Whatever happened to...

[lclev]

I know that on this issue, we will never arrive at an equitable consensus. Too many diverse cultures and countries living in different situations.

I have debated long and hard on whether to share the following two incidents that happened to me. No statistics, no inflation, just the facts.

There have been two times in my life I have had to draw a gun to protect myself.

The first time was at a state fairground in an isolated camping area where I was parking by a friend’s camper. A man, who made it obvious he wanted to rob and harm me, approached me. I didn't have to read much into his actions as he was telling me (and so was his knife) what he had planned. There was no one else around or within shouting distance. My husband had insisted I care a gun with me since I would be on this trip alone. I thought he was over reacting as I was meeting with friends. All I can say now is I am glad he insisted. When I pulled the gun out, it changed everything. The guy threw his hands up, started saying he was just kidding, backed up and took off running.

The second time I was walking with a friend in a local cemetery, which we do all the time for exercise. A man came racing back to where we were in a pickup truck. He stopped, got out, and let his dog out. It was obvious he was drunk - and was still drinking beer. He noticed us walking and I heard him sic his dog on us. I was shocked to say the least, and I was praying in my head, "Don't make me shoot this dog!" I yelled, "Bad dog - no" at the dog when he got close to us, and it worked! The dog returned to his owner who proceeded to put the dog in his truck and cruise over to us. I proceeded to walk back and opening my truck door so I could conceal the gun when I drew it out. I did not want to escalate the situation. He drove by us and I watched his hands on the steering wheel. He ended up calling us an inappropriate name and roared off.
In both incidences, I am very glad I did not have to make the decision to pull the trigger.

A few concluding thoughts:

1 - For women, a gun can provide an advantage over a man in a life or death situation.

2 - There is no doubt in my mind that in the first scenario, I would have been severely wounded or killed. He made his intent very clear.

3 - There were no police persons or cameras around to help or observe. Yes, both incidences were reported to local police and neither persons were ever found.

4 - Until you are in a situation where you need a gun for self-defense you cannot know how that feels or have a valid opinion.

Lisa

 

[Dysfunction]

I'm still amazed that so many Americans think it's a good idea to carry a gun. Here in the UK we don't carry guns - we tend not to get shot either.

Americans seem to be very keen to kill each other. Also one of the very highest percentages of incarcerated per capita in the first world. It is painfully obvious that something is wrong, culturally, in the United States to have the crime statistics it does.

 

[BlackBoxInquiry]

Try some of the sources 3rd post up.

 

[XJ-linux]

Speaking of firearms... Colt lowered pricing to distributors this week. I just ordered a new O1970A1CS for $841 (vs $934). Git some!

 

[toMACsh]

More "evidence":
Just the other day, a woman in our city was carjacked. She is the mother of young children, for what that is worth. She was shot three times, and has lost her vision in one eye. The young "tough" who was arrested said he "was tired of walking and had a gun" when asked why he did it. If he didn't have a gun, presumably he would have kept on walking.

 

[XJ-linux]

Here's an interesting interview with Wyatt Earp on gunplay. Appears even back in the day, exaggeration and drama were apparent.

WYATT EARP ON SHOOTING VS. GUNFIGHTING | LooseRounds.com

 

[zewazir]

More "evidence":
Just the other day, a woman in our city was carjacked. She is the mother of young children, for what that is worth. She was shot three times, and has lost her vision in one eye. The young "tough" who was arrested said he "was tired of walking and had a gun" when asked why he did it. If he didn't have a gun, presumably he would have kept on walking.

Glad you put the word "evidence" in quotations, since anyone knows anecdotal "evidence" is the weakest sort, and never amount to more than just what it is: a story.

That said, what evidence is there the young thug obtained his firearm legally? This is a valid question, because no matter how many laws you care to put on the books making it difficult, or outright unlawful for the average citizen to own and/or bear a firearm, the CRIMINAL, by definition, will not give a ripe pig fart about those laws. The ONLY people who are disarmed by gun bans are those who already obey the law.

