Anti-firearms nuts dead wrong -- Sheeplike behaviour won't make us any safer when gunman arrives

Calgary Sun ^ | 2007-04-22 | Ian Robinson

[Clive]

The geek with the gun is back, this time at Virginia Tech, and the death toll of 32 innocents brings the anti-firearms nuts out of the woodwork, elbowing one another out of the way in their haste to be first to climb to the top of the pile of corpses to trumpet their message.

Even in Canada, where restrictions on owning long guns are beyond reasonable and getting a handgun ridiculously so -- unless you're a gangbanger who refuses to obey the law -- there are people who believe if they can limit certain freedoms just a little bit more, we'll all be safe within the comforting embrace of the Mommy State.

Jack Layton and Stephane Dion and Sheila Copps all dusted off their tired, old morally and intellectually bankrupt acts and took them on the road again.

They are the Neville Chamberlains of the modern age.

If only we're made more defenceless, more sheeplike, somehow only then will we be safe.

The U.S. Department of Justice found the risk of serious injury for unarmed women who were victims of crime was 250% higher than those who -- Eek! Eek! -- had a gun.

In a study of all public, mass-murder incidents in the U.S. between 1977 and 1999, economists John Lott Jr. of Yale's law school and William M. Landes of the University of Chicago's law school (not exactly wild-eyed radicals on this issue like ... well ... me) wrote:

"The most comprehensive empirical study of concealed handgun laws finds that they reduce murder rates by about 1.5% for each additional year a law has been in effect, with similar declines in other violent crimes. And contrary to a popular misconception, permit holders are virtually never involved in the commission of crime, let alone murder."

These fellows found states in which law-abiding citizens can get a concealed weapons permit, the incidence of mass-murder shootings like the one at Virginia Tech were reduced 60%, and when they did occur, the deaths and injuries from such attacks were reduced nearly 80%.

In other words, self-defence works.

It's annoying to live in a culture in which we have to hire smart people to point out what ought to be self-evident.

Lott and Landes also wrote: "One puzzle is why the media rarely reports the role of guns in ending attacks."

A shooting spree at a Mississippi high school in 1997 left two students dead. An assistant principal got his handgun from his car and stopped the attack by immobilizing the shooter until police arrived.

Of 687 news articles about the attack, only 10 mentioned the vice-principal's gun. That's like reporting on the Second World War and forgetting to mention the A-bomb.

A CBS News story noted the educator "eventually subdued the young gunman." No mention of how he did it.

Lott and Landes cite other examples. (The paper is available on the web, just Google the authors' names. For a sane Canadian perspective on gun control, and the number of times Canadians use firearms to save their own lives, Google Gary Mauser, a prof at Simon Fraser University.)

But merely putting forth the notion of resistance to killers is now politically incorrect. A Fort Worth school district recently hired a security outfit called Response Options.

It was founded by retired SWAT cops appalled by the Columbine massacre. They decided to do something about it and came up with a program that taught teachers and children, if someone with a gun came into their classroom, to throw everything at him that came to hand, and swarm him to bring him down.

The rationale is the school shooter is beyond reason.

He is there simply to kill.

There is no reasoning with such animals. And by attacking, there is a better chance of survival for the largest number of potential victims.

As trainer Robert Browne of Response Options told the press at the time: "Getting under the desk and doing what the gunman tells you ... that's not a recipe for success."

But when news got out, the school district backed off from the program.

One wonders what might have been for the victims at Virginia Tech had anyone in the building been armed or if, at least been trained in defence against such monsters the way they were trained in fire drills as children.

There are now 40 U.S. states with "right-to-carry" laws. Not a single one has rescinded the law once it passed.

[Clive]

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[Stayfree]

bumparoony

[RichInOC]

Anti-firearms nuts dead wrong -- Sheeplike behaviour won't make us any safer when gunman arrives

Well, I don't know. I'm guessing that backing up on him, grinding your butt into his crotch and going "baa, baa" would disconcert the heck out of him. Now, whether it'd be enough to get him to drop the weapon...

[Eye of Unk]

http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h90/csite/218.jpg

[goldstategop]

Yep. If they attempt to rescind RTC laws we will withdraw our consent from the authorities to govern on our behalf. Our rights are not open for bargaining, negotiation or discussion.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[bicyclerepair]

baybalicious

[VRWCer]

Well spoken, and absolutely correct.

