Your Duties

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

I’m not going to write about the Oregon shootings.  Not enough information is out and at this point we’d be sharing ignorance.  There is a post maybe, if the profile of the killer is accurate, because it plugs into fears I’ve had for a few years now.

There might also be (there is) a post on the sheer insanity of taking a shooting in a gun free zone as a sign we need more gun laws, as though laws were some sort of magic shield that changes reality.  Anyone who genuinely thinks that way is still in kindergarten, mentally.

But I don’t want to write about the shooting in particular.  I want to talk about this sort of event, which might not be more frequent than before (I’ve seen claims both ways) but which we’re more aware of, I guess.

My first awareness of mass killing was Black September, during the first Olympics I paid attention to.  Dad had sold it to me as this beautiful ceremony, tying in to the ancient Olympics, and how it was all about peace, and then…

Then there was 9/11.  But before that, because I live in CO, there was Columbine.  I got to not just read in horror about the school shooting, but also to be frisked whenever I dropped the kids off at pre-school while wearing a raincoat.  (We had only one car, my house was three blocks from the school and we had a ridiculously rainy year.)

And then there was Beslan.  Beslan, and knowing how easy (truly) it would be for something like that to happen in my kids’ schools almost got me to take the kids out of school and homeschool.  I’m frankly shocked we haven’t had one of those in the US yet.  I’ve expected it for years.  Maybe the terrorist scum knows us better than I thought, and knows if they touch our kids, it’s all up with them.  Maybe.

And I got to watch the school’s completely ineffective and actually counterproductive reaction to Beslan and to Columbine.

I mean, our preschool teacher informed us, in dramatic accents that she would die for our kids.  And all I could think was “Lady, I don’t want you to die for them.  I want you to protect them.”

And their grand plan was to lock the classroom doors, and let no one out.  You know, the perfectly normal classroom doors, you could kick in without much effort, and which were not bullet proof.  What this amounted to was isolating the classrooms, and making it easy for a single killer to move down a hallway shooting the kids in batch lots.

This makes absolutely no sense, of course, unless you think of guns as magical objects, against which there is no defense but to cower and hope that the evil object and its thrall don’t find you.

If say, imagine, someone has an evil magic wand, that can kill you just by being in your vicinity, and he’s loose in the school, yep, the best thing to do is to hide and close the door and hope evil sates itself on your neighbors before it gets to you.

It’s also pusillanimous and shameful and unworthy of any human who walks on two legs.  But it is the result of what the left is and what is has become.  90% of the communists and socialists walking around today are not such because they think those regimes are admirable (at least not if they’re over twenty and actually know anything of the world and history) but because they’re afraid they’re inevitable.  Their embrace of the crazy left is not an embrace of ideals they think will make the world better, it’s an attempt to be eaten last.

With such people in charge of our policies, as they are throughout most educational establishments, it’s no wonder that the ‘eat me last’ strategy is the best they can come up with.

It is also unworthy — as I said — of any human over the age of six.

Look, we live very comfortable and very safe lives by the standard of our ancestors.  And I’m not going to preach about traditional morality, because some of your traditions are not my traditions.  I mean, I do believe, on a spiritual level as well as on a practical one, that one defends oneself and also those who can’t defend themselves.  It’s a moral duty, as well as a practical one.

But let’s go with the practical side, shall we?  I’d bet you the majority of our ancestors are people who defended themselves and those of their group (whatever the group happened to be, and in most cases a tribe.)

Why?

Because groups where individuals didn’t defend themselves and didn’t defend those closest to them didn’t survive to contribute their genetics in any significant amount.  Those mythical angelic noble savages who never raised a hand to another human being even while being slaughtered, if they ever existed, were the human equivalent of the Dodo.  You are not of them and have nothing (or very little) in common with them, genetically.

And those tribes that survived by being the last to be eaten while they probably survived to some extent, were not the most successful around, and I doubt a great part of you comes from them.

So–

So after the Columbine thing, I started teaching my kids what to do in case of a shooting.  Because guns aren’t magical, they don’t render the shooter invulnerable.  They just make him more deadly than would, say, a knife or a mace.  BUT neither infallible nor invulnerable.  It’s important to remember that.

Because schools and other public spaces (including army bases) insist on making people there sitting ducks, with no guns for defense you have to get creative.

From being in situations where reaction was needed, I know that I have two modes, and never know which switch is going to flip: the fight like crazy, or the freeze.  Fortunately two of the occasions I froze, freeze was what was called for and in the second it even gave me the appearance of courage.

I also know that training and constant instruction makes it less likely you will freeze.

So, we taught our kids, if an active shooter came into the classroom, throw EVERYTHING at them.  Everything and anything you can reach: books, binders, even desks (which Robert, being a bulldozer, could have lifted by three.)  If you can get them down disarm them.

If you are locked in a classroom, and there’s an active shooter in the school, throw a desk through the window, get out (presuming they’re on the bottom floor, of course), run in zigzags if there’s any sign of shooting from the school to the outside.  If it’s a false alarm, we’ll deal with the window.

My kids never needed to put this into action.  But I remain convinced it’s the right course of action.

Remember 9/11.  The plane that crashed in PA WITHOUT being used as a weapon?  The difference is the people in it didn’t follow the instructions to go passive and wait for someone else to save them, which were standard for high jackings before 9/11.

This is the same reason that other attempts have failed.  The underwear bomber?  the shoe bomber?  It wasn’t the TSA (maybe the underwear bomber!) that stopped them, it was their fellow passengers behaving like a pack, not a herd, and looking to their own protection.

More gun laws won’t make you safe.  More gun free zones won’t make you safe.  people intent on harming you don’t care about the regulations.

This is not kindergarten.  Your government is not the “all powerful” teacher.  They can’t keep you safe, no matter if they lie and say they can.  No matter if they THINK they can.

It is the duty of every adult human to defend him/herself and those weaker than themselves.  Not metaphorically.  Not by pile-on twitter mobs.  But in very real fact.  If someone is threatening you or those near you, defense is not just an option, it’s a duty.

In the end, no one else has your preservation as much in mind as you do.  Nor should they.  And defending the weak, the sick, the small, is a duty of civilization.

Guns are not magical. They don’t absolve you from the duties of humanity and civilization.

Cowering and letting people be shot is the behavior of children and cowards.  Don’t be either.

Take stock of the situation and defend yourself.  Yeah, you might die, but at least you’ll die like an adult human, not a sheep.

I don’t judge anyone in that situation, because I never know when I’m going to just freeze.  BUT I’ll try not to freeze.

As Heinlein put it, paraphrased because I always remember it in  Portuguese “It’s better to be a live sheep than a dead lion, but it’s always better to be a live lion.  In most cases it’s also easier.”

In a time of uncertainty and violence, (as all times are) don’t bleat for more laws.  Laws can’t protect you or those you love.  They’re just words, on paper.

Be a lion.

386 thoughts on “Your Duties”

  1. “If say, imagine, someone has an evil magic wand …”

    Am I a terrible person for imagining Larry Correia writing Harry Potter and settling Tom Riddle’s hash in about thirty seconds?

    Or was I already a terrible person for having imagined PTerry writing Harry Potter and everybody referring to Lord Whassname?

    Just what does a body have to do around here to become recognized as a terrible person, anyway?

    2. Problem is with Larry a lot of those stories become twitter posts. STI solves many things

          1. It took an army with bladed weapons to dismember the Judge in the backstory… and one shoulder-fired anti-tank weapon in that episode. Muggle tech for the win!

    4. I recently re-read the Harry Potter series. Got a WHOLE LOT of blog posts about the world-building flaws. More on forensics and economy than weapons, to be sure — but aggressive use of known magic would have made Tom Riddle rather less of a problem. The Fidelus charm, for instance. Used proactively enough, you could maintain an entire secret wizarding world that he could never see.

        1. Did you find the Easter Egg? Hint: it’s easier to find if you use the navigation buttons in the lower left corner to go frame-by-frame when Voldie is casting Avada Kedavra on Snape, then clicking in the center of the star.

    6. Interesting that you bring up Harry Potter. Isn’t it curious that out of the UK, which doesn’t have the 2nd amendment, we got a series where everyone in the society, beginning at the tender age of 11, carries a wand capable of damage as devastating as any gun? Rowling’s world had criminals and mass killings, but in the end it was an armed citizenry–not the complicit, infiltrated Ministry of Magic–that ousted the dark lord and his minions.

      1. OTOH, Rowling depicted the MSM in her world as adhering to the highest journalistic standards of truthfulness, accuracy, objectivity and fairness in its reporting, so there is that.

        Not saying Sarah didn’t merit the Prometheus Award, but Rowling earned an honorary mention at minimum.

  2. “the human equivalent of the Dodo”

    Heh. I can already see the Obama & Kerry dodos, watching Putin bash the brains of other birds, with the caption, “Don’t confront him, it is likely to just provoke more aggression.”

    1. BTW – this brief bit was put up at Power Line this morning and is welcom evidence that the insanity is nearing the end of its course:

      Not that I mean any disrespect of insanity, of course. I wouldn’t want anyone to imagine me sanity-normative.

      1. I believe the correct word is “neuro-typical”. Which, okay, I can mostly see a reason for, but it is used as a weasel word far too often.

            1. Killing living things IS oppression. We must only kill UNliving things: zombies, mummies, fetuses…

              (Is it bad that I now have an image of the “green scrubbing bubbles” from LOTR made up of zombie babies attacking a Planned Parenthood clinic in my head?)

              1. Wow. I can’t believe in the 21st century that people can be so intolerant and dismissive of the living-impaired.

                I bet you don’t even think they should be able to vote.

                1. Only if the can show residency in Chicago, or some sort of photo ID. Sentience is not a requirement. The fact that zombies are after your brains only shows their cultural emphasis on education. We should all follow their example.

                  1. In Philadelphia the living-impaired have had an excellent turn-out for voting for some time now. An attempted purge of the register proved that they hadn’t even cared if you had been a citizen nor if the nation existed at the time of your conversion.

                    And paper work? Who needs paper work!

                    I gather there are other areas with similar experiences.

                    2. DO NOT get me started on composite Americans.

                      With the context of zombies, I misread this as “compost-Americans”. Which would be, what? Maybe zombies of the vegetarian variety. You know, the ones who are after your graaaaaaaaaaains…

                  1. I appreciate the correction.

                    Normally, I’d take things like that with a grain of salt, but I don’t want to be insensitive to our zombie friends.

                  2. As I learned down in Haiti, the Metabolically differently-abled are Slaves to the Sorcerers who called them from their graves and the only thing they truly desire is to return to their rest.

                    Thus I will flavor their food with salt and after they’ve returned to their graves, I will cremate their bodies (along with the sorcerers). [Very Big Dragon Grin]

      3. Comedian Evan Sayet and talk show host Michael Jackson were speakers at an event I attended. Jackson told a story about a young man in a wheelchair who came up to him and just started telling one handicapped joke after another. It was his way of “breaking the ice”, of normalizing the encounter so they could get past the victim expectations of “guy in a wheelchair.”

        I said, “You shouldn’t have stopped him. Dude was a on a roll.”

        They both looked at me in absolute horror for a moment, then broke out laughing.

        yes, I was telling a joke, but the point was, interact with the guy at the level he was reaching out to you on. And that is UTTERLY verboten these days.

