Guns in Schools

It now appears that the kids that are being charged for the murder of 15 year-old Jordan Manners last week were probably friends of Jordan and not gangland thugs carrying out an execution to protect their drug racket or whatever gangs want to protect.

It's too soon know if these kids had prior brushes with the law, but assuming they didn't, we have a case where you have two law-abiding (albeit evidently stupid if this was their friend they killed) kids in a dangerous school (C.W. Jeffreys does not enjoy a good reputation in Toronto) arming themselves. Isn't this what the John Lotts of the world want?

Always keep it loaded!!!

I was thinking about the predictable response of the gun lobby what happened at Virginia Tech. The argument goes roughly like this: Nothing terrible will happen so long as law-abiding gun owners are packing heat.

Leaving aside the question of whether that makes Iraq or Afghanistan the world's safest society by this logic, we have a problem with this premise. One of the few things that we do know about the shooter in this case is that he was a resident alien in the US on a student visa. Since I'm pretty sure that a felony is probably one of the easier ways to get such a visa revoked, up until two days ago, this individual was most likely a "law-abiding gun owner."

But what if there were other law abiding gun owners that didn't all go bonkers on the same day that this guy did? Well, it's one thing to own a gun, it's another to know how to use it. Sure you might go to a target range every week, but shooting a human being is not the same as shooting a paper target. For another gun owner to stop this sort of assault they need to be prepared to use deadly force.

Now maybe you're thinking that yeah, you could kill if it was to stop a murderous rampage, but are you ready to die? You'd be risking your life here too.

So, the profile of the sort of person who ought to be armed to prevent this (other than off-duty cops or soldiers - two special cases where I'd say specific training makes them effective) is the type that can use a firearm in a dynamic real-world environment, is not squeamish about killing, and has a disregard for his or her own life.

What's the profile of a school shooter again?

Home Security isn't a Warm Gun

I found this to be an interesting post explaining the flaws in the "Ah gots me a gun tuh defend ma property from burglars!" argument. Money quote:

"I've never understood why anyone would keep a gun in their home to protect themselves from burglars. If you has a violent stalker ex, or someone who was was bent on invading your home in order to hurt you, I could see the rationale for being armed. But buying a gun to protect against burglars is no protection at all. It's not like you're going to stand guard every night to deter them.

Turning on the lights to find the gun is enough scare off the average burglar. I know at least a half-dozen people who have scared off burglars (deliberately or involuntarily) just by alerting the would-be thief to their presence. The burglar isn't there to fight you hand-to-hand for your iPod. Confrontations with the homeowner go against the whole burglary business model."

Yeah, the reason that burglars tend to tiptoe in during the night is because they are fixing to confront you. If they are, then they are the sorts that you don't want to tangle with anyway.

I imagine this line of reasoning won't get very far with gun fanatics. Notice, I didn't say gun owners, I'm just talking about the guys that have this fantastical, almost pornographic, relationship with their firearms. I understand a farmer with .22 keeping wolves or whatever away. The gun fanatics I mean are those (mostly) guys who, every time there is a crime committed with a gun argue that, if only there was lawful gun owner, he would have stopped the criminal.

What these nuts are saying is, "if only I had been there with my gun to save the day." Likewise I think they feel the same about their own home. They feel like their guns are at the ready so they can save the day! In the rare case that someone can actually do that, they are probably an off-duty cop, or an ex-marine, or someone else trained and mentally prepared to use deadly force. No, Halo 2 does not count. No, shooting at paper targets does not count.
Picture: The Boondock Saints were fictional vigilantes, you are not them.