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How Many Folks Walk Around with Guns?

November 28, 2022

mikethegunguy Blogs , , 3 Comments

              Doesn’t it seem like there’s a shooting which kills and injures scores of victims just about every day? Last week there was a shooting in a Walmart that killed six employees and wounded five more.  The week before there was a shooting in Colorado Springs that left five dead and seventeen with wounds. A week before that, five people were gunned down in Maryland.

              These were the big shootings. The day-to-day random gun violence which kills one here or wounds two there is also way up. But those ‘normal’ shootings are so frequent that they don’t even make the local news.

              What’s going on? The Pandemic, which was blamed for the increase in gun violence in 2020 and 2021 is under control. The economic slowdown, which is always trotted out as an explanation for gun violence, is a narrative which simply can’t be taken seriously when the unemployment rate in most cities is under 4 percent.

              On the other hand, there has been a significant increase in the number of individuals who have been given legal sanction to walk around with a gun, which we refer to as concealed-carry, or CCW (‘W’ meaning weapon.) Is there a connection between more people walking around with legally carried guns and the increase in gun violence over the last several years?

              Several of our friends who conduct gun-violence research at Harvard and The University of Washington have published what they claim is one of the few serious attempts to determine the frequency of concealed guns being carried around, a particularly significant issue now that the Supreme Court has basically invalidated the ability of public authorities to arbitrarily decide who can versus who cannot walk around legally armed.

              The idea that anyone who passes a background check can traipse around with a Glock in their pocket has always been the most precious dream of Gun-nut Nation and the worst nightmare for folks who want more control over guns. These attitudes are based on the continued attempt by both sides to view guns either as the best way to prevent crime (the gun-nut argument) or the way which produces more crime and violence (the gun-control argument.)

              Both arguments happen to be incorrect, or better said, are based on research which is either incomplete, or simply wrong, or both. The latest contribution to the debate, the article produced by our friends at Harvard and U/Washington, happens to be incomplete at best.

              As usual, the article is based on what is always referred to as a ‘nationally-representative’ group of gun owners, who were asked if they ever carried a gun around, and if so, how frequently did this behavior occur?

              It turns out that one-third of the respondents said they were armed at least once during the previous thirty days, of whom about 40% of those self-armed gun owners carried their guns around every day.

              So, when you extrapolate this and extrapolate that, you wind up with 6 million Americans carrying their guns on a regular basis, a figure that was repeated throughout the liberal media as an explanation for why we now have shootings all over the place.

              The reason the media is circulating research which happens to be wrong both in its method and its result is because the researchers forgot to ask one question. And that question is this: Do you carry a legally owned gun?

              Of course, the respondents are legal gun owners. You think that someone is going to admit to some Ivy League researcher that he’s walking around with an illegal gun? What kind of sh*t is that?

              But if you don’t try to figure out how many folks are walking around with guns which they’re not supposed to have, what have you learned about anything having to do with gun violence today?

              There has never been one, single study of any kind which tells us how many individuals commit violent crimes with legally owned guns, or for that matter, with guns which aren’t legally owned. And if there isn’t any connection between legal gun ownership and gun violence, who cares how many people are walking around with their legal guns?

              This column will be sent to the researchers who published their ‘nationally-representative’ survey on CCW behavior, and I will be happy to circulate any response which I receive from that group. Not that I’m expecting to receive any response, because the folks who conduct public health research on gun violence are obsessively afraid to ever engage in public critiques about their own work.

              Which is the reason I wrote this column and will continue to publish critical reviews of all public health gun research. Because as Einstein said, “If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?”

Do We Really Need To Worry About Concealed-Carry of Guns?

November 4, 2021

mikethegunguy Blogs , 3 Comments

              Yesterday the Supreme Court listened to arguments in a case challenging New York’s Sullivan Law, which effectively makes New York City the most difficult location to get permission from the cops to walk around with a gun. The law has been on the books since 1913, and basically the law allows the cops to decide whether someone can carry a gun on their person, whether the individual makes a good argument or not.

              The ability of the police to exercise discretion in granting concealed-carry applications (CCW) used to be the way it was done in almost every state. But this situation has changed dramatically over the last 30 years, with New York now being only one of seven states which does not automatically grant CCW to anyone who meets certain criteria basically having to do with whether the applicant is law-abiding or not.

