It's nice to see some thoughtful, considered posts on this topic. I've also been on the business end of a gun - only it was a 12 year-old on the other end. Daddy wouldn't lock up his hunting rifle, and that's what happened. I could have been killed.

I'm not anti-gun; just anti-stupidity.

Everything here seems spot-on.

But I got a completely unexpected giggle out of "gnu-control". Sure enough, that's what the caveat on the earlier post says. And I am forced to admit that I have not yet made up my mind about gnu control. The Constitution is inexplicably silent on the subject.

Public Notice: Anybody who comes along and posts stupid gnu-control flaming boilerplate in my Comments section will find out about my magic powers to Edit and Delete.

Ah, the menace of uncontrolled gnus. When will these maniacs see sense?

I think anyone who wants to should be allowed to carry a gnu. At the worst it will keep them occupied and we'll all feel safer as a result.

Awesome post.

I have not been very level headed about this subject....I've just been too angry.

I've only been held up at gun point once. New years eve 1999. I was a rose girl...so me in a formal dress and coat..carrying a basket of roses and lots of cash in a hidden pocket.

They guy brought his girlfriend over and pointed a gun at me.

I didn't say anything, I calmly raised my fist and knocked on the large window to the police department...thirty cops turned to look at us. The guy gave me the money for a rose and then walked away.

I was extremely scared, I didn't even think. I can't imagine how I even thought about my surroundings.

I've been saving up for a gun...mainly to have in my house. Right now I practice with my BF's. I grew up around guns, I am not afraid of them.

I have only seen one man shot. It bother me because though I saw it. I was there, I heard it , I saw the man fall. Later the police claim that he was just hit with a blunt object and walked out of the hospital.

That bothers me. Blunt objects don't make that noise.

What I found most scary about Derbyshire's comment is his own admission that he's a LOUSY shot even though he practices regularly.

I haven't fired a gun in several years, in part because I know I'm not willing to keep in practice. (On the whole, I'd rather be biking. Or reading. Or whatever.)

But I got better with practice. Derbyshire, by his own admission, does not.

Which means that if he were the CCW person in Jamie Bishop's classroom, the damage would have been even more severe, with more bystanders endangered.

gnu control (for those not familiar) was a dodge used on the USENET r.a.sf.* hierarchy (mostly in .written and .fandom, AIR) to dodge various searches (people would search for "gon control" and go in and make barely reasoned, ill-thought out, ranting and screaming arguments, about gnu control, on USENET? Say it ain't so!).

It's outlasted many of our actual stays on USENET, naturally enough.

I've been on the right side of a gun (that is, I was holding it). I didn't have to pull the trigger, and for that I thank all the gods. I tell myself that I could have if I'd needed to, but looking back on it from nearly 20 years distance, I no longer know.

I was coming home late, late one night. I stopped to turn left onto my street; a truck stopped behind me. I turned; he turned. I went past the first cross street; he turned off.

I thought, "Oh, just a coincidence."

I pulled into my driveway; he came around the block and pulled in behind me. I sat for a minute in my locked car; he sat.

I came to the conclusion that he did not have my best interests in mind. Given that I was carrying a gun on a regular basis at that time (yet another long story), I took it out of its case and got out of the car, holding it at my side.

He got out of his truck and said, "Don't be afraid of me, little girl."

I reaffirmed my earlier conclusion, brought the gun into a shooting stance, and said, "I'm not."

He got back in his truck, closed and locked the door, and put his hands up on the windshield. (I find that last a very telling action.)

I backed away as far as the gate to the courtyard, ran through it and to my apartment, and locked myself in.

I was then dive-bombed by a palmetto bug the size of my hand, and if weren't for the fact that my dad taught me good gun etiquette and I'd taken my finger off the trigger while I was running, I'd have blown a hole in my damn ceiling. I spent the remainder of the night locked in my bathroom, whimpering, and got a neighbor to capture and release the bug in the morning.

I think that Old Jarhead has the right of it, and his recommendations make good sense. I hope I'm never in a situation where I find out for myself.

Oh, wow. Teresa Nielsen Hayden vs. Firearms Stupidity Field. Honey, bring the popcorn!

I don't know, really, that I have something new to say to this, but, let's see. It seems to me that the USA has a violence problem, which the firearms (and firearms industry) support. The violence problem, in turn, is aggravated by bellicosity--the USA has a nasty habit of getting into wars every generation or so--and, very specifically, by anti-drug laws.

On another track, what Old Jarhead describes what might be a basic fair training requirement for the universal state militias the Framers envisioned, and the states declined to fund. Perhaps it's time to dust off the old ideas and take another look. I think 'nam and Iraq have more than adequately shown that, just as the Framers feared, a standing army in the hands of the Federal government is an enormous and expensive temptation to military adventuring. Would the USA instead be better off with a network of state requirements?

Things that don't bother me:

1) Widespread gun ownership.

I grew up in a rural area with an enormous number of firearms--hunting rifles, shotguns, handguns, you name it. And these guns were owned by a wide range of people, including idiot teenagers, drunks, self-proclaimed rednecks, and hard-core poachers.

Now, all this sounds like it should be terrifying. But in fact, none of it ever bothered me. At least in a gun-owning rural culture, people tend to get saner in the presence of firearms. Pointing a gun at someone is as unthinkable as swerving a car into oncoming traffic.

2) Concealed-carry permits.

In most states, getting a concealed-carry permit requires filling out a stack of paperwork and taking firearm safety courses. People who go through this process are predisposed to be responsible, and empirically tend to be the sort of people whom you wouldn't mind carrying guns.

Things that scare the living daylights out of me:

1) Inexperienced urban handgun owners.

If you're going to own a gun, you need to be familiar with firearms. That means training and practice. The accident rates for urban handgun owners are terrifying, because so few of them know what they're doing.

2) Self-defense nutjobs starring in their own private movies.

You know the type: "Well, if somebody invaded my home, I'd blahblahblah clear the house blahblahblah tactical light blahblahblah..." And they never stop worrying about these scenarios. Somethin' just ain't right with these folks.

Gnus can be very dangerous, you know, especially when they stampede!

I shot a gun (replica of an 1860 Colt .44, lead ball and black powder) for the first time recently, and it was a very interesting experience. Granted, modern handguns are considerably easier in many ways--loading doesn't require a great deal of upper arm strength, they often rechamber automatically and don't jam as readily, and they're a lot lighter--but the first post you quote here in particular rings true to me.

If you aren't going to put in serious practice with any weapon (or unarmed self-defense technique), you shouldn't rely on being able to defend yourself with it in an emergency (this goes pretty strongly for people who carry knives for "self-defense," too, because knife fights are very nasty, up-close-and-personal, maiming-likely things). It even goes for commonly taught self-defense techniques like eye-gouging (which most people have a strong block against actually doing).

Gnus are a little heavy to carry around, though. Unless we're going to raise miniature ones.

====

I agree Old Jarhead's post is extremely well-thought out and makes good sense.

