Bulletproof Whiteboards and the Marketing of School Safety | NPR
Because an individual 18-by-20-inch ‘shield’ is better protection than revised gun safety laws.
Because American ‘solutions’ must always involve commerce.
Because our national persona is a superhero.
Because guns won’t disappear.
Because bad guys will always exist.
Because criminals who are willing to murder don’t care very much about gun laws (and consequently only the peaceful and responsible will be disarmed).
Because being a helpless clod leads to dead innocents, and as silly as this idea may seem (to be sure, it is quite silly since it will do nothing to stop gunmen and very little to protect victims), it is certainly better than the false security of wishful thinking.
Because “commerce” (as opposed to government coercion) caters to what individuals want much more efficiently than otherwise.
Related: The Ignorance and Naïveté of “Gun Control.”
STUDY: Gun crime has plunged, but Americans think it's up →
Such is the outcome when most politicians and their subservient media engage in a campaign to centralize more control over peaceful people.
Also interesting is this poll at the LA Times (to grossly understate, it is hardly a bastion of gun-toting right-wingers):
One of the secrets of the Revolution — one not taught in public schools today — is that the colonists actually had superior firepower to the king. The British soldiers had standard-issue muskets, which propelled a steel ball or several of them about 50 yards from the shooter. But the colonists had the long gun — sometimes called the Kentucky or the Tennessee — which propelled a single steel ball about 200 yards, nearly four times as far as the British could shoot. Is it any wonder that by Yorktown in 1781, the king and the Parliament had lost enough men and treasure to surrender? The lesson here is that free people cannot remain free by permitting the government — even a popularly elected one that they can unelect — to take their freedoms away. The anti-freedom crowd in the government desperately wants to convey the impression that it is doing something to protect us. So it unconstitutionally and foolishly seeks, via burdensome and intrusive registration laws, laws restricting the strength of weapons and the quantity and quality of ammunition and, the latest trick, laws that impose financial liability on law-abiding manufacturers and sellers for the criminal behavior of some users, to make it so burdensome to own a gun that the ordinary folks who want one will give up their efforts to obtain one. We cannot let ourselves fall down this slippery slope. The right to self-defense is a natural individual right that pre-exists the government. It cannot morally or constitutionally be taken away absent individual consent or due process. Kings and tyrants have taken this right away. We cannot let a popular majority take it away, for the tyranny of the majority can be as destructive to freedom as the tyranny of a madman.
— Judge Andrew Napolitano, “The Right to Self Defense Isn’t Negotiable”
…
Doesn’t this also show why you don’t need a high cap mags? Just sayin’ if you can reload small mags fast enough why spend the money on the big ones?
The point of the demonstration was to show that limiting the capacity of magazines does not really accomplish the purported aim of slowing down people who wish to do harm (not to mention the fact that someone who is perfectly willing to kill people will no doubt have no problem using an “illegal” magazine in the first place).
If you had bothered to click the link above (after “related”), you’d see that in the real world, potential victims are unlikely to have a supply of spare magazines readily available like a potential attacker would. As such, non-restricted-capacity magazines are more suited as a defensive tool, particularly since would-be victims are caught by surprise, tend to be outnumbered, and have more considerations (protecting family, for instance) than simply reloading.
(Source: youtube.com)
Many, many cops will vehemently disagree with me about this (which might sort of prove my point). But I WANT law-abiding citizens to have guns. I WANT them to have a means to defend themselves from ME. I DON’T want the people I’ve sworn to defend worrying about Officer Joe and his friends taking their property on a whim. I feel ZERO threat, absolutely none, from lawfully armed good citizens. I’ve been a cop in Texas for almost 19 years. I’ve interacted countless times with armed homeowners, business owners, and concealed carry permit holders. I’m absolutely comfortable knowing that they’re not helpless lambs, totally dependent on me for their safety and freedom. I’m there to protect good citizens from criminals; citizens have weapons to protect themselves not just from criminals, but also from me and Officer Joe. That’s how it should be. That’s why we have a 2nd Amendment. And officers like me and Joe are why it shouldn’t be repealed.
