Great article. Despite evidence and logic being overwhelmingly against their position, the gun-grabber cult won't budge from their hardline position, and it really makes it clear that their ideology is based on quasi-religious claims rather than any sort of reasonable argument. Fortunately, more people are waking up and seeing the wide gulf between the gun-control lobby's claims and the true reality. Thanks for doing what you do on this substack to highlight the true reality.
The question was never whether a good guy with a gun can stop a bad guy. Of course he can. The question is whether encouraging the majority of the populace to arm themselves with the goal of stopping bad guys will, statistically, cause more death. How will road rage incidents play out if more people are armed? Will good guys commit suicide at a higher rate.
I think this is a completely reasonable question, especially with regards to suicide, which does track gun ownership rate in men.
I think the simple 'down the middle' response might be "just get more people who already own guns to carry," combined with "permitless carry is shown to save lives," and "work culturally on the suicide problem." We've covered the suicide problem a lot here, because it's the main problem. To be honest we could solve the mass shooter problem pretty easy just by realizing it's not a problem at all, mathematically speaking.
I agree. Mathematically speaking, this event effectively doesn’t happen.
So it seems unreasonable to advocate for the solution that worked here. The solution of arming more people in public spaces doesn’t seem to solve gang violence, which is statistically the real gun problem in this country.
Statistically the real problem is male suicide TBH.
The point of this article is to start by accepting the modern liberal position that mass shootings are indeed a problem, and game that out to its obvious conclusion.
People ought to remember that the best result of legal permitless carry is that there will be fewer people jailed for the malum prohibitum act of carrying the means of self defense. Even if there were no other benefits, this would be enough to justify the concept.
There are known harms from the criminalization of carrying the means of self defense that have contributed to the destruction of some societies, especially urban, that are so obvious that there is credible belief that this was a racially targeted policy.
I'm sure there are unknown externalities to allowing peaceful people to carry the means of self defense, but I cannot imagine how they would come close to the magnitude of the known harms from the institutionalization of a significant amount of over-policed communities.
There's an important distinction between "more people armed" and "every citizen armed at every moment."
I'd add a second layer: mass shootings are so incredibly rare that they're nothing to worry about and we should all quit paying attention to them. If, however, you are a person who lives in fear of mass rampage shootings in public spaces then the only mathematically reasonable policy choice to mitigate that fear is to increase the number of citizens armed in places like malls.
Just came here for the first time. I think I saw a reference about the suggestion that everyone should be armed everywhere and the problems with that. I meant that everyone everywhere isn't what law abiding gun owners are suggesting. I might have misread it, or replied to the wrong comment, ?
More, not all. You're playing games. You put up a strawman argument "every citizen always armed everywhere" and got called on it and now you're claiming the article was making that argument when it was not, but by simultaneously sliding into "more people should be armed at the local mall."
So let me respond to your argument very clearly: "I think there are rational polices between outright gun bans and having every citizen armed at every moment in every venue." Yes, private citizens who take their self defense rights seriously and decide to carry have the right to do so and permitting that is a rational and societally beneficial policy.
That's relevant if we're arguing from a utilitarian mindset, but irrelevant if it's an argument from morality. For example, slavery is morally wrong no matter how much anyone cries that the cotton must be picked somehow.
To address the utility framework;
Nothing society does from the top down can prevent all non-natural death. If it could, murders would never happen in prisons.
Everything that is considered that has a goal of preventing something will have unintentional negative externalities, such as the "no guns allowed" sign on the mall in question. I believe that particular one has been more than adequately dealt with in the relevant article already.
The most common negative externality of the prohibition of the means and concept of self defense is that it gives the advantage to the most violent and sociopathic at the expense of the most peaceful and honorable. The old adage that God made man and Samuel Colt made men equal seems relevant to this argument.
Speaking to the morality;
Every living being has a natural will to live. From this it can be extrapolated that every living being has the right to do whatever it can to preserve that life. As uniquely rational beings, humans can exercise that right while also acknowledging and allowing that their fellow rational beings have that same right reserved to themselves.
To exercise this right of self preservation a rational being should (here's the morality) be free to choose, carry, and employ whatever is available and appropriate for their self defense. In this timeframe, that would include firearms.
It’s not utilitarian to want to weigh different policies by the statistical chance that I personally will die as a direct result of the policies in question. I want to be able to stop a mass shooter, but I also want to reduce my chances of getting shot if I cut someone off in traffic.
Back to the shark attack analogy, what if there was a drug some politicians were proposing to add to the ocean that would cause sharks to stop attacking humans, but the drug increased swimmer’s likelihood of developing skin cancer. I’d want to weigh those two risks.
Saying that we should encourage more citizens to carry handguns to prevent mass shootings only looks at one side of the equation.
I mostly agree with your points and am in total alignment with your curiosity. It most definitely is a utilitarian subject, though.
This is not meant to minimize anything, but just to define the borders of the playing field. I've seen too many discussions with great potential lose their way by participants figuratively playing different rhetorical sports.
No. Statistically speaking, men who have decided to commit suicide will find some effective means of doing so, even in the absence of firearms.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The preceding statement is, in fact, completely wrong. But I'm leaving it in place so the replies don't look weird.
-----
Some people will go out of their way to pick a method that *isn't* a firearm, just to keep the ammo (ha!) out of Sarah Brady's hands. That was **my** reasoning when I had decided to kill myself with some other method, anyway. (I was intercepted prior to getting to implement my solution, obviously.)
> How will road rage incidents play out if more people are armed?
I presume similarly to how mass shootings would play out if CNN stopped advertising for them and started promoting the people who stopped them. Cognizance that there were a lot of armed people out there and maybe one should behave seems likely to result.