I've been close to gunfire, though never had it directed at me, nor had a gun held on me. I've lived in some pretty dicey neighborhoods, though. Ones where you know which rooms are least likely to accidentally contain bullets, for instance, and move there when the nightly gunfire starts.

Closest I've been is a gunfight that started in an alley, say... 100 feet or so away from me. I didn't take time to really look. I teleported to my front door instead. Or at least ran far faster than I realized I could -- I think it took maybe 3 seconds for me to cover the 30 or 40 yards to the door.

So, I can't say how I'd react if faced with someone with a gun who was, if not intent on shooting me, at least potentially willing to. I'd like to think that if I knew the person was going to shoot, I'd try something like rushing him just in hopes my largish mass would a) protect me and b) knock him over. But I don't know if I could.

In part this is because working retail jobs has drilled into me the idea that you cooperate with the person with the gun, should it happen. In a robbery, that's probably the best thing you can do: open the drawer, hand over the money, let them take what goods they want, and hope they aren't crazy.

Obviously, a madman intent on shooting whomever is in their path is a far different proposition. But whether or not I could recognize that was what was going on and not freeze up, well, until and unless it happens to me, I'll never know.

As far as gun ownership goes, I refuse to have one. I don't like 'em, I don't want them around me, I don't even want to learn to shoot one. I've had rudimentary gun safety taught me, but it didn't involve handling a gun. "The gun is always loaded even if you don't think it is.", "Don't point it unless you mean it."... that sort of thing. On the off chance I were to allow a gun in the house, there'd be a gun locker.

But I won't tell someone else not to own one. They exist, I can't change that, so the best I can hope for is good education about them (hence the suggestion in the other thread) and that more people who have them are sane than not.

That was an excellent post by Old Jarhead. I've been thinking about it all day, and I'm glad you called attention to it, Teresa.

Old Jarhead, could you describe 'the passive defensive measures' for protecting yourself against an attacker that you mention in your comment? That sounds like damned useful information.

All I really retain from a long-ago self-defence course is that if someone attacks you in the street you should not yell 'Help!' but rather 'Fire!'. (People may not come out of their houses to assist another person in danger, but they certainly will if they think their property is alight... it's probably counter-indicated if you are threatened by someone with a gun, in case they perceive 'Fire' as an instruction...)

Expanding on "Old Jarhead" a bit -- it matters a lot *how* you practice, precisely because you're likely to do what you practiced in an emergency. I'm deeply suspicious of IPSC and IDPA competition as a good simulation, for example (unless you ignore your competitive standing and just use the opportunity to practice good gun handling on the move -- and even then you're not allowed to do things that are important in the real world).

Some of the most important practice can happen with an unloaded gun at home -- in fact, most ranges won't *let* you draw from concealment and fire, so you pretty much *have* to do that without live ammo.

(For those who don't know me, I've been a certified Minnesota and Utah concealed carry instructor, and an NRA instructor in courses including personal protection in the home. I've never been in the military or police.)

The last apartment we had was a nice little unit, next to a slightly larger, slightly less nice one. One night, somebody was trying to communicate with the next-door apartments by horn code. Two honks for "I'm out here in the parking lot," two more for "I'm still out here in the parking lot," and so on. They were well into the "and so on" stage when I got tired of it and went out.

I had a brief dialog with the people in the car: something like "They're not coming out, and that's kind of annoying," so they went to try the door and I turned to go back in. My neighbor from the next apartment was there, and said I must be pretty brave to go out like that with nothing backing me up. He showed me his backup: a large pistol tucked into the back of his running shorts. Other neighbors were standing around. One of them said something that seemed to me to indicate that he might have some hardware on him too.

I went back inside. I seem to recall being at a loss for a reply.

When I was a teenager, living in rural Jamaica, I had to travel some distance to get to school. The driver of my school bus (a minibus, btw), a private contractor, picked me up one morning because I was at the stop early and he was on his way to the end of the route. At the end of the route, he stopped at a filling station. As he got out of the bus, I saw a gun in his waistband (a .38 revolver, as I recall). I commented on it, and he took it out and showed it to me, speaking of needing a gun 'for protection'.

That night I mentioned this, in all innocence, to my father. After he stopped raging, he sat down and wrote a letter to the headmaster saying, in essence, that he did not want his son driven by an idiot who'd carry a gun in a bus filled with teenagers, and who'd pull it out to show it off.

For the rest of that academic year, I rode on a different bus, which had to make a special stop for me. I also gained the opprobrium of my schoolmates, who felt that my father was making a big fuss about nothing.

A month later, he, the driver that is, got the contract to carry the school's football team to an away match in Montego Bay. Our team lost. The driver was standing by the bus as the match ended, and was jeered by supporters of the rival school. Finding this unpleasant he pulled out his revolver. This resulted in his being laughed at. He shot one of the people taunting him. Then he realised that he had five bullets in the gun, and a very angry crowd bearing down on him. He jumped in the minibus and drove off, only to be caught in traffic.

The crowd caught up with him, pulled him from the bus, and beat him to death. Had there been police present to rescue him from the crowd he might have met an identical fate in the lock-up, as the man he'd shot was a policeman's son.

When my father learnt of this, he commented that the man had died of stupidity. I have never doubted that judgment.

Notes on the Second Amendment:

Hezbollah, a well-regulated militia in tiny Lebanon, successfully resisted an invasion by one of the world's most powerful armies in the summer of 2006. A well-regulated militia, in place of a standing army, would likely serve America well in terms of homeland security. Imperial ambitions would have to be discarded along with overseas bases, but one immediate effect of that would be a reduction in foreign enmity.

On the other hand, the arms and arms-related industries in the United States are important contributors to the national wealth. Additionally, the American Department of Defense is probably the world's largest employer.

Pistols *are* the anti-seatbelt of safety measures. Fun to shoot, oh yes. Good to know how to handle them safely, sure. I think Mrs. Mjfgates even still has her concealed carry permit up to date. But ... carry one for SAFETY? That's just betting against the odds.

You know, I've fired a gun, (.357 at paper targets and shotgun at skeet as well as several summers of BBs at paper targets) and been glad for the opportunity to do so, but I can't say I'm very sympathetic to the idea that gun ownership is an acceptable thing in an urban environment.

It's a regular feature in our local paper to run stories like this:

Homicides reported by city police through
11:59 p.m. Tuesday:
116
Total for the same period in 2006: 104

For a map showing homicides in Philadelphia for 2006, along with articles about urban violence, visit http://go.philly.com/violence

Tuesday was the 107th day of the year.

Stories about someone getting killed in a gun battle with another armed participant are undoubtedly tragic to the families and loved ones of the dead, but they just don't have the weight of stories that include the phrases "stray", "toddler", or "mass".

Now, although you frequently hear tragic stories about toddler death or injury from things other than bullets, and although a mass killer could in theory use weapons that did not fire little metal projectiles, in practice the existence of these tragedies depends critically on the availability of firearms in an urban environment.

