There’s a problem in our society when people face prosecution for defending themselves in public, and when a major network props up an anti-gun activist on Sunday morning television to ridicule the basic right to self-defense with lies and rhetoric, the underlying issue and our rights at large as Americans face even greater peril.
Unfortunately, that scenario is exactly what America got this past weekend when ABC’s Martha Raddatz held a discussion with a Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence attorney on “stand your ground” laws, in which the so-called expert blatantly lied on the air claiming these statutes and precedents “upend centuries of common law on self-defense and allow people to carry guns outside of the home…” This is utter nonsense.
Instead, while she briefly alluded to it on air, this so-called “expert on state gun laws” clearly is a supporter of the ludicrous “duty to retreat” laws that many leftist states still maintain. Despite the recent reinforcement of the inherent right to self-defense in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v.Bruen, these statutes, as their names suggest, require citizens, when faced with a seemingly life-threatening situation, to determine whether they can refrain from the use of deadly force by essentially running away. Further, a citizen who uses deadly force — even when threatened — could lose a claim to self-defense and potentially be charged with a crime, up to and including homicide, if it’s determined that a “retreat” should have been made.
Concealed carry, or the practice of carrying a concealed firearm on one’s person, is a contentious topic in modern society. Some argue that it is necessary for personal protection, while others believe that it only serves to increase the likelihood of gun violence. However, there are many reasons why concealed carry is important and can be a valuable tool for self-defense.
First and foremost, concealed carry can provide a means of self-defense for law-abiding citizens. The world can be a dangerous place, and individuals who carry a concealed firearm have the ability to defend themselves if they are ever confronted with a dangerous situation. This is especially important for those who live in areas with high rates of crime or who work in professions that put them at risk, although trouble can and is found in even the safest of places.
In addition, concealed carry can act as a deterrent to criminals. The knowledge that a potential victim may be carrying a concealed firearm can dissuade criminals from attempting to commit crimes in the first place. This can help to create a safer environment for everyone, as criminals are less likely to engage in criminal activity when they know that there is a possibility that their intended victim may be armed.
Concealed carry can also be beneficial in situations where law enforcement response times may be slow. In an emergency situation, every second counts, and individuals who are carrying a concealed firearm can act as first responders to protect themselves and those around them. This can be especially important in rural areas, where law enforcement may be several miles away and response times may be longer.
Moreover, concealed carry is an important tool for protecting one’s home and family. A firearm is one of the most effective means of self-defense against an intruder, and having a firearm readily available can help to ensure the safety of one’s loved ones.
Finally, concealed carry is a constitutionally protected right in the United States. The Second Amendment to the Constitution guarantees the right of citizens to keep and bear arms, and this right extends to the carrying of concealed firearms. The ability to exercise this right is important for many Americans, who feel that it is their duty to protect themselves, their families, and their communities.
Of course, with the right to carry a concealed firearm comes the responsibility to use it wisely and safely. It is important for those who carry a concealed firearm to receive proper training and to understand the laws surrounding the use of deadly force. Additionally, individuals who carry a concealed firearm must be prepared to face the consequences of their actions if they ever do use their firearm in self-defense.
In conclusion, concealed carry is an important tool for self-defense and can provide a means of protection for law-abiding citizens. It can act as a deterrent to criminals, serve as a first response in emergency situations, protect one’s home and family, and is a constitutionally protected right. While carrying a concealed firearm is a serious responsibility, it can be a valuable tool in creating a safer environment for everyone.
Headlines feature grim reports of senseless violence, including the wounding of Ralph Yarl in Kansas City, Missouri, the killing of Kaylin Gillis in Hebron, New York, and shootings of Payton Washington and Heather Roth in Elgin, Texas, and of 6-year-old Kinsley White and her parents in Gaston County, North Carolina. We’ll learn more in days to come, but the incidents seem the results of irrational fear and rage.
These incidents feed the usual debates, with “reformers” promoting gun restrictions or criticizing “stand your ground” self-defense laws. But while the impulse to do something is understandable, these eruptions of violence come after decades of plummeting crime that coincided with increasing firearms ownership and eased laws. Something changed: us. Boosted by bad pandemic policies, already agitated Americans became nuttier and more prone to conflict. Politicians and laws can’t fix that.
“In an era of frequent mass shootings, Americans know all too well that tragedy lurks nearly everywhere: schools, churches, offices, grocery stores, movie theaters. But these three incidents in the span of just six days have deepened a gnawing sense that no place is truly safe,” NBC News’s Daniel Arkin reported this week. “The incidents have renewed and intensified calls for stricter gun control legislation” and “have also put scrutiny on ‘stand your ground’ self-defense laws.”
Misunderstood America
Arkin captures the horror of such incidents, but he also neatly distills misunderstandings behind our debates. Of the incidents he describes, none really invoke stand your ground laws, under which people have no duty to retreat before defending themselves in public places. Yarl and Gillis were at their shooters’ homes which, if the shootings were justified, involves the common-law castle doctrine right to defend yourself at your dwelling. Washington and Roth (and White and her parents, whose case came after Arkin’s piece) were chased by their assailants, which isn’t self-defense by any understanding. Whatever the principles, and no matter the legislation, states allowed self-defense and people purchased firearms over the course of decades during which crime declined.
“Both the FBI and [Bureau of Justice Statistics] data show dramatic declines in U.S. violent and property crime rates since the early 1990s, when crime spiked across much of the nation,” Pew Research Center noted in November 2020, less than three years ago.
