Category: Carrying / Self-Defense

With the media getting all bent out of shape trying to whip up PSH over criminals armed with machine guns, I think it’s worthwhile to examine the tactical utility of a machine gun for a criminal or a nut job.   If I had to go up against an armed attacker, here’s a list of weapons I would most not like him to have:

1. Shotgun
2. Any center-fire rifle
3. Pistol
4. Machine gun

Why yes, machine gun is dead last.  Let me explain.  A hit from a 12 gauge shotgun loaded with 00 buck shot is roughly equivalent to getting hit with a 9 shots from a submachine gun.   The shotgun, at the kinds of ranges you’d typically encounter in an active shooter situation, is the most deadly thing anyone can go up against.

I should also note that any center fire rifle, in the hands of someone carefully aiming his fire, is quite deadly.   It doesn’t matter whether it’s semi-auto, bolt action, or lever action.  If the other guy has a rifle, and I have a pistol, I’m going to run if I can.

Pistol on pistol, I feel pretty good that I can land shots at a distance greater than your average criminal or nut job, but chance are I’m going to be relying on his lack of marksmanship ability.

A machine gun, however, is just going to randomly spray bullets for a few seconds until the magazine runs dry.  It’s not like in the movies where you can shoot forever and never reload.  You have only a few seconds of ammunition, unless you’re using a belt fed machine gun.  Once the criminal or nutjob shoots his wad, I have a prime opportunity to nail him as he’s reloading.   Ever try to load an AK-47 or an submachine gun under stress?  He’s bound to fumble, unless he’s very practiced.   Machine guns are not very useful outside of military formations, where you have more than one person able to keep up a volume of suppressing fire.  The only reasons a criminal would be attracted to one is as a status symbol.  If he thinks it’s tactically useful, he’s a fool. Under most situations, they just aren’t all that useful compared to alternatives.

The media is hoping to not only capitalize on people’s confusion between semi-automatic and automatic, but also people’s impressions of what automatic weapons are capable of, that they get from the movies.   The truth of the situation is, automatic weapons are not that particularly deadly in untrained hands, because it’s hard to hit anything on automatic fire with any accuracy.   Trained people know to fire short bursts, to conserve ammo, and for accurate shot placement.  But once you start doing that, the advantages of the machine gun vs. the shotgun start to disappear at the ranges civilians typically deal with.

In short, despite what the media tells you, all firearms are dangerous in the wrong hands.  As CBS’s hysteria illustrates continues, it’s important that we are loud and vocal about debunking it.

From the Governor’s Office:

HARRISBURG, Pa., Oct. 1 PRNewswire-USNewswire — Governor Edward G. Rendell today proclaimed October as “Crime Prevention Month” in Pennsylvania and urged every citizen to play a part in making communities safer.

Finally! Something from The Governor I can get behind.

Pennsylvania LTCF? Check
Glock 19? Check
16 rounds of Corbon DPX 9mm? Check
Comp-Tac “Infidel” IWB Kydex Holster? Check

*snicker* Somehow I’m willing to bet that’s not the kind of “prevention” he has in mind, but I’m doing my part, nontheless.

From Mr. Completely:

Beginning Oct. 1, the state of Nevada will recognize permits from eight other states that allow people to carry concealed weapons, the Nevada Department of Public Safety announced.

Those states are Alaska, Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Nebraska, Tennessee and Utah.

Mr. Completely laments the exclusion of Washington State on that list. I do too! Because I actually have a license from that state. What’s wrong with Florida too? It’s good enough for Delaware, which is a may-issue (but mostly will, if you jump through the hoops) state to boot!  I guess SayUncle will have to be the “designated shooter” for our group :)

From the Detroit Free Press:

The legislation, promoted by gun-rights activists, clarified when a person can use deadly force in self-defense during break-ins, carjackings and other potentially violent crimes — even in incidents away from the person’s home.

Such was apparently the case Thursday night in Detroit.

Given that Michigan is coming apart at the seams, it seems that the right to defend oneself could be even more important.

Bitter updates us on the Colin Bruley situation. Bruley was the man in Florida who lost his job and was evicted after grabbing his shotgun to investigate the screams of a woman who was shot by her ex boyfriend.

The prevailing attitude among corporate leadership to firearms is a big impediment for our right to defend ourselves. People spend most of their waking hours at work, after all. I don’t know how to solve this problem, because it’s a hearts and minds issue, and I don’t think trying to solve it legislatively is the proper remedy.

In the mean time, folks like Colin will just have to keep doing the right thing, and we’ll continue to smear corporate cowards like Oaks Mill Creek and Village Green Properties as best we can.

Dave Hardy tells us:

Reading the opinion (linked to that page): He defended himself against an armed robbery, and was then charged with CCW for it. It wasn’t the first time. The court applies the new state constitutional amendment on arms, the Wisconsin caselaw construing it, which essentially requires for concealed carry that the individual’s need to carry outweigh the state’s interest in enforcing CCW bans, and that the situation be such that open carry wasn’t a feasible way to exercise the right to arms. The trial court concluded both were true and dismissed the prosecution.

The Wisconsin high court told the legislature several years ago it needed to fix the concealed carry issue when it ruled that a firearm carried concealed at a person’s place of business was within their constitutional rights.  The legislature acted, but was unable to overcome Governor Jim Doyle’s veto.

Here’s to hoping the courts in Wisconsin are open to the idea of revisiting this issue, since Jim Doyle didn’t listen.  Perhaps Wisconsin will become a Vermont carry state.  Oh, the irony that could create, we’d have to oppose any concealed carry law there because it would be gun control :)

Go read Keyboard and a .45’s account of a negligent discharge by a retired police officer in a Dallas synagogue.  The importance of a proper holster can’t be stressed enough.   Few guns risk discharge by being dropped, but as JR points out, it looks as if he probably grabbed the gun on the way down and pressed the trigger.  If a gun falls out of your holster, and it’s happened to me once, the best thing is just to let it go.  You risk more from trying to catch it than you do from it hitting the ground.

Ahab has a pretty good summary up of this.  I haven’t covered it, because while I think these cases are good for everybody, just to get people debating the issue, I do kind of wonder why she’s taken this route.

If it were me, under threat of violence from another person, there’s no law or policy that’s going to prevent me from defending myself.  In that circumstance, the last thing I would want to do would be to draw attention to the situation.

I do hope she wins, however, because it honestly doesn’t make a lot of sense to restrict someone who is licensed to carry everywhere else, from carrying in schools or other public building.  A concealed weapon doesn’t suddenly become more dangerous by entering certain buildings.