Less Than Clear On The Concept
By Mitch Berg
My NARN colleague Captain Ed has had his usual excellent commentary in re the Virginia Tech shooting yesterday.
But in his piece on the shootings this morning, he betrays a key misunderstanding (too much hobnobbing with Bill Buckley, perhaps?) of one of the issues:
However, concealed=carry permits would not necessarily have prevented this, either. As my cousin Mike pointed out in the comments yesterday, such permits require the holder to be 21 years of age or older. That would have disqualified at least three-quarters of the students on campus. It would have only taken one or two to confront the shooter in this case, and at Appalachian Law (also in Virginia), armed students successfully ended a rampage.
Well, Ed is right – all it would have taken was one.
Or none.
The key reason to have “shall-issue” laws in place is not just to kill criminals; it is to deter violent crime.
And where have the highest-profile mass-shootings taken place? Schools – which, by federal law, are “gun-free”. Colleges, which have the option to follow the same route. The New York subway, where Colin Ferguson murdered five people, knowing he’d have no resistance without a cop present (getting a carry permit in New York City is mainly a function of political connections). Luby’s Cafeteria, in Lubbock Texas, long before Texas adopted a “shall issue” law (and where, famously, one woman watched her mother die of a gunshot wound, regretting having left her own gun in the car), an incident which helped lead Texas to adopt “Shall Issue”. The McDonalds in San Ysidro, California, where 21 died; it’s as difficult for a civilian to get a permit in California as it was in 1981.
You don’t see many mass-murders at NRA conventions or NASCAR races.
The possibility that a would-be killer might face armed civilians doesn’t guarantee safety, of course – but the legal guarantee that a would-be killer will not face such a threat (as was the case at Virginia Tech, Columbine, Red Lake, Cold Spring-Rokori, Pearl Mississippi and dozens of smaller shootings) certainly doesn’t make anyone safer. A hard target is always safer than a soft target.
Back to Ed:
However, that student was a former law-enforcement officer who retrieved his service pistol from his car, not just a student with a carry permit.
True, and irrelevant. Virginia had a “shall-issue” law in 2002; while former cops are more likely to have guns than the general public (thankfully, in that case), it wouldn’t have mattered if it were an ex-cop or “just” a student, a staffer or a passerby who shot or deterred the killer. Statistically, armed citizens are every bit as effective as law-enforcment when it comes to face-to-face cases of self-defense.
The story is so old it hardly bears re-telling – but several decades ago, Israeli schools and their children were among Palestinian terrorists’ favorite targets. Israel started allowing teachers to carry pistols – requiring it, in some instances.
What do they know that we don’t?
April 17th, 2007 at 1:38 pm
Yup. There are no guarantees, but it should be obvious that having some people able to protect themselves and others is better in every respect than having nobody able to protect themselves and others.
April 17th, 2007 at 1:55 pm
Angryclown agrees. The Va. Tech shooter, who was desperate enough to kill 32 classmates and then blow his own head off, would have been deterred by more liberal carry laws. Probably would have transferred to a college in some pansy-ass blue state where he could kill a bunch of people and then blow off his own head in perfect safety.
April 17th, 2007 at 2:11 pm
I’ll cast logical pearls before…um, Clown, here; don’t mix up the utility of deterrence on the one hand, and killing criminals on the other. A nut might not have been deterred by Virginia’s shall-issue law – but he did the shooting at a school, not a shopping mall or a baseball game, too.
The VT grounds were as gun-free as New York City, as a matter of policy.
There ARE no guarantees, anywhere; even in the reddest shall-issue states only 1% of the people have permits, and not all of them carry. But that’s at least 1% better odds than the VT students had yesterday.
April 17th, 2007 at 2:33 pm
Maybe cause when he went berserk he was a student, not an Orange Julius employee or a baseball player.
I’m having a hard time remembering the last big NYC school shooting, Mitch. I’m sure you can help me with that. What with tough gun control and eight million people, I’m sure we’ve got a couple Columbines every week.
April 17th, 2007 at 2:36 pm
In the bluest of blue states the vast majority of people have a permit to carry. Check out the carry laws in Vermont sometime.
April 17th, 2007 at 2:41 pm
Clown – the last major school shooting in NYC was in 1992. Now before you go gloating that it had ANYTHING to do with NYC’s gun law, realize that this was done because ARMED POLICE started patroling the schools that had the worst problems!
LL
April 17th, 2007 at 2:56 pm
I’m having a hard time remembering the last big NYC school shooting, Mitch.
Not as relevant as you need it to be, Clown. Murder rates in NYC, while down drastically, are higher than in most of the US.
And when mass-murders DO happen in NYC, nobody (but the cops and well-heeled politically-connected insiders) can respond.
