Carrying / Self-Defense – Page 89 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Philadelphia Navy Yard Shooting

Looks like we had our own incident in Philadelphia too. Lone gunman enters the Philadelphia Navy Yard Business Center and kills three people at a board meeting, then turns the gun on himself after a brief confrontation with Police.

UPDATE: Looks like the guy was a disgruntled investor from Newark, DE, who blamed the board for loss of his investment.Â According to KYW, the weapon involved was an AK-47.Â I can hear the editorials now “Clearly the blame can be squarely laid at the foot of Delaware’s inadequate gun laws that allow people have access to these deadly killing machines”.Â Well, at least that’s how it would go if the board meeting was being held across the river in New Jersey.Â Surely our Philadelphia media will use this as a reason to push for an across the board assault weapons ban in the state, even thought the weapon wasn’t purchased here, in all likelihood.

These are becoming incresingly more common, for people bent on suicide to go out in a blaze of glory. Carrying at work is not possible for most of us because of company policies against the practice, and social expectations in a business climate. But policies and social expectations aren’t going to protect anyone except the person who snaps and decides he wants to take a few hated coworkers with him.

I won’t advocate people risk getting themselves fired, but I’ve never understood why returning fire isn’t an acceptable means for dealing with workplace violence. You’ll never see that one in your company’s training video, I’d wager.

Crime Can Hit Close to Home

We’ve been having a rash of robberies in a neighboring township.

At an Exxon station near the 7-11, a thief recently made off with $1,000s and beating a clerk with a hammer.

In the 7-11 robbery, the clerk opened the door for the robber, which is normally locked due to several recent robberies. The camera captured the suspect hurdling the counter and brandishing what police said was a 6 inch revolver.

The suspect grabbed about $100 in cash before shooting the clerk and running away.

“As he is moving to the back of the store, he shoots him in the back, the bullet goes through his back and ends up being lodged in his chest,” said Lt. MacPherson.

I don’t live in a high crime area, but this highlights the importance of not getting complacent.Â Given this guy has beaten one clerk with a hammer, and shot another, if I happen to be in a store when a robbery goes down, after reading this, I’m not giving the robber the benefit of doubt.Â It’s important that we all be prepared, and carry at all times we’re legally able to. Even in normally quiet neighborhoods, you can attract the criminal element.

What’s Our Responsibity?

Ahab has an interesting post about our responsibilities as armed citizens, in regards to our obligations to defend others:

There seem to be a couple of schools of thought on this issue, which I’ll divide into three major camps. Camp A would say “Absolutely, being armed gives you the obligation to assist if at all possible”, Camp B would say “Absolutely not, your only obligation is to defend your life and the lives of your family”, and finally Camp C seems to say that “You should do what’s appropriate to the situation at hand.” Of course, that seems kind of wishy-washy, but at the same time I’m more comfortable with that than I would be the absolutism in Camp A or Camp B.

I think I’m firmly in Camp C. It really does depend on the situation, and I think it has to. I do think we have an obligation to help others in trouble, even if it means risk to ourselves, both physically and legally, but it has to be circumstance sensitive. In using deadly force in protection of others, one has to be exceedingly careful, but if we find ourselves in a situation where something must be done, and we’re the only ones around who are capable of doing it, it’s our duty.

We should leave the situation to the police when that is the prudent path, but I don’t think it’s just the police and military that responsible for the safety and security of our communities, states and nation.Â We all have a role to play.Â As armed citizens, we should not run around acting like police officers, because we are not; armed citizens should become involved only in dire life and death circumstances.Â But I strongly believe that, as members of a society, and citizens of a nation, we have an obligation to be prepared and ready.Â You never know when circumstances might call on you to go from citizen to soldier.Â Look at the brave folks on Flight 94, who, on that day, answered the call, with no weapons and no training, and gave their lives to save others.Â I don’t think we should expect less of ourselves.

Kydex

I know there are folks out there who think carrying in anything other than leather to be an abomination in the eyes of God. I got my carry license when I was 28 years old, which, I’m sorry to say, was five years ago, and I’m up for renewal this year. I went through the typical drawer full of holsters that didn’t work for me, along with the awkward phase where you always thought people could see your pistol.

I eventually settled on the Galco Royal Guard, in-waist-band holster. This worked pretty well for me, but I could never get over the fact that it added some significant dimension to my Glock. I decided at some point that it would be worth it to try a Kydex holster.

I started off with a Comp-Tac Pro Undercover holster. The first time I did a practice draw out of the kydex, I almost lost control of my grip, because kydex provided much less draw resistance than leather. Once retention is broken, the pistol comes clean out. After a few tries, I decided I really liked how the draw felt. The downside to the Pro Undercover was that the belt loop, after repeated removing and adding, kept breaking off. I went through two of them before I decided to give Sidearmor’s Glock IWB holster a try. The sidearmor holster is pretty good, and I like the fact that you can swap out the belt loop. My only complaint is that, unlike the Comp-Tac holster, you have to undo your belt to remove the holster, since the loop surrounds the belt.Â I like to take my holster off with the pistol still in it for storage in the drawer at night.