Mek, this is not how I understand the math to work. There is a 1:1 replacement method for gun and nongun suicides among *women*, but not men. In men, suicide rates do in fact track gun ownership rates. Analysis:
Jul 20, 2022·edited Jul 20, 2022Liked by Handwaving Freakoutery
My apologies, I appear to have remembered that **entirely** reversed. Oops.
Well, hrm.
I dunno then. I was highly motivated to kill myself, and highly politically motivated to not use a firearm for it. But I'm almost certainly an outlier, so... I dunno. But of all of the friends I've had who have left via that particular exit, *none* have used a firearm either, so perhaps I was just extrapolating from my experiences when I got that backwards.
Better access to mental health care would probably make a bigger difference than keeping people from having firearms, and has the benefit of actually being constitutional to boot.
I mean, don't get me wrong here, I am **very** personally acquainted with the topic of suicide, and I'm not being dismissive. But it was knowledge of, and access to, "off label" uses of ketamine as an infusion that turned me around, and I suspect it would have done the same thing for at least two of my friends who went out that way as well.
Which, since I'm on the topic... ketamine infusion therapy. Very effective in breaking out of chronic, treatment resistant depression, and dealing with acute suicidal ideation. Now you know that it exists for that use. Tell your friends it exists for that use. Tell your friends to tell their friends about that use for it.
I'm gonna keep posting this little blurb all over the internet, and some people will listen and actually tell other people, and some day, someone who ***really*** needs to know that treatment exists will end up **not** killing themselves because they knew there was a treatment available.
Sorry, I'm a bit evangelical on this particular topic. ;)
A friend used a shotgun. This might sound funny, but he missed. Though he was successful, authorities determined the “miss” caused him to live in considerable pain for several hours. Sad.
I **strongly** credit it with the fact that I'm still breathing.
Being a rather non-religious or even "spiritual" person, I often don't use this term, but it was frankly miraculous. I went from "nearly catatonically depressed, lying on the couch all day watching Netflix and smoking weed" to "went out to the garage and actually pulled the engine and transmission out of the car that had been on jack-stands for 9 months waiting for that to occur" in... one session.
And it ***lasted.*** I still have to have "tune-ups" regularly, but I'm talking once every 6 or 8 weeks.
And, y'know, I don't ***actively want to die*** any more, so there's that. ;)
It’s interesting that we were just talking about my Mom’s suicide yesterday. The conclusion was that had we/they/someone diagnosed and addressed the problem instead of telling her there was “nothing wrong” maybe she could have been saved…18 years ago, now. No, she didn’t use a gun, though she owned one. And, to my knowledge no one has proposed banning Benadryl, her “weapon” of choice. I’m really happy to hear you’ve figured it out and can talk about it. Thank you!
There are already millions of people who legally carry a firearm and nobody even knows they're there. People have been going about their daily lives, people that might be reading this, with armed individuals around them. You don't know and nothing happens. Its amazing how many folks actually think its rare. If someone is in the majority of states that allow legal carry in whatever form and you go to Wal-Mart, I can virtually guarantee there are people with legally carried firearms.
John Lott at Crime Prevention Research Center has studied this (and many other firearm issues). The findings were that lawfully armed citizens had lower conviction rates than police officers.
I'm not surprised. But what happens if we substantially lower the bar for lawfully carrying arms in public? Will all those newly armed citizens behave as well?
I don't have a citation or study for this view, but personally, I think that police misconduct is significantly higher than armed citizen misconduct because police frequently don't face consequences for their actions, so the misconduct is incentivized. In contrast, misconduct on the part of civilians, particularly when armed, is punished harshly (to include suspension of 2A rights), and so they are much more careful with their behavior.
These are reasonable questions. But, the fact that none of the Permitless Carry states made the top 6 for firearm-involved road rage deaths over the period from 2017-2021 coupled with the fact that there are only about 30 such deaths annually across the entire nation suggests that increased lethality of road rage is not likely to be a major issue.
The hypothesis that suicide will be less lethal with fewer guns seems reasonable; but meaningful data to support this is hard to come by, as suicide data is inevitably contaminated by the inclusion of suicide gestures in most alternative suicide methods. Firearms may not actually cause the suicide so much as persons who are sincere about suicide may have a selection bias to choose firearms. In Germany they jump in front of trains--often enough that train engineers have special counseling benefits for mental health in place to deal with the aftermath of this too-common event.
In any event, I am unwilling to attempt to purchase this small bit of potential additional safety at the cost of giving up a critical civil right. Ben Franklin published something to the effect that persons who are willing to surrender essential liberties in the pursuit of a bit of added safety neither deserve nor will long possess either.
Yes, this was a case where the armed citizen was a hero, and prevented the deaths of a lot of innocent people. I agree this was a "success". However, from this, you draw what I believe are a lot of unwarranted conclusions.
* You consider the case of the armed rampager and the armed citizen vs. armed rampager and no armed citizen. Important, but it's not the only option. For example, if no AR-15 were available in this (or any other scenario), the "lives saved" count would be different.
* You state that "If you are a rational person...and compare Uvalde to Greenwood...the best alternative is ubiquitous citizen concealed carry. This is indisputable." It's not clear how that would have helped in the case of Uvalde. Are you thinking the children would be carrying? The teachers (more on that below)? If the problem "was due to chicken shit cops", an alternative would be to NOT allow the average person to get their hands on weaponry that outguns police. (No, I don't think bullet proof vests and AR15s are the only things standing between us and the cops.)