I'm not a cop, but I imagine that one of the worst things a cop could think of is having a little gun-packing "helper" at the scene of a shooting. My suspicion is that any civilian brandishing a gun in a situation like that is going to get shot by police, probably fatally. If I'm remembering correctly, a civilian did try to "help" police at the scene of a shooting at a courthouse in the Ft. Worth area a couple years ago. He had a gun. The guy who killed him (who had already shot his own wife and son) was wearing body armor and had a semiauto rifle. If you're ever unfortunate enough to be at the scene of a shooting, just get the hell down and try to stay out of the way. Otherwise, you're just making the cops' jobs more difficult.

Good post, especially the piece by Old Jarhead. In the mid-1980s I began target shooting at a range in Westchester with friends. They bought be a .22 rifle and I joined a range in NYC. I liked shooting but not the interest of people watching me as carried the gun case to the range in Manhattan on the subway. I eventually decided to give up the rifle. I agree with Old Jarhead -- I wasn't prepared to practice often enough to really shoot well and I wasn't sure I could shoot to kill and knew I shouldn't keep the rifle in my apartment in that case.

Someone else can probably comment with more authority on this, but, given that the original idea was to not have a standing army, and to have an active and well-drilled militia, I suspect (and this is *my* opinion; YMMV) that the second amendment was intended to keep the militia supplied with armed warm bodies, more than it was to assure the legality of hunting (NRA notwithstanding, and possibly also not with standing). Today the people who wrote that would probably say that means everyone wanting to carry would have to belong to the Guard, the reserves, the local police or sheriff's department, or *their* reserve units, and *practice their shooting* frequently.

Old Jarhead: nice comment. Nodded lots while reading.

One of my favorite aspects of the "Kino no Tabi" series of Japanese novels is that the main character, an expert shot, is shown practicing every day.

It's not just mentioned that they practice every day. It's included any time the normal daily or nightly preparations are described. "Got up, had breakfast, practiced draws." "Took a shower, practiced draws."

A lot of other books with gun-expert main characters don't ever show practice, or make it clear how central practice is to that person's daily life. Whenever that is done, I appreciate it.

Remember TV show The Avengers? A few years ago, I read that Steed's character never used firearms because actor Patrick Macnee refused to, if I remember correctly. He had had his fill of guns during the War.

Never been in a gun confrontation yet but have been in enough violent defend myself situations that in hindsight I know a gun would not have made me safer and never will. Even at the height of my paranoid hate against the world I want revenge stage I knew a gun was a express ticket to stupid death.
I just don't understand the delusion of guns being the first choice for defense in people that have never had to fight to survive either.
A gun to me is a clear symbol that you are not in control and are a prisoner of fear.
The militia trained husband's gun, given to us by friends when they started having kids, remains locked in its case in the back of the closet behind storage boxes without ammo to this very day.

I've had my home broken into 7 times in the last 13 years*. Those neighbors are now in jail, for a long time, but the feeling of violation still makes me a little tense/anxious at times.

I wouldn't/can't carry concealed because 1)I haven't got around to taking the class and 2)I work in places where you are proscribed from carrying. I do own interesting variety of guns, and the university I attended regularly wins NCAA rifle competitions. We like our guns. We also respect them as the tools they are.

For home defense, I have a nasty baseball bat and a shotgun. The shotgun is loaded with alternating one-ought, slug, and flare rounds. I honestly hope to never have to use either. I have a shotgun for the home because I don't have to do much more than point in the general direction of what I'm trying to hit. I don't go to the range like I should (John does), so I know my marksmanship isn't what it should be. I would be a menace to myself and everyone else.

*I have two cats. I buy catnip in the bulk foods section of the grocery store. Consequently, catnip can be found in little baggies in various drawers throughout my house. The last time the house was ransacked we discovered that every bag of catnip was gone. I still smile when I think of those idiots trying to light up on my catnip.

Who were your neighbors, Tania? The Furry Freak Brothers?

Tania... If I felt the need for a firearm for home defense, I'd go for a shotgun. Less likely to miss, and less likely to have a bullet land a few blocks away and inside someone else's body. Our home is not defenseless though. I have four dogs. Mind you, they look like they belong with Yukon Cornelius's team, but they sure make a racket. I also have a reproduction gladius. The edge isn't very sharp, but the miscreant wouldn't know that. And the point is sharp.

The thing I keep wanting to say, as an addendum to Old Jarhead's lovely piece, is that the idea of people with guns- especially, God save us all, sleep-deprived, hung-over, coffee pickled and academically stressed subadult primates (of which I own two, nearly 19 and nearly 21)- should be sufficient to frighten any sane person, but the behavior of a fired bullet in an crowded building with poor sightlines and, most likely, hollow wall interior construction should frighten the crazy and the dead.

Bullets are hard to stop (don't people watch Myth Busters, for goodness sake?) and fired bullets can have their course changed in unpredictable ways before they loose sufficient energy to be harmless. Rifle bullets can penetrate a frightening thickness of building materials before they stop. Hand gun bullets can easily retain killing power when fired through standard drywall and hollow core doors. A woman advocating for wide-spread concealed carry permits used the Killeen Luby's shooting as an example of a place where private guns would have cut the death count, and said she, herself, had locked her .38 in the car before she went into the restaurant; one of the things notoriously not good for stopping bullets is the human body- even if the brave armed citizens had managed to hit the shooter, how many people were behind him?

I'll say again that Old Jarhead's post is well worth reading. I'm glad Teresa brought it up to top level; it'll get the wider audience it deserves.

And I'd like to reiterate and expand here something I said in the "But we must also not lose sight" thread. To consider yourself skilled with any hand weapon you must have recent practice, and that practice must include the way the weapon will actually be used (this principle is not restricted to firearms). If you're going to be shooting paper targets, then range practice is all you need, but if you intend to defend yourself in a chaotic situation, then you need to practice drawing and firing at moving targets, and you must practice distinguishing friend from foe. Otherwise you could be even more dangerous to bystanders than the homicidal maniac with a gun you want to stop.

I was in the Army for 3 years, and in Vietnam for 1. I qualified on a number of weapons, and was really familiar with several of them. But that was 40 years ago, and I have not maintained my skills. So as far as I'm concerned, I'm back to amateur status; I would need to practice for some time before I would even be proficient at handling a firearm again, and that still would not regain any proficiency in combat. What I have retained, what anyone can expect to retain over time, is some understanding of the requirements for using a weapon, and enough familiarity that relearning the old skills can be done.

Serge - a sharp sword or a dull sword make little real difference - a dull sword, used properly, is just as debilitating, and easier on the rugs. Although they are still woefully difficult (psychologically) to plunge into someone. And it likely still gets to count as excessive force.

I much prefer a stick, and knowing how to use it. It's amazing how much less a stick says "deadly weapon" than, say, a deadly weapon. And deadly weapons don't calm anything down.

