100+ casualties in a gay dance club attack? Time for Pink Pistols.

(Edited for factual info)

One fiend attacks a crowd and kills 50, wounds more. How was that possible in a state where concealed carry is legal and plenty of people go armed? Unfortunately, I see several contributing factors:

  1. Carry is only legal from age 21, I suspect quite a few law-abiding victims were under 21.
  2. It was a posted “gun-free” zone. Such places should be avoided, both to deny financial support to the proprietors and for safety.
  3. Seems the consensus is that carrying in a nightclub or a bar is not legal in Florida due to alcohol sales…even if the person carrying isn’t drinking.

The third possible reason is that this venue’s patrons might just be less likely to carry than the average person. That’s the factor that Pink Pistols has been trying to mitigate since 2000. Unfortunately, the closest chapter to Orlando is in Ft.Lauderdale. Now, Pink Pistols is not the only organization that provides training — there’s plenty of competent instructors who would train straight, gay, asexual or any other students, orientation being irrelevant to marksmanship. But Pink Pistols have provided the motivation to quite a few to do something about being a likely target for criminals.

As the events in Paris showed, being gay isn’t the only risk factor. This kind of attack may be aimed at the general population. Or at women only, as with the nutcase from Canada in the 90s. We can’t always predict who will go crazy and homicidal. We should learn self-defense and first medical aid to improve the chances of survival for ourselves and those near us.

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33 Responses to 100+ casualties in a gay dance club attack? Time for Pink Pistols.

  1. divemedic says:

    Establishments whose primary business is the serving of alcohol are legally off limits to people with concealed weapons permits.

    • Oleg Volk says:

      Seems that was a dance club, not a bar…but posted, in any case. Posted locations are psycho magnets.

      • Erin Palette says:

        Posting doesn’t carry force of law in Florida. At worst, they ask you to leave, and trespass you if you don’t.

        The statute is a different matter, though. I don’t know to what degree Pulse is a dance club and/or bar, so it’s a gray area. I certainly wouldn’t want to risk becoming a test case, and would instead choose not to attend.

  2. Stephanie says:

    1. the club was 21+, and while some people in the building were no doubt under that with fake ID, there’s nothing to indicate anyone hit was not legal.

    2&3 contradict themselves.
    good gun owners don’t carry guns while drinking.
    a place where most people were drinking preemptively prohibited guns.

    see it now? If you were a good gun owner, you probably would not have had a gun there to begin with, even if they hadn’t declared themselves gun free (unlike in Texas, where you can ban concealed, open carry, or both, in Florida they only give you one option, so even if they only wanted to ban open carry, they had to do it all).

    • Oleg Volk says:

      It’s quite possible to go to a bar and not drink: I do that all the time. Most people I know who do drink in public pick a “designated handler, driver and defender” ahead of time.
      Lawful gun owners have to decide if they want to remain law-abiding or safe. Or both, by not going to posted locations.

    • Howard says:

      In Florida , even with a ccw, it is illegal to carry in an establishment that sells alcohol. Even a restaurant is muckkie grounds, as you can not go near the bar ,even on the way to the restroom. Nor can a member of your dinner party have an alcoholic drink at the table. Best to not frequent these places at all.

  3. Chris says:

    You can’t CC where alcohol is being served.

    • Erin Palette says:

      Not completely accurate.

      In Florida (source: I am a Florida CCer), you can carry in an establishment that serves alcohol so long as serving alcohol is not its primary business.

      Example: I couldn’t carry in a bar of any sort. I could, however, dine in a restaurant that had a bar area, so long as I didn’t dine at the bar itself.

      • Leroy Jenkins says:

        Florida also has a statute that prohibits CC in “A place of nuisance” FS 823.05. Even if the club doesn’t primarily serve alcohol, If it is a frequent place where the cops arrest people for illegal behavior, i.e. drugs, illegal activity or misbehavior of the sexual sort, you can still have an issue. Florida statutes have some grey areas still.

  4. Joseph says:

    I’ve seen some bad news come out of “night clubs” lately. I try to avoid them for various reason.

    These “clubs”, where alcohol is consumed and the laws forbidding gun owners from patronizing them, are just as dangerous as any other “gun free zones”.

  5. Lyle says:

    OK. So, ignoring people’s rights altogether for a moment;
    Which is more dangerous, the average American gun owner with a beer in his system, or a gun-free zone?

    Most of us, even some of the most die-hard, self-described libertarians, tend to revert to our programming as Progressive authoritarians. Thinking ourselves clever, we’ll talk about which restrictions and requirements might result in the better sets of conditions, as though government’s job should be the molding, shaping and direction of society by smart people (like us) AS OPPOSED TO the protection of rights.

