Category: Carrying / Self-Defense

One has to wonder whether the Brady Campaign is of the opinion that armed security guards in school are an inherent risk, considering their latest blog post:

I urge everyone, regardless of your point of view on the subject, to watch this short video.

The video clip shows a Federal law enforcement agent, doubtless fully trained in firearm safety, shooting himself in the foot in front of a stunned classroom full of people.

This reinforces the point that guns in school are inherently dangerous. Even trained law enforcement officers can have potentially serious accidents.

Paul Helmke is correct to point out that being in possession of a badge doesn’t automatically make you a safe gun handler. But one wonders why he then goes onto say “any guns [in schools] should be in the hands of trained law enforcement officers.” What magical properties does having a badge imbue its possessor with?  Studies have shown that gun owners are far less likely to mistakenly kill someone than police officers.^CITE

In my training, I was told that my pistol should never leave its holster unless I’m actively defending myself, engaging in draw and fire practice at a range designed to handle that safely, or removing and unloading it for safe storage.  Clearly someone either never bothered to tell the DEA agent that basic rule, or he chose to ignore it.  Perhaps he believed his wonderful training would prevent an accident while carelessly handling a firearm in front of a group of students.

My solution to these problems is to reinforce, over and over again, the rules of safe gun handling, for both people licensed to carry guns, and for police officers.   The more you reinforce the rules, the less the likelihood of poor judgment leading to careless mistakes will be, for all classes of gun carriers.

I’m not honestly sure I understand the Brady position, which seems to be that even trained police officers can exercise poor judgment and have gun accidents, which is why only trained police officers should be allowed to carry guns in schools.  Does that make sense to you?   Me neither.

Another Kydex holster bites the dust.  They just don’t seem to last longer than a year or two for me.  I noticed a crack in my Sidearmor holster’s belt loop.   Fortunately, they are six bucks to replace!  I may, however, get a Comp-tac Infidel instead though, because I miss a belt clip that can be easily slipped off.  I have some ideas on how I might use the Sidearmor holster in the car.

Yesterday’s story from Michigan involved a poorly considered shot at fleeing suspects.   Reader KathyH sent me this story from Pennsylvania illustrates the legal risks involved in doing so:

Police said two masked teens armed with BB guns and baseball bats were in the process of robbing the home of Eraldo Iannitelli shortly before 6 a.m. when he returned home. Grabbing a 12-gauge shotgun, he fired at the fleeing teens.

A 16-year-old boy was hit. Neighbors who heard his cries called 911. Police are searching for the second teen.

According to police, Mr. Iannitelli is being charged with attempted homicide, aggravated assault and reckless endangerment.

The 16 year old will be charged with robbery and aggravated assault, police said.

The gray area comes in when the suspects are not fleeing, but are merely engaging in a tactical retreat, and plan to continue the fight.  There’s always a possibility this man felt that the suspects were not breaking off the fight, and thus his actions were not inappropriate, but one should always be inherent wary of firing on suspects who are retreating from you.

I think I’m slowly starting to change my opinion on open carry. Previously I tended to view it as damaging to our cause, because it tended to just scare people, without really educating them. But I am impressed with what’s been done in Virginia. Open Carry has always been lawful in Virginia, but there were always places you risks getting hassled by the police. Now it’s not uncommon, it’s accepted, and the police know the law and won’t generally bother you.

I’m also very impressed by how much the issue has motivated activism, particularly from the kind of person who otherwise might choose just to sit around and be angry. I’m also reminded of Countertop’s example of open carry in Virginia, where he opined that part of it’s utility was showing the folks traveling through Virginia that “the rest of the country isn’t like New Jersey and New York.”

I will still choose to carry concealed, but I’m being converted on the utility of open carry in regards to pro-gun activism.  What do you folks think?

… from a perception of reality that is this fundamentally warped.

UPDATE: Follow the link, and one faculty member makes the claim that if they arm campus poilice, it will mean the obviously racist cops will just shoot more black people:

Social work professor Katherine van Wormer said UNI regularly rates as one of the safest campuses in the country, and murders at colleges nationwide are extremely rare. She added that national statistics show African Americans are more likely to be shot by police than a white suspect.

