One thing we can say for sure about the parking lot in front of the Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco – sure isn’t a gun-free zone. When the fracas came to an end last Sunday, at least nine people were dead, another eighteen were injured and more than 150 biker gang members had either been arrested or detained for additional questioning, a number which kept changing as the cops ran out of usual spaces (read: jail cells) to stick all the guys who engaged in the rumble.
And if you think that it was only the parking that was an unfree gun zone, the Waco Police Department issued a list of all the weapons found in the restaurant before, during and after the gang members were being carted off to the hoosegow. Ready? Along with an AK-47, the cops found 118 handguns stuffed into potato chip sacks, flour bags, hidden on shelves in the restaurant’s kitchen and simply lying around on the floor. And here’s the best of all; someone actually tried to flush a handgun down a toilet.
I remember back in the 1980s when Glock first started promoting gun sales, the company ran a very clever advertisement called the Glock “torture test” which showed someone dropping a Glock from the roof of a building, then coming downstairs, picking up the gun and it still worked. The test was a riff on Timex watches and how they take a licking but keep on ticking. So I’m thinking that maybe someone in the Waco Twin Peaks restaurant wanted to update the Glock test by first trying to flush the pistol down the toilet. Dumber things with guns happen all the time in the Lone Star State.
In any case, the Waco mess apparently grew out of a fight that started inside the restaurant and then spilled outside. The melee evidently involved members of at least four biker gangs, including but not limited to members of the Scimitars, Vaqueros, Cossacks and Bandidos, the last-named bunch having been dubbed a “growing criminal threat” by the Department of Justice, even though their French subsidiary allegedly runs a Toys for Tots drive every year – in France.
Biker gangs have been around almost as long as motorcycles have been around, but they achieved their unique counter-cultural status in the 1960s when they were rhapsodized and condemned by “gonzo” journalist Hunter Thompson, whose relationship with the bikers ended when he got the crap beaten out of him by several members after Thompson rebuked one of them for punching out his wife. Two years later the Angels and other biker gangs engaged in a slugfest at the Altamont rock festival, which both ruined the festival and stripped the biker gangs of any last vestige of romantic imagery in the media or the popular imagination.
Meanwhile back in Texas, a bill to allow open carry of handguns appears to be ready for passage which Governor Abbott has promised to sign. The bill’s supporters, of course, claim that what happened in Waco shouldn’t have anything to do with this law, but the mess outside of the Twin Peaks restaurant, it seems to me, does have something important to say about the NRA’s most cherished project, namely, to get rid of all gun-free zones. Recall what Wayne-o said after Sandy Hook: “Only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun.”
But think about this: There may have been more than 100 bikers at Twin Peaks, all of whom believed they were ‘good guys’ who needed to carry guns in case a ‘bad guy’ from another gang was also armed. So if everyone can decide for themselves who are the ‘good guys’ and who are the ‘bad guys’ and back up this decision by strapping on a gun, the incident in Waco won’t be the last time that bullets and bodies go flying. Do people become ‘good’ because they walk around with a gun? The Bandidos and the NRA would definitely agree.
May 22, 2015 @ 18:56:39
You touched on an important (and purposefully ignored) caveat in the NRA’s mantra. No one starts out as a “bad guy,” much less a bad guy with a gun. It is only when the bullets start flying and the bodies start dropping that we can tell who is who, and then it’s too late.
May 24, 2015 @ 02:07:41
So what? That’s true no matter what. No one is a bank robber until they rob a bank. So let’s restrict everyone from going to a bank just in case, rubbish. Our constitution is premised on the notion that people are free to exercise their rights until such time that their actions compel us as a society to take those rights away. Gun control acts to limit rights without the benefit of due process.
The meaning behind the idea of a “good guy” with a gun is the general assumption that most people are law abiding. If most people are law abiding good guys, then why wouldn’t you want them able to deal with the “bad guys” who seek to do us harm? Most people would suppose that the police are good guys. Criminals or bad guys are stopped by our good guy police who are armed in our country. Now our police are limited in both sheer numbers and legal limits to their authority, they cannot be all places at all times or take action without probable cause. So what are we to do, have the criminals follow a schedule as to when they can do their dirty deeds? Of course not.
