‘Carrying a Gun Saved My Life’: Meet Ryan Moore
The type of gun incident most media has no use for.
January 30, 2013 - 12:00 am
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Gun-control advocates typically highlight the criminal misuses of firearms, while underplaying the many times firearms are used by law-abiding citizens in self-defense — ranging from tens of thousands to two million times per year, depending on the source.
Most of the time, the intended victim does not have to fire his weapon to deter the attackers. But in some cases, the good guy having a gun can mean the difference between his life or death. Fortunately, Georgia law allowed Ryan Moore to carry the gun that saved his life.
Shouldn’t all law-abiding Americans enjoy that same right?
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One of my sons will be attending a concealed weapons class and wants to be a State Trooper. I decided to join him,having considered it for some time now.I’m a Landlord,and retired, in a troubled area so it simply makes sense. The strong anti-gun forces once had my ear but after awhile I’ve decided that they just make no sense and put no thought into their opinions!
If you live in suburbia and feel the need to carry a gun with you everywhere you go- like every time you go to the grocery store, you are looney tunes. Sorry gun fans. And would I feel safe being with someone like that? No. I would feel like the slightest confrontation could escalate at any moment to a life and death situation.
So, Chris, would you characterize Conyers, GA as suburban, rural, or just far enough away from your gated compound that you don’t care what happens to hoi polloi living there?
Yea, no need for guns. Maybe the cops shouldn’t carry the evil things as well. Hope your bubble protects you.
Oh, and I almost forgot to add, being “looney toons” has saved my life three times. If there could be a different, non-lethal tool to save my life and others that is just as effective as a firearm, I would be first in line. Hoewever, crime is real, bad people do bad things, and no amount of whimsical thinking will change that.
Sorry, no need to feed the trolls, but had to get it off my shoulders.
Given that the vast majority of Americans go through life without ever having to draw a gun in self-defense but you’ve been in that situation THREE times, I can’t help but think that maybe YOU had something to do with being in those situations. Are you a police officer? That would make sense but if not, what the hell are you doing? I’m dying to know…how are you so unlucky that you needed a gun to defend yourself three times?
Carrying a firearm is like having airbags in your car. 99% of people never need them; the problem is that you can never foresee whether you will yourself or not.
Chris, I imagine you have insurance on your car, yes? I’ve been driving for 38 years, had insurance the entire time. Only have needed it twice, both times within the last ten years. In both cases, another driver hit me.
I look at having a firearm for protection of myself and my family as “self-insuring.” If I never need it, well, I’ll have spent less on those firearms than on a lifetime of car insurance.
If you don’t wish to self-insure, that’s your business. But the choices you make about your family’s safety are yours, why should they be imposed upon me?
To put it another way: why punish the Lawful for the actions of the Lawless?
Chris, if you are fortunate enough to be right and never end up in a situation where you need to defend yourself over the course of your entire life, then good for you. But if you ever end up in a situation where your life is threatened for the money in your wallet, then let’s just hope that you don’t end up in the morgue. Because “moral high ground” makes a very poor shield. If you ever are attacked, be sure to call 911, because the police will protect you/sarc.
I know people who have never had a car stolen too then again, I have a friend who has had two different cars stolen.
In ’92, stopped an assault on a neighboring businessman, ran off 4 different attempts at burglary. All times I was armed, all events ocurred in a 10 day timespan.
“Lean not unto thine own understanding, but in all ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths.”:
“Given that the vast majority of Americans go through life without ever having to draw a gun . . . . I can’t help but think that . . . . are you so unlucky?”?
And from other of his posts: “not that common”, and: “percentage”, . . .
Obviously, our dear “Chris Hawkins” relies upon playing the odds. But, whatever his underlying predicate for that might be, plainly, his estimation of the odds would have left Ryan Moore, dead.
I think—if a guy doesn’t understand when to play the odds, and what the things where that is inadvisable—I would look for advice on safety—well, on most anything—far from this, our learned “Chris Hawkins”.
Ryan Moore was not playing the odds. Rather, he was packin’ for safety’s sake, just for safety’s sake, . . . that’s all—the odds be damned. And Ryan Moore is yet in the land of the living, . . . Dear G0D, save us from the likes of “Chris Hawkins”, . . . reasoning as he does, like a damned politician, . . .
To Chris Hawkins.
your condescending trashing of Doug for having to use a gun 3 times is both contemptable and grossly ignorant. Even with a fairly low individual probability for being in a legit defensive gun use situation once on your life, say 1/100, simple statistics say that 1/10k people will be in that situation 3 times, just from normal probability, through no fault of their own. With a 300M population that means 3000 people have been in the very situation described by Doug, through no fault, just by simple probability. So recognize simple statistical probability, and stop blaming the victim with your condescending charge that he is at fault for being attacked. Then again, leftists never were very good at simple math.
A little embarrased, but my math was off, although my basic point was not. Given 1/100 for one time in a life, 3 times would be 1/1M, which with 300M people would be 300 people nationwide.
Everyone has to live somewhere. Some are stuck in low income areas with high crime rates. So, they should just let someone kill them?
Phillep, I was going to mention the same thing. There are people who’s circumstances have put them in areas that are higher crime areas and don’t have the ability or financial stability to move. The city I live in has two or three areas that most “whites” stay out of due to the high incidence of crime, but there are those who retired there, or lived there before the areas became bad and are unfortunate in that they are”stuck” there. This Chris moron is both naive and arrogant and it is just a matter of time until he will eat his words.
The FBI reports that 2.5 million people use a firearm annually to protect themselves from attempted rape, murder, etc., while 550 thousand use a firearm to commit a crime. Banning the use of firearms would just create another 2.5 million victims because everyone knows criminals will still be armed.
“I would feel like the slightest confrontation could escalate at any moment to a life and death situation.”
Thus, you would avoid confrontations. Thereby proving Heinlein’s statement, “An armed society is a polite society.”
Bingo.
Right you are, laddybuck. Shootouts over parking spaces, blood in the streets. Some days it’s impossible to leave the house with all those gun owners exchanging fire. No need to worry about the NRA, at the rate “slightest confrontations” keep escalating to “life or death situations” there won’t be any left alive, and your world will finally be safe.
Does it ever worry you that everything you think you know about guns and gun owners is obviously wrong? Is errant stupidity combined with blind arrogance really so comforting?
42 states with shall issue concealed carry regimes, 7.5 to 8 million issued licenses according to independent estimations last summer by scholar and PJMedia contributor Clayton Cramer and the Government Accountability Office (GAO), and somehow, in this nationwide sweep of shall issue laws from Florida in 1987 to Wisconsin in 2011 all those predictions of “blood in the streets” never came true….
A week ago AROUND THE CORNER we had another robbery,another shooting another MURDER!You are dangerous to your family,dangerous to your loved ones and either somehow programmed like i once was or stuck in the past.To not prepare for the tigers that freely roam our streets is naive at best in the mildest language i can come out with here!
Oh please. If I don’t pack heat every time I go around the corner to buy a gallon of milk I’m a danger to my family?
By the way, I’m not even arguing that guns should be controlled more. I just think people who walk around with guns under the delusion that they are making the world safe are nuts. You want to be safe? Stay away from drugs and sh!++y neighborhoods and mind your own effing business.
I just think people who walk around with guns under the delusion that they are making the world safe are nuts.
You need to carefully examine your assumptions. No gun owner is going around “trying to make the world safe”, they’re just trying to keep themselves safe. The issue is protecting self and family.
As for avoiding “drugs and sh!++y neighborhoods”, again – they come to you whether or not you go to them. Do you live in a nice, safe, rich neighborhood? Then you’re the preferred target for a home invader. You don’t think that they like to rob “sh!++y neighborhoods” do you? No, they go where the money is. Why don’t you go look at the CATO site cited in the article, or the NRA American Rifleman column that details uses of firearms for self defense (several thousands each year). Very few of them take place in “sh!++y neighborhoods”.
Neither Cato nor the NRA are reliable reporters.
I am a gun owner. I also once defended myself and my home from an intruder bent on rape with a gun. My personal concern is not people who have a handgun and a shotgun or hunting rifle. My problem is with assault-style rifles, large capacity magazines and paranoid fools who have a hundred military-style guns in their bunker/basements.
I should not be required to match their idiocy to assure that I am safe from them.
But what happens when the druggies from shitty neighborhoods come to the “nice, safe, low crime” places to steal crap to support their criminal lifestyle?
Home invasions are common in “nice neighborhoods” look up the OTHER horrible Connecticut tragedy
They’re not that common.
So?
Not that common?
They are far more common than School Shootings.
Both of which can be (and many times HAVE BEEN, if you honestly look at the data) prevented by a Copetent Citzen with a GUN
So lets re-cap:
School Shootings turned into even worse catastrophies by the “botched” intervention of an armed armed citizen/teacher/principal …Absolutely Zero
School Shooters shot/subdued/apprehended by intervention of an armed citizen/teacher/principal…Several that I’m aware of
Home Invasion Survival Odds when you plead “please dont shoot us” after they line you up on the floor….not good
Home Invasion Survival Odds when you are armed and say “leave us alone or I’ll shoot”…Better.
Its a no-brainer for the “Thinkers”, but too much to ask from the unreliable “Feelers”..
No, you’re simply failing to protect them.
The fact that you can’t tell the difference between those to things says a lot about your rational thinking abilities, and what it says is not good.
He is a danger to friends, family, aquaintences and associates in his attitudes. He endangers them with his planned and willing inaction.
Guys it’s survival of the fittest, and Chris is not the fittest! The cops will make a folder for him and try to solve the crime later.
Don’t be stupid. Are you going to arm ten-year-old girls who are walking to the library a block away? I’m truly sick of people like you who act like we should all be armed or terrified every moment of the day.
You should be spending your energy working to end the war on drugs which is the origin of much of our crime.
It’s better to work toward a more civilized society than a more armed society. Not everyone should own a gun but they deserve to be safe. That IS what we pay the police for. If they’re not doing their job, get rid of them and get new ones.
So good luck if you live in a poor neighborhood? Soon i will be carrying my good luck with me.About your nice neighborhood; hope that you don’t loose your good job,become disabled, get divorced or depend on Social Security.
