Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for January 29, 2011

Just keep making this stuff up, we’ll all be safer.

Yes, don’t let those statistics showing millions of concealed carry holders nationwide going about their business every day and not going on crazed shooting sprees disturb you.

Ignore the stats showing that you’re much more likely to be shot by a law enforcement officer than a CCW holder.

Ignore the reams of evidence showing that armed citizens make you a lot safer - instead, live in your fantasy world and feel superior because you are irresponsible.

Read Col Cooper or Massad Ayoob. Educate yourself.

Try GunFacts dot info

And always remember, when seconds count - the police are just minutes away! And not legally obligated to respond.

Orion

@Orion-13 Yes, and ignore the fact that the vast majority, the vast, vast majority, of gun fatalities are family members of the gun owner.

I only wear this explosive vest for personal protection.

If I’m attacked by a flock of Enraged Avians(tm) I can set it off and escape unharmed.

Right.

GBT,

Please can we have a different storyline next week! All these comments about how wonderful it is to be able to carry a concealed gun are making me quite depressed. So depressed I feel like I might as well go and shoot myself. Oops, I live in the UK, no easy access to guns, so I can’t commit suicide so easily! Also my family will not suffer the trauma of losing dad / grandad.

Seriously GBT, please let this be a one week storyline, reading the comments is not an enjoyable 5 minutes. Mike

Boy, they sure grow them big in Alaska, but Don Young is a small fish compared to Sarah “Barracuda”. All buck shot and gristle, hyper-ballistic in high heels and lipstick.

I wonder if it’s the Kenyan preacher that stirs her so much?

Apparently, the pen is mightier than the concealed weapon.

I carry a concealed PISTIL….

Yeah, you read it right. Flower Power, people!

Peace, all

I was shot by a licenced gun carrier. The only licence at fault was a marriage licence and her unwillingness to wear a ring.

It is painfully apparent that this is an issue, like abortion, that has no possibility of differing opinions being reconciled. Facts and statistics abound to buttress both sides of the argument, but emotion is the driving force. Disagreement with one’s position is seen as apostasy.

The posturing by these pathetic politicians should be seen for what it is; a pitiful attempt to garner votes.

I will continue to have a weapon available whenever possible, and sincerely hope that it is never needed.

Orion-13 said: “Ignore the reams of evidence showing that armed citizens make you a lot safer”

Yep. That’s why Iraq and Afghanistan are the safest places on earth–everybody’s got their own AK-47! Plan your vacation today!

…I am pro-gun..I believe in American’s right to bare arms.In fact,if I built an atomic bomb why should the gov’t deny my right to have one?Sure amendments have been amended before,but I ask you this:if only criminals had guns how could I accidentially shoot my wife when I got freakin ‘pissed’ off at her,if I didn’t have my glock?Sure,you may not never heard of anyone actually defending themselves with their gun during a robbery,but that just because the ‘liberal’ press don’t print nothin’ good.It’s not like I’m insane or anything.I do believe that folks with babies should not have ferrets in the house…that’s crazy dangerous…

Well said, sandfan.

And Orion, both our gun ownership and our murder rate lead all industrialized nations by wide margins. What statistics am I missing?

Quite so, jrmerm. And the state will survive as long as it can persuade us that it has the godlike power to preserve the life of a killer who has violated the right to life, and at the same time limit the rights of mothers who choose to have an abortion.

How many Americans support both capital punishment and a woman’s right to choose? Our problem is that we cannot agree on the value of life, or even define it legally.

In particular, we find it difficult to weigh the lost life of the murder victim in the same balance with the potential life of a fetus. So we let the state do the weighing for us, and set minimal values on the rights of victim and fetus alike.

This confusion over our most basic value allows prolifers to treat a mother as a “murderer” and the foes of capital punishment to mother murderers.

I’ll second (or third, fourth, etc.) the hope that this is just a 1-week storyline. The pro- and anti-gun sides are not talking to each other, they’re talking past each other. I know this is politics and all, but I still wish the dialog here was a bit more…constructive. Anti-gun people, all the name calling and crude stereotyping you’re doing is not helping your side score any intellectual points.

BTW to all the Brits who are commenting here: just remember, it’s because of you that we Americans have gun rights built into our Constitution!

