Logic an Anti-Gunner’s Worst Nightmare – Page 11

Gun Control Is Still Synonymous With Establishing A Surveillance State

Anti-gunners claim gun control is about reducing gun violence (but only non-state gun violence since they still need armed state goons to enforce gun control). To the state it’s really about, and I honestly think anti-gunners are completely ignorant of this, having another excuse to establish a surveillance state. Background checks, for example, are the currently darling child of the gun control movement but implementing them requires allowing the state to collected and store a ton of personal information on every American. Sometimes the surveillance aspect of gun control isn’t so abstract. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) has taken surveillance to a new level by placing cameras around Seattle under the guise of finding violators of gun control laws:

The Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) confirmed Thursday that they have placed video cameras throughout Seattle to, according to Special Agent Brian Bennett, “support an ongoing federal criminal investigation.” This comes in response to questions regarding a camera installed on 23rd Avenue and S. Jackson St. The location of other cameras is unclear.

ATF is the lead agency of the Puget Sound Regional Crime Gun Task Force – a partnership to reduce gun violence that includes the Seattle Police Department, Washington State Patrol and the Washington State Department of Corrections.

Gun control isn’t unique in this manner. The state preys on the public’s fear of all crimes and uses that fear to justify surveillance. Whether it’s muggers, rapists, gun runners, murders, or terrorists the solution is always the same: more spying on the people.

Another thing worth noting about this story is that the goal of reducing gun violence has no set goal, which means it can be used to justify leaving these cameras in place forever. When it talks of reducing crime the state never gives concrete cutoffs. It’s a nice way to continue justifying surveillance even when crime has dropped in an area. Any time the state expresses a non-specific goal the people should be concerned because that means it’s justifying a permanent power for itself.

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.

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.

Still 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.

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?

Open Carry is Different than Threatening People With a Gun

It’s time once again for some open carry drama. This time it’s being brought to use by the police of Gulfport, Mississippi. An individual of that town went into the local Wal-Mart with a shotgun and was racking shells into the chamber to intimidate shoppers. The local Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team arrived on the scene but opted not to arrest the individual. Their reason? Open carry laws:

The police chief of Gulfport, Mississippi, expressed his frustration with his state’s open carry laws after a man strolling through a Walmart Sunday night menaced shoppers by loading and racking shells into his shotgun, causing police to dispatch a SWAT team and evacuate the store.

According to Police Chief Leonard Papania, he would have arrested the unidentified man and his companion if he could for stretching the city’s police forces thin while panicked Walmart employees huddled in a safe room, WMC reported.

[…]

Using surveillance video police were able to track the men down and speak with them, but due to Mississippi’s open carry laws, the chief said his hands were tied after conferring with city attorneys.

“In our nation there continues to be violent events. Many of these tragic events start to unfold with very similar circumstances where individuals exhibit peculiar actions with firearms around large crowds,” he explained. “The actions of these two men could have inadvertently led to a very violent misunderstanding.”

Bullshit. His hands were not tied. There are numerous laws on the books that would have allowed him to arrest the individual. Terroristic threats and brandishing being two of them that come to mind immediately. Walking around a store racking shells into the chamber of a shotgun qualifies as threatening behavior and threatening behavior is illegal under many statutes.

A very obvious line exists between openly carrying a firearm and threatening people with it. Walking around with a holstered handgun or a slug long arm is nothing more than openly carrying a firearm and isn’t threatening in any way. Unholstering a handgun or unslinging a long arm and manipulating the controls in public without a present threat is an act reasonable people can assume to be threatening. I certainly would. And that’s what brandishing is, waving a weapon around in a threatening manner.

What this looks like to me is the police or city attorneys (or both) purposely making a bad situation because they are unhappy that open carry is legal. It wouldn’t be the first time law enforcement or government attorneys purposely made a bad situation by refusing to do their supposed jobs just to create public support for passing a new restriction.

Uber Wants Defenseless Drivers and Passengers

I’ve watched ride sharing companies Uber and Lyft with a great deal of interest. The idea of having a system where vehicle owners can connect with people wanting ride to the benefit of both appeals to me. But I’ve always been put off by both services’ centralized nature. Centralized systems are too easy for the state to regulate or shutdown and lend themselves too well to the central authority placing every stricter rules on the users. Uber has decided to flex its centralized power by banning both drivers and passengers from carrying firearms while using its service:

Uber Technologies says it is banning firearms of any kind during rides arranged through the Uber platform, and drivers or riders who violate the rule may lose access to the platform. The rules also apply to Uber’s affiliates.

