Dragons vs the City That Never Sleeps

[Captain Smith]

The guns are banned in NYC and legal in Dallas. Thus the general, law abiding population doesn't have them. If you go around a major TX city, you will find 10's of stores filled with AR-15s. There are no such in NYC. Semi autos are neutered in the state and city. Even with a large pop, that doesn't compensate for the gun laws.

Anyway, Dany flies and then dies.

[Captain Morgan]

The guns are banned in NYC and legal in Dallas. Thus the general, law abiding population doesn't have them. If you go around a major TX city, you will find 10's of stores filled with AR-15s. There are no such in NYC. Semi autos are neutered in the state and city. Even with a large pop, that doesn't compensate for the gun laws.

Anyway, Dany flies and then dies.

Playing devil's advocate, New York also has plenty of crime. So there could be a lot of guns concentrated in the hands of non-law abiding citizens. Also, the big gun control bill for New York was like 6 years ago and grandfathered in people who already owned the weapons, as I understand it. And lots of people make reactionary gun purchases when these bills are even brought up, and plenty more probably bought them before the imminent deadline. I have no idea what the actual numbers are here, but it probably isn't as simple as saying "You can still buy them in Dallas, so there will be more shooters."


Also, having a bunch of gun shops strikes me as less relevant in this scenario because the owners of said shops can only fire one at a time. Unless they fling open the doors to their shops and arm the populace, those guns won't make it into the hands of more shooters. And I'm skeptical of someone whose business is predicated around "protect your home and property" essentially allowing their merchandise to be looted, even in a time of crisis. I think the statistic that matters is the number of relevant* gun owners.

*Relevant being defined as the folks with weapons that can hurt a dragon, whatever that is.

[regnak]

I think he mentioned the gun shops to show demand for AR 15 and like weapons in Dallas not that they would be passed out.

[Captain Smith]

Thanks, I was pointed out the availability which correlates with what probably exists in the general population. Even if Dany attacked and you ran out with an illegally held AR-15, the NYPD would probably arrest you. There are 38K of NYPD officers with Glock handguns. Whether the rank and file could hit Dany and Dragon is not that certain. You would have various SWAT like teams in town to engage. Most have rifles that could hurt them if not BBQ'ed. With a touch of organization and armed forces response, she's gone.

[Captain Morgan]

I think he mentioned the gun shops to show demand for AR 15 and like weapons in Dallas not that they would be passed out.

That doesn't really track. More AR 15s can't be sold now, but the DEMAND for them had a reason to spike in Dallas. The threat of guns being banned drives most of the business model of the NRA. Buy them while you still can and all. A cursory googling puts estimates of the banned weapons at over 1 million in New York (state, I believe) and the population of Dallas is only 1.341 million. Now, some of those guns are outside NYC, but NYC itself probably has a sizable chunk of illicit firearms that wouldn't be showing up in these numbers either, and NYC has nearly half the population of its state.

So I wouldn't take it for granted that there are more people with AR 15s in Dallas, at least without some hard numbers to back it up.

[Captain Smith]

NYC does not have a deep gun culture. What you are seeing with the numbers are the areas outside of the major metropolitian areas. You can keep arguing this if you want. The illicit arms in NYC are primarily handguns.

[The Chou Lives]

Yeah. The City and so forth are not that friendly with keeping guns. Hell only Hunters I know here used a bow and arrow.

[Slade1]

I don't think the question is if we can stop her but how much destruction she can create before she's blown to pieces. It all depends on how the fight starts. Does she just magically appear in the sky and start razing right away or does she start on the ground and go airborne. If she starts in the air she can cause a LOT of damage before she's taken down.

[The Chou Lives]

Yes. It will be a chaotic mess and dragons do some damage, but they die with the city still standing. So not a complete raze.

