(Note: This post is NOT part of our current Democracy Symposium. If you want to follow the Symposium – and you should! – you can fid it here.)
When I was twenty-one and still working my way through school, I took a job as a DJ in a popular but tacky meat-market bar that catered to the early twenties set. It was packed and crazy most weekends, but the worst by far was during the Portland Rose Festival. During the festival, Navy vessels from both Canada and the United States travel up to Columbia River and dock right outside of downtown, and the sailors are given leave for up to a week.
One night during a break, our bouncer Tony asked me to man the velvet rope so he could use the facilities. I did this most nights for him, actually. It was a nice changeup from the booth I had to stand in next to the dance floor, where electronics and the heat of the bodies pressing together boogying would often combine to force the temperature up to 90 degrees. It was cool by the door, and girls wanting to be let in before other customers left first would flirt aggressively with me to try and get me to lift the rope. As I was sitting there on this particular evening, two US sailors stumbled into line. This was before the days of MADD, and people got a lot more inebriated in bars than bars will allow them to these days. Still, even for the time these two were really ploughed.
As they stood waiting, they tried to “flirt” with a few girls farther up in line by loudly explaining in great detail that their penises were unusually large. One of the girls responded with some quick witticism that turned the sailors’ words around and reduced the theoretical size of their moneymakers by a factor of many, and everyone in line laughed. The sailors did not appreciate this act of disrespect, and one of them told the girl he had half a mind to “beat the shit” out of her when they got inside.
Not seeing a way letting the sailors into the bar would end well, I told them it looked like they’d had enough for the night and explained we wouldn’t be letting them in this at this point – perhaps they would like to return the next evening and allow the house to buy them a round for their trouble? This led to them of explaining to me how many ways they knew how to kill a man with one hand, unlike those p**sies from Canada, which led to a group of Canadian sailors in line – who were OK with American sailors threatening to beat up a woman, but understandably had to draw the line at the claim Canadians might not know as many ways to kill a man with one hand – got in their face. While I was trying to tell one of the Canadians to get back in line or we wouldn’t be able to let them in either, one of the American sailors cold cocked me from behind – hard. (Why he chose to sneak up on my, I have no idea. He was about a foot taller than I was, and about 80 pounds heavier – all muscle. He could have had both hands tied behind his back and he still would have cleaned the floor with me.) I was out cold for a couple of minutes. Shortly after my head rebooted the US Sailors left when the doorman came out and announced the police were on their way. We never saw them again.
This isn’t a very interesting story; it’s certainly not very unusual. My guess is most people reading this have a similar story to mine: some scuffle at a party or a bar they either witnessed or were involved with, where some drunk assholes looking to show the world how tough they were got into people faces, hoping someone would give them enough of an excuse to take the first swing. In fact, I bet you have already thought of such a story from your own life, and I bet it’s a lot more interesting than mine. And that’s OK, I’m comfortable with your story being better than mine.
You know what I am not so comfortable with?
The idea that it would be awesome if all of those people, from my story and yours, were encouraged to carry firearms in public at all times.
___________________________________
One of the predictable talking points from the Right coming on the heels of the tragic Aurora shooting is the argument that the rampage itself is a call for a more universally armed society than we have today. (On the radio since I have been back, I have heard this view espoused to one degree or another by Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity and Larson.) Even here at the League, Wardsmith suggests that an armed society would be preferable, as he (correctly) notes that the police just can’t protect you from psychos like James Holmes.
The argument, as I understand it, goes something like this: Were the majority of American carrying fire arms while out in public, the potential victims of horrors like Aurora’s shootings would have been able to defend themselves. If most of the theatre goers on that night were armed and willing to use deadly force, it stands to reason that the number of victims would be drastically reduced, if not eliminated outright. This same argument was made with both Arizona’s Jared Loughner and Virginia Tech’s Seung-Hui Cho.
I have to say there is no question in my mind that this argument is absolutely, completely, 100% true. I know that there are some that dispute this, but I confess I find these arguments wanting. Were everyone fully armed at Virginia Tech, for example, the thought that not one person would have shot Seung-Hui Cho and kept the ultimate body count lower strikes me as politically driven credulity. Hell, I’m one of the least violent guys I know, and I would have emptied a clip into the guy under those circumstances. And yet despite my belief in all of the above, I find the idea of encouraging as many Americans as possible to fully arm themselves for their day-to-day lives astoundingly irresponsible.
The reason for this apparent contradiction has everything to do with my risk management background. One of the things the study of risk management tells us is that, despite politicians’ platitudes, you cannot escape risk no matter how hard you try. Decreasing one risk invariably increases another, and this is especially true with deadly firearms. The problem with calling for public policy that publicly arms the populace after these tragedies is that it replaces a risk with one that is substantially larger, statistically speaking. I suspect that we’re actually increasing many risks, but for the moment allow me to focus on just one: accidental shootings.
