self-defense

Why do gun rights advocates fight common sense reform?

by

Each time our country focuses on the gun debate, a lot of proponents of gun control accuse gun rights advocates of not caring whether people die. It’s my impression that gun control proponents believe gun rights advocates disagree with gun control legislation because we are selfish, insane,[ref]Note in the linked story, CNN fails to mention that the church they are covering is actually a cult.[/ref] and possibly sociopathic. If we cared about saving innocent lives, especially those of school children, why would we fight against common sense gun reform? I’d like to offer a few thoughts on how about half of America could disagree with certain gun control proposals for reasons other than mental or moral defect.

1) Gun rights advocates think of each gun policy in terms of a cost benefit analysis. Is there evidence that Policy X will decrease the frequency or lethality of mass shootings or of gun crime in general? How will the policy affect citizens’ abilities to defend themselves? Is it Constitutional?

It’s my impression that many gun control advocates don’t view policy proposals the same way. I’ve seen a lot to suggest gun control advocates believe (a) few or no people really use their guns in self defense[ref]The most modest estimate puts gun use for self-defense at 108,000 times per year. Other estimates place the number an order of magnitude higher.[/ref] and (b) either the Constitution has been interpreted incorrectly by SCOTUS or, even if the Founders did intend personal gun ownership, their views were borne of circumstances that no longer apply today. And I expect that if I too thought the factors of self-defense and Constitutionality were greatly exaggerated or even made up, I would view certain gun policies very differently. If you don’t believe the policy will cost anything substantial, you don’t really need to do a cost benefit analysis (and therefore you will have a very different idea of which reforms are “common sense”). I think, generally, that’s how most gun control advocates see this, but I’m open to correction there.

2) There seems to be an asymmetry of knowledge about guns between the gun control and gun rights sides, and it influences whether each side thinks a given policy will be effective or have undesirable side effects.

I get how gun rights advocates come off as pedantic when correcting terminology, and it’s easy for me to believe that there are people who really are just trying to feel superior or make the other side feel foolish. But I think the terminology and concepts are a lot more than semantics: they are directly relevant to the effects a given policy will have.

The gun control side may feel we’re making a big deal about small details, but it’s hard to discuss gun control proposals if neither our side nor your side is sure what exactly you’re talking about.

And from the gun rights side, it appears that the people most passionate and insistent on certain policies have little understanding of what those policies would mean. I’m really not trying to be rude and I’m sorry if it comes off that way. But the same side posting memes like this…

…just proposed legislation that would ban tens of millions of civilian-owned guns.

The bill prohibits the “sale, transfer, production, and importation” of semi-automatic rifles and pistols that can hold a detachable magazine, as well as semi-automatic rifles with a magazine that can hold more than 10 rounds. Additionally, the legislation bans the sale, transfer, production, and importation of semi-automatic shotguns with features such as a pistol grip or detachable stock, and ammunition feeding devices that can hold more than 10 rounds.

For reference, many of the most recommended pistols bought for home defense and as concealed carry firearms are semi-automatic and can hold more than 10 rounds; it’s also standard for pistols to have detachable magazines.[ref]The text of the Assault Weapons Ban of 2018 (HR 5087) specifies that a semi-automatic pistol with a capacity of 10 rounds or fewer must include more features besides the detachable magazine before that pistol would be included in the ban. I’m not clear how many such pistols would qualify, although the capacity limitation alone would preclude many.[/ref]

HR 5087 would ban the Glock G17 as an “assault weapon.”

I think for the most part the people who support that legislation don’t even realize that’s what the legislation would do. They believe it would ban only the so-called assault weapons that they further believe are used in most mass shootings. Neither of those beliefs are true.[ref]As both Mother Jones and Mayors Against Illegal Guns have shown, most mass shootings are conducted with firearms that aren’t assault weapons and don’t even hold high capacity magazines.[/ref]

3) I recognize some gun rights advocates have a knee jerk reaction against any limitation on guns; I think this reaction is primarily due to believing both that the legislation will make no positive difference and that it will be a slippery slope. The general impression from the gun rights side is that the gun control side neither understands guns nor cares how legislation would affect general gun ownership because they don’t believe people should have guns in any case. It’s not so much “We want to take your guns” as “we don’t know or care if the proposals we’re pushing will result in taking your guns.”