If we were well-armed and had wide freedom to defend ourselves while enjoying 30 years of plummeting crime what, if anything, changed?
“In the eyes of some observers, the shootings point to a more fundamental sickness in American life: the toxic brew of paranoia, distrust and suspicion that poisons so many of our day-to-day interactions,” Arkin adds. Unfortunately, the data supports his point.
We’re Nuttier
“Nine out of 10 adults said they believed that there’s a mental health crisis in the US today,” CNN reported last October of a poll conducted jointly with the Kaiser Family Foundation.
“Nearly 8 in 10 psychologists (79%) said that they had seen an increase in the number of patients with anxiety disorders since the beginning of the pandemic, and 66% saw an increase in demand for treatment for depression. Nearly half (47%) said they had seen an increase in demand for substance use treatment (up from 43% last year) and 64% saw an increase in demand for trauma treatment, (compared with 62% in 2021),” the American Psychological Association reported just one month later.
It’s easy to find evidence that people have become nuttier since we first heard the term “COVID-19.” Fear of illness and death, added to forced isolation and economic disruption, made people very antsy.
Pandemic Policy Broke Us
“My colleagues and I conducted a review of all of the studies on mental health conducted during the first year of the pandemic,” social psychology Professor Gery Karantzas of Australia’s Deakin University wrote last year. “We found that overall, social restrictions doubled people’s odds of experiencing mental health symptoms… Those who experienced lockdowns were twice as likely to experience mental ill health than those who didn’t.”
“Societal and lifestyle disruptions during the COVID-19 pandemic may have triggered brain inflammation that could affect mental health,” Harvard researchers found. “Brain imaging revealed that people tested after pandemic restrictions had elevated levels of two markers of neuroinflammation—translocator protein and myoinositol—compared with those tested prior to restrictions.”
That’s not to say that we were doing great before the pandemic. America’s social and political divisions are the stuff of modern legend.
Well, Pandemic Policy Broke Us More
“Do Americans hate each other too much to find common ground?” the Los Angeles Timesasked in 2017. “Large majorities of Americans say the tone and nature of political debate in the United States has become more negative in recent years,” Pew Research noted in 2019.
Two years later, Pew found that “a large majority of Americans say there are strong political and strong racial and ethnic conflicts in the U.S. and that most people disagree on basic facts.”
These conflicts came amidst collapsing trust by Americans in institutions and in each other. By this year, the Edelman Trust Barometer reported that only 30 percent of respondents would help those with whom they strongly disagreed; 20 percent would be willing to have them as coworkers or neighbors.
People have turned against one another and become more fearful. More than half tell pollsters they believe crime increased where they live. The data isn’t as ominous so far, finding “violent and property crime remained consistent between 2020 and 2021” as the FBI put it in December. But those numbers are old and at odds with headlines about senseless shootings, as well as reports of shoplifting, muggings, and businesses abandoning city centers. People act on what they see, not on aging crime statistics.
Spare Us Another Dose of Policy
Some lawmakers and activists see a nuttier and more conflicted country as requiring tighter control. But even before we grew more anxious and hostile, Americans were never prone to obey restrictive laws. New York’s registration requirement for “assault weapons” drew maybe 5 percent compliance not quite a decade ago. Today’s Americans who distrust government and each other aren’t going to submit to new dictates or put themselves at the mercy of a world they view as dangerous.
Let’s not forget that disagreements over the means of control—our political institutions—were already sources of division and conflict well before COVID-19. Tighter laws in the form of pandemic lockdowns exacerbated those tensions, made us all crazier and more hostile, and brought us to a moment dominated by headlines about senseless shootings and other crimes.
What we might need is less top-down control and fewer restrictive laws in order to reduce the points of conflict. But I doubt that improvements will come easily or quickly. It took years to break our society; we’ll be a long time making repairs.
Prof. Yamane misunderstands one part of self defense law in Missouri when he states: “From where I stand, shooting someone through the locked glass of your front door.…does not rise to the reasonableness standard required by self-defense law.” Well, under Missouri revised statutes 563.031
2. A person shall not use deadly force upon another person under the circumstances specified in subsection 1 of this section unless:
(2) Such force is used against a person who unlawfully enters, remains after unlawfully entering, or attempts to unlawfully enter a dwelling, residence, or vehicle lawfully occupied by such person;
In effect you can do exactly that to stop someone who’s trying to get in to where you are. That’s what a lot of people fail to take in account; each state’s laws on use of force may be very similar, but they are not all the same.
Three recent shootings have, understandably, raised concerns about the legality of using lethal force in self-defense. Sixteen-year-old Ralph Yarl was injured after approaching the wrong house in Kansas City while trying to pick up his siblings. Twenty-year-old Kaylin Gillis was killed after a car she was riding in pulled into the wrong driveway in upstate New York. And two teenage cheerleaders were shot in Austin, Texas, after one of them got into the wrong car in a grocery store parking lot.
Gun violence prevention advocacy groups like Everytown for Gun Safety and Moms Demand Action have used these events to renew criticisms of Stand Your Ground laws for emboldening people “to shoot to kill & claim self-defense.” Everytown even goes so far as to say these laws “give people a license to kill.”
These groups and even scholars studying gun violence refer to Stand Your Ground (SYG) laws as “shoot first” laws, short for “shoot first and ask questions later.” As a gun scholar, gun owner and opponent of gun violence, I fear that equating SYG with the legal right to “shoot first” could unintentionally mislead people into thinking that self-defense laws truly give them a blanket license to kill with impunity.
