(Shameless plug acknowledgement.)
A couple of years ago, this writer teamed up with Alan Gottlieb, founder and executive vice president of the Bellevue-based Second Amendment Foundation – the group responsible for the recent McDonald v. City of Chicago landmark gun rights case – on a book that continues to send a message that growing numbers of people evidently understand.
In America Fights Back: Armed Self-Defense in a Violent Age, we mixed data and statistics with accounts of actual self-defense incidents to tell a story that is almost uniquely American. Elsewhere around the world, armed self-defense is either unheard of or can get you tossed in prison. The other day in Ireland, new legislation was passed that turns this scenario around, and Irish police officials appear to be lauding the change.
But right here at home, the notion of using force to defend the home and family is gaining new traction. This column has frequently discussed Washington State’s superbly simple self-defense/use-of-force statute, but using lethal force to resist crimes is hardly confined to the Evergreen State.
Irish homeowners can now legally use guns to defend themselves if their homes are attacked under new legislation.The new home defense bill has moved the balance of rights back to the house owner if his home is broken into "where it should always have been", say top Irish police.The police association of superintendents and inspectors, the AGSI, stated that “the current situation, which legally demands a house owner retreat from an intruder, was intolerable".
Whenever there is a legitimate question or claim of self-defense, it must be fully investigated. Some in the gun prohibition movement might argue that nobody should use deadly force to prevent a crime. Other people not predisposed to accept gun bans as a panacea to crime occasionally cheer for armed citizens who defend themselves. The National Rifle Association frequently acknowledges that its magazine section “The Armed Citizen” is quite possibly the best-read section of their American Rifleman and American Hunter magazines.
In Denver, authorities have declined to charge a homeowner in connection with the fatal shooting this past Sunday of a man who broke into the shooter’s residence.
In Travis County, TX a man identified by police as Ryan Glen Bradford broke into the wrong home and began fighting with a man whose wife had called the sheriff's department. At some point during the fight, Bradford was shot and he later died at the hospital.
The caller told officials a man - later identified as Ryan Glen Bradford, 34 - had broken into her home and was fighting her husband. According to Roger Wade with the sheriff's office, the suspected burglar was shot at some point during the assault.
And in Tulsa, OK a pair of attempted home invasion robberies – one of which included what authorities believe was about to become a rape – ended badly for the perpetrators in both cases. In one case, an 18-year-old is dead and his 23-year-old accomplice is severely wounded. In the other incident, a woman returning home to her apartment in the early morning hours was accosted by two thugs, and in a melee that involved the woman’s boyfriend who was in the apartment at the time, she managed to shoot both bad guys. Both cases were reported by KOTV.
Almost on cue, a police spokesman at the scene of the second incident was quizzed by the reporter about fighting back and the officer offers an obligatory advisory about “complying with all demands” and later “being a good witness.” Readers may strongly disagree with that advice, noting that people who become white chalk outlines on their kitchen or bedroom floors do not make good witnesses.
Tulsa Police say one of two men shot during a violent home invasion early Thursday morning has died. They identified him as 18-year-old Darreon Carter.Carter was shot in the head and leg. The second suspect, 23-year-old Daniel Holman, remains in critical condition in a Tulsa hospital. He was shot in the head and stomach.
While this column would hardly counsel anyone to just pull a gun and open fire at the slightest provocation – we’ve seen the down-side of that with the fatal Lake Sammamish incident last Saturday discussed here and here – there are times when fighting back is the only option. That is, of course, unless one considers submitting to rape or murder, or both, to be an option.
In the wake of McDonald v. Chicago, in which the Supreme Court incorporated the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms to the states, and remanded the city’s 28-year-old handgun ban case back to the 7th Circuit for re-hearing (thus essentially dooming the ban to be struck down as unconstitutional), many anti-gunners are claiming the case was brought so that the gun industry can sell more guns to more people, to commit more crimes.
That’s a lie, one of many perpetuated by the gun prohibition crowd. Traditionally, the press has given such hogwash a pass without challenging it in print. Now and then, however, somebody in the mainstream press “gets it.”
Thus is the case of Charlie Mitchell, executive editor of the Vicksburg Post in Vicksburg, MS. In a comment published Tuesday, he “cracked a code” on the gun control movement, particularly about how gun laws do not seem to accomplish much in the way of public safety, but they do make it appear as though something is being done.