* You criticize CNN for glorifying rampage killers. I agree that the balance of reports is notable, and that glorifying killers leads to copycats, although I'm sure you'll find FOX news covering Uvalde just as voraciously. Your solution is to glorify the guy that stopped the killer in Greenwood Park Mall. It might lead to more copycat citizens carrying... be careful what you wish for:
- The number of people that die annually due to rampage shootings is relatively low (under 200/yr avg since 2009) compared to other types of firearm deaths, as proponents of these weapons like to point out.
- The number of deaths related to firearm accidents is at least twice that (over 400/year), about a quarter of which is related just to children getting their hands on one and playing with it.
- If you have your way, with "ubiquitous citizen concealed carry", I'll accept the premise that the number related to rampage killings will go down, however, the number of accidental deaths is bound to rise (including the number of kids that might get their hands on the gun of a teacher), and I would contend it would be a LOT higher than the number saved.
- You're a proponent of glorifying Elisjsha Dicken, which I imagine would lead to copycats. You praise him for having "an 80% hit rate from forty yards with a double stack nine millimeter handgun", which you call "A Tom Brady Moment". I think it's safe to assume that the more there are copycats, the more results will vary, and given that this is such an astounding feat, we can assume it will tend towards "less good". While this event "proves" the benefits of concealed carry, it's only a matter of time until someone wanting to be "just like Dicken" accidentally shoots a child they're trying to save, or shoots the wrong person, "disproving" it. The copycats will be messier, with guns.
- One might argue that part of the point of "ubiquitous citizen concealed carry" is to disincentivize rampage shootings. However, that would ignore the motivations behind such an act. Self-preservation is generally not high on the list of priorities; killing is. The more successful citizens with guns, the more that will be factored into the planning: picking of targets, weapons and defenses will be factored in. Perhaps the result will be more sniper shootings; more use of body armor; perhaps it will be places with more density or unarmed targets (children).
While more concealed carry seems the obvious solution to you, to me it means more chances for things to go wrong. I have personally been in a situation where someone chased thieves and shot at them in a populated street. You give weight to the rational desire for people afraid of rampage shooting, and/or renegade police, to have guns for protection. I have a rational fear, based on experience, of undisciplined people carrying guns. What must I conclude? That more guns means more deadly mistakes. If every carrier were like Dicken, and every armed encounter were like this, I'd have less to worry about. I'm in favor of legislation that raises these standards and requires you to earn your right to carry. This was a picture-perfect event, one to remember, but not one to imitate.
You're obviously an intelligent person, and your well thought out response deserves a response in kind. I think you are smart, vested, and mostly just ill informed. I hope you'll take my response to you with the grace in which I hope to give it.
"if no AR-15 were available"
The most successful school shooting in history was the VT one, and he used two handguns. Handguns are better at this stuff in every way than AR-15s except for one specific engagement, Vegas. Outside of that all the shootings with AR-15s were people larping and using the wrong weapon. Handguns are concealable. The guy could have rampaged the whole mall with a handgun. We need to hope that these shooter nitwits keep using unconcealable rifles so they keep giving themselves away. Your first bullet point is a function of your media giving you givens that aren't true, and since you seem logical, I hope you'll apply logic to this new piece of information.
"It's not clear how that would have helped in the case of Uvalde. Are you thinking the children would be carrying?"
Some adult other than a cop. Or the cops could have simply let those individuals into the building. Fewer people would have died in Uvalde if the cops literally didn't exist at all. This is a true statement that is true.
"Your solution is to glorify the guy that stopped the killer in Greenwood Park Mall. It might lead to more copycat citizens carrying... be careful what you wish for:"
I am very careful of what I wish for, let's continue.
"The number of people that die annually due to rampage shootings is relatively low (under 200/yr avg since 2009) compared to other types of firearm deaths, as proponents of these weapons like to point out."
I'm one of those and have a deep list of articles saying this. I'm also on record multiple times saying the solution to rampage killings is to turn your smartphone off.
"The number of deaths related to firearm accidents is at least twice that (over 400/year), about a quarter of which is related just to children getting their hands on one and playing with it."
Almost every one of those is when a kid who grew up in a no-gun house visits a kid in a gun-house and the no-gun kid with no education about guns starts fucking with the gun. There are some other notable cases otherwise. I think a country with 400 million guns who doesn't educate their children about guns is about as stupid as Australia not educating their kids about snakes. Read this, which is a piece I wrote about talking to kids about guns.
But again, 100 kids per year is a miniscule number in a country with over 300 million people. We should be thankful and amazed that the rate is so miniscule. It shows that we are a responsible country.
"f you have your way, with "ubiquitous citizen concealed carry", I'll accept the premise that the number related to rampage killings will go down, however, the number of accidental deaths is bound to rise (including the number of kids that might get their hands on the gun of a teacher), and I would contend it would be a LOT higher than the number saved."
I'm willing to engage a mathematical analysis on this.
First off, I didn't say to arm the teachers. In my opinion growing up in an inner city school I saw enough wild ass shit transpire in the hallways that I don't want to run the risk of a teacher getting disarmed. I think a few rifles in a safe in the principal's office and a huge sign out front that says "we have rifles, go shoot some other gun free zone up" would eliminate that school from ever having a rampage shooting at it, because rampage shooters are pussies. That's literally why they shoot kids.
It's possible that the number of accidental deaths related to an increase in concealed carry may overbalance the number of deaths saved in mass shootings. To prove that case you'd need to tally the number of accidental deaths (400?) and classify how many of them happened from a concealed carry weapon while it was currently being concealed. That number is assuredly tiny. Even when Plaxico Burress shot his own leg in a club while being an idiot CCWing, it didn't kill him. So when you do your analysis, it's going to be "the battle of tiny numbers."
