Category: Carrying / Self-Defense

It always seems to be the 9/11 memorial people get busted, when they go and ask the nice NYPD officer where they can store their pistols, who naturally promptly arrest them. It’s amazing how every single one of these stories go down the same way. It’s like they expect that New York City is part of America or something, but they’d be wrong. I have to imagine they cover reciprocity issues in the Texas CHL training class. My first PA LTC came with a two page letter from the Chester County Sheriff explaining various dos and don’ts, including (at the time) the lack of reciprocity with neighboring states, with a big capitalized emphasis on not carrying in New Jersey or New York.

But we can hardly blame people, which is why we need to fix this issue and make every state recognize every other states licenses. We also should be clear that the longer the other side makes us wait, the worse the eventual bill is going to be from their point of view. In fact, because the Courts have abdicated their responsibility to protect the Second Amendment rights of Americans, we’re going to be looking at a whole list of things Congress might do under their Section 5 powers of the 14th Amendment. America is coming, New York City. Better get used to it.

I’ve seen a lot of discussion about people stepping up to defend military recruiting stations in the wake of the Chattanooga attack, and putting it in the same class as rifle OC. We’ve certainly seen our share of derp associated with some of these folks, but conceptually, I have a difficult time putting this in the same class as people carrying long guns into Target. I think the reason is because context matters. After an attack on a recruiting station, I think people can put two and two together and understand what’s going on. There is context for ordinary people to put this in that doesn’t make it as strange or threatening. I think we could certainly do without the derperators, but I don’t really see a problem conceptually with citizens stepping up responsibly, to do an important  job our government won’t. No one can top this guy, though.

UPDATE: This!

Apparently it happened, but it was an escort defending herself from someone who was trying to kill her, and it turns out it may be that she stopped a serial killer who was responsible for possibly up to four other murders. He put the gun down to strangle her, she picked it up and shot him fatally. One the one hand, good show. On the other hand, I guess it is possible for an unarmed person turn the tables on someone with a gun! In this case, I’m glad she was able.

Now that Bloomberg has put some real money back into anti-gun research, the studies appear to be flowing. Bloomberg’s mouthpieces, Evan DeFillippis and Devin Hughes (yes, those guys, who I now speculate were paid shills all along) point to a new study out that shows you’re really just better off running away. Notice how all their studies are published behind paywalls, while our researchers upload their studies to SSRN where anyone can read and dissect them?

Anecdotally, I only know two people who have ever had to use a gun in self-defense. In one case, the friend was in an attempted robbery. Attempted because he drew a gun on the robbers, and they retreated posthaste. The incident was reported to 911, but the dispatcher asked if the friend really wanted a car sent out to take a report, and he answered no. The second was in a rural home, before the days of 911, and was just never reported to police. Both of these were absolutely and unambiguously self-defense.

I’m not surprised they are picking these studies apart, because just about every study has shown a fairly significant amount of defensive gun use. I would expect more studies on how ineffective firearms are at protecting people. But here’s a question for Mr. DeFillippis and Mr. Hughes: if firearms are so ineffective at self-protection, when will Mr. Bloomberg, your patron, voluntarily disarm his security detail? Or are guns only effective when they are protecting rich billionaires?

 

Thinking about the mass killing of 27 people at a tourist beach in Tunisia over the weekend, I worried that this sort of attack could provide a template for attacks here. I am not personally much of a beach person. I don’t like crowds, my pasty skin doesn’t appreciate much sun, and I’m not a big fan of salt water. When we visited Hawaii, I did go to a few lesser visited beaches to do some snorkeling. Even if Hawaii allowed carry, I wouldn’t have had a gun on me.

I think it’s safe to say that even in some very gun nutty states like Florida or the Texas Gulf Coast, your average beach goer, even the gun nutty types, aren’t going to take a piece when they head out for some beach time. It seems to me if this type of attack is to be a template, the only viable solution is a stepped up police presence at beaches, with the officers appropriately armed with patrol rifles (for those of you who are gun control advocates, ‘patrol rifles’ are what you people call an ‘assault weapon’) that can handle the kind of range you’ll encounter in a beach environment.

Bob Owens points out that the Supreme Court’s decision in Overgefell v. Hodges enables national carry. I wouldn’t go toting a gun over into New Jersey or Maryland just yet. The argument used here will certainly be useful when defending National Reciprocity in court, or arguing a right to carry a firearm before the federal courts, but given how hostile and resistant lower courts have been, and given the Supreme Court’s reluctance to do anything about it, I wouldn’t want to find myself on trial arguing that some language in Overgefell supports a national right to carry. The courts aren’t likely to agree, and the Supreme Court not likely to care. Some rights are more equal than others, folks. That’s just the way it is, for now.

The Senate has passed Constitutional Carry 21-14. It would still have to pass the house, but needless to say, this is a significant win for us. Maine would be the first New England state to pass Constitutional Carry (Vermont has always had it). That would put significant pressure on New Hampshire to get with the program! Let us hope that the House acts similarly.

We really need a large state, like Florida, Texas, Pennsylvania, or Ohio to bite. Pennsylvania will be an uphill battle. The Philadelphia contingent will object loudly, and we’d probably lose a number of suburban Republicans. At some point, I believe we will get it, but it’ll probably take a state like Florida or Texas making the leap first. Politicians are herd animals, for the most part. The trick is getting the herd moving in the right direction. That gets easier as more of the herd starts moving.