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Vin Suprynowicz
What of the crimes, massacres prevented?
A reader who refers to himself as "a common-sense liberal" writes in:
"In view of the agonized calls for increased restrictions on firearm ownership resurrected by the recent shooting in Arizona, could you write a column with meaningful statistics on death and injury nationwide prevented by the civilian ownership of firearms?
"The number of incidents described in the 'Armed Citizen' column in the NRA's 'American Rifleman' publication; the reluctance of the national media to acknowledge the same type of occurrences; and my estimation of incidents not reported lead me to believe that a great deal of good has occurred because of the private ownership of firearms.
"I personally have experienced two instances, not reported, where the presence of a handgun on my behalf has been instrumental in preventing a very likely attack. ...
"I think (your readers) might be influenced to re-examine their point of view regarding firearm ownership if they were exposed to statistics in its favor."
My correspondent's point is well-taken. When some idiot drives up on the sidewalk and kills three people with his Chevy, no one demands "Chevy control" with waiting periods, background checks, etc.
In response, the hoplophobes shriek: "Chevys have a legitimate use! Guns have no use except for killing."
Actually, handguns are used millions of times per year in self-defense, without even being fired. When the potential rapist or assailant becomes aware his intended victim has a handgun, he goes away. There's usually no police report.
Most gun uses don't involve killing. They don't even involve discharging a round. And that's before we even talk about the benefit of having a populace that knows how to shoot when a war breaks out. If guns "have no use except for killing," does that mean every time a cop straps on his duty pistol, he's hoping he gets to kill someone with it? Don't most culprits allow themselves to be arrested without making the cop draw his gun?
It's hard to quantify "defensive gun uses" precisely because most don't show up on countable police reports.
I contacted Gun Owners of America this week to ask for their best current estimate. Spokesman Robert Duggar responded: "We're not aware of any new studies. As far as we know, the old annual usage numbers of 2.5 million by Gary Kleck" (www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcdguse.html or www.pulpless.com/gunclock/kleck2.html) "and 1.5 million by the Clinton Justice Department are the latest estimates out there."
I did write a column following a similar incident in 1999, when racist nut Benjamin Nathaniel Smith killed two and wounded nine in a series of drive-by shootings of blacks, Asian-Americans and Orthodox Jews in Illinois and Indiana before dying in a struggle with police on the Fourth of July.
Back then, I pointed out: "No one mentions that again, as in Colin Ferguson's terrible shooting spree on the Long Island Railroad a few years back (in a jurisdiction where none of the victims was allowed to carry arms), and as in the worst American mass shooting in recent memory, in which 23 occupants of the Luby's Cafeteria in Killeen, Texas, were shot down like dogs because state law required them to leave their firearms out in their cars ... none of Benjamin Nathaniel Smith's victims was armed."
(If Arizonans are so "overarmed" because of "lax gun laws," as we're now told, how did last weekend's nut empty a whole magazine before being tackled? Why was no one else there armed and able to stop him?)
" 'Oh, being armed is no solution,' the mincing minions of genocide will surely simper," I continued in that 1999 column. " 'The bad guy will only take your gun away and use it on you.' "
I responded by detailing the mass shooting spree that never occurred in Santa Clara, Calif., that Fourth of July weekend. That's right: the one that never occurred. Funny how crime sprees that are prevented by law-abiding citizens with guns never make the front page, isn't it?
Reuters reported on July 6, 1999: "A shootout at a California shooting range ended a bizarre hostage drama ... Sgt. Anton Morec of the Santa Clara Police Department said the aspiring gunman, 21-year-old Richard Gable Stevens ... 'intended to go out in a blaze of glory,' noting Stevens had accumulated more than 100 rounds of ammunition for his rented 9 mm semi-automatic weapon.
" 'It certainly looks like he intended to take a lot more people out.'
"Morec said Stevens arrived at the National Shooting Club Monday evening and rented the rifle for target practice. ... After several minutes on the range, however, Stevens returned to the club's gun store and shot at the ceiling. He then herded three store employees out the door into an alley, saying he intended to kill them.
"Unknown to Stevens, one store employee was carrying a .45-caliber handgun concealed beneath his shirt. When Stevens looked away, the employee fired, hitting Stevens several times in the chest and bringing him to the ground."
After Stevens was hospitalized, police found a note to his parents, predicting they would be bankrupted by lawsuits from the relatives of his intended "victims." Reuters said police concluded that, "The quick action by the gun club employee may have headed off a massacre."
Sounds like the Santa Clara gunman intended to do pretty much what this Jared Loughner twerp did in Tucson last Saturday, doesn't it? What was different? One law-abiding citizen with a gun and the willingness to use it.
World Net Daily reports, "One person who has not only experienced such a scenario firsthand, but who shot back against terrorists and defended friends and family in his church -- and went on to write one of the most powerful books ever on the right and duty of Christians to be armed -- is South African Charl Van Wyk. ...
"'Grenades were exploding in flashes of light. Pews shattered under the blasts, sending splinters flying through the air,' he recalls of the July 25, 1993, St. James Church Massacre. 'An automatic assault rifle was being fired and was fast ripping the pews -- and whoever, whatever was in its trajectory -- to pieces. We were being attacked!' ...
"'Instinctively, I knelt down behind the bench in front of me and pulled out my .38 special snub-nosed revolver, which I always carried with me,' he writes in 'Shooting Back.' 'I would have felt undressed without it. Many people could not understand why I would carry a firearm into a church service, but I argued that this was a particularly dangerous time in South Africa.' "
The terrorists killed 11 and wounded 58. But Van Wyk, firing back, wounding one of the attackers, driving the others away, saving countless lives.
