Waukesha Christmas Parade SUV
Toppled chairs line W. Main St. in downtown Waukesha, Wis., after an SUV drove into a parade of Christmas marchers Sunday, Nov. 21, 2021. (John Hart/Wisconsin State Journal via AP)

By Miguel Faria, Jr., MD

Darrell Brooks, the 39-year-old criminal who plowed through a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin, had been arrested on November 2, 2021 for assaulting and running over the mother of his child. By November 16, Brooks had been released on a mere $1,000 bail, and less than a week later he plowed through the Christmas parade, killing six people and injuring dozens of others.

Like many other repeat offenders, who are continuously being released, Brooks is a sex offender with a long criminal record stretching back two decades. Brooks’ release allowed him to perpetrate this heinous act.

As a result of our permissive criminal justice system, citizens nationwide now live in fear because of the thousands of criminals with lengthy rap sheets who have been released back into society and who soon after commit atrocious crimes.

The CDC and the Public Health Establishment

The public health establishment, that should have been protecting the public from contagious diseases, instead has contributed to the permissiveness of the criminal justice system and has even shifted the blame for “gun violence” from criminals to law-abiding citizens, who seek to own firearms to protect themselves and their families.

A favorite view of the public health establishment has been the myth propounded by Dr. Mark Rosenberg, former head of the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (NCIPC) of the CDC, who wrote . . .

Most of the perpetrators of violence are not criminals by trade or profession. Indeed, in the area of domestic violence, most of the perpetrators are never accused of any crime. The victims and perpetrators are ourselves — ordinary citizens, students, professionals, and even public health workers.

That statement is contradicted by available data…government data. FBI statistics reveal that 75 percent of all violent crimes for any locality are committed by six percent of hardened criminals and repeat offenders.

The typical murderer has had a prior criminal history of at least six years with four felony arrests in his record before he finally commits murder. Less than one to two percent of crimes committed with firearms are carried out by licensed (e.g., concealed carry permit holders) law-abiding citizens.

Criminology — Actual Data on Crime

Criminologists point out that criminals really do make quick “risk versus benefit” assessments about the looming, potential threat of a concealed carrier possibly being nearby. Thus, criminological studies consistently reveal that just the knowledge that one in five or six citizens in a public place could very well be armed can deter crimes and could very well avert possible massacres.

According to government data, including the FBI Supplementary Homicide Report, there are approximately 400 felons killed by police officers or justifiable homicides yearly in the United States. In 2012, for example, there were 426 such justifiable homicides.

Yearly, armed citizens shoot and kill more criminals than police, at least twice as many. Professor Gary Kleck found that good citizens kill between 606 to 1527 attackers and violent criminals in self-defense (or in justifiable homicides) every year. Citizens in fact have a better track record than the police in shooting the bad guys . . .

Only two percent of civilian shootings involved an innocent person mistakenly identified as a criminal. The ‘error rate’ for the police, however, was 11 percent, more than five times as high.

The reason citizens do a better job than the police is because they are already on the scene. They witnessed what happened or were the actual victims, so they know who the bad guys are, while the police enter a scene in progress and must make judgments that occasionally turn out to be wrong.

As to how citizens can protect themselves from criminal assailants when the police — more often than not — are not immediately there to protect them, national victim data suggests that . . .

…while victims resisting with knives, clubs, or bare hands are about twice as likely to be injured as those who submit, victims who resist with a gun are only half as likely to be injured as those who put up no defense.

Of particular interest to women and self‑defense

…among those victims using handguns in self‑defense, 66 percent were successful in warding off the attack and keeping their property. Among those victims using non‑gun weapons, only 40 percent were successful.

The gun is the great equalizer for law‑abiding citizens in self and family protection, particularly women, when they are accosted in the street or when they are defending themselves and their children at home.

Self-Defense is Morally Just and Undeniable in a Free State

In Macon, Georgia, we had the dramatic case of a businesswoman and grandmother, who was attacked by two thugs bent on robbing her and perhaps even raping and killing her. They followed the woman home at 1:30 a.m. as she left her convenience store business.

The thugs pulled guns on her and demanded cash as she sat in her car. However, the grandmother was armed. Shots were exchanged. The woman wounded one assailant, who was later apprehended as he rushed to a local hospital. The other criminal also fired shots at her, but escaped. She was safe and sound. “I carry a gun all the time,” she told a local newspaper reporter.

