Category: Gun Rights

You Just Can’t Trust Anybody Anymore

Brace yourselves, I have some rather surprising news. It appears that a couple of politicians have, get this, performed a complete 180 on an issue position. Senators Mark Warner and Joe Manchin, both candidates with “A” ratings from the National Rifle Association (NRA), have come out in support of reinstating the “assault weapon” ban:

Two US Senators became the first of America’s pro-gun advocates to break ranks on Monday night as they called for a ban on assault weapons in the wake of the Sandy Hook elementary school shootings.

[…]

The two Senators – both Democrats but with “A” ratings and previous endorsements from the powerful National Rifle Association gun lobby group – both spoke out to argue publicly that the death of 20 Year 2 children was a “game-changing” moment for America’s divisive gun debate.

These two senators have demonstrated why the political means can never be a tool to achieve liberty. Politicians cannot be trusted. They may claim to support gun rights one moment but will turn on you the second it stands to advance their political career. Senators Warner and Manchin have demonstrated that they care nothing for gun rights and would prefer to throw gun owners under the bus in order to get their name on headlines and, in all likelihood, advance their political careers. Nothing about this development should surprise anybody though, these politicians are just doing what politicians do.

What Eliminating Gun-Free Zones Can Do

Since the shooting in Connecticut two camps have emerged. The first camp are those who demand stricter gun control laws and the second camp are those who demand loosening current gun control laws. I’m firmly in the second camp. As I’ve continued to advocate for the elimination of legally established gun-free zones I’ve heard many arguments against allowing those who can carry firearms to do so on school grounds. Most of these arguments are rather absurd.

Some proponents of gun control claim that students will wrestle guns from teachers and begin shooting their fellow students. This argument is irrelevant because, as these school shootings have demonstrated, students wanting to shoot fellow students are already brining guns into schools. In addition to that fact it’s unlikely that students will know which teachers are carrying. Another common argument against legalizing carry on school grounds is the concern about negligent discharges. Again this argument holds almost no water because negligent discharges can only happen if a firearm is removed from its holster. What reason would a teacher have to remove their firearm from its holster unless there was an active shooting? It’s not like a teacher is going to pull their gun out to show the kids. Other opponents to legalizing carry on school grounds claim teachers won’t have sufficient training to properly engage an active shooter. This claim, like the previously mentioned ones, is almost entirely irrelevant. If you look at the history of these mass shootings the shooter almost always commits suicide upon meeting any form of armed resistance. In a vast majority of cases a teacher wouldn’t have had to engage the shooter, they would have simply needed to present a firearm and the shooter would have committed suicide.

This brings us to the point I want to make. What would legalizing carry on school grounds do? The first and most important thing it would do is reduce response times. When an active shooting occurs they usually last until armed resistance arrives. Usually armed resistance comes in the form of police officers. Unfortunately police are unable to appear instantly when a shooting begins so the shooter has free reign for several minutes. Arming teachers would allow response times to be lowered from minutes to seconds. Having an individual on site able to present armed resistance would mean an almost immediate response could be available. During an active shooting response time is the most important factor since, as I mentioned above, shooters often commit suicide upon meeting any armed resistance. Furthermore even if the shooter doesn’t commit suicide upon meeting armed resistance their attention will likely be diverted to the armed resister and not directed at the children.

In addition to reducing response times legalizing carry on school grounds would raise the cost of performing shootings on school grounds. Since schools are legal gun-free zones those with murder in their hearts know that they are almost guaranteed several minutes of free reign before armed resistance arrives. This makes schools relatively cheap targets for wannabe murderers. The low cost of performing violence on school grounds is a likely factor for the frequency at which mass shootings occur on school grounds. Most mass shootings seem to take place in legal gun-free zones. Knowing that there could be armed teachers or faculty members on school grounds increases the odds of encountering armed resistance from almost nothing to highly probable. Increasing the cost of performing violence will likely lead to a reduced rate of violence being committed.

Legalizing carry on school grounds stands a real chance of deterring mass shootings at schools. Unlike gun control, which relies on murders obeying the law, legalizing carry on school grounds doesn’t rely on the behavior of murders. Instead legalizing carry on school grounds merely erects a barrier between school grounds and those wanting to commit violent acts on those grounds. It’s a far more intelligent response to school shootings than enacting more laws for murderers to ignore.

