Tag: Self Defense

When Seconds Count the Police Aren’t Showing Up

With the amount of time police have to dedicate to expropriating wealth from the general populace in the form of traffic citations, civil forfeiture laws, and rounding up slave labor for Federal Prison Industries and Corrections Corporation of America it’s not surprising that the time they have set aside for helping people has dwindled to almost nothing. In fact the police have become so inept at protecting the people of Oakland, California that the people have finally decided to help one another directly:

OAKLAND (KPIX 5) – Oakland’s crime problems have gotten so bad that some people aren’t even bothering to call the cops anymore; instead, they’re trying to solve and prevent crimes themselves.

KPIX 5 cameras caught up with a half dozen neighbors in East Oakland’s Arcadia Park neighborhood Monday as they walked the streets on the lookout for crime. The vigilance has never seemed more necessary than now; 25 homes in the neighborhood have been burglarized over the last two months alone.

In a neighborhood that has started to feel like the wild west, people have even started posting “wanted” signs.

People often get suckered into believing that the state provides protection for those living within its borders. The police aren’t required to provide protection and, in many parts of the world, people have learned that the police are almost useless when it comes to providing protection. In such cases the people end up having to find alternative methods to ensure the safety of their community. I believe we’ll see communities creating their own methods of providing protection as more police departments demonstrate their ineffectiveness.

Student Suspended After Disarming Gunman

I’m not sure what to make of this story but a Florida high school student was suspended after disarming a gunman:

FORT MYERS, Fla. – A 16-year-old Cypress Lake High School student, who wrestled a loaded revolver away from a teen threatening to shoot, is being punished.

The student grappled the gun away from the 15-year-old suspect on the bus ride home Tuesday after witnesses say he aimed the weapon point blank at another student and threatened to shoot him.

[…]

The teen we spoke to and authorities both confirm the Revolver was loaded. According to the arrest report the suspect, who Fox 4 is not naming because he is a minor, was “pointing the gun directly” at another student and “threatening to shoot him.”

That’s when the student we spoke with says he and others tackled the teen and wrestled away the gun. The next day the school slapped him with a three day suspension.

“It’s dumb,” he said. “How they going to suspend me for doing the right thing?”

According to the referral, he was suspended for being part of an “incident” where a weapon was present and given an “emergency suspension.”

I’m not sure if this is the result of another idiotic zero tolerance policy or if the school faculty are trying to discourage students from coming to the aid of their fellow students. Either way this reaction on behalf of the school seems incredibly idiotic unless there is a great deal more to the story than is being reported.

The Root of Gun Control

Something many gun control advocates are ignorant of is the root of gun control, which is racist in nature. Early gun control laws were enacted to prevent newly freed slaves from acquiring arms and fighting against aggression from organizations like the Ku Klux Klan. These laws persisted into the mid 20th century and prevented Martin Luther Kind Jr. from acquiring a carry permit:

A recipient of constant death threats, King had armed supporters take turns guarding his home and family. He had good reason to fear that the Klan in Alabama was targeting him for assassination.

William Worthy, a journalist who covered the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, reported that once, during a visit to King’s parsonage, he went to sit down on an armchair in the living room and, to his surprise, almost sat on a loaded gun. Glenn Smiley, an adviser to King, described King’s home as “an arsenal.”

As I found researching my new book, Gunfight, in 1956, after King’s house was bombed, King applied for a concealed carry permit in Alabama. The local police had discretion to determine who was a suitable person to carry firearms. King, a clergyman whose life was threatened daily, surely met the requirements of the law, but he was rejected nevertheless. At the time, the police used any wiggle room in the law to discriminate against African Americans.

At least we can give gun control advocates some credit for overcoming their racist history and finally advocating equal punishment for all individuals. Sadly what they advocate, disarming non-state entities, prevented and, if they have their way, will continue to prevent people such as Martin Luther King Jr. from obtaining the proper means to defend themselves.

Not Fitting the Narrative

Why would anybody need to carry a gun? Because there are demons in this world and they don’t play nice:

A Detroit woman targeted by would-be carjackers surprised them by shooting back at them.

Alaina, who asked only to be identified by her first name, said she walked out of a store at Plymouth Road and Myers Road earlier this month and was confronted by two men. One of them started shooting in an attempt to rob Alaina and steal her sport utility vehicle.

Alaina was shot and wounded. Her vehicle was hit several times, but she has a concealed pistol permit and she returned fire.

It’s amazing what raising the cost of initiating violence can do. I’m guessing those carjackers will be thinking twice before continuing their career in automotive theft.

