Gun-Free Means Free-Crime
February 29th, 2008 by joe
I’m sure we’re not going to change any minds on this topic here, until the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man comes to visit for a weekend and we spend a day at the range. And I don’t want to keep beating a dead horse who, had he been carrying, would have at least had a fighting chance against the thugs who cornered him in the parking lot where the tragic miscommunication ensued. “Hand over your wallet.” “Neigh! NEIIGGGHHHHH!” Blam blam blam blam blam!
But let me just pose this common sense question. Where would you feel safer walking at midnight: In an area where only criminals have guns, or one where law-abiding residents can carry firearms?
Across the river from Virginia - where citizens can carry firearms for self-protection - is Washington, DC, where they cannot. The DC gun ban has been a spectacular failure, and the DC firearms death rate is by far the highest in the nation.
As Jonathan Rauch argued with regard to ending “hate crimes” against gays,
If it became widely known that homosexuals carry guns and know how to use them, not many bullets would need to be fired. In fact, not all that many gay people would need to carry guns, as long as gay-bashers couldn’t tell which ones did.
Exactly.
John Stossel noted yesterday that
Criminals have the initiative. They choose the time, place and manner of their crimes, and they tend to make choices that maximize their own, not their victims’, success. So criminals don’t attack people they know are armed, and anyone thinking of committing mass murder is likely to be attracted to a gun-free zone, such as schools and malls…
How, then, does it make sense to create mandatory gun-free zones, which in reality are free-crime zones?
Another common sense question: If you were a criminal thinking about where to set up shop, would you choose the area where the citizens are empowered, or where they are sitting ducks?
This entry was posted on Friday, February 29th, 2008 at 2:30 am and is filed under 2nd Amendment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
February 29th, 2008 at 7:52 am
I never understood why the left assumes that people willing to break the law of murder would somehow strictly obey gun laws.
February 29th, 2008 at 11:52 am
By following your logic, you would LIKE our students in high schools to be free to carry a gun? Would this make our high schools safer?
I am personally not a supporter of gun-free zones and see the logic behind your argument but I do not support the exact opposite either. I as a parent am more concerned with the concept of our schools NOT being gun-free zones (thereby allowing adolescent the right to carry guns to school presumably) than I am with the threat of criminals being attracted to our kid’s schools BECAUSE they are gun-free zones.
The concept of malls being gun-free zones seem rather random to me - why not skateboard parks, or butcher shops for that matter?
February 29th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
No, Troll. High school students have not yet developed that prefrontal cortex that makes rational decisions. (Hence, the young tend to be Democrats.)
However, I would like willing teachers to be carrying.
February 29th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
Here goes troll again, shooting wildly from the hip as he always does.
With extrapolations like this, all I can think to say is “put the bong away troll”..
February 29th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
Troll,
You don’t need to have a gun-free zone to keep STUDENTS from having guns in school. You make that aprt of the rules. Now teachers and parents can be armed on school grounds and it tells the criminals “not here-we may be armed!” As long as the firearms are carried ON the person at all times (to prevent younger children or the curious from getting hold of them) I’m all about that. If the criminals have no one as an easy target they either: 1. take a risk 2. prey on each other or 3. give it up and go into another line of work (after all, being a criminal IS hard work).:-)
February 29th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
Eric, I don’t really see my “logic” leading to guns in high school kids’ hands - nor in elementary schools for that matter. There are some other issues when you take age into consideration.
But high school teachers, college students - I think there comes a point when schools should be subject to the same rules as the rest of the community.
February 29th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
Joe & Jacob have it exactly right. The right to keep and bear arms if for law-abiding adults. Felons, children and those who have been adjudicated to be mentally ill do not have the right to purchase and carry firearms. But teachers, principles, off-duty cops, military, grandma, business-people, ROTC members, potential hate-crime victims, shop-keepers, victims of domestic violence — in short, everyone else, should be able to carry firearms in most places (i.e. not police stations, jails, military bases or such locations but most everywhere else).
February 29th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
Loudoun Conservative,
“in short, everyone else, should be able to carry firearms in most places (i.e. not police stations, jails, military bases or such locations but most everywhere else).”
You did okay up to this point. Jails don’t allow anyway but I don’t understand why NOT police stations, military bases or such locations. Will I be (not just feel) safer at these locations where I will not have a need to be armed?
February 29th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
Interesting read :
“…says a new brief submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court by police officers and prosecutors in a controversial gun-ban dispute, is why gun ownership is important and should be available to individuals in the United States.
The arguments come in an amicus brief submitted by the Law Enforcement Alliance of America, whose spokesman, Ted Deeds, told WND there now are 92 different law enforcement voices speaking together to the Supreme Court in the Heller case.”
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=57641
February 29th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
The trolls response is predictable and based on his level of foolishness should be dismissed out of hand. I wish for once Troll would actually think before attempting to type faster than his own knee can jerk about his mothers basement.
Trying as usual to run from the real issue, the anti Gunners like our friend Troll always fall back into intellectual pablum in an attempt to change the course of the conversation lest we discover to early that they don’t know their ass from a hole in the ground rendering the entire exercise moot.
Does anyone actually know if Eric the Troll is out of High school yet ? Are we all sitting around debating some 17 year old in a Obama T-Shirt ? If so, we need to stop, this kid is supposed to doing his school work.
February 29th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
No, Greg. If Troll _is_ in high school, we need to engage him as much as we can. He is assaulted by liberal clap-trap day in and day out. We may be his only hope of leading a rational life.
February 29th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
No, Troll is not in high school, he is in fact about the same age as the rest of us here. I’ve met him and he is quite a decent fellow. Please note he did say he gets my point.