Paul Lalonde @ 30... I heartily agree. Let's put it this way. The gladius is not a light-weight thing, but I can easily handle because I work out. If I swung it at someone, blunt edge or sharp edge, something would break, and it wouldn't be the blade.

All this talk about gnus.

I can't help myself. I would if I could, believe me. But I can't.

Serge - we had a juvenile delinquent one road over and a drug house two lots down. The juvenile foolishly offended again once he was over 18. He's still in the local correctional center. The drug dealer finally got busted. Turns out that being in Alaska was a violation of his Texas parole, so he was extradited. The house belonged to his mother. One of my neighbors bought the property and razed the place to the ground.

Since the arrests, we haven't had a lick of crime in the neighborhood. We did have a drunk and naked stripper running down the road at 2 AM last summer, but she's one of our neighbors, and a really nice person. John volunteered himself to make sure that she didn't need any help. She didn't.

I was 'amused' when I moved to New Mexico to see that one bookstore felt the need to warn us that firearms weren't allowed within the premises.

"That book is MINE, you creep."
"I saw it first."
"Step away from it or else..."

Anyone else reminded of the "Pass the mustard!" cartoon from long ago?

So it's like Mr. Miyagi tells Daniel-san about karate: "Karate do yes, okay. Karate do no, okay. But karate do maybe, clshk! Squish like bug!"

I hear people say carrying a gun makes/would make them feel "safe".

Visit Darwin Awards and search for the words "gun" or "shoot"... You will find a long list of accounts of how guns combined with stupidity and alcohol kill gun owners.

Examples:
----------
(28 February 2000, Texas) A Houston man earned a succinct lesson in gun safety when he played Russian roulette with a .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol. Rashaad, nineteen, was visiting friends when he announced his intention to play the deadly game.

He apparently did not realize that a semiautomatic pistol, unlike a revolver, automatically inserts a cartridge into the firing chamber when the gun is cocked.

His chance of winning a round of Russian roulette was zero, as he quickly discovered.
http://darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin2000-04.html
----------

(21 December 1992, North Carolina)
Ken Charles Barger, 47, accidentally shot himself to death in December in Newton, when, awakening to the sound of a ringing telephone beside his bed, he reached for the phone but grabbed instead a Smith & Wesson .38 Special, which discharged when he drew it to his ear.
http://darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin1993-10.html

The last time the house was ransacked we discovered that every bag of catnip was gone.

Are you sure you weren't being burgled by cats?

[strikes forehead]

Cat-burglars, obviously.

P J Evans, #21: The second amendment, so far as I know, was intended to protect the right of the states to form militias. The 1792 Militia Act provided the bodies, requiring all "free able-bodied white male" citizens of ages 18-45 to serve and provide their own kit; both responsibilities were widely resented and resisted.

Fred, #17: Modern weaponry makes it very expensive to hold an unwilling population, but it is, I think, still possible, if the conquerers are willing to undertake strategies that involve many many deaths. It may be, now, that the increasingly unification of the world makes all wars civil wars, with all the horrors that entails.

The USA has a national as well as a personal violence problem. We'd be a healthier nation if we were less militaristic. But, thinking over my off-the-cuff initial remarks, I think giving each of the 50 states its own modern military would make matters worse. What to do, hoom, hom, ...

#10 Eric, I've taken the Ohio Concealed Carry Course. Of the 11 of us in the class, I trust none of them in such a situation to use their firearm in self defense if I, or anybody else is standing near, around, or behind. Truly.

If you don't know muzzle disipline, or know what I am saying with that phrase (the course didn't cover it, and I know very few hunters who even understand how to safely carry their firearms while hunting, so muzzle disipline is right out), please do not, repeat, do not draw your firearm while I am around. Even if some other butt wipe if firing at me.

candle @ #38 & #39 - Hah! ::snort:: I'll have to pass that on to John tonight. He'll appreciate it.

In California, you have to take a certified handgun safety course to be able to buy a handgun. I took the course a couple years ago. The guy who taught it started by telling us a bit about how he came to know guns... Grew up on a farm, started shooting in competitions, quite good... Was made a sniper by the army. Went to Korea. Came back and did not pick up another gun for years.

He paused for a moment or so, then. Old guy, events more than 50 years ago, shooting for his country... It still got to him.

...Anyway, one of the things that he mentioned was that it was intensely stupid to have a sign up like "This house protected by Smith and Wesson." Because stolen guns are worth a lot, and there you are, advertising you have guns to steal.

Steve Buchheit @ 41

I've remarked on muzzle discipline above, as in "Get that rifle out of my face!" There's another piece of it that should be absolutely explicit in any firearms training course, the knowledge of how to carry and safe a weapon. First: automatic weapons require you to ask three questions before you can know how to handle them at that moment:

1) Is the magazine locked and loaded? If no, then there still might a live round in the weapon, so you have to know,

2) Is there a round in the chamber? The only way to know this for sure is to pull the slide back and look. And the safest way to carry an automatic pistol with a loaded magazine is with the slide back, so you know damn well there's nothing up the spout. Of course that means you lose a second or two jacking the slide when you need to use the weapon, but that slide can be worth its weight in toes.

3) Is the safety on? If you're carrying an unsafed weapon, it better be because you think you'll need to use it soon. This is where muzzle discipline becomes vital.

I've pulled MP duty where I was required to carry a locked and loaded pistol; you can bet it was safed and holstered at all times unless there was a real need for me to hold it, and as long as it was out it was at high port (I never had to use a weapon on MP duty, thank the Norns, since I'd probably have had to shoot a US soldier.)

And if you're not prepared to be that conscientious about handling a weapon at all times, then you shouldn't be carrying one.

#44 Bruce Cohen, SpeakerToManagers, yeah and verily. I was also thinking of a situation where someone is shooting, some yahoo has their concealed carry weapon behind me drawn, the shooter pauses and I run for harder cover while screaming like a little girl, I don't want to catch a bullet in the side or back because the yahoo didn't know to watch for friendly movement in front of them and couldn't or didn't know to point the muzzle in a safe direction when the target was occluded.

Also, I sometimes joke about gnu control is the ability to hit what you're aiming at. I've seen the capabilities of hunters and gnu nuts. I do not feel safe with their determination of their ability (Old Jarhead's practice standards are the basic minimum).

I also had a similar experience on the range part of our concealed carry course, guy was a lifetime hunter about 35. He didn't safety his gun before turning from pointing downrange and he wasn't pointing it toward the ground. I was two people away, fortunately for him.

As I was going into the bank a couple of weeks ago, I noticed a sticker on the front door glass. It was a picture of a handgun with the red circle and bar indicating "No".

I thought that sign was the silliest thing I'd ever seen. After all, they didn't make cops disarm (not allowed), and a good concealed carry would likely not even be noticed, so what was the point?