How long will it take for the police to respond to someone attacking you?? I would much rather have the police do the dirty work, that’s why we hire them. Realistically they can not respond in time, you are dead by the time they get there, you just need to everything you can to be sure you are safe. Stay out of areas notoriously a problem. All my years in the Army proved to me defensive readiness is a must.. to assure your personal safety. And a degree of dumb luck..

Not too long ago in South FL, a couple of armed thugs decided to rob a Subway. It would have been nothing if they had just taken the cash and left. But one decided that they should “take all the customers and employees to a back room and have them lie face down”. One customer, knowing how many time this led to the murder of all witnesses, pulled his gun and shot both robbers dead.

This is not an isolated incident, but what got reported in the newspapers were the families of these two thugs, with long records, complaining that their boys never did anything wrong and didn’t deserve what happened. They were “good boys”. Well they are good boys now.

@palin drome: I’d be willing to bet that 95% of people that call themselves “pro-life” support capital punishment.

@Doctor Dan - Like I said, go read the info at GunFacts dot Info and see what statistics you’re missing.

http://www.gunfacts.info

There’s about 97 pages of them there. Enjoy!

Orion

To the rest of you, stop going with ‘everybody knows’ and do some research. Look into the wild history of the Las Vegas PD and their amazing numbers of shootings of innocent civilians. Read the works of Col Cooper on Self-Defense and the use of firearms in self-defense, read the works of Ayoob and get some education before you decide.

I’ve read the gun control people’s stuff and found it to be very unconvincing.

You may also enjoy Bill Whittle’s take on the idea: http://pajamasmedia.com/ejectejecteject/2009/10/07/tribes-2/?print=1

Orion Orion

Waiting Man, it’s shocking that some people can be so judgmental as to value the lives (not to mention the value to society) of innocent babies over those of convicted mass murders. What’s justice coming to?

Lou, I hereby officially apologize for saying that I hope that California drops into the ocean.

But were it to happen tomorrow anyway, I hope you get reincarnated right away as an Alaskan halibut.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZBjsCRGa2M

“I’ve read the gun control people’s stuff and found it to be very unconvincing.” Hey Orion, I can play that game too: Stop going with ‘everybody knows’ and do some research. I’ve read the ‘let everyone have guns’ people’s stuff and found it to be very unconvincing.

Well, God forbid if it does fall, at least the USS Makin Island stationed in San Diego can help in the rescue effort.

Glad Nemesys didn’t say turkey.

The simple “real gun fact” is that over 90% of people who “defend themselves” with a gun vs an ARMED assailant- end up shot- only about 50% actually die, but hey! Very few pistol owners know how to hit anything. The NRAs own “Armed Citizen” reports demonstrate this FACT! The outrageous claims of “crimes stopped” by weapons carry is so absurd as to be a joke. Yes, I have hand guns, rifles, shotguns, and a concealed weapons permit. Do I support the NRA? NO WAY!! It is the gun NUTS, not gun “owners” who are the real problem. Young is definitely part of the problem, not solution.

Yee Haw!

I’m gettin’ me a gun too!

Good thing it’s so easy to get guns in Florida, or these kids would still be bothering their mother. Thank you NRA and gun lobby. http://edition.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/01/29/florida.children.killed/index.html?eref=mrssigooglecnn

Funny who all the right wing gun lovers resent people for firing back in a debate. ;-)

@dtroutma, care to provide a source for that ‘fact’? http://www.gunfacts.info provides sources and links for all of theirs from such wild places as The Brady Institute and the CDC and the FBI. Yours sounds very much like an ‘everybody knows’ sort of fact as it’s directly contrary to just about everything I’ve ever read or seen.

@DaNoot52 - Dismiss? No. Realize she’s nuts? Yes. Do you want to ban easy access to cars for the several women who’ve strapped their children into their car seats and driven them into lakes? Or a variety of other methods that they’ve used. There is no causality there, I’m afraid.

Orion

Now, Da. that was on CNN. You know liberals will only report the BAD stuff that occasionally happens when people shoot other people. Fox will report all the good stuff that happenswhen people shoot other people.