What? Nothing like that could ever happen in America?
Look up New Life Church, Colorado Springs, December 2007. And note church member Jeanne Assam, who stopped that massacre, is a volunteer "civilian," with a license to carry concealed.
Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Review-Journal, and author of the novel "The Black Arrow." See www.vinsuprynowicz.com.
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Interesting that Hitler and our current liberals had a similar view on gun control. Why do liberals hate the Constitution?
The Left never lets a crisis go to waste. For them, a massacre prevented is one such a waste. Look at how well Obama's approval rating bounced after the Tuscon “People of Earth, quit your bickering!” speech. A few more of those would cinch 2012.
Former...yep that is the SAME or related reason why he never invaded Holland or Norway....so he could use them to break a potential blockade (Yes German planning mentioned using them for that purpose with the German Navy Abwher Dept foremost in that argument)....oh wait...he DID invade those countries despite their potential to aid blockade breaking and food imports....AND a reading of German war plans reveals they did NOT invade Sweden AND Switzerland for MANY reasons and one was that their air and tank armies would be less effective on those areas....AND they had all their ski and alpine troops committed in other theaters like in Finland where they fought for most of the war against the Russians and in Norway and the Balkans where they were absorbed for most of the war in massive partisan suppression efforts (the usual armed citizens and military remnants)...the Wermacht knew that Sweden and Switzerland had HUGE well armed trained militias and would both prove poisoned partizan pills if they invaded and yes they were useful as you say..but blithely ignoring the reality of the war plans that included invading the Swede's and Swiss and the named consequences of the proposed invasion with a know HUGE commitment of non-existent light infantry and specialized troops to two large partisan wars is a one sided and disgenuous comment.....Hitler would have taken back the Balkan invasion if he could have but his Italian buddy made that impossible with his inept actions.....he invaded Norway partly because the British and French forced his hand by coming in first....lots of reasons and too many to list in this limited place.....
Hitler decided not to invade Switzerland for a few reasons, none of which of course was out of any "fear" that the Swiss had a few handguns. No, the real reason was why? The Swiss were perfect partners with Germany; they hide Jewish gold is safe accounts, they manufactured goods and sold them to the Germans, and they looked like Germans; blonde and blue. The silliness of some people some times is really remarkable. Yes folks, Hitler, one of the most crazed dictators in history, and man who understood the "danger" of six shooters, but did not understand the dangers of attacking the great industrial powers, with millions of men armed with tanks. planes, and all manner of armaments. Seriously? Dang
Yet another case of armed resistance that Vin has written about is the Warsaw Ghetto, in which heroic Jews held out against the German Army for a month, using just a handful of stolen, illegal rifles and handguns against German tanks, mortars, and machine guns. You can read about the heroic Warsaw resistance at Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership: JPFO.ORG. I note with sadness the passing of their founder, Aaron Zelman, in December of 2010.
Vin has written about the Swiss Militia and their determination to fight to the last man, should they be invaded by Germany. Hitler's plan was to conquer the rest of Europe first, then turn and eliminate Switzerland last. He knew that, if he invaded Switzerland first, he would be bogged down there for a long time, giving other countries plenty of time to arm themselves. The Swiss have a very impressive array of defense works, and every adult male serves in the militia. COULD Hitler have eventually overrun Switzerland? Sure--but at an unacceptable cost, and this is the key. Being armed does not necessarily mean you will win a firefight, but it does mean you have the potential of inflicting unacceptable losses on your foe. This is true both of individual criminals invading a home, and criminal governments invading a country.
Similarly, in the American revolution, the unorganized militia was more effective than the Continental Army, which "defeated" the British army largely on the superior quality of its retreats, in the words of a contemporary wag. While the Continental Army fought the war on Britain's terms (marching in formation on an open field and being cut down by better-drilled British soldiers), the militia fought guerilla-style. Their preferred tactic was shooting at British soldiers from a position of concealment, then retreating before the Brits--superior in number and organization--could counterattack. They even used the dastardly tactic of firing upon British officers, now known as "sacking the quarterback." The British were quite upset by these tactics. The militia also had an advantage in accuracy of their weapons, as they used locally-made long rifles, while the British used loud but inaccurate muskets.
History shows that a well-armed citizenry can resist foreign invasions, even from the best armies in the world: the British army and navy in the Revolutionary War, and the German army in WWII.
Diogenes why be so silly? Anyone who knows ANYTHING about guns knows you only pull it to use it AND to kill...it is only used by criminals to intimidate (give me your wallet etc) in a survey of convicted criminals the armed citizen was their # 1 fear during the commission of a crime....gun control "experts" who get most of their expertise from TV or equally clueless politicians have no clue and most of the TV "tough guys" would be dead within seconds if they acted in real life like they do in the TV fantasys.....guns stop thousands of attacks every year....in my case out of two incidents where I was unexpectedly attacked only one was recorded as a discharge of the weapon (2 rounds for two solid center mass hits) and in the other instance it is a non statistic because I never drew or fired the weapon....so in my case you could say 50% of the incidents my Model 19 Smith stopped went unrecorded.....
yoyo, that has to be one of the most stupid comments ever posted on these pages. Absolutely ridiculous.
Another benefit mentioned in Shooting Back by Charl Van Wyk is that when he began to fire the people with the automatic weapons began to fire at him. They changed targets and focused on him.
By drawing fire, many, many of his unarmed congregants were able to flee to safety. Drawing fire is dangerous, but a vital component to protecting OTHERS. If the gun man is shooting at me then he is is NOT firing at my wife, children, or the stranger suddenly now under my care and protection.
D of S - The coward in Tucson was not defending or protecting himself.