4) That said, there are proposals that even most gun owners would be fine with. Proposals focusing on who can have guns rather than which guns they can have seem to get pretty broad support. For example, Pew Research has found that most gun owners and non-gun owners alike support proposals focused on background checks, mental health issues, and no-fly lists.

Note the measures gun owners support the most all focus on who can access guns rather than which guns citizens can access.

More recently there seems to be momentum behind “red flag” measures which would allow authorities to temporarily take guns from people deemed dangerous. Such bills are primarily sponsored by Democrats but are seeing some Republican support too. I think the gun rights side generally believes that proposals that focus on the people rather than the guns are more likely to be both effective and Constitutional.[ref]I don’t necessarily agree with some of the measures I mention in this post, but I think I’m the exception here.[/ref]

So why do gun rights advocates fight common sense gun reform? To summarize:

  1. We don’t believe many of these policies would accomplish what proponents claim.
  2. We’re worried about inhibiting citizen self-defense.
  3. We’re concerned about the Constitutionality of some of these policies.
  4. We suspect the people pushing for these reforms don’t understand or care about the full effects of these policies.

None of this means we don’t care if innocent people are hurt. That’s why we do support some gun reforms: specifically the policies we believe will best ensure the safety of ourselves and others while respecting Constitutional rights.

Link collection: America’s Gun Debate

by

In the last week or two I’ve read (or at least skimmed) a lot of interesting pieces on guns, gun crime, gun control, etc. Below are most of the links, listed in order of their publication date. I don’t necessarily agree with or endorse everything in each link (obviously, since some of them are directly contradicting each other), but they gave me a lot to think about, so I’m including them here if anyone else wants to read more.

2013:
Analysis of Recent Mass Shootings – National Criminal Justice Reference Service, 2013; Study found that up to 77% of mass shootings did not involve an assault weapon or even a high capacity weapon.
Reducing Gun Violence in America – Center for Gun Policy and Research, 2013; This link is to an entire book. I read the forward, in which the authors make the following suggestions:

  1. Require background checks for all gun sales, including private sales at gun shows and online,
  2. Make gun trafficking a federal crime,
  3. Limit the availability of military-style weapons and of high-capacity magazines with more than 10 rounds,
  4. Have all federal agencies to submit their relevant data to the national gun background check database,
  5. Have the Justice Department to make a priority of prosecuting convicted criminals who provide false personal information during gun purchase background checks,
  6. Make a recess appointment to get someone to head the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and
  7. Stop supporting the Tiahrt order, which keeps the public in the dark about who gun traffickers are and how they operate.

Guns and School Safety Survey Results – School Improvement Network, January 23, 2013; a little over 1 in 8 educators (13.5%) both own a firearm and would bring it to school if they were allowed to.
Guns In Schools: Firearms Already Allowed In 18 States With Few Restrictions – Huffington Post, March 17, 2013
Police Gun Control Survey: Are legally-armed citizens the best solution to gun violence? – PoliceOne.com, April 8, 2013;

  • 91% of LEOs didn’t believe an assault weapons ban would help,
  • 91% supported conceal and carry permits for civilians,
  • 86% believed casualties would be reduced at recent mass shootings if armed civilians had been present, and
  • 81% were in favor of arming teachers and school administrators who had been properly trained.

Colorado’s school shooting — over in 80 seconds – CNN, December 15, 2013; An armed Student Resources Officer responded immediately to a school shooter.

2015:
Comparing Death Rates from Mass Public Shootings and Mass Public Violence in the US and Europe – Crime Prevention Research Center, June 23, 2015
Here’s where you’re most likely to own a gun – Business Insider, July 3, 2015; Alaska has the highest percentage of gun ownership; Delaware has the lowest.