              Of the 43 states that do not require a specific reason for wanting to walk around with a gun, 15 of those states are also what’s known as ‘Constitutional carry’ states, i.e., if you are legally able to buy or own a gun, you can carry it around without getting any special permission from the police at all.

              Getting all 50 states to permit Constitutional carry has been one of two, main objectives of Gun-nut Nation’s political activity for the last 20 or so years. The other prize is a national concealed-carry law which would allow the resident of any state to carry his gun across any and all state lines.

              The opponents of national concealed-carry argue that such a law would deprive individual states of their ability to set standards for issuing CCW, including a pre-issue training requirement which is often part of the CCW application process.

              Which brings me to the real subject of today’s rant, namely, the mis-use and abuse of the word ‘training’ on both sides of the gun debate.

              This whole thing about training civilians to shoo guns was actually the original rationale for the founding of the NRA back in 1871. The organization was started by a general from the Union Army, George Wingate, who felt that the troops under his Civil War command would have been a more formidable fighting force if they knew how to shoot their guns.

              George Washington had the same problem during the Revolutionary War, except in his case it wasn’t just the lack of marksmanship training which caused him concern, it was also the fact that many of the militia members who showed up to fight the British had guns that were often handmade and hardly worked at all.

              The whole gun-training issue for the military was solved only in 1940 when the first peacetime draft went into effect. What this meant was that civilians were turned into soldiers by housing them in barracks and teaching them how to do everything from brushing their teeth to cleaning their guns.

              When I was at Fort Jackson in South Carolina I couldn’t get over how the Army could take these totally-illiterate hillbillies and teach them how to shoot, clean and load an M-14 rifle in 8 weeks. And by the way, not only was the training all hands-on by rote again and again, but until you could demonstrate proficiency you didn’t get to go on the chow line to eat.

              Nothing like an empty stomach to get you to learn how to shoot a gun.

              There isn’t a single state which requires any kind of pre-applicant training for CCW which is even a smidgen of serious training that you get in the USRA. And in some states, like my state – MA – the so-called training doesn’t even require shooting one, single live round. You can get a license to purchase and walk around with a deadly weapon even if you don’t have the slightest idea how to load or shoot your gun.

              Having said all of that, however, I need to point out that very little gun violence is actually committed by guys who have legal access to their guns. The Violence Policy Center has identified 1,951 CCW-carriers killed someone else over the last 12 years, which is an average of 160 murders per year, one percent of the victims who are killed each year by someone using a gun.

              Our friend John Lott tracks the number of CCW licenses issued throughout the United States, and he claims that there was a big jump recently in licenses, he estimates that now 8.3%   of American adults can legally carry guns. But having a CCW license is one thing, actually walking around with a gun is something else.

              The truth is that unless you’re law enforcement, after the thrill of being armed wears off, walking around with a concealed weapon is a pain in the ass. First of all, it’s a heavy piece of metal so you need a holster which never really fits the gun. Then you have to keep it concealed which means always wearing an overgarment even when it’s hot.

              But the most important thing to remember about CCW is that media stories to the contrary, most people will rarely, if ever find themselves in a situation where they need to have quick access to a gun. Violent, face-to-face crime overwhelmingly occurs between individuals who know each other, who live in the same neighborhood, on the same street, or even in the same house.

              Just about every boy who plays video games or watches TV has seen hundreds, if not thousands of make-believe shootings by the time he enters his teens. This is a cultural phenomenon which has been present in our society, and only our society since The Great Train Robbery movie appeared in 1903.

              The members of Gun-nut Nation who swear by the necessity to keep a gun handy to protect themselves from crime are nothing more than adults who still like to think of themselves as kids. For that matter, the members of Gun-control Nation who talk about only granting CCW to people who have been ‘trained,’ have about as much understanding of what constitutes real gun training as the man in the moon.

              The Supreme Court is supposed to issue a ruling on yesterday’s case sometime next year. Believe me, no matter how the Court rules, it really won’t change the whole issue of gun violence one little bit.

Will I Be Able To Carry A Concealed Gun?

October 5, 2021

mikethegunguy Blogs , , 4 Comments

              Now that everyone else seems to be shooting their mouths off about the upcoming 2nd-Amendment case that will be heard before the Supreme Court, maybe it’s time for Mike the Gun Guy™ to add his nickel aa well.