In 2007, the most recent year I have been able to find statistics, there were over 600 accidental shooting deaths, and over 15,000 people injured with non-fatal accidental gunshot wounds. Let’s just take a moment to reflect on these statistics, none of which involve malice or violent intent. These statistics reflect accidents, and accidents adhere to the Law of Large Numbers. And the Law of Large Numbers tells us that if we increase both the number of people carrying firearms, and the average amount of time per day that people have those firearms on their person, the number of accidents will increase as well. What, then, would be the results if we were able to use public policy to encourage a substantial number of adults to be armed while in public, to the extent that any public threat of massacre might be addressed? I’ll be the first to confess that so much of the data you’d need for such a calculation would need to be a guess, and the number of variables you’d need to consider would be legion. But for the sake of this post, let’s make some WAGs just to get a flavor of the results of such a change in our public attitude toward guns:
I have no idea how many Americans actually carry open or concealed firearms while in public on any given day, and have not been able to find statistics on such a thing. So allow me to choose an overly conservative number that I suspect is far too high: three million, or one in every 100 Americans. Now assume that our new “An Armed Society is a Polite Society” policies are tremendously successful, and we are able to increase that number to 60 million, or one out of every five Americans. Also, let’s say that in addition to having armed the populace in their day-to-day lives, publicly funded gun-safety education is wildly successful and cuts the accidental shooting rates rate in half. What do we have then?
What we have, then, is a 12,000% increase in accidents: almost 7,000 additional accidental shooting deaths and almost 200,000 additional accidental shooting injuries on an annual basis. To put that number in perspective, the past three tragedies that have caused the Right to call for arming the populace (Virginia Tech, Arizona and Aurora) average out to 16 deaths and 29 injuries per massacre.
In addition to the accidental shootings, I have to say that I suspect there would be additional unintended consequences. Part of the logic behind the “arm the public” philosophy is the assumption that everyone with a firearm will act rationally and make well reasoned choices: A crazed lunatic about to go out in a personal-suicide blaze of glory will rethink the wisdom of this knowing he might be shot by someone other than himself; a drunk, mean-spirited, hormonally charged 21 year-old sailor in a bar will always decide to say “please and thank you” rather than trying to prove how tough he is; an abusive husband that’s screaming at his wife for some imagined infraction will apologize and be a better person once his hand feels the gun on his hip. For Ward and others, the obvious fact that it is more logical to be polite and kind to one another when everyone is armed is proof that the above scenarios will be the case. But my experience in risk management has taught me that people are not nearly as logical or reasonable when it comes to their own safety as one might expect – especially when they are drunk, emotional or young and male. Many – far too many – are actually pretty self-destructive; giving these people guns and asking them to have them on their person when they’re out drinking, dating, driving, arguing, fighting, and having fun seems tremendously unwise, and asking for trouble.
One of the differences between my thinking and those on the Right calling for an armed society, I think, is that those on the Right seem to view the deadliness of firearms from a purely “criminal vs. victim” point of view. This is, of course, a very legitimate point of view; one of the primary reasons people purchase handguns is self-defense. But while this angle is legitimate, it’s only one of many. The truth of the matter is the world just isn’t neatly divided into “the good guys” and “perps,” to take two phrases that seem to be used without irony by many of those calling for armed citizenry. And even in those cases where criminal threats exist, it isn’t always so black and white. I have two teenage boys, and because of this I would rather risk living in a neighborhood where one of the neighbor’s kids was a thief that might take my TV than in a neighborhood with this guy:
I’ve never been a big fan of gun control laws. There are several reasons for this, not the least of which is that I am a gun owner and have enjoyed shooting for years. Past that, however, I’ve never seen a gun control law that does much. Part of this is due to faulty legislation, and part is due to faulty thinking. Besides, I can’t think of any draconian gun-controlling actions that wouldn’t favor the people I most want guns kept away from: criminals, the overly irresponsible, Glenn Beck listeners that are buying gold because they think (and are hoping) that the government is about to collapse, and the mentally ill. Those people will just say “Fish it” to the laws, and will do what they were going to do anyway. There are just too many firearms out there already, and because of this I firmly believe that sweeping laws that would crack down on gun ownership would work really well with the Mike Dwyers of the world, but not the James Holmses. So there is no doubt in my mind that guns are with us to stay, and in truth I’m OK with that – but that does not mean that arming as many people as possible isn’t a terrible idea.
