Too true - it’s all well & good being able to get all 10 shots inside a 5” bull at 300 yds on a stationary tgt - relatively easy with good kit - but for the real thing, centre of visible mass!
One variable I missed - couldn’t see anything useful on the media clips - even a 2-4” aim off for wind drift would have been very relevant.
They still won’t change a thing with their 2nd amendment 
The American solution will always be that more people should have had guns, so they could defence themselves / take out the active shooter (who, apparently, people were telling the authorities about and being ignored).
That’s certainly the view taken by many in America. More guns = better.
But guns are banned from ṭrump rallies…
Where was the good guy at Uvalde Texas. Even the security/police chap with a gun said ‘nah not for me’ and the rule of no guns at a Twump rally, don’t see them crying bout their 2nd amendment there.
Being of these shores, I will never get my head around the US’s way of thinking. Lovely place to visit as an outsider, but to live there is a different story. I’d say that’s the same to say about the uk, but I had a friend stationed here and they liked it here for some reason 
Media reports suggest that the shooter was not allowed in his college rifle shooting team as he was so inaccurate!!
Other examples - one of the (many) school shootings - a senior student (with permit to carry) heard shots being fired, but left his hand gun in his car - "How would the SWAT team tell if I was a good guy with a gun or a bad guy with a gun…?
On the many arguments about self-defence - having been on numerous gun ranges in the USA, for the majority of hand gun firers, their accuracy was terrible. Static tgt, 5 - 10 yds away, shooting moderately quickly (one shot every 5 secs?) one shot on the edge if they were lucky. I could do 10 shots, 10 secs, all in a 5-6" group “cold” or better after a little practice. So, I reckon their chances of hitting a moving tgt, firing at them, would have been even less!!
The “professionals” are not much better, although this is a 2007 article. This is from 2018, so more recent - similar story.
Researchers analyzed 149 real-life OISs recorded over a 15-year period by Dallas (TX) PD. In nearly half of these encounters, officers firing at a single suspect delivered “complete inaccuracy.” That is, they missed the target entirely.
Which is no way a surprise, pistol is really really hard, especially under pressure beyond what you would normally face on the range.
If you live in that sort of scared environment where you feel you need a gun to protect yourself (I’ve never actually felt that scared in the US, but I haven’t grown up in their climate of fear, South Africa that’s a different story), you are probably better off with a Shotgun.
Even if you took the “self defence” argument out of US guns there would naturally still be lots of guns needed (it’s a very rural country in the grand scheme of things).
Ultimately the genie is out of the bottle and nothing can be done to put it back in the US political landscape.
To qualify on that - a semi-auto shotgun. 
I once stayed with a Jenvey in Dallas; both he & his wife were realtors, so needed to do some work away from their house every now & then.
So, I go the instructions & guided tour of the firearms - if anyone enters the property / grounds, you are perfectly entitled to shoot first, no need to challenge! 
Study, very nice S&W revolver. Kitchen, 9mm hand gun, can’t remember the make. Lounge, another 9mm hand gun. By the BBQ (next to the pool), semi-auto shotgun. Another room, a hunting rifle! All were loaded, but not “ready.” No kids in the house.
So, I said, that’s the one - the shotgun. They hadn’t thought about accuracy, ability to get someone with the first round, or considered firing a round from the hunting rifle, missing, & the bullet going through the wooden exterior wall…
Did some dry drills with them later on - lots of fumbling & waving around initially.
And it’s short barrelled = small angle of error with sight picture = large error on the tgt. The Browning Hi-Power 9mm service pistol didn’t have very good “standard” sights. However, you could get much better issue ones (white dot on the foresight, larger gap in the rear sight, white dot either side), which were much better for instinctive aim. On the occasions that I was live-armed (RAFG), I knew that it was my Browning & I knew it was zeroed! Same for my SLR & then later on, L85 with SUSAT.
Generally yes, it won’t generally stop someone or kill them though which for Police is a good thing. THey also have specific processes around how many rounds and stepping away between rounds etc.
In this situation a center mass shot wouldn’t be favourable though as it is likely in such an exposed location he would be wearing body armour.
The firer was very close to achieving that objective as well, there is some slowmo footage that shows how close but trump moved at the last second.
He would have also been aware of the counter sniper team on the roof of the building behind trump who were scopes on him and preparing to engage so his shot was likely rushed.
The whole situation was a huge security mess.
Seemingly, the Secret Service delegated some (all?) building sweeps to local enforcement officers (LEOs).
The building in question was (or should have been!) the prime area of concern for a high up shooter - closest to the podium, with uninterrupted view.
