The NRA would be proud
Bookworm on Jul 21 2006 at 8:59 pm | Filed under: Gun control
A knife-wielding grocery store employee attacked eight co-workers Friday, seriously injuring five before a witness pulled a gun and stopped him, police said.
The 21-year-old suspect, whose name was withheld pending charges, was arrested and then taken to a hospital after complaining of chest pains, Memphis Police Sgt. Vince Higgins said. The attack apparently stemmed from a work dispute, police said.
Five victims, one in critical condition, were admitted to the Regional Medical Center, the main trauma hospital for the Memphis area. Three others were less badly hurt and treated at another hospital.
The attacker, chasing one victim into the store’s parking lot, was subdued by Chris Cope, manager of a financial services office in the same small shopping center, Higgins said.
Cope said he grabbed a 9mm semiautomatic pistol from his pickup truck when he saw the attacker chasing the victim “like something in a serial killer movie.”
“When he turned around and saw my pistol, he threw the knife away, put his hands up and got on the ground,” Cope told The Associated Press. “He saw my gun and that was pretty much it.”
What’s unusual is how much prominence the story gives to the fact that a gun stopped the attack. Usually, that fact is buried in a story, if it’s even mentioned at all. That is, I’ve known past stories that say “Witnesses stopped the attacker,” and then I’ve found out months or years later, that the witnesses had guns.
True to my Bay Area roots, I used to be staunchly gun control. I’m moving further and further away from that view, though, as I see the disaster that complete gun control is causing in places such as Washington, D.C., and London. On the flip side, Katrina demonstrated that, when people have guns, they can protect themselves when government can’t. Indeed, since Katrina, I’ve been meaning to take some classes and get a gun. What stops me is (a) laziness and (b) a genuine fear of having a gun in the house with two inquisitive, energetic children, one of whom is very certain that he’s GI Joe.
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Actually stories like this are fairly common, but they don’t get reported by any media, except the NRA magazine, which is hardly major media. As you noted the salient detail that witnesses who intervened were armed is usually buried in the reportage, due to a pervasive anti-gun bias among journalists. And if I were you I wouldn’t get a gun until the kids are a little older, and then buy a small caliber pistol.
No, bookworm, get a gun and learn how to use it properly. Being comfortable and knowledgeable around guns takes time. You might start by going to a pistol range and asking the range officer for help - you will find shooters generally to be very friendly and helpful. When kids are in the house, the gun stays in a case with a quick-release combination lock. I also taught my kids early on how to properly check and unload a gun, to check the safety, and to ALWAYS double check the breech. This helped demystified guns for them for their own safety. Today, they both know how to handle guns safety and responsibly. Also, for self-defense, a large caliber pistol with stopping power is what you want (e.g., .45-cal), not a pop-gun that makes loud noises. You might consider an NRA sticker on your front window as an added disincentive to unwanted visitors. :-).
For home defense, self-defense classes are a good supplement to handguns. It’s simple. The house is a CQB environment, close quarters battle. Whenever you are “close” to someone else, you can disarm them or just get out into some adjacent corridor. You can’t chase them, because if you turn the corner, they’ll just hit you in the throat/arm with their forearm and disarm you that way.
Guns are good psychological weapons. Children are usually wise about things that can kill, if you show them what guns can do. Meaning, take them out back, show them the gun, and shoot a water mellon. Then tell them this is the difference between a toy gun and a gun that can kill your family. Fear and respect have always been better at behavioral control than locks and secrecy.
If you do get a gun, and are worried about children, then making sure the children have every reason not to mess with the weapon is a good idea. However, like I said, first self-defense then guns. There was a pretty good paper course i found on the net, that had the list of good exercises to do. It needs a partner however, and it is done at home without outside instruction. I’ve seen the usual self-defense course work, the simple kicks and targeting of the throat, eyes, and what not. This paper course was different, in that it came from the 1920s, from a guy who mastered jujitsu when he was an attache in Japan.
