By Jeff Hutchins
Following the latest school shooting, in Florida, and the mass shooting in Las Vegas, a lot of false information – and in some cases, flat-out lies, have been disseminated, especially through the mass media.
Few things infuriate me more than being blamed for something I didn’t do, so here’s an attempt to set some things straight – by someone who actually knows guns.
Chronologically, let’s start with the Vegas massacre, as it truly was a massacre.
There seems to be a lot of concern over the amount of weapons and ammunition this individual possessed. To a true firearms enthusiast, though, it was in no way an inordinate amount – definitely not enough to raise any flags.
People on the outside, looking in at gun ownership, or even just the casual hunter, may think it’s strange to have a lot of ammo, but enthusiasts of any kind tend to possess a lot of the things they are interested in.
I knew a woman who had hundreds of sets of salt and pepper shakers. Surely, she didn’t need any more than two or three.
I saw a young man on TV who collected sneakers. He had hundreds of pairs; the vast majority of which he’d even worn.
Steven Segal collects guitars. Guess how many he has? Jay Leno collects cars and has somewhere around 100 of them.
I’m sure any anti-gunner reading this is thinking, “Yes, but those other things don’t kill!”
I could be sarcastic and say salt does kill, that people get kicked to death and, of course, cars kill more people than just about anything else. (Think back to the many vehicular terrorist acts in Europe and elsewhere.)
The vast majority of firearms don’t kill anyone either. The actual percentage would be so small the number looks ridiculous.
Another issue that is hot right now, particularly in the last week with President Trump’s plan to ban them, is “bump stocks.”
Personally, I consider bump stocks really dumb. The only thing they are good for is putting a lot of fired shell casings on the ground very quickly. Anyone who has actually fired a fully automatic firearm knows that you really have to hold on to it if you want to hit anything after the first shot. You can’t hold on to a “bump stock” much at all; if you do, it will only fire as slowly as any other stocked rifle.
The bump stock works by letting the rifle rock back against the trigger finger to fire another shot. The recoil drives the rifle back in the stock; then, by keeping the finger stationary on a shelf built into the stock, the rifle bounces back forward against the trigger finger again, triggering another shot.
The rifle is still semi-automatic. It’s actually quite tricky to get it to work right and is a developed skill. It also makes the trigger pretty useless for aimed fire because if you hold the rifle tightly for aiming purposes, it won’t work.
This also can be accomplished with a very nice light trigger pull (many times it happens accidentally), with springs, rubber bands, string etc. Are we going to ban all of these things because they potentially could be used in a wrong way?
No, that would be ridiculous.
As a matter of fact, if someone were shooting at me, I would very much prefer that they shoot at me with an “assault weapon,” as full-auto fire is extremely inefficient.
Basically, it just allows you to miss a lot, quickly, and run out of ammo. It’s fun to shoot, but not much else, and bump stocks are even less efficient. Fact!
I actually have no personal interest in bump stocks, but banning a (stupid) device makes no logical sense. I guarantee that the Vegas murderer could have done just as much damage with a standard semi-automatic rifle with a target trigger.
To put it bluntly, I know a lot more about firearms than the talking heads on TV, politicians and non-shooters. I am right; they are wrong; there is no debate about these finer points of firearms. It’s not a political viewpoint; it’s fact.
Of course much has been made about the age of the Florida murderer.
For hundreds of years there was no minimum age to own any kind of gun.
I had a customer once who, in his early teens, went down to the local hardware store and traded his sporting firearms in for a Thompson submachine gun and brought it home on his bike. It was all legal and he didn’t murder anyone.
In 1968 the legal age to buy a long gun was set at 18, and 21 for a handgun.
Somehow, we got by for decades with very few – if any – problems. All of these “evil” modern firearms were available then as well, but rarely was there an issue.
If, at 18 (as an adult), you are old enough to join the military and be issued a genuine assault rifle, go to war and fight and possibly die for your country, why shouldn’t you be able to purchase or own a semi-automatic version? Logic.
It’s baffling to me that there is such an uproar over the tools a lunatic uses. Banning a certain type of rifle, or standard capacity magazines will have no effect on crime, whatsoever.
How do I know this to be true? Because we did it. From 1994 to 2004 we did exactly that. The FBI, Justice Department and about everyone else studied the statistics and it – officially – had no effect on crime. Fact.
Actually, I would argue it did have an effect: It made it way more difficult for law enforcement officers to get their hands on the law enforcement-only standard-capacity magazines for duty (or off-duty) use.
Since the magazines were not readily available and they could only be sold to law enforcement agencies and military, the sale of them was heavily regulated with the associated reams of paperwork and authorizations. What a mess it was to get cops their tools. I know. I was right in the middle of it.
A magazine limit will only help the bad guys.
Let’s say I carry a Gluck Model 19 9 mm pistol as an everyday carry gun. If I can only get 10-round magazines, I am very much at a disadvantage against a criminal. He knows when he is going to commit a crime and he doesn’t care about a stupid magazine law in the first place. Even if somehow magically were limited to 10 rounds, he’d just carry more magazines. It takes no time to change them.