Mass Killings Haven’t Become More Frequent

After a mass shooting two things can always be counted on. First the victims will be forgotten while the shooter will live on in infamy. Second politicians will start demanding more gun control. As if on queue a politicians by the name of Jerrold Nadler is claiming that these shootings are becoming more frequent and therefore stronger gun control laws must be implemented:

Rep. Jerrold Nadler, who represents portions of New York City, said he was encouraged by Mr. Obama’s statement on Friday afternoon that the mass shooting, which claimed the lives of 20 young children, requires “meaningful action” by Congress, but hopes those words turn into concrete legislation.

“These incidents, these horrible, horrible incidents … are happening more and more frequently. And they will continue to happen more and more frequently until someone with the bully pulpit, and that means the president, takes leadership and pushes Congress,” Mr. Nadler said during an appearance on MSNBC’s “The Ed Show” with Ed Schultz.

Fortunately his statement is unfounded:

Even before Portland and Newtown, we saw a former student kill seven people at Oikos University in Oakland, Calif. We saw gunmen in Seattle and Minneapolis each kill five people and then themselves. We saw the midnight premiere of “The Dark Knight Rises” at a theater in Aurora, Colo., devolve into a bloodbath, as 12 people died and 58 were wounded; 24-year-old James Holmes was arrested outside.

And yet those who study mass shootings say they are not becoming more common.

“There is no pattern, there is no increase,” says criminologist James Allen Fox of Boston’s Northeastern University, who has been studying the subject since the 1980s, spurred by a rash of mass shootings in post offices.

[…]

Grant Duwe, a criminologist with the Minnesota Department of Corrections who has written a history of mass murders in America, said that while mass shootings rose between the 1960s and the 1990s, they actually dropped in the 2000s. And mass killings actually reached their peak in 1929, according to his data. He estimates that there were 32 in the 1980s, 42 in the 1990s and 26 in the first decade of the century.

Once again we find those demanding more gun control either playing fast and loose with the facts or deliberately lying in order to advance their agenda. The truth of the matter is that these mass killings aren’t becoming more frequent, they have always been a rather random anomaly. The chances of being killed in one of these mass shootings is very rare as the occurrences of mass shootings themselves are very rare. These facts matter not to the politicians demanding more gun control laws because they know exploiting mass shootings can lead to political gain. By clamoring for more gun control legislation Mr. Nadler is getting his face on television and making it appear as though he cares about the children who were murdered. In reality Mr. Nadler is likely unable to name a single victim of the shooting.

A Matter of Perspective

I’m sure you’ve already heard the news regarding the school shooting in Connecticut. As of this writing 27 individuals have lost their lives. Advocates of gun rights are pointing out the fact that this mass shooting, like so many before it, occurred in a so-called gun-free zone while advocates of gun control are howling for more stringent gun control legislation. It’s the age old debate for which no common ground exists. But what about those who are normally outside of the gun rights debate?

After the news hit I did the thing many gun rights and gun control advocates are apt to do, I hit up the discussions occurring across the Internet. Advocates of gun rights have a phrase for gun control advocates who start demanding more gun control legislation immediately after a mass shooting: dancing in the blood. This phrase comes from the fact that they appear to be overjoyed to see a tragedy that can be used to advance their cause. I’m sure gun control advocates view those of us in the gun rights movement in the exact same way. Meanwhile individuals outside of the gun rights debate usually see it as both sides dancing in the blood. In their eyes both sides are exploiting a tragedy to advance their political causes.

I want to offer a though I had when pondering this over lunch. Being involved in the gun rights debate I spend a great deal of time writing about and discussing issues related to gun rights, including mass shootings. It’s a normal conversation for me to have. Because of this when a mass shooting like this occurs I merely continue the discussion I was having yesterday. I don’t believe I’m alone in this regard. In fact I would venture to guess that most people involved in the gun rights and gun control movements are the same way.

It’s not a matter of exploiting a tragedy so much as continuing an ongoing conversation. Although both sides appear to be insensitive, cold hearted, and exploitative to people generally outside of the conversation most of us involve in the conversation are, I believe, none of those things.

I realize that this thought is unlikely to change the opinions of individuals not normally involved in this conversation, and they very well may be right about both sides, but I feel it’s worth bringing up. In the end it’s a matter of perspective.

The Versatility of Firearms

Guns are very versatile tools. Not only can they be used to hunt and defend yourself against an aggressor but they can be used to politely inform an uninvited guest that were mistaken in believing they had been invited:

Police say about 5:30 p.m. on Dec. 3, a man walked into Modern Nails at 2645 E. Second St. and asked a female employee if she wanted to buy some diamonds. The man walked toward the front desk area and the woman replied that she had no money to buy diamonds.

