I’m well aware of how horrible and tragic school shootings are. I’ve studied school shootings, trained as a cop on how to respond to school shootings, and trained other cops on how to respond to school shootings. As a father of two elementary-age children, one high schooler and one college student, and as the husband of a former teacher, son of a retired teacher and brother to a current teacher, I’m extremely concerned about the safety of school students and staff. I’m well aware that easy availability of guns is a significant factor in the seemingly endless stream of school and mass shootings. I’m aware that a lunatic pounding on a computer keyboard in his mother’s basement is a simple nuisance, but a lunatic with a grudge against the world and a gun is a guaranteed tragedy.
But I oppose new gun control laws.
The anti-gun side needs to understand something. Pro-2nd Amendment people like me aren’t pro-mass murder. I have a hard time imagining a bigger piece of human excrement than a man who would intentionally murder even one innocent, terrified, defenseless child. One of the hardest things I’ve ever read was a survivor’s account of a little boy’s last words at Sandy Hook: “Help me! I don’t want to be here!”, to which the shooter responded, “Well, you’re here,” before killing him. I can’t even imagine how I’d feel if my child had been in that school.
Unlike many fellow 2A supporters, I don’t blame parents of murdered children for demanding stricter gun laws. They’ve just lost a child, in one of the most horrible ways possible. They’re going to lash out. They’re going to pick the easiest and most obvious target for their rage, frustration and grief. I understand why those parents feel the way they do, and why they say the things they say.
But I still oppose new gun control laws.
Here’s a sad, crappy fact: laws don’t do anything by themselves. Actual humans are required to take actual actions to make people follow laws. For example, any legally-declared “gun free zone” (GFZ) can only be made gun-free if access is controlled by people, usually people with guns, who ensure anyone entering doesn’t have a gun (an airport, for example). But if we declare a school a GFZ, then don’t establish airport-like security, we’re not keeping guns out. We’re simply wishing them away. And no child will be protected by a Gun Free Wish.
Likewise, any suggestion for regulating gun sales, possessions or transfers from this point forward won’t magically eliminate the hundreds of millions of guns already in existence. If a lunatic has a gun today, and a law banning lunatics from having guns is passed tomorrow, the lunatic will still have the gun the day after tomorrow. Legislation doesn’t change the laws of physics. It doesn’t alter reality.
This isn’t just my opinion. Even Vice President Joe Biden, gun control champion, admitted it during the push for new gun laws after the Sandy Hook shooting.
If we’re going to make a real effort to stop mass shootings, let’s at least acknowledge reality. A man intent on mass murder and suicide isn’t going to be deterred by jail time, or signs on walls, or even locked doors (the Sandy Hook murderer easily shot his way through a plate glass window). The only thing that can prevent a mass murderer from entering a school is heavy security and people with guns; if we’re not going to make every school half prison and half airport (and we’re not), then any aspiring murderer who wants to bring in a gun can bring in a gun. If that murderer gets in, and starts shooting, the ONLY sure way to make them stop is the immediate application of overwhelming force.
At Sandy Hook, the shooter shot through this window to bypass the locked door
Police who arrive five minutes after shots are fired can’t apply that force quickly enough. SWAT teams who arrive thirty minutes later can’t do it. Only the intended victims, the people who are eye to eye with the murderer, can react in seconds and put the murderer down.
Antoinette Tuff talked Michael Brandon Hill out of committing mass murder at an Atlanta school in 2013. She was a hero, and Michael Hill was a pathetic loser who wasn’t committed to murder. He had a murder fantasy, found out the reality of facing terrified teachers and being shot at by police wasn’t as much fun as he expected, and gave up. Plenty of wishful idealists rightfully praised Tuff, but wrongfully concluded “you don’t need a gun to stop a mass murderer with an AK-47.” Anyone who thinks we should make a policy of “let’s talk the killer out of killing us”, to put it mildly, is an amazingly dedicated idiot.
Sometimes unarmed people have stopped mass killers, like at the Gabby Giffords shooting in Arizona. Amazingly dedicated idiots at Slate, Mother Jones, Addicting Info and other sites have repeatedly pointed out incidents where unarmed people took down mass shooters, and concluded victims are better off unarmed against a mass shooter. But untrained and unequipped people sometimes put out fires too. Untrained and unequipped people save lives in medical emergencies. That’s not because it’s better to be untrained and unequipped. It’s because sometimes trained and equipped people aren’t there, so people with no training or equipment have to do something. None of those situations are made better by the lack of firefighters or doctors, and no mass shooter incident was made better by the lack of armed good guys willing and able to immediately fight back.
Hero Chris Mintz, who was unarmed and tried to block the Oregon college shooter from entering a room. Mintz was shot seven times. Bravery is not enough.
The bottom line is that the only sure way to quickly stop a mass shooter is for the intended victims to draw, take careful aim, and engage until the shooter is no longer capable of committing murder. That’s it. Laws can’t do it. Signs on walls pronouncing “Gun Free Zone” are about as effective as signs that say “Mass Murder Followed by Suicide is Not Allowed on These Premises”. Policemen like me who arrive long after the murders commence can eventually stop a mass shooting, but not before many innocent lives are lost. The only sure way to quickly stop lunatics with guns from committing mass murder – the ONLY sure way – is to allow and expect the innocent to defend themselves.
I have an honest, reasonable message for the anti-gun side: I get your point. I understand what you’re trying to do. I want to prevent murders just as much as you. It sucks that innocent people, especially our children, might be targeted by an armed lunatic. It sucks to think average, decent people in schools, malls, churches and elsewhere need to carry guns to defend themselves and others from the unthinkable. It sucks, and life shouldn’t be that way.
You know what sucks worse? What sucks worse is to look back at a long history of mass shootings, realize that laws and passive measures failed to prevent them, and then demand more laws and passive measures that we already know won’t prevent the next one.
If we’re serious about stopping the next mass shooter, let’s make sure he knows he won’t face a room full of defenseless victims. Let’s not give him total control during the long police response time. Let’s make him fear his intended victims, instead of allowing him to feel godlike power over them. Let’s make sure any pathetic, cowardly loser who thinks he’ll “be somebody” by committing mass murder has to factor in the likelihood of being shot down like a rabid dog within seconds of drawing his gun.
Let’s allow and expect the innocent to carry a gun and protect themselves from a murderer. That’s the only way we can prevent another massacre.
