This is the stuff that gives gun owners a bad name...

[RyNo24]

I just found this article on MSNBC sports, that says guns only endanger people and you are stupid, scarred, and trying to be a "man" for carrying one. This is the stuff that a lot of people read and form opinions on gun owners without any real facts. It annoys me, that authors spew this stuff without looking up facts and real-life acounts. If I was a star, I would always be carrying a gun (legal unlike Burres), there are a lot of crazy people out there, and I want to be in my full power to protect myself. Also, Burres is dumb and also gives a lot of gun owners a bad name by carrying a loaded, unlicensed gun "gangsta" style in his belt. Again, I worry that a lot of people generalize off these isolated and over-blown events. Out of so many legal CW carriers how many have shot themselves in the leg... I own a gun for recreation and personal defense, not to feel like a man.

Granted, he is correct that a lot of people especially athlete's need to remember that the gun is not a force field of safety, rather a tool for better self-defense. A gun will not always guarantee you safety, but a lot of times it will improve your odds. Also, he is also correct that athletes need to be smarter with their guns, like having the correct permits, and buying a holster... I think someone who makes millions can front the money for a belt holster.

Article:
http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/28004631/

[rybo]

This reminds me of an encounter I had a couple of years ago at a local firing range.

A local basketball star showed up to shoot with a couple of his friends. He brought a collection of handguns just thrown into a backpack all together. No cases, no nothing, just a bunch of hardware clanking together. There was some junk in there to be sure, but also some really nice hardware. A couple of Kimbers at least. Anyways midway through my shooting session one of his friends asks if I think I can help him out. He had shot once and the gun he was shooting jammed. I took a look at it (it was a very nice custom Kimber 1911) and asked him how many rounds he put in it. Eleven, he said. Now this is a single stack .45 and should hold 7 rounds max. I ask him to show me the bullets he put in and he shows me a box of 9mm. After assuring that the gun HAD fired (I asked 3 times) I was able to clear the jam and open the chamber. The extractor had captured the round exactly right and the firing pin had struck the primer dead center. He was really lucky that the round didn't jam in the barrel on it's way out.

I showed him how to read the side of the gun and the box of ammo to make sure he was putting the correct ammo in whatever gun he was shooting.

[DavidofColorado]

To be fair to all gun owners. He isn't a representative of us and shouldn't be confused with all gun owners. He is just a guy looking to protect himself and the media has used this as a example of all of us. This is why you see stories like this one and never a story about a single mother using a firearm to shoot a rapist in her bedroom. Although it would make for a better story and be used as example of good gun owners its never used.

[mtnairlover]

It's no different than a conservative news agency printing a story about a tree-hugger, blowing it out of proportion, because they don't agree with the tree-hugger and effectively smearing the tree-hugger community's reputation all over the place like sap.

;-)

[DARK ANGEL]

This reminds me of an encounter I had a couple of years ago at a local firing range.

A local basketball star showed up to shoot with a couple of his friends. He brought a collection of handguns just thrown into a backpack all together. No cases, no nothing, just a bunch of hardware clanking together. There was some junk in there to be sure, but also some really nice hardware. A couple of Kimbers at least. Anyways midway through my shooting session one of his friends asks if I think I can help him out. He had shot once and the gun he was shooting jammed. I took a look at it (it was a very nice custom Kimber 1911) and asked him how many rounds he put in it. Eleven, he said. Now this is a single stack .45 and should hold 7 rounds max. I ask him to show me the bullets he put in and he shows me a box of 9mm. After assuring that the gun HAD fired (I asked 3 times) I was able to clear the jam and open the chamber. The extractor had captured the round exactly right and the firing pin had struck the primer dead center. He was really lucky that the round didn't jam in the barrel on it's way out.

I showed him how to read the side of the gun and the box of ammo to make sure he was putting the correct ammo in whatever gun he was shooting.

wow, i would have told him to leave for not knowing what he was doing and putting people in danger from throwing 9mm lead through a .45

[DavidofColorado]

It's no different than a conservative news agency printing a story about a tree-hugger, blowing it out of proportion, because they don't agree with the tree-hugger and effectively smearing the tree-hugger community's reputation all over the place like sap.

;-)

Apples and Oranges. But if there is a media conspiracy out there to smear tree huggers I haven't seen it. They never tell the story in as dark as gun owners. You never hear about the tree huggers stealing someones grandma to blackmail the grandkids into giving up the family business of leather making.

They got it so bad that the public isn't even made aware of their most egregious acts.

[puckstr]

This reminds me of an encounter I had a couple of years ago at a local firing range.

