The shooter however did see Meli and promptly took his own life ending the confrontation.
Now I bring this up because it has been pushed down the page. Even if the events of Friday had not occurred it is still quite likely we wouldn’t know about the actions of Nick Meli from the national news. Why?
We have a perfect example of a defensive gun use within a public setting. We have an example of a concealed carrier acting responsibly and thinking about his backstop and possible innocent casualties. Tell me, would a police officer restrained himself in that case? I highly doubt it and the New York shoot out provides a good solid example of that. Especially since most officers will be protected from negligence by qualified immunity.
Our opponents are beating the drums, last night I had someone on twitter arguing how one just needs 911 and there’s no need for firearms. As horrible as it is, now is the time we must remain vigilant and we must fight. The media will do all they can to suppress things that do not fit their narrative, it is up to us to give those stories a voice.
Mass murderers use different methods (arson, explosions, knife attacks, shootings), but two coincidence just jump out at me. The first is that almost all mass murderers are men. The other is that they seek out locations where good people are disarmed by law.
As gun owners, if we could just experience the grief and sorrow along with the rest of the country, instead of having it intruded upon by that impending feeling of doom about what the media, the politicians, and the people in society who don’t much care for civilian gun ownership are going to do to our lives, liberty and often times livelihood? If we could go through something like this without worrying how much we’re going to be the scapegoats?
Right now my heart weeps, sad that so many children will not get to live a full and happy life because of the actions of a mad man. There can be no question as to why he chose that target. He wanted his victims as defenseless as possible. There is no better way to achieve that goal than to go after children.
While I would rather mourn, console, and otherwise comfort the families who’s lives have been turned upside down by the actions of an individual I have no choice but to look forward and prepare for the fight on the horizon. Many will try to rush forward in the wake of this tragedy, forgetting rules that should be followed in the wake of something horrifying and disturbing as such as this incident.
Recently Obama gave a statement about the tragedy and stated the following:
Except there is no real 100% way to make sure that something like this does not happen again. The only thing you can do is make sure the tools and abilities for those around who can most quickly and easily respond. If you don’t believe me, look no further than this incident in China where a man committed the same atrocities with a knife.
There is evil in this world and the atrocities today illustrate and prove that. There are animals who are such due to a lack of conscience, a lack of morality and not even the law will stop them. Many would rather not have to see or deal with the evil that lies within these animals. Even more than that, they think that inanimate objects are some how responsible for the evil. They want to be able to look at a physical object and blame it for what as happened. They want to destroy the physical object and blame it for their grief.
I can understand that feeling, it’s a very hard thing to be angry at something that is invisible and outside of your control. No one likes the idea of someone else being in control of their fate, especially with regards to life and death. They want to do anything they can to give them the illusion that somehow they do have control and they have made a difference, despite all evidence to the contrary.
Despite that feeling it doesn’t change where the responsibilities lie. It doesn’t change the fact that a person an animal would do something like this. The problem and responsibility lie within the head of the thing who felt this was the way to achieve his 15 minutes of fame.
I will not use this cowards name, I will not support his new-found glory supplied by the mainstream media. I will not allow his fame to give the idea to someone else seeking their 15 minutes of fame.
How do you constrain or punish an animal who at the end of their crime merely wants to take their own life? They are escaping any punishment you might give them. The only punishment that remains is one provided through faith. At times such as this though, people with faith find it tried, often crushed.
Ultimately though, the best solution to this problem is to arm good men and women, I bow humbly to Edmund Burke on this one.
The disarmament of the good merely ensures their inability to act resulting in a triumph of evil.
All I really want to do right now is give comfort to those who need it. Alas, I’m not even allowed that moment of grief in solitude without needing to deal with politics. As Sebastian said at the end of his post though:
we may not be interested much in politics, but politics is very interested in us.
I wish I could effectively write something to help people grieve, but that is beyond my skill. While there are times I am good at conveying emotion through the written word, this isn’t one of those times. So I just leave you with this.
If you have kids, hug them and kiss them. Remember that somewhere there is a Christmas tree with presents under it that will not be opened. There will be an empty seat at the Christmas table without the glowing smile of a child at Christmas. Embrace what you have and be thankful. -B]
Anyway, the correct answer to why do you need an AR-15? is because fuck you. Or, the more politically correct version because I can. You see, Piers, you don’t get a say in what I own or what I do. End of story.
[If you’re wondering what he was talking about. It was this show down between Alan Gottlieb and Piers Morgan.
This is the same Piers Morgan from this recent twitter escapade.
Yeah, that’s the tweet Alan was bringing up when Piers went off the deep end.
Mr. Morgan, I do not have to justify my purchase to you, the government, or any other person. It is called the “Bill of Rights”, not the “Bill of Needs”.
Tell me Mr. Morgan, why do you feel the need to open your fat mouth and spout drivel that is tantamount to blaming gun owners as a whole for the actions of an individual? Because despite what you may think, collective rights are B.S. and here’s a nice piece from Oleg Volk to help explain it. Here’s the abbreviated photo version.