[I]f you want people to accept your right to possess private property, guns, you had better consider accepting the right of other people to possess private property, drugs, if they so choose. Liberty is seamless and does not allow for exceptions. Liberty is doing what you wish with what you own. Doing what you wish with what you own. In fact, the war on drugs has proved to be the major driving force behind the war on guns. Same war, different name. … Progressives don’t hate guns; they love guns. They love them so much they want to be the only ones who have any. They want a gun monopoly. Again, a progressive is a person who has this fantastic dream of creating a utopia on earth by threatening people with government guns if they don’t comply with their utopian schemes. The difference between progressives and us is this: [t]hey want to use guns aggressively, to make peaceful people do things they don’t want to do; [w]e wish to use them only defensively, to stop a government that gets out of control and engages in mass murder, or systemically tramples [our rights]. … The Second Amendment has nothing to do with hunting, sport or target shooting, or collecting antiques, and its main purpose is not to allow you to protect yourself from criminals although that is a secondary and important purpose. It is an undeniable historical fact that the central purpose of the right to bear arms is to allow the people to protect themselves against the government.
The Folly of Magazine Capacity Limits
The startling video demonstration, conducted under the supervision of Boone County, Ind. Sheriff Ken Campbell and funded by ArmaLite, “throws cold water on anti-gunners who argue that magazine limitations are necessary to prevent mass shootings,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan M. Gottlieb. “We are all indebted to ArmaLite for this informative effort.”
“Under Sheriff Campbell’s supervision,” he explained, “two shooters – an experienced man and a novice female – are able to repeatedly fire 30-round shot strings at three targets, using 15-, ten- and six-round magazines, all in under 30 seconds.”
The male demonstrator fired 30 rounds from a pistol, first with two 15-round magazines, in 20.64 seconds, then with three ten-rounders in 18.05 seconds and finally with five six-round magazines in 21.45 seconds. The woman fired the same magazine sequence, with two 15-round magazines in 22.9 seconds, three ten-rounders in 25.51 seconds and the final five six-round magazines in 26.93 seconds.
In addition, the man then fires 20 rounds from an AR-15 rifle using a single magazine, in 12.16 seconds. He then fired 20 rounds using two ten-round magazines in less time, 10.73 seconds!
“Imposing magazine capacity limits creates a horribly false sense of security,” Gottlieb observed. “This video puts the lie to this politically-motivated disarmament strategy.”
(Source: youtube.com)
“Wilson Combat will no longer provide any products or services to any State Government imposing legislation that infringes on the Second Amendment rights of its law-abiding citizens. This includes any Law Enforcement Department, Law Enforcement Officers, or any State Government Entity or Employee of such an entity. This also applies to any local municipality imposing such infringements. “States currently included in our No-Sale Policy are: California, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Washington D.C. and Chicago, Illinois. “Wilson Combat will in no way support the government of these states or their anti-gun agenda that only limits the rights of law-abiding citizens. Wilson Combat will continue to supply any product and/or service they can legally sell in these states to all non-government affiliated citizens.”
The University of Colorado has released a list of ways to stop rapists in light of gun control bill →
“These tips are designed to help you protect yourself on campus, in town, at your home, or while you travel. These are preventative tips and are designed to instruct you in crime prevention tactics.”
- Be realistic about your ability to protect yourself.
- Your instinct may be to scream, go ahead! It may startle your attacker and give you an opportunity to run away.
- Kick off your shoes if you have time and can’t run in them.
- Don’t take time to look back; just get away.
- If your life is in danger, passive resistance may be your best defense.
- Tell your attacker that you have a disease or are menstruating.
- Vomiting or urinating may also convince the attacker to leave you alone.
- Yelling, hitting or biting may give you a chance to escape, do it!