        1. Back some years ago one of the sysops in the local BBS operator group was blind. I gave him a small gift at one meeting: a box of 500 business cards.

          Blank on both sides.

          Paul instantly got an evil grin and went off to try them out. He’d let his eyes drift off to the side and stand there with an puppy look while his victim turned the card over and over in consternation. He called me about a week later and said he’d given away several dozen cards and nobody had called him on it yet.

          A few years later, I found out it had become a staple joke at the local school for the blind.

          As an aside, never, EVER turn your back on a newly blind young male. When they lose their vision they often compensate by developing a sense of humor. (as Paul said, ‘if you lose your sense of humor, you’re out of everything…’) Unfortunately, it’s usually the sort of humor that involves pulling chairs away from people who are starting to sit down, “accidentally” entangling legs with their white cane, etc. Moe Howard would have been proud…

        2. Oh, and another acquaintance who happened to be blind was telling me about a “handicapped outing” with a mixed blind and wheelchair crew. (blinkies and wheelies, in his terminology) They mostly paired up so one could push and one could watch out for obstacles. They went to a local mall.

          The system failed when one of the wheelies somehow went backwards down an escalator. The wheelie Joe was pushing grabbed him by the arm and said, “It must be terrible being blind. You should have SEEN the expression on that guy’s face!”

  3. I’ve been remiss since moving in getting my new carry permit. I feel safe here, there’s a great car carry law, there’s open carry for hiking…

    Now it’s back up near the top of the priorities, even though the training is onerous (since I’ve been through the same stuff four times already) and time consuming. Would have been nice if when I changed my driver’s license I could have changed my permit too, but no…

    1. As far as I’m concerned the recent Supreme Court decision regarding gay marriage says that I have the exact same right to carry concealed as a resident of Wyoming, Kansas, New Hampshire, Alaska, etc.

        1. Legally distinct, as far as I’m aware. Various states have reciprocity with regards to licensing (car, gun, etc), whereas the Full Faith clause refers to things like gov’t records (ie. “are you married”)

          1. Or “are you permitted to concealed carry”.

            Either civil rights are universal or they aren’t. Just because one is championed by “the right people” and the other isn’t doesn’t change a thing.

        1. Yeah. Somehow I expect that when you called the ACLU to ask if their legal fund would help you with defending your civil rights in said test case, they’d “accidentally” misplace your phone number and never get back to you. All eighteen times that you called.

          As the old joke goes, “Forty-seven stab wounds in the back. Worst case of suicide I’ve ever seen.”

          1. Depends on which chapter. I understand that there are still one or two in the country that acutally carry on the original tradition.

  5. Their embrace of the crazy left is not an embrace of ideals they think will make the world better, it’s an attempt to be eaten last.

    With such people in charge of our policies, as they are throughout most educational establishments, it’s no wonder that the ‘eat me last’ strategy is the best they can come up with.

    Educational establishments? Hell, they are in charge of both political parties: Dems want the Muzzies to eat them last and the GOP wants Dems and the media to eat them last. So the former shovel our allies and the latter their base into the maw of the enemy.

    When what passes for leadership adopts such a strategy why does everyone else below them adopting it surprise anyone.

  6. The Church shooter (who remain unnamed) was going to shoot up a school until he found out there were armed guards. These cowards will only go after soft targets.

          1. Ragweed pollen here. Yeah, ragweed pollen.

            Another Leslie Fish song that might apply sooner rather than later is “Gunpowder and Alcohol” …

      2. The Classic video exposing the price of government restrictions:

        Dr. Suzanna Hupp Testimony to Congress on the Second Amendment and the Luby restaurant shooting. She lost both her mother and father there, and rightfully blames government disarming her with the law.

        Notice the look on Chucky Schumer’s face when she blames them.

    3. Great song…then again, this is the same woman who wrote about her grandmother the anarchist accidentally blowing herself up. You know that’s a family who knows how to fight.

    4. She’s right about “suicide is not a sin in certain circumstances.” Normally, it mist be an action that is “*possibly* survivable.” Examples are the classic, “Roman Soldier stabbing an elephant in the belly,” or jumping on a grenade to protect others. In this case, knowing that there is a 0.00001% chance of survival, but protecting others (defense of the helpless/defenseless), pretty well covers it.

      1. Actually a surprising number of people have survived jumping on grenades, especially the current models that have light shrapnel.

  8. The enabling thing for these mass killers is that the average citizen has allowed themselves to be turned into mere domesticated animals, over the generations.

    When the James-Younger gang tried robbing the First National Bank in Northfield, MN, they got rolled up by the citizens, who acted in concert and responded with heavy fire when the gang tried shooting its way out of town. Typically, the only survivors were the leaders, Frank and Jesse James. The rest of the gang was either captured or killed.

    A response similar to that, in most modern communities? I may be way off base, but I’m not seeing it happen. The average person in the US is just too damn passive, and they’ll wait for the “authorities” to show up and solve the problem.

    This mentality really needs to be curbed, and I’m thinking it won’t be until we’ve had to deal with several Mumbai-analogues in succession, where the authorities failed to deal with the situation successfully.

    The other problem we have is that the media is basically a co-conspirator with the murderers, giving them exactly what they want: Fame, and notoriety. Look at this latest clown’s words, before the event: The asshole was obsessed with becoming famous, and chose this means to do it. So long as the media does what it does, they’re going to keep popping out of the woodwork. Part of the reason we didn’t use to have this problem stems from this fact–In the old days, you’d be cut down in your tracks, and then people wouldn’t lionize you. You’d be a nine-day wonder, locally, but the international notoriety? Didn’t happen, and if it did, the news would be weeks old before the world noticed. Now? You’re on CNN and the Daily Mail has tons of coverage, on a story that happened in backwoods Oregon. That is new, and we’d do well to note that change, when casting about for motivations for these sick bastards.

    1. “A response similar to [James-Younger gang in Northfield, MN], in most modern communities? I may be way off base, but I’m not seeing it happen.”

      Did you miss the reports of the “Draw Mohammed” contest in Texas earlier this year? Of course, when Texans saw “Draw!” they aren’t joking.

      Of course the MSM (and Democrat politicians, BIRM) are effectively co-conspirators. Both see the opportunity to further an agenda, one by committing the atrocity, the other by politicizing it. Follow the money, figurative and actual.

      2. And representatives of law, as they are now. A lot harder to get involved with anything that doesn’t, maybe, directly concern you when there is a high likelihood that you will end up painted as the bad guy, both by the MSM and by that legal establishment, no matter what.

        And sometimes actually turn out to be the bad guy, for real… mistakes are made all the time, so what if you made one in a situation where the consequences could be dire? That was the first step, and easier to justify, after all everybody knows that vigilantes and hanging mobs are a bad idea, right, and bystanders can never really truthfully judge what they are seeing, right? They might completely misconstrue what is happening. Better wait for the professionals, always. At least then you’d have no risk of ending in jail yourself.

        And once that mindset had gotten thoroughly in, getting involved in anything, even your own defense, started looking unwise to a lots of people who had been thoroughly indoctrinated with the ‘don’t get involved, you’ll lose one way or another’ idea since childhood. Maybe that killer will pass you by if you don’t draw his attention, there are all these others…

    2. It is my understanding that the James-Younger gang made the serious error of staging their raid in Northfield on opening day of deer season. Nearly every able bodied man in the town had either rifle or shotgun near at hand. The gang was armed mainly with pistols.
      Or as those knowledgeable in such matters will tell you, you carry a handgun in order to fight your way to your real weapon.

      1. That’s an interesting bit of trivia I hadn’t heard, before.

        First thing I thought was “Deer season? They had a Fish and Game Department, back in 1876…?”. Turns out, they did–The establishment of deer season took place in 1858, and established it as lasting five months from September 1 to January 31. I don’t know what the exact dates were the year of the Northfield raid, but it’s close enough–The raid was September 7, 1876.

        Frankly, I thought that they didn’t bring in administration of wild game until around the turn of the century, so I’ve learned something today. Who knew that the Fish and Game guys predated the Civil War?

        1. On a related note, the earliest known dog licensing was in 1446 in Holland. I’ve read before that dog licenses or permits were required in some parts of the colonies before there was a United States. A lot of things we think must be relatively new really aren’t.

          Hunting seasons in Britain date back to at least 1831.

              2. Clearly, seasons are a protected species in Monterey, California. The annual bag limit there is only two (“cool and damp” and “cooler and damper”).

        2. Just finishing re-reading (via Audible, hat tip) Harold Lamb’s biography of Genghis Khan for the first time in fifty some years. In the afterward Lamb describes the various laws established by Genghis and among them is a prohibition against hunting or slaying deer between Whenever and Whatever, thus establishing the principle of hunting season as early as the 13th Century.

          1. I was going to point out that Genghis Khan established hunting seasons back in the 1200’s, but I see you already did… and used the same source I learned it from.

        3. It might predate the US. There’s a claim by a contemporary that a group of SE Indians would meet to discuss if they needed to curtail hunting some game for a time.

          One of the early fish and game laws came from the Georgia colony, where it was illegal to hunt deer by blinding them with torch light. Shining deer goes way back.

    3. I was listening to the radio and the reporter specifically said that the OR sherrif had asked media not to use the shooter’s name, and he said (IIRC) “of course we’ll ignore that request.”

      1. At least a couple of the evening Fox News anchors are saying that they will respect the sheriff’s request. Megan Kelly was actually very much in favor.

    4. Regarding the last paragraph, I’ve long been a fan of the “Some Asshole” initiative, as laid out in one strip of the webcomic “The Non-Adventures of Wonderella”: http://nonadventures.com/2015/06/20/the-some-of-all-fears/

      TL;DR version: Don’t name the killer, don’t show their picture, don’t run some hour-long special going on about how they’re supposedly so put-upon by the world that their attack is in any way justifiable, don’t give them any attention at all. Just call them “some asshole”. If a picture is absolutely needed, just show a picture of a bucket of whale chum instead of the shooter’s image.

      1. We could identify the shooter by the name of the nation’s leading proponent of “common sense” (but ineffective) gun laws.

        “Today, at an Oregon community college, President Obama’s useless effing 2nd Amendment abridgements once again enabled the deaths of ten people.”

        You know they’d say that if it was a Republican president.

      2. Back in the old days (probably the 1970s), there was a story in Analog that proposed a similar solution. In that one, the perpetrator was referred to as a “right proper Charlie,” and the graphic representation was a cartoon drawing of an angry young man with a raised middle finger.

        2. As SPQR notes, the story was by Dean Ing, “A Right Proper Charlie”.

          It was later expanded into the novel Soft Targets… which I used to have a copy of but can’t find at present.

        3. If I remember it correctly, he also had a lit stick of dynamite clenched in his teeth.

    5. I researched the Northfield Raid a while back.
      Some of the weapons used by the townsfolk were military
      surplus. Some came from the racks at the local store! But, as far as I could find, no cops, troops, or other
      governmental types were involved in running the James-Younger gang out of town. In the posse later, yes, immediately, no. One guy had no gun and couldn’t get one, so threw rocks.

    6. Partly the fault of competitiveness on being first with breaking news – too much stuff gets put out before the thought processes (and however much good judgement they still might have) kick in. Quick with the bloody observable facts, slow or never with “hold on, this was for publicity so let’s NOT publish the name, at all”.

