When The Ignorant Weigh In On Self Defense
BY Herschel Smith
9 years ago
Houston Chronicle, with a piece entitled “biker melee shows challenge of wielding gun in self defense during a shooting.”
Perhaps the worst place for a shooting to break out is in the middle of a bunch of people with guns, who are flanked by police who have bigger guns and are already expecting trouble.
That is one of the scenarios regarding what happened at the Twin Peaks in Waco during a May melee that left at least nine bikers dead, about two dozen wounded, and 177 charged with engaging in organized crime.
Ballistics reports recently leaked to the Associated Press conclude that four of the dead were shot by rifle rounds that would be fired from the weapons carried by police. In the days after the shooting, there was a rumor that four had been killed by police, but as far as public proof went, it was a mystery.
There was no love lost between members of the Bandidos and Cossacks motorcycle clubs, and each of their supporters, as they came face to face in the parking lot outside the Twin Peaks restaurant.
By all accounts, a large percentage had guns, knives or other weapons either on them or in their motorcycles, cars or trucks. A number of the bikers also had permits to carry their guns, and some were veterans who had first hand experience in receiving fire.
As a fight of words quickly lead to at least one biker drew his handgun and fired it into another, and a whole bunch of other people pulled out their weapons to either defend themselves, go on the attack, or just try and stay safe while figuring out what was going on.
Making matters more complicated, the Cossacks and the Bandidos already had a few violent clashes, but they were usually fist fights and never gun fights.
Police may have faced a situation where they were unsure who was waving a gun as they intended to fire at others, versus who were just trying to defend themselves.
Terry Katz, a spokesman for the International Outlaw Motorcycle Gang Investigators Association, compared what happened in Waco to what might happen if a gunman attacked a restaurant and people fearing for their own safety pulled out their own guns.
“You get there quickly, and it is an active shooter situation,” he said of what police would confront. “There are shots fired, bullets whizzing near you.”
“As to who got shot and how many people were shot by who,” he said, “it is going to come out.”
The title hints what the writer wants you to think. Use of a gun in self defense in an “active shooter situation” (I hate that figure of speech and I think it’s useless) is a low percentage bet. True to form, one comment reads thusly.
I’ve always wondered about the gun nuts that claim the killings in the Colorado theater would have been prevented if everyone present had been carrying a gun. How would anyone know for sure that there was only one shooter and not several planted in the audience? How would 100+ shooters be able to shoot the focal shooter and not injure or kill someone else? It just doesn’t make sense.
Seriously. This isn’t parody. Someone actually wrote all of the things above. You simply can’t make this stuff up. The writer (and commenter follows the writers lede) is comparing self defense any time to biker self defense using a handgun against the police lying in wait from a standoff position using long guns with glass, with the conclusion that self defense doesn’t work.
Again, you just can’t make this stuff up. I think they’re a bit tactically confused.
On December 16, 2015 at 11:52 am, Archer said:
That event in Waco is a terrible example of lawful armed self-defense. I believe the writer knows this, which is why he’s using it.
By propping up an unreasonable example, it makes armed self-defense itself look unreasonable.
Also, this sentence:
As a fight of words quickly lead to at least one biker drew his handgun
and fired it into another, and a whole bunch of other people pulled out
their weapons to either defend themselves, go on the attack, or just try
and stay safe while figuring out what was going on.
The first half is so grammatically awful that I wonder who taught this imbecile to write, and who is dumb enough (or has low enough standards) to pay him to do it.
On December 16, 2015 at 1:07 pm, Jack Crabb said:
Facts, logic, reason (and apparently grammar) don’t have any place in discussions today. It is the rare person that is open-minded enough to re-think their positions even when presented with new evidence. Hence, both liberals and conservatives are locked into old paradigms since virtually all of them refuse to look at these situations objectively and really on parroted talking points instead.
On December 17, 2015 at 9:31 pm, madoradataman said:
It’s a trust issue. In order to change an opinion based on “evidence,” you have to have faith in the source and process behind the evidence. When faced with “evidence” contrary to their viewpoint — or often, to any viewpoint– people simply disbelieve the “evidence” or its source — they are sure that it is fabricated or distorted (often is). Also, often the “evidence” is not conclusive — in its totality, it doesn’t compel a conclusion one way or the other.
I’m as bad as anybody — until the evidence is overwhelming FOR gun control (not likely, I think), I will not worlds-without-end be convinced that I should surrender my freedom to defend myself to those I consider to be control freaks.