A witness said the man then reached into his coat pocket and began to take out a silver-colored pistol.

At that moment, a woman who was getting her nails done reached into her purse and got her own firearm. Police say the man never fully raised the gun and left the building after seeing the customer had her weapon out.

The mere presentation of a firearm can, and often does, end potentially violent situations before they manage to become violent. What would likely have been an armed robbery turned out to be nothing more than a foot note in a police report because the intended victims demonstrated an ability to greatly increase the cost of performing a violent crime. I do hope that the salon comped the woman’s nail job.

Firearms can also be used to save lives outside of defensive situations. Consider this story, which chronicles a creative man’s employment of a firearm to save a suffocating man’s life:

Jamaryon Middlebrooks was driving along North Emerson on a Sunday night when a frantic person waved him off the side of the road. Middlebrooks found a chaotic scene, as the tow truck driver went unconscious and witnesses described him turning blue.

“He wasn’t breathing. … They felt a pulse but that was about it,” Middlebrooks said.

Middlebrooks made a split-second decision, grabbing his handgun out of his truck and firing nine shots at the chain, eventually dislodging it. Bystanders rushed to help the driver.

Had Middlebrooks not been armed the tow truck driver would likely have suffocated. Fortunately Middlebrooks was armed and had enough gun to destroy the chain that was strangling the tow truck driver. Another life was saved because an armed individual had the means to properly intervene.

According to gun control advocates these stories could never happen. They claim that guns are only good for killing. Their belief is narrow minded because they fail to see that a gun is nothing more than a tool and, like any tool, it’s uses are limited only by the creativity of the individual using it.

Enforcing the Laws on the Books

When it comes to gun control there is already a veritable library of laws on the books. Some advocates of gun rights and gun control often make quips about focusing on enforcing current laws. Both sides are making a statement that current gun control laws are not stringently enforced. In the case of gun rights activists they are implying that crimes involving firearms can be addressed by stringently enforcing current laws and that new laws are unnecessary whereas advocates of gun control are implying that current laws aren’t being enforced and therefore a higher rate of crimes involving firearms exists than should.

The concern I have with the idea of enforcing current laws, a concern that should be shared by both my fellow advocates of gun rights and my philosophical opponents advocating for gun control, is that laws can be interpreted different by different individuals. Consider the Second Amendment Foundation’s (SAF) latest victory in Illinois where a judge ruled that the Supreme Court’s decision in McDonald v. Chicago made the individual state’s prohibition against non-state agents carry firearms illegal. This decision was a boon for advocates of gun rights and a defeat for opponents of gun rights but could have had the opposite outcome.

Remember that the federal appeals court decision actually overturned the decision of a lower court, which held a different interpretation of the Supreme Court decision in McDonald v. Chicago. One court believed that the Supreme Court’s decision, which allowed for “reasonable” gun control laws, allowed an individual state could prohibit non-state agents from carrying firearms while a different court believed the opposite. If the defense appeals the case we may see it land in the Supreme Court where a third interpretation of the McDonald v. Chicago ruling could be decided.

Utilizing the interpretation of current laws has played out in the quest to advance gun rights and I’m not saying we should abandon this strategy. What I am saying is that advocates of gun rights should be careful about advocating for the enforcement of current laws. I believe it would be smarter to recognize the court system for what it is, a convenient tool to advance gun rights, but not imply that current gun control laws are just. If we imply any consent to current gun control laws we could find ourselves at the wrong end of a court ruling. Were this to happen we would be forced with either consent to the law or make hypocrites of ourselves and claim that the law, in this case, shouldn’t be enforced.

A Reminder About Rule Four

Firearm safety are of the utmost importance. We sometime forget that firearms, although enjoyable for recreation, are weapons. In order to avoid tragedy various rulesets regarding firearm safety have been created, the most prevalent of which would be Jeff Cooper’s four rules:

  1. All guns are always loaded.
  2. Never let the muzzle cover anything you are not willing to destroy.
  3. Keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on the target.
  4. Be sure of your target and what is beyond it.

Failure to abide by rule four lead to a tragedy in Rochester, Minnesota when a grandfather shot his granddaughter after mistaking her for an intruder:

A 61-year-old Rochester man shot his granddaughter at the patio door of his home late Monday night, telling police he had armed himself with a pistol to investigate a suspected intruder, police said.