"I think it's safe to assume that the more there are copycats, the more results will vary, and given that this is such an astounding feat, we can assume it will tend towards "less good". "
This is an entirely reasonable point. The question is twofold. One is how big a drop off in talent on average there would be if, say, the number of CCWs doubled. You may think a lot, I may think a little, and I think I'm more right than you are but these are matters of opinion. The second question is the more important one - if the number of CCWs doubled, what would that do to the rate of rampage shooters? If every rampage shooter knew that most rampage shooters ended up getting shot by the people they're rampaging against, perhaps with less skill than Dicken but still shot, how many rampage shooters would still go on a rampage shooting?
At the base level, the most important element isn't the effectiveness of the response, it's the mental deterrent.
"One might argue that part of the point of "ubiquitous citizen concealed carry" is to disincentivize rampage shootings. However, that would ignore the motivations behind such an act. Self-preservation is generally not high on the list of priorities; killing is. "
This speaks to a fundamental misunderstanding of the reasons for rampage shootings, psychologically speaking. They typically don't "hate everyone in that fucking food court," they typically want attention through glory. A warped kind of glory, but glory nonetheless. If every rampage shooter knew going into it that they were going to get plugged by some chubby faced Chad eating a burrito before their kill count got above three, they'd direct their psychosis elsewhere because the juice isn't worth the squeeze.
"While more concealed carry seems the obvious solution to you, to me it means more chances for things to go wrong."
I understand your position, and I think if I had the same overall media feed and life experiences you had I might be of the same opinion. I also commend you on a very well reasoned response, and I think you should be proud of it. I think you and I should have a beer sometime if you're in Atlanta. I think something you might consider chewing on this evening before you go to bed is this:
FIVE PERCENT of the United States of America has a concealed carry weapon permit.
Five percent.
Not all of these carry daily, but all could be carrying at any time. So let's pretend you're at the grocery store. There's one person in that store with a carry permit for every twenty total people in the store. If only half of people with carry permits actually carry (in truth this ratio is larger) then there's one gun in the grocery store for every 50 people in it.
How many times have you been in a grocery store with 50 people in it?
How many total people have you ever been in a grocery store with in your life? Thousands? Tens of thousands? Let's say 10,000 and that's probably low depending on your age. You've been in the grocery store with 500 guns, and you didn't even know it.
Did anything bad happen with those guns?
Your Zen Koan for the evening, should you choose to accept it, is to try and tally up the total number of people you've encountered on a street, store, or public place, over the entire course of your life, multiply that number by 0.05, and reconsider the opinion that your opinion about the "chances things might go wrong" may be overestimated.
Hi! Thanks for the thorough and well-reasoned response. I'm sorry I didn't respond earlier - it's been a really busy several weeks, and responding has been in the back of my mind all the while.
I don't have the time, nor honestly the knowledge, to dive even deeper. I think there are a number of points that we both admit are opinions, principally in the realm of counterfactuals, and future impact of any change. I wouldn't say I've moved much on my position, but it stands pretty firmly right now at neither a complete ban on concealed carry, nor complete disregulation. I'd be willing to accept a slight increase, but I'd want regulation that is at a minimum MUCH stricter than what's required for a driver's license. I understand wanting potential rampagers to be thinking "what if someone's packing?", but I don't want that to expand to interactions between average citizens - "this guy is really crossing the line, but I'd better keep my mouth shut in case they're packing" - that would lead to what I consider to be an unhealthy chilling effect on society.
I will respond quickly to one comment:
"I think a few rifles in a safe in the principal's office and a huge sign out front that says "we have rifles, go shoot some other gun free zone up" would eliminate that school from ever having a rampage shooting at it, because rampage shooters are pussies. That's literally why they shoot kids."
I think that ignores the reason for many school rampages: not so much glory, as revenge killings. I don't think a few rifles in a closet is going to deter them. It might reduce their success, or they might already know about the rifles in the closet, and plan around them. Planning around things is a general adaptation we'd see, as mentioned before. The change in numbers would, we both seem to agree, be miniscule in the big picture, but potentially reach a significant % relatively speaking.
Regarding your Zen Koan, I do in fact consider gun control to be overstated in terms of importance in politics - more important than the CRT freakoutery, but still not worth a national conversation every 30 minutes. However, a change to the status quo might tip the scales for me.
Shooters will not ever be deterred by laws. They are broken people and their human morality has been lost; they are damaged souls. We might be able to do something about the society that nurtured them by placing morality in the public square. That actually might help many other people who would never become shooters as well. In our modern world we abandon religious instruction as a belief in some myth yet we replace it with nihilism or worse? Can there be beneficial egregores? I am intrigued by Sheldrake's morphic fields that suggest a connectivity surrounding us. Not that I have any idea how it affects us or we affect it.
Hmm... I'm not sure I agree with the contention that lack of religion is to blame, nor that atheism replaces religion with "nihilism or worse". Statistically, the most atheist nations in the world, Sweden and China, don't have the same rampage shooter problem. It would be interesting to look at the pattern of rampage shooters with regards to religion, but I'm guessing you wouldn't see a correlation with atheism, at least not to the same degree that you see with factors like bullying and others. I do agree that it's apparent there is a kind of sickness specific to the U.S. that leads to us being such an outlier, but I don't think it's a given that more religion is the best solution.
I wasn't addressing atheism in that is a religion all it's own. It has its own moral code and requires a lot of effort. Having no belief at all in the notion of something outside of one's self is my target. Most of us would agree that the Golden Rule might be a good basis for society. Yet these shooters have no empathy for others. Notice that Sweden and China are mono cultures which may be a factor. We have many fewer cultural norms as a result but once were united in agreement about "right and wrong".
