It's Good When The Victims Have Guns, Too
The bad guys have guns; that's a fact it would be very difficult to change. Unfortunately, it's common for anti-firearm folks to insist that innocent folk are safer if the bad guys are armed butthey [innocent folk] are not. That is, an implicit premise in many of their arguments is: if you're attacked by a murderous maniac, you're safer if you (and other victims around you) are unarmed than you are if you are armed.
This is, of course, preposterous.
Guns raise plenty of difficult issues, but one thing's for sure: when faced with murderous psychos, it's better if the good guys have guns too. Here's a recent case (offered as an illustration, not as proof).
[Via The Corner]
The bad guys have guns; that's a fact it would be very difficult to change. Unfortunately, it's common for anti-firearm folks to insist that innocent folk are safer if the bad guys are armed but
This is, of course, preposterous.
Guns raise plenty of difficult issues, but one thing's for sure: when faced with murderous psychos, it's better if the good guys have guns too. Here's a recent case (offered as an illustration, not as proof).
[Via The Corner]
Labels: firearms, just deserts, self-reliance
posted by Winston Smith at
1:50 PM
11 Comments:
I think it's worth examining this scientifically, and figuring out to what degree it's true.
What I've heard is that you're more likely to have a gun you own used against you by an intruder than you are to use it against one, but I don't know whether or not that takes gun training into account or what.
I mean, it makes sense to me that some yahoo with zero gun knowledge who owns one as a glorified security blanket might actually be less safe than otherwise, but that someone who knows what they're doing might be more.
Also to be considered is that some bad guy carrying a gun is more likely to shoot at a victim who's packing heat than one who's not. Self-defence works both ways, after all.
Personally, I'd much rather be out $100 from replacing my ID and the cash in my wallet than getting shot, even assuming I survived the attack. Economically, pulling my gun and giving the bad guy a reason to use his just makes no sense, considering hospital costs these days. J. Random Thug generally isn't interested in picking up a murder rap if he can get what he wants without it, so I'm safer not packing heat and just giving my wallet up for lost.
I can't find it now, but I read a story a few weeks back about a guy who stopped a robbery at a fast food restaurant by pulling his own gun and shooting the robber. Before the robber went down, the "hero" took several bullets himself and wound up in intensive care, and stray bullets from both men caused several thousand dollars of damage to the restaurant. If he'd just sat down and shut up, the robber would have made off with maybe a few hundred bucks from the register. I'm sure McD's or whoever were SO grateful for that particular form of help.
Ah, yes, but you have to realize that the point is not: it's always best to deploy the heat. It should go without saying that there are occasions on which it might be more judicious to let things take their course. That was, of course, not the case in the situation linked to above--there we were looking at multiple rapes at best, multiple rapes + mass murder at worst.
This is one thing that conservatives get right and liberals get wrong. People should fight back more. More fighting back ultimately means less crime. Yes, if you're the one stopping the impending murder, you might be more of a target. Surely you don't intend for that to be an argument against trying to stop a murder?
Aha, found the story I mentioned in that last paragraph: http://pandagon.net/index.php/site/comments/i_do_not_want_my_whopper_to_get_capped/
It also turns out that one of the women in the story you linked was hit multiple times in the crossfire of the shoot-out.
But Joshua, surely you see that that's a terrible argument!
No one would ever suggest that using firearms in defense is a magical, riskless panacea. The question is: would things have been worse if one of the victims has not been armed? And the answer is: obviously and much.
The question is: would you rather risk being hit in the crossfire, or being shot in the head execution style?
This is an open and shut case. Pointing out that the better option is imperfect doesn't change anything here.
What I'm saying is more that we should base policy decisions on the common cases, not the exceptions. The common case seems to be that, even in situations where legal concealed carry is used to stop a crime, bystanders get hurt and the overall cost to society is greater than the cost of letting the crime proceed.
But more importantly, I don't buy the deterrent argument at all. Apart from a few genuine sociopaths, most of whom are serial killers rather than thieves, most people commit crimes because they have some compelling reason to do so. This isn't to make some argument about defunding police forces in favour of social programs or whatever. Rather, my point is that the hypothetical deterrence factor has to substantially outweigh the immediacy of the concrete need (buying drugs, paying off the loan shark, greed, whatever) that drives the crime.
We already see this with the death penalty. People still commit capital crimes in states that use the death penalty. They did so even in the past when the death penalty was more frequently applied. States and nations that repealed the death penalty have not seen explosions in the rate of wanton murders or other violent crimes that would have been punished with the death penalty.