Chris Hernandez is a 20 year police officer, former Marine and currently serving National Guard soldier with over 25 years of military service. He is a combat veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan and also served 18 months as a United Nations police officer in Kosovo. He writes for BreachBangClear.com and Iron Mike magazine and has published two military fiction novels, Proof of Our Resolve and Line in the Valley, through Tactical16 Publishing. He can be reached at [email protected] or on his Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/ProofofOurResolve).
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Having said that, and I’m in no way detracting from their bravery or heroism, but they got lucky. Many factors gave them the opportunity to rush and take down the attacker. As a combat vet, former active shooter response instructor and longtime cop, when I heard about the attack and the Americans (and others) who stopped it, my reaction was, “Those guys are incredibly brave,” followed quickly by “And it’s a damn good thing they’re still alive, because they could have easily lost.”
I think most of us with a tactical background understand this was something of a fluke. Generally speaking, you don’t bring a nothing to a gunfight and expect to win. It can happen, but you don’t make “use your bare hands to take down a guy with an AK-47” your Plan A. I know this because I have training, experience, and a brain. The blithering idiots at Addicting Info, however, looked at this fluke, consulted fellow blithering idiots who know nothing about lethal force, and published an article titled Proving The Best Defense Is A Good Guy WITHOUT A Gun, Unarmed U.S. Soldiers Foil French Gunman.
I’m pretty sure Addicting Info’s writers are literally the dumbest people on earth.
I don’t know much about AI’s writers or editors. I haven’t seen their IQ test results. I’m sure they’re all educated, and probably know many things about important topics like white privilege or microaggressions. But anyone who believes you’re better off unarmed when someone tries to shoot you with an AK has to be dumber than Forrest Gump. You have to be pretty far down the intelligence scale to write drivel like this:
“The least surprising thing about Friday’s events in France is the fact that the shooter was stopped by unarmed good samaritans. The idea that the best weapon against a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun is pure NRA propaganda… It’s tough to imagine how things might have turned out differently if the two good samaritans were armed on that French train. Multiple guns would have just added to the chaos and potentially to the injury or body count.”
I guess if armed cops had been on that train, they would have been wrong to draw and fire. Since added chaos, more injured and dead, yada yada. Unassailable logic like that explains why police never ever use guns when they encounter mass murderers.
If this unarmed takedown of a mass murderer “proves” unarmed defense is best, then all the following unsuccessful mass-murderer takedown attempts prove unarmed defense actually isn’t the “best defense”:
- At the 1991 Killeen Luby’s massacre, unarmed restaurant patron Al Gratia charged mass murderer George Henard. Henard shot and killed him, then killed Gratia’s wife as she cradled her dead husband.
- At Columbine, a 15-year old named Daniel Mauser pushed a chair at Eric Harris after Harris shot and wounded him. He was the only Columbine victim to resist in any way. Harris responded by shooting Mauser in the face, killing him.
- At Sandy Hook Elementary, principal Dawn Hochsprung and school psychologist Mary Sherlach were unarmed and approached Adam Lanza, ordering him to stop. He killed them both, then murdered four more adults and twenty children.
- At the Santana High School shooting in California in 2001, an unarmed school security supervisor approached an armed 15-year old who had just murdered two students. The 15-year old shot the supervisor five times, then shot him again in the back when he turned and walked away.
- At a high school on the Red Lake Indian Reservation in 2005, a student killed five students, a teacher and an unarmed security guard. One student fought back inside a classroom and stabbed the shooter in the stomach with a pencil. The shooter shot him three times in the face and neck, then continued shooting other students.
- In 2006 at a high school in Cazenovia, Wisconsin, an unarmed principal and custodian wrestled a shotgun away from a student who walked into the school intent on committing murder. The student then pulled a pistol and shot the principal, who later died.
- During the 2009 Fort Hood Massacre, three unarmed soldiers tried separately to charge Hasan. Two were killed, one was badly wounded.
I don’t know about you, but it seems to me that being unarmed when an aspiring mass murderer is shooting at you kind of sucks. While there have been numerous incidents where unarmed people took down armed murderers (for example, at the Gabby Giffords shooting in Arizona), that wasn’t because “the best way to take down a mass murderer is by physically attacking him”. In some cases, as in the Giffords shooting, the shooter can be in such close proximity to you that even if you’re armed, the best option is to wrestle his weapon away rather than draw your own.
I’m a cop and I’ve always got a gun; if I’m minding my own business in a convenience store and a criminal with a pistol suddenly comes around the corner, and is within arm’s reach, the best thing to do is probably attempt to disarm him before he can shoot me. I’ll go for my gun eventually, but the first priority is to get control of the criminal’s gun. THAT DOESN’T MEAN IT’S ALWAYS BEST TO GO HAND-TO-HAND AGAINST A GUN. It just means that not every situation is the same, and sometimes you don’t have time to go for a weapon. In almost every incident where unarmed people took down an armed murderer, it was because they had no other options. It wasn’t because they were better off unarmed.
I also notice that Addicting Info’s writers – tactical masterminds that they are – chose to ignore an extremely pertinent piece of information about why the three Americans were able to take down the terrorist in France: the terrorist’s weapon had malfunctioned, and he didn’t know how to clear it. At the time the men tackled him, he was holding an inoperable weapon. That gave the three Americans time to rush, disarm and beat the man unconscious.
Spencer Stone, one of the men who took down the terrorist, said, “I turned around and I saw he had what looked to be an AK-47, and it looked like it was jammed or wasn’t working.” Alek Skartalos, the National Guardsman, added, “He clearly had no firearms training whatsoever. If he knew what he was doing, or even just got lucky… we would have all been in trouble and probably wouldn’t be here today — along with a lot of other people.”
http://time.com/4007527/france-train-terrorist-attack/
The failed French train attacker was like many mass murderers: untrained, unskilled, able to operate a weapon and kill defenseless victims but incapable of actually fighting. When his weapon malfunctioned, which semi- or fully-automatic weapons often do, he was clueless (this also happened with James Holmes during the Aurora theater shooting and with the Clackamas Mall shooter in Oregon). The aspiring terrorist’s complete lack of training and ability allowed three young, strong men, two of whom had military training and one of whom was an Afghanistan veteran, to take him down. As far as terrorist attacks go, it was nearly perfect. An incompetent idiot wanted to be a terrorist but sucked at it, and just happened to be near heroic men who didn’t hesitate to beat him senseless.
