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Here’s a meme (“a pack not a herd”) that I’d like to see run wild. And allow me also to refer back to this and to this, a single piece by me in two fragments from the Samizdata archives (from before we had the “MORE” routine in place).
Says Glenn Reynolds (for it is he):
… After repeatedly slipping through the fingers of law enforcement, John Muhammad and Lee Salvo were caught because leaked information about the suspects’ automobile and license number was picked up by members of the public, one of whom spotted the car within hours and alerted the authorities – blocking the exit from the rest area with his own vehicle to make sure they didn’t escape. …
… So while Chief Moose and the other talking heads were holding press conferences in which they castigated the press for reporting information, they should have been figuring out how to take advantage of the vast resources that a mobilized public can command. But the officials didn’t want to, for fearof “vigilantes”. Luckily for them, a leak saved the day. …
… Rather than creating new bureaucracies, we need to be looking at ways of promoting fast-moving, dispersed responses, responses that will involve members of the public as a pack, not a herd. Even if doing so reduces the career satisfaction of shepherds. …
In other words and to extrapolate the principle only somewhat, what if security, catching bad guys, the very law itself maybe, turn out to be like the economy? What if, like the economy, the criminal justice system (and most certainly the criminal detection system) can’t be or – more modestly – works far better when not centrally planned? Oh sure, there’d be a mass of “waste and duplication of effort” in a free market in public safety, just as there is now in the electric kettle industry. But good electric kettles are not now hard to find, the way they would be in a world run by the likes of the F(ederal) B(ureau of electric) K(ettles). So …
About a week ago I posted a brand-X piece about armed citizenry (wisdom and virtue of), but included a not quite brand-X question: does anyone know of any website/blog/compendium of links to individual stories of guns used successfully for self-defence? There were a few comments, including this from themic:
The best way to find regular stories about guns saving lives of good guys is to rely on the abilities of thousands of bored people who are connected to the internet and have a common interest.
So, I recommend checking out Packing, a website dedicated to keeping track of concealed permit laws here in the US. Click on “Gun Talk” and scour the headlines that people post throughout the day… you can usually find at least a couple per day, that were actually referenced in the media somewhere (!).
Here in the US, it’s generally thought that guns are used defensively 2 – 2.5 millions times per year (but rarely actually fired).
I can point you to some more links if you want. I keep track of this stuff because I’m often bored and on the internet.
To my shame I didn’t email any encouragement back to him, and that was that, until today, when themic came back with a further comment:
I have doubts that anyone will read this anymore, as it come a bit late … but i stumbled upon the absolute best place website that tracks firearms used defensively.
I share these doubts, which is why I’ve rescued the comment and its link from the oblivion of being attached to a week-old posting and put it here.
Changing the subject somewhat, on his own blog themic also supplies a link to this – as he rightly calls it – creepy website, that backs up that creepy poster first encountered and photographed by Perry, and copied ever since by bloggers everywhere.
UPDATE. Quote from keepandbeararms.com:
What We Do
We seek and find current news stories recounting true events of lawful, decent citizens using firearms to defend themselves, their loved ones, others and property — and channel it back to this central location to assure maximum exposure of these events in a timely and efficient manner.
That’s exactly what I was asking someone to be doing. (How nice it would be if some Americans actually heard about this site for the first time from here. Usually all the information and explanation flows in the other direction.)
Justice Barker has a curious notion of the law. Last time I thought about wandering the streets of London with a crowbar, I remembered that if I were found to be in possession of such an object, that I would be charged with possesion of a dangerous weapon.
A Londoner was recently shot several times by armed police for carrying a table leg: that murder however was entirely justified, according to one of Mr Justice Barker’s colleagues. So presumably the intruder teleported the crowbar into his victim’s home using equipment from the 25th century.
Also, presumably I would be allowed to carry a machete, crowbar or table leg around Mr Justice Barker’s home at 3am, but not in my front garden at 3pm. Perhaps a group of squatters might like to find out where Mr Barker lives and turn up at about 3am with plumbing tools and invite themselves in for a cup of tea.
I assume that Mr Barker thinks there is no difference between this and the “right to roam”. And to think there are people who want the UK to have more common law? With barking Barkers on the judges’ benches, who could tell the difference?
Anyone believe that a future Conservative government would amnesty self-defence prisoners of conscience? Ha!
