Over at T&S, Kaimi linked this Slate article on what to do if you are confronted with an armed madman like Cho Seung-Hui, the Virginia Tech killer. It’s worth noting that one of the things the article did not say was, “go to your car or dorm room and get a weapon.” That’s because VT is a “gun-free zone,” which means the only people who can have guns are armed madmen like Cho and very occasional police officers.
I am not a pro-gun fanatic (believe me, if you want to see gun fanatics travel to some of the rural areas of the West). At my house, I have a legally registered pistol in our safe, and I know how to use it. It brings me some comfort to know that when I travel my wife also knows how to fire our handgun. If somebody breaks into our house, we can have a handgun ready in less than 20 seconds.
I am extremely uneasy about the idea of shooting somebody. There is a part of me that says I would rather be killed than kill another human being. Given my testimony of the Gospel, I have no fear of death, but I do have a fear of my wife and/or children being harmed or killed. I also feel it’s my responsibility as a priesthood holder to protect the home.
I was an anti-gun fanatic most of my life. I know all of the arguments in favor of gun control. I guarantee there is no argument anti-gun activists could make that I have not considered. I have lived in countries (such as the UK) where guns are tightly controlled. I have visited places like Japan where guns are virtually nonexistent among the general population.
Here is the bottom line: guns will never be eradicated from American society the way they are in Japan and many European countries. So, most gun control laws in the United States do nothing more than create isolated areas where the law-abiding do not have guns and the scofflaws do have guns. This is an extremely unstable situation that leads to places like Virginia Tech, a “gun-free zone,” where nobody could run to his or her car or dorm room and get a gun. Apparently Cho went on his rampage for almost 10 minutes. That is enough time to get a gun and defend yourself and your fellow students.
What if VT were not a “gun-free zone” and one of the professors or students at VT had a license to carry a concealed weapon and was able to kill or disarm Cho early on in his rampage? What if that person saved 25 or 28 lives?
Having once been an anti-gun fanatic, and knowing the politics of the Bloggernacle, I have no illusions about convincing most anti-gun people out there. But I’d like you to consider this column by Mark Steyn and pay special attention to the wackos in New Hampshire who were out to kill some people. They wandered from armed house to armed house with no luck and finally headed to Dartmouth, where they were able to kill professors in a “gun-free zone” at an Ivy League university. I am simply not convinced that, until every single American gives up his guns, gun control laws buy me anything but more insecurity.
Yep, we are in the last days where there is no place of safety. How sad our society has become.
“What if VT were not a “gun-free zone” and one of the professors or students at VT had a license to carry a concealed weapon and was able to kill or disarm Cho early on in his rampage? What if that person saved 25 or 28 lives?”
Doesn’t matter, Geoff. Violence isn’t the answer, you know.
I say just sit there and watch the madman kill people. Then criticize those who try to stop him and praise yourself for your non-violent attitude.
I would like to point out that I do support some limited gun control measures. I think a national registration system, where we can keep track of guns, is a good idea. This helps law enforcement solve crimes. I’m not sure I like the idea of unlimited sales of automatic weapons (although you need to careful about saying you oppose semi-automatic weapons, because a large number pistols these days are semi-automatic).
See this article and other Wikipedia articles for more on the definitions of different weapons.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semi-automatic_firearm
I hate to be an ideological spoilsport, but on an issue like this, I’m more concerned with pragmatics than I am with theory. In areas with high versus low gun ownership and/or areas with strict versus liberal laws, how does the usage break down? In other words: let’s say that a gun-owning VT student could have prevented the deaths of twenty people. How many *other* people would have been killed this year by guns owned by VTers–drunk frat boys, lovelorn coeds, etc?
My strictly anecdotal evidence is this: growing up in Texas, there was a seemingly constant stream of stories of children who found Dad’s gun and accidentally blew off the head of their three year old brother. But I honestly can’t remember any stories of people scaring off intruders with their guns. Maybe this was media bias; I don’t know–that’s why I am asking for some statistics here.
Even if everybody gave up their guns, including the bad guys, the good guys would still need guns. Because the bad guys would turn to knives, machetes, and long pointy sticks. Learning to defend yourself against edged weapons, with edged weapons, is a lot harder than learning to defend yourself with a firearm, even against a firearm.