Final comment: your supposition that the person would have simply walked on had he not had a firearm is, at best, fantasy. You can, if you wish to give yourself a lesson in crime and its relation to the average citizen, can easily look up hundreds of instances in which car jackings were accomplished using anything from knives to clubs to bare hands. Comes to mind a case I heard of a few years back in which the criminal used their bare hands to subdue their victim, then proceeded to kill the victim by running them down with their own vehicle.

Criminals are criminals, and the concept that taking away a preferred tool of violent criminals would decrease their criminal activities is just plain ignorant.

 

[toMACsh]

There was nothing in the news report to indicate how the youngster got his hands on the gun. As for the "fantasy" aspect, I was merely concluding from his own statement that having the gun is what emboldened him to act. (and that didn't turn out to be your final comment)

Is the statement or confession of the perpetrator considered anecdotal in a court of law? I'm not sure; any real lawyers reading this, please enlighten us. But I do know from many reports of trials that eyewitness accounts (someone other than the perpetrator telling what he/she saw) are terribly unreliable.

Your conclusion that in the case I "reported" that the young man was previously convicted of a crime, that is, a "criminal" is pure speculation. I did not supply that information, and presumably you did not see the same news report on my local TV station. Maybe this was his first offense, and he just made a very bad decision. I don't know.

You reached a conclusion for me; thank you for that. Problem is that it's yours, not mine. I won't characterize that; just an observation.

 

[XJ-linux]

Clearly, what's needed, is new laws targeted at the 99.9% of 80,000,000 owners who do not misuse their firearms.

 

[zewazir]

You reached a conclusion for me; thank you for that. Problem is that it's yours, not mine. I won't characterize that; just an observation.

No, I did not "reach a conclusion for you." What I did was point out the fallacies of YOUR supposition (ie: conclusion) that the car jacking would not have occurred if the criminal did not have a firearm.

The first fallacy is the ever-so-obvious implication that gun control laws would prevented him from having a firearm. Bottom line: no they do not prevent criminal from obtaining and using firearms to commit crimes.

The second fallacy is - the person's statement not withstanding - that the crime would not have taken place without the firearm. For instance, the individual (since you seem to have a problem with calling people who commit crime by the label criminals) the individual had not had a firearm, could still have decided he was tired of walking and used a rock. "I was tired of walking, and saw a handy rock." (or club, or tire iron, or knife, or any one of a hundred potential items which can be used as a weapon)

The REAL point of your anecdote is the sad state of our society in which a person can develop the attitude that because they are "tired of walking" they have the justification, in their own minds, to harm another person and steal their vehicle. When we address the ACTUAL causes of violent crime, instead blaming which tool they use and focusing on the politically convenient, but totally ignorant aspect of limiting legal use of firearms, then just MAYBE we can pull down our horrendous violent crime rates.

 

[toMACsh]

No, I did not "reach a conclusion for you." What I did was point out the fallacies of YOUR supposition (ie: conclusion) that the car jacking would not have occurred if the criminal did not have a firearm.

Well, yes you did. You took my supposition about a specific occurrence and extrapolated it to an entire population of people that we cannot say definitively the young man in "my" story was a member of. Of course, now that we know he has committed one crime, we can call him a criminal, but having no prior information we cannot say whether or not he was one when he acquired the gun. We just don't have sufficient information to support that conclusion.

 

[XJ-linux]

Well, it would appear that:

A) the gun was reported stolen from the shooter's mother, a few hours before the shooting occurred
B) the shooter was a juvenile (unsupervised handgun possession is a crime, even if you are a choir boy, even if the gun was legally obtained)
C) the shooter had just gotten off parole for a 2010 robbery (my guess is probation, but the article says parole) Shooter is 17, so he was 12 when he committed robbery. Parole or probation, for a violent crime it is again illegal to possess a handgun at any age, and regardless of whether it was stolen or not.
D) he has been arrested 6 times since 2009 ie: since age 11

Teen arrested after shooting woman during carjacking, police say | Local News - WISN Home

My personal impression is that the shooter was inclined towards poor impulse control and may well have bashed the mother's brains in to avoid walking if the mood struck him and he was unarmed. I don't believe the gun seduced him into committing a crime.

