Gun cult logic misfires (TX)

http://thetandd.com/news/opinion/columns/article_9e1ceb3a-4aa2-11e0-84ee-001cc4c03286.html

Some years ago, I reported on a self-defense/gun-safety class mainly for women at Rice University. There had been several rapes on the Houston campus. Students had armed themselves. The instructor was an Army ROTC officer. A Vietnam combat veteran, he found the prospect of undergraduates packing heat unsettling but reasoned that if they were arming themselves anyway, some training was better than none.
Unlike many entrepreneurs teaching "concealed carry" classes from sea to shining sea, he urged students to leave their guns at home. He stressed that he couldn't turn them into infantry soldiers with a few sessions in a gym basement. Even most armed assailants, he explained, aren't hell-bent upon murder. They use weapons to control their victims.

Anybody pulling a gun must shoot to kill without hesitation. The soldier reasoned that most Rice students simply weren't prepared to do that. Hence the likeliest outcome was that criminals would end up murdering them with their own guns. Heightened awareness, avoiding lonely places at night, and pepper spray or mace would afford more safety than the illusion of power conveyed by a 9 mm semi-automatic.

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Anyway, here's the thing: In the wake of the Tucson tragedy, handgun advocates argue that a well-armed private citizen could have saved lives by putting a decisive end to alleged gunman Jared Loughner's mad act. Never mind that Arizona has the most permissive gun laws in the country. Indeed, the killer had broken no laws until he shot Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords at point-blank range.

<snip>

Thanks to the killer's 30-round ammo clip, he'd gotten off 31 shots in 15 seconds. Fifteen seconds! Everything was chaos and terror.

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He stressed that he couldn't turn them into infantry soldiers with a few sessions in a gym
Very few muggers are infantry soldiers either. Enemy soldiers will continue to advance in a disciplined manner against your fire at them. Muggers won't. They want easy victims and will run away from most armed citizens. My wife has twice defended herself against a mugger and both times the guy ran away, no shots fired.

Even most armed assailants, he explained, aren't hell-bent upon murder. They use weapons to control their victims.
Some do kill even compliant victims. You want us to throw ourselves upon the tender mercies of a violent felon.

Anybody pulling a gun must shoot to kill without hesitation.
That part is true. Hesitation can get you killed. When I was training my wife I stressed that and asked her many times if she could really do it. All CCW classes that I am aware of teach that also.


The soldier reasoned that most Rice students simply weren't prepared to do that.
Maybe, but each student should be allowed to make that decision for themselves. Neither he nor you should force your decision upon them.

the likeliest outcome was that criminals would end up murdering them with their own guns
Rarely happens in the real world. Street criminals aren't combat soldiers. Street criminals usually turn tail and run, but not always. It is amazing that anti-gunners always seem to think that street criminals are some kind of combination of super-ninja SEAL black-ops type.

Heightened awareness, avoiding lonely places at night,
Those are excellent advice, especially situational awareness.

pepper spray or mace would afford more safety than the illusion of power conveyed by a 9 mm semi-automatic.
If a gun is merely an illusion of power, then why are you so extremely against private ownership of guns for self-defense.

You don't need all the skills of a combat infantryman to defend yourself against a street criminal. Let's look at the skill set of a combat infantry man, in no particular order: Ability to call in artillery fire on an enemy, ability to call in an airstrike, ability to use different weapons systems, camouflage and camouflage detection, fire and maneuver as part of a squad and a platoon, radio procedures, hand signals, communications, field fortifications, sanitation, first aid, and a whole lot more.

To defend against street crime all one needs can be taught fairly quickly. Realize the threat, attempt to avoid the threat or neautralize the threat without violence, and if the situation is forced then draw and fire and hit the subject. It sin't complicated.

The size of Louughner's magazine doesn't really matter. A standard capacity magazine can be swapped in about one second, faster with practice. The Luby's killer and the VT killer both reloaded several times.

That's the only "logic" I can see behind the calls for limits on magazine size...