I don't agree that atheism is a religion. There is no common moral code (for one thing) amongst atheists, beyond what is common in society in general. The only commonality is a belief in the non-existence of god. Also, I don't think having a common, or stronger, or more consistent moral code is the problem. I think you hit on a key point there with your word "empathy". If American society had more empathy in general, more acceptance, and less alienation, that might help. However, shooters like the one in Buffalo show that the lack of empathy can extend beyond empathy towards individuals to lack of empathy and "othering" of specific groups.
The logic is clear. Whether that matters in the fringes is unclear. Some of my friends always carry and I respect them greatly. I suspect they are more than cautious in having that responsibility and concern,
All the hypotheticals that are even rarer than a rampage shooter are enough to drive you nuts.
Overall a great article, but it does ignore the most compelling argument people make against CCW; the risk of people getting caught in the crossfire.
To be fair, even though it's their most compelling argument I still think it's a pretty weak one. While people getting caught in the crossfire is definitely a possibility, especially if you're not as good a shot as Dicken was, (hell, I did 20 years in the Marine Corps and still go to the range at least once every couple months or so, albeit not as often as I should, and I'm pretty sure *I* couldn't have made all the shots he did) when you've got an attacker whose entire goal is to literally kill every person he can, adding a couple bullets to the mix won't change very much; unless you get away or he is stopped, you're dead anyway.
But weak argument or no, it's the strongest one they have, and should probably be addressed.
Personally, I'd rather take my chances on crossfire than **directed** fire from an active shooter who **hasn't** had his plans upset by the fact that his shooting range is suddenly and unexpectedly bidirectional.
If there's someone shooting **back** I can probably just drop and crawl, and the guy trying to shoot up the mall is likely to ignore me in favor of the lady slinging lead back in his direction. If he's unopposed, I have to try and **run**, and, well, I'm probably better off trying to find things to **throw** at the pigfucker than trying to run away. I had bad knees and hips back in high school. They have not *improved* in the intervening 30 years.
That argument applies just as, if not more strongly to armed police, who have been shown to be much more likely to hit an innocent than a self-defender in any exchange of gunfire.
There, I think I just addressed it. It's not a problem compared to badges doing the same.
For those of us who aren't running CNN the solution is simple: stop clicking on articles about mass shootings that aren't stopped by civilians. If the clicks shift, the coverage will shift. CNN and the others of its ilk are slaves to the clicks.
I mean, it's a lovely thought, but the .01% of the population that isn't clickbait-driven won't make enough of a difference, I'm thinking. :'(
That, and not enough people even know about the problem to know that they *should* stop clicking those articles because they haven't the foggiest idea that there's any connection between them clicking on 37 articles about a given shooting and the probability of the next one occurring.
Generally when a smart, principled 0.1% starts doing something in a way that is sticky, they talk about it, then people change minds, then it snowballs...
Many of the cultural beliefs we take for granted today were started by fewer. Abolition of slavery, gay rights, drug legalization... All those needles moved because of the work of a dedicated tiny minority of people who were committed.
I absolutely believe that social media in general, and click farming as well, are huge threats that we can't wait for the pols to ham-handedly "fix"; people need to vote with their feet, immediately. It'll grow.
I read your prepper math article years ago. It made a strong impression on me and a month ago it came to mind and I wanted to share it with a friend. I'm glad I found this substack during that search. This is a well reasoned article and I enjoyed reading it. I too would love to see responsible gun ownership normalized again.
@sam Fortunately we don't have to design some theoretical model to test the hypothesis. By my count, 42 U.S. states already allow Constitutional carry, encompassing approximately 80% of the population. I'm not aware of any research showing a dramatic increase in gun violence in those areas. From what I understand, some studies show a marginal increase, some a marginal decrease. Maybe BJ can chime in with more info on this?
The research indicates that of the three sets of carry law, shall-issue has the most gun homicide, and may-issue and constitutional carry both have equivalent lower rates than shall-issue.
I've see that particular claim but I always assumed -- because it doesn't really make sense -- that it was probably not based on very solid research. Like, it's more likely to be an artifact of the particular cultures in which each of those options arise rather than a causal link to the particular policy.
Michael Siegel, who did the research, is probably the most talented gun policy researcher in the world in my opinion and he does not approach his research with a particular political bend in either direction. He is ethically and mathematically sound.
I think the result makes a kind of sense. In constitutional carry states the number of potential concealed carriers is high, which dampens crime. In may issue states the government regulations are so onerous they are allowed to do things like Stop and Frisk, which also dampens crime, if in a very racist way. So they both have different modes for dampening crime that shall issue states don't have.
Always keep in mind that most of these "studies" are after-the-fact correlational studies. Causality cannot be inferred. States where citizens perceive (or in reality face) more violent crime may be more inclined to insist upon and possess weapons for concealed carry. Said another way: Is it that Shall Issue laws cause higher crime or is it that high crime causes more citizens to insist on Shall Issue Laws? Or, are the two actually not directly causally linked?
Every time my flag waves vigorously, my lawn fills with leaves. I was frustrated to discover that taking down the flag did not cure the leaf problem.
That said, I'm with HWFO and John Lott on this issue: More guns in the hands of responsible citizens = less crime. Teachers who want to be armed and get training should be allowed to go armed. With more responsible people gong armed, gun homicides might go up, but probably not, since good guys generally just want to stop the attack--their goal is not to kill bad guys--that's just the unfortunate consequence some of the time. More often, the bad guy is stopped without a shot being fired. And when shots are fired from a handgun, there's an 80% survival rate. And when we talk about firearm deaths, if one doesn't separate out suicides and justifiable homicides (bad guys who suffered an acute failure of their victim selection process), one is not being intellectually honest. Every death is a tragedy, but the death of a violent criminal seems a bit less tragic to me than the death of an innocent person.
