In today's Los Angeles Times (Medicine section) Francis W. Adams writes not of gun shot wounds but of his seeing the traumas of police officers who have shot suspects. Wounds I began to see (print edition, An NYPD surgeon learns the random nature of wounds online edition today) plays on the emotionalism of his own experience as if it might resonate with others and somehow soothe. Or ban guns. Does it? Dr. Adams described the police shooting of a robbery suspect as ‘..inflicted by another human being.'
Dr. Adams begins with a story about a suspect shot by police. Reporting further experiences, Dr. Adams cites everyday traumas of police officers, from cutting a hand in grasping a glass to falling through a back yard deck to assorted ‘. . .trips, falls and other mishaps'. Soon, the doctor came to discover that not all traumas of officers were to the body.
Dr. Adams' central story describes a police shooting where NYPD officers were fired upon. Adams reports that the officer he was seeing for this emotional experience was "...forced to confront both his vulnerability and a police officer's capability to inflict deadly force. This was a much different wound from what a bullet or knife would make and one with which I was not yet familiar."
They say that if you think the cost of a good education is expensive, try ignorance. And gun owners have a compelling observation to add: anti-gun people choose on behalf of the victim that being raped is preferable to explaining to police how their attacker received that gunshot wound.
Dr. Adams' essay does not report that an officer was shot, but that the officer had witnessed the murder of a citizen. The officer seen by the doctor had returned fire and shot the suspect who had been firing wildly at both a crowd and at the officers. Dr. Adams has authored a book titled "Healing Through Empathy."
We know rather well the trauma that comes with having to shoot someone in self-defense. Every year, 2.5 million gun owners de-escalate a violent act, and only a very small percentage of them - about 1% in 2008's citizen justifiable homicides – believe they had to fire the weapon. 99% manage to stop the crime without firing.
That's a lot of good judgment and self-restraint. That's a lot of non-crime and a lot of non-shootings that could have happened, and did not. What might have happened is far worse than what had to happen in preventing it. It's wrong to discourage life-saving action because how it might make you feel. It could make you feel alive.
But Dr. Adams' essay also brings to mind the mind-set of others who are anti-gun and who also seem to miss the main point of having to shoot. I am speaking of the so-called Violence Prevention activists. We know that many people find it hard to tolerate the very idea that something has gone this far and that lethal force is even necessary, and the thought of having to fight back is what intimidates them almost more than the trauma of being beaten, raped, or losing a loved one to crime. They consistently focus more on the sadness of the need to fight back than seeing fighting back as the solution to the violence itself. This reaction externalizes the reality of crime almost like a defense mechanism does, and indicts the need to fight back (of being involved in your own safety) instead of indicting the crime. Being a part of self-determination itself intimidates some, and this is part of the problem of fighting crime. Refusing to fight back delays the better solution to crime another day and another day, until crime seems intractable. It isn't. What makes it seem intractable is the refusal of some to act in their own defense. To them, this is a greater ugliness than the beating or rape is.
It's fair to describe the experience of shooting someone in trauma terms, but it must be remembered that the choice to use lethal force is a conscious one on behalf of the innocent, and it is the thug who is entirely responsible for the solutions to his problems he brings upon himself. Counting on a population who will not fight back is a predator's happy hunting ground. Good for demagogues, too, I understand. The decision to bring lethal force to bear has been characterized as shooting in anger, but it is far from it; it is purpose, a lawful, moral purpose.
Most thugs, it should be pointed out, have no such conscience by the time they step up to acquiring any sort of weapon, and it is they who account for the violence, not the innocent who might, incidentally, like very much to resist it. What is not fair is for those who cannot stomach the adult choices of survival to insist that we all have such an empathy. Empathy, we have; passivity is sometimes fatal.
Counting on a population who will not fight back is a predator's happy hunting ground. Good for demagogues, too, I understand.
