Recently I have seen some genuine bewilderment from intelligent people at the very concept of carrying a weapon for personal self defense. They literally think that those who would consider carrying some type of weapon to be deranged. I would like to take this opportunity to explain the practice in reasonable terms.Do you wear a seat belt when you drive a car? I'm guessing that you probably do. So do I. When you next sit down behind the wheel of a car and reach over to buckle yourself in, I could ask you something: if you think that you are going to get into a car accident today, then why are you driving a car at all? Wouldn't it make more sense to just stay home rather than risk the potentially lethal accident that you are apparently preparing for?
Of course, the odds of getting into a serious car accident on this particular day are actually very low for any specific person. Like, lottery low. So low that you could rationally decide not to wear your seat belt on the basis of the math.
But the issue isn't really what's going to happen today, is it? If you look at the odds of being involved in a serious car accident at some point in your entire life then suddenly the formula changes quite a lot. Factors such as what the other drivers in your area are like, what your commuting route is and how good your brakes are start to mean a whole lot more. At some point in your life you are very likely to be in a car accident, and when that happens you probably won't have any more indication of your fortunes when you get out of bed that day than you got on any other day.
Whether you live or die on that probably distant day when you are in a car accident will be partially determined by whether or not you are in the habit of wearing a seat belt.
So it is with the carrying of a weapon. Most people who go through the required training and apply for a concealed weapon permit here in Virginia are not expecting to get into a gun fight when they leave the house on any given morning. Rather, they are cultivating a risk-averse habit so that if that one in a million day does dawn on them, they will be prepared to defend their own lives or the lives of the people around them.
This habit does not make them 'paranoid' any more than your use of a seat belt makes you 'paranoid.' To carry a personal firearm, having been through proper training for safety and accuracy, is a rational approach to lifetime risk management. Like learning CPR or knowing how to change a flat tire.
I am not telling anyone else what they should do. I am not presenting concealed carry of firearms as something that I think everyone reading this should run out and do. If you aren't comfortable with it, don't do it. And if you are not prepared to take an initial safety course and to actively maintain your skills over time then you should stay far away from either firearms or motor vehicles, since misuse of either of those things can kill you or someone else. My point is simply that the choice of some people to legally carry a personal weapon is one that can be a rational form of risk management, which need not be feared or ridiculed.
17 comments:
I agree with your point and understand you are not telling anyone to carry a gun but to simply understand others that do. That said, I do find one interesting difference (there are many, really) between guns and seat belts. Like possessing a gun, there are situations where the wearing of a seat belt can get you killed. That the law requires the wearing of seat belts, marks an obvious difference in the dimension of choice, but why the law exists is more to my interest here. I brought it up with a relative who is a state trooper and he explained that it has less to do with saving your life than it does those around you. Statistically, having a seatbelt on allows drivers to better maintain control of the vehicle while in the split seconds of a wreck, allowing them to reduce the escalation of havoc significantly. Furthermore, an unbuckled body propelled from a car is not only almost certainly fatal to the driver, but potentially harmful or even fatal to others if it hits their vehicle (or person in really rare circumstances), again resulting in the escalation of havoc beyond the initial collision of the wreck.
This difference resonates when considering the biggest ideological source of disgust for people who carry firearms: pacifism. Guns are not attractive because even when in the hands of trained professionals (but especially when in untrained fools like you discourage) they present the possibility of the carrier having to or accidentally harming another human being. Belts on the other hand reduce the chances of drivers harming someone else in trying protect themselves. There lies the difference.
Of course, the possession of a gun can allow for a third party to possibly help prevent harm to one endangered by another as well, which makes the waters murkier, although not really for "true" or rather, extreme pacifism.
That said, I'm not a pacifist. I believe in the avoidance of violence, but not the exclusion.
Cory,
There are certainly a great many differences between firearms and seat belts. My comparison between them was strictly from the standpoint of an individual approach to risk management over an extended period of time versus a single day.
People to whom guns are alien question why a permit holder feels the need to walk into a McDonalds with a concealed handgun, suggesting that they are paranoid for thinking they will need a gun at that moment in McDonalds. And my point is simply that like seatbelts, it isn't about thinking that something is likely to happen in McDonalds at 1:30 pm on Saturday. It's about adopting a habit which manages personal risk over time.
I don't think that very many people in Virginia wear seat belts because the law says they have to, and the particulars of the reasoning behind the legislation are not relevant to an examination of seat belts as a personal form of risk management. You can't be pulled over for failing to wear a seat belt here, even if the cop can see the situation clearly. You have to be pulled over for something else first. People wear seat belts because they have been convinced that over time it is a habit which is likely to reduce their risk of personal injury in a car accident.
