We’ve had a few days of non-stop coverage of the savage murder of Jews in Temple. Trump stated that what was needed was a person with a good gun to stop the shooter. Then the YSM (Yellow Stream Media) proceeded to call him names and talk dirt about it.
So my question is simple: Are you making decisions based on reality, or based on media “stories” divorced from reality and biased in content?
We’ve had thousands of total media-channel-hours of coverage of the shooting. Essentially NO coverage of the alternative:
https://dailycaller.com/2018/10/29/father-kills-shooter-mcdonalds/
Armed Father Kills Masked Shooter Who Opened Fire At Alabama McDonald’s
10:17 AM 10/29/2018 | US
Mike Brest | ReporterA father shot and killed a masked gunman who opened fire inside a McDonald’s in Birmingham, Alabama, on Saturday night.
A store employee had opened the door for the father and his two sons to leave when a man wearing a mask walked in and began shooting, according to WBRC-TV. At that point, the father turned around and began firing at the shooter with his pistol.
Both men were shot, the gunman later dying from his wounds and the father suffering non-life threatening injuries. One of his sons was also hit, but he is also not facing life-threatening injuries.
So two wounded and the Bad Guy dead. NOT 11 dead.
Remember back when we had the Church Shooting 4 Walled?
https://dailycaller.com/2017/11/06/texas-man-who-shot-church-gunman-was-certified-nra-instructor/
Texas Man Who Shot Church Gunman Was Certified NRA Instructor
7:11 PM 11/06/2017 | US
Amber Athey | Media and Breaking News EditorStephen Willeford, the Texas man who engaged church shooter Devin P. Kelley, was an NRA certified instructor from 2002-2004.
The National Rifle Association confirmed to The Daily Caller on Monday that Willeford was an instructor for two years.
Willeford used an AR-15 on Sunday to confront Kelley at the Sutherland Springs church where he had killed 26 people.
Willeford says he shot Kelley, causing him to drop his rifle and try to escape in an SUV. Willeford and fellow good samaritan Johnnie Langendorff pursued him in Langendorff’s truck, with the chase reaching speeds of 95 MPH before Kelley finally veered off the road. Investigators say Kelley died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
“I think my God, my Lord, protected me and gave me the skills to do what needed to be done, and I just wish I had gotten there faster,” Willeford said in an interview Monday.
A Modest Suggestion
The Mossad does a great job of protecting Jews in Israel. They do it with guns. I’m sure there is also the need for new Mossad agents to gain skill at concealed carry of a firearm and adopting a “cover story” and sticking with it.
My modest suggestion is just that one problem can cure the other. New Mossad agents, after basic training, could do a 6 month or 1 year undercover tour at various Temples & Synagogues around the world. That would be a relatively safe place for them to practice staying in character, and if “outed” as carrying it would be pretty easy for the Rabbi to step up and say he had granted them permission. Those agents who finished their 6 months (as gardener, janitor, maybe even Rabbi or Cantor or even just congregant) successfully would then be highly skilled at staying in character on operations and not exposing their weapon. Then they could move on to more complex operations.
At the same time, there would not be any more massacres at the Synagogue… after a couple of “Attacker shot – dancing around the body discouraged” in the news, even stupid folks would realize it was a Bad Idea.
Frankly, in my opinion, it is time for Israel to protect the people of Israel.
Musings from the Chiefio 
My first reaction to your post was to recall that in Berlin, and I suppose all of Germany, there’s a well-armed pair of police at the front of every synagogue. It doesn’t take much imagination to guess why, but I wonder if there are police at mosques as well. None at Christian churches, as far as I could see. So the idea of armed guards at Jewish places of worship is not without precedent. But I don’t suppose there are many synagogues left in Germany, so not many police are needed.
But in the USA? Well, there are over 3500 synagogues. And mosques? How about an armed guard at every school? And supermarkets, too. And post offices? Where does this end?
The answer is pretty clear: It ends in a police state. Not something I think you want. But it does seem to be something you support. That, or a fully-armed citizenry. I’d rather live in a disarmed country like Germany any day.
Be careful what you wish for.
The last time I was in a certain (unnamed) Latin American country, there was a heavily-armed guard in front of every bank. You get used to it. It does not necessarily end in a police state.
In many countries there are many heavily armed police roaming the airport terminals. You can have professionals do security or you can leave it to the willing amateurs, but don’t leave it to hope and chance, that’s just chaos in the end.
Well – you got one part completely correct. A fully armed citizenry goes a long long way to creating a civilized society.
Serioso: “That, or a fully-armed citizenry.”
When seconds count, help is only minutes away. It is rare for a police officer to be in place at the start of a violent crime. Typically, police are called to find and arrest someone after the crime has already happened or in response to a crime in progress. The reality is that the individual is the first responder at the scene of a violent crime and they had better be able to respond to the situation at hand, up to and including threats from a bad guy with a gun.
Here is some information on the effect on crime by armed citizens
https://americangunfacts.com/
https://pjmedia.com/blog/fbi-crime-stats-show-an-armed-public-is-a-safer-public/
Here is a link to a selection of accounts of armed citizens using a firearm to prevent a crime.
https://www.americanrifleman.org/the-armed-citizen
There is a lot of truth to that old saying, “An armed society is a polite society.” Just ask the Swiss.
A police state is undesirable when the citizenry are allowed to defend their right to life and liberty at the exact moment the defense of same is required.
