Category: Safety

Troubled Times Part II: There’s more to being prepared than just guns and ammo.

Last week I talked about safety measures during times of civil unrest. Most recently, the FBI is warning of the possibility for terrorist activity in this country and suggesting that folks shelter in place. As I mentioned, this shelter-in-place idea is not a bad one because the defender nearly always has the advantage.

Too often, in times like these, people focus on their choice and selection of guns and ammunition. While there is nothing wrong with this, I would suggest that it is only one of several considerations for keeping you and your family safe until things can be straightened out.

A decent medical kit would also be an excellent addition to your home defense plan. And, along with that would also go some first aid training. It could be extremely important to know how to stop bleeding, treat certain wounds and deal with the effects of shock. It is a really good idea for the entire family to have this training since you never know who will need the treatment and who will be available to apply it. Right in line with that is to make sure that there is an adequate supply of prescription medicines that the family members might need. Civil unrest is not the time to run out of blood pressure medications for example.

It also might be that you have to wait out a few days with your power cut off. Do you have enough non-perishable foods to get you by? How is your supply of extra batteries? When you think of just getting by for a few days until order can be restored, your list might get longer than you expected.

Mind you, I am not predicting some sort of doomsday event. However, we need to realize that there are people in this world who would like nothing better than for that to happen to us. I don’t think there is a need to start digging a bunker in your back yard or to build a survival camp in some wilderness area. But it is time to consider that you might just have to stay home for a few days while our police and other officials get order restored (or even recovering from a weather event like a hurricane, tornado or snowstorm).

So look beyond your guns and ammo and try to focus on the big picture. Start making that list of necessary items and give some serious thought to all of the ways you will need to protect yourself and your family.

It bears repeating that my first squad leader was a font of practical wisdom, usually doled out in pithy maxims. One I already knew, but liked how he put it was:
“I’ve found that experience is the best teacher, and the best experience is someone else’s as it’s usually less expensive and less painful.”
A word to the wise should be sufficient

What we Should Learn from the Attack on Israel

Terrorists attacked innocent victims in Israel. This is a war of ethnic cleansing. The victims were chosen precisely for their innocence. The murdering terrorists sought out the vulnerable and the harmless. This attack was a show of force, a show of violence, and a show of brutality. It was Hamas and their Iranian enablers saying that they are willing to be barbarians. They wanted other nations to hold them in awe. I don’t think it will work out that way. An Israeli politician said you can’t negotiate peace with someone who has come to kill you. Here in the United States, there are things we can learn from both the Israeli civilians and from the Israeli government.

We watched over a thousand of Israelis die at the hands of armed terrorists. Many more were wounded. Women and children were murdered or kidnapped. Those are exactly the results you would expect. The point is not that the attackers were some type of super-warriors. Those are simply the results that any trained combatant would expect when disarmed victims face armed attackers. It didn’t need to unfold that way.

Let me resize the attack so US readers have a sense of proportion. Keeping the percentages the same and with its larger population, this attack would have killed almost 60-thousand US citizens. That is about twenty times the number of people who were killed at Pearl Harbor in 1941, or during the attack on September 11th in 2001.

Where Israelis were armed and on alert, they defended themselves very well. Examples include Kibbutz  Nir Am and Kibbutz Mefalsim. There we also saw the sort of results we expected. Attackers need to outnumber defenders by a ratio of over six-to-one in order to advance. The terrorists did not bring that number of attackers to bear so the defenders prevailed.

In the United States of America, I noticed that another million of us went out to buy guns and ammunition in the week after the attack. Most of these were first time gun buyers. Again, ordinary citizens like us came to some far-reaching conclusions. They recognized that the world is not safe. People who look just like them are capable of horrific acts of violence. Law enforcement and other government authorities will only arrive long after the attack is over. Far from being conclusions drawn from worse case estimates, I think those conclusions are simply a sober evaluation of the truth.

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Repost- How Armed Israelis Stopped Terrorists

I may not know a lot, but I know when to ask someone with more experience. I read reports of armed Israeli citizens stopping the Hamas terrorists who attacked their kibbutz. There are important differences between a deliberate terrorist attack and the armed defense that happens every day in the US. I asked Ben Branum for his opinion on these events. Ben is a marine, a civilian contractor for the military, an instructor in church security, and a civilian firearm instructor. We talked for about an hour about the recent attack on the kibbutz Nir Am.

