I started writing about guns and gun violence on May 31, 2013, and since that data I have posted 1,849 columns on my website. I have also self-published 16 books on guns and will shortly publish a very detailed, academic book about guns with Nova Science Press. The open-source, academic aggregator SSRN carries 11 of my academic papers, and I have been profiled both in The New York Times and The New Yorker Magazine – my complete credits can be found here, along with a description of my activities as a gun dealer, manufacturer, importer, trainer and owner-user of guns over the past sixty-six years.
Why am I patting myself on the back? Because I am in the process of making a very big change in the scope and direction of my gun activities and my gun research, so I want everyone who follows this blog to understand how and why this reorientation came about.
It has come about because over the nine years that I have been writing about guns, the gun-control communities have developed and now promote narratives about guns and gun violence which increasingly bear little, if any connection to the millions of guns found in the millions of American homes or how these millions of guns are used or misused.
Here’s the gun-control narrative which I find most troublesome: We can reduce the awful levels of gun violence by passing laws which primarily control the behavior of individuals who legally own guns, such laws based on the idea that gun owners need to behave in safer ways with their guns, or what is often referred to as ‘gun sense’ or ‘responsible’ use of guns.
The gun-control community, or the gun violence prevention (GVP) community as they like to call themselves, believe they can use their narrative to define some ‘middle ground’ with gun owners that will both reduce gun violence and at the same time respect gun ‘rights.’ Known as the ‘consensus’ approach, this strategy is endorsed not only by all the gun-control advocacy groups, but by the medical and public health communities as well.
Why do these well-meaning groups think they can find some ‘consensus’ with gun owners when they don’t know anything about guns or why people own guns?
When someone goes out and buys a Glock or a Sig, they are buying a product designed only for the purpose of committing violence, okay? And the World Health Organization doesn’t differentiate between ‘good’ violence and ‘bad’ violence. So, if you’re going to build ‘consensus’ by talking to people who have decided that they are prepared to commit a very violent act, don’t you at least first have to understand why they hold such a crazy idea?
What do we get from the gun-control community when it comes to explaining why a majority of Americans believe that their home will be safer if it contains a product whose sole purpose is to be used to commit an act of extreme violence? You get surveys whose authors think they have learned something when they tell you that an increasing percentage of gun owners are buying guns for self-defense. Boy, that explains everything, right?
It might explain something if the only way to defend yourself was to walk around with a gun. How about calling the cops? How about backing off from someone who’s threatening you? How about don’t get into an argument with someone in a bar and then ‘take it outside?’ How about? How about? How about?
To go beyond the how abouts, I have published a little manual which gives non-gun owners an opportunity to engage in a reality-based discussion about gun violence by first learning and practicing the rudiments of defending yourself with a gun.
Don’t worry. You can learn the proper techniques, practice them, and perfect them without buying, owning, or using a gun. In fact, as far as I can tell, the training described in this brief booklet is the very first gun-training course which is designed to be learned and studied without requiring access to a gun.
Along with this booklet, I also have a website which contains detailed content on how to buy the proper self-defense gun, how and where to get trained properly, some of the legal issues which need to be considered when thinking about carrying a self-defense gun; in other words, the basic issues which need to be considered by everyone who wants to protect themselves with armed force.
Finally, there’s a Facebook group that allows you to contribute some dialog to this effort as well as connecting with other individuals who have become interested in practicing armed, self-defense. If we get enough members to join the Facebook group, we’ll open a forum on the website as well.
So, here’s your opportunity to replace the hot air with the knowledge and skills that will make it very difficult for any gun owner to talk about guns with you and think that you have no idea what you’re talking about.
Isn’t it time to build a response to gun violence based on at least some degree of knowledge held by everyone about guns?
jimtheantigunguy
Oct 10, 2022 @ 12:17:26
Alright already. I think I know a lot about guns, but will use this to educate. Also we still need to outlaw guns of war for the general public. Good luck with this.
Jim Webster
mikethegunguy
Oct 10, 2022 @ 16:35:13
Thanks for your comment Jim. We wouldn’t have any gun violence if we didn’t allow sales of guns designed for war – assault rifles and semi-auto, borttom loading pistols. But nobody wants to ‘offend’ and ask for a ban on those guns.
Alan
Oct 11, 2022 @ 11:01:09
Mike, it’s not true when you say, “But nobody wants to ‘offend’ and ask for a ban on those guns.” According to PBS News Hour, there are at least 11 U.S. Senators that want to ban “assault weapons” and have publicly said so in the past months.
They are:
KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND (D) NEW YORK
MARTIN HEINRICH (D) NEW MEXICO
JOHN HICKENLOOPER (D) COLORADO
TIM KAINE (D) VIRGINIA
JEFF MERKLEY (D) OREGON
PATTY MURRAY (D) WASHINGTON
JACK REED (D) RHODE ISLAND
JACKY ROSEN (D) NEVADA
BERNIE SANDERS (I) VERMONT
SHELDON WHITEHOUSE (D) RHODE ISLAND
RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D) CONNECTICUT
Notice that all those Senators are Democrats, with the exception of Bernie. We have a Democrat President, both Houses of Congress are controlled by Democrats, one has to ask why, why has there not been a ban on “assault weapons?”
On a side note…
I once read a comment by someone who knows something about guns, “…when you don’t know how to define what you are trying to figure out, is an exercise in what Grandpa would call ‘bupkes,’ (read: nonsense) …”
First things first, let’s begin with the technical definition of an assault rifle. A commonly accepted definition would read something like; A select-fire, magazine-fed, shoulder-fired rifle firing an intermediate rifle cartridge. Aren’t those rifles mostly ban now? If those who know anything about guns would be truthful and say that on the average less than 2 people are killed in the US each year with an “assault-rifle” and those are military personnel in training exercises.
yuppicide76
Oct 16, 2022 @ 00:13:53
I’m Confused…..Whats the Difference between a Military “Weapon of War” which apparently was only created FOR, and can only be used TO: “Kill People”….
-and and a “Self Defense gun” which is used to……What? Change the mind of the Scumbag attacking you by making him “uncomfortable” with ballistic love taps?????
Question: Which type of Firearm are Police Officers issued? “Self Defense guns”….or “Military Mass murder guns”?
Follow up question: If the answer is the later: That the Police want to be able to MURDER as many people as possible…..WHY THE F@#$ Should I give up my means to defend against that?