Do the morons at Addicting Info expect this in every attack? Do they think this perfect storm will happen every time? Or do they hate guns so much, and hate anyone who doesn’t hate guns so much, that they literally believe it’s better to be slaughtered in a terrorist attack than commit the evil act of returning fire? Are they too idiotic to realize this attack failed because the terrorist had about as much skill with a weapon as the entire staff of Addicting Info combined?
I’m really looking forward to Addicting Info’s next series of articles:
“Man with no seat belt survives fiery crash, proving you shouldn’t wear a seat belt!”
“My grandma is 100 years old and smokes every day, proving cigarettes make you live longer!”
“Unvaccinated child doesn’t get whooping cough, proving vaccines are unnecessary!”
“High school dropout becomes millionaire, proving all kids should drop out of school!”
“I had sex without birth control once and didn’t get pregnant, proving nobody needs birth control!”
Addicting Info writers, here’s a sincere invitation: meet me in Texas, and I’ll explain the realities of mass shootings. I’ll take you to the range. I’ll put you through scenario training. I’ll teach you about survival stress reactions. I’m serious about this. Come down, and I’ll open your eyes.
I know you’re actually intelligent people. But your ideological beliefs have so blinded you, you’re not willing to see objective reality even when it’s right in front of you. You’re choosing to be stupid about this. So please, either get some actual training and experience, or stop writing amazingly idiotic articles that only “prove” you have no idea what you’re talking about.
Chris Hernandez is a 20 year police officer, former Marine and currently serving National Guard soldier with over 25 years of military service. He is a combat veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan and also served 18 months as a United Nations police officer in Kosovo. He writes for BreachBangClear.com and Iron Mike magazine and has published two military fiction novels, Proof of Our Resolve and Line in the Valley, through Tactical16 Publishing. He can be reached at [email protected] or on his Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/ProofofOurResolve).
]]>Simple enough, right? Apparently not. Far too many of my fellow gun rights supporters don’t understand this principle. One particular type likes to dress in garish clothing, grab a weapon and run toward the nearest camera whenever they see an opportunity to “support gun rights”. These gun owners don’t help the situation; instead, they only manage to show the entire world they’re nothing more than poorly or completely untrained attention whores.
The gun rights version of “First, do no harm” is “Don’t make shit worse.” These particular gun rights supporters are making shit worse.
Recently several “Oath Keepers” decided to make shit worse in Ferguson, Missouri. Their arrival generated a flood of negative publicity, reinforced the widespread perception that we gun owners are unstable lunatics looking for a fight, and heightened already sky-high tensions between police and protestors. According to the Washington Post, the Oath Keepers said they were in Ferguson to “protect someone who worked for the Web site Infowars.com.” Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems to me that adding heavily-armed conspiracy theorists into a volatile near-riot doesn’t exactly help.
These Oath Keepers are worried about the militarization of police. The rest of us are worried about the militarization of conspiracy theorist morons.
The Oath Keepers, fortunately, did nothing more than attract tons of negative media attention and anger protestors (although some of them apparently told protestors they were there to protect protestors from police). But their presence dramatically escalated the likelihood of violence, in a town already racked by it. The police didn’t want them there. The protestors didn’t want them there. They showed up anyway, and made shit worse.
After the Chattanooga terrorist attacks, dozens of armed citizens arrived at recruiting centers to stand guard. The desire to defend our military from attack is laudable. The way in which some of those armed citizens defended our military was laughable. Many armed citizens, especially those who seemed to want nothing more than attention, simply made shit worse.
Nothing says “I’m a highly trained gunfighter” like a tactical kilt or ‘Murica onesy.
At least one man claimed online that he parked outside a recruiting center with a weapon concealed in the vehicle, watched from a distance and didn’t make his presence known. That makes sense, and I admire him for doing that. I also believe some armed citizens who stood guard displayed proper weapon-handling skills and didn’t dress like Call of Duty characters. That’s admirable as well.
Unfortunately, there were many others who were not only inept, but dangerous. Their presence didn’t make our military safer. Those armed citizens saw a problem, grabbed their guns, headed to recruiting centers and made shit worse.
This sailor looks a bit apprehensive about having a rifle pointed at his head. He must hate the Constitution.
If you’re going to defend a recruiting center from terrorists, it’s imperative that you don’t put sights on your weapon or carry extra ammo. Because you want terrorists to have a sporting chance.
Nothing says “I’m a highly-trained gunfighter” like a flimsy, open top, non-retention, cross draw holster.
Don’t get me wrong; armed citizens can do great things. When a hurricane hit Texas several years ago, my neighborhood lost power for weeks. Local police were overwhelmed and couldn’t respond to many crimes. A neighbor handed out rifles to people he trusted, and they set a roadblock at the neighborhood’s only entrance to keep looters out. The entire time they operated the roadblock, they saw one police officer, one time; he drove up, said “looks like you guys got this under control”, and drove away. Those neighbors took up arms for the right reasons, and did the right things with those arms. They didn’t make shit worse.
The Oath Keepers in Ferguson made shit worse. Many of the armed citizens who stood in front of recruiting centers made shit worse. Ridiculous open carry activists who dress like fools and do stupid things designed to piss off the public make shit worse. Dumbasses who carry AR-15s into airports, just because they can, make shit worse. The lunatic who opened carried a shotgun into Wal-Mart, bought ammo and loaded the shotgun inside the store made shit worse.
The gun owners making shit worse aren’t fighting terror or tyranny, and they aren’t advancing the cause of gun rights. They’re just making themselves look stupid, and helping the anti-gun side paint us all as moronic extremists. The rest of us 2nd Amendment advocates are letting the crazies drive the gun rights bus. And we need to stop letting them represent us.
Airports are dens of crime and you need an AR-15 to defend yourself inside them. Which is why it totally makes sense that you’d drop off your teenage daughter at one of these highly dangerous places.
Gun rights extremists like those I just described will now scream, rant and have a seizure while invoking their holy mantra: “But I’m legally exercising my rights so you can’t criticize me!”
No, dumbass. There are lots of things you have the right to do, but if you do them you’re just stupid. You have the right to nail your penis to your bedroom wall. If you do it, you’re stupid. You have the right to cover your face in gang tattoos. If you do it, you’re stupid. You have the right to carry a confederate flag through Watts at 3 a.m. while yelling “Bring back slavery!” If you do it, you’re stupid. And you have a right to put on your best goth clothes or favorite gas mask, grab the nearest antique rifle and beg for attention… I mean, “rally for freedom” at a state capitol. But if you do it, you’re just stupid.
