July 18, 1984, San Ysidro, San Diego, California. At 3:40 p.m. 41 year old James Oliver Huberty walked into a McDonalds armed with two semi-auto pistols and a 12 gauge shotgun. He opened fire on the unsuspecting patrons and staff and continued firing and reloading for one hour and seventeen minutes. When he was finally taken down by the SWAT team, 22 people lay dead on the floor and 19 lay wounded.
During this massacre not a single police officer nor a trained, licensed civilian with a gun was present to stop the carnage.
October 16, 1991, Killeen, Texas. George Jo Hennard drove his pickup truck through the front window of a Luby’s Cafateria. He got out of the truck and yelled "This is what Bell County has done to me!" He then opened fire on the restaurant's patrons and staff with a Glock 17 pistol and later a Ruger P89.
About 80 people were in the restaurant at the time. He stalked, shot, and killed 23 people and wounded another 20 before committing suicide. He reloaded several times and still had ammunition remaining when he committed suicide by shooting himself in the head after the police finally arrived.
During this massacre not a single police officer nor a trained, licensed civilian with a gun was present to stop the carnage.
April 20, 1999, Columbine High School, Columbine, Colorado. Two students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, embarked on a massacre, killing 12 students and a teacher, as well as wounding 23 others, before committing suicide.At 11:19 a.m. the shooting started. The SWAT teams entered the school at 1:09 p.m.
During this massacre not a single police officer nor a trained, licensed civilian with a gun was present to stop the carnage.
April 16, 2007, Virginia Tech University, Blacksburg, Virginia. There were actually two separate attacks approximately two hours apart committed by undergraduate student 23-year-old Seung-Hui Cho, a South Korean citizen with U.S. permanent resident status living in Virginia.
During the two attacks, Cho killed 5 faculty members and 27 students before committing suicide. The Virginia Tech review panel reported that Cho's gunshots wounded 17 other people; 6 more were injured when they jumped from second-story windows to escape the slaughter. Again, the police did not arrive until long after the shootings had taken place.
During these massacres (and others) not a single police officer nor a trained, licensed civilian with a gun was present to stop the carnage.
I could go on and on, but I think the point has been made. The police are not your bodyguards and can’t anticipate when the next wacko is going to lash out at innocent civilians. The police don’t know when or where you will be robbed, raped, car-jackted, kidnapped, or murdered by someone with a weapon. But, they will investigate after the crime has been commited.
There are a few stories where someone that was legally armed with a gun was present to keep another would-be butcher from doing his worst. Unfortunately, these success stories are in the minority.
The Three Amigos
Several months ago I had lunch with a couple of friends at a local restaurant. These other guys are both well respected men in our community. They are both highly educated with doctoral degrees in their separate fields of endeavor. So, you might ask, why in the world were they hanging with me? Must be my boyish charm.
To the casual observer, we were just three harmless old guys havin’ lunch and talking about sports or politics. What was not apparent is that we are all highly skilled shooters and amongst the three of us we were carrying enough firepower to take down a small army of deranged miscreants.
We are not cops. We are not vigilantes. We are citizens with concealed pistol permits that carry our registered handguns within the confines of the law. The Michigan State Legislature has given us permission to do this. The Michigan State Police and the FBI have scrutinized our pasts and determined that we are not a threat to society. We have taken the prescribed firearms class and passed our range tests for gun knowledge, safety, and marksmanship. We have practiced, trained, and become proficient with our guns.
We are not “gunshop commandos” seeking glory. We do not belong to any para-military groups. We are not suffering from paranoia, expecting an attack at any moment. However, we are people who refuse to be the victims of other people that don’t abide by any laws or codes of conduct, except their own. We do not accept the “victim mentality” that has permeated our society for so long. We are alert. We are ready to defend ourselves and our loved ones if necessary. God forbid that this should ever happen.
The object of defending yourself with a gun is not about killing your attacker. It’s about stopping the attack. If you have to shoot, shoot until the attacker has stopped. If the would-be attacker sees the muzzle of your gun pointing directly at him or notices the laser beam dancing between his eyes, he may just drop his weapon and start crying like a little girl. This would be the best case scenario. “No shots fired!” The worst case scenario is being attacked and having NO way to defend yourself.