Criminals act when law enforcement is not likely to be around. I prefer to have the tools with me when I need them and not have to hope that a police officer can answer a 911 call in less than the minute it would take the bad guy to act against me. The implication of your post implies that I may not be good, so therefore my rights limited based on your faulty logic.
Just because something has the potential to be something, that is not justification to take a right away. The 2nd amendment is a right, not a privilege. We have already allowed infringements to that right regardless of what SCOTUS says. I may not agree with everything the NRA says or does, but as it stands, I cannot trust people like you act in good faith. If the rest of the world chooses to live a certain way, that should not diminish my rights here.
May 29, 2015 @ 12:34:21
That’s precisely why the 2nd Amendment should be repealed. We’ve outgrown it and all the reasons the Founding Fathers wrote it in. Like Prohibition, it doesn’t work for us any more and is a failure. I’m not necessarily saying that we should come take your guns (but I am amazed at the invitations I keep seeing), but I am saying that gun ownership should not be a right, but a privilege. And this sort of arrangement works quite well. Consider our 1st world peers in Australia, Canada and the U.K. Gun violence is not totally absent there, but, for example, the gun-related death rate is 40x higher in the USA than the UK. If you’re like the other gunutters, you’ll try to say this isn’t an apples to apples comparison, but I am unconvinced at such special pleading.
Given that more U.S citizens have died from guns than all of our soldiers in all of our wars COMBINED, it is clear to me that your “right” to play with guns and be fearful of the criminals you imagine to be conspiring against you is not worth the cost to society as a whole. Like lawn-darts, thalidomide and bazookas, guns ought to be tightly controlled, regulated, tracked, and insured if not banned outright. You might not trust “people like [me],” but the feeling is mutual as long as folks like you cling to your guns at the expense and peril of everyone else. The time is coming when we will wake up and develop the political and moral will to rid ourselves of publicly available guns and ammo. Hasten the day.
May 30, 2015 @ 15:34:17
At least you’re honest. That’s about all you are. If you want to repeal, go ahead and try. Universal background checks couldn’t even get out of congress, yet you think that there is a real chance to repeal the right to keep and bear arms?
Back to reality, I’ve been around the world 3 times and have seen for myself what’s out there, we have it better. The whole point to a bill of rights is to keep people like you from deciding what rights I can have. You don’t like guns, good for you. However, in a free society people will do things that others don’t like.
The number of people killed by guns is a debatable number. Why, because like most statistics, the numbers can be shaped in a number of ways depending on how you want the result to come out. What was the saying; lies, damn lies, and statistics. The assumption that people wouldn’t kill themselves if it weren’t for gun, has been debunked. When you factor out the crime on crime killings, the number of deaths is quite lower. So making sweeping assertions that having an individual right of gun ownership along with a high per capita rate of ownership is somehow hyper-dangerous is erroneous. You being a person that would dispense with the 2nd and restrict what I own and how I can use it, you will purposely exaggerate in order to sway public opinion. Here in lies the wisdom of the bill of rights.
To say that we have out grown the 2nd, that same rationale can be used for the whole constitution. So let’s just start with a blank sheet of paper and see what happens. Do you really think that a “right” abortion would make it? Maybe, maybe not. The point is that our rights are beyond the shifting nature of the mob.
Our problem here is not one of gun ownership or legal CCW. Our problem is that our criminal justice system is broken. We really don’t have a good way of dealing with criminal activity. However, the trend as reported by PEW is that crime has been coming down. Funny how this correlates with the expansion of CCW. Your premise is that the cost of gun ownership is too high, yet the actual facts would support the opposite.