I’m really liking Comp-Tac’s Infidel line, and I think I might have to order one. It seems to combine the features I like about the Sidearmor holster with what I liked about the Pro Undercover. The Comp-Tac people were always prompt and friendly too. I had my holster in a matter of days.

Both Comp-Tac and Sidearmor make great holsters. I would recommend you try them if you’re thinking of switching to Kydex. I know a lot of people won’t carry in anything other than leather, but I’m never going back. The slim profile, combined with an easy draw, easy reholstering, and good support make it superior in my view.

A Good C&R Carry Gun?

Ahab of WWJWD asks an interesting question about C&R carry guns:

After my recent experiment with the Hi-point pistol and the sundry disappointment that followed, I started thinking about â€œwhat if someone carried a C&R?â€ I ruminated on it for a while; and I did have a couple of germane thoughts. A lot of these older guns are military pieces, designed to ridden hard and put up wet. Apart from the abysmal sights on a good percentage of them, you could do a lot worse for a carry gun that packing a Star Model B (or whatever). Again, Iâ€™d say wait a month and buy a used GP100 for $300, but if all youâ€™ve got is a surplus CZ50 (.32 ACP) and you can shoot it, it beats a pointy stick.

Makarovs are pretty good carry guns. I carry a Bulgarian Mak loaded with Corbon Pow’rball ammo in 9x18mm in my front coat pocket, or on a belt holster from time to time, as a backup gun, or in situations where I can’t carry my Glock. Most Maks, including the Bulgarian, aren’t C&R eligible, but Soviet Military Maks are. There are some out there on the market. They cost a bit more, because they are more collectible, but you can get it delivered to your door by the brown truck of happiness, just like anything else on the C&R list. You’ll feel like you just joined the KGB!

Philadelphia Foot Fettish Attacker

This guy is just asking to get shot. When he grabs for the shoes, that’s always a good opportunity to paint the sidewalk with this guy’s brains. This is why more women need to carry, especially in a city with as many warped human beings as Philadelphia.

“I used to walk my dog early in the morning before I went to work, all around the school, now I just stay on Parrish. I take my cell phone, sometimes I talk to someone. It’s scary,” said Fairmount resident, Kathleen Bannon.

Yeah, that cell phone is really going to help. I wish the media and politicians would stop perpetuating this myth that cell phones will protect you.Â Talking to someone on your god damned phone is an invitation to a robber, because it means you aren’t paying attention to what’s going on around you.Â Paying attention will protect you a lot more than any friggin cell phone.Â By the time whoever you’re talking to calls the police, you’re either out your money, and your shoes, a rape victim, or you’re a stain on the sidewalk.Â My guess is this shoe fetish attacker is a seriously dangerous individual, more so than ordinary armed robbers, and need to be stopped before he kills or rapes someone.Â But you won’t hear anyone in Philadelphia suggesting women take self-defense classes and get licensed to carry weapons.Â No, just carry a cell phone.Â If you’re lucky, the police will show up before you become a statistic.

Interesting Shooting Videos

Conservative Scalawag has some links to a few shooting videos, as well as some commentary. When say shooting, I mean these are actual shootings, of the self-defense variety. Most of us will never be so unfortunate to ever find ourselves in the situations these gentlemen do, but since we are people who sometimes go about armed, it’s important to study, learn, and to remind ourselves from time to time that self-defense with a firearm is a deadly, ugly business.

First the good:

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=3AA_dgRdDhk[/youtube]

This was a bad situation to begin with, the kid being on the counter.Â Truth be told, I wouldn’t blame anyone who decided, with the kid in the possible line of fire, the best thing is just to let the robbery progress and hope no one gets hurt. But we can’t see what the Robber is saying or how he’s behaving, and robberies can turn sour quite rapidly.Â For whatever reason, we don’t know, the clerk made the decision to shoot. The clerk smartly uses the woman to shield his draw from the robber, then surprises him, probably while his focus is on the register. Looks like his shots managed to find their mark, because you can see him covering the robber on the ground. It looks like this guy had thought about what he would do, trained, and executed it brilliantly.

Now for the not so good:

[youtube crtc7AN_Fxc]

I don’t like to ding anyone’s performance in a situation that’s fluid, charged full of adrenaline, and something that no one can ever prepare enough to find themselves in. But I think it’s important to try to look at what happened, so we can learn from it. To me it looks like he didn’t realize the guys had run off, and was taking un-aimed, blind shots over his concealment until he realized he wasn’t shooting at anything. If the robbers had decided to get into a shootout with him, he very well may be dead with an empty magazine. Wild, poorly aimed shots don’t end gunfights. Hits end gunfights. I think the lesson here is that we need to look at our environment. What’s cover, and what’s concealment in areas you frequent? We probably all need to practice shooting from cover more often that we do, and think about what we’d do in different situations. The unexpected will happen, but in a gunfight, having a gun helps, but having a plans helps more. Which one of these guys do you think had the better plan?