Give us a listen on Ben’s site, Modern Self Protection Podcast or listen to the mp3 from Libsyn.

Here is a second report (an archive version outside the paywall) about an attack at a slightly larger kibbutz, Mefalsim.

Jewish Americans Arm Themselves in Wake of Israeli Horror

“There’s another order coming from Hamas to kill the Jews. I happen to be Jewish, and I don’t want to be killed.”

That’s the succinct explanation Joshua, a doctor in Los Angeles, gave for why he decided to buy his first gun this week. He’s far from alone. New owners and trainers alike described scenes of gun stores and safety classes full of Jewish Americans hoping to protect themselves from the kind of slaughter that played out on October 7th when Hamas terrorists streamed over the border into Israel and ruthlessly slaughtered more than 1,400 men, women, and children.

“I was at a local gun store a couple of days ago, where my wife was doing her firearms training test, and it was full,” Joshua, who–like several others who spoke to The Reload for this story–did not want his real name revealed in large part due to safety concerns, said. “There was a line outside to get in for people to do their tests, or buy firearms, or practice on the range. And I would say it was 90% Jewish people and Israelis.”

He said the motivation of those in line was clear.

“We all know what happened in Israel. It was a horrific attack on civilians by Hamas with the tally now up close to 1,500 dead,” Joshua said. “It’s the worst attack against Jews since the Holocaust. I never thought I’d say this, but it’s almost worse than the Nazis. They buried the bodies or cremated the bodies. The Nazis hid their atrocities. Hamas is live streaming their atrocities where they kill babies, shoot the elderly waiting at bus stops, rape women, and mow down young people at a music festival for peace.”

35-year-old Simon, an Israeli-American also living in Los Angeles, recoiled at the awful attacks. Then he too bought a gun.

“Watching the events unfold in Israel since October 7th has been gut-wrenching and unreal,” he told The Reload. “Unfortunately for us Jews around the world, our security situation has worsened. Now is the time to arm myself and protect my family. So, I’ve decided to purchase my first firearm and undergo firearm, general situational awareness, and home defense training.”

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BLUF
The bottom line: think about what you will say to police in the aftermath of any use of force incident. Don’t get caught flat-footed and say something that will later be used against you in a court of law…criminal or civil.

Personal Defense Tip: Don’t Just Ask For An Attorney In the Aftermath of a Defensive Gun Use.

If you haven’t thought about what to do and say after a use of force incident, you really should. After all, you don’t want to avoid victimization by a criminal attacker only to be later victimized by the criminal justice system.

If you don’t know what to say to responding officers (and their buddies, the investigating officers), ask to speak to an attorney before answering any questions. Yes, investigating officers may seem like they are on your side. They may even promise that you won’t go to jail if you just “answer a few questions.” But there’s really only one thing you should say . . .

I want to speak to an attorney and have him or her present with me before I answer questions.

Yes, you can answer questions like your name and date of birth, but aside from that, if you don’t know exactly what to say and how to say it, shut up. Except, of course, when you’re repeating, “I want to talk to an attorney before I give any statements or answer any questions.”

Make that your mantra, even if you believe it was a clear-cut case of self-defense.

In today’s climate, politically-motivated prosecutions happen on a regular basis. That’s hard to believe in this day and age, right? Here’s another proclamation from Captain Obvious:  not all prosecutors are big fans of gun owners or armed self-defense. In fact, it’s almost as if some Soros-funded prosecutors are on the side of violent criminals.

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Missouri State Senator to host self defense event

In an effort to empower the community with the knowledge and skills necessary to protect themselves and their loved ones, Senator Jill Carter announced that on Sunday, October 22nd an event focused on self-defense will be held.

Topics covered during the event will include:

1. Situational Awareness: Experts in self-defense will share insights and practical techniques for enhancing situational awareness, which is a critical component of personal safety. Attendees will learn how to recognize potential threats and make informed decisions to avoid dangerous situations.

2. Responsible Firearm Ownership: For those who choose to use firearms as part of their self-defense strategy, the event will feature knowledgeable firearms instructors who will emphasize the importance of safety, legality, and proper training. Attendees will have the opportunity to ask questions and learn about firearm safety practices.

3. Demonstrations and Hands-On Training: Practical demonstrations and hands-on training sessions will be provided to help attendees develop skills and build confidence in self- defense. These activities will cover basic self-defense techniques, use of pepper spray, and firearm handling under the guidance of experienced instructors.

