Posted on 08/18/2006 12:24:13 PM PDT by neverdem
Ngoc Le heard his wife’s screams and ran from the back of the wireless store he owns in Camden, New Jersey. His wife was behind the counter, as was a masked man wielding a knife. The man brandished the blade, herding the couple into a back room. Once there, he tied the 28-year old businessman to a chair, then proceeded to rape 22-year old Kelly Le. Once the brutal rape had finished, he slit the couple’s throats, then ran away. There was no 2nd Amendment, no right to own a gun, and Antonio Diaz Reyes got away with murder.
That isn’t actually how the events of December 31st, 2004 played out. We do have a 2nd Amendment in this country, after all. So when Antonio Reyes held Kelly Le at knifepoint, Ngoc Le was able to shoot and kill the attacker with his legally owned firearm. DNA tests later determined that Reyes was responsible for a string of rapes in downtown Camden that had terrorized the city for months. The Le’s were shaken by what happened, but there were no regrets.
I was reminded of this armed citizen story when I read Tom Derby’s recent piece in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Derby, an English and reading teacher in Camden, New Jersey, says it’s time for the 2nd Amendment to go away. In fact, he says, “The premise of the Second Amendment, the need for minutemen, no longer exists. In a free society we must rely on the police. We have more important rights to fight for than the right to bear arms.”
Mr. Derby is an English teacher, so perhaps he can be forgiven for not knowing that the U.S. government has said our individual security and safety is not guaranteed by the law enforcement in this country. There are several Supreme Court decisions that hold citizens have no constitutional guarantee of protection by police (South v. Maryland and Castle Rock v. Gonzalez come immediately to mind), and many more decisions have been made at lower levels (in the case of Warren v. District of Columbia, for example, the D.C. Court of Appeals ruled that “a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any individual citizen.”). Despite what Mr. Derby says, we are responsible for our individual safety. The law enforcement community performs a valuable service each and every day, but any cop will tell you that they can’t be your personal bodyguard.
Tom Derby also says, “When wolves and human predators roamed freely Northeast, one was entitled to defend one’s family and property with firearms. Circumstances have changed; we need to reconsider that entitlement.” How have circumstances changed? Derby has taught in Camden, New Jersey for 18 years. He should be all too familiar with the human predators that still roam the streets. Camden, after all, was named the most dangerous city in America for the second year in a row last year, and has been in the top ten each of the past eight years, according to Morgan Quinto, the company that ranks cities on their crime rates. In 2004 the city’s murder rate was 60.8 per 100,000 residents, more than 11 times the national average. Its robbery rate was almost 8 times the national average, and its rate of aggravated assaults were more than 4 times the national average. Yet Derby says we should no longer be entitled to defend ourselves?
Derby seems to think that if we scrapped the 2nd Amendment, all the criminals in this country would lay down their weapons. Yet the criminal element doesn’t rely on the 2nd Amendment any more than child pornographers rely on the 1st Amendment. Get rid of the right to legally own firearms, and the gang members and street thugs plaguing Camden won’t even blink. But the legal gun owners, like Ngoc Le, will pay the price.
Tom Derby appears to be a teacher who cares a great deal about his students, and he should be commended for that. In his piece, he writes about several who have fallen victim to violence. One of the students he mentions, a boy named Len, was an “A” student who eventually joined a gang. Derby writes, “I lost track of Len, and a colleague brought me the bad news before the papers got it: He had become a professional assassin, and his own gang killed him and set his body on fire in a football field in North Camden.”
But Derby seems to be blaming Len’s death on an inanimate object, rather than the human beings who took Len’s life. Nothing is said about Len’s choices in life that placed him directly in the path of violence. In the end, Derby says it’s not a person responsible for Len’s death, but a thing.
It’s easy to take this approach. We don’t have to think ill of the dead, wondering why they chose a life of crime instead of a life inside the boundaries of the law. We don’t have to be angry with them for inflicting violence on others, because it’s not their fault. The devil didn’t make them do it, the gun did. But if we’re going to make excuses for the criminal behavior of those we love, we can’t expect them to change their ways.
My wife lived in Camden for nine years, and if she and I had never met, there’s a good chance that my 15-year old stepson would have been in Mr. Derby’s class. I know my wife would be glad that he had a teacher who cared about him, but she’d be livid knowing that his teacher thought she should be disarmed so she couldn’t protect her family from the wolves roaming the streets. I don’t think Mr. Derby is a bad man, just horribly misguided.
Immigration, terrorism, reverse discrimination, stopping gay marriage, preserving the death penalty (which is in much more danger at this time than gun rights), education, out-of-control government spending, biotechnology (the prospect of human cloning, especially). Just off the bat.
Look, I'm with you folks. I just don't see the need for crying wolf. If just makes the author of this piece look like a wing nut.
All we have been able to do is hold them off for now. We haven't won until all barriers to personal firearms ownership in this country have been removed (even in California).
Precisely. Last time I checked, I can't legally carry in New York City or Washington D.C., so my 2A rights are still being infringed. The states and cities infringing 2A rights need to be dealt with; the question is how?
"We have won nothing."
BS. State after state has passed concealed-carry laws in just the last few years. Will it happen in California? No, obviously not, because our legislature is owned lock, stock and barrel (so to speak) by the hard left. But the problem with concealed weapons permits has existed in California for a long time. It's not exactly new.