A bad guy is not going to be afraid of a Harvey Milquetoast with a Bowie knife. But he is going to be afraid of a Harvey Milquetoast with a Glock.
Dan: With very few exceptions, there’s never been safe places in any society since Cain slew Abel. Well, there were about 200 years after the Savior’s visit to the Nephites. And the city of Enoch. Switzerland has had a pretty good record too. But I can’t think of any others that lasted more than a generation or so.
Geoff: How do you think Hitler was able to disarm the Jews and the rest of the populace? They had full nationwide gun registration, then Hitler confiscated guns. Also, did you know that the US Gun Control Act (GCA) of 1968 was based in large part on the Nazi gun control law of 1938? There is a document proving it, a cover letter from a government translation service to the sponsor of GCA 68 saying “Here’s the translation you asked for.”
Julie: There have been statistical studies done along those lines. The lives saved far far outnumber the accidental deaths, and even outnumber the homicides by gun. The number of times a firearm is used by law-abiding citizens to thwart violent crime is in the millions of times/year, so even the injuries avoided by legal self-defense use outnumber the injuries by unlawful use of firearms. Most don’t even get reported to police because no shots were fired, and the bad guy just took off. Of those self-defense incidents which are reported to police, very few get reported in local media. None get reported in national media.
They were quoted recently, I think it was Lott and Mustard, who did some statistical analysis. They went in with more or less an anti-gun atittude, hoping for the stats to back them up. But they were honest enough to change their mind about gun control after seeing the stats.
All this was hashed over in the 1990’s during the “assault weapon bans” of Bush the First and Clinton. You might check out books such as:
More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun-Control Laws (Studies in Law and Economics) by John R., Jr. Lott
Hardcover – 225 pages (May 1998)
Univ of Chicago Pr (Trd); ISBN: 0226493636;
Shooting Straight: Telling the Truth About Guns in America
by Wayne Lapierre, James Jay Baker, Charlton Heston
Hardcover: 214 pages;
Publisher: Regnery Publishing;
ISBN: 0895261235; (September 2002)
The Seven Myths of Gun Control: Reclaiming the Truth About Guns, Crime, and the Second Amendment
by Richard Poe, David Horowitz (Foreword)
Softcover: 304 pages ;
Publisher: Three Rivers Press (August 26, 2003)
ISBN: 0761524258; (July 2001)
Also check http://www.nra.org for links to stats.
I don’t believe that the gospel requires passivity in the face of violent evil. The banner of liberty, too, has its place. He was General Moroni before he was Angel Moroni. What good are people who won’t defend their liberty to worship as they choose, or the lives of their families and children?
Similar situations to what you’ve described happen all of the time. What if the friend of the girl [the disturbed coward that I will not name] was stalking had had a gun? I did a quick internet search. The story might have looked like this: http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007703050350
We wouldn’t be talking about it. It wouldn’t have made anything more than local news.
mlu,
Uh, you should probably look again at your Book of Mormon. Firstly, Moroni was never a “general.” He was a Captain. Secondly, he is not the same Moroni who ended up being the angel visiting Joseph Smith. That would be the prophet Moroni, son of Mormon at the end of the Book of Mormon.
The attempts at using the Book of Mormon to justify modern questionable actions continues to stretch beyond logic.
Dan,
I don’t believe the title “General” is ever used in the Book of Mormon but it’d be fair to say that “Captain Moroni” was the equivalent:
Alma 43:16
16 Now, the leader of the Nephites, or the man who had been appointed to be the chief captain over the Nephites now the chief captain took the command of all the armies of the Nephites and his name was Moroni;
I believe that mlu was referring to Moroni the son of Mormon however. Again, he isn’t referred to specifically as a General but he was definitely a military leader:
Mormon 6:12
12 And we also beheld the ten thousand of my people who were led by my son Moroni.
(Looks like John beat me to it).
Aluwid,
mlu was referring to the “title of liberty” Moroni, not the final prophet Moroni.
Dan,
I see what you’re saying, let’s let mlu clarify his post though since we might be misreading it. Still my point stands that Captain Moroni was the equivalent of a General, but yeah he was a different Moroni than the Angel Moroni.