4. Expert Speaker: The event will host a local expert in self-defense, personal safety, and firearm safety who will deliver engaging talks and answer questions from the audience.

By promoting situational awareness and responsible firearm ownership, the event aims to empower individuals to protect themselves and their communities. This event is geared toward individuals of all backgrounds and levels of experience, especially those who are curious about self-defense and those seeking to gain knowledge on firearm laws and safety.

The activities being at 12 noon and run to around 5 pm. Attendees are encouraged to come with an open mind, a desire to learn, and a commitment to promoting safety.

If you are interested in attending the event contact curt@jillforsenate.com.

 

Second Amendment matters in a time of crisis
The importance of good guys with guns

Hamas attacked as Israelis were wrapping up the seven-day Jewish festival of Sukkot on Oct. 7. As many as 1,200 Israelis and some Americans were murdered, thousands wounded, and hundreds more taken hostage. Hamas terrorists went into civilian areas and attacked defenseless people who were walking down the street or shopping in stores.

A Sept. 20 Jerusalem Post headline prophetically warned: “Israelis should carry guns on Yom Kippur, police say.” But as of 2022, only 148,000 Israelis carried permitted guns in public for protection — just 3% of the adult Jewish population. Twenty years earlier, more than 10% of adult Jews in Israel had permits.

Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid called the recent police statement dangerous. He echoed sentiments common among Democrats in the United States: “Calling the citizens of Israel to come with weapons to the synagogue on Yom Kippur is not a security policy. It is dangerous populism.”

Concealed carry is much more widespread in the United States than in Israel. In 2022, 8.5% of American adults had permits. Outside of the restrictive states of California and New York, about 10.2% of adults had permits. And these numbers don’t even account for the fact that there are now 27 constitutional carry states where it isn’t necessary to have a permit to carry.

California, with one of the lowest concealed handgun permit rates and the strictest gun control laws in the country, shouldn’t hold itself out as a model for the rest of the country to follow. The periods after 2000, 2010 and 2020 show a consistent pattern: California’s per capita rate of public shootings is always much greater than in the rest of the country.

On Sunday Oct. 8, the day after the attack, Israel radically changed its policy on who could carry guns publicly. “Today, I directed the Firearms Licensing Division to go on an emergency operation in order to allow as many citizens as possible to arm themselves. The plan will take effect within 24 hours,” Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir posted on X.

In response to terrorist attacks for decades, Israel put more police and military to protect people, but they found that no matter how much money they spent, they couldn’t cover all the possible targets.

Before Israel began letting civilians carry handguns in the 1970s, terrorists committed attacks in Israel almost entirely with machine guns. Afterward, terrorists usually used bombs.

The reason was simple: Armed citizens can quickly immobilize a gun-wielding attacker, but no one can respond to a bomber once the bomb explodes. Still, armed citizens have occasionally succeeded in preventing bombings.

Like their Israeli counterparts, American police recognize their own limitations.

“A deputy in uniform has an extremely difficult job in stopping these attacks,” said Sarasota County, Florida, Sheriff Kurt Hoffman. “These terrorists have huge strategic advantages in determining the time and place of attacks. They can wait for a deputy to leave the area or pick an undefended location. Even when police or deputies are in the right place at the right time, those in uniform who can readily identify as guards may as well be holding up neon signs saying, ‘Shoot me first.’ My deputies know that we cannot be everywhere.”

Police1, the largest private organization for law enforcement officers, surveyed its 749,000 members and found that 86% of them believed that casualties from mass public school shootings could be reduced or “avoided altogether” if citizens had carried permitted concealed handguns in public places. An incredible 94% of mass public shootings occur in places where civilians are banned from having guns.

And 77% of Police1 members supported “arming teachers and/or school administrators who volunteer to carry at their school.” No other policy to protect children and school staff received such widespread support.

When a life-threatening crisis strikes, there might not be time for police to arrive. Amid such a massive assault by Hamas, it was simply impossible for the Israeli police and military to protect all civilians.

Unfortunately, some lessons are learned the hard way. If only more Israelis had been armed at the time of the attack, more of them would be alive today.

I’m often stunned by what it takes to get some people to open their eyes and decide they need to provide for their own defense.

S. Florida Jewish Community Arming Up After Hamas Attack in Israel

The Hamas attack in Israel has set of alarms within the Jewish community in southern Florida, according to WPLG News, and many people in that community are buying guns and signing up for training courses.