Your claims that some how the youth of America can go out and purchase firearms willy-nilly is false and smacks of someone who has never been through the process. It is worthy of note that in this latest incident the rifle was actually stolen, not purchased. You claim that you want to stop the violence but instead focus on the tool and not the person and the act.
The choice of a firearm actually is a blessing despite what many people think. If given immediate and proper medical attention gun shot wounds have an 80% survival rate, regarding hand guns. (I highly suggest watching this video as it is a wonderful view into the world of terminal ballistics. If anyone knows where to find a better copy of it, please let me know.) Rifles have a different statistic but currently I am unaware of the actual numbers. The bottom line is you need to hit a vital organ to cause terminal damage. Rifles while more powerful and capable of more severe tissue damage still suffer from the issue of needing to hit a vital area.
You seem to think that firearms are the only tool available for mass murder, except that is anything but true. You know what is effective and honestly down right scary Mr. Morgan, fire. Fire can be set and scheduled so the murderer miles away before anyone knows what happened. If the Aurora shooter had used fire instead he could have killed every last person in that theater with a guaranteed success rate of 100%. All he had to do was block the exits with fire first.
You complain about why would anyone need an AR-15. You argue that there is no need for it. Yet it is the most popular rifle in America. Used for hunting, because we all know George Washington crossed the Delaware to get to his duck blind, sport shooting and even law enforcement uses the semi-automatic AR-15. I use my AR-15 for competitive shooting as well as Boomershoot.
Ultimately though Mr. Morgan, I don’t have to give you any other reason than that of, pardon my language, “Because Fuck You, That’s Why!” It is none of your business that I even have a firearm and it is not my responsibility to control the actions of others, much less be held responsible for their decisions or actions. Besides, there’s a reason my feathers ruffle when you and your compatriots start banging on the war drums like you do.
Frankly Mr. Morgan I don’t give a crap what you think either because you’re nothing more than a gun grabbing Brit. Guess you missed the fact that gun crime went up 35% in Britain, that’s not including the overall crime rate. Since you think that “Gun Deaths” are the only ones that matter. The fact is that there is no correlation between civilian gun ownership and crime much less causation. Which country has the positive slope on the trend and which has the negative slope? Remember now, negative is better. But as we can see in the video, facts don’t matter to you. -B]
Comments Off on Quote of the Day–Caleb Giddings(12/11/2012)
Mr Coates has a luxury that we don’t; the luxury of anger. He can afford to get mad at people in traffic, to confront people in the grocery check-out line, and those little moments of anger that we all have on any given day. I can’t afford them. It’s not because there’s a monster in me waiting to shoot people. It’s because I’m worried about the monster inside everyone else, and I would like to go the rest of my life without ever drawing a gun in anger again. At the end of the day I don’t carry a gun because I’m hoping to shoot people any more than I wear my seat belt because I’m hoping to get in a car crash. I carry a gun in case someone decides that the contents of my wallet are more valuable to them than my life is; and I wear my seatbelt in case someone decides that the text message from their friend is more important than looking at the road while doing 90 on the freeway.
[It’s amazing how many people don’t seem to be able to comprehend the above. I remember one time while carrying someone trying to provoke something and just ignoring it. Insults were thrown and I merely chugged on. If verbal abuse is what that guy needed to feel better about himself, well I ultimately feel sorry for him and those around him. I however ultimately didn’t care because honestly throughout my life I’ve learned to not give a crap about what some stranger thinks of me. He may think I’m a coward and he can think all he wants.
But here’s a random thought? Who’s the real problem? The man who ignores verbal insults and attempts to deescalate the situation, or the guy who commits assault along with other petty crimes? I carry a gun for the same reason as Caleb. While some in this world may consider it their goal in life to provoke physical altercations and go looking for trouble, there is a great many of us who walk through our lives with only one request and one goal, “Leave me the hell alone.” Many of us will go through great lengths to just be left alone, including trying to deescalate, go the other direction, etc.
I don’t know how to describe it, but carrying a firearm causes a great sense of responsibility to well from within. So much so I don’t care about petty issues. I know my monster and I know how to control him. When I strap on the firearm, the chains become tighter. Not because I’m afraid of him getting out, but because at that point the times when he can act become considerably more limited and reserved. Ultimately many issues that I might have otherwise been angry or upset about just result in me not caring because in the grand scheme it doesn’t matter. –B]
If you’re note sure who I could possibly want to give a couple of these to, you haven’t been following me that long. Kurt has another design that you’ll have to run over to his place to see.
I will say it’s helping light a fire under my ass. The wife and I came up with another idea recently to do a snake other than the classic Gadsden snake. It’s a matter of getting the base image and running it through Photoshop. God I have too many projects and ideas.
Now CSGV hasn’t called me an insurrectionist, but they have said I was most offensive. Does that count?
So some idiot sparked a debate on twitter. The best part is, it is obvious I backed him into a corner with no way out. He has been continuing to dance around the point once I illustrated the problem with his argument.
He absolutely refused to answer the following question and would dance around it.
Answer my question. Would you disarm the law abiding in attempt to quell crime. Yes or no?