National Reciprocity

Pro-Gun Progressive seeks some feedback on the issue of of National Concealed Carry Reciprocity:

Lots of folks on our side of the issue are wary of the Feds deciding who carries and who doesnâ€™t, which doesnâ€™t strike me as unreasonable. I think much of this stems from the fact that shall issue CCW laws have thankfully found their way on to the books in all but a handful of states. If you live in one of those states, youâ€™ve already got what you want and would understandably not be all that eager to have the Feds step in. If you live in NJ, IL, MD, or NY, you might be a bit more willing to look to the Feds for some help.

I live in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, about 10 miles from Trenton. Needless to say, I conduct quite a lot of business in New Jersey, such as buying liquor and beer, but also other things, and I would dearly love not to have to think “I left the pistol at home right?”, every time I cross the border. It’s 7 years in prison over there for forgetting if you get pinched. It would also have been nice if, on my travel to Virginia last month, I didn’t have to stop at the Delaware/Maryland border, put my pistol and ammunition in separate locked hard sided containers to be FOPA compliant, only to reverse the process after crossing into Virginia 40 minutes later. People in The South and West (minus California), don’t have to worry about this, because you can drive for days without having to worry about the law changing remarkably. Criminals don’t have to worry about this either, because they don’t give a crap about the law.

So the law would benefit me, but I’m still opposed to it as it stands, because the federal government simply has no power under the commerce clause of the constitution to force one state to accept another state’s law, and the proposed bill that I saw relied on the fact that the gun once moved in interstate commerce as the hook to give Congress regulatory power. I’ve heard this called “The Herpes Theory” of the commerce clause, and I think Congress and the Courts should renounce it, because it obliterates the distinction between what is local and what is national, that the constitution was meant to preserve in the first place. It seemed that The Supreme Court in United States vs. Lopez had rejected this argument, but quite a lot of federal gun laws still rely on it. Given the Raich decision, perhaps The Court is retreating from Lopez, but I’d like to hope Raich was only a bump in the road toward a more limited reading of Congress’ commerce power.

So what national reciprocity would I support? I think Congress could use two powers to allow it. It could use it’s militia powers to allow any licensed person to carry anywhere in the US as a national defense measure. In a world filled with asymmetrical warfare, this isn’t really such a far fetched notion. Alternately, the Fourteenth Amendment says:

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. … The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article. … The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

So Congress can just declare the remaining state’s restrictive statutes null and void under the Fourteenth and Second Amendments, and be done with it.

But we all know that’s never going to happen. Considering how much federal gun laws are based on herpes commerce clause theory, I’m afraid I have to come out against this one even if it benefits us. Unless, of course, passing it makes The Court rediscover the wisdom they originally displayed in Lopez, and clearly retreat from the herpes theory once and for all.

When “Shall Issue” Really Isn’t

Jeff Soyer bring us this bit on Colorado, where some Democratic legislators want to make it more difficult to obtain licenses for concealed carry. I don’t have much to add to what Jeff said except to make a point about something he mentioned in his post:

Colorado is NOT a “shall issue” state. As the FAQ says:

Regardless of whether the applicant meets the criteria specified, if the sheriff has reasonable belief that documented previous behavior by the applicant makes it likely the applicant will present a danger to self or others, the sheriff may deny the permit…

Meaning that if the Sheriff doesn’t like you, you’re fucked. Unspoken is the fact that if you voted the wrong way or are black or gay, you might not get your permit. I’m not saying they actually discriminate, simply that your permit approval is at the mercy of someone else’s subjective opinion.

Pennsylvania is also a shall issue state that isn’t really shall issue, since we have the same clause in our law that gives local sheriffs some discrescion over license issue. This was intended for people who might have a string of offenses, that would indicate they may not be entirely responsible individuals, but was not any of the enumerated offenses that would cause you to be denied by the statute. Most Sheriff’s within the Commonwealth do not abuse this discrescion, but the City of Philadelphia routinely does, and the appeals process in the City is stacked against the appelant, and my understanding is they routinely uphold denials by the Philadelphia Police for LTCs.

Fortunatly, for many Philadelphians who have a difficult time getting licenses, Florida is a true shall-issue state, and their license is recognized by Pennsylvania. There were more than a few people in my training class for the Florida CWL who had been denied by the city for minor infarctions. I suspsect what this politician wants to do is close that “loophole”, so that Denver’s abuse of the same clause will hold, and those denied won’t have recourse to seek licenses in true shall-issue states.

Virginia and Pennsylvania Establish Reciprocity

This is good news for both PA LTC and VA CHL holders. Reciprocity with Virginia has been a long time coming. I’ve heard various reasons on why it hasn’t happened sooner, from our lack of training requirement, to Pennsylvania having no easy method for license verification. I’m glad to see if finally happening though.