Tag: Gun Rights

The Fallacy of Passively Resisting a Rapist

I’m not sure who started this trend but some asshole decided it was a good idea to advise woman to “passively” resist rapists. That advice follows the “just give them what they want and they’ll go away” mentality except in the case of rape what your attacker wants is you. I use the word passive in quotes because passive resistance isn’t resistance in the case of rape. When you become passive you’re still surrendering and once you’ve surrendered control to an attacker you’re situation is entirely lost. A friend on Facebook posted a link to a research paper titled Fighting back works: The case for advocating and teaching self-defense against rape.. The most interesting statement I found in the study was the following:

A thorough review of the available literature has led us to some surprising conclusions about the effectiveness of traditional anti-rape advice. Women are often advised to use non-aggressive strategies against sexual assault (Storaska, 1975; Channing L. Bete Co., What every woman should know about rape, 1989; Channing L. Bete Co., What women and men should know about date rape, 1989). Research suggests that this is poor advice. According to one study (Zoucha-Jensen and Coyne, 1993), women who used non-forceful verbal strategies, such as crying or pleading with the assailant, were raped about 96% of the time. In the same study, women who did nothing to protect themselves were raped about 93% of the time.

“Passive” resistance actually slightly increased a woman’s chance of being raped. To me this makes sense as rape is about power, not sex. By crying and pleading you’re giving the rapist what he wants, which is to break your will and force you to submit to him. On the other hand bullet holes, stab woulds, and/or a collapse trachea are great at stopping a rapist. In fact forceful physical resistance has the best chance of stopping a rapist:

Forceful physical resistance was an extremely successful strategy. The completed rape rate dropped to between 45% and 14% when the rapist’s attempt was met with violent physical force (Kleck and Sayles, 1990; Siegel et al., 1989; Ullman and Knight, 1992; Zoucha-Jensen and Coyne, 1993). Striking was more successful than pushing or wrestling (Quinsey and Upfold, 1985). Physical resistance also appears to be more effective when assault occurs outdoors (Quinsey and Upfold, 1985).

That’s a pretty large drop from the 96% of completed rapes followed by passive verbal resistance. On top of that women who forcefully resist a rapist stand little chance of additional injury:

Second, this argument overlooks the fact that a woman who does not resist is virtually guaranteed to suffer the emotional and physical injury of the rape itself. Even when resisters are injured, the injury is typically much less severe than a completed rape would have been (Kleck and Sayles, 1990; Marchbanks et al., 1990; Siegel et al., 1989; Ullman and Knight, 1991). Of those 40% of resisters who suffered physical damage, only 7% suffered injury as severe as a dislodged tooth. A woman who fights back incurs no demonstrable chance of additional injury, but she gains a 55-86% chance of avoiding rape altogether (Kleck and Sayles, 1990).

The last sentence is most telling, while a woman’s chance of injury goes up negligibly her chance of getting raped dropped dramatically. In addition the physical and emotional damage done by rape is almost always going to be far greater than damage received during forceful resistance. Did I mention woman who used firearms or knives stood a phenomenal chance of avoiding a rape:

Women who used knives or guns in self-defense were raped less than 1% of the time. Defensive use of edged or projectile weapons reduced the rate of injury to statistical insignificance (Kleck and Sayles, 1990).

As I said bullet holes and stab wounds are very good deterrents.

Self-defense classes are invaluable not just for the training in proper fighting methods but for mentally preparing people for self-defense situations. Many people do freeze up when they’re being attacked because they’ve never been taught the proper actions to take in such a scenario. Being able to fight back is only one part of the battle, you must also be willing to fight back.

If you’re one of those unfortunate people who believes passive resistance is the best way to handle a rape situation please do yourself a favor and read the linked paper.

Canadian Gun Control Turning Law-Abiding Citizens into Criminals

Canada’s gun laws are certainly more tyrannical than those in the United States. At least in the United States when a gun is added to the verboten list current owners are generally grandfathered in. In Canada if a gun is approved for purchase by the peasantry and the government later changes its mind you don’t get the privilege of being grandfathered in, instead you become a criminal in possession of an illegal firearm:

Two small-calibre rifles have been suddenly reclassified by the RCMP-run Canadian Firearms Program. The rifles in question, the Armi Jager AP-80 and the Walther G22, are both unremarkable .22-caliber long guns. While any firearm is dangerous, .22-caliber firearms are among the weakest around — indeed, they’re typically used to train rookie shooters basic firearm safety and operation.

Canadian law divides firearms into three categories, using complex technical criterion and a bevy of politically-motivated “exemptions”, and citizens can only legally own firearms in the categories their licence covers. No further licences are issued for the third and highest category, prohibited. By declaring a new exemption and moving these rifles from the non-restricted list — the category subject to the least controls — to the prohibited list, the RCMP has essentially banned them for all but a constantly shrinking group of Canadians who owned prohibited-class firearms before the current gun control legislation was passed under Jean Chrétien.