- Understand that some actions on your part might lead to more harm.
- Remember, every emergency situation is different. Only you can decide which action is most appropriate.
Thanks to this list I can pretty comfortably say that gun control laws are sexist. Why should I have to lie, force myself to vomit, or urinate on myself? Why do I need to understand that my actions should lead to more harm? Because I don’t have a gun to immediately stop them and because [if] I fight back they will treat me worse? Or is it considered “worse harm” that I might physically harm him and then I wouldn’t be the only victim? Perhaps the most disgusting item on this list is the advice that passive resistance may be the best option for me. I could be wrong, but are you telling me to just suck it up and take it? Why, when I am already at a physical disadvantage and taken by surprise by someone with a plan, should I not be able to react in the most effective and least demeaning way? I should be able to arm and protect myself. What I also find disturbing is that NO weapons are recommended on this list. What about pepper spray on your keychain? The end of your key held between two fingers? A knife? A loud alarm keychain? You can even legally buy a hand-held taser (I have a pink one.)
It’s completely disgusting and offensive that women are expected to just deal with the fact that their best means of defense is being stripped from them and they are now expected to piss on themselves instead.
So you can either be unarmed and piss yourself and hope that makes the rapist change his mind, or carry a gun and make your would-be rapist piss himself. I know what I would want my daughters to do.
The Gun and Civilization →
Human beings only have two ways to deal with one another: reason and force. If you want me to do something for you, you have a choice of either convincing me via argument, or force me to do your bidding under threat of force. Every human interaction falls into one of those two categories, without exception. Reason or force, that’s it.
In a truly moral and civilized society, people exclusively interact through persuasion. Force has no place as a valid method of social interaction, and the only thing that removes force from the menu is the personal firearm, as paradoxical as it may sound to some.
When I carry a gun, you cannot deal with me by force. You have to use reason and try to persuade me, because I have a way to negate your threat or employment of force. The gun is the only personal weapon that puts a 100-pound woman on equal footing with a 220-pound mugger, a 75-year old retiree on equal footing with a 19-year old gangbanger, and a single gay guy on equal footing with a carload of drunk [homophobes] with baseball bats. The gun removes the disparity in physical strength, size, or numbers between a potential attacker and a defender.
There are plenty of people who consider the gun as the source of bad force equations. These are the people who think that we’d be more civilized if all guns were removed from society, because a firearm makes it easier for a mugger to do his job. That, of course, is only true if the mugger’s potential victims are mostly disarmed either by choice or by legislative fiat–it has no validity when most of a mugger’s potential marks are armed. People who argue for the banning of arms ask for automatic rule by the young, the strong, and the many, and that’s the exact opposite of a civilized society. A mugger, even an armed one, can only make a successful living in a society where the state has granted him a force monopoly.
Then there’s the argument that the gun makes confrontations lethal that otherwise would only result in injury. This argument is fallacious in several ways. Without guns involved, confrontations are won by the physically superior party inflicting overwhelming injury on the loser. People who think that fists, bats, sticks, or stones don’t constitute lethal force watch too much TV, where people take beatings and come out of it with a bloody lip at worst. The fact that the gun makes lethal force easier works solely in favor of the weaker defender, not the stronger attacker. If both are armed, the field is level. The gun is the only weapon that’s as lethal in the hands of an octogenarian as it is in the hands of a weightlifter. It simply wouldn’t work as well as a force equalizer if it wasn’t both lethal and easily employable.
When I carry a gun, I don’t do so because I am looking for a fight, but because I’m looking to be left alone. The gun at my side means that I cannot be forced, only persuaded. I don’t carry it because I’m afraid, but because it enables me to be unafraid. It doesn’t limit the actions of those who would interact with me through reason, only the actions of those who would do so by force. It removes force from the equation…and that’s why carrying a gun is a civilized act.