They do not.
Self-defense laws actually place significant limits on the ability of individuals to use lethal force in self-defense lawfully. Whether people fully understand those limitations is an empirical question, but critics should drop the language of “shoot first” in referring to these laws. Instead, in the interest of public safety, why not educate people on the limited range of behaviors they in fact allow?
First, the shootings of Ralph Yarl and Kaylin Gillis took place at the shooters’ homes, not in public spaces. Therefore, SYG law does not apply to these cases. (Not to mention that New York does not even have a SYG law.) If anything, they would fall under the common-law principle of “castle doctrine,” which allows people to use reasonable force — up to and including lethal force — to protect themselves and their loved ones at home. It allows people to stand their ground in their own “castle.”
SYG laws can be understood as extending castle doctrine into public space. They apply, in the language of Florida’s landmark law, to any individual “who is not engaged in an unlawful activity and who is attacked in any other place where he or she has a right to be.” These are significant limitations in themselves. Someone mistakenly getting into your car and then immediately exiting cannot reasonably be considered an attack, so no lawful acts of self-defense are justified. The shooting in the Austin grocery store parking lot looks much more like an act of criminal assault.
Second, even under SYG, all the other legal requirements for using lethal force in self-defense still apply. In addition to innocence, there is the issue of proportionality: A person only has a right to “meet force with force, including deadly force.” This also highlights that the individual claiming self-defense must establish their reasonableness. The person must convince a prosecutor or a jury that other reasonable people in the same circumstances would similarly believe they were in danger of death or great bodily harm.
From where I stand, shooting someone through the locked glass of your front door or at a car in your driveway does not rise to the reasonableness standard required by self-defense law. These cases are reminiscent of the killings of Renisha McBride in Detroit and Jordan Davis in Jacksonville. Both shooters claimed self-defense but are now incarcerated for murder.
Reasonableness, of course, is determined in the criminal justice system, which is marred by racial inequality. But the flawed application of law and a flawed law are not the same. People of goodwill can disagree about whether Stand Your Ground laws are, on balance, good or bad. But both gun owners and non-owners must understand what self-defense laws actually allow and prohibit — politically charged rhetoric like “shoot first” is harmful.
Stand Your Ground does not allow anyone to “shoot first and ask questions later.” Not within the law, at least. Please stop saying it does.
Washington, DC – Remember that time a report from 2013 commissioned by President Barack Obama, conducted by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) found that the use of firearms for self-defense was and is a significant crime deterrent?
The report, titled “Priorities For Research to Reduce the Threat of Firearm-Related Violence,” * notes that most firearm incidents do not result in a fatality and that violent crimes, including homicides, have declined in the past five years. It also highlights that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million per year.
The 2013 report expressed uncertainty about gun control measures, stating that there is no evidence that passage of right-to-carry laws decrease or increase violent crimes and that proposed “gun turn-in programs are ineffective.” Instead, the CDC report proposes gun safety technologies such as “external locking devices and biometric systems” to reduce firearm-related deaths.
“I thought it was very telling that this report focused so heavily on . . . futuristic technology that’s not been brought to the market in any kind of reliable form that consumers have any interest in,” said John Frazer, director of research and information at the National Rifle Association (NRA).”
“These “smart gun” technologies are “designed to prevent misuse, to prevent either accidents or crimes committed with stolen guns,” Frazer noted. “Obviously it wouldn’t have any effect on crimes committed with a gun purchased by the criminal. It obviously wouldn’t have any effect on suicides by people who bought the guns themselves.” However, “it could have a huge burden on self-defense rights of law-abiding people if they’re forced to use an unproven technology.”
The CDC’s findings that guns are an effective and often used crime deterrent and that most firearm incidents are not fatal could affect the future of gun violence research.
However, there has been criticism of the study from some quarters, with concerns expressed that the research may be used to promote gun control.
“The anti-gun researchers out there who want to study and promote gun control are perfectly free to get funded to do that by [New York] Mayor Bloomberg or by any number of other organizations or foundations,” said Frazer. “It depends on who’s doing the research. I would be very concerned that a lot of the follow-up research that might come from this agenda would be more of what we’ve seen from the anti-gun public health establishment in the past.”
The report establishes guidelines meant only for future “taxpayer-funded research,” Frazer said. At the time, the Annie E. Casey Foundation issued a statement reaffirming its support for the study, which “is in keeping with our work to collaborate with public agencies, nonprofit organizations, policymakers, and community leaders to make a positive impact on the lives of kids, families, and communities.” Other supporters of the CDC study include The California Endowment, The Joyce Foundation, on whose Board of Directors Obama served for eight years prior to his Senate run, and Kaiser Permanente, which contributed over half a million dollars to his presidential campaigns.
The report highlights that the majority of firearm deaths are from suicide, not homicide.
African American males are most affected by firearm-related violence, with “32 per 100,000” deaths. Risk factors and predictors of violence include income inequality, “diminished economic opportunities . . . high levels of family disruption” and “low levels of community participation.”
This review of the CDC study underscores the importance of firearms for self-defense and as a crime deterrent. It recommends gun safety technologies as a means of reducing firearm-related deaths, rather than gun control measures. Despite the findings in his report, we can most certainly count on the biased MSM to only promote gun control as a solution to the out-of-control crime in 2023.
