Politics

More Data – and if the data points this way….

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

A study released Tuesday by the government’s Bureau of Justice Statistics found that gun-related homicides dropped from 18,253 in 1993 to 11,101 in 2011. That’s a 39 percent reduction.

Another report by the private Pew Research Center found a similar decline by looking at the rate of gun homicides, which compares the number of killings to the size of the country’s growing population. It found that the number of gun homicides per 100,000 people fell from 7 in 1993 to 3.6 in 2010, a drop of 49 percent.

Both reports also found that non-fatal crimes involving guns were down by roughly 70 percent over that period. The Justice report said the number of such crimes diminished from 1.5 million in 1993 to 467,300 in 2011.

Full story. The Associated Press’ story continues tho:

But perhaps because of the intense publicity generated by recent mass shootings such as the December massacre of 20 school children and six educators in Newtown, Conn., the public seems to have barely noticed the reductions in gun violence, the Pew study shows.

See that’s the thing. Perspective is lacking.

One event happens, the media hype machine gets fired up, and it’s blown out of proportion. I’m not saying what happened in Newtown or any school shooting should be minimized, but rather kept in perspective. I mean, how many people were killed in Chicago this past weekend, and where’s the media hype and outrage over that?

When you look at the BJS’s data, if those homicides are going down folks… why don’t you look at that? I mean, you want gun-based violence to decline, right? Well, we have a decline! Let’s try to see why!

Were guns banned? Were magazine capacities restricted? Nope. In fact if anything, anti-gun folks are going to point out how over the past 10-20 years “gun rights” have expanded, the laws have become too loose, all these states adopting concealed carry laws.

But I thought blood was going to flow in the streets, and we’d return to the Wild West with shootouts over parking spaces? If that happened, wouldn’t gun-related homicide numbers have risen?

Evidently they declined.

I don’t think we can say “expanded gun rights” is the sole cause for this decline, because factors such as the health of the economy, jobs, drugs (e.g. late 1980’s saw a rise due to crack cocaine) certainly come into the equation. But just because it’s not the sole cause doesn’t mean it’s not part of the equation, that it’s not part of the solution.

Look, when it comes to a violent crime you’re likely to be involved in, it’s going to be some criminal wants to get paid. They want what you’ve got: your money, your sexuality, your dignity, whatever… and they will stick a gun in your face to force you to give it up. The criminal wants what they want, and then they want to be able to enjoy what they get, and then be able to do it again. They want to get your wallet, get the money, buy some drugs or booze, consume the drugs or booze, then do it again. Notice that “getting shot or injured or killed” is not part of their equation? Don’t you think empowering Joe Citizen to fight back, to have it be publicly known that the citizenry is armed, that if you mug Joe you may get killed… don’t you think that’s going to have an effect upon reducing crime? If criminal doesn’t want to get shot, he’s going to be more careful or reluctant or just flat out decide to do something else (e.g. just break into a business in the middle of the night to see what he can steal… still not great he committed a crime, but at least people aren’t getting hurt, right?).

Isn’t that what is desired? To reduce the crime? to reduce the violence?

Well, the BJS’s data has shown it’s declined, despite what media hype and politician opinions lead you to believe. So when the facts and data speak, maybe you should listen.

So what are you teaching our children?

/ hsoi / 3 Comments

They claim that schools are places to teach… for students to learn.

So what lesson is being taught — and consequently learned — from this?

If the story told is facts and truth…

Yes, he brought a shotgun onto school grounds. It was a mistake. The kid’s an Eagle Scout, and he’s human too (i.e. makes mistakes, just like you do, just like school adminstrators do). The moment he realized his mistake he secured the shotgun and went to the school office to try to contend with it (have Mom come pick it up, or some such solution). He was really left with no options, because if he left school grounds that’d be cause for punishment, so what he could he do? He tried to handle it in a responsible manner, but instead he got suspended and turned over to law enforcement.

The school system is standing by their decision.

“Administration reacted promptly and the proper procedures and protocol were followed,” Jones said. “The situation was turned over to law enforcement immediately. As a result of our investigation, it is our best determination that students and staff were safe at all times.”

They were always safe and never in harms way.

But this is what “zero tolerance” policies do. In fact, it’s what policy tends to be about: something to hide behind.

There is no thinking.

There is no consideration.

