“Guns are the mental illness of our society,” Joesph Britt writes in a letter to the editor at easton.wickedlocal.com. “Gun possessors become uncontrollable and kill multiple innocent people; we mourn the death of the innocent, bury them and talk about the rights of the living.” Surprisingly, the anti-gun author used to be Officer Britt. Not so surprisingly — given his opening salvo — he’s uncomfortable with the idea of his fellow Americans defending themselves by force of arms . . .
As a young officer in a gunfight I had the revolver, the bad guys had automatic weapons, the adrenaline in my body was so high that I didn’t realize I was dry firing (pulling the trigger on a weapon without live ammunition). I was a well trained officer but the shock of being in a fierce violent shootout unexpectantly and unprovoked puts you at a real disadvantage. The amount of shots fired by the bad guys at us were in the high double digits, evidenced by the holes in the glass window across the street, the backdrop of my position. I was sure glad no one walked behind me.
So I love the untrained target shooters who are so convinced they are going to prevail in a shootout and put all their shots in the target. This target is shooting back. If you the gun owner who is defending their home (which seems to be the main reason gun owners recite the reason for gun ownership) misses the target, you may shoot your family member or your neighbor. You want to tell your family that your aspiring daughter or son or the family of your neighbor that this was a casualty of your 2nd amendment right. Fuzzy rights fuzzy targets.
I’m thinking there won’t be many warm fuzzies for Mr. Britt coming from TTAG’s Armed Intelligentsia, especially with his reference to “automatic weapons.” Nor do I imagine that many will answer our question of the day in the negative. But give it some thought and answer this query as well: what do cops bring to the ballistic bad guy beating equation that non-law enforcement types can’t?
Meanwhile, here’s Mr. Britt’s money shot:
Let the police do the policing. You can call 911 faster and get out of your house quicker than you can: wipe the sleep out of your eyes, locate the gun, load, aim, fire (is your target clear?). Oh ohh forgot the safety is still on.
Our world is faster. Cell phones, camera phones house alarms, motion lights, blow horns, good door locks, good doors give you a better safer chance to defend yourself than guns. It’s the mental illness of our society that keep us doing the same thing getting the same result but thinking this time it’s gonna be different. We say we don’t want more children killed but our actions say we are not replete.
Answer this one…for the children! [Note: the video above is not meant to denigrate the superb service and bravery of American police officers. But it does illustrate the point that cops aren’t always as effective as they could be.]