A local basketball star showed up to shoot with a couple of his friends. He brought a collection of handguns just thrown into a backpack all together. No cases, no nothing, just a bunch of hardware clanking together. There was some junk in there to be sure, but also some really nice hardware. A couple of Kimbers at least. Anyways midway through my shooting session one of his friends asks if I think I can help him out. He had shot once and the gun he was shooting jammed. I took a look at it (it was a very nice custom Kimber 1911) and asked him how many rounds he put in it. Eleven, he said. Now this is a single stack .45 and should hold 7 rounds max. I ask him to show me the bullets he put in and he shows me a box of 9mm. After assuring that the gun HAD fired (I asked 3 times) I was able to clear the jam and open the chamber. The extractor had captured the round exactly right and the firing pin had struck the primer dead center. He was really lucky that the round didn't jam in the barrel on it's way out.

I showed him how to read the side of the gun and the box of ammo to make sure he was putting the correct ammo in whatever gun he was shooting.

That dumbass needs to take BASIC firearms training FIRST.

[CYCLE_MONKEY]

This reminds me of an encounter I had a couple of years ago at a local firing range.

A local basketball star showed up to shoot with a couple of his friends. He brought a collection of handguns just thrown into a backpack all together. No cases, no nothing, just a bunch of hardware clanking together. There was some junk in there to be sure, but also some really nice hardware. A couple of Kimbers at least. Anyways midway through my shooting session one of his friends asks if I think I can help him out. He had shot once and the gun he was shooting jammed. I took a look at it (it was a very nice custom Kimber 1911) and asked him how many rounds he put in it. Eleven, he said. Now this is a single stack .45 and should hold 7 rounds max. I ask him to show me the bullets he put in and he shows me a box of 9mm. After assuring that the gun HAD fired (I asked 3 times) I was able to clear the jam and open the chamber. The extractor had captured the round exactly right and the firing pin had struck the primer dead center. He was really lucky that the round didn't jam in the barrel on it's way out.

I showed him how to read the side of the gun and the box of ammo to make sure he was putting the correct ammo in whatever gun he was shooting.

What an idiot. You're assuming he can even read. As 9mm=.3543296in, I can't imagine the slug jamming, but if it had fired, I can imagine the unsupported case splitting and causing damage or at least getting stuck.

[DavidofColorado]

This reminds me of an encounter I had a couple of years ago at a local firing range.

A local basketball star showed up to shoot with a couple of his friends. He brought a collection of handguns just thrown into a backpack all together. No cases, no nothing, just a bunch of hardware clanking together. There was some junk in there to be sure, but also some really nice hardware. A couple of Kimbers at least. Anyways midway through my shooting session one of his friends asks if I think I can help him out. He had shot once and the gun he was shooting jammed. I took a look at it (it was a very nice custom Kimber 1911) and asked him how many rounds he put in it. Eleven, he said. Now this is a single stack .45 and should hold 7 rounds max. I ask him to show me the bullets he put in and he shows me a box of 9mm. After assuring that the gun HAD fired (I asked 3 times) I was able to clear the jam and open the chamber. The extractor had captured the round exactly right and the firing pin had struck the primer dead center. He was really lucky that the round didn't jam in the barrel on it's way out.

I showed him how to read the side of the gun and the box of ammo to make sure he was putting the correct ammo in whatever gun he was shooting.

+1. I had someone tell me once that you could shoot a 9mm out of a .40 s&w gun. I showed him that a whole 9mm would slide unimpeded out the barrel of a .40 cal. gun. And that would be very bad if shot. He said that 2pac told him that it could be done that way.

[Wyck]

Sigh, just one more thing I still have yet to learn how to do. I just spent all my money on getting started snowboarding so I guess this will have to wait. Though if anyone can recommend some good but cheap classes I'd consider tossing some money that direction after Christmas.

[Rhino]

The ESPN guy seems more upset with the players having guns "just to be badasses". It turns out Buress had a CCW in FL. for 5 years but it expired in May. You would think someone making that kind of money could afford a nice IWB holster


By John R. Lott, Jr.
Author/Senior Research Scholar, University of Maryland

Banning guns is in the news. India practically bans guns, but that didn’t stop the horrific Muslim terrorist attacks this last week. A football player concerned for his safety violates New York City’s tough gun control regulations by carrying a concealed handgun, and people call for everything from banning NFL players from carrying guns to demanding that the athlete serve many years in jail.

When police can’t promise to protect law-abiding citizens such Plaxico Burress or the victims in India, why don’t we allow people the right to protect themselves?