@YMMV
When you see “a heavily-armed guard in front of every bank”, rest assured: You’re IN a police state, protecting the money of the rich from the multitude of the poor. Not something any of us want in the USA, although I suppose it’s a comfort to the passing [and relatively] rich tourist. As for H.R., the statistics show that armed civilians have rarely intervened successfully in a crime. Arming everyone — good guys and bad guys alike — merely increases the death rate. If that’s the sort of society you like, move to Honduras. As for myself, I’d prefer a disarmed citizenry. I’m perfectly comfortable conducting my life without guns. Why aren’t you?
@Serioso:
What a peculiar conclusion….
So my recommendation is for Israel (the people) to protect themselves (via personal action or via the Mossad as their agent) and as an undercover force; and your conclusion is a State Sponsored Police State?
My what creative thought processes you must possess…
You leap from “hidden out of sight unknown concealed carry” to “two officers at the door” and don’t even see the difference.
Then question why no police at mosques as well. Well, let me ‘splain it too you. Christians and Jews are not hunting down Muslims and murdering them. The Koran tells ALL Muslims to hunt down “the infidel” and to “slay them where you find them”. (I’ve read it. That is what it says.)
Asymmetrical threat, asymmetrical response. It is called “logic”. You might want to look into it some day…
BTW: ONLY 3500 Synagogues? Wow. I would have expected far more than that. That’s about 1700 Jews / synagogue. Something seems not quite kosher…
I can see Mossad having 3600 junior officers in training as a simple number to reach. Frankly, one of my worries was that the number of “junior officers” would be far too few for the number of Temples to be covered. 3600 is relatively easy…
Then you leap to schools, supermarkets et. al.
Well, frankly I agree with you 100%
Probably not in the way you expect, though. As what I advocated was private concealed carry I’d be quite happy if 20% of the population did that. Cal it 70 MILLION people. I think you will find that quite enough to cover every shopping center, school, supermarket, Post Office, etc. etc. And that is exactly where it ends.
You see, I was alive at a time when open and concealed carry were common. I was alive when I saw guys walk into the hardware store in my home town with a gun on their belt and nobody cared. Guess what: It was incredibly safe then. And peaceful. Nobody locked their doors and theft was rare. I don’t remember a single murder or shooting in anger from that time – well, other than the KKK / Neo-Nazi wanna-be who “woke up dead” out at the river for “giving them a bad name”… (True story. I can give names and location of the grave… I piss on it every few years as he lived a couple of doors down from me when I was under 5 and gave me grief until about 17 when he “left the scene”…)
So IMHO, 70 Million is more than enough…
Police State? Absolutely not.
Fully armed citizenry? Absolutely yes. I grew up in it. It was safe and with very low crime rates. It is a wonderful place to live. Look at Switzerland: Everyone is issued their Assault Rifle and at the end of their military duty takes it home and puts it in the closet. VERY low crime rate.
An Armed Society really IS a Peaceful Society.
FWIW, I’ve given my Son an SKS carbine and ammo AND a .357 Magnum AND a .45 Colt. I don’t worry much about my son, his spouse, or my grandchild… I’m thinking a James Bond Walther PPK for Christmas maybe… ;-) ( I have a ‘few’ of that type…)
OMG.
“Arming everyone — good guys and bad guys alike — merely increases the death rate.”
No! It ABSOLUTELY does not!
First off, all sorts of “bad guys” realize they will be shot in the first 2 minutes and don’t even bother to try it. Second, those dumb enough to “try it” end up dead as soon as they start, not after killing 20 people!
Did you not bother to read that first story? Guy goes into a McD to kill lots of folks and he is the only one dead. Please think about that for just a moment.
Realize I have significant hearing loss. IF I shoot a gun without hearing protection I WILL be profoundly deaf. For days, years, or forever. It isn’t known. Yet I have a loaded gun about 10 feet from me. Do you really think I am the problem, or the solution to a home invasion crime attempt?
Then your statement completely ignores “who ends up dead”. Now while it IS NOT REAL: Suppose 6 guys do a “home invasion” on me. Scenario 1) I and my spouse end up dead and they take the $500 of stuff worth taking. Scenario 2) Six bad guys dead and I’m in ICU.
Do you REALLY think it is better if the 6 bad guys are alive? Really?
If so, I pray for your soul…
Now, per a “disarmed society” : Exactly how are you going to achieve that?
Inside about 40 feet of me, I have 1 short sword, 4 “kitchen knives” suited to short sword use, an untold but more than a dozen “clubs”, at least a dozen “garrote” suited chunks of cordage, about a dozen “poisons” (including materials not normally thought of as poisons but “the poison is in the dose”, 2 bows (only one compound but both lethal) and an 18 KV transformer + imagination…. Oh, and about 40 gallons of easily reached gasoline and jars+rags to make it “effective”. FWIW, that’s “off the top of my head”…. given a few minutes I can come up with far more “arms”. If you think this specious please remember that during the fall of the USSR at least one filmed incident that I personally saw was a guy chucking a 4×4 of wood into tank treads and then tossing jars of gasoline “Molotov cocktails” onto it until the guys inside bailed out. Even fence posts, bottles,. and gasoline are “arms”.
Oh and with a half dozen years of Karate, I am a lethal weapon.
So please explain to me this “disarmed society” concept you have.
Remember that an ink pen and 3 foot of string makes me lethal in 2 different ways…
There is no such thing as a “disarmed citizenry” and there is no such thing as a “trustworthy government” . You suffer from definition delusions.
Concealed Carry users in the US on the whole, average about 6% of the adult population, but it varies locally. State wide in Colorado, it is about 6% but some counties go as high as 10%+ and some are down near 4%. Then you have entire states which have concealed carry numbers which are essentially zero.
In Wyoming which is unrestricted for residents the carry rate is significantly higher.
Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Kansas, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, Vermont
and West Virginia have “Permitless Carry.” or so called Constitutional Carry.
Anyone who can legally possess a firearm, may carry it concealed in these states without a Permit/License.
Idaho, North Dakota and Wyoming have “Permitless Carry” for their Residents only
(note how many times to you hear of mass shootings in the above states?)
Nationally there are about 14 concealed carry holders for every law enforcement officer, so in a supportive community, you are many more times likely to have someone with a concealed carry permit at the scene of a violent crime than you are a cop.
Not all CCW permit holders carry 100% of the time, so the actual street numbers are a bit lower except during troubled times. Some companies prohibit or strongly limit carry on company property, so although a person might have concealed carry permit, they might choose not to carry for other reasons. Other companies encourage it and a few even require it as a condition of employment.
Because the media seldom reports them, there are a great number of crimes prevented by CCW permit holders which never even see coverage in the press, or if the crime is reported they don’t mention that the problem was handled by someone with a CCW permit. Studies show that for every crime committed by someone with a gun, about 6-6.5 crimes are stopped or prevented from even occurring.
I have personally witnessed such occasions and the police that responded to the call never even knew a civilian with a gun participated in controlling the situation or that there were civilians who were armed ready to back them up if things went south.
I know one cop who’s life was saved by a permit holder who intervened in a violent arrest situation, and several other cops and excops who have explicitly told me they wished more citizens were carrying concealed.
“I’m perfectly comfortable conducting my life without guns.”
Fortunately, you have all options available to do so here in the USA, right? Do you live here? Having a choice is important to me. You could move to the UK, or somewhere more constrained, if it feels better there. I will leave it at that ;-)
FWIW,
I was a “Law Enforcement Eagle Scout”… (troupe 120) and in our location we had several cases of “Armed Citizen in control of situation, respond to…” where now you get YouTubes of “GUN!! bang bang bang” and then “Citizen down”….
Our police have been trained to kill their best support, the armed citizen on their side.
There was the horrific case of a black guy with a CCW permit who told the officer he had a permit and that he was going to show it, then was shot in front of his girl friend who filmed it.
Just OMG what an asshole cop.
So Lessons Learned: I’d never ever tell a cop I had a weapon or a permit. Just shut up, play dumb, and do NOTHING to help.
IFF they start a search and are going to find the gun, put your hands way up in the air, and/ or lay flat out on the ground, and ONLY then say “I have a gun in my FOO and am a legal carry holder” then shut up and NOT MOVE. Sad that that is the condition for exercising a constitutional right.
I bleed for that Black Brother who died for being legal…
My church has a “safety committee”. ;-)
For several years, we have had a policy of locking exterior doors except the main entrance after services begin. You can exit any door at any time, but not enter after the service begins (except through the main entrance). We also have cameras at every entrance. Plus, many of the leadership have taken karate and achieved black belt status.
My department head at work has gone through some kind of SWAT-type training provided by the local police. I’ve seen him in action. 8-0
I have fired an AK-47, an SKS, a shotgun, a Glock, and a S&W handgun.
My dad said that the biggest question we needed to answer for ourselves in handling guns was, “If I am attacked, am I prepared to shoot the attacker and possibly live the rest of my life with having killed someone?”
He also reminded us, “Don’t point a gun at anything you’re not going to shoot.”
@Power Grab:
I’d speculate there have been few “issues” at your church :-)
Well, I know we’ve had break-ins and had electronics and sound equipment stolen.
Let’s just say we are within spittin’ distance of a place that might be frequented by its share of internationals who don’t care to assimilate.
Things have changed in the past few decades.
Back in the day, I was there one night practicing my music, when an LEO came in the door (which I wasn’t in the habit of locking). He asked if my name was ____ ____. I said I was. He said my dad wanted me to call since he hadn’t heard back from me since I had left for home several hours before. (I had been visiting the folks back at their home, several hours away.) So I said I would call him and developed the habit of locking myself in.
Serioso says: “As for myself, I’d prefer a disarmed citizenry. I’m perfectly comfortable conducting my life without guns.”
I am perfectly happy to allow you to live your life defenseless. Better for me and my children that you do not have guns. Possession and use of weapons requires training and judgment.
I grew up in an area where guns at hand were a normal part of existence. Nobody got into gun fights and there were no violent criminals or crimes of violence among the locals. Outsiders that displayed bad behavior were encouraged to leave. The local County Mounty depended on the locals to be his backup because other deputies were at least an hour away. Today I fear trigger happy COPs that will shoot anyone that might be armed. Even children! When I am confronted by toughs the police tell me I must run and give up everything to them! They refuse to protect me but threaten to prosecute me if I protect myself !
This is why the Second Amendment was added to the Constitution of the United States…pg
Chiefio / others. If I went over to the mosque by my favourite coffee shop would their Korans have the part about hunting down the infidels and slaying them where you find them or would it have been purged for consumption in Calgary Canada where I live?
Makes me wonder …. maybe the slaying infidel books are hidden in a back room.
Some good stuff here folks and thanks for your thoughts on this and many other topics …. as a long time lurker I am rarily disappointed with my time spent at this site.
@Stewart Pid:
It will be in the Koran, but it will be in Arabic… That is part of why they make the (untrue) assertion that the Koran “can not be translated”. So they can claim the English (or other language) translations are a lie, while knowing almost nobody not already a Muslim really speaks / reads Arabic…
The problem is the convoluted way the Quran is published and discussed. Note in the following that that specific citation Quran (2:191-193) says that persecution is worse than killing.