    That’s not how it was supposed to work. That’s not American. See your authoritarian programming for what it is, and then drop it.

  6. Chris Gerrib says:

    The idea that armed individuals would have stopped this seems to have been debunked. Per this link: police officers had three confrontations with the gunman, identified as Omar Mateen, who was killed by the police at the club early Sunday morning.

    The first came when an off-duty officer who had been working at the nightclub responded to shots fired at about 2 a.m., Chief Mina said. Additional officers rushed to the scene, he said, and entered the nightclub where they engaged in a gun battle with Mr. Mateen, forcing him to retreat to a bathroom where officers believed he had four to five hostages. About 15 to 20 people were in another bathroom.

    Once the shooter was in the bathroom, police evacuated everybody else. The third engagement came when SWAT busted down a wall to enter the bathroom.

    • Russ says:

      When police stop a mass shooter, an average of 17 people die. When a civilian stops a mass shooter, an average of 2.4 people die.

    • LarryArnold says:

      The idea that armed individuals would have stopped this seems to have been debunked.

      Um. “Armed individuals” did stop the killing. How does that debunk the idea?

      • Chris Gerrib says:

        LarryArnold – actually no. The 49 dead were killed despite the efforts of an armed bouncer / off-duty cop. After a 3-hour standoff, the shooter was killed. Nobody stopped the shooter from shooting as many people as he wanted to.

        • Bibliotheca Servare says:

          Yes, Chris, because he *obviously* intended to stop killing folks after the 49th person, right? Or did you mean something else by “…from shooting as many people as he wanted to.” Chris? Because unless you think the bastard had no intention of continuing his slaughter past the 49 mark, you are spouting bullshit. He *was* stopped, obviously, or he would have kept killing and shooting until he ran out of ammunition and/or victims. Unless you have some special insight into the mind of a mass murderer, and happen to know he had a set “quota” of people he wanted to kill, after which he intended to surrender? If so, feel free to share the source of this insight with the rest of the class. Until then, I’ll charitably assume you were simply too busy putting your feet in your mouth to utilize your brain when making that comment.

        • alanstorm says:

          Chris, stop with the hallucinogenics.

          “After a 3-hour standoff, the shooter was killed.”

          By the SWAT team. Do you think they used sporks?

          • Chris Gerrib says:

            Oh quit being so stupid! The argument in the original post was that “if only somebody at the clud had a gun this wouldn’t have happened.”

            Somebody at the club had a gun, used it, and 49 people still died.

    • Flint says:

      The psychology of these scum is that they seek absolute power over others, and to go down in history with a high bodycount, either ending it themselves with suicide, or with a “heroic last stand” against the cops (options between which they choose, so still part of their need for control). Anything which threatens the possibility of that will defuse their willingness to mount an attack. Specifically, the idea of being shot by one of their intended victims (thereby taking away the power trip) is the worst thing their twisted minds can even imagine happening. Fighting it out with security or cops does not deter them, because they imagine themselves as powerful and appreciate having enemies which they view as powerful (“I’m one guy, and it’s going to take a whole SWAT team to stop me, because I make Rambo look weak!”). But to have their plan terminated by one of “the sheep?” That makes them weaker than “the sheep,” and is intolerable.

      It’s not whether armed bystanders could have stopped the attack after it started; it’s that the mere presence of armed bystanders means an attack would never even take place. Places with a generally-armed populace – or even where the restrictions are minimal, so there’s no way to know who may or may not be armed, and where – see a drastically-lower rate at which these attacks occur. A rate of zero.

  7. Lyle says:

    Would it be a violation of rights to keep America’s sworn enemies out of the country?

    Is it a violation of Americans’ rights to allow their sworn enemies to live among them?

    Are we all insane?

  8. Kristophr says:

    Carry anyway, and don’t drink.

    I carried for a decade before Oregon had must issue CCW laws.

  9. Tony Lekas says:

    Oleg – I know you have a variety of Pro RKBA images that have GBLT themed messages. Is there or could you provide a folder or list of links to them?

    The Pink Pistols chapter in NH was moribund but is coming back strong. I am not “Pink” in that sense but I have volunteer to help as an instructor. They have an event planned at a range here in early July.

    I would like to make all of your images of that type available to them and to other Pink Pistol groups.