Where is the sympathy or debate in either case over letting people defend themselves? Given that the terrorists smuggled their machine guns in with them, would anyone argue that India’s extremely strict gun licensing and artificially high prices for guns helped prevent the terrorist attacks? In fact, the reverse is more likely the case.

Would Plaxico Burress, the New York Giant’s receiver who was arrested yesterday, really have been safer just trusting the police to protect him?

Terrorism

In India, victims watched as armed police cowered and didn’t fire back at the terrorists. A photographer at the scene described his frustration: “There were armed policemen hiding all around the station but none of them did anything. At one point, I ran up to them and told them to use their weapons. I said, ‘Shoot them, they’re sitting ducks!’ but they just didn’t shoot back.”

Meanwhile, according to the hotel company’s chairman, P.R.S. Oberoi, security at “the hotel had metal detectors, but none of its security personnel carried weapons because of the difficulties in obtaining gun permits from the Indian government.”

India has extremely strict gun control laws, but who did it succeed in disarming?

The terrorist attack showed how difficult it is to disarm serious terrorists. Strict licensing rules meant that it was the victims who obeyed the regulations, not the terrorists.

Academic research has continually found that police are the single most important factor in reducing crime, but police can’t always be depended on to be quick enough.

The attack also illustrates what Israelis learned decades ago. — Putting more soldiers or police on the street didn’t stop terrorist’s machine gun attacks. Terrorists would either wait for the armed soldiers or police to leave the area or kill them first. Likewise, in India, the Muslim terrorists’ first targets were those in uniform (whether police or security guards).

Terrorists only stopped using machine guns to attack Israelis once citizens were allowed to carry concealed handguns. In large public gatherings, a significant number of citizens will be able to shoot at terrorists during an attack — and the terrorists don’t know who has them.

With mass shootings becoming more difficult, terrorists were forced to switch to a less effective strategy: bombs. Bombings are more difficult for armed citizens to stop because they can’t respond after the bomb blows up.

Still, even though handguns can only kill would-be bombers before they set off their bombs, during waves of terror attacks, Israel’s national police chief will call on all citizens who are allowed to carry guns to make sure they carry their firearms at all times, and Israelis have many examples where citizens with concealed handguns have saved lives.

In their warped minds, both terrorists and the murderers are kamikaze-like killers, who value maximizing the carnage. Even if the killers expect to die anyway, letting victims have guns at the scene can help deter these crimes in the first place by reducing their expected return.

Do Football Players Need Self-Defense?

Physically huge NFL players admitting they feel threatened by crime? This hardly fits their tough, macho image. Our concern is supposed to be for women walking alone at night. Who can have sympathy for a professional football player such as Plaxico Burress who is 6 feet 5 inches and weighs 232 lbs.?

Burress, who has no previous criminal record, now faces between three and a half to 15 years for illegally carrying a concealed handgun with him in Manhattan, if convicted. He was arrested Monday and was released on $100,000 bail. — Burress had had a concealed handgun permit in the state of Florida for the last five years, but he forgot to renew it in May this year.

While the massive size and strength of NFL players might make them seem like unlikely potential crime victims, their wealth and high public profile nonetheless make them particularly attractive targets for violent criminals. While “only” two players were murdered last year, that means a murder rate of 118 per 100,000 people, compared to 5.9 per 100,000 for the rest of the population. In other words, the rate for NFL players was 20 times higher than the average for the rest of the country. This is even higher than the most at risk segment of the population -– young black males between 18 and 24. It is even higher than the risk faced by police officers.

Last year, the Washington Redskins’ Sean Taylor was killed during a robbery at his house. The Denver Broncos’ defensive back Darrent Williams was killed outside a nightclub.

As Tampa Bay Buccaneers cornerback Ronde Barber noted, “We are targets, we need to be aware of that everywhere we go.” Yet, the news coverage doesn’t engender much sympathy for Plaxico Burress.

So, what do many NFL players do when they realize that their physical strength does not give them enough protection from violent crime? The same thing that many other would-be victims do — they get guns. Well over 50 percent of NFL players are estimated to own guns, somewhat higher than the 45 percent of American adults who own guns.

Not everyone approves. Mike Ditka, the Hall of Fame tight end and former Chicago Bears football coach, advocates banning NFL players from owning guns. Ditka said, “I don’t understand the league, why can anybody have a gun? I will have a policy, no guns, any NFL players we find out, period, you’re suspended.” AOL Sports writer Michael Smith also supports the ban and says, “If you carry a gun around, you’re more likely to hurt yourself than protect yourself.”