              The issue in question is whether or not the definition of the 2nd Amendment should be extended to include Constitutional protection for carrying a concealed weapon outside of the home. Since 2008, the 2nd Amendment protects the existence of a privately-owned handgun (but not a long gun) in the home. But what if I want to protect myself with a gun while I’m walking around?

              The law in question is what happens in New York State, where getting the cops to allow you to carry a concealed weapon in the street is tantamount to getting the cops to let you jaywalk because you just don’t want to stand there waiting for the light to change.

              In other words, it doesn’t happen too often and in some pats o the state, like th five counties which comprise New York City, it doesn’t happen at all.

              Actually, you can carry a concealed weapon in New York City but only if you go through a rigorous and time-consuming background investigation in which you prove that you need to carry a gun given your line of work.

              So, someone who works as an armed security guard can get a concealed-carry license, ditto someone whose job requires them to move around the city carrying lots of cash. On the other hand, if you tell the NYOD Licensing Division that you want to carry a gun concealed gun because it will make you feel more safe, you’ll get the same answer that you’d get from Grandpa, ‘gai macht,’ (read: stick it up your you-know-what.)

              Interestingly, this case has brought into conflict two groups who usually find themselves on the same side.  A brief from the ACLU argues that carrying a concealed weapon in the street is a threat to public safety and should be restricted or altogether thrown out. However, a brief from a coalition of public defender groups which represents minority individuals charged with illegal possession of guns says that the current law discriminates against poor and non-White residents and should be dumped.

              I lived in New York City and held a concealed-carry license issued by the NYPD because I was an employee of an agency that supplied armed guards and sometimes had to travel to locations to make sure that our guards showed up and were doing what they were hired to do. If our armed security guy for some reason didn’t show up, I had to provide the armed protection myself.

              In order to be given a concealed-carry license in New York City, I had to appear at the NYPD Licensing Division for interviews no less than three, separate times. The first time I had to bring all the necessary documentation and answer a bunch of questions thrown at me by some half-asleep cop who was even more bored by he whole process than me.

              The second time I went back for another interview and also gave the Licensing Division the type of gun I planned to carry around, along with the name of the gun dealer where I was going to buy the gun.

              The third time I had to show up and let another half-asleep cop inspect the gun to make sure it was the weapon that the NYPD was allowing me to carry around.

              Between six back-and-forth subway trips to the Licensing Division, which of course was delayed at least twice, two trips to and from the gun dealer first to choose and then to buy the gun, and the time spent sitting around at NYPD headquarters waiting to be interviewed, processed, printed and everything else, I probably spent at least 24 hours getting my license to carry a gun. But at least I got the license. According to the brief filed in this case by the various public defender groups, most minority concealed-carry applicants are turned down.

              What I find most interesting in all the media stories about this upcoming case, however is nowhere does anyone on either side of the issue seem the slightest bit concerned about whether the applicant for a concealed-carry license actually has the slightest bit of experience or ability to use or even pick up a gun.

              At no time during my seemingly endless hegira to the NYPD Licensing Division did anyone ask me if I had ever shot a gun. For that matter, when I came down with the gun I had purchased to have it inspected by the NYPD, I had to hand the gun over to the officer while it was locked up in a small, steel box. I then gave the cop the key to the box and he, not me, reached in and pulled out the gun.

              Now you would think that if New York puts so much emphasis on making sure that people who walk around with a gun in their pocket aren’t a threat to public safety that the licensing procedure would include at least some demonstration to show that the prospective licensee knows how to hold, or God forbid, actually shoot a gun.

              Like so much else in the debate about guns, there just doesn’t seem to be even the slightest bit of reality understood or mentioned by either side.

Shouldn’t Everyone Be Allowed To Walk Around With A Gun?

July 28, 2021

mikethegunguy Blogs , , 14 Comments

I don’t like to repeat the same thing again and again, but I must say that the upcoming SCOTUS session which will hear a challenge to New York’s Sullivan Law seems to be bringing every nut-job out of the woodwork to weigh in – on both sides!

Now I expect Gun-nut Nation to start bleating their usual bleats about how gun-control laws will ‘disarm’ Americans and lead to fascism or worse. I’ll put that one in the same rhetorical trash can which contains the ‘fact’ that getting immunized against Covid-19 will make us sterile and end the human race.  It’s a ‘fact,’ after all.