An Ohio school district centered in a tiny town of 560 people has responded to recent school shootings by permitting its teachers to be armed.
River Valley Local School District in Caledonia, which has roughly 2,000 students from around the area, citing a law signed by Governor Mike DeWine in June 2022, said it will allow staff members in its high school, middle school, Heritage, and Liberty elementary schools to arm themselves.
“Our schools will no longer be soft targets and unprotected,” Superintendent Adam Wickham told The Marion Star. “Most active-shooter events occur in areas of ‘gun-free zones’ or with minimal safety measures in place. We want to ensure our schools will not be soft targets.”
“As a rural community, response times can often be minutes away in the event of an active shooter,” he continued. “The use of armed staff in our buildings can potentially save lives by providing a more immediate response to the threat. Recent school shootings such as in Nashville, Uvalde (Texas), and Parkland (Florida) clearly show that the quicker the response time, the more likely you are to potentially save lives.”
Wickham noted that the River Valley Local Schools policy has more stringent training than state requirements.
The bill DeWine signed, House Bill 99, states that it “allows the previous practice of permitting school boards to choose to arm specific staff members and mandates reasonable training requirements for those individuals.”
“Some have expressed questions about the training and selection process,” Wickham acknowledged. “The vast majority of parents have expressed appreciation for the proactive approach in protecting their children. That is really a main reason for adopting the use of armed staff. While we understand not everyone will support this program, every safety measure we take at River Valley, including the use of armed staff, is put in place to try and ensure our staff and students can go home safely to their families and loved ones, each and every day.”
“The River Valley Board had previously approved the use of armed staff for the 2020-21 school year,” Wickham said. “At that time the use of armed staff for the 2020-21 school year was confidential as protected by Ohio law, as part of the district’s safety plan. School districts had to suspend the use of armed staff with the Ohio Supreme Court’s ruling in the summer of 2021. Once HB 99 was passed, training details were released by the state in December of 2022, I recommended to the board resuming this program and the board approved the use of armed staff at the Jan. 12, 2023, meeting.”
A Nonpartisan guide that arms both sides of the gun control debate.
The slogan of the Gun Facts Project is “We are neither pro-gun nor anti-gun. We are pro-math and anti-BS.” From project creator Guy Smith comes Guns and Control: A Nonpartisan Guide to Mass Public Shootings, Gun Accidents, Crime, Public Carry, Suicides, Defensive Use, and More.
No matter what side of the aisle one is on, people are baffled by gun control. This book is designed to be a guide to thoughtful discussion; it arms readers with facts and the logic behind conflicting arguments and leaves emotional rhetoric to the pundits and focuses on the thorny issues of the debate. Guns and Control will:
• Guide readers step-wise through each of the major gun control topics: mass public shootings, assault weapons, street crime, suicide, private carry, defensive gun use, gun availability, and more.
• Help readers gain the broad perspective and the full set of important, true facts, just in time for the 2020 Presidential Election.
• Arm readers against some of the more egregious misinformation.
• Support readers in formulating their own conclusions.
Guns and Control will grant high-level perspectives—for example, that mass public shootings are a global phenomenon, occurring in nearly all developed nations—and explore details to understand the causes, and thus possible cures, of gun violence-related problems. Was the push for de-institutionalization in mental health management a contributing factor to the rise in mass public shootings? Guns and Control will help readers find answers to such questions. What the public lacks is a clear, unbiased, broad perspective on the realities of guns, explained in simple, straightforward, and entertaining ways. Guns and Control will demystify these misunderstood aspects of who uses and misuses guns.
One firearms instructor attributes this increase to a rise in crime and a general feeling of discontent with the economy.
Two years ago, a pregnant Florida woman, armed with a semi-automatic rifle, gunned down one of two home invaders who had broken into her Tampa home.
The woman, who had a concealed weapons license, said the men were pistol whipping her husband when she grabbed her legally possessed firearm and fired one round.
The woman, who requested her identity be withheld, is one of the 2.5 million people who have a concealed weapons license in Florida, according to the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. As of Feb. 28, one-third of the license holders were women.
Gun safety experts in Gainesville and neighboring communities say they have noticed a significant increase in the last four months in the number of women who wish to obtain a concealed weapons license.
Katelyn Perndoj is a 23-year-old bartender at Miller’s Ale House. She said she wants to make a living, but more importantly, she wants to stay safe.
Sarah Hower
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WUFT News
Katelyn Perndoj, a 23-year-old server at Miller’s Ale House, is seen here at Harry Beckwith Guns & Range where she will soon take the concealed weapons license course.
“I’m pretty small, so if someone wanted to snatch me it wouldn’t be hard,” she said. “I could try and fight as much as I wanted to, but I just don’t want to be put in a situation where I don’t have a fighting chance.”
Perndoj said she has registered to take the concealed weapons course at Harry Beckwith Guns & Range in late April. The course is all she will need to obtain her concealed weapons license.
“I would rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it,” she said. “It’s a peace of mind kinda thing.”
During the course, which is five hours long, the instructor goes over the laws, the best ways to conceal carry and how to shoot.
“We want you shooting well enough that we can trust you with a handgun at anytime, anywhere,” said Henry Keys, a 24-year-old self-defense and firearms instructor at Harry Beckwith Guns & Range in Micanopy.
Keys said he considers women the fastest-growing demographic in the gun world.
“When I first started working at Harry Beckwith in early 2022, the courses I taught were 7% or 8% women,” he said. “Now, women make up well over 25%.”