  9. I try to avoid entering any place that can detect my concealed weapon (it is actually concealed).

    If I ever have to use it… Well, we’ll have a nice public discussion about whether the law can compel suicide. (Despite yesterday’s post, it can’t – yet.)

    2. In Texas under state law, it is a defense to prosecution if you have your gun in a gun free area, but actually have to use it. In other words, if you ignore the signs, and need it, you can’t be prosecuted for ignoring the signs.

      2. In Missouri, it’s only an issue if someone sees it, you’re asked to leave, refuse, and law enforcement is summoned. That’s a $35 ticket for trespassing (you were asked to leave) and a $100 fine for entering a prohibited location for the first offense. But the sign only counts if it meets the legal requirements – 11×14 with letters at least 1 inch in height (yeah, no letters at least an inch high and your sign isn’t legal).

      3. It is not accurate to say you cannot be prosecuted when a statute indicates there is a defense to prosecution. The defense to prosecution provides statutory support to a defensive argument, provided the elements of the defense to prosecution can be demonstrated.

        Such statutory support does not negate the possibility of charges or prosecution.

        1. i.e., A recognized defense is something you can successfully plead against charges if brought.

    3. I have a steel rod in one leg. Security theater and I go way back.

      I particularly like the unattended detectors, where I’ve been known to keep walking back and forth between the blades until the management asks me to leave… hey, it’s not my fault they connected loud buzzers to them.

  10. I still think that carrying and maintaining proficiency with firearms should be a requirement for a teacher’s license. Not only would it immediately turn our schools into the hardest targets in the country, it would keep vile Progs the hell away from our kids. I would be willing to settle for allowing teachers to carry and provide those that do with a stipend to cover ammunition and range time.

    At the very least we need to make those who enact and enforce gun-free zones personally liable for the safety of those they disarm.

    1. admittedly I think way too many teachers are incapable mentally but there are dozens of other defensive methods that could be done.

      1. See…in principal…good idea…but…

        Based on my memories of public school, it would be safer to empty the local mental institution, arm them, and let the inmates earn money by serving as guards in between taking potshots at imaginary people.

        Better if teachers who passed a mental health test could carry and get a salary bump.

        1. The point is that most of the wastes of gravity currently occupying the position of teacher would never touch a gun. If it were required as part of their duties they would resign in protest – or be fired for non-compliance. That would free up teaching slots for people who can actually think.

            1. It’s not the only goal. Making sure that no student is more than 30 seconds away from an adult with a gun is also important.

        2. I had the idea that teachers could get a %raise for being “adjunct first responders” and get the full Sheriff’s Deputy medical, S&R and CC permit training and certification.

          1. Akin to my notion that folks with a CCW (and, of course, are packing — no fair bringing just the license) should get discounted air fares for providing free onboard security.

    2. Looking at the daily Instapundit links about teaching woman teachers not to rape.

      Contemplating standard Ed School entry and graduation standards.

      Disagreeing about it being a requirement but otherwise willing to accept in principle, with the single exception of football coaches.

        1. One reason for NY cops poor hit record is that they are constrained to use pistols with a 12 lb trigger. Glock makes them specially for the NY police department.

          The other reason is pure incompetence.

          1. Bullshit. That trigger isn’t the problem–I’ve got them on all of my personal Glocks, and they don’t have the slightest effect on the kinds of things that result in those inept police shootings. Those are strictly due to piss-poor training, and ineptitude.

            The so-called New York Trigger is not the culprit, no matter how many try to blame it. I’ve got them on my personal weapons because I find the trigger pull with them more congenial than I do the standard ones. Not to mention, I don’t like the “hair trigger” effect I find with the standard spring and the 3.5lb disconnector in place–What I’ve found is that having that thing in place is a horrible choice when you’re doing practical shooting exercises, because it tends to lend itself to unintentional discharges. The New York Trigger setup serves as a “Are you really sure you want to fire…?” backstop, when you’re bringing the weapon into sight alignment. With the standard trigger, I find that it is all too easy to fire earlier than intended in the process, between readying myself to fire by placing the finger on the trigger and then performing final sight alignment before firing.

            In short–New York Trigger? It’s a red herring: The problems with the NYPD’s shooting program go back decades, and before they ever adopted a semi-auto. The whole “weapons culture” of the department is significantly flawed, and not least because the pool of applicants to the department is primarily drawn from those unfamiliar with weapons, and outright hoplophobes.

            1. “….not least because the pool of applicants to the department is primarily drawn from those unfamiliar with weapons, and outright hoplophobes.”

              All the more reason to get weapons familiarization into the public schools. It’s a public health matter.

            2. If they’re selecting candidates the way Los Angeles apparently does, they’re selecting for little tin gods — which tends to be synonymous with “thinking far too highly of one’s abilities”.

    3. “At the very least we need to make those who enact and enforce gun-free zones personally liable for the safety of those they disarm.”

      –we almost got there after the CO movie theater shooting, but not yet.

      ” I would be willing to settle for allowing teachers to carry”

      –utah has been doing this for years.

      — in texas, you can do it as a school district employee, with the written permission of the district. NOT gonna get it in an urban area, but possible in rural areas.

      –common in Israel, where they get daily rocket evidence that people are IN FACT trying to kill them.

      nick

      1. nick wrote:

        “–common in Israel, where they get daily rocket evidence that people are IN FACT trying to kill them.”

        One of my favorite pictures:

    4. “At the very least we need to make those who enact and enforce gun-free zones personally liable for the safety of those they disarm.”

      That sounds wonderful.

      But we currently have a society where various judge-created “immunities” apply to public officials. We can barely hold public officials responsible for murder, and you want to try to hold them responsible for negligent homicides?

      There’s a lot of ground work to be done between here and there.

      1. Not really, just a simple change to tort law allowing the victims of a shooting in a gun-free zone to sue those responsible for damages.

          1. So? Public official immunity is an invention of the courts, it can be overruled by legislation.

        2. …just a simple change to tort law…

          Simple to conceive maybe. To enact? Not so much.

          Meanwhile: Ask yourself who it is who pays when you sue someone for something done by them as part of their work in a government position?

          1. It’s exactly as simple as any other law, simple does not mean the same thing as easy. Though I think this would be relatively easy to pass.

            That’s why the “personally” is important. I wouldn’t be suing the superintendent of the school district, I would be suing Joe Blow for actions he took as superintendent. He would have to pay.

    6. I still think that carrying and maintaining proficiency with firearms should be a requirement for a teacher’s license.

      It should be required to be treated as an adult by the law including:

      1. Buy alcohol
      2. Voting
      3. Entering into contract

      If all these want to be children were treated as children and, as a consequence, not allowed to interfere with the grown-ups doing grown-up things, the world would run a lot better.

      1. The major reason why I’m not an opponent of Common Core is that I think it’s the perfect vehicle to get things like basic weapons safety and handling into the schools. A gun is far more dangerous than a penis, but most of those who insist that we teach sex ed in school would completely flip if we were to teach kindergartners what to do if they saw an unattended gun (Stop. Don’t Touch. Get an Adult). It’s almost as if they want children to die to further their political agenda – which brings me to my reply to RES way at the top.

        1. I once read an online argument that people should support sex ed just in case — don’t they want the kids to be safe?

          I asked if she supported drug and alcohol education including advice about how to get pure drugs and safe moonshine.

          The answer was a marvel of incoherence.

          1. I’d pay to see that one carried out in real life…

            But, the logic, carried out to the extreme ends it can be…? Oh, dear Lord…

            I recall having a discussion with a young lady, about 20 years ago or more. The subject that came up was “first time sexual experiences”, and she was taking a position that I was completely unprepared for. As in, I wound up in that contorted, head-cocked position that the RCA dog was in, going “Uh… Uh… Uh… I… I…”.

            Her contention was that education should include tutelage in sex, and that, oh-by-the-way, the first-timer ought to be getting that actual physical tutelage from far older, more experienced people. Like she had. Said tutelage was sought out by her, on her own, and without the slightest remorse, and her position could be summed up as “Well, you don’t have other 16-year olds serving as driving instructors, do you? You have seasoned, experienced, and mature drivers teaching them, don’t you? So, why would you leave something as important as sex being taught by ignorant peers? Does that seem like a recipe for success…?”. And, oh-by-the-way, she wasn’t talking about matches between twenty-somethings and late teens, either.

            I still wonder who it was she cut out of the herd, and “got tutelage” from. The poor bastard is probably still reeling, and not quite sure what happened, or who seduced whom…

              1. Actually, very few men would want to marry a girl with no boundaries and no clear morality about sex and romance. (Although it’s also possible that she was just really really Asperger’s about it, my immediate suspicion would be a really messed-up mother and/or father, or absolutely nobody teaching the kid and giving her attention.)

                And the “curiosity/learner” type girls usually find themselves the worst possible man available, so I guess she’s lucky if she got out without a criminal record or a drug habit.

                I could give examples of this from fannish acquaintances, sadly, and it never worked out well for the girl. Your example may have been luckier or shrewder (within the limits of getting away with doing something stupid).

            2. Because that’s a good way to damage your sexual habits for life. There is a strong negative correlation between the number of sexual partners and your happiness with your sex life.

              Gee. It’s almost as if sex were not something like driving a car.

          2. “Today, class, the local representative from the ATF will be here to instruct you on proper use of alcohol, tobacco, and firearms.” 🙂

            1. “Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms isn’t a government agency, it’s a shopping list.”

              – L. Neil Smith

              1. Brave poster. I gave up mentioning L. Niel Smith because of the reflexive hate about his stupid, far-fetched belief in liberty and self determination, and his belief he expresses for the overriding responsibility the individual has to society to make sure that the individual does not infringe on the rights of other, and when forced to do so, makes just recompense.

                Granted, the abuse is usually couched as “that stupid writer and his unrealistic books.” I consider that an odd thing to say about about a sci-fi book

                  2. Yeah, Hatred is too strong of word. Think he’s a bit nutty yes but hate him no. [Smile]

                    1. Some people here may occasionally mock L. Niel Smith, but this crowd will mock any and everybody this side of Heinlein.

                      Heck, people here even mock me.

              3. There’s a store in the next town over where I can get all
                three, plus ammo, and hunting and fishing licenses.
                One stop shopping!

          3. My junior high had sex ed as a required course. Funny thing, my school system had almost zero teen pregnancies… possibly because they’d had the living daylights scared out of ’em in 9th grade (STDs make for lovely photo opportunities).

        1. Actually many Quakers are proficient with firearms, they just don’t believe in self-defense.

          And frankly, no I don’t see anything wrong with disenfranchising someone who refuses to even consider standing up for this country. If they are unwilling to defend themselves or their country, I don’t believe they should have a say in how that country is operated.

            1. I believe that many Quakers have served as troop support personnel, filling such roles as medics and stretcher bearers.

              If we are to make military service a requisite for the franchise, I believe RAH has amply covered the subject and doubt many of us can add very much.

