Category: Carrying / Self-Defense

… for folks who open carry.

Pennsylvania’s concealed carry laws are among the best in the nation, but I can’t imagine our legislators having a debate like this.

Breda takes on the notion of “rape whistles”  I agree these are a poor substitute for fighting back, but I wouldn’t completely discount their utility.  I mean, if you heard someone whistling frantically within close proximity of you, and after following the sound saw a man about to rape a woman, would you do nothing?   I wouldn’t.  Of course, that presumes that at least some of us have the capability to do something other than dial 911 and hope that help shows up in time.

I’m with Dave, I can’t believe the main stream media would feature anything like this.  Concealed carry reform was one of the greatest strokes of strategic brilliance the gun rights movement has ever had, and I’m not sure we’d be in the position we’re in today without.

Despite the fact that a relatively small number of people bother to get licenses to carry a concealed firearm, the impact has been substantial in terms of how public debate on gun control is framed.  It has allowed us to shift the debate on this issue exlusively away from sporting uses and toward self-defense, not only in the home, but in general.  Most Americans, even if they are wary on the gun issue, are perfectly accepting that a person has a right to defend their own life.  Concealed carry has allowed us to tie that sentiment into the gun control debate, and created a large cadre of activists who are making for interesting stories for the media to report.

In the fact of more and more of these types of mass shooting, had we kept the debate mostly on sporting uses of firearms, and only on self-defense within the home, I believe we’d be losing; most Americans wouldn’t be willing to preserve sporting uses of firearms at, what they would believe, is the expense of their own safety, and that of their children.  That we have the media stepping into the debate of whether young adults who are licensed to carry should be allowed to carry on campus is an amazing achievement, and should be a harbinger of doom for the gun control movement.

I have very little to say about this myself, except one question to all the folks out there who keep suggesting we gun nuts are paranoid nuts for suggesting more guns are the problem:

If you were sitting in a school auditorium, you suddenly heard a loud “BANG!” followed by another, then another.  You turn around and see a ban walking down the aisle wielding a shotgun, taking aim and shooting at people along the way.  Unbeknown to you, the man next to you is a competitive pistol shooter, and has been shooting since he was a child.  He immediately grabs you, and pulls you down to cover.   At this point, would you prefer the man next to you be armed, and have the ability to end all this will a well placed shot?   Or would you prefer that the state has made him every bit as helpless as it has made you?

Of course, I know what the answer will be.  That if we allow people to carry guns, the man next to me is more likely to be an inbred yahoo who can’t hit the side of the barn, and will just kill more innocents.  Because clearly it’s those types of people who own and carry guns.  One day perhaps these people will surrender their predjuicial fantasies, but it seems an awful lot of people are willing to see an awful lot of other people cowering in the face of these monsters, rather than allow for the possibility that someone could do something about it.

Apparently the Russians keep a firearm on the International Space Station, and with the gun, comes the gun haters:

Former NASA engineer Jim Oberg, who is an author and journalist, wrote about the gun on his Web site. He said the gun has no place in an environment where people are under such high stress.

“There have been cases of severe psychological strain on people in space, strain that they have taken out — that their shipmates worried about the ultimate actions,” Oberg said.Experts said the idea of an astronaut losing control was unthinkable until one year ago, when Lisa Nowak shattered the myth.

My opinion on the matter is if the Russkies have a gun, we should too.  We can not allow for a space station gun gap! But in all seriousness, having a firearm on board a return vessel that could get lost in the wilderness for a period isn’t a bad idea. Lisa Nowak is a sign that there’s something horribly wrong with NASA’s screening practices, not that the Russians need to keep dangerous objects out of the space station.  Crazy people in a space station is inherently dangerous, weapons or no.

Clayton has some thoughts up.  I tend to agree with the approach of using liability laws to try to change these practices.  Companies institute these policies in the first place to avoid being sued in the event someone goes postal.  “Hey, we had a policy, it wasn’t our fault!” kind of thing.  Yes, to employers that do this, not being sued is more important to them than your personal security.  Altering liability laws changes that equation for them, without outright forcing employers to accept certain practices on the part of employees.

How they do it outside of Philadelphia.

Four more Senators, including Pennsylvania’s Senator Arlen Specter, have signed on to the letter to Department of Interior Secretary Kempthorne calling for new rules to force the National Park Service to follow state law regarding firearms on property managed by the agency.  Excellent.