Britain’s idiot gun laws look like being today’s issue du jour. And at the risk (following on from my enlarging photos fiasco) of making a further fool of myself on a technical issue, it seems (to me) that if you follow a link embedded in a Samizdata comment it works, but the window refuses to get any larger, and the result is tricky to read. That’s what happens with me anyway. No doubt one press of one button will solve the problem, but I have yet to locate the button in question.
So, here, just in case it helps anyone, is the Reason article by Joyce Lee Malcolm linked to by Ralf Goergens in his comment on the sublime David. This Reason piece concludes thus:
The English government has effectively abolished the right of Englishmen, confirmed in their 1689 Bill of Rights, to “have arms for their defence,” insisting upon a monopoly of force it can succeed in imposing only on law-abiding citizens. It has come perilously close to depriving its people of the ability to protect themselves at all, and the result is a more, not less, dangerous society. Despite the English tendency to decry America’s “vigilante values,” English policy makers would do well to consider a return to these crucial common law values, which stood them so well in the past.
And here’s a link to Natalie Solent‘s latest piece on Biased BBC, also regarding guns. Taster paragraph:
Oh, and just skim the whole bunch of stories and look at the headlines: “Terror in US schools and workplaces” – “History of shootings” – “America’s gun culture.” Every mention of the liberty angle has a question mark after it: “Firearms – a civil liberties issue?” – “Right to bear arms?” Don’t hold your breath waiting for headlines like “crime down in gun states”, willya? And don’t wait around for a list of accounts of innocent people saved from murder or rape by guns, although there is a list of accounts of innocent people slain by guns.
Come to think of it, has anyone compiled an internetted list of links to accounts of people saved by gun use, along the lines of that Muslims Condemn Terrorism link page that I flagged up a while ago? If so, another link embedded in another comment please. Do wait around for that, because I bet there is one.
In response to the increasing public concern at the spiralling rate of violent crime, the Home Office, acting in concert with the Association of Police Chiefs, have prepared this pamphlet containing advice and guidelines that will help you and your family avoid becoming victims of violent crime.
Further, and as a direct result of the high number of complaints from members of the public about slow police response times, we have established the Crime Reaction Emergency Team Initiative Networks (CRETINS), a specially constituted force tasked with providing a swift and effective response to emergency calls from members of the public in danger.
The most important step to take in order to avoid being a victim of crime is to ensure that you live in abject poverty. A number of government studies have proved that most criminals are motivated by the desire to obtain other people’s possessions by force. Whilst having no possessions at all cannot guarantee your safety, the less you have, the less criminals can steal from you.
However, if you have been careless enough to amass material wealth, the following helpful tips listed below may be of some assistance. → Continue reading: A Guide to Self-Defence in the UK
If so then people will soon start lying, perjuring and deceiving if they wish to do so in Britain…
Increasingly people may conclude that is the only rational response if they ever find themselves in fear for their life some night in their own home. Barry-Lee Hastings found out what happens if you tell the truth. He killed a burglar in his house using a knife, stabbing him in the back after mistaking a crowbar in the criminal’s hands as a machete.
So if you find yourself confronted by an intruder and you live in Britain, generations of cultural logic tell you to not do what the state would have you do: retreat, surrender your property and realise only the state has the right to use force. No, if that person is British then they will understand that the correct thing to do is to fight for what is yours. They will defend themselves as is their inalienable common law right and if need be, kill the person who is threatening them.
…and so some British homeowner find themselves standing over the dead body of a burglar holding a crowbar.
But because they also read the newspapers, watch the television and hopefully read blogs, they will quickly realise that they are still very much in danger. Once they have calmed down, they will start to examine the body of the dead criminal and what they were holding… and they will make sure that the evidence of the intruder’s clear and present threat to their life is not just manifest but incontrovertible: if necessary they will cut themselves and arrange things to make the reality of their contention ‘hyper-real’. They will conclude there is no shame in defending themselves but they will also realise that it is not just the intruder they must defend themselves against, but also the state which would make them a neutered victim.
If the state wanted to encourage perjury and hostility to the judiciary, it could not have found a better way of going about engendering it. This is Britain’s future as the alienation between the commonsensical British expectation of law and the state’s law grows.