Authorities are still investigating the incident involving the 16-year-old girl, who lives at the house with her grandparents. Shot in the upper torso, she was taken to the hospital in critical condition but was expected to survive, Police Capt. Brian Winters said.

When the couple went to bed Monday night, the girl was at home, Winters said. When they woke to a noise outside around 11 p.m., the man got a 9 mm pistol and went to investigate while the grandmother called police.

The man saw a figure at the patio door and fired two rounds, striking his granddaughter once, Winters said. He declined to give the family’s name.

Luckily the granddaughter is expected to live but this story should remind us all that it is our responsibility to be safe with firearms. Firearms are mere mechanical devices that are incapable of discerning friend from foe. We must make that decision and making it incorrectly could cost an innocent person their life.

The NRA Taking Undue Credit Again

The National Rifle Association (NRA) does a lot of things that really irritate me. On top of being unable to adopt new strategies in the fight for gun rights now that their strategy of political action has become less effective they also like to steal credit for that accomplishments of other gun rights organizations. Read the NRA’s press release regarding the gun rights victory in Moore v. Madigan. Do you notice anything missing? That’s right, the press released doesn’t mention the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF). Even though the case was initiated and funded by the SAF the NRA is taking sole credit for the victory.

Being dishonest by omitting due credit is a pet peeve of mine. In fact it irritates me to such an extent that I wouldn’t renew my NRA membership if I could do so and still remaining a member of the Oakdale Gun Club. My NRA membership fees would be far more productive in the hands of the SAF. The NRA is continuing to prove itself to be dishonest and incapable of adapting to changing circumstances. Both are unfortunate but I can at least understand the reason for the latter, it’s easy to become fixated on a strategy that has served you well in the past. What I can’t understand is the NRA’s unwillingness to acknowledge the efforts of other gun rights organizations. Far more could be accomplished through mutual cooperation than going it alone.

The Importance of Educators in the Gun Rights Movement

A movement is only successful if public opinion can be swayed to favor that movement. This is true of the civil rights movement, the movement to repeal marijuana prohibition, and the gun rights movement. Often people mistakenly believe that political action is the most important pillar of a movement but political action only manifests when sufficient public support has developed. Consider the movement to repeal marijuana. On November 6th the voting public of Washington and Colorado voted in favor of repealing marijuana prohibition. This outcome was only made possible because educators managed to sway public opinion against marijuana prohibition. What isn’t seen by many is the fact that repealing marijuana prohibition is also unnecessary. So many people oppose marijuana prohibition that almost anybody wanting to smoke it can do so. In fact public opinion is so opposed to marijuana prohibition that individuals who smoke it can openly discuss their violation of the state’s decree without concerning themselves with repercussions.

Let’s consider the gun rights movement. During, what I will refer to as, the dark age of gun rights laws restricting gun rights were being passed into law without much resistance. A prohibition against certain semi-automatic rifles was passed as was a law restricting who federally licensed dealers could sell firearms to. Few individual states allowed non-state agents living within their borders to carry firearms. Eventually things began to change. When the “assault weapon” ban expired no serious effort was made to renew it. Few efforts have been made to make firearm sales between non-federally licensed individuals illegal. All but one individual state (which will almost certainly join its 49 brethren within 180 days) have some mechanism for non-state agents to legally carry firearms and the number of states with no restrictions on who can carry a firearm has been continuously increasing. What we’re seeing is a manifestation of public opinion being swayed from favoring gun control to opposing it.

How was public opinion swayed though? People living in the United States didn’t just wake up one day and say “I now oppose gun control.” The swing in public opinion was accomplished through the diligent efforts of educators in the gun rights movement. When I say educators I don’t me K-12 teachers or college professors, I mean the individuals who dove through all data pertaining to gun rights and presented logical deductions derived from that data. Gun rights educators studied and presented historical and legal arguments for gun rights, gun-related crime statistics, and issues relating to self-defense and gun safety. Through their tireless efforts arguments made in favor of gun control were demonstrated to be false. More and more people were beginning to realize that gun control was a folly and either began to support gun rights or held no strong feelings either way. Without the efforts of gun rights educators things today would likely remain as they were during the dark ages of gun rights.