I always hear parents keeping their ammunition separate from the gun, and the children still playing with the guns. That’s not the solution from my view. The solution is always pavlovian in origin for people with little self-control.
Ross came from a solid Demo family, and his arguments for guns are persuasive. More persuasive than the nRA’s.
http://john-ross.net/mistakes.htm
John Ross also teaches a certified weapons course, if you have any questions about gun safety, you should email him. Not only does he have experience, but he’s got a pretty quicksilver mind as well. Good combinations.
The one thing that gun training does, that you really need, is discipline and calmness. You don’t want to be Tony Martin, closing his eyes in fear and then just pulling the trigger as many times as possible. *googe him for the story if you hadn’t heard already* With practice, comes confidence, with confidence comes calmness and the ability to make good judgements.
People panic in physical confrontations because they don’t know what to do, because they are unsure of whether they can win or not, they are torn between an unsure fight and a scary retreat. A combat veteran or just a Marine armed with a knife, can exhibit superior calm and judgement, thereby giving him an edge even if he is outgunned. There are two different philosophies. There are those who believe that the gun is the weapon and that this is what scares people. I hold to another philosophy, that says that the person is the weapon, that a highly trained and skilled person is more lethal unarmed than an armed neo-phyte.
Those who seek to ban handguns, do not believe in my philosophy. They do not believe that a former Marine sniper armed with a knife, vs a civilian with a machine gun, can kill the civilian. This, came from a discharged Marine himself, he enlisted for the 4 year term, presumably for education. So there’s all kinds of people who don’t believe in the Marine Philosophy that the most dangerous weapon is a Marine rifleman. Including people like Murtha.
If you won’t have a weapon around, then there’s always self-defense courses and martial arts. A bit of a time hog however. Did you ever take any of those, book, or jujitsu perhaps?
I realized this a coupe of years ago. But weapons gave women the advantage they needed that they normally would not have in a contest against a man. A woman is required to use disproportional force against attackers, because attackers usually come in groups and they usually outweigh the woman.
I’m not sure why the knife armed Marine killed the teenage girl, but I suspect that it was because he knew he was unarmed, that if he didn’t show his prowess and his will, then they would gang up on him and kill him. A man killing a girl, gives the message that says “I can kill this girl, you bet I can kill the rest of you boys”. Or it may have been luck, but it still broke the morale of the group.
A woman can do the same, if she targets the leader, the biggest baddest amongst the group. WHen the leader is taken down, his followers start wondering what will become of himself. A woman has little chance at doing so if it was hand to hand. For psychological purposes, she would have to kill the man in 1 to 3 strikes. Few women have the strength or skill to accomplish that head to head. However, with a gun or another weapon, it becomes much easier. One reason why guns are good psychological weapons. They communicate that “muscles” don’t matter. Numbers don’t even matter, because for numbers to matter, there has to be one guy that has to sacrifice himself to start the rush.
Btw, black five has a comment about “what happens when the police breaks in the door at 3pm”. It’s a pretty interesting argument over the power of the police and to what degree should citizens be armed.
The USP .45 cal or the 1911 is pretty good for stopping power. Some people use desert eagles, but that’s a bit of an overkill. A friend of mine that teaches at USC in cali
The comment about bf comment above should be “blog post”.
The recoil is always a problem for women of small stature. HOwever, if they can shoot what they are aiming at, they don’t usually need a second round with a .45 caliber pistol.
However, if recoil is a big problem, like the fact that your wrists are hurting while at range, you should consider a Beretta 9mm with hollowpoint bullets. Won’t penetrate armor or the walls, but it will make mincemeat out of any soft target. Hollowpoints, as opposed to FMJ, are designed to destroy unarmored targets.
I can’t remember what my friend used for his ammunition, though. I think I’ll ask him.
My wife put more shots in the circle with a 1911 .45 than I could….and she’s no Amazon. I think the warnings about that gun are overhyped. I do wonder if for home defense one isn’t as well off with a 12 guage, though…… We don’t currently own a weapon beyond a .410 inherited from my major professor, but we’ve been to the range with a friend a couple of times, and the subject is under discussion.
