Fanatically anti-gun doctor says armed self-defense is for 'wusses'

Rabidly anti-gun Dr. David Hemenway (who, when confronted with statistical evidence of the efficacy of armed self-defense, simply dismisses that evidence), Director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, told New Public Health what he really thinks of those of us who would use a gun for self-defense. According to him, anyone who both takes responsibility for his or her own security, and who does not believe that life is a martial arts movie, in which merely by not being a "wuss," one can effectively defend oneself without a weapon, is "somebody to look down at":

Instead of it being the mark of a real man that you can shoot somebody at 50 feet and kill them with a gun, the mark of a real man is that you would never do anything like that. . . . The gun is a great equalizer because it makes wimps as dangerous as people who really have skill and bravery and so I’d like to have this notion that anyone using a gun is a wuss. They aren’t anybody to be looked up to. They’re somebody to look down at because they couldn’t defend themselves or couldn’t protect others without using a gun.

Being able to prevail in unarmed combat is automatically assumed to indicate possession of "skill and bravery," rather than, for example, simply having an advantage in size (and/or numbers) and brutality. Not having that ability, conversely, automatically makes one a "wimp," or "wuss," rather than someone who is older, or smaller, or bound by virtue of gender to almost certainly be weaker, or simply not inclined to brutal savagery.

Granted, Hemenway is not necessarily claiming that he believes this. This is the new "social norm" he wants to instill in the public. In fact, he even cited the change in attitudes about smoking as an example. That might sound familiar. National Gun Rights Examiner David Codrea reminds us of when the Clinton administration's Dr. Mark Rosenberg made the same comparison:

Dr. Mark Rosenberg, Director of the CDC's National Center for Injury Control and Prevention (NCIPC) in 1994 told The Washington Post: "We need to revolutionize the way we look at guns, like what we did with cigarettes. Now it [sic] is dirty, deadly, and banned.

Mr. Codrea also points out that is was around that time when then-U.S. Attorney Eric Holder advocated "brainwashing" (Holder's term) the public against guns.

Whether Hemenway actually believes this notion that "anyone using a gun is a wuss," or simply wants to brainwash the public into accepting it, the idea should probably be given some scrutiny. As it turns out, an early St. Louis Gun Rights Examiner article looked at a very similar argument, pointing out that as a paraplegic, confined to a wheelchair, this correspondent is unlikely to either outfight or outrun an assailant. A "wuss," in other words, according to the good doctor.

That is of course not to say, though, that the right to own and use guns should be contingent on some physical infirmity, as pointed out in that article:

Besides, there's a much larger issue. If we're to accept that only a "coward" would insist on armed self-defense, we are apparently saying that a 110 lb. woman must either be able to defeat a 250 lb. would-be rapist mano-a-mano, submit to being raped (and whatever else her assailant has in mind), or be unworthy of respect; that a 75-year-old man who cannot punch out his 19-year-old thug mugger should be the object of our contempt; and that even a bad-to-the-bone mixed martial arts champion set upon by a dozen gangbangers is some kind of pansy if he doesn't prevail without the use of a weapon. This is without even getting into the fact that all this assumes that the assailants are not themselves armed--that somehow, this time, gun prohibition has worked (as no other kind of prohibition ever has).

Blogger Thirdpower notes who else is a "wuss," in Hemenway's eyes (go to the link, and look at the photo), because she, as an elderly woman, was unable to effectively defend herself against an enormous, violent ex-con (although if her own state of Illinois had permitted her to carry a firearm, as she is licensed to do in more than half the states in the nation, the outcome would likely have been much different--except, of course, that she would still be a "wuss," according to Hemenway, by virtue of needing the gun). Now read this, and try to reconcile that statement with the idea that these are the words of a "wuss."

Dr. Hemenway is indisputably well within his rights to think of me as a "wuss," and even to do his best to convince the public that I am exactly that.

I strongly suggest he not attempt to prove it, though. Come to think of it, he should probably not try to prove that charge against Mary Shepard, either.