2016:
13 Charts Put America’s Gun Violence in Perspective – Independent Journal Review, January 8, 2016
Across the country, school districts are quietly arming teachers for the next shooting – The Washington Post, April 14, 2016
The Media Keeps Misfiring When It Writes About Guns – Slate, June 26, 2016
Texas school warns: Our teachers ‘may be armed and will use whatever force is necessary’ to protect students – The Washington Post, September 22, 2016
Firearms on College Campuses: Research Evidence and Policy Implications – Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, October 15, 2016; Table 1 summarizes State Campus Carry laws
What Conservatives Get Right About Guns – GQ, October 28, 2016

2017:
America’s Complex Relationship With Guns – Pew Research Center, June 22, 2017
Illinois school where teacher took down gunman recently trained for active shooters – CBS, September 22, 2017; An unarmed teacher stopped a gunman.
How to Reduce Mass Shooting Deaths? Experts Rank Gun Laws – New York Times, October 5, 2017; Experts ranked assault weapons bans as slightly more effective than a ban on all semiautomatic guns.
6 Reasons Your Right-Wing Friend Isn’t Coming To Your Side On Gun Control – The Federalist, October 6, 2017
Supporters of stricter gun laws are less likely to contact elected officials – Pew Research Center, October 12, 2017

2018:
Background Checks Are Not the Answer to Gun Violence – New York Times, February 12, 2018
US Mass Shootings, 1982-2018: Data From Mother Jones’ Investigation – Mother Jones, February 14, 2018
Why The AR-15 Is America’s Rifle – NPR, February 15, 2018
“Fuck you, I like guns.” – AgingMillennialEngineer.com, February 15, 2018
An ‘Assault Weapon’ Ban Won’t Stop Mass Shootings – Reason, February 15, 2018
How white nationalists fooled the media about Florida shooter – Politico, February 16, 2018
Disarming ‘Individuals With Mental Illness’ Would Affect a Quarter of the Population – Reason, February 16, 2018
Texas Teachers Can Pack Heat; Florida Lawmakers Pushing For Options – WFMY News, February 17, 2018
Gun Rights Expand Even as Mass Shootings Spur Calls for Stricter Laws – Wall Street Journal, February 18, 2018
A Cure for Mass Shootings Doesn’t Exist – Reason, February 18, 2018; The author explains why he doesn’t believe an assault weapons ban, background checks for private sales, and broadening the exclusion for mental health problems would curtail mass shootings.
Real Solutions for Curtailing Gun Violence – The Wall Street Journal, February 20, 2018; The author suggests dramatically increasing penalties for stealing a firearm, enforcing laws against straw purchases of handguns, and finding practical, legal ways of stoppping people with mentall illness from purchasing firearms.
Mass Shooting Survivors Come Out Against Gun Control Too – The Jack News, February 22, 2018
In 2017, Americans narrowly opposed allowing teachers and school officials to carry guns – Pew Research Center, February 23, 2018
Poll: Support for stricter gun laws rises; divisions on arming teachers – CBS, February 23, 2018
The case against arming teachers – Vox, February 23, 2018
Sources: Coral Springs police upset at some Broward deputies for not entering school – CNN, February 24, 2018
What Critics Don’t Understand About Gun Culture – The Atlantic, February 27, 2018

Click on the image to go to the Pew Research Center’s report.

How difficult would it be to arm teachers?

by

Recently a friend of mine shared this post in which Jim Wright asks a few “basic questions” about how we would arm teachers. Wright suggests it would be essentially impossible to properly train teachers to respond to school shootings, saying even our soldiers aren’t trained to handle such a situation. He asks who will pay for the training, who the teachers will answer to, which weapons will be allowed, what insurance the school will acquire, and whether a teacher will be held liable for mistakenly shooting an innocent bystander or for failing to stop an active shooter. He claims “the hole is bottomless,” concluding:

I’m asking BASIC questions about this idea of arming up teachers and putting amateurs with guns in schools. Questions that any competent gun operator should ask. You want to put more guns, carried by amateurs, into a building packed full of children. I don’t think I’m being unreasonable here.

