After a mass shooting, the mainstream media fixates on motive. The People of the Gun are more interested in methodology. How was the slaughter accomplished? All observers wonder, what could have been done to prevent it? Here’s a clue: not gun control. Not in the case of the Sutherland Springs slaughter. And not in any other case, either.
But there are some important lessons to be learned. Lessons that should be familiar to many of our readers.
1. Life threatening violence can appear anywhere, any time
Sutherland Springs is a bucolic South Texas town. It’s nothing like Chicago’s gang-infested urban hell holes, where drive-bys and revenge killings are an everyday occurrence. Sitting in a small church on a blessedly cool fall Sunday morning, nestled in a community so small no one uses their turn indicators (’cause everyone knows where you’re going), none of the First Baptist Church’s parishioners had reason to suspect they were about to be slaughtered by a madman.
No reason other than the fact that madmen exist. Killers who strike at a time and place of their choosing, not their victims’. Killers who have no respect for human life or basic human decency. If you accept their existence and the existence of people who are more evil than crazy, you understand that bad things can and do happen to good people anywhere, any time. Nowhere is perfectly safe.
2. Carry a gun
For gun owners, there’s one important way to “cope” with the ever-present possibility of a violent attack: carry a gun. A firearm is the best personal defense weapon money can buy — but only if you have it with you.
I suspect the majority of the adults in The First Baptist church last Sunday morning are or were gun owners. As far as we know, none of them returned fire as the killer began his rampage. At the risk of offering a piercing glimpse into the obvious, if you don’t have access to a gun, you don’t have a gun. So have a gun.
I know. For most of us, the odds of needing a defensive firearm in our everyday life — in church, on the playground, at the gym, at home or work — are vanishingly small. But the consequences of not having a gun when we need one (or two) couldn’t be any more dire. So again, carry a gun wherever and whenever you can, regardless of the level of perceived danger.
3. Be ready to use your gun
Stephen Willeford was a lucky man. He left his house to confront the mass murderer with an AR-15 loaded with a single ammunition magazine, into which he’d hurriedly inserted an indeterminate number of rounds. When he faced the killer for the last time, after he’d run off the road, Mr. Willeford had only two rounds left.
Be that guy, but don’t be that guy.
Whatever firearm you carry, make sure it’s easily accessible, fully loaded and reliably functional. Where you take it from there — an extra mag, a backup gun, flashlight, tons of tacticool training — is up to you. But be sure to have the basics covered: access to a working gun and the knowledge necessary to use it.
Equally important, Sunday’s tragedy shows the importance of situational awareness, no matter where we are, or what we’re doing. Not paranoia. Awareness. Readiness. Because the sooner you launch a counter-attack, well, the estimable Mr. Willeford knows the score. “I just wish I could’ve been there sooner.” As do we all.
4. If you keep a rifle handy for defense purposes. Keep a few loaded magazines and a handy way to carry them in the same place.
+1
1 mag in the rifle
2 in bladetech holsters that can be clipped quickly to my edc belt (cant say enough good things about bladetech)
4 more in a go bag with full g40 and 3 mags of 10mm in various hardcast and jhp flavors
Now i just need to find out where to get a set of those huge brass balls
Edit also carry everywhere all the time
5. Wear shoes around the house. Willeford said he engaged the murderer barefoot, because every shot he heard was another potential victim, and he didn’t want to waste time putting on shoes.
If TTAG has a Gun Hero of the Year award, I think he should be a nominee.
Walmart sells camo slippers with a rubber sole for about $12. I wear them around the house with socks and will even take them camping. Get about two years use out of each pair.
Brotip: you cannot “wear out” magazine springs by leaving rounds loaded. Springs wear out from being loaded and unloaded repeatedly, so the more you mess with it the more it will wear. Pmags however have to be kept with the little dustcovers on them if you leave them loaded for long periods of time or the feedlips will start to spread out. Also, Saiga shotguns (and probably other box-fed shotguns also) have an issue where the top shell can get deformed if you leave a loaded mag in the gun. Metal rifle magazines like STANAG mags can be left loaded for DECADES without any issues.
Lesson 4: When going up against someone with a rifle – bring a rifle. I believe that is a big component of the success of driving off the shooter.