Carrying a gun is not for everybody. Some people are afraid of guns. No amount of education about guns will change their mind. They believe all guns should be banned. In a perfect world, this would work nicely. Unfortunately, in the world we live in, if guns are banned we law-abiding folks would turn our guns in to be destroyed. Can you guess who would NOT be turning their guns in? Duh! Could it be the people who use guns to commit crimes? You know, those guys that don’t get themselves licensed or their stolen guns registered. I know some very well-meaning people who just can’t seem to process this reality.
Because women (in general) are ususally smaller and lighter in stature than men, they are considered an easier target for crime. It doesn’t have to be that way. I would especially encourage women to get licensed and carry a gun for self defense.
I think many women who would like to carry a gun are intimidated at the thought of going to a gun store/range because they think it’s “man country”. Both of the places that we patronize have women working behind the counter. They are openly packing some serious hardware and they know their stuff. It’s common to see women in the store or on the range when my wife and I are there. Good instruction is available and affordable.
My wife has her own Smith & Wesson, Air-Lite snubnose revolver with a Crimson Trace Laser Sight. She chose the gun herself and enjoys shooting it. She handles the gun with ease and is a very good shot. She keeps it loaded with some very nasty jacketed hollow point ammo and keeps it close to her whenever she’s home alone. I pitty anyone that breaks into our house when I’m not there to protect them from her. She’s ready.
So far, there has only been one time when I thought I might have to draw my weapon in self defense. July 5th, 2005 at around 5:00 a.m., David Lee Bingham, 38, was pumping gas into his truck at a Sunoco station in Pontiac, Michigan when 2 young men approached him. One of the men stuck a gun in Bingham’s face and demanded his truck keys and his wallet. Bingham complied and the two men started to drive off in his truck. Bingham ran into the station and told the attendant he had just been robbed at gunpoint.
As Bingham was talking to the 911 operator, the robber came into the station and shot him 4 times in the chest at point-blank range. Bingham was dead before he hit the floor. He had done everything he was “supposed” to do. Why did the punk have to gun him down after the fact? When David was brutally murdered, two children lost their father.
Because I usually leave for work about 5:00 a.m. and usually stop for gas on the way in, this incident really disturbed me. Even though I had been shooting guns most of my life and already had a permit to carry, I had not been doing so. The next morning I strapped on my .38 ultra-lite snubby before leaving the house. I stopped at the my usual gas station and began fueling my truck. I was the only one there, or so I thought.
While I was standing beside the truck I noticed an older car parked in the shadows beside the station. I could see movement in the car and some rather heavy looking smoke drifting out of an open window. A lone car turned the corner and it’s headlights swept across the parked car just long enough for me to see four scruffy looking young men sitting in the car, all staring directly at me. I was not alarmed, but I was on high alert.
A rear passenger door opened and one of the men stepped out and began walking straight for me while the others looked on. He was holding his right hand behind his back. I pretended that I didn’t notice and turned to look at the pump. As I turned, I casually brought my right hand up pushing my jacket back slightly and placed my hand on my hip in a relaxed stance. Directly below my hand, the gun shown brightly in the light from the canopy above me.
In my peripheral vision, I saw the guy stop dead in his tracks. He stood there for a moment, then spun and walked quickly back to his friends. He wasted no time getting back into the car. The car started and with the headlights off they quickly left the station.
They may have just been looking for directions, but the situation was just way too suspicious for me to have done anything else. It bothered me that I had been put in situation where I felt forced to let my weapon be seen. On the other hand, I probably looked like an easy mark for a robbery until they saw that it wasn’t going to be so easy after all. I’ve since upgraded my carry weapon to a semi-auto with a high capacity magazine and I practice with it frequently.
I’ll discuss home defense in a future post. In the meantime, if I’m in a restaurant with my wife and grandchildren and a guy comes in wearing a long trenchcoat on a warm day, my level of alertness may rise. If he’s having a heated conversation with himself and his gaze is bouncing all over the room, I may become alarmed. If he begins nervously fidgeting with something under his coat I’ll begin positioning myself for whatever may happen next.
If I’m NOT packin’ that day, I just hope there will be some lady sipping coffee in her booth with one eye on the weirdo and one eye on her newspaper as her hand is casually moving into her purse for that S&W LadySmith .357 Magnum that she’s become such great friends with.
During this massacre not a single police officer nor a trained, licensed civilian with a gun was present to stop the carnage.
