What are your thoughts on a reward to the person that takes down a mass shooter?

A new pistol of his choice, complete with holster. But the thankfulness of society and the knowledge and pride that you served your fellow man should be enough.

2 parts to my answer;

Law enforcement officers should not be given rewards or performance bonuses since they as a class are already too trigger happy. Next time they shoot an unarmed person on a pretext traffic stop, they will wnat tehir reward too.

Civilians should not be encouraged to intercede in a mass shooter event, because then when Law Enforcement does finally show up, they won’t be able to tell who the “good guys” are.

No.

Police still have a chain of command, and do not welcome multiple independent people making their own decisions to go after a shooter.

Offering a bounty calculated in advance of a terrible situation you expect to repeat, seems like a recipe for disaster. We’d get gun yahoos who decide to lurk around schools with guns, ready to go race to try to bag a shooter without really knowing what’s going on, and possibly shooting the wrong person or getting shot by the police, or even deciding a shooting is going on when really it’s not, etc etc etc. We’d also be reinforcing the expectation there will be more school shootings, etc.

I believe there’s an excellent chance that as these incidents multiply in frequency, organizations (the NRA) and individual wealthy gun devotees will put up “bounties” and other “incentives”. The manufacturers will certainly get in on the act as a lucrative marketing tool. S&W or Glock will put up bonuses and perhaps double them for those who manage to “score” using their brand. And the ammo folks too will be drawn in to the incentive granting once gunplay proliferates to those levels forcing public acceptance that the gun lobby already won and probably decades back. The public is unfortunately slow to catch on. There is an incredible amount of money to be realized for those cognizant of that single fact.

No. It would perpetuate the Wild West mentality that is already so pervasive in America

And what would better serve those depending on that mentality as the means to advancement?

Horribly dangerous idea. The guy in Indianapolis hit the right one yesterday.

Suppose some cowboy shoots the wrong person, thinking he was doing something right. What’s the penalty for making that sort of mistake? (Besides a dead innocent person).

Call Dog, the Bounty Hunter.

Not unless you like the idea of vigilante justice.

The last thing Americans need is an incentive to shoot people. The only rational response to mass shootings is to stop them from happening in the first place.

See? This is why I love this place. The answers are so interesting.
I wrote the Q in frustration and sadness after reading about the gross mismanagement of the Uvalde situation.

^^ I know. It is just awful.

Just think about what kind of people that would attract.
Not your fantasy paladins patrolling vulnerable areas to protect the innocent from goblin raiders.
No.
What it would attract is borderline unhinged people with itchy trigger fingers stalking the place waiting for some “action”.
You know, the militia types. Meal Team 6. The Gravy Seals. Y’all Qaeda. Vanilla Isis. Boko Moron. 101st Chairborne. Cosplaytriots. Yeehadis. HamAss. Hogan’s Zeros. Timid McWeighs.
Who knows that would set them off, make them pull their compensator, and perforate a suspected ne’erdowell.
Probably some innocent black schoolkid looking at him the wrong way.

Interesting idea – but I’d reverse the cost analysis.

Using your calculations I think each one of those worthless badge carriers owes the public $20K, plus damages to the familes of every child killed.

What I don’t get is that out of hundreds of cops that were there, NOT EVEN ONE went rogue and tried to kill the shooter. Every one of those hundreds of cops/law enforcement people followed orders? Boggles the mind.

What is not to get? Courts have already decided that cops have no legal duty to protect, and without being required to by law, by themselves cops do not care about their subjects. All they care about is lording their power and monopoly of lawful violence over the citizenry, and their paycheck. In that order.
They will, however, happily brutalise and murder innocents, after making sure that they are defenseless. Which is made all the easier since they know they will almost always get away with it, thanks to the wonders of “qualified immunity”, the privilege of being allowed to “investigate themselves” and conveniently finding no wrongdoing, and a corrupt and complicit legal system.
Summa Summarum: ACAB.

I feel bad for cops. They’re under genuine scrutiny these days, and this is definitely the situation where display of initiative not only places their lives at extreme risk (comes with the job), but it is certainly less risky career wise to wait for the first man to make the move that might well destroy his career when things go South. After all, nobody’s gonna fire all 400 of them. Cop (like teacher) has taken the hit as one of those glam professions little kids dream about. Just a risky and now thankless gig.

Do not feel bad for them. The scrutiny is more than deserved, and entirely self inflicted.
No one is forcing them to tolerate and protect their “bad apples”.
No one is forcing them to murder innocents.
No one is forcing them to shut off their body cams, or to “accidentally” lose the footage afterwards.
They do that freely.

Any such action resulting in the saving of young, innocent lives…reward enough surely.

@chyna One cop did try. He was trying to rescue his wife who had been shot.:
“A Uvalde school police officer was prohibited from trying to save his wife, a Robb Elementary school teacher, during the deadly mass shooting in May.
His wife, fourth grade teacher Eva Mireles, was one of the two teachers killed in the attack. Nineteen children also lost their lives.
Texas Department of Public Safety director Col. Steven McCraw revealed the details while giving testimony on Tuesday. He also called the police response to the massacre an “abject failure.”
The officer, Ruben Ruiz, arrived at the school after the accused 18-year-old gunman walked into Robb Elementary, KSAT reported. Mireles had called Ruiz and told him that she had been shot and was “dying.”
And what happened to [Ruiz] is he tried to move forward into the hallway,” McCraw said. “He was detained and they took his gun away from him and escorted him off the scene.”

That’s a horrifying story. Wow.

@ragingloli “Meal Team 6. The Gravy Seals. Y’all Qaeda. Vanilla Isis. Boko Moron. 101st Chairborne. Cosplaytriots. Yeehadis. HamAss. Hogan’s Zeros. Timid McWeighs”.
Those are brilliant!!! Thank you!!!

I have an idea: make a bigger deal out of the armed guy that stops a shooter than is made over the ones that aren’t stopped. But that goes against the politicization of guns and killings.

Many people are alive because people who could help did.

I agree with others – that’s not the answer.

From a video: At least one officer who responded to the shooting is seen using a hand sanitizer dispenser and looking at his phone while casually leaning against a wall at least an hour before police attempted to stop the gunman.

The reward idea I think would encourage people to go in when they really aren’t able to handle the situation. Money will incent people to take risks they can’t handle.

At the same time, I think if an officer kills an active shooter, taking grave risk to himself, then I think they should be given a big bonus and time off. To be clear, that is only when the shooter has actually fired shots before the police ever arrived.

Regarding Uvalde, that story about the officer who wasn’t allowed to try to save his wife, if I were him they would have to lock me in a psych institution or drug me practically into a coma. I cannot imagine his mental anguish right now. That poor man.

The “police” who finally went in to stop the shooter, how long had they been on the scene? Did they arrive and think WTF is going on? Or, did they wait around a long time too?

I would think police officers are not supposed to follow orders that go against their training. In the military the soldiers are supposed to not follow orders that break the law, which is a little different, but it’s kind of the same. The person in charge was incompetent.