While dining at El Sombrero this evening I was surprised to see a public service announcement on the TV displaying the character Smokey the Bear with the caption: “Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires.” I recall the impact that ad had on me as a child in my long-past and misspent youth.
The PSA startled me because El Sombrero is 900 miles south of the Texas border. I wasn’t expecting to see him here. The shock piqued my inner ad man.
It struck me that that message could be reframed as “Only You Can Prevent Gun Fire.” This statement could overlay any of the many heroic civilians who have stopped shooters in public places. Or, perhaps, a series of pictures of the latest civilians who have performed such public service.
What’s the effective idea here? Is it really a binary proposition? It is only the individual hiker or camper who can prevent a wildfire. It isn’t Forest Service smoke jumpers who parachute into the sound of crackling timber to fight fires in process.
In reality, with most problems of social concern, it’s a combination of effort by professionals and lay(wo)men alike.
In obstetrics, it’s the professional doctor or midwife who ensures the safest possible delivery. But the patient has as much as nine months to line up these professional resources.
With home fires, it’s the builder who bears initial responsibility for constructing the home to code. The homeowner maintains the premises as free of combustibles as possible and keeps fire extinguishers ready to use. Professional firefighters rush to the report of a 911 call.
Then what of assaults by firearms?
Public shootings are least like the obstetrics example. We don’t get months of notice that an attack is pending. We can’t really speak of “preventing” a public shooting in the same way as we can prevent a crisis in labor and delivery through proper prenatal care and case management on the delivery date. Professional public servants really can’t do much to prevent public shootings. Failure to recognize this simple fact is to divert our attention from effective mitigation.
We can look at public shootings from an analogy of emergency rooms and ambulance services. The emergency occurs. The ambulance is summoned and mitigates the damage as best they can on the street. Then the professionals in the ER do the best they can to save those who survive the ambulance ride. It’s the best they can do. Police can’t and don’t really do any better. Sometimes they can be pre-positioned for scheduled public events, but ambulances and ER docs can’t be everywhere at once.
Perhaps the best example is that of the home fire. Builders can implement some preventative measures ubiquitously. Still, homeowners must maintain their premises as fire safe as possible. We keep and replenish fire extinguishers. It is us, the (civilian) homeowners who are usually the “first responders” when fire breaks out, before professionals can reach the scene.
We have the data. Each gunshot homicide is investigated and documented in great detail. We understand the problem very well.
What works? A good guy in blue who rushes to the sound of gunfire? Or the good-guy — irrespective of the color of his profession — who is already at the scene? How many must die as a consequence of our fetish for professional responders when those professionals cannot reach the scene in seconds? Or when, upon arrival, they fail to run to the sound of the gunfire?
That fact is, only you, the good guy at the scene, can prevent gunfire.
‘MarkPA’ is trained in economics, and is a life-long gun owner, NRA Instructor and Massad Ayoob graduate. He is inspired by our inalienable rights to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” and holds that having the means to defend oneself and one’s community is vital to securing them.
This article originally appeared at drgo.us and is reprinted here with permission.
Truth!!
Second truth; when you’re being shot at, only you can return fire.
You know who thought they were good guys with guns? Travis and Greg McMichael, the killers of Ahmaud Arbery. Armed witnesses and bystanders may have experience shooting, but do they know how to accurately assess a fast moving situation?
You can take back a bad arrest, but not a bad shoot.
What’s your point quasi? What was your hero up to “jogging” through the neighborhood? I have as much sympathy for Arbery as the drug addict in Minneapolis ie none…any excuse for mostly peaceful protests.
Unfortunately for you it’s illegal to murder someone because they are the wrong color jogging through your neighborhood.
“Jogging?” Really?
Also, please explain how a “jogger” grabbing a shotgun being held by another man, might lead to a discharge of said weapon.
I like how’s there’s literally one troll here that wastes all their time here posting under a bunch of different names.
Just think how sad this persons life must be.
“Just think how sad this persons life must be.”
Sad, and pathetic.
But that’s pee-gee-two for you in a nutshell… 🙂
“I like how’s there’s literally one troll here that wastes all their time here posting under a bunch of different names.”
And your point is…..?
I control 87% of screen names (or is it 83%?), and it gives me something to do in retirement. I could be taking up a paying job as a Walmart greeter.
Greeters are supposed to be polite and helpful. I don’t think either one of us is qualified.
Armed Joe, the Quasi Policeman,
“Armed witnesses and bystanders may have experience shooting, but do they know how to accurately assess a fast moving situation?”
Why yes, yes they do.
The “assessment” is exceedingly simple: did you see an aggressor initiate extreme violent action–likely to cause great bodily harm or death right then-and-there–upon a victim? If the answer is, “yes,” then you are legally justified to use deadly force to stop the attack. (Note that “great bodily harm” includes rape.)
It really is that simple and everyone with an I.Q. above 70 can easily and immediately discern that.
Disclaimer: the above information is my opinion–I am not an attorney and the above information is NOT legal advice.