Look, I understand the desire, after the huge act of violence we just witnessed in Aurora, to gear our entire firearms public policy around making sure that this could never happen again – I really do. It’s a very natural reaction, both human and compassionate. But making public policy based upon random acts of the completely insane is a bad idea in the end. For one thing, you can’t actually stop crazy evil people from doing crazy evil things. A guy that came up with a plan to kill a bunch of people under scenario A will just find another way to kill a bunch of people if you force him to plan against your new scenario B. Is there a solution to these massacres? I’m not sure that there is, really. But I am sure that arming our society to the teeth isn’t it.
Alan Scott 
Kimmi 
Kazzy 
Sam 
Glyph 
Burt Likko 
{ 88 comments }
I’m trying to find a resource but if memory serves, there were far less shootings in the ‘Old West’ than there are now. And that was with a more heavily armed populace.
A friend of a friend of mine uses grenades frequently as a means of escaping from bad situations.
Aren’t you glad you don’t work as a realtor where she does?
That would not surprise me, but I would also bet that the number of constant and varied human interactions people have today dwarfs whatever made up life on the prairie.
As I mentioned before on another post, The Old West actually had a lot of gun control.
Cowboys and others were not allowed to go around town with their guns. Upon entering a town, people had to check in their guns with the Sheriff or at a large hotel and receive a ticket. You could pick up your gun again when leaving town. The mythic fight at the OK-Coral was because the person did not want to check his gun.
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jan/23/nation/la-na-tombstone-20110123
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/adam-winkler/did-the-wild-west-have-mo_b_956035.html
Carrying a weapon has always been a provocative act.
It signals that violence is near, and that the bearer is willing to use it.
This is why the proponents of bearing arms need to constantly pump air into the argument that we live in wild, lawless, dangerous environment; otherwise, they would be seen as the danger, the ones who need to be restrained. There is nothing they dread more than the outbreak of peace.
I agree.
To hear some or many CCW, it makes me wonder if they see the world as resembling Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome.
Some places really are that bad. Not so long ago, at least one was in America.
Yes I know but that is part of the point. The current United States is not Afghanistan or Somalia. We have a long time to go before we are close to the anarchy that is Mad Max.
And there are very few people alive (if any) who can remember when America was that bad.
That’s pretty white of you, N.D.
The current United States is not Afghanistan or Somalia.
No need to go that far afield. If I remember the statistics correctly, 25% of the population has left Ciudad Juarez, just across the river from El Paso, to escape the violence there. On the order of 120,000 abandoned houses in a metro area whose population peaked at 1.3 million. Juarez has regularly been described as the most dangerous city in the world outside of active war zones.
Interestingly, El Paso is one of our safest cities.
Agree with Kolohe.
We’re talking 1990′s, here, not … 1960′s??
New Dealer – some towns DID have strict gun laws. Others didn’t. And many, many people carried small, easily concealed guns for protection. Derringers, for example, were very popular with ‘gentlemen’ in the last two decades of the 19th century. Wild Bill Hickok was involved in several legal gunfights.
If you’re ever in Louisville, stop in to the Frazier Museum. They have a large section on ‘guns of the old west’ which covers this subject.
The best gun control in the Old West was a combination of everyone else being armed (if it was legal to carry, everyone carried) and liberal use of capital punishment.
The number of guns and gun owners in the United States today dwarf the population of the Old West, unless you meant per capita? My half remembered historical factoid about the Old West was that most gun fights involved some combination of booze/a difference of opinion, that most people were lousy shots, and most gun fatalities involved getting shot in the back.
Also, parts of the Old West deemed the 2nd Admendment a little less sacredly than we do now: http://www.anyclip.com/movies/winchester-73/no-guns-in-dodge-city/
Yes. Despite being temporally closer to the authors of the Constitution — or perhaps because, rather than despite — the US citizenry in the Old West in general didn’t seem to have problems with laws controlling the carrying of guns in relatively crowded areas.
What was the population of that populace? Pretty thinly spread, if I recall.
This is a very good post. I am not in complete agreement but it was all very well thought out.
I’ve never been much of a cluber but was convinced to go clubbing by a friend in January 2011. There was a double homicide at the club that night. Both were stabbing murders. One seemed to be very random. The other might have been gang-related, I don’t remember.
The police were trying to keep things as calm and orderly as possible while they investigated. Sadly they were dealing with a lot of young 20-somethings who were drunk and probably a decent amount were high. Eventually the police decided to let people leave through the back entrance while asking people if they saw anything. Some people tried to create a bit of a panic in order to overwhelm the police and push through.
This was when the murders were done with a knife. I can’t imagine what the panic would be like if a gun was involved.