Wright is reflecting the skepticism and indignance of many people. In particular some of my friends who are teachers have made posts clearly stating they do not want to carry weapons to school and are dismayed by the thought. More than one of them have shared this video in response.

Click the image to see the public video on Facebook.

Several go beyond saying they personally don’t want to carry weapons to asserting no one else should have firearms on school property either, often making demands along the lines “Don’t bring more guns into my school.”

Two quick notes on that last part:

  1. Assuming any increase in quantity of guns means an increase in danger seems simplistic to me. More guns can increase or decrease danger depending on who is carrying them and why. A gun in the hands of a kid hoping to kill as many people as possible is not equivalent to a gun in the hands of a trained Student Resources Officer or conceal carry permit holder hoping to keep as many people alive as possible.
  2. In this context, the phrase “my school” is off-putting. Schools don’t belong only to the teachers working in them; they also belong to the children attending and the parents of those children, especially when we are discussing the best ways to protect our children. I understand there are many parents who do not want armed school staff. And there are many parents who do, like me.[ref]According to a recent CBS poll, 44% of those polled favored arming teachers, and 50% opposed the idea. With a margin of error of plus or minus 4 points, it’s a statistical tie. Last year Pew Research Center found similar numbers, notably with no difference in views between parents and non-parents.[/ref] My point here is not that the answer is simple, obvious, or unified; my point is teachers don’t have the only say in this debate.[ref]And I would feel the same way if it was primarily teachers who wanted to bring firearms to school and parents who objected. It’s not about the teachers’ specific stances; it’s about the idea that parents get say over how their children are protected.[/ref]

Anyway, the objections to arming teachers seem to make several assumptions:

    1. We don’t have the resources to arm teachers.
    2. The logistics of arming teachers are too difficult to disentangle.
    3. Teachers don’t want to be armed.[ref]Update, 2/26/18: A 2013 poll of 11,000 educators found that 36.3% of educators own a firearm, and 37.1% of that group would be likely to bring the firearm to school if allowed. In other words, a little over 1 in 8 educators both own firearms and would like to be able to carry at school.[/ref]
    4. Armed teachers would make schools less safe, not more safe.

In terms of the law, as of May 2016, there were 17 states that banned conceal carry guns on college campuses; 1 state (Tennessee) banned students and the public from carryng guns on campus but allowed faculty members to do so; 8 states allowed conceal carry guns; and the remaining 24 states left the decision to the school. Of course this information is for only college campuses, not K-12 schools.[ref]I’ve yet to find a source summarizing state-by-state policy on K-12 schools. If you know of one, please share.[/ref]

Given the option, many school districts already allow their teachers to be armed. This fact alone puts the first three assumptions to rest. Apparently resources, logistics, and desire were not dealbreakers in arranging to have armed school employees on campus. Here is an excerpt from a 2016 Washington Post article:

The Kingsburg Joint Union High School District in Kingsburg, Ca., is the latest district to pass such a measure. At a school board meeting on Monday, the Fresno Bee reported, members unanimously approved a policy that allows district employees to carry a concealed firearm within school bounds.

The employees will be selected by the superintendent, and will have to complete a training and evaluation process. The new policy was made effective immediately.

While proposals to arm teachers have been familiar refrains in Texas and Indiana, the passing of such a mandate on the West Coast signals that the strategy is being considered elsewhere in the country.

In fact, the Folsom Cordova Unified School District covering the cities of Folsom, Rancho Cordova and Mather, Calif., has allowed employees to bring guns to school since 2010, but only revealed the policy to parents last month.

Some people against the idea of arming teachers say it will create an intimidating environment for kids, but note Folsom Cordova’s school district allowed it for 5-6 years before anyone even knew about it. Arming teachers had so little impact on the daily school environment people couldn’t even tell it had happened.

In the wake of the most recent shooting, more school boards are following suit, voting unanimously to allow trained employees to carry concealed weapons.

