Tag: Gun Rights

Focus On The Situation, Not The Tool

An anti-gunner walks into a bar, err, a restaurant. He sees somebody there minding their own business. That person happens to be openly carrying a firearm and doesn’t have a badge so the anti-gunner feels the need to write a lengthy piece of hysterical nonsense. I’ll save you most of the crap and cut right to answering the questions he puts forth:

How am I, just an average person, supposed to know if the person with the firearm is a “good guy” or a “bad guy?”

How am I, just an average person, supposed to know if any stranger I meet is a “good guy” or “bad guy?” Most anti-gunners only freak out when they see a person without a badge openly carrying a firearm. Truth be told I could just go buy a police uniform and one of those completely asinine “concealed carry badges” and most anti-gunners would be perfectly fine with me openly carrying a firearm (and violent individuals do that specifically because it assists them in approaching their target).

There is no sure way to distinguish “good guys” from “bad guys.” This is why so many of us carry firearms. While 99.99 percent (number pulled out of my ass to illustrate a sizable majority) of people are good, or at least good enough not to be a direct threat to my life, there is that tiny percentage of the population that may decide shooting up the restaurant I’m eating at sounds like the makings for a fun afternoon. Since I can’t tell who they are I can only ensure I have the tools necessary to defend against them if I should encounter them.

Generally speaking though if the person with the holstered firearm isn’t shooting at random people there’s a very good chance they’re one of the “good guys.”

Suppose that I am armed, too. Should I fire preemptively at the other person with the gun just in case that person is a “bad guy,” and take the chance of killing a “good guy,” or should I hold my fire and take the chance that the other person will not be a “bad guy” or be a “good guy” and think I am a “bad guy” and fire at me first?

Is there a secret handshake that “good guys” use to identify each other? If so, what if a “bad guy” uses that secret handshake to pretend he is a “good guy” and then performs his nefarious acts?

It’s very simple actually. Hold your fire until there’s an immediate threat that you reasonable believe could kill you or cause great bodily harm? If the person in the restaurant has their firearm holstered they are not an immediate threat because holstered firearms can’t hurt anybody.

I’d be more concerned about the random person walking up to me asking to borrow a lighter for their cigarette (because I don’t smoke and one should therefore not assume I have a lighter) than an openly armed person sitting at a restaurant eating a meal. The former is creating a situation that gives them a plausible reason to close distance, which means they could be a deadly threat if they have a conceal knife, whereas the latter isn’t approaching me or trying to involve me in their business.

In my experience anti-gunners are poor risk at risk assessment. They focus on the tool as the threat instead of the person. People don’t need firearms to be dangerous but having a firearm greatly increases your odds of survival if you’re attacked by a dangerous person. Focusing on individuals openly carrying a firearm is especially poor risk assessment. Most violent individuals try to conceal the fact that they’re a threat until they get close. They want to appear friendly and unarmed so you let them get close enough to take you by surprise.

If you are worried about identifying “good guys” and “bad guys” pay attention to the situation and your gut instinct. Threats will try to create a situation that is favorable to them. As a human being you a gifted with a great ability to read other human beings. If a violent individual is creating a situation that favors them they are likely doing other things that will make the little voice in your head say, “I think he’s bad, you should flee.” Learn to identify those situations and don’t dismiss that little voice as mere paranoia. Those two things, which many of us refer to as “situational awareness”, will do more to increase your odds of survival than focusing on tools such as firearms.

Without Government Who Would Arm The Terrorists

What’s the most effective way reduce gun violence in the United States? According to those who oppose self-defense mandating background checks for every firearm transfer would reduce gun violence. It’s an idea that sounds good to a lot of people on paper but only because they haven’t stopped to think about what that entails. Background checks require government approval for firearm transfers. Mandating background checks for every firearm transfer would, according to opponents of self-defense, ensure bad guys couldn’t acquire firearms. The biggest flaw in this plan is that it relies on government, which is more than happy to provide firearms to violent individuals:

Five years before he was shot to death in the failed terrorist attack in Garland, Texas, Nadir Soofi walked into a suburban Phoenix gun shop to buy a 9-millimeter pistol.

At the time, Lone Wolf Trading Co. was known among gun smugglers for selling illegal firearms. And with Soofi’s history of misdemeanor drug and assault charges, there was a chance his purchase might raise red flags in the federal screening process.

Inside the store, he fudged some facts on the form required of would-be gun buyers.

What Soofi could not have known was that Lone Wolf was at the center of a federal sting operation known as Fast and Furious, targeting Mexican drug lords and traffickers. The idea of the secret program was to allow Lone Wolf to sell illegal weapons to criminals and straw purchasers, and track the guns back to large smuggling networks and drug cartels.