I haven’t seen anyone mention it on the league but yesterday only 16 days after Aurora a bro-nazi shot several people at a Sikh temple in Milwaukee WI
6 people died and the police killed the shooter.
I seriously hope we go longer than sixteen days before the next mass shooting.
Long ago I frequented a bar in south Georgia, a part of the country in which most people carried a weapon. The only time I ever saw a gun pulled was on a guy travelling through, Viet Nam vet, who went berserk and started kicking the asses of everyone in the bar, sent three to the hospital, with one suffering brain damage from a pool stick the Nam vet used on him.. The only thing that stopped the attacker from seriously hurting more people was one guy pulled a gun, cocked it and held it on the guy until he left.
How old was the bar crowd? Younger crowds are much more violent statistically.
The crowd was usually mixed — old timers who were fixtures, then majority young pool players and card players from 20 to 35. The ones with guns would usually put their guns behind the bar, but some just carried concealed.
I would not disagree that such a thing might and does happen. This was not a “guns are evil” post.
“This was not a “guns are evil” post.”
Thus, I wasn’t making the case that guns are not evil, although it’s silly to even consider an inanimate object as evil or not evil.
You’ve clearly not seen a snuggy, then.
Does this mean I’m going to hell because I let the kids put a pink snuggy on our new (male) puppy?
It’s your job as a parent to use this as a teaching moment.
Or a Tommy Lasorda bobblehead.
Dude, why you gotta hate?
Fish got to swim
Bird got to fly
I got to hate one team till they die
you cannot escape risk no matter how hard you try.
Just leave the minute they bring the game board out. This works with Monopoly and D&D too.
Oh you! ;D
Actually I liked this post. Truth be told I like almost all Tod’s posts. In a reasonable society many things become reasonable. CCW could be denied for the young, dumb and full of cum crowd for instance. And I can’t think of a state where carrying in a bar is even legal.
May I invite you to visit my home state Tennessee? Enjoy your trip and spend lots of money.
http://m.wate.com/default.aspx?pid=2705&wnfeedurl=http%3a%2f%2fwww.wate.com%2fstory%2f14573451%2fguns-in-bars%3fclienttype%3drssstory
I just left Loudon Tennessess yesterday after a three day visit. I wasn’t shot once.
tennessee
Hey I have lived here for most of my life without being shot.
I thought he might want to know that it is legal o have a firearm in a bar in my state. Assuming the bar owner doesn’t post notice saying otherwise.
Well, it’s nice to see that goes both ways, Ward. Which you should absolutely, positively take as a hint to guest post more often.
Ah, that’s in the penumbra of the 2nd Amendment, right?
“The right to bear arms shall not be infringed, unless we think you’re reckless or stupid”.
Maybe that’s like the First Amendment time, place and manner restrictions, except in this case, time, place, and manners.
edit: dammit, too soon, I’m sorry
Oh, see, that’s the horrible, socialist, anti-gun, UN-loving, handgun-confiscating liberal position.
As I understand it, all real Americans — NRA card owning, Republican voting ones — would never dream of ever, EVER infringing someone’s right to bear arms.
Legal in Colorado, but carrying while impaired is a crime (don’t remember off hand, but don’t think it’s a felony). Law enforcement officers are allowed to exercise some discretion in judging whether you’re impaired, so even if you met the blood test level, you might still be found guilty based on the officer’s testimony. Best rule of thumb — if you’re carrying, don’t drink.
While it may be true that increasing the number of the number of people carrying firearms and the average amount of time per day that people have those firearms on their person, the Law of Large Numbers isn’t applicable here. LLN would only clarify the risk thus imposed, exposing an expected value.
What you’re looking for is a lambda hazard function. It’s the Barney Fife Syndrome. Remember how Barney only got one bullet? He was forever getting in trouble because he chambered that round. The probability of an accidental discharge is nil if you don’t carry a weapon with a round in the chamber. If everyone carried a loaded weapon and nobody chambered a round, there wouldn’t be any accidental discharges either, excluding Black Swan events.
Here’s where the Barney Fife Syndrome kicks in. People are stupid. They chamber rounds anyway. They lose their tempers and bad things happen. Doesn’t matter if you locked that weapon up in the heart of Fort Knox with the gold bars, there’s always a Barney Fife to mess around with it and blow his toes off.
There are roughly equal numbers of cars and guns in the USA. The situation is far enough advanced and the rhetoric so heated, there really is no hope for common ground. We are an armed society and we are no more polite for it. There’s only one choke point where we might reduce risk: keeping live rounds out of the chamber.