P.S. I'll probably have to explore this on my own but one of my interests is traffic injuries and fatalities mostly in the context of bicycling.
The media and academia cover these, in my mind, as poorly as they cover gun issues. Both the identity politics wokies (look up "mobility justice" for example) and the climate change is the end of the world wokies have also taken hold of this domain too.
There's also this fantasy called Vision Zero, which reminds me a lot of the fantasy to get rid of all guns. Vision Zero seeks to completely eliminate all traffic fatalities whether it be motor-vehicle occupants, bicyclists, or pedestrians. But it too would need a magic wand and far more money or trade-offs than most people are willing to pay.
Good post, though I think you should acknowledge the one scenario that gun free zones might defend against. A legal carrier enters the area not planning to shoot anyone, but changes plans within the zone. Maybe they get into an argument, maybe the voices in their head overwhelm them.
That is the only scenario where a gun free zone could make a difference. If someone is already planning to shoot someone they are not going to disarm themselves because of the gun free zone. The gun free zone may even present a more attractive target because the odds of armed resistance are lower.
My intuition is that unplanned offensive gunfire is rare. Arguments very rarely escalate to gunfire outside of gun free zones. Maybe gun free zones could make sense in bars and nightclubs where people have lowered inhibitions and poor judgment, but even then they tilt the advantage in favor of planned attackers.
It would be interesting to see a "gun homicides in bars" analysis that grouped unplanned shootings and planned shootings separately, so Pulse for instance would be a planned shooting.
It would take some legwork, but would be worth looking at.
It might be an interesting analysis, but don't forget that in every state I'm aware of, (even Constitutional Carry states, though I'm not familiar with the specifics of all the new laws, so this could be out of date) drinking while carrying a gun is still illegal, and in many states bars are prohibited places, regardless of whether you're drinking. So I'm not sure if bars are a very good source for this data. Road rage incidents might provide a clearer picture.
If alcohol and guns don’t go together, why is there a bureau of alcohol, tobacco, and firearms? I always thought it meant they should be used together.
There are states where entering a bar with a gun is illegal, regardless of whether you drink alcohol or not. There are states where you can enter a bar or a restaurant with a gun, but you cannot drink alcohol. There are states where it is legal to drink and carry, so long as you do not exceed the same BAC set for driving. In all states, it is wise to either abstain or "drink responsibly"; and if you are drinking at all, don't handle guns. Certainly, if you are going out with the intent of "having a few drinks", leave your gun at home. If you decide it's wise to take an Uber, leave the gun at home.
Does anyone know how police officers handle this when their department requires/encourages off-duty carry, as a number of departments do? What do they do when out with family & friends and they have a beer with their pizza? I think I know the answer for some officers...they just don't have two or three beers. But that's speculation on my part.
I feel like this is even more of a unicorn scenario. A legal carrier snapping in a GFZ seems several to many times more unlikely than an illegal carrier doing the same.
I do not have any links at hand right now but I've seen multiple credible sources in the past saying that ccw permit holders as a group are among the least likely to commit any crime at all.
Based on this observation, the chances that one of them will randomly turn into a spree killer seems fantastical.
Selection bias enters in, of course, as anyone who is qualified to obtain a ccw permit is already someone peaceful or crafty enough to have avoided attracting the attention of the legal system. Also with constitutional carry becoming reality over most of the country (and being particularly relevant here), that selection bias is going to be diluted.
However, random unplanned spree killings of unrelated innocents by weapons carriers who previously never planned to use that weapon for anything but self defense is a unicorn of a situation and irrelevant to any discussion of the aggregate issue.
Additionally, the armed citizen's attorney, Guy Relford, released a statement noting that the citizen does indeed possess an Indiana Lifetime License to Carry. It's referenced in this NRA article - https://www.nraila.org/articles/20220725/another-good-guy-with-a-gun-stops-the-bad-guy - and I've seen the license pic Relford posted (with the sensitive info redacted). So, this particular incident isn't the poster child for constitutional-carry it was thought to be in the first day or 2.
NYT quoted an eyewitness seeing Dicken immediately after at 25-30 FEET. Didn't claim distance for shots, maybe he advanced after. Maybe witness doesn't know foot from yard.
Kind of a minor point all in all, but the 40 yard claim is so hard to swallow given circumstances. And the bias of the outcome leans toward the pro gun folk narrative wanting that to be true and really only pro gun media talking about this case. Was the distance verified unequivocally video/sheriff, etc. or is 40 yards all echo chamber?
(Cuz 50%, on a pizza platter, at 12 yards, from the bench, is a challenge to some folks I've watched at the range.)
You covered the more CC less CC pretty well on risk reward for the low frequency crazed mass shooter. But regarding intentional gun crime/violence:
Do cops in permitless
constitutional carry have fewer tools to investigate whether random gun is illegally possessed than a DC cop?
Suicide rate is hard to lower and far less threat to public at large, since it's an inward act. Whereas criminal gun violence is an outward act with more imperative for public safety. It's the lower hanging fruit in reducing gun death which both sides claim to want.
Long wind up to a perhaps more relevant question. Does permitless carry give cover to illegal possession and the gun violence that goes with it?
I heard from someone with closer knowledge of the case that only the first few shots were from 40 yards, then Mr. Dicken closed the distance significantly for the additional shots and he stopped shooting when the perp dropped his gun and crawled into the bathroom.