              1. RAH also stated that any country that had to draft citizens was already a lost cause.
                ”
                Conscription/the draft
                •
                • I also think there are prices too high to pay to save the United States. Conscription is one of them. Conscription is slavery, and I don’t think that any people or nation has a right to save itself at the price of slavery for anyone, no matter what name it is called. We have had the draft for twenty years now; I think this is shameful. If a country can’t save itself through the volunteer service of its own free people, then I say : Let the damned thing go down the drain!”

                    1. Sorry, I didn’t realize you were quoting (mainly because I was skimming, I actually recognize the quote upon rereading) and thought you were saying we currently had the draft.

                    2. We currently still have draft registration, albeit only for half the age cohort (considering the increasingly flexible interpretation of sexual identity, isn’t there a problem with requiring only “males” to register? is that cismales, identify-as-males, transmales or what?)

                      Conscription, as a national practice, has existed over considerable period, certainly from the War of Southern Secession until the War in Vietnam. While I agree it is no longer desirable for a variety of practical and technical reasons, those are reasons relating to the characteristics of the armed forces, not inherent antipathy to the practice itself. Should America ever again find its military doctrine and TOE reviving pike squares or massed musket fire I would seriously reconsider my opposition to the draft (right after reconsidering any crumb of support for the blankety-blank-blanks who reduced us to such tactics.)

            2. Nope, I’m not saying they can’t have freedom of their religion, I’m simply saying if they are unwilling to support* or defend this country, they shouldn’t have a say in running it.

              *My wording above was not well thought out. As RES points out, in the past Quakers have served as medics and other troop support, which I find an acceptable substitute, traditionally women served a lot of roles as support personnel, but were not commonly doing so actually in combat, and Quaker men would fill roles that the majority of women would physically have extreme difficulty doing.

              Let me state that I am not in favor of instituting the draft except possibly in dire circumstances (WWII for example) I am saying it is my personal opinion** that if someone is not patriotic enough to be willing to defend their country they shouldn’t be willing to tell others how that country should be ran. Note, I said willing, NOT able. There are many people who would be willing if necessary, who are either unable, worth more elsewhere, or simply unnecessary (we only need and can afford a certain number of military personnel). I consider a wife who supports and encourages her soldier husband to be not only willing, but actively helping to defend this country.

              **I did not make it clear in my first post, this is my personal opinion, it is how I PERSONALLY feel, it is NOT how I think the law should be written. Much the same as how I believe something is Right because of my religious beliefs. I BELIEVE everybody should do the right thing, that does not mean I believe it should be a law that everybody do the right thing.

    7. after the fool in Sandy Hook, I know two teachers (husband and wife) who got their permits (Texas allowed teachers to carry after that event)
      The wife had a hard time just getting a pistol in the rush afterwards.

        1. You could say that about most mass-shootings. The shooter has a gun, but they are *always* outnumbered. We have a culture of people who have never fought, think guns are evil magic and believe that the police will be there in time.

          1. If you can, get everyone out. If trapped, rush the son of a gun all at once. Human wave works for more than literature! 😀

          2. a relative of mine got a severe case a stupids, and held a store he had been fired from at gunpoint, and shot at a girl who decided to run away. He hit the wall she ducked around, and also turned his back on a very large man who preceded to thump some sense back into him. He effectively disarmed himself anyhow, the pistol was a 9mm and he tested it by shooting all but one shot that he left in the chamber and loaded a magazine to deal with the store.
            But, he loaded said mag with .40 S/W.
            He has since joked that was the smartest thing he did that day.
            His Dad had to make a long drive to visit him, wondering just what the heck one says to their kid in a case like that …. it turned out to be “What would have happened if your Uncle Gary was in the store when you came in?” kid’s reply: “I’d be dead right now” Uncle would have not blinked an eye shooting a nephew being what really should have been terminally stupid. He also said that in the whole prison he is in he realized he is the only guilty person in there. Everyone else has some form of excuse or claim of being pure as snow.

            1. He also said that in the whole prison he is in he realized he is the only guilty person in there. Everyone else has some form of excuse or claim of being pure as snow.

              I seem to recall an anecdote about a pope (I think) visiting some prison a few hundred years ago, and asking each one why they were there. All of them but one proclaimed his innocence, and the pope ordered the one who admitted his guilt released so that he wouldn’t corrupt the others.

              Unfortunately, my Google-fu isn’t up to the task of finding the anecdote – I keep coming up with articles about how our justice system is set up to convict innocents, lists of wrongfully-convicted people, and advertisements for services to help former prisoners.

      2. The biggest problem we have in this country is that far too many citizens aren’t Americans. ::Glances meaningfully at the White House::

          1. Sadly, being born here, and being an American at heart, are increasingly separate and unrelated. Which is rather the root cause of so much of our nation’s problems.

              1. Our educational system is dominated by the pedagogical philosophy of Bill Ayers and Howard Zinn. Everybody is supposed to love their own country (ethnic homeland) but that country is not supposed to be America, a mongrel nation fashioned out of whole cloth from false ideas.

                Everybody equal? What kind of a world believes that? How are the nobility supposed to pretend that peasants are their equals?

          2. But he may have been – we’ve seen neither his passports. transcripts or college scholarship records.

          3. Interestingly enough, for all that “Birthers” are disparaged everywhere publicly, I meet more people who express doubts about his place of birth than do not.

    2. The headline at the link has been updated. Now it says that he was shot seven times.

      Also of note – one of the heroes of the train shooting in France was supposed to be attending the college that day, but was instead on the set of Dancing With the Stars.

      On another note, I’ve already gotten into an argument with a friend of a friend over this and gun control. My last response on the topic was to point out that China’s gun control merely means that it has a mass stabbing every few months.

      1. Can we even trust that all of that type of news from China get as far as our media? Who knows how often that kind of s**t happens there…

        1. There are translations online, essentially pirate, of Chinese web novels. It is my understanding that there are certain stock plot elements. These are either an artifact of Chinese society in the PRC being pretty toxic, or some very influential stories having them. Which probably means I need to read the Water Margin and the Romance of Three Kingdoms, and see how often random weaklings or strangers get beaten to death.

          1. … and see how often random weaklings or strangers get beaten to death.

            The Spouse has an all purpose number. In this case it should be scribed as ‘too’.

      2. The Bath School Disaster (Michigan) occurred in 1927. The perpetrator, Andrew Kehoe, used bombs. It remains the deadliest mass murder at a school.

        Kehoe had lost his job as the school board treasurer, his wife suffered from tuberculosis and they going to loose their farm to foreclosure. He started by blowing his house to smithereens with his wife in it. He then set off several bombs at the school. He finished by setting off a bomb (with shrapnel) killing, among others, the school superintendents he they arrived. With that last bomb he committed suicide.

    3. Let us name him:

      Chris Mintz, 30yo Army veteran from North Carolina.

      According to Fox 8, when the gunman tried to enter Mintz’s class, Mintz told the students in his classroom to get to a safe place, then said to the shooter “you’re not getting by me”

      He was shot seven times, reportedly both legs are broken and he’ll likely have to learn to walk again. As he lay wounded he was heard saying, “It’s my son’s birthday.”

      On his son’s 6th birthday, he charged a gunman. The gunman did not get by him.

      How likely are we to hear Chris Mintz’s name bandied about for the next week? How many times will his picture flash on the screen? In what depth will his motives be dissected?

      How about we shine a bright light in the right place, for once. Fuck the scumbag. When people talk about the Umpqua Community College shooting I want to hear Chris Mintz’s name.

      1. I’ve no insightful comments or pithy remarks or even puns to make. I shall merely say I sincerely and wholeheartedly agree.

      2. And if only Chris had been armed with something besides his indominable courage how different the outcome would have been.
        Interviews I heard with school officials they were quite proud that their campus policy was gun free, even their security guards are disarmed. The ironic thing is, their policy is in violation of Oregon law.

        1. Yes.

          I shall keep my comments regarding such overweening school administrations to myself. I doubt they’d be coherent through the rage.

        2. According to reports, within the last six months they had debated hiring armed security but decided against it out of concern it might “affect campus culture.”

          That sure worked swell.

          2. I have seen a credible report that a military veteran with a concealed weapon was at the on campus vet center. When the first shots were heard school representatives locked down the vet center and refused to allow him to go investigate. The vet center is 200 yards from the building where the shootings took place.
            http://bearingarms.com/concealed-carrying-air-force-vet/

      3. I think all of us should post his name to facebook every day for the next week, maybe our blogs as well. Let’s have HIS name be the one that people remember!

        1. Already did with the note:

          “Dear Facebook, if you want to make someone famous today because he’s all you talk about here is your guy.”

          And attached a link to a story about him.

      4. Amen, brother. I may wade back into the muck of Facebook just to spread that name.

        1. Please do. I mean, I hate to ask anybody to crawl through FailBook if they’ve fought free but — worthwhile endeavor.

  14. Like every other creature on the face of the earth, Godfrey was, by birthright, a stupendous badass, albeit in the somewhat narrow technical sense that he could trace his ancestry back up a long line of slightly less highly evolved stupendous badasses to that first self-replicating gizmo—which, given the number and variety of its descendants, might justifiably be described as the most stupendous badass of all time. Everyone and everything that wasn’t a stupendous badass was dead.

    Act like it.

  15. How about instead of lions we just go back to being men (and women) as opposed to a flock of sheep. I’ve worked as a ‘first responder’ for years. We are very very rarely the actual first responders. You need to be able to take care of yourself and family.

    But we are more likely to crucify someone that acts first than to actually stop or punish perpetrators

    1. Bingo. I expect daily to read about some high school kid who jumps a would-be mass shooter, takes him down, and is suspended under some “zero tolerance” rule about violence.

          2. It is likely the drone had no choice. It is the paper pushers in the central office who set the mandatory no violence policy who qualify for tarring, feathering and being carried out of town on a rail.

        3. My brother’s taekwondo school in CA had a strict policy on students getting in fights. You start a fight, you will be expelled from the school. Knock down your attacker in self defense and you’d be recognized before the whole school. Knock out your attacker and the owner of the school would take you out for ice cream as well.

          One of their students was a quiet, retiring teenage girl about five foot nothing and a hundred pounds soaking wet who was a frequent target for bullies and harassers. Then they laid hands on her and she proceeded to thoroughly earn her ice cream. The high school raised a fuss, but she didn’t care. She got a standing ovation and cheers from the taekwondo students. There are still good kids and good teachers out there,

          I’ve done my best to make clear to my minions that if they follow that same principle, I will back them up all the way. If they act in their own defense, or the defense of others, against a clear threat, I will reward and not punish them, and they can and should ignore any reprimand from the school. Being my sons, they’ll either be wolves or sheepdogs; they know which one is right.

        4. I did that about 40 years ago and took my “punishment” like a man. Got sent to the principle’s office, and lost recess privileges for a bit. Parents roundly approved, so it was all rug.

          Sane rules say “fighting isn’t allowed.” Reasonable, moral people mitigate the consequences when, in their considered judgment, the rule-breaking was necessary. But there are always consequences.

          Of course, in progressive culture, “judgment” Is a four letter word.

      2. “Son, what were you thinking, attacking that shooter like that?”

        “Attacking!?? no way — I just saw a guy who desperately needed a hug, so I reached out to him. When he reacted by fighting me off I guess I just got a little confused and over eager to reach out to him. It never even occurred to me that my gently tapping his head on the tile like that would affect him that way.”

