Nothing wrong with that, but why? To defend yourself against the "Antifa" blackshirts? OK, fine, but who are they?
If I read the numbers right, there's more than enough firepower in honest hands to obliterate the Outfit, the Tren de Aragua, the Gangster Disciples, the Somali Outlaws, the Wah Ching, and all their related ilk (plausible candidates for "hostis humani generis" and outlawry)--in standup battles. But in practice, the gangs survive though secrecy and intimidation and connections with law enforcement.
Who's going to identify them for you? "I'm from Antifa and I'm here to kill you. Go get your gun." Sure. Or were you thinking of trying to track them to their lairs and attack them? You'll find them better defended than you hope. And where they are street enforcers for political groups, they will have some outside support as well. The bombers from the 70's were funded by rich lawyers (and occasional bank robbery). Remember the Klan.
And if you're worried about being surprised, some body armor might be handier than a rifle. (sniper?) And buddies with you could be even more useful--gangsters seem to prefer "defeat in detail."
I'm not talking about street crime here, or subway crime. That you can sometimes have an impact on, provided you're prepared and alert. I just don't see firearms as magical defenses against this kind of violence.
4 comments:
I'm not going back to check, but my memory of that comment thread was that there was ONE person who said, essentially, "With this and all the other stuff I've moved from 'thinking about buying a gun' to actually buying one, and my wife has shifted from 'against' to 'good idea'.
And while there was after that a lot of gun commentary, it wasn't anyone else also suggesting buying a gun, but LOTS of folks giving cautions in individual comments on:
• legal aspects,
• the psychological difficulty of actually using one against a person at the time of need,
• the need for training,
• the need for practice,
• and how quickly skills fade without practice.
So while it looked like a lot of gun commentary, no-one was suggesting it would be useful in a Charlie-Kirk type situation.
I thought about "what can one do in that situation for defense?" and then it hit me that I was already doing that: Not being there.
Long before the 1st Trump assassination event, there were enough examples of people being cornered and brutally attacked on their own or as couples* after political events while returning to their car or metro-station. And lots of stories of unsuspecting people being subject to violence just because they found themselves unwittingly in a street-blockade demonstration. I've seen crowds ahead on my route that might have been innocuous, but I've detoured anyway, because why risk it? And if there's a political rally or controversial speaker-event, it is usually easy to organize myself to be elsewhere.
Of course the next day Althouse commented on "the idea that if we don't continue to live as freely and fully as we had before then we will be letting the terrorists win."
You can of course not defend yourself against a sniper with a handgun. In general it is difficult to defend yourself from a sniper in an elevated position at all. Infantry units have trouble with that problem, even with fire support they can call or countersniper units attached. Body armor is a good idea, but the heavy ceramic body armor with Kevlar shells that we wore in Iraq would only stop one .30 caliber round. They did that by shattering, absorbing the force of the impact. They wouldn't help you against the second one much.
At some point the unit of defense moves from the individual to the militia. That is what the militia were originally to do, after all: defend each other on the frontier in the face of hostile attacks by Native Americans, or in the north the French, or in the south the Spaniards. It's been a long time since we needed to stand up actual militias like that, but the reason to maintain the structure -- in addition to the two more frequently cited reasons that it can immediately bolster the military against invasions, and that it can be a defense against tyranny -- is that sometimes things come around again.
However, I would remind you of Luke 22:36-8. Jesus tells his disciples to buy swords even if they have to sell their coats/cloaks, yet he is satisfied when two among the twelve have them. (John 18 shows that Jesus only intended those swords to defend the disciples, not himself.) It isn't everyone who needs to buy a gun or defend the community in militia service; but it is some of us. It's fine if it's not for you. Just encourage everyone to stand up for the rights of those of us for whom it is intended, and do so yourself if you are able.
I agree. My objection was to magical thinking. Just getting a tool doesn't make you competent with it, nor even guarantee that it will be useful for what you need.
Thanks.
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