BS that criminals don’t come to nice neighborhoods often. I live in one. Three years ago I awoke to fully automatic AK fire at the house behind mine and passed all the little orange bullet hole markers on my way to work. The AK was IDed by the cops from # & ballistics& my former special forces Nam vet next door neighbor by sound. The next night there was a retaliatory shootout in the projects they came from. My across the street neighbor is a cop who brings the squad car home when he’s on call. A bit over a month ago he came home in the morning (broad daylight) to find 2 teenage druggies, on of whom lived around the corner in his house. They are in custody.
Anyone who only carries a gun when they’re expecting trouble is going to get killed when a criminal gets the jump on them. Because the criminal gets to pick the time and place of the engagement, not the victim.
Do you only wear your seat belt when you’re expecting to get in an accident?
“I would feel like the slightest confrontation could escalate at any moment to a life and death situation.”
A lot people think the way you do, and they predicted that greatly increasing the number of concealed-carry permits would lead to a bloodbath. Well, in many states the number of permits were greatly increased, and yet the bloodbath never happened. Did any of those people ever question their own assumptions that led to those predictions?
Our country is in a life and death situation because of people like you.
So you would disarm this guy, and leave him either wounded or dead in the parking lot? how about you just disarm yourself and let other citizens decide for themselves if they want to live or die? You do know that when survival is a matter of seconds, the police are only minutes away?
Your response to an incident where being armed saved a person’s life is to declare him “looney tunes” for being prepared for the situation?
And then to brag about your own lack of self-control?
If you surrounded your house with razor ribbon you’d be prepared against home invasion (better than me) but you’d still look like a paranoid nut.
The obvious question then becomes, if you hear an intruder in your house late at night coming up the stairs, what do you do? I assume the first thing is to call the police. But the intruder is at your door. What now? You probably grab a lamp, or a golf club or baseball bat to protect yourself. Whatever tool is most effective. In a situation like that, wouldn’t it be better to have an even more effective tool for defense? How is a gun any different than a golf club for self defense, other than it’s more effective?
It’s all relative. Is razor ribben too much? Many city homes have bars on their windows. Is it too much to lock your doors? Is it paranoia to install a deadbolt? All these are just precautions taken by individuals. Individuals with the freedom to make their own choices. It’s the same with guns. People have the freedom to decide how they want to protect themselves and their families.
What’s your point?
No one is saying YOU have to arm yourself. It’s cool that you recognize you have the maturity of an adolescent and have so decided you cannot be trusted with the ability to protect yourself.
What we’re saying is YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO DENY OTHERS THAT OPTION.
Your constant use of insults and slanders just highlights your lack of a real argument.
“YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO DENY OTHERS THAT OPTION”
Yes he does!
Busy-body Emotional Elitists have all the rights in the world.
They get to tell EVERYONE ELSE how to live, what to eat, and how to (not) defend themselves.
No one (else) needs “Assault Weapons”, or any guns at all, because Busy-body Emotional Elitists have Government Agencies that represent THEIR world view carrying them, to enforce THIER political desires…
Dont you get that?
Where did I say I was for taking away people’s guns? Could you quote me?
I just said that i think people who carry guns with them everywhere they go are nuts. And I still think that. (OK maybe not if you live in Methville,California or Crackton, Inner City USA or are a repo man or something.)
I’m seeing Chris’s comments. The ‘looney tunes’ is definitely him. My daughter’s friend carries all the time now — even in her home. Why? In peaceful, exurban Loganville GA, about 15 miles eastnortheast of Conyers, her home was invaded in broad daylight. She was home with her 10 yr old sons. The man came to the door, kept ringing the doorbell. She took her 5 shot revolver (a 38) and at her husband’s instruction, retreated to a kneewall closet through the master bath. The criminal broke through the deadbolt-locked door, came straight up the stairs, and into the master bath and found her and her children in the closet. She shot him at point blank range as he was attempting to assault her with a tire iron. He didn’t stop. Finally he went down and she was out of ammo, and she threatened to continue shooting if he got up and then she fled next door to a friend’s home. He got up and got in his car and drove away, crashing a short distance away, he eventually (2 days later) died. Chris, YOU ARE the looney tunes in this discussion.
An Italian immigrant I work with remembers when most places in Italy were low crime and there were no bars on windows or razor wire on top of walls. He says those things went up when the US Army declared firearms illegal in Italy at the end of WWII.
Go to Argentina and take a look at the barred windows and razor wire on top the fences. Technically, firearms are illegal, but the police look the other way so long as you get rid of the body before they have to deal with it.
What sort of country do you want? One like Mexico where firearms are effectively banned and the crime rate is through the roof?
Curious. Do you instinctively put on a seatbelt every time you get behind the wheel of a car? If you answer “yes”, then, per your reasoning, you are paranoid.
No. I would feel like the slightest confrontation could escalate at any moment to a life and death situation.
Do you realize
“Feelings” aren’t “Reality”?
Look at the Real World.
CCW permit holders are some of the most responsible and level-headed people you could ever hope to meet. Frankly, having a weapon allows a person to remain calm when the situation escalates around him, because he knows that he will not need to fight mano-a-mano.
CCW permit holders have a special responsibility to remain calm and avoid trouble, and for the most part that is what they do. Your “feeling” that they are all irresponsible idiots waving their guns around at the slightest provocation is just a fantasy. 99% of the time, you will never know that the man standing next to you has a concealed weapon.
In an unpublished report, engineering statistician William Sturdevant found that concealed carry licensees had arrest rates far lower than the general population for every category of crime. For instance:
Licensees were 5.7 times less likely to be arrested for violent offenses than the general public – 127 per 100,000 population versus 730 per 100,000.
Licensees were 14 times less likely to be arrested for nonviolent offenses than the general public – 386 per 100,000 population versus 5,212 per 100,000.
Further, the general public is 1.4 times more likely to be arrested for murder than licensees [ see Figure I ], and no licensee had been arrested for negligent manslaughter.
from:
http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba324
I wonder what persentage of those people with concealed carry permits are in law enforcement and/or people like judges. These types of people A) have a good reason to have a concealed weapon and B) would be less likely to commit crimes anyway. Would these stats hold true if more and more average Joe’s were packin’?
Obviously that should be “percentage”…
So what makes being a Judge or a cop be a “good reason” to have a gun?
Judges in my area of PA went to JAIL for basically selling juveniles to a Private Jail program in exchange for kickbacks. Intentionally, falsely imprisoned American Citizens in exchange for cash.
A Cop recently held most of Dolyestown PA hostage when he barracaded himself into his Ex-wifes home and started shooting out the windows, it was a day-long standoff of Cops vs Cop ON FATHERS DAY.
“only the government should have guns”
Yeah, great idea
Being a judge might be a good reason to have a concealed gun because if you put someone behind bars for 20 years maybe they or one of their friends might want to kill you. That’s all.
So you give examples of bad cops and judges- I’m not sure that is enough reason condemn all cops and judges.
With the number of armed home invasions around here (central San Joaquin Valley, Kalifornia), being an armed law abiding citizen is a must. Even our county sheriff has said publicly, “arm yourself, get a CCW, we cannot protect you.” With our liberal extortionist state government, every time there has to be budget cuts, they start with cutting police and fire to attempt to extort people to vote for higher taxes instead of reigning in out of control state unions.
The answer to your question is, “very small”.
The majority of CCW permit holders are ordinary Joes.
Very small percentage, since police officers generally don’t need a CCW to carry in their home state. They carry their badge and it works the same, even if off duty. Even if not legal, they will usually get the fellow officer “professional courtesy” treatment and it will never even be reported.
Chris, you do know your post proves the point for law abiding citizens to carry firearms and have CCW permits?
“So you give examples of bad cops and judges- I’m not sure that is enough reason condemn all cops and judges.” Since there are a few bad citizens are you not sure that is enough reason to condemn all law abiding citizens?
“Being a judge might be a good reason to have a concealed gun because if you put someone behind bars for 20 years maybe they or one of their friends might want to kill you.”
Joe Average Citizen may have testified at that trial, or been on the jury.
Joe Average Citizen may just be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Joe Average Citizen may just be minding his own business when an ex-con fresh off his 20-year sentence decides to kick off the second phase of his life of crime.
You realize that granting special privileges to some citizens is a violation of the Constitution, right?
In most jurisdictions and/or departments, cops don’t need a CCW, their badge is their CCW, on or off “the job”.
So, the crime stats Re CCW’s do not reflect cops, but only “civilians”.
Chicken hawk says
“So you give examples of bad cops and judges- I’m not sure that is enough reason condemn all cops and judges”
Wow, thats a profound thought, good for you.
Add “gun owners” to that theory, and you may start to comprehend larger ideas like an Adult for a change
Only our Wise and Benevolent New Lords should have guns.
Serfs should be disarmed.
How many Judges per capita? Even if they need a permit, their numbers are not going to show. Cops generally don’t need permits, as others state.
Depending on which state, a District Attorney may or may not need a permit, or not even bother to get one, but the per capita is still so tiny they barely make a blip.
I grew up in a town with less than 3,000 people in a rural area, north of Detroit. Despite being a small town, we have one of the biggest problems with heroin use in the state. If you don’t think heroin isn’t a good enough reason for someone to break into your house (drugs cost money, you know) then I don’t know what one is. As for carrying in public, heck yes I’d do it. Criminals know no boundaries- they aren’t caged in the big cities, you know.
“I would feel like the slightest confrontation could escalate at any moment to a life and death situation.”
I completely agree with you. As an individual who is completely unable to control themselves, you probably shouldn’t carry a firearm…or a club, or a rock, or a bottle of beverage with which you could kill someone in one of your uncontrolled fits of rage.
But please, attempt to control at least one aspect of your life, and that is the psychological phenomenon referred to as “projection”. In this case, you are projecting your own inability to have any shred of impulse control onto the adult citizens around you. Most adults DO have the capability to control their impulses, as others have amply pointed out, since the vast majority of states are now “shall-issue” for carry permits, and yet all of the predictions/projections of “wild west” and “blood in the streets” and “every traffic accident will result in a shoot-out” have resulted in…nothing.