      3. Let’s see, as I recall . . . I’m having trouble finding it (gee, go figure) but as I recall, students in either Utah or Montana stopped a school shooting by hitting the guy with a chair, then dog piling him and beating the snot out of him until the cops got there.

    2. There’s that, and, well…

      “Sure, let’s stop the guy. You go first.”

      The first guy to rush the shooter is gonna get shot, and quite likely die. Everyone knows it. It’s much safer to be the *second* guy to rush the shooter. Or possibly even the third. Then you can still be a hero, but there’s a lot less risk.

      There’s an old story about Wyatt Earp facing down a lynch mob (which was after the guy in the prison behind him) by essentially saying, “The first person to make a move toward me dies. Yes, you’ll swarm me and probably kill me. But that won’t save the first person to make a move.” No one wanted to go first, so the front ranks of the mob eventually left. The rest of the mob followed shortly afterwards.

  16. Important point made by National Review’s David French:

    [W]e should resist the temptation to describe the gunman as “crazy” absent evidence that he truly could not discern right from wrong. There is evil in this world, and it is wrong to write off the most horrific acts as somehow irrational or unexplainable absent insanity. By understanding evil, we can also begin to combat it, and there does in fact seem to exist in some men a desire for infamy that is so dark and so strong that they’ll kill for the limelight.

    http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/424976/god-bless-martyrs-roseburg-oregon-and-three-other-thoughts-terrible-day-david-french

    1. I think requiring an ability to discern right from wrong may be going a little too far, but in general, I agree with the principle that we shouldn’t call these mast murderers “crazy” unless it can be demonstrated that they really are.

      It surprises me how many of these mass murderers have also had problems with mental illness, though; it’s also not hard to see how schizophrenics can be susceptible to evil.

      Furthermore, even if a shooter isn’t “evil” in the sense of not being able to discern between right and wrong, we nonetheless don’t get the luxury to determine the state of mind of the murderer. Regardless of why the person has started killing innocents, it’s important to stop them right then and there, by deadly force, if necessary, because of the other lives are at stake. (If the person survives, then we can discuss treatment and punishment, including the possibility of execution…)

  17. I keep seeing pleas for “sane gun laws” and my reaction is: I’m as much in favor of sane gun laws as you are, but we disagree on the definition. Call me when the government does its job regarding the militia and institutes marksmanship training in high school.

    1. Well, we had it, but it was called a hunter safety course. Being rural, everyone already had some training at home. It was more take up a collection for ammo and have fun at the dump.

    2. It’s just fluff. They don’t want “sanity” involved. They want to exploit grief and whip up anger/hysteria so people are stampeded into having more of their rights restricted.

  18. Reblogged this on The Arts Mechanical and commented:
    I can think of multiple cases where a gunman was stopped by determined people who were not armed. Recently there was that case in France. A gun is not a magic wand and just about anything can still hurt you.
    I suspect that the spate of shootings recently is a byproduct of our establishment taking the point of view that when things go wrong you must wait for experts to come and fix it. But when the SHTF 99% of the time you can guarantee that the “authority” or “expert” is going to be nowhere in sight. There was a tile when people were taught take things into their own hands. We seem to have forgotten that.

  19. For official doctrine on citizen response to an active shooter, please see the following link. The official policy is a variation of Run, Hide, Fight. Your location will probably use a different acronym.

    www avoid deny defend org

    Acknowledge that they will not officially encourage citizens to carry, or shoot back, or go on the offensive, someone might get hurt.

    Note that in TX anyway, the cops are trained and aware that there may be good guys with guns (CHL, illegal concealed carrier, plainclothes cops, etc) on site. You could still get shot though.

    nick

    1. Note that in TX anyway, the cops are trained and aware that there may be good guys with guns (CHL, illegal concealed carrier, plainclothes cops, etc) on site. You could still get shot though.

      Growing up in Wyoming my mom was in a self-defence class where a cop told them if they were going to shot the intruder to call the police when they were done so the police didn’t accidentally shot the wrong person.

      They also joked about the paperwork on “hunting out of season” is you did.

    2. Cops shooting a CCW permit holder at a scene actually happens fairly rarely. Far rarer than cops shooting each other.

  20. It’s not security, It’s kabuki. All of it. It doesn’t actually keep us safe; it just lets the sheep *think* that they are safe.

    Case and point: my old high school. The district added a new wing onto the building my freshman year, and during the construction they decided to renovate the existing structure. One of the renovations that they made it a point to brag about was replacing all the old wooden classroom doors with steel-cored doors that could (allegedly) stop AK-47 rifle rounds. Great idea, right? Well, it would be if those doors didn’t have those same wire “reinforced” glass windows as the old doors had, the kind that you could (and I know at least one student who did!) accidentally put your hand through without even trying. And said windows were right smack next to the doorknobs. Our district’s active-shooter “response” was to go into “lock-down,” get everybody into those classrooms, behind those “armored” doors that even a monkey could get through, and sit in the corner.

    Ask me, that goes beyond “victim herding” straight to “fish in a barrel.” I figued, screw it, I’d take my chances getting suspended (seriously, that was the punishment for breaking lock-down) or shot by making a break for the outside than sitting there waiting to die.

    The supermarket where I used to work was just as bad. The default emergency response for *every single scenario* was to evacuate out the nearest marked exit and meet up at the designated emergency meeting point. Which was around a light pole in the exact center of the parking lot that had a huge sign on it that said, “Designated Emergency Meeting Point.” I [BLEEP!] you not. Our building had roof access, and anyone with two brain cells to rub together could find the stairs. All it would take was one guy with a rifle to pull the fire alarm and then head up to the roof.

    Yeah, screw that plan. I’d come up with my own plan: get out via the loading docks, go over the fence at the end of the driveway, and either hide in the wooded creekbed or else start booking it down the walking trail back towards my house. Fortunately, my manager thought along the same lines as me, so when we got to talking about it and I mentioned my plan, he said, “You didn’t just tell me that, and I didn’t say I thought it was a great plan and if it comes down to it, go for it.”

    Honestly, I’m shocked that there hasn’t already been a Westgage or Beslan style attack here in the states. I’m glad I no longer live within spitting distance of the second largest, soon to be #1 shopping mall in the country. Because when (not if) it happens, I’ll bet a good chunk of my savings it’ll be King of Prussia. Nice big target, and while PA on the whole has excellent gun laws. the Philadelphia area, and KOP in particular, is Progressive Soccer Mom Central. Barely anybody owns guns, let alone carries any sort of weapon or takes self-defense seriously.

    Aaaand I think I’ve ranted enough for one comment. Keep your heads down, your eyes up, your hands free, and a weapon on your person.

    1. “Designated Emergency Meeting Point.”

      That should really be Rally Point, to make an easier acronym.

      2. That’s what it said on the sign and in the employee handbook, verbatim. Probably because the company thought (probably correctly) that the average employee wouldn’t understand what ‘rally’ meant.

    2. Heh. Following the active shooter incident at the Washington Navy Yard a few years ago, ONI had several iterations of active shooter “training”. The idea was “Run. Hide. Fight.” Fight being the last thing you do but still in there. And theoretically, assuming the shooter in question wasn’t from my command, hiding in our SCIF would work, for the most part.

      1. “Run. Hide. Fight.” may or may not be a great plan, but it beats the hell out of “Huddle silently in the corner and hope he doesn’t find you,” which was the only “training” I ever got. F*** that noise. Like I said, I’ll take my chances and make a run for it. And if it doesn’t work out, well, at least I’ll die standing up.

    3. A few months before I left my prior employer we had to take the mandatory refresher course on workplace violence which included the corporate weapons policy. I told the HR that I didn’t need to take the course since I knew where all the weapons were and was well schooled by the Marine Corps in the application of violence. He asked what I meant by weapons. This was in a hardware store so we had machetes, axes,hatchets, mattock handles, tree trimming hooks, screwdrivers, hammers, BAW’s, ropes for garrottes not to mention the propane tanks,rags, and little cans of ethanol free gas for the yard equipment. Yes I was trying to see if I could get fired since I knew that I was leaving in a month or so for my current job. It is amazing that so many people see guns and knives as the only weapons when they are tools and like nearly all tools can be used for good or evil.

      1. When I worked at the supermarket, I could not carry so much as a Swiss Army Knife on my person because it was “a weapon,” and box cutters were restricted to manager-level employees for the same reason, yet I (and everyone else who worked in the perishables area) had ready access to dozens of *really* big, *really* sharp knives, and didn’t even need to ask anyone’s permission . And when I sarcastically asked the aforementioned manager about that, he replied (with equal sarcasm) that those were cooking utensils, you see. Nobody would ever *possibly* think use one as a weapon. Yes, he did roll his eyes rather dramatically when he said that.

        Oh, that was one part of my escape plan I forgot to mention: grab one of those big-@$$ knives before booking it for the loading dock in case the bad guy managed to get between me and my chosen exit. I know, knife won’t do much good against a gun, but at least I’d go down fighting.

        1. Not to mention that every supermarket I’ve ever been in had a housewares aisle with knives, BBQ forks, etc.

        2. There is considerable documented evidence that if the knife holder is within seven yards of the shooter it becomes about even odds. At the very least the shooter is gonna get cut.

            1. Hm. Always be certain of your terrain.

              Monologuing is probably also not a good idea.

        3. Re: Knife vs gun:
          Please note the 20 foot rule of thumb. I’m not law enforcement, but have heard it thusly: If you have a handgun and your opponent has a deployed knife AND is within 20 feet of you, there is likely to be a stabbing before a shooting.

          I live east of the Cascades in Oregon, and the sheriff who issued my CCW encouraged all those who could legally own a firearm to get a permit. Same for the current sheriff. Last time I heard a number, 3000 of the 60,000 people in the county had permits. Road rage fights don’t seem to happen here… Some businesses disallow firearms, including one branch of one credit union. The other branch does brisk business.

        6. Caveat to the knife v. gun 21-foot rule comments: this was a big frickin’ store. As in six-figure square footage. If I managed to come around a corner and the bad guy was right in front of me, yeah, I could slice him up good. But if he’s halfway across the store, 100+ feet away, clear line of sight and field of fire… that probably wouldn’t end well unless BG was a spectacularly poor shot.

          1. Oh yeah, that would be a problem. OTOH, if you do get to that distance, it’s something to consider. The hospital says no firearms or weapons, so I’ll stash the pistol to pay a bill, but the 3″ thumb-opening knife is a tool, donchano?

          2. You’d be surprised. Early days there was that Texas tower sniper and the DC sniper, but for the most part these scum are spray and pray types. Shooting into massed crowds or kids at close range in a classroom is about all they’re capable of. Real marksmanship takes the sort of discipline that such human refuse are incapable of.

            2. News out of a small Georgia town last week: Two workers installing solar panels got into it, and at lunch one tried to shoot the other. Nine shots from a handgun. None hit.

        7. My first day on the job where I worked, i didn’t know policy, and so left my knife at home. I had to cut something and told my supervisor I didn’t have a knife. He said “Don’t ever come to work without your knife.” And I haven’t.

          On a typical work day I have four knives: pocket knife; Leatherman ™; lineman’s knife; and a clip knife. The company issues the last two as needed.

      2. Further boggle: most of those tools have been used as weapons of war historically, or have close analogues that have. Heck, many of the “exotic” far eastern weapons are repurposed or slightly redesigned farm implements!