I think the hope is not that more people would own guns, but that more people who are responsible with their guns would be allowed to carry them. You don’t have to increase the number of people who own guns. And a lot of one-rifle people aren’t going to start carrying their firearms. But, as you noted, we could increase the average time per day that a licensed and trained person has access to his firearm.
I don’t know if that’d work or not. How many accidents are caused by people carrying their guns? I’d guess a good number are the result of guns being found and played with. The right denominator could be “total guns” rather than “total gun hours”.
I’m thinking of something more like a “well-regulated militia”, essentially a deputized class.
Pinky, I suspect 75% of those “accidents” occurred while cleaning the weapons. I heard one guy shot himself on three different occasions while cleaning his gun. Actually it appears I mis-remembered the story. When I read a story like this one I’m not thinking accidental shooting, I’m thinking failed suicide. So some of the stats are bound to be skewed. Would we still have 20K suicides per year without handguns or simply more bridge jumpers and pill swallowers?
We’re 41st among 107 rated.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate
1 Lithuania 61.3 10.4 34.1 2009
2 South Korea[3] (more info) 41.4 21.0 31.2 2010
3 Guyana 39.0 13.4 26.4 2006
4 Kazakhstan 43.0 9.4 25.6 2008
5 Belarus[4][5] 25.3 2010
6 Hungary[6] 40.0 10.6 24.6 2009
7 Japan (more info)[7] 33.5 14.6 23.8 2011
8 Latvia 40.0 8.2 22.9 2009
9 People’s Republic of China [8]
(more info) 22.23 2010
10 Slovenia 34.6 9.4 21.9 2009
11 Sri Lanka[9] 21.6 1996
12 Russia[10] 21.4 2011
13 Ukraine 37.8 7.0 21.2 2009
14 Serbia and Montenegro 28.4 11.1 19.5 2006
15 Estonia 20.6 7.3 18.1 2008
16 Switzerland 24.8 11.4 18.0 2007
17 Croatia 28.9 7.5 17.8 2009
18 Belgium[note 1][6] 26.5 9.3 17.6 2009
19 Finland[11] 27.2 8.6 17.6 2010
20 Moldova 30.1 5.6 17.4 2008
21 France 26.4 7.2 16.2 2008
22 Uruguay 26.0 6.3 15.8 2004
23 South Africa[12] 25.3 5.6 15.4 2005
24 Austria 23.8 7.1 15.2 2009
25 Poland 26.4 4.1 14.9 2008
26 Hong Kong 19.0 10.7 14.6 2009
27 Suriname 23.9 4.8 14.4 2005
28 Czech Republic 23.9 4.4 14.0 2009
29 New Zealand[13] 20.3 6.5 13.2 2008
30 Sweden 18.7 6.8 12.7 2008
31 Cuba 19.0 5.5 12.3 2008
32 Bulgaria 18.8 6.2 12.3 2008
33 Romania 21.0 3.5 12.0 2009
34 Norway 17.3 6.5 11.9 2009
35 Denmark 17.5 6.4 11.9 2006
36 Ireland 19.0 4.7 11.8 2009
37 Bosnia and Herzegovina 20.3 3.3 11.8 1991
38 Canada 17.3 5.4 11.3 2004
39 Iceland[14] 17.9 4.5 11.3 2009
40 Chile 18.2 4.2 11.1 2007
41 United States (more info) 19.0 4.9 11.8 2008
Very interesting numbers, Tom. I’m not surprised that the former Soviet Union / Warsaw Pact dominates the list, and I knew about Japan’s problem, but I was surprised to see South Korea so high on the list.
In Tokyo, if someone is found, having lost his wallet, and dead by gunshot through the chest, they are likely to rule it a suicide.
Heh. They’ll wait twenty minutes and that lost wallet will turn up at the nearest kouban. From what I’ve heard, all these lost possessions become something of a problem: there must be metric tons of lost umbrellas stacking up at police stations all over Japan.
Really? There does seem to be an East Asia thing within the data. I believe that Taiwan has a high rate as well. And there is a cultural tradition of noble suicide. I’m sure that North Korea has no suicides, though, and an officially happy, healthy population.
Yeah, that sounds believable. I’d bet that a lot of accidental shootings are the result of kids finding Dad’s “hidden” gun, too. I’m sure there would be some increase in the number of accidental shootings if more people carried weapons, but I don’t think it would increase by the same percentage. There are only so many ways a person can accidentally shoot himself/others while carrying a holstered gun.
This article makes a good point about morons, alcohol, and guns though. I’m sure the gun enthusiast doesn’t like the idea of government tracking such things, but there’s got to be a way to expand the opportunities to carry a weapon without encouraging the kind of situation this article describes. I wonder if anyone’s interested in finding the middle ground.
