Guns and Self-Defense Facts

 "For each instance of successful self-defense or justifiable homicide using a gun, there were twenty-two cases of assault or criminal homicide, unintentional homicide, suicide and attempted suicide using a gun."
-  Arthur L Kellerman, et al., 'Injuries and Deaths Due to Firearms in the Home', in the Journal of Trauma: Injury, Infection and Critical Care, 45:2 (1998).  

This is not counting the non-lethal but serious injuries from gunshots.  Many more people injure themselves while playing with guns.  

Too many Americans watch all those old white power Western movies.  Now, in 2020, most of us live in urban and suburban neighborhoods, not the West of the 19th century.  Improved gun control and safety measures are more sensible in our day.  

Crazy Killers with Arsenals

Crazy Killers with Arsenals

Another disheartening tragedy in Las Vegas!  The senseless mass murder of 59 people, and the injuring of over 500 people at an outdoor country music concert.  Distressing, unfathomable, horrific, evil, shameful.  A deep sorrow for all affected and concerned.  A very sad day!  

I've written numerous times about these terrible incidents and my response to them.  For Example, Prepping for the Kill in 2015.  

How many guns did the wealthy heartless killer Stephen Paddock own?  Police found 42, 19 at the crime scene.  Seriously, 42 rifles and guns.  The cruel diversions of some rich men are disgusting.  

I realize that even with strict gun control, like that found in more peaceful countries without frequent mass murders, this will not prevent some murder.  However, maybe NOT the murder of 59 persons and injuring over 500 people in one unforgettable night.  

Is Carrying a Concealed Weapon Unsafe?

I got into a Facebook discussion with advocates of CCW (Carrying Concealed Weapons).  They offered training in gun handling and gave you what looked like a police badge to carry around.  

I asked: “Does anyone know how many gun carrying persons either shoot themselves by accident, or their children shoot themselves by accident, or shoot an innocent person through negligence or by accident; as opposed to shooting or making a citizens arrest of another person in a case of legitimate self-defense?  I'd wager that the former case far out weights the latter. Seems rather unsafe, unnecessary, and unwise to be carrying around a loaded weapon in your waistband.”

It is simply a question that requires a rational assessment of risk vs rewards/benefits.  

I am not discussing the “right to own arms or bear arms.”  I am not discussing hunters in the woods, or the few folks living in the wilderness.  

The responses to me were varied, often irrational, and off the point: get out of the country, you are irresponsible, you don't know, policemen carry guns and don’t shoot themselves, get a life, my "rights," etc.  

There are legitimate cases where a person needs to carry a concealed loaded gun based on dangerous occupations, dangerous work areas, safety, security, etc..  Hopefully, they are trained and very responsible, and, I prefer, licensed and insured. 

Many people own guns, but keep them safely locked up in their homes.  I’m a veteran and own guns, but keep them at home.  

I think the vast majority of Americans think the risks of carrying a loaded gun in their waistband or purse are far greater than the benefits or advantages.  The vast majority see no need to carry a loaded gun in their waistband or purse into the workplace, supermarket, church, school, barber shop, restaurant, gas station, hospital, library, repair shop, retail stores, a park, on a drive in the country, etc.  

Every year in America, over 100,000 people are shot with a gun.  

Most people don’t like to be around people carrying loaded weapons in public; and, rightly or wrongly, associate such concealed weapon carriers (CCW) with criminals, hot heads, loose cannons, paranoid people, bullies, misguided folks, or people with a pretentious hero complex. Many States have passed laws against non-licensed and unauthorized persons CCW.  Most of the responses to CCW Facebook books are against the idea.  The clear FACT is that the vast majority of Americans DO NOT carry a concealed weapon on their waistband or purse because they think it to be unsafe, unnecessary, and somewhat disrespectful of common social customs.    

One CCW post stated that it would be a "miscue" to get angry and make a mistake and misjudge another person and threaten them with a loaded gun or shoot them.  A "miscue"??  More like a criminal offence: brandishing a weapon, aggravated assault, criminal negligence, or manslaughter.  

Currently, some Republicans in the U.S. Congress are proposing bills to expand the ability of citizens to carry concealed weapons.  The NRA lobby, gun and bullet makers, and some citizens support this idea.  I do not.  

To drive an automobile you must meet age and many other legal requirements, be trained, pass tests, receive a valid licence, register your vehicle, purchase insurance, keep you car properly maintained, and follow all the rules and laws of the road.  I want to see the same kind of controls and requirements for carrying loaded weapons in public.  Cars and negligent drivers can injure, maim, or kill people. Guns and negligent users can injure, maim, or kill people.  Apply the same sensible social controls and regulations to both.  