Quran (2:191-193) – “And slay them wherever ye find them, and drive them out of the places whence they drove you out, for persecution [of Muslims] is worse than slaughter [of non-believers]…and fight them until persecution is no more, and religion is for Allah.”
The problem is that, if they ever claim a place as belonging to the Muslims, they forever have a claim on that place and have carte blanch to kill Kafirs (non-believers) who are in that place in order to reclaim it.
Thus the civilization Jihad by colonization – by mass immigration into Europe and establishing Islamic enclaves and large numbers of mosques, – by their definitions – they have a perpetual claim to that territory now, and will forever be justified in killing traditional Europeans to drive them out or convert them to Islam.
(note what is important is what they believe and what laws they recognize, it is completely irrelevant what we believe and what our laws say as far as they are concerned – they quite literally and openly will not accept any law but their dogma and by their dogma, all man made laws are subordinate to their dogma)
It is this sort of one sided interpretations and definitions that makes militant Islam so hard to comprehend to westerners. It is a culture that lives by a blood feud mentality that is never ending. The still celebrate or bemoan battles that happened 500+ years ago.
There is no live and let live peace possible with Islamist groups who engage in pure literal interpretation of their dogma, as it explicitly prohibits treaties which last longer than 10 years and those treaties are only acceptable if they provide a respite to rebuild and rearm or are otherwise beneficial to the Muslim side, and can be broken at any time by the Muslims unilaterally with no guilt or shame. In addition their culture attaches no shame to deceiving the Kafir, in fact they consider it a duty to deceive the kafir to the benefit of Islam.
Add those features together (unilateral perpetual claim to territory, culture that encourages even mandates self serving lies, no long duration treaties, ability to break treaties at any time, and perpetual blood feud mentality) you end up with a “Klingon like” warrior culture that institutionalizes conflict, and killing for their own benefit and dehumanizes their opponents, so that incidental killing of non-believers is not a sin / crime if done in the name of promoting Islam or reclaiming territory once claimed by Islam.
In a very literal sense their entire philosophy out laws peaceful coexistence, unless it serves a temporary benefit toward the end goal of destroying the non-believer or converting them. Like the early Christian conquistadors they think they are doing the non-believer a favor by killing them if they refuse to convert or submit to Islam.
Am I the only person commenting on this blog who isn’t paranoid? Seems that way sometimes!
Serioso:
No, you are the only person who thinks everyone else is paranoid.
It isn’t paranoia when someone IS out to get you. It is valuable to “know your opponent” and it is also valuable to be prepared against the “unlikely but happens” event.
So, for example, I own several guns. I have never ever had to use one in anger or even point one at a person. Heck, I’ve never even “brandished” one (a crime here in Kalifornia anyway). So why have them?
Simples: There have been “home invasion robberies” just a few miles away. Mostly these have been ethnic minorities on their own ethnic minority neighbors (Asian on Asian and Hispanic on Hispanic) and there have been “drive by bank robberies” just down the road when said people took the off ramp in the nice neighborhood where the banks did NOT have armed guards and walled off clerks ( That bank now his 4 inch thick plexiglass walls between staff and the customer). So it is reasonable to think they just might try some of their Home Invasion strategy over here some day.
WHEN that day comes, I’d rather be prepared than beaten or dead.
BTW, my Judo instructor (county Sheriff Deputy) and his wife both had CCW – she had a nice little Walther PPK in her purse… As I understand it, she had used it more than once. (Out in a rough rural area and she was fairly petite…) Do you think them paranoid too?
That isn’t paranoia, that is seeing and recognizing a real potential threat and mitigating it.
Just like my Earthquake Prep Kit. I hope to never need it, but I was very glad to have it when the Loma Prieta quake shut down everything for 20 miles from work to one block from my home. (I’d also chosen my location to mitigate quake risks, so that particular mitigation of risk worked well.)
Are you paranoid for having home insurance? Car insurance? Theft coverage?
Are you paranoid for locking your doors at night? Having a dog?
Are you paranoid for deciding to take karate for a few years after being beaten up once too often? (And never since, I might add…)
Or are you paranoid when you think folks taking rational precautions are all paranoid…
It is better to have a gun and not need it than need a gun and not have it. That bit of advice was given to me by my nephew, who is a Deputy Sheriff in the adjoining county. He is familiar with criminals. They don’t think like most law-abiding citizens.
@Serioso – I love night fishing for catfish and I am often out alone at night on the reservoir until 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning. It’s not an annual event, but dead bodies show up around the reservoir from time to time and it wasn’t due to an accident that they wound up dead. I have been perused by questionable characters but I appear watchful and and have my hand in my pocket which typically leads people to conclude that I should be left to my fishing.
I am licensed to carry concealed and I have my hand in my pocket for a reason; there’s a gun in it and if need be, I don’t mind shooting a hole in my jacket. My state requires quite a bit of training and an FBI background check before a license is issued.
All but two of my fishing trips have been without incident. On those two occasions, I looked alert and capable enough that they left without incident. In one case it was an individual and the other case there were 4 people that were not obvious members of a Campfire Girls troop, if you get my drift.
In my State, when you shoot someone, you are required to plead guilty to and provide an Affirmative Defense to a charge of homicide. That means that you you’re saying “Yes, I shot that person, but I was justified because XYZ,” where XYZ must demonstrate that there was no other option but to shoot.
Quick draw cowboy justice just does not happen much around here under that law. Other states have Stand Your Ground laws, but not mine. You don’t really ever want to shoot someone in my State unless it is absolutely the last resort.