Make a gun like a car… use of it (or perhaps even carrying it)* while intoxicated gets you in deep doody, perhaps so deep that you are temporarily or maybe even permanently barred from carrying again. Yes, some responsible folk suffering from a momentary lapse of judgement will get the screws put to them. But, by and large, this will filter out the types of folks discussed in the article without infringing on those who fully intend to be responsible with their weapon.
* Perhaps the weapons experts can way in on mechanisms that can effectively disable a weapon, such that someone who leaves his house at 8AM, takes public transportation to and from work, and wants to grab a beer before heading home can safely carry his weapon during the earlier part of his day and disable it before hitting the bar. I realize that a disabled weapon can be enabled, even by someone drunk. But the point is not so much to guarantee that no one ever does something stupid with a gun, but to put enough incentives in place to remain responsible with the weapon that hopefully people act a bit wiser. To take the car analogy further, some folks opt not to drunk drive because they realize the danger of the situation. Others opt not to because they fear the legal repercussions. The latter, in my experience, will often insist that they know they COULD make it home safely, but it’s not worth getting caught up in a checkpoint or getting their license revoked because of a busted taillight and a breathalyzer. Responsible gun owners likely realize that a bar is not a wise place to carry a locked and loaded weapon. Someone less responsible might think they’d be fine to bring it there, but would be given pause if they knew simply having it (or having it loaded or enabled or whathaveyou) was enough to cause them some trouble.
Kazzy:
“Make a gun like a car… use of it (or perhaps even carrying it)* while intoxicated gets you in deep doody, perhaps so deep that you are temporarily or maybe even permanently barred from carrying again.”
Do you mean like the deep doody that Teddy K got into after his drunken accident?
Heh. Or Dick Cheney, out there with his shotgun, drunk off his ass, blasting away at his hunting partner?
Blaise:
Any proof or is just more BS? Many folks saw Teddy K drunk.
FWIW, which is likely not much, given how open you are to actually examining facts:
http://www.infowars.com/articles/us/cheney_shooting_drunk_when_shot_lawyer.htm
Tell me what this has to do with anything I said.
We can have an adult conversation or we can havea partisan pissing match. If you opt for the latter, I’ll sit out and let you get your own shoes wet.
Teddy K is the perfect response to someone that thinks that folks get into deep doody for driving drunk and killing someone.
I think that folks who drive drunk, regardless of if they kill someone or not, should be in deep doody.
Do I need to explicitly name the late Ted Kennedy every time I make such a statement? Is this also where I should include my obligatory denunciation of Karl Marx?
Glad that you “think” that should be the case. You miss the point though that it doesn’t necessarily work that way in real life. There are plenty of folks with multiple DUIs on the road today so the idea that we will make gun use like a car is ill conceived.
So because our enforcement of existing DUI laws is poor, a similar theoretical approach to gun ownership is ill conceived?
How about this: We have better enforcement of DUI laws. HOLY FUCKING SHIT that was hard to consider.
More to the point, my proposal was far from a fully formed one and I only sought to explore the “middle ground” that Plinko mentioned. You, on the other hand, felt it necessary to take a partisan potshot.
Some of us are here to discuss. Others are here to throw feces. You, sir, are the latter.
The intervening 43 years have seen just a tiny bit of strengthening of the DWI laws. Just a tad.
A gun with a breathalyzer? I invested in a company doing a biometric hand grip. Never went anywhere but the tech is trivial. Losing batteries at a bad time would suck of course.
I would still put the onus on the user. The gun can be enabled at any time (though might prove difficult for a highly intoxicated person). But can simply be disabled in such a way to be rendered a paperweight when so desired and which would require a deliberate action to enable.
Concur. It’s carelessness or someone finding something they shouldn’t.
You follow the 7 rules of firearm handling and you’re fine. When I was a little kid I knew how to handle firearms. I knew they were dangerous and not to touch them without my Dad around, even when I found that hidden one Dad kept. That’s why you cover the bases. Knowing how to handle them and the proper precautions and knowing NOT to handle them when you’re a kid without adult supervison.
And one final thing Tod, it’s a magazine, not a clip.
I wonder what the stats look like on gun owners who grew up in a house with guns versus gun owners who did not. Many folks, both here and elsewhere, talk about the respect they learned for the power of guns and the importance of responsibility, safety, and precaution did so in the context of lessons imparted when they were young. This is obviously very anecdotal, but I can see a certain intuitive logic that folks growing up around responsible gun owners might themselves be more likely to become a responsible gun owner than someone who grew up watching GI Joe and playing with Nerf guns before deciding to arm up at 18 or 25 or whatever.