Yes. There is one documented change. Since CCW permits increaased in recent years, FBI statistics show remarkable reduction in murder involving firearms.
Chris Hawkins knows not of what he speaks. He states, “don’t judge the actions of all police and judges by the actions of a few corrupt police and judges”. Yet he makes a blanket statement condemning all CCW permit holders judging the actions of a few. His arguments are strawmen. He is a typical collectivist, statist, fascist who wants all to live according to his despotic world view.
Holy cow I’m a collectivist statist fascist now?
I’m in my forties and have lived in big cities since I was 18. When I leave the house every day I don’t think about people attacking me or me protecting people or conflict at all. I just go about my own damn business. To me it seems paranoid to worry so much about violent situations that you need to strap on a gun every time you go outside. I take it most of you disagree.
Eyup. We do.
To Chris Hawkins:
So do you then oppose further gun control, and acknowledge the rights of others to carry the kind of gun they beleive they need for self defense. If you do, then the fascist charge is unfair, since while you dont carry yourself, you acknowledge tohers right to. But the kind of rhetoric you are using is typical of a fanatical leftist wanting to lay the groundwork to deny others their gun rights, after all according to you they dont rationally need guns anyway do they. So maybe you should answer a few simple questions:
1. Do you oppose further gun control.
2. Do you support concealed carry.
If you answer yes to both, then you are not guilty of the fascist charge. So give us an answer, and show us what you beleive.
Chris,
Most people understand the realities of life by the time they reach their forties; too bad for you that you don’t.
You say “When I leave the house every day I don’t think about people attacking me…I just go about my own damn business.” – you’re a perfect victim. Bad guys look for people like you. They can see you coming from a mile away, and you have no clue what’s about to happen. Crime statistics are full of people like you.
It’s not paranoid, it’s prudent. Each person is responsible for their own safety/security; nobody else is responsible for you except you. I accept that responsibility for myself and my family. I’m an ordinary guy. I live in a middle class community – not too up-scale nor low-rent. I carry a gun every day for my own safety/security. I’m not nuts, paranoid, or whack-o, I’m being prudent. Again, it’s my responsibility.
Even though you’re already over forty, you really need to grow up.
Rich.
IOW, you know nothing about weapons and their proper use. All you know is what you have seen on the MSM.
Got it.
Sometimes, it’s hard to remember that the liberals are the SMART ones.
Project much?
That’s the thing with pinkos: they’re so mentally unstable themselves that they imagine everyone else to be suffering the same condition. And for other pinkos, they’re probably right!
Good point. Another case of this kind of projection is when leftists constantly throw around the racism charge. In reality, it is the racist leftists that see everything through the distorted lens of race, and assume conservatives must see it that way as well.
So if you find yourself in a similar situation, trust me you’ll be begging for your life and praying with what may very well be your last breath that someone with a gun were nearby. Just before the perp slices your jugular vein and you bleed out. All over some pocket change. Yes, its a very “safe” world out there.
Chris.
“If you live in suburbia and feel the need to carry a gun with you everywhere you go…you are looney tunes”
No, silly, I dont expect to get in gunfights at Starbucks…
I carry my self-defense handgun on my person everywhere I go in the suburbs for one very simple reason….
Leaving it “unattended” in my home where it could be STOLEN, and thus be “missing” for many hours before I am aware of that fact and report it the Police, is a far “less responsible” thing to do.
It’s the same reason I refuse to “leave it in the car” when I stop to “get Ice Cream”.
I don’t anticipate gunfire over hot fudge vs caramel, I’m mindful of my responsibility to keep my firearm accounted for. Cars DO get stolen in The Burbs, and homes DO get broken into
Duh.
“And would I feel safe being with someone like that? No. I would feel like the slightest confrontation could escalate at any moment to a life and death situation”
Thats your problem Chris…you “feel” way too much….
Try “think” instead of “feel” someday, and see where it leads you
Look up some REAL data, and see that average citizens with arms successfully defeat more criminal acts than all of Law Enforcement combined every year.
All without any of those ghastly 50-75 shot debacles at unarmed suspects that is so common in POLICE circles. It just doesnt happen with armed citizens, ever.
You sound like a terribly frightened little man with these irrational suspicions of your responsible law-abiding neighbors.
So if you could, please stop Projecting your Emotional Shortcomings onto the rest of us.
You needlessly pollute what should otherwise a rational conversation between competent adults.
“Frightened litle man” says the guy who carries a gun into Starbucks…And I don’t buy that stat about gun owners preventing more crime than cops.
So we get to the heart of it. Data that doesn’t support your feelings bad, data if any that supports your feelings good. Cognitive dissonance writ large.
This doesn’t prove that armed citizens prevent more crime than L.E., but they are both better & safer to be around. Newsweek has reported that law-abiding American citizens using guns in self-defense during 2003 shot and killed two and one-half times as many criminals as police did, and with fewer than one-fifth as many incidents as police where an innocent person mistakenly identified as a criminal (2% versus 11%).
“And I don’t buy that stat about gun owners preventing more crime than cops.”
Why?
Cops aren’t the first choice of victim for criminals. The average citizen IS. Since most states only allow concealed carry (or open carry results in too much hassle), then criminals will likely pick concealed carriers at the rate they exist in the local population. Since this proportion is GREATER than the number of police the criminals will select to attack (which is zero!), and an armed target is more likely to stop or scare away the attacker than an unarmed target, it’s perfectly reasonable that armed people stop more crimes than police.
Toss in home invasions and business owners with firearms on hand, and the conclusion’s even clearer.
(And if you want to include off-duty police as “police”, well, why? They are no different than Joe Average Citizen with a concealed-carry permit.)
“And I don’t buy that stat about gun owners preventing more crime than cops.”
Where did he make that argument?
It is a good one, though. If criminals know CCW is common in some area, they are not likely to take a chance on getting shot, so, yes, it is very possible that we do prevent more crime than do the police, who are usually walking around in uniform or who are undercover and thus involved with criminals. We (CCW holders) are just scenery. Until someone poses a problem.
Cops don’t prevent crimes. They show up after the fact, put up the yellow tape, collect evidence, and identify the body. Or haven’t you been paying attention?
It doesn’t make any difference whether you buy it or not. It is true. Consequently, crime comes down when concealed carry is legal. If it were possible for you to reason you could no doubt figure it out
Chris strikes me as one of those snot-nosed liberal types who when punched in the nose, will sit down hard, cry and call for his mommy and his lawyer in no particular order.
Why exactly? You and others are sitting there at your computers calling me a coward…what have I said that is cowardly? Not carrying a gun to go to Walmart?
Your naivete is cowardly. Go ye into the world, and learn.
I dont carry a gun either, and dont consider myself either cowardly or naieve, since I was also a veteran willing to die for my country. But I also have no problem with other law abiding citizens who choose to carry to protect themselves. The real charge that could be levied at Chris is not whether he is a coward because he sees no need to carry himself, but whether he is a cowardly busybody leftist, trying to deny others legit rights based on his own fears. So a few simple questions to Chris:
1. Do you oppose further gun control.
2. Do you support concealed carry.
If your answer yes to both, then your personal decision not to carry, just like mine, does no harm to others who wish to. But if you answer yes, then you are a coward, and a busybody leftist/fascist, because you are using your own fears to deny legidimate rights to others.
“Your naivete is cowardly.”
It is also deliberate, if it is real. You have to work hard at not learning, to truthfully say such ignorant things.
It is not cowardly to not carry, that is your choice just as it is mine if I want to. If you prefer not to be my guest.
The nice thing about legal concealed carry is not everyone needs to carry concealed in order for crime to be reduced. Just the threat that everyone can is enough to reduce crime. I understand the liberal progressives will not admit that but it is true. Sometimes I carry sometimes I don’t but I always have a gun available in my vehicle (concealed). Here in Arizona crime has been reduced considerably since concealed carry has been approved under the second amendment. Even car jacking’s are down. Guess the crooks are learning. Armed societies are polite societies.
I have carried a gun for over 40 years and have never had a permit, though every policeperson in the area knew that I carried. I ran bars and restaurants and nobody ever saw my gun, but everyone knew that I had one. When I carried out the money at the end of the night the gun was in my hand- we were never robbed and I’ve had places in crappy neighborhoods. I aimed at someone 2 times and both of those gentlemen had a gun in their hand and were shooting in the air- had either lowered the gun to threaten someone they would be dead, neither did. I am finally getting a ccp and will soon be legal- don’t expect me to be shooting anyone over a parking space, but don’t break into my house or threaten me, and don’t start shooting people in the store and think you’ll be getting away with it.
In that case, don’t be with someone carrying. But, don’t tell me I’m Loony tunes for carrying my weapon with me to the grocery store. You never know, perhaps someone with a concealed weapon will save your life or the life of one of your loved ones one day.
You don’t need a gun until you do. In a similar vein, I know someone who went into anaphylactic shock after being bitten by a fire ant over 20 years ago. Ever since, they have religiously carried an epinephrine auto-injector everywhere they go, even though the odds are quite slim of having another allergic reaction that severe.
But it’s not really even about probability for people like Chris. No, he is luxuriating in his imagined reasonableness. It’s a form of intellectual conceit, to think oneself above this sort of petty, bourgeois paranoia. He’s just a liiiitle too hip for that, you know.
I do find it ironic though that the gist of his ridicule is that it’s paranoia to carry a concealed weapon to the grocery store, when the very article he is responding to is about a man who was saved by doing just that.
Fire arms are the great equalizer. No matter who you are or what your situation, with a fire arm you have the potential to be on equal terms. The more fire power you have the more equal
the terms can be. I single person with a proficient fire arm can equalize the situation between that single person and a gang of very evil intent characters. That is the purpose of the second amendment, to equalize the citizens with those with evil intent. That is why any and all fire arms need to be legal for any and all US Citizens. What is the damage that a law abiding citizen would do with a powerful automatic machine gun with 10,000 rounds of ammunition? NONE. The problem is not law abiding citizens, the problem is criminals.
Chris Hawkins: “If you live in suburbia and feel the need to carry a gun with you everywhere you go- like every time you go to the grocery store, you are looney tunes.”
