Much of the recent gun control debate around the country has been centered around “high capacity magazines,” which begs the question, just how many rounds of ammunition should a law abiding citizen be legally capable of putting into their gun? The answer is, as many rounds as it takes to stop a violent threat.
In "American Elites," Colion Noir takes on the politicians, media personalities and celebrities who would deny for others the same level of protection they depend upon themselves.
So, this hefty mammal is stomping the crap out of a woman he once claimed to love, and a passerby who has fought for his country stops to help. The Creature From the Testosterone Lagoon decides he’ll stomp him into jelly, too. Ordinary size military vet with concealed carry permit from Wisconsin basically says, “Uh, no” and draws his 9mm pistol and takes the woman -beater now assaulting him at gunpoint. Woman-beater decides not to push the matter.
Street-savvy cops arrive, sort things out, can tell good guy from bad guy. Bad guy arrested, good guy is recognized as such, and gets accolades from the sheriff, as seen here:
HuffPost, not exactly what you’d call a pro-gun entity, gives him props. Cool so far.
Read all the way to the bottom, to where Huffington Post compares him to other “vigilantes.” In a bizarre twist of journalism, they include a high profile case not yet adjudicated in Florida as an example of “vigilante justice,” along with Jack Ruby and some guy who threw marbles at a traffic control camera.
Uh…does anyone who writes for HuffPost understand words like “research”? Do they understand that “words mean things”?
The term “vigilante” comes from “vigilance committees,” folks on the nineteenth-century American frontier who gathered together without benefit of government authority – in a time and place where there WAS no such thing to speak of – and became judge, jury, and occasionally executioner of those they felt were wrong-doers.
In the instant case, we have a man who fought for his country and carried a pistol to protect himself, his loved ones, and others within what the law would call “the mantle of his protection.” He made, essentially, an absolutely appropriate citizen’s arrest, and kept a helpless woman from being beaten to death.
“Vigilante,” my ass.
The words you were groping for, HuffPost, were “Good Samaritan.” Or, if that’s too many syllables for your current generation of reporters and editors, maybe just…”Hero.”
But, hey, I’m an old dinosaur who thinks in the Old Ways.
Gayle Trotter makes the case that mothers like her need guns to protect themselves and their children. Sean Hannity and Gayle discussed how the gun rights debates affect women and the elderly. Trotter maintained that women and the elderly should be able to defend themselves “with all the means necessary” when faced with intruders.
Within roughly the same timeframe as the Newtown Atrocity, a criminal armed with a crowbar broke into the home of a young mother who was there alone with her nine-year-old twins. When she and the kids had retreated as far as they could and the intruder still kept coming, she opened fire with a .38 caliber revolver.
When her gun went empty, five of the six shots had struck the intruder. Whether it’s drunkenness, drugs, or desperation, some violent criminals can be harder than others. In this case, the intruder was still up and running. The smart and courageous young mom bluffed him at the point of her now-empty six-shooter, telling him in essence that she would finish him off if he kept attacking.
The bluff worked. He fled, running out of steam later, though he is still alive to face criminal charges.
Anyone who is not blind from rabid anti-gun sentiment can see that this would not have ended well for the mom OR her young twins if the suspect had been just a little tougher and more resolved…or if he’d had an accomplice.
American Rifleman, the monthly magazine of the National Rifle Association, carries a regular column titled The Armed Citizen. It documents cases of good people using guns to protect themselves and other innocents from bad people. This continuing feature has run for decades, so old that one of my grandfather’s self-defense incidents is in its archives.
The Armed Citizen section in the current issue of the Rifleman, warrants our interest. Bear in mind that a real life self-defense shooting is not a “Dirty Harry” cinematic fantasy in which every shot fired will both strike, and instantly blow away, a bad guy. Real life is more like a zombie movie: if the first bullet doesn’t short-circuit the central nervous system, you have to keep shooting until the skeletal support structure no longer holds him (and his weapon) up where he can hurt you and yours, or until his cardiovascular system has run out of oxygenated blood for his brain. The latter mechanism’s effect can often be better measured in minutes than in moments.
Traditionally limited to a single page, the Armed Citizens column in the February 2013 issue contains seven incidents “torn from the headlines” as the dramatists like to say, all documented by the local news media where the incidents took place.
In EACH of those incidents, only ONE of the intended victims was armed and capable of fighting back.
A mere two of those seven documented incidents were “one on one” confrontations. In each the Good Guys were actually Good Gals: A 35-year-old woman in New Mexico and Jill Stucker, 64, of Florida had to deal with only a single attacker apiece.
Three of the people saved by their guns were up against two-to-one odds: An unidentified farmer in West Virginia, store owner Roger Webster of Maryland, and an 83-year-old lady with a “walker” in Tennessee.
And two of the seven documented cases – A 35-year-old woman in the New Orleans area and a Pennsylvania man – were each up against a gang of at least FOUR home invaders.