Killed 32 and wounded 25. Luby's, Hennard using standard capacity mags killed 23 and wounded 20 out of about 80 people in the restaurant. BTW, this was the reason Texas CCW got passed. Suzanna Hupp who went to the restaurant with her parents and lawfully left her gun in the car only to see her parents murdered got elected to TX legislature on this shooting & her lack of self-defense by obeying the law.

Not saying she would've made a difference but she is convinced she would have least had a chance denied her that day.

Blame lack of sleep for missing the sarcasm.

Very few muggers are infantry soldiers either. Enemy soldiers will continue to advance in a disciplined manner against your fire at them. Muggers won't. They want easy victims and will run away from most armed citizens. My wife has twice defended herself against a mugger and both times the guy ran away, no shots fired.

Exactly. Here is a video that recently showed up on reddit:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Hu6AOhgftE

Note that the clerk didn't even chamber a round until the criminal had fled, and flee he did as soon as he saw a gun produced - that guy was GONE!

Maybe, but each student should be allowed to make that decision for themselves. Neither he nor you should force your decision upon them.

This is the heart of the issue. Everyone should be allowed to decide for themselves whether they feel up to the responsibility of carrying a firearm. It's not right that someone else should try to decide "what's best for me".

Heightened awareness, avoiding lonely places at night,
Those are excellent advice, especially situational awareness.

All I could add is that many who carry a gun, especially those who have taken a decent class, do practice heightened awareness. Many know Jeff Cooper's color code of awareness. White, Yellow, Orange, Red.

http://www.selfdefenseresource.com/general/articles/awareness-color-codes.php

Thanks for this and for many other excellent posts you have posted.

However, if the author had presented concrete examples of problems with properly licensed CCW holders on college campuses -

they might have something.


I've repeatedly asked for examples of same, and as yet none have been produced. Instead, we've gotten a string of "maybe, might,

could be a problem " sorts of articles.

The guns in Lybia and Egypt

pathetic

yup

BTW - where IS Mubarak these days???

:rofl:

In case you weren't aware of it, the military are the guys with the most and biggest guns.

Which is what is happening in Libya right now - and it's got Qaddafi all puffed and annoyed.

controlling what's happening.

YUP

YUP

YUP

taking over? It seems to be the general feeling of many gun owners.

1. Concerning Rice University:
One of my daughters is now a graduate from Rice University. Students there are among the most capable minds on earth. If one of them determined to defend himself/herself with a handgun, follow through would be no problem at all.

2. Of all the people at the Tucson Tragedy, the Virgina Tech Tragedy, the Luby's Tragedy, or the (fill in the blank) Tragedy, not a single person shot back at the perpetrator. Not a single person was armed and capable to defend themselves against deadly violence.

At Tuscon, the murderer fired for 15 seconds. I am old and slow, but I can draw my concealed handgun and fire 7 bullets into a 6 inch target at 21 feet within 5 seconds. Most practiced individuals who legally carry are practiced and capable of similar accuracy and speed. If even one capable, armed individual had been at Tuscon or any of these Tragedys, the initial 2 or 3 seconds of the attack probably could not have been stopped, but the following carnage could have been reduced dramatically.

Semper Fi,

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Here's another case study in how to lose a public debate. As I've pointed out before, this type of spittle-filled ranting doesn't help your cause at all; it helps those you disagree with. Ranting and raving about how sinful and deluded your opponents are didn't work for Operation Rescue types, it isn't helping Fred Phelps' anti-GLBT crusade, and it doesn't help you.

Pragmatically speaking, the "demonize and marginalize" approach only works if the marginalized group is either (1) very compliant and unwilling to stand up and debate, or (2) is such a tiny minority that they can be demonized without backlash. With gun owners comprising 80 million people of voting age, and roughly four in ten households owning guns (primarily for defensive purposes), demonization was an extremely risky strategy for gun control advocates to use, and it failed catastrophically; its primary long-term outcomes were to motivate formerly apathetic gun owners into political activism, and to spur sales of the classes of guns slated for banning.