 

[zewazir]

I find it amazing the extreme to which members of the anti-gun crowd will contort themselves in order to make a firearm, rather than the user of the firearm, appear to be the instigator of a crime.

The bottom line is having a firearm does NOT compel a person to commit crime, no matter how one spins like a top to present anecdotal "evidence". The concept that a crime would not have been committed IF the criminal did not have the firearm is simply naive.

 

[Sawday]

I find it amazing the extreme to which members of the anti-gun crowd will contort themselves in order to make a firearm, rather than the user of the firearm, appear to be the instigator of a crime.

The bottom line is having a firearm does NOT compel a person to commit crime, no matter how one spins like a top to present anecdotal "evidence". The concept that a crime would not have been committed IF the criminal did not have the firearm is simply naive.

Tell me then, if the criminal did NOT have a firearm, how could he commit a firearm offence?

 

[XJ-linux]

The crimes against the victim are essentially carjacking and aggravated assault or possibly attempted murder. They are aren't "firearms crimes" per se, just violent crimes. Focusing on mechanics rather than results is a bit obtuse, though it is good for prosecutors so they can leverage confessions or pleas in a case without full trial. However, it sort of moves the focus off the root causes and situation that caused the crime - a young person who for many reasons we might want to dig into, has been committing violent crimes since age 11. And does one feel better or less violated if they are blinded by a 17 year old via a knife, or a bat to the face, as opposed to a .22LR revolver? If they preferred to be shanked and not shot, and got their wish, is it a lesser or different crime?

 

[Sawday]

Just wondering how many here would agree that anyone carrying a gun deserves to be shot?

 

[toMACsh]

Teen arrested after shooting woman during carjacking, police say | Local News - WISN Home

Ok, the kid is a punk. Your digging proves that. This probably means I put too much stock in his statement, which obviously does not tell the whole story.

As far as the use of a gun in a crime vs. other weapons (which could include a fist), the point to make is that the outcome is more likely to be more severe for the victim if a gun is fired. It only takes a fraction of a second to pull a trigger. To beat or stab someone to inflict the same trauma of a gun shot wound would take considerably longer. In short, it's easier to kill someone with a gun than with any other weapon available to a criminal.

 

[XJ-linux]

Just wondering how many here would agree that anyone carrying a gun deserves to be shot?

I would disagree that anyone carrying a gun deserves to be shot. Based on available state data, 11.1 million non-law enforcement Americans legally carry a gun. I don't think I could support shooting them based on the sole fact they carry guns.

 

[zewazir]

Ok, the kid is a punk. Your digging proves that. This probably means I put too much stock in his statement, which obviously does not tell the whole story.

Actually the statement tells a lot about the individual. The fact that his only motivation for committing the crime was being "tired of walking" immediately places the mind set of the individual as one who cares nothing for others, has absolutely zero respect for property, and also has a minimal respect for life itself. As such it was no risk at all to place the label of criminal on him, as people with that type of mind set are invariably habitual criminals.

His statement told me that it was unlikely that the presence of the firearm had significant influence on the commission of the crime, but was rather simply the tool chosen, out of innumerable tools available to him.

In short, the crime occurred because the person who did it is a thug, plain and simple. The implication that the gun CAUSED the crime is outright ludicrous.

 

[zewazir]

Tell me then, if the criminal did NOT have a firearm, how could he commit a firearm offence?

You missed the point entirely. The claim was the crime would not have happened if the perpetrator did not have a firearm. That claim is naive at best.