October 16, 1991, Killeen, Texas. George Jo Hennard drove his pickup truck through the front window of a Luby’s Cafateria. He got out of the truck and yelled "This is what Bell County has done to me!" He then opened fire on the restaurant's patrons and staff with a Glock 17 pistol and later a Ruger P89.
About 80 people were in the restaurant at the time. He stalked, shot, and killed 23 people and wounded another 20 before committing suicide. He reloaded several times and still had ammunition remaining when he committed suicide by shooting himself in the head after the police finally arrived.
During this massacre not a single police officer nor a trained, licensed civilian with a gun was present to stop the carnage.
April 20, 1999, Columbine High School, Columbine, Colorado. Two students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, embarked on a massacre, killing 12 students and a teacher, as well as wounding 23 others, before committing suicide.At 11:19 a.m. the shooting started. The SWAT teams entered the school at 1:09 p.m.
During this massacre not a single police officer nor a trained, licensed civilian with a gun was present to stop the carnage.
April 16, 2007, Virginia Tech University, Blacksburg, Virginia. There were actually two separate attacks approximately two hours apart committed by undergraduate student 23-year-old Seung-Hui Cho, a South Korean citizen with U.S. permanent resident status living in Virginia.
During the two attacks, Cho killed 5 faculty members and 27 students before committing suicide. The Virginia Tech review panel reported that Cho's gunshots wounded 17 other people; 6 more were injured when they jumped from second-story windows to escape the slaughter. Again, the police did not arrive until long after the shootings had taken place.
During these massacres (and others) not a single police officer nor a trained, licensed civilian with a gun was present to stop the carnage.
I could go on and on, but I think the point has been made. The police are not your bodyguards and can’t anticipate when the next wacko is going to lash out at innocent civilians. The police don’t know when or where you will be robbed, raped, car-jackted, kidnapped, or murdered by someone with a weapon. But, they will investigate after the crime has been commited.
There are a few stories where someone that was legally armed with a gun was present to keep another would-be butcher from doing his worst. Unfortunately, these success stories are in the minority.
The Three Amigos
Several months ago I had lunch with a couple of friends at a local restaurant. These other guys are both well respected men in our community. They are both highly educated with doctoral degrees in their separate fields of endeavor. So, you might ask, why in the world were they hanging with me? Must be my boyish charm.
To the casual observer, we were just three harmless old guys havin’ lunch and talking about sports or politics. What was not apparent is that we are all highly skilled shooters and amongst the three of us we were carrying enough firepower to take down a small army of deranged miscreants.
We are not cops. We are not vigilantes. We are citizens with concealed pistol permits that carry our registered handguns within the confines of the law. The Michigan State Legislature has given us permission to do this. The Michigan State Police and the FBI have scrutinized our pasts and determined that we are not a threat to society. We have taken the prescribed firearms class and passed our range tests for gun knowledge, safety, and marksmanship. We have practiced, trained, and become proficient with our guns.
We are not “gunshop commandos” seeking glory. We do not belong to any para-military groups. We are not suffering from paranoia, expecting an attack at any moment. However, we are people who refuse to be the victims of other people that don’t abide by any laws or codes of conduct, except their own. We do not accept the “victim mentality” that has permeated our society for so long. We are alert. We are ready to defend ourselves and our loved ones if necessary. God forbid that this should ever happen.
The object of defending yourself with a gun is not about killing your attacker. It’s about stopping the attack. If you have to shoot, shoot until the attacker has stopped. If the would-be attacker sees the muzzle of your gun pointing directly at him or notices the laser beam dancing between his eyes, he may just drop his weapon and start crying like a little girl. This would be the best case scenario. “No shots fired!” The worst case scenario is being attacked and having NO way to defend yourself.
Carrying a gun is not for everybody. Some people are afraid of guns. No amount of education about guns will change their mind. They believe all guns should be banned. In a perfect world, this would work nicely. Unfortunately, in the world we live in, if guns are banned we law-abiding folks would turn our guns in to be destroyed. Can you guess who would NOT be turning their guns in? Duh! Could it be the people who use guns to commit crimes? You know, those guys that don’t get themselves licensed or their stolen guns registered. I know some very well-meaning people who just can’t seem to process this reality.
Because women (in general) are ususally smaller and lighter in stature than men, they are considered an easier target for crime. It doesn’t have to be that way. I would especially encourage women to get licensed and carry a gun for self defense.