There is is no accountability because you can just point to the faceless “policy” and wash your hands of everything. Even those that made the policy, if they are still around, aren’t accountable.

It’s bullshit.

Whatever happened to understanding that youth is a period in our lives rife with mistakes? Thus youth should also be a life period rife with learning and forgiveness. But alas, we’re not allowed to make mistakes anymore. What sort of society are we building?

And what lesson is Cole Withrow and the other students supposed to learn? Thinking is bad? Shirking responsibility is what you do as an adult? Because that’s certainly what “school administrative officials” are doing… all because Cole Withrow made a mistake, and sought to do the responsible thing in correcting it.

Mr. Withrow, no matter how this falls out, don’t let the actions of a few unthinking individuals color and tarnish your view of the world. Yes you made a mistake, but you handled it as right and responsibly as you could.

Evolution

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

Paula Bolyard writes:

As I listened to the police scanner during the Boston manhunt, I wasn’t thinking about “police all over the place” in the “personal security guard” sense that Feinstein seemed to be implying.

Instead, I imagined a mother huddled in the nursery with her baby. Her husband is out of town and she is also listening to the police scanner, praying the terrorist doesn’t burst through her back door.

I imagined an 85-year-old World War II veteran living alone. He fought the Nazis on foot across Europe and his government just instructed him to “shelter-in-place.” He turns out the lights in his home and hunches over his radio waiting for updates though the long night.

I wondered if they could protect themselves if the worst happened.

In the middle of that night listening to the Boston police scanner, I evolved.

I realized right then that if I were holed up in my house while a cold-blooded terrorist roamed my neighborhood, I wouldn’t want to be a sitting duck with only a deadbolt lock between me and an armed intruder. There are not enough police and they cannot come to my rescue quickly enough. They carry guns to protect themselves, not me. I knew at that instant if Dzhokhar Tsarnaev showed up at my door while I was “sheltered-in-place” and aimed a gun at my head and only one of us would live, I could pull the trigger.

You can read her complete story here.

Her story resonates with me because I too evolved. I was never against guns and wanting to ban them on the whole, but I didn’t see why anyone needed “a machine gun to hunt Bambi”. Then, Wife was sexually assaulted while taking Oldest (then an infant) out for a walk/push in his stroller. That was my evolutionary moment. It still took me a number of years to come around to owning a gun and carrying a gun, but that moment opened my eyes to many realities about life and the world. That moment set in motion my quest for knowledge, education, and enlightenment about personal safety, crime prevention, etc.. To then own and carry a gun became a logical conclusion, because when you strip away your ignorance, your bias, you emotions and all you have left is fact and harsh realities about the world? Things become pretty clear on their own.

 

An observation

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

I saw somewhere else someone making a worthwhile observation.

Bomb goes off killing and injuring many people, we blame the bomber.

Gun goes off killing and injuring many people, we blame guns.

We haven’t called for a ban on pressure cookers, or background checks, or licensing, or registration, or whatever… because we know that’s silly because the pressure cooker isn’t to blame. We haven’t called Martha Stewart evil or demonized the NRA (you know, the National Restaurant Association).

Why is this horrible event about the person that committed the act, and particular other horrible events about the inanimate object that the person used to commit the act?

I’m not trying to politicize the events, I really don’t want to do that. But it’s a fair observation that bears repeating.

Well, at least he admits it

/ hsoi

Austin Police Chief Acevedo admits his department cannot keep you safe. That the FBI can’t keep you safe. That the government cannot keep you safe.

“It really illustrates the importance of vigilance,” Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo said. “The police department can’t do it alone. The FBI can’t do it alone, government can’t do it alone. Ultimately, we’re all responsible for safety.”

Full story.

Ultimately WE are responsible for safety.

You are responsible for (your) safety.

And yet, he testifies against campus carry and recently went to Washington DC to testify in favor of gun control proposals that won’t do much to impact crime but will affect your ability to do as he says and be responsible for your own safety.

So Mr. Acevedo, which way is it? I mean, great that you say you support CHL but again, your actions don’t exactly jive.

Nevertheless, it’s nice to see the Austin Chief of Police admit and acknowledge that the only person that can be responsible for your safety is yourself, and that “others” cannot truly keep you safe.

As they say, admitting it is the first step.

 

More from the police

/ hsoi

Sheriff Shayne Heap of Elbert County Colorado. Notable is that he chastised all politicians, regardless of political affiliation — it’s more about their intent.