Maybe cause when he went berserk he was a student
Not everyone who commits a schoolhouse mass murder is a student; the Stockton massacre in 1987, as well as the biggest school massacre of all time, the Bath School Massacre, which killed 45, were examples.
Doesn’t matter, Clown. The simple fact is that allowing people to protect themselves harms NOBODY.
April 17th, 2007 at 3:00 pm
Mitch asserted: “Doesn’t matter, Clown. The simple fact is that allowing people to protect themselves harms NOBODY.”
Nobody but the people killed in accidental shootings, the people shot by criminals who steal legal weapons and the people killed when legal gun owners themselves turn criminal. So NOBODY. Except all those people.
April 17th, 2007 at 3:09 pm
Nobody but the people killed in accidental shootings, the people shot by criminals who steal legal weapons and the people killed when legal gun owners themselves turn criminal
All of which, with a minimum of training, are statistically essentially non-existant.
April 17th, 2007 at 3:16 pm
Gee, Log Lady. A shooting that killed *2* students (same body count as West Side Story). 15 years ago. Tragic and all, sure. But not exactly an epidemic of school shootings here in gun control hell.
And murder rates in New York are lower than every major city in the U.S. and tons of crappy little burgs too, including Omaha, Neb., Aurora, Colo., Stockton, Cal., Fort Worth, Tex. and, by the way, both St. Paul and Minneapolis.
April 17th, 2007 at 3:20 pm
Really Mitch? Cause if we can train the legal gun owners not to commit crimes, maybe all this could have been prevented. The Va. Tech shooter could have taken an NRA gun safety course where the instuctor would have told him not to point his gun at 33 people and pull the trigger.
April 17th, 2007 at 3:36 pm
Cause if we can train the legal gun owners not to commit crimes, maybe all this could have been prevented.
Another strawclown.
A nut is a nut. They go crazy. They kill people. That’s why some of us believe in carrying guns, rather than leaving ’em at home or with some bureaucrat.
Training prevents the things you mentioned in your last comment; accidents, stolen guns, that kind of thing.
April 17th, 2007 at 3:37 pm
and, by the way, both St. Paul and Minneapolis.
You’ve had the benefit of a decade and a half of Republicans (or “Republicans”) in the mayor’s office.
Look what we’ve been stuck with.
April 17th, 2007 at 7:12 pm
There’s the real clown. On one side we have theoretical arguments about what “might” happen if people are allowed to carry pistols, even though all the bloodshed and shootouts that were predicted should the law be changed to shall issue never come true, and on the other side we have s situation where someone with a gun is in a place where guns are banned so there is no opposition and the police are all waiting outside for the swat team to show up even as more and more people are shot, and the question is why cant people defend themselves? The argument that students will go nuts and shoot each other over the littlest provocation is the same argument on a smaller scale that we hear every time another state thinks about issuing carrying permits. We had some moron at my hometown university today say that he thought someone carrying a gun in this sort of situation would just escalate the violence. 33 people killed but thank God no one else had a gun.
April 17th, 2007 at 11:42 pm
Whenever such tragedies occur, the subject of gun control raises it’s uninformed head. Gun control means hitting the target.
The current laws here, puts guns in the hands of law-abiders that have proven that they know what they are doing. I should think that he uninformed liberal (sorry, that was redundant) would be for more carry permits since it mandates demonstrated knowledge and skill with emphasis on safety.
Does anyone really believe that someone will refrain from going on a killing spree if it’s illegal to get a gun? Remember, both guns used the other day were obtained illegally…
Look, people sometimes go nuts and kill people, and it is that which needs to be addressed, not the means by which they do their dastardly deeds. Swords are not noisy, don’t need ammunition and can be used again and again… just ask the street punks in New Zealand. Hint: It’s the MENTALITY, not the MEANS!
What’s next? Banning sticks and stones? Relegating the police to using harsh language? I know: Squirt guns for the army! Defend your family with wiffle bats and harsh looks!
You don’t see these nutbars walking into a military base and shooting at tanks and armed soldiers. (Gee, I wonder why?)
You never see a bully trying to beat-up someone their size or larger.
No, they go into areas where they have a reasonable expectation to be relatively safe from their victims.
Time after time, when such a nutbar is confronted by armed individuals, be they law enforcement or armed citizens, the result is the same: they are stopped.
Food for thought: Guns in the hands of law abiders haven’t killed as many in this state as the light rail.
Solution: I have always said that if you really want to get to the nub of the matter; make crime illegal. That will take care of it. (If you don’t get that one, try the other brain cell.)
