Go visit Misfires and Light Strikes for some excellent self-defense advice. I’m no kung-fu master, and nor do I have time to become one, but I’m an advocate of having options up and down the force spectrum. The best response for someone throwing a punch at you is physical force, and often that force can be something like defensive spray. If you shoot someone trying to fist fight you, your chances of going to jail are pretty high, and even if you’re acquitted, the trial will certainly ruin your life.
Category: Carrying / Self-Defense
Gun Culture 1.0 v. Gun Culture 2.0
SayUncle says he doesn’t get ranges that ban carry. I think it’s one of the sillier things you’ll find out there in the gun community, but their is an explanation for why it’s more common than it should be. The most frequent retort is that insurance is the reason, but I don’t actually believe that’s the case most of the time. As someone who is currently an officer at a local club, I can probably speak to what’s driving some clubs to adopt this.
Part of it goes back to Michael Bane’s assertion of there being a Gun Culture 1.0, and a Gun Culture 2.0. I’m reluctant to use this analogy, because there’s not really as clean a division among the gun culture as it implies, but it is useful for illustrating the mentality difference from those in the culture who are self-defense oriented, and those that are more connected to the traditional hunting and shooting culture. There is significant overlap between the two cultures, but there are even generational differences in how one approaches the subject of concealed carry, for instance.
The vast majority of clubs are run by people from Gun Culture 1.0. This is certainly true of my club. Except my club does allow concealed carry, you just have to keep it concealed, and aren’t permitted to draw or shoot your carry piece except in an emergency. Pennsylvania has had concealed carry longer than most other states (since 1989), so even most people in Gun Culture 1.0 here carry, even if they aren’t shooting IPSC, IDPA or any of the other action or practical shooting disciplines. The reason clubs are run by Gun Culture 1.0 is because those are the people with the time to invest in overseeing a club. It takes a lot of work, and it’s not something most people in their 30s and 40s have time for. I barely have time for it, and I just basically try to do my job and not much else.
The other major factor that plays into rules like this is that most club boards are responsible for dealing with range incidents. If the club is large enough, the board is typically going to see a parade from the small minority of people who’s gun handling and safety mentality is either poor or non-existent. It’s relatively easy to fall into a mindset that your members are not to be trusted, since you’re dealing with grave stupidity on a regular basis. You’ll never see the 99% of people who are safe. You’ll spend a lot of time interacting with the 1% who aren’t.
I’ve always wondered whether it would be better to set high standards for getting into a private club, but once those standards are met, you are essentially bound only by a handful of safety oriented rules. Our club has a qualification, but it’s essentially being able to hit a rather large piece of paper at ten yards with a pistol. You have to be a real wild man with a gun to fail our qualifier. If you were going to allow someone to, say, draw from holster, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to make them qualify to do so, so someone can verify they know how to do the task safely. The unfortunate fact, at least based on my experience at clubs, is that if you allowed it broadly, it’s not going to be too long before someone puts a round in their leg, or even worse, someone else’s leg. There are a few local commercial ranges that allow draw from holster, but both have armor plating between stalls. Most clubs don’t have the money for that kind of setup, and most people don’t want to be next to a Cletus who can’t avoid finger f***ing his trigger guard every time he draws if the only thing separating you is a few feet of air.
My club probably implements a reasonable compromise between Gun Culture 1.0 and 2.0, when it comes to carrying on the premises. Not all do, and that’s unfortunate. But it’s also a product of the fundamental nature of clubs, and the membership. Clubs are civic organizations, and not really structured like businesses. People in the GC 1.0 age group are more familiar with and better at navigating that kind of organization than people in the GC 2.0 age group, who tend to want to think of shooting facilities as a product they buy or don’t buy, rather than a civic, membership driven enterprise. This is understandable, but without GC 2.0 stepping up, eventually we’re going to lose a lot of good places to shoot, and that will really be unfortunate.
Campus Carry …
More Restaurant Carry Hysteria Fail
Our opponents tried to argue that the “guns in bars” bill would hurt tourism in Tennessee. Turns out tourism there actually has gone up, and predictions of alcohol fueled shootouts has failed to materialize. It’s a good thing none of our favorite gun control advocates are in the fortune telling business. I don’t think they’d last very long.
For the Love of John Moses Browning
Caleb talks about why we love the 1911 so:
[W]e love 1911s because there are quintessentially American. Like big fast muscle cars, the 1911 eschews European trends like big magazines full of tiny little bullets and seems to say that “if you can’t get it done with 7 rounds, bullets aren’t your problem, you just suck.â€
I am an unapologetic driver of one of the ugliest cars Honda ever made, and while my computers were “Designed in California,” they were definitely made by exploited workers in China.
