RKBA

Pretend ‘Gun-Free’ School Zones: A Deadly Legal Fiction

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David Kopel’s latest article is published in the Connecticut Law Review. Electronic version available here. The abstract:

 

Most states issue permits to carry a concealed handgun for lawful protection to an applicant who is over 21 years of age, and who passes a fingerprint-based background check and a safety class. These permits allow the person to carry a concealed defensive handgun almost everywhere in the state. Should professors, school teachers, or adult college and graduate students who have such permits be allowed to carry firearms on campus?

In the last two years, many state legislatures have debated the topic. School boards, regents, and administrators are likewise faced with decisions about whether to change campus firearms policies.

This Paper is the first to provide a thorough analysis of the empirical evidence and policy arguments regarding licensed campus carry. Whether a reader agrees or disagrees with the Paper’s policy recommendations, the Paper can lay the foundation for a better-informed debate, and a more realistic analysis of the issue.

 

Seattle Gun Ban Goes To Court

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Seattle Mayor, Greg Nickels, enacted a city-level ban on guns in public places such as public city parks. The problem here is the Mayor is attempting to have city law preempt state law, which it cannot. Even the Washington State Attorney General says this doesn’t hold water.

Consequently, a lawsuit has now been filed.

 

Ruth Bowman of the Seattle City Attorney’s office, said the city’s policy was put in place to protect “our most vulnerable and defenseless citizens, our children.”

 

Ah, they played the “won’t someone think of the children” card. So explain to me how putting law-abiding parents at a disadvantage does anything to enable those parents to protect their children. It’s not like criminals are going to obey this city ordinance, and the criminals are the ones you need to protect your children from. Or did you forget what sort of person might carry a concealed handgun? Carrying a gun does not automatically equal bad evil dangerous person. Yes bad people carry guns, but good people do too… precisely because we know there are bad people out there.

But what if…? Well, seek training.

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OK, I’ll concede.

Just because you have a license to carry a concealed handgun doesn’t mean you truly know how to use it. Oh sure, you are probably good enough on the range, in an unpressured environment, taking your time, shooting a stationary cardboard/paper target. Take a look at the shooting/skills requirements for the Texas CHL. Certainly if you can’t do that you have no business carrying. I agree with the sentiment on that page that while 70% is passing, if you can’t pass with 90% on the first cold try you should seriously consider additional training. IMHO, to obtain a CHL is not an end, it’s a beginning. Consider it your pass to take additional training. Many top training schools will only accept students with a CHL for their non-entry-level classes. The CHL demonstrates good character, demonstrates some measure of understanding handgun skills. Obtaining your CHL should (must?) be viewed not as your final destination, merely the key necessary for opening the door to better training and improved skills.

I seek to encourage people to obtain as much education and training as possible because I believe it’s important. When the shit hits the fan, will you be able to perform at the level the situation requires? My primary instructor, Karl Rehn, said it best:

Shooters, more than any other group, suffer from delusions of competence.

I know I’ve suffered from it, and probably to some extent I still do. It keeps me practicing, it keeps me taking classes, and seeking out ways to improve myself.

Why is this so important? One argument by people against concealed carry by law-abiding citizens is that the citizen might screw up, for instance, shoot an innocent bystander. The purpose of training is to minimize undesirable and maximize desirable performance. Why would you want to perform at any level less than desirable?

Nevertheless, the arguments are put forth. What prompted me to write this article was a posting made to a mailing list by J.K.:

But I don’t see how those are realistic and logical arguments. Whoever the active shooter is, like Cho at Virginia Tech, it’s going to be VERY clear to any observer who is the bad guy. He’s the one walking around shooting guns at people who are running and cowering in fear for their lives. Anyone putting fire downrange at Cho at VT would have helped the situation far more than hurt it, even if they winged or killed someone innocent downrange. How many people did Cho kill? 33? What would the total body count have been if someone had shot back in the 2nd classroom he attacked? Even assuming he wasn’t injured in that imaginary exchange, would he likely have continued calmly walking from room to room, executing students, after getting shot at? I doubt it.

So yes, innocent people MIGHT get hurt with a good samaritan gunfighter. But innocent people actually WERE getting hurt by the murderer. And without the good samaritan, MORE innocent people would be hurt, not fewer. What most people who argue against this fail to realize or recognize is that violent criminals aren’t generally looking for gunfights. They’re looking for victims. As soon as it turns into an actual fight where they’re taking fire, it dramatically alters their plans.

Look at the stats, and you’ll see that far more good than harm is done by regular citizens who attempt self-defense with a gun. The tragic stray bullet killing an innocent kid scenario pretty much never happens.

These are the facts, based upon all the active shooter situations we’ve had over the past some decades.

Nevertheless, I think with the dramatic rise in people obtaining their concealed handgun licenses, the more training we each receive the better. Not so much to ensure a minimization of collateral damage, but more to ensure a maximization of desired outcomes. If you really want to stop innocents from getting injured, we need more sheepdogs.

2A incorporation

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SCOTUS will hear if 2A applies to the states. Lots of stories online about it like here, and then background reading here.

Don’t see why it wouldn’t apply, given how just about everything else has been incorporated. It’s difficult to see how it couldn’t, but it will all come down to the details of the cases and how they are presented to the court.