The Need for Standard Capacity Magazines

Gun control advocates often ask why anybody needs a magazine that holds more than 10 rounds. Deciding legality based on need is a common trap authoritarians fall into. Due to the lack of specialized knowledge one cannot know what another person needs. For example, as Uncle pointed out people being attacked by multiple assailants would benefit from having standard capacity magazines:

Bullets flew during a deadly home invasion robbery as a homeowner traded shots with several suspects.

A suspect was caught and cuffed in connection with the deadly home invasion robbery. Police say the homeowner was rushed to the hospital after trading shots with several suspects and killing one of them.

Advocates of gun control claim that forcing a shooter to reload more often gives somebody else more windows to stop him. That logic works both ways. If a homeowner is being attacked by multiple assailants they leave themselves vulnerable more often if they have 10 round magazines. Once again we see something advocated by gun control supporters working against the lawful.

Zimmerman Sues NBC Over Edited 911 Call

When the Zimmerman case first hit the public spotlight NBC released an edited 911 tape to make it appear as though Zimmerman’s actions were race related. NBC’s actions may make Zimmerman a very wealthy man:

Lawyers for George Zimmerman are seeking punitive damages from NBC over edits of a police call he made on the night Trayvon Martin was killed.

They allege heavily edited extracts of the call made Mr Zimmerman appear racist in the eyes of the public.

NBC issued over the incident but by then the damage had been done. In the eye’s of the public Zimmerman was viewed as a racist who gunned down Trayvon Martin not because he was pounding Zimmerman’s head into the pavement but because he was black. To this day people are still stating that Zimmerman’s actions were race related even though evidence strongly supports Zimmerman’s claim that he was being attacked by Trayvon and fired in self-defense.

Man Facing the Death Penalty for Defending Himself from State Agents

If you were woken from your sleep early in the morning by the sound of people breaking into your home what would you do? I’m guessing that most readers of this site would arm themselves and prepare to defend their lives. It’s a logical response as home invaders are rarely interested in helping you. Unfortunately the police have resorted to the criminal activity of breaking and entering to enforce their employer’s erroneous drug prohibition, and this has put both officers and homeowners in danger. What makes this worse is that defending yourself from possible burglars is illegal if those burglars are police officers:

Four officers wounded in a Utah drug raid described a chaotic scene of gunfire, bodies and blood Thursday as they presented testimony against the Ogden man accused in the shootings.

Matthew David Stewart, 38, could face the death penalty if convicted of aggravated murder in the January shootout that killed one officer and wounded five others at his Ogden home.

[…]

Stewart insisted a day after the raid that he didn’t hear agents identify themselves and that he believed he was going to be robbed and killed when “a bunch of guys” broke his door open, an investigator for the prosecutor’s office testified Thursday. The hearings have focused heavily on how agents say they shouted out police commands.

Stewart was just waking up for a nightshift at Walmart and “felt like he was being invaded,” said Robert Carpenter, the investigator for the Weber County attorney’s office who recorded the interview at Stewart’s hospital bed.

Stewart said he pointed a 9 mm Beretta from his bedroom into a hallway but maintains police fired first.

Stewart’s testimony sounds all too familiar. No-knock raids, raids where police officers don’t identify themselves before storming in, have become more popular for drug enforcement operations. The police claim that no-knock raids are needed for officer safety as they don’t give potential drug deals time to dig in and defend themselves. What the police fail to acknowledge is the possibility of a homeowner defending themselves against unknown assailants, which puts officers in danger when they are the assailants.

The state protects its own. Even when police officers give homeowners every reason to believe they are being attacked by non-state thugs, and thus have grounds of legal self-defense, the state prosecutes the homeowners. Apparently homeowners are supposed to be telepathic and know that the people kicking down their doors in the middle of the night are police officers and not non-state thugs.

The Power of a Restraining Order

Advocates of gun control are very adamant about disarming everybody but the state. When self-defense advocates ask what a woman being targeted by an abusive husband is supposed to do to protect herself gun control advocates usually say she should get a restraining order. While the concept of a restraining order may sound nice on the surface it’s quite literally a piece of paper that holds no actual power over human beings as the recent shooting in Wisconsin demonstrated:

At a restraining order hearing Thursday, the wife, Zina, begged the court for protection, saying her husband would surely kill her.

With her voice shaking, she outlined how he’d threatened to throw acid in her face. How he accused her of cheating on him. How his red hot jealousy terrorized her “every waking moment.”

“Things have gotten so bad. We need to separate,” she said at the hearing, according to a recording obtained by CNN affiliate WISN. “We need a divorce before you hurt me. I don’t want to die.”

The judge sided with her. Haughton was ordered to stay away from his wife for the next four years. He was forbidden from possessing a gun.