The historical reality of the Second Amendment’s protection of the right to keep and bear arms is not that it protects the right to shoot deer. It protects the right to shoot tyrants, and it protects the right to shoot at them effectively, thus, with the same instruments they would use upon us.
Gun magazine capacity limits could endanger victims instead of saving them. →
Measured by what people actually buy and use, magazines that hold more than 10 rounds are hardly outliers. In fact, there are tens (if not hundreds) of millions already in circulation, which is one reason new limits cannot reasonably be expected to have much of an impact on people determined to commit mass murder.
Another reason is that changing magazines takes one to three seconds, which will rarely make a difference in assaults on unarmed people. The gunman in Connecticut, for example, reportedly fired about 150 rounds, so he must have switched his 30-round magazines at least four times; he stopped only because police were closing in, which prompted him to kill himself.
Magazine size is more likely to matter for people defending against aggressors, which is why it is dangerously presumptuous for the government to declare that no one needs to fire more than X number of rounds. As self-defense experts such as firearms instructor Massad Ayoob point out, there are various scenarios, including riots, home invasions, and public attacks by multiple aggressors, in which a so-called large-capacity magazine can make a crucial difference, especially when you recognize that people firing weapons under pressure do not always hit their targets and that assailants are not always stopped by a single round.
Living in Los Angeles during the 1992 riots, I was glad that shopkeepers in Koreatown had “large-capacity” magazines to defend themselves and their property against rampaging mobs. I bet they were too. In fact, argues gun historian Clayton Cramer, those magazines may have saved rioters’ lives as well, since they allowed business owners to fire warning shots instead of shooting to injure or kill.
If magazines holding more than 10 rounds are not useful for self-defense and defense of others, shouldn’t the same limit be imposed on police officers and bodyguards (including the Secret Service agents who protect the president)? And if the additional rounds do provide more protection against armed assailants, it hardly makes sense to cite the threat of such attacks as a reason to deny law-abiding citizens that extra measure of safety.
I’ve made this argument before: an assailant that has prepared to commit a crime can have all the extra magazines - and even extra firearms - he needs at his ready (and, since he’s willing to commit the greater crime of murder, will be unlikely to be in compliance with the law regarding lower-capacity magazines). He will also have only his own life to concern himself about.
Compare that with an innocent victim who is caught unaware. The victim would have to arm herself quickly and likely be unable to grab extra magazines. In the case of an attack away from home, if the victim is fortunate enough to be carrying a firearm, he or she will probably not have any extra magazines. Either way, that single magazine has to count. Also, in the case of a home invasion, the victim will likely be abruptly awoken and disoriented, have to determine where the break-in is coming from and if there are more than one attacker, the victim will likely be barefoot, also be concerned with protecting others in the house, tending to their injuries, finding a phone to call the police, etc. The victim, in this case, is much less capable of reloading a magazine as quickly as his attacker (who, again, would be using a high-capacity magazine anyway).
And this scenario is far more probable than the random and senseless mass murders that usually make the headlines.
In short: a so-called “high-capacity” magazine is more useful to a potential victim than an attacker.
As a former prosecutor in Washington, D.C., who enforced firearms and ammunition cases while a severe local gun ban was still in effect, I am skeptical of the benefits that many imagine will result from additional gun-control efforts. I dislike guns, but I believe that a nationwide firearms crackdown would place an undue burden on law enforcement and endanger civil liberties while potentially increasing crime. … Since the gun ban was struck down, murders in the District have steadily gone down, from 186 in 2008 to 88 in 2012, the lowest number since the law was enacted in 1976. The decline resulted from a variety of factors, but losing the gun ban certainly did not produce the rise in murders that many [gun control advocates] might have expected.
Calif. authoritarians seek to adopt nation’s toughest gun laws
When New York passed its outrageous gun control laws a few weeks ago, I told a friend that the leftist/statist morons in California would quickly compete to enact even stronger laws.