Instead, federal agents lost track of the weapons and the operation became a fiasco, particularly after several of the missing guns were linked to shootings in Mexico and the 2010 killing of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in Arizona.

This is actually the same flaw every plan that relies on government suffers. How can you rely on an entity that steals, kidnaps, assaults, and murders people to stop theft, kidnappings, assaults, and murders? Do you really think an entity that drops bombs on child in foreign countries and pardons the violent actions of its law enforcers is going to have any moral opposition to handing a firearm to a person known to have a history of violence? Fast and Furious was a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) operation that involved selling firearms to people suspected of being involved with violent drug cartels. Supposedly the operation was meant to track where the firearms went. Those firearms did end up in the hands of drug cartels but the ATF didn’t do a very good job of tracking them.

A background check systems can’t work if it relies on an entity that is motivated to provide firearms to violent people. Since the government is motivated to do exactly that the background check system supported by opponents of self-defense can’t decrease gun violence.

This Is How The Brady Campaign Treats Those It Exploits For Public Relations

After the shooting in Aurora, Colorado the Brady Campaign found a family to sucker into filing a frivolous lawsuit against Lucky Gunner, the website the shooter ordered his ammunition from. The judge threw out the case and ordered the plaintiff to pay Lucky Gunner’s legal fees. Everybody following this lawsuit has been wondering if the plaintiff would appeal the decision. Now they’ve made an official statement saying they won’t:

Since a federal judge ordered the parents of a victim killed in the Aurora theater massacre to pay more than $200,000 in the defendants’ court costs, they said they’re forced to drop their appeal of the ruling because another loss may force them into bankruptcy.

[…]

With attorneys from the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, the couple sued Lucky Gunner and other retailers with the intended goal of changing company policy and ultimately public policy in regard to gun and ammo sales as opposed to monetary gain.

This should serve as a cautionary tale not to get involved with the Brady Campaign. If the family is concerned that they would be forced into bankruptcy if they appealed the decision then the Brady Campaign must not be covering the costs. You would think the organization would do the right thing and back up the plaintiffs it has been abusing for public relations purposed. But like so much trash the family has apparently been discarded.

Verification Is The Reason Why Random People Standing In Front Of Recruitment Centers Isn’t A Viable Security Model

Yesterday I noted that even an imbecile with a sightless AR-pattern pistol is an effective response to an active shooter situation. Less somebody mistake that statement as a blanket approval of armed individuals taking it upon themselves to stand guard uninvited over military recruitment centers let me discuss why such a security model isn’t viable. The Army has been telling its recruiters to treat random armed watchmen as potential threats and its right to do so:

WASHINGTON — The Army has warned its recruiters to treat the gun-toting civilians gathering at centers across the country in the wake of the Chattanooga, Tenn., shooting as a security threat.

Soldiers should avoid anyone standing outside the recruiting centers attempting to offer protection and report them to local law enforcement and the command if they feel threatened, according to a U.S. Army Recruiting Command policy letter issued Monday.

Effective security relies on effective threat modeling. When the threat model is an active shooter the most effective response is an armed individual able to provide resistance. Before an active shooting begins the threat model is different because the potential attacker still isn’t known. Under that model you must assume everybody who isn’t trusted is a potential attacker (trusted individuals could be potential attackers as well, which is why you need redundancies). How do the recruiters know that the person who took it upon themselves to stand watch isn’t actually planning to shoot the place up? They don’t.

This is why nobody, whether they be tasked with securing a top secret military facility or a bar, puts any random schmuck who volunteers on guard duty. Verification is required before somebody can be trusted to provide security services. Bars need to know that their bouncers are going to verify patrons’ ages instead of take payouts to let high school students in. Businesses need to know the person at the front desk isn’t a member of a gang of thieves planning to rob the place. Military recruiters need to know that the person at the front isn’t a copycat wanting to take out some military personnel.

The most effective defense against a potential shooter is arming the individuals you trust to be on your property. As I stated in yesterday’s article, responding to an active shooter doesn’t require training beyond being able to send rounds towards the shooter. Response time is the critical factor so the more armed individuals on site the faster the situation will likely be resolved. But the armed individuals must be trusted to be a viable part of your security model otherwise you can’t know if they’re going to be a defender or aggressor until the attack is underway.

Stopping Active Shooters Is About Armed Resistance, Not Special Training

The Trace, an anti-self-defense rag masquerading as a news source, posted what may be one of the dumbest arguments against arming, well, anybody but soldiers at recruitment centers specifically:

Most armed service members are not trained to neutralize active shooters, and putting more loaded guns in their hands creates its own risks.

