Irrational Responses to Armed Defenders in Church

The recent use of arms by a skilled, armed defender, Jack Wilson, in the West Highway Church of Christ in White Settlement, Texas, was recorded on live stream video.

In spite of rapid attempts to suppress the video, it has been made available to the world, via social media and the quick actions of freedom loving activists.

The actions in the video are crystal clear. An armed, skilled, volunteer congregant stops an active murderer with one shot, after two of his friends are shot and killed. The entire action happens in six seconds.

The defender acted with skill and grace under fire. Within a few seconds, several other armed congregant volunteers converge on the downed murderer.

None of the chaos and multiple deaths, predicted by those who wish a disarmed population, happened, in spite of several armed, volunteer, congregants.

The actions and video are one of the clearest refutations of the arguments of those who want a disarmed population, that has happened in recent years.

How have those who want us disarmed, responded?

Their first, and most common response, is to retreat to their fantasy of a world without guns. From flobalob, comment at dailymail.co.uk:

Three people died because of those guns. If there were no guns nobody would have died.

There are many variations.  From a comment by RedRobinHood in the dailymail.co.uk:

 Wait a minute , the NRA made sure a madman had a gun in the first place.

This is a fantasy position. Guns are a 600 year old technology. Even with draconian controls on guns, it makes little difference in the number of illegal guns or homicides. Gun restrictions may reduce the number of legal guns; the number of legal guns has no relationship to the number of illegal guns, or the rate of homicide.

Gun bans have not reduced homicide anywhere in the world. They may have reduced murders with guns, but even that is doubtful. It did not happen in England and Wales, where it has been extensively studied. The academic works of Joyce Lee Malcolm and Constable Greenwood in Cambridge, show that clearly.

The number of guns in a country, and the gun homicide rate do not show a meaningful correlation. That argument begs the question: what is the point of reducing legal gun ownership, if it does not reduce the homicide rate?

The fantasy, held by most supporters of a disarmed population, is there is some magical policy which will make guns disappear. They say, no guns, no killing with guns. It is magical thinking, especially in the United States, with a population of 330 million, 430 million guns, billions of rounds of ammunition, and the skills and tools to produce guns and ammunition in millions of garages, hobby centers, small shops, and homes.

Essentially they are putting their fingers in their collective ears, yelling la,la,la,la... They don't like guns and they demand they go away. They expect to be able to change the reality by wishing for a different reality, where guns do not exist, cannot be made, smuggled, or sold on the black market.

The fall back position, is to claim more infringements on the Second Amendment will somehow reduce the overall number of violent deaths in society. Because homicide deaths, including homicide deaths with guns, have dropped with increasing numbers of guns, this argument depends on the number of deaths by suicide. Here is the response put forward by Moms Demand Action, the Bloomberg funded group pushing population disarmament. From momsdemandaction.org:

Once again, the gun violence crisis in Texas is in the spotlight after two people were shot and killed at a church in White Settlement on Sunday. Gun violence kills more than 3,000 Texans each year, and the rate of gun deaths in Texas increased 14 percent from 2008 to 2017.

The Texas Homicide rate in 2008 was 5.6 per 100,000, according to dps.texas.gov.

The Texas Homicide rate in 2017, was 5.0 per 100,000, according to dps.texas.gov.

The Texas homicide rate dropped 12% from 2008 to 2017.

If we look at more data, we find there was an enormous drop in both homicide and suicide (and homicide and suicide with guns) from 1991 to 2017. 

The Texas Homicide rate 1991, was 15.3 per 100,000, according to dps.texas.gov.

Using the Orwellian term "gun violence" which lumps together justified homicide, murder, suicide, and accidents, the Moms' figure for "gun violence" is 11.5 per 100K, including all causes, with 62% of that figure being suicides.

The rate of suicides with guns in Texas dropped by 23.6% from 1991 to 2015, according to The Trace, hardly a pro-Second Amendment publication.  The rate of homicides with guns dropped 61.3% during the same period, using the same source. The rate of overall homicide in Texas in 2015 was 4.8, 96% of what it was in 2017, so the firearms homicide rate in Texas is unlikely to have changed much, from 2015 to 2017.

The suicide with firearms rate in 2017 was 62% of 11.5, or 7.13 per 100,000 population, a decrease in the rate.  In 2015, it was 7.3 per 100,000. In 2016, it was 7.28 per 100,000.  These numbers show the relationship shown in the Trace article, has not changed.

The suicide rate with guns, in Texas, is about 24% lower in 2017, than it was in 1991. The homicide rate (all methods) in 2017, is  67% lower than it was in 1991. The homicide rate with guns is about 60% lower than it was in 1991.

In the period from 1991 to 2017, per capita guns in the United States increased from .857 in 1991 to 1.27 in 2017(calculated). A 47% increase in the number of guns per capita in the United States, (The numbers are not available for Texas, separately) resulted in a decrease of suicides by guns of 24% in Texas, and a decrease of homicides (all methods) of 67% in Texas.

The Moms' reach their figure of increasing "gun violence" by cherry picking the start date of their data, in 2008. 1991 was shown above, because 1991 was the peak rate shown for homicides in Texas.

Statistics can easily be manipulated to present the conclusion the author wants.

There is no correlation with gun ownership and homicides, or with gun ownership and suicides. Many countries with extremely low gun ownership have very high suicide rates. Virtually none of the policies being pushed by the people who wish the population disarmed would reduce suicides by guns or suicides overall.

Bans of semi-automatic rifles? 1 shot needed for suicide.

Bans of magazines of more than 10 shots. The same.

Bans on private sales of guns?  The vast majority of suicides have owned their guns for a long time.

The arguments used to counter the usefulness of guns for defense of self and others fail miserably.

Those who want disarmed populations argue from fantasy and emotion, because the facts do not support their arguments.

Many want to disarm everyone else, because they do not wish to bother with learning to effectively defend themselves or others.  They cry out: I don't like guns! They scare me! Make them go away! Cynical politicians hear their cries, amplify them, and use the emotion to gain power.

The emotional haters of guns need to understand: armed defenders protect them.  Private concealed carry permit holders are more law abiding than police.

Guns cannot be removed from society. To think they can is magical thinking.

Reality has a way of intruding on fantasy and magical thinking.

The defensive use of a gun to stop the killing in the West Freeway Church of Christ, is a powerful reminder of reality.

©2019 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

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