He attributes this increase to a rise in crime and a general feeling of discontent with the economy.
Keys said roughly 75% of the women who register to take the course are 20-29 and African American or Asian. These women cite self-defense as their reason for wanting to own a gun, and the majority know little about firearms.
“They just feel that they are in danger,” he said. “It is important to me that I am able to help them.”
Hunter Thomas, a 23-year-old gun salesman at Bass Pro Shops, agrees.
“I welcome any woman of any race, age or ethnicity to practice their Second Amendment rights,” he said.
Although Bass Pro Shops no longer offers a concealed weapons course, Thomas said he believes the number of women becoming gun owners and acquiring a concealed weapons license has multiplied since he started working for the company two years ago.
“Even as someone with a liberal political perspective, I think that since guns are so widely spread, it’s better for any law-abiding citizen to have a gun,” he said.
Lt. Jimmy Williams has been with the Clay County Sheriff’s Office for 23 years. He encourages women to obtain a concealed weapons license and learn the basics of using a firearm.
“Women need something to equalize their self-defense mechanism,” he said. “Men are typically larger and almost always stronger. I have three daughters and three granddaughters. I don’t ever want any of them, or any woman, to be in a dangerous situation with no way out.”
Sarah Hower
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WUFT News
Smith and Wesson handguns for sale at the Bass Pro Shops in Gainesville.
An estimated 736 million women in the world, almost 1 in 3, have been subjected to physical and/or sexual violence, according to USA Facts. Seventeen percent of murder victims in the United States were killed by an intimate partner. Women account for two-thirds of these victims.
Dany Castro went from fearing guns to considering himself a “gun fanatic” in less than two years.
Castro moved from her childhood home in Tampa to her first apartment in Gainesville when she was admitted to the University of Florida in fall of 2020. After one year of constantly feeling unsafe, the 21-year-old sophomore said she decided to apply for her concealed weapons license.
“Before I left for college, I was completely unfamiliar with guns,” she said. “I didn’t grow up in a family with guns. My family didn’t hunt. I knew absolutely nothing about them. Being on my own made me realize how weak and vulnerable I was.”
Sarah Hower
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WUFT News
Handgun ammo for sale at the Bass Pro Shops in Gainesville. The top shelf is 9 mm ammo and the bottom shelf is .40-caliber S and W ammo
Castro said obtaining her license has given her a greater respect for firearms. Although she said she prays she never has to use one, she is grateful for the option.
Harley Yost, a 24-year-old University of Florida alumni, said she does not believe a gun would make her feel safe.
“I would opt for a less life-threatening deterrent,” she said. “I’m not saying no women should own a gun, but I don’t think it is your best option.”
Keys said he believes the number of women wanting to obtain a concealed weapons license will continue to grow if more restrictions are created.
“The more restrictions, the more demand,” he said. “Every time there is a new restriction put in place, gun sales and license sales skyrocket. In the circle we are in right now, nobody wants to be the last person with the gun.”
Lately, I have been working on the chapter of my book on American gun culture that explores negative outcomes with firearms.
Although I differ from most scholars studying guns by beginning not with gun deviance but with the normality of guns and gun owners, I do take negative outcomes seriously.
Gun-control advocates will tell you that the 23-thousand firearms regulations we have today aren’t nearly enough. Those laws are simply a good start. In contrast, advocates of armed defense will tell you that the right to bear arms is horribly infringed. Both are telling the truth about what they want, but they can’t both be right. In fact the results are shockingly different. Imperfect gun-control fails time after time and imperfect armed defense stops millions of violent crimes each year. The truth is obvious if we’re willing to look.
There were over 278-thousand cases of criminals using guns during the commission of a violent crime in 2019. That is the last year for which the FBI provided complete statistics. We also had 61 mass murders with a firearm in 2021. All of these crimes were committed by a criminal who should not have had a gun. Criminals have firearms not because there are too few laws but because criminals ignore the laws we already have. Our flood of gun-control laws failed to stop violent criminals.
Every violent criminal who used a gun probably broke several gun-control laws during the commission of his crime. To start, these criminals stole a gun or bought it illegally. In addition to the sale, their possession of a gun was also illegal. They broke the law when they transported their firearm from place to place. Likewise, there are laws against criminals possessing or transporting ammunition. Concealing their firearm in public was against the law too.
These criminals don’t bother with background checks and waiting periods.
That is bad enough, but it gets worse. Gun-control laws actually made the job of mass-murderers easier and made their attacks more deadly. These criminals deliberately attacked us in “gun free” zones where honest citizens were disarmed by law.
Violent criminals who commit robbery, rape, assault, murder, or mass murder are also willing to break our firearms laws. These criminals commit many crimes before they are caught by law enforcement. That means violent criminals violate our gun-control laws several million times every year. Can that possibly surprise anyone?
Gun-control failed to stop violent criminals several million times yet gun-control advocates want us to pass more of their failing laws. Insanity is doing the same thing time after time and expecting a different result the next time you try the same old thing. That is why I think gun-control is crazy. I am as repulsed by violent crime and mass-murder as you are, and fortunately, we have options that work.
Owning a gun and using it for defense is common. Over 80-million of us own guns. 41 percent of us live in a household that has firearms. About one-in-a-dozen adults are armed in public. 30-percent of gun owners have used their firearm for defense. Honest citizens use their personal firearms for defense about 2.8-million times every year. That is a lot of armed defense and a wonderful legacy of lives that were saved.