Political action was merely a manifestation of the change in public opinion. In fact political action would have been rendered almost entirely unnecessary in due time. This is because as public opinion began to turn more towards gun rights laws restricting or prohibiting the exercise of those rights would have been rendered irrelevant. What could the state do if a majority of individuals began carrying firearms without getting state permission? The state would attempt to punish a handful of individuals here and there to set an example but they would leave the vast majority of carriers unmolested. This is what the state has been relegated to when enforcing the marijuana prohibition and speed limits.

As I stated before most people who want to smoke marijuana do so in spite of the law and are even willing to publicly say that they disobey the state’s prohibition against marijuana. Most people seem to be willing to exceed the speed limit as well. Driving with “the flow of traffic” usually implies exceeding the speed limit since most drivers exceed the speed limit. Police officers often don’t bother issuing citations unless a driver is exceeding the speed limit by at least five or ten miles per hour. Such excesses are generally higher than the amount most drivers are exceeding the speed limit by and therefore can be enforced to some degree. Outside of those cases very few people out of the total number of people exceeding the speed limit receive any kind of punishment from the state.

I argue that education is far more important than any form of political action because political action will never even manifest without education. Education is the catalyst to change whereas political action is merely an officiation of a change in public opinion. In actuality political action usually ends up being an admittance by the state that enforcement of one of its decrees is no longer possible. This was the case with alcohol prohibition, is currently the case with marijuana prohibition, and will eventually become the case for gun rights if educators in the movement continue performing their task successfully. At some point in our future laws restricting gun rights will be repealed because they are no longer enforceable. Most states will enact, what is commonly referred to as, constitutional carry in response to the public’s general support for individuals right to carry a firearm. Items currently regulated by the National Firearms Act, likely starting with suppressors, will no longer be so restricted. Even the requirement that federally licensed dealers only sell to state-approved individuals will eventually go away.

The gun rights movement must strive to make the enforcement of restrictions against gun rights unenforceable. Whether restrictions become unenforceable through political action or because a majority of individuals blatantly violate those restrictions is unimportant. A change in public opinion will lead to the latter and the latter will lead to the former. It is the job of gun rights educators to encourage that change in public opinion that will make the rest of the dominos fall.

Members of the New York Police Department Need Additional Firearms Training

People who read the title of this post and instantly think about the incident earlier this year where members of the New York Police Department (NYPD) injured nine bystanders while attempting to gun down one individual who wasn’t currently acting aggressively are probably saying “No duh!” The conclusion in the post title wasn’t my own, it was the conclusion of a writer at the New York Times. Let’s look at the charges being made against the NYPD:

This year, there has been an unusual string of questionable and highly public shootings. It began in February, when a narcotics officer in the Bronx chased an unarmed teenager named Ramarley Graham into his building and killed him in his bathroom. The most recent came in October, when a veteran detective shot Noel Polanco, an Army National Guardsman, during a traffic stop on the Grand Central Parkway in Queens. In the intervening months, the police: fatally shot Darrius H. Kennedy as he waved a knife at tourists in Times Square; injured nine civilians near the Empire State Building while shooting Jeffrey T. Johnson moments after Mr. Johnson shot a former colleague; shot Mr. Bah; and accidentally shot and killed Reynaldo Cuevas, 20, a bodega worker who ran into an officer while fleeing from a robbery in the Bronx.

For a city run by a man who continuously implies that individuals outside of the state’s employ are irresponsible with firearms they sure have a lot of police officers who have acted irresponsibly with firearms. Seeing the extent of NYPD’s training it becomes apparently where the issue lies:

Some of Mr. Kelly’s troops disagree, going so far as to approach reporters with unsolicited views. One officer, who joined the force with a military background and spoke anonymously because he feared reprisals, said the problem was training. The department has “a factory line” approach to weapons training in which officers “get the basics — breathing, trigger control,” but not much else, he said. “It’s very brief, minimal.”

“Firearms training is important — it’s very important,” the officer concluded. “And it’s something that is not taken seriously.”

There are seven firing ranges at Rodman’s Neck, from Adam Range to George Range, and on most days, they crackle with the reports of weapons shot by new recruits or by officers who must requalify twice a year with an accuracy rate of no less than 78 percent in target practice.

Of the people I know who carry firearms a vast majority of them have training that is far more extensive than that received by members of NYPD. This really puts a hole in the claims gun control advocates often make regarding the insufficient training received by carry permit holders and the superior training received by police officers. The training received by members of the United State’s largest police force seems entirely inadequate, especially when you consider the job police officers are expected to perform (namely using their firearms against people who disobey the state’s decrees).