If you would care for proof that the world is full of idiots who are just waiting for their chance to be that “good guy with a gun” but who have zero comprehension of either threat assessment or the legal limits of self-defense you might wander over to YouTube to the “Was This Store Owner Justified in Stabbing Suspect 7 Times?” video to read all the comments — then visit the USA Carry website and scroll down to find their coverage of that same video including discussion of the Nevada laws on self defense.
What does the Aubrey murder have to do with a “good guy with a gun”??
If you see a man pull a rifle out in a mall and open fire that’s pretty clear. If you suspect a man of stealing building materials and choose to clumsily arrest him at gunpoint at arms length this is a different matter.
“That fact is, only you, the good guy at the scene, can prevent gunfire.”
Liked the riff on Smokey Bear, but the analogy breaks down at the conclusion. Having a gun owner present at the initiation of an attack is not preventative. If the gun owner present has to do more than show a firearm, “prevention” is again absent. As it stands, we have no means to determine if a person open carrying prevented any armed attacks.
I agree with you.
I very carefully considered the choice of words between “prevent” and “stop”. I wrote “Stop” in my manuscript which was submitted to DRGO.org. Alas, somewhere in the editing process “Stop” got changed to “Prevent” and that change survived into TTAG.
It’s rare that a good-guy-with-a-gun will prevent the first shot(s) by the bad guy. Best we can really hope for is that the good-guy stops the bad guy before the cops can arrive to chalk the casualties and secure a perimeter.
We should strive to not over-promise and under-deliver in our rhetoric.
The editing process isn’t one with the cycles of review that go into a SCOTUS opinion. Errors slip thru and new errors are introduced. Best we can hope for.
BTW, Mark, nicely done, well-written and thought-provoking article.
Kind of you to so remark.
“I wrote “Stop” in my manuscript which was submitted to DRGO.org. Alas, somewhere in the editing process “Stop” got changed to “Prevent” and that change survived into TTAG.”
Thanx for the insight. It did seem odd that “prevent” was there. DRG made it seem like your article was a huge stretch meant to salvage the connection to SB.
Thanx for the submission.
@Sam I Am
DRGO.org ?
You mean DRGO.us?
“You mean DRGO.us?”
Thanx.
Whenever I’m talking guns or training newbies something to the effect of “You are a first responder if you respond first.” In times of intensity with mass chaos like Katrina several years ago or Portland daily I offer the more bleak but realistic “Nobody is coming.”
If you truly want to experience overt racism try being white in Memphis Tn. That’s not from everyone who doesn’t look like me, just the ones who pissed their lives away. They are the ones who always bring this shit up. Funny thing is they don’t like people that look like they do that didn’t piss away their lives.
I’ve had similar experiences in Chicago and Minneapolis. The majority of those who don’t look like me, are just ordinary folks trying to make an honest living. However there is the small percentage of those who pissed away every opportunity and every chance they had in order to live their lives to the fullest/hang with their homies. As well as the limousine liberals who for whatever reason feel guilty about things they neither had anything to do with or historical events none of us can fix or change a century and a half or more later.
Unfortunately, many of the big wildfires are due to all the downed, tinder dry fuel scattered through the national forests, a relic in part of the Smokey Bear days and a “zero tolerance” attitude towards fire ecology.
Although private citizens can play a part in preventing forest fires, forest management plays a larger role. The analogy to the gun fire would be the government doing a better job of removing criminals from open society, much as modern fire practices use controlled burns or other means to prevent bigger fires.
The Right To Arm Bears Shall Not Be Infringed.
“The Right To Arm Bears Shall Not Be Infringed.”
What are you, some kind of common sense bear control nut?
ONE THNG FOR SURE ONCE PULL THE TRIGGER CAN’T TAKE IT BACK.
TCARE , STAY SAFE AN ALERT BEST Y’ALL CAN.
“ONE THNG FOR SURE ONCE PULL THE TRIGGER CAN’T TAKE IT BACK.”
ONLY IF YOUR GUNM IS LOADED!!! ELEVENTY!!
quote————-That fact is, only you, the good guy at the scene, can prevent gunfire.————-quote
Same old Far Right Wing falsehoods and horse manure.
Fact: The majority of people killed in a robbery tried to shoot it out with the robber. When the robber has a gun pointed at you he has the element of surprise and your gun is still in its holster. Only a fool would try and shoot it out.
Fact: Less than 3% of citizens were able to stop a mass murder by assaults’ rifle because the nut case had on body armor and a high powered assault rifle making the civilian no match what so ever win against the crazy man.
Preventing criminals and psycho’s from getting second hand guns and stolen guns has been the route that all civilized nations have gone down decades ago and their SUCCESS and our complete FAILURE proves that their laws work and our lack of laws do not work period.
@dacian
“Fact: The majority of people killed in a robbery tried to shoot it out with the robber. When the robber has a gun pointed at you he has the element of surprise and your gun is still in its holster. Only a fool would try and shoot it out.
Fact: Less than 3% of citizens were able to stop a mass murder by assaults’ rifle because the nut case had on body armor and a high powered assault rifle making the civilian no match what so ever win against the crazy man.