But I expect better from my friends in Gun-control Nation because they always tout various legislative and/or regulatory responses to gun violence by stating that these schemes are developed with reference to evidence-based ‘facts.’ Not just fact. Evidence-based facts.

Want the latest example of how Gun-control Nation is going to make an argument before the SCOTUS which is just as crazy and ridiculous as anything we get from the other side? A group of African-American public defenders and legal aid groups have filed a brief which asks the SCOTUS to throw out the Sullivan Law because the law is used to “criminalize gun ownership by racial and ethnic minorities.”

And to explain why depriving Blacks of their ‘right’ to own a gun, we have none other than Professor Carol Anderson, whose book, The Second – Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America, shows how gun laws have been used to keep African-Americans powerless. And the moment you give the cops discretionary authority of who can arm themselves with a gun, you know for sure that Black Americans won’t be able to legally own or carry guns.

Professor Anderson says it like this: “Black people are vulnerable when they are armed, and vulnerable when they’re unarmed.” In other words, the Sullivan Law ‘criminalizes’ Blacks because the law doesn’t allow them to arm and protect themselves the way Whites are allowed to arm and protect themselves with guns.

Obviously, if we want laws to be applied equally to everyone, regardless of race, gender, or anything else, we need to take discretionary gun licensing away from the cops because they’ll just use the procedure to deny concealed-carry to Blacks.

I love the idea that if you can’t walk around with a gun in your pocket that you’re somehow making yourself an easier target for someone else who happens to be walking around with a gun. I’ve been hearing that one from the gun industry for the last 40 years since gun makers realized that nobody except some eccentrics like me were still buying guns for hunting and sport.

Way back in the 1960’s, nobody really gave one rat’s damn about 2nd-Amendment ‘rights.’ There was a little murmur from the corners of Gun-nut Nation during the debates leading up to the Gun Control Act of 1968. But even America’s ‘oldest civil rights organization,’ the NRA, didn’t make big stink when the law came up for a final vote.

That was then, this is now. And now we have a majority of Americans firmly convinced that keeping a gun in your home is a good thing to do, and only seven states still give the cops any decision-making ability to decide who should, and who shouldn’t walk around with a gun.

Want to know what makes people vulnerable to the point that they end up getting killed or wounded because they can’t defend themselves with a gun? It’s actually very simple – we live in a society where nobody backs down. Not only don’t people back down, but we just came through four years in which the country’s Chief Executive got up in front of masses of people every, single week and exhorted them to stand their ground and ‘fight.’

What exactly were all those MAGA knuckleheads fighting for? That was never made very clear. But if you can walk into the local gun shop, plunk down five hundred bucks and walk out with a product that will make it easier to stand your ground, why the hell not?

Catalog | TeeTee Press

Want To Get Serious About Armed Self-Defense?

March 19, 2020

mikethegunguy Blogs , , 18 Comments

As my readers know, I’m not enamored of the gun industry’s attempt to convince every American that they should be walking around with a gun. First of all, most of us will never (read: never) need to protect ourselves from all those bad guys out there, because if you can believe the FBI, the number of bad guys floating around keeps going down. The agency just released crime data for 2019 and once again, violent crime isn’t a big deal in the places where most of us live.

The other problem I have with armed, self-defense is that unless you keep yourself in shape and continuously train and retain muscle memory, you’re simply not going to pull out a gun, point it at the threat and stop the man in his tracks in two seconds or less. Which is the amount of time you’ll have to defend yourself if someone decides to come at you to commit bodily harm.

But there are people who really do need an extra measure of protection. There are people whose livelihoods often require that they carry and know how to use a gun. And although I rarely get into product reviews on this website, I’m going to do such a review right now.

There’s a company called Craft Holsters which recently sent me one of their products and asked me if I would try it out and then post a review. And to their credit, they made it clear that I could write a good review or a bad review; this was no Ukraine-type quid pro quo.

So I got the holster the other day and used it with my Glock. I walked around with it and then went down to my range where I ran through the Tueller drill, which means that I reached for the gun, pulled it out of the holster, raised the gun, pointed the gun and got off a double-tap in 2 seconds or less. And by the way, I did the drill 10 times, popped 20 rounds and hit the center-mass target 15 times. Which ain’t so good but ain’t so bad.