But I don’t want to speculate on the outcome nor put the cart before the horse and figure what the outcome will mean. The devil will be in the details and we just have to wait.

Do church CHL bans violate the First Amendment?

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David Kopel has an interesting legal analysis of church (or other place of worship) bans on concealed carry. And this isn’t talking about “free speech”…. remember there’s other things in 1A too.

Moreover, the CHL ban also violates the Establishment clause because it favors some denominations over others. In effect, the statute privileges pacifist denominations over non-pacifist ones, by forcing the non-pacifist religions to obey pacifist standards of conduct in their own houses of worship. This is not only a Free Exercise violation, it is an Establishment clause violation, because it plainly creates the message that the pacifist way of being is the only way of being which the state will allow in any church, anywhere in the boundaries of the state.

It seems in so many ways we create problems because we poke at things too much. Consider the large structuring of laws that got us to even have to consider the above. If those laws were stripped away, we wouldn’t be having this discussion and all involved groups would be able to freely practice whatever it is they believe.

When are we going to learn to sometimes leave things alone?

What would you have done?

/ hsoi

Marko points out a thought-provoking article.

Three militants stormed into Rukhsana Kauser’s home in a remote village in Jammu region on Monday and started beating her parents in front of her.

Ms Kauser, 18, and her brother turned on the gunmen, killing one and injuring two more. Police praised their courage.

Here in the US there would be little praise for those actions, and likely followed by recommendations that people not fight back and take that course of action, and probably saying such things should call the police or just say “NO!” in a loud voice, run away, or other such fairly useless actions.

“Without saying anything they [the militants] started beating my parents and my uncle. They beat them so badly that my parents fell on the ground. I could not see that and pounced on one of the militants while my brother hit him with an axe,” she said.

“I thought I should try the bold act of encountering militants before dying.”

Ms Kauser said she grabbed one of the militants by the hair and banged his head against the wall. When he fell down she hit him with an axe, before snatching his rifle.

“I fired endlessly. The militant commander got 12 shots on his body.”

Her brother, Eijaz, 19, grabbed one of the other militants’ guns and also began shooting.

Ms Kauser said the exchanges of gunfire with the militants had gone on for four hours.

“I had never touched a rifle before this, let alone fired one. But I had seen heroes firing in films on TV and I tried the same way. Somehow I gathered courage – I fired and fought till dead tired.”

So to those that wish to ban guns, to those that feel women and elderly are better left at the mercy of predators, that feel violence is never the answer… tell me, how would you have handled this situation?

SR-22 side-effect

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As I noted a couple days ago, Ruger just introduced a new rifle, the SR-22.

The SR-22 is simple. It’s essentially a Ruger 10/22 with the wood stock removed and black plastic stuff attached to it.

Pictures would help.

Continue reading →

Subtle bias

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I am at the teacher supply store (yea iPhone!) waiting on Wife to finish shopping for some teaching supplies. While waiting I wander around looking at the teaching aids and workbooks. I happen upon the book section on social studies and government. Oh cool! A workbook on the US Constitution. I flip through it. There is a section on the second amendment. It has a brief discussion of the “controversy” of 2A. Then the question section:

On the lines below, describe one argument for and one argument against gun control.

Why not for or against the right to bear arms? for or against the right to defense? for or against the abridgement of a fundamental right?

Subtle bias?

The Bill of Rights – Amendment 2

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A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Source: The National Archives and Records Administration, “The Charters of Freedom” exhibit.

Guns on campus – one year later

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One year ago the Harrold (Texas) Independent School District did something groundbreaking: they allowed teachers and staff members to carry concealed handguns on campus, in the classroom, and — gasp — around children.

Here’s the story of how things are, one year later.

In short:

In the year since that historic decision, a gun was never brandished or fired at the school. There were no problems, [HISD Superintendent David] Thweatt said.

Granted that doesn’t mean that guns in school kept bad things from happening, but it does show that after a year with guns directly in school that nothing horrible did happen. The guns didn’t cause immediate death of all the schoolchildren. There weren’t any problems with teachers whipping out their guns to keep the kids in line. Nothing. Life just went about as normal.

So why have the guns in school? Response time, as a matter of practical importance towards keeping those kids safe:

However, one week after school began, police busted a methamphetamine lab set up in an abandoned house that sat 50 feet from the school property.

A deputy had peered inside and “saw something in the walls and windows and called for backup,” Thweatt said. “They made it to the abandoned house in 15 minutes. We had figured it would take 18 to 20 minutes in a typical situation.”

Had that been an armed intruder at his school, response time would have been too slow.

“We’re the first responders. We have to be,” Thweatt said. “We don’t have 5 minutes. We don’t have 10 minutes. We would have had 20 minutes of hell” if attackers had targeted the school.

So what did the kids think about the policy?

Harrold students, who grew up on ranches and in the middle of the North Texas gun culture, were unperturbed by the school district’s new gun policy.

“The kids just laughed about it,” Thweatt said.

It’s no big deal. Kids aren’t phased, everyone went about life as usual.

But if it is life as usual, why do it? Thweatt explains:

When a London reporter asked Thweatt to explain why so many kooks go into schools looking for a body count, Thweatt said he couldn’t explain such a devolution of society, but he did know a simple way to stop it — the same solution he chose for Harrold ISD.

“Good guys with guns — good,” he said. “Bad guys with guns — bad.”