JOHNSON: Handguns and self-defense? Please
By Bill Johnson, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)
Published July 2, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.
The gun nuts have been after me for nearly a week now, licking their chops, wanting to know where I fell on the Supreme Court's decision affirming an individual's right to own a handgun for private use and self-defense.
It is a fair question.
For the record, I still deserve to be on the National Rifle Association's so-called blacklist. I still believe handguns to be an abomination. The sheer human toll in lost and ruined lives related to their ready availability, ease of concealment and use far outweighs any benefit.
My beliefs are based on my upbringing, the places I have lived, the friends I've witnessed being buried and the profession I undertook more than three decades ago.
I have seen the aftermath. I've written many stories about what humans do with handguns. I must tell you damn little of it had anything to do with self-defense. It is probably why I don't own one.
On the other hand, I do own a small arsenal of shotguns and long rifles. But none were purchased with the idea of defending my own modest castle.
I suppose you could maybe take down an elk or mule deer with the right handgun, pop the odd duck or goose out of the sky, but why would you even try?
That I can also defend my home, if need be, with my hunting weapons is a nice benefit, one that I think is likely more in line with the Founders' intent when they initially considered the Second Amendment.
But, cutting hard to the question: Yes, I think the Supreme Court got it right. I am all for local control of handguns, but for any municipality to simply ban them outright goes too far.
A man should be able to defend his castle. The problem is that it's hardly ever as simple as that.
Denver's law, I think, hits the right note. It bans assault weapons and so-called "Saturday night specials," prohibits openly carrying firearms and requires their safe storage in homes where children are present. Not one of those rules is necessarily onerous if the true goal is self-defense.
Yet rarely, rarely does the use of handguns - particularly in this town - have anything to do with self-defense.
I have been through this argument with the gun nuts - er, pro-gun activists - multiple times. They point me to these obscure Web sites that detail dozens of Joe Everydays in some little town around Kentucky or Georgia, fending off the criminal horde with his .38.
The local papers, they insist, just don't report such stories. Nonsense. If there is a body in the morgue here with a bullet in it, we report it.
Most of what we report only reaffirms my belief: Handguns are an abomination. Go back only a day in the paper - two days. Make it a week. A Lakewood police officer and his former-officer wife are both found shot to death in their Commerce City home on Monday, victims of an apparent murder-suicide.
Ready availability, ease of use?
OK, you say, both were department- armed cops.
Explain, then, the case of Jesse Smith, 30, of Broomfield, who remains in critical condition with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.
Before shooting himself, police said, he shot a 28-year-old man in the abdomen. Was that man an intruder?
Broomfield police spokesman Sgt. Scott Swenson on Tuesday still would not comment on the reason for the shootings, other than it was triggered by an argument between the two men.
Ready availability. Ease of use.
A 25-year-old Longmont man was arrested for shooting a 42-year-old man Saturday night.
Surely he shot an intruder.
No, he is alleged to have shot his own father, also during an argument.
Do I have to say it again?
A guy with a handgun and a guy with a shotgun exchange fire in a LoDo parking lot as the bars are letting out. Denver cops shoot and kill one of them.
A shocked Mayor John Hickenlooper proposes that downtown bars stagger closing hours to head off future gunplay. Bar owners yawn.
We could, of course, reach back beyond Sunday, but we have run out of room.
johnsonw@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2763.
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July 2, 2008
5:33 a.m.
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blacksho89 writes:
June 237, 1996. Golden, CO. My ex-girlfriend's brother, angry, large, and spoiling for a fight, yanks my truck door open in preparation for an aggravated assault.
I show him my loaded handgun. He stops, turns, gets in his truck, and drives away.
A rifle would have been useless in this case. There is not enough room to use it in the cab of a pickup,.
No police report; it's not worth it. No further contact with my assailant.
Good enough for you, Bill?
July 2, 2008
6:38 a.m.
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freethinker07 writes:
We have no civil right to police protection. The police can decide that you aren't worth protecting even with a crime in progress. I know of a city where that happened with shop lifting. The police refused to respond to a shoplifting in progress but when the store manager said that they would find bodies if the alley, suddenly there were three cops available.