As to the defensive recommendations in the article, some are sound, but most only serve to demonstrate that carrying a machinegun against insurgents and soldiers in a Southeast Asian jungle as a 20-year-old 40 years ago doesn't make you an expert on civilian self-defense stateside. To wit:


"Shoot to kill without hesitation" is a military mantra, and is why it is not generally a good idea to have the military training civilian law enforcement or CHL classes.

The law governing civilian gun use says that you can shoot to stop the threat if the circumstances at that moment justify it (i.e., you did not instigate the confrontation, and you are in unlawful, imminent danger of death/serious bodily harm/forcible felony at the hands of your attacker).


That almost never happens. Even Kellerman et al never claimed that, and the National Crime Victimization Survey found zero such incidents. It could conceivably happen in a worst-case scenario, certainly, but it almost never does. Rather, being shot with one's own gun is much more of a risk in police duty, where LEO's are expected to physically detain and cuff violent suspects while carrying a holstered pistol in plain sight. That's why retention holsters are so important for uniformed LE use, but are almost never used for concealed off-duty carry or licensed concealed carry by non-LEO's.

I think that statement has more to do with the assumption of female incompetence that characterized institutional training in the late '60s and early '70s (you do realize that he was talking about female students here) than it does with the reality of defensive gun use.


Wrong, and dangerous, advice; ALL firearms will penetrate a single interior wall, and a shotgun loaded with 00 buckshot will out-penetrate a lot of handgun and small-caliber rifle JHP's. Drywall is not a safe backstop if your kid is on the other side; shoot high, take a knee and shoot upward, or take a different angle, but don't shoot blithely at an occupied wall with a shotgun and expect the wall to stop the projectiles.


A bed check is decent, if dated, advice. Having a good light (weapon mounted or handheld, whichever) is better, IMO. A bed check wouldn't have saved the kid's friend if the kid had already jumped into bed; a light would.


And who, exactly, is disagreeing with this? And remember that you can only shoot if you are in imminent danger of death or a forcible felony; the fallout from being murdered or raped is obviously worse than the fallout from using justifiable force in self-defense.


An advocate of unaimed point shooting, perhaps? Ignoring the sights can work for some people, with practice, but I don't think I'd teach an introductory class that way.


In the Tucson circumstance, probably not. At Luby's or Virginia Tech, definitely yes. An armed private citizen certainly stopped the New Life Church shooter in Colorado without further loss of life. I think overall, licensed CCW can provide a net benefit in mass shootings. But mass shootings aren't the primary reason for CCW licensure, and I'm sure the author knows that even if he pretends otherwise.


One can get off 31 9mm shots in 15 seconds using 10- or 15-round "clips" too. Or, he could have used your beloved shotgun and fired forty 9mm projectiles or sixty 7.62mm projectiles with five pulls of the trigger...


And in Hollywood films, civilians who aren't action heroes always freeze up and get their guns taken away by the unstoppable bad guy, who would have just left them alone if they had been righteously unarmed.

Neither has any bearing on reality.

I didn't want to split that particular hair. My post was long enough as it was.

We do this competition regularly on wednesdays at my club.
3 pins with 4 maximum shots with a 5 second limit. Distances vary from 15-45 feet.

Hitting 3 bownling pins in 5 seconds is actually not that difficult. Ideally, a competent person with a concealed pistol could put a shooter down in <4 seconds using few shots... long before a shooter "high capacity magazine" could become a factor.

to protect or stop the shooter in the Giffords case, everyone everywhere should be limited because of what on lunatic did. So what if Arizona has the most permissive gun laws in the country. That dosen't mean there is going to be someone carrying a gun everywhere, as many antis have claimed with "wild west shootouts" everywhere. The claims of "being surrounded by toters" just isn't going to happen, even in the state with "the most permissive gun laws in the country". I sure like my odds more in a state like Arizona than I do in a state like Wisconsin or Illinois.