The pacifism point is interesting and worth investigating. I would be curious to see a good study that examines the relative personal belief in pacifism of a few hundred people, combined with data on their socio-economic backgrounds and so forth.
I theorize that among Americans you would find considerable contradiction. For example, many people will say that it is wrong for a crime victim to shoot at an attacker, but the same people will have no problem with a police officer using such force to subdue that criminal later on.
This can not possibly be considered 'pacifism,' since the subject accepts the use of violence against the same criminal.
Thus their opposition to personal use of a firearm by others is really not a philosophical opposition to violence but rather an opinion as to the appropriate bureaucracy of violence.
So I would sum up the typical American opposition to personal possession of firearms by other people as one rooted in an attachment to bureaucracy.
"For example, many people will say that it is wrong for a crime victim to shoot at an attacker, but the same people will have no problem with a police officer using such force to subdue that criminal later on."
I like your bureaucracy of violence angle quite a bit as it draws on at least two important dimensions my pacifism argument doesn't address. On one hand, you encounter the same idealistic hypocrisy that you have been illustrating on your blog for quite awhile about people who dislike hunters (more precisely, hunters who hunt for meat). Getting your industrially raised and slaughtered meat from (e.g.) Food Lion is far more unethical with regards to animal cruelty and environmental impact than going into the woods and skillfully shooting a deer and butchering it. That is actually an oversimplification that excludes many of the benefits of hunting but nonetheless as rational as the practice is many meat eating people shun hunters while participating in far more heinous commercial meat consumption because it separates them from the act of killing (as well as the reality of butchering an animal into meat). At the heart of consumerism is a valuing of product over process, where the hunter is obscene for elevating the reality of process (like an artisan) by engaging in virtually every stage of the reality of Bambi's transference to steak, but again, most importantly, that initial act of pulling the trigger.
The police other gets to shoot their gun because, as you point out, most people are not really true pacifists--they believe in violence but want to maintain the personal superficial pacifistic status by not getting their hands dirty.
The second dimension emphasizes the bureaucracy of the police as designated certified users of violence. People also dislike those who carry guns for fear that they are in a sense willing to try and transcend their status within the cultural narrative of crime. I.e. they will "try to be a hero," they think they are John Wayne.
The reference to Die Hard is important because, while who wouldn't want John McClane on hand when someone is breaking into your house or holding you hostage at a bank or so on... John McClane is a cop. When Hans calls him John Wayne, it's somewhat of a jab at the unreality of the Western icon. While he was an undisputed badass in films like Stagecoach, the popular image of him is older, bloated, almost limping in the way he walks, at yet magically able to take out the biggest toughest guys with one remarkably slow punch that they can do nothing about. In reality, iconic Wayne would not come out on top in most scruffs. What iconic Wayne thus represents is the delusional bloated ego that one can be a hero that is actually not with the means.
The fear of the John Wayne is the fear of the person who will, as hundreds of crime narratives in film and television have fed us, exacerbate the situation, by thinking they can handle it. Thus, if one sees a person in a crowded area with a gun holstered, they are likely to interpret them as either, a criminal (a third dimension neither of us has really address), a cop out of uniform, or a John Wayne--who they then hope no one tries to commit a crime around so that they won't make a mess of it.
This John Wayne fear is so pervasive because it is only exaggerated by media, but nonetheless a relatively justified concern. Police are trained to handle criminal situations, strangers with guns might not be. Even if that person has no intention of being a hero for anyone else, that doesn't mean they are trained to mind their stray bullets. This of coarse returns to your own point that not everybody should carry guns per se, that you must train and commit to training or not mess with them at all. However, while one may know that they have the training to handle their gun and use it in hairy situation, that doesn't mean anyone around them does, returning again to the fear. So, while police can and do make horrible mistakes with guns we accept them because they (at least in uniform) are very visibly and formally trained to use their guns.
"Even if that person has no intention of being a hero for anyone else, that doesn't mean they are trained to mind their stray bullets."
should conclude "... when protecting his/her self."
"...they believe in violence but want to maintain the personal superficial pacifistic status by not getting their hands dirty."
Well said right there.
Regarding this:
"Even if that person has no intention of being a hero for anyone else, that doesn't mean they are trained to mind their stray bullets when protecting his/her self."
