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Sunday, January 9, 2011

The Gun Thing

Open thread for discussion of guns and carry and gun control, to move an unwanted debate from someone else's blog. If you're interested:

As an ongoing debate, this is pretty well over; it's now more a matter of communication rather than debate, rather like evolution vs. creationism. I hope no one finds that comparison offensive, I've got creationist friends; they simply haven't read up on it. There's a lot of answers to the usual points here at NRA's site, and some more good information at gunsite.com.

To start out:

The idea that "statistics say" guns are a greater danger to friends and family members was based on a study by Arthur Kellermann and Don Reay in which it was found that legally or illegally possessed guns in King County, Washington, USA were more frequently used to kill people known to the shooter, e.g. a known person from a rival drug gang, and much more frequently used for suicides, than used to kill home invaders who were strangers to the residents.

- The vast majority of defensive uses of guns involve showing the gun without firing it, and these were not counted.

- "Person known to the shooter" is nothing like "friend or family member".

- A short-term study of a high-crime location which will have disproportionally high criminal use.

- Suicide just changes method if a gun is not available.

- More here and here.

Some points about using a gun in a defensive situation:

1) I’d be way too slow to retrieve the gun in time

This is a matter of practice. The time can be greatly cut down if you prepare when you start getting a bad vibe, e.g. when someone may be following you in a parking lot and you have a bad feeling, get a firm grip on the gun without drawing it.

2) the gun would catch on the lining of my jacket pocket and end up falling on the floor

A gun designed for concealed carry is pretty well free of corners and protruberances that will catch, it's a major design critera. You should carry the gun in a proper holster, not loose in a pocket, to further keep it from catching and to keep objects away from the trigger.

3) I would manage to get out the gun, but by then my attacker is right up in my face and just grabs my wrist before I can do anything (guys are goddamn freakishly strong and I, as mentioned, move slowly).

Take some classes and practice. There is nothing about this movement that is inherently slow.

4) I would successfully menace my attacker with the gun but he’d come at me anyway and I’d fire, but the safety would be on and/or my finger would be squeezing the outside of the trigger guard instead of the trigger itself and then he’d kill me

Pick a gun with no manual safety; they are rare on new designs intended for defensive use. Manual safeties are for experts only. The outside of the trigger guard does not feel like the trigger and is not all that close to it in terms of finger positioning. Practice.

5) I would successfully menace my attacker with the gun and he’d start to back off but my finger would twitch and I’d shoot him by mistake.

A stock self-defense gun does not have a trigger that is actuated by a twitch; they require considerably more than four pounds of pressure. (Some experts who are confident of their non-twitchiness take the gun to a gunsmith to reduce the pressure, most commonly down to four pounds.) If you are incapable of, say, holding a pencil when you are upset, you personally should not carry a firearm, but don't let it bother you that the rest of us do.

20 comments:

  1. The suicide thing, Mousie, is somewhat wrong. In my experience most of my serious suicidal impulses have been stymied by, well, not having anything to kill myself with atm. (It is actually somewhat difficult to kill yourself.) I think someone with a history of suicidal ideation should think very closely before buying a gun.

    Of course, that doesn't mean guns should be banned for everyone.

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  2. I'm always very sorry to hear you mention the suicidal impulses. People love you in person as well as on the Internet.

    I don't feel like it would be particularly difficult to kill oneself, but I'm sure not going to explain any of the methods. I have two friends whose fathers killed themselves, neither with a gun.

    It is incredibly devastating to those left behind. Far worse than accidental death.

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  3. Careful Mousie, get into gun blogging and there is a whole new community to get acquainted with.
    A couple of things, I think you can actually reconcile creationism with evolution to a certain degree and as far is faith is concerned is far less of an issue than many make it out to be. If God can turn water into aged wine, he can certainly create evolved beings.
    There is no mystery to gun training. If you can learn the motor skills to tie your shoes, you can learn to responsibly handle a gun. Now I am far from an expert and am not offering any advice on the internet. That's why there are gun bloggers with far more knowledge than I.

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  4. Penny, actually I started out blogging in gun & political blogging. Friends know about that blog, so I did not want to use it to vent about my ex; I want them to stay friends with us both. Also a lot of what I say here is TMI for them.

    I think if one takes a really serious look at Genesis, as St. Augustine did in 400 AD when he wrote The Literal Interpretation of Genesis, one finds that Genesis is not a simple story and especially not a natural history lesson. An earlier post on that is here.

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  5. Mousie-- Well, assuming you are squeamish about knives, don't have any tall buildings nearby and don't know which/how many pills will cause a fatal overdose...

    I know, but most suicidal people of my acquaintance were so far gone they can't realize it and think everyone would be happier if they were dead.

    I don't mean to depress people! I just wanted to correct for accuracy.

    Genesis is a creation myth, not a science textbook. Anyone who gets confused about the difference, theist or atheist, should be sent to an intensive course in world mythology until they are sensible.

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  6. "Genesis is a creation myth, not a science textbook. Anyone who gets confused about the difference, theist or atheist, should be sent to an intensive course in world mythology until they are sensible."