Over 2,200 years ago, the sage, Lao Tzu, wrote down in the Tao Te Ching, Chapter 80, some advice on this matter.  

Though you have armor and weapons enough
Have no reason to parade them.

Though there are arms and soldiers,
There is no occasion to stage public reviews.

And, though there are weapons,
People do not carry them.

Although there are weapons and armours,
There are no occasions to display them.

There may be armour and weaponry yet they will sit collecting dust



Another perspective on this question of risk vs reward/benefit is the issue of statistics.  These statistics, if true, should make you think, and keep matters in perspective:

Prepping For the Kill

While driving to work in Corning, there is a large old broken down Army truck along the Interstate 5 freeway.  On the side of the truck is a large sign: "PREPPERS  AMMUNITION AVAILABLE!"  What are these paranoid Preppers preparing for?  What do they need more ammunition for?  Truthfully, they are preparing to kill some innocent animals or human beings.
 
I live in a safe, quiet, rural area.  The cities near me are Red Bluff and Redding.  Both cities are ranked in the top ten most Redneck cities in California.  Rednecks, often right wing white Republicans, are a fearful and selfish lot always fretting about and Prepping for civil war, race war, Christian Defense war, or some kind or other of end of the world spiritual apocalypse.  They seem forever to be lamenting that they can't trust anyone.  They seem happier when hating somebody. 

This week, a 7th grade boy was checking out a hunting book in the library.  I asked him if he enjoyed this hunting season.  He said that he liked to shoot squirrels with his rifle.  I asked if he ate squirrels.  He said "No."  "Why do you kill them," I asked politely.  He smiled and answered, "for fun."

The sociopath that killed 9 people at an Oregon Community College last week had 14 guns in his apartment.  You know that he spent hours fondling guns and bullets, allowing his petty discontents about women fester in his sick mind as he relished the feel of his precious steel guns.  The callous deranged killer of 26 children and adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School had many guns in his home, and spent countless hours playing violent shoot and kill video games.  The racist murderer of 9 people at a church service in South Carolina, toyed with guns as he harbored the drug addled thoughts of a cold blooded White-Power killer.  The Colorado movie theater killer, dressed like GI Joe or some ISIS thug, loaded down with automatic weapons, bombs, tear gas, and bullet proof vests, showed his lust for gunning down 82 innocent people for no reason whatsoever.  The Columbine High boys, dressed in black like some kind of faux Matrix ninjas, murdered 12 and wounded 21 more, and shot people in the face like they were killing squirrels.  The scoundrel traitor Major Hasan screamed "Allau Akabar" as he murdered 13 and wounded 30 of his fellow soldiers, all highly trained to defend themselves, at Fort Hood.  A right-wing extremist machine gunned and killed 77 teenagers on a holiday in Norway.  How many wives and children have been shot to death by a discontented, angry, jealous, or cruel husband— a weak and pathetic man with a steel trigger on his finger?  A child arguing with and killing a neighbor child with a pistol?  And, how many people kill with guns "for fun."  Wake Up People: Over 11,000 people are murdered with a gun every year in America. 

We poured ice cold water over our heads and raised funds for the ALS victims.  5,000 unfortunate persons die of ALS each year in America.  Over 11,000 people are murdered with a gun every year in America.  How many tens of thousands more are seriously injured from gunshot wounds each year in America???  Every year, in America, over 100,000 people are shot with a gun. 

I read this week an excellent opinion piece by Paul Waldman titled  "Ben Carson Perfectly Explains the Republican Position on Guns."  These Republican candidates support a bizarre solution to this rampant gun violence: sell more guns and put more guns in more people's hands; or, Jeb Bush shrugs and says "stuff happens" and we should do nothing.

More people wearing pistols into supermarkets, churches, schools, shopping centers, bars, restaurants?  Everyone tensed and armed and fearful and untrusting and waiting and enabled to kill three people in five seconds?  No limits on guns?  Teachers and preachers with guns strapped to their waist?  Great news for the NRA, gun manufactures, bullet manufactures, holster makers, gun salesmen- all those that greedily profit from gun fetishism and killing urges.  However, not so good news for me shopping for groceries at Raley's when some drunken local redneck yokel thinks I offended his fragile honor, and, with pistol holstered and ready at hand ... bang, bang, I'm dead. Crazy!  Like that gun toting retired policeman who shot to death a man in a movie theater because the discourteous fellow spilled some popcorn on him and talked too loud. 