Concerns may not be lessened by President Joe Biden’s trip to Israel or his planned speech to the nation Thursday evening.

The report reinforces an article in AmmoLand News, which focused on the fact that U.S. citizens might provide an obstacle to such terrorism in this country because the Second Amendment protects their right to be armed. There is no such right in Israel, and some leading advocates want gun regulations relaxed.

The Daily Caller quotes firearms retailer David Kowalsky who notes many of his new clients are “Israeli and Orthodox Jews.”

“Just wanting to be trained to protect their families and have a firearm at home or on their person,” he said. “Since last Saturday we have seen a tremendous public display of how prevalent anti-Semitism is and hate speech and how they want to rid the world of Jews.”

That appears to be true, as demonstrations around the U.S. sympathetic to Palestinians, and critical of Israeli counterattacks in Gaza, have been reported.

According to the WPLG report, “Dozens of South Florida gun shops and shooting ranges are seeing a spike in gun sales and a desire to train since Israel was ambushed by Hamas terrorists.”

Over the weekend, FBI Director Christopher Wray was “ominously warning there is a rising number of terror threats against the US — and that the biggest concern involves potential lone wolves,” according to a story in the New York Post.

WPLG quoted a Jewish woman identified as Endi Tennenhaus, who said “most of the men in her synagogue” were in the process of arming themselves.

“We said, ‘What about the women?’ We need to do the things we need to do to prepare,” Tennenhaus told a reporter. “To stay safe and to be able to use a gun, God forbid if we ever should need one.”

The report noted many Jewish women had been buying guns, as well as men, and the women were taking firearms training.

Kowalsky’s gun store is providing additional classes to meet the demand.

Florida is one of the 27 states where permitless carry is now legal. But the Jewish community appears strongly interested in the kind of training that goes beyond mere safety in the home.

In Israel, when Hamas terrorists attacked starting with a music festival—killing hundreds of people in the process—nobody was armed. In southern Florida, it is evident members of the Jewish community will not allow that to happen here.

Biden Border Crisis Endangering Us All: 659 Known Terrorists Captured at the Border This Year Alone

As Joe Biden’s purposeful attempt to destroy the U.S. with his wide-open border policies continues, federal data shows that a record of 659 known terrorists have been caught trying to sneak into the country in just the last year alone.

“In fiscal 2023, 659 known or suspected terrorists (KSTs) were apprehended attempting to illegally enter the U.S. – with the majority being apprehended at the northern border, according to CBP data last updated Sept. 15. The fiscal year ended Sept. 30,” Just the News Reported.

The numbers show that 432 known or suspected terrorists (or KSTs) were caught trying to sneak in across the northern border, while 227 were caught at the southern border.

These numbers, though, do not count the unknown number who could sneak into the U.S. without being caught. These are called the “got aways.”

With people illegally entering the U.S. from over 170 countries, former ICE Chief Tom Homan told The Center Square some of these countries they are coming from are sponsors of terrorism.

“If you don’t think a single one of the 1.7 million [gotaways] is coming from a country that sponsors terrorism, then you’re ignoring the data,” he said. “That’s what makes this a huge national security issue.”

KSTs are primarily apprehended two different ways by two different federal agents. Office of Field Operations (OFO) agents, who work at land ports of entry, are tasked with stopping “inadmissables,” or illegal foreign nationals, KSTs and a range of other people or contraband prior to entering the U.S.

Border Patrol agents work between ports of entry, patrolling the border to apprehend foreign nationals who’ve already illegally entered the U.S.

OFO agents working at northern ports of entry have apprehended more than those at southwest ports of entry in four out of the last seven fiscal years. OFO agents have also historically apprehended more KSTs at ports of entry than Border Patrol agents between ports of entry due to varying factors.

In fiscal 2023, OFO agents apprehended 429 KSTs at northern border ports of entry and 76 KSTs at southwest border land ports of entry, totaling 505 at ports of entry at both borders.

Border Patrol agents apprehended 151 KSTs between ports of entry along the southwest border and three between ports of entry along the northern border, totaling 154. patrolling.

Poll Shocker: Majority of Young People Say Guns Make Homes Safer

The Guardian is reporting what amounts to a stunning revelation of research supported by the anti-gun Joyce Foundation which says—probably to the foundation’s chagrin—an overwhelming majority of young people (76%) say gun ownership “makes a home safer.”

Anti-gunners have been insisting for years that guns in the home make families less safe.

