The Bluff

Brady Campaign board member and blogger Joan Peterson believes it’s better to be a good victim than to be empowered to defend yourself … and that even though guns in the hand of a murderer somehow put up a forcefield so they can’t be touched or tackled until reloading … guns shouldn’t be allowed a civilian unless they do raise such a forcefield and work absolutely 100% of the time to stop shooters before they start shooting.

Here’s my response:

It’s bizarre sometimes reading your outlook on things.

Yes … having guns in that police office did NOT raise a force field that kept someone else from walking in and shooting. But those police officers having guns stopped him cold. Instead of strolling through a building of unarmed victims, like Cho at VT or the killers at Columbine or the mass murderer at the Texas Luby’s cafeteria (where 10′s of people died), the people in that building were empowered to fight back. And fight back they did, ending the assault. Unlike an attack on a police station in China where 7 cops were murdered by a man with a knife because of their communist regime that forbids . . . → Read More: Is being a good (helpless) victim vs. being able to fight back just “common sense?”

To me, expanding CCW to campuses just makes sense. It’s been the law for a long time in all Universities in Utah and for some time in Colorado for all colleges except CU, with no problems. But of course … not to anti-gun blogger and Brady Campaign board member Joan Peterson.For her, anything involving guns is bad and she would ban them no matter what the consequences or who pays the price. Here is my response:

Common sense is not a commodity only possessed by anti-gun people.

Although I’ve not been a college student for some time, sometimes I go out and tip back a few drinks. I often go to the gym, though pick-up basketball games are a couple decades behind me. So what do I do with my gun?

It’s simple … if I’m going to have drinks I don’t bring it. If I’m going someplace it can’t be secured I don’t bring it. If something comes up that I’d like to participate in but I have the gun … I don’t do it or I find an adequate place to leave it locked up — there are responsibilities that come with carrying a . . . → Read More: What is “common sense” on guns on campus?

For one month in 2010 I ran daily google searches on citizens using firearms for self defense and did some posts/kept some stats (still have to write up my observations on that). Anyway … I was thinking about starting that again for 2011, when I discovered that there is no need! Clayton Cramer’s “Armed Citizen” blog is once again up and running. And with a slough of great posts already.

No point in duplicating efforts, especially when someone is doing it as well as Mr. Cramer. I suggest everybody check this blog out daily, as if you have any doubts as to whether or not there is value to firearms ownership … it will put you at ease. And armed citizen is an empowered citizen, and while a citizen empowered to defend him/her self cannot necessarily keep from becoming a victim … they can never be a helpless victim, and at least have an option to control the situation.

Really glad to see this blog back up, as it both saves me from feeling the need to do such checks daily AND gives me a free resource to draw . . . → Read More: Clayton Cramer’s “Armed Citizen” blog is back … with a vengeance

If you haven’t read it, yesterday I posted on Harper’s excellent magazine article Happiness is a Worn Gun: My Concealed Weapon and Me (August, 2010) by Dan Baum. I highly recommend the article and my first post. But now I’d like to comment on another observation Mr. Baum wrote about at length, what he considers the obsession of the pro-gun people to not be “sheeple” and constantly be ready to defend themselves (code yellow). He even goes so far as to say he found carrying a gun made it difficult to be completely relaxed (code white) while strolling around, because:

On the street, I look people over: Where are his hands What does his face tell me? I run sequences in my head. If a guy jumps me with a knife, should I throw money to the ground and run? Take two steps back and draw?

Now having a weapon definitely can have an effect on people, though not everyone in the same manner. And I think we all know that in the pro-gun community there is a vocal group who believe all gun owners should be like James Bond: Always armed, always watching every minute detail of their surroundings, and always like . . . → Read More: The “Packing Heat” article in the August Harper’s magazine. Part II (sheeple and “condition white”)

After reading about the Harper’s magazine article Happiness is a Worn Gun: My Concealed Weapon and Me (August, 2010) by Dan Baum, particularly the CSGV piece that extolled its anti-gun virtues, I decided to give it a read. Expecting to find a standard anti-gun liberal hit piece, I was amazed to find myself reading some honest-to-goodness first person journalism, comprehensively and honestly covering the issues while giving the author’s personal observations. He included things to anger both sides of the gun debate, from his support of an Assault Weapons ban for us pro-gunners to his laissez-faire/common sense attitude about concealed carry for the anti-gunners … but both stem from the fact that instead of being politically correct he chose to be honest. It was a refreshing article, and I’d recommend it to anyone. Though to read the whole thing you’ll either have to pay $17 online or $7 at the news stand (or hit a library).  Or you can just read on, and I’ll cover the highlights for free.

Mr. Baum describes himself as a “fairly typical liberal democrat, with a circle of friends politely appalled at my fixation on firearms” (I relate with the latter, brother … I relate). His tone . . . → Read More: The “Packing Heat” article in the August Harper’s magazine. Awesome!