This company is making a very good holster. It’s a quality leather, double-stitched and cleanly made. It holds the gun firmly but not too firmly; when you pull the gun up and out there’s no slip but also no rub so it doesn’t hold back. To pull a gun up, point, shoot and hit a target two times in 2 seconds or less, you want to make sure that when you reach down for the gun it’s in the exact same place every time, and when you pull it up the gun comes quick and clean.

This company, Craft Holsters, makes a holster that you should want to own. They come out of Eastern Europe which is increasingly a location for many companies producing products for American shooters – both accessories and guns. And by the way, their prices are right in line.

And I like the detailed instructions for how to break in their leather and keeping your holster clean. Well done Craft Holsters, well done.

Want To Protect Yourself In The Jungle? Carry A Gun.

March 11, 2020

mikethegunguy Blogs , , 14 Comments

Yesterday I got my Shooting Times which contained the single, dumbest ad for a gun that I have ever seen in that magazine which I have been reading now for more than forty years. The ad promotes a new self-defense pistol made by Springfield Armory, a 9mm thing called the Hellcat.  The pic is above.

The text of the ad begins with: “It’s a jungle out there.”  Now take a look at the jungle surrounding the kid who happens to be walking away from his broken-down car.  That’s some jungle. It looks much more like a road running through Nebraska or North Dakota.  But of course, the kid better keep that little pistol in his pocket because you never know whether a lion or tiger will jump out of the grass and eat him alive. Or maybe try to steal his car.

 Incidentally, in his left hand, he’s carrying his trusty water bottle. You don’t expect him to go trekking off through the jungle without being able to keep himself hydrated, right? That would never do. It’s a jungle out there.

The jungle is so dangerous that the FBI has just reported that violent crime in 2019 has declined 3% from the previous year.  In 1994, the violent crime rate was 708.94.  In 2018, it was 368.9.  That’s quite a jungle out there.

Leaving aside the fact that the attempt by the gun industry to talk about crime rates in totally unreal terms is both stupid and wrong, the ad actually has an even more bizarre theme; namely, the idea that a country road can be used to somehow symbolize a jungle environment.

Want to see what most Americans consider to be the ‘jungle?’ Try this one:

A black and white photo of a store Description automatically generated

Now that’s a jungle, okay? But even the gun business has now become politically correct. You can’t talk about the urban jungle the way we used to talk about the urban jungle because then you have to say or at least hint at the issue of race. And that’s a no-no except when Donald Trump stands up at a campaign rally and shouts, “Where’s my Negro?”

You would think that if the gun business wanted to be taken seriously, they would do an ad showing some Black guy walking down an inner-city street. But that wouldn’t work, not only in terms of how racist the ad would be, but because in most cities the cops don’t give concealed-carry permits to Black residents anyway.  So, what’s the point?

The point is that this Springfield Arsenal ad is so far away from any kind of reality that it should be used by my Gun-control Nation friends to point out the degree to which the manufacture and sales of self-defense weapons has nothing to do with protecting yourself at all. The messaging is about as reality-based as the Growing Up Gotti TV show had anything to do with how those snot-nosed kids were being raised.

On the other hand, from the point of view of reducing gun violence, maybe the Hellcat ad is a blessing in disguise. Because if the owners of Springfield Arsenal have to go to such ridiculous lengths to justify the development of their products, then maybe the entire argument about the need for self-defense is beginning to finally become undone.

Back in 2010, the percentage of Americans favoring stricter gun control as opposed to not changing the laws was roughly the same, with both sides running around 45 percent. As year, for every American who thinks that we have enough gun control, there are two Americans who believe that gun laws should be tightened up. If this trend continues and if the blue team wins back the White House in November, what else can the gun business do except run crazy ads making people believe that crime is a bigger threat than COVID-19?

I’m not going to the gun show this weekend because being around lots of older adults may represent a serious health risk.  Stay safe everyone!

Want To Train Yourself To Use A Gun? Try This Crazy Scheme.

March 2, 2020

mikethegunguy Blogs , , , 1 Comment

Several weeks ago I posted a column to give an award to the dumbest pro-gun legislator this year. The award went to a State rep in Michigan who showed up at a hearing on a gun bill with an AR slung over his back, and then had the rifle plus a handgun stolen out of his house. Now maybe someone else will top this guy for being the dumbest pro-gun legislator around, but it won’t be easy.

