10 Pro-Gun Myths, Shot Down

[Brendan]

NO! Police are NEVER trained to “shoot to wound.”. I was a police officer, both civilian and military. The “shoot to wound” thing is only on TV or movies!

I would agree 100%.

I was an Army Officer (Armor) and we trained our troops to shoot to render the target ‘combat ineffective’ in most efficient means possible.

Which means target center mass, or if that is behind cover, the head.\

if the target survives, great; both from a Christian and strategic point of view, as a wounded man requires someone to carry them back to the aid station, and enemy resources to take care of the them. If not, oh well.

But the GOAL is to take them out of combat in what ever way is most efficient.

 

[tabycat]

Oops, sorry.

Yes, it brought me to my knees, and I did pray! A lot of soul searching.

LOVE!

So, you did do something to help yourself; but, if I am reading you right, if someone gets a gun for protection they are not in to right.

 

[Robert_Sock]

So, you did do something to help yourself; but, if I am reading you right, if someone gets a gun for protection they are not in to right.

forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=11901965&postcount=124

See the above link for my reply.

LOVE!

 

[_Abyssinia]

How many people have used a gun as self protection to stop somebody raping them for example, without shooting? There are some statistics by Gary Kleck but they have been disputed. I do not know if there can be totally accurate survey that can determine how many rapes, how many kidnappings etc. have been stopped because somebody has defended themselves with a gun, without having to shoot at the perpetrator.

The Mother Jones article cites self defence statistics, but are there any statistics cited for crimes prevented by guns, although such statistics may be difficult to to find.

 

[tabycat]

My point is that there are times that getting/using a gun to help yourself (protection, hunting for food) is right not wrong.

 

[Zoltan_Cobalt]

Today is April 19th.

I’m sure all patriotic Americans remember this as the day that “the shot that was heard around the world” was fired.

On the eve of April 18th, 1775, General Thomas Gage, Royal military governor of Massachusetts, dispatched a force of 700 British Army regulars, under Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith, with orders to capture and destroy arms and supplies stored by the Massachusetts militia in the town of Concord.

The next day British light infantry companies faced rapidly growing ranks of militia and Minutemen at Concord’s Old North Bridge. From depositions on both sides, the British fired first on the militia, killing two and wounding four.

The militia commander, Major John Buttrick, yelled the order, “Fire, for God’s sake, fellow soldiers, fire!” Fire they did, With that shot, farmers and laborers, landowners and statesmen alike, were bringing upon themselves the sentence of death for treason. In the ensuing firefight, the British took heavy casualties and in discord retreated to Concord village for reinforcements, and then retreated back toward Lexington.

Indeed, the first shots of the eight-year struggle for American independence were in response to a tyrannical government’s attempt to disarm the people.

Don’t think for a moment that the Second Amendment has anything to do with hunting, self defense against criminals, militia or National Guard. The Founding Fathers of our Country were so confident with the liberties and freedoms afforded to Americans that they did not fear an armed populace… “being necessary to the security of a free State”

 

[_Abyssinia]

Different view on some claims in the Mother Jone article:

Evaluating Mother Jones’ “10 Pro-Gun Myths, Shot Down”

 

[Robert_Sock]

Different view on some claims in the Mother Jone article:

Evaluating Mother Jones’ “10 Pro-Gun Myths, Shot Down”

The rebuttal of Mother Jones, Myth #5: Keeping a gun at home makes you safer, deals with only homicides from what I read. But Mother Jones includes homicides, suicides, and accidental deaths. Myth #5 is the primary issue for me, and something seems fishy with the rebuttal.

See hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/gun-ownership-and-use/ for a literature review of increased suicides when a gun is present.

LOVE!

 

[Deus_tecum]

NO! Police are NEVER trained to “shoot to wound.”. I was a police officer, both civilian and military. The “shoot to wound” thing is only on TV or movies!

Absolutely correct. In fact if you shoot to wound then you will likely be accused of aggravated assault for shooting when you were not really in fear for your life. The same goes for “warning shots”.

 

[LongingSoul]

Originally Posted by LongingSoul
But if a private citizen finds himself faced with drawing his weapon with the option to kill a criminal, what resources does he have to draw on in making that determination. Police are highly trained to shoot to wound or shoot to kill. They are trained with some psychological profiling and negotiating skills. They also take oaths that are not just legally but professionally binding. Private citizens don’t have very many of these types of skills or at least not with any depth of training. If a person is faced with a police officer training a gun on them their reaction is necessarily different to having a private citizen who could have any manner of deficiency in reacting in highly stressful situations regardless of his mental state or gun handling ability. I really think the US aren’t giving the overall environment of private gun ownership due considerations.