If you are located in the U.S., particularly a large metropolitan area, I’d like to challenge you to perform a little test of your idea that being unarmed is a good idea. Make a nice sign for your house and another one for your car. While you’re at it, have a little name-tag sized badge made and put this message on all of the aforementioned.
I am unarmed. I believe no one should have guns.
Now, a huge portion of the population might give you the high sign and a smile. But there are criminals that have guns, knives, or a length of pipe that would be happy to be informed of your beliefs and relieve you of your property and perhaps your life, just for grins and giggles. And I’d caution you that such an experiment has a high probability of going south, depending on what area of a town you’re in. There are a fair number of sociopaths and psychopaths that would deeply appreciate your efforts to make their lives easier. Do you have any idea how tough it is to pick a victim when you don’t know whether or not they are packing?
There is a truism that is evident in many countries where guns are illegal: When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns. The criminals are already doing illegal things. What’s one more illegal thing; using a gun? Illegal guns are found here and there in all countries where guns are illegal. To a criminal, gun bans are a feature, not a bug.
In the U.S., an individual is responsible for their own safety and has a right to be secure in their person, and in particular secure from a tyrannical government under the U.S. Constitution. Thus, the 2nd Amendment.
Besides, have you ever tried carrying a policeman around? It is bit… awkward.
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P.S. Serioso, I truly respect your opinion and wishes, despite my soft jab with that suggested experiment. Some people find it abhorrent to even contemplate the taking of the life of another human being. Indeed it is a serious matter. You prefer to delegate that responsibility. That stance is understandable and wholly acceptable to me. Your choice, your wish, your opinion. But I choose not to go softly into that good night at the hands of the lawless or a tyrant and I insist that no one deny me my choice to defend my life and liberty. It is my right, as endowed by The Creator, and not a right granted by any person.
Serioso says:
30 October 2018 at 7:21 pm
Am I the only person commenting on this blog who isn’t paranoid? Seems that way sometimes!
How do you define paranoid?
Being cautious and aware of demonstrable risks, and taking rational measures to reduce your exposure to those risks is not paranoia.
In every instance above, we are talking about risks which are realized by someone every day of the week. Statistically the risk to a single individual may be relatively small but if you live long enough some of those unlikely events will happen to you or people you care about. Low probability does not protect you from experiencing an improbable event it only means they don’t happen frequently. Also like throwing dice the very rare series of events can and do happen to someone some where every day.
I live and have almost always lived, in relatively safe low crime communities in a low crime state, and do not participate in what most people would consider high risk behavior, but I have had coworkers and friends beaten during strong arm robberies and in one case summarily shot in the head during an armed robbery.
When I was working delivering pizza for a little holiday spending money one day I came out of the pizza shop with a delivery and there was a guy wearing an army field jacket and amber shooting glasses leaning against the front window of the store.
Major alarm bells went off – he was out of place, improperly dressed for the weather (it was a quite warm afternoon) and just not acting like a normal passerby would act. I paused and intentionally placed the pizza on the top of the car and opened the drivers side door and made a point of being slow about getting in the car.(I also had a loaded .45 colt pistol on the passenger seat under a towel).
I watched him, until he looked at me and we made direct eye contact. I held the eye contact just a tad longer than normal to signal “I see you!” I then got in the car and took my time starting up and driving away. He was no where in sight when I got back from the run.
The very next evening he came back to the shop, walked in said “this is a hold up give me all the money!” My manager said “what?” and he summarily shot him in the head with a .357 magnum pistol killing him instantly. The two other people in the shop instantly went hands up what do you want, and he directed the assistant manager to empty the safe. The Assistant manager walked to the office and began opening the safe as the other person stood hands up behind the pizza table as the guy paced and watched what was going on.
At some point the second person in the shop decided that this crazy was going to shoot him and the asst manager as soon as he got the money, so as the robber glanced back toward the office to see where the asst manager was, he pushed over a stack of empty pizza boxes on the guy and grabbed the “Pizza Peel” (large pizza spatula) and went around the table and began wailing on the guy as hard and fast as he could. The assistant manager saw what was going on and came out and the two of them beat the living crap out of the guy as he scrambled for the front door and took him down on the side walk in front of the store. The guy is now serving time for murder.
That shit happens even in good neighborhoods. Matt my manager didn’t expect to die that day when he went to work, I wonder if I could have stopped it, if I had said anything the day before, but at the time it was just an odd event.
I have been attacked by a pack of dogs in my own front yard. The only reason I did not get mauled is I had a Colt .45 in my back waist band because the dogs had already made several aggressive moves on me and my girl friend. The lead dog, a pit bull got within 3 feet of me before I fired a single shot intending to center punch his forehead. He either pulled up short when he saw the pistol or I shot just a bit low and the bullet went right between his front legs. He did not like the muzzle blast from a .45 at 3 ft, and decided he needed to go home followed by his pack mates.
I filed a police report on the situation, the animal control officer took one look at my foot prints in the flower bed as I had backed up until I ran into the picture window, to gain enough time to get the gun out, saw the single bullet impact in the dirt and then glanced through the stack of images I had been collecting to document my neighbors dogs behavior – never said a word about me firing the gun, said have a nice day, and went next door and issued a dangerous dog warning citation to my neighbor and informed him that his dog had almost been justifiably killed.
That also happened in a nice rural neighborhood.
Yes even people who mind their own business,do not have anger issues, don’t get drunk and rowdy, and live in nice neighborhoods occasionally get confronted with out of the blue situations that create great risk.
There are other stories, but I will leave it at that – point being, after you have some life experience you may also learn these hard lessons, – I sincerely hope you come out the other side safe sound and healthy!
