The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by Old Jarhead:

#96 Johnny:

Hmmmm, a lot of damning with faint praise but except for dismissing my "misconception" (thereby leaving the land of different opinions and entering the one where you are demonstrably right beyond cavil)a thoughtful post.

Please remember the audience the original article was written for - not the home defense crowd, not people with significant weapons experience. It was written in response to a thread started by a female family law attorney (joined by others with similar concerns) frightened by an incident where an estranged and enraged husband came into a law office threatening death and destruction. She had floated the possibility of arming herself.

My intent was not to provide a do-it-yourself-guide to armed self defense but simply to try and communicate the enormous gulf that exists between the thought "You know, I should get a gun" and getting one and being ready and able and effective in using it.

It is certainly possible that with your training and knowledge that you could have confronted a child in the garage at night with your weapon in condition one and not felt that you had placed her in any danger. Once again, I was trying to reinforce the idea of making informed choices - I have been fortunate that I have never lived (at least in the U.S. ) anywhere where the likelihood that I would need a weapon handy for home defense was high enough to overcome the risks inherent in having a weapon ready enough to hand to be useful in a sudden emergency. Training and experience and equipment can minimize that risk but it cannot eliminate it. And yes, she did find her bunny rabbit, but not in the car. :)

And #68 - Chris Davis. Exactamundo - this happened where I live and the shop owner faced a young man who had been shooting up the mall, shooting everyone he could see. He had a licensed, adequate, and operable weapon and decided that he couldn't fire because the shooter was a "kid" (20 years old). Fortunately when the kid shot him he was the last victim (of 6)and yes he is paralyzed. My first thought was "what if he had shot the guy and then go on down the mall and killed some kids".

But that was exactly my point - here we had a trained (at least minimally), armed, and prepared (physically) citizen facing a nutjob and the only thing his possession of the gun accomplished was to make him brave enough to stand up and face the shooter rather than run for his life and then get shot three times because he couldn't use it. He would have been far safer without the gun.

#71 Lexica,

I don't know if I am treading on thin thread ice here since I am new to this site but as I mentioned above I wrote on the topic of armed amateurs last year when some female attorneys who do family law were concerned about some incidents of violence and wondered if they should buy guns just in case. Since I DO know what it is like to face another human being with a gun in my hand I wrote this. It is long and , as I say, if this transgresses please be gentle when you whack me.

Or you can just ignore the post.

Or Teresa can moderate me.

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Subject: Guns in the Office

If you intend to get a carry permit and pack heat for self protection you should keep several things close to mind:

1. Unless you have invested the time and money to be well trained in the defensive use of a handgun don't carry one.

2. Unless you are willing to spend the money and time to go to the range and fire your weapon at least monthly and at least a box of ammo at that time, don't carry one.

3. Unless you are certain that you have the emotional and psychological ability to shoot another human being dead, don't carry one. Do not count on "brandishing" the weapon to frighten the other party into submission - it is far more likely to dramatically increase the level of violence. Do not even consider "shooting to injure". Unless you are willing to put two rounds, center of mass, into the other person and kill him (usually) dead you are far more likely to end up the dead or grievously injured one.

4. A handgun is not a magic wand. Displaying it will not cast a spell of caution or calmness on the various parties. A loaded weapon makes people crazy - the person at which it is aimed, the persons who are witnesses, and often the person who is holding it.

5. Unless you are willing to purchase and practice with a handgun that is large enough and packs a sufficient punch to put an attacker down and down now, don't carry one. In the early 70's a female student at [University] was in her apartment with her daughter when an attacker burst through the door. She had a .22 pistol and shot him 4 or 5 times. He had a .45 and shot her once. He was arrested at the hospital. She was dead.

There are lots of sources of good advice on combination of caliber, proper ammo, and frame size for control.

What is comes down to is that there is no way to prepare for the first time you point a loaded weapon at an identifiable human being and have to pull the trigger. The reason the military does repetitive, mind numbing, training is to try and ingrain the muscle memory and develop the reflexes so that brain does NOT interfere because if you give it a vote it will pause and then it is too late. Soldiers call the enemy by racial or ethnic names to depersonalize them so that they don't have to think about the fact that they are killing other people with mothers, fathers, kids, wives, and families. Troops assigned to Special Operations forces or Delta Force fire hundreds of rounds a month because in their job they have to be able to make a split second decision on whether the human in their sights is a target or a hostage or innocent.

The passive defensive measures discussed herein are excellent approaches and will be far more effective in provding security than a sign that says "This family law attorney is protected by Smith & Wesson".

When I was a young Marine we lived in southern Cal and one night about 2 am my wife said that she had heard a sound in the garage. I scoffed of course (husbandly response #1) but then I heard the sliding door of the VW van. There WAS someone in the garage. I got up and sneaked to the garage door and peeked - the dome light was one. Heart beat at 120, adreneline everywhere. As I whispered for my wife to call the cops I saw an arm - a little arm. A 5 y/o girl's arm! I stormed out into the garage to confront my little daughter and as I demanded an explanation she sobbed that she couldn't find her bunny rabbit and was looking in the car.

I had numerous weapons in the house - all locked up. After that I asked myself - "If I had had a weapon quickly available would I have gotten it and had it ready?" My answer was "yes". And then I realized that if I had I would have been confronting my little girl with a .357 in my hand. Accordingly I have never kept a weapon out of the safe in the house.

Given my background I obviously am not an anti-gun crusader. I believe, however, that the decision to carry a weapon in the office or on the street places an enormous responsibility upon the bearer to obtain excellent training, to commit to frequent practice and refresher training, to choose a weapon ideally suited for you and the purpose, and to stare into the mirror and ask yourself if you could really use it - and if you would make its use a truly last resort.

If you shoot and kill someone in the office you are not going to be celebrated as "Annie Oakley" and carried around the Family Law convention on a sedan chair. 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.

Joan #63

"Do we want profs with guns.."

A listserve I am on was discussing self defense for female professionals last year and the topic of arming themselves came up. I wrote a pretty comprehensive response about reality that I would be willing to share with anyone who would be interested. email Jim0928@gmail.com

As for blaming the targets for not spontaneously rushing the shooter - we train our young Marines and soldiers a long time and under harsh conditions to overcome the societal conditioning against dramatic violence and to ready them to obey orders to "rush the shooter" where they can be killed.

Derbyshire's comment on Flight 93 is obscene. Those passengers (1) knew what was happening and had time to consider a course of action, and (2) knew they were dead anyway if they didn't try. Even then it took a particular combination of personalities to launch that effort.

The kids in the classrooms had no time to plan.

People who have never had to make life or death decisions in crisis situations should be very chary about passing moral judgments on those who do.

As has been mentioned in comments on this and similar situations, the general coarsening of the public discourse has been a trend for a long time. When a person can stand on a soapbox in the town square and shout "F*** You!" repetitively without sanction unless they block traffic we have lost the reins.

This is the death of a thousand cuts as the courts and the influence peddlers ask of each individual act "what is the harm", but taken together unrestricted self-expression stands over civility, respect, and compassion and places its foot on their throat.

On the major media reasoned and respectful political discourse is virtually gone and in the "blogosphere" flame is the coin of the realm. Unless the people who believe that courtesy and respect are part and parcel of any useful dialogue act in a way to defend it we will be huddled down behind our keyboards with the delete key worn down to a nub.

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