Great article. Despite evidence and logic being overwhelmingly against their position, the gun-grabber cult won't budge from their hardline position, and it really makes it clear that their ideology is based on quasi-religious claims rather than any sort of reasonable argument. Fortunately, more people are waking up and seeing the wide gulf between the gun-control lobby's claims and the true reality. Thanks for doing what you do on this substack to highlight the true reality.
The question was never whether a good guy with a gun can stop a bad guy. Of course he can. The question is whether encouraging the majority of the populace to arm themselves with the goal of stopping bad guys will, statistically, cause more death. How will road rage incidents play out if more people are armed? Will good guys commit suicide at a higher rate.
Is the cure worse than the disease?
I think this is a completely reasonable question, especially with regards to suicide, which does track gun ownership rate in men.
I think the simple 'down the middle' response might be "just get more people who already own guns to carry," combined with "permitless carry is shown to save lives," and "work culturally on the suicide problem." We've covered the suicide problem a lot here, because it's the main problem. To be honest we could solve the mass shooter problem pretty easy just by realizing it's not a problem at all, mathematically speaking.
I agree. Mathematically speaking, this event effectively doesn’t happen.
So it seems unreasonable to advocate for the solution that worked here. The solution of arming more people in public spaces doesn’t seem to solve gang violence, which is statistically the real gun problem in this country.
Statistically the real problem is male suicide TBH.
The point of this article is to start by accepting the modern liberal position that mass shootings are indeed a problem, and game that out to its obvious conclusion.
True, and the best solution to that issue is to end the drug war.
Budweiser isn't shooting at Jim Beam, at least not since December 1933.
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/prohibition-ends
People ought to remember that the best result of legal permitless carry is that there will be fewer people jailed for the malum prohibitum act of carrying the means of self defense. Even if there were no other benefits, this would be enough to justify the concept.
What if there ended up being serious harms as a result of that policy? How many otherwise law-abiding citizens go to jail for carrying a gun?
I think there are rational polices between outright gun bans and having every citizen armed at every moment in every venue.
There are known harms from the criminalization of carrying the means of self defense that have contributed to the destruction of some societies, especially urban, that are so obvious that there is credible belief that this was a racially targeted policy.
I'm sure there are unknown externalities to allowing peaceful people to carry the means of self defense, but I cannot imagine how they would come close to the magnitude of the known harms from the institutionalization of a significant amount of over-policed communities.
No decent law abiding gun owner would ever suggest everyone should be armed everywhere.
The point of this post was that more people should be armed at the local mall.
There's an important distinction between "more people armed" and "every citizen armed at every moment."
I'd add a second layer: mass shootings are so incredibly rare that they're nothing to worry about and we should all quit paying attention to them. If, however, you are a person who lives in fear of mass rampage shootings in public spaces then the only mathematically reasonable policy choice to mitigate that fear is to increase the number of citizens armed in places like malls.
Just came here for the first time. I think I saw a reference about the suggestion that everyone should be armed everywhere and the problems with that. I meant that everyone everywhere isn't what law abiding gun owners are suggesting. I might have misread it, or replied to the wrong comment, ?
More, not all. You're playing games. You put up a strawman argument "every citizen always armed everywhere" and got called on it and now you're claiming the article was making that argument when it was not, but by simultaneously sliding into "more people should be armed at the local mall."
So let me respond to your argument very clearly: "I think there are rational polices between outright gun bans and having every citizen armed at every moment in every venue." Yes, private citizens who take their self defense rights seriously and decide to carry have the right to do so and permitting that is a rational and societally beneficial policy.
That's relevant if we're arguing from a utilitarian mindset, but irrelevant if it's an argument from morality. For example, slavery is morally wrong no matter how much anyone cries that the cotton must be picked somehow.
To address the utility framework;
Nothing society does from the top down can prevent all non-natural death. If it could, murders would never happen in prisons.
Everything that is considered that has a goal of preventing something will have unintentional negative externalities, such as the "no guns allowed" sign on the mall in question. I believe that particular one has been more than adequately dealt with in the relevant article already.
The most common negative externality of the prohibition of the means and concept of self defense is that it gives the advantage to the most violent and sociopathic at the expense of the most peaceful and honorable. The old adage that God made man and Samuel Colt made men equal seems relevant to this argument.
Speaking to the morality;
Every living being has a natural will to live. From this it can be extrapolated that every living being has the right to do whatever it can to preserve that life. As uniquely rational beings, humans can exercise that right while also acknowledging and allowing that their fellow rational beings have that same right reserved to themselves.
To exercise this right of self preservation a rational being should (here's the morality) be free to choose, carry, and employ whatever is available and appropriate for their self defense. In this timeframe, that would include firearms.
It’s not utilitarian to want to weigh different policies by the statistical chance that I personally will die as a direct result of the policies in question. I want to be able to stop a mass shooter, but I also want to reduce my chances of getting shot if I cut someone off in traffic.
Back to the shark attack analogy, what if there was a drug some politicians were proposing to add to the ocean that would cause sharks to stop attacking humans, but the drug increased swimmer’s likelihood of developing skin cancer. I’d want to weigh those two risks.
Saying that we should encourage more citizens to carry handguns to prevent mass shootings only looks at one side of the equation.
I mostly agree with your points and am in total alignment with your curiosity. It most definitely is a utilitarian subject, though.
This is not meant to minimize anything, but just to define the borders of the playing field. I've seen too many discussions with great potential lose their way by participants figuratively playing different rhetorical sports.
> Will good guys commit suicide at a higher rate.
No. Statistically speaking, men who have decided to commit suicide will find some effective means of doing so, even in the absence of firearms.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The preceding statement is, in fact, completely wrong. But I'm leaving it in place so the replies don't look weird.