The same 2019 study said 42 percent of boys and men in the 13-21 age group expect to own a firearm at some point, after years of efforts to convince the younger generation to avoid gun ownership. The survey results may be viewed here.

Another report, from the Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab (PERIL), supported by Everytown for Gun Safety and the Southern Poverty Law Center, also produced some interesting findings which included:

  • While youth think that gun violence is a problem, they think it flows from the actions of individuals, especially those they perceive as “criminal,” “irresponsible,” “mentally ill” or “bad.” These descriptions tend to be racialized and classed.
  • Youth separate legitimate and illegitimate uses of guns. “Legitimate” uses include protection (e.g., against “home invaders”), hunting and target shooting.
  • Youth perceptions of safety are also racialized, classed and shaped by ideologies surrounding geography and folk-theories about urban-rural differences.
  • Youth from rural areas perceive guns as a ‘fact of life’. Geographical regions are used as shorthand for particular community relations to guns/gun violence.
  • Young, white, cisgender boys/men are frequently introduced to gun use through gendered bonding activities like hunting with fathers, grandfathers and friends.

The Guardian report tends to negatively portray the notion of gun ownership, which perhaps unintentionally exhibits the viewpoints of people who dislike firearms ownership. The story quotes Kelly Drane, research director at the Giffords Law Center, who acknowledges, “Gun ownership has diversified dramatically.”

More women and minorities are buying guns, and according to the Guardian article—referring to the PERIL study—the reason Latinos and Asian Americans are buying firearms is because they are concerned about “the increased threat of racist extremism.”

The PERIL study also showed that about one-third of youths under age 18 “believe they are safer with guns than without them.”

“Arm yourself, because no one else here will save you.”

When Hamas Attacked, This Israeli Kibbutz Fought Back and Won

At 6:56 a.m. on Oct. 7, Moshe Kaplan sent an urgent alert to his volunteer security force in Mefalsim, a kibbutz of 1,000 men, women and children in southern Israel where he served as security chief.
“There’s a shooting in the village from the gate!” he texted after militants fired at his car as he drove past the main entrance. Attackers later blew open a pedestrian gate nearby with explosives and flooded into the kibbutz.
Kaplan rushed home to grab his armored vest, helmet and M16 rifle, then drove off to check another gate on the northwest corner. There he found armed men were already inside the razor-wire security fence that encircled the community.
“Terrorists in the kibbutz! Terrorists in the kibbutz!” he yelled in a second, panicked voice text, begging his men to hurry. Gunshots sounded in the background. He had trained a dozen men for this moment, a surprise attack from nearby Gaza. Yet 19 minutes after his first alert, none had arrived.
Kaplan left his car and shot at assailants from behind a metal garbage container. One lobbed a hand grenade at him. In a stroke of luck for him and Mefalsim, it didn’t explode.
More than two dozen Hamas fighters from Gaza had arrived with orders to subdue the small security force and herd hostages into the community dining hall. They carried a detailed map of the kibbutz and, like other assault teams in southern Israel that morning, an attack plan labeled “top secret.”
Mefalsim was one place that day where nothing for the Hamas attackers went according to plan.

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“Protection” Cited As No. 1 Reason For Gun Buys, As 911 Delays Increase

Twenty-six percent of participants in a 1999 Pew Research survey who owned a gun said protection was the primary reason they exercised their Second Amendment rights. By 2013, the figure jumped to 48 percent. Results in 2017 indicated it climbed yet again, up to two-thirds, and this year’s results, released in late August, are higher—72 percent.

It’s a tidal change in attitude that began with the Y2K bug and apparently continues after the widespread violence and social unrest that plagued the COVID 19 pandemic. The dramatic increase in the time it takes first responders to arrive, regardless of where you live or affluence of the community, is one of the diving factors. Seconds count when an attacker is at the door, in your face or on a loved one.

Volume of 911 calls is a driving factor, but there’s another. Law-enforcement officers are leaving the job in record numbers and young adults, who might otherwise enroll in an academy and soon work a beat, succumb to the fashionably inaccurate perception of the profession. As a result, applicants across the nation continue to decline, and those who pass the stringent requirements don’t fill vacancies fast enough.

In April ABC News warned, “Police departments across the country are facing a ‘vicious cycle’ of retirements, resignations and fewer hires, according to policing experts, leaving the communities they protect with understaffed departments and potentially underqualified officers.”

