The RESPONSIBILITY of Self-Defense

This is a re-post (with some editing) at Joe's request from my old website, owibtyw.com. I'll get my old website up and running when I have a ton of time on my hands to do it. The header for the original "Rants" pages was this: "It has become necessary for me to say what I have to say because too many people I know have said things that utterly blow my mind and this prevents me from blowing up in their face due to their unbridled ignorance." So if you think that this is too harsh and aggressive, just understand that this was intended to be more therapeutic for me than educational for you (ass!), and that's why I never posted it on Joe's blog. So here it is:

I want to start this by saying that self defense is not just a right but is also a responsibility. If you are capable of it, you absolutely must defend yourself. This conclusion follows from the same argument that says you must not commit suicide and the argument that says you should defend others. I say the latter because when you defend yourself, you prevent further injustices on others by killing, apprehending or beating the aggressor into rethinking his actions.

Furthermore other potential or real aggressors rethink their actions when they understand that people are defending themselves.

The above paragraph is not arguable, so don't bother. You can add to it, but if you think you can detract from it, you simply contradict truth and reality, and frankly you are just cheesing me off. So before you start taking Bible quotes out of context as many people so artfully do, ask yourself, "Does Jesus want you to not defend your children?" Once you then figure out what the real meaning behind "turn the other cheek" is (spoiler hint: pride), you can consider yourself "up to my level" and ready to discuss the rest of this with me.

Premises: Before you start thinking I'm some nut who thinks everyone should own a nuke, no I don't. I think there is a reasonable cut off for what weapons should be considered legal to own.
Now to get into the arguable portions:

Q. Doesn't having a gun in a house endanger the children there? Sure, just like the steak knives, wall outlets, bathtubs of water, cars in the garage (multiple ways), gas stoves, any glass that can be broken, pest poison, bleach, stairs, pets with teeth, some pets without teeth, trees, neighbors, stools, refrigerators that latch shut... and sharp corners.

You can go here for factual stuff to "bolster" the anti-gun argument. But notice the lack of a logical connection. For instance:

"Guns killed X number of people between I-J years of age in year Y." ... So? And how many of these dead people tried to defend themselves with a gun? Theoretically remove all guns from the world, and do you think that you wouldn't have a similar stat for knife murders? Having a gun does not increase motive, dim bulb. The object of aggression being more defenseless does increase the likely hood of violence though.

"Suicides are more likely to succeed if a gun is used" ... ?!?!?! Of course! Jumping off a building leads to a similar statistic too! Try taking into account the number of failed suicides where the suicidee had access to something truly lethal like a bridge or a gun. Failed suicides are the result of attention hungry nuts, not people who truly want to end it, so the use of guns is a misleading stat. You want to argue with me? Then you bring me stats that show outlawing guns reduces the number of suicides significantly. Good luck. You won't find it in Canada.

And to counter the ridiculous notion that family is 43 times more likely to die if you own a gun, check here.

So if it really was a problem, why aren't firearm deaths listed among the leading cause of death among children? Oh, wait it is. It is listed as the 0.01% cause of unintentional deaths among children. That would be 0.003% of all child deaths in the US. 3.5 times that many kids die of accidental poisoning! Almost 50 times that many die from auto accidents! Are you gonna stop driving your kid?

Q. Don't guns lead to more violent crimes? No, but more defenseless people does.

If you think that outlawing guns will cause a significant decrease in gun violence, just know that 80% of offenders get their guns from family, friends, a street buy, or an illegal source. ((http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/guns.htm)) So congrats on decreasing the number of defensive weapons that law-abiding citizens can buy, ass.

Less than 10% of victims (83,000 out of 931,000 in 1992) of violent crimes have defended themselves with a firearm in this country. Of that 10% that defended themselves with a firearm, one-fifth of them actually suffered an injury as opposed to the one-half of those that didn't defend themselves with a firearm. ((Bureau of Justice Statistics Crime Data Brief)) That means that you are 2.5 times more likely to suffer an injury during a violent crime if you don't defend yourself with a firearm.

You can easily find statistics online that say firearm related crimes drop when strict gun laws are enforce like in Australia. Unfortunately most of these are misleading anyway since I can also find statistics that say the opposite over more time. But the real question you need to ask yourself is whether that led to a decrease in violent crimes. How does it benefit you if gun-violence goes down and you get stabbed instead? To accurately compare countries, you must compare their rates of violence without firearms as well to accurately gauge just how violent the society is with or without guns. I got tired looking for those stats from a "non-biased" source (sites that don't overtly advocate gun ownership even though I know they're right).