Preventing criminals and psycho’s from getting second hand guns and stolen guns has been the route that all civilized nations have gone down decades ago and their SUCCESS and our complete FAILURE proves that their laws work and our lack of laws do not work period.”
False, all of it.
Each of those so called facts is disinformation arranged to line up with a political landscape.
One favorite of media is Australian stats on mass shootings where they had extremely few then immediately after gun seizures announced success correlated with the seizures. But ignored the large increase in crime (a hypothesis is that criminals believed homeowners were now easy prey).
Big Mack large fries and a coke please.
Dacian you can spend your life on your knees if you want to. I figure you’re on your knees a bit. You do you. I would rather die on my feet than live on my knees. Don’t fear the one who can kill your body. Fear the one who can kill your body and your soul.
It is proven that victims who resist do much better afterwards.
People who surrender to abuse have much more PTSD and even suicide.
Of course this doesn’t mean drawing a gun at a bank robbery is a correct action. But say at the robbery the criminals shoot someone to induce fear and compliance. Now is the time to consider striking back. Doing nothing while others die may later kill you inside.
To Rich
Being alive and suffering from PTSD is much preferable to being dead and buried with the penny in your pocket you saved by attempting to shoot it out.
To Redneck
Tough talk is cheap on the internet by key board commando’s but reality is much different.
I will admit some Darwinians would rather die with a penny in their pockets rather than lose that penny and go on living for years to come.
But the reason there is so few of them is that the majority of them already got buried.
“…because the nut case had on body armor and a high powered assault rifle…”
Asshole, you’re a liar. (And the sky is blue.)
You can count the number of shooters wearing body armor on one hand — it’s the extremely rare exception.
And none have used an assault rifle.
Prove me wrong.
Fact: people who use the term “fact” in this manner are complete dipshits and also liars.
Agreed. It usually precedes a cherry picked item not any sort of reasonable analysis.
Fact: atomic bomb was dropped on August 6. (Then fill in here literally any claim of correlation.)
Dacian
From the American Heritage Collage Dictionary:
Da-ci-a (da’ she-a, -sha.) An ancient region and Roman province corresponding roughly to present-day Romania; abandoned to the Goths after A.D. 270. Da’ci-an adj. & n.
Note: In the pronunciation guide (above in the parenthesis), the dictionary uses an upside down “e” to represent the sound in she-a and -sha, which I cannot reproduce on my computer. So, I have substituted an “a” in both cases, which comes fairly close. Also, as shown in the dictionary, “Dacian” should be capitalized.
The fire extinguisher analogy is the closest to the truth. You do what you can to avoid/mitigate the potential problem/emergency. And have the tools and knowledge/training to handle a problem/emergency if it happens.
Was the ad dubbed in Spanish? We were in Parador, visiting the wife’s kin. The niece and nephew were watching Porky Pig on tv, dubbed in Spanish. Horrid. Knew it was time to get home.
No, it was in English. I think the TV was playing a football game or something like that. I wasn’t paying attention to the program, I was just startled by the Smokey the Bear PSA.
@jwm
“Greeters are supposed to be polite and helpful. I don’t think either one of us is qualified.”
I could fake it for a coupla hours, between nips.
The movie “Idiocracy” shows the future of society. The Costco greeter says, “welcome to Costco, I love you”.
“The movie “Idiocracy” shows the future of society. The Costco greeter says, “welcome to Costco, I love you”.”
If Walmart did that, I would certainly quit, nip, or no nip.
Once punked some Walmart “suits”, actual suits. There were theree, walking around together with notepad computers, looking at things, entering something on the notepad, from time to time. I walked over and said, “Excuse me. You guys are generating an unusual number of sales.” Asked why I said that, I replied, “People are talking together, pointing out that Walmart execs are here to plan the closure of this store.” Then, I just walked away.
Not sure what happened after that; store is still there.
Sam:
“I could fake it for a coupla hours, between nips.”
You’ve got me beat. Then again, I’m on the wagon, permanently.
Good on ya’, mate! Good on ya’.
Here’s to celebrating your courage and determination.
I’ve just accessed the stats and if I can do that from the UK how bloody hard can it be ? THe fact is that up to the end of JUNE in the USA there wer on average at least TWO mass shootings per day. That include’s all known incidents where at least two persons were killed more injured. It also include’s what can be loosely described as GANGLAND incidents but they are incidents none the less. Bearing in mind that last year there wer north of 22,000 deaths, let alone injuries due to gun crime in them USA and that it’s forecast that this will rise, if it continue’s at the present rate, to 35,000 by the mid 2’30’s. At which point will the, pro-gun lobby accept thatb tighter controls are nessessary and at what point nwill the FIREARMS INDUSTRY be forced to take responsibility for their products and stop the $US300,million plus lobbying of mainly Republican Politico’s including by the way a certain Past President who used his position to foment rebellion and treason.
Swedes did a great job cutting gun deaths by allowing the police to take cars, jewelery, drugs, guns from gang bangers.
When they owed money to the gang boss for the fronted drugs and were going to be murdered, the Swedes offered exodus with new ID.
USA should copy that.
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