One study found 911 response time in New Orleans nearly tripled from 2019 to 2022. The same report found New York’s figures jumped from 18 minutes to 33 minutes. For comparison, Big Apple law enforcement response time in 1999 was 10.3 minutes, according to the New York Times.

In Nashville, Tenn., Metro Police averaged 73 minutes to respond in 2022. Urgent calls are life-threatening and tracked separately when they come into emergency dispatch. According to a February report from WSMV4 TV—an NBC affiliate in Nashville, Tenn.—“…response time for emergency calls increased from 10.7 minutes to 15 minutes, in the last three years.” Four minutes, 18 seconds seems like the blink of an eye when at work, it’s eternity when a family member is attacked.

The nation’s capital isn’t immune either. WTOP News there found residents experienced an additional 90-second delay in response to Priority 1 [the most urgent] calls to 911 just in the 12 months of 2021.

The numbers make it obvious. More law-abiding citizens than before understand owning a firearm and training are the best way to survive, especially when seconds count, and police are minutes away.

Maybe if the bureaucraps wouldn’t have been infiltrating Churches, Parent’s Groups and ‘MAGA” rallies, instead of doing their Constitutional duty to protect each of them (the states) against Invasion by these Jumpin Jihadis, we wouldn’t have this to worry about.

FBI director warns of rise in terror threats against Americans, potential copy-cat attacks on US soil.

The head of the FBI is ominously warning there is a rising number of terror threats against the US — and that the biggest concern involves potential lone wolves pulling off Hamas copy-cat attacks here.

Agency chief Christopher Wray, 56, urged law enforcement to be extra cautious about ripple effects from the raging Israeli-Palestinian conflict during an address at the International Association of Chiefs of Police annual conference in San Diego on Saturday.

“History has been witness to antisemitic and other forms of violent extremism for far too long,” he said, according to an FBI transcript. “We remain committed to continue confronting those threats.

“In this heightened environment, there’s no question we’re seeing an increase in reported threats, and we’ve got to be on the lookout, especially for lone actors who may take inspiration from recent events to commit violence of their own,” he added.

Wray’s warning came a day after former Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal’s designated a “Day of Jihad” on Oct. 13.

The FBI director did not divulge any specific domestic threats that the bureau may be grappling with directly stemming from the war but rather issued the broad warning.

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The Guardian floored that Gen Z isn’t more anti-gun

As a member of Gen X, I look at the younger generation as they’re portrayed in the media and have concerns. Luckily, I know that generations aren’t monolithic. Just as the Baby Boomers weren’t universally hippies and my generation wasn’t all building dot com businesses.

With Gen Z, I expect much the same.

So what does this have to do with guns? Well, it seems The Guardian is floored that a generation that has dealt with mass shootings isn’t completely freaked out over guns.

In the US, Gen Z grew up doing active shooter drills and watching school massacres and other acts of violence unfold on TV. So it’s perhaps unsurprising that many of them have been high-profile faces in the movement for gun reform. But at the same time, research shows many young people, like those Alvarado works with, remain open to – even interested in – gun ownership. What connects those two threads, experts say, is shared trauma and exposure to violence…

While one response to that sense of dread has been to join the gun violence prevention movement, another is to embrace firearms. The 2023 Peril study showed that about one-third of youth under 18 believe they are safer with guns than without them. 39% of participants reported having easy access to a gun, and about half of those answers were from young people who purchased a firearm themselves.

In another study from 2019, 42% of boys and men ages 13-21 reported they will likely own a gun in the future, while 76% of all respondents agreed that gun ownership makes a home safer. And between 2002 and 2019, rates of gun ownership among teens rose by 41%. During the pandemic, one-third of people who purchased guns were between 18 and 29 years old.

These swings coincide with rising ownership among demographics not historically linked to firearms, like women, Latinos and Asian Americans. In the latter two groups, new gun owners say that they are motivated to carry by the increased threat of racist extremism.

“Gun ownership has diversified dramatically,” said Kelly Drane, research director at Giffords Law Center in San Francisco.

Of course, many on the anti-gun side simply cannot fathom the idea that people might actually embrace gun rights to any degree, especially in the face of threats of violence.

The thing is, though, that’s not an irrational response to trauma as many people think. It’s completely rational.

Gen Z understands that violence is an unfortunate part of our lives, which means that it’s not going to go away with platitudes and protests. Sure, we can do that, but we also need to face the fact that gun control doesn’t make criminals stop doing bad things.

