, the better off we are," Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters said. "Because the bad guys always have guns, You look at these school shootings or church shootings, the ones that have been stopped, it was because someone there had a gun."

Ken

 

[texasjohn]

I thought that these mass shootings were getting more frequent...found this timeline...I was right.

Timeline: Worst mass shootings in U.S. - CNN.com

The Fort Hood shooting makes it clear that the general proximity of guns is not necessarily a deterrent, also this Oregon shooting where the sheriff's office is about a block away. It is clear from these situations and terrorist events abroad that individuals will, on occasion, perform violent acts mindless of their own risk. Not clear there is any way to stop these, I can only see the possibility of limiting the carnage, once initiated, by a stander by having a weapon, and being sufficiently capable to use it effectively to stop the shooter.

 

[RDrancher]

For so many years we've been taught that a personal assault would most likely be "in your face" close. That's still true to some extent, but maybe not. The frequency of mass shootings these days has made many of us rethink our daily carry choice.