That’s bad. This is worse: Any citizen who already owns an AP-80 or G22, and does not already possess a rare prohibited-class licence, has been ordered to turn in their rifles within 30 days. Failure to do so will mean they are unlawfully in possession of a prohibited firearm, and subject to as much as 10 years behind bars. It doesn’t matter if they purchased it legally, paid all the sales taxes, and have stored it safely ever since. The RCMP has declared that it was a mistake to allow citizens to purchase these firearms, and wants them turned in, pronto. Or else.

Emphasis mine. Even though the Canadian government made the “mistake” (how allowing people to own any time of firearm is a mistake is beyond my understanding) the people who legally purchased the now verboten firearms will be the ones punished. What’s worse is it doesn’t sound like those who purchased these now blacklisted firearms will even be compensated:

No apology for the error. No mention of monetary compensation. No exemptions made for people who already owned them. Just an order to hand them over or become a criminal.

In other words you purchased it legally according to Canadian law and now you have to surrender it because you were dumb enough to follow the law. What makes this even worse is the fact Canada has a long-gun registry so the government goons know who owns what type of firearm and therefore know what doors to kick down in their eventual search for these horrible .22 carbines. At least in the United States were something like this to happen the government can’t be 100% sure who owns what. Registration leads to confiscation every time.

I’m sure this is what the anti-gunners mean by common sense gun laws, if a person acts within the letter of the law they can be punished at a later time for doing so. It would seem the only safe option in Canada is to not own any firearms, which is exactly what the state wants.

Anti-Gunners Throwing a Hissy Fit

Will you look at that, the boys over at the Coalition to Promote the Creation of Disarmed Victims Stop Gun Violence (CSGV) are throwing a hissy fit because members of the pro-gun community decided to call them on their little propaganda campaign.

What I find more hilarious is the fact the author is “outing” several of the pro-gun bloggers by posting their real names and where they live. I’m not sure why the author does that because if it’s some kind of underhanded implication of a threat (“I know where you live and I’m watching you” kind of thing) it’s less than pathetic. I almost wish I would have posted a picture of myself holding a candle just so the author could have outed me… then again my name is the fucking URL so I guess there isn’t much to out.

You know what’s the funniest thing though? The links from the various gun blogs posting about this little hissy fit has probably increase CSGV’s blog traffic from one visitor a day to several hundred. Even when anti-gunners try to make us look like monsters we try to help them out a bit because we’re nice guys and gals like that.

Massad Ayoob on the Brady Campaign Light a Candle Publicity Stunt

In the self-defense community Massad Ayoob is one of the advocates I respect most. He’s dedicated a great deal of his time to educated people on matters of self-defense. While Mr. Ayoob spends his time teaching people how to defend themselves instead of being victims the Brady Campaign spent its time telling people to light a candle in remembrance of those who have been killed by guns (because victims of other violent crimes don’t matter to them and they would rather a woman be raped than a rapist be shot). As usual Mr. Ayoob has some words of wisdom to share with us:

If some monster tries to rape or murder a woman I care about, I don’t want him to see the flickering light of a candle.

I want him to see a muzzle flash, from the front.

Damn right. While I’m entirely opposed to initiating violence I am entirely in support of the right of self-defense. If some piece of shit has decided your life is no longer of value you shouldn’t hold their life to be of value either.

Rick Perry and Guns

Rick Perry was scrounging for some brownie points from the gun community at the end of ABC’s debate by brining up the fact he likes to unwind by hitting the shooting range:

“Just relaxing a bit @ Red’s Range before we leave for New Hampshire!” @governorperry tweeted Friday along with a photo of himself wearing a green sweatshirt and a baseball cap with a firearm in hand.

On the campaign trail, Perry, a staunch defender of second amendment rights, has not been shy about talking about his “long love affair” with guns.

“It was a long love affair with a boy and his gun that turned into a man and his gun, and it turned into a man and his son and his daughter and their guns,” Perry told reporters before a pheasant hunting trip with Iowa Rep. Steve King in October. “It’s, I think, one of the great American traditions is taking your family hunting.

Now numerous people in the gun community are jumping on the Rick Perry 2012 bandwagon. Let’s all take a second to step back and remember what Rick Perry is, a tyrant. Rick Perry is the same candidate who advocated an invasion of Mexico as a strategy in the War on Drugs and issued an executive order forcing girls to be injected with the HPV vaccine, which could possibly cause paralysis (sadly it’s such a new drug we don’t know enough about possible side-effects but hey drug company campaign contributions cay make such pesky details vanish).