  10. Lyle says:

    This is just a case of diversity breaking out. You can’t call it an atrocity because it was just a Muslim doing what he was supposed to do according to his religion and culture. We ALL KNOW that other cultures are all just as valid and have as much to offer, if not more, than American culture, so we should all thank the jihadist for broadening our horizons by exposing us to another, unique and fascinating culture. QED.

  11. Howard says:

    One problem I see, is that ONLY police fought back. I’m in my 70’s and crippled (service connected, fyi) but no one fires on me without a fight,. The bar has chairs, stools, glasses, bottles all of which are deadly weapons. But this dud was reloading, on the phone, etc, and no one fought back.

  12. Bibliotheca Servare says:

    So you’ve graduated from swallowing your own feet whilst publicly demonstrating your astonishing ignorance…to outright lying. I can’t say I’m shocked, as deception and cowardice are tools you’ve shown a fondness for, but I try to expect the best of people, even when they regularly make a point of letting me down in that regard, so I *will* confess to some disappointment.
    Nowhere in the OP was the statement “if only somebody at the clud[SIC] had a gun this wouldn’t have happened.” made, or even implied. What *was* implied was that, had there been armed persons in the club at the time of the atrocity, the number of innocent lives lost might have been less. For example, if the SWAT team had been (for some reason) visiting the club at the time, is it unreasonable to suggest things might have gone a little differently? If that’s reasonable, why is it unreasonable to suggest that, had there been a number of preselected designated drivers/carriers in the club things might have gone differently? Yes, your average gun owner isn’t equivalent to a SWAT team member, but (unless guns are evil talismans in any hands but a police officer’s…a belief I wouldn’t be surprised to learn you held…) *something* is better than *nothing* isn’t it? Even if half of them (unlikely, unless the psychopath was incredibly lucky when he picked his first targets or the designated carriers were wearing neon signs) were killed before they could draw their weapons, and there had been only a total of thirty (assuming not all the designated drivers were also designated carriers, and assuming that everyone was responsible enough to bring a designated driver) armed, sober folks to begin with (meaning that the psycho killed fifteen people before they could even unholster their weapons…but that’s neither here nor there), that leaves fifteen armed, sober individuals to oppose one armed, rage-maddened, psychopath. As Larry Correia says, all they have to be is a speed bump. Every second counts. Also, if “one armed man” killed all those folks…why couldn’t *another* armed man kill *him*? Oh, wait! That’s exactly what freaking happened!

  13. Paul Koning says:

    It’s clear Chris Gerrib is confused about the core issue here.

    Yes, there was a cop on site. He unfortunately was unsuccessful in stopping the terrorist.

    But the issue is that there was no one else. Why not? That’s the point under discussion here.

    It appears one key reason is “because the government required this establishment to be a defenseless victim zone”. If that is accurate, then clearly the Florida government deserves a great deal of blame, having created a place safe for terrorists but not for real people. And the correct answer is the abolition of all disarmed victim zone laws. At the very least, carrying in places where alcohol is served must be permitted to anyone who is not actually drinking. Any legislator who stands in the way of this needs to be publicly shamed as complicit with terrorism.

  14. Vara La Fey says:

    Oleg, I am a trans-female in Phoenix. In the mid-90s we met. This was in my pre-Vara days, when you were JUST starting out, long before Nashville. I think you will remember. 🙂

    Pls contact me. I have a blueprint for the end of “gun free” soft target fish-in-a-barrel zones, and thus an end to the massacres within them.

    #CarryIllegally
    http://www.malgov.com/vara

    Happy to see you’re doing well. I do run into your name now and then…

  15. Vara La Fey says:

    Paul K, agreed!!

    Some of you are gonna LOVE my Call To Arms. Just waiting to hear from Oleg about posting and/or promoting it.

    #CarryIllegally

  16. Will says:

    Chris,
    the reality of cops is that most of them are not shooters. That gun on their belt is just another piece of mandated equipment they must carry. Their dept firearms training is minimal due to two reasons:
    1) Damned expensive.
    2) And, most cops can’t be bothered to practice unless they are being paid, and even then they have to be pushed to attend.

    So, unless they are gun enthusiasts, and shoot on their own dime, they tend to be poor marksmen, as is evident from perusing the media reports on police shootings.

    I find your typical Liberal mindset about how if your opponents can’t do something perfectly every time, then it shouldn’t be allowed, to be it’s usual petty, childish behavior. You are so predictable in your spiel against self-defense by the common citizens. You try to dress it up somewhat, but that is your focus. After seeing you dribble your anti-rights mantra all over the web, it gets to be old, eventually. You are past your use-by date. Grow up, or go away.

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