Gaaah.

fred,

Hezbollah, a well-regulated militia in tiny Lebanon, successfully resisted an invasion by one of the world's most powerful armies in the summer of 2006. A well-regulated militia, in place of a standing army, would likely serve America well in terms of homeland security.

ask lebanese sunni, druze, & christians how they feel about hezbollah's "protection."

in fact, hezbollah seems like an excellent argument that militias are no good for democracy.

I was on my high school's clay pigeon shooting team, so (very unusually for Britain) I handled shotguns regularly as a teenager. My school had never had an accident and intended to keep it that way, and safety was drilled into us. If I remember rightly, someone was kicked off the team for once closing an (unloaded, I think) shotgun while someone was standing in front of him.

That was fun, and it did teach me a lot about guns, although that information is useless to about 99% of the population in Britain anyway, as almost nobody hunts with either rifle or shotgun.

Since moving to the US I've come to an understanding of the American mentality around guns, and a sort of acceptance of it. I think the 2nd Amendment is pretty clear, although I think more careful checks on gun purchases could be made without meaningful infringement on it; but I think there's no consensus for either more or less gun control (or for the status quo) and as such there's no real way to change the current situation. I do think it's interesting that the 2nd Amendment is such an absolute right when the lack of regulation clearly infringes on the unalienable right to life stated in the Declaration of Independence, for example.

But I also think that any regulation compatible with the 2nd Amendment would not have had any effect on the Virginia Tech shootings anyway. Such regulation might reduce the numbers of murders, accidents & impulse-suicides, but wouldn't stop a case like this, or like Columbine.

So I think guns are interesting and I'm not afraid of them, but I also don't make any effort to be around them - largely because the kinds of people who do make an effort to be around guns tend strongly to be the kind of people I don't want to be around (no offense intended to any of the exceptions present here, mind you).

The other reason I avoid guns is that many people here in the US do not have gun safety drilled into them the way I did. I've had (unloaded) guns pointed in my direction, which I find a completely terrifying experience I'm uninterested in repeating.

Columbine was shocking to me and really made me question the sanity of a country that lets just about anyone own handguns. But Americans - or a sufficiently large proportion of Americans to block any real change - essentially shrugged it off. I think that's why, this time with these shootings in Virginia, while I'm obviously horrified, my take is essentially: well, this is the direct consequence of the lack of consensus on gun control in this country, and that is evidently acceptable to a large number of people. Those people have shown themselves willing to block any change; then so be it. This is the price for the 2nd Amendment, I guess. And I sure as hell hope I never get randomly selected to pay it.

I find the incidentals in this case more telling than anything to do with the guns. For example, this guy was alienated, hostile, and could probably have used more help than he received. Of course, many of us were alienated and hostile and could have used more help when we were teenagers or in college, and we didn't go on killing sprees; the answer is certainly not to try to pick out future spree-killers from the troubled. But what would help, statistically, is reducing the number of troubled young people in the first place.

Another is the usual bit about there being plenty of other ways to kill people. There are, for sure, but there's a reason guns exist, there's a reason armies and police forces equip their members with them, and of course there's a reason why gun owners buy them. The most direct example of this, for me, came in 1996 in Britain: there were two attacks at primary schools, one with a machete, and one with a handgun. In the former case, although at least one person was horribly wounded, nobody was killed. In the latter, sixteen children and a teacher were killed. No argument that other weapons are as deadly as handguns can be made by any reasonable person, in my opinion.

i fired a weapon once (uzi, hit nothing) when i was in basic training (idf, as it happens, though that has no bearing on my previous comment).

during the next two years, i was around lots of semiautomatic weapons, though i didn't carry one, touched them, just about had one dropped on my head, but never ever had one pointed at me. even though the guns were never loaded, & we were nearly all stupid teenagers.

Randolph @ 40

Also why the age ranges on that first census (white males under 16, 16-45, over 45: they weren't asking for fun, they wanted to know what the potential callup was).

Not that having a gun and being in the militia guaranteed anything: one of my great-great-grandfathers was in the Union militia in KY in 1863; he was out in the field, his gun was (I suspect) against the fence, and the CSA raiders shot him and took the team. They broke the gun over the gatepost, too, but that was repairable (not done until the 1930s though; muzzle-loading KY rifle, very nice but not ornamented, now in possession of a museum - because my brother won't have firearms in his house, even family heirloom antiques).

I've faced a gun twice. In neither case would having my own gun have helped me. My assailant already had his gun out before I had a chance to respond.

For a while, I carried a knife. I gave it up because I eventually concluded that it was making me less safe rather than more. What I found was that in a dangerous situation, my hand tended to reach for the knife before my brain even had time to evaluate the situation. That did two things--occupy a hand that I might need to protect myself, and potentially signal an attacker that I was armed. I concluded that I was better off with both hands free, and that if I wanted to carry a weapon, I'd need a lot of training to learn not to reach for the weapon automatically. A relative of mine was grabbed from behind in a parking lot. She already had her gun in her hand before she realized that her "attacker" was a playful child. She also decided not to carry.

This is not to diminish the potential value of a weapon, but I think that most people do not realize the amount of training required to turn a weapon--especially a carried weapon--from a liability into an asset.

trrl #51: What I found was that in a dangerous situation, my hand tended to reach for the knife before my brain even had time to evaluate the situation. That did two things--occupy a hand that I might need to protect myself, and potentially signal an attacker that I was armed.

In all this conversation about guns, and especially with that comment, I keep being reminded of the bit in the Death Proof part of Grindhouse, where three of the ladies are trying to argue that the fourth shouldn't carry a gun. They bring up statistics about how people carrying guns get shot more often, they bring up mace ("Guy's trying to rape me, I don't want to give him a rash, I want to kill him"), and then one says, "Well, why don't you carry a knife?" And the one with the gun gives her a look, and says, "You know what happens to people who carry knives? They get shot."

Here in the UK, legal ownership of guns is incredibly tightl;y vontrolled, by general US standards.

And I have seen insanely stupid gun-handling by British police officers.

I was taught the basics by my Grandfather, who had carried a rifle, and later a Lewis Gun, in the First Workld War. And the two most basic rules are that a gun is always loaded, and you don't point a gun at anything you don't want a bullethole in.

Now, my Grandfather finished the war as a Serjeant, and, not unsurprisingly, I was tempted to express my view of the situation in a loud voice, with a soldier's vocabulary. But they were Police Officers, and I decided instead to go someplace else, on the other side of several brick walls.

Now, the British police offciers who are actually trained and authorised to use guns maybe aren't so stupid, but I know of people who have had similar experiences. Cowboys and frigging indians with real guns!

And if somebody was doing that in front of an armed British cop, they'd likely get shot.

Me, I was a farmer. People with guns aren't something unfamiliar. But there are people in this country who will call the police when they see the army on a training exercise (it wasn't a gun, it was a surface-to-air missile system).

Stupidity, and hydrogen. And I'm not sure which is more common.

As I'm pretty sure I've mentioned before hereabouts, I have myself been on the wrong end of a gun. Wielded by a distraught libertarian lawyer. In a dispute over ownership of a post-office-box key.