In a world where the Good People With Guns often have to deliver several hits to neutralize even one Bad Person With Deadly Weapons, and in which there is often more than one attacker, anyone applying logical thinking can only end up shouting one three-word
mantra: DO THE MATH!!
Senator Ted Cruz makes some very good arguments in favor of gun rights at the hearing on gun violence. The truth about how many guns purchased at Gun Shows actually find there way into criminal hands... and, what is the true relationship between gun control laws and gun crime?
Lindsey Graham makes his position clear during the Hearing on Gun Violence. One bullet in the wrong hands is a disaster, but only six bullets for a mother protecting her children might not be enough.
I would venture to guess that the folks filing in to see the latest Batman installment in Aurora, Colorado last Thursday evening didn’t figure on over 70 of them getting shot before the credits rolled. The last count I received before filing this column was 12 dead and 59 wounded.
As the news starting pouring in about what happened in the theater this week when Satan’s spawn James Holmes donned Kevlar and a small battery of weapons and opened fire on an unsuspecting crowd, I kept thinking, “One fast-thinking and trained person who was armed/licensed with a concealed weapon could have stopped that SOB right in his tracks before the body count skyrocketed.”
Yep, the armed citizen could have either killed him, sent him running for cover, or at least diverted his fire away from the masses and toward their person. Some readers, no doubt, are saying, “Well that would be stupid. What if that citizen got shot trying to protect others?” To that I reply: Well, Dinky, if they would have been shot and killed at least they would have died a hero. Have you ever heard of the term “hero”?
The Aurora Dark Knight Massacre is exactly why I carry at least one gun everywhere I go—because crap always happens when you least expect it. That’s why, as responsible citizens and gun owners, we must always be ready and must always expect it because when it happens, it happens fast; if you’re not ready, you and others are screwed.
For instance, it’s a beautiful and quiet day on Miami Beach this morning. I’m drinking my coffee at an outdoor cafe, minding my own business while I work on this column and on my website. I don’t see any bath salt zombies on the prowl. There are no Trench Coat Mafia wannabes lurking around. There is no real foreseeable reason to carry a weapon. But I am. The reason? Well, I’m not omniscient. I’m just a dumb clunk living in a jacked-up world where med school students go bat crap crazy and shoot up normally peaceful places for inexplicable reasons. Therefore, I’m locked, cocked and ready to rock should some demented dill weed decide to strafe the local patrons sipping a cup of Joe.
For those who say, “Doug’s insane with all this concealed weapons crap. We should leave such affairs to the police,” allow me to point out that the theater was crawling with cops for the Batman opening to control the crowds. By the time the police got to the particular theater, it was all over. Blood was already running down the aisles and the gunman had already left the building. You, my friend, are your first responder … your first line of defense.
Look, stuff happens when and where you don’t think it’ll happen. My recommendation to you, the good citizen, is to get equipped with a gun—a fire-breathing dragon of a weapon. Get proficient with it. Make it like a cell phone: an additional appendage to your body. And then pray that you’ll never have to use it. However, should you be in line at the grocery store, or at Chili’s eating a burger, or at a park playing football with your homies, and some James Holmes wannabe shows up carting an arsenal and quoting Kafka as he shoots kids … you’ll be ready. Simply find cover if you can, draw your weapon, take a fine bead, and double tap the center mass of the murderous jackass. Should he or she have a bulletproof vest on then pull your sight picture up to the perp’s noggin and shoot him or her in the head; it’ll explode like a watermelon. You’ll feel bad for a nanosecond. But then the cops and families will show up and thank you for putting Jack the Ripper down. The end.
My Guns and Loads to Dispatch Zombies Baking on Bath Salts
I love Miami. Many of my conservative buddies can’t figure out why I moved here or why I stay. I remind them quite often that Miami does have its perks:
- The weather during the late fall through early spring is dreamy.
- It’s green and gorgeous all year round as opposed to your brown town.
- Lincoln Road and Ocean Drive are two of the best zoos in the world. You’ll see more freaky critters on those two avenues than you will at the most exotic zoo in Dubai.
- The Atlantic Ocean down here is stunning, and we have first-class beaches.
- We have superlative sport fishing—and I have the pictures to prove it.
- And there’s never a dull moment during any state or national election.
My pals come back at me with stuff like:
- It’s stupid hot down there in the summer.
- It’s expensive to live in SoFla.
- It’s vice-laden.
- The Marlins and the Dolphins suck. Yeah? But what about the Heat?
- Honkies are in the minority. You’d better get used to “se habla español” or you’re “se habla” screwed.
- Miami has the worst traffic known to mankind.
- Hurricanes use Florida as a hacky sack before they fish slap the rest of the 57 states, as Obama calls them.
- And it’s the first place where zombies have manifested in this pre-apocalyptic time period.
Look, I can stomach the heat, hurricanes, congested highways and the perennial pusillanimous Dolphins, but they’ve got a point with the zombies. Zombies … you’ve got to go.
