Self Defense

5 posts
Ordnance

Deadly Force and Morality

Unfortunate as it is, the Roger Witter incident in Portland gives us the opportunity to consider one very important fact:  human life is worth more than any property.

Mr. Witter wasn’t protecting anyone from harm.  Two shoplifters were leaving the scene without violence.  Furthermore, he showed an utter disregard for the 4th cardinal rule of gun safety when he fired after them in the direction of a busy rail station.

He placed people in danger to serve a very surreal definition of civic duty.  In the moment he pointed a firearm at someone and pulled the trigger, he equated a piece of merchandise with a human life.

Please think long and hard about that.

The most important lesson I ever learned about the defensive use of firearms comes from Massad Ayoob.  Loosely recalled, it reads like this:  human life is the most precious thing in this world.  If you can’t recognize its worth, you have no right to a tool that so easily robs someone of it.

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Civil Rights

Citizen’s Arrest

I recently spoke with a lady whose daughter had been the victim of an attempted abduction.  The daughter was able to repel her attacker, and the mother was able to get a description of the perpetrator and the license-plate number of his vehicle.

A crisis was averted, and thanks to a keen sense of observation on the mother’s part, the criminal will likely be apprehended in short order.

The mother has a license to carry a firearm.  In playing the events over in her head, it occurred to her that she might have been justified in using her weapon to hold the man for the police.  She asked me about it, and I had to give an honest answer.

Painful as it may be to hear, that answer is an emphatic “no.”

Ordnance

The Myth of “Non Lethal”

1 comment

Ever since Taurus started marketing this silly gun, I’ve been saying something like this would happen:

The gun, a model known as “The Judge,” was loaded with bird shot, and Davis took aim at her husband and emptied all five of the weapon’s chambers as he fled through the yard, Bonnett said. He was hit in the upper and lower back by two blasts before escaping, Bonnett said.

Connie Davis shot her husband after he admitted to a prior affair.  Full stop.

It doesn’t matter that the loads were likely insufficient for causing serious bodily harm.  Ms. Davis leveled a deadly weapon at another human being and pulled the trigger.  That’s the salient fact, and it illustrates my problem with the Taurus Judge.

Ordnance

Rimfires and Self Defense

2 comments

The .22 Long Rifle cartridge has a long and rich heritage, and it is superb for target shooting and small-game hunting. As a self-defense loading, it has several major shortcomings. There are very few realistic situations where it can be considered viable.

To its credit, the .22 LR produces only slight recoil, facilitaing easier follow-up shots. The size of the cartridge allows it to be chambered in smaller pistols. Ammunition is cheap and widely available, and in countries that ban civilian use of service calibers, it may be the only alternative available.

Balancing out its meager virtues, one must consider the fact that rimfire ignition can be unreliable. Quite simply, you’re going to have duds. This is patently unacceptable for a platform that should be expected to perform under unpredictable and dire circumstances. A gun that fails in the face of violence is the most dangerous thing you could possibly hold in your hand.

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