The study that big O ordered actually stated that guns are often used in defensive actions beyond those that resulted in a discharge or death. So what we have is an issue where the cost and benefit is very hard to accurately define. I very much doubt that anything I say will change your mind. Being that I have a 1911 on my hip as I write this, I doubt that my mind is going to change. I will however endeavor to maintain what rights I have.
Cheers,
Jun 01, 2015 @ 02:42:15
It seems that I’ve touched a nerve with you, John. But honestly, there’s no need for you to be unpleasant. But thank you for the blessing on repealing the 2nd amendment. That is the beautiful thing about the U.S. Constitution: it can be changed. When enough people finally wake up and realize that the 2nd amendment is a dangerous relic that’s no longer useful, it will die a belated death. In a free society, people might just do what you don’t like.
It really is too bad that you simply reject facts and figures that you don’t like when it comes to gun related deaths and crime. If you can’t accept the reality of the problem that guns exacerbate, then we aren’t going to be good conversation partners.
Nevertheless, I would like to point out another fallacy in your reasoning, namely, that you want so badly to correlate increasing gun ownership with decreasing crime rates. The problem with that argument is twofold. First, gun ownership is decreasing in our nation, and it has been for 50 years (thank God). Secondly, we’re not talking about all crimes, just those related to guns. So of course it will skew the data if you make it about all crime in general, which is, as you say, decreasing. But when we focus only on gun-related crime and death, we will see that it is actually increasing. Again, this is despite the fact that gun ownership is decreasing. That’s not saying much positive about gun owners and the ever present myth of defensive gun use. I’m not saying that DGU never happens, but I am saying that it is outweighed by aggressive gun use to an embarrassing degree. Once again, not worth the cost. As you said, people do tend to exaggerate to sway opinion. It just happens to be you this time.
May 30, 2015 @ 16:01:40
http://www.thepolemicist.net/2013/01/the-rifle-on-wall-left-argument-for-gun.html
You should read this.
Jun 01, 2015 @ 08:10:13
You actually think that the facts support you, amazing. This is the central problem here, everyone has all these numbers that can be sliced and diced to fit just about every point of view.
You think that you have public opinion, so why is there still a debate? Perhaps it is you and those like you who need to wake up. If you think that I’m unpleasant, perhaps it is because I really don’t need you or “Mikethegunguy” telling me how to live my life or pushing agendas that run counter to the constitutional rights that I and many others have served to protect.
Jun 01, 2015 @ 10:35:17
You act as if facts are bendable and fluid, and thus believe you can reject the ones you don’t like. And then you are so self-deluded as to say that I am the one who needs to “wake up.” Amazing indeed.
You also seem to believe that there should be no public debate when a side (any side) has a majority. That is nonsense.
You are unpleasant because you want to make everything personal and construct ad hominem attacks instead of dealing with reality. I’ve seen a lot of your comments, and it’s pretty clear you are damaged, angry, and, like many concealed carry folks, looking for a fight. How novel.
I can’t speak for Mike, but you are confused about me telling you how to live your life. I’m not necessarily for banning all guns; I am for keeping them and unstable, angry, violent wannabes separated. If that is you, and I am starting to think that it is, then yes, the privilege of gun ownership should not be open to you. Nevertheless, this is no more an issue of telling you how to live your life than the gov’t telling you can’t have a nuclear weapon is telling you how to live. Nor would it be punishment. It would be reasonable, responsible and preventative maintenance. And, as other 1st world nations with reasonable gun laws based on privilege prove, it works.
I’m not for taking away anyone’s “rights.” Just one right (singular), the antiquated, disastrous, and outmoded 2nd amendment. We need gun privilege, not rights. It’s a slow process, and folks like you are certainly doing their best to ensure continuing gun violence, but changes are coming. Hasten the day.