The company said Friday it changed its firearms policy on June 10 to make sure riders and drivers feel comfortable. In a statement, Uber said it made the change after reviewing feedback from both passengers and Uber drivers. Previously it had deferred to local law on the issue.

I could point out concealed means concealed and that Uber doesn’t have an legal authority so carrying while using its service isn’t criminal. But I firmly believe if a company doesn’t want to do business with me then I don’t want to do business with it. I’m also of the opinion that it should be up to the driver, the person who owns the vehicle after all, to decide what they do and do not want to allow in their vehicle. A decentralized ride sharing service would allows drivers to make such decisions.

This announcement is rather ironic though. Whereas most companies that announce gun prohibitions don’t have a history involving firearms Uber does. One of its drivers actually prevented a mass shooting:

A group of people had been walking in front of the driver around 11:50 p.m. Friday in the 2900 block of North Milwaukee Avenue when Everardo Custodio, 22, began firing into the crowd, Quinn said.
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The driver pulled out a handgun and fired six shots at Custodio, hitting him several times, according to court records. Responding officers found Custodio lying on the ground, bleeding, Quinn said. No other injuries were reported.

With this new policy Uber is effectively saying it would have preferred if more people had died in that incident. I don’t want to do business with a company that doesn’t want to do business with me and I certainly don’t want to do business with a company that would rather people die than its drivers and passengers be armed.

A New Low for Gun Control Advocacy

The gun control battle was put to bed some time ago. Time and again the end of the world scenarios gun control advocates predicated failed to come to fruition. In fact violent crime rates have continued to decline even as gun restrictions have been loosened. Even though one could argue that the declining violent crime rate is unrelated to the loosening of gun restrictions the claim that gun restrictions reduce violent crime has been proven false.

Maybe it’s because they never learned critical thinking in school or it may be related to the fact that there’s a lot of money in shilling for gun control thanks to big money tyrants like Michael Bloomberg but gun control advocates can’t admit that their claims are wrong. So what’s a gun control advocate to do? Make shit up, obviously! And not just a handful of minor fabrications. The time has come for some new level bullshit. Now to prove gun control works real states must be compared to entirely fictitious states:

The state in question is Connecticut. In 1995, Connecticut tightened its laws for handgun purchases. It raised the age requirement from 18 to 21, thus cutting off part of an age group that’s statistically prone to violence. It also required purchasers to apply for a permit at their local police station, which would perform a more extensive background check. Finally, the permits would not be approved without proof of attendance of an eight-hour safety course.

So, there was a clear before-and-after the implementation of these laws to track gun-related homicides. The question is how to find an appropriate population to serve as a control for Connecticut.

Quite cleverly, the authors created one. Rather than looking for a single state that matches Connecticut’s demographics, they performed a statistical analysis that created a synthetic state that tracked Connecticut’s pattern of firearm homicides before the law’s passage. This state was composed of a weighted rate from a number of different states. So, for example, neighboring Rhode Island accounts for about 70 percent of the synthetic state’s composition, Maryland another 15 percent. Then the authors created a similar synthetic state that tracked Connecticut’s non-firearm homicides.

(Because the study period overlapped the 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, where a number of Connecticut residents worked, that year was dropped from the non-firearm analysis.)

The synthetic state analysis also took into account a large number of factors that tend to influence rates of homicide, such as the percentage of the population at or below the poverty line, the percent between 15 and 24 years of age, and the number of police per unit of population.

For homicides from all causes other than guns, the synthetic state tracked Connecticut both before and after the passage of the 1995 gun control law. A few years after the implementation of implementation of the law in late 1995, however, firearm homicide rates diverged, with Connecticut’s continuing to drop along a previous trend, while the synthetic states (like the national average) saw this rate stabilize.

This is a level of fail that’s almost impressive. Gun control shills are so desperate that they’re now claiming gun control works because statistical studies of make-believe states say so. I could also prove whatever point I wanted if I based my claims on the results of a statistical study of a state I made up.

Go home gun control shills, you’re drunk.