As a conservative estimate, these armed citizens saved about 5-million victims from criminal violence. They save those lives despite the thousands of infringements on honest citizens being armed.
We know a lot about the armed citizens who have their permits to carry a firearm in public. These 20-million citizens are extraordinarily law-abiding and non-violent. They are less likely to break the law than the police. Ordinary gun owners are also less likely than the police to have an accident or shoot the wrong person. When we look at their record in the last few years, these honest gun owners stopped attempted mass-murder about half the time where they were allowed to go armed. That has stopped 104 attempted mass murders in the last seven years. That explains why mass-murderers choose “gun-free” zones.
The future is uncertain but we know some things with confidence. We know that gun-control politicians will offer their same broken solutions. We also know that ordinary citizens will be at the scene of the crime every time. We know that gun-control will fail and that armed citizens will stop violent criminals millions of times a year.
Should more of our neighbors be disarmed victims or armed defenders? That choice is up to us.
In fact, the choice is up to you.
This, and let teachers and school staff, who want to, be armed.
Private business will have to decide what each one wants to do.
Over the last two weeks, we’ve seen two mass shootings. Much as I’d like to say it, this isn’t unusual. Such horrible events seem to happen in clusters, where we’ll go months with relative quiet, only to see a number of shootings in fairly quick succession.
Such incidents always spark debate. We simply have to find some way to address the problem.
The thing is, we kind of already have a plan, and it’s one that doesn’t require us to trip over ourselves passing new laws.
All it takes is for people to decide to do something. We just stop making these people famous.
What if there was a way we could significantly reduce the number of mass shootings without either side having to sacrifice their policy principles?…
We could meaningfully decrease gun violence if both sides were simply willing to give up their cheap rhetoric. How do I know this? Because according to the American Psychological Association, the individuals who become mass shooters are often directly seeking the media infamy we continue to grant them.
Western New Mexico University Psychologist Jennifer B. Johnston has found in her research that mass shooters tend to be in the midst of rampant depression, social isolation, and pathological narcissism; they are in part driven to such heinous crime by their desire for national attention.
And it is undeniable that the wall-to-wall coverage in the wake of these mass shootings—coverage that is amplified and jacked up by partisan political attacks that instrumentalize the shooters’ names and identities—makes the crime all the more tantalizing for these mass murderers.
“We find that a cross-cutting trait among many profiles of mass shooters is desire for fame in correspondence to the emergence of widespread 24-hour news coverage on cable news programs, and the rise of the internet,” Johnston has said. “If the mass media and social media enthusiasts make a pact to no longer share, reproduce or retweet the names, faces, detailed histories or long-winded statements of killers, we could see a dramatic reduction in mass shootings in one to two years.”
In other words, we just stop making these schmucks famous.
Following both Nashville and Louisville, I’ve seen almost puff-piece-like articles describing the shooters. They give names, where they went to school, positive sentiments about the eventual killers, and everything else one would expect to see in a report on a new celebrity.
Their names get thrown around by the media with reckless abandon.
Even in death, they become celebrities of a sort. As Brad notes above, that’s what they want.
When you reward behavior, you get more of that behavior. From dogs to kids to grown adults, the truth is that if you give someone what they’re seeking when they perform a given action, you’re going to get more of that action. This is basic psychology.
Potential mass shooters see this and remember it. They want to be famous. They want to show the world.
And the media gives them exactly what they want.
No one is saying not to report on the shootings. We can and should cover them as well as details about the killers that might be relevant. We don’t need their names, though.
By letting these tools fall into obscurity, many of these shootings simply wouldn’t happen. The narcissistic need to seek fame would be sought out some other way, some way less fatal to innocent people.
And we don’t need laws to do this. We just need media outlets to stop naming names.
We don’t do it here. However, we often rely on news from places with no such efforts in place, and that bothers me.
We can take a big step with regard to mass shootings if the media would just step up for a change and do the right thing.
We know your armed neighbor protected himself when he scared away the robber in the night. What we don’t know, and often can’t know, is how many other people your neighbor saved that night. It is devilishly hard to measure the good that armed citizens do as they stop violent crime. Sure, we have a pretty good idea how many people own guns. We have a very good idea how many times these gun owners save lives every year. What we don’t know very well is how many violent attacks they prevented. Sure, we can come up with a number, but this is why that simple question of lives saved is so difficult to answer.
The good news is that we are far better at this than we used to be. To begin, there was a nationwide survey in early 2021 that asked tens of thousands of people if they owned guns. The researchers came up with a figure of about 81 million people over the age of 18 who own firearms in the USA. That certainly tells us some of what we want to know, but it isn’t nearly enough. In the same way that you might have a driver’s license and drive regularly but still not be a car owner yourself, we don’t know how many people routinely have access to a firearm for self-defense but are not themselves a gun owner today. Maybe they owned guns yesterday, but not now. We know that about four-in-ten of us live in a household that owns guns.
There is an axiom from General Patton I already knew: “A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week.”
and a phrase I learned later, the official version of which is: Surprise, Speed, Violence of Action, that go hand in hand.
And unto that, you can’t be cowardly
It wasn’t that long ago when a lot of headlines claimed that Uvalde police failed to enter Robb Elementary School due to fears over the shooter’s AR-15. This was, of course, taken as evidence that we should ban so-called assault weapons.
