Malls debate how to protect shoppers from violence

[jeep-2]

we don't need another police force in America, maybe it's time the government woke up and let us protect us, when i'm searched to get into a mall, i'll do all my buying on the net.. I stopped going to pro football games the first time I was searched at Foxboro. women in one line and men in the other.

 

[nwilliams]

Easy....Mall Ninjas!

Well...For starters, they could take down the "Gun Free Zone" signs and allow law-abiding people to carry their defensive sidearms.

Actually that's probably a better solution

 

[Jdude]

I don't need a reason to stop going to the mall. Online shopping is easy enough. I only go to the mall because I don't want to wait for something to arrive, or needs to be custom fit. No CCW / OC = no Jdude.

 

[bogie]

Phydeaux, something tells me you live in Missouri.

Keep in mind that we're all over the place, and all have to deal with various laws. If you're in a posted business in Missouri, their only recourse is to ask you to leave if you get made. In other states, you might end up going to jail.

 

[romma]

Should these private security guards be armed? "Absolutely not," said Greene. Greene said if a security officer were to pull a gun on an armed individual in a mall, it could result in "the gunfight at the 'OK corral,' and then we might have 23 people killed instead of eight.

Why do cops carry guns again?

 

[CannonFodder]

Because they're the only ones in the room professional enough to handle them.

 

[ArmedBear]

Yeah, this whole thing sounds like, "How can we make sure we won't get sued, without spending any money?"

They don't want armed guards, because then the mall would be responsible for any mishaps. Without armed guards, no matter how many people get killed, it wasn't a mall employee who did it. So they don't really care how many innocent people get killed.

Hell, most of the malls around here are owned by Australians anyway. They REALLY don't care about what happens to us, as long as the profits keep flowing in.

 

[shooting time]

I live near atlanta and the malls around here are loaded with thugs.I try to stay out of them but sometimes you just got to go to sears for tools.They walk around in groups and try to force you out of the way walking 4 abrest.Baggy clothes pants down around their knees they could carry a uzi under them clothes and you would never know it .All the malls are owned by simon and i have not seen any firearms prohibited signs in any of them.concealed means concealed.I for one go in there heavy.

 

[cyclist]

In fact, security at Omaha's Westroads Mall did find Hawkins' behavior suspicious before the shooting, Omaha Police Chief Thomas Warren said Thursday.

Mall surveillance initially flagged Hawkins "based on his actions" when he entered the mall through the Von Maur store's main entrance on the second floor, Warren said. He said Hawkins exited quickly after entering, then re-entered within six minutes and appeared to be concealing something in a balled-up sweatshirt.

He then went up the elevator to the third floor, and when he got there, he immediately began firing, Warren said. "It doesn't appear as though there was an opportunity for intervention," he said.

Uh, the security people had already focused in on him, there is no legitimate reason that I can see why they dropped their focus on him as there are apparently plenty of security cameras in the mall. A mall cop in a roving car could have hovered nearby as he left the store to retrieve his rifle and possibly confronted him in the parking lot. A mall cop could have confronted him as he re-entered the store and asked about the suspicious object he had bundled up in his carried clothing. I can see some lawsuits filed over this observation alone.

But I wasn't there, so maybe I'm wrong. If they already had him singled out as being suspicious, how will any new procedures make any difference. Just like existing laws, if you don't or can't enforce existing laws then making more laws will only affect and limit the already lawabiding citizens.

Excuse me now, I've got the day off of work, I think I'll go to a few shopping malls.

 

[geekWithA.45]

Should these private security guards be armed? "Absolutely not," said Greene. Greene said if a security officer were to pull a gun on an armed individual in a mall, it could result in "the gunfight at the 'OK corral,' and then we might have 23 people killed instead of eight."

What an ignoramus.

Humanity's long history of dealing with violent individuals simply does not bear that idea out.

There are precisely two things that stop someone bent on mass public murder: The mass public murderer itself, and an honorable gunfighter.


Allowing armed violent actors to kill and injure as many people as they wish until they decide to stop is an awful policy.

Period. Full stop. End of story.

It simply doesn't work at any level of scale: individual, group, or national.

I mean, would this guy really have advocated ceding the Pacific Rim to the 1941 Japanese? Europe to the 1936 National Socialists? After all, fighting back would only add to the death toll....

What a putz.


UPDATED

In fact, I am creating and invoking a new Internet Law, like Godwin's:

Any politician or alleged security expert who mentions "OK Corral" or "blood on the streets" with respect to armed defense automatically disqualifies themselves as serious participants in the discussion. Whatever credentials they purport to have may be ritually torn up before their eyes.

 

[baz]

The reason why malls dont employ armed security is simple.

Armed security is expensive, and substantially increases insurance costs in terms of liability. if some idiot goes to the bathroom and leaves his gun on the floor, and a kid gets shot.. well you know how that would end up.