If you believe someone wants to hurt you, it’s completely rational to want to be able to use violence in an effort to defend yourself.

I’m actually glad see Gen Z stand up for defending themselves.

What I’m not glad to see is the gaslighting, an attempt to pretend that it’s not that they see the world as it is and is instead a trauma response.

Rationality is traumatizing, apparently.

AIDAN JOHNSTON: Israel Needs A Second Amendment

A day after Hamas terrorists paraglided across the border from Gaza into Israel, trucked machine gun-toting killers into a music festival, mowed down families and took women, children, and grandmothers hostage, Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir announced a series of actions to loosen Israel’s strict gun control laws.

The minister announced his intent to “allow as many citizens as possible to arm themselves and protect themselves and their environment when necessary.”

Of course, with videos of terrorists kicking in doors in an Israeli village near the border and desecrating the dead bodies of babies and teenagers, it’s not hard to understand why someone would make such a decision. And as an American, I can confidently say our Founding Fathers sure understood.

The individual right of the people to keep and bear arms is “necessary to the security of a free state.”

But as the death toll rises and terrorists are still on the loose, one must also ask: is the Israeli government doing too little, too late?

Just after Russia invaded Ukraine, the country repealed its gun control laws, enacted a national right to carry and started passing out machine guns.

Ukraine waited until after it was invaded by a nuclear world superpower, and we asked the same question.

Lucky for Ukrainians, the remarkable shift in firearms policy helped the country hang on while the United States and other allies prepared military aid.

While Israel is also purchasing thousands of machine guns and handing them out now, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spent the last few years confiscating guns from local civilian security forces.

So, while Hamas terrorists invaded with machine guns, grenades and missiles, these Israeli gun owners were forced to fight back with only a single handgun and 50 rounds of ammunition each.

According to one gun owner, “the IDF took our rifles recently, they left us with just a few. We repelled a Hamas commando terror cell with just pistols.”

Gun control left self-defenders outgunned while hundreds of completely disarmed Israelis were tortured, raped and murdered by vicious terrorists in this surprise attack.

And while the new changes in Israel’s Firearms Licensing Division are intended to help self-defenders held up by bureaucracy and paperwork, Gun Owners of America found the application portal offline and “unavailable,” leaving only a message from the National Forms Service stating “we apologize for the inconvenience.”

Even if the website worked, a newly eligible applicant would still have “to undergo a telephone interview” and may have to wait up to “a week” for approval.

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Cautionary Tale in an Alabama Forest: When in a Gunfight, Don’t Hesitate

On August 14, 2022, Adam Simjee and his longtime girlfriend, Mikayla Paulus, were on a road trip through wild Alabama country before returning to college.

They decided to help a woman who appeared to have had a vehicle breakdown. The woman, Yasmine Hider, was planning to rob them or worse. Adam was a dedicated Second Amendment supporter. He had tucked a concealed pistol in his waistband because he was suspicious of the circumstances. After Adam and Mikayla had been working on the broke-down vehicle for an hour without success, Hider pulled out a handgun and ordered them to drop their cell phones, empty their pockets, and give up their bank and cell phone passwords. Then she marched them into the forest. Adam waited for an opportunity to draw his firearm.

In situations such as this, the assailant is often momentarily distracted. From abc3340.com:

“Adam had his gun on him the whole time because he said, ‘This is how people get robbed,’” she said, “So I was just waiting on him to use it.”

Paulus described what happened next, “Adam pulled out his gun and told her to get on the ground and that’s when she started messing around with her gun. It jammed once but they both shot at each other and she was shot a few times and he was shot only once.”

 Law and Crime supply a few more details. From Law and Crime:

At one point, HIDER looked away and lowered her guard, Victim #1 pulled his pistol from his waistband and ordered HIDER to drop her weapon. HIDER said, “Are you serious?” She cocked her gun and started firing, and Victim # 1 returned fire simultaneously while falling to the ground. While on the ground, Victim #1 said, “You shot me,” and fired one last time at HIDER. After the shooting stopped, HIDER said, “Why did you shoot? It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

In situations where someone has the drop on you and is momentarily distracted, there is a limited time for your action to beat their reaction, in the neighborhood of 3/4 of a second.

In this case, there seems to have been a little more time, as Hider is said to have answered Adam Simjee and taken some action with her firearm before both started to fire.

