Here's a legal question for you. Did the cops have the right to confiscate his legally carried gun?
Yes and no, depending on how loose your terminology;
-In the midst of an active firefight, you bet your bippy the police have the authority (and honestly, responsibility) to secure all firearms they are aware of, if nothing else to remove them from the fight, friendly or foe. Just another variable that they must keep in consideration while under fire, otherwise. Because a gun is an object, it makes most sense to remove it from its person so as to render it inert & no longer a factor to the ongoing fracas.
-A true confiscation cannot lawfully transpire without some form of due process in this country; when it does not, it is an injustice, though it does still happen. After the fight, when the situation has been stabilized or contained, and the weapon's owner no longer constitutes a needless distraction or threat vector, and it has been shown that the owner has no implication in the action & the gun does not hold evidence value, it should be returned immediately.
Both proper seizure & return and improper confiscation appear the same at the time authorities take possession; the difference is in the initial intent and after-the-fact actions of the authorities to return the item if they have no legitimate claim to it. The DPD has been very up front and forthcoming about this rifle carrier's innocence (though I don't think they've taken his face down from suspect board yet, unless that's changed), so I would expect they have returned his rifle already.
The reason ARs and AKs have shock value is because the anti gunners continue to perpetuate the inherent evilness of the assault rifle lookalikes; of firearms in general. Several arguments here do nothing except perpetuate their talking points and the shock values.
Ironic, considering this terrorist used an SKS, possibly modified for AK mags (or using extended mags, which would be quite impressive given how effective he was against officers). We're already hearing about "SKS military-style semi-automatic assault rifle" which is quite possibly the wrongest string of gun-sounding words that's been cooked up so far, considering the SKS has pretty much never fallen under any legal assault weapon classification without a specific inclusion by name. An SKS-M using AK mags would possibly qualify, but only so much as an Mini-14. Hardly 'military style,' it is available as-issued, right down to the safety sear that is verbotten on modern designs. Since none were made select-fire in any number to my knowledge, specifying its semi-automatic-ness is needless detail, intended to conflate it with AR or AK rifles, commonly known to be based upon more common military-issue select-fire variants.
Several comments here repeat how lucky the guy was that the police didn't shoot him. Really? So you're saying the cops would've just run up on him and shot because he was wearing a rifle? A rifle that wasn't in his hands? Do you realize how poorly that speaks of the police. Hell, you just made the argument for the cop hater crowd and the antigun crowd.
He was lucky for the same reason many in the crowd around him were lucky. Shots from above in an echo-chamber between tall building, police could have easily believed the crowd was upon them. Yes, finding yourself near police officers carrying a rifle (in hand or not) when shots ring out carries a high likelihood of being shot. This man's actions to stay with the crowd (vs. running toward the shooting or officers distinctively), find cover, and as I understand it assist others in doing so, helped to distinguish him from a hostile or unknown actor on the scene, and prevent officers from thinking him a threat. He could have still easily been killed immediately after the first shots if the first thing an officer saw upon spinning around was his rifle. I suspect the officers nearby were already aware of most OC'ers in their area, and were able to quickly check his position & determine he was not the threat and his direction not the source of the shots.
And please, spare me the police are on edge out there in a shooting. So during this shooting, they were under more pressure than soldiers in combat? I'm not talking about in the combat zone but instead the ones in direct engagements. The ones on patrol, or conducting raids, or on convoys getting engaged in Baghdad or Fallujah, etc.
I doubt soldiers assigned to a Memorial Day parade would react as well to a sudden attack as they would on a mission in a hostile area expecting resistance. We also don't typically send a handful of soldiers to mingle with large crowds to be shot at from above, from what I understand, precisely because it is an incredibly dangerous situation that will result in casualties on all sides.
Throughout all the riots, protests, firefights after IEDs that killed our brothers in combat; Where are all the massacres there after all the years of war? Police officer or combatant, it comes down to professional training, discipline, experience, and trust in their fellow brothers and sisters.
What are you talking about? There have been multiple, documented case, and in at least one case I remember involving Blackwater (re-named to Xi Services in the aftermath as I recall) in Iraq, where a security detail panicked at some perceived threat, and killed about a dozen people at a bazaar (or something to that effect). Big to-do since we ended up not prosecuting the shooters, because there was not really any way to collect or protect the validity of evidence that would doom any similar perpetrator stateside.
We've also got that whole Penn State shooting thing here at the hands of National Guard guys, and even the Boston Massacre was the result of a similar crossed-wire. While I have great respect for both soldiers and police who are putting their bacon on the line for pay and country, there is no denying that the incorporation of huge numbers of combat vets brought with them their tactics & mindset, and it necessarily results in a tendency towards escalation. A very dangerous mixture when combined with similarly inflamed persons or groups convinced that escalation of real & perceived conflict is a desirable outcome.
TCB
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