Zhombre’s right about the reporting — one of the joys of being an NRA member is America’s First Freedom and its column The Armed Citizen, reporting what the major media leaves out. I agree with Danny on what weapon to own, however — stopping power is (almost) everything in self-defense. And I think there is wisdom in what both Danny and Ymarsakar say about the kids — teaching rather than hiding is the sensible way to go. That said, I’d also have a lock - I was a kid once, myself, and that’s what decides me on this issue.
I can’t argue about the stopping power of a .45 but do you really need to stop an assailant dead in his tracks (literally) or simply make him go away? A number of the perps written up in The Armed Citizen are shot by a citizen with a small cal like .380 (you can get a Bersa for $275); the perp flees and is subsequently arrested by the police. A .45 kicks like hell, the ammo is expensive, and while it worked great for William Holden in The Wild Bunch, consider how likely you are to get in a shoot-out with the Mexican army.
Postscript:
And an oldfashioned .38 caliber revolver is unlikely to misfire or jam.
Hmmm…got to disagree, Z! As Prof. John Lott documented, for the vast majority of home- or self-defense situations, just showing the gun or making it go “bang” is all that you are likely to do. If you do have to shoot it at a person, it is likely to be at close-quarters where good aim is not an issue. A .38, by the way, is not a small caliber - it’s very close to a 9mm, the preferred police caliber. A .45, though, can be very accurate. With all due respect to YM, I agree about the value of self-defense skills, however…I am a 3rd-Dan senior martial arts instructor and it took years of mental and physical training to get there. That’s just not practical for most people.
I realize .38 isn’t a small caliber. I mentioned it because it’s reliable, and if someone is contemplating purchase of a weapon for personal defense, a revolver’s probably cheaper than an automatic. Otherwise, I don’t think we disagree. If just showing the gun or making it go bang is all that one is likely to do, then caliber isn’t really an issue. What counts is that the would-be assailant suddenly realizes his unarmed victim is neither unarmed nor an easy mark.
My blog certainly has well-informed, accomplished visitors. Thank you for all this info. I’ll try to remember, when school starts this fall, to sign up for gun use and safety classes.
I can’t argue about the stopping power of a .45 but do you really need to stop an assailant dead in his tracks (literally) or simply make him go away?
For home defense, maybe you don’t need to stop him with one shot. However, in street defense or when you are surrounded and outnumbered, you really need for the enemy to go down with one shot. You cannot waste time firing multiple shots for one target, while the others surround you. If the recoil on a .45 cal is no problem for Bookworm, specifically, then she should get that gun. Some of the USP models have larger slides that reduce the recoil, but those are rather expensive. But then again, you get what you pay for in terms of weapons. The cost of ammunition is also a good point, but then again, I don’t get the impression Bookworm is strapped for cash at the moment.
Danny, I recognize the limitations of martial arts. It is why I said that it was a time hog. To get really good in any martial arts form or technique, requires a life time of practice and training. However, knowledge of basic and intermediate defense techniques is still useful. The complete defense is of course, the ability to deal with long range enemies, medium range enemies, and close range enemies. Book only needs the latter and maybe medium range as well.
There are specific things that basic defense should teach, from what I’ve seen. I don’t know whether they do now or do not, but I don’t remember them teaching how to break out of finger/hand holds using the torso twist. They do teach basic throws, of course, but I don’t remember that they taught counter-throw techniques. The big problem for a woman against a man, is being grappled, in close range. This negates the use of a gun. For those using a gun in CQB situations, not outside situations, they have to learn something about grappling techniques. They do not need to obtain a very advanced level in any formal martial arts, simply because specific techniques and counters can be taught a lot faster than a formalized martial art. Of whatever school. The average thug and teenage criminal, does not know of any scientific way of fighting. Their strategy is brute strength. Since a woman is unlikely to counter a man’s strength one to one, she has to obtain knowledge and skills. That was why I was wondering if Bookworm had already taken self-defense courses, and specifically what they taught her.