CNN is liberal? I guess you believe Fox “News” is “fair and balanced”. Did you know the world is flat?

Freeholder, I hope you don’t mean me. I never avoid a good firefight.

Besides, Lou, living in ‘Frisco I’ll bet you know more than a few guys who would give anything just to trade places with that fish.

DoctorDan: as I noted the other day, Canada has more guns (per capita) than the US, but much less crime of all forms, particularly violent crime (source, believe it or not: Michael Moore, Bowling for Columbine ). OTOH, as I also noted, many of the ‘stans have very very very high rates of gun ownership… and very very very high rates of violent crime. Depends, I suspect, more than anything else on whether the culture approves of violence as a solution to one’s problems. You could probably arm the Brits to the teeth and still have less violent crime than you have here, simply because they are such cooperative people (ever notice how twenty Englishmen spontaneously form into an orderly queue… even if there’s nothing to wait for? Ever notice that roundabouts actually work for British drivers? I rest my case…) We, on the other hand, would probably find ways to kill each other if we were armed with nothing more deadly than plastic spoons.

Orion– Department of Justice crime reports. Interesting how the NRA distorts those as well.

@dtroutma - Really? Interesting. I work IT in Law Enforcement and that, again, is directly contrary to everything I’ve ever seen or read. Can you give me a link to the specific report you’re referring to? I’d be very interested to see the source data for that.

For instance, what I know of (from Gunfacts.info): Annual defensive use of firearms - 2,500,000 (Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, Fall 1995). 92% of those involve merely the display of the firearm or a warning shot. Filling in the remaining 8% of the time the attacker is wounded or rarely, killed (less than one in a thousand - Per Critical Incidents in Policing, FBI, 1991)

In fact, 11% of police shootings kill an innocent person vs about 2% of shootings by citizens (Shall Issue: the new wave of concealed handgun permit laws, Cramer, Kopel, Independent Institute Issue Paper, October 17, 1994)

And, per a study by the British Home Office, in a violent assault, your odds of being killed or injured are: Resisting with a gun: 6% Doing nothing: 25% Resisting with a knife: 40% Non-violent resistance: 45%.

None of these seem to lend any credence to your statements - hence my interest in reading the report.

Orion

prfesser – my concern exactly. There are loonies in every crowd, it would be better if they didn’t have guns.

Orion-13 – Well the Brady material does show that over a million folks have died from firearms in America since 1968 – and over 6,000 have died already this year (which is only 1 month old) and that should be shameful enough for our country – but alas….

@lindz.coop: A sizable percentage were suicides. A sizable percentage were criminals shooting each other. Etc. - Read the statistics at http://www.gunfacts.info and get educated. They include a lot of information about other countries as well.

Shameful? Why? Is it better that they hang themselves as is common in Britain? Or poison? or…if someone wants to kill themselves, they’ll find a reason.

I find it shameful that in order to assuage your fear of a loony having a gun, you want to prevent everyone from having one. Ban tens of millions of law abiding citizens from doing something because of a remote threat from a few thousands. And we have laws in place to try to prevent loonies from having firearms - sadly, loonies, like criminals, often ignore those laws.

Severe bans on firearms really doesn’t seem to keep criminals from having them in the UK or any other country.

I wonder what the total is for how many have died since 1968 from automobile accidents? Especially involving alcohol? A favorite quote: Ted Kennedy’s car has killed more people than my .45.

Orion

Gee Orion, your comparison of Ted Kennedy’s car and your .45 has overwhelmed all other statistics and common sense and proved that letting anyone carry any gun they like is worth the extra deaths. Not. I’m from a country in which only criminals and the police carry guns (well, and hunters too) and I like it fine. On the one hand, I find the issue cheering - it reminds me that Australia gets this one right, but on the other hand it’s a shame that the USA, a country that is admirable in many ways, puts up with this gun-related stupidity. Then again, I usually skip the comments.

@judgefloyd - Um, it’s not a proof, it’s a commentary on the foolishness of drawing broad conclusions of causality.

I’m glad you’re happy with your country. Please leave MY rights in MY country alone. I am quite pleased to be able to defend myself and my fellows when needed and take that responsibility seriously. Evidently, you do not and that’s fine.

Orion