The heroic police officers who stopped a gunman at a Nashville Christian school March 28 have spoken out about their response, telling reporters they entered the school “without hesitation.”
Six people were killed when the shooter, Audrey Hale, entered The Covenant Christian school in Nashville and opened fire with two “assault-type” rifles and a handgun. Within minutes, Nashville Police entered the school and subdued the shooter, saving the lives of countless potential victims.
“We’ve trained for incidents like this for years, with the thought that if it ever happened we would not hesitate,” Nashville Metro Chief of Police John Drake told reporters. “We would go in and we would do whatever was needed for the safety of those involved.”…
When Englebert heard gunshots, he told reporters he “couldn’t get to it fast enough” as he searched for a staircase, understanding that the shots were coming from the second floor. Englebert revealed that when he “found himself at the front of the stack” he realized he wasn’t wearing rifle-grade body armor for protection.
Now, let’s compare the shootings in Uvalde to Nashville for a second. Uvalde resulted in 21 innocent lives taken while Nashville resulted in six.
That’s six too many, we can all agree, but what a difference an appropriate police response can make, isn’t it? And Englebert had ample reason to delay, not wearing sufficient armor, and he didn’t. He went in and put the threat down.
While many still want to fixate on the kinds of firearms used or the laws surrounding them, time and time again we see that the secret to minimizing the impact of these shootings isn’t a new law restricting people’s freedom, it’s having a quick and aggressive response.
Police were on the scene and engaged the shooter within minutes in Nashville. In Uvalde, it was 1 hourand 14 minutes. How many lives would have been saved if the cops in Uvalde had responded similarly to those in Nashville?
Yet let’s also look at a couple of other shootings that had a quick and aggressive response.
First, let’s look at White Settlement, TX.
In that instance, a killer decided to try and shoot up a church service–churches being a favorite target of these knobs for some reason–and it didn’t work out for him. A volunteer working security at the church put a round in his head within mere seconds. The death toll not counting the human-shaped filth? Two.
Then we have Greenwood Park Mall. In that case, the goblin decided to shoot up a shopping center, another popular target. The problem with that plan was that an armed citizen put the killer down quick, fast, and in a hurry. The death toll, again not counting the shooter? Three.
It seems like a quick response from the police is good, but having an armed individual there on the scene is better.
The police in Nashville should be commended for how well they did their jobs. I take nothing away from them. They did it and did it quickly.
Yet when someone is there on the scene, the death toll is greatly reduced. It’s a blip on the radar, then quickly buried by whatever celebrity news the media thinks is more important.
The issue isn’t access to guns–the Nashville shooter had a handgun and could have killed just as many people with it, for example–but having armed people in these places ready and willing to respond.
Don’t Believe the Spin: Women are Empowering the 2nd Amendment
We need to focus on solutions that could have directly prevented the deaths that occurred in Nashville, Tennessee at the Covenant School—not unrelated gun control measures that would not have saved a single life in this situation.
Anti-gun activists and politicians cannot name a single gun control law that would have prevented this shooting, according to the details we have from the most recent reports at the time of distribution.
Arming Teachers
We must discuss real solutions to preventing this type of evil from striking again by arming willing teachers—which is a solution supported by 81% of police.[i]Absolutely nothing should come between a teacher who wants to defend children and their right to carry a firearm.No school that has armed teachers or staff has ever experienced a mass shooting.[ii] If our elected officials are important enough to receive armed protection, so too should our children!
Repealing the Gun-Free School Zones Act
We must also repeal then-Senator Biden’s unconstitutional Gun-Free School Zones Act which leaves our children vulnerable to criminals and our parents unarmed to defend them.[iii] The Gun-Free School Zones Act is a blanket ban on firearms on school property[iv] with the sole exception of self-defense minded Americans with the permission of their state and local governments.[v] Even in the 1990s, it was not outrageous that Americans would carry firearms on school grounds for self-defense.
But the red-tape enacted in the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990 is outdated three decades later when half of the country—twenty-five states[vi]—have enacted Constitutional Carry or permitless carry laws—and at least 32 states allow armed teachers, parents, and school resource officers on campus.[vii] For this reason, Gun Owners of America endorses Rep. Thomas Massie’s H.R. 7417, the Safe Students Act.[viii] This bill would eliminate federal restrictions unnecessarily placed between a teacher or parent and their right to defend our children.
Armed Guards and Other Hardening Alternatives
While society may see fit to place police or armed guards in schools, this is not a one-or-the-other type choice. Teachers and parents must be allowed to carry firearms, according to common sense and our Constitution. On the other hand, schools may choose to harden themselves in other ways.
But remember, no matter how hard of a target we make our schools, securities and defenses may be penetrated. Banks get robbed. Security guards can be targeted, as was the case in Buffalo, New York.[ix] Listen to GOA’s Florida State Director, who also served as a School Resource Officer:
Part of my law enforcement career was spent working as a school resource officer in Florida. I was charged with protecting our most cherished of resources: our children. I made it my mission to ensure the safety of the children entrusted to my care. I would have given my life, if necessary.
But the hard truth is that I was just one cop on the campus; I couldn’t be everywhere at once. I patrolled the grounds, I made sure the gates were locked and the doors were shut, and I kept watch for strangers. Still, one officer is not enough, given that most modern schools are vast and sprawling.