People opposed to arming teachers seem to envision a bureaucratic and expensive process that results in an intimidating environment where teachers nervously walk the hallways with rifles over their shoulders. The reality is that arming teachers has so far consisted of allowing those who want to be armed to first get training and then either carry concealed weapons or keep weapons locked in safes. From what I can tell, the individuals who want to be armed cover the costs of the training, permit, and firearm themselves. Again, the school’s resources, logistics, and the teacher’s desire don’t seem to be issues.

To my mind, the only real issue is the question of whether allowing teachers to carry concealed weapons will overall increase or decrease student and staff safety. Despite how horrifying school shootings are, they are also exceedingly rare. And while I have no specific data on this, I suspect that even if firearms were permitted on all schools across the country, relatively few teachers and other school staff would choose to carry them. The odds seem very low of a school shooting happening in such a way that an armed staff member would even be present to react. Meanwhile, having legal guns on campus opens the door to accidental injuries. Some of my friends against armed school staff have posted stories about teachers forgetting their firearm or having it stolen while on school property.[ref]It looks like both incidents involved teachers bringing firearms to school without permission, and it’s unclear what training either teacher had. Still, it’s also possible for a trained concealed carry holder to make a mistake.[/ref] There’s a cost-benefit question here: if arming teachers increases the chances of accidentally injuring or even killing students but also increases the chances of saving lives during school shootings, how do we quantify those two factors and weigh them against each other?

I know of no hard data here. We do know that in our country, in general, guns are used more often in accidental deaths than in justifiable homicide. However we aren’t just considering accidental deaths but also accidental injuries, and we aren’t just considering justifiable homicide but also self-defense that involves injuring but not killing the shooter or even not firing the gun at all but brandishing it and getting the shooter to stand down. Additionally the overall statistics for the whole country include people who have received no training in the safe use and storage of firearms, whereas conceal and carry permits typically require training, and individual school districts could require further training as needed. Apparently there are quite a few school districts that have allowed armed staff for years, and I have not been able to find any stories of accidental deaths or even injuries from a teacher’s gun on school property.

Meanwhile, it is intuitive to me that if a teacher were to find herself in the position where there is a mass shooter attacking her or her students, both she and her students would have a greater chance of survival if she had a gun than if she did not. When Sandy Hook happened, I cried as I read in absolute horror about Lauren Rousseau and her first graders, completely trapped and defenseless. Even at the time I wondered if it would have been different if she had had a gun.[ref]This is not to suggest Rousseau would have wanted to carry a gun to school even if she could have. I have no idea. I would expect typically the type of people interested in teaching children are probably not the type of people most likely interested in carrying firearms. My argument here is definitely not that anyone who is uncomfortable with firearms should have to carry one. My argument is that if a teacher or other staff specifically want to be able to carry a concealed firearm at school, they should be able to. They should have the right to defend themselves and their students.[/ref]

A note here: I don’t want the world we live in, the society we live in, to require first grade teachers to need guns. I don’t want there to be any guns on any school property at all. I don’t want children to have to do active shooter drills, or teachers to have to be trained to recognize gun shots, or parents to drop their kids off and worry if they will be safe each day. It’s awful. It’s infuriating and heartbreaking, and sometimes I can hardly stand to think about it.

But I also don’t think we have a way to 100% ensure that deranged or evil people will not be able to show up and try to kill as many unarmed teachers and children as possible. In fact, given our country’s unique relationship with guns, and our relatively unique 2nd amendment, I think preventing such shootings is ridiculously difficult. I still think we should try, but I don’t think our efforts to stem the death toll should be limited only to preventing shooters from showing up in the first place. I think we should also have efforts to address what innocent people can do if a shooter does show up.

As I write this post, a news story is breaking suggesting that not only did the School Resources Officer fail to engage Nicholas Cruz, but so did three additional deputies present during the shooting. All four officers remained outside the school while Cruz shot unarmed teachers and students. Some opponents to arming teachers point out that if even trained officers struggle to engage a mass shooter, how can we expect teachers to be able to handle it? But this question presumes that teachers get any choice; the reality is that if the shooter is already in the school and breaking into the classroom, the teacher will have to face the shooter anyway. And I can’t help but wonder: if police won’t engage the shooter, how can we disarm teachers and tell them to wait for the police?