Engaging in the above actions doesn’t make you a patriotic hero of the Constitution. It just makes you non-criminally stupid.
I believe in the 2nd Amendment. It is a necessary tool to prevent this nation from falling to the tyranny so common throughout human history. Our founding fathers understood human nature and knew governments always seek more power for themselves, at the expense of the governed. The architects of our Constitution forever granted us the power to prevent our government from stripping inalienable rights. But it’s safe to say they didn’t write the 2nd Amendment because they wanted us to dress like clowns, inject ourselves into tense situations, display gross incompetence with our weapons, and make shit worse. If some fool had wrapped himself in the first U.S. flag and accidentally pointed his musket at Thomas Jefferson’s head during the Constitutional Convention, I’m sure even George Washington would have told him, “Please take leave of this hall, sir. For ye be worsening the defecation.”
This freedom-lover wanted to open carry two pistols into the St. Louis zoo, because zoo patrons are in constant danger of being massacred. Freedom-haters wouldn’t let him. You know who else didn’t allow dual open carry in zoos? Adolf Hitler, that’s who!
A critical incident of any type requires dedicated, trained, intelligent people to successfully resolve it. Medical emergencies are resolved by people who perform lifesaving tasks when required. Fires are brought under control by people who conduct necessary tasks to both fight the fire and prevent its spread. Resolution of a crisis relies upon people not just showing up, but doing the right thing when they show up.
But gun rights extremists keep showing up and doing the wrong thing. Oath Keepers in Ferguson injected themselves into a highly volatile situation that required only a spark to spiral out of control. Had they engaged in a shootout with cops, protestors or criminals, the glut of media and protestors surrounding them would have virtually ensured unintended casualties. Some armed citizens showed up at recruiting centers and put more people in danger because of their ridiculously poor weapon-handling skills. We’re lucky only one accidentally fired his weapon while showing it off. Open carry extremists keep doing stupid things like walking into buildings with weapons in combat-ready holds. They’ve gotten weapons banned from several places.
None of these actions help. They just make shit worse.
This is a totally non-threatening way for this gun rights supporter to carry a weapon into a public building. Just as non-threatening as carrying an axe over his head, ready to swing.
We on the pro-2nd Amendment side have enough problems to deal with already. If you’re a gun rights supporter, and feel you must carry your weapon into the public eye, do it for the right reasons. Do it the right way. A firearm is a tremendously powerful tool and its use demands the utmost respect; don’t treat it as a theatrical prop. Show the world that there are good people with guns, who have proper training, and aren’t looking for opportunities to scare their fellow citizens.
But don’t do stupid things that make shit worse.
Chris Hernandez is a 20 year police officer, former Marine and currently serving National Guard soldier with over 25 years of military service. He is a combat veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan and also served 18 months as a United Nations police officer in Kosovo. He writes for BreachBangClear.com and Iron Mike magazine and has published two military fiction novels, Proof of Our Resolve and Line in the Valley, through Tactical16 Publishing. He can be reached at [email protected] or on his Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/ProofofOurResolve).
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A reader made a very interesting comment in response to my last essay, An unarmed woman stops an active shooter; what that means, and what it doesn’t (https://chrishernandezauthor.com/2013/08/27/an-unarmed-woman-stops-an-active-shooter-what-that-means-and-what-it-doesnt/). I think this comment deserves its own post. This comment is, in a nutshell, everything that’s wrong with the argument against armed teachers.
Of course, not everyone who opposes allowing teachers to carry does so for the same reasons. I don’t accuse them all of being stupid or unreasonable. But I do see these trends:
1) they tend to view the active shooter as so highly trained and skilled, resistance against them is futile;
2) they tend to view armed citizens as so untrained and unskilled they’re absolutely unable to perform even a task as simple as covering a door from six feet away, and emptying a magazine at an active shooter as soon as he enters;
3) they tend to have no tactical training, experience, knowledge or understanding (which doesn’t stop some of them from very arrogantly preaching tactical “truth” to people who actually do know what they’re talking about);
4) they tend to think the active shooter will enjoy every advantage, while the armed citizen will suffer every possible misfortune (i.e., police will immediately shoot the armed citizen on sight); and
5) they seem to think police can’t differentiate between an armed good guy who is being cautious and targeting one person, and a mass murderer who is targeting everybody.
This “Don’t even try to fight back” mindset has become so strong on the left that writers on liberal sites actually argue against anyone without a badge resisting an active shooter. Bob Cesca, in an opinion piece which also reaches ridiculously illogical conclusions about specific shooting incidents (http://thedailybanter.com/2013/02/good-guys-with-guns-will-not-stop-bad-guys-with-guns/), said “No. I don’t want some other dude with a gun in the room. Generally speaking, the addition of a second gun has effectively doubled my chances of being killed by one of the gunmen, intentionally or not.”
Somehow the anti-gun side of the argument seems to equate a coward trying to murder everyone, with an armed, trained good citizen who is trying to stop the killing.
As you read the comment below and my response to it, please look for the mindset I’ve described above. Correct me if I’m wrong, but all I see in this argument is, “Don’t even bother trying to fight. Just give up and die. It’s the best way to save lives.”
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Reader “ivyfree2″‘s comment:
Agree with much of what you said, but not all. The shooter could easily have been wearing bulletproof armor (like the Aurora theater shooter). In which case, shooting him first would have been completely ineffective. Second, it’s not easy to shoot a human being. It takes training. It takes reflexes. Even then, it’s hard to do. We are socialized not to attack others. Yes, that can be overcome with training. I doubt very much if university teaching programs will start courses on “shooting a crazed teenager.” Seeing somebody come in with a gun and start loading it after verbalizing his intentions? Okay, MAYBE somebody would have had time to shoot him first. That person would have had to be either carrying a loaded weapon on his person (while at a school) or have to unlock a drawer or shelf to get the gun, making himself a target. Even if you shoot at a human, can you hit him? Most people who use guns practice with paper targets. Hitting a moving target is different. Going deer-hunting or whatever, that’s also different. Killing a human crosses a line that most people can’t do.