Politicians pander to communities in order to get votes. They do this because pandering works and many single issue voters exist in the world. Yet even if Rick Perry is an advocate of the Second Amendment facts are none of us will be able to afford new guns or ammunition if the economy entirely collapses and Perry has no fucking clue about economics. On top of that if he’s willing to send troops into Mexico to enforce a United States prohibition you can guarantee he’s in favor of seeing troops into other countries we have no business being in. Don’t like the fact Perry goes to the shooting range and supports the Second Amendment fool you into supporting him, on every other ground he’s horrible.

On the other hand there is another pro-gun candidate (I’d argue far more pro-gun than Perry) who actually understands economics and supports every civil liberty running for presidential candidate named Ron Paul. I’m just saying why support a tyrant when you can have a true supporter of liberty?

An Open Letter to Anti-Gunners

There are many reasons why individuals fighting for gun rights win against those who fight to disarm the populace. Beyond the facts though another thing that really helps us is our community, which A Girl and Her Gun describes beautifully:

The gun community is a generous community. It is unlike any other I have been associated with.

I did, for a while, belong to the adoption community for a few years and though I am still crazy passionate about children and orphans.

Those are not my people.

I did, for a while, belong to the church going Christian community and though I am still crazy passionate about God.

Those are not my people.

Generally a group, any group, has an agenda. Stated or not. Conscious or not. No matter how well meaning, they almost always want something.

That something is usually steeped in power and control.

Politicians, religions, schools, the anti gun crowd, you name it. They want to bring you for what you can give them, which is often nothing more than a feeling of power and self worth for the leaders of the group.

They want to take something from you in order to gain something for themselves.

Not this group.

It’s a great letter and perfectly describes how great the gun community really is.

You Could Have Saved Yourself 15 Minutes of Grief

The front page of the Red Star had one of those rare featured self-defense stories. The story was likely featured only because the would-be victims were able to defend themselves without the use of a firearm… after 15 minutes of being terrorized by a crack addict while the police were nowhere in sight:

Two young couples were watching TV Saturday afternoon at the Bloomington house they share when they heard a dog bark, and then a woman scream.

Suddenly, a desperate-looking stranger burst into their house.

The man, later identified by police as a suspected bank robber and fugitive on a crack binge, bounded up the stairs into their living room. Brandishing a screwdriver and claiming he had a gun, he ordered them onto the living room floor.

“Everything happened so fast,” one of the victims said later.

Then the intruder demanded a car. For 15 long minutes, the victims tried to appease him.

The families could have saved themselves 15 agonizing minutes, minutes where they were at the mercy of their assailant. How? Easy, they could have had a gun and shot the bastard as he burst into their home. Instead the two families remained entirely defenseless while the police didn’t respond:

In the upstairs living room, the three others were calling police.

When you have a crack addict taking a hostage waiting for the police is not a viable option if you want to ensure your continued existence. In this case the crack addiction slipped up and gave his would be hostage a window to find a weapon and defend himself but that isn’t always the case. While it’s good that nobody important was hurt (sorry but a piece of shit who breaks into somebody’s home ceases to be important in my book) the situation would have been much quicker resolved had one of the family members been able to shoot the bastard. Remember when you call the police it will take them minutes to arrive if they decide to come at all.

Why Do Anti-Gunners Advocate Initiating Violence

I don’t think I’ll ever be able to understand the sheer amount of hypocrisy behind the anti-gunner’s cause. Those demanding more gun control laws are advocating the initiation of violence against gun owners while claiming to be against the proliferation of violence. Case in point let’s take a hypothetical case and follow it to its logical conclusion. Let’s say the gun control crowd suddenly get a huge surge of followers and somehow manage to nullify the Second Amendment via an amendment that entirely bans firearms within the United States (yes I realize this is far fetched but I’m performing reductio ad absurdum).

After the amendment is passed you the legally owned firearms will need to be confiscated. It’s true that a great number of gun owners will be stupid enough to voluntarily surrender their arms to law enforcement but you’re going to have a lot of gun owners who tell the collection agency to fuck themselves. What do you think the state is going to do to these stubborn gun owners? As with any other law the state is going to enforce a prohibition against arms using violence; if the gun owners don’t surrender their firearm armed agents of the state will be sent in to take them and murder the gun owners if they attempt to resist.

Thus we have a contradiction, the anti-gunners are advocating the initiation of violence in order to, as they claim, prevent violence. Non-violent gun owners whose only crime was to be in possession of property not listed at verboten will be killed if they don’t roll over and take what the state is dishing out. Why do the anti-gunners want this violence? Do they believe the ends justify the means? If that is the case I’m sure they would love to read up on Joseph Stalin’s means to accomplish his desired ends.