Are private citizens bound in this way also. If you shoot it has to be with intention to kill?

 

[LongingSoul]

Absolutely correct. In fact if you shoot to wound then you will likely be accused of aggravated assault for shooting when you were not really in fear for your life. The same goes for “warning shots”.

Does this bind private gun owners also? Are they accused of aggravated assault for wounding and firing warning shots?

 

[Gary_Sheldrake]

I

From Ridgerunner: am not persuaded by the recent argument that the second amendment was somehow thought acceptable because of the inefficiency of firearms at the time, and that the Framers would not have enacted it had they known about modern firearms.

It’s true that many of the guns of the late eighteenth century were inaccurate and slow to fire. But many were very, very accurate at significant distances due to rifling, which was fairly new at the time. There were also “repeating arms” that would fire several rounds in quick succession, (“semi-automatic”) though they were uncommon.

Good Evening Ridgerunner: None of these weapons had the destructive capacity or accuracy that the weapons today have. These are simple demonstrable facts that cannot be overshadowed by obfuscation. The failure to account for these advances in weaponry even in military convention was the cause of the loss of hundreds or thousands of lives in the Civil War and Millions of lives in the First World War.

And, of course, gunpowder itself was capable of inflicting mass casualties. A man with a simple powder horn could rig a bomb without great difficulty.

And they still can. This doesn’t make it right then or now. I am not a proponent of repeating the same mistakes over and over again and somehow expecting a different outcome. Nor would I imagine that it is quite logical to address one problem by adding another.

So I don’t think there is any compelling reason to think the Framers would have neglected to adopt the second amendment had they known about modern firearms.

This can never be known. But we have an equal ability to reason as they had, and we have the added benefit of knowledge of current events and technology to work with, and therefore should have the wherewithal as well as the responsibility to visit such issues for ourselves, and it’s certainly permissible in the constitution to do so.

The courts do tweak Constitutional provisions, sometimes disconcertingly. But they can really only go so far without invalidating the provisions entirely.

Much can be done within the proper framework of constitutional law to advance the security of humanity.

One final thing. It seems that in these debates about guns, nobody ever considers their use other than for entertainment (e.g. target shooting) or defense against human beings. For some, animals can present a very serious threat to life, limb and well-being. I realize most people are urban now, but even urban people are sometimes in the presence of animals that could do them serious harm if they only knew.

Yes, I understand that. I would offer the idea that one such animal are people with guns, and we can eliminate that threat with proper legislation.

Thanks,
Gary

 

[Gary_Sheldrake]

Like word games Gary…“When seconds count, the police are only minutes away”…AND THATS A FACT JACK!

Thanks, Mike

Good evening Mike Dye: While it is true that the police are minutes away, it is also true that the rescue squad is minutes away when seconds count as well. It is furthermore true that once you have reached the age of 40 you are statistically much more likely to die from a heart attack than you are from violence. Therefore, having considered all of this, a defibrillator for your home would be a much better investment is your true concern is dying.

Thank you,
Gary

 

[Inego_de_Loyola]

Good evening Mike Dye: While it is true that the police are minutes away, it is also true that the rescue squad is minutes away when seconds count as well. It is furthermore true that once you have reached the age of 40 you are statistically much more likely to die from a heart attack than you are from violence. Therefore, having considered all of this, a defibrillator for your home would be a much better investment is your true concern is dying.

Thank you,
Gary

Why not both? They’re far from mutually exclusive, so arguing for one is not arguing against the other.

 

[LongingSoul]

Why not both? They’re far from mutually exclusive, so arguing for one is not arguing against the other.

Defibrillator might not have been the best analogy as it’s not like to be something that can easily be abused or misused against others. Perhaps stocks of morphine or other drugs with the potential for mass misuse or abuse. Something that requires a diagnosis and treatment that we entrust to only trained professionals because of what’s required to make good use of the powers the product possesses.

 

[Inego_de_Loyola]

I
And they still can. This doesn’t make it right then or now. I am not a proponent of repeating the same mistakes over and over again and somehow expecting a different outcome. Nor would I imagine that it is quite logical to address one problem by adding another.

You’re making the outlandish assumption that we’ve made a mistake here.

This can never be known. But we have an equal ability to reason as they had, and we have the added benefit of knowledge of current events and technology to work with, and therefore should have the wherewithal as well as the responsibility to visit such issues for ourselves, and it’s certainly permissible in the constitution to do so.