How to break out of a hold on her arm, how to break a bear hug from behind, how to change your center of gravity to unbalance the enemy.
As for shotguns, I think it would be a great weapon, if you didn’t care what happened to your house or those that lived in it. THe military uses it for clearing homes, but then again, the military shoots the dogs and is designed to kill people. If you have kidz, and they somehow got behind a thief, you are going to hesitate before using buckshot.
And of course, I never liked how long a shotgun was, incredibly difficult to move it around in a CQB environment with ease. If someone gets too close, you’d lack the strength to grab the gun back as well. Shotguns are not so good for home defense, as those who advocate banning handguns believe. Maybe if you used it like a club or something, it’d be better.
So, you see? We do all agree after all. Ain’t life a peach when we all just keep talking? :-)So…bookworm, go to a local pistol range (I believe S. San Francisco has one) and ask someone to show you how to shoot. They will be happy to do so. And…enroll yourself and your kids in the martial arts ASAP. It’s a great bonding experience and great exercise to-boot.
THere was a story I dug up after I was doing some background searches for my new blog post on propaganda videos. It’s about the Brits and their decadence with guns.
http://ymarsakar.blogspot.com/2006/05/british-have-done-it-again-guns-are.html
The tone of Jeff Soyer is about right for me. Not too hot, not too cold.
We can’t all agree, since I’m pretty sure nobody and nothing occupies my specific space-time coordinate.
Book,
Reading your post, it seems that your concern about a weapon is as much philosophical as it is physical.
Yes, learn to use a weapon — with Mr. Book if possible. Then, take the advice of your good readers, buy one and continue to practice — and pray you will never need it — but you’ll be prepared if the occasion arises.
I have owned weapons for years. When my three kids were very young, I taught them the dangers, confidence and pleasures of knowing how to use them. Early on I demonstrated the “shoot the watermelon” trick — and it made a great impression on them.
There’s nothing philosophically or morally wrong with owning and knowing how to use a weapon. It’s our Constitutional right as Americans.
ExPreacherman
Good insight, expreacherman. YM’s link about Britain is a very good one. But here are some questions for you, Bookworm - why is it that so many people are afraid of guns and instinctively opposed to their own right to defend themselves? Can you shed light on this from your observation post deep in hostile Liberal/Left territory?
My problem with guns isn’t their use against bad guys (whether you find them in your home or opposite you on the battlefield). I have a different concern. I’m a very, very risk averse person. One of the stories that made a huge impression on me was a story that occurred in the Bay Area at the end of the 1970s. A man was cleaning his gun in the living room. He accidentally discharged the gun, the bullet flew through an archway into the next room, and killed his daughter instantly. His wife witnessed the whole thing. He was so distraught that he turned the gun on himself.
A decade later, I heard a similar story from the physician who treated the victim. This time, the victim was sitting in his apartment watching TV. In the apartment next door, his neighbor was cleaning a gun. Again, the gun accidentally discharged, the bullet flew through the common wall, and the victim was left brain dead. I heard the story because the physician was telling me about the Mom’s decision to donate her child’s organs.
I was in San Francisco at the time of the 101 California shooting. You may remember that — a crazy guy got himself a big gun, went to a law firm, and started shooting people up. He killed several. Through legal circles, I distantly knew some of the victims. My thoughts at that time were, if guns were illegal, this would never have happened. I’ve since realized, with D.C. and London as examples, that bad guys will always have guns. The damage could not have been prevented, but it could have been lessened if some of the people in the shooting gallery had been able to fight back.
So, my responses are very pragmatic. But as an ex-liberal, I can tell you that guns are evil. They encourage people to kill. They make killing easy. And they make killing clinical. In this regard, it’s akin to the vegetarian argument: Vegetarians always point out that modern society makes meat eating easy, because we have no connection to the living, breathing animal who ends up dead for our gustatory pleasure. To us, meat is just a little slab on a styrofoam plate. There’s no emotion there, and so too with guns. They give killing a game like quality, that’s different from such hands-on methods as strangling and stabbling. And that’s the view from the liberal side.