In the interests of fairness and honesty, however, I’m also obligated to give an award to the dumbest, anti-gun legislator each year. And while it’s only March, I’m willing to bet that the award I am about to present might also be regarded as the dumbest, anti-gun legislative idea for 2020, or maybe of all time.

I am referring to Massachusetts House Bill 2091, filed by Representative David Linsky, which can be downloaded right here. The bill is entitled, “An Act Requiring Live Fire Practice For A Firearms License,” which is a tip-off that no such licensing requirement exists in the Bay State right now.

Massachusetts is currently a B+ state according to the Brady campaign, which means it is one of the 10 most-regulated gun states within the country as a whole. In 2018, it also registered the second-lowest rate (3.63) of gun violence of all 50 states, a situation usually explained as resulting from its strict gun laws. The state’s most restrictive and comprehensive law took effect in 2000, and it not only required all gun transfers to be done with a background check, it also mandated that all new guns meet certain design and safety features before they could be brought into the state.

In the interests of what my medical friends refer to as ‘full disclosure,’ it should be pointed out that the 1999 gun-violence rate in Massachusetts, the year before this new law took effect, was 2.99. In other words, the result of the law which made Massachusetts one of the most heavily-regulated gun states, was that gun violence went up, not down. Oh well, oh well.

Representative Linsky has decided that perhaps a pathway to reducing gun violence in Massachusetts might be to require some kind of live-fire exercise prior to applying for a license to own a gun. Currently, any state resident who wants to own a gun must first take a safety course approved by the State Police, the usual nonsense where you sit in an overheated room, some old guy drones on and on from some book for a few hours, you take a quickie test which everyone passes and you’re good to go.

Several years ago our friends at The Trace discovered that 26 states did not require any live fire in order to apply for a license to walk around with a concealed gun. Massachusetts happens to be one of those states. In fact, for all the talk about how the gun restrictions make Massachusetts such a safe state, it happens to be one of a handful of states in which the license to own a gun and the license to carry a concealed weapon are one and the same. The cops do have the authority to restrict the right to carry, making Massachusetts a ‘may issue’ state, but this authority is almost never exercised outside of Boston and a couple of other large, urban sites.

So now along comes Representative David Linsky who’s going to solve the whole problem because his bill mandates a five-hour practice session at a shooting range before a gun application can be approved. Not to carry a gun, but just to own a gun. There is no other state which requires that an applicant for a gun license first engage in no less than 300 minutes of range time.

But the five-hour time requirement is not what makes Linsky the dumbest, anti-gun legislator to date. The bill says and I quote: “Said curriculum must include a minimum of at least 5 hours of live discharge of firearms, rifles, and shotguns at a license gun club, including the discharge of at least 50 rounds of ammunition.” Note that it’s not either 5 hours or 50 rounds. It’s both.

I can just see it now. Some newbie will show up at the Rod & Gun Club, pop off a box of reloads in about 10 minutes, then sit around for the rest of the afternoon until his five hours has expired and he can go home. Incidentally, according to the way the bill is written, the would-be candidate could fire all 50 rounds into the air.

If any of my Gun-nut Nation friends can come up with a better example of stupidity on the part of any legislator who wants to promote restrictions on guns, please send it along and we’ll consider it as competition against the Linsky award.

Thanks to Dave Buchannon for this tip.

Is Concealed-Carry Good Or Bad?

November 1, 2019

mikethegunguy Blogs , , 4 Comments

              Last week when I was at the gun show, I overheard a conversation between three gents standing in line at the Dunkin’ Donuts kiosk, which was the most popular booth at the show. The topic being discussed in very serious tones was this: If you could only keep one handgun to carry around for self-defense, which gun would it be?

              Now readers of this column may find such a discussion ridiculous, stupid, or worse, but what do you want three guys on Social Security to talk about – the national debt? I mean, what could be more important to the future of American civilization than whether I should be walking around with a Sig, a Springfield or a Glock?

              The truth is that most, if not nearly all the 15 to 20 million Americans who go to the trouble of getting a concealed-carry (CCW) permit rarely, if ever actually carry a gun. First of all, you don’t need to carry a gun because it’s not as if you will ever find yourself in a situation where the gun would make the difference between getting or not getting hurt. Second, the gun is heavy and unless it’s kept concealed you’re going to wind up in the back of the patrol car with your gun comfortably resting on the front seat. Third and most important, sooner or later you’ll put the gun on the floor so that you’re more comfortable while you take a dump, and the gun will somehow not go back into the holster while you hitch up your pants.