But being a practical kind of guy, my 1911s are safe queens, and I have plenty of reasons to carry more rounds. If I’m going to bear that extra weight on my belt, I want it to be hot lead, and not cold steel.
Training in Wisconsin
It’s now up to the Attorney General to prescribe regulations in regards to how much training is necessary to be able to get a concealed handgun license. And now the range operators come out to try to get their slice of the pie:
At Fletcher Arms in Waukesha owner Sean Eaton says the more gun safety training the better.
“Wisconsin’s never had concealed carry, so anyone who is not a police officer has never had concealed carry,” Eaton said.
It’s a good rule that if you’re an FFL, you should never speak to the media. I agree that the more training the better, saw a general rule, but the question is how much should be mandated. Shooting is a skill, much like playing the piano. You can’t learn to play the piano well with 8, or even 180 hours of training, and neither can you become an expert with a gun. This is true of cops as well as citizens. What we want is for people to understand the law, and have enough basic knowledge to get them started on a safe path toward being a competent shooter on their own. That can be successfully taught in a couple of hours. Mandating further training would have no effective purpose other than frustrating people out of getting permits.
Personally, I think a better way to do it, rather than training, is to quiz people on the law in regards to deadly force, and then a live shooting test. As long as the standards are reasonable, and in line with the same qualifier police have to take (which is easy, BTW), I don’t see why this wouldn’t be an acceptable substitute for a training regimen. That way the requirement is competence, rather than some arbitrary number of hours, or mandating courses that are expensive. This way, you only have to pay someone to administer the shooting test. The legal quiz could easily be done online.
Taking the “Apex” out of “Predator”
Clayton Cramer shows just how nutty the State of California is becoming, warning about Mountain Lion predation, but the prohibiting all weapons, and suggesting such things as this:
Do all you can to appear larger. Raise your arms. Open your jacket if you are wearing one. Throw stones, branches, or whatever you can reach without crouching or turning your back. Wave your arms slowly and speak firmly in a loud voice. The idea is to convince the mountain lion that you are not prey and that you may be a danger to it.
Fight back if attacked. Hikers have fought back successfully with sticks, caps, jackets, garden tools, and their bare hands. Since a mountain lion usually tries to bite the head or neck, try to remain standing and face the attacking animal.
For those of you unfamiliar with feline taxonomy, Mountain Lions, also known as Cougars, are the largest of the Felinae subfamily, which includes Cheetah’s, Lynxes and domestic cats. Clayton notes:
And best of all: firearms are strictly prohibited in the nature preserve. So, remember, if all else fails, fight the mountain lion in hand-to-hand combat. Look, I have had house cats that made me regret trying to pick them up, and I’m supposed to fight a 150 pound mountain lion unarmed?
I think, unfortunately, there are more than a few kooks in the State of California that would think being preyed upon by a Mountain Lions was just desserts (no pun intended) for a species that rapes the earth as much as we do. As a cat person, I would certainly attempt to avoid killing a cat if I could, but I’d prefer to have the option of a few rounds of .44 Magnum. I think it would prove to be much more effective at convincing Mountain Lions that humans are not to be tangled with than harsh language.
If This Guy Doesn’t Own a Gun After This …
Read this horrifying account of a mob attack in the Port Richmond part of Philadelphia. A good Samaritan took the two intended teenage victims into his home and protected them until the police got there. Unfortunately, the good Samaritan did not have a firearm to protect himself, and nearly got shot by one the yobs. Fortunately for him, the police arrived before it could get really ugly.
Our opponents like to pretend that there’s never any reason to own a gun. They would also probably argue that it was a good thing no one was hurt. The difference between them and us is that I think it would have been a net social good if each of these yobs had been shot dead as they entered this man’s home.
The police in Philadelphia pretty clearly have lost control of the streets. Hardly surprising given police are one of the first places the incompetent boobs who run that city cut when the going gets tough. The only thing that’s going to put a stop to this behavior is if private citizens raise the cost of doing it. At the very least, if this man had a gun, the City would possibly have reduced the population of people willing to chase and beat other human beings by a few members, in which case it’s hard for me to see why that would be a net social negative. Not all gun violence is a bad thing. Our opponents have long failed to understand the difference between predatory and protective violence.
A Holistic Approach to Safety
But gun violence is only worsened by the number of people carrying firearms–legally or illegally.
The Temple News encourages students to consider a holistic approach to safety, rather than equipping themselves with weapons that could lead to more bloodshed. This includes choosing where to live and recognizing times when sitting outside isn’t necessarily the safest bet.
Armed robbers getting their asses shot is the kind of “gun violence” I don’t have any problem with, and I consider it no tragedy that a Temple student was able to successfully defend himself rather than become another murder statistic in the City of Brotherly Love. To think otherwise is entirely to have a warped sense of morals.