Gun owners understand that they have a duty to self and to loved ones which is inescapable. No one can take your place as the first line of defense, whether it may traumatize you or not, but it can control whether or not you suffer an even greater trauma. Some are blinded to this legal and moral purpose, and see only the wound.
Perhaps it is because they have some older wounds of their own which haven't yet healed.
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Comments
John, you have made an excellent addition to the pro-self-defense lexicon: your explanation of the psychodynamics of the antigun empathy group is the best I have seen, and deserves wide dissemination.
Thanks, jfh. It's very nice of you to say that. Please take what you believe will help. Post a lede or first tease and the link back to the rest of the piece.
Very nice of you to say so.
John,
As usual, an excellent scribe. If you only knew the extent to which you instill the morality of justifiable violence in the name of self preservation (and I suspect you do). I do not wish to employ violence, but I also do not discount the possibilty that I may have to, and will not shrink from it.
"Go forth armed, and in confidence that you shall defeat evil, for yours is a Righteous Cause".
Bruce A. Beaaty
Technical Sergeant, USAF (Retired)
Thanks, Bruce, as always.
And the central topic is that some will not defend themselves because of how crude or uncivil it must feel. Where in Hell does this place their perception of themselves?
Dane Burns described the decision to shoot as feeling like you're behind the power curve and wishing you had started shooting sooner.
Some probably rely upon the advice of Tuco in "The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly" who counseled, "When you have to shoot, shoot, don't talk." The image might not be ideal, but the message is the same.
It's been my humble experience, that too many gun owners are wrapped up in the bravado offered by some of the "manliness of killing scumbags"--at least in print and online. In real life, they get that a gun is a hammer and not everything is a nail.
Experienced, determined people who've had to kill someone don't relish it and most seek to avoid it. They've done it because they had to do it, but it takes it's toll on people, marriages, jobs, etc. One ignores it at one's peril, perhaps literally.
All that said, one can walk away and survive to thrive. Most in fact do, and perhaps mostly because they didn't ignore the effects of Post Shooting Trauma.
John,
You make some excellent points, and I actually followed the link and read Dr. Adams L.A. Times article. I am at something of a loss to explain the apparent disconnect between what Dr. Adams wrote and what you wrote.
From your article, one might conclude Dr. Adams had been on some wild anti-gun, anti-defense rant. However, I can't find any evidence to support that assertion in his article.
The decision to shoot and when one can, should or is permitted to shoot, is a question that is asked again and again by gun owners. I've heard it answered in various ways.
"Immediate and otherwise unavoidable danger of death or grave bodily harm to the innocent."
- Marty Hayes and Mas Ayoob
"If you need to shoot someone in order to stay alive, then shoot."
- Dane Burns and also I believe Tom Givens
Thanks for checking in, Ken. At first, Dr. Adams' remarks may have a sympathy feel to them, but when you see a lot of these, you see a pattern: First, very few doctors are not briefed or experienced enough to describe what Adams describes: it sounds as if he has no experience or training. Every doc by the time they obtain some appointment are savvy enough to see this. Writing about it as if it were some revelation to him is the giveaway that he is playing the "You'll hurt yourself" card just as ABC played the "Self-defense is futile" card.
The article was against armed self-defense. I'd rather be alive and well than hurt because I couldn't somehow work through the trauma of having stopped someone. It capitalizes on what I wrote before in Violence Prevention: some just don't want to have to act.
Thanks for checking in, Ken. At first, Dr. Adams' remarks may have a sympathy feel to them, but when you see a lot of these, you see a pattern: First, very few doctors are not briefed or experienced enough to describe what Adams describes: it sounds as if he has no experience or training. Every doc by the time they obtain some appointment are savvy enough to see this. Writing about it as if it were some revelation to him is the giveaway that he is playing the "You'll hurt yourself" card just as ABC played the "Self-defense is futile" card.
The article was against armed self-defense. I'd rather be alive and well than hurt because I couldn't somehow work through the trauma of having stopped someone. It capitalizes on what I wrote before in Violence Prevention: some just don't want to have to act.
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