[Copernicus]

The valor of a nine year old child:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K73pWPAYg0g

http://www.grnc.org/mary_carpenter_letter.htm

Mary Carpenter's letter to the North Carolina General Assembly:

All the gun laws you can imagine cannot change the heart of a killer and you know it.

Until man's heart is changed, we will be like sheep led to the slaughter without our weapons of defense.

May you stand before God and man as my two precious grandchildren's killer if you pass any more gun legislation that will make me a felon should I own a handgun or any other gun for that matter.

Best regards,

[M1thumb]

Have you seen this?

http://www.isp.state.il.us/crime/saconfronted.cfm

This is what I have to put up with behind the kingdom of Daley.

[The Duke]

Let's see, I have two choices.

A. I can attempt to defend myself with my own firearm.

B. I can rely on a police force that's been trained to let me bleed to death until the perp decides to take his own life.

Talk about your "no-brainers"!

[MtnClimber]

Well said and I agree completely. I drove off a home invader with a handgun. He broke in my front door. I had seen him outside my apartment door after thinking I heard the door knob jiggle. I went to my bed room and got a .44 SPL revolver out of my nightstand. I really thought the weird person was there to visit neighbors. As I was coming back into the living room he broke in the front door and charged toward me. When he saw me raising the gun he turned and ran faster than you could believe. The police informed me that my gun would be confiscated, never to be returned, if I filed a report. The reason was “gun at a crime scene”. I know from personal experience that gun-related self defense goes under reported because most people don’t report if a shot is not fired. I didn't, the crook could have come back and I would have been disarmed.

[RobbyS]

In effect, each person who is authorized to carry is like another deputy sheriff. The key is simply making sure that the person is properly vetted and properly trained. They want registered gunowners? There is no one MORE registered than a person able to carry. The police literally know where he/she lives.

[M1thumb]

Or you could vomit. But don't fight. That would be futile. Here is what the Illinois state police has to say.

Fighting for your safety may be necessary. However, if you start out fighting you cancel any other options that might be open to you. Since many attacks on women are not sexually motivated, and are designed to degrade and humiliate, talking your way out of it may be easier.

* There is documentation of assailants that left a would-be-victim alone after she told him that she was pregnant and it would kill her baby. (Some case were women that were too old to even have a baby.)

* Telling an attacker that you have VD or AIDS can discourage him.

* It may sound disgusting, but putting your fingers into you throat and making yourself vomit usually gets results. (This method is not often used except as a last resort.)

* Use your imagination and you can think of others.

The above methods are particularly important if your assailant has a gun or knife, or there is more than one attacker. (Fighting would probably be futile.)

[George W. Bush]

Lott and Landes also wrote: "One puzzle is why the media rarely reports the role of guns in ending attacks."

It's no great mystery.

A few really passionate anti-gun pols have been big on this from the early days, much like the Left was so big on nuclear disarmament against the Soviets in the Eighties. It's the same people, the same libmedia folk.

Libmedia is the handmaiden to this relative handful of enemies of the Second and has carried water for them and used their media outlets to promote anti-gun policy and encourage other Dims to jump on the bandwagon. The main leaders of the libmedia's campaign against personal guns are a few politicians from New York and a handful of other Stalinist types from the Northeast.


Guiliani, Schumer, Brady, other Lefties,
all notorious enemies of the Second.

The problem for Giuliani and Schumer and the other merrymakers at Xlinton's Rose Garden celebration of the old AWB is that the Dims have wised up. It's not generally in their interest to talk about gun control. You can see how they almost wince when the eager libmedia eagerly brings up the topic. Dims like Dodd and Reid are really dreading that Schmucky is almost going to be forced to bring up some anti-gun bill. They don't like having to vote on it.

[Lurker]

Aint IL grand?

They actually encourage people to vomit here. Not that it's all that difficult to do so. After all Mayor Daley, Gov Blago, Durbin and Obama make that pretty damned easy.

L

[BikerTrash]

The only response to attack is instantaneous, vicious counter attack. Armed if possible, bare handed if necessary.

Col. Jeff Cooper

[fanfan]

Canada ping.

Please send me a FReepmail to get on or off this Canada ping list.

[LTCJ]

The police informed me that my gun would be confiscated, never to be returned, if I filed a report.

Good Lord, where do you live? If that had happened to me the sheriff's department probably would have given me a coupon for an ammo discount.

[Jim Verdolini]

I read somewhere that Chuckie Schumer has a CC permit, something he keeps very quiet about.

The beautiful people are different...in their own eyes.