Section 8 Housing programs bring people troubled by the root causes of crime (racism, poverty, and economic inequality) into the suburbs, robberies now happen in many suburbs as well.
Besides, “white flight” (actually “middle-class flight”) to the suburbs is not something on which we should want to rely. The people fleeing have to sell cheap and buy high; the people remaining in the old neighborhood live in a city with a vanished tax base and a depressed economy.
In the 1970s urban leaders told us that the police could do little to suppress street crime until the root causes are eliminated. So, until there is a general agreement that racism, poverty and economic inequality have already been reduced sufficiently, we will need to carry guns and not rely on police to do what is infeasible for them.
“I would feel like the slightest confrontation,” such as having a knife pressing at your neck, “could escalate at any moment to a life and death situation.”
Some of us loonies might think that having a knife to your neck was, without Chris’ little escalator, a life and death situation.
Now that is the funniest comment I have read in awhile.
Picturing a 40 year old man peeing his underoos when he hears the kitchen window getting smashed open at 0200 in the morning. = priceless
Chris, you write as if exercising gun rights is some prospective thing, instead of something that is already widely practiced. If you live in a concealed carry state (and you likely do) then you are already “safe being with someone like that,” regardless of how you feel about it. Chances are, every time you go to the grocery store or some other public place, you’re benefiting from the deterrence value provided by millions of your fellow citizens’ exercise of their rights. Chances are that you’ve stood in the checkout line with these people, without ever knowing it. Clearly, confrontations with these people *DO NOT* routinely escalate into life or death situations, but when they do, they tend to increase the deterrence value of concealed carry laws, and allow people like you to free ride on the benefit.
haha…loony tunes…you mean like elmer fudd and bugs bunny ? do you soil your underroos at the sight or mention of an evil gun ?
“It’s Wabbit season, and I’m hunting wabbits, so be vewy, vewy quiet!”
If only someone in the particular bit of perfectly tranquil and safe suburbia near Sandy Hook had been “looney tunes”, there might be a whole lot fewer dead 6 year olds there.
Considering that, in all but a few places in this country, you ARE with “someone like that” on a regular basis (and just don’t know it), you should probably see a psychiatrist about your irrational phobia.
That while the person this article is about, and many of the people who have written Comments are exactly the kind of people you want around when trouble walks into the room, Chris Hawkins would only be useful as a human shield …
and then only if you can hold him still?
No, that’s alright, he can wiggle. He actually sorta covers more area that way.
Argumentum Ad Hominem. And if Chris doesn’t have a psychology license, practicing without a license is a felony. Considering these facts, Chris’s comment is without basis in reality. Especially considering he doesn’t know the people he’s derogating. Which makes him a bigot. Especially since he’s painting a broad brush over people who carry. Which just makes him either an angry, bigoted person, or else just an unhappy, fearful person who wants to spread unhappiness wherevere he can. That would be just sad.
I live in a suburban area and carry everywhere I go. It being my right to carry, I could care less if Chris or others like him feel safer or not.
Do, tell, Chris. I think that your post reflects your own insecurity and lack of self-control, the which you, in true liberal fashion, proceed to project on those of us who simply aren’t like that.
But more to the point, the question of firearms ownership is the absolute, Vulcan mind-meld issue that divides those who believe that they have the right to dictate the terms of existence to us from those who of us who believe that no such ‘right’ exists. It’s fundamental, first-principles argument against which you and your ilk must always lose.
You who presume to tell me that I have no right to defend myself, my family or my property are not merely holding the United States Constitution, The Bill of Rights and in particular, the Second Amendment in contempt – what you are really saying is that I have no right to my own life. To you, I am a thing, an animal, or a machine. Nothing more.
Furthermore, you are declaring your supremacy over me by holding the value of my life as little more – and often less – than a wheelbarrow full of bricks.
As history has shown us, the ultimate destination of that outlook is something far worse than slavery. The bottom line: my right to self-defense is as absolute as my right to live. And if thats’ a matter of dispute for you and your ilk, then you’ve made it clear that the the Second Amendment exists to protect people like me from people like you.
Ward, you have completely nailed it. I wish PJ’s system allowed “likes”, because I’d give you one. I am always on the lookout for the root causes, the things that define and separate. And you have very definitely identified one.
The question on my mind is, what is the mass of things we have in common, versus the mass of those that completely divide us? Can they be reconciled? And if not, then what?
We are at that point, I think.
Chris, of course, has nothing to say.
Well Chris you sound so brave with your claptrap B.S. WHEN some thug sticks a knife in you REMEMBER what you just said. Ive been in the same senario(only a gun) before. evedently you have not. FOOLS RUSH IN (like you, comments)
Whenever I read a story like this I always wonder the race of the bad guys & because of the PCM world we live in its never mentioned but the name of the dead guy gave it , like most of the violent crime committed in this country 60 % committed by blackes who make up 13 % of the population
Chris, then I guess you should be living in the White House instead of Fantasy Land.
I suppose you think that living in suburbia means never having to leave suburbia, eh? That makes YOU a moron. And then there’s the fact that criminals are not magically constrained to bad neighborhoods, and often venture out to wealthier, “safe” neighborhoods to target unsuspecting suburbanites living with a false sense of security.
I’ve lived in suburbia all my life, and yet I’ve had a gun pulled on me before. Strange, huh? Maybe, again, you’re just an idiot.
Two questions Chrissy, how old are you and where do you live?
@Chris Hawkins – I read through your posts below and I just cannot understand why you think you know everything about carrying, or have the right to tell others when and where or how many times they should carry. Maybe if college student Joshua Proutey would have been carrying, he wouldn’t have been killed while eating a sandwich in his truck. Maybe if the Petit family in Cape Cod would have had access to a gun, the mother and 2 daughters wouldn’t have been tortured for 7 hours, assaulted and then burned to death…even after the police were notified!! Maybe if New Hampshire’s Kimberly Cates had a gun beside her bed, she wouldn’t have been hacked to death by 4 teens with a machete and knife, while using her body to protect her daughter. One incident was in the city, one in the suburbs, and one in a rural area. I have a question for YOU. Have you ever, and I mean ever, had to transport your mother, wife, daughter, niece, aunt or sister to a RAPE crisis center? Have you ever had to visit a crime scene where a dear friend was punched, knocked out and burned alive by someone who entered her home? If your answer is no, please do us all a favor and SHUT UP.
About fifteen years ago I was in a bar/night-club in Israel. The people at the table alongside had a built up a big pile of Uzis between their beer glasses, and half the other patrons had M-16s or pistols.
I’ve never felt safer in my life. Though dancing in the night-club section later that night was a little tricky when many of the girls had EVIL BABY-KILLING ASSAULT WEAPONS slung over their shoulders.
Chris, In your rationalizations what did the murdered citizens in Chicago do to deserve their demise? In 2012 there were 506 homicides in Chicago! As of January 28 there have been 41 homicides. Based on those numbers 2013 may be more deadly than 2012! Chicago has the toughest gun laws in the nation and at the same time the highest homicide rate in the nation. So please give us your liberal rationalization on how gun control works and why these people died! Before you start your simplistic rationalizations, do a little research on the FBI and DOJ crime statistics! You might find some actual data that contradicts what your pandering liberal politicians are feeding you! Then again, you may be one of those sheeple that believes everything that a politician says without evaluating the actual facts!
Hope you don’t have to eat those words. You should publish your address for the bad guys.
Who among us thinks criminals will not use so called assault rifles if they are banned? Who among us thinks they will also not use 30 round magazines if they are banned. Banning any weapon will never take that weapon out of the hands of the bad guys. It will only restrict my and your available choices to defend ourselves. So if the bad guys have thirty round magazines and AR-15′s and I don’t will that serve to embolden them or curtail their use? Who among us thinks any laws are obeyed by someone determined to rob or kill someone else? Isn’t it already unlawful to do the act of robbing or killing. But that extra law being passed will stop crime right? It is impossible to reason with an unreasonable person. It is also impossible to reason with a stupid person. Anyone advocating banning AR-15′s and thirty round magazines is stupid if they think that will curtail crime in any way.
Chris Hawkins would prefer that his wife be raped, his kids molested, and his house burned to the ground rather than fight. That makes him a pussy.
There is no arguing with someone as moronic and pathetic as he is.
What woman would even want to be near him? She would probably want to go to sperm bank or troll the local shooting event for an Alpha male.
What buddy would even want to go near him knowing Chris would bleat like a sheep at the first sign of adversity?
I think he should wear an armband with a sheep outline on it so the rest of us know to stay clear – not be near him in public and not get on a plane with him.
Chris, people victimized usually say, “I never thought anything like this could happen to me.” All you have to do is become a random selected victim of opportunity for a crusing preditor who just happened to spot you in a situation where you have a weakness, i.e. leaving a bank or ATM machine and there are no other people around to be witnesses for what the preditor wants to do to you. In life, it’s the luck of the draw if you ever become victimized. One day, I hope that you’ll never find yourself in a situation where you’re wishing that you had a gun, because then it will be too late. However, it’s your choice to be armed or unarmed. Lets hope that you or your family members don’t become any criminal’s victim. If you had any idea of how many criminals there are in society, and even in your oen neighborhood, you’d think differently.
Ret. LEO
My response to people who wonder what kind of trouble I’m expecting such that I feel the need to carry a concealed handgun wherever I go is, none. If I were expecting trouble I’d bring a rifle.
A handgun is a defensive tool that I carry just in case because I know there are some very, very bad people in this world and there is no guarantee that despite my best efforts one or more of them won’t cross my path. Ryan wasn’t looking for trouble: he was looking for groceries. Trouble found him. Like most self-reliant people, he took basic precautions and was armed.
It’s insurance, no different than buckling your seat-belt when you get in your car and keeping fire extinguishers in your home. I don’t plan on getting in an auto accident or having my house catch on fire but it would be negligent of me to forgo such basic precautions. By the same logic, I take basic precautions for my own and my family’s safety against violent predators. Among those is being armed.
People like Chris Hawkins are what is known as “hoplophobes” because they have an irrational fear of firearms. They seem to believe that guns are malevolent spirits rather than inanimate objects. They are also prone to projecting their own fear of their own uncontrollable rage issues on those of us who choose to carry guns for self-defense. Their arguments for disarming the rest of us are based on irrational fears and emotion, not logic or facts.