Therein lies the solution to this problem. This is America, folks. It is all about the $$$. So, what we need is legislation that makes malls that forbid CCW liable for the safety and security of their patrons. In other words, make it more expensive for them to post against CCW, and they'll stop doing it.

 

[ilbob]

Possibly if there hadn't been no gun signs posted at all the entrances and the fact that mall security was unarmed, this incident might never have occured. At least not in that location.Fact is every similar incident since Columbine has happened in a gun free zone.Even crazies know to select a location that will allow them to "run amuck" at will.

I am not so sure that the nuts select gun free zones to do their killing in, as much as they choose to kill in places where large groups of people are in close proximity and coincidentally happen to be disarmed on the dubious proposition that somehow that improves the average person's safety. They are not rational in the first place.

 

[Deanimator]

I am not so sure that the nuts select gun free zones to do their killing in, as much as they choose to kill in places where large groups of people are in close proximity and coincidentally happen to be disarmed on the dubious proposition that somehow that improves the average person's safety. They are not rational in the first place.

It's pretty much proved that at least SOME of them pick places where they KNOW they won't have immediate armed opposition. One example is the guy who shot up the Jewish Community Center. He first went to a (the?) Holocaust Museum, but begged off because there were armed guards.

As I said elsewhere, they're evil and crazy, NOT stupid.

They crave attention obtained by shooting helpless, unarmed victims.

We of course lavishly supply them with both.

 

[Ragnar Danneskjold]

Sounds to me like Gecko45 has been sleeping on the job.

 

[wheelgunslinger]

Should we call this new internet law "Geek's Law?"

Mall Ninja may become a reality.

 

[Mannlicher]

Just let folks have the means to protect themselves. Thats all we really are asking

 

[Big Boomer]

By all means let the shooter run out of ammo or kill themselves first.

Why should we place the lives of innocent security guards and police officers in harms way when the attacker is just so relentless? More bullets in the air means multiple more deaths...

Wait till the attacker is done, either dead by shooting themselves or out of ammo. These lunatics are much easier to deal with after they have got it out of their system.

Then we can send in the experts to take body counts, and wipe the blood off the windows and the Santa display.

 

[The Sheriff]

Now, let's just forget this stupid kid for a minute, and suppose that an experienced squad of Al Qaeda terrorists wanted the least risk of resistance, with potentially the maximum level of high profile destruction at a significant time of year for Christians.
...If they hadn't thought of it before, I'm sure they have now.

 

[mgregg85]

What the hell is with these people?

When did it become better to lay down and play dead instead of fighting back?

How would having a little lead flying at the killer instead of all the lead flying at you make it worse? I really don't understand that.

 

[Phydeaux642]

There are precisely two things that stop someone bent on mass public murder: The mass public murderer itself, and an honorable gunfighter.

Case in point:
University of Texas at Austin massacre - Austin, Texas, United States; August 1, 1966. Armed citizens helped law enforcement stop what could have been an even greater tragedy.

______________________

"Phydeaux, bad dog....no biscuit!"

 

[jrou111]

it could result in "the gunfight at the 'OK corral,' and then we might have 23 people killed instead of eight."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunfight_at_the_O.K._Corral

Anyone willing to make a statement like that should really know what they are talking about first.

From wikipedia: "The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral was a gunfight that has been portrayed in numerous Western films. It has come to symbolize the struggle between law-and-order and open-banditry and rustling in frontier towns of the Old West where law enforcement was often weak or simply nonexistent.

The gunfight happened at about 3 p.m. on Wednesday, October 26, 1881, in a vacant lot, known as lot 2, in block 17, behind the corral in Tombstone, Arizona Territory, United States. Some of the fighting was in Fremont Street in front of the vacant lot. About 30 shots were fired in 30 seconds."

"only three people were killed during the gunfight" (which BTW were the bad guys)

 

[MachIVshooter]

If the mall had metal detectors, he'd have started shooting the instant he walked in. Or just shot people in the parking lot instead.

There is no solution. Random violence is one of the inherent risks of living in a (more or less) free society.

Random violence is one of the risks of living.

 

[Green Lantern]

My local mall is posted - albeit POORLY, and not in compliance with how the law explains it in the state of TN. Didn't stop them from calling the cops on people that "printed" though.

And I've been told by the General Manager there that their security guards are told NOT to intervene in crimes, just to "Take descriptions."

I quit shopping there a looong time ago!

 

[Aguila Blanca]

"If the people closest to him didn't see any indicators or signs that he was going to go off so drastically ... how is some public safety officer supposed to recognize this person?" Greene asked.

Ummm maybe he would be the guy carrying the rifle?.......

You beat me to it ...

 

[Eagle103]

In the Red Lake School shootings guess who the first person was who got shot. Yes, the unarmed security guard who was manning the metal detector.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Lake_High_School_massacre
Another point that should be made is that his source of weapons was a sleeping LEO.
I wonder how the antis would have prevented this one? Maybe thats why you never hear much about it.