Of course, in the southern United States this grandmother is a heroine and no one would consider prosecuting her. That’s not necessarily the usual course of events in other states or countries. For example, in England, the British subject Tony Martin, a farmer, defended his home and possibly his life. He shot a burglar, who was a known dangerous criminal. For that act of self-protection in his own home, Martin spent time in prison. Thereafter, fearing for his life and losing all his worldly possession, he was forced to live in his car.

We must preserve our Constitution, the Second Amendment, and the right to self and family protection from the hardened criminals who have been and are being released onto the streets by the same governments that cannot protect us, yet also seek to disarm us and deny our rights to armed self-defense.

 

Miguel A. Faria, Jr, MD is a retired professor of Neurosurgery and  Medical History at Mercer University School of Medicine. He founded Hacienda Publishing and is Associate Editor in Chief in Neuropsychiatry and World Affairs of Surgical Neurology International. He served on the CDC’s Injury Research Grant Review Committee. His latest book is America, Guns, and Freedom: A Journey Into Politics and the Public Health & Gun Control Movements (2019).

This article was originally published at DRGO.us and is reprinted here with permission. 

45 COMMENTS

  1. “Citizens in fact have a better track record than the police in shooting the bad guys . . .”

    The other reason is most cops, the ones I’ve seen, anyway, can’t shoot for s*. I’d wager dollars to donuts that most CCW carriers get more range time than the typical cop.

    • a yuong friend of mine, sixteen years old and in the Pollice Explorers programme had an opportunity to shooot along with some of the officers at their range, working with qualifying targets. He utshot EVERY ONE of the cops by a wide margin. He overheard some of the grumbling about “thi=s “hot s… kid” being better than any of them.

      He zipped it. That;s what happens when a kid grows up in the country and around guns. Good job they weren’t working with their AR’s. He’s had his own since he was twelve, and is a legendary good shot “up on the hill”where he lives. Parent,s uncles, aunts, cousins, are all good shots up there. Poor city bred coppers didn’t stand a chance. He’s not the type to put himself forward, either. (nor will he pull his shots to not make the coppers look as bad as they really are). He just shoots…..

    • Gun Control zealots rely on criminal acts to advance Gun Control…On the other hand exposing the racism and genocide History of Gun Control is using Gun Control and its diabolical baggage to bury Gun Control. If Gun Control was not despicable there would be proud Gun Control zealots talking about how well atrocities like Jim Crow Gun Control worked on Black Americans and how successful nazis were with rounding up unarmed Jews for extermination, etc.

      Gun Control zealots are obviously silent about the History of their beloved Gun Control…Like many gun owners are silent when it comes to exposing the Truth About Gun Control.

  2. I’m sorry……

    All this reliance on data is just so much hogwash. It has been proven over and again that truth is always superior to facts. I believe am superior; I believe in truth. You can jam your facts up your shirtsleeve.

    (Did I “sound” authentic?)

    • Salt your statement with a few expletives. It may or may not make it seem more authentic, but it will at least make it more up to date. For some, profanity is a barometer of sorts.

    • “(Did I ‘sound’ authentic?)”

      yes, up until “I believe am superior”. those who think they are superior will never say so outright until you are bound and chained at their feet.

      • “yes, up until “I believe am superior”.”

        Well….I am. Can’t help it. Can’t get away from it. A gift and a curse.

    • @Sam

      Good first try, but your choice of verbage shows that you’re a neophyte. You might consider contacting Erin Marquis for guidance on how to conduct a right proper nose-in-the-air rant. She has a polished style that is hard to ignore…her style is so cutting edge (a true Wirecutter) that it gets her “fired” up regularly. I understand that she is currently available for freelance training.

      • “You might consider contacting Erin Marquis for guidance on how to conduct a right proper nose-in-the-air rant.”

        If trained, I would have to turn professional, go on tour, make thousands of dollars, and miss martini night on the couch, in front of the TV. I’ll just stay home and remain superior.

        • “I’ll just stay home and remain superior”

          that’s one of the keys to superiority – non-involvement and distance.