              There isn’t a single boy in the United States who by the age of twelve hasn’t seen hundreds of bad guys being shot in video games, movies or TV.  If anything makes America exceptional, it’s how we have created a culture which celebrates ‘virtuous violence’ with the use of a gun. How many states now have stand-your ground laws?  Try thirty-three.

              Notwithstanding the sanctimonious and holier-than-thou preaching of so-called gun experts like David Hemenway and John Donahue, the fact is that gun owners with concealed-carry licenses are not only extremely law-abiding, but rarely, if ever, engage in unlawful or dangerous behavior with their guns. The last time I checked, the Violence Policy Center has still been unable to identify more than 600 CCW-licensed individuals who committed a fatal gun assault over the last 12 years.  Fifteen million people have CCW, less than 50 commit a fatal gun assault every year and that makes CCW-holders a threat to community safety?  Give me a break.

              On the other hand, anyone who thinks that these law-abiding armed citizens constitute the frontline of defense against all those street ‘thugs’ is also just blowing smoke.  Sure, every once in a while someone pulls a gun out from underneath the counter and plans to rob the mini-mart go awry. But the NRA has never been able to validate such acts of civilian bravery more than 50 times a year.  The bottom line is that the notion that we are becoming a nation of armed citizens basically gets down to the old guys who were amusing themselves talking about their favorite handgun while standing on the Dunkin’ Donuts line.

              What motivated me to write this column was an exchange between Corey Booker and Meghan McCain on The View, in which Meghan claimed that her brother would never give up his guns if Booker became President in 2021 and instituted a gun buyback plan. If the government repurchased all AR rifles there would be plenty of black guns that wouldn’t get turned in. But such a buyback would also result in no more new assault rifles being made or sold.

              Now if someone would finally be honest enough to admit that by repurchasing all guns which really cause gun violence (i.e., handguns) then maybe, just maybe we could end gun violence once and for all.  But if we did that, what would those guys waiting for their Dunkin’ Donuts coffee have to talk about?  The national debt?

Why Do People Believe In Armed, Self-Defense?

July 31, 2019

mikethegunguy Blogs , , 4 Comments

              There’s a guy out in Gun-nut Nation named Chris Bird, who is regarded as one of the patron saints of the concealed-carry movement, and I have just finished reading his book, The Concealed Handgun Manual, which is considered a must-read book by all the noisemakers who believe that we are a safer country because we have access to guns. And since Chris may think that some of the things I’m going to say about his book aren’t all that positive or nice, I’ll give the book a plug because you can buy it right here.

              As a matter of fact, I strongly urge my friends in Gun-control Nation to read this book, because if there’s one thing that strikes me about activists who want to see us reduce the violence and injuries caused by guns, it’s the degree to which they seem to have little, if any awareness of what is said or believed by the other side. Ask the average gun-control true-believer to explain the difference between an ‘internet’ sale and a ‘personal, sale of a gun and you’ll get the deer-in-the-headlights look. Then ask the same person to explain the difference between an assault rifle and a semi-auto long gun and you’ll probably get much the same look.

              I wouldn’t recommend Bird’s book were it not for the fact that the issue of concealed-carry basically defines the entire gun debate. Why? Because everyone (except me) seems to believe that the 2nd Amendment gives Americans the ‘right’ to own a gun. But where the break occurs between the two sides is explaining why someone should or shouldn’t own a gun. And the gun industry has been selling its products for the last thirty or so years by telling customers that a gun is an essential ‘tool’ for self-defense, even though there is absolutely no valid research which shows this argument to be true.

              So what we get down to here is a mind-set in the heads of many Americans who as a group form the market for continued gun sales. And Chris Bird happens to write books which appeal directly to that mind-set, whether there’s any reality behind it or not. If my friends in Gun-control are really serious about coming up with ‘reasonable’ gun restrictions which will appeal to ‘reasonable’ people on the other side, reading Bird’s book might give them some insights into why those gun owners believe they should own guns. 

              Bird begins the book with a lecture on ‘situational awareness,’ a self-defense concept first developed by Jeff Cooper (whose widow passed away yesterday at the age of 99) back in the 1970’s, which is when, thanks to Glock, the idea of owning and carrying a small, concealable, hi-powered and hi-capacity handgun first took hold. The argument made by Bird is both simple-stupid, namely, that all of us are at all times possible targets of predators who can only be repulsed with personal armed force because the cops never arrive on time.