While eating my breakfast cereal.

That was a story.

I've also shot guns at a firing range. It was fun. I'd do it again. But I believe every single word in Old Jarhead's post.

"If somebody was doing that in front of an armed British cop, they'd likely get shot."

This is always one of the funny things, to me, about that whole "when guns are illegal only criminals will have guns" thing, which I had a lot of confused Americans bring up to me when Dunblane happened and handguns were completely banned in Britain.

Most criminals in Britain don't use guns. Because when you commit a crime with a gun, the heavily armed police (SO19, in London, special firearms squads in other places) tend to arrive and kill you. For one thing, because no honest citizens carry guns holding one is roughly equivalent to carrying a large sign reading "I AM A DANGEROUS LUNATIC, PLEASE SHOOT ME."

This may be a chicken-and-egg issue, of course: maybe most criminals don't carry guns because most criminals don't carry guns, and therefore those that do merit a response with disproportionate and frequently lethal force from the police. I'm certain that the American situation, where many many criminals carry guns (as I learnt from COPS), would not be the same, but in the event of a (currently unconstitutional and unsupported) handgun ban, the situation could evolve to be similar.

The other amusing (to me) response to the ban was, well with this handgun ban the British are now unable to defend their homes! But of course that was the situation before the ban, too. Even if you had a gun, you had to keep it locked away such that it would be useless for defence, you certainly couldn't carry it ready to use, and in any case the use of lethal force in defending against mere property crimes is widely considered reprehensible. If you stated "home defense" as your motivation for wanting to own a gun you'd be treated as dangerously nutty and you certainly wouldn't be allowed to have one.

That's Britain, of course, insert the usual disclaimers here.

I think gnus should be regulated much the same way we regulate cars and car operation -- you have to register the c/a/r/gun, you have to pay for regular registration updates, you have to pay for insurance, and you have to pass a fairly stringent set of tests where you demonstrate proficiency (marksmanship) and knowledge of laws concerning usage (gun safety, legal issues, first aid for gunshot wounds).

All of this would go towards that well-regulated militia the Founding Fathers were thinking about, and keep guns in the hands of the responsible.

"You are going to go to a private place and vomit until you don’t think you will ever be able to stand up straight again."

to which I would add, you can also expect to relive the shooting hundreds of times, in nightmares and waking dreams. This will have an effect.

As a conscript I was trained in all kinds of weapons, from handguns through Uzis and AK-47s (needed to know how to use the enemy's weapons as well as our own), up to LMGs. None of this was less than terrifying. I can admire my friend's fine Spanish shotgun with hand-chased engraving, but I'm happiest when it's locked away in its safe again.

Second Madeline's comment,
"one of the things that he mentioned was that it was intensely stupid to have a sign up like "This house protected by Smith and Wesson." Because stolen guns are worth a lot, and there you are, advertising you have guns to steal."
Many households in S. Africa had guns for 'safety'. After the shooting stopped, it usually turned out that either the head of household had gone 'bossies' (bush-war-crazy, related to Old Jarhead's point) and slaughtered his family with said gun: or the bad guys had broken in to steal the gun(s) and slaughtered similarly. It didn't seem to be helpful.

Connie #56:

I would like to think so, but there seem to be a lot of irresponsible drivers out there. Or if they are responsible, they could have fooled me.

PNH @ #54

That was a story.

Oh, man, that's not fair to leave us hanging like that! At least tell us what kind of cereal it was.

Also, thank you, Old Jarhead. I've enjoyed your comments on the Whatever, and this post gets a [this is good] tag.

No gnus is good gnus.

Old Jarhead is, if anything, understating things. It's not just a question of training or reaction-versus-thinking, either; it's a question of attitude. And most of the time, "defense" situations go awry because the shooter (whether the assailant or defender) is unprepared for what comes next.

Have you ever fired a gun pulled from a drawer, in an enclosed space, without hearing protection? (Why do you think they make you wear hearing protection at the range, anyway?) The first shot -- and certainly the second shot if trying to double-tap -- will almost certainly stun the shooter... so you'd better make sure you hit what you're aiming at, and that there's only one target.

Now let's assume that's your bedroom. You've just shot and killed the cat-burglar (who turned out to be some eighteen-year-old kid looking for dope, not a member of the Manson family, but either way he's dead). It's going to be hard enough to get any sleep that night, with all the cop interviews, etc. (and they're going to confiscate your firearm for ballistics, too). But it's your bedroom. Unless you've got the soul of a politician, it's not going to be the best place for you to sleep the next night. Or the next. Or maybe ever.

About the emotional cost of legal shooting (re Doug K at #57): my dad drove supply trucks from Normandy through the battle of the bulge and into Germany; at some point, he used his deer-stalking skills to approach and take out a machine gun position that was making the road impassable.

He was in his seventies before he unfolded the citation he got for that action and let me read it. I don't think he ever really got over hunting a human.

gnu control, huh? Well, that's less likely to induce confusion than nun-control.

This is one of those issues where I'm tempted to hex both sides. I grew up next door to a shooting range*, and could never manage to match up the pro-gnu-control rhetoric with the behavior of my neighbors. Those guys weren't hurting anyone, and I don't like the idea of treating them like potential criminals.

But the behavior of the pro-gnu-control people pales in comparison to the lies and outrageous rhetoric coming from the NRA and its sister organizations. If you can stomach it, have a look at stopungunban.org. It's sickening. They do their best to sow fear and paranoia, and then hit you up for money. This is, as far as I can tell, standard operating procedure for the NRA. Muddy the waters, get people angry, rake in cash, and trade for power.

* funny story here: When I moved to South Side Chicago for college, I was somewhat weirded out by the fact that I didn't hear gunfire regularly.

I fired a gun once, when I was about 5. I don't want to own one now.

I'm too afraid I'd use it on myself.

One of the issues not often mentioned around this is just how many guns are used by people who might have issues of depression, and just how easy they make it to act on momentary impulses. I completely support responsible gun ownership -- kind of like Western civilization. It would be a good idea.

For the first couple decades of my life, I had a particular view of the use of force and the military and guns and whatnot. Looking back now, I would describe it as... infatuation. I've thought about it once in awhile, and that's the closest word I can come up with to describe it.

Then... life... happened, and a rather long period of... disillusionment... set in. The pendulem swung to the opposite end of the spectrum. I call them the dark pink ages, for the fact that I spent an embarrassingly long stretch of time sitting in the dark, listening to Pink Floyd.

Some long time after that, the pendulem seems to have found its center. Massive mistakes and severely bad choices can't be changed, but I stopped regretting them, then all that was left is what is.

And what is, around this topic, is a sense of recognition when I see folks who have my old infatuation with guns and violence. And a realization that had you met me at a certain time in my life, I would have had that exact same infatuation. And there wouldn't have been a damn thing anyone could have said to me that would have changed it.