[Shai-Hulud]

I don't think the question is if we can stop her but how much destruction she can create before she's blown to pieces. It all depends on how the fight starts. Does she just magically appear in the sky and start razing right away or does she start on the ground and go airborne. If she starts in the air she can cause a LOT of damage before she's taken down.

She magically appears in the skies early one morning.

[Slade1]

Yes. It will be a chaotic mess and dragons do some damage, but they die with the city still standing. So not a complete raze.

No, not a complete raze as there is a lot of ground to cover. But three dragons spewing fire everywhere will do massive amounts of damage.

[big_adventure]

NYC does not have a deep gun culture. What you are seeing with the numbers are the areas outside of the major metropolitian areas. You can keep arguing this if you want. The illicit arms in NYC are primarily handguns.

What you call "not a deep gun culture" is still a deeper gun culture then most of the world. Sure, it's less than Texas, but so are the West Bank and Afghanistan.

CM has the right of this:

1. When the assault weapons ban (SAFE) went into effect, there was a massive spike in purchases. There is hard evidence of this.

2. Handguns are NOT illicit in NYC or anywhere else in the state. You simply have to have a permit to own one.

3. Rifles that are NOT assault rifles are totally legal and don't require a permit. There will be plenty of .308's around.

4. 64% of the population of the state lives in the NYC metro area. 40% in NYC city limits. If there are a million assault rifles and other ACTUALLY ILLEGAL arms around in the state, it's fair to assume that 40% of them are in NYC. That's 400K. Just to be SUPER conservative, let's say that only a fifth of THAT are actually in the city. That's still 80 THOUSAND such weapons.

5. That's not even considering all of the hunting rifles and such, of which I'm sure there are plenty.

6. Because these things are not in the culture, it's not like people are going to walk around bragging about their weapons of questionable legality.

6. And even that still doesn't address the fact that Fort Hamilton is an active military base that is in the city limits. They will be ready to shoot in minutes at most. And, after 9/11, I'd be stunned if there aren't fighters less than 15 minutes away, ready to scramble anytime they are needed.

So, Dany and the magical teleporting dragons will be able to do a TON of damage to a small area of the giant city. Then they will die.

[Cyke]

i'm reminded of how a number of the 2012 Empire State Building shooting, NYPD had a shooter surrounded, and they all opened fire, but several civilians were hit by friendly fire, by stray fire or ricochet (none were killed, thankfully). Every single bystander who was hit was hit by the police. But those are highly trained cops who likely train much more than your usual legal gunowner since it's part of their job.

Of course, just by sheer volume and firepower, NYC should take it, but plenty of civilians are going to die regardless, whether it be Dany or the cops going all out. Factor in civilian gunowners and that number greatly increases, though obviously the objective here is to beat Drogon over saving people.

*this isn't a commentary on gun ownership, just accuracy rates

[big_adventure]

i'm reminded of how a number of the 2012 Empire State Building shooting, NYPD had a shooter surrounded, and they all opened fire, but several civilians were hit by friendly fire, by stray fire or ricochet (none were killed, thankfully). Every single bystander who was hit was hit by the police. But those are highly trained cops who likely train much more than your usual legal gunowner since it's part of their job.

Of course, just by sheer volume and firepower, NYC should take it, but plenty of civilians are going to die regardless, whether it be Dany or the cops going all out. Factor in civilian gunowners and that number greatly increases, though obviously the objective here is to beat Drogon over saving people.

*this isn't a commentary on gun ownership, just accuracy rates

Oh yeah, I mentioned that earlier in the thread. Having tens of thousands of gun owners shooting into the sky is going to make for a lot of carnage from the bullet rain.

[Captain Morgan]

I could totally buy Dallas handling this attack with less loss of life, mind you. But that's purely a population density thing. You start a fire on a New York street, you're gonna put more people at risk than a Dallas street. But I'm unconvinced there is significantly less firepower, especially when you factor in military presence, so the dragons shouldn't last any longer. They can just kill more people in the same amount of time.