[…]

Most service members — 99 percent of airmen, 88 percent of sailors, and about two-thirds of soldiers and Marines — are not in direct combat roles, but instead are technical workers whose specialties support those “tip of the spear” troops. These include navigators, supply clerks, water purification specialists, and camera crews. Roughly the same breakdown applies to the backgrounds of recruiters and reservists. Practically speaking, this means that your average military member’s firearms experience may only go as far as some boot camp familiarization with a service rifle on a “static range,” plinking at paper targets to qualify for a marksmanship ribbon.

I’ll be sure to tell my friend who was a helicopter mechanic in the Marines that his firearms training amounted to little more than plinking at paper on a range. Less I digress further into the firearm training military personnel receive let me make my point. Stopping an active shooter, in most cases, doesn’t require any special training. All that’s required are bullets moving towards the shooter. As it turns out most active shooters commit suicide upon meeting armed resistance:

But as much as we would like to confront the active shooter with multiple officers, the reality is that we are almost always in a reactive posture, and time is working in favor of the shooter. More often than not, we must wait for the incident to unfold before we are able to interject ourselves into the fray. Depending on the venue, whether it occurs in a big city or an isolated rural community, that response with well-trained responders may be a while in arriving.

Therefore, the individual officer becomes our best asset. Ideally, we’d like to have a response in which we send in several similarly trained officers, but that may not always be possible. Thus, the responsibility rests with the first car on the scene, and in these types of incidents it’s important to get inside and act quickly. By doing this, we interrupt the killer’s plan and his activity. This rapid interdiction is critical to saving lives.

However, quickly inserting oneself into the active shooter situation does not mean running blindly into a gun battle. Rather, it simply means stopping the shooter as fast as possible, either by lethal means or by the mere fact that he knows law enforcement is present. That knowledge alone, that cops are on scene, has ended the carnage in many instances and caused the gunman to commit suicide.

Therefore, the key to reacting to an active shooter situation is rapid response – get on scene and inside as quickly as possible.

Police “training” for active shooter responses is for the first officer on the scene to move in and start sending bullets at the shooter. That’s because response time is the key factor for how long an active shooter scenario will play out. The sooner somebody is able to provide armed resistance to an active shooter the sooner the situation stops in a vast majority of cases. The “training” that is supposedly absent from boot camp is having a gun and using it to shoot at the active shooter. Anybody who has gone through basic training in any branch of the military can handle that. Hell, I can handle that.

There isn’t a good argument against armed individuals at the scene being the most effective way to resolve active shootings. An active shooting is a scenario where, in the vast majority of cases, accuracy and tactics aren’t the primary deciding factors in how quickly it stops. Even a man at the scene wearing a stylish tactical neon shirt and camouflage Crocs armed with a potentially felonious foregrip equipped sightless AR-pattern pistol would be more effective against an active shooter than waiting for police to respond.

i-hear-sights-are-niceStill more effective than waiting for police to respond.

You Can’t Rely On Others For Your Defense

I shift around a lot of electrons talking about self-defense. When it comes to self-defense the thing that should always be kept in mind is that you can only rely on yourself. Sure, somebody may come to your aid but you can’t rely on the assumption that somebody will because very often nobody will:

What happened to Kevin Joseph Sutherland was horrific beyond imagining. On July 4, in front of about 10 witnesses on the Washington, D.C., Metro, an assailant punched him, stomped on him, kicked him in the head, and stabbed him at least 30 times. No one attempted to stop Sutherland’s killer.

What happened to me in November was vastly different, and I do not intend to equate the two events. Like Sutherland, I was attacked on a Saturday afternoon on the D.C. Metro. And as in Sutherland’s case, despite my screams and pleas, almost none of my fellow passengers on the crowded train car did anything to help.

This is why I keep myself in relatively good shape, carry a firearm, and train in martial arts (in that order of precedence) and urge you to do so as well. It’s harder to kill somebody in even decent shape than somebody who isn’t at all in shape and physical fitness improves your ability to run away, which should always been your first instinct when you feel like a situation is about to go bad. A firearm gives you the best odds against an aggressor and takes physical disparity out of the equation. Martial arts give you an option for dealing with an aggressor even in situations where you’re unarmed.