Among the measures [being pushed by democrats who control the state Legislature, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa] is one that would outlaw the future sale of semi-automatic rifles with detachable magazines. The restriction would prevent quick reloading by requiring bullets to be loaded one at a time.
What?! Let’s call this the “Excuse me, group of home invaders, would you mind not shooting me and my family with your illegal firearms equipped with extended magazines and give me a moment to reload my firearm one round at a time, please?” provision.
Lawmakers also want to make some prohibitions apply to current gun owners, not just to people who buy weapons in the future.
Because criminals are just the type of “current gun owners” who would concern themselves about this lack of a “grandfather exemption.”
Like New York, California also would require background checks for buying ammunition and would add to the list of prohibited weapons.
Those buying ammunition would have to pay a fee and undergo an initial background check by the state Department of Justice, similar to what is required now before buyers can purchase a weapon. Subsequent background checks would be done instantly by an ammunition seller checking the Justice Department’s records.
Because criminals buy their guns and ammo from Wal-Mart and Bass Pro Shops.
The legislation also would ban possession of magazines holding more than 10 bullets, even by those who now own them legally. All weapons would have to be registered.
And criminals will no doubt rush to comply.
Sam Paredes, executive director of Gun Owners of California, promised that gun proponents will fight the measures in court if they become law.
“It strikes me as if these folks are playing some sort of game of one-upsmanship with New York at the expense of law-abiding citizens, and that’s just unconscionable,” he said about lawmakers. …
Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg said he is confident Democrats can use their majorities in the Assembly and Senate to send the measures to Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown this year. …
In other words, statists will once again cram their dangerous ideology down our collective throats.
Steinberg said the measures are designed to close numerous loopholes that gun manufacturers have exploited to get around California’s existing restrictions. …
It’s not a “loophole.” It’s not “getting around existing restrictions.” It’s, definitionally, complying with the law.
Other proposed measures in California would ban so-called “bullet buttons” that can be used to quickly detach and reload magazines in semi-automatic rifles, and update the legal definition of shotguns to prohibit a new version that can rapidly fire shotgun shells and .45-caliber ammunition.
A “bullet button,” for those fortunate enough to live in a freer state, is a mechanism that replaces the magazine release on a center-fire rifle which makes the magazine unremovable without a tool. This is what we already have to deal with in California. Does anyone truly believe that a person who is committed to killing will bother with a bullet button in the first place, much less blocking magazines to only 10 rounds (another California law already in the books)? No, only law-abiding citizens would have to deal with these restrictions. But now, even that is too much for the non-thinkers in Sacramento.
All these new laws will do nothing to prevent crime.
Those of you who have followed me through the years know that I try to maintain a certain level of decorum. I understand that the message can be lost if it is not presented properly.
(Incidentally, in one notable angry rant from 2010 - the only other angry rant I can remember right now - I predicted that the “brain-dead, nanny-statist, liberty-hating, government-dependent morons” of California would need to soon raise taxes due to what I called the “economic carpet-bombing the left’s policies have continued to defecate on the people.” The tax increases were voted on this last November. It only took two years.)
So, happily and by design, it is rare for me to lose my composure (for a dispassionate response to the gun control nonsense, I kindly ask that you click here).
But this… this just makes me angry. These idiots - these assholes - are pushing for laws that will make my family less safe. Forget about my liberty for a moment, my inherent right as a human being to do anything that’s peaceful - the actions of these benighted politicians will place my children in greater danger for the sake of their disgusting power-play. And let’s be clear, here: the more ignorant and naïve ones may earnestly believe they are pursuing good policy and hoping to make our communities safer, but the slightly less dumb ones understand that this is about power.