He would give a response dancing around the question to which I would reply something along the lines of well why do police carry guns then? He would dance right around it.
Now this individual wouldn’t admit that he wanted to disarm everyone. His solution to self-defense? Martial Arts. Evidently the thought never crossed his mind that his solution wouldn’t work for everyone.
This little jewel though actually made me laugh.
Now why would I laugh? Well honestly because I’m quite happy in fact that the women in my life that I care about, for the most part, all carry concealed weapons. From bloggerswho I considerfriends, to my wife, to local friends I hang out with. The close women in my life who don’t currently are the in-laws and I’m working on that problem. At least the father-in-law does.
There’s a running joke between my wife and I. I’m not a big fan of nuts in my chocolate cookies. So when someone asks, “I like my women like I like cookies, without nuts.” I guess I need to abridge that to also state, “I like my women to be packing steel in their pants.”
If you haven’t read her post, “I Believe, I Believe. It Is Silly, But I Believe,” it’s worth the time. I point to her post because it, mainly that quote, is honestly what inspired the following train of thoughts through my head.
People naturally tend to rationalize away things they do not like, things they do not want to hear, or things that would otherwise bring them discomfort. While every last one of those points are valid and extremely important it misses probably the most critical one of all.
What could she have missed? She has that bad exists in the world, some are naïve, and that ultimately we want those simple things to be true. So what critical item do I think was left out?
A very ugly truth that not everyone can handle or accept. That truth is this:
In the defense of my family or myself I may have to strike another human being. Not only may I have to strike that person, but I may be forced to take their life in defense of my family or myself in order to stop the attack.
Many people cannot handle this. We are brought up in a society where doing such a thing is viewed with great disdain and shunned, and rightfully so when life is taken for the wrong reasons. Many people group all killing into that single group. For them there is no acceptable reason to kill another human being. Not even to kill them to prevent them from killing you.
Not only as a society is this shunned, but many people lock up at even contemplating the fact they may be force to take the life of another human being. It is not entirely their fault either. We are wired genetically to not want to kill each other.
There can be no doubt that this resistance to killing one’s fellow man is there and that it exists as a result of a powerful combination of instinctive, rational, environmental, hereditary, cultural, and social factors. It is there, it is strong, and it gives us cause to believe that there may just be hope for mankind after all.1
No person really likes the idea that they may end up having to kill another, honestly most will do what they can to prevent it. Many of us who do finally accept this ugly truth have spent hours agonizing over and finally understanding that the circumstances that lead to that situation are ultimately out of our control. While yes we can do things to mitigate our chances of an encounter, ultimately the decision to start the conflict does not ride with us. We know, understand, and accept this. Not everyone is so willing to accept the reality of this fact.
Many will constantly rationalize that somehow they can avoid any conflict that might befall them. They will falsely rationalize to themselves that if the aggressor gets what they want it will go no further. They ignore and disregard the idea that some people don’t want anything other than to see someone in pain and die. They do not understand how the other side ultimately views this situation. They cannot comprehend the following so eloquently put by Malcolm Reynolds.
“I didn’t kill him, he killed himself. I just carried the bullet for a while.”
Yes, I make the decision to defend myself, and yes I make the decision on the level of force necessary to apply. The most critical decision though in that whole chain though was the person who decided to victimize my family or me. If he had not have chosen to attack, invade, or otherwise do something against my family or myself, I would have never needed to make either of those two decisions. The second decision ultimately is also based on the aggressors decisions as well. Ultimately though the first decision must be made in advance and the gravity and reality of the potential consequences of the second decision accepted. Many people cannot do that, they cannot accept that, they cannot comprehend why contemplation would even be necessary. Many of us look at the story of A Girl, or the excerpt in her post from “Armed and Female” and a roll of realization and acceptance flow through us.
Many who read this have already accepted the harsh realities A Girl points out in her quote, but we’ve also accepted the consequences of that truth. It is those consequences I believe most people have a serious problem with whether they’re willing to admit it or not. Without accepting those consequences there is not much left in the toolbox for survival. The natural response then is to rationalize and attempt to hide the problem.
I don’t carry a gun because I’m afraid of criminals. I don’t carry a gun because I think someone is out to get me. I carry a gun because if and when the devil arrives at my door I have one mission and one mission alone: Assure that my wife and myself arrive home in one piece, no worse for wear. The condition I leave the devil in is entirely up to him. He may end up hospitalized, he may end up just scratched and bruised, he may even end up dead. My decisions though center around my mission and I will do what I feel is necessary to guarantee that outcome. If you don’t like it, don’t try and attack my family or me, it is honestly that simple. However I have realized and accepted this ugly truth an the potential consequences that go with it.
1-Grossman, Dave. On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society. Boston: Little, Brown, 1995. 39. Print.
[I can totally grok this comment. He explains a method for duplexing two 30 round mags I will give a try and see how they work. There are a few serious advantages I see to duplexing this way, especially when needing to get into the fight fast and flat footed. I’ll do a write up and let you all know how it goes. –B]
Raw Feed
FeedBurner Feed
Subscribe by Email