But suppose you’re special. You have a loaded gun on your person. You comprehend the situation as soon as the impending criminal (who hasn’t done anything illegal yet) announces that he’s going to kill and pulls out a gun. You grab your gun and you shoot. Maybe you have great aim and hit him, and maybe he’s dumb and hasn’t bought a bulletproof vest off the internet. Maybe you shoot several times and he (the person who has still, at that point, done nothing illegal) is dead. At that point, anyone who has heard your gunfire has grabbed their cell phone and called 911, reporting gunfire at a school. You hear the sirens approaching and police in armor storm the building, looking for the man with the gun. Bang: you’re dead.
My response:
Ivy,
First, thank you for your comment. Despite the fact that I am about to tear your opinions to shreds, I do honestly appreciate your willingness to speak up here. As I’ve said before, I don’t want this site to become an echo chamber, where I write opinions to an audience that parrots them right back to me. Dissenting opinions from reasonable, intelligent people are extremely valuable to national-level debates, and to me personally as a way to ensure my views don’t contain logical fallacies.
Second, your post leads me to these conclusions: you have zero tactical training, knowledge or experience. None. Nada. Zilch. And you probably only discuss topics like this with like-minded people who never challenge your blatantly ridiculous assumptions.
I’ll start with this: “The shooter could easily have been wearing bulletproof armor (like the Aurora theater shooter). In which case, shooting him first would have been completely ineffective.”
This statement alone is enough to prove that you have no idea what you’re talking about. I’ve been wearing body armor on a regular basis for almost 20 years. As a cop I wear soft concealable armor, and as a soldier overseas I wore either a military issue IBA vest with protective plates, or a plate carrier with no soft armor. I know the capabilities and limitations of body armor very well. “Bulletproof” vests leave significant areas of the upper body exposed (head, neck, abdomen, etc). They have seams that rounds can penetrate. Soft armor does not stop all calibers. I find it hard to believe that you’ve never heard of a single incident where a police officer was shot and killed, even though he was wearing body armor. It happens at least dozens of times every year. I can’t believe you’ve never heard of a soldier being killed by small arms fire, even though he’s wearing heavy body armor. As a cop wearing body armor, do I no longer have to worry about being shot? I know officers who were shot and wounded, and one who was killed, while wearing body armor. No, bullets don’t become “completely ineffective” if the suspect is wearing body armor.
Next: “…it’s not easy to shoot a human being. It takes training. It takes reflexes. Even then, it’s hard to do.”
As a longtime cop and two time combat vet, I’m aware that becoming proficient with a weapon takes training. I’ve actually had quite a bit of it. However, I’m also aware that we have about 20,000 gun homicides every year. Based on media reports and just about every gun-related murder scene I’ve ever been on, it’s pretty damn easy to shoot a human being. I don’t think the kids who killed the Australian student recently were weapon experts. Neither was the young mother in Georgia who repeatedly shot a burglar last year. Because actually, it’s pretty easy to shoot someone if you have the will. Weapons are designed to be ergonomic, easy to use with a minimum of training. The weapon I carry is extremely easy to operate, with no external controls [correction: it actually has one, not none]. You just draw, point it at your target and pull the trigger. With a few hours of training on the range and the correct mindset, just about anyone is capable of shooting a human being with it.
“Seeing somebody come in with a gun and start loading it after verbalizing his intentions? Okay, MAYBE somebody would have had time to shoot him first. That person would have had to be either carrying a loaded weapon on his person (while at a school) or have to unlock a drawer or shelf to get the gun, making himself a target.”
The entire point of allowing teachers to carry at school is to have them carrying at school. Yes, they should have the weapons on their person. With reasonable training, someone can draw and engage within a couple of seconds. Do you think an active shooter is an eagle-eyed, sharp-witted genius who sees all movements made by everyone in view? Why do you assume that drawing the weapon would automatically make the teacher a target? And what about situations like Columbine or Virginia Tech, where some teachers heard shots outside their classrooms for several minutes before they saw the shooters? Is it possible those teachers could have drawn their weapons long before the shooters were in view?
Your perspective is extremely common among many anti-carry people I’ve debated. You assume the shooter is a tactical genius, all-seeing and unstoppable, while the average good-guy with a gun is so outclassed that he might as well just give up and die rather than fight back. You are objectively wrong about this. Most mass shooters have been untrained, unskilled cowards who folded as soon as they were threatened by good guys with guns. George Hennard stopped shooting people at Luby’s as soon as he heard an officer fire a round into the ceiling. Cho at Virginia Tech shot himself as soon as he heard officers breach a door with a shotgun. Adam Lanza shot himself as soon as he heard police sirens outside. These guys are not SEAL ninja Delta Force Rangers. They are cowards, usually with no tactical training or even awareness, who are only enabled to commit murderous rampages by people like you who view them as mythical, omnipotent gods.
“Even if you shoot at a human, can you hit him? Most people who use guns practice with paper targets. Hitting a moving target is different. Going deer-hunting or whatever, that’s also different.”
You need training and a good understanding of your and your weapon’s capabilities to hit a human. At close, defensive pistol range, the average shooter can hit a human. We’re not expecting an armed teacher to take an active shooter out at 100 yards with her Beretta .380. We’re talking about shots fired within about 10 feet, within a classroom or office. Again, untrained criminals do it all the time. And trained people perform better with a weapon than untrained criminals.
“Killing a human crosses a line that most people can’t do.”
Standing there and doing nothing before someone kills you crosses a line. Taking no action at all as a murder massacres children crosses a line. You think the resistance to killing another human is so great, people would literally rather watch someone murder dozens of children than take action to stop them?
“But suppose you’re special. You have a loaded gun on your person.”
How is that special? Hundreds of thousands of Americans (and that may be a low number) carry a weapon on their person every day. That isn’t special. I’ve carried a weapon on my person daily for almost 20 years. Strangers have no idea I’m armed. Having a weapon doesn’t make anyone special and isn’t some far-fetched idea.
“You comprehend the situation as soon as the impending criminal (who hasn’t done anything illegal yet) announces that he’s going to kill and pulls out a gun. You grab your gun and you shoot. Maybe you have great aim and hit him, and maybe he’s dumb and hasn’t bought a bulletproof vest off the internet. Maybe you shoot several times and he (the person who has still, at that point, done nothing illegal) is dead.”
This is one of the more astounding parts of your post. So a guy walks into a school with a gun, announces he’s going to kill people and draws the gun, and you make the point, twice, that “he hasn’t done anything illegal”? In Texas he has, as well as any other state that doesn’t allow weapons in schools. Besides that, he’s presented an imminent threat to everyone in the area. The only reasonable response is the threat or use of lethal force. If you draw your weapon, he sees it and drops his, then no need to fire. If you draw your weapon and he’s still armed, engage and keep engaging until he’s no longer a threat. If you think the armed teacher has now committed a crime, you need to brush up on criminal law.