We must be honest about what makes a school safe, and right now, as a society, we are not being serious. The desire to “do something,” has been met by politicians actually enacting counterproductive legislation. It’s time to reverse course… I know more needs to be done and no, the answer isn’t gun control.[x]
Ultimately, the most important thing we can do as a nation is to allow school faculty and parents to exercise their constitutionally protected right to defend their lives and the lives of our children.
The difficult truth is, stopping these shootings is not just a matter of policy — it’s a matter of the heart.
DONALD TRUMP JR. AND CLIFF SIMS
The elementary school shooting in Nashville, Tennessee, is a tragedy no community should ever have to endure. As fathers, our hearts break for those innocent children and their parents, as well as the brave and selfless teachers. The heroic police officers, who sprang into action with total disregard for their own safety, saved countless lives. The shooter, whose name should not be made famous by the media, reminds us there is evil in this world, that every moment with our families is precious, and that something in our country must change.
Unfortunately, the radical left has once again rushed to demand new laws and policy changes that would have done nothing to stop this tragedy — or any tragedy.
The renewed call to expand background checks to cover even private gun sales between friends and family members ignores the fact that most mass shooters who bought guns legally — including radical Islamic terrorists — passed background checks anyway. And no law will stop criminals from getting guns illegally by stealing them or acquiring them on the black market, because they’re criminals.
The Nashville tragedy has also reignited calls to implement so-called “red-flag laws” in which American citizens can have their firearms confiscated without due process, even as a result of baseless accusations or innuendo. Research shows such laws have no effect on violent crime, and it’s possible they could actually increase suicide rates by making troubled individuals fear discussing their issues with friends or family members because their ability to defend themselves and their loved ones could be taken away.
All 50 states already have laws on the books — often referred to as “Baker Act” statutes — regulating how to handle individuals who could be a danger to themselves or others and allowing medical professionals to intervene when necessary. In the case of the Nashville shooter — a transgender-identifying 28-year-old reportedly receiving treatment for mental illness — if police had been made aware that the shooter was hiding guns, they said they would have seized them.
As with so many similar tragedies, the cowardly Covenant School shooter chose a soft target, shooting through the school’s locked doors and counting on it taking time for armed law enforcement to respond. In fact, police said the shooter had mentioned another potential target, “but because of threat assessment by the suspect, too much security, they decided not to” attack it.
If you think criminals don’t consider this when planning an attack, then you haven’t read last year’s Buffalo, New York shooter’s manifesto in which he wrote that areas where concealed carrying of a weapon is “outlawed or prohibited may be good areas of attack” and that “areas with strict gun laws are also great places of attack.”
No sooner had word emerged that a Nashville Christian school had been attacked by a mass shooter on Monday than the Left began dissembling about guns again. The shift from “thoughts and prayers” to “grab the guns from law-abiding gun owners!” occurred at hypersonic speed. And it was all wrong.
To save time, here’s a simple request by people who believe in the right to bear arms, which is explicitly guaranteed in the United States Constitution and is a God-given right. Stop lying. Try. It’s not that hard, and someone’s life depends on it.
First, let’s acknowledge that gender dysphoria is a real and treatable mental issue and obviously experienced by this 28-year-old biological female, who lived with her parents, and who police called a “she” even though the media insist we call her a “male.” She’s dead now, and her feelings won’t be hurt anymore by someone telling the truth about her. She can’t be defamed. And, obviously, “dead-naming” her is no longer an issue.
Think about this and many other after-effects of these lies. Imagine how this kind of “misgendering” will show up in crime stats. Males do the overwhelming number of mass shootings. It’s a fact. Will this wanna-be man show up in the crime stats as a male or female now? How does that help society understand the mentality of mass shooters? We need to stop lying about that too.
But here’s today’s lesson for the Left. You’ll want to commit this to memory, so pay attention as I explain this in words of one syllable.
Repeat after me: good guys with guns stop bad guys with guns.
And I can prove it.
First, who was called when the shooting broke out? That’s right, cops. Cops are called because they have guns. And let’s say something about these police officers who selflessly and bravely ran up the stairs to the sound of gunfire. They passed at least one body of a child without flinching and continued running to stop the monster. And they quickly dispatched this killer — unlike the cops in Uvalde, Texas. Watch the bodycam footage
You know the sad cliché: when seconds matter, cops are only minutes away.
And the killer knew it too. I repeat: the killer knew it too. This murderer knew this peaceful Christian school she’d attended as a girl years before was a gun-free zone, as are most schools in Tennessee.
Crying about an assault an weapon ban when the shooter literally left a manifesto saying that school was chosen because of the lack of armed security compared to another target is wild.
The shooter killed 6 ppl w/ so called Assault weapons. The V-Tech shooter killed 36 w/…
In answer to a question as to whether Hale’s transgender status might have any bearing on a motive, Chief Drake said: “There is some theory to that. We’re investigating all the leads and once we know exactly, we will let you know.”
He said that the attack was targeted.
A manifesto and a map were discovered at Hale’s address
Chief Drake added that while there was no known history of mental illness, it was a lead that was being investigated.
He also said Hale had been considering targeting another location – which was not identified – but had apparently decided not to because of the level of security around it.
The Essential Second Amendment
Helping Americans understand and defend the Second Amendment.
The right of the people to keep and bear arms, enshrined in the Constitution’s Second Amendment, is centered not on hunting or sport shooting but on the natural right of self-defense. It gives “teeth” to the promises of liberty, ensuring that attempts to reduce our natural rights to mere dead letters may be met with meaningful resistance. Download the eBook here.