 

Does Dallas prove “good guys with guns” is a lie?

by

After the sniper in Dallas killed five police officers, I saw several posts like this:

GGWG pieces

The idea is that there were not only armed police officers present but also citizens with open carry licenses, and yet all these “good guys with guns” didn’t stop the bad guy with a gun from killing people.[ref]It was an unmanned explosive that ultimately took the sniper down.[/ref] That much is true. The people pointing this out then often conclude that good guys with guns won’t protect us. That much is false.

Of course if you mean good guys with guns can’t prevent bad guys with guns from hurting anyone ever again, yes, I agree. But I doubt most gun rights advocates believe or have made such an extreme claim. It’s not that good guys with guns will always be able to keep everyone safe; it’s that good guys with guns will be able to protect people more often than good guys without guns.

I think most people on both sides of the gun control debate recognize this to some extent, because almost everyone agrees the police (“good guys with guns”) should be armed. In fact, using Dallas to claim good guys with guns don’t protect us is especially interesting because both civilians and LEOs with guns weren’t able to stop the sniper. Yet gun control advocates are pointing to Dallas as a reason to disarm civlians only, not the police.

And, I mean, I agree that we definitely shouldn’t disarm the police. It seems clear to me that (1) a military-trained sniper is not representative of the dangerous people police are more typically up against, and (2) everyone would have been worse off if the police hadn’t had guns.[ref]It was police guns that wounded the sniper and caused him to flee.[/ref]

It’s true that civilians and LEOs with guns were unable to stop the sniper before he hurt anyone, but it’s false to suggest the guns were irrelevant or of no benefit, and it’s nonsensical to suggest that if good guys can’t protect people from a military-trained sniper, they can’t protect people in more typical situations. For example, just yesterday (also in Dallas incidentally), a legal gun owner with a pistol stopped a robber with an AK-47.

HuffPo GGWG

There are snippet self-defense stories like that regularly, but they don’t make nearly the media ripples that shootings make. I think that’s understandable to some extent: stories about things going right generally don’t get as much attention as stories about things going wrong, especially when things go really wrong. And there’s a matter of degree here too: in terms of media exposure, a snippet about a civilian stopping a robber might be parallel to a snippet about a robber shooting and wounding a single person. They’re both relatively minor stories. But what would the “good guy” equivalent be to stories about horrific mass shootings? Because a story about preventing a mass shooting doesn’t have nearly the media impact mass shootings have. But I digress.

Gun control advocates point out that if the sniper hadn’t had a gun, he couldn’t have done the damage he did. And I think they’re right. I think it’s obvious. I don’t find compelling the gun rights arguments that imply people can be just as dangerous with knives or baseball bats or whatever as they are with guns.

But while I also wish the sniper hadn’t had a gun, it’s not clear to me what the solution is, for two main reasons. (1) Gun ownership is a Constitutional right, so, absent amending the Constitution, gun control measures can’t undermine that right. (2) The measures would have to effectively stop people from obtaining guns illegally, at least at a level that would make up for stopping “good guys with guns” from being able to protect themselves and others from “bad guys with guns.”

I’m open to the possibility that there are gun control measures that can accomplish both of these feats, it’s just not clear to me right now what those measures would be. I think I’ll save that topic for future posts.

Citizen stops potential mass shooter, Snopes quibbles.

by

Gotta say I’m pretty pissed at Snopes about this one.

Jody Ray Thompson shoots into a crowd, injuring three. Then a citizen with a conceal carry permit shoots Thompson. Now one side says the  citizen “stopped a mass shooting.”

When people quote the outrageous number of mass shootings that have happened in a short time frame, they’re usually using the Shootingtracker.com (FBI-derived) definition of “mass shooting”: “FOUR or more shot and/or killed in a single event [incident], at the same general time and location, not including the shooter.”

So Thompson shot three people and was stopped. He didn’t reach the level of a mass shooting (four people), but he was as close as you can get when he was stopped. So it seems pretty reasonable to say the citizen who shot him “stopped a mass shooting.”