I cannot think of very many cases of innocent bystanders getting hit by stray bullets when a legal possessor of a concealed firearm was acting in self-defense. It has happened on a few occasions, but I don't know that it is any more common than bystanders getting hit by stray bullets when police officers are shooting. And many police officers are depressingly bad shots, depending on the marksmanship standards of their particular department.
Certainly such incidents of stray bullets are rare enough as to not rationally figure into a decision to defend one's self in a life-or-death situation. One is, by definition, weighing the probable death of an innocent person against a slim chance of the accidental death of another innocent person (I consider the value of the attacker's life to be momentarily null in this equation). This is an ethical no-brainer.
Sort of like finding one's self skidding on wet pavement inexorably towards the car ahead and deciding not to swerve into the ditch instead of hitting the car because there might be someone lying down in the ditch just out of sight. The intelligent approach to managing the risk at that moment is to swerve into the ditch, avoiding the danger that you know is definitely there while accepting the slight risk of another danger unseen.
Of course, what we are really talking about is people's perceptions rather than technically or statistically demonstrable realities.
"Of course, what we are really talking about is people's perceptions rather than technically or statistically demonstrable realities."
Exactly. We're just sifting through the details of why and how here. As I argued, the latter is a kind narrative imposed on reality by media (news/tv/film/etc., not just "Thuh Media") that exaggerates a smaller percentage of incidents (stray bullets from under skilled users) into a greater discouraging threat. As I was saying it is particularly problematic in that it is grounded in a kernel of truth, there are a few cases (though isn't the really dangerous John Wayne scenario the UNARMED person that tries to wrestle the gun from a criminal's hand?) and thus a modicum of logic returning to the basis of people unqualified to handle their guns. It is made worse by the logic that 'if the police are so clumsy with their firearms, why should I expect a bystander to be better?' an argument which of course is reciprocal when looked at outside the bureaucracy of violence. I.e, 'If the police are so clumsy, what is the real value of their official qualified status over that obtainable by a pedestrian?' The trick in this counter argument, however, is not to disqualify or devalue the necessity of training but of the superficial status of the police (or security or military) uniform as the exclusive marker of firearm qualification.
Returning more to the original nature of your post, which I think was more oriented with discussions between people that know one another, the best thing to do seems to be emphasize the training as you've said and better inform people that civilians are able to get firearm training of police or (hopefully) better quality. My responses have been more oriented with the stranger in line at the grocery store kind of scenario, which is a much more difficult one. How does one convey in a public scene their qualification to use the gun they carry properly? On reflection I'm that the moment a little stumped for an answer (especially if they are not concerned with the comfort of those around them) as to why it would matter though.
Well, it matters because there are constant efforts to restrict the practical use of firearms. There are organized political movements to eliminate concealed carry permits, for example. Or look at the whole to-do that erupted around Creigh Deeds' support for allowing permit-holders to eat in non fast food restaurants. The support or opposition of the public to this kind of legislation is usually poorly informed and often a knee-jerk reaction of fear and misunderstanding. The natural antidote is an effort to gently explain things to those people so that they can understand gun owners rather than fear them.
I think the public also fundamentally misunderstands the primary role of the police. Police officers are rarely in a position to prevent crime. A police officer's job is to respond to crime after it has occurred in order to arrest the guilty person and collect evidence to be used in court. Police officers would like to protect you, but this protection is most often in the form of putting a criminal in jail so that he cannot commit additional crimes while he is there.
At any given moment, if you look around you, there is probably not a police officer in sight. If you had the opportunity to call 911, an officer could show up in as little as 2 or 3 minutes. Which is very fast indeed, but it is also more than enough time for a criminal to rob, kill or maim you.
At the end of the day, we are each responsible for our own safety and for that of the people immediately around us. Unfortunately, the adoption of full faith in uniforms as a means of 'not getting hands dirty' has also had the effect of diminishing people's sense of personal duty to others in need. Which is a whole other philosophical can of worms.
'Fire!' ;)
No it's true. That is a whole other can of worms.
And you are right, there is the issue of that lot of people in the diner or wherever being voters who decide gun laws. They--and myself included--tend to be ignorant to exactly what degree of training is required to be able to legally carry a gun in a public area. If it's a LOT, than perhaps an information campaign would help. However, if it isn't a lot already, I expect that the only way to satisfy people will be increased training requirements... perhaps to an extent that gun owners would NOT like (or like to be required to take).
An extreme scenario perhaps, but I'm thinking of something not entirely different from getting your car inspected. A yearly or bi-yearly test that owners must take to show they are still qualified to handle their guns in public. I think the idea of the uniform, the bureaucracy of violence, is something that is not going away, and it is more likely that the solution will be the formal designating of gun owners as protectors. So that when someone sees someone with a gun holstered, they understand that person could not legally carry it in public without knowing how to properly use it.