It’s easier with girls. My daughters took zero interest in guns. Sometimes I leave them in a corner of the living room (unloaded) for days. To them they are just furniture. They always knew that if they touched them, they were going to catch a beating. Boys get into more mischief. If I had sons I would be more careful.
Still though, being around guns growing up takes away the taboo. It makes them less scary. It’s always a little bit sad when I see a first-time shooter that is an adult. They are wise enough to know that the gun is very dangerous and inexperienced enough to fear it. That creates a lot of nerves you have to overcome. But the reward is awesome if they take to it. There’s also nothing I like more than introducing people to shooting sports.
Interesting.
I never shot anything until the past couple years. For one of my buddy’s bachelor parties, we rented a cottage out in the middle of nowhere. Him and many of his high school friends were outdoorsman, avid hunters and fishermen and the like. His college friends, like myself, grew up in more urban areas absent this culture. We all got along great and had a really fun time. But there was a stark difference to how we approached our trip to the range. Most of the high school friends brought their own guns, some of them with multiples. They spent the morning cleaning them and making sure everything was ready to go. I had a beer and made sure to put on my camo pants because, well, that is what I figured I ought to wear.
At the range, most of them went right at it, while a few stayed back and gave us lessons. Really helpful, really patient. But there was a noticeable lack-of-seriousness amongst those of us who hadn’t handled guns before. Some of it was novelty, some of it was our own discomfort at being fish out of water, but some of it was certainly a lack of familiarity and respect for the power of the weapons we were holding. At one point, I accidentally brought the business end of my gun across another guy. I could best describe his response as a restrained flip out.
“Woh dude. Don’t ever bring the barrel of the gun across someone like that.”
“My bad. But, I mean, it wasn’t loaded. And the safety was on.”
“Doesn’t matter. You don’t do that. I don’t know either of those things to be true and, frankly, neither do you.”
“I hear ya. But it’s not like I’d ever shoot you. My finger wasn’t even on the trigger.”
“Doesn’t matter. I’ve seen supposedly safer situations go awry. Just don’t do it. It’s dangerous and poor form. Nothing is going to piss someone off like that. And that’s assuming nothing does go wrong.”
His point was a sound one and I later thanked him for ultimately how cool he was throughout the situation (he would have been totally justified in flipping out on me once the gun was out of my hands and never letting me pick it up again).
There was a degree to which those of us who were unfamiliar and largely uninterested in guns were play acting through the experience. “Look at me! I’ve got a gun! Check out this badass pose! Now watch me shoot something awesome!” (Note: I missed every target that day.) This carried over, ever so slightly, to how we handled the guns. The other gentlemen, those for whom this was a hobby of a way to feed their families or something they loved, approached it in a much more serious and respectful manner.
I don’t know if this typical or not. Like I said, many of us were fish-out-of-water who likely wouldn’t have strayed into the mountains of western Maryland, let alone to a shooting range, on our own. There was a broader discomfort some of us were feeling and dealing with that likely impacted how we handled ourselves. But I wouldn’t be shocked if that is how many folks who didn’t grow up with guns have their first shooting experience.
That sounds very familiar to me. I’ve seen similar situations with friends.
The closest I have probably come to that was the one (and only) time I have driven a motorcycle. A buddy let me try his dirt bike one weekend at the farm. I was terrified and it probably showed. I never really felt comfortable on it, although I enjoyed the experience.
…that a licensed and trained person has access to his firearm.
I’d be happier if that training were required to be more thorough. Here, it can mean as little as two-and-a-half hours in a classroom (they seem to keep compressing the amount of time) and zero range time. Yep, this state allows someone who has never fired a handgun in their life to buy and carry one. Their absolute first shot may be in a crowded, stressful situation. And that terrifies me.
County-sponsored ranges. Everyone who has a permit is allowed to shoot for free once a month. And everyone with a permit is required to shoot once a year, and his permit rides on the results. Reasonable?
Most Carry Accidents I hear of are people trying to catch a dropped firearm, which is about as smart as trying to catch a dropped knife.
Modern guns are drop tested with a round chambered. A gun in good working order will not fire if dropped. If you hear of an accidental discharge from a dropped gun, someone tried to catch it & caught the trigger.
Damn, we DO live in a wild, dangerous world!
“Bee Swarm Attacks Hillary Clinton”!
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/242307-hillary-clinton-entourage-come-under-attack-from-swarm-of-bees
See? Instead of Uzis, the Secret Service shoulda been packing Epi-pens.
Now she can honestly say she had to run across a tarmac dodging bees.