And the vast majority of active shooters and criminals in general are “dumb”. Do you think criminals always wear body armor? How many active shooters wore body armor? Can you think of any besides Holmes in Colorado?
“At that point, anyone who has heard your gunfire has grabbed their cell phone and called 911, reporting gunfire at a school. You hear the sirens approaching and police in armor storm the building, looking for the man with the gun. Bang: you’re dead.”
And here’s another beloved fallacy of the anti-defense side: don’t fight back, because the police will immediately kill you. Unfortunately, a police response takes time. At Newtown, police arrived in about three minutes. At Virginia Tech two fully geared-up SWAT teams were on campus when the shooting started. They still took several minutes to reach and enter Norris Hall. Chances are, if you encounter an active shooter at a school you’ll have several minutes before police show up.
And police today are trained NOT to shoot someone just because they have a weapon. We know many people can be legally armed at a shooting; teachers in some districts, off-duty cops, plainclothes cops, parents with concealed handgun licenses, etc. Simply having a weapon does not mean the police instantly shoot you.
And in your scenario, the armed teacher kills the bad guy, hears police sirens and hears the police “storm” the building (which is something else we don’t do; again, please take some time to learn something about this subject), but is still holding the weapon when police reach her? She couldn’t put the weapon back in the holster or simply drop it during the several minutes it takes them to arrive?
I hope you understood my point. Your views on this subject are devoid of actual experience or knowledge, riddled with fallacies, formed by unrealistic myths, and probably supported by legions of others with fallacious, unrealistic beliefs who tell you that you’re right.
What amazes me is that so many of you who oppose armed defense lack even basic knowledge on the subject, yet still feel justified making sweeping pronouncements about it. How does that happen? There are subjects I refuse to debate because I don’t know anything about them. I have opinions on them, but no actual knowledge or experience. So I stay quiet about those subjects because I know my uninformed opinion adds nothing to the debate and just makes me look stupid. I might ask questions, I might say, “I don’t know anything about this, but what about…” and ask a question. But I would never tell a doctor he’s wrong about medicine. I would never tell an economist he’s wrong about the economy. I’d never tell a pilot how to fly.
But many people who are anti-gun and have zero knowledge, training or experience with guns feel completely justified telling me, a longtime cop and combat vet, the “real truth” about armed defense. More often than not they say it’s futile to even try to fight back against an active shooter (as you did). Active shooters are just so amazingly skilled, nobody could possibly win against them. It’s better to just give up and die. It’s better to just let them walk into a school and mow down masses of children. “For god’s sake, please don’t make the situation worse by shooting the worthless, unskilled, untrained, cowardly piece of crap who’s massacring helpless people.” So help me, I can’t think of a more pathetic mindset than that.
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Am I off base, guys? Your thoughts?
]]>I arrived on a robbery call one night. A robber had shot a man through the sternum with a 9mm hollow point. He looked dead. I got on the radio and notified dispatch that we had a murder. Thirty seconds later, the victim started moaning and squirming. Less than a minute later he was fully conscious and complained, “This is the fifth time I’ve been shot.”
But nobody needs more than seven rounds. One round is usually fatal. And nobody could possibly still be a threat after being shot more than once.
The same robbers shot another victim that night. One round in the ankle, one in the face and one in the forehead. 9mm hollow points. This victim turned and ran about 500 yards through an apartment complex, pounded on a door to beg for help, and passed out. Last I heard, years after the shooting, he’s still alive.
But nobody needs more than seven rounds. When you shoot someone, they fall to their knees, pledge their soul to Jesus, gasp dramatically and die.
I answered a disturbance call one night. A teenage girl calmly told me that she had gotten into a fight with her ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend. Several minutes into the story she informed me she had been shot through the thigh. I looked down and saw a bullet wound through her leg. She was completely unconcerned about it.
I responded to a burglary in progress. A teenager on PCP picked a random house and started kicking the sun room door in. The homeowner stood by the door with his 9mm pistol, called 911 and warned the teenager he was armed. The teenager kicked the door in. The homeowner shot him in the leg, then retreated into the house. The teenager forced his way into the kitchen. The homeowner shot him in the stomach. When we arrived, we had to wrestle the teenager into handcuffs. Had the teenager been armed, he still could have fired a weapon.
But nobody needs more than seven rounds. Seven rounds are more than enough to stop any criminal threatening you. When a criminal gets shot, their body’s entire blood supply sprays onto all the walls and they die within milliseconds.
I answered a call about a man with a gun. When I knocked on an apartment door, a drunk inside pointed a gun at me through a window. I jumped out of the way, drew my weapon and screamed at the drunk to drop the gun. He kept moving the gun, trying to get me in his sights. Another officer in a different spot shot him.
When we got inside the apartment, we found the suspect wide awake, flailing around on the floor. Fortunately a family member had disarmed him. He could still have shot us. The officer had hit him under the left arm. The round went all the way through his upper body and stopped just under the skin below his right arm. Last I heard, years after the shooting, the drunk was still alive.
But nobody needs more than seven rounds. When someone is trying to kill you, all you have to do is fire slowly and carefully to make sure you don’t run out. You can even count your rounds as you shoot. It’s easy.
When investigators asked the officer who saved my life how many rounds he fired, he said, “Two or three, I think.” But when they counted rounds in his magazine, it turned out he had fired eight. He had been a cop for over twenty years, and was a survivor of several shootings. Under stress, he lost count of his rounds. Because that’s what happens when you’re shooting to save your life, or to save someone else’s life.
But nobody needs more than seven rounds. You can just shoot the bad guy in the head. It’s easy to make a head shot under stress, right? And they’re immediately fatal.
I answered a stabbing call at a nightclub. When I arrived I found two women standing at the open door of a truck, telling the driver, “You’ll be okay.” When I shined my flashlight on the driver, I was stunned; he hadn’t been stabbed, he had been shot in the head with a .38 from close range. About a third of his skull was blown away. And he wasn’t just alive, he was awake. He nodded to the women, wiped his face, did his best to stay calm. When paramedics arrived, the man got out of the truck with minimal assistance. He died hours later.
