David Frum on how safe Americans really are, so they don’t need guns:
The police can protect you, and will, and do. And a gun in the house is not a guarantee of personal security — it is instead a standing invitation to family tragedy. The cold dead hands from which they pry the gun are very unlikely to be the hands of a heroic minuteman defending home and hearth against intruders. They are much more likely to be the hands of a troubled adolescent or a clumsy child.
Yes. Guns will kill you, and the police will protect you. Like they did with this rural teenaged mother.
McKinley said she asked the dispatcher, “I’ve got two guns in my hand — is it OK to shoot him if he comes in this door? I’m here by myself with my infant baby, can I please get a dispatcher out here immediately?”
“I can’t tell you that you can do that but you do what you have to do to protect your baby,” the dispatcher said.
The 911 conversation lasted for 21 minutes. Then the door gave in.
“I waited till he got in the door. They said I couldn’t shoot him until he was inside the house. So I waited until he got in the door and then I shot him,” McKinley told KFOR.
You’re totally safe. Count on the police. They’ll protect you. Just like they did Sarah McKinley. But Frum thinks that taking away our guns will help protect our children.
In the land of the Second Amendment, nobody will take your guns away. But if you love your children, you should get rid of them voluntarily.
McKinley was facing two drug addicts who knew that her husband died of cancer and were invading her home to get his painkillers. She locked and barricaded her doors and waited for the police. The man who broke into her house was armed with a large hunting knife. She fired and killed him, and the other would-be thief ran away. Sarah McKinley loves her child. That’s why she kept the shotgun even though she sold some of her husband’s other guns after he died.
If she had followed Frum’s advice, she and the baby would likely have been killed.
Frum is an idiot. I’m keeping my guns, thank you, even though I live in a quiet, peaceful neighborhood.
I have serious doubts that there was not even a single other armed person, legally or not, in that theater. I believe that everyone hoofed on their own to get out of the line of fire and when confronted by a heavily armed madman, almost everyone decides that armed or not, playing Dirty Harry is a non starter for them. I do not believe that having a dozen CCPs in that theater would have made anything better based on what I understand human behavior to be. While it’s quite possible that some people some time may fend off a single attacker to their home or car if they themselves are armed, the idea that the 2A is going to make for a ‘safer society’ is nonsense, to me. Having said that, women who want to carry a hammerless airweight .38 5 shot revolver loaded with +P to protect themselves in public should be free to do so with the proper training.
Wait, what? The 2nd amendment making society safer is nonsense, but as as long it is used to allow women to protect themselves it’s not?
“Inconceivable!” (If you didn’t say that in an odd pinched tone, then you need to watch the Princess Bride.)
Also why +P? At self defense ranges it does nothing but add to the potential of over penetration, and if used at the range will induce massive flinching, especially out of an airweight 442. The 2nd amendment has saved my life, and countless others. Seeing as scumbags don’t care about the rule of law, I’d rather not suddenly find myself and the rest of the citizens of this country turned into subjects.
And if a TRAINED CPL holder had been in the theater who knows what could have happened. From what I’ve read so far it sounds like the shooter concentrated on those running from him after the initial shots. I would hope that in this case instead of watching him kill my children I would have used the pistol I had on to at least go down fighting, and not get murdered like cattle in the chutes at a slaughterhouse. I’ve pulled my pistol twice now without shooting anyone. And both times it was automatic and from instinct. People that get CPLs need to TRAIN. Not just get one, and wear it like a watch.
We’ve become ingrained in this nation to run from danger. That it’s someone else’s problem. In this case if people had jumped up and FOUGHT the guy maybe there wouldn’t be so many dead and injured? But no… It’s better to save yourself, then try to save others.
Until we get rid of all the free loaders, scum bags, and the rest of the evils of this nation, I’ll rely on the 2nd Amendment to make me at least if not safer, able to defend myself, and my family.
The point about the theater is that it was a “gun free zone” and that those carrying weapons legally were not allowed in. In fact, it was reported that some people were actually turned away for having their guns.
Frum is a schmuck. I grew up w/ an abusive social worker father-who kept a loaded revolver in his nightstand drawer. My brother and I both were taught save gun-handling/safety/respect @ a young age and were quite aware of the location of that weapon. I could’ve stopped his abuse ‘like that’ with that revolver. My dad died in 2001-not of a gunshot wound… but of Crohn’s Disease.
Frum Fail.
Frum is .. Canadian, I believe? a cultural prejudice, perhaps.
I don’t know what I would have done in that theatre considering my personal seating preferences, too many innocents in line of fire, etc. I do know that for years I had a CCP until I moved to a country that restricts ownership of weapons and for the umpteenth time (whenever I read a news story like this) in three years wishing I could have a CCP again. And the kicker is yes, you are to wait for the police to arrive and take care of the problem here. If you do anything to cause GBH to your attacker YOU will be in goal.