Oh, and one last thing I’ve learned over the last 25 years: Never argue or debate with Mitch; unless you don’t mind losing! (So tell me if I’m off the mark Mitch 😉
April 18th, 2007 at 5:38 am
“What might happen,” Buzzkill? On Sunday, Cho Seung-Hui was one of your law-abiding citizens, legally carrying guns for self-protection. On Sunday, you wingnuts would have opposed any effort to regulate his lawful purchase of a weapon. How’d that work out?
April 18th, 2007 at 6:01 am
angryclown told me yesterday “Angryclown fears nothing”.
Reading what angryclown has written here makes me think angryclown fears both “desperate” and “berserk” people. And “accidents” and “criminals”.
I suspect angryclown lied to me, but I am sure angryclown has a more nuanced opinion on this circumstance.
April 18th, 2007 at 6:27 am
Angryclown certainly opposes the existence of desperate and berserk people, accidents and criminals and favors policies to reduce all of the above. But Angryclown, who lives in a town where terrorists destroyed two 100+-floor buildings, leaves the paranoid fear-mongering to you right-wing kooks. The numbers are very much in Angryclown’s favor: the threat of being gunned down in some nutty rampage or terrorist attack is tiny and doesn’t consume much of Angryclown’s attention. In short, Angryclown is not nearly as lily-livered as you duct-tape hoarding suburban wingnuts.
April 18th, 2007 at 8:39 am
Nonsense – big violence occurs in NYC all the time, but doesn’t make any news. People expect it there and it’s just part of the scenery, like garbage in the gutters and too many Irish firemen.
April 18th, 2007 at 8:42 am
I refer you to the latest FBI crime statistics, PaulC. Read them with your back to the wall, though, so you see the mugger coming.
April 18th, 2007 at 9:20 am
the threat of being gunned down in some nutty rampage or terrorist attack is tiny and doesn’t consume much of Angryclown’s attention.
Nor should it, since while rampages get tons of news, ones’ chances of being caught in one are pretty infinitesimal.
No, carrying a gun has a lot more to do with the routine crimes that lop off a person here, a person there; muggings, rapes, assaults.
The statistics of the larger area around me are academically interesting; my ability to affect whether I become one or not is vastly more important to me.
April 18th, 2007 at 9:27 am
You’re the kind of guy who’d rather be at the controls of your own Cessna than sweating it out in the back of a Northwest Flight 69 from MSP to Duluth. In other words you prefer to have your fate in your own hands, regardless whether that makes you safer. That’s fine by Angryclown, but it’s the numbers that should drive policy – not the wacky gun-nut anecdotes and extrapolations you base your arguments on.
April 18th, 2007 at 9:50 am
Oddly-placed and inappropriate attempt at clairvoyance aside, the numbers do in fact pretty much support our take on policy. 40 states have adopted “shall issue” laws; none have repealed it. Studies have shown that it DOES affect violent crime – and legislatures are acting appropriately.
April 18th, 2007 at 9:50 am
Oh, and flying your own plane IS cool. I mean, even a Clown’s gotta see that, right?
April 18th, 2007 at 10:23 am
angryclown is so very brave to live in his town. Kudos to angryclown, he should be so proud.
But angryclowns argument lacks much.
Fearing and fear mongering are related, but are not the same thing. A fear monger is not lily-livered, but instead caters to the lily-livered. Both sides of this argument could be classified as playing on certain fears. When you say:
“Nobody but the people killed in accidental shootings, the people shot by criminals who steal legal weapons and the people killed when legal gun owners themselves turn criminal. So NOBODY. Except all those people.”
I think you are far from leaving the “paranoid fear-mongering” to anyone else.
You may be very brave, angryclown, but bravery is not the absence of fear. It is the ability to face it. I still think that to write that you fear nothing is incorrect at best.
April 18th, 2007 at 10:49 am
Hey Troy, go post about how scary it’s gonna be when the anti-Republican protestors come to town.
April 18th, 2007 at 10:56 am
No thank you, angryclown, but thank you very much for the invite! 🙂
April 18th, 2007 at 1:02 pm
40 states have adopted “shall issue” laws; none have repealed it.
I was fearful Minnesota was going to be the first to repeal it, but I heard on the radio just yesterday that several democratic legislators from outstate said it would not be brought to the table and was a non-starter. Even with the change in power in this state, apparently a miniscule, yet still sufficient amount of common sense prevails in the majority of legislators to not go down this road.
April 18th, 2007 at 6:40 pm
Yup; we’re not going to get even close to repeal. My own concern — as somebody, err, fairly involved in this stuff — is that there would be attempts to whittle away with allegedly “reasonable” modifications, but even that doesn’t seem to be on anybody’s table this session. (Still gotta watch the little scamps; Joe Olson put in a 20-hour day — literally — yesterday at the Capitol doing just that.)
And repeal? Even the “Citizens for a ‘Safer’ Minnesota” are admitting that that’s a pipedream.