Since he knows the time and place of attack, throwing a couple of extra magazines in his pocket is no burden.
Because I have to react, I have to be prepared all of the time. Carrying unnecessary magazines to get my round count back up is a major pain, literally.
I don’t see how people can actually think a criminal carrying a firearm illegally, bent on committing violent crimes, is going to follow a magazine capacity limit law. That is completely illogical.
Anyone who thinks you only need to shoot two or three rounds to protect yourself obviously knows nothing about real-life gunfights.
I have studied them extensively for 30 years, written about them and challenge the validity of any statement of the lack of need for magazine capacity for self defense.
The anti-gunners also love to perpetuate false statistics.
One going around now is that there have been 18 school shootings this year. Hogwash. Their statistics include any firearms discharge on any school grounds as a “school shooting.”
Even if it were an accidental discharge and no one was injured, it’s a “school shooting.”
It’s much like their statistics showing the number of “children” killed by firearms every year. If a police officer justifiably shoots a teen criminal dead, that’s a “child killed by a gun.” If one gang-banger shoots another one, that’s a “child killed by a gun.”
Of course I don’t want children committing suicide by any means, but a teen suicide is also deemed a “child killed by a gun.”
The other lie is that “this doesn’t happen in other countries.”
Yes it does. Mass shootings also occur in Finland, Switzerland, Norway, Serbia, France, Macedonia, Albania, Mexico, Slovakia, Belgium and the Czech Republic – not to mention the Middle East.
Let’s not forget, the U.S. has way more guns per capita as well.
These lies just don’t hold up.
The most recent murder weapon statistics available from the FBI show that many weapons are used before rifles to murder our fellow man: knives, blunt objects, hands, feet etc. and “other” weapons. Note: we’re talking about all rifles, not just AR-15s, AKs etc.
This obviously shows that we are spending a lot of time trying to ban an inanimate object that is really not even the issue in the first place.
Very recently Northwestern University researchers (not exactly a bastion of conservatism) took information from the FBI, anti-gun organizations and other sources to look at the school shooting issue.
Guess what? The number has dropped since the 1990s. Since 1996 there have been 16 school shootings with more than four victims, where at least two victims (tragically) died. Not 18 per year, as the antis claim.
One statistic that really puts it in perspective is that around 100 children die per year while riding their bikes or walking to school.
How many died in car accidents getting to school? I would hazard that it’s many more than that.
NWU researcher James Alan Fox said his research showed that these killers are determined and will always find a “work around” to harm multiple victims if they can’t access a firearm.
Unfortunately, all of the internal school security in the world may not help much as some of these shooters have figured out ways of getting the students out of the school before opening fire.
A car or truck would be as effective, if not more so, in this situation.
Let us use logic, not emotion, to try to solve this problem.
The real issue I see is that in the Florida murders we see that the deputy assigned to the school stood outside and didn’t act. It is inexcusable to me that an armed adult failed to rush into a school to save children and teachers. That is cowardice.
The fact that you are a police officer or a fireman does not necessarily make you a hero. If you perform heroic acts, you are a hero, no matter what your profession.
I don’t think I know a cop who wouldn’t rush into a school to save kids but that may be because the cops I know are proud gun owners and I truly believe they would rush to the aid of these victims as well.
The proof is in the fact that they do it all of the time. Police and fireman tend to be more of the hero type, I will concede that fact, for sure! It is also my belief that most self-defense-minded gun owners would do the same; in fact they have – many times.
I can’t blame an unarmed person for not rushing into a shooting situation; after all, what chance do they have? They would most likely just become another victim. This is why I choose to be armed, I do not intend to be a victim and will render aid to others anytime I can.
This brings us to the issue of arming teachers. One argument I’ve heard against it is, “the deputy was there and don’t react; what makes anyone think a teacher would?”
The reason is so obvious and easy to understand that I can’t believe I’m not hearing the answer in the national arena.
The teacher is there! He/she is being shot at, their students are being shot at.
Almost everyone will react in self defense, especially if they have proper training.
The deputy wasn’t being shot at, had no interest in being shot at and decided not to take action.
Another very annoying statement I’ve heard, even from gun owners (along with boatloads of teachers), is that, “Trump wants to arm everyone in the schools!”
Really? I watched him make those statements, on live TV; he said nothing of the kind. He said that teachers, maintenance workers, bus drivers, principals, nurses etc. should be able to be armed if they choose to be.
They would undergo training and be compensated for the extra training time and safety they would provide. I know this would be a lot cheaper to implement than a lot of other options offered up, and aren’t we always hearing how under-funded the schools are? As a personal opinion I believe it would work better and be a safer action as well.
Bottom line: Owning a firearm as a law-abiding citizen is a right! You may not like it, but I don’t like that pot is legal in Oregon. I deal with reality.
Irrational reactions have never solved a problem and they won’t do it now. Implementing laws that have already been proven useless will only cost precious resources and even more precious freedom.
– Jeff Hutchins writes occasionally about firearms-related topics for The New Era’s Outdoors section. He operates Rangemaster Gunworks at 1144 Tangent St. in Lebanon.