That’s an interesting insight - that guns make killing “easy”-er. I grant you that point. However, I could also flip that around and say that guns make it easier for people to defend themselves. To paraphrase the famous quote, “there are big men and little men, there are strong men and there are weak men, there are women and there are men…and Sam Colt made them all equal”.
The first examples that you cited represented accidents. Children are killed by accidents in many ways (electricity, cars, buckets of water, bicycles, etc.). Statistically, guns are responsible for an extremely small fraction of accidental deaths (guns don’t even figure on the top-10 list of causes). Yet, when a child is accidentally killed by anything but a gun, the cause (car, bucket, bathtup or whatever) is never blamed as a scourge of society. Do you react the same way toward cars when you read of a child getting hit by a car? I once showed a young lady, at her request, a handgun (unloaded). When she held it in her hand, she squeeled and dropped it, visibly scared. Why is that? She didn’t do that with a car, which is responsible for about 35,000 accidental deaths per year, versus only 2-3,000 for guns.
Here is a really good insight on guns in our society: http://www.ejectejecteject.com/archives/000013.html.
Do you react the same way toward cars when you read of a child getting hit by a car? I once showed a young lady, at her request, a handgun (unloaded). When she held it in her hand, she squeeled and dropped it, visibly scared. Why is that? She didn’t do that with a car, which is responsible for about 35,000 accidental deaths per year, versus only 2-3,000 for guns.
Logically, you’re absolutely right, Danny. However, logic has nothing to do with visceral reactions. All of us were raised in and around cars, so familiarity has bred, if not contempt, emotional apathy. Guns, however, have always had a mystique. Even in the old days, before the anti-gun movement, guns had this powerful romance, exemplified nowhere better than in the old Hollywood movies. Guns made the bad guy worse and the hero better. They augmented things, in a way that drips into the psyche.
As I said, Danny, I’ve come around to your way of thinking, but I certainly understand the weird aura that surrounds guns in American society.
Er, sorry about that…accidental deaths from handguns in the U.S. historically have been less-than 1,000 per year. Sloppy on my part. Here’s a good perspective on accidental deaths from handguns: http://www.tysknews.com/Depts/2nd_Amend/deaths_by_firearm.htm
A man was cleaning his gun in the living room. He accidentally discharged the gun, the bullet flew through an archway into the next room, and killed his daughter instantly. His wife witnessed the whole thing. He was so distraught that he turned the gun on himself.
Seriously, what kind of an idiot cleans his gun before checking the breech/chamber? Did he just think putting the safety on was enough?
Talk about survival of the fittest. He might as well just play Russian roulette.
You can’t accidentally discharge anything when there are no bullets/rounds in the gun. First safety procedure they teach (maybe the second one even). A good trick to do that is to show someone that you unloaded the gun. Then give him the gun, and wait for him to try poking his eye down the barrel. Then nag him into checking the ammo chamber, and walla, the bullet was still in there. A little magic trick that goes a long way into putting the fear into someone, so that they will always check that the gun is unloaded and no bullet is in the breech/chamber.
I don’t know why Danny didn’t mention on that fact that you NEVER do ANYTHING with a gun, including cleaning it, unless it is empty and there is no round in the chamber. Guns are for shooting things and people, if you want to do anything else with it, make sure there is nothing in it. It takes discipline, but so does making sure you don’t drink water down the wrong tube in your throat.
As for the emotional argument, book, I recommend you read a book by a Colonel, called “On Killing” the psychology of killing. In essence, the calmer you are and the more in control you are of your breathing, the better your decision making process becomes in terms of what to do or kill. Your eyes start tunnel visioning when your blood pressure and heart rate go up, as it would go in a life and death situation, i.e. combat. It is very hard to aim when you can only see like a few inches of a circle in front of you.
