Firing guns for no reason at all

[Regen]

D.C. has ShotSpotter sensors deployed in the 7th Police District in Southeast. On average 50 gun shots are fired per week in the portion of the district covered by the sensors.

That is an awful lot of gun shots for a city with no guns in it.

The interested thing is that in many of these cases the police couldn't determine a reason for the gun shots (no homicide or assaults in the area).

Assistant Chief Winston Robinson is quoted as saying "A lot of these folks who have pistols and guns routinely fire them for no reason at all"

 

[TexasRifleman]

A lot of these folks who have pistols and guns routinely fire them for no reason at all

Just because the cops don't know the reason doesn't mean there isn't a reason

Criminal on criminal violence is rarely reported.

 

[RonE]

I guess if (in the District of Cloumbia) you don't have any guns then you don't have any gun ranges. Those gunshots were probably coming form no guns at the no range. I mean, come on....where is someone suppose to practice when they get a new gun? How can a gang banger tell if his gun works without shooting it?

 

[El Tejon]

Think of it like songbirds marking their territory. Ray-ray and Ice Dog do the same.

 

[FCFC]

Good Technology to Identify Gun Crimes

The gunshot location and detection system techonolgy is an interesting one. It is rolling out in more and more cities. It's almost certainly going to be useful in detecting gun crimes that never would have been identified before. It's still at an early stage of deployment.

I think it has great potential. Very favorable benefits for law-abiding gun folks and very unfavorable consequences for gun shooting criminals.

 

[ambidextrous1]

Let's hope this technology also puts an end to firing into the air on New Years and fourth of July - a stupid and irresponsible act.

 

[velobard]

That system costs $200-250k per square mile of coverage. You can bet they only have limited coverage. If they picked up 50 shots in that small area, imagine what the true number would be for the whole city.

Just a side note. One item I read about this technology on a police forum, the poster pointed out that the primary benefit was simply that they found fresher bodies, but it didn't really do much for stopping crime or making convictions.

 

[ZeSpectre]

Velobard,
You've hit the real point right on the bullseye. The "Shotspotter" system has cost an enormous amount of money, covers only thin areas of the city, has recorded a large number of gunshot and "gunshot like noises" and seems to have prevented little or no crime in the city.

Now I'll admit that it's hard to know if -any- crimes have been prevented by the system just like it's hard to know if any crimes are prevented by RKBA, after all nobody keeps statistics on events that don't happen.

However DC's crime statistics don't seem to show any significant decrease after the "Shotspotter" was installed.

Before - Someone is shot, maybe someone calls it in but probably not since nobody wants to cross the criminal underground in DC. Eventually a body winds up in the morgue and the police start asking questions.

Now - Somebody is shot, "Shotspotter" alerts the police who -usually- arrive to find a nighborhood of silent people who don't want to talk as they are reluctant to cross the criminal underground. etc.

 

[Just Jim]

Yep, just dogs marking their territory. Easier to keep the neighbors in fear so they won't talk. Too bad the neighbors don't have guns to fight back with.

jj

 

[macadore]

D.C. has ShotSpotter sensors deployed in the 7th Police District in Southeast. On average 50 gun shots are fired per week in the portion of the district covered by the sensors.

The sensors must be malfunctioning. There are no guns in D.C. It is illegal to have them there.

 

[makarovnik]

Woo hoo!

 

[rero360]

I remember reading an article in Scientific American about this technology a few years back, and we used mobile units over in Iraq. Personally from reading the article and my halfway decent understanding of acoustics, I'm of the opinion that its completely useless. In order for something like that to work you need at least three units to pick up the shot, just like with earthquakes you need the three to triangulate the source. However with this you have buildings of different sizes and shapes mad up of different materials, all which lead to the report being deflected at different angles or being absorbed thus giving false readings.

Then you have the echos to contend with, and depending on the terrain once again you could have two sensors pick up the shot but a third only getting the echo off of the side of a building, making it seem like it cam from somewhere else, kind of like ventriliquism. All in all I'd have to say its a waste of resourses and just another feel good measure.

 

[glock530]

Think about it this way, if you were a bad guy and you knew they put in this system then the best way to combat it is with numerous false alarms. Keep the cops busy chasing phantom gunshots until they say screw it and stop checking them out.

 

[romma]

Maybe People are doing a function test of their weapons...?

 

[rcmodel]

Iraqi Wedding Party perhaps?

rcmodel

 

[tank mechanic]

That system costs $200-250k per square mile of coverage

What a terrible waste of money.

I can imagine there are a million things a police dept would rather spend that money on.

 

[velobard]

I can imagine there are a million things a police dept would rather spend that money on.

Yeah. These days the first things that come to mind are gas and ammo. Inflation on both of those are turning into budget-busters.

In StL they're paying for their system with a grant, but there are so many other ways they could put grant money to good use, and perhaps even free up a little money for the expenses I just mentioned.

 

[Ozarks]

Since DC is so anti-gun...

Since this is DC, couldn't they use this as a reason to collect newly registered guns (for self defense) and take an undetermined time to test them? They would be testing to see if their gunshots matched the recording. Of course they would save them for evidence...

Never underestimate the anti-gun agenda.

 

[Tyris]

Since this is DC, couldn't they use this as a reason to collect newly registered guns (for self defense) and take an undetermined time to test them? They would be testing to see if their gunshots matched the recording. Of course they would save them for evidence...

gunshots matched the recording??

A gunshot will sound very different depending on where it is heard/recorded, where the shot is made, the surroundings (trees, cars, buildings, grass, atmospheric conditions, temperature). It would also be affected by ammo, angle, direction and a million other factors.

There is no scientific way to "match a recording".

-T