Is The Message Clear?

On October 12, 2012 By Tom LindsayIn Politics, RKBA, Twitter1 Comment

Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.

We in the gun community use the phrase all the time. We know what it means. Don’t regulate our guns, instead, lock up the criminals. Yet, a person on the outside of the gun community doesn’t see it the same way we do.

Case in point: I ran across this today on Twitter, with the hashtag #guncontrol:

Guns don’t kill people. People kill people. Probably the most ignorant ass hat backwards slogan/statement ever!

My reply to this was simple:

The point of that statement is even if you remove all guns from the world you will still have people who will kill others.

Gun control advocates see guns as the evil common denominator in the gun violence equation, and I can understand why. They are, after all, the easiest part of the problem to see and understand. Someone is hurt or dead, and a gun was involved. If we removed the gun from the system, then no harm would have happened.

In truth, this is a simplistic and ignorant way to look at violence. It is the person who committed the violence who is at fault, not the gun. The fact that millions of guns are never involved in crime is ignored. In fact, if you were to point this out, you would probably be answered by one word: “Yet.”

Thus, we see gun “control” advocates for what they really are, even if they refuse to admit it: gun confiscation advocates.

The problem with this, of course, is that these people don’t stop to consider my counterpoint, that, even in the absence of guns, the person who committed the assault or murder remains. And, there is enough evidence from countries and regions where guns are not as easily available that these criminals would, in the absence of guns, seek other weapons, and commit the same heinous crimes.

The gun confiscation advocates also completely discount the possibility that the motives of the person holding the gun could in any way influence how the gun is used. All guns, in their eyes, are used to indiscriminately kill innocent victims. Never mind the easily completed math:

According to the GunPolicy.org, operated by the University of Sidney, there are 270,000,000 privately owned firearms in the United States. In 2009 there were 9,146 firearms-related homicides. If we assume each homicide was committed with a unique firearm (which is an over-simplification, given that we know of multiple homicides with the same gun) that leaves 269,990,854 guns which were not involved in homicides.

Given the fact that gun ownership is increasing, and gun homicide rates per unit of population are decreasing, can we infer any relationship between the two? Is it possible that these numbers of guns above the ones being used for crime are being kept by law-abiding people? Perhaps the correlation is that murders are decreasing because some potential victims are defending themselves, and because would-be murderers are thinking twice before committing crime.

Which gets back to my counterpoint. If we were to remove all guns from society, there would still exist those persons who are willing and motivated to kill. And those persons would use whatever weapons were available to do so.

Likely, the murder rate would increase, since the ability for the rest of us to defend ourselves has been reduced.

In fact, the picture is even more grim, because, honestly, there is no way to confiscate all the guns from society. Even so-called gun-free societies like Britain and Japan continue to see criminals with guns. After all, if a criminal is willing to break the law in one way – drugs, robbery, prostitution – would they not be willing to break the law by owning a gun?

That brings us back around to the original comment, that this phrase is “[p]robably the most ignorant ass hat backwards slogan/statement ever!” I have to admit, I agree to a point. It’s been taken to the point where it’s become a hackneyed phrase, and it’s obviously lost its meaning on the population in general.

So, I leave you with a task: come up with a phrase to replace “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.”

I’ll start.

Lock up the criminals, not my guns.

Yours . . . ?

And Now, For Something Completely Different

On October 2, 2012October 2, 2012 By Tom LindsayIn Knife

Today is the 25th anniversary of the release of The Princess Bride, which contains, in my opinion, the greatest Western swordfight on film.

Enjoy:

For the sake of discussion, here is the greatest Eastern swordfight.

I welcome your discussion. En garde.

Thoughts on Storage State

On September 26, 2012September 26, 2012 By Tom LindsayIn Safety, Training1 Comment

Ron at When The Balloon Goes Up and Robb at Sharp As A Marble commented today on how they store their guns when not in use. I thought I would share my thoughts.

One of the first things I did when I bought my first pistol was to buy a safe to store it in. I got a good deal on a 8 gun rifle safe, and I stored my pistol there when I wasn’t carrying it. Soon I bought a Gun Vault pistol safe, which is where I keep my carry guns.