Chris,
I respect your decision not to carry. It is not for everyone. I hope you will respect my dedication to carry as I take as a large responsibility. I spend a great deal of time making sure I am competent to carry.
Have you ever observed that the Alinsky gun control types likes to have a poster child image to attack with their anti gun rants? Well the NRA is their punching bag for now and during the election it was the Tea Party and unfortunately they put good people in their cross hairs like Sara Palin almost every chance they get. Well obviously the NRA is not the enemy. The real issue is our god given right to self defense and the fact that this shall not be “infringed.” Now what is it about the word infringed that these libs don’t understand. Limiting the number of bullets in a magazine or eliminating the Ar 15? I say we stand firm and do not budge on inch for these pathetic fools. Guns are not the problem. Part of the problem is an endless harrange by these hypocrites about trying to solve problems while flying at 30,000 feet. They lord over us and have no clue. The breakdown of the family, the lack of individual responsibility and civility, and the imposition of the nanny state as the solution to all of our problems creates the tinder box for these types of senseless killings. More guns in the hands of responsible people can help level the field but by itself will not stop what is happening. Neither will mindless, senseless and stupid gun laws. Chicago is exhibit A to this nonsense.
I keep a small revolver at home for defense (an old six-shot S&W firing .32 long) and after reading this I’m wondering if I shouldn’t get a larger caliber. Guns don’t interest me personally, but I travel a lot and my wife ought to have something to protect her when I’m not around. Any suggestions?
Generally, you want the largest caliber you can comfortably handle and reliably hit with. Which means you need to try different guns – see if there’s a shop with a range in your area. If you haven’t had formal instruction, look into getting some to avoid picking up bad habits. And practicing is always a good idea. If you don’t practice enough to stay proficient a revolver is less complicated than a semiauto.
My handgun round of choice is .45 ACP, but I’m a large guy and can easily handle and carry a full size 1911. I have a friend who finds that round a little much but swears by the .40 S&W.
Thank you for the advice, but I’m thinking a revolver is best for my wife and I; we’re not “gun people”, just citizens who want to be prepared, and a revolver is simpler and easier to use in a stress situation.
Browsing on gunbroker.com, I notice a five-shot .44 revolver by Charter Arms called a “Bulldog” — do you know anything about that?
a) not many people are impressed with the quality of Charter Arms…they were the original “Saturday Night Special”. That said, I had a .38 Charter Arms police special that seemed acceptably well made.
b) a .44 has one heck of a kick. That said, if you buy the right weapon it will fire either a .44 magnum round or a .44 special round (which is much less powerful). If you go this way, I’d recommend getting one capable of the magnum, but use the specials because the kick would be even less than a gun made for the less powerful round. Never, ever, use a magnum round in a gun made for specials: it will eventually blow up, to much chagrin and grimaces all around.
I have a Charter Arms .38 special undercover lite and a Ruger LC9 with Lasermax. My husband wanted me to get the feel of them before buying. I like both of these guns. I went to the range to start practicing and will be taking my first of several courses in a few weeks. I learned to shoot and to be responsible with guns a long time ago, but realize now, after some eye-opening situations, it is time to carry and be responsible for my own safety. After talking with some police officers, I was reminded how they cannot get to your home, vehicle, etc. in a split second…and that’s all the time I might have.
A great one for women (IMHO) is the Glock 26 Gen4 but there are others. With handguns & pistols you just have to remember we females don’t have the same type of upper body strength as men so the kickback can be something to really think about.Of course our hands are smaller too.. (That’s why contrary to what Biden the blowhard would like to believe, we love the “assault weapons” like the AR 15′s.. They handle easy..It’s why there’s so many in pink.)
Just make sure she tries what you’re checking out before you commit & I’m sure you’ll both be happy about it.
The very things that make the AR-15 an “Assault Weapon”, the collapsable stock, 30 round mag, pistol and fore grip, and barrel shroud, are the very things that make this weapon such an ideal choice for women. These things allow a woman to adjust the weapon to her smaller frame and maintain better control, even without a lot of hand or upper body strength. The .223 round in the AR-15 results in very managable recoil, but is a little bit smallish. A 30 round mag makes up for that.
But these are the features that the ninnys want to ban. It is almost like they want to disarm women, specifically. As a man, I can use just about anything in the gun cabinet for home defense, because all of those weapons were designed for me. But women have fewer choices. And now the gun-banners want to take those choices away.
This should be a feminist issue.
It’s THE women’s issue. It’s no accident that equality for women came AFTER the small, concealable revolver was invented. A purse-gun is a woman’s best friend; it’s very existence saves countless women from rape and murder, whether they carry or not. The mutts don’t know which is armed, and which is not, so they have to be more cautious about who they attack. Disarming women to make them feel even more helpless is just one more method to make them vote for the petite-fascists. Feminism post suffrage has no purpose other than to weaken women and make independence impossible. It’s male chauvinism in drag, pure Quisling-ism. A feminist is an enemy to women, and men for that matter, a hater of humanity and a promoter of ant-like collectivism. But the name sounds nice, so lots of women are duped by those who want nothing more than to turn them back into 3rd class citizens.
In the “Gay 90s” (as in 1890) and early into the 1900s’ many women carried a 2 shot Derringer when they were out and about.In the wintertime they carried them in their hand mufflers (think open tube with fur lining, rather than gloves to keep their hands warm) Occasionally they used them to great effect too.
If your wife doesn’t like the AR-15, try her out on a Ruger Mini-14 Ranch Rifle with the five round magazine. With all wood furniture and a flush fitting mag, it looks like a conventional carbine, but it handles a lot like AR-15 and has light recoil.
Once she gets used to the gun and is proficient, she’ll probably not object too much when you swap out that flush fitting 5 round mag for the “scary looking” 20 round magazine.
I’m a big fan of pistol caliber carbines. There are lots of choices out there from Beretta, Kel-Tec, and many others. They have the same capacity as a semi-auto pistol, are easy to shoot accurately, and have very little recoil. The right ammo won’t over penetrate either.
My wife loves my 9mm Hi-Point carbine, but doesn’t much like shooting pistols in the same caliber (or higher). I’m the opposite; I prefer the pistols, especially my XD45.
P.S. I meant to add: This just underscores the importance of letting your wife try out different guns before she decides which one she is most comfortable with. Don’t just “buy a gun for her.” Let her pick it out.
I suggest that whatever gun you buy you should buy it with your wife.
My husband was looking to get a gun and had his heart set on one but wanted to be sure I could use it as well. When I tried the gun it turned out it was too big for me to easily work the safety and fire without having to shift the gun back and forth in my hand. If I were ever faced with an intense, split second decision situation, I would never be able to get a shot off in time with that kind of grip. We found another one that fit better in my hand and it turns out he’s happier with it than the one he originally planned to buy.
Recoil is a big issue for me. The first gun I ever shot was my brother’s 12 gauge and it nearly knocked me off my feet. It wasn’t a good experience. I’d suggest you and your wife try different guns and different calibers together before you decide which gun to purchase.
Since you, and presumably your wife, are used to a revolver, I would suggest sticking with that. There are still .38 special revolvers for sale that were traded in by police departments when they upgraded to semiautomatic pistols. They are no longer as cheap as they were a few years ago but they are still affordable.
The .38 special cartridge is adequate for defensive use, despite those who insist that nothing less than a .40 or .45 will do. I am not a caliber snob but a .32 S&W is really under powered. Even a .22 would actually be better because then you could afford to shoot it enough to become really proficient.
If there is a range that rents guns, go there with your wife and try a variety of different handguns to see what feels comfortable. You may be surprised. My five foot two wife liked a Model 1911 .45 and shot it better than any of the revolvers, .380 or 9mm pistols that she shot. It just felt right to her. I have no worries about her ability to protect herself when I am out of town.
My local gun shop has (had?) a lot of .40S&W Glocks that were former police sidearms, many in like-new condition, costing less than comparable tradein 9mm Glocks. For a first concealed semiauto I don’t think you could go wrong with a Glock 19 with a +2 mag extension filled with +P hollow point self-defense rounds.
Me, I have a big, heavy, double-stack CZ97B .45ACP, and the weight helps damp down recoil immensely. But I still like my Glock 9mm, and have a Kahr K9 in the glovebox. And a SKS and Bushmaster ACR at home for defense, paper punching, and hopefully some feral hog hunting soon.
In Texas, that counts as barely armed.
Numerian
If youre comfortable with the “wheel-gun” stick with it. Unless you have time to “train” with something new (auto loading pistol?) buying something “better” could be more liability if your less proficient with it.
Some basic tactical awareness and a cool head are more important than caliber.
Your brain is the best weapon.
Rely on it first.
If your brain tells you you need a better gun, buy one and make your brain train your body to to use it AT LEAST as proficiently as the “old one”
I teach CCW. The two of you go to a gun shop with a range or a range that rents. Start with a .22 and work your way up the calibers until she finds the comfortable level of recoil for her. In that caliber, try the different pistols for a good fit in her hand. Try the trigger pull for comfort also. Both of you should take a pistol safety course together. After shopping for a good fit, she will have a gun that she will be comfortable for her to practice and become a good shot under pressure.
The times I’ve had to use a firearm for self protection, the bad guys were less concerned about the caliber than the fact it was a firearm. I really doubt anyone is going to stand around after they are shot, trying to tell how big the hole is or how badly they were hit. Almost all who stick around long enough to get shot are going to be hauling ashes.
Make sure you can shoot the gun. Go and practice. Only upgrade to a heavier shooter if you feel it necessary. My bedside gun is a .22LR and I’m not at all concerned.
The only question to ask, considering how ineffective gun laws are in prohibiting unlawful conduct, is simply “Why does our government distrust the law-abiding citizen?”
Gun control isn’t about guns.. We know they know the stats..Therefore we must assume they’re not the ‘good people’ we would like to believe they are.
“Why does our government distrust the law-abiding citizen?”
They just don’t want the enemy to be armed.
It is not a matter of distrust. It is an operational step aiming at (a) reducing citizenry fire power, (b) reducing the number of guns available to citizenry (c) increase insecurity.