I arrived on a shooting/riot outside a club. One man was dead in the street, another had been taken to the hospital by private car. As we tried to control the crowd, a severely beaten young man walked up to me and slurred, “Hey man, we need an ambulance.” I answered, “Yeah, we have one on the way.” As I spoke, I noticed a bloody dent on the side of the young man’s head. I thought, Is that a bullet hole? The man collapsed at my feet. A 9mm Black Talon hollow point had bounced off his skull. The wound didn’t put the man down until several minutes after he was shot. He survived.
I assisted on a rollover accident. The driver was an older woman who lost control of her truck. At the emergency room, a CAT scan revealed a bullet in her head. The woman died. Her husband was unconscious. Days later, when the husband awakened, investigators asked who shot his wife. The man answered, “Oh yeah, that. She told me she got shot in the head about ten years ago, before we got married. She never went to the doctor or nothing, though.” An autopsy showed it was an old wound. This woman got shot in the head, and never even bothered to get medical attention.
But nobody needs more than seven rounds. If little bullets don’t work, get a pistol that fires bigger bullets. Nobody could still be a threat after being hit by a big round.
In one of our firefights in Afghanistan, three French Marines were hit by gunfire. One died from a head wound. The other two were hit in the upper body and badly wounded. Those two Marines got back to their feet, kept their weapons ready and made it to safety with help. And they were hit by either 7.62×39 AK-47 rounds or 7.62x54R PKM machine gun rounds. Those are far more powerful than what any typical pistol fires.
These stories are all from my personal experience. Secondhand, I know of a man who was shot in the forehead, sneezed and blew the round out his nose. I know of a gang member who had half his head blown off by an AK round, then told the first responding officer, “They shot me, dog.” I know of a robber who ran into a restaurant with an Uzi and was immediately shot twice by an off-duty officer, then ran to a payphone and called 911 to report he had been shot.
Historically speaking, I know of the suspect in the Miami FBI shootout who sustained a non-survivable wound in the first few seconds of the fight, but still managed to kill two FBI agents and wound several others. I know of a drunk suspect who shot an Arkansas deputy twice, then took seventeen 9mm rounds in the torso without effect before the deputy finally shot him twice in the face. I know of the young Georgia mother who shot a burglar five times in the head and neck. He asked her to stop shooting, cried, and drove away. I know of many Soldiers and Marines who sustained horrible wounds and stayed in the fight.
When I’m on the street, I carry a pistol with a fifteen round magazine and three spare mags. Off duty, I carry a weapon and magazines that hold many more than seven rounds. I carry that much ammo because I understand what pistols are capable of, and what they’re not capable of.
The people who are pushing new gun control laws seem to think they understand weapons and lethal force encounters. They don’t. One of them thinks someone armed with a double-barrel shotgun is better off than someone armed with an AR-15, even if the person with the AR knows how to use it. One of them thinks people have been shot with unloaded guns. One of them thinks women can’t use an AR-15, even though women in the military have been using M-16s and M4s for decades. The same person didn’t know the difference between a barrel shroud and a folding stock. Some in the media think a rifle’s sling swivel is used to mount a bayonet and fire grenades. Some of them pay $200 for an expended anti-tank rocket launcher tube, which can’t be reloaded and is nothing more than a piece of fiberglass, proudly hold it over their heads at press conferences and proclaim they’ve protected the public from a “weapon of war”. They think cops who have body armor and backup need high capacity magazines, but private citizens without those things only need seven rounds.
Make your own decision about whether or not to defend yourself, and what you should use to do so. But learn the reality of a gunfight. Understand that you’re likely to only hit with a small percentage of the shots you fire, and those hits may not have much effect.
And most of all, remember that many people who say nobody needs more than seven rounds don’t have a clue what they’re talking about.
Chris Hernandez is a 20 year police officer, former Marine and currently serving National Guard soldier with over 25 years of military service. He is a combat veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan and also served 18 months as a United Nations police officer in Kosovo. He writes for BreachBangClear.com, Iron Mike magazine and has published two military fiction novels, Proof of Our Resolve and Line in the Valley, through Tactical16 Publishing. He can be reached at [email protected].
http://www.amazon.com/Line-Valley-Chris-Hernandez-ebook/dp/B00HW1MA2G/ref=pd_sim_kstore_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=09XSSHABSWPC3FM8K6P4
http://www.amazon.com/Proof-Our-Resolve-Chris-Hernandez-ebook/dp/B0099XMR1E/ref=pd_sim_kstore_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=0S6AGHBTJZ6JH99D56X7
]]>Everyone in America knows the story of United Flight 93, the flight that fought back. Everyone knows of the brave passengers who refused to die as helpless victims. Everyone knows they charged the cockpit and fought for control of the aircraft, forcing the hijackers to crash into an empty field instead of the Capitol. Those passengers are justifiably regarded as heroes.
But how many Americans consider the actions of passengers and crew on American Airlines Flight 77, which hit the Pentagon? As far as we know, the plane was hijacked, its crew forced to the rear, then the aircraft began descending over Washington D.C. – and the passengers and crew did nothing. They apparently sat quietly in their seats, fully aware that they were about to die a horrible, fiery death. At least one passenger knew hijacked airliners had hit the Twin Towers (and to me it’s inconceivable that she didn’t tell the others). But even though they knew they were doomed, even though they literally could not have made the situation worse by resisting, they didn’t lift a finger to stop it. They died as cooperative, unresisting victims.
I’m not blaming them for their inaction. We as a nation learned a hard lesson about trusting those with evil intentions that day. Instead, I’m blaming a widespread mindset that’s poisoned the United States over the past several decades. I think this mindset is directly opposed to traditional American values, and would have been ridiculed by braver generations.
This mindset advocates passive acceptance of victimhood. This mindset tells people, “it’s better to stand by and do nothing as you and other innocent people are brutally murdered.“ And worse than that, it elevates such cowardice to a virtue.
The debate over gun control sparked by the Newtown shooting has partly devolved into a debate about whether citizens should defend themselves from mass shooters. Much of America believes private citizens can and should use weapons to protect themselves and their families. But a very vocal portion of the population considers this idea to be total stupidity.
Since I began writing about mass shootings and armed citizenry, I’ve read many comments to my articles. While most have been positive, I’ve also seen a number of readers who don’t just disagree but can’t seem to think of armed citizenry in anything other than derisive terms.
Here are a few examples, from various internet forums:
“And I think that’s a perfect example of the egoistic hero fantasy BS that fuels this whole problem. . . . everyone with a gun thinks they’re going to be John Mclane.”