Lesson 5: When going up against someone with a rifle, bring a bigger rifle. A .300 WM or .338 WM (or similar energy rifles) pretty much puts to rest the issue of most body armor, unless they have the level of armor with hard plate in carriers.
Want to know part of the problem here?
HIPPA. The [criminally] insane have the ability to conceal their mental evaluations by medical professionals from employers, intimate friends, associates, the cops, you name it – because for medical professionals to pull other people aside and say “Do not turn your back on this guy. Ever. For any reason.” is a violation of HIPPA.
It’s long past time that the rest of society knows who the nutjobs are, and we prepare to deal with them according to their mental disability.
You forgot: The government is and shall always be incompetent.
The incompetence here is… breathtaking.
Correct me if I’m wrong, technically isn’t any barrel shorter then 20 inches a carbine? So an AR 15 with a 16 inch barrel should be referred as an “assault carbine” if the media wants to get their wrongness at least a little righter.
Every civilized nation on earth requires gun safes. It not only cuts down on gun theft but would prevent the current 10,000 child maiming’s and deaths from loaded guns lying around the house.
And if you are to cheap and irresponsible to buy one and use one then you should not have the right to own a gun.
I might add if we made security alarm systems mandatory as well then tens of thousands of stolen guns would not be constantly finding their way to the streets of our major cities which result in rivers of blood on a daily basis. Only a Moron or an idiot would oppose such measures.
“MSNBC Anchor:”
THAT tells me all I need to know.
When at the range I always make it a habit of using 2 or 3 mags in a head shot scenario. Center mass is fine for most SD situations. I just remember the North Hollywood bank heist fiasco. Police came up against criminals with rifles and body Armour with nothing but handguns. They couldn’t make head shots. Not until a local gun store was broken into and long guns were brought into play did they finally take the perps down.
Can’t wait to get my 45 colt henries
Looks like Dems are sweeping Virginia. Good news
Don’t forget that an AR 15 can be configured to look like a traditional hunting rifle
The Ares defense scr is an AR with an FAL style rat tail bolt carrier that angles down into the Monte Carlo no pistol grip stock
Takes standard magazines and has an optics rail
So the lines between hunting rifle and assault weapon are truly blurred
The violence problem boils down to mental illness, pure evil and Liberal Terrorists™. It’s no coincidence that Liberal Terrorists™ suffer from both afflictions, without exception. Funny how the NRA gets blamed for these mass murders, but I can’t recall one ever being an NRA member. Ironically, if it wasn’t for an NRA member/instructor and his “assault rifle” with a “high capacity clip” (smh) this God hating, anti-American democrat (he is until proven otherwise) would have continued killing more innocent people.
It always amazes me when the U.S. is compared to Canada. U.S. Population is about 308 million people. Canada, although about the same size, has a population of about 33 million people.
It’s interesting that the one you reviewed has a manual safety. In this month’s Firearms News (issue 25) there’s a full page ad for this handgun on the inside front cover – same specs and MSRP, this photo doesn’t show a safety.
I somewhat question the assertion that the thumb safety was required to meet import requirements. I bought a Girsan MC-28 last year around this time – striker-fired M&P Turkish clone, basically. It shoots great, and doesn’t have a thumb safety, either.
Read this guy’s resume. Truly a wothless POS. Whatever the White House PTO is paying attention to, it sure as hell isn’t recruiting and nominating qualified personnel.
Jesus tap-dancing…
“This bill won’t remove every mass-shooting but it will begin removing these weapons of war from our streets.”
Right, keep telling yourself that. You and the 87 other demo-rats that supported it who live with their heads so far up their asses you can’t tell if they’re farting or drafting another bill that I wouldn’t wipe my ass with. Criminals don’t care about your laws and gun control, that’s what makes them criminals. All it will do is restrict the law-abiding/compliant owners. People like that fat kid who shot up a church and the other guy who took Las Vegas by the balls couldn’t give a damn less about what passes.
Give up already you idiots. Seriously, you don’t even understand what you are trying to ban. Your just morons who want to take away freedoms. That’s what liberalism is all about. Gov’t control of the people.
MAYBE if someone had a gun in that tiny church 26 wouldn’t have died. My Baptist church fully supports being armed(despite what an unknown troll alleges)…oh and Marilyn Manson is retarded.
I’d say someone at Maxpedition was clever enough to troll Everyday Carry for free advertising.