When I read this recent USA Today article, "FBI: Justifiable homicides at highest in more than a decade," I was unsurprised to find a disapproving tone in the article. Although one might think that violent felons being decisively--and permanently--stopped is not such a bad thing, some clearly disagree.
Northeastern University criminal justice professor James Alan Fox describes an emerging "shoot-first" mentality by police and private citizens.Well, Professor, with your academic background and obvious intellectual gifts, perhaps you'd care to explain the tactical advantages of a "shoot-second" approach to self-defense, because I'm clearly not bright enough to see them.
Another academician suspects changing laws might have something to do with the trend.
Alfred Blumstein, a Carnegie Mellon University criminologist, says the gun "legalization movement" also may have helped create a "greater willingness" among citizens to act in self-defense.By "gun 'legalization movement,'" I assume Dr. Blumstein refers to the growth in the number of states that are now willing to license the Constitutionally guaranteed, fundamental, absolute human right of the individual to keep and bear arms. If true, that would mean, of course, that people who would otherwise have been in a state of government mandated defenselessness are instead prevailing over their assailants--hardly a negative outcome.
Perhaps my biggest problem with the article, though, comes in the next sentence:
In a landmark decision, the Supreme Court in June carved out a right to individual gun ownership, ruling that the Second Amendment allows citizens to keep guns in their homes for self-defense.No "carv[ing] out" is necessary for a right that has been guaranteed by the Constitution for two-hundred seventeen years, and that preceded even that document as a logical extension of the natural right of self-defense.
Still, although I take issue with some of the wording in the article, USA Today was positively balanced, compared to the way the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence words it.
"US Gun Lobby Erodes Law"?
You know what? If peaceable citizens killing their felonious would-be predators is a result of the "Gun Lobby Erod[ing] Law," then put me on record as being fully supportive of "erosion."
Stumble it!
10 comments:
I'm not the professor, but I can tell you the advantage to shooting second: It enormously reduces the danger that you'll kill an innocent person.
The number of people who are gunned down by police for no good reason (except that the police officer thought the guy had a gun) is scary even to someone who supports gun rights.
I certainly acknowledge the need to be pretty damned sure that your target does indeed pose a real threat to cause you death or great bodily harm, but I still maintain that waiting for him to pull the trigger stands a rather large chance of being the last mistake you ever make.
O.K. bradipo. Suppose you do shoot second. That means the bad guy shoots first. Think you'll be alive to shoot back?
The bad guy in one of the mall shootings was accosted by a good guy with a gun, who ordered him to drop his weapon. The bad guy whirled and shot the good guy before he could react. Good guy's in a wheelchair now.
Lesson: action beats reaction. Find cover before issuing demand, or shoot first with no warning.
From Jeffrey Snyder's "A Nation Of Cowards" essay:
When a man pulls a knife on a woman and says, "You're coming with me," her judgment that a crime is being committed is not likely to be in error. There is little chance that she is going to shoot the wrong person. It is the police, because they are rarely at the scene of the crime when it occurs, who are more likely to find themselves in circumstances where guilt and innocence are not so clear-cut, and in which the probability for mistakes is higher.
Crotalus, I think you're referring to the Tacoma Mall shooting, and you make a very good point.
Hecate, you also make a very good point, and Snyder's Nation of Cowards should be considered required reading for anyone with an interest in gun rights and gun laws.
This is exactly why you blog and I do not. 'Nuff said?
I dunno, SA--I still think you have a great deal more wisdom to offer than I ever will, but I certainly appreciate the fact that you think I'm worth reading.
If you keep the comments coming (here, or on the other "Principles Freak" blogs that I tend to read), though, I'll try not to bother you too much about starting your own blog.
Yes, 45. That's the one.
One other thing, bradipo. If you DO shoot first without warning, get the hell outta Dodge, because some a$$hole DA will bring you up on murder charges for shooting Senor Psycho in the back.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I don't think these assholes are just ignorant, or dupes, or whatever. I think people like Sarah Brady, Nancy Pelosi, Charles Schumer, ad nauseam know EXACTLY what gun control will do...increase crime. They all read, and there's just too much evidence on BOTH SIDES of the issue to ignore (crime rises under stricter control, falls when guns are less restricted)
Therefore, I think they WANT crime to rise, and I really don't CARE whether the end motive is more tax money for their pet projects, or more state control, or because they really just like criminals and hate the law-abiding. To me, it defines them as an force for EVIL that must be resisted, as much as that sounds like something from a comic-book.
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