After presiding over Barry-Lee Hastings’ conviction for manslaughter, Judge Barker said:
No one can fail to have sympathy for a householder or visitor who without warning found himself in the position you did when you reached the front door.
Ludicrous dissembling sentiments. I rather doubt Barry-Lee Hastings will give a damn about Judge Barker’s worthless ‘sympathy’ as he rots in jail for the next five years. Well sorry, how is a crowbar in an intruder’s hands not a deadly weapon? The next time this happens, as happen it will, I wonder what the next householder with the bloody knife will tell the police? The unvarnished truth? I have my doubts.
The state is not your friend.
To add to the recent outburst of gun-related posting I think this will work a treat!
Unfortunately, it appears to be only an urban legend. But even the fact that such story has been coined is a good sign. We need more of those! Both, grannies and stories… 
The debate over guns is a clash of cultures, a confrontation of different kinds of character, a disagreement over social philosophy and even, though few notice this, over free will and determinism. The contending factions don’t need guns to detest each other. They would anyway.
– Fred Reed
A detective working for the Metropolitan Police specialist crime branch fell victim to crime four times in an hour-and-a-half. His car was broken into and his bicycle stolen before being beaten up and having his moped vandalised.
The crime spree started outside his home in Fulham (which is a nice area!) in London. First, his CD player had been taken from his VW Golf. Then his bike was stolen as he went to report the car break-in and to call his insurance company. He took his moped to look for the thief but, after trying to detain a youth he saw riding his bike, he was attacked from behind by two others and violently kicked in the face and body.
John Cullen, the hapless policeman in question, said it was “frightening” that his attackers had little respect for people, including the police. He added:
“I don’t have any answers to all this but a multi-agency approach is surely urgently needed to tackle this sort of youth offending to protect the public – including me.
But there is an answer!
With the British government’s approach and policy towards crime, gun control and self-defence, how not very odd that even the police are now victims!
Unless, Mr Cullen considers a 9mm Uzi SMG a suitable ‘agency’ to tackle crime…
Update: Just saw Alice Bacchini’s post about the story from yesterday. How very fast – I only read about it this morning!
I can’t comment on whether or how guilty or dangerous the alleged terrorist ring is, but some statements, such as the following from Fox News just make me laugh:
Hochul said other evidence found at al-Bakri’s home in Lackawanna included a rifle, a telescopic sight, and a cassette tape that “asks Allah to give Jews and their enablers (U.S.) a black day.”
Now please tell me why finding a rifle and a sight in a house in Pennsylvania is unusual? I grew up in a small town in Western PA, and it would have been closer to news if they entered a random house and didn’t find an entire cabinet full of rifles, shotguns, ammunition and assorted sights and accessories.
It just makes you cringe to read this kind of idiocy.
Erratum: Lackawanna is across the border in New York state, not in Pennsylvania.
Thanks again to Instapundit for the link to this, about the history of gun control in England, and about the various Americans who seem to be doing most of the serious arguing about it.
The focus of the debate this time is professor of history at Bentley College Joyce Malcolm‘s new book Guns and Violence: The English Experience.
Time was when, as the sandal-wearing corduroy-jacket gun-wimp chick-flick-preferring libertarian that I still am, I opposed gun control only out of duty and only with difficulty. Now I’m utterly convinced, and it didn’t take the fact that recent British gun control tightening has made gun crime even worse. It was books and arguments like those of Joyce Malcolm – although not her actual book because I’ve yet to see it.
In yet another travesty of British justice, Barry-Lee Hastings has been convicted of manslaughter for defending not just his property but his family from a career serial burglar.
Naturally the state sees things differently.
Det Chief Insp Matthew Horne said the case sent a clear message that people in such circumstances should call the police “and let us do our job. If you take the law into your own hands there is always a danger”
Yet in the last year we have had story after story of the Police responding to pleas for assistance by turning up hours if not days later. The fact is, the job which Detective Chief Inspector Matthew Horne is speaking about is not your protection but rather the protection of the State’s monopoly on the means of violence.
Institutionally speaking, the safety of you, your family and your property is purely incidental: if it were otherwise, a person could legally own a weapon for their personal defence in Britain… yet regardless of the fact you may manifestly be at risk from violence in a high crime area or live in a home which has been robbed again and again and again, you may not even use a kitchen knife, let alone a gun, to protect yourself. Ask Barry-Lee Hastings.
The state is not your friend.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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