Thursday, December 31, 2009

The Concealed Handgun Manual, by Chris Bird

This is an excellent book. Even for folks not interested in carrying a concealed handgun, Mr. Bird touches on an obvious, yet not talked about phenomenon that dramatically affect the way we live: we are taught that being a victim is appropriate, acceptable behavior. We are taught to be sheep, and to not protect ourselves and our loved ones. And we are taught that if one does protect oneself, there will be hell to pay.

Does that seem over the top? It isn't really. Consider public schools: many have a zero tolerance policy on violence. If little Sally is attacked at school and appropriately fights back, she's in as much trouble as her attacker, at least as far as the school district is concerned.

These lessons, unfortunately, work well, with insidious consequences. Look at the Virginia Tech situation, where Seung Hui Cho murdered 30 people. All reports indicate that no one fought back -- even after it was clear that individuals were being murdered, that there was no negotiated agreement to be had. The Incident Review Panel pointed out that playing dead amid the carnage was a survival technique for some students. Frighteningly, the Panel didn't make any recommendation or comment about the opposite behavior: that students should be taught to fight back. In fact, the event was credited with the opposite outcome -- with reducing the ability of trained, law abiding citizens to defend themselves with weapons.

If the passengers on United Airlines flight 93 on September 11th, 2001 had been brought up in this politically correct, ultra-liberal, CYA - lawsuit avoidance mentality, thousands more innocents might have been killed by terrorists. Fortunately, Todd Beamer, Mark Bingham, Tom Burnett, Jeremy Glick, and Lou Nacke, took the heroic high road and defended if not themselves, at least their nation.

Notifying and waiting for the authorities is clearly the best course of action in any life threatening situation. Except for when it gets in the way of saving your life. If your assailant is about to kill or inflict severe bodily harm upon you, you should defend yourself. Otherwise, all the police will be able to do is investigate your murder after the fact.

The author attributes to Professor John Lott Jr that "... a woman who defends herself with a firearm is 2.5 times more likely to survive a violent confrontation with a criminal without serious injury than if she were not to resist at all... with anything other than a firearm, she is four times more likely to be hurt..."

As Mr. Bird writes, "US courts have consistently held than law-enforcement agencies have no duty to protect an individual citizen."

The question that bothers me is: why do so few politicians trust their law-abiding citizens, even those willing to be trained and tested, to carry guns for protection?

[An aside on the "law-abiding" part of this: based on the most recent data provided in Texas, licensed concealed handgun carry (CHL) holders accounted for 0.26% of the criminal convictions in the state. It would be nice for the number of convicted CHL holders to be zero, but problems with fewer than 0.05% of the licensed CHL holders is still pretty good.]

Mr. Bird's book is informational as well as thought provoking.