“Fully armed citizenry? Absolutely yes. I grew up in it. It was safe and with very low crime rates. It is a wonderful place to live. Look at Switzerland: Everyone is issued their Assault Rifle and at the end of their military duty takes it home and puts it in the closet. VERY low crime rate.”
Yes, but… Looking for more information about guns and crime in Switzerland is very interesting, and worthy of further study, but it may not be a good example.
“An Armed Society really IS a Peaceful Society.”
Given the Switzerland example, the following is true: An Armed Society really CAN BE a Peaceful Society. Others can no doubt supply examples of armed societies which are not peaceful.
What I found about Switzerland was that the Swiss take their guns very seriously but that they don’t carry them on the street and they are not used for defense of the home. Evidently the crime rate is so low that they do not feel that need. There was one mass shooting, in parliament in 2001.
https://taskandpurpose.com/switzerland-stunningly-high-rate-gun-ownership-heres-doesnt-mass-shootings/
Switzerland has a unique culture. That culture includes respect for guns and includes firearms training, and it also must have something about not shooting other people. Not all cultures have that, not as a universally accepted and obeyed absolute. If a culture doesn’t already have that, I don’t know how to build it. Making gun laws does not do it.
As I said before, Honduras is the obvious counterexample to the absurd theory that more guns make us safer. Honduras is a place where most guns are owned by criminals. Country by country, the evidence is clear: The fewer the guns, the safer the populace. I liked YMMV’s comment, which at least addressed the cultural differences among nations. But YMMV says “making gun laws does not do it.” Can anyone quote a state-by-state comparison in the USA that supports this view? I doubt it. As far as I can tell, strict gun laws reduce gun deaths. [With the possible exception of Vermont!]
@ Serioso
I live near Chicago. Please explain how the strict gun laws here have made this a safer place.
Please also respond to this study https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228234512_Would_Banning_Firearms_Reduce_Murder_and_Suicide_A_Review_of_International_Evidence and this post http://gop-tea-pub.tumblr.com/post/172113373382/yesterdays-incident-at-great-mills-high-school#notes when backing up your claim that it’s “absurd that having more guns makes us safer”
When I said “making gun laws does not do it” I was referring to the cultural value of respect for life. In Honduras and other Latin American countries, life is cheap. I wasn’t referring to whether gun laws would reduce crime or murder directly because they do not increase respect for life or property. As stated in Jon K’s first reference: “Our conclusion from the available data is that suicide, murder and violent crime rates are determined by basic social, economic and/or cultural factors with the availability of any particular one of the world’s myriad deadly instrument being irrelevant.”
I also hesitate to declare that more gun possession would reduce crime. As anecdotes show, it could. But on the other hand, how do you keep guns out of the hands of criminals?
Stewart mentioned Calgary. The rural areas near there have been in the news recently.
The Law wants people to let the police do the policing. But what if the police won’t or are too slow?
“You’ll end up with vigilante groups.”
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/citizens-on-patrol-in-olds
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/how-edouard-maurice-became-a-symbol-of-the-fight-over-rural-crime-and-self-defence
“The decision to fire the rifle was the first decision that would upend the Maurices’ lives; the second was the decision to phone the police.”
Serioso:
The polite armed societies included Great Britain (back when all men were required to practice archery and Knights were common) and the Samurai era of Japan (when an insult to a Samurai might cost you your head). It is a common thread through history. Armed societies (be it knives, swords, guns, or arrows) become polite societies. Now you may not like why they become polite (as the impolite folks die rather quickly), but they DO become polite.
The Polite Society I grew up in was in rural Northern California. People were not prone to “giving too much lip” as the consequences could be very very bad (so said consequences almost never happened as folks knew to avoid them.) Basically every home (almost) had guns. Often just behind the bedroom door. At 12 years old, I was given a rifle. It and the ammunition for it, were in my bedroom until I went to college. Most of the houses in town were not locked. I installed our first working door locks at about 19 years old when I was off to college and my Mom was living alone.
Essentially no hard crime. Break-ins unheard of. It was common to leave the keys in your car “in case someone needed to move it”. All right here in America with about a 95% gun owning population and about 2 guns / person.
Do guns alone make for a polite society? Well, in time ;-) but it also depends on who has those guns. When you have a pervasive criminal element due to the amount of drug trafficking you tend to get a violent outcome. For a while. Ban all the guns and where do you end up? In an authoritarian State. Just a question of time. Eventually one bad character rises to the top, then the mass murders begin using state force – and nobody can stop it. (See Pol Pot, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, etc. etc. etc.) So, unfortunately, your choices are between a low grade of deaths from private guns as people “protect themselves” and a massive and pulse of deaths as the government corrupts.
I’ll take low grade over tens of millions at a crack, thanks.
BTW, if you look at the various States of the United States, folks are much more polite where there are lots of public carry. The most rude and most violent show up in places like South Chicago, NYC, and Washington DC – right where the gun restrictions are most severe. So for the USA, it is quite clear that more guns held by private citizens makes for a more polite and law abiding city, and State.
The issue here is that no one is talking about the whole problem. It is like saying pencils cause home work.
The elements to a low crime society are:
A culture that values peace, tolerates differences and constrains emotional outbursts (see Switzerland and the peaceful middle america of the 1950’s America). There is also a balance of power issue.
If all the guns are in the hands of the government people being people, you eventually end up with a police state. If all the guns (or other weapon of choice in that culture) are in the hands of the criminal element, you eventually have something like the Mexican or Columbian NARCO cartels or 1930’s Chicago, but if the majority of the guns are in the hands of peaceful citizens who just want to be left alone to do their daily business, it constrains both the criminals and the government from going over board.