    • Sam,
      To answer your question, it was, well honestly you could use a little work, okay? Tell you what. I’m going to give you some tips. First of all, it doesn’t matter what you say. (Trust me, you don’t even have to believe it.) It matters HOW you say it. You probably can’t tell, but I’m yelling some words and whispering others. They tell me to stop whispering because it frightens the children, but between you and me, I don’t think I could stop if I wanted to. I’ve been doing this for so long, I pretty much run on autopilot now. Hell I got my start as a um…in that uh…building over there, what 50-60 years ago? Anyway, look at me now. I’m a big fken deal.

      Okay, here it goes. Watch and learn my friend: I believe in TRUTH over FACTS!! You’re welcome Jack.

  3. Queue the troll shills pretending that the violence is all on the Right. That when Rosembaum threatened to kill, hid in wait, ambushed, and tried to take Kyle’s gun that it was Kyle’s fault he was being attacked by a literal child rapist. That 80% of Felons voting Democrat is meaningless in the face of their feels.

    Go on shills, comment down below with your example of whatever that “proves” whatever. I’m sure you’ve been given your talking points.

    • Likely one dude on break, ever notice many of them spam for a few hours then all disappear until the next day.

    • “Queue the troll shills pretending that the violence is all on the Right”

      you don’t get it. they’re not shills. they really do believe it. imitating their owners’ religion, they think the universe (including you) exists for them, and that whatever they think and want and do is right and good and natural by definition. they experience any opposition as unrighteous oppression and violence against them. no joke, they really do.

      “That when Rosembaum threatened to kill, hid in wait, ambushed, and tried to take Kyle’s gun that it was Kyle’s fault”

      yes, they really do genuinely think that. once you wrap your head around that, it all comes clear.

  4. Anyone stupid enough to think releasing criminals and abolishing gun rights is a good idea is ……stupid. or evil or paid off. And let’s not forget the border or the lack of.
    Self defense is a thing.

  5. “Less than one to two percent of crimes committed with firearms are carried out by licensed (e.g., concealed carry permit holders) law-abiding citizens.”
    This number would probably be far less if it weren’t for overzealous prosecutors such as the ones in the Rittenhouse trial.
    If they (liberal/progressive POS prosecutors AND judges) can turn a justifiable self-defense instance into unjustifiable homicide to further their agenda they will, it’s human nature.

  6. Seems like replacing “three strikes” with “thirty strikes” would still net an awful lot of locked up scumbags and I’m sure people would still shriek and hollar “he was just about to turn his life around!”

    Maybe they can tie ammo capacity restrictions to an acceptable amount of strikes to throw away a piece of shit career psychopath? I only get ten rounds they get ten strikes. You want them to have unlimited strikes I get unlimited rounds.

  7. “an Age of Permissive, Revolving Door Justice”

    just keep in mind that “the left” sees the rittenhouse acquittal exactly that way. and THEIR ideology encompasses “political power comes out of the barrel of a gun” explicitly, while they have cowed you into never expressing the same.

  8. As a result of our permissive criminal justice system, citizens nationwide now live in fear because of the thousands of criminals with lengthy rap sheets who have been released back into society and who soon after commit atrocious crimes.

    Not me: I live prepared rather than in fear.

    I hope and pray that violent attackers never choose me as their victim. If they ever do, at least I will have a fighting chance to prevent great bodily harm or worse my untimely demise at the hands of a violent scumbag criminal.

  9. The masses would be wise to come to terms with two simple facts:

    1) A large percentage of politicians and bureaucrats are only concerned about their personal enrichment and largely (if not wholly) reject the sanctity of human life of all other people. That means they will not hesitate to exploit, use, abuse, and harm (even to the point of murder in many cases) others to enrich themselves.

    2) A large number of politicians actively facilitate destructive policies for society knowing that the resulting suffering will drive the masses to cry out to those politicians for help. Of course those politicians are all too happy to propose “solutions” which, wait for it, enrich themselves at the expense of the masses without actually helping the masses.

    With those two facts in mind, we can easily see why politicians are actively working to increase mayhem and crime in society which enables politicians to say/propose/demand:
    1) More taxes and more government programs to fight crime.
    2) Citizens give up privacy and freedom to fight crime.
    3) Citizens give up their firearms to “make everyone safe”.

    In reality those “solutions” will give those politicians more money AND more control/power, at the expense of everyone else without actually helping everyone else.

  10. @rant7
    “well at least you’re humble about it.”

