Unarmed and Vulnerable

The Roanoke Times/ roanoke.com ^ | Thursday, August 31, 2006 | Bradford B. Wiles

[OldPossum]

Re your comment to RC2: get your head out of your a$$.

I'm afraid from reading his/her previous posts, the head is firmly planted therein.

You do know that RC2 has told us he/she was once an armed guard for foreign dignitaries, don't you? Believe it?

[OldPossum]

Re RC2’s post #20, now he’s former military. Previously he guarded foreign dignitaries. Could be both, but the story keeps getting changed.

[doberville]

I sent this on to a friend in the Metropolitan Police in Wales. I await his reaction.

[Joe Brower]

Good article, and the thread's got a lot of good commentary as well, particularly in reply to RC2's post #2. I hear his worries a lot, and many of the answers here (minus the flames) are good ones.

Yes, it would be nice if there was "another way". But until moral character is reintroduced into the mentality of the general population, being prepared to defend one's life with lethal force is a *real good idea*. Of course, lacking that, a chair thrown, a knife, ANYTHING is better than just cowering behind a desk waiting your turn to be slaughtered. Again, the mind is the real weapon.

Of course, that still leaves the problem presented by creatures like Cho, who are not American citizens and bring their own foreign brand of brainwashing to our shores when they come here. Again, the solution is to be able to neutralize the threat as soon as it presents itself. And if the threat has a gun, you damned well better have one too. I'm not saying I like it; I'm saying that's the way it is.

It is sad to note that a large undercurrent to the whole cowardice-as-courage mindset is the simple fact that these sheep do not trust themselves with their own preservation, and thus they do not trust their peers either. Of course, just slap a badge on someone and *Bingo!*, there's their superhero to save the day.

Pathetic, really, and all too common.

[Abundy]

I know some will jump on me for this but I have a problem, again, with thousands of students carrying weapons on campus.

So it was better to just have one?

considering the original post, what do people think would have happened if these students had been armed and went running out of the building, weapons drawn, and met a bunch of heavly armed police?

Nowhere in the letter did this CC holder say he would have charged out of the building with his gun drawn. In fact, he said it wasn't until he saw all the heavily armed police running around that he felt helpless. It is entirely reasonable to infer he would not have drawn the firearm prior to being helpless due to his training to obtain the CCPermit.

That same training would also dictate that he didn't draw the weapon until he saw an immediate threat - which means, since he is alive to write this letter that has you so bothered, he never would have drawn his firearm.

Hundreds of thousands of CC holders regularly carry and never draw their firearms...so your concern is unfounded.

It is the non CC holders who draw their concealed firearms...and kill unarmed people.

[Tijeras_Slim]

now he’s former military. Previously he guarded foreign dignitaries.

He could be DITHF for all we know. (Obscure FR reference)

[2nd amendment mama]

Please note: This story was written on Thursday, August 31, 2006 - well before this mass murder. This crime was preventable.

[TYVets]

Hundreds of thousands of CC holders regularly carry and never draw their firearms...so your concern is unfounded.

As almost all defensive firearms instructors teach:

Never escalate the level of violence.

[2nd amendment mama]

Sorry archy- I didn’t notice at 1st that you HAD posted the original date.....mea culpa...LOL

[Puppage]

think would have happened if these students had been armed and went running out of the building, weapons drawn

You have absolutely NO clue about gun ownership.

[from occupied ga]

on the cowardice thing, I can't be too hard an the students for two reasons They paid with their lives, and no one kinows how they're going to react under fire the first time. When my generation went to Viet Nam, we had the benefit of training, and still some froze at first. IF the students had been armed, then returning fire or just shooting the pos in the back would have been a lot easier.

[Dick Bachert]

This is just a fabulous article. Please forward it to everyone you can. May Diane Feinstein, Rosy O’Donnell, Hillary Clinton and all other politico-celebrity types who work so sanctimoniously to disarm the average American, while they themselves maintain their armed guards, one day find themselves permanently ensconced in that special place in hell reserved for the hypocritical, self-serving elitists who denigrate personal
self-defense while they hire others to do their wet work for them.

---

http://www.guntruths.com/Houck/just_another_day_with_gun_contro.htm

Just another day with Gun Control, January 16, 2000
by Jim Houck

The movie I went to see today, at the request of my film managers, was Hurricane starring Denzel Washington. I write feature films. I write TV ads for the largest advertising agencies on earth for clients like Toyota, Ford, Sony and Coke. I am the “Hollywood crowd” that the liberal press lies about so often.