Tom Derby, if you don't like firearms, simply don't own one or even handle one if offered to you. Several of the Camden police stations themselves are surrounded by sharp concertina wire and are extensively fortified. It is not a safe place for tourists who might get lost going to or from Philadelphia just across the river.
~ Blue Jays ~
Thanks. A little sanity on this issue goes a long way. Both the Second Amendment and common sense are on our side. But making it out that the sky is falling just makes the gun people look like fools with the non-gun people, like myself, whose support they need.
What defines a conservative, non-gun individual? Not a flame, just curious.
~ Blue Jays ~
"just slowed the rate of defeat."
What about all the concealed-carry laws that have been passed lately?
I agree that gun laws in some states should be a bit looser in terms of what can be owned. But that's hardly the disappearance or imminent disappearance of the Second Amendment. And the fact that a few anti-gun nuts are still pushing legislation is not particularly meaningful. All kinds of people push proposed laws that go nowhere.
I've already said we need to remain vigilant. But we have limited time, money, and energy. There are battles we are clearly losing, and that urgently need to be fought.
I don't own a gun, and haven't since I was 16 or so and last played around with a pellet gun. At this time, there is no need for me to own a gun. If I have to live in a scum neighborhood, or if I have a family, I'll consider whether I should buy a gun and take lessons. In any case, I'm not interested in guns.
Does any of this make me a non-conservative? No, it doesn't. If you can convince me otherwise, I'll buy you a frigging arsenal of your choice.
Didn't mean to be snippy there. I imagine all these other FReepers out there thinking I'm some doubletalking hypocrite for not being into guns, yet calling myself a conservative. I know that isn't necessarily you.
I am a firm believer in concealed firearms, available but almost never used. I call it the "black belt paradox".
Expert martial artists rarely get involved in "real" fights, that *they* don't start, because they have an air of confidence and security about them that is subtly recognized by others. People are far less inclined to "start trouble" with someone they have a feeling could whup them.
The same applies to concealed firearms. They change a person's character by giving them a confidence that is seen by others. This translates into the situation of "having a concealed gun means not having to draw it."
But the entire dynamic changes when the gun is exposed, and brandished. The keeper of the concealed gun *loses* their emotional confidence when their gun is exposed, because of the assumption, often correct, of a "flight or fight" response in whoever sees their gun.
Every person with common sense should have at least a small sense of fear and attention when a gun is brandished and they are not in control of it. Unless, of course, you have great confidence in whoever does have it, that they are sober, sensible, careful, attentive, and safety-minded.
Hardly what I would call a common assumption.
That being said, the confidence of having a concealed weapon is usually replaced with often false assumptions about what having a gun can do for you. It does not make you godlike, or impervious to harm, nor does it necessarily give you dominance in a situation, or make you a person who must be respected and obeyed. But it is in your hand, and you are focused on it. In a manner of speaking, it can become an emotional crutch.
Brandishing a gun may make you a target, and cause those about you to immediately search for whatever is available for their use as a weapon, and to calculate how to close the distance to you and violently attack before you can use your gun.
It can also be a deadly error if you brandish yet do not know that the person you are menacing *also* has a concealed weapon.
For these reasons, the "Old West Rules" of handling a gun were good ones. Those being that the gun remains holstered until absolutely needed, and is drawn only on the assumption of being fired. And every shot fired is also assumed could be a lethal shot.
For the vast majority of people then, the comfort and security of having a concealed gun will be enough--they will never, ever have to draw it. And this is the attitude they should keep.
The few who live in a bad neighborhood should ignore the confidence they feel in having a concealed weapon, and focus instead on their feelings when they brandish with intent to fire and possibly to kill. When they unholster, they need to instantly have a feeling of cold calculation without hesitation. Their gun is not a security blanket, but a lifesaving tool.
Wow! How did you ever get through the liberal mafia screeners to get hired in the first place?
NO WAY !
With the Lefties (aka Democrats, Socialists, Liberals) gun control is about control.
Not only gun control but controlling the lives of The Village Serfs from birth to death.
Never, Never forget that politicians prefer unarmed peasants
Why not spend your money on a sign for your front yard that says:
No Guns on this property.
?
Some of the largest asses I have run into in my long career as a student, college student and graduate student were "English" teachers.
Most of them were left-wing propagandists masquerading as grammarians and literature professors.
Unfortunately for the real victims here they live in the People's Republic of New Jersey which frowns on citizens protecting themselves.
They would prefer people submit patiently to criminals, later call the over-paid constabulary to pick up the pieces, and allow the courts, attorneys and psychologists to make a fortune trying and rehabilitating these monsters.
Philadelphia and its environs are a big piece of New York dropped into an otherwise benign state.
That is EXACTLY correct
I won't tell you what that makes you in my eyes as I would get banned BUT also IMO you sir are NO conservative
Are you uninterested in being able to defend your family, friends and neighbors from the brutality of criminals? Uninterested in being able to defend your property from a brazen thief? Uninterested in having the power to stop a rapist with your daughter on his mind? Uninterested in the power to stop a crazed madman on a shooting spree gunning down innocents? Uninterested in stopping a terrorist from executing a mass murder, should chance find you in a position where you could do so?
If none of these interest you, then no, you are not a conservative, and out of politeness I will refrain from characterizing that attitude.
This just proves that being an educated egghead doesnt equate to having common sense
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