One of my rules of thumb with anything I store is to give as much thought to the next use as I do about how it is stored. In other words, how much trouble will it be to get to and use? This is doubly so when it comes to gun storage.

My pistol safe is used to hold my carry pistols, so the pistols are stored there in Condition 1, that is, with chamber loaded, and full magazines topped off, in a holster. When I or my family are home, the door to the pistol safe is open. This gives us the quickest access if we need it.

In the picture above, you can see Liberty, my Glock 19, in the bottom of the safe, along with some papers. On the top shelf is a leather IWB holster I use to house The Duke, my G21SF, when it’s in storage. At the time of this photo, The Duke was on my hip in a leather belt holster.

In my rifle safe I keep all my long guns, and my pistols that are not being used for carry. Since these pistols are not in the normal rotation, they are not stored ready to deploy, although there are loaded magazines in my ammunition storage that can be loaded quickly. The pistols are stored either in holsters or gun socks or zip-up pistol carriers, with no magazines, and with a orange flagged safety shell in the chamber.

Rifles and shotguns, on the other hand, are stored in a semi-ready state, with loaded magazines in place or with tubes loaded, but with the bolts open and yellow chamber flags installed. (I would never store a long gun in Condition 1, because the trigger is exposed.) When needed, a user would retrieve the gun, pull out the flag, drop the bolt, and be ready to go. On the other hand, when I’m transporting them to the range, I just remove the gun, drop the loaded magazine free, and put the rifle in the car with the chamber flag intact.

Sometimes I store my guns totally inert, unloaded. In that case, they are put into treated gun socks. Right now, only Vassily my Mosin Nagant is stored that way.

However you choose to store your guns, it is essential that you do it consistently, and that everyone who might be called on to use them knows how they are stored. This is part of what we discuss in our family when we talk about our guns, and everyone knows it.

Knife Review – Gerber Dime

On September 25, 2012September 25, 2012 By Tom LindsayIn Knife, Review1 Comment

Dime folded — Gerber’s Dime, shown with a G17 magazine for size comparison

In March of this year, I bought a Gerber Dime micro multi-tool, and started carrying it as part of my EDC posse. After six months of carry, I thought I would share my experience and impressions.

The tool is very small, measuring about 2-3/4 inches long by 3/4 inch wide, by 1/2 inch thick when folded. It includes the following:

Pliers with wire cutters
Scissors
Regular blade
Box opener blade
Flat head screwdriver
Smaller screwdriver with file
Bottle opener built into the frame

The tool is very compact and sturdy. I’ve made it a point to use it in preference to other tools, and it’s held up well.

The pliers work well for their size, with good leverage and good serrated teeth. I’ve used them to hold bolts and to tighten bolts. The wire cutters worked well on small gauge wire and for cutting the ends off plastic wire ties.

The scissors are really too small to be of much good. I did use them to cut some cord, but that might have been better accomplished with a knife.

The regular knife blade did well. It is plenty sharp even after six months with no sharpening.

The box cutter blade may be the most surprising part of the tool. I’ve used it the most, to open packages and even cut through cardboard boxes to open furniture.

The screw drivers worked well enough, although their size, combined with the small handle with the tool folded, makes them not very effective with anything but the easiest of screws. The file on the small screwdriver is virtually non-usable because of its size.

Second to the box cutter blade, the bottle opener may be the most useful part. Even with the short moment arm, beer bottles were very easy to open.

The tool also comes with a small key chain loop, which I removed, because I don’t carry it on my key chain, and the loop was annoying.

Now, I tend the throw things in my pocket without doing a lot of regular maintenance, and I found, when I unfolded the Dime to take a picture for this blog, that a few of the surfaces like the scissor blades had become rusty. A few passes with a bronze brush and a wipe with the ubiquitous lightly oiled gun rag removed most of it. Also, in six months of carry with other metallic objects – keys, a folding blade knife, coins – the flat black finish has scratched off in places.

All in all, the Gerber Dime has become a welcome addition to my pocket. While it doesn’t excel at anything other than opening boxes or beer, it is useful enough to carry, especially when carried along with a simple folding blade knife.

I give the Gerber Dime 3-1/2 eye patches out of 5.

FTC disclaimer – I bought all merchandise, and there was no consideration given in exchange for this review.