You need 4 things for a peaceful community.
1) Lack of extreme poverty/deprivation/ desperation
2) A culture which has controlling social mores that limit fit of rage violence or organizational violence, or predatory behavior (this is where religious social mores earn their keep)
[NOTE that religions (defined broadly to include social belief systems, not limited to systems of gods and commandments) which sanction and encourage violence can also create a violent society – blood feud societies such as Islam or eye for an eye Christianity, or Totalitarianism {divine or cast or doctrine driven right to rule} Cultural religions like the concept of “face” in Oriental cultures or “Honor” in Mediterranean or Hispanic or old world Vendetta cultures like Italy etc.]
3) A sufficiently balanced ability to wield violence if necessary, so that all major factions in the population are constrained from exercising unnecessary violence because the other factions can team up and stop them.
The reason Chicago is violent is :
There is severe poverty, and desperation, coupled with a predatory gang culture of get mine while I can, seasoned with a cultural “Honor or face or vendetta culture in the street gangs”, in a city awash with guns but only in the criminal community, while the general peaceful populace is essentially disarmed.
The reason Switzerland is peaceful is they are a society that has enough guns so it does not need to worry about invasion, strongly favors social order and acceptance of social norms, and the people have a strong cultural and religious inhibition to break laws.
Their society is strongly controlled by social pressure to conform, they do not suffer radicals and free spirits willingly. They have almost universally been drilled in military arts and are well armed, and as a country have long prized peace and non-intervention in others affairs (at least physical intervention) “legal financial intervention” – is okay as that is one of their prized cultural skills/products.
The only thing different between a Chicago gang, a military unit, and a bunch of heavily armed cowboys in Wyoming is the culture that dictates how problems are settled and who and when force can be used. In the gang, problems are settled with lethal force at the drop of a hat due to a hair trigger cultural demand for retribution and dominance and a culture of Vendetta.
The American Military (and most old world European military) solves problems with adherence to regulations and a strong moral code of honor, selective membership, mutual respect and responsibility for the reputation of the person and the unit, and a drive to live up to the cultural expectation of their country that they be a force for good, rather than a legal predator as in some other cultures/countries.
The Cowboys also have a code of rules similar to the military and their code of honor, but it is unwritten a cultural document learned as a child. Real men protect the weak and defenseless from the predators, try to do the right thing, do not take unfair advantage and take responsibility for their errors. Individual differences are settled in non-lethal contest out behind the barn, but lethal force can be used if certain lines are crossed (like breaking and entering a mans home), or serious disrespect or violence toward a woman even an unrelated female stranger. That social code to maintain order is very similar to the Swiss only the detail methods are different.
The culture is as important as the guns. The guns can allow the peaceful to enforce a peaceful culture if necessary, or the criminal to enforce a culture of depredation. Guns in the hands of the peaceful is like MAD between Nuclear powers, it establishes a credible threat of bad outcomes for overly aggressive or predatory behavior. The bad guys (the ones who survive) quickly learn what the local social limits are and control their predatory behavior so that falls below some socially dictated acceptable no-go line.
@YMMV:
“how do you keep guns out of the hands of criminals? ”
You can’t. Just not possible. Even in the UK, that was absolutely “handgun illegal” and surrounded by a big mote, the criminals got guns when they wanted them.
In prisons, one of the problems is the “zip gun”. I’ve got an interesting book with pictures of the various ones confiscated. I now know how to make a gun out of a small bit of wood, a 6 inch piece of pipe with cap, some rubber bands, and a nail. (Some assembly required). Time to make under 1 hour.
This guy puts way too much time into making the pipe pretty (and not enough putting a side handle on the slide and making his firing pin short enough but just long enough so shell don’t fire before breech is fully closed):
Serioso wrote: “Honduras is a place where most guns are owned by criminals.”
And there you have it. Bravo! Now if you can only open your mind to what you just wrote. The unarmed honest sheep are shorn by the criminals.
What are the law abiding citizens of Honduras to do? The criminals are already ignoring the law. I’d suppose it is against Honduras law for the criminals to have guns. The criminals don’t care! Why? They’re criminals, fer cryin’ out loud! That’s what criminals do; break laws.
Jon K. points out a similar situation to Honduras in Chicago which is much the same as New York or Washington D.C., where those cities have some of the strictest gun control laws in the U.S. Those laws are a delight to criminals. They are criminals. They have guns. Their victims don’t. Nirvana! What part of that do you not comprehend?
The ONLY thing that stops a bad man with a gun is a good man with a gun. That may be a duly appointed officer of the law or an armed citizen, but the criminal won’t be deterred until subdued by superior force or firepower. That’s an inarguable fact.
As I wrote to you above. Go about your life unprotected by your own choice. If you wish to delegate your personal safety and security to someone else, have at it. Just do not expect rational people to choose to go about their lives unprotected from those that choose to violate existing laws and norms (criminals). Do not expect me to to abide by your choice.
You have been given enough references to statistics and studies and enough anecdotal evidence that shows you have chosen to play with loaded dice. You, personally, may win that crap shoot. Your life, your bet, your choice.
I am completely fine with your choice so long as you don’t insist that your choice is imposed upon me. I reiterate; cops are just too dang heavy to carry around just in case you need one to protect yourself against a criminal. Carrying a gun is a rational choice in a society rife with criminals. Switzerland? Not so much.
P.S. I have contemplated that you may be a U.S. citizen who is licensed to carry, carries concealed as needed, but just enjoys yanking the odd chain here and there. That’s also fine by me as your comments help to illuminate the issues of personal responsibility for one’s own safety in a society where one’s safety is not guaranteed by societal norms or adequate numbers of law enforcement personnel.