I arrived early at the Torrance, California AMC 20 Theaters, so I bought my ticket and sat on a bench just outside the front lobby under a palm tree for about half an hour, enjoying the many different faces, the playing kids, the adults.

A flood of Californians streamed out suddenly. A young girl had been attacked by a criminal who had just shot her.

“Is the shooter stopped?” I asked, reaching for my Heckler & Koch USP .45, running for the lobby with the intent to kill the criminal before he could injure or kill more of We the People.

“No, nobody can do anything! He’s just walking around like he owns the place!” a California woman cried, trembling like a mouse before the lion. And indeed, the criminal did.

I ripped up my leather jacket and found my holster missing. I didn’t have my .45 with me today. I’d opted not to take it just this one time at the advice of the local Californians, avoid the hassle of the California cops if they discover it, I thought, save the massive court costs of exercising my right. “Don’t get caught, the street officers will hook you and book you and let the judges sort it out,” a friend and local California police officer had told me repeatedly. Besides, it was three in the afternoon next door to Palos Verdes Estates, one of the most affluent and lowest crime areas in the United States.

My decision to leave my self defense at home very likely cost the young man who would be shot next his life. I have extensive, combat firearms training. I’ve been in three gun battles with criminals in New Orleans and Miami in the defense of myself twice and a Miami police officer once, and I’ve never missed nor have I lost. The criminals did.

Of course the criminal didn’t know these things. He didn’t know he was in a “low crime” area and he didn’t seem to care that it was three in the afternoon on a Sunday. All he knew was that he was operating in Senator Diane Feinstein¹s wet dream, a theater of perfect Gun Control. Not one citizen in the large crowd of moms, dads, young men or young women had a firearm with which to defend themselves. So they ran. But the funny thing is, they didn’t run very fast and the certainly didn’t run very far, in fact, many basically hurried and stood around and complained about not being able to finish their show. You see, criminals being in full control is nothing new in California. It’s not news. It didn’t excite these folks.

I stopped outside the lobby doors. No gun. No way to fight this criminal, I thought.

The shooter fired again, dropping a young man next. Well, the California people voted this idiocy through, they repeatedly elect servants like Diane Feinstein and Barbara Boxer as state senators, people who take away their rights to self defense and the defense of their families, I thought, let them deal with the consequences of their decisions. Of course the criminal walked out the back of the AMC 20 Theaters and vanished long before the local police could wade through the Sunday traffic and do the paperwork. At least they were nice enough to come. They didn’t have to. They responded as a “courtesy” according to the Supreme Court. They have no legal duty to protect the individual from criminal assault or murder. Something surprisingly few people know, especially in California.

I looked at the downed young man. He would die, judging from my own personal
experiences as a shooter of over 20 years and where the criminal had injured him. The girl, barring very unusual circumstances, she would live, judging from where the criminal had injured her and her loss of blood.

The police put pressure on the injuries to try and reduce the bleeding from the criminal attack. Another courtesy service.

I sat back down on the bench and watched the Californians as they angrily demanded their ticket money be refunded, the victims of the criminal lying ten yards from them, moaning, dying.

A man with his wife in the line of angry movie patrons turned to me and growled, “I’m surprised Feinstein isn’t here already. And the liberal mainstream press. You know, we carry our guns anyway and we didn’t bring them today because it’s such a hassle to have to hide them all the time from the local cops. What a bunch of shit. Just look at that guy. He’s probably going to die.”

Thanks, Senator Feinstein. As a resident of Florida, in Los Angeles working on feature film scripts with my L.A. based managers, it’s interesting to see how your Prohibition on self defense, “Gun Control” works. Of course, had you been there to see The Hurricane, your armed bodyguards would have used their semi-automatic, high capacity “assault weapons” to stop the criminal dead in his tracks, which is what the bastard richly deserved. Funny, Diane, with all your SB 23s and SB 15s and Prohibition on self defense, the criminal still badly hurt and perhaps killed two young kids who just went to see a movie on a quiet Sunday afternoon. Why call it “gun control?” Why not rename it “defenseless sheep” or the “citizen massacre laws?” Or maybe just simple “bullshit.”

Wish you could have been there Diane to see how your idiotic laws work in real life. It was memorable.