There’s no emotion there, and so too with guns.
Emotions and guns don’t mix. Look up Tony martin if you want to see the logical conclusion of “emotions with guns”. But I recognize this philosophy. It is the philosophy that says weapons are killers, rather than people are killers. To me, people are weapons, because the brain is a powerful weapon in its own right. A good brain can beat a piece of metal any time of the year. For an untrained person, a gun is more liable to kill themselves than hit the right target. Because everything has to be filtered through the brain, by training the brain, you get a weapon nobody can take away from you. The mind, the body, and the spirit that is.
A game like quality implies that people have fun and feel emotion with it. The point of training, military training, is to make sure that the brain controls the body, not the other way around. Fear, joy, sadness, terror, these things can be bypassed by the brain or they can bypass the brain and take control of the body. In conclusion, the philosophy I have and most military members have, are diametrically different from that of Democrats. Democrats concentrate on emotion controlling them, I concentrate on controlling emotion.
http://www.blackfive.net/main/2006/07/soldiers_family.html
A soldier’s family was murdered with a knife. 2 women and 2 children. The father was deployed in Iraq, and was just about to return. The women could not over-power the man, and so they died. The story didn’t mention if there was a gun in the house.
Book,
You must train yourself and use utmost care. There’s lots of good advice here.
I must admit, I had been handling weapons for 35 years. A church member offered to refinish the stock of my military carbine. He, his wife and baby came over to the house. I removed the clip and handed the weapon to him in the cab of his truck. He immediately checked the chamber (which in my haste I had not done) and he ejected a live round. This was NOT Ymarsakar’s “Magic Trick” but it was for real.
Even though a hardened gun user, I became weak-kneed and just about passed out. What could I say — that was the dumbest thing I could ever do. It was a hard lesson to learn… but I have NEVER repeated it, nor have I forgotten it from 30 years ago. (Nor has my friend).
Train yourself and use utmost care and you won’t be as dumb as ExPreacherman.
It’s always useful to learn from other people’s bad examples, isn’t it? That’s quite a story, ExPreacherman. I can only imagine the cold sweat you felt.
Learning from other’s people’s pock ups is how the human race has survived and thrived to where we are at, Book. We crawl along, inch by inch, like a little toddler.
I just talked to my friend in California, the professor at USC, and he says he only uses Jacketed Hollow Points for his .45 caliber 1911. He made the same argument I made. For home defense, you won’t usually find attackers wearing body armor. And if you shoot a wall, a JHP round will not penetrate the wall and hit your neighbor’s house. FMJ rounds are great for target practice, since they seem to be really cheap and plentiful.
FYI, I’m the friend in CA to whom Ymar has referred. I assume you can get my email address from this posting if you would like. I’d be happy to correspond with you about some good options, having been something of a gun enthusiast for a few decades now. The short version, though, is that if you have children, and are looking for something for home defense, and especially if you’re a woman (or a man with small hands/wrists), I suggest avoiding the .45. It’s a big caliber, and it will likely hurt you to shoot it until you’ve had a fair bit of experience. Honestly, it’s a big bit for home defense; I don’t recommend that large a handgun to anyone who doesn’t already have a fair bit of experience. I have one myself because I’ve been shooting for years (since I was six), and want to make sure that if I have to shoot something, it goes down.
The far better choice, particularly for one getting started, is to pick up a solid, double-action .32 revolver. I suggest .32 because it’s a great, gentle caliber that still has decent stopping power, and I suggest a revolver because it’s a lot easier to point/shoot in the heat of the moment than having to worry about whether you’ve racked the slide on a semi-auto. It’s a gun that’s a lot less likely to kill the innocent as well, should you accidentally aim poorly. There are a lot of other factors as well (e.g., penetration depths for typical home construction, better accuracy, etc.), but like I said, you’re welcome to write me should you want to ask any questions.
Oh, and let me congratulate you on your perspicacity in changing your views on the subject. That takes a fair amount of intellectual honesty, something I both respect and find all too rare.