Wednesday
Blogger Patrick Lasswell had a real world encounter of the 'dial 911' kind that shows whilst civic virtue is a good thing, it is even better when the upstanding citizen has a firearm to hand when investigating a disturbance.
Hiding in my front yard from a shotgun armed maniac last night made me reflect on my libertarian leanings. The Second Amendment never seemed so clear to me as an individual right as I waited for the police to arrive, and waited. I was carrying only a telephone and a flashlight, and updating the 911 operator as the lunatic passed twenty yards from my position it occurred to me how very much I appreciate owning rifles, and how very, very far away they were at the moment.
Read the whole thing. Fortunately the encounter in question was 'merely' alarming, yet clearly there was potentially for a shooting and thus Patrick was in violation of Jeff Cooper's First Rule of Gunfights: have a gun.
Patrick, you live in the USA so you have no excuse to emulate the disarmed civilian population of Britain.
Perry,
My hand to God, I swear I thought the guy had cleared out, not knowing he lives in the neighborhood. My intention was to find evidence the police could use to put the guy away. I changed missions when he came my way.
It is really weird to have somebody commit a lawless act and then go on the prowl after citizens are on the street with phones. This is why I kept referring to him as deranged. I changed to a more tactical posture since then.
Posted by Patrick S Lasswell at November 15, 2007 01:00 AM
The Beeb has an article today asking for new ideas on solving gun crime.
The answer is apparently something to do with hand-wringing.
Posted by Bishop Hill at November 15, 2007 08:58 AM
"I stepped back inside and grabbed the phone to call 911."Spoken like a man who should know better. "Stepped back inside, grabbed my shotgun/AK-47, then called 911 on my way out the door" would have been the proper response.
Personal protection comes before "civic responsibility", Patrick.
But I'm really glad you made it out unscathed.
Posted by Kim du Toit at November 15, 2007 07:02 PM
Oh, and Bishop, here's the best part of the BBC article:
During the past year the deliberate use of guns to take life has risen in England and Wales. According to the Home Office, there were 58 firearms-related homicides in 2006-07 compared with 49 in the previous year - an increase of 18%.
...
Compared with the US - where 14,000 murders involving firearms were committed in 2005 - the UK is a safe haven.
Right off the bat, the numbers are not comparable, given the difference in population size between the UK and US.
Even more glaring is the big difference: 80 million gun owners and 200 million guns in the U.S. vs. a few thousand gun owners and a few hundred thousand guns in the UK (AND with a whole slew of more-onerous gun restrictions to boot).
Incidentally, note the trend in this chart. I haven't seen a comparable one for Britain, but I bet the trend is different.
Posted by Kim du Toit at November 15, 2007 07:26 PM
Changing the subject slightly. This morning down here in Oz, I recieved yet another of those endless "funny" emails from my sporadic network of email correspondents. This one attached the following BBC story of 14 November from Scotland :
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/7095134.stm
Whether this is hilarious, a hoax or good colour reporting (or all 3) is all very amusing etc... but (at the risk of seeming an old bore) isn't there a larger story here, that has apparently gone un-commented on?
What are the police doing barging in on someone riding the village bycycle? Since when is it an offence anywhere to express your love of bikes this way (even in nanny state UK), and why is this not an egregious invasion of privacy ?
Sorry if this inadverantly flogs a recyled iron horse, but is anyone else delicously reminded of Flan O'Brien's novel, the Third Policeman ?
Posted by Robert at November 15, 2007 11:24 PM
Kim,
Right off the bat, the numbers are not comparable, given the difference in population size between the UK and US.
Agreed. So adjust for the population size difference and let's see the impact. IIRC the US is around 300 million, the whole UK (inc NI and Scotland) around 60 million. So that's about one fifth.
Posted by Dave at November 16, 2007 07:50 PM
Before the First World War firearm ownership in Britain was about as common as in the United States - and the murder rate was still much lower.
Trying to compress complicated cultural matters into "if there are more guns there will be more gun crime" is very crude thinking - fairly typical of the B.B.C. mind.
It also ignores the fact that firearms are becomming more common in Britain - in spite of all the "gun control" regulations.
British people still tend to choose other means to murder each other - but firearms will become more popular, whatever the regulations say.
Posted by Paul Marks at November 16, 2007 08:45 PM
Dave,
Two errors you have underlying your post.
1) The relevant comparison should be "murder," not "firearms-related murder." The two countries are closer in frequency when you compare apples to apples.
2) The US is HARDLY homogeneous, and neither are our violent crime figures. There are pronounced differences between places with high rates of firearms ownership (most of the west, for instance) and lower rates (Chicago, frequently home of the highest per-capita murder rate in the US and with some of the most-stringent gun laws in the US)
Patrick,
A flashlight is not a bad idea for confronting criminals. However, my own experience has been that the light mounted on a carbine's rail fore-end is to be preferred when the punks are armed.
Posted by Sunfish at November 17, 2007 05:38 AM