It would be great if the police were always there to rescue would-be victims, but as the police themselves understand, they virtually always arrive on the scene after the crime has already occurred. Fortunately, just as criminals are deterred by higher arrest rates or longer prison sentences, the fact that potential victims own guns deters some attackers. The Department of Justice’s National Crime Victimization Survey, which covers almost 30 years, also shows that having a gun is consistently by far the safest course of action for victims.

Over the last three or four years, numerous professional players can attest to the benefits of owning guns. For example, Corey Fuller, the 5-foot, 10-inch, 210-pound defensive back for the Baltimore Ravens, was confronted by two armed robbers outside his Tallahassee house. One robber chased Fuller into his house where his wife and children were sleeping, but Fuller was able to grab a gun and fire at the attackers, who then ran away.

T.J. Slaughter, a 6-foot, 233-pound linebacker, was arrested for allegedly pointing a gun at motorists who pulled up next to him on the highway. Slaughter denied that he had pointed the gun at the motorists and claimed that they had threatened him. No charges were filed, though, possibly following Dikta’s rule, the Jacksonville Jaguars still cut Slaughter the next day. Jacksonville claimed Slaughter was performing poorly.

Professional athletes’ physical strength hardly makes them immune to crime. Take a couple additional examples.

– The Oakland Raiders’ Javon Walker (height: 6-3, weight: 215 lbs.) was robbed and beaten this past June while visiting Las Vegas. He was hospitalized with a concussion and facial injuries.

– The Houston Texans’ Dunta Robinson (height: 5-10, weight: 184 lbs.) was robbed by two men in his home a year ago. The robbers bound him with duct tape and stole jewelry.

Unfortunately all of the nation’s four leading pro-sports leagues — the National Football League, the National Basketball Association, the National Hockey League and Major League Baseball — trivialize the athletes’ concerns over safety. The NFL’s official advice: “In some circumstances, such as for sport or protection, you may legally possess a firearm or other weapon. However, we strongly recommend that you not do so.” The league advocates passive behavior when confronted by a criminal.

Fred Taylor (height: 6-1, weight: 22 a running back with the Jacksonville Jaguars made the point clear: “League officials tell us we need to take measures to protect ourselves. But the NFL says we can’t have guns in the facility –even in the parking lot. Crooks know this. They can just sit back and wait for us to drive off, knowing we won’t have anything in our vehicle from point A to point B.”

Even professional athletes are not supermen. T.J. Slaughter expresses no regrets for having a gun despite running afoul of political correctness and being cut by the Jaguars. He says, “I believe legally owning a gun is the right thing to do. It offers me protection. I think one day it could save my life.” It seems a lesson that many who are not quite as strong can also learn from.

[Rhino]

(The rest of above article.)


Toys R Us

The media can’t be blamed for some of the left out information and misimpressions about guns. For example, the news coverage over the weekend about a shooting at a Toys R Us in Palm Desert, California gave the wrong impression about guns. It seemed the perfect fit –- two couples squabbling over who would get a toy resulting in a deadly shoot out. Surely this demonstrated the dangers of letting people have guns for self defense.

But political correctness made it difficult for local authorities to even admit a simple and important fact — the two couples were members of rival gangs. As Palm Desert city councilman Bob Spiegel told The L.A. Times, there were apparently “two rival groups shopping at the store.” Even stories that mentioned the gangs often left the mention until the end.

Unfortunately, commentators at places such as the Huffington Post confuse letting gang members and law-abiding citizens carry guns. As one remarked: “does anybody still think concealed weapons laws are a good idea?” But in contrast to gang members, data for states like Florida or Texas indicate that concealed handgun permit holders lose their permits for any gun-related violation at hundredths or thousandths of one percent and even then usually for very trivial, non-threatening violations.

Conclusion

When police can’t promise to protect law-abiding citizens such Plaxico Burress or the victims in India, why don’t we allow people the right to protect themselves? Unfortunately, bans do more to encourage crime than prevent it.

John Lott is the author of Freedomnomics and a senior research scholar at the University of Maryland.

[DavidofColorado]

I like John Lott. But if the truth about guns were that they were bad and "we more likly to hurt someone by accident than use it for protection." was true. I think he would be pointing that out as well. But he sticks to the facts and leaves the emotional rhetoric to the pros.

If anybody wants to know about guns let me know. I don't charge to teach or shoot my guns. If fact the only thing that I have ever asked of anyone that I took shooting is to help pick up some brass at the end of the day... if they could be so kind.