Jim Houck is the Creative Director of Citizens of America

[do the dhue]

The police would not have know who these kids were.

The Police would not have had to worry about this. First of all, punks like Cho only have the guts to do what they do to unarmed people. They would have never gone into a classroom with a bad attitude, if they thought the students in the class could defend themselves.

If Cho did come into the classroom with his attitude, all the Police would have had to do is draw a white line around his dead body. Your body count would be one, maybe two at worst.

[SuziQ]

This article was about a young man, a graduate student, who was licensed to carry a weapon, and TRAINED in its use. This is a quite different case than some goober freshman who even I probably wouldn't trust with a weapon in his dorm room.

Allowing trained folks, be they 21 yr. old grad students, or faculty and staff, to have weapons for their own and their students' protection just makes sense. Having a couple of law abiding adults with guns available might not have saved all of the students in Norris Hall, but they certainly would have saved those in the second wave of shootings.

I'm fairly certain that if Liviu Lebrescu had had a gun in his desk, he would have used it, and he wouldn't have had to throw his unarmed self in front of the gunman. He had time to figure out what was coming, because he was able to give his students a warning to jump out the windows. Imagine if he'd had a weapon available to him; he might have stopped Cho in his tracks, and reduced the carnage.

[SuziQ]

LOL! That is SO bad, but it is SO good!

[Pistolshot]

So let me put this in an answer that is not demeaning to your stance, I do understand your questioning the carry of a weapon.

The many years I have advocated and worked on legislation to allow citizens to carry concealed in this state has been a minefield of hazards such as what you are saying. The fact is less that 2% of any state's population has acquired a CCW permit and even less carry on a daily basis.The training involved and the expense prohibit a lot of people from just arbitrarily getting the permit.

The people who do go through the time and expense get a harsh reality check on what the law does and does not allow for the incorrect use of a permit holder. There is more time spent on the actual liabilities and the law for each class. Some drop out when they learn they are not capable of controlling themselves and they are not Wyatt Earp. It is sobering to a lot of students to know their ability is very restricted. Hence, the ones who complete the course are well adjusted, normal, everyday kind of people.

Lawyers, doctors, bankers, business people, housewives and elderly carry regularly.

They have common sense and a sobering reality that someday they must defend the defenseless or themselves.

[ModelBreaker]

I know some will jump on me for this but I have a problem, again, with thousands of students carrying weapons on campus. Considering the original post, what do people think would have happened if these students had been armed and went running out of the building, weapons drawn, and met a bunch of heavly armed police? I think we would have had another big disaster on our hands. The police would not have know who these kids were. There’s got to be another answer.

It's over by the time the police get there, if the students are armed. In fact, it probably never happens in the first place.

But assume the bad guy goes after an armed campus. By the time the police arrive, its CSI time, not "rescue the helpless students time." At that point, anyone with 1/4 a brain puts down his weapon and puts up his hands. I carry concealed and I have already thought thru the "use your gun and wait for the police" scenario. In all of them, my gun is on the ground and my hands in clear view in the air when the police arrive.

Even had one or two of the students not thought to put their guns down and gotten shot by the police, that's still a lot fewer dead students on an armed campus than on a disarmed campus. More important, there are a lot fewer dead students in the future on campuses everywhere as bad guys look for softer targets.

No one likes the idea of a bunch of kids waving guns as the police arrive. Bad things could happen. But you cannot just analyze that possibility in isolation. The important question (one that liberals are unable to ask) is: What is the alternative? The alternative is the slaughter at Virginia Tech and Columbine. Neither alternative is especially attractive. To me, the "armed students greeting the police" alternative is, by far, the lesser of two evils.

"We handled this; now let's clean up," is a far better result (both from a standpoint of net deaths and from a standpoint of healthy, self-sufficient young men and women) than "you take care of this, I'm a helpless victim."

[do the dhue]

It would have been a different story if these three girls were in the classrom:

[JayAr36]

Boy, your assumptions are way off the wall. I suggest you reread you assumptions and LOGICALLY rethink them. Why would "thousands" of students run out waving firearms? Don't you think a student that has passed the requirements for a concealed carry would know what to do in this situation? And, last but most important, just who has the responsibility for protecting you? If your answer is the police I remind you that the Supreme Court has already ruled that they, "THEY HAVE NO SUCH RESPONSIBILITY"

[sistergoldenhair]

ping