I differ with him on a short list of issues but have found him someone you can argue with constructively.
February 29th, 2008 at 5:37 pm
I do admit I am having a bit of fun at Trolls expense. Let’s be truthful, It is rather rather easy. My diatribe was probably better suited for Sanity, but what the hell.
In the spirit of William F. Buckley, one might say I was trolling !
February 29th, 2008 at 6:19 pm
I think deep down inside we all love the Troll but just have different ways of expressing it.
March 1st, 2008 at 3:19 pm
“High school students have not yet developed that prefrontal cortex that makes rational decisions.”
haha, that’s one interpretation. Another would be that they haven’t yet been beaten into pessimistic submission, or that they haven’t yet sold their souls to the status quo! haha
If we ban guns in schools, only bullies who don’t care about following the rules will have guns in schools. Isn’t that the problem? I think guns in schools are a grand idea. Let’s test it somewhere! It might not be feasible in a public school, but how about testing in one of the private schools your kids go to? Faith Christian, or Christian Faith?
If that went well, we could run similar tests in whole communities. Find a high crime area, give everyone there a pistol, and see what happens to the crime rate. That’s really what needs to happen.
Of course, one of the best ways to introduce guns in schools is through gun safety programs like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=am-Qdx6vky0
March 1st, 2008 at 6:02 pm
It has been tried, puffalump, and with success, namely in Israel and Thailand.
March 1st, 2008 at 9:23 pm
teachers?? arm the students!!
March 2nd, 2008 at 6:58 pm
The rest of the media needs to learn something
from John Stossel.
Stossel writes:
As usual, the Times editors seem unaware of how silly their argument is. To them, the choice is between “carefully controlling guns” and “arming everyone to the teeth.” But no one favors “arming everyone to the teeth” (whatever that means). Instead, gun advocates favor freedom, choice and self-responsibility. If someone wishes to be prepared to defend himself, he should be free to do so. No one has the right to deprive others of the means of effective self-defense, like a handgun.
Enough said
March 3rd, 2008 at 2:45 am
Hey Stay Puff,
I’ve seen that video more times than you can possibly imagine. There is an inside joke that anyone that does something negligent with a firearm “is the only one professional enough”.
The guy in the video actually shot himself, showing that some people (in particular, police that are not necessarily well trained) need to be careful. I’ve been to two different training courses that stressed “every gun is loaded, *always*” and used the video. The video showed two different safe gun handling principles being violated — treat every gun as if it is loaded, always; and never cover *anything* with the muzzle of the gun that you are not willing to kill or destroy. He violated both.
One trainer in gun safety, before he does anything with the gun, removes the magazine, verifies the chamber is empty, makes sure the gun is pointed in a safe direction before he goes into the field strip that the guy in the video started. (By the way, the Springfield XD I tend to prefer because the disassembly has you lock the slide back in order to start the field strip.) I’ve seen him put a solid blaze orange “barrel” into a pistol in order to demonstrate things — so there is no possibility of a negligent discharge — during his safety talks.
March 3rd, 2008 at 3:32 am
[…] the topic of gun videos just came up in this thread, it seems appropos to provide a few pretty entertaining ones now that everyone is in the […]
March 3rd, 2008 at 4:54 pm
I learned the same lessons, Brian, and that is what I teach my children. Ask my kids how you can tell whether a gun is loaded, and they will tell you, “It’s closed.”
March 3rd, 2008 at 5:37 pm
If you ask me how can you tell a gun is loaded, I’ll reply “it has the barrel installed”.
Really, I’ve seen a “failure to extract” on a handgun, and if you treat it as if it is loaded, then you probably won’t have a problem. Treat an “open” gun as unloaded, and you might have it pointed wrong, and if something else goes wrong (like the slide catch fails) and tragic things could happen. Just like cars, guns are capable of doing a lot of damage and need to be properly handled. I’d object to making that law for either cars or guns. (Law is not supposed to prevent bad things from happening, but to punish people that have done something maliciously or grossly negligent when bad things do happen … and bad things will happen, so get used to it.)
March 3rd, 2008 at 6:19 pm
Simply put, Brian, the gun cannot fire if the action is open.
March 3rd, 2008 at 10:56 pm
A gun with a round in the chamber, even with the action open, is still a loaded gun. The only unloaded gun is one with an empty chamber and an empty mag.
Yes, the gun cannot fire with the action open, but with a semi-auto, an accidental bump can change that in the blink of an eye.
In the video, a third tenet of safe gun handling which was violated was keeping the finger off the trigger until ready to shoot. This was a Glock, the trigger is the safety.
March 4th, 2008 at 10:46 am
Dan,
Don’t forget about those guns with “open bolts”.
March 4th, 2008 at 10:48 am
Brian,
Law is not supposed to prevent bad things from happening, but to punish people that have done something maliciously or grossly negligent when bad things do happen … and bad things will happen, so get used to it.
Careful, Brian. Troll would say that you are making his case.
March 4th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
Act, an open bolt is an open action.. As Brian said, a round that fails to extract when the bolt is retracted, the arm remains loaded.
I agree with you about law. Many say that laws are reasonable restrictions on our rights in an attempt to justify their gun control arguments. Not true, laws are there for when rights are misused, to cause harm, or infringe upon the rights of others.
March 11th, 2008 at 12:00 am
Malicious (with bad intent — the person intends to do harm) or grossly negligent (that *any* reasonable person should know *will* cause unjustifiable injury or death). To be *gross* negligence, it would have to be without reasonable doubt or controversy that the action done was with no other action on anyone else’s part, capable of causing harm. I’d say throwing a box of ammunition into a fire to see what happens in that category, but not having ammunition in your house that could be stolen.