When someone threatens your life, conversing with them is not a good idea. This has been acknowledged in popular movies. In The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Tuco says, “When you have to shoot, shoot, don’t talk.”

John Wayne, in The Shootist, says his advantage is he does not hesitate when it is time to shoot, essentially saying: most men hesitate. I don’t. Clip from The Shootist: Most men aren’t willing.

Adam Simjee showed good tactical awareness by waiting for the right moment. Then he hesitated. Shots were exchanged. He was killed. Most people do not want to take a life. At short range, it is not uncommon for both participants in a gunfight to be hit or for both participants to be missed. Hesitation can be deadly. Simjee expected compliance. Instead, he received a deadly bullet.

Life is complex. Uncertainty is common.  In the tragic case of the good Samaritan college students in the Alabama forest, hesitation was a deadly mistake.

Less than a month later, Bearing Arms story feels far darker

I write a lot of stuff here at Bearing Arms. More than one-third of all the content on this site has my name on it, and I haven’t exactly been here from the beginning.

As a result, I often write a story, and then forget it after a week or two. It’s impossible to remember everything I wrote unless something sparks my memory and not necessarily even then. It’s a lot to remember.

Yet it’s all there in the archive, waiting to remind me.

Most of the time, that’s not newsworthy. I’ll take a look at a story I forgot about and read it, then go back to the rest of my day. Yet looking for one on the site yesterday, I came across something that, at the time, wasn’t that big of a deal. It didn’t deal with American gun control or anything that would impact us. It was a group of people voicing their support for gun control.

I’ve literally written thousands of those stories.

What makes this one weird in the here and now is just who it was arguing against guns.

If you’re a gun owner and haven’t actively done everything you could to keep that on the down low, there’s a good chance someone has referred to you as some kind of domestic terrorist. After all, some people think the very act of owning a gun is a terroristic act.

These people are demented, of course, but they exist. Let’s also not forget that the NRA was called a domestic terrorist organization despite no evidence of an act of terrorism carried out by an NRA member.

Yet Hamas is a terrorist organization, according to the US State Department. They’ve been linked to all kinds of terrorist acts over the years.

And guess where they stand on people carrying guns?

The issue was a suggestion that Jewish settlers should carry guns. Hamas called it “incitement to murder” and denounced it, apparently arguing that settlers doing so would create a danger.

Well, now we know what that danger was.

I wrote that here on Bearing Arms on September 18th, about a day or so after the initial response by Hamas.

Now, understand that what we saw wasn’t the result of a two-day planning session. It wasn’t the result of something that just cobbled together over a lunch meeting. Hamas’ attack on Israel was a well-coordinated assault that probably took months to plan.

Including the month in which Hamas told Jewish settlers that they didn’t really need guns and that saying so was “fascist.”

Here at Bearing Arms, we are one of many sites dedicated to preserving our Second Amendment rights. Israel had no such protections, either from their constitution or sites like ours or our friends across the internet. They were relatively disarmed, even with calls to carry guns.

And Hamas capitalized on it.

It’s kind of hard not to now wonder how many of the groups that are calling for gun control here in the US have similar designs. Hamas knew what it was planning even as it denounced calls for settlers to carry guns because they preferred to have less resistance when they invaded. How many American groups of people also would like to carry out vile attacks on their opposition and want gun control so as to help facilitate that?

Well, they’re not going to find easy prey here and there are a whole lot of us who stand ready to make sure they don’t.

‘Calling forth the Militia’ – Americans Prepare for Terror Attacks

The enemy is at the gate. One need only look at the Iranian-backed genocide in Israel to see what they have in store for this country if their plans succeed.

Clearly, Joe Biden helped get us into this dire situation.

  • Biden allowed millions of military-age males to enter this country illegally, including hundreds on the terror watch list. You could see them rallying yesterday in major cities across the United States, celebrating the terrorist atrocities in Israel.
  • Biden ignored Iranian sanctions and allowed them to generate more than $40 billion in oil revenue, which they used to fund their terror campaigns. And then he gave them $6 billion more in an ill-conceived ransom payment.
  • Biden gifted the terrorists in Afghanistan more than $7 billion in military equipment, including aircraft, armored vehicles, explosives, small arms and ammunition. Time will tell if these weapons are being used against Israeli Defense Forces.
  • While he was arming terrorists, Biden used every trick in the book to disarm law-abiding Americans. He even created an office in the White House to coordinate his plans for total civilian disarmament.

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