And that truth brings up a whole bunch of different emotions all at once. I doubt every infutuatee would be as infatuated as I was. Which means there are probably plenty of people who would do well to hear from folks who point out that handing out guns to the populace is not the answer to a shooting spree by some nutcase. But I guess, some part of me realizes that there will always be some knuckleheads who will just be too damn stubborn to learn anything but in the school of hard knocks. Some of us got knocked around and learned a thing or two. But there's a whole bunch of folks who spout their infatuations based on their romantic views of the world because they don't have any experienced-based views that would show them how off the mark they are.

When I wrote "Hunger Pangs", my military SF novel, when the protagonist gets in his first firefight, the first thing he does after the shooting is over is puke his guts out. So, when I read Old Jarhead's post, his last line brought a smile to my face. At least I got that part right.

There are some people I've known for years who I know have been in some seriously messed up combat situations, but who've never talked about it. Or when they do, it certainly isn't with the bravado that is usually associated with those who are brave because they've never actually done what it is that they're talking about.

I'm rambling, and I'm not sure I really have a point. Probably a good sign that I should stop...

I find the incidentals in this case more telling than anything to do with the guns. For example, this guy was alienated, hostile, and could probably have used more help than he received. Of course, many of us were alienated and hostile and could have used more help when we were teenagers or in college, and we didn't go on killing sprees; the answer is certainly not to try to pick out future spree-killers from the troubled. But what would help, statistically, is reducing the number of troubled young people in the first place.

This guy was seriously messed up, but the reason I think he should have gotten more help than he did was not because he was dangerous, but because he was a human being, and he needed help, and therefore he deserved it.

#36: That's grape. Squish, just like grape. (Wasn't it?)

Tom Whitmore @ 63

As I recall the statistics, one of the most common cause of death for active duty police officers in the US is suicide, almost always by eating their service pistols. Considering some of the things an officer has to see, I'd be surprised if depression wasn't common.

Let's imagine a scenario. We have a shooter running around in a shopping mall. We have a 38-year-old CCW holder who understands the need for practice that's more than just watching cop movies and imagining some amazing super powered gun-fu.

This should be the perfect advertisement for the "legal guns will stop mass shootings" theory.

Except for the inconvenient fact that in the actual incident the CCW holder wound up paralyzed from the waist down.

#65: For sure, helping troubled young people is the right thing to do anyway. But it also seems to me to be the pragmatic thing to do to reduce the number of spree killings.

I've gotten curious about actual gnu control--they're exotic animals and there are probably some restrictions. Unfortunately, my google fu isn't up to finding any laws on the subject, even after I do -"open source" and such. Anyone want to take a crack at it?

Imho, a big piece of the cultural problem is the hero as unaffected killer--the James Bond/Dirty Harry thing.

#54: PNH, describing the story and then not TELLING the story is purest cruelty.

I don't have much experience with guns. I've handled one, once, heard more than a few shots from my windows, and seen what a healed bullet wound looks like.

My father, by demonstration, impressed upon me two things as a boy/young man.

1: By demonstration with water pistols, he showed me that brandishing a gun that you do not intend to kill someone with in short order is a poor idea, and also that things that look too much like actual guns can bother people you'd rather not bother (I had a pair of "realistically" colored water guns for five days. Afterwards, if it wasn't fluorescent, I didn't play with it.)

2: A baseball bat is an excellent tool for home protection. The idea of a sustained firefight in an apartment worries me more than the idea of being undefended.

Thanks again, Old Jarhead, for the excellent post.

I was raised among hunters, by men who learned their gun-handling in the military. Same for my husband. When we started taking our son hunting (at almost 1 year old), we constantly planned and discussed the appropriate training and gun safety issues. Touching issues. Safety issues.

One way to discourage some kids is to do target shooting when they're in utero. Seriously. The first time I shot a shotgun when I was carrying him, he kicked out with all four limbs. Ouch. Later on, he was timid about the noise until he got older. He was not particularly crazy or reckless about being around guns, and we did not allow casual gun play with toy guns, having decided that such behavior created bad habits.

The kid couldn't even point a *stick* carelessly in the hunting field without one of us getting after him.

Now he's a pleasure to go out with in the hunting field, and has decent muzzle discipline. But we've spent a lifetime training him.

Additionally, my preferred home defense weapon is a shotgun. One night when my husband was traveling, and the kid was very young, I heard someone rustling around outside.

I pulled out the shotgun. Cocked it.

They ran away.

The sound of a shotgun being cocked can be a very effective deterrent in some situations.

(And then there's the hunting story about the enraged bull elk who almost stampeded through our tent until one of us cocked our rifle...and then he snorted, stomped, and took off the other direction--he and another bull had been hollering insults at each other all night and we figure he'd gotten mad enough to do some damage to his rival...except we were in the way).

I know guns. I have known guns for about 35 years.

I have, both personally and professionally, pointed them at people, with the intent of committing great, even fatal, bodily harm.

I can say, without mental reservation, or purpose of evasion, that Derbyshire is an ass, an idiot, and a self-admitted menace with a firearm.

I am a firm believer that limiting the possession of firearms to the gov't, is a bad idea.

I also believe that there are some limitations which are acceptable. By his own admission, Derbyshire probably fails my, lenient, restrictions (proof of knowing what safety considerations there are; both in general, and for the class in question, some rudimentary knowledge about when the use of deadly force is allowable, and the ability to hit a, roughly, person-sized target at a moderate range; a reasonable percentage of the time: that enitles one to buy anything of the class (handgun; pistol and semi-auto, rifle; bolt, semi-auto and lever, shotgun; pump, semi-auto, break-action. There are bolt-action shotguns, and pump-action rifles, but they are rare, and so not worth making a specific set of tests for).

There are all sorts of things I never understand in these sorts of things; things I think (based on my knowledge of my reactions to things like it) I would do. But I wasn't there, and this situation (unarmed against someone who is shooting) is something I've never been in, so I can't be sure.

What I do know is that I am not likely to post on the subject, because flogging this for my personal political hobby-horses is would be disgusting, and ought to be (at least at this early stage) beneath the most partisan of hacks.

that Derbyshire is an ass, an idiot,

"If Derbyshire says that, then Derbyshire is a ass, a idiot."

Steve @ 41: If you don't know muzzle disipline, or know what I am saying with that phrase (the course didn't cover it...)

What on earth does Ohio include in gun safety classes if they don't talk about muzzle discipline? I mean, gun safety 101 is basically:

1) Don't ever point a gun at something you don't want perforated, and

2) Guns are always loaded, thanks to the Evil Bullet Fairy. See rule (1).

Any gun safety class which doesn't drill (1) and (2) into the students' heads is going to get someone into bad trouble.

Old Jarhead Many thanks, excellent post.

Tina @ 12 Thank you for pointing that out. In general in any situation -- college RA, retail clerk, human bean going about an average life -- the rule you always hear from training crew, bosses, police, counselors and all manner of other experts is that one should cooperate with the guy with the gun. As was already pointed out (either here or in the origin thread) the reason the passengers took on the hijackers in the third plane is by that time they knew they were dead either way, and cooperating would not keep them safe. Without that proof, what is to say the "defenders" do/did not cause sufficient anger/panic that the gun-toting nit-wit kills more people than he otherwise would have?