But Snopes isn’t so sure, because now, for some reason, they’re defining “mass shooting” as: “one or more gunmen deliberately setting out to indiscriminately kill multiple randomly-selected victims.” [Emphasis added.] Snopes goes on to claim it’s unclear Thompson intended to kill anyone. [ref]Even though he purposefully shot repeatedly into a crowd of people. I mean who is to say?[/ref] So is it really a “mass shooting”?

Snopes even has a previous article discussing the different definitions of “mass shooting,” and, spoiler, none of the definitions they review discuss motive.  Yet in this Thompson article they assert that motive is “typically” part of the definition. Just not typical enough to have been mentioned in their article about mass shooting definitions.

It was annoying enough that I could only find this story on Fox and Washington Times (traditionally conservative outlets) and no other major outlets. Even more annoying that Snopes would grasp at straws so hard to avoid simply marking the story as “true.” Snopes in a nutshell:

Well technically I guess a legal gun owner stopped another dude from shooting more people but the shooter wasn’t a psychopath per se, so this is iffy.

What a bunch of crap.

Left: Playoffz night club where the shooting occurred. Right: Jody Ray Thompson, the shooter.
Left: Playoffz night club where the shooting occurred.
Right: Jody Ray Thompson, the shooter.

Civilian with Gun Stops Domestic Assault

by

998 - 2015 01 03 Civilian DGU

That’s a still from cell phone video of a Aaron Kreag (with the pistol on the right) stopping Macmichael Nwaiwu (in the red car) from beating a woman who wasn’t named in the story. Kreag told reporters “This large gentleman just pounding on this lady, closed fist you know multiple times and heavy heavy elbows to the face and neck.” So Kreag, who had been out on a date with his wife, pulled out his concealed carry, pointed it at Nwaiwu, and ordered him to stop assaulting the woman in the car with him.

The story is an interesting counterpoint to concerns that civilians with concealed carry permits would turn the United States into the Wild West. As it turns out, the kinds of folks who go through the process of getting a concealed carry permit are not the kind of folks who tend to be trigger-happy, for the most part. It’s just also an interesting case-study in real-life, civilian gun usage. The tensest part of the video, in my mind, is when the cops show up. When you’re the one holding a drawn handgun and the cops roll up, expect to have one pointed at you in return, which is exactly what happened to Kreag. He put down his gun, surrendered, and got cuffed while the cops sorted out what was going on with bystanders.

Within a few minutes, however, he was released and Nwaiwu was in handcuffs. Still, I imagine those initial seconds when the cops drew on Kreag had to be nerve-wracking. It’s what Kreag was expecting, however, and it’s what all concealed carry holders expect to go through if they ever do need to draw their weapon (let alone fire) in the defensive of themselves or others.

Gun Control and Celebrity Bodyguards

by

 

Emma Watson next to her private, undercover, armed bodyguard.
Emma Watson next to her private, undercover, armed bodyguard.

I’ve seen gun control opponents point out that the President uses guns (via the Secret Service) to protect his family. That’s a bit silly and, for bringing his daughters into the debate, out of bounds. But this post from Downtrend makes a related point that I think is more valid. When Emma Watson (AKA Hermione Granger) graduated from Brown, she appears to have brought her armed personal bodyguard along for the ceremony, despite the fact that Brown is emphatically a gun free zone:

There probably aren’t too many Brown students from working class families, but for argument’s sake, let’s suppose one of them was there on a special scholarship. Now imagine that this average Joe or Jane showed up to graduation with a loaded pistol just for personal protection. There would be a lockdown, the SWAT team would be called in, and that student would be looking at years behind bars.

A famous person shows up with an armed guard, just for personal protection, and it’s like nothing ever happened. The gun-free zone only applies to those not fortunate enough to have been born into money or who have never starred in a string of blockbuster movies.

I’ve got nothing against Emma Watson at all, or her decision, but the casual disregard of the rules when it comes to celebrities is particularly noxious on an issue as important as the right to self-defense.