Some years ago in Denver, the police stopped a young couple in a high crime section of Denver. They arrested the man and left the woman on the street late at night without transportation. She was raped by strangers. She sued the city and got nowhere because she had no right to police protection.
Johnson, you are deliberately misconstruing a valid point. When someone defends themselves and no one is injured, the newspapers do not report it. Do victims have to shoot the assailant just to get your attention?
If blacksho89's story had happened in Denver this year, he could have gone to jail for having the loaded gun.
Why do you find it necessary to call the people you disagree with names? "gun nuts" is as useful a term as "pinko commies." Grow up.
July 2, 2008
8:09 a.m.
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unvarnished_truth writes:
According to Bill Johnson, handguns have nothing to do with self-defense. A corollary to his premise is that long guns and shotguns would suffice in virtually all self-defense scenarios. And he doesn't like the countless studies to which his attention has been drawn by the "gun nuts" that show that handguns DETER or PREVENT crime. (By some accounts, there are about two million incidents of incipient crime that are thwarted by defensive guns -- primarily handguns -- each year in the U.S.)
Okay, no studies will be cited here. But look at just two examples of self-defense handgun usage which even Johnson cannot refute.
Police carry guns for their own defense and that of the general public when a crime is the process of being commited. They do not strap on bolt-action hunting rifles to their hips. They carry, um, handguns -- almost always nowadays semi-automatic pistols of various defensive calibers. You never see a cop with a 28-inch barreled shotgun strapped to his hip, either. Wonder why that is.
Military personnel -- that is soldiers, Marines, Navy SEALs and so forth -- who fight on the ground carry rifles of some sort for offensive action against the enemy, and sidearms -- which are handguns -- as backup self-defense weapons. You don't ever see military fighters carrying rifles or shotguns in hip holsters.
Let's see: millions of people in harm's way -- police, military, security personnel in both government and private service -- carry handguns for self-defense, by edict of their respective leaders and because handguns are the tool of choice for defensive armament. Not one of these personnel puts rifles in hip holsters or tries to carry a 40-inch rifle or shotgun concealed under a jacket.
Handguns are an "abomination" but high-powered hunting rifles (with projectiles with hugely greater physical energy) are okay for self-defense? Even a .40-caliber handgun round will usually stop within the intended target and not go on to destroy unintended and innocent people behind the perp. A hunting round, with perhaps six or more times the energy, will penetrate a perp and keep on going to do countless more damage behind the target.
When attacking handguns, liberals often use the ploy that they own guns themselves, just not handguns, to make their pathetic illogic unassailable by "gun nuts." It never works, as can be seen in Johnson's latest vacuous screed. The only abomination here is the utter disconnect from reality so typical of the liberal hatred of and disdain for personal responsibility: guns don't commit crimes, people do.
July 2, 2008
8:28 a.m.
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bonnie writes:
Guns kill people like spoons made Rosie O'Donald fat.
July 2, 2008
9:06 a.m.
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T1anda writes:
You hit the nail on the head U-Truth!!!! Kudos!!
July 2, 2008
9:31 a.m.
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RMGO writes:
Denver's assault weapons ban? It only bans hi-capacity (I prefer to call them normal capacity) magazines.
http://rmgo.org/faq/#AssaultWeapons
Bill, you seem to attribute a malice to an inanimate object (your guns are ok, but not other people's).
Perpetuating the elitist media stereotype. Well done.
July 2, 2008
10:36 a.m.
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Ted_in_Vegas writes:
May 23, 1998, southbound I-25 on Monument Hill. A road rage incident where some guy is trying to run me off the road. I call 911 and CSP says they'll have a state trooper call my cell phone (yikes, calling while driving...) but no State Trooper ever calls.
I pull off and park in the McDonalds, road-rage guy comes in behind me. He gets out with a tire iron; I pull out my .40cal Glock. (My 30-06 wouldn't have fit in the waistband of my jeans {I had a CCW permit}). He yells, cries, gets back into his rice-burner and drives off. I get a QuarterPounder with Fries and a Coke.
No State Trooper ever shows. No police report made. No public record because nothing more happened.