“I describe these scenarios as hero fantasy because that’s precisely what they are.”
“’Super good guys with guns to save the day’. Check.”
“I don’t think some overconfident chippy with a pistol in her handbag is going to be of any use whatsoever to anyone. Tell me, Miss Annie Oakley, precisely how you determine who the good guys are and who the bad guys are when everyone pulls out a gun?”
This quote from an article in the Huffington Post directly equates armed teachers with “movie hero fantasies”: “Bruce Lee’s son died in a gun accident on a movie set, but I’m sure that won’t happen in your classroom. Your classroom isn’t a movie set. Well, not until some gun-toting lunatic barges in, in a slow motion climax after about two hours and a classic three act structure, scored by whatever composer Michael Bay uses for his films, and probably while he eats breakfast, and does his laundry, and sits on the toilet.”
A blog post from last year was titled, “NRA gun-toting-Rambo-citizen-hero ‘theory’ soundly disproved in New York at Empire State Building Shooting”.
These sentiments, often expressed by people with little to no experience, training or apparent understanding of lethal violence, are all over the internet. Those who hold this belief view every private citizen who carries a weapon for self defense as a delusional, wannabe superman who is capable of only creating more problems and mistakenly killing more innocent people. They see armed citizens as simply another threat to the public, maybe a bigger threat than the statistically insignificant number of mass shooters.
I don’t claim to know the true motivations of everyone who opposes armed citizens’ response to mass shooters. But I do know that this mindset certainly can be a cynical, self-serving way to disguise blatant fear of taking action as “good sense”. I fear that this mindset is changing us from a brave culture, a culture where people are expected to defend the defenseless, to a culture of deeply entrenched cowardice. A culture where outright refusal to defend even one’s own family is celebrated as a mark of high intelligence.
The realities of sudden violence against private citizens always point to an inescapable conclusion: the only way to protect citizens from violence is to let them protect themselves. I say this as a police officer who spent years training for and teaching other police officers how to respond to mass shootings. Anyone who thinks we police can be everywhere, or can respond within seconds to any public place under attack, are fooling themselves.
We’ve experienced a long string of tragic mass shootings. The Killeen Luby’s, the Amish School shooting, Columbine, Virginia Tech, Northern Illinois University, Newtown, the New York subway massacre, the Sikh Temple shooting, the Aurora Colorado theater shooting, the Giffords shooting in Tucson, the Colorado Springs church shooting, and on and on. In every one, police arrived too late to stop the massacres.
But remember that one shooting, where police arrived in seconds and managed to stop the shooter immediately? No? Me neither. It never happened.
We have a well known, easily understood set of facts regarding mass shootings. We know, without question, that a mass murderer who faces no resistance will kill as many people as possible, as quickly as possible. We know most mass shooters will keep killing until they’re forced to stop. We know police won’t respond in time. And yet, some people take that set of facts and conclude that no private citizen should act to defend themselves.
I understand if someone makes the personal decision not to defend themselves. I don’t agree with it, but a reasonable, intelligent person can decide not to carry a weapon. Some people know they wouldn’t be able to control their fear, or can’t handle a firearm, aren’t prepared for the responsibility, or could never shoot another human being. That doesn’t make them bad people, and the majority of our population is probably made up of people who feel that way. Their attitude might be summed up as, “I’m not the right person to carry a weapon, so I’m glad other people have them.” My comments aren’t directed toward people who make that honest, rational assessment of themselves.
My comments are, however, directed at committed victims who deem themselves morally and intellectually superior to those who would fight back. It’s not enough for them to make a personal decision not to act; for some reason, they have to try to stop others from doing what they themselves won’t.
We’re not talking about intervening in a robbery, or jumping in when a crip shoots a blood over dope-deaing turf. In most of these cases, the best thing to do is be a good witness. We’re talking about the closest thing to black and white, no question, pure evil we’re likely to see in America: a coward brutally gunning down as many innocent, helpless people as possible. If that doesn’t demand an immediate, lethal citizen response, nothing does.
When pacifists advocate passive resistance to violence while smugly assuming armed citizes are stupid and violent, they accomplish two things. First, the pacifists don’t have to accept the true cowardice inherent in their decision. After all, how can any honorable man or woman refuse to act when innocent people, especially children, are being murdered in their presence? And second, these pacifists actually enable violent criminals who specifically seek a mass of unarmed, unresisting victims.
I would like to offer a deal to those who refuse to carry a weapon, yet insult and deride those who do. I won’t hold your decision, which has no bearing on how I should live, against you. I won’t speak badly of you. If I happen to be near you and the unthinkable happens, I will risk my life to defend you. If I’m mortally wounded and have time to recognize my impending death, I won’t feel anger over dying to defend someone who wouldn’t defend himself.
Your part of the deal? Shut up. Stop speaking out against those who would face mortal danger to defend themselves, their families and you. Stop telling good, intelligent people not to fight back against evil. Stop trying to convince people that if police can’t protect them, they therefore shouldn’t protect themselves. If you have zero experience in the subject, stop spreading your tactical wisdom, gained through years of sitting in classrooms and discussing with likeminded friends how stupid gun owners are, about what a gunfight is really like. Stop citing Mother Jones “studies” and 20/20 “videotaped experiments” that were specifically engineered to convince people not to defend themselves. Stop telling me that cowardly mass shooters with no skill or training are unstoppable monsters who no citizen should even attempt to fight, but brave law-abiding citizens with training and good sense are powerless. Stop telling me it’s better to let a childish coward keep shooting at me than to shoot back. Stop projecting your passive timidity onto others. Stop hiding your cowardice behind a veil of smug superiority. People see through it.
When faced with the horrible evil of Newtown, Columbine, or Virginia Tech, we all face a decision. Are we the passive victims of Flight 77, who sat quietly in helpless acceptance of their impending murders? Or are we the men and women of action who took responsibility for their own lives and those of the intended innocent victims below, banded together and charged the cockpit of Flight 93?
You victims made your decision in advance. Just like the Flight 77 passengers, you know the end result of that decision will be tragedy. But I respect your rights, and accept what you’ve chosen not to do.
I, along with many veterans, police officers and armed citizens, have rejected your culture of cowardice. At the very least, you should respect our decision. And if the worst case happens, all you should do is duck out of the line of fire, shut your mouth, and let the rest of us follow the path that we, not you, have chosen.
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