This is in preparation of further abuses of power, and/or the creation of a country wide state of insecurity that has been in the making for many years.
That works in a twofold manner: first government relaxes laws and allows career criminals to get away with as much as they can. Then the government tries to eliminate guns so the citizen will not be able to secure the area of residence.
Think of it: insecure people don’t have time to criticize government or to organize against government power overreaching because they are too busy looking over their shoulders.
Effectively government “recruits” unsuspecting criminals to aid on the repression of dissenters by creating a state of fear.
^THIS^
Given the devious hypocrisy we see the federal government engaged in, such as Fast & Furious, you can bet that the party of tyranny will attempt to harness everything and everyone for its evil design – absolute power.
My opinion? People who can legally obtain or own a firearm have a different attitude than people who know they legally cannot.
People who cannot are more submissive, on average.
That is what the politicians and self elected elite want.
Thanks Ned, our gov’t buys tons of arms and ammo, at our expense, every year. Why are we so dangerous but they get 7000 AR-15s labeled as personal defense weapons. But ours are assault weapons. That seem right to you?
All the guns belong to us.
None of the guns belong to them.
We’ve only lent them OUR OWN weapons, and they are mere hirelings to do our bidding,
becuause we’re too busy to patrol the streets at zero-dark-thirty.
Thats it.
Thats all of it.
The final word on who has the “right” to be armed, and who doesnt.
Who’s in charge, and who’s not.
THIS is the relationship we have with The Government when it comes to arms.
Anything else they try to sell us is an absolute lie, with an evil agenda behind it.
Desenters may freely resign their government positions, or face The Rope.
End of Story
I haven’t forgotten the t.v. horrors of a whole city in flames,turned over cars,glass in the streets and deaths.The film of those Korean shop keepers defending themselves SHOOTING BACK from their store.Too bad for the big government types that films like that are still remembered.And of course no evil government ever came to power in Central America,Cuba,South America,Europe,Africa,The Middle East,Iraq,Iran,China,Japan,not to mention THE PIRATES ON THE HIGH SEAS! As Milton Friedman said “i think you take a lot for granted”.
Gun Ownership: If it saves one life, it’s worth it.
Brilliant. Use their own tactics against them. Many variations are possible:
“Shall-issue concealed carry. If it prevents just one rape, it’s worth it.”
“A 30-round magazine. If it stops just one home invasion, it’s worth it.”
etc.
Why does anyone need an assault media?
Criminals like these muggers, are Democrats.
They have their Representatives lobbying for them in all State Governments and Washington.
Incarcerated or dead Democrats can’t vote.
Democrats need the proletariat disarmed to fully implement their authoritarianism and levy crushing taxes with minimal resistance.
Another item of recent concern:
There was an “exercise” that combined the local law enforcement and military in an “operation” conducted in a high density area of downtown Miami that the media never examined with any interest, and local law enforcement refused to give information on the purpose of the exercise.
There WAS prior warning for activity of military helicopters the day before on local radio. Although in my area, I noticed increased helicopter activity 2 days (nights) before this exercise. The notice was to inform residents of the area to expect to be impacted by restricted traffic, noise, and law enforcement type activity.
I heard of a similar exercise in the Atlanta area a couple days later, and am curious if anyone else has noticed similar incidents?
There was a “training” exercise in Houston a couple of days ago. Apparently very similar to the one in Miami. This one (Houston) included SWAT and military personnel. Of course, it included helicopters (many) and all of the usual accoutrements It was never explained away and many neighborhood residents were never made aware that it would occur. All of these tactical training events do seem odd. In light of that bank robbery a few years back in Los Angeles with automatic weapons, maybe not. It just seems queer.
Did you just say incarcerated or dead Democrats don’t vote? Au contraire. They are regular seen on Democrat voter registration rolls.
Yea; That was presumptuous, after all James O’Keefe has done to prove you right.
The real anti-gun zealots don’t care about self-defense. In fact, they believe that you or I having the power to kill a burgler or assailant is a violation of the criminal’s civil rights. Of course, that is unmitigated bull manure, but it is how they think.
The whole uproar is the LSM and other liberal extremists abiding by Alinsky’s First Law, never let a crisis go to waste. You can bombard them with facts, with logic, with scientific studies, but I promise you it is a waste of time. They hate personal firearms and want them banned, period.
Personally I don’t care whether or not the anti’s want to be victims. It’s their choice. I will not spend my life that way, however. Do not attempt to force me to give up my means of self defense. Don’t tell me how to live my life and I’ll leave you alone as well. Maybe I just might come to your aid if I see you being mugged in the parking lot of the local Quickie Mart.
Barrack? Is that you?
Another good article: http://asmdss.com/page/news.html/_/articles/letter-from-special-forces-to-america-2nd-amendment.html
Awesome read! Thank you for sharing that link.
The American Rifleman (NRA publication) has a column towards the front of every magazine titled “The Armed Citizen”. This column sheds a lot of light on how important the armed citizen is. The liberal left ignores this in an attempt to delegitimise LAW ABIDING AMERICAN CITIZENS (emphasis added to p*ss off liberals; yes, I know it’s annoying) right to carry a firearm for self defense. With Americas MSM propaganda machine firmly in the liberal lefts pocket, the truth is lost in a haze of biased “yellow” journalism.
Yes, succesful “defense” with a firearm by a citizen is the norm, not the exception.
I would venture to say (as a firearms instructor of 30+ years) that the AVERAGE self defense shooting by a Citizen is done more judiciously, with more restraint and concern for the safety of bystanders, and with less shots fired, than most Police shootings.
How many 50-75 shot debacle/fiascos (with just three or four hits?) have you EVER heard of, by private citizens defending themselves?
Zero that I’m aware of.
How many involving Law Enforcement?
Dozens.
Often against what turns out to be “unarmed” victims just reaching for their wallet or cell phone.
So….who’s the hot-head, trigger happy, irresponsible sprayer of massive quantities of bullets all over Gods Creation at the slightest provocation, with 90% of them missing the target altogether and endangering countless innocent people?
Yeah, I thought so.
Nice Fairy Tales they make up about “irresponsible” armed CITIZENS though, aint it?
Yes — we’ve heard from two concealed carry permit holders who were on-scene at a mass shooting how HELD THEIR FIRE for fear of striking anyone else. Contrast that with NYPD who responded to a single shooter, single-victim scene and shot 6-7 innocent bystanders.
For the record, it was 9 bystanders. And the officers fired from just a few yards away.
What is magnum defensive ammunition?
“Magnum”, meaning more than the standard powder load. “Defensive”, probably meaning a jacketed hollow point, which has better terminal ballistics against a soft target than standard full metal jackets. “Better terminal ballistics”, meaning it transfers more of its inertia to the target by expanding/mushrooming and slowing down, as opposed to standard jacketed ball ammo that has the potential to punch through and therefore delivers less energy to the target.
What Ryan Moore and the troll have in common is that neither articulates the reason the second amendment was written. It was not to hunt, nor for self-defense. Those things were so taken for granted that they were not articulated. It was written as a last hedge against tyrannical government. The troll understands, perhaps instinctively, that as a threat against his person. It is.
What is resisting a tyrannical government, if not an act of self-defense?
Resisting a tyrannical government requires the possession of military weapons.
Self-defense against one or two criminals does not.
That is why those who seek to ban guns set about first banning “military-style” weapons.
Human beings only have two ways to deal with one another: reason and force.
If you want me to do something for you, you have a choice of either convincing me via argument, or force me to do your bidding under threat of force. Every human interaction falls into one of those two categories, without exception. Reason or force, that’s it.
In a truly moral and civilized society, people exclusively interact through persuasion. Force has no place as a valid method of social interaction, and the only thing that removes force from the menu is the personal firearm, as paradoxical as it may sound to some.
When I carry a gun, you cannot deal with me by force. You have to use reason and try to persuade me, because I have a way to negate your threat or employment of force. The gun is the only personal weapon that puts a 100-pound woman on equal footing with a 220-pound mugger, a 75-year old retiree on equal footing with a 19-year old gang banger, and a single guy on equal footing with a carload of drunk guys with baseball bats. The gun removes the disparity in physical strength, size, or numbers between a potential attacker and a defender.
There are plenty of people who consider the gun as the source of bad force equations. These are the people who think that we’d be more civilized if all guns were removed from society, because a firearm makes it easier for a [armed] mugger to do his job. That, of course, is only true if the mugger’s potential victims are mostly disarmed either by choice or by legislative fiat–it has no validity when most of a mugger’s potential marks are armed. People who argue for the banning of arms ask for automatic rule by the young, the strong, and the many, and that’s the exact opposite of a civilized society. A mugger, even an armed one, can only make a successful living in a society where the state has granted him a force monopoly.
Then there’s the argument that the gun makes confrontations lethal that otherwise would only result in injury. This argument is fallacious in several ways. Without guns involved, confrontations are won by the physically superior party inflicting overwhelming injury on the loser. People who think that fists, bats, sticks, or stones don’t constitute lethal force watch too much TV, where people take beatings and come out of it with a bloody lip at worst. The fact that the gun makes lethal force easier works solely in favor of the weaker defender, not the stronger attacker. If both are armed, the field is level. The gun is the only weapon that’s as lethal in the hands of an octogenarian as it is in the hands of a weight lifter. It simply wouldn’t work as well as a force equalizer if it wasn’t both lethal and easily employable.
When I carry a gun, I don’t do so because I am looking for a fight, but because I’m looking to be left alone. The gun at my side means that I cannot be forced, only persuaded. I don’t carry it because I’m afraid, but because it enables me to be unafraid. It doesn’t limit the actions of those who would interact with me through reason, only the actions of those who would do so by force. It removes force from the equation… and that’s why carrying a gun is a civilized act.
By Maj. L. Caudill USMC (Ret.)
Major Caudill, that is a beautifully written essay and the best comment of the thread.
Major, your post gave me goose bumps. +++1
It’s a shame he doesn’t care to find out if the people that tried to get money from her were victims of the Bush economy and the Republican war on women, children, minorities, gays, the elderly, and the disabled. I guess it’s shoot first, let God sort them out with those right wingers.