Sammy Adams here makes a fatal mistake in his logic that is common amongst gun-grabbers, of any kind. They seem to think that the only type of gun use in self defense involves a dead assailant; however, it has been proven that in more than 93% of all uses of guns in self-defense don't involve a shot being fired - the mere threat of the guns' use is enough to scare away the perp. Out of the other 7% of occasions you have: shots fired missing everyone - 4%; shots fired, hitting the perp but not killing him - 2%; and shots fired killing the perp - 1%. Big difference if you're only looking at that 1%.
July 2, 2008
1:42 p.m.
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Frank25 writes:
Bill Johnson. I am 79 years old, served military 26 years 18 days and Honorably retired 1976. Traveled across country many times between assignments, and have always carried. Have not shot or killed anyone, but pistol shown 4 different times kept my family and I safe in those travels. I would suggest you watch todays news of palestinian who went on bulldozer rage and killed-injured many more until dispatched with a pistol. I grew up on farms in Ohio where every family had pistols, rifles, and shotguns as tools and none of my family has ever been arrested for improper use. I would choose to live next to Joe Horn (TX) before living next to you (since you proclaim no pistols). Joe Horn used shotgun but had time to prepare. Also Police are not body guards to citizens. They are there to collect the bodies, evidence, and testify in court. Similar to garbage collectors in the modern era. There was a time when you called police and they responded, but all the lawsuits, being put on trial themselves first if something happens, and with racist complaints, they wait until they can appear in force. When was the last time you saw a policeman come alone, about anything? First they have to be lawyers, then police. You have not convinced me with this editorial. US Constitution allows me to defend myself. Colorado Constitution even expands "that citizens can keep and use firearms to defend themselves, their homes, and their possessions. And I do not belong to NRA, and am not a gun nut. Just a responsible US citizen, of Colorado, a husband, father, and grandfather.
July 2, 2008
1:59 p.m.
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Frank25 writes:
I want to add another comment to supplement first on this issue.
When any area, school, court, airport, bar, restuarant, library, store - whatever lists their facility as GUN FREE - it becomes incumbent on that management ensure the safety of any and all those who use their facilities. Gun free zones are shooting galleries for the unbalanced or individual desiring 15 minues of fame.
WE ARE A COUNTRY OF LAWS, BUT ARE ACTING MORE AND MORE AS SOCIALIST, MARXIST, COMMUNIST, DICTATOR GOVERNMENT WITH EVERY STATUTE WRITTEN. Legislators follow fears of the paranoid, and try to predict, then avoid letting those fears be realized. We are either a free country, to be punished for what we do, AND NOT punished for what we might do. Lawyers and doctors can spin any and all such cases, but innocent persons are dead, without justice. What is not reasonable about this opinion?
July 2, 2008
2:24 p.m.
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CoLoradoCitizen writes:
Bill, you nailed it. Your commentary was logical, precise, and accurate. Loaded with common sense. ............ which is why so many are fueled with anger over it. DON'T confuse them with the facts, they have been born n raised to live in fear, and taught that they need a gun! All these comments claim "93% of burglaries, etc. are halted by homeowner with a gun". Funny thing is, when I use statistics, I also include a link from where the data came from. That is strangely missing from these fear-the-gubbament-militia folks commenting here. There is no question that hand guns result in far more senseless killing in anger than crimes they prevent. No question. Do you want to protect your home? Google Pepper spray. I got some real powerful stuff on-line that replaces a hand gun just fine.
July 2, 2008
2:38 p.m.
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Cowboy63 writes:
Use whatever you want to protect your home and family. Pepper spray, 2x4, baseball bat, shotgun or .357 magnum. If you don't like handguns - don't buy one.
This is AMERICA and it's called FREEDOM. It's always that damned, pesky FREEDOM that just drives the left crazy!
"From my cold, dead hands!" (Charlton Heston, RIP)
July 2, 2008
2:49 p.m.
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Marshdale writes:
Bill you know me. I would agree that hand guns do cause a lot of harm in society, but I don't think that should preclude law abiding citizens from owning or carrying one. I have actually had to flash one once. It did scare the would be assailant away. However, had I shot him away from my home and no witnesses present, I'm not sure how the prosecuting attorney would see it. There are a lot of problems with the self defense argument. I'm not sure he would see it as self defense. That is scary. He might see me as an over the top kind of nut, especially if the assailant was unarmed. How could I argue self defense without a wittness or a $250,000 attorney? This issue is not clear to me. I find it all very baffleing. Could someone who is legally qualified please answer these questions?