Most folks are now familiar with Miami’s 2012 Memorial Day flesh eater, Rudy Eugene, who, high on bath salts, chewed the face off a 65-year-old homeless dude in broad daylight on the MacArthur Causeway. It took six rounds from an officer to take him down.
Last Saturday (6/2/12) we had another wannabe zombie. During an altercation at a Boston Market, Brandon De Leon told a Miami Dade policeman to “eff off,” violently resisted arrest and threatened to “eat” the cop just before he got tased and muzzled. Toxicology reports showed that the wannabe zombie was tripping on “Cloud 9,” a type of bath salts, plus Xanax and ganja, and his blood-alcohol level was a hefty 0.29.
Y’know, bullet manufacturer Steve Hornady might have developed a zombie product line of cartridges as a goof and a homage to his love for zombie flicks, but given these two twisted crimes he might have stumbled onto something.
Now, before lathered-up critics start laughing at the thought that I think the undead are a legit concern for us mortals to arm ourselves against, let me allay any fears and squelch that notion straight away. I don’t believe zombies are real, okay?
That said, when young adults move from drinking a Bud Light and minding their own business to snorting Calgon and eating human flesh, zombie or not … Houston, we have a problem. Apparently, now we can’t stroll MacArthur Causeway or go to Boston Market for a chicken pot pie with a side of garlicky lemon spinach without some Slingblade trying to eat our face.
Given the supernatural strength and hallucinations this new drug from hell spawns I’m steppin’ it up a notch in what I’m carrying on my person and what I’m loaded with in my house.
For personal defense I think I’ll rock it old school with an S&W 29 .44 Magnum with a 6.5-inch barrel. Not the most concealable, but OMG is she gorgeous when drawn.
My load of choice? Well, I’ve seen over and over what Barnes’ X-Bullets do to animals when hunting in the field, so I think I’ll chamber my S&W with Barnes’ XPB FBs in the 225 gr. option. I doubt the criminal cranking on Bed, Bath & Beyond’s best could take one of these to the vitals and continue to feel invincible. Indeed, they create quite the terminal wound channel; it’s about the size of your fist (FYI zombies).
For home defense I’m going to stick with the ultimate zombie zapper, the 12-gauge pump riot gun stuffed to the hilt with three-inch yummy magnums. Man, oh man. Is this a zombie stopper, or what? I won’t tell you what I intend to do with these sweeties at the house … that’ll be just for me and the zombie dumb enough to cross the sacred threshold of my dwelling.
As for all these various self-defense scenarios my family might encounter, we will practice, practice, practice double tapping center mass at the target range at different angles and in different situations until we become zombie flawless. Yes, practice makes perfect, and I want my kin to get to a place where we don’t care if someone is straight tripping on Herbal Essence’s finest; it will be hard for him to eat our cheek meat with a fist-sized wound channel through his heart and one through his lungs.
In Doug’s world the innocent person should live and the attacking bath salt zombie should die.
Much of the recent gun control debate around the country has been centered around “high capacity magazines,” which begs the question, just how many rounds of ammunition should a law abiding citizen be legally capable of putting into their gun? The answer is, as many rounds as it takes to stop a violent threat.
Unfortunately, he picked the wrong guy.
Former U.S. Navy SEAL Dom Raso addresses the matter of personal protection.
In "American Elites," Colion Noir takes on the politicians, media personalities and celebrities who would deny for others the same level of protection they depend upon themselves.
So, this hefty mammal is stomping the crap out of a woman he once claimed to love, and a passerby who has fought for his country stops to help. The Creature From the Testosterone Lagoon decides he’ll stomp him into jelly, too. Ordinary size military vet with concealed carry permit from Wisconsin basically says, “Uh, no” and draws his 9mm pistol and takes the woman -beater now assaulting him at gunpoint. Woman-beater decides not to push the matter.
Gayle Trotter makes the case that mothers like her need guns to protect themselves and their children. Sean Hannity and Gayle discussed how the gun rights debates affect women and the elderly. Trotter maintained that women and the elderly should be able to defend themselves “with all the means necessary” when faced with intruders.
Within roughly the same timeframe as the Newtown Atrocity, a criminal armed with a crowbar broke into the home of a young mother who was there alone with her nine-year-old twins. When she and the kids had retreated as far as they could and the intruder still kept coming, she opened fire with a .38 caliber revolver.
Senator Ted Cruz makes some very good arguments in favor of gun rights at the hearing on gun violence. The truth about how many guns purchased at Gun Shows actually find there way into criminal hands... and, what is the true relationship between gun control laws and gun crime?
Lindsey Graham makes his position clear during the Hearing on Gun Violence. One bullet in the wrong hands is a disaster, but only six bullets for a mother protecting her children might not be enough.
And the five morons are running into each other, not knowing how to get out of the store faster!
Self Defense is a God given right, fight for it.