Jun 01, 2015 @ 22:35:00
“You are unpleasant because you want to make everything personal and construct ad hominem attacks instead of dealing with reality. I’ve seen a lot of your comments, and it’s pretty clear you are damaged, angry, and, like many concealed carry folk”
These are your words and your ad hominem attack. All you have presented is your opinion that I have no facts. Everything that you have presented is just as contested as the information that I have. Here are some links. Even Marvin Wolfgang conceded that defensive gun use was substantially higher than he wanted to believe.
http://www.owl232.net/guncontrol.htm
http://www.hoplofobia.info/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/A-Tribute-to-a-View-I-Have-Opposed.pdf
http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-gun-crimes-pew-report-20130507-story.html
http://www.thepolemicist.net/2013/01/the-rifle-on-wall-left-argument-for-gun.html
Jun 02, 2015 @ 09:16:00
That’s not what Wolfgang said.
Jun 02, 2015 @ 15:36:31
You are confused, John. My calling your unpleasant and ad hominem attacks, “unpleasant, ad hominem attacks,” does not itself constitute an ad hominem attack. It’s calling a spade “a spade.” You can always resist the urge to be ugly in the future. I encourage you to do so.
I looked at a few of the links you posted, and I am not impressed. The first one seems devoted to the idea of arm bearing as a right. I never said anything to the contrary. It might save you time to not argue against points I didn’t make.
As for the LA Times article you linked, it is encouraging to note that gun-violence did decline somewhat in the 1990s. Unfortunately, that trend has since reversed itself. Also, perhaps you missed these parts of that article:
“Though violence has dropped, the United States still has a higher murder rate than most other developed countries, though not the highest in the world, the Pew study noted. A Swiss research group, the Small Arms Survey, says that the U.S. has more guns per capita than any other country.
However, guns still remain the most common murder weapon in the United States, the report noted. Between 1993 and 2011, more than two out of three murders in the U.S. were carried out with guns, the Bureau of Justice Statistics found.”
Jun 02, 2015 @ 16:44:46
I also had some time to read the Wolfgang paper you linked. As Mike pointed out, he does not say what you claimed. This hurts your credibility. What Wolfgang actually said was, “I do not like their conclusions that having a gun can be useful, but I cannot fault their methodology.” Just for the sake of clarity, I also have not claimed that having a gun is never useful.
Here are a few other things that we should consider regarding Wolfgang’s paper:
1) The data set he (and Kleck) were working with was from 1958. Not exactly an up to date representation of the U.S.
2) The data set in question was only in regard to robbery, and it concluded that people who resisted were significantly more likely to be hurt physically.
Both of these points seriously undercut your desire to make this paper dance to a pro-gun agenda. Furthermore, a more up to date “research” endeavor by Kleck regarding defensive gun use has been thoroughly discredited.
You can read about some of its problems here:
http://www.armedwithreason.com/debunking-the-defensive-gun-use-myth/
And here:
http://www.armedwithreason.com/defensive-gun-use-gary-kleck-misfires-again/
Jun 02, 2015 @ 19:14:45
http://www.hoplofobia.info/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/A-Tribute-to-a-View-I-Have-Opposed.pdf
Can it be true that about two million instances occur each year in which a gun was used as a defensive measure against crime? It is hard to believe. Yet, it is hard to challenge the data collected. We do not have contrary evidence. The National Crime Victim Survey does not directly contravene this latest survey, nor do the Mauser and Hart studies.
Here are his words. The previous link alluded to this paper, but here is the actual paper. This would be a concession that defensive gun use is significant.
You’re both just wrong.
Jun 02, 2015 @ 22:39:25
I read that paper. As Mike pointed out, Wolfgang does not say what you claimed. This hurts your credibility. What Wolfgang actually said was, “I do not like their conclusions that having a gun can be useful, but I cannot fault their methodology.” Just for the sake of clarity, I also have not claimed that having a gun is never useful.
Here are a few other things that we should consider regarding Wolfgang’s paper:
1) The data set he (and Kleck) were working with was from 1958. Not exactly an up to date representation of the U.S.
2) The data set in question was only in regard to robbery, and it concluded that people who resisted were significantly more likely to be hurt physically.