        1. H-ll, start chucking canned goods at his head if you have no other choice. Talk about breaking the OODA loop.
          Trigger warning: guys might stop here.
          (Friend of the family ended the career of a flasher and sexual assault perp who picked on the wrong clerk one night. Set his “purchases” down on the counter, whipped out his willie and put it on the counter, then acted as if he was going to come after her. She grabbed one of the canned veggies and . . . The ER guys and urologist were not optimistic about perp getting full function back after such severe crush injuries.)

          2. Considering there is no possible way I could ever end up in that situation (not being an idiot), I read through that story with no wincing. Thanks for the warning, but meh, not really needed here.

        2. A bush ax has an amazing resemblance to a type of Chinese pole arm, and then there’s the machete. But while we were issued machetes for light brush, we prefer the edge of a shovel as it puts more distance between you and snakes and wasps.

      3. One of my grandfathers witnessed a murder in a hardware store. A fight got out of hand and one man picked up a scythe and used it. The injured man scooped himself up, held himself together with one hand, grabbed another tool, and killed the other man. He later died of infection – no antibiotics in those days.

    4. Nice big target, and while PA on the whole has excellent gun laws. the Philadelphia area, and KOP in particular, is Progressive Soccer Mom Central. Barely anybody owns guns, let alone carries any sort of weapon or takes self-defense seriously.

      Hey, easily offended brigade, here’s your pull quote:

      They f****pped laws, their karma. If they are going to get someone killed better them and theirs than me and mine.

    5. Oh yes.
      My high school had an emergency procedure for if an active shooter got in while we were at lunch.
      If we had warning, we were supposed to all get into the kitchens. If we didn’t have warning, we were supposed to hit the floor and stay there. Did I mention that there were four hundred of us at lunch at the same time?
      Yeah, I decided that if there was an active shooter, I was heading for the outside doors. I am not making myself a target in a shooting gallery.

    6. A bunch of authority figures seem *love* this “lockdown” thing.

      Let me put it this way: If there’s a nut shooting up the place, I’m leaving. And anyone who tries to stop me is my enemy, no matter what kind of authority he thinks he has.

      I’m going around them if possible, over them if I have to.

    7. Raptor, the designated emergency meeting point is for when the dam fails or there’s an earthquake; it is not optimal for an evil person coming in to kill you. That’s a very different problem. I commend you for your solution, however, my manager and I have worked out where all the potential weapons are.

    1. The police are only there to secure the site of a crime and gather the evidence (and any remains).

      Anything that happens before that is the responsibility of the people at the site, at the time.

    2. The problem with assuming a “duty to protect” is that it can rapidly slide over into thoughtcrime: Oh, we thought he was going to do [bad thing] so we shot him first. Great way to become a target just for being a bit unconventional.

      And assuming someone else (usually “the government”) has the duty to protect you (but that you have no right to protect yourself) is the core of modern progressivism.

  22. Sarah, I agree with nearly everything you say here. Except this. “Because groups where individuals didn’t defend themselves and didn’t defend those closest to them didn’t survive to contribute their genetics in any significant amount.”
    Yes Sarah they did. They just didn’t do so willingly. They did so because after the men were dead, and the male children slaughtered, the women were made into slaves. Its also probably why the human race has a small amount of neanderthal genes in our genome.

      1. But its the job of the female slaves to wash the jeans of the victors.
        And by the way you misspelled jeans.
        I know Portagee, even lamer than my usual feeble attempts, but it was time for a bit of levity here.

      2. But those victors constantly mixed their genes with the genes of the newly conquered, who probably shared certain traits with the previously conquered, which might explain why a certain subset of our society (or humanity in general) is always willing to back down. I read once that Ghengis Khan has more descendants than any other man in history and he wasn’t exactly known as a great seducer. The women who fought till death didn’t become brood mares. Those who didn’t did. Some people prefer slavery to death. Hell some people prefer slavery to free life. Again I’m not saying your wrong, just saying you should never underestimate the cumulative power of cowardice to infect humanity as a whole.

  23. I know it’s not convenient sound bites, but Eric Raymond’s “Ethics from the barrel of a gun” is damn good on some of the philosophical underpinnings why armed citizens are a good thing.

    What really surprises me though is an extension of the “have you ever noticed they’re all in gun-free zones” trend.

    We keep having situations where one side has (a) gun(s), and the other doesn’t. The side that has them is doing so in contravention of multiple laws (among them, murder, assault, etc..)

    So what’s their answer? Make the entire country a gun free zone by making sure that only the government and criminals have guns….

    Never mind the practicality of confiscating all the guns (I’d say 1/3 to 1/2 of gun owners won’t give theirs up, even though they’ll likely do so quietly).

    The kind of government action required to confiscate the vast majority of personal firearms would be exactly the kind of government the 2nd amendment was meant to stop.

    1. As I recall one of the blue liberal states, either New York or Connecticut I think, recently passed a law requiring the registration of certain “assault type” firearms. So far they’ve seen about a 10 percent compliance.
      And then there was the infamous Assault Weapon Ban of 1994-2004, sunset after ten years because even ardent gun banners could not drum up any proof that it had diddly effect on reducing crime. And because the term assault weapon is a squishy one made up by anti gun people gun makers simply designed around the features contained in the legislation. To the wailing and gnashing of teeth by the gun banners who like typical progressives assumed that all those evil icky guns would just go away.

      1. It was Connecticut and as a one time Nutmegger I’ll admit I was surprised.

        The Connecticut I was stationed in would not have failed to comply at that rate. Come to think of it, that’s the single best sign for our Hostess’s “we are winning” argument I know.

        1. Actually, it was both. The last compliance rate I saw was somewhere around 5%, with a number of sheriffs stating openly they would not enforce the law.

    3. “only the government and criminals have guns”

      How do you distinguish the former from the latter?

      When the IRS and Secret Service illegally leak private personal info it seems that line has been erased.

        1. Sad how the guardians so often come to believe that by virtue of their positions they are effectively above the very laws they enforce.

        2. The “Unopposed” in that sentence is superfluous. Government is, almost always, a criminal conspiracy to defraud. Which doesn’t mean that living without some form of government is possible except for the very strong and skilled.

  24. Need to update this household on emergency procedures — my partner’s nephews are now part-time residents — I like the idea of DERP (Designated Emergency Rally Point)

  25. As is so often the case when talking about schools, got to quote Fichte, the founding light of modern education, admired and followed by Horace Mann, Dewey and their followers to this day, the intellect behind the design and purpose of the schools we have today:

    ”Education should aim at destroying free will so that after pupils are thus schooled they will be incapable throughout the rest of their lives of thinking or acting otherwise than as their school masters would have wished.”

    Well-schooled kids, and their even more well-schooled teachers, are vanishingly unlikely to take any initiative when faced with a maniac shooter: he’s in authority, so if he tells them to lay down, they lay down. They don’t throw things, or smash a window, or anything of the sort, because they’ve had their wills subsumed to as great an extend as possible by the schools, by design. I’m not saying terror would not make people, including me, freeze in such a situation – but the rabbit-like cowering we see so consistently in these situations is, in fact, the designed output of our factory schools.

    1. This. I’ve seen it and lived it first-hand.

      Again, back in high school. AP Criminal Justice class. Teacher was talking about eye-witnesses and the notorious unreliability thereof. To drive the point home, he set up an “exercise.” In the middle of class, two masked individuals ran into the room, each brandishing (fake) guns. They shoved their weapons in the teacher’s face, demanded his wallet, which he handed over, and then ran out. Whole thing lasted maybe thirty seconds tops.

      Nobody did anything. And I mean that literally: nobody even screamed, let alone hit the floor or tried to fight back. Including, I’m ashamed to admit, me. I’d been taking Taekwondo for about eight years at that point, so I knew how to defend myself. But I didn’t. I just sat there in stunned stupor along with everybody else.

      Reason being that we’d been conditioned from the start to not fight back, to just sit there and take it. My school district had a No-Hit-Back rule: if a bully starts pummeling you to a bloody pulp, and you just sit there and let him wail on you, you won’t get into trouble. But on the other hand, do anything to resist, even shove the bully away from you to make an opening so you can escape, then you’re in just as much trouble as the bully, if not more.

      And the school actually *bragged* about this! Because it wasn’t as draconian and “unfair” as the surrounding districts rules where you’d be suspended even if you *didn’t* fight back!

      People wonder why nobody except Chris Mintz actively resisted the shooter. That right there is why! Because our society has been conditioned to believe that resisting is wrong and that they will be punished if they do fight back!

      As for me, I have managed to train myself out of that mindset. Not just blustering: found myself is a bad situation a few years ago, actively resisted, and in the middle of it decided that I would “go all the way” if need be. And I thank God every day that it didn’t come to that. But that’s just me, one of how many millions? Until we as a society overcome that mindset and come to the understanding that resistance =/= bad, events like Oregon will continue on a regular basis.

      2. Until we as a society overcome that mindset and come to the understanding that resistance =/= bad, events like Oregon will continue to happen on a regular basis.

        Forget the offender, celebrate the resistor and pity the cowed.

        We must actively shift our culture.

      3. > high school… shoved their weapons in the teacher’s face… nobody… tried to fight back.
        —
        Not your problem.

        As the various principals and school board authorities explained to me many times during my incarceration in the public school system, minors have no rights, and students in particular have no rights. Ideas on that have changed nowadays, but that was their story at the time.

        No rights = no duties. All the power was on the teacher’s side; you had no duties or responsibilities whatsoever. In fact, if it had been where I went to school and you tried to intervene, you would certainly have wound up expelled “for cause”.

        So, their classroom demonstration merely taught some kid he was a failure. Assuming that wasn’t their intention all along…

      4. It’s been a while but I remember reading the notes/diary of
        Lewis or Clark. In situations with grizzly bears and other hostiles the line, “I resolved to sell my life dearly.” was used
        quite often. (It has occurred to me that, at the time, the
        thinking might have been more along the line of, “Oh expletive!”) But we could do worse than to recall the line,
        and cultivate the attitude that gave rise to it.

        Some of the things that helped the expedition hang on to
        their topknots and lives were a “magic” air gun that could fire
        many shots without reloading, a swivel gun (cannon) that was also quite impressive, and the muzzleloading rifles everybody carried.

  27. I don’t own a gun, and probably won’t. For one thing, there are so many other things to spend money on. Like food and medication. For another, I’m a slew foot. I’m clumsy, and I fidget. Not good characteristics in somebody holding a firearm.

    That said, if I’m ever stuck in the path of a mass-shooter, I going to do my level best to bash his brains out. What have I got to lose? I expect that the average fire extinguisher, swung by its hose, could be pretty devastating. Metal coatracks are pretty common these days, too. If I hit the guy hard enough, and often enough, that should keep him too busy bleeding to shoot many people, neh?

    1. Batons are pretty inexpensive – maybe $50 for a high end one? Or if you use a walking stick, instant club right there, if you aren’t using an aluminum one. And those are super inexpensive – I hear they even grow on trees.

    2. One day after a spree killing, some young friends of mine came through the door with a roll of tape.

      I grew up assuming that I would loose any physical confrontation I got in, and that any adult who wanted could kill me. I decided I had a duty, should the situation occur, to throw away any expectation of survival, and concentrate only on hindering the other guy as much as possible. I’d spent a large part of my life thinking that way, over and over.

