Over at Asymmmetrical Information a “no gun except” advocate and “gun at my bedside” blogger Jane Galt make their cases.
“No gun except” commenter said:
“It's all about probabilities. Buying a gun as a strategy for dealing with burglars is a bad bet, especially if you have insurance and a working phone to dial 911. Like I said in my earlier comment, if you have some reason to believe that you're likely to be targeted for some other kind of violent home invasion, it might make sense to keep a gun around--especially if you live far away from the nearest source of help.
But if you live in the city where the cops can be at your door in less time than it takes to open your gun locker, load your gun, and confront the burglar, it just seems silly to bother with all the risk and responsibility and hard work that you'd need to take on in order to use the gun effectively. “
Blogger Jane Galt responded:
“It's been a while, but I could open a gun locker and slide a magazine into a handgun in under a minute, which is about 1/5th the time that the cops could get into their cars and roar down from the nearest police station six blocks away, even if they were willing to put on the lights and sirens for "burglary in progress". Unless you actually live in a police station, this makes no sense.
There's also a little confusion of cause and effect. The reason that burglars in America are generally "not there to start shit" is that Americans have guns; in Britain, "home invasion" robberies, where the burglars beat up the homeowners to find out where the really good stuff is kept, are alarmingly common.
She later relates an anecdote about a black friend who nearly got in trouble with the cops for having a flare gun after Katrina. My feeling is that the problem there is not the gun, it's the cops. I hope we wouldn't suggest that said friend should make himself up in whiteface to appear less threatening.
The ultimate problem, of course, is this: how do you know if the nice young man who has just broken into your home is there to quietly burgle you, or to rape and dismember you?”
______________
I liked Galt's response for a couple of reasons, including her pointing out the “little confusion of cause and effect” and the fact that the "no gun except" friend’s trouble with the flare gun was really a police problem.
And yes, how do you know "the nice young man" only wants to burgle?
You can read Galt's post here.
What do you think?
H/T - Instapundit
Sunday, March 18, 2007
"No gun except" v. "gun at my bedside"
Posted by JWM at 4:54 PM
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8 comments:
With regard to guns in the home - while they may deter some criminals, they also lead to suicides and accidental deaths.
The purpose of guns in home isn't to deter burglers. It's to deter Government encroachment.
-Bri
brian has clearly stated the reason for the second amendment. One that is proven time and again by the founders own writings. Since they wrote the amendment they damn sure know better what they meant than anyone else.
Anon 6:18 is living in an alternate reality. I hope it is DEA legal.
Is he saying spoons lead to Rosie O'Donnel being fat? Or pencils lead to misspelled words, or cars cause speeding, or cell phones cause ransom calls, or vulvas (no. not volvos, they lead to old age or timidity in academics)lead to rape, or airplanes cause terrorism? Is that really what anon 6:18 said? It sounds like it.
Personal protection and sporting purposes are by-products of the second amendment, brian had it right. However, I would say this to "no guns, except...", it isn't much of a man that will charge others to do for him what he will not do for himself. Nor is it in any way anything but cowardly and irresponsible to be unable to protect the life God gave you. It is his most valuable gift to you.
If you are one who does not believe in God, then it is truly cowardly and irresponsible to another order of magnitude to be unable to protect that life that isn't even a gift but an accident of chemistry which will never happen for you again. If one believes when one looses this mortal coil and shuffles it off there is nothing more, how can one even think of not defending it?
Further, no man, or woman unwilling to avail themselves of the ability to defend their loved ones, deserves loved ones, because they certainly don't love them in return if they charge others with their care and survival in lieu of being prepared to spend one's effort and life in their defense.
"Further, no man, or woman unwilling to avail themselves of the ability to defend their loved ones, deserves loved ones,"
Should read "Further, no man, or woman unwilling to avail themselves of the ability to defend their loved ones, DON'T deserves loved ones,...."
Jane Galt is right. So is American Express.
"Don't leave home without it."
Urban citizens should carry guns after being trained in their usage. They're more likely to become victims on the streets than they are in their homes.
As someone that works in law enforcement I found the first article amusing. Call 911? That assumes that you can get thru in the big cities since there are a large number of non emergency 911 calls that tie up the lines. Then assumes that an officer is available to respond and they can respond promptly.
In rural areas it can be just as bad if not worse. Long distances and few officers. If they only have a couple officers on duty and are tied up with a domestic of fatal accident a delay of an hour can be expected.
As the second article stated. It takes far less time to lock and load. Besides the peron most responsible for your safety is yourself.
I worked in the 911 business for several years. There isn't a single large metropolitan police force in the US with an average 5 minute response time. 8-10 minutes is considered very good. In many places, such as NYC, it's common to spend 5 minutes on hold when you call 911. Call for a pizza at the same time you call 911 -- the pizza guy will get there first.
A few years ago I got a call from the Durham PD. An alarm had gone off at my business and they wanted me to meet the cop so that I could turn it off after he secured the premises. It took me 15 minutes to get to the office, and I beat the cop by 5 minutes. For all they knew, someone inside the office had hit the "panic button" to set off the alarm. And we had been robbed of several thousands of dollars worth of equipment earlier -- that's why we installed the alarm system.
The most basic human right is that of self defense. The others don't do you much good if you can't defend yourself. Guns are one of the few ways that the natural advantages of size and strength can be overcome by someone of small stature. Frankly, I can't understand why the feminist movement is anti-gun. They seem to feel that a woman lying dead in an alley, raped and strangled by her own panty hose, is somehow more noble than the women standing over her dead attacker with a smoking .45.
The idea that your odds are low of confronting a home invader with a gun and therefore shouldn't have one is pretty silly. First, the fact that guns are available to homeowners tends to deter crime -- predators don't want to take on armed victims. Second, if you ever find yourself needing one, you would have paid anything to get it. I'll probably never use the airbags in my car, but I bought them anyway.
Lastly, what group of people in NC have the higher per capita crime rate: CCW holders or Law Enforcement Officers? Yep, it's the LEOs that have a higher rate of crime that would cause a CCW holder to lose their permit. In Durham, we really need to think about taking away their guns, given that they tend to jump to conclusions and get it wrong so often...
Anyone who thinks calling 911 is sufficient to protect oneself from crime needs to read this article and be disabused of that foolish trusting notion.
pfish
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