    Wow, Ozy. That certainly is an authoritative and blanket way to put it. Who died and made you The Supreme Prophet of the New Era? Have you even read The Book of Genesis? Very little of it has anything to do with creation. Yes, that's how it starts, but there's a lot more in the book than, 'Then The Lord said... ...and it was.' It really bothers me when people make blanket statements as if they are the ultimate authority and know what's best for everyone else. It reminds me of a high school chemistry teacher where I graduated, who made comments about evolution being a 'true, proven fact.' She basically told the class that they could believe anything that they wanted but that it made them stupid if they didn't believe in Darwinist origin of life. And, in the spirit of blanket statements, let me say that hardcore Darwinism is nothing more than reheated spontaneous generation, incidentally. In its current form it's pretty much the quaint relics of the age of 'science' that was based on alchemy and phrenology. But, you can believe whatever you want to, I suppose. ;)

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  7. Evyl Robot, welcome! But, to you and Ozymandias, that's too many issues for one thread; this is the gun thread. You are welcome to discuss it in comments to my post on evolution and Genesis, where I explain a bit about why I don't see Darwin's theory as being in conflict with the Bible and show that I basically agree with Ozymandias's position on the interpretation of the first chapters of Genesis.

    I'll put my answer to your point there.

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  8. Penny, actually I started out blogging in gun & political blogging.

    Huh, I wonder if I know you under another name. Of course there are so damn many gun and political blogs that's probably not the case.

    I always get seriously confused by some of the simultaneous views of criminals I see presented. There's "he'd just take the gun away from me", which seems to suggest most of them are fearlessly brave super-criminals willing to charge down on a gun pointed at him in a heartbeat, but contrast to "I don't want to escalate/threaten him" which seems to suggest the same psycho has a well-developed sense of justice and mercy.

    I figure that out of two choices, "leave all control over the situation in the hands of the person whom the only thing I know about is they're willing to violate my rights", and "have a chance at deciding the outcome myself", I'd rather take the chance even if I could lose.

    As for my mechanical skill, I figure if I can operate a car reliably I can operate a much simpler instrument. Sure, I may still screw up, but it will neither keep me away from cars nor guns.

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  9. LabRat, you've heard from me under the old name, but I don't know that you'd remember it. I have a lot more to say here than I did before. If for some reason you're interested enough to guess, please do it by email or IM.

    The link from your site to The Pervocracy was sorta the first step that brought me here.

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  10. Sorry about that, Mouse. Feel free to knock my comment to the other post. I've got opinions on all kinds of things, and I can surely make some noise about firearms opinions as well as anything else.

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  11. No problem, Michael. I just figured opening up a thread for a general debate on gun control was enough debate for one thread.

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  12. I always get seriously confused by some of the simultaneous views of criminals I see presented. There's "he'd just take the gun away from me", which seems to suggest most of them are fearlessly brave super-criminals willing to charge down on a gun pointed at him in a heartbeat

    I think it seems to suggest that by the time you even realized there was a serious threat, the person would already be too close.

    I mean, I've never been mugged or stranger-raped, but I'm assuming usually the guy doesn't stand twenty feet away and declare his intentions in a loud, clear voice. Probably he'll act harmless and nice until he's close enough to actually do stuff to me.

    I would imagine that if a guy is posing a definite threat to my well-being - enough of a threat that I'd feel justified in drawing a weapon - and he's not right up in my face, it's probably because he has a gun pointed at me.

    Again, I've never been carrying a gun and gotten attacked by a stranger, so I don't really know how it'd go. I've only been roughed up by boyfriends (who easily wrenched any makeshift "weapon" away from me, btw). So all I can do is speculate.

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  13. Perversecowgirl, it is possible for an attacker to take you by surprise enough to make a gun useless. That's not the only way it happens though.

    There are a lot of situations where having a gun may help even without training. One all-too-common scenario is the ex who starts pounding on the door and shouting, then breaks it down. The intended victim has a bit of time to prepare in that case; but usually not enough time for police to arrive.

    One of my friends was in his car stuck in traffic at a light late one night. Someone suddenly tried the passenger-side door (locked), then pounded on the window. He pulled back his shirt to show the revolver on his hip; the man held up his hands and left.

    An attacker almost never takes himself or herself by surprise; they follow an intended victim around a bit looking for a good location and opportunity and deciding how much risk this victim represents. You can reduce the possibility of being taken by surprise, and of being selected by an attacker at all, by taking classes with experienced police officers that help you know what to look for. For example, I look for people following me and detour around spots that would be good for someone to jump out.

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  14. "You can reduce the possibility of being taken by surprise, and of being selected by an attacker at all, by taking classes with experienced police officers that help you know what to look for."

    And, that's it exactly. The attacker is not nearly as sneaky as you think. There is universal body language that you can learn to detect, and you will always know when someone is up to no good. For instance, if someone looks at you from across the street, touches their face, looks around, and approaches you; you're about to be attacked. If you square up to them with an aggressive stance, lock eye contact, and address them, they'll likely reassess the situation and move on. If not, you've bought plenty of time to unholster and defend yourself.

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  15. If for some reason you're interested enough to guess, please do it by email or IM.

    I can't guess- I tend to remember the names of my commenters who comment with any frequency even if it was awhile ago- but I've added you to my IM contacts.

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  16. Thanks! I don't know your IM address though, so you won't hear from me that way unless you initiate. My old gunblogger identity is a big secret because my friends know it, and this blog contains venting about my ex and TMI. It's not a very interesting secret; I was a guest blogger on a now-abandoned 2A blog and probably made one or two dozen posts total. I think you did comment on one that was about evolution and bad education. When I just checked back the archives seem to be gone though.

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  17. You currently register as "awaiting authorization", though I don't know if that means you're online or off. The IM is "syllogisticrat".

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  18. I am almost always online; sometimes away, but always online. You are showing as offline to me but I sent a message anyway.

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  19. Yeah, by the time you posted that I'd logged off for dinner and then been snagged by friends to spend the rest of the evening getting virtually hit in the face. (Not in the sexy way.) I'll catch you later then.

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  20. spend the rest of the evening getting virtually hit in the face

    When I hear you say that, I assume you mean WoW, and perhaps more specifically tanking. I laughed at the "Not in the sexy way," though.

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