      So when the guy came through the door, I think I took away the tape.

    3. Swinging a fire extinguisher by the hose would be devastating. To something, but probably not the gunman. The hose isn’t rated for that kind of stress and something would likely give while you were swinging it. Instead take the fire extinguisher and spray it in his face. Most fire extinguishing chemicals aren’t exactly a no-tears formula, and in the absolute worst case you’ve laid down a smoke screen to allow others to maneuver.

    4. You sound like an ideal candidate for a cane. Your right to an “assist device” is guaranteed by the Americans With Disabilities Act, and not even the TSA can take it away from you.

      Then you could check out some of the kendo videos on Youtube. Probably not as good as a decent instructor, but they’re free.

          1. A sock with a can of soda is extremely effective. Serious velocity and unopened cans are extremely hard.

            1. While I am hesitant to broach this strategy, since these shooters consistently are young adult men … ladies, this is not a time for modesty. Coordinate this with one or more guys so they can take advantage of the distraction, but I venture to guess flashing your boobs might throw off reaction time, allowing somebody with upper body strength to persuade the shooter to reconsider his agenda.

              N.B. — guys! If you are called upon to assist in any such stratagem, remember: eyes on the shooter!

          2. Eh, he left out some of the more obvious. And keys can be effective depending on what’s cut.

            “Why yes, officer, I can describe him. He has only one eye, and holds his hand on his face like this.”

                2. Be sure to check your local laws viz brass knuckles. You can make your public librarian do this for you (though she’ll probabably just outsource t to the local library)

                  1. You may not be able to have brass knucks, but at any tack shop you can buy a hand-sized steel D-ring that can be used identically.

            2. I keep my keys and keyrings on a caribiner-type carrier. Useful for clipping my keys to a belt loop, or purse strap. Or as a handle for a key flail.

          3. My sister works in San Francisco. (Yes, it’s embarrassing.) When she got her CA drivers license, back during the height of the carjacking mania, she was instructed by the cops to carry a ball-peen hammer in easy reach on her front seat. Perfectly legal everywhere, and completely effective against a face in your window.

    5. Be spraying the fire extinguisher at his face on your approach. If it’s a dry powder extinguisher from 20-30 feet away you should be messing with his vision pretty effectively.

    6. even though our official policy was “No Firearms” our previous owner the President and HR really cared not a whit if we had one in our cars or on our person etc. The new owners do, but as I told someone once “I am never unarmed” even if I am without my gun or my knife (and my other knife, or my multitool, or … well you know) I usually got at least a pen (you stuff a pen in someones throat and it really messes up their day), and lots and lots of implements that will be “Of Destruction” if needs be. Pail torque wrenches make a very nice mace. Fire extinguishers can be ranged weapons as well as hand to hand. Pipe wrench? Even the aluminum ones will do and you get high speed from the lower weight. Oh Look, a squeeze bottle of Isopropanol and gee, I have a Zippo here too …
      ” Remind me to never piss you off”

      1. These are all good ideas. I’ll probably start by throwing my iPad at him, edge on, like a frisbee. That’s only if there is something else to pick up and hit him with in the area. No matter what, I mean to kill the sonofabitch.

  28. Every mass shooting, EVERY last stinking one, has ended when the shooter is met with effective resistance. That can come from law enforcement, armed citizens, or even unarmed motivated folk. That French train thing and Flight 93 being two examples of the latter. In every case the shooter is captured, shot and killed, or forced to take their own life. Once confronted the taking of innocent lives mostly stops. Any solution that does not recognize this simple fact is so much smoke being blown up somebody’s orifice by a lying politician. But I repeat myself.

  30. Sarah’s beloved Heinlein discussed survival and self-defense as moral behavior in his magnificent address to the U.S. Naval Academy (his alma mater) in 1973, “The Pragmatics of Patriotism:”

    We have two situations, mutually exclusive: Mankind surviving, and mankind extinct. With respect to morality, the second situation is a null class. An extinct breed has NO behavior, moral or otherwise.

    Since survival is the sine qua non, I now define “moral behavior” as “behavior that tends toward survival.” I won’t argue with philosophers or theologians who choose to use the word “moral” to mean something else, but I do not think anyone can define “behavior that tends toward extinction” as being “moral” without stretching the word “moral” all out of shape.

    We are now ready to observe the hierarchy of moral behavior from its lowest level to its highest.

    The simplest form of moral behavior occurs when a man or other animal fights for his own survival. Do not belittle such behavior as being merely selfish. Of course it is selfish. . .but selfishness is the bedrock on which all moral behavior starts and it can be immoral only when it conflicts with a higher moral imperative. An animal so poor in spirit that he won’t even fight on his own behalf is already an evolutionary dead end; the best he can do for his breed is to crawl off and die, and not pass on his defective genes.

    The next higher level is to work, fight, and sometimes die for your own immediate family. This is the level at which six pounds of mother cat can be so fierce that she’ll drive off a police dog. It is the level at which a father takes a moonlighting job to keep his kids in college — and the level at which a mother or father dives into a flood to save a drowning child. . .and it is still moral behavior even when it fails.

    The next higher level is to work, fight, and sometimes die for a group larger that the unit family — an extended family, a herd, a tribe — and take another look at that baboon on watch; he’s at that moral level. I don’t think baboon language is complex enough to permit them to discuss such abstract notions as “morality” or “duty” or “loyalty” — but it is evident that baboons DO operate morally and DO exhibit the traits of duty and loyalty; we see them in action. Call it “instinct” if you like — but remember that assigning a name to a phenomenon does not explain it.

    But that baboon behavior can be explained in evolutionary terms. Evolution is a process that never stops. Baboons who fail to exhibit moral behavior do not survive; they wind up as meat for leopards. Every baboon generation has to pass this examination in moral behavior; those who bilge it don’t have progeny. Perhaps the old bull of the tribe gives lessons. . .but the leopard decides who graduates — and there is no appeal from his decision. We don’t have to understand the details to observe the outcome; Baboons behave morally — for baboons.

    Click the link to read the rest.

    1. A quote from the bottom of the linked page.

      “They shall not grow old as we that are left grow old; Age shall not wither them nor the years condemn; As the going down of the sun and in the morning, we shall remember them…”

      This should be a copybook heading.

    2. Excluded middle viz the moral reasoning, otherwise excellent. The odd thing about Heinlein was he never seemed to let the 2nd rate philosophizing interfere with good sense.

    3. I attended that lecture. I remember reading the transcript some years ago, and being disappointed to realize that one of his biggest applause lines had to have been in response to an audience member’s question (and thus not part of the transcript). He told us that we were fighting for our right to a woman of child-bearing age. You couldn’t get away with saying that now, I’m sure.

    4. eh. What if we could most easily ensure the perpetuation of the race by enslaving ourselves to an advanced race, using its genetic technology to select for suitable docility?

  32. Beslan is what scares me the most. I want to ask our on-campus security about it, but I’m not certain how to approach him about that kind of thing. But otherwise, we have a “shelter-in-place” BUT if you are by a door, or in a room with two doors, get out, run like scared rabbits. If someone gets into my classroom, believe you me, it’s going to look like a tornado hitting an office supply store. A goodly number of the other teachers also have plans.

    1. There is an awful lot to be said for those old-fashioned wooden pointers, or a steel yardstick.

      As a last result, aim your laser pointer into his eyes. It probably doesn’t have sufficient power to harm but I expect it would be distracting as Hades.

      1. and maybe get one that is powerful. or one of those fun megabrite flashlights with a projector lens. all els fails they make a suitable club.

          2. The strobe mode certainly irritates and disorients when trying to walk through the brush at night. Not sure that it would do much except provide a target if used against an attacker in the daylight, however.

            Why does every flippin’ flashlight made now, have to have a strobe mode? That is okay on a ‘self defense’ flashlight, I guess, or an emergency light in the kit you keep in your plane in case of a crash, but I don’t know about everybody else, but I generally use a light to see what the heck I am doing, and if I really want to signal somebody, I expect I am capable of turning it on and off myself.

            1. I have an led pair that, if you bump it or shake it, it changes from low to high to strobe without you touching the button. rather annoying, but they were a few bucks yet very bright and small to fit in a fairing pocket on the bike

            2. I have a mini-maglite that goes from bright (useful), medium bright (also useful), and with the two flash modes. Both the strobe and the SOS flash mode are useless for a light that spends 99.9% of its time in the house…
              I’m a retired engineer, and I see creeping featurism as driven by the same mindset as our hostess warns about writers.

  33. Just a note, for clarification: all of the shooter’s guns were legally purchased, from a licensed federal firearms dealer.

    Any, any body calling for “common sense gun laws” needs to specify exactly what they consider “common sense.”

    Frankly, after seven years of this presidency I haven’t seen him demonstrate sufficient common sense to drink upstream from the herd.

    2. “Common sense” gun laws means “our bodyguards clank from the weight of their armament. You don’t get any.”

      Similarly, “I support the Second Amendment but…” means “It’s okay for me, but not for you.”

    3. They make those same noises when the people got their gun illegally (like the Bank robbers in Cali with full auto AKs … where’d they get those? WalMart?) or even if the person uses a pistol somehow include “Assault Weapons” and types or calibers never involved in the list of things in need of banishment

    4. “Gun Control: If Journalists Were Being Murdered Instead of School Children” http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2015/10/03/gun-control-if-journalists-were-murdered-instead-of-school-children/
      …has some interesting points. “If over the last few years 12 newsrooms had been targeted by mass shooters, you can bet your life CNN and MSNBC and The Washington Post and your local newspaper and radio station would be armoring up with effective security protocols and trained good guys with guns.

      And you can bet your life that the very same mainstream media elites who eagerly exploit dead children to push for more gun control would instead be demanding these common sense safeguards — demanding for themselves the very same common sense safeguards these same journalists refuse to allow to become part of the National Conversation when it comes to keeping schoolchildren safe.”
      Yes.

        1. Links?
          Also, now I can dismiss them the same way I dismiss Michael Bloomberg–I’ll give up my right to guns when you give up your bodyguards.

  34. Shocking News:

    Congress: The More You Know About It, The More You Loathe It
    By John Fund — October 2, 2015

    As House Republicans prepare to select new leaders, they would be wise to consider just how unpopular Congress has become.

    According to the Gallup Poll, 79% of Americans think Congress is “out of touch with average Americans,” 69% think is is “focused on the needs of special interests, and 52% think it is corrupt. And for the first time the loathing of Congress as in institution is being carried over to the local representative of voters. Record numbers of voters believe their own legislator is afflicted with the above ills.

    Even more interesting is that voter disapproval of Congress seems to go up in direct proportion to how knowledgeable people are about how Washington D.C. works. Among those who answer four or five questions correctly about how Congress works and who runs it, 66% rate Congress as poor or bad, and 7% rate it as excellent or good.

    “The fact that the most knowledgeable about Congress are the most critical has important implications,” Gallup reports. “It appears that Congress cannot merely talk its way out of its low ratings, but rather will need to actually perform better to win back public support among those who are paying the closest attention.”