July 2, 2008
5:13 p.m.
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Al_Sleet writes:
Hey CoLoradoCitizen,
It's funny how you criticize the pro-gun folks for citing statistics without providing sources, and then you follow that by saying, "There is no question that hand guns result in far more senseless killing in anger than crimes they prevent. No question." Would you like to cite your source on that, or would you prefer to maintain the appearance of a hypocrite?
July 2, 2008
11:09 p.m.
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arby writes:
bill,
I hate it when you make sense. Then I don't have anything to whine about.
Handguns only have one purpose and that is to kill another human. All of the stories posted above are probably true but there was most likely another way out if you didn't have a gun. I have a ball bat. I think that will do the job. I also have a couple of target pistols but I don't carry them in my car or leave them where I can kill someone. This walking around armed like we are still in the Old West is stupid and very dangerous to puppies and little children. Let alone your fellow "adult"
July 2, 2008
11:14 p.m.
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arby writes:
BTW
The cops have a shotgun in their car.
July 2, 2008
11:27 p.m.
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arby writes:
BTW
The only ones I saw when I was in the USMC that had side arms were the MP's and some officers. Everyone else had a rifle that was locked in a rifle rack unless you were going to clean it or use it. Any privately owned weapons had to be checked into the armory and checked out for an explained use. Now I'm not saying everyone followed the rules. But the rules were in place.
And those cops will use their batons before their guns. Don't ask.
July 3, 2008
12:58 a.m.
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WestminsterJ writes:
TedinVegas- Ever wonder what would have happened if your assailant had had a gun too? All the happy endings I'm hearing about here only happened because the other guys hadn't availed themselves of their "second amendment rights".
July 3, 2008
8:31 a.m.
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Tom writes:
"From my cold, dead hands!" (Charlton Heston, RIP)
Anybody else see the Onion newspaper the week after Heston died? The headline read, "Charlton Heston's gun taken from his cold, dead hands."
Made my day.
July 3, 2008
9:25 a.m.
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Ted_in_Vegas writes:
Westminster J: If he'd had a gun and pointed it at me, I'd shot him, dead-center of mass. Why? Don't you think I have a right to protect myself? Obviously the Colorado State Patrol didn't care too much, why should I be stupid enough to depend on the police for my own safety?
You know, with more than 10 million CCW permits issues throughout the country, you'd think there was mass-mayhem in the streets. Check the crime statistics at FBI's website, murder and violent crime are down...
July 3, 2008
9:27 a.m.
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Ted_in_Vegas writes:
Never pull out a gun unless you're willing to use it. I was willing but glad I didn't have to.
July 3, 2008
12:55 p.m.
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Ted_in_Vegas writes:
Hey RickyLee, Florida has, what, a million CCW permits issued? Their murder rate fell precipitously since the early 1990s when they passed their CCW law...
July 3, 2008
1:03 p.m.
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Ted_in_Vegas writes:
Oh, and as of 2006, only 7 CCW permit holders were charged with using their concealed weapons illegally...
July 3, 2008
2:40 p.m.
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SON writes:
Im glad that this many people are into the gun control laws. I'v never seen so many entries on the blog. Shows what's important in their lives. For those of you with your success stories next time just drive away. (that's why she is your ex..... IDIOT). I'm just glad that most of you gun nuts can read. As for the rest of you just glad that there are twenty of you that do the right thing in this world. Bill keep up the good work and if anyone else has a problem with your opininon send them my way.
July 3, 2008
2:41 p.m.
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arby writes:
Ricklee
I made 3 posts because I think slow. Anyway I didn't mention CCW or taking anyones gun away. In fact I said I have 2 target pistols. I think we should have the right to own whatever weapon we want including Samuri swords. I have two of them. and a large collection of knives and long guns. So I'm not a pacifist.