Elected officials, no matter how well-meaning, have only indirect power over the availability of jobs, the vigor of commerce or individual desire to achieve. What they can do — and choose to do — is cater to people’s fears by passing laws that appear to have some effect but, over time, prove to be nothing more than words on paper...The statistics say a sure way to make our local streets and the whole world safer is to foster a growing sense of well-being among citizens. The other stuff is window-dressing at best, or, viewed cynically, a purposeful deception.—Charlie Mitchell, Vicksburg Post
With police budgets being hacked and butchered in many areas due to the overall economy, increasing numbers of American citizens are arming themselves, or they have begun carrying guns that they previously just kept at home. The Chicago court challenge was mounted to allow residents of that city to just keep handguns in their homes for personal protection, but new gun ordinance crafted by Mayor Richard Daley’s administration is so Draconian in nature that it has already been challenged. What may result is a broadening of gun rights for Windy City residents.
Bellevue’s Gottlieb did not rest long on any laurels from the McDonald victory. He’s already unleashed gun rights lawsuits in North Carolina and New York. As gun activists look at their own local laws, it is possible that such a SAF legal action could be coming soon to your neighborhood.
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Comments
Most Americans are waking up to the fact that the anti-gun lobby with the backing of government at all levels have been fooling us all along. Americans are finally realizing that under the present legal system criminals often have more rights than the victim and the victim is helping to pay for those criminal rights. Increased crime helps insurance companies sell insurance. Politicians increase taxes while promising more protection but public safety is the first item on a budget cut not the last. Crime drives a big segment of the American economy and a reversal in crime stats could mean a downturn in taxes, insurance, and other related products and the government does not want that. But who pays for all of this in the end? The law biding American taxpayer through consumer increased prices, taxes, and cheaper products. when America starts making crime too costly for the criminal that is when America is going to start seeing a better economy.
One final note. what does it cost to prosecute a criminal? Add in police time for the investigation, capture,booking, housing, and so forth, the cost of a trial that the taxpayer will pay for on both sides, incarceration in prison at roughly $65,000 a year with a better health and dental plan than the average American, then a parole agent when they get out, welfare and general assistance, and if they commit another crime we do it all over again with inflation added in by now. The cost of one bullet at the time of the original crime is about thirty cents plus the rpice of a gun along with the cost of an investigation of self defense. A lot cheaper in the long run and no innocent victims were killed by the criminal along the way. Harsh but true economics in a rough times. America has made crime a legitimate industry in this country. Isn't it about time we stop it?
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when America starts making crime too costly for the criminal that is when America is going to start seeing a better economy.
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Indeed... but that has little to do with the common street criminal. The criminals in D.C., every statehouse, and each town or wide spot in the road are the politicians and bureaucrats who believe and act as if they own the rest of us, body and soul.
When Americans stop believing they do, and start to take back ownership of their own lives and property in truth... THEN we'll see our lives filled with prosperity and peace. Not before.
Actually, it's not in making crime more costly for the criminal, it is in impeaching the government abuse of funding anti-crime programs which are the vanguard of subsequent dependency programs. The street thug is only a minor player; it is the leverage he lends to the political stealing that is stopped by the armed citizen.
You see, armed citizens do not "cost" criminals, but if it de-escalates them nevertheless, it takes the air out of anti-violence programs which are crafted not to work in place of the citizen.
Great observations.
When one thinks about the mindset required to go out of one's way to take something that one doesn't own or hurt someone one doesn't have a reason to hurt, and how people who do so often get a plea bargain, then a reduced sentence, then early release...
No wonder crime is a family business, taken up by sons and daughters. The system isn't only broken, it is sabotaged. If people won't demand change for moral reasons, maybe economic ones will reach them.
There have been barbarian marauders as long as there have been people. It's a modern idea, however, that resisting them is a job for a priveleged class of "elite" paid professionals. I can't say it's an improvement.
And congratulations to the editor who understands that the freedom-rationing movement is neither altruistic nor grassroots. The media in general are WAAAY too chummy with their sources in the ruling class, because they enjoy that vicarious power. We've seen the same attitude before the triumph of every tyrant. I'm thinking this man is old and established enough that his so-called superiors will hesitate to "lay him off."
I'm right with you brother. I recently moved from Miami, Florida. I have a question no ones has been able to answer correctly. Is this or is this not an OPEN CARRY state? And why Have I not seen it here in Seattle. I was told 85% of the cops do not even know its open carry. I conceal my side-arm for fear that some uneducated or ill-informed cop will harass me.
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