Last week, some asshole in Omaha shot and killed eight other people in a shopping mall. Over the weekend, another asshole killed two people at a church retreat, then drove to the megachurch with the intent of killing more more people. He killed two in the parking lot and then this happened:
Jeanne Assam, a church member who volunteers as a security guard, shot and killed [name of Asshole DELETED], who was found with a rifle and two handguns, police said.
I have seen reports that Ms. Assam was a bodyguard for the pastor. (Whether or not it is weird that a preacher needs a bodyguard is beyond the scope of this post.) The plain fact of the matter is that the asswipe walked into the megachurch with three guns and hundreds of rounds of ammunition on a Sunday and the only thing that stopped him from conducting a holiday-season bloodbath was a woman with a handgun.
There are a few obvious things that need to be stated. First off, regardless of how you feel about guns, there are at least 100 million of them in private hands, maybe 200 million, or more. They are not going away anytime soon. (Anyway, guns are basically low-tech devices; the gold-standard for handguns was designed nearly 100 years ago. This is all 19th Century technology if you're making repeaters and 18th Century tech if you are not.)
Second, once someone starts commencing to kill people, seconds count. By the time the police show up, gear up, assess the situation, sketch up a plan and then implement the plan, it's then a matter of a lot of minutes. This is not a slam on the cops, it is just the way it is. Nobody has a right to expect the cops to charge in blindly.
Third, gun-free zones do not do a thing other than ensure a rich harvest for killers. Nobody who is going to go somewhere with the intent of killing people is going to be stopped by a "no guns" sign.
Let me draw a couple of parallels: You can easily find information on fire extinguishers. Using a fire extinguisher when a fire starts can mean that all you will have to deal with is a sooty mess. If yo don't have a fire extinguisher, you have to call the fire department and by the time they arrive, your small fire is now a structure fire that will result in a home that is at best uninhabitable for a time or, at worst, is destroyed.
Similarly, a first-aid kit and the training to use it can mean the difference between needing a bunch of stitches at the ER and needing a mortician.
It is the same with guns. Nothing is guaranteed and having people around with concealed weapons will not mean that bad things won't happen. But it can mean that the bad things may be minimized.
(p.s., in "damn skippy" mode, see mattg, marko, zendo deb, breda and probably every other person who isn't a gun-banner. and also note that there was another security guard who just froze. guns are not magic talismen. they have to be used.)
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Important thing here is that the security guard who took down the shooter (who, BTW, killed himself after getting three slugs in him from the security guard) is a former police officer. This security guard wasn't some random John Doe off the street walking into a gun store and buying a handgun to strap under his arm. This is a trained professional doing what she was trained to do. In particular, because she was trained in target acquisition and the shooter was not, she was able to acquire the target and take him out before he was able to identify her as a threat and take her out, despite her being woefully out-gunned.
I'm not interested in banning guns. As you point out, it's impossible to do so, given the number of guns out there. I do believe, however, that just handing the damned things out like candy to any loony who walks in off the street is a recipe for disaster. If everybody had to pass something like the Arizona CCW course before they were allowed to buy a gun, we'd all be a whole lot safer. (Which is not to say that the Arizona CCW course is perfect, it'd be good if there was also a basic psych eval before you could buy a weapon, but it sure as hell is better than nothing, which is what we got now).
- Badtux the Training Penguin
Problem I have is that there have been times where the authorities have used permits and training requirements as a means to deny permits. I live in a state in which there are areas where CCW permits are only handed out to the well connected.
If it is a "shall issue" system, with reasonable training requirements for CCW holders, I can support that. Absent that, I'm in favor of "guns for all."
That is exactly why I mentioned Arizona, which is a "shall issue" state. Basically if you take and pass the course and exam and a background check does not indicate an issue, you shall be issued a CCW, period.
I don't like calling her a security guard. She was a member of the congregation with a handgun license, not paid staff.
I am ambivalent about required training. I think people should get training if they are going to carry, but I also think a lot of the mandatory training is pretty crappy. I just sat through a horrible class to help my mother in law get her license. It covered the legal minimum, but not much else. Adding training adds cost and effectively keeps poor people from carrying legally.
I would like to see some statistics comparing "CCW failure rates" in states with and without required training. I'm going to guess that there really isn't much difference in people who have to sit through a class and people who don't.
I'd also guess that people motivated to take non-mandatory advanced training will do a much better job than others.
I'm going to guess that there really isn't much difference in people who have to sit through a class and people who don't.
I suppose Vermont and Alaska would be the best places to look if lax requirements were an issue. In those states no permits are required. If you own it, you can carry it. Alaska has a permit system, IIRC, but that's just so residents can carry in states that recognise the Alaska permit as valid. In Vermont they have no such option, so they'd have to apply for a non-resident Florida or Utah permit to carry anywhere out of state.
there are at least 100 million of them in private hands, maybe 200 million, or more.
Last report I saw said that there were 270 million guns in private hands in the US of A. Enough to put a gun in the hand of 90% of our population. Indeed, they aren't going away any time soon.
The Arizona CCW course at least requires qualification at a range to insure that the students know their weapon enough to at least get bullets going the right direction. They also have a strict curriculum that instructors must follow and DPS is not shy about yanking the certifications of instructors who don't follow it. Even with that, the list of Arizona CCW instructors on the DPS web site is impressively long...
Frankly, I'd take the Arizona CCW class if I was in any way interested in owning a handgun, because the legal stuff covered there is extremely important. Incidents like the guy who went out and shot and killed a couple of thieves burglarizing his neighbor's house is an example -- if he'd had to take this class, he would have known that doing such was illegal because he had no basis to believe that his life was threatened or endangered. And some folks during the mandatory psychological part of the course might realize that for them, carrying a weapon is a dumb idea because they just don't have the required mentality -- like the two "security guards" at the church whose weapons just dangled uselessly from their hands as they gawked at the shooter, until a trained former police officer did the deed of taking down the shooter. A gun in your hand that you can't use is worse than no gun at all, because then it makes you a prime target. Better to have no gun and run like hell the other way than to pull out a gun and then just wave it around like a friggin' moron because you have qualms about taking another man's life.
sevesteen,
I lived in Vermont for awhile a long time ago. Handguns did not seem to be a big seller in the gunshops back then, the main trade was in rifles and shotguns.
Vermont and Alaska would make good data points, but their population is so low that there might be more noise than data. There are a lot of states that require a license, but the license is cheap, shall issue and doesn't require training--Indiana and New Hampshire come to mind, and I believe most of the south. (Ohio will not reciprocate with a state that doesn't require training, so I've got a New Hampshire non-resident license to cover me in those states)
Sevesteen, back in the early 1990s, I noticed that the city of Boston had over two hundred homicides one year and Vermont had 24. In the case of Vermont, that included justifiable killings.
The kicker? Boston and Vermont had similar populations.
And in 1994 the city of New Orleans, with a population of 400,000 and enough guns per capita to arm a small militia, had 421 murders. And, uhm, what's the point? Err, that Vermont's low crime rate has nothing to do with its surplus of guns and everything to do with its shortage of gang bangers going around killing each other, I suppose...
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