Red Herring. Bush and “right wingers” have nothing to do with this story of one man who saved his life against two armed attackers. Irrelevant comment.
It’s a shame you’re not intelligent enough to recognize satire when you read it.
Your comment isn’t reason, but emotion and derogation. Also, you didn’t derogate Malatrope, who made similar comments below. This is illogical and therefore not reason. This is evidence of non-reason. Therefore my comment below isn’t an ad hominem against you because it’s the truth, and truth is an affirmative defense.
Sarcasm I assume.
Wow! A genuine paid troll! Tell me, do you actually swap brain cells for Paypal credits? If I donate enough, can I reduce you to a wandering brainstem?
Sorry to be so full of negative energy and such, but your comment could have been copied directly from a Democrat Talking Points Memo. Try thinking for yourself for a change, it might invigorate you.
So. When will Ryan and his compelling story of self-defense be featured on Piers Morgan’s show?
For awhile I was collecting stories of encounters that would have gone entirely differently had not an individual had access to a gun, including but not limited to…
Georgia mom home alone with kids shoots ex-con intruder
And yes, the originators of this country understood that disarming the population was a prerequisite to the “success” of tyranny, as was/is shutting down free speech, which, still alive second and first amendment guarantees severely vex our would be masters who have forgotten who “We, the people” are in a representative republic.
and what lawyers were responsible for this man being out and on the street?????
And as the person said, if there were three people he only had 2 bullets left to deal with the problem.
Sad situation is that he didn’t pursue the other and render him dead as well, but the the Pee-C BS libs would be upset that he chases and killed a thug/bully/criminal, and showed that these scum of the earth are cowards when met with lethal force, and thankfully so.
I am an immigrant, I never own a gun, and am afraid to kill someone even to save my own life. But the things I love most about America are her Second Amendment, and the death penalty.
“Shouldn’t all law-abiding Americans enjoy that same right?”
No, New Yorkers, Californians, and Illinoians are more thrilled to be sitting ducks. They keep electing gun grabbers, they should put their lives in the hands of gun grabbers.
Despite therumors there are quite a few “sitting ducks” out here in Calif. that are very well armed. And not bashful anout letting the criminals kknow it , usually on a one to one basis.
Reading the comments finds me agreeing with most points of view and it is all saddening. In 1994, living in Los Angeles, I was getting ready to fly to Romania to scout some film locations. Having read of the rise of the Russian Mafia and crime in Eastern Europe, I worried a bit and wondered how I could arm myself over there. My older son said, “Dad, once you leave L.A. every town in the world is relatively safe.” I have never owned a gun because I’m too cheap to spend the money and my temper could easily make me a killer. Thankfully, I have never got into a situation in which a gun would have saved my life. But it is not the same world anymore which is the sad part. With Obama in the White House the Second Amendment may be more important than ever before and for the original reason. We may need to fear the gangsters in government more than those on the street.
It is far too late for any type of gun control. There are so many guns in circulation that bad guys will always have access to some and so the good guys need them. Someone brought up an analogy of car insurance which is a fair argument but all the same it is sad.
Being angry while holding a firearm causes most people to re examine their behavior. They generally stop luxuriating in righteous rage and start being calmer.
Who are all of these stupid f#@$ing commenters who cannot trust themselves not to fly into a murderous rage in the presence of anything more lethal than a whiffle bat?
Why have you not committed yourself to an institution, if you are indeed so hair-triggered, why have you not sought professional help?
How did you survive to adulthood, gripped as you are by such uncontrollable passions?
Why do you people continually feel the need to infringe on my human rights because you lack the self-control present within most six-year-old children?
Get psychological help or find a painless method of suicide, you may save lives either way.
Best comment today.
Excellent! You’ve characterized them perfectly – whiny, self-righteous, nasty, malignantly narcissistic little children with serious self-control issues. Just the sort who actually do perpetrate these mass killings. The history of the twentieth century has been written in the blood of those slaughtered by these monsters.
OK so I say that I think people who feel the need to carry a gun around with them every where they go are nuts…and I suggest that adding a gun to a violent situation may escalate it to a life and death level….and this makes me a POTENTIAL MASS KILLER?!?!? That’s a bit of a leap isn’t it?
Your messages show you to be an enabler of such. There is no ‘neutral ground’ when it comes to the right to life. To the extent that you applaud, cheer and vote such monsters – and they ARE monsters – into power, you are complicit with, and responsible for the harm they do.
Take a tour through Daniel Jonah Goldhagen’s Worse Than War: Genocide, Eliminationism, and the Ongoing Assault on Humanity
It may dawn on you that you’re not living in Disneyland. Choose your side.
Some violent situations are better escalated to lethal.
It’s more than a little baffling that gun control opponents are pointing to this instance and the recent case where the GA mother shot an intruder–both cases where the avalailable rounds were adequate to stop the threat–as an argument for fighting magazine limits. Are there no examples you can provide where the available rounds were not enough? That would certainly make a much more compelling argument.
Actually, the examples we are giving are just the most recent, and they did manage to have happy endings, true.
But there was also the recent example where a woman emptied her handgun into the house-invader (6 rounds, 5 of them hit), and the guy left the house and was apprehended later. Again, that’s a happy ending, but we can all see how it easily might not have been.
There are plenty of such examples – a scary, gruesome end is not required to make the point (though there are some of those as well).
“Can you provide examples of any people where the available rounds were not enough”
Pretty stupid statement, since if they did not have anough rounds they would likely be dead, and would never tell the tale, being just another dead crime statistic. You have already heard several tales where the number of rounds was just barely enough, add one more attacker to the mix and it definitely would not be enough.
“Stupid”? How exactly? The gun-owning victim might not be around to tell the tale, but there should be a body and evidence of self defense such as spent shell casings, eye witnesses, an injured assailant, etc. I would expect more than a handful of cases where the subsequent investigation revealed that the gun owner attempted to defend him/herself but had insufficient ammo for whatever reason. Such cases would be much more compelling than cases where the nubmer of rounds was adequate. What’s so hard to understand about that?
What is hard to understand is why you believe that that exact story hasn’t played out many times but was never reported by the media. In some cases they never see it because the dead victim is just that, a dead victim. Nothing to see here. We also know, since we see it daily, that the media picks and chooses its stories acording to how it fits the narative those buisness support.
I don’t believe that it hasn’t played out, and if you’d put your paranoia on the shelf for a moment you might realize that what I’m suggesting (finding and highlighting cases where limited rounds lead to a failed attempt to protect against an assault) would help improve the message. But if you’d just prefer to resort to the “liberal media” cop-out and leave it at that, okay.
Save Us Chuck: Chicago Gun Violence
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVGt3nKVAf0
I keep handguns in my home and car, never had to think about using them defensively but will not be without them.
Some time ago, I was emerging from a bird hunt in the woods, with my dog about 20 feet in front and slightly to my right, when an enormous water mocassin exploded from the leaves 4 feet in front of me and made a rush toward my dog. Believe me, these snakes are incredibly fast over short distances. In a literal 1st second I threw my shotgun up, took off the safety, and shot the snake a second before it would have killed my dog, who was standing there with a puzzled look on her face.
The lesson is clear: Semper paratus. Humans can be snakes.
Rate of Killings Rises 38 Percent in Chicago in 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/26/us/rate-of-killings-rises-38-percent-in-chicago-in-12.html?pagewanted=all
This is the result of making self defense illegal!
Carying saved my hide twice. I don’t go anywhere unarmed. I had the same money for gas BS pulled on me twice.
Conservatives can be really dumb sometimes. Do you think publishing stories about law-abiding citizens using a gun to protect themselves from criminals will change anybody’s mind? Really? You just don’t get it. That’s what liberals are trying to prevent! They HATE you! They want to see you killed. After you’re dead the government can confiscate your property through the death tax and there will be one less vote against Dems.
The Obama administration does not want you to be able to defend yourself from their base, they want you to be constantly terrified and willing to pay ever greater taxes for more “government protection”. Publishing stories about how somebody stopped a crime using their gun just increases their certainty that guns need to be banned.
Further, if I hear one more story from a conservative about why they “need” an “assault weapon” I’m going to scream. In a just world, the government has no right to tell citizens what they can or cannot purchase with their own money based on need. All Americans don’t need most of their possessions but aren’t required to justify owning them. That includes guns.
Lastly, this whole debate about guns is just another smokescreen initiated by the Obama administration as a diversion. Now everybody’s talking about gun bans instead of the economy and the debt.
Argumentum ad hominem: “Conservatives are dumb.” Might have been interesting had you provided some citations instead of citing your own derogation as proof that you have a point to make.
Dear Readers: Do people have to make these grandiose handles for themselves as a compensation for their self-perceived inadequacies?
“Argumentum ad hominem: “Conservatives are dumb.” Might have been interesting had you provided some citations instead of citing your own derogation as proof that you have a point to make.”
Dear Howard: First, it wasn’t an ad hominem argument. That would be personally attacking an individual. Second, I didn’t say “Conservatives are dumb.” but apparently your arguments sound better if you misquote. Third, everything after my first sentence, where I actually said “Conservatives can be dumb sometimes.” are the citations you apparently missed.
Let me put it clearly enough so that even you can understand. In arguing against gun-control, conservatives are engaging in the argument liberals want to have, and they’re doing so on the liberals’ terms. When a liberal advocates gun-control, conservatives should reply to the effect, “Gun control doesn’t work, period. If you don’t believe me, just look at Chicago. Now let’s talk about something important like how Obama and his policies are destroying this nation.” When a liberal tells a conservative, “You don’t need an assault weapon.” the conservative should not reply with, “Yes I do.” or something equivalent. Instead the conservative should respond with, “It is neither your place nor the place of the government to decide what I need. You have no more right to tell me what kind of gun I can own than I have to tell you what kind of cars or homes or suits you can own.”
Fighting the battle your enemy wants to have, on his terms, is dumb.
“Dear Readers: Do people have to make these grandiose handles for themselves as a compensation for their self-perceived inadequacies?”
Thank you for providing an example of a true ad hominem argument.