(h/t ENDO)

Yeah… a lot of recent posts based upon the words of law enforcement. But I figure if you’re going to talk about crime and violence, maybe those that deal with it every day might be worth listening to. I mean, going to Joe Biden for leadership on violence issues is like going to Fred Phelps for leadership on gay rights issues.

 

on first response

/ hsoi

Fine. The gun nuts are nuts. The NRA is fucked. Ted Nugent is fucking nuts. Don’t listen to them.

It seems to be accepted that it’s OK for police to have guns. We seem to be alright with the notion of relegating our protection and safety to them. We consider them the experts. Everyone I speak with and hear from that’s anti-gun seems to agree with the above. So let’s go with that premise. (BTW, I started writing this before the PoliceOne survey came out, and frankly in light of that, I think that survey and this article go together to say maybe we should consider what the police have to say, instead of Joe Biden; you know, people that have a clue instead of those that don’t).

How do the police react to mass shootings?

The speed and deadliness of recent high-profile shootings have prompted police departments to recommend fleeing, hiding or fighting in the event of a mass attack, instead of remaining passive and waiting for help.

That’s from the New York Times. I’ll be using bits of the full article throughout. The article continues:

The shift represents a “sea change,” said Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, which recently held a meeting in Washington to discuss shootings like those in Newtown, Conn., and Aurora, Colo.

The traditional advice to the public has been “don’t get involved, call 911,” Mr. Wexler said, adding, “There’s a recognition in these ‘active shooter’ situations that there may be a need for citizens to act in a way that perhaps they haven’t been trained for or equipped to deal with.”

The change started after Columbine. Traditional response was to have everyone assemble outside, set of a command post, wait for backup, wait for SWAT, then go on. All that waiting? Too much time. It allowed too much time for more people to be killed. It allowed too much time for more damage and death to be done. It was unacceptable to wait. Police procedure changed to the whole “first responder” concept, that whomever gets there first you must engage swiftly and immediately. Yes we’d all like to wait for backup, but who knows when that’s coming. We do know “you” are here now, and if you don’t act immediately then more people will die. And it tends to work out in the modern “active shooter” scenario because in the majority of cases the moment any sort of resistance appears, the shooter offs themselves. However we get them to stop, they stop and that’s the goal. Thus, we must respond and act as quickly as possible.

It’s about time we stopped preaching that the correct response is to be a victim and “just give them what they want” (but then, isn’t that what modern social thought and politics is all about?).

But to Mr. Wexler’s last point… “they haven’t been trained for or equipped to deal with”. There are ways to remedy that, and I’ll discuss them later on.

The article continues:

Research on mass shootings over the last decade has bolstered the idea that people at the scene of an attack have a better chance of survival if they take an active stance rather than waiting to be rescued by the police, who in many cases cannot get there fast enough to prevent the loss of life.

In an analysis of 84 such shooting cases in the United States from 2000 to 2010, for example, researchers at Texas State University found that the average time it took for the police to respond was three minutes.

I’ve discussed this point many times: we cannot yet bend the laws of space and time, so it still takes time for other people to get here. But do you know who is “here” right now? You.

So if a “bad thing” is happening “right here right now”, who do you think is the person able to respond first? YOU! Police arriving are technically the second responders… well, that is if you respond at all. If you curl up in a ball and wait to be murdered, well…. I guess that’s a response. But you can choose to die, or you can choose to not die.

In the absence of a police presence, how victims responded often made the difference between life and death, Dr. Blair said….  “The take-home message is that you’re not helpless and the actions you take matter,” Dr. Blair said. “You can help yourself and certainly buy time for the police to get there.”

Emphasis added. Dr. Blair’s study shows how people’s choices made a difference. Those that chose to be a “fish in a barrel” died. Those that chose to flee or fight, lived. Some even chose sacrifice of their own lives, to buy time for others to flee and live. Your choices matter and affect not only if you live or die or if others live or die. This is what we’ve learned and can see by studying all the mass shootings we’ve had so far.

Your Actions and Choices Matter

As further example of how your choices — and preparation — matter:

Kristina Anderson, 26, who was shot three times during the Virginia Tech attack, said that every situation is different but that she thinks it can help for people to develop a plan for how they might act if a mass shooting occurred.

“Everywhere I go now, I think about exits and doorways and potential places to hide and things to barricade and fight back with,” Ms. Anderson said. “Some person has to take action and lead.”