Whenever a law to interfere with property ownership is passed it necessarily requires that property be confiscated from violators of the law. Confiscation always requires the threat and use of force otherwise few will willingly surrender what they have worked hard to obtain.

Anti-gunners are hypocrites who don’t even see that the laws they advocate will simply lead to a spike in violence. Perhaps they don’t care because according to many in the anti-gunner camp us gun owners are lowly knuckle dragging neanderthals best rounded up and executed so we don’t spread our backward ways of thinking.

The Truth Behind Firearm Regulations

Via gunnit I came across a picture that basically sums up every major firearm regulation in existence:

Most states won’t let you carry gun… unless you pay the state money. You can’t ship gun powder and primers… unless you pay the shipping companies more money. You can’t own a supressor, machine gun, short barreled rifle, or various other cool guns… unless you pay the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) money. Firearm regulations aren’t about keep guns from criminals, by definition that’s impossible, they’re about making money off of gun owners.

When you think about it every regulations is simply about money. Do you want to drive a car? That fine, you can so long as you periodically pay the state a fee to hold a driver’s license and pay another annual fee to have a license plate sticker that may protect you from being pulled over. Do you want to build a house on the land you purchased? That’s fine, they’ll let you so long as you purchase a building permit. Do you want to dump toxic waste into a water supply? That’s fine, just pay us money for an exemption and you’re good to go.

Situations in Shades of Gray

I talk about a lot of bad police decisions but most of those situations are black and white. That is to say a police officer obviously abused his or her power or otherwise initiated violence. Sadly not every situation is black and white, many shades of gray exist. Take for instance the story about a police officer who show a 15 year-old kid brandishing a realistic pellet gun:

The parents of an eighth grader who was fatally shot by police inside his South Texas school are demanding to know why officers took lethal action, but police said the boy was brandishing — and refused to drop — what appeared to be a handgun and that the officers acted correctly.

The weapon turned out to be a pellet gun that closely resembled the real thing, police said late Wednesday, several hours after 15-year-old Jaime Gonzalez was repeatedly shot in a hallway at Cummings Middle School in Brownsville. No one else was injured.

A picture of the gun can be found at the link and from a distance I can see how an officer would mistake it for a real handgun. Some may say this is a valid case of using violence while others will claim it wasn’t. Others have also questioned the amount of force used by the officer, which I will address in a bit.

So far the story is mostly he-said-she-said. The officer is claiming the kid was pointing the gun at him. Without any way of knowing the weapon was fake that certainly qualifies as immediate threat to life. When I read about these kinds of situations I try to put myself in the shoes of the shooter. What did the cop see? Did the kid point the pellet gun at the officer? Was anything said during the altercation? In this case I have no answers and desire more data. Unfortunately more data isn’t always available and we may find ourselves in these kinds of situations. This reality must be acknowledge by anybody who carries a gun and should be given, at least, a cursory consideration. Most of self-defense is mental preparation and state of mind.

Now let us return to the amount of force that was used:

“Why was so much excess force used on a minor?” the boy’s father, Jaime Gonzalez Sr., asked The Associated Press outside the family’s home Wednesday night. “Three shots. Why not one that would bring him down?”

Let’s consider the use of a firearm. A firearm is a lethal weapon designed to kill, we shouldn’t kid ourselves otherwise. Employing a firearm should only be done when you have decided the situation requires the use of lethal force. Therefore it is safe to say when a firearm is drawn the amount of force necessary to end the situation becomes whatever is necessary.

Any self-defense class and, I’m assuming, police training class will teach you to shoot until the threat has stopped. If the threat stops at the presentation of the firearm you shouldn’t shoot, if it stops after a non-lethal wound you stop, if it stops only after the assailant is dead then that is what you must do. We must also realize that handgun cartridges are anemic and overall poor man stoppers. To overcome this limitation standard procedure is to fire two shots immediately at center mass. If the threat has not ceased after two shots you must take more, possibly even attempting to shoot the attacker in the head. Needless to say the round count is likely to start at two and escalate from there so three shots in this situation shouldn’t be surprising.

In the end the kid may have simply committed suicide by cop. While I’m not willing to pass final judgement in this case I am leaning towards this conclusion unless further data becomes available. Beyond the situation there is something else to take into consideration:

About 20 minutes elapsed between police receiving a call about an armed student and shots being fired, according to police and student accounts. Authorities declined to share what the boy said before he was shot.

Had the kid been in possession of a real weapon and malicious intent he would have had 20 minutes to do whatever he please. Schools, being gun-free zones, don’t allow for lawful self-defense. Teachers and faculty with valid carry permits are not allowed to carry in a elementary or high school so the only solution that really exists for stopping a violence individual is to wait for the police. A lot can happen in 20 minutes and the state prohibits use mere serfs from defending ourselves inside of these gun-free zones. This situation could have been far worse because of government decree.