Category: Carrying / Self-Defense

SayUncle proposes an addition to the four rules because of this incident here. I’ll vote yes on that one, but one good practice to get into with Glocks is to remove the holster with the firearm in it. My Glock never leaves the holster unless it’s going away unloaded for long term storage. I’m not a fan of removing a gun from its holster just because.

I use this holster, which is easily removed with the gun in the holster.  It requires a quality belt, of proper size to match the clip, because if you don’t it can come off (I’ve had it happen) and the next thing you know there will be a holstered gun at your feet. The leather loops are more forgiving.  The good thing about the Glock is also the bad thing about the Glock.  If you pull the trigger, it’s going to go bang.

This guy now finds himself facing charge of reckless handling of firearms under the Virginia Code, which is a class one misdemeanor.  That won’t make you a prohibited person for the purposes of firearms possession, but I doubt he’ll keep his license to carry.

Defensive Handgun Blog talks about some pants Robb actually might want to wear:

What are Go-Pants? Somewhere in between not being armed and strapping on a tactical vest and an AR-15 to survive the zombiepocalypse is a useful set of tools to deal with the problems that present themselves on a more regular basis.

Interesting concept.  Personally, I wouldn’t answer to the door for someone I wasn’t expecting or didn’t know if I didn’t already have a pistol in arms reach.  I don’t have a set of Go-Pants.  If I’m expecting trouble, I have a go rifle.

MikeB points to a recent bulletin in the Harvard Injury Control Research Center (Joyce Funded), suggesting that criminal use far exceeds civilian defensive gun use.  It’s really a difficult number to come up with, because there doesn’t seem to be much good data on the amount of unreported crime.  But just looking at some bare statistics, you have approximately 2.2 million residential burlaries a year, of which about 20 percent will be done while the resident is home.   Presumably about 40% of those households will have guns.  If you figure even half of those households have residents who become aware of the breakin, that’s 88,000 DGUs right there.

But either way, some of the conclusions in this bulleten are pretty sweeping, like this:

By contrast it appears that the large majority of the self-defense gun uses reported using Approach 1 are socially undesirable; they are largely escalating arguments, or preemptive gun use out of fear rather than a response to an attempted crime. Most would appropriately be missed by Approach 2, and should not be considered genuine self-defense gun uses. They are actually reports of inappropriate or criminal gun use.

So basically, after arguing that there’s quite a lot of self-presentaiton bias, which is true, we’re going to conclude that just about any DGU reported by Kleck’s method is socially undesirable, and therefore should be considered criminal use.

State Senator in South North Carolina shot one of two home invaders.

A guy with a pistol in his car is involved in an accident where he had to go to a hospital turns his gun over to police for safekeeping.  Most of us agree it’s the right thing to do if your car is going to be towed, and sitting on a lot god knows where, likely with shattered windows.  Guy goes back a few days later to get his gun, and he’s told he can’t have it until the police finish running ballistics test on it, to make sure it hasn’t been used in a crime.

What message does that send to the next guy?  We’re constantly harped on by the anti-gun people about being responsible, and when we are, we get kicked in the teeth for it.  No doubt the gun control groups would argue “the responsible thing is leaving your gun at home, neanderthal!” but they’ve lost that argument.  The Fayetteville Police are insuring the next person to come along won’t do the right thing, and we’ll risk having a gun stolen and ending up on the streets.

Brillianter has a post on flashlight technology, and their role when it comes to carry.  I have a Surefire 6P that I rarely carry, just because it’s so large.  I’ve been needing a new lamp for a while anyway, but maybe it’s just time for an upgrade.

I’ve been impressed by how Mostly Genius thinks in terms of self-defense equipment, and he’s certainly changed my mind about some things I didn’t think about too much before.

Paul Helmke wants to know if NRA approves of people carrying to town hall meetings.  I have a confession to make.  I’ve carried a loaded firearm to several public gatherings over the course of the past few months.  I’ve even been in close proximity to elected officials.  I know this might come a complete shock to our Brady friends, but no one ended up getting shot, threatened, or otherwise intimidated.  In fact, given that I carry concealed, I’m pretty sure no one ever knew!  The horror!

I couldn’t have been the only one either, given that there are 600,000 people with Licenses to Carry in this state, and given that approx 6,000 or so are in my county.  The anti-gun folks love to paint us all as having “all the earmarks of a tinderbox, and is exacerbated by the presence of loaded firearms,” like the guns are speaking to us, and egging us on to cause mass carnage because we’re clearly all unable to contain ourselves.

Public gatherings certainly do attract their share of kooks, rabble rousers, and whackjobs.  That’s why I’d prefer if ordinary, responsible gun owners went strapped to these types of events.  Trust me, it’s not the guy open carrying a 9mm with a provocative sign you need to worry about.  In that case, the gun is a prop, just like the sign.  The ones you need to worry about aren’t going to advertise themselves.  They also aren’t likely going to give a crap whether you tell them they can’t carry there.

This blogger makes some very salient points about the guy who open carried a gun near an Obama event with a sign saying “It’s Time to Water the Tree of Liberty.”

However, on the subject of what actually took place here, was this man well within his Constitutional right; being he was well within the proper law to carry his gun, the answer to this question is an obvious yes.  The second question is and I will answer it; is this.  Was it really in the best interests of Conservative, Republicans, and yes, even libertarians and law abiding gun owners for this man to show up at a town-hall meeting where the President of the United States was going to be attending with a Firearm and a sign that says that the Government needs to be overthrown by a violent revolution?  I say this as not only Conservative who believes in the right to carry a firearm.  But as someone who believes in something, that is not found in this day and age of internet sound bites, called common sense —  I am going to come down on that side and say that this man was totally out of line and should been removed from the area.  The reason I say this is because I happen to know that our President is getting more threats on his life now, than when the previous Administration was in power.

I don’t agree that he should have been removed.  The Secret Service wouldn’t have been worried, because he was well away from the President.  But I absolutely agree that it was a boneheaded move.  I saw the segment on Chris Matthews, and agree he did a good job of avoiding Matthews’ trap.  Matthews was hoping for foaming at the mouth, and got Libertarian geek instead.  I don’t think this guy was ever a threat to the President to the point where the Secret Service would have had to do something, but I agree it’s not the best public face for our movement.

My worry is that a lot of these people are attention seekers, and the fact that he got what he was after might mean more people try a stunt like this.  The left is already going ape shit trying to smear us with these guys.  The last thing we need is more.  If you’re going to a rally or public event, I wouldn’t bemoan anyone carrying, but I think people need to exercise discretion.

Over at Crooks and Liars, a story about a man who dropped a gun at a Town Hall that he was carrying in his pocket.  Presumably the guy is licensed.  All modern pistols have internal safeties that prevent them from going off unless the trigger is pulled.  I’ll give that the guy should be more cautious.  It’s certainly not within the realm of sound gun handling to drop a pistol.  But I’ve done it twice.  Never in public, but I’ve dropped guns.  It’s a faux pas, but it’s not dangerous with modern pistols.  Everyone can calm the hell down and go back to your regularly scheduled hysteria.