Both of these points seriously undercut your desire to make this paper dance to a pro-gun agenda. Furthermore, a more up to date “research” endeavor by Kleck regarding defensive gun use has been thoroughly discredited. For example, Kleck asserted that defensive gun use happens more than a million times annually, but the actual number was closer to 1600 when measured for a recent year. That’s an exaggeration of at least 625x. Somehow “oops” doesn’t quite cut it.
Jun 02, 2015 @ 22:12:14
Nice try, but the alleged “millions” of annual defensive gun uses has been discredited. See above links for details.
Jun 02, 2015 @ 23:04:29
Even when a staunch antigun academic admits that the data points to a substantial number of defensive gun use, you still hold out. Mikethegunguy is pretty much a laughing stock of the gun community. If you follow him on the Huffpo, he doesn’t get much support. Why, because he’s most often wrong so the actual gun folks don’t like him. The staunch antigun folks don’t get real cozy because, well he says that he likes guns.
Basically the research has been done, gun are used for defense substantially more than for offense. You just can’t accept that the data runs counter to you opinion. Wolfgang defended the work done by Kleck, so not really discredited.
But hey, live in your dream world if that suits you.
Jun 08, 2015 @ 14:07:45
Once again, you are claiming that Wolfgang says more than he does. Perhaps I missed it. Can you provide a direct quote from him that supports your claim?
Kleck HAS been discredited. The only ones who deny this reality and keep citing his debunked efforts are the ones who don’t like it. You can huff and puff and use names and “bs” as much as you like, it won’t help your argument and merely makes you appear as an immature and petty person. I know you can do better.
Nevertheless, and as I have stated multiple times, Kleck’s original study that you cited is antiquated by almost 60 years, only deals with robberies, and proves that resistance significantly increases a target’s chances of being violently hurt. Wolfgang, as far as I can tell, merely says that guns can be useful. Of course they can, but this does not mean that their benefits outweigh their dangers.
And that’s where Kleck’s most recent, debunked study comes into play. There is no empirical evidence for his claims, and there are multiple methodological problems with his estimates, which, by his own admission, uncludes a margin of error of 1.5 million alleged defensive gun uses. How can any reasonable person take his study as gospel? It truly blows the mind, and all the more so when we consider the actual amount of defensive gun uses as reported to police in 2014: just under 1600. Even if we double or triple this number to account for unreported cases (which is doubtful that the number would triple), it is empirical evidence that renders Kleck’s “research” as laughable. In fact, to get Kleck’s 2.5M number, we would need to take the actual number of 1600 and multiply it by more than 1560 times. So you can buy that kind of “research” if you want to, but, like your insults, it won’t help your argument.
Jun 03, 2015 @ 11:45:03
What Wolfgang defended was Kleck’s methodology, not his results. Period. You can repeat your comment about Wolfgang all you want but you don’t know what you are talking about. As for my lack of relationship to the “staunch antigun folks” you also don’t know what you are talking about. In fact, you have absolutely no idea what my relationship is to anyone on either side of the gun debate and I’m not about to enlighten you because my relationships are my own business. So unless you have access either to my personal email accounts or can listen to my telephone conversations, you’re just blowing smoke. Blow away.
Jun 03, 2015 @ 18:06:26
Definition of CONCESSION
1
a : the act or an instance of conceding (as by granting something as a right, accepting something as true, or acknowledging defeat)
b : the admitting of a point claimed in argument
http://www.hoplofobia.info/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/A-Tribute-to-a-View-I-Have-Opposed.pdf
Can it be true that about two million instances occur each year in which a gun was used as a defensive measure against crime? It is hard to believe. Yet, it is hard to challenge the data collected. We do not have contrary evidence. The National Crime Victim Survey does not directly contravene this latest survey, nor do the Mauser and Hart studies.
Here are his words. The previous link alluded to this paper, but here is the actual paper. This would be a concession that defensive gun use is significant.
You’re both just wrong.
Here is what I said about Wolfgang, “Even Marvin Wolfgang conceded that defensive gun use was substantially higher than he wanted to believe.”