I just don't see the need to go around armed with a concealed weapon. It seems to me it's only asking for trouble. And yes the cops do have a scatter gun in their car. They would rather bat you about with the nightstick though. More fun and usually the "prisoner" survives. Can't be so sure with a 9mm.
July 3, 2008
4:24 p.m.
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Ted_in_Vegas writes:
Son, you're an idiot if you think you could've just "driven away" from the confrontation I had; the other driver had attempted to run me off the road despite the fact that my little Tercel was pushing 100 mph down Monument Hill to get away from him. Just goes to show how simple minded the gun-grabbers are.
The safest thing I could do is what I did do, confront the perp. It worked.
This whole little-child concept of "just walk (drive) away" is just so stupid. There are people who, for whatever reason, won't let you walk or drive away.
An ex-con walks into a restaurant and starts shooting people randomly; do you just walk away?
A man walks up to you and your wife in a deserted parking lot and tries to rape your wife while pointing a gun at you; do you just walk away? (Happened recently here in Vegas, rapist got himself dead).
Two psychos walk into a school loaded down for a terrorist hit and succeed in killing 13; do you just walk away?
A guy is trying to run you off the road from some perceived slight and will not back off or back down, follows you to a parking lot where you hope to find some cops (you don't) and gets out with a tire-iron with the intent to implant it into the side of your head; do you just walk away? How? He's already shown an urgent desire to kill, are you stupid enough to think he'll now let you walk away?
You should thank God that you haven't run into anyone like that yet. If/ when you do, you better pray to God that someone like RickyLee, Blacksho89 or myself are around to protect you or you'll be dead, your wife raped, and/or your future destroyed.
Oh, and don't be stupid enough to think the police are there to protect you; they're not. The purpose of the police is to catch the perp after he/she has had his/her way with you.
July 3, 2008
10:53 p.m.
Suggest removal
Mike846 writes:
"Gun free zones"...what does THAT mean to a) an unbalanced nut case like the Columbine boys or the guy at Virginia Tech, or b) a hardened criminal bent on robbery or worse. "Oh, look, its a gun-free zone...guess I better not go in there." On the other hand, examples abound of one trained, armed citizen preventing more carnage, like the brave woman at the Colorado Springs church earlier this year. Faced with an armed opponent, and being shot at, the potential mass murderer decided it was better to take his own life. People do stupid things with cars, drugs, knives, baseball bats, etc. The only people who continue, year after year, to attempt to outlaw the legal, background checked buying and holding of firearms are the "liberal" politicians who worry what might happen if people ever get sick of them taking away their money and freedom by incriments. Government already takes and redistributes about 30% of every working man's paycheck. In return, they then redistribute it to buy votes from "oppressed" people. Wake up folks, and start throwing these idiots out of office at every opportunity. The people should not fear their government; the government should fear the people. Based on the constant drumbeat to outlaw weapons with laws that only the law-abiding will follow, anyway, its clear a lot of folks in government DO fear the people. Lets keep it that way. Mike
July 4, 2008
7:56 p.m.
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hghunter writes:
Bill Johnson said: I suppose you could maybe take down an elk or mule deer with the right handgun, pop the odd duck or goose out of the sky, but why would you even try?
The simple answer is "The challenge of it". Same answer as for those who choose to hunt with stick & string. I know, as I have been hunting with a handgun for 24 years. I have filled many deer tags with a handgun. I have killed a buffalo with a .44 magnum revolver. (To the critics: It was NOT a "canned" hunt, it was fair chase, and the buff definitely had opportunity to dance on my head).
Bill seems to be completely oblivious to the fact that there is a large community of hunters out there that prefer to hunt with a handgun. I expect that he is also oblivious to many other facts in the hunting and shooting community.
So my suggestion would be that he should write articles on subjects that he actually posseses knowledge on. What? Oh, it's an opinion column? Oh. OK, then in my opinion, teal is prettier than green. That statement is every bit as valid as Bill's entire column.
hghunter
July 4, 2008
8:04 p.m.
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hghunter writes:
Sorry, forgot to mention - if you start trying to pop ducks or geese with a handgun, you will have a definite problem with the first DOW officer you meet, as it is illegal under Federal law (Migratory Bird Act).