    I know. It’s one of the things that make me so superior.

  11. @Tionico
    “Leave us in our delusioins, alright?”

    Can’t. If I leave you in your delusions, you cannot appreciate my superiority. And, not being superior, your memory is also lacking, so I have to keep reminding you of your delusions. ‘Tis a huge burden, but I alone am able to bear up under it.

  12. This article repeats what I have been saying for a long time. Gun control/prohibition is a secondary issue. The primary one is the right of the private citizen to use force in defense against violent criminals. Some of the opposition is unabashedly on the side of the criminals. They view criminals as victims of an uncaring society who lash out in frustration at their victimhood. Others view the role of the private citizen as entirely passive. When it comes to crime, the private citizen is entitled only to the level of protection organized society (i.e. government) is able and willing to provide. (We see this attitude in the cities that tolerate rioters.)

    We need to emphasize that, when you’re the victim of a violent crime, it’s about the force you are permitted to use in your defense, not about the tool you use. There’s no difference between shooting a home invader and splitting his skull with a baseball bat except that the former is safer for the victim. Likewise, there is no difference between shooting a carjacker and running over him with your vehicle. Both are justified when it’s your life and health at stake.

    • “The primary one is the right of the private citizen to use force in defense against violent criminals”

      in their minds, they are the humans with rights, and you are cattle put here by god to serve them. they don’t respect your rights any more than a rancher respects the rights of his cattle, and for exactly precisely the same reason. they will never, ever, acknowledge your rights, and will always act to curtail them in every venue and every situation and every circumstance. it’s their religion.

  13. @rant7
    “that’s one of the keys to superiority – non-involvement and distance.”

    Yeah, that way, I don’t need no stinking mask.

  14. Brooks. Sounds like the perfect SS/antifa foot soldier. Do they all have kiddie diddling charges in their pasts?

  15. Umm, I haven’t seen it covered, but did he run over his ex and the people in the parade with the same vehicle? If so, not only did they turn him loose with a $1,000 bond, they also gave him his murder weapon back….

    Oh wait a minute, cars unlike guns are registered, so he must have run them over with an AR15 and crushed them under the massive weight of the shoulder thingie that goes up!

  16. Self defense and the law.
    Overhead once on police scanner (tach2) two officers making jest about a stabbing victim thinking he was going to die from the wound.
    Ironically the police mag dump on a person that has a knife 21 feet away.
    Strange how they think a citizen getting beat up is no big thing however if you punch a cop they’re liable to shootz you.
    I’ve come to the conclusion that my/our lives just aren’t as important as theirs are, or perhaps the common citizen is much more resilient to bodily injury then a police officers.
    Nah, they just dont give a fck about us.

  17. And then there is the purposely overlooked and almost completely ignored aspect of organized crime, without which an awful lot of big city politicians and city councilmembers couldn’t afford to get into office nor stay there for long. Open borders, defunding police, eliminating costly bail requirements, and pretty much everything else that organized crime would want, is exactly what these thoroughly corrupted city politicians work so hard to supply. After all, if the local street gangs / organized crime organizations – flush with easy dirty money – become unhappy with a local politician for some reason, they will simply shift their endless easy dirty drug money and “get out the vote” efforts into supporting someone else who WILL work to meet their needs more effectively…

    Organized crime wants you disarmed, and they are paying very well to make that happen. The lockstep silence across all of US corporate media on America’s widespread, extremely well funded, and very well connected organized crime speaks volumes, in and of itself. That kind of silence does not come cheap, and that very expensive silence has an awful lot do with why there is:

    No News At 11.

  18. ” national victim data suggests that . . .

    …while victims resisting with knives, clubs, or bare hands are about twice as likely to be injured as those who submit, victims who resist with a gun are only half as likely to be injured as those who put up no defense.”

    in addition or supplemental or for gee whiz:

    According to Kleck’s “Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America” – the leading authority on the subject:

    1. Any form of resistance, except with firearm, carries with it an injury rate of 52%.

    2. Resistance with a firearm carries with it the risk of injury of 17%, but use of a firearm early in an encounter carries with it a risk of injury of 6%.

    Overall, in Kleck, you have a minimum of a 25% chance of being injured if you comply, but you are 4 time less likely to be injured if you have your firearm and are prepared to use it.