Sort of true. More a mix of Argumentum Ad Hominem and Argumentum Ad Populum. Anyway, it’s a direct insult against a group of people, nearly all of whom you don’t know. Since you don’t know these people, yet self-reference yourself as being an expert on judging them, that makes you a bigot. From Merriam-Webster:
“a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices; especially: one who regards or treats the members of a group…with hatred and intolerance.”
Too bad you did say these comments the first time, because I agree that the best response is to stop their argument in ways you note.
Have you heard of Flash Mobs at Malls? 20 young people looting, beating bystanders, etc. Wait till they are at your door, and then you will see why you need an AR15, or two, and plenty of 30 round mags…
A gun can be compared to a parachute. If you need one and don’t have one, you may never need it again.
Very good analogy!
If you don’t want to carry then don’t…. Great… That gets two more votes for Obama out of the poles… You and the guy that shot you…
Did Ryan get his gun back from the police?
I have lived in Maryland, where I briefly owned a handgun, which I used for target shooting, once.
I sold that gun back to the dealer I bought it from for half what I paid for it when I moved to New York City. It seemed to me then, and still now, that the cost in time and trouble to legally transport that gun to New York City was more than I wanted to undergo.
Here in New York, the one time I was nervous to see a gun was when I sat next to an overweight man on the subway who was wearing sweatpants, and had a small semi-auto tucked in the waistband of his sweatpants.
That struck me as careless of him, and carelessness with a gun of any kind is not on.
LADIES
Consider getting an accurate, single-shot .177 caliber air pistol with adjustable sights. The Daisy 717, 117,777 or whatever they are is all that comes to my mind and there are others. The accurate ones teach the eye to read the sight alignment quicker and better. I think the ones from Daisy have a single-stroke cocking lever. Get paper targets and a metal bullet trap. Set up a foolproof, totally safe range in the home (33 feet is best, but use whatever safe length is available). PRACTICE! The gradually-acquired skill will make the rounds in your 5-shot .38 Special go much further.
That’s a curious suggestion, considering this Senate testimony today:
“Young women are speaking out as to why AR-15 weapons are their weapon of choice,” said Gayle Trotter of the Independent Women’s Forum. “The guns are accurate. They have good handling. They’re light. They’re easy for women to hold. And most importantly, their appearance. An assault weapon in the hands of a young woman defending her babies in her home becomes a defense weapon. And the peace of mind that a woman has as she’s facing three, four, five violent attackers, intruders in her home with her children screaming in the background — the peace of mind that she has knowing that she has a scary-looking gun gives her more courage when she’s fighting hardened violent criminals.”
http://pjmedia.com/blog/immigration-what-senate-steers-back-to-gun-control/
Can you match her credentials?
Everyone should read the supreme court’s Warren vs the District of Columbia. Basically put, the court ruled that just because you call 911 doesn’t mean the cops have to show up unless you have a “special relationship”. Whatever special relationship means.
The lefty anti-gun attitudes can be laid at the feet of Hollywood (too much violence) when in reality, guns are simply tools. Today’s left never had the experience of growing up with Gunsmoke and other mild Westerns. Everybody had a gun, even the dance hall girl with a derringer tucked into her thigh band. That’s sexy, and I don’t care who you are.
Not having a gun meant that you were probably not “from around here”. That usually meant you were some woosie European with a funny hat and accent- you know, like the ones we kicked out of our country years earlier.
Hollywood has done it’s best to limit our exposure to cowboys while increasing our exposure to thugs, killas, and gangstas. They still have guns, but they use them in the wrong way- offensively. Django works for them. Have Gun Will Travel doesn’t.
Today’s meterosexual males are the culmination of cowboy deprivation, violence exploitation, nanny state usurpation, and female domination. Is it any wonder they don’t ‘feel’ safe around guns? Or go whack-job and shoot up a mall now and then when they get one? For America’s sake, mommas must let their babies grow up to be cowboys.
Yeah!
Yes. Anecdotes rule.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-57566488-71/man-allegedly-follows-gps-directions-to-wrong-house-shot-dead/
The ABC-TV news affiliate in Charleston, Illinois, in their “Medical News” section, reported this evening that the number 1 cause of erectile dysfunction in wood-be rapists is a woman’s hand cradling a 45 Colt automatic, loaded and cocked.
I have begun scanning and posting, the Armed Citizen page, from the American Rifleman, monthly to my Facebook page. It is important to get verified instances of defensive use of firearms to as many people as possible. The MSM is certainly not going to report on these incidents, because it belies their entire argument for disarming Americans.
If you are not a member of the NRA, it is time for you to join.
There are a lot of problems with data available for public consumption. The DOJ/FBI data most readily available to the public only consists of a selected 18,000 commnities and instututions such as colleges reporting. This data reports rather consistantly between 10-13 milion felony crimes per year. All source consolidated felony crimes over a ten year period, on the other hand, indicates 23-32 million felony crimes accounting for ‘swings’ YTD. About 60% of those felony class reported involve a gun. Approximately 55% of the felonies involving a gun are by convicted felons and about 45% are by persons with no prior felony convictions. Rather consist on a annual basis, is the reporting of ‘justifiable’ homicides in the neighborhood of 300+ including law enforcement officers. There is no reporting data collected, purely for crimes aborted or defended by persons with lawful gun ownership.
I have used a firearm on several occasions to defuse a potentially dangerous/deadly situation. Here are just two: Unfortunately, these two incidents occurred after I was told by a friend who was on the S.F.P.D.: “You’re not the ‘right’ kind of judge or lawyer. Why don’t you buy a vacation property in Lake County and get a CCW there?”. And this from a man who, along with his brother and two other partners, owned a club in which I played guitar. He knew what he paid us and that we couldn’t afford to do anything like that. It drove home the meaning of the photo op of Diane Feinstein turning in the smaller of the two handguns (a Smith & Wesson Chief’s Special, model 36, in .38 S&W Special calibre) that she and her husband owned, while backed by two of her three $40,000.00 a year bodyguards, when she “banned” handguns in the city. A total of twelve were turned in before the state shut her down.
”An armed society, is a polite society” said noted author, Robert Heinlein. I have, on occasion, had to make the presence of a firearm known. I too, was not in violation of the second amendment of our constitution, just the laws of the state I was residing in that contravene the constitution. As a matter of fact, I had my right eye socket broken in March of ’73 because there was no one willing to intervene and there was no firearm handy. The neurosurgeon who put me back together told me I was lucky to be alive and to never let that happen again. I haven’t.
For example: I was driving north on Masonic, in San Francisco, having just crossed the Panhandle of Golden Gate Park, when I was cut off by a young (early twenties) driver turning unsafely into my lane. I noted out loud he was going to get someone killed driving like that. Then, three blocks later, we were both in the fast lane stopped at a signal at the busy intersection of two major streets, each with five lanes in each direction. Said driver, when the light turned green, pulled halfway across the intersection and stopped, giving me no way to pass him. He exited the vehicle and walked back towards my car, rolling up his sleeves. I could tell he wasn’t into a friendly chat, so I reached over and picked up my trusty Charter Arms Bulldog in .44 S&W Special calibre, and, when he came abreast of my front fender, held it tight across my chest, yet high enough for him to see. His eyes widened, he halted his purposeful stride when I said “Why don’t you go away, before I have to do something you won’t live to regret.”. Then, as he walked backwards to his car he uttered: “Well shoot me, mother … .”. The fact that he was black and I’m caucasian never entered into the equation. The fact that he was acting in a very threatening manner did.
I have gone hunting in the Trinity National Forest, for example, and encountered extra-urban agronomists in their 20′s to early 30′s, just leaving their crops as the deer hunting season opened. In the tradition of any farmer describing an animal consuming or destroying their crops, “Varmints” is the very term they used to describe the deer I was about to hunt.
Fortunately, for them, my appearance was both disarming and not threatening. Older; Salt and Pepper hair and beard; 9 month old mixed-breed dog; ’57 vintage Winchester model ’97 in 30-30 WCF; Smith & Wesson N Frame .44 S&W Special on my hip, all went towards convincing them I was not after their crop. What they didn’t see, was my .44 S&W Special calibre Charter Arms Bulldog secreted, yet handy, on my person. We chatted briefly, and went our separate ways, as I intended. If it had turned out otherwise, I knew I had a better chance than they thought, giving me the edge. I have, on other occasions, had to use a firearm to defuse a potentially violent situation. Never have had to actually shoot anyone, as the sudden appearance of the gun was argument enough, and that’s all I wanted in the first place. But I was ready to follow through, if, and only if, it became necessary.
Not sure what the current numbers reflect, but I’m willing to suggest, that they will ‘trend’ to the below data. A major problem in the U.S. is ‘access” source of firearms for those who shouldn’t have access to firearms! It’s my personal opinion, that if gun owners would responsibly address the major ‘access’ problem they present (consequences with teeth) to illegal gun possession and the government responsibly address mental health issues of potential gun ownership, a lot of the ‘regulating’ problems would go away.
In 1994, more than a quarter-million households experienced the theft of one or more firearms; nearly 600,000 guns were stolen during these burglaries. (Cook and Ludwig, 1997.)
In an early survey of incarcerated felons, 32 percent reported that they had acquired their most recent handgun by theft.15 A more recent survey reported that guns had been stolen by 13 percent of all arrestees, 25 percent of all juvenile arrestees, 29 percent of the gang members, and 30 percent of the drug sellers. (J.D. Wright and P. Rossi, Armed and Considered Dangerous, Hawthorne, NY: Aldine de Gruyter, Inc.)
In 1997, 14 percent, or 1 in 7 male juveniles, reported carrying a gun outside the home in the previous 30-day period.9 In the inner city, the problem is more severe. One study involving 800 inner-city high school students reported that 22 percent said they carried weapons. (J.F. Sheley and J.D. Wright, Gun Acquisition and Possession in Selected Juvenile Samples, Research in Brief, Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.) An even greater number of convicted juvenile offenders reported carrying guns — 88 percent, according to another study. (Sheley and Wright)
Law abiding citizens should be able to carry any type of weapon to defend themselves. Honestly I’d like to have what the politicians have to defend themselves and their families-publicly funded armed guards with automatic weapons and exemption from any gun law. That is what they enjoy. Why shouldn’t I have the same privilege?
^