“Julie: There have been statistical studies done along those lines. The lives saved far far outnumber the accidental deaths, and even outnumber the homicides by gun. The number of times a firearm is used by law-abiding citizens to thwart violent crime is in the millions of times/year, so even the injuries avoided by legal self-defense use outnumber the injuries by unlawful use of firearms. Most don’t even get reported to police because no shots were fired, and the bad guy just took off. Of those self-defense incidents which are reported to police, very few get reported in local media. None get reported in national media.”
If these incidents aren’t reported, then how can such national statistics even pretend to be accurate?
Couple of quick points.
The data suggests that accidents involving children are rare. About 200 odd fatal ones a year. More common are gang shootings involving older teenagers.
Growing up in the far Chicago suburbs guns were common and legal in my city. Most of my friends in HS had access to them. Guns were essentially illegal inside Chicago city limits. Guess were the gun violence occurred?
I have lived in 2 suburban wards in Chicago and Dallas. Gun ownership is extremely common in both.
We had a YM shooting activity last year. Every boy had a minimum of one firearm in his house that went on the activity. We had everything from Glock pistols to AK 47’s.
2 years ago we went to the local SWAT training facility and shot fully automatic weapons.
Fully automatic weapons are heavily regulated. They were essentially banned back in the 1930’s. It takes a special federal license to own one. Good luck getting approved for it.
Geoff,
My big problem with owning a gun to defend myself is, if it’s really safe and secure, I can’t get to it in 20 seconds. I was taught, early on (by my life-long NRA-member grandpa and my NRA-sympathetic father) that, to be secure, guns need to be in a safe, unloaded. I admit that I’ve always enjoyed target-shooting, but I, too, would like to see the numbers as to whether, in a given situation (i.e., strict gun control, no gun control, and several points in the middle) lives saved outnumber lives lost.
I don’t have much a horse in this race—I’ve always enjoyed shooting, but wouldn’t have a problem if I never touched another gun. At the very least (and contra those who invoke Hitler), some sort of registration seems like a good idea. But neither side of the debate seems to offer any hard numbers to evaluate.
Sam B, I’ll try to find some time over the next few days to do some googling on gun control numbers and some of the issues that have come up. Actually, as I have indicated, I’m not against some kind of controls. But I want those controls to be effective and uniform. Lack of uniformity creates islands of vulnerability like VT, and that seems like a bad thing to me.
As for the 20 seconds, our safe is 10 feet from our bed. My HK pistol is in there with loaded cartridges beside it. My wife and I are both trained. We can open the safe and put in the cartridges and be ready within 20 seconds. There is no way one of our kids can get into the safe, and we never leave it open.
I have a handgun (.380 Colt Mustang) in my closet, on a shelf where my children cannot reach it. I keep the magazine separate from the gun, but can load it very quickly if I need to.
I used to have a concealed carry permit, but it has expired and I haven’t had time to renew it.
I have already made the decision to use deadly force if it is necessary, so I feel no hesitation to threaten the use of it when and where legally appropriate. I hope that I never have to use deadly force, but have no qualms about using a firearm to protect myself and/or others.
When my children are old enough, they will learn gun safety and how to properly clear and then handle a firearm.
Brian,
You state that you’ve already made the decision to use deadly force if it is necessary. Let me ask you, did Joseph Smith have numerous reasons to use deadly force? How often did he actually end up employing his weapon at someone?
We really ought not rush to violence, but find all non-violent solutions FIRST.
Dan,
Joseph Smith had a gun with him in Carthage which he used to defend himself and his colleagues.
Also, there is a continuum of force that I follow before I will even think about using deadly force:
-Presence
-Verbal command
-Passive control
-Non-lethal weapon (pepper spray)
-Defensive body tactics(hand-to-hand combat)
-Impact weapon (baton)
-Lethal force
The situation and turn of events dictates which method gets used first.
You are more than welcome to attempt to talk down any derranged gunman who might come at you. Me? I’ll be the one firing first, asking questions later.