Q. If I'm in a dire situation though, shouldn't I wait for the experts to show up to help me? Sure, if you don't mind being raped or dying before they arrive.

If you are so ignorant that you think 911 is your first line of defense, I feel for your children. While you are huddling under your desk with your kids and the cops are still 10 minutes away, you can be sure that Charles Manson Jr. is going to enjoy the next 5 minutes looking before he finds you. You are your first line of defense, dip wad. Police are backup and cleanup. If their job was an instantaneous response, they'd set up base in your house. So because you didn't have the guts to own something to defend yourself with, someone else can walk all over you or worse your children (who hopefully are not as dumb as you are).

Oh, and the experts never helped on 9/11. The only people who got anything done were on United 93 and they did what they could with what they had. Do you think one shmuck with a box cutter would have killed more than one person if someone on any of those planes was packing heat? I think not.

Which leads me to my next point: Places where guns are absolutely restricted frequently turn out to be more dangerous. Schools and airplanes have been the sites of recent violence in America, and even if you have a carry permit you cannot enter with your weapon. Does this stop criminals from entering them with guns or other weapons (box cutters, etc)? No! It just leaves the rest of us defenseless, dumbass.

So I say, anyone deemed competent enough to carry a concealed weapon (ex-military or school trained non-violent non-felons) should absolutely be allowed to carry their concealed weapon to just about anywhere (within reason, i.e. not to court, federal building, places that are already heavily guarded). So nuts to this stupid "no guns on planes" rule. The next terrorist that tries to take a plane should consider first "I wonder who might be packing heat".

What if I don't trust average Joes with guns in life/death choices? The situation was posed to me "Even if you had your gun with you on a flight, if a terrorist picked up a baby and held him as a human shield then what would you do?" Why do people think that if they pose a lesser-of-two-evils problem to me, that I should be hesitant to answer? "Duh-uh Tom what be worse: paper cut or shoot in head?" I don't hesitate to answer: “shoot in head.” So to answer your obvious lesser-of-two-evils scenario, I'd shoot through the baby into the terrorist. Oh no! That's so scary, Tom! How could you?! Give me a break. One terrorist down, one baby as collateral damage even if it’s my own kid, or maybe you still don't understand the words we are using. Say it with me terr-or-ist. They do not keep their promises. They do not have mercy. They will kill again if they have the chance. Some dumbass terrorist tells me "Put your weapon down or I will kill this baby", and my mind will translate it from bull-crap to English as "Ha ha, now I will pose an emotional dilemma for you. It will disarm you. Then I will kill you, this baby, and every other baby on this plane. Ha ha, this baby is already dead!" If you think otherwise, you have sunk to a depth of ignorance that Jacque Cousteau could only dream of exploring.
What do you mean you don't trust people to make life and death decisions?!?! Who do you think does make life and death decisions? Robots?! It seems to me you don't have a freakin' choice to trust some backwoods hick approved for a carry permit or not. You have a terrorist on board: you are screwed. Your best chance of survival lies in the one guy with any brains to actually defend himself with a weapon greater than what the terrorists have. So screw your trust. No one else should be forced to go defenseless just because you don't trust them. Why don't we throw you at the terrorists to distract them while we actually try to set up a weaponless defense, ass.

What if I'm afraid of guns? Buck up, or take a martial arts class. You can be trained to move faster than most people can draw their weapons. Good on you if that's the way you want to go. As for me, I'm lazy and like a long range solution to problems.

Well why don't we just teach everyone martial arts or hand out "batons" to people who fly planes? I threw in batons because that was an actual suggestion by someone arguing with me.

Ok... You are stupid. You've been watching too many Jackie Chan movies. 99% of the time, after the initial contact is made (i.e. first hit) in any close combat, the fight will break down into grappling on the floor. So any theory that "one whack with a baton, you could break someone's wrist" is just stupid. How's this for an answer? "Or they can take the blow, not break their wrist because you swing like a girl, and then they cut your throat with a box cutter because you bothered to get into close combat with them." Consider a long range, semi-automatic approach next time.

Oh, while we are in the dumb fantasy question, no, shooting a gun in a plane will not suddenly cause the plane to decompress so violently that the plane is ripped inside out and everyone is flung onto the island in Lost. Sorry.

In Conclusion: No I don't think guns are for everyone, but your squeamishness should not prevent the rest of us from defending ourselves. What's more, you owe it to your children to provide them adequate protection. And no, the police are not your first line of defense because they take time to show up.