    Take away summary: compliance may still result in injury (which includes death), resistance without a firearm carries a 52% chance of injury (which includes death), resistance with a firearm lowers chance of injury (which includes death) to 17%, resistance with a firearm early in the encounter further lowers risk of injury (which includes death) to 6%

    If you are armed are you willing to gamble that you are not in the 25%?
    if you are not armed are you willing to gamble that you are not in the 52%?

    Compliance or not, resistance or not – is not a decision one needs to make. The answer is already provided, non-compliance via firearms resistance offers the best chance of less injury (and greater chance of survival).

    note: resistance also includes trying to escape.

    • A friend of mine told me to shoot first and ask questions later. I was going to ask him why, but I had to shoot him.

  19. Amanda Collins is a former University of Nevada student. She was raped in 2007 on campus in a parking lot near the campus police department. Her attacker was eventually convicted for raping three women, one of whom he killed. Collins has testified before several state legislatures where she argued that her rape could have been prevented if she were allowed to have her gun on campus. Collins had a permit for a concealed weapon but wasn’t carrying her gun at the time because it was forbidden on campus. In her testimony she said “Out of the corner of my eye I could see the university police cruisers parked across the way, and in that same moment I knew that the university police offices had already closed. I knew no one was coming to help me.”

    Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America founder Shannon Watts indulged in a little victim shaming and in 2015 claimed that opening the door for women to carry guns for self-defense on college campuses could lead to more sexual assaults.

    Colorado Springs University started allowing permitted concealed carry, sexual assaults decreased dramatically.

    Ladies, Shannon Watts and the rest of the anti-gun freaks would rather you be disarmed directly or regulated into being disarmed or be so burdened by attempting to be armed that you just gave up trying to be armed – they would prefer you be attacked and raped and killed rather than you having a chance by the definitive means of defense by defensive gun use.

    Think of it this way, women and men alike, in that moment of need for defense – like Amanda Collins said “…I knew no one was coming to help me.”. You are your own first responder, period.

        • Using charts and data to defend against gun control. Fact vs. emotion argument. How has that dynamic been working out?

          How many legions of anti-gunners have been persuaded, by fact and data, to abandon their anti-gun crusade?

          The delusionally emotional anti-gun crowd do not look for persuasive messages that cause them to doubt their delusion, or emotion. They already admitted they hold truth to be superior to fact.

          The vanishingly small number of “undicides” are not, and will not ever amount to a number significant enough build a super majority of people defending RTKBA.

          So, fact and data….howz that working out for us?

    • The graph image showed up just fine within my Thunderbird email program (I’d previously posted a comment and check-marked the “Notify me of follow-up comments by email” checkbox while I was at it), but when I click “reply” in that email, which brings me directly to this page, all I see is a clickable link to the image – but that is still workable for those who want to see it enough to click or tap it. Close enough! Posting a link to an online image very apparently works here, even if it just shows up as a clickable link…

  20. In the southeast NC area one of the local TV stations broadcasts on its web site the prior arrest record of every criminal apprehended for a violent or drug-related crime. Almost to a person these criminals have lengthy records. “Possession of a firearm by a felon” tops the list. Even here in a “law and order” part of the state, an alarming number of these criminals had short prison stays or were out on bail for their priors, and clearly the law is no barrier to a criminal obtaining a firearm. While I believe all non-criminals who want to should have the opportunity to carry a handgun, we need to also vote in judges and state level representatives who believe that gang members and habitual criminals should be put away in jail with long sentences sooner rather than later. If it means converting an old hospital or school into more jail space, so be it. The prosecutors and judges here are much harsher than let’s say in Chicago or Baltimore, yet the number of habitual criminals on the streets is still far too large.

    • “Felon in possession” carries a 5-year Federal imprisonment (no parole) IIRC, and is almost NEVER prosecuted, even though it certainly looks like a slam-dunk, I mean either you possessed a firearm or you did not. Instead it is used as enticement for a plea deal, to make a state prosecutor “look good”, getting a guilty plea to a crime for which the perp will be released in months if not today, in return for dropping the possession charge. The law should be enforced or repealed, and I could support repeal, if you cannot trust a man with a firearm, then *I* cannot trust him to walk free in the spaces occupied by my family. ie, keep him in prison. If released, it is his right to possess a firearm.

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