Great post. For what it’s worth, the best estimate I could find was that there are 8 million active CCW and/or open carry permit holders: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concealed_carry_in_the_United_States. Presumably, a good chunk of those folks don’t carry as often as they possibly can, but given that, 3 million seems like it might be slightly on the low side in terms of people who do. Still, even if that applied to all 8 million folks, I don’t think it would significantly alter your analysis.
The number is probably more because not all states requires sheriffs to report the number of issued licenses and many do not.
Also, you can’t assume that everyone who’s carrying a gun has a permit. I wonder if there’s any correlation at all between having a permit to carry and carrying a gun.
Also – there are several states where you can carry concealed on your person and/or in a car with no CCW.
Tod:
So what is wrong with having a neighbor like Joe Horn? It is nice to know that he gives a fish about his neighbors.
Well Scott, you and I just hear different things. I didn’t hear a man that was very concerned about his neighbors. I heard a man that was angry and wanted to shoot somebody. He didn’t tell them to stop, he didn’t warn them, he didn’t try to hold them in his sights until the police got there, he just walked out and shot them. To me it sounded less like a defense, and more like an execution.
Now I’m guessing that for you, that’s an even trade; you take a tv that doesn’t belong to you, you get executed – or if you prefer, just gunned down by surprise without warning. To you, the worlds a better place without those scum, yes? Me not so much. It’s a values difference. Plus, who’s to say my kids might not someday do kid things, like ding-dong-ditch it, or get the football in the guy’s yard? Since the guy is a shoot people first kind of guy, I’d just feel safer him not living near me and my family.
But hey, it all works out ok. You can now go on and call me a bleeding heart liberal that hates America, and I can think of you as one of those guys that isn’t in law enforcement but still uses the word “perps” unironically.
Everybody wins.
Tod:
Did you really listen to the tape? He called the cops first so your claim that he just wanted to shoot them is silly, plus when he did finally go out he did tell them to freeze and then shot them when they came toward him. Not to mention that if you research the incident, there was a plain clothes cop at the scene who witnessed it but did not interfere, so he hardly executed them.
“One vital piece of evidence is certain to be the audiotape of Mr. Horn’s 911 calls. In a low, calm and steady voice, he said he saw the men breaking in and asked: “I’ve got a shotgun; do you want me to stop them?”
The Pasadena emergency operator responded: “Nope. Don’t do that. Ain’t no property worth shooting somebody over, O.K.?”
Mr. Horn said: “But hurry up, man. Catch these guys will you? Cause, I ain’t going to let them go.”
Mr. Horn then said he would get his shotgun.
The operator said, “No, no.” But Mr. Horn said: “I can’t take a chance of getting killed over this, O.K.? I’m going to shoot.”
The operator told him not to go out with a gun because officers would be arriving.
“O.K.,” Mr. Horn said. “But I have a right to protect myself too, sir,” adding, “The laws have been changed in this country since September the first, and you know it.”
The operator said, “You’re going to get yourself shot.” But Mr. Horn replied, “You want to make a bet? I’m going to kill them.”
Moments later he said, “Well here it goes, buddy. You hear the shotgun clicking and I’m going.”
Then he said: “Move, you’re dead.”
There were two quick explosions, then a third, and the 911 call ended.
“I had no choice,” Mr. Horn said when he called 911 back. “They came in the front yard with me, man.””
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/13/us/13texas.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
You could test your argument by comparing accidental shooting rates from the time before so many states adopted concealed carry laws.
If more concealed carry leads to more accidental shootings, the number of such shootings should spike in proportion to the number concealed carry permits.
I’m not sure I agree, because my assumption is that implemented conceal carry laws have simply allowed a small minority who are already gun enthusiasts to have them in public.
This is very different from advocating that most people should be armed.
Still, I should add that I think there is still good data to be mined from such a comparison.
I think that you’d have more contact time that way.
The thing I noticed about the story is that the main antagonists are in the military.
If there is one group in this country that is allowed to carry guns, it’s the police… but if there is a second that would be allowed to have them, even in the most restrictive reading of the 2nd Amendment, it’d be the military.
Not that you were arguing that we’d need to limit gun ownership, of course. If you were, however, I think that the detail of the profession of the antagonists was an interesting one.
Two groups of people you never want to piss off when they’re drinking (three actually)
1) Cops
2) Military
3) Firemen
with a corollary of
4) Wanna-be’s
Worst experiences of my bouncing career have been with combinations of these groups.
Besides, I can’t think of any draconian gun-controlling actions that wouldn’t favor the people I most want guns kept away from: criminals, the overly irresponsible, Glenn Beck listeners that are buying gold because they think (and are hoping) that the government is about to collapse, and the mentally ill.
The latter two in your list are identical.
{ 2 trackbacks }