I know that JS fired a revolver thru the door at Carthage. I have also heard that people were wounded or killed by this fire but these are rumors as far as I can tell
From Wiki:
Shortly after 5:00 p.m. on 27 June 1844, a mob of about 200 men stormed the jail, and went to where Smith and his associates were imprisoned. Although they attempted to hold the door shut against the mob, the mob opened fire through the still-closed door, shooting Hyrum Smith in the face. As the mob burst through the doorway, Joseph Smith (who had earlier been given a six-shooter by a visitor) managed to fire three shots at the mob.[17] His brother Hyrum Smith died immediately from the shot in the face. Taylor was shot several times, but survived. One of the bullets hit his pocket watch, saving his life. Richards was unharmed. Smith ran to the open window, where he was shot multiple times simultaneously, and fell from the window, dead. Upon falling to the ground, he was shot several more times. Mormons view his death as martyrdom
Geoff (16),
Then I’m in substantive agreement with you. There need to be controls, we need to close loopholes, but the right to bear arms is a constitutional right. I’m not convinced that the general arming of Americans will reduce crime, but, from your description, I don’t believe that your gun will do any harm. (I’ve actually always been in favor of requiring gun safety and handling classes before allowing someone to buy a gun; you can’t force them to buy a safe and keep their guns in a safe (well, actually, you probably could, but that’s more intrusive than I like), but you could at least teach prospective owners that they should keep the gun locked up, unloaded, and not point it at anyone, even when there’s clearly no bullet in the chamber.)
Brian,
In how many other instances when the prophet’s life was in danger could he have resorted to violence but didn’t? That’s what I’m getting at.
A Nonnie: (#13)
“If these incidents aren’t reported, then how can such national statistics even pretend to be accurate?”
1. By statistical sampling of law-abiding gun-owners.
2. By extrapolating from the ones that are reported.
I think the common-sense and clearheadedness to implement the suggestions will serve you far better than a gun will. Even pro-gun self defense fanatics will tell you this. Situational awareness and judgment are far better than a gun.
Not to say I’m against carrying a gun. But I think carrying a gun isn’t really helpful if you don’t have the training and mindset to use it properly. If you aren’t trained and ready to use it, the gun is just a danger to you – something an attacker will use against you.
Reaction time also matters, as this video demonstrates:
http://video. google. com/videoplay?docid=-1459052511793821456
You’ll have to remove the spaces after the periods. The server is rejecting my comments again.
That is a good point, Seth.
In regards to the Virginia Tech shootings, eye witness accounts describe the gunner moving quite quickly through the classrooms. It is highly doubtful someone who may have been carrying could have been prepared quick enough to “return fire.”
Most of us will never see any “action.” Most of us will live out our lives without ever being threatened by someone with a gun. As such, most of us will probably never be properly prepared to handle that situation were we to carry one around with us.
In the end, the problem with gun violence in America is not the gun itself. It is just a tool (though in the case of a gun, it’s main purpose and design is to kill a living thing). The underlying problem with our violence is not the gun, but rather how we react to situations we are uncomfortable with. Mr. Cho was mentally ill. He should never have had a gun in the first place. But take the incident at NASA just days later. What made the guy go in to his workplace with a gun and start shooting people up? Take the Columbine murderers. They were not mentally ill like Cho Seung-Hui was. But they were clearly troubled and felt they would get their best answers through the murdering of other humans. I’m generalizing here, but America has a sick fascination with violence. It is drawn to it. It generally has a higher tendency to use violence to resolve its problems, even though those actions tend to cause other major problems. Maybe it is tied to our short-term attention spans, and our short-fuse impatience.
In any case, I’d rather see a gun-free America than anything else, but alas, the Constitution was written to allow guns. Constitutionally speaking everybody has a right to a gun. Constitution does not say we cannot register ourselves, or have background checks. As such I am in strong favor of licensing guns and doing checks to ensure we’re not mentally unstable etc.
A few things. First, I’m a pretty adamant 2cd amendment defender. So I’ll confess my biases right up front.