PJ Evans @ 21 the second amendment was intended to keep the militia supplied with armed warm bodies, more than it was to assure the legality of hunting I don't know for sure, but given that large portions of the poorer population supplemented their food by hunting or fishing (although mostly game birds, not deer, etc. IIRC) I am not sure this is entirely true. However, given they were doing it from need not fun I'm not sure it matters, either.

Connie @ 56 Re: regulation
Lord knows the NRA and company would scream bloody murder, but I agree completely. The devil of it all is, of-course, that the amendment says the people (the militia) is what must be well-regulated, not the arms. It specifically states that rights to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

There is a great line in the movie Parenthood where Keanu Reeves says something to the effect that the government regulates so many things, but anybody can be a parent. Guns (at least to me) seem to be another example of apparently skewed priorities. While guns are somewhat regulated, it seems they are far more dangerous than many other things (like cars and alcohol) that are regulated more heavily. I'd love to see someone broker a deal with the NRA (who always seem to say there are enough existing laws about guns that we don't enforce -- and then when something happens, pay for lawyers to help ensure that non-enforcement) to drop all the laws on guns in favor of a much more stringent regulation program.

My four cents on the issue:

Yes, possibly because of our "origin myths" of Washington, MinuteMen, Cowboys and the like, America tends to worship the gun more than other cultures. It's a part of our identity.
This makes it hard to get rid of.

I grew up in a rural/suburban area. Did the Boy Scout thing and shot a rifle on the range in my early teens. I wasn't particularly good, and didn't particularly care. My dad had a rifle for potting squirrels and woodchucks poaching from his backyard garden. He did generic gun safety: locked away the ammo, and both hid the gun and put it out of reach. He did attempt to teach shooting, but I was both not good, and not interested. In college, working as an RA at the dorm, I occasionally found myself in close proximity to the local police. Working a second job 20 minutes walk from campus, same police would occasionally (on cold winter nights) give me a lift to the campus. One thing I found I was always aware of was the guns (not just handguns: the squadcar had a shotgun that clipped (racked?) to the dash). They don't scare me exactly, but whenever I see a gun I am very aware of its lethal potential, and find myself more focused than usual on where it is...
I don't like guns.

One of the common arguments about gun control is that it makes for a safer, friendlier more courteous populace. I don't know if this is true or not. Two stories which work both ways:

1. Supposedly, after concealed carry was passed in Florida, muggings and assaults on Floridians went down, while attacks on tourists went up. This was touted by at least one person as proof that gun-contol works -- that the criminals changed targets based on a gun-threat analysis. But even still, is this a pro-gun or anti-gun example?

2. On business in the south, my father (supposedly) saw the following incident: The driver of a sporty car was honking, tailgating, and giving the finger to a pickup in front of them. After a while, the sporty car pulled into a mall. The pickup pulled into the mall by a different entrance, cruised the lot until it found the car, waited while the driver entered the mall, waited several minutes more, then the driver of the pickup calmly got out, took down the shotgun off the gunrack, carried it over to the car, and calmly -- and with great deliberation -- fired one barrel into the grill and the other into the front windshield, then got back into the pickup and drove off. When the sporty car's driver came out shortly after (along with countless others) the window and upholstery were totalled, and the car was sitting in a rather large puddle of various-colored fluids. Again, I don't really know if this is pro or con.

Finally, while we treat these as new problems, I find it significant that one of Rudyard Kipling's poems talks about:
As long as those unloaded guns we keep beside the bed
Blow off, by obvious accident, their lucky owners' heads.

This is not a "current" or "new" issue. It's the same three questions:
1. When is an individual's safety society's responsibility?
2. Where is the dividing line between two individuals' rights? (To crib from Spider Robinson, "Your right to swing your fist ends at my nose.")
3. Where is the divide between one individual's rights and the rights of society as a whole?

Serge: For home defenes, long guns, of any sort, are less useful than handguns. If you get frangible ammo (e.g. Glaser Safety Slugs) you don't have to worry about killing people on the other side of the wall. A shotgun, at in-house distances needs just as much aiming as a handgun (spread at 10 feet, with modified choke is less than three inches) and using anything which is going to do real damage is also capable of going through an interior wall.

I don't reccomend firearms for home defense. The risk of undesired effects is too great. Someone who is sneaking in (say a teenager trying to avoid waking someone) or a mistaken person (the drunk who drives to the wrong house and stubbornly forces his way in), is not what you want to shoot, and a moment of panic will be a lifetime of regret.

A baseball bat, bo-ken, or sword are just as effective, and allow for more considered re-action.

I have a rapier which is my "panic" weapon of choice, because it's has no edge, so I can use it as a defensive weapon, and it does have a point. Push come to shove it's offensive too, and the guy looking at it sees a sword.

It's harder to take away, as well as harder to neutralise, works better in close quarters and has a different psychological effect.

Oh yeah, with a sword, I have an advantage of about 40', against someone who is packing, but holstered.

I have spent the time to train with it, and work with it on a regular basis, but not as much as I would be training if I were using a firearm in that role; because the shoot/don't shoot reflexes aren't as hard to acquire/maintain for a sword.

Leah Miller: My knife fighting instructor told us to practice (with rubber knives) while blissed on our drug(s) of choice. This was to be able t function should something happen when we were in such a state.

Regarding the sounds of gunfire: When I was in al Qayarrah (nortwestern tip of the Sunni Triangle) the MPs had a range. Every morning the sound of 9mm and M-16 fire from the east, and echoing off the wall to the northwest.

When I got to Walter Reed I was a trifle... high-strung (David Drake's comment about having learned to live in a state of constant, if low-grade fear is on-point; as are the times when the fear isn't as low-grade).

When I found myself at Ft. Lewis I awakened one morning to the sound of gunfire, I roused myself to determine the fire was, 1: outbound, 2: about 1/4 mile away, and 3: M-16.

When all of that (in that order) had been processed, I felt more relaxed, and went back to sleep.

Not a gun owner, have handled a hunting rifle a (very) few times, so take my opinion for what it's worth.

When I hear the concealed carry routine, I like to bring up three names: Amadou Diallo; Sean Bell; David Scaringe.

Diallo: experienced police officers, trained in the use of their weapons, panic and shoot 41 bullets into an unarmed man.

Bell: experienced police officers, trained in the use of their weapons, panic and shoot 31 bullets into an unarmed man.

Scaringe: experienced police officers, trained in the use of their weapons, attempt to stop a suspected drunk driver by playing Dirty Harry and shooting out the tires of a moving vehicle. The drunk gets away. Scaringe, walking down his own street, is shot dead.

Now if that's what happens when trained professionals start shooting, whatinhell could you expect from a panicked civilian--or, worse, half a dozen panicked civilians?