My statement was and is 100% accurate.
Both of you want to build an argument against guns based on the false belief that defensive gun use in rare. However, that fact is we really don’t have a definitive number, but as Wolfgang conceded, is substantial. Why, because he doesn’t have evidence to the contrary. Even the title is a tribute to a view I opposed. You can try to squirm around it, but he admitted that the research was sound.
So fail to you both.
So the only smoke is from two of you.
Jun 07, 2015 @ 18:16:28
You are mistaken on several points, John, the most glaring of which is your suggestion that we don’t really know how many defensive gun uses there have been in any given year. In 2014 there were less than 1600, not 2.5 million. You would know that if you read the above links I provided (2). I did you the courtesy of reading the links you supplied. It would behoove you to do some reading of your own, and it would (perhaps) keep you from repeating the same failed argument.
As I pointed out to you, twice now, the study you are referring to regarding Kleck and Wolfgang is based off of data from 1958. It also says that people who resist a robbery are more than 3x more likely to be hurt. These facts don’t help your argument any more than your proclivity to be rude does.
Finally, we aren’t talking about what YOU said about what Wolfgang said. We are talking about what Wolfgang said himself, and here’s the quote from him, “I do not like their conclusions that having a gun can be useful, but I cannot fault their methodology.” This is not the same thing (as you tried to assert) that Wolfgang concedes defensive gun use is substantially higher than he preferred.
Jun 08, 2015 @ 14:11:15
The data used by the links I supplied is as neutral as I can imagine. If you want to interpret that data differently, then that is your argument to make, but so far you seem more willing to merely deny the data and lean on a discredited study.
Jun 12, 2015 @ 10:44:04
I didn’t say the articles were neutral. They clearly indicate that there is a problem with guns in our culture. What I said is that the data that they relied on is neutral. Facts are like that; they don’t dance to a person’s desires or perceived needs. So, if you’d like to reinterpret those facts in a plausible or defensible way, that is your option. Unfortunately, you seem to prefer denying the facts. And if you think that your supplied links (and Kleck) are agenda-free, then it indicates an embarrassing lack of awareness on your part. No one is unbiased, which is precisely why the data must be allowed to drive our policies and actions (not debunked studies and emotive gun-clutching).
As for Kleck’s first study, you’ve never dealt with the limitations and irrelevancy I keep pointing out to you: It’s almost 60 years old, only deals with robbery, and concludes that people who resist robbers (with guns or not) are almost 4x more likely to be physically wounded in the affair. And as MiketheGunGuy has pointed out to you, Wolfgang had no problem with Kleck’s methodology *in the first study.* Wolfgang never said that defensive gun use parallels (much less exceeds) non-defensive gun use. And we’re still waiting on a direct citation of Wolfgang from you that makes your point.
As for Kleck’s *2nd study,* it has absolutely been debunked. Even by his own estimates, he could be off by 1.5 million defensive gun uses out of a total of 2.5M. This doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in his hypothesis. Unfortunately for him (and your persistent reliance on him), Kleck’s 2nd study is not empirical. It is a guess, based on a survey with a woefully small sample set of respondents, and makes no accounting for the well known statistical problem of over reporting.
Kleck’s 2nd study also ignores the actual numbers (empirical evidence) for defensive gun use. For example, in 2014 DGUs were shy of 1600. Even if we allow for 3 times that number by alleged “unreported” DGUs, we’re still off of Kleck’s number by more than a factor of 500 (2.5M/4800). Somehow “Oops” doesn’t quite cut it when it comes to Kleck’s complete lack of credibility, and yet you clutch ever tighter to his guesses.
I am willing to follow the evidence wherever it leads. I may well be wrong, but unlike you, it will take more than Kleck’s debunked hack jobs to convince me.
Finally, the problem is not just people. It is people with guns, and that is precisely why we should do our best to keep the two separated. I am open to suggestions, but which do you think is easier to control: people or guns?