However, anyone appealing to Lott or the statistics in More Guns, Less Crime needs to seriously rethink things. It’s a very bad book and most of the statistics have been discredited. At this stage in terms of consequences there’s really nothing clear either pro-gun or anti-gun. The reasons to be pro-gun tend not to be due to break ins or the like but for the situation where you are being stalked. You know someone is after you and, even with recent anti-stalking laws, unless you are rich you can’t hire body guards and the police are reactive not preventative. Right now the rich can hire folks who go through all the hoops. Regular people can’t. And that’s unfair.
I think regulations for guns should be there. However most of the regulations already are there. You are supposed to keep it locked up and away from kids. You are responsible. The only real regulation I’d favor is background checks for private sales, which is a huge loop hole in the rules right now. However what most politician favor are regulations on guns based on their appearance not their actual use or effectiveness in crime. (For instance a lot of folks are for banning .50 cal rifles even though they aren’t used in crimes)
Regarding Joseph Smith. One can’t just consider his use of the gun at Carthage. A better consideration was the militia and so forth. However clearly the Mormons often over-reacted in the various skirmishes back and forth in both Illinois and Missouri. Something to keep in mind. But I’d say Carthage is the least significant consideration of Mormon gun use.
OH, btw, getting the license for machine guns is actually not that hard. None have been used in crimes. However the license is fairly restrictive and the ATF can come inspect your home whenever they want to ensure all guns are accounted for. Most folks I’ve talked to say it’s not worth it. Plus, outside of certain military situations, the value of a machine gun is pretty small.
Clark,
I have a couple of friends who applied for the license and got turned down. That is the basis for my comments.
Auto weapons are not that great for use anyway.
1. Cost way way to much. 4-5K
2. Heavy ammo wasters
3. If you fire one and hold it in your hands the rounds simply start going up and up. Its difficult to control point of aim. I once fired a fully auto Glock pistol owned by a policemen friend and the first round hit the target and the rest went high.
The ’97 North Hollywood bank robbers used several rifles that they had modified to be fully automatic. I don’t know of any other cases like it, and licensing of automatics couldn’t stop what they did.
Though we might have fairly crummy gun/murder causation stats for the US (I don’t know, I haven’t looked; I prefer to study other countries,) I’d be surprised if we didn’t have good statistics for Israel and Switzerland, where everyone or nearly everyone is either a veteran or a reservist of one sort or another — and the US core “murder & death by gun” age range (18-25) is almost entirely armed. You also get the tie-in for terrorist events (and prevention thereof) in Israel.
Russia is another fun place to look at, when you’re thinking “does gun control have an impact on the ability of a few determined individuals to commit mass murder anyway, or an impact on the overall murder rate?” The answer to the second question seems to be “no,” though since very strict gun control doesn’t do much for poverty, tyranny, hopelessness or drunkenness, I don’t suppose we ought to be too surprised at their high murder (and suicide) rates — roughly .2 murders and .4 suicides per 1000 population, compared with .06 murders and .1 suicides per 1000 for the US. (*) Anyone know what kind of gun control laws Colombia has?
I would also like to mention, since it hasn’t been said explicitly in this thread yet, that non-violent, peaceful resistance works a heck of a lot better on big empires of distant people who think they’re really Very Morally Upstanding Types (who are also rather sick of being an empire,) than it does on gangsters or crazed madmen. When your enemy really just wants to get along with you, you can probably talk him down; when your enemy hopes you’ll die in a fashion that will sound really cool to his crazed followers (or will sound really horrific and yet enticing to the copycats who will come later), you’re probably better off skipping the speeches and going straight to lethal force. Note that the Anti-Nephi-Lehis needed their children and the peoples all around them to use lethal force (or the threat of it) to remain safe from their murderous opponents.
And in a further quest to say “stuff that’s relevant that no one mentioned yet”: the Appalachian School of Law shooting. It’s exactly on point, at least for the “could people have gone and retrieved guns” issue. You can also bring up the UT-Austin tower shootings (in which faculty and students retrieved weapons and fired back — one actually accompanied the police when going to confront the shooter.) Though in that case, the shooter picked an extraordinarily effective firing position, and shooting back didn’t do much good at all until his position was stormed.
(*) — In 2000, from UN numbers, for murders, and in 2002, from WHO numbers, for suicides. Both are subject to fluctuations due to local cultural norms, police/medical examiner (in)competence, and other errors.