There's no reason to think that the hypothetical chance of your victim pulling a gun and fighting back will weigh any heavier on the criminal mind than the hypothetical chance of being arrested and sent to the electric chair or gas chamber or noose.
(Fun note: I had originally typoed "political mind" instead of "criminal mind" in that last paragraph, completely unintentionally.)
1. Seems to me that the situation is complicated by the fact that people have a right to defend themselves...so this isn't a straight-forward expected gain calculation.
2. Still, we can provisionally ignore that. Of course I'd agree that we should weigh typical cases heavily when making policy--though we can't completely discount the atypical cases.
3. Thing is, interviews with criminals show that they tend to avoid houses if they know the homeowner is armed. We'd want direct evidence, of course, but the smart money says that they'll think the same thing about armed civilians in e.g. stores and restaurants.
4. Incidentally, after Florida legalized concealed carry, violent crime rates went down faster there than in other states. We'd want to see all the data, of course, to make wise policy.
I'll be getting my CCW permit this summer...but I certainly realize they're not for everyone.
See, and if you maintain that criminals are less likely to attack someone if they know he's armed, or less likely to attack a restaurant if they know the patrons are, isn't a CCW precisely the wrong way to go? Shouldn't you be wearing that gun on your hip where prospective criminals can see it?
Except, of course, for the issue a lot of carry advocates don't want to discuss: escalation.
The situation where an armed psychopath with a gun sets out to kill a bunch of people is the exception, not the rule. I lost two people I knew in a Luby's in Killeen in 1991, so I'm not ignorant of the nuances of the 'a gun would have stopped that maniac with a gun' argument. Spree shooters happen (I can see the UT Tower from my apartment, for example...), and I get that.
But the stronger likelihood is that the guy pointing a gun at the clerk behind the register is a desperate man with a child or a habit or maybe even just a cat to feed.
So he takes the money and the insurance pays it back, and everyone lives. But that clerk pulls a gun, and maybe that junkie's smart enough to run but maybe he's not, and suddenly, we have escalation. Now *someone* is probably getting shot. Could be a kid working her way through college at the Shell station, could be a guy who made some stupid decisions and ended up robbing a gas station. But very few situations are ever improved by escalating the level of violence involved with them.
I tend to agree that you should make the rules based on the likely situation, not the worst case. Make the law to reflect that situation where escalation is a bigger danger than sociopathy, because that situation more closely reflects reality.
Also, it's my understanding that the Florida data have been pretty heavily massaged to reflect a decrease in violent crime that may or may not have actually occurred.
Yeah, I'm a liberal, clearly, but more than that, I'm in favor of empirical evidence.
If the evidence shows that more people having more guns leads more often to a more desirable outcome than people having fewer guns, then I'm broadly in favor of it.
The catch, though, is that when I say, "a more desirable outcome," things like, "are innocent bystanders shot dead in the crossfire" totally counts. Let's examine crime rates, violent crime rates, accidental shootings ... everything.
---Myca
I absolutely agree, Myca. Everything counts.
And personally, I'd be totally happy if it took more training to get a CCW. The marksmanship requirements are pretty laughable, actually. I'd be amazed if there is anybody this side of Mr. Magoo who can't put 10 rounds in the black from seven yards.
I'm sorry for your loss, Rowan. You're closer to this than I am, then, and may have thought about it more deeply than I have.
I'm committed to Myca's point that all considerations must be taken into account, and escalation is one of those considerations. I certainly think that CCW training should cover this. Losing the till is not that big a deal, I'd say.
But I don't think it's possible to argue BOTH that (a) escalation would become common if more citizens were armed and (b) this would in no way deter criminals.
If escalation did become common, criminals would certainly take this into account, and the relevant crimes would be likely to be reduced. (This doesn't mean that the escalation would be worth it...it's just to say I don't think one can try to argue both things.)
And, not to tread on sensitive ground, but, as I recall, there was a waitress at Luby's who had a handgun, but who'd had to leave it in her car b/c it was illegal to bring it in the restaurant. The shooter had his back to her for a significant period of time, and, I believe, she said there was no doubt she could have taken him out if she'd had her gun.
Some people shouldn't have guns--no doubt about that. Unfortunately, most of them do. The question--or so it seems to me from my perch in safe, secure semi-rural America--is whether the rest of us will have them, too.
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