This isn't entirely crazy to me, but I can see how some 2nd amendment absolutist would hate it. I really thank it would be a workable solution to make guns a more accepted presence in the public sphere, but I agree it is a lot of control and am not sure I would even be for it.
That said, I repeat that like most non-gun carrying people, I'm terribly ignorant (I suggest that there might be an insufficient amount of training required based only on your stressing the personal responsibility of the owner to keep tuned) of the exact extent of training required already, which really may be more than enough. So, perhaps an information campaign is all that's needed. Although it seems like the demonstrations of groups like the NRA scare more people away than not--but that too is another can of worms.
The basic NRA pistol safety course is pretty good. You can take it at the Rivanna Rifle and Pistol club for only around $30 or something. They have a basic rifle course, too. If you are curious, go ahead and sign up and learn a few things. Note that the NRA literally invented the whole idea of formal civilian safety training for firearms, so it is pretty hard to get around using their classes. But you will be pleased to know that the instructors tend to leave politics out of the classroom and off of the range.
I am loathe to support new laws to correct problems that don't exist, so I wouldn't tend to rush behind something for more stringent training requirements for concealed weapon permits in Virginia. We've had these laws on the books for some time now and there haven't been many 'incidents' involving permit holders.
That said, it wouldn't be a terrible idea for permit holders to take another pistol course at least once every 5 years before renewing their permit.
As far as the 2nd Amendment is concerned, I am obviously a big fan of that bit of writing but honestly it does not say a word about a right to conceal arms. Only to possess them. I don't think that it is Constitutional to ban law abiding adults from walking down the street with a handgun in a holster, but I do think that a state can ban or license the concealment of that weapon without running afoul of the 2nd Amendment. This would be consistent with Heller v. DC.
Edward:
The post on my blog in essence said, 'hey guys, wishing I'd stop geeking and get back to complicated issues? Well, I'm talking about guns over here," so I'd expect people to more generally ramble about guns there. But seriously, did you read what we are actually talking about at all? Nobody has said anything about guns without permits, but rather we're discussing the ideology of people that freak out because someone wants to own and carry a gun. The closest thing to a debate about permits has been the suggestion of an additional permit of sorts to carry a gun in a public space, i.e. 'do what you want with your gun on your land, but don't ride the subway with it without certain qualifications being met' (much like a car). This was offered with only a modicum of seriousness as an example of what would make the 'all guns must be destroyed, even rifles used for hunting' crowd chill out. But again, it was in addition to the permit to even own a gun.
You're throwing around big sloppy generalizations in a very focused discussion. Bad Edward. No soup for you.
Edward,
Really? Any moron can acquire an automatic weapon in America? You have no idea what you are talking about.
Importation or manufacture of automatic weapons for civilian use has been banned in the United States since the 1930's. Walk into any gun store and ask to buy an automatic weapon and see what happens. They will laugh at you. There are many weapons for sale in the US that are made to look cosmetically like automatic weapons, but they will only actually go 'bang' once when you depress the trigger.
The fact that you were unable to respond to the merits of a single one of my or Cory's points says it all. If you think I'm wrong, explain how and be specific. If you think that America's gun laws are stupid, please cite exactly which law you are referring to and provide specific examples.
And you have the nerve to call my arguments 'simplistic,' when you respond with such vague, factually ignorant oddness.
Since you clearly know nothing about either firearms or firearm laws, why do you feel the need to insist on deciding what those who do know what they are talking about should be permitted to do?
Cory,
Care to explain how seatbelts will get you killed? Having been through a bad car wreck the seatbelt was what kept me from serious injury or death. Flying from the car would have been far more likely to kill me than staying in the drivers seat.
As for fully automatic weapons, yes you can buy them, but you do need a permit. In some gun shops/ranges you can rent them for use in the shops range. Not impossible to aquire, but more difficult and expensive. No reason to use these for crime sprees when so many other options are available.
An-ony-moose:
http://www.streetdirectory.com/travel_guide/49232/car_accidents/the_hidden_dangers_of_seat_belts.html
"Will die" is your choice of words, not mine. I said "can" and the cases are very rare and not advisable. Most of the scenarios are of the 'it would kill you, but you would die anyway' variety.
Here's an interesting study:
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/HBASE/seatb2.html
Let's be clear, I am not encouraging people (not my original story) to not wear seat belts, it's statistically stupid.
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