She was issued a restraining order yet it proved ineffective:

But on Saturday, he bought a .40-caliber handgun from a private seller. Wisconsin law only requires background checks for purchases from a dealer.

And he waited.

The next day he took her life.

Of course the gun control advocates are pointing out that the shooter was able to avoid a background check because he purchased his firearm from a private seller. What they don’t stop to consider is that it’s unlikely the issued restraining order would have appear on a background check as it was issued Thursday and the gun was purchased Saturday. Things move slowly in the state’s bureaucracy and something issued by a judge rarely shows up in a federal system two days later. More importantly it wouldn’t matter if Wisconsin prohibited private sales since the shooter was planning to commit murder and there is no evidence showing he was unwilling to commit the additional crime of buying a firearm illegally or stealing one.

Laws are not a method of protecting individuals. Like the restraining order a law against private sales only stops those who are concerned about remaining lawful and somebody planning to commit murder is not concerned about remaining lawful.

Violent Gun Control Advocates

If there is one thing I hate it’s hypocrisy. Needless to say advocates of gun control often prove themselves to be hypocrites. They preach peace and claim their mission is to remove violence from our society. What they never stop to consider is the fact that their mission requires the threat and use of state violence to ban gun ownership. Desiring to use state violence to end violence isn’t the only example of anti-gunner hypocrisy, they also have a proud tradition of issuing threats against advocates of gun rights:

After I went through 16 of the steps to register a gun earlier this year, I had to endure the 10-day waiting period to “cool off.” During that time, I received a terrifying call one evening. The stranger, whose number was blocked, left a minute-long voicemail.

“I know everything about you,” said the caller in a high-pitched voice. “I’ve been watching you. Your every step. I’m coming for you Emily.” Also, “I’m a crazy mother f–er. This is not a game. This is not for some f–ing scary f–ing movie. This is real business.” Finally the caller ended with, “Don’t you think of going to the police.”

What’s more interesting is the reaction from police officers in Washington DC:

“You should know that this might be a threat of violence,” I said pointedly. “I’ve been writing a series of articles in the newspaper about getting a gun in D.C., and some people aren’t happy about it.” That was enough to get her to call a detective to the front desk to take me seriously.

“Detective Kim” (she said her last name was hard to remember) was very thorough and helped calm me down. She told me to call Verizon and ask for them to look up the blocked number. Then Detective Kim gave me a helpful lecture on keeping safe.

She recommended only going to public places, and if I think I’m being followed, go into a store with a video camera to get the person on tape. photo. She suggested notifying neighbors to keep an eye out for anyone suspicious. She repeated several times that if I see or sense anything even slightly concerning, call 911.

Washington DC is a gun control advocate’s paradise. There is no method for denizen of that city to legally carry a firearm and simply owning a firearm is an extremely difficult proposition as Emily pointed out in her series of articles. When somebody does make a threat of violence the police can only offer false promises of protection and tell you to stay in public areas that are under surveillance (at least the police will have some evidence in your murder).

Gun control advocates claim they want less violence but offer no solution to people under the threat of violence. Their entire movement is based on the false premise that gun cause violence and that violence will disappear completely once guns have been removed from our society (apparently no violence occurred before the invention of firearms). In order to achieve their desired goals they’re willing to threaten violence against their opponents, apparently unaware of the irony of such statements.

The Risk of Being a Burglar

The United Kingdom (UK) is usually a safe haven for criminals. Armed self-defense is generally looked down upon even in instances where criminals have broken into a person’s home. Thankfully pockets of common sense still exist there:

A judge has told two burglars that if they choose to raid a home where the householders legally own a gun they should accept the risk of being shot.

Judge Michael Pert QC made his remarks as he jailed Joshua O’Gorman and Daniel Mansell for four years at Leicester crown court after they were blasted by Andy Ferrie’s shotgun while attempting to burgle his farm cottage in Welby, near Melton Mowbray, in the early hours of 2 September.

Rejecting a plea that he take into account the shooting, which injured and allegedly “traumatised” the defendants, the judge said: “That is the chance you take.”

I like Judge Pert. He properly took the shooting into consideration when making his verdict and that consideration is that getting shot is a risk you take when you break into a person’s home.

If you’re sitting at home and some goon breaks in you can safely assume he doesn’t mean you well. Is he there to rob the place or murder you? You can’t be sure until the crime is done so you must assume the worst and take appropriate action. Often taking appropriate action can land you in legal trouble because the status of armed self-defense is dicey in many places. Usually the UK is one of these places but it’s nice to see at least one judge acknowledging the right to self-preservation. Hopefully this sets a precedence for future self-defense cases in the UK.