You can read about Watson’s security guard ($150k/year, is with her everywhere) at the New York Post and see how an armed bodyguard going undercover in cap and gown was covered by the celebrity media via EOnline. (It’s “Pretty Sneaky (but understandable!)”)

It’s worth pointing out that Watson isn’t just a celebrity flouting the rules because she can. She has specific, real threats against her safety. As long as Brown would be fine allowing a non-celebrity with stalker problems to also carry a gun themselves (I doubt they could afford a personal bodyguard), I’m OK with things. This isn’t a cause for outrage. Just a bit of concern.

NRA Aggregates Civilian Gun Use Stories

by

I used to post these pretty frequently when I came across them: stories of law-abiding citizens using firearms to defend themselves or others. I’m not saying I don’t or won’t share these kinds of stories in the future again, but I just haven’t been doing it much recently. I did come across this aggregator, created by the NRA, that I thought was interesting. Based on a quick skim, it looks like they’re finding about one story per day, or at least multiple stories per week.[ref]Obviously the NRA is biased. That should go without saying. All of these stories appear to be sourced elsewhere, however.[/ref]

2014-04-21 Defensive Gun Use

One thing you’ll note is that a lot of them don’t involve fatalities. Some of them don’t even involve firing a gun at all. In Gun carrying woman halts violent mob, The Detroit News, Detroit, Mich. 04/08/14, WJBK, Detroit, Mich. 04/08/14, WXYZ, Detroit, Mich. 04/07/14 a woman stops a mob from beating a man who had accidentally hit 10-year old with his car (the kid seems to have been OK). She had a pistol in her pocket, but she never had to draw it. Does that count as a gun-use? I think it does. She stated, “I had a gun in my pocket, I was ready to do some damage if I had to.” That’s pretty typical: sometimes a gun isn’t directly needed, but it changes the options that you have available. Another one was Woman scares off fugitive, Access North Georgia, Ga. 04/02/14. In that case a woman did fire the gun, but apparently didn’t hit anyone. It’s not really clear if it was a warning shot or she was trying to hit the guy (“a fugitive on the run”), but it’s another example of defensive gun use without any body count.

Keep that in mind when folks tell you that a gun is more likely to be used to commit suicide than to defend your home, or similar stats. Although the safety concerns of gun ownership as it relates to suicide are legitimate, these numbers are frequently based on only counting justifiable homicide, which ignores the vast majority of real-world defensive gun use.

Why Banning Assault Weapons Is Futile

by

This is another really informative article on gun control and, specifically, on the futility of an assault weapons ban. Even though I’m generally well-informed on gun-control there were a lot of very surprising facts in here.

For example, the Virginia Tech shooter had nearly 20 magazines in his backpack, which is the reason he was able to reload so quickly. I’d always known that even 10-round magazines (the proposed limit in Senator Feinstein’s new version of the assault weapons ban) would provide ample bullets in theory, but I didn’t realize there was such a stark and tragic real-world example of this fact.

The article also includes two examples of assault weapons being used in actual home defense stories. In one, a 15-year old boy protected his 12-year old sister when 2 men broke into their home by firing at them with an AR-15 rifle. The story was actually well-publicized, but most journalists left out the fact that the rifle he used was an assault rifle.

In any case, read the entire thing and send it along to your friends.

Excellent Article On Concealed Carry

by

I had been planning on writing a long article to explain what it’s like to carry concealed to all my friends who have no experience in the practice or its associated culture. That actually described me for most of my life, since I didn’t grow up around guns or shoot my first gun until well into my 20s. However, a friend posted this article from Harper’s, and now I don’t need to write mine. It’s a long but excellent piece that matches almost exactly what I would have written.

I agree strongly with 2 of the 3 conclusions that the article draws:

  1. We should allow people to carry concealed, and in more places than we currently do.
  2. We should make the training requirements for concealed carry much more rigorous
  3. I plan on continuing to carry concealed (where it’s legal), although the author has decided it’s not worth the trouble for him.

In any case: go read it.