              The book then goes through a whole series of episodes where armed citizens saved themselves from a criminal attack; it then covers how to choose a handgun, how to practice with your gun, and how to ‘win a gunfight’ with references all the way back to the OK Corral. If you’re a bone-fide member of Gun-control Nation and read this book, you’ll quickly decide that it represents nothing more than a marketing scam designed to mislead delusional people into believing they really need to own a gun.

I disagree. I know many of the folks who take seriously what Bird has to say, and their views might run counter to the prevailing liberal orthodoxy on gun violence, but there’s no reason to believe that what they think about armed, self-defense should simply be considered the product of deranged minds. These folks choose to be gun owners with the same degree of diligence that many of my friends believe that gluten-free foods will prevent chronic fatigue syndrome or worse.

Want to reduce gun violence? At least try to understand what the other side thinks.

Want To Argue About Nothing? Try Concealed-Carry Or Gun-Free Zones.

July 10, 2019

mikethegunguy Blogs , , , 2 Comments

One of the issues which can always get everyone hot and bothered on both sides of the gun debate is the issue of gun-free zones. On the one hand, proponents of armed, self-defense (John Lott, et. al.) argue that denying folks the right to carry their self-defense gun into a public space makes that space a likely target for any nut who wants to commit mass mayhem using a gun. On the other hand, maintaining and/or expanding gun-free zones is seen by Gun-control Nation as a fundamental strategy for reducing the 125,000+ injuries that we suffer each year from the use/abuse of guns.

I happen to believe that both arguments are bunk and do not, in any way, shape or form, align with the relevant facts. This is because we don’t know the relevant facts, nor has anyone even attempted to figure them out. But making arguments without any factual underpinnings is hardly a new approach when it comes to advocating for or against anything, particularly when it comes to advocating an issue as emotionally-laden as the issue of guns.

It just happens to be the case that most public spaces are gun-free zones, and that’s not about to change. The reason that John Lott says that most large-scale shootings occur in gun-free spaces is because prohibitions on carrying personal firearms are typical of shopping centers, auditoriums and stadiums, which happen to be the places where many people congregate at the same time. Federal law also designates all public K-12 schools as gun-free zones. 

The other problem in the gun-free zone universe is that the issue is confused because it’s often attached to a second gun argument which is equally mis-stated on both sides, namely, the issue of mass shootings which, by definition, occur in places where lots of people congregate at the same time. The commonly-accepted definition of a ‘mass shooting’ is an event in which four or more persons are killed, but this usually excludes shootings in private residences or shootings in the street between rival gangs. So, for example, the gunfire which erupted on May 17, 2015, between two motorcycle gangs in a Waco, TX restaurant parking lot wouldn’t necessarily make the mass-shooting hit list, even though 18 bikers and bystanders were injured and another 9 ended up dead.  And by the way, how come we don’t hear about this event as being the ‘proof’ that armed citizens can prevent crimes when just about everyone standing outside the Twin Peaks Restaurant that day was carrying a gun?

On the other hand, what makes my friends in Gun-control Nation crazy about expanding gun-free zones is that invariably this proposal is tied to the increase in concealed-carry licensing, which is on its way to covering more than 20 million gun owners at last count. But if you want to argue that an increase in armed citizens leads to an increase in gun injuries you’ll find yourself facing two facts which don’t bear this out.

First, although the latest numbers of CCW puts the national figure at 17.5 million, this figure may represent more than five times the number of people actually walking around on a regular basis with a loaded gun. Do these 3 million gun-toters represent a serious threat to community safety and health? To answer that question we turn to our friends at the Violence Policy Center whose report, Concealed Carry Killers, found that between 2007 and 2017, roughly 1,000 people shot themselves or others with legally-carried guns, the division between homicide and suicide about 50 percent. Over that same eleven-year period, more than 350,000 Americans overall died from gun homicides and suicides. Ok? Get it?

Nobody has yet to come up with a definitive explanation for whether or not shooters, particularly mass shooters, are attracted to gun-free zones. But as far as I’m concerned, the whole issue of concealed-carry and gun-free zones is a side-show when compared to figuring out what to do about the daily, run-of-the-mill shooting events that each year now claim more than 40,000 lives.

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