Both stories mentioned in the link article involved a person being attacked while multiple witnesses did nothing. One could blame the witnesses for not involving themselves, and a writer for the Federalist did exactly that, but it’s also unreasonable to expect somebody to risk their life to aid a complete stranger. That doesn’t make somebody a “beta male,” as the Federalist writer claims, it simply means they’re individuals who performed a risk-benefit calculations and concluded involving themselves was riskier than the potential benefit. That’s a very logical conclusion. Involving yourself in a physical confrontation is always risky. You don’t know if the situation is a gang of violent individuals beating a random innocent person to death or a inter-gang war playing itself out. It’s also impossible to know if the attackers are carrying armaments in addition to whatever is currently in their hands or if they have more friends nearby. Generally speaking the safe option for a person witnessing a physical confrontation is to do everything in their power to not involve themselves. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the moral choice but it is a logical choice.

But that logical choice also means you have to be prepared to fend for yourself.

Gun Control And Cryptography Control: Same Idea With The Same Outcome

Crypto War II is heating up. David Cameron has vowed to make effective cryptography illegal in the Britain, the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) has been uging Congress to pass a ban on effective cryptography, and Australia has been ahead of the curve by not just prohibiting the use of strong cryptography but also learning about it. I’ve spent a good deal of time fighting against attempts to restrict or prohibit gun ownership. From my experience there I can say that attempts to restrict or prohibit effective cryptography is the exact same thing with the same outcome.

First, let’s consider what restricting or prohibiting gun ownership does. Gun restriction laws prohibit non-state individuals from having legal access to certain types of firearms and what they can do with their firearms. The National Firearms Act (NFA), for example, places heavy restrictions on purchasing machine guns, suppressors, and several other categories of firearms. Adding to the NFA’s restrictions on machine guns the Hughes Amendment to the Firearm Owners Protection Act outright prohibited non-state entities from legally owning machine guns manufactured after 1986. In addition to these restrictions the Gun Control Act of 1968 also created a list of individuals prohibited from owning any type of firearm. The list includes anybody who has been labeled a felon, which means simply failing to abide by the entire tax code could make it illegal for you to own a firearm. Most states have laws restricting individuals from lawfully carrying a firearm without state permission. In other words most states restrict individuals’ options for self-defense. Those laws, like all laws, only apply to individuals acting within the law. Criminals, by definition, do not have to abide by these restrictions and prohibitions so the ultimate outcome is that non-state individuals can be outgunned by violent criminals (both the state and non-state variety).

Now let’s consider what restricting or prohibiting effective cryptography does. Restrictions against effective cryptography create a legal requirement that all cryptographic systems be weakened in such a way that they can be easily bypassed by the state. In reality cryptographic systems cannot be weakened in such to allow only one entity to bypass them without also allowing other entities to bypass them. We learned this lesson during the Clipper chip fiasco. When you purposely introduce weaknesses into cryptographic systems those weaknesses can be targeted by anybody, including run of the mill criminals and foreign states. In the case of key escrow, the system being proposed where all encrypted data can be decrypted by a key held by the state, the focus would likely be in either creating or stealing a copy of the state’s key. Once that happened, and it would only be a matter of time until it did happen, the encrypted data would be available to anybody with a copy of the key to read. Imagine the day, and it would happen, where that master key was widely distributed across the Internet. Suddenly everything that was lawfully encrypted would be easily decrypted by anybody. Your personal information, including credit card and Social Security numbers, would be accessible to every identify thief in the world. Any communications you had that could imply you were participating in an unlawful activity, even if you weren’t, would suddenly be accessible not only to law enforcement agents but also individuals interested in blackmailing you. All future communications with online stores would be vulnerable, which means your credit card and shipping information could be snapped up by anybody surveiling the network you’re using. Any information you entered into state and federal online tax systems would be viewable to anybody with a copy of the master key. Effectively everything you communicated would be transmitted in plaintext and viewable to anybody.

Cryptography, like a firearm, is a means of self-defense. Where firearms are used to defend your physical self cryptography is used to defend your data. If your phone or laptop is stolen encryption can defend all of the information stored on it from the thief. When you make a purchase online encryption defends your credit card number and shipping address from identify thieves. Your Social Security number is also defended against identify thieves by encryption when you fill out your taxes online. There are a lot of bad individuals who want to steal personal information about you and the only thing you have to defend against them is effective cryptography. Any restriction against effective cryptography necessarily inhibits the ability of individuals to defend themselves.

The fight against restricting cryptography is the same fight against restricting firearm ownership. Both fights are against attempts by the state to restrict the ability of individuals to protect themselves from harm.