In the days of the first version of the Constitution, pistols and rifles could just make one shot.  One shot, and then time to reload.  [Ben Carson could back then lead the charge to tackle the one bullet bully and save the day; then, he could go back to being the slave of some heartless white Southern plantation owner.]  Naturally, with that kind of firepower in those long ago days of only farmers in back woods settlements, there was little question about "the right to bear arms."  We live in different times.  Modern arms can rapid fire many shots in seconds.  Nearly everyone lives in a city.  It is high time to change the Constitution regarding this out of date "right."  The "Constitution" has changed many times, e.g., Christian men refused to allow all women to vote until after 1920 (19th Amendment).  Change the laws about gun manufacturing, sales, ownership, and use. 

99.99% of people flying on airplanes are not terrorists, but we have no problem with spending hundreds of millions of dollars each year trying to prevent terrorist attacks on airplanes.  What are we doing to prevent gun worshippers and assorted angry lunatics from killing over 11,000 people just last year in America?  Or, from killing millions of innocent animals "for fun."  What are we doing?  Nothing— "stuff happens."


Guns do kill people.  People kill people with guns.  People kill innocent animals with guns.  People who own and use guns do think about and fantasize about killing animals and people.  Preppers are preparing to kill people and animals and lurking foreign terrorists.  Countless video games and television shows feature killing, crimes, violence, gangs, hunting animals, and gun fun.  If that is not enough, we invent new creatures to kill: the walking dead zombies, vampires, demons, ghosts, Big Foot, space aliens, monster snakes, godzilla, mutated flies ...  Shame on America.  Cruel America.  Violence loving America.  Just last year, this hate filled, fearful, desperate, and self-loathing America had over 21,000 people put a gun to their head and blow their brains apart.  Ugly!  Unnecessary!

Some people have proposed reasonable solutions to gun control that need to be adopted.  Stop manufacturing and selling military grade weapons and machine guns.  Make gun owners and gun manufacturers pay for special insurance, just like we do for automobiles, to provide some measure of restitution to persons wounded by guns or killed by guns.  Educate children in schools about the dangers of guns, e.g., over 500 people are killed each year in American in gun "accidents."  Legislators can do something!  More important, Americans need to shed their cowboy fantasies, their gun fetishes, their worship of firearms, their perverted desires to possess more and more guns and display them in a threatening manner, and stop the celebration of killing innocent wild animals.  Some changes can be legislated, others must come from a change of heart and mind. 

Men once thought that smoking tobacco was macho cool, part of the rugged cowboy mystique.  Seeing a few wheezing and emaciated smoker friends suffering miserably and dying of emphysema or cancer in a modern hospital room, and anti-smoking public education campaigns, and restricting smoking in public locations, and warning labels, and higher taxes on tobacco ... all have resulted in fewer people smoking these days.  Why not some similar efforts at defusing our gun loving mania and murderous ways in America?

And, reduce the number of hours you waste watching television.  Television is largely a pathetic front for commercial advertising wrapped around programs featuring violence or trivial humor or celebrity worship. Watching fewer crime dramas might help reduce our urges to kill someone.  Come on people, Duck Dynasty?, dirty bearded stinky old men killing animals and drinking beer, or poor anti-social loners hunting caribou in wild Alaska ... how is this relevant to how 90% of Americans actually live.  Or, watching old rich rock stars tell us about the joys of blasting ducks apart with shotguns and being shills for the NRA is just blow-hard tiresome ted.  Wake up!  Stop feeding your violent fantasies!  Grow vegetables, garden, nuture loving kindness, cultivate decent friendships, create peace; don't daydream about sawing the antlers off a deer's bloody skull that you shot to death "for fun."  Realign your values!   


Seems like, in America, the family that kills together stays together.  Teach you children well, Papa Rifleman.  Their camouflaged bravado— really just pretending to mask their underlying defensiveness, weakness, fears, and lusts to kill something.  Sure, Donald Trump, let these kinds of gun toting folks into your church or restaurant or casino— you can really trust people that fondle automatic weapons.  They look Prepped, grossly fat from eating dead ducks and armadillos, and ready to blast away anybody who questions their sanity.  We will let Ben Carlson, that phony and unrealistic pseudo hero, rush to the front of the class when these types of folks come into the classroom Prepped to kill us all.   

                       
[Unquestionably, rants like the above include some exaggerations and sharp rhetoric.  Many Red Bluff and Redding folks are decent, honest, kind, and trustworthy.  Not all gun owners think about killing animals or other people.  Self-defense does have a legitimate place in our lives; rarely, thankfully.  There are a few Republicans like Gabby Giffords that support some gun control measures.  Nevertheless, I still stand by my main points: many people have an excessive and dangerous gun loving addiction, we encourage and pleasure ourselves with violence excessively, and we lack the will and courage to self-change and public-change away from this trend towards fear-hate, stockpiling guns, killing animals, and a bang bang your dead macho but unmanly bravado.]