In any case, I note again: like all gun control, these laws will not curb crime. To the contrary, criminals will be empowered in the face of a less-armed populace. You see, there’s a “free rider benefit” disbursed amongst a population when a significant enough portion is able to defend itself. To borrow Penn Jillette’s thought experiment: if half the women in the world were given guns, even the half without guns would be less likely to be attacked. The same logic applies in reverse: even if some of us find ways to stay legally armed, there will be fewer of us and most of us will be not as sufficiently armed as we could be. As such, the balance shifts in favor of the criminals who now are countered with a weaker populace - and the result will be a higher incidence of crime. This is why Washington D.C. was the murder capital of the United States for many years when its gun laws were particularly severe, and things have gotten better since laws have become less controlling. Now, the leftist petrie dish that is Chicago is the murder capital of the U.S. - where the gun laws are among the strictest in the country.
Trust in authorities as an alternative to self-defense is grossly misplaced, an opinion borne of ignorance and naïveté. The police simply cannot be trusted for protection. Warren v. District of Columbia held that the police are under absolutely no obligation to provide police services to individuals, even if a dispatcher promises help to be on the way. But even if we assume some hypothetical police angel who is not corrupt or lazy and is completely selfless and respectful and concerned only about protecting innocents - even this mythical creature can’t stop a crime in progress faster than the victim who is already at the scene. The Newton police took twenty minutes to arrive to a shooting in (naturally) a gun-free zone filled with the most precious among us. If it took twenty minutes for police to come to the aid of countless innocent and defenseless children in a small town, how long will it take for them to get to you?
I don’t have to wonder what it’s like to face criminals. As I’ve recounted, I’ve had two attempted late-night break-ins in the last year. I’ve had a gun pointed at me three times. Two of those times I was on the phone with the police and the police never showed - even when one of those times ended with the gun being fired at me while on the phone!
And these laws won’t stop crime. A criminal won’t decide to forgo committing a crime because he’s concerned about committing the much lesser non-violent crime of owning an inanimate object.
So to the politicians in California and around the country who are pushing for ways to make my life less free and my family less safe - and to all of the statists who ignorantly support them - I say: fuck you.
How dare you claim authority over my life and the lives of my wife and children? And how dare you use your illegitimate authority to endanger my family?
I’ll sum up this argument the way I have many times before:
Prohibition has never succeeded in eradicating that which was prohibited. The more difficult it is for peaceful, law-abiding individuals to acquire a good, the more the supply of that good falls into the hands of criminals. And someone who is willing to murder is not afraid of committing the much less grievous crime of acquiring an illegal firearm.
The way to mitigate senseless violence like that of Newtown is not to tip the scales in favor of criminals by disarming their victims.
I’d possibly consider giving up the firearms that would protect me, my wife, and my daughters as soon as someone figures out a way to eradicate the earth of rapists, muggers, murderers, and tyrants.
When statist impulses are used to disarm the sane and peaceful, only the insane and violent will be armed - and fewer will be safe.
Do Gun Control Laws Control Guns? →
There are people who have never fired a shot in their life who do not hesitate to declare how many [rounds] should be the limit to put into a firearm’s clip or magazine. …
Virtually all gun control advocates say that 30 bullets in a magazine is far too many for self-defense or hunting — even if they have never gone hunting and never had to defend themselves with a gun. This uninformed and self-righteous dogmatism is what makes the gun control debate so futile and so polarizing.
Anyone who faces three home invaders, jeopardizing himself or his family, might find 30 bullets barely adequate. After all, not every bullet hits, even at close range, and not every hit incapacitates. You can get killed by a wounded man. …
[N]othing is easier than to disarm peaceful, law-abiding people. And nothing is harder than to disarm people who are neither — especially in a country with hundreds of millions of guns already out there, that are not going to rust away for centuries.
When it was legal to buy a shotgun in London in the middle of the 20th century, there were very few armed robberies there. But, after British gun control zealots managed over the years to disarm virtually the entire law-abiding population, armed robberies became literally a hundred times more common. And murder rates rose. …
Gun control laws allow some people to vent their emotions, politicians to grandstand[,] and self-righteous people to “make a statement” — but all at the cost of other people’s lives.