Which is why you are free to try and persuade us to change, but the reasons for the second amendment haven’t changed, nor are they invalidated by more powerful weaponry.

Much can be done within the proper framework of constitutional law to advance the security of humanity.

Yes, but such advancements, by definition, could not include restricting the availability of military grade firearms to the citizenry. (Not without a constitutional convention at least.)

Yes, I understand that. I would offer the idea that one such animal are people with guns, and we can eliminate that threat with proper legislation.

One such animal is a violent drunk, but we’ve seen just how well legislation handled that one.

Legislation won’t change the criminal intent of the criminal element, nor will it greatly restrict a criminals access to firearms. If anything it will give yet another high value product to gangs.

 

[Gary_Sheldrake]

Why not both? They’re far from mutually exclusive, so arguing for one is not arguing against the other.

If your life is about undue fear of all contingencies, especially outcomes that are less likely in some parts of the country than being struck by lightening, then of course that would certainly be an option. However, I might point out that defibrillators are life saving devices and the primary intent of a firearm is to take lives, whether it is used offensively or defensively. Unless you have a gun drawn and ready at all times, the initiator of violence most always has the upper hand, and the presumption is that as a law abiding Christian, the initiator of violent engagement will seldom be you. Regardless of a tale here or there about someone who stops an intruder with a gun, the truth is that criminals are much more adept at violent encounters than you or I. You will most often lose unless you know the time and place they’ll strike. Better to avoid such times and places. Speaking of this, and insofar as intruders are concerned, statistics show that a good deadbolt and alarm system are a far better bet than getting yourself into an encounter with a criminal where you are more likely to lose.

In the end however, people who want to play with weapons will present any tortured logic they can to do so.

 

[Inego_de_Loyola]

Defibrillator might not have been the best analogy as it’s not like to be something that can easily be abused or misused against others. Perhaps stocks of morphine or other drugs with the potential for mass misuse or abuse. Something that requires a diagnosis and treatment that we entrust to only trained professionals because of what’s required to make good use of the powers the product possesses.

But that wouldn’t work with the heart attack statistic he was citing. Few people die for want of morphine I would think, but let us assume that morphine was a miricle cure for heart attack and stroke. If it were so, I imagine there would be morphine pens like they have for epinephrine, and doctors would recomend people have it available in their first aid kits. There would likely be classes offered to the public on how to administer morphine in an emergency right alongside those for CPR. The legislation on the books would either change or be an abominable obstacle to saving lives, and the wealthy and connected would find a way to have it available regardless. This also brings us to another point: making morphine a controlled substance hasn’t stopped the local addicts from getting their hands on Oxycontin, and If there weren’t more convenient drugs with similar effects then the drug cartels would surely be bringing it into the country by the shipload.

 

[Inego_de_Loyola]

If your life is about undue fear of all contingencies,

That is about where I stopped reading. Both heart attack and home invasions are reasonable contingencies to plan for. My aunt was murdered, but because of her firearm managed to save the life of the coworker who was with her; my grandfather died of a heart attack, and might have lived if there were a portable defib in the house, so I reject out of hand your assertion that these are undue preparations for unlikely contingencies.

 

[lerapt78]

The rebuttal of Mother Jones, Myth #5: Keeping a gun at home makes you safer, deals with only homicides from what I read. But Mother Jones includes homicides, suicides, and accidental deaths. Myth #5 is the primary issue for me, and something seems fishy with the rebuttal.

See hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/gun-ownership-and-use/ for a literature review of increased suicides when a gun is present.

LOVE!

Did you read my attempt to rebut the rebutting of Myth #5? Especially with regard to accidental deaths?

Post# 102

The link you provided (increased number of suicides in gun-prevalent areas) only shows a correlation between increased suicide and the presence of guns. . . . . it does not show in any way that suicide rates increase *because *of guns.

The question to ask is: What makes people commit or attempt to commit suicide?

It is generally agreed upon that a person’s mental state (depression, anxiety, paranoid psychosis etc) is the leading cause of suicide, followed by drug/alcohol abuse.

In order for the gun correlation to support control measures, it would have to be proven that having a gun directly affects said people’s mental health problems, which then in turn increases the likelihood of them committing suicide. Now, I would freely acknowledge that having a gun may make it easier for someone who already suffers from depression to muster up the nerve to harm him/herself, but that does not show that the gun itself is what causes these suicidal tendencies. The *desire *to commit suicide is the real problem - not the gun.

From the link I provided: the age-adjusted death rate for suicide by firearms (per 100,000) in 2011 was 6.3. The rate for suicide by other means was 5.9 - a difference of 0.4.