  35. Well, on a more positive note, just saw on the news that, in direct response to the Oregon incident, a local community college has decided to require all faculty members to undergo mandatory firearms training (I’m assuming NRA Basic Pistol or equivalent as PA has no CCW qualification course) and will be allowing students, faculty, and staff with CCW permits to carry on campus.

    Nice to know logic and common sense still prevail in some parts of the country.

    1. But blood in the streets, road rage, drunken Frat parties, how will the cops know the good guys from the bad guys, lack of training, assorted other handwavium scare tactics as nauseum.

      1. Same prediction trotted out every time another state voted on allowing some form of concealed carry for civilians. All fifty states now have it in some form, some more fair and equitable than others. And yet none of those predictions has come to pass. Go figure. So now we’re seeing the same sort of thing regarding the allowing of concealed carry on school grounds. Because as every right thinking person instinctively knows, the mere presence of a firearm turns the average citizen into a raving homicidal maniac.

        1. This was the plot of one of the very, very few Discworld books I really dislike–Men at Arms, where the “gonne” is a malevolent, sentient, entity of death and destruction.
          It’s otherwise a decent story, but that particular element served more as an example of leftist thinking about firearms than anything else.

      2. A friend of mine asked about that the other day–honestly curious fellow. I told him to look up shootings where the good guys had guns and see if the cops had any problems.
        Turns out that by the time the cops get there, if the good guys have guns (unless they are the cops, and were already there, like at Trolley Square), the murderers are always out of the picture, and the good guys can put away/put down the guns.
        So he’s convinced. I suggest homework assignments for honestly curious fellows. I suspect there’s going to be another armed professor on the campus he works on in a few months.

  36. As far as “what to do” in case of …whatever… an interesting site to visit is
    http://freemendo.typepad.com/
    This gentleman posts a reflection on the lessons of Beslan each September, along with several other “what would you do in the case of….” articles each year.
    Again, interesting site, worth a look.

  37. Excellent piece. We really need to ban the gun free zone. It is an affront to every concept of individual liberty.

    1. The argument, and it isn’t an incorrect one, is that a gun-free zone on private property is the right of the property owner to control his property, and refuse to associate with gun owners.

      My instant response is that the Left killed that argument stone dead in 1965, when the Civil Rights Act said that any property to which the general public is allowed access was a “public accommodation”, where property rights and free association of the owner were declared less than a member of the public’s civil rights to be there. Since self-defense is every bit as much of a civil right as the right to sit at a lunch counter — or to force a baker to make you a cake — they got rid of that argument themselves.

      1. The problem with the private property argument is that it is selectively allowed. Try putting up signs declaring your “area” a hammer-free zone, or a perfume-free zone or a screwdriver-free zone or key-free zone and see how staunchly the courts back up your right to control your property.

        Funny how nuanced proglodytes get over public accommodations. Try to assert a free speech right to sing hymns (“What a friend we have in Jesus”) in a public square and there’s a fair likelihood you will be given public accommodations. Sing “Imagine” in that same place and you’ll likely be cheered.

    2. I won’t go quite that far. I’d say that gun free zones should be allowed – so long as the owner/operator of the space provides appropriate hard security as an alternative, including secured lockers for those who carry to check their weapons in when entering. So if a place is going to declare itself gun free, it’d need secure lockers, security screening at the entry points (and on the lockers), roving armed security, etc.

      Effectively, this would allow, say, a gun free zone at courthouses or a major event like a political rally, but make it cost prohibitive for most places, most of the time. No more “gun free zone” for a National Park visitor center or a mall, just because the Federal government or the owners (or their insurance company) want one.

      I’d also be open to allowing gun free zones – as long as the liability is then on the owner/operator if something happens. IOW, make it potentially expensive enough to discourage insurance companies from “encouraging” business owners to go gun free.

      1. Be cautious about banning gun-free zones. There a a very few places where they are appropriate. Explosive factories come to mind. Apart from those places where just the act of firing a “gun” is lunacy, there should be no gun-free zones.

        1. Such places would likely be cautious of bic lighters, let alone firearms. And would have all entrances/exits controlled at all times. More strict than courthouses, or cell phone repair facilities, really- the latter all but frisk you when you work there.

  39. If we had any real journalists in this country, somebody would show this chart to president Obama and ask for comment.


    HT: National Review Online gangblog, The Corner.

    This should be on a T-shirt.

      1. Regarding the presidential citation of a claim of a National Journal study that “The states that impose the most restrictions on gun users also have the lowest rates of gun-related deaths, while states with fewer regulations typically have a much higher death rate from guns.”, Hans Bader look at that study and found:

        [I]n its discussions of “Concealed Carry” and “Background Checks,” the National Journal deletes these states from its charts comparing pro-gun and anti-gun states by “Gun-related homicides per 100,000 people, by state (2013).” It deletes Vermont, South Dakota, Maine, and 8 other states (6 of which have few gun regulations) from each chart, claiming that these states had “too few homicides to calculate a reliable rate.” 9 of the 11 states excluded broadly allow concealed carry and do not impose additional background-check requirements beyond those contained in federal law. But the National Journal deliberately excluded those states, writing, “In 2013, Alaska, Idaho, Maine, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming had too few homicides to calculate a reliable rate.”

        It is truly bizarre to exclude the states with the fewest gun deaths from an article about what states have “the fewest gun deaths.” This is an egregious act of cherry-picking.
        http://libertyunyielding.com/2015/10/02/obama-peddles-gun-control-fable/

        You could look it up.

  40. As to carry rules for knives, guns, et. al.?

    The classic response is “It’s better to be judged by twelve than carried by six.”

  41. Paul Mirengoff, over at Power Line notes the Left’s second face regarding “common sense” guns laws:

    BIPARTISAN SENTENCING REFORM PROPOSAL WOULD FREE GUN-CARRYING FELONS
    As John noted, President Obama barely waited for the blood to dry in Oregon before seizing on the mass shooting at a community college to call for “common sense gun safety laws.” Ironically, at just about the same time a bipartisan group of Senators was introducing criminal sentencing reform legislation that would cause the release from jail of criminals who carried guns while committing drug felonies.

    As Bill Otis explains, under current law, specifically 18 USC 924(c), a defendant who carries a gun in the course of committing a drug felony is subject to a 10-year mandatory minimum term for the firearm, in addition to the sentence for the drugs. For a second and subsequent 924(c) offense, he is subject to consecutive mandatory terms of 25 years, which is called “stacking.”

    The reform legislation proposed by Senators Grassley, Leahy, Durbin, Schumer and several others would repeal “stacking” and allow for retroactive application of this relief. Retroactive application would mean that gun-toting felons are released from jail. …

    … Obama stated that we “can’t sort through and identify ahead of time who might take action like this.” But felons who carry guns while committing crimes identify themselves as people who might well kill.

    “Stacking” puts this knowledge to good use. It should not be repealed.

    1. You have $10,000 in cash on you and you carry a pistol for self-defense and it is OK. You have $100,000 in drugs on you and you carry a pistol for self-defense and go to jail for 10 years for the pistol. Something wrong there.

        1. No doubt, but giving them ten years for the gun is like giving a rapist ten years for possessing a Corvette. There isn’t any doubt that they are a criminal, but they are being sentenced for something that isn’t shouldn’t be a crime, rather than for the crime they are committing.
          If they USED the gun in committing a crime, I have no problem with a harsher sentence.

      2. You omitted a significant word or two in your description:
        “You have $100,000 in illegal drugs on you and you carry a pistol for self-defense and go to jail for 10 years for the illegal drugs and the pistol. ”

        Fixed it for you. Referring to the Bill Otis statement of the law as posted above, with emphasis for the willfully misunderstanding:
        “[C]urrent law, specifically 18 USC 924(c), a defendant who carries a gun in the course of committing a drug felony is subject to a 10-year mandatory minimum term for the firearm, in addition to the sentence for the drugs.”

        Man, those subordinate clauses are a /itch, aren’t they? Them things can change the entire meaning of a sentence!

        Until either carrying $10,000 in cash is criminalized or carrying illegal drugs is decriminalized, there is nothing wrong in your description as amended for clarity.

        1. No you do the 10 years for the self-defense pistol in addition to the sentence for the drugs. We can argue about drug policy all day, but carrying a pistol for self-defense even if you are breaking the law in ways not connected to the pistol (no armed robbery for instance) should not subject you to additional penalties.

          1. Yep. I am in no means defending the illegal drugs, but if you note the subordinate clauses in 18 USC 924(c) the ten years is for CARRYING a gun. Not for using a gun while committing a felony, but for simply possessing a perfectly legal* tool.

            *Assuming of course, that you are not a previously convicted felon, and therefore forbidden under penalty of law to possess a firearm.

        2. Sadly, carrying $10k has effectively been outlawed. Carrying a large quantity of cash is now considered cause for the police to detain you and seize the money on suspicion whether they arrest you or not. It’s “evidence”, and good luck getting it back.

  42. Wow! I just saw the GoFundMe page for Chris Mintz. People have given him over $700K so far. Heroism still pays.

  43. Pingback: Feminist SJW violence. | Dark Brightness

    1. No need to imagine it. Stephen Hunter has Bob Lee Swagger’s son, Ray Cruz, deal with it at the Mall of the Americas on Black Friday in Soft Target.

      As the novel opens, the shopping-mall Santa is killed by a rifle shot to the head. Pandemonium ensues as hundreds of shoppers are herded into the center of the mall by a dozen young Somalis armed with AK-74 assault rifles and semiautomatic pistols. The Somalis are very willing jihadists, having been promised that this very day they can ravage young American girls, gorge themselves on fast food, kill Americans by the score, and meet welcoming virgins in paradise after dying a glorious death doing Allah’s will.

      [SNIP]

      One cannot but conclude that Mr. Hunter – who seems more than a bit skeptical about the prevailing political narrative of the mainstream media – must have enjoyed creating the public officials who populate the novel. Their various pronouncements and prescriptions in response to the massive hostage crisis are evocative of many a Department of Homeland Security press conference.

      Most presumptively praiseworthy among the cast is the superintendent of the Minnesota State Police, a character given the name Douglas Obobo. The son of a Kenyan graduate student and a Radcliffe anthropology major, Col. Obobo has always advanced ahead of any actual accomplishment. Enamored of the sound of his own voice, he has won praise and media accolades with his rhetoric. It is widely opined that his is a fast-rising star. He has declined entreaties that he run for office, thereby eliminating any coincidental resemblance his fictional character might otherwise bear to a living politician.

      As the drama unfolds, others involved are wary of the charismatic Col. Obobo, not to mention his “public relations and career adviser,” David Renfro. In turn, Obobo and Renfro are disdainful of state police SWAT leader Mike Jefferson’s simplistic view that the gunmen simply want to “kill people” for the “greater glory of Allah.” Indeed, Obobo retains control at the scene by denying that there is sufficient evidence of terrorist involvement to warrant an FBI takeover of the operation: “There is no operative intelligence suggesting foreign involvement, other than unsubstantiated reports of some Arabic-styled scarves.”
      http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/dec/6/when-terrorists-set-sights-on-a-mall/

      If you are familiar with Mr. Hunter’s works, little of this will require you suspend much disbelief. Other members of Hunter’s stock company include FBI agent Nick Memphis and local news anchor Nikki Swagger.

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