“It explains why people from the black community are very concerned about this,” she said.

Professor Wormer, what an appropriate name. To smear all police officers with this brush is unconscionable. These are the people that are teaching our kids! God help us.

UPDATE: Rightwingprof has more.

If there’s one thing you never want to find yourself saying late at night, when your girlfriend calls you on the phone, it’s get a round into the chamber!

This prompted me to think that I should give Bitter my current shotgun, and she should file the NFA paperwork to saw it off. But then I remembered her complex recently changed owners, and adopted a new, more upscale name. So I’m thinking she needs something more upscale, like maybe sawed off Holland and Holland, rather than my cheap Mossberg.

But seriously folks, when it comes to defense of dwelling in an apartment, the shotgun is, without a doubt, not to be beat. It has been said:

The shotgun is the ne plus ultra of manstoppers. No other weapon will put a man down as reliably as a shotgun, and no other weapon is as likely to hit your opponent as a shotgun filled with buckshot. No doubt you have heard a lot of nonsense about the lethality of “assault rifles” and “Uzi sub-machine guns” and the like. The fact is that the shotgun is by far the deadliest and most effective firearm for short-range personal defense. For example: an Uzi or Heckler & Koch sub-machine gun has about 340 ft-lbs. of impact energy – a 12 gauge shotgun has 2500 to 3100 ft-lbs. of impact energy, and it is a heck of a lot easier to hit your target with a shotgun than a sub-machine gun.

Plus, there’s no better sound in the world than operating the slide on a pump-action shotgun. I think it’s important for women living alone to think about home defense. Bitter certainly has done her fair share of that, and I’m happy that now she lives in a state that is more respecting of her right to defend herself, without having to worry about ending up being treated like a criminal.

John Lott has an editorial over at Fox News, talking about how some universities not only want their students disarms, but their police as well:

But citizens and police who pack heat do help, because they can stop a shooting while it is happening. Amazingly, opposition to guns on campuses is so extreme that some even oppose police being able to carry guns.

When, in the wake of the Virginia Tech shooting, campus police at Brandeis University asked that they be armed to prevent similar tragedies, the president of the Brandeis Student Union even argued that, “the sense of community and the sense of safety would be disturbed very much by having guns on campus.”

The administration is now considering arming its officers but has not taken action. By Sept. 10, the University of Iowa, Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa will also decide whether to end an almost 30-year ban and allow campus police to again carry handguns.

They really do live in another world.  I happens that I went to a school that did not have an armed police force.  I was once a witness to an incident on campus that required immediate attention, where a group of men were threatening another man who was waving the group off with a tire iron (it was a union dispute).  I watched several campus security people sit there, watching, talking in their radios, not getting involved.  It wasn’t until the Philadelphia Police showed up and injected themselves quite forcefully into the situation, that the incident was quelled.  Campus security was about as effective as anybody with a cell phone when the shit hit the fan.

You can’t ask people to enforce the law without being able to protect themselves, and I’d rather have campus police that can do something about a situation rather than sit there and watch.  College administrators can pretend that deranged killers are going to check the student handbook, and reconsider going on a spree, but forcing everyone else, campus police and CCL holders alike, to protect your fragile and false reality with their lives is unconscionable.

Sorry folks, but it looks like it’s for resident permits only.  West Virginia, as far as I know, generally only allows that.

It’s about frigging time! There’s rumors that Tom Corbett will make a run for the Governor’s office in 2010. This will certainly help his standing with gun owners.

This is a momentous occasion folks.  It marks the first reciprocity agreement that allows Pennsylvania LTC holders to travel out of the state by land and not have to take the gun off to remain legal.  Pennsylvania has no reciproicity agreements with any of its neighbors.   I’ve been able to carry in Ohio and Delaware for a while now, but only on a Florida CWL.

New Hampshire guy somehow managed to leave his loaded carry piece on a bench in a restaurant.  His license was pulled and he’s stuck with a reckless endangerment charge.   Even more embarrassing, the media picked up his mug shot.

Remember as license holders that the media is looking for reasons to paint us as dangerous an irresponsible.  We need to be careful not to give them any stories like this.