Instead of using her victim-status as a way to lobby for increased victimhood, Ms. Anderson has learned and grown from her experience. She doesn’t live in a fantasy world. She doesn’t live in “condition white”. When she goes somewhere, she looks for exits, she looks for ways to be able to manage the situation, should it happen again. Paranoid? If you want to define it that way, I guess. I think she’s a person that went through a horrible experience, is wiser for the wear, and realizes that even something with a remote chance still has a chance and it would be horrible to be caught in (again), so she’d rather not. She’d rather be prepared for what life may bring. Think how much better off she and others could have been if they knew before what they know now. So perhaps, be wise yourself and learn from her experience instead of repeating the mistakes of others.

So yes, fighting may be the right solution. Some people cannot fathom that, but I think it’s only because of the societal structure we’ve created. I know it, I was raised in it. We learned early on that “you don’t hit other people”. That hitting is wrong and not the way to solve problems. When I first became a parent, I preached the same mantra. But eventually I realized my hypocrisy in teaching this to my children, when I spent time learning martial arts and firearms and so on (because my wife had been sexually assaulted, and I wasn’t going to let that happen again) — I understood that sometimes you have to hit, that sometimes you have to engage in violence because the cost of not engaging in it could be worse. So I no longer teach or say “it’s not/never OK to hit”. Instead, I teach that it’s important to give the appropriate response. If your sibling took your cookie away, no, hitting them is not the appropriate response. If someone is trying to rape you, hitting them is a very appropriate response. What we need to shift in our culture is to accept that violence is OK, appropriate, and even our duty to utilize under the right circumstances. We need to stop  understand when it’s right to utilize.

Susan Riseling, chief of police at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, said the Virginia Tech episode changed her thinking about how to advise students because it was clear that Mr. Cho had “one goal, and that seemed to be to kill as many people as possible before ending his life.”

The department’s video, screened during training sessions around the state but not available online, tells students to escape or conceal themselves if possible, but if those options are not available, to fight. In the video, students are shown throwing a garbage can at an attacker and charging at him as a group.

“If you’re face to face and you know that this person is all about death, you’ve got to take some action to fight,” Chief Riseling said.

So according to Police Chief Riseling, here’s one of those right circumstances. Remember, the premise here is that the police are our protectors, they are the people our society grants such authority to, and we defer to as the experts on such matters. Thus if the experts and the authority are saying we should react this way… maybe we should listen.

Appropriate Response

Consider however that it’s again about appropriate response. The appropriate response may well be to flee. None if this negates the “beer & TV maxim“; in fact, it flat out encourages the maxim! You are certainly going to be able to enjoy more beer and TV if the best response for the situation is to flee! Your goal is to live, and if fleeing is the right thing to do, then do it. In fact, sometimes the right response might be to just give them your wallet. Say you have a dummy wallet with $5 and some fake cards on it; you throw that at the mugger and take off. You live. Is that a wrong response?

The thing is, a lot of folks are going to assume my solution is: get a gun. That we all should have guns, and bring back the OK Corral. Well, I do agree that firearms are useful tools and sometimes it’s the right and only tool appropriate for the task. But I am also aware that you cannot play golf with only one club in the bag (thank you, Tom).

Pepper spray can be a useful tool. It’s not necessarily going to stop an attacker, but if it enables you the window you need to escape, then it’s an appropriate and useful tool.

You know what’s even more useful? Awareness. Instead of having your head down in your iPhone and your ears plugged up with music, keep your eyes open, up, and scanning around; keep your ears listening for things. Do you know what most criminals want? an easy target. Do you know what most people say after an attack? “They just came out of nowhere.” No they didn’t, but it only seemed that way because you were unaware, they knew it, they took advantage of it.

Awareness can be even more mundane. When you enter a new building or room, look for the exits. Rather, look for the OTHER exits. Everyone knows about the exit they came in through; consequently, if something bad happens — like a fire — everyone stampedes for the door they came in. There have been more than enough stories of hundreds of people dying in club fires because everyone tried to go out the door they came in (dead bodies piled at the front door), but the back and side entrances were empty. It costs you nothing but a few seconds to find the exits, it doesn’t impede your life, and if something bad happens well… those few seconds spent are sure going to enable your life.