Why Political Fights Never Cease

If you are involved in a political issue or even pay attention to one you know that the battle never ends. Take self-defense, for example. Recently the right of self-defense has been making gains in legislatures of the federal and many state governments. But the fight isn’t even close to ending because opponents to self-defense are finding new political tools to make people defenseless. Seattle is looking to restrict the right to self-defense not by passing a prohibition but by creating a new tax:

City Council President Tim Burgess has proposed a tax on every firearm and round of ammo sold in the city, which would be used to fund gun violence prevention programs.

The tax, which would amount to $25 on each modern firearm and 5 cents on each round of ammunition, is expected to skim as much as a $500,000 per year from the wallets of gun owners, the Seattle Times reports. This figure would be in addition to the various state and local retail taxes that approach 9.6 percent in the city already.

If prohibitions aren’t working just raise the costs until they’re prohibitively expensive for all but the wealthiest! Herein lies the issue with political issues of all sorts. No matter what gains are made your opponents will find a new avenue to attack you. Now that legislation isn’t working to the anti-self-defense crowd’s favor they’re looking at adding taxes to ensure poor people are unable to defend themselves. They are also looking at regulations that requires jumping through hoops to discourage people from obtaining a means to defend themselves.

Politics is disgusting business because governments wield monopoly power and can therefore do whatever they want. With that being the case there is an infinite number of ways to use the government to screw people over. If one arm of the government isn’t beating your opponents for you you just need to pay off another arm. That’s why no fight over a political issue will be done until the state has been abolished in its entirety.

Show Some Home Team Love

Not only does the Brady Center have to pay Lucky Gunner’s legal fees but Lucky Gunner is going to donate that money to gun rights groups:

The Brady Center predictably appealed the judge’s ruling and we are prepared to continue defending your rights and ours. While it is not yet clear when the $111,971.10 fee reimbursement will be paid, we are going to donate 100% of what is recovered to groups that support and defend the 2nd Amendment. We will fight to recover these funds from the Brady Center and to hold the Brady Center responsible for yet another frivolous lawsuit.

Please tell us where you want the recovered fees to go by voting in the form below. A number of organizations were added per shooter requests on June 23. We will end the voting on August 1, 2015. Once we have recovered the fees, we’ll cut checks to each organization receiving votes on a percentage basis. In other words, if “Organization A” gets 5% of the vote, it will receive 5% of whatever is recovered.

The Minnesota Gun Owners Civil Rights Alliance (GOCRA) is one of the organizations on the ballot. I’m sure our home team guys would appreciate you casting a vote for them. It would be nice to know that the Brady Center helped contribute something to whatever gun rights battle appears in this state’s future.

Contacting Lucky Gunner and expressing thanks for doing this probably wouldn’t hurt either.

Brady Center Ordered to Pay Legal Fees to Ammunition Seller it Brought a Frivolous Lawsuit Against

The Brady Center hasn’t been faring well these last several years. As money quickly dries up it has resorted to the tactic used by so many failed organizations, extracting money from those who have it through frivolous lawsuits. After the shooting in Aurora, Colorado the Brady Center brought a lawsuit against the online ammunition seller Lucky Gunner claiming it was somehow responsible for the shooter’s actions (I don’t get it either but bear with me). Not only was the lawsuit thrown out but a judge ordered the Brady Center to pay Lucky Gunner’s legal fees:

A federal judge has ordered that the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence pay the legal fees of an online ammunition dealer it sued for the Aurora movie theater shooting.

The order, which was issued last week, comes after Judge Richard P. Matsch dismissed the gun control group’s suit that sought to hold Lucky Gunner legally responsible for the 2012 shooting. The Brady Center had argued in their suit that the way Lucky Gunner sells ammunition is “unreasonably dangerous and create a public nuisance.”

[…]

Judge Matsch disagreed with the Brady Center’s argument. He said the suit was filed for propaganda purposes. “It is apparent that this case was filed to pursue the political purposes of the Brady Center and, given the failure to present any cognizable legal claim, bringing these defendants into the Colorado court where the prosecution of James Holmes was proceeding appears to be more of an opportunity to propagandize the public and stigmatize the defendants than to obtain a court order,” he said in his order.

It seems Judge Matsch didn’t appreciate being used as the Brady Center’s political pawn. He was spot on when he said the lawsuit was filed purely as a propaganda (and desperate fundraising) stunt. Lucky Gunner, as with anybody who sells goods or services, cannot know what customers are going to do with their purchases. Holding Lucky Gunner culpable for the events in Aurora would be no different than holding Apple responsible for a hacker using a MacBook Pro to break into a company network and stealing customer credit card data.

Now the Brady Center faces a tough question, does it have enough loose change under its sofa cushions to pay Lucky Gunner’s legal fees? Wouldn’t be amusing if this propaganda stunt ends up forcing the Brady Center into insolvency?