Notwithstanding that, people attending the rally pointed out the man on the rooftop, with allegations that one LEO moved back when he had a rifle pointing at him. I reckon that would have been black & white ROE (very high threat against him & potentially Trump) for the LEO to draw & fire - unless there was any protocol that dictated the Secret Service had to be in an “approval” comms loop?
We won’t know anything until an investigation is done…even then will we find out?
Still don’t understand why they didn’t have one of their own snipers on that roof to be honest.
Pistol v Rifle probably the safest choice to make?
I’m strongly suspecting a Comms breakdown, what’s the betting the local Police and Secret Service couldn’t talk to each other or even the same control room?
Maybe - but shots fired by the LEO would have pushed the Secret Service into getting Trump out of view?
It honestly sounds like it. Allegedly some members of the public had already pointed it out to local cops and no one did anything for 3-4 minutes. Now I have no idea how true that is, but that was an interview shown on BBC’s website…
Also, love him or hate him, Trump is extremely fortunately to not have come off worse, given he was fired at from about 130 metres away.
Disagree, we already know loads as there’s dozens of videos and photos. We also know Trump was shot. We know that one way or another, the secret service messed up colossally here. It is an undisputed fact that the secret service allowed an unknown third party to get onto a roof with a rifle within 200m of an ex president. It’s also a fact that this person was spotted by onlookers multiple minutes before the first shots happened.
It’s no wonder all the conspiracy nuts are going off. This should never have been allowed to happen. It wasn’t some sort of sophisticated massively over engineered assassination attempt, the guy just got on the roof and took a shot…
It’s rarely the tools that are the real problem when it comes to violent crime. It is popular to be seen to be banning guns and knives, when they are rarely the cause of the problem. You just have to look at gun ownership vs gun death rate, as most countries with legal gun ownership don’t have the problem the US does. Once you go beyond common sense restrictions, there is little to be gained from outright bans. Obviously it says something about the country when there are more guns than people though!
They are too far down the road, more firearms deaths than road fatalities!
Of course, within the statistics, many suicides by firearm - tends to be a method that works too well. 
If you take the 48,000+ deaths from firearms, & subtract the ones linked to suicide (27,000!), you still have a significant number (21,000). Put that into another area, say there had been 21,000 deaths in the USA from aircraft crashing (call it an average of 500 people in a B777) - that would equate to 42 major accidents - the FAA would close things down immediately to assess the cause(s) - trg, engineering, Air Traffic, human factors, whatever.
Even worse if you used that analogy for all 48,000 fatalities!
Ah, it’s firearms & the wonderful 2A carry on…
it is a little odd really - whenever there is a shooting they always blame the shooter and we often find out they were not of a sound mind.
rather than take the knee jerk (HQAC) reaction and ban it all instantly, do the authorities put restrictions in place to ensure only the right people are able to purchase/have access to guns? not even in the slightest - “he was a bad egg” is the only acknowledgement
while gun issues in the states is awful from the outside looking in, if the NRA were to look at it from a positive side (rounds fire per year Vs deaths/gun ownership numbers Vs guns involved in gun death) it would look quite impressive i would have thought and perhaps why American’s are so blase about it all.
as a for instance, with a population of 330 million, lets say there are enough guns for 50% of those people (165 million guns)
On the assumption each death has a unique gun (ie a single weapon for each death - which in the case of a school shooting is rarely the case)
48,000 deaths / 165 million guns = 0.029% of guns are involved in gun related deaths.
that figure sites between the number of deaths from a bicycle and sun stroke being the cause of death according to this source
take the UK’s approach to bicycle deaths, it would seem this source suggests we have more than 100 deaths by bike a year - 2 a week.
and how much is the UK Govt doing to reduce that number?
it is no wonder many in the USA see deaths by guns as something that happens rather than something can could be avoided by better controls…
Statistics, statistics, & d@mn lies.
Sadly, we don’t know (& I don;'t think any organisation in the USA does either) how many firearms are held in the USA. If this argument is correct, then it could be a lot more than 165M guns around - maybe as many as 368M!!
If you want to dig deeper, this study would suggest that hand gun ownership has become prevalent over the last 2 yrs, primarily for self-defence - hand guns used to be the “best” category for nefarious deeds, but “long” guns have taken over in recent years.
Maybe 3 in 10 actually own firearms??
Regardless, not enough data to pin down concrete numbers.
That said, a lot of "Merican’s have far more than one firearm - when I was doing my type rating on the might Hawker 800 yonks ago in Little Rock, one of the simulator instructors asked if we fancied any range time? Silly question. We bought the ammo (from Walmart or similar, no age / ID verification need at the time!), he provided the firearms.
Ten different handguns of various types & calibres (including a Desert Eagle!) & assorted rifles. he said that his was only a “small” collection.