“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”
~Benjamin Franklin
Suit yourself, Serioso.
@Larry L. – Excellent comment!
(Like! since E.M. hasn’t enabled ‘Likes’.)
Guns are inanimate tools. Granted, they are lethal tools, but that is by design. In 20 years, we just might be shaking our heads at the sad spate of murders by ray guns set to ‘kill’ instead of ‘stun’.
Before guns, this thread would have been discussing swords or knives. Before swords or knives, this thread would have been discussing rocks or clubs. Throughout most times, fisticuffs were sufficient for settling differences, but not so much now.
The crux is, as you wrote, “The culture is as important as the guns.”
I’d amend that to “The culture is more important than the weapon.”
I own a variety of guns and without exception, none of them have taken it upon themselves to up and shoot someone. Never. Ever. It’s safe to say that none of my guns will ever shoot anyone, anywhere, at any time. There’s no point in banning guns or any weapon while every society has sufficient laws to address the use of deadly force. Guns will obey laws against shooting someone. People won’t.
I, on the other hand, may find it necessary to use one of those guns to plug somebody for reasons good or ill, but that would be on me according to my nature, nurture, and the situation at hand.
You are 100% correct that the culture, not the
gunweapon, is the dominant factor.@H.R.:
If I read the nslookup correctly, and Serioso is not using a VPN, they are in Boston. You know, uber liberal New England Bos-Wash corridor… Uses Verizon, but via FIOS, so likely from home. Could be at work though. Looking at time stamps I’d guess at home.
No, I’m not worried that this is “outing” any PII. First off, ‘whois’ is a broad brush search, second, I’ve not given out the IP number, third it identifies the telco, but not really where in their service area. I’m guessing at what the abbreviation it returns means: bstnma.fios.verizon.net it could mean Bob’s Station Mall… or nothing at all. I’m just guessing how verizon would name things.
There are facilities to get a finer grained map, but that’s only really allowed in forensics cases. i.e. “That would be wrong”…
So I expect not a gun owner.
BTW, you left “poison” out of your list. It was THE favorite way for women to dispatch folks before the gun came along. A man with a sword can overpower a woman IF he is fast enough. A woman with a very light sword (epee or foil) can skewer a man with a broad sword before he can clear the sheath… but women preferred not to take the risk and used guile instead.
Many men used this method too, and it is “enjoying” a come back in Britain under the gun bans. Recently in the news as a favored Russian assassination method. Others use it too, but less traceable. A little natural heart hormone in the desert and the guy dies of “heart attack” and you are done free…
For anyone thinking it is hard to get poisons, well, no. Anyone with a car battery and vinegar is “good to go”… Or just under cook the kidney beans…. or put some antifreeze in the punch… or…
That’s part of the fallacy of focusing on The Gun (GASP!). It ignores all those other just as lethal ways folks have killed each other off for decades. (For those about to leap to “mass shootings”, note that 90%+ of them happen in “Gun Free Zones” – for a reason – and that a similar kill rating is had by all the folks blowing things up in the Middle East and more recently Europe – or using cars and trucks driving on sidewalks…) Folks are just incredibly creative at killing each other.
Thanks @H.R.
It always surprises me why the Left discounts the value of culture until I realize that it is actually recognized in the actual methods used to introduce Communism to a country one of the first things attacked are the institutions of positive culture.
The Church is attacked and caring thoughtful priests are replaced with activist priests who instead of counseling peace and harmony with understanding, seek confrontation and “social justice”
Same goes for teachers the good teachers who used to act as surrogate parents to instill good values in students get muted by restrictive regulations, and over time the schools are filled with teachers who act more like political officers in the Soviet Union than as examples of the ethical citizen.
You can see the power of culture in all sorts of places, two very similar companies, one is a pleasure to work for the other a nightmare of back stabbing office politics and climbers, all due to differences in the corporate culture condoned and exemplified by the management.
You see it in the choice of weapons used for violence, in Japan lots of stabbings and suicide due to a culture of the sword dating back to the Samurai and a culture that prizes “Face” and punishes dishonor. In Hispanic cultures you also see knives as the personal weapon of choice and the social conduct of conflict is driven by a culture of Machismo.
In Europe you see the culture of the soccer hooligan like fights on the hockey rink in Canada, they culturally condone mob violence of sports team fans. Unfortunately some of that has migrated to the US in the destructive championship riots of recent years as inner city youth use a major sports event as permission to run amok. Perhaps in the long run, it is net positive, a sort of Purge Night custom that allows periodic outlets of social violence in a semi-controlled context that is self limiting, that would otherwise find other outlets. In the middle east you get mass demonstrations of 10’s of thousands in the streets, and a culture that endorses extreme emotional displays (shooting in the air to celebrate), self flagellation of Shia culture, religious holidays that are mass animal sacrifices slaughtering thousands of animals in the street ( which along with what much of the western world considers barbaric punishment for crimes, incidentally desensitizes the population to bloody violence). Then when the violence comes you have mass celebrations of wailing the injustice of the most recent car bombing followed by vows of revenge and retribution.
This is actually the issue that most concerns me about the recent shift of public commentary on the left toward that same sort of publicly condoned calls for violence on social media. Progressives and the hard left activists not only routinely call out of violent retribution but no one condemns those expressions within that culture. It has become a kind of virtue signalling behavior to call for violence against the opposition. They no longer say they disagree with their opponent they say they hate their opponent and diminish their humanity by ascribing all sorts of viscous motives to every difference of opinion.