Do you have any medical training? Can you handle basic first aid like burns, cuts, bee stings, heat exhaustion, shock? Can you handle slightly larger issues like severe bleeding, broken bones? CPR? Heimlich Maneuver? (shout out to my buds at Lone Star Medics). If someone is choking, bleeding, or otherwise on their way to dying, again YOU are “right here right now”, YOU are the first responder. It will take time to dial 911, talk to an operator, talk to a dispatcher, convey all the information, get an ambulance dispatched, for them to fight traffic and drive to your location, to park, to come in, to assess the situation and orient themselves, then to act. It all takes time, time that may not be available to the suffering person. But what can you who is right there right now do to help?

Being Trained and Equipped to Deal With It

So this isn’t about “having a gun”. It’s about having a lot of things. It’s about being prepared. As Mr. Wexler stated at the top:

There’s a recognition… there may be a need for citizens to act in a way that perhaps they haven’t been trained for or equipped to deal with.

No one is asking you to be a hero. No one is asking you to rush in and save the day. What is being asked is to accept that the world can be full of unexpected unpleasant undesirable things. Many of these things are time-critical, where the first response is vital, and since those “right there right now” are the ones that can respond first, wouldn’t the world be a better place if citizens perhaps were trained and equipped to deal with those situations? Be it training in first aid and equipped with that knowledge and a small med kit in their purse, or training in how to run and equipped with a good pair of Nikes so you could flee, or in knowledge of how to operate a handgun and equipped with the right tools and mindset for its use.

There’s this notion of “finding common ground”. There’s this lip-service to “meeting us halfway”. To that, I offer this. We appreciate “first responders” because we know the first people on the scene are the ones that will save lives. That lives are saved because people have the knowledge, skill, and ability to act swiftly in the face of a bad situation. That the sooner the responders can respond, the better the chances are of lives being saved. That when it gets down to it, the person “right here right now” is truly the first person able to respond. Thus, shouldn’t we all work to be able to be a first responder? How you choose to respond, that’s up to you. But at least let’s come to find common ground on the premise that first response is vital to life, and there’s no one that can respond faster than those immediately there. There’s no one that can respond faster than you.

Qualifications

/ hsoi

There is something seriously wrong when the only people who are deemed qualified to educate peoople about violence are those who have either never experienced it or aggrandize themselves for having been a victim.

– Marc MacYoung

 

…but what do they know

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

Seems to be generally accepted that listening to the police is A Good Thing.

I mean, these are the people actually out there, dealing with crime and criminals on a daily basis. They might know a thing or two. Certainly when your job causes you to get shot at on a semi-regular basis, you might know something more than someone that lives in an Ivory Tower surrounded by armed guards and never has to look violence in the eye every day.

So with that, PoliceOne surveyed 15,000 law enforcement professionals about gun policy.

Bottom Line Conclusions
Quite clearly, the majority of officers polled oppose the theories brought forth by gun-control advocates who claim that proposed restrictions on weapon capabilities and production would reduce crime.

In fact, many officers responding to this survey seem to feel that those controls will negatively affect their ability to fight violent criminals.

Contrary to what the mainstream media and certain politicians would have us believe, police overwhelmingly favor an armed citizenry, would like to see more guns in the hands of responsible people, and are skeptical of any greater restrictions placed on gun purchase, ownership, or accessibility.

The officers patrolling America’s streets have a deeply-vested interest — and perhaps the most relevant interest — in making sure that decisions related to controlling, monitoring, restricting, as well as supporting and/or prohibiting an armed populace are wise and effective. With this survey, their voice has been heard.

You can read the complete survey questions and results here.

If the ACLU is expressing concern….

/ hsoi

… that’s gotta tell you something.

The ACLU has never been much of a friend to gun rights, so when they come out with some hefty reservations about the .gov’s gun control bill?  that ought to tell you something about how crappy the legislation is.

Again, I know of no gun owner that doesn’t want to solve the real problems. But so far there haven’t been any proposals that actually solve the real problems. We just keep getting crap laws like those being passed in New York, Connecticut, Maryland, Colorado, and now being proposed on the federal level. Again, if the ACLU thinks the wording of the bill is dangerous, perhaps y’all should listen.

I’ve been a card-carrying member of the ACLU in my past, and I still generally support them because we need groups like them. I wish they weren’t so pick-and-choose about what Constitutional rights they opt to support, but I’m still glad they’re here.