-----
Some people will go out of their way to pick a method that *isn't* a firearm, just to keep the ammo (ha!) out of Sarah Brady's hands. That was **my** reasoning when I had decided to kill myself with some other method, anyway. (I was intercepted prior to getting to implement my solution, obviously.)
> How will road rage incidents play out if more people are armed?
I presume similarly to how mass shootings would play out if CNN stopped advertising for them and started promoting the people who stopped them. Cognizance that there were a lot of armed people out there and maybe one should behave seems likely to result.
Mek, this is not how I understand the math to work. There is a 1:1 replacement method for gun and nongun suicides among *women*, but not men. In men, suicide rates do in fact track gun ownership rates. Analysis:
https://hwfo.substack.com/p/the-left-is-making-the-wrong-case
Yup, I appear to have gotten that completely backwards. Dangit.
Can you cite anything to support your claims? Here is one study that found the opposite: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa1916744
My apologies, I appear to have remembered that **entirely** reversed. Oops.
Well, hrm.
I dunno then. I was highly motivated to kill myself, and highly politically motivated to not use a firearm for it. But I'm almost certainly an outlier, so... I dunno. But of all of the friends I've had who have left via that particular exit, *none* have used a firearm either, so perhaps I was just extrapolating from my experiences when I got that backwards.
Better access to mental health care would probably make a bigger difference than keeping people from having firearms, and has the benefit of actually being constitutional to boot.
I mean, don't get me wrong here, I am **very** personally acquainted with the topic of suicide, and I'm not being dismissive. But it was knowledge of, and access to, "off label" uses of ketamine as an infusion that turned me around, and I suspect it would have done the same thing for at least two of my friends who went out that way as well.
Which, since I'm on the topic... ketamine infusion therapy. Very effective in breaking out of chronic, treatment resistant depression, and dealing with acute suicidal ideation. Now you know that it exists for that use. Tell your friends it exists for that use. Tell your friends to tell their friends about that use for it.
I'm gonna keep posting this little blurb all over the internet, and some people will listen and actually tell other people, and some day, someone who ***really*** needs to know that treatment exists will end up **not** killing themselves because they knew there was a treatment available.
Sorry, I'm a bit evangelical on this particular topic. ;)
The only firearm suicide I know of was by a woman. It's hard to extrapolate anecdote to data.
A friend used a shotgun. This might sound funny, but he missed. Though he was successful, authorities determined the “miss” caused him to live in considerable pain for several hours. Sad.
Thanks for the tip, I will pass it along to my friends and family who struggle with suicidal ideations.
I **strongly** credit it with the fact that I'm still breathing.
Being a rather non-religious or even "spiritual" person, I often don't use this term, but it was frankly miraculous. I went from "nearly catatonically depressed, lying on the couch all day watching Netflix and smoking weed" to "went out to the garage and actually pulled the engine and transmission out of the car that had been on jack-stands for 9 months waiting for that to occur" in... one session.
And it ***lasted.*** I still have to have "tune-ups" regularly, but I'm talking once every 6 or 8 weeks.
And, y'know, I don't ***actively want to die*** any more, so there's that. ;)
It’s interesting that we were just talking about my Mom’s suicide yesterday. The conclusion was that had we/they/someone diagnosed and addressed the problem instead of telling her there was “nothing wrong” maybe she could have been saved…18 years ago, now. No, she didn’t use a gun, though she owned one. And, to my knowledge no one has proposed banning Benadryl, her “weapon” of choice. I’m really happy to hear you’ve figured it out and can talk about it. Thank you!
There are already millions of people who legally carry a firearm and nobody even knows they're there. People have been going about their daily lives, people that might be reading this, with armed individuals around them. You don't know and nothing happens. Its amazing how many folks actually think its rare. If someone is in the majority of states that allow legal carry in whatever form and you go to Wal-Mart, I can virtually guarantee there are people with legally carried firearms.
Sure. But those are the most responsible gun owners. If we quadruple the number of people carrying, what will be the unintended consequences?
John Lott at Crime Prevention Research Center has studied this (and many other firearm issues). The findings were that lawfully armed citizens had lower conviction rates than police officers.
https://crimeresearch.org/2015/02/comparing-conviction-rates-between-police-and-concealed-carry-permit-holders/
I'm not surprised. But what happens if we substantially lower the bar for lawfully carrying arms in public? Will all those newly armed citizens behave as well?
I don't have a citation or study for this view, but personally, I think that police misconduct is significantly higher than armed citizen misconduct because police frequently don't face consequences for their actions, so the misconduct is incentivized. In contrast, misconduct on the part of civilians, particularly when armed, is punished harshly (to include suspension of 2A rights), and so they are much more careful with their behavior.
These are reasonable questions. But, the fact that none of the Permitless Carry states made the top 6 for firearm-involved road rage deaths over the period from 2017-2021 coupled with the fact that there are only about 30 such deaths annually across the entire nation suggests that increased lethality of road rage is not likely to be a major issue.
The hypothesis that suicide will be less lethal with fewer guns seems reasonable; but meaningful data to support this is hard to come by, as suicide data is inevitably contaminated by the inclusion of suicide gestures in most alternative suicide methods. Firearms may not actually cause the suicide so much as persons who are sincere about suicide may have a selection bias to choose firearms. In Germany they jump in front of trains--often enough that train engineers have special counseling benefits for mental health in place to deal with the aftermath of this too-common event.
In any event, I am unwilling to attempt to purchase this small bit of potential additional safety at the cost of giving up a critical civil right. Ben Franklin published something to the effect that persons who are willing to surrender essential liberties in the pursuit of a bit of added safety neither deserve nor will long possess either.