I think many women who would like to carry a gun are intimidated at the thought of going to a gun store/range because they think it’s “man country”. Both of the places that we patronize have women working behind the counter. They are openly packing some serious hardware and they know their stuff. It’s common to see women in the store or on the range when my wife and I are there. Good instruction is available and affordable.
My wife has her own Smith & Wesson, Air-Lite snubnose revolver with a Crimson Trace Laser Sight. She chose the gun herself and enjoys shooting it. She handles the gun with ease and is a very good shot. She keeps it loaded with some very nasty jacketed hollow point ammo and keeps it close to her whenever she’s home alone. I pitty anyone that breaks into our house when I’m not there to protect them from her. She’s ready.
So far, there has only been one time when I thought I might have to draw my weapon in self defense. July 5th, 2005 at around 5:00 a.m., David Lee Bingham, 38, was pumping gas into his truck at a Sunoco station in Pontiac, Michigan when 2 young men approached him. One of the men stuck a gun in Bingham’s face and demanded his truck keys and his wallet. Bingham complied and the two men started to drive off in his truck. Bingham ran into the station and told the attendant he had just been robbed at gunpoint.
As Bingham was talking to the 911 operator, the robber came into the station and shot him 4 times in the chest at point-blank range. Bingham was dead before he hit the floor. He had done everything he was “supposed” to do. Why did the punk have to gun him down after the fact? When David was brutally murdered, two children lost their father.
Because I usually leave for work about 5:00 a.m. and usually stop for gas on the way in, this incident really disturbed me. Even though I had been shooting guns most of my life and already had a permit to carry, I had not been doing so. The next morning I strapped on my .38 ultra-lite snubby before leaving the house. I stopped at the my usual gas station and began fueling my truck. I was the only one there, or so I thought.
While I was standing beside the truck I noticed an older car parked in the shadows beside the station. I could see movement in the car and some rather heavy looking smoke drifting out of an open window. A lone car turned the corner and it’s headlights swept across the parked car just long enough for me to see four scruffy looking young men sitting in the car, all staring directly at me. I was not alarmed, but I was on high alert.
A rear passenger door opened and one of the men stepped out and began walking straight for me while the others looked on. He was holding his right hand behind his back. I pretended that I didn’t notice and turned to look at the pump. As I turned, I casually brought my right hand up pushing my jacket back slightly and placed my hand on my hip in a relaxed stance. Directly below my hand, the gun shown brightly in the light from the canopy above me.
In my peripheral vision, I saw the guy stop dead in his tracks. He stood there for a moment, then spun and walked quickly back to his friends. He wasted no time getting back into the car. The car started and with the headlights off they quickly left the station.
They may have just been looking for directions, but the situation was just way too suspicious for me to have done anything else. It bothered me that I had been put in situation where I felt forced to let my weapon be seen. On the other hand, I probably looked like an easy mark for a robbery until they saw that it wasn’t going to be so easy after all. I’ve since upgraded my carry weapon to a semi-auto with a high capacity magazine and I practice with it frequently.
I’ll discuss home defense in a future post. In the meantime, if I’m in a restaurant with my wife and grandchildren and a guy comes in wearing a long trenchcoat on a warm day, my level of alertness may rise. If he’s having a heated conversation with himself and his gaze is bouncing all over the room, I may become alarmed. If he begins nervously fidgeting with something under his coat I’ll begin positioning myself for whatever may happen next.
If I’m NOT packin’ that day, I just hope there will be some lady sipping coffee in her booth with one eye on the weirdo and one eye on her newspaper as her hand is casually moving into her purse for that S&W LadySmith .357 Magnum that she’s become such great friends with.
4 comments:
Good Grief! You practically made me a believer...or at least want to be a concealed carrier. Glad your wife still has her husband.
-Andy
Great blog. I could clearly picture you at the pump. So thankful you were packing that day. May you and you wife never have to use the gun you conceal, but I'm glad you're prepared.
-Eric
Better to be judged by 12 than carried out by 6.
Dear Mr. Utley
No wonder your society is riddled with crime and violence more than any other part of the world, undoubtedly encouraged by the NRA and people like yourself and "buddies" !
If you live by the gun, you die by the gun. But I am sure you do not believe in this adage ! The USA will never be a peaceful and safe place to live in until all fire arms are outlawed, and children are taught at school that guns do not make the man, nor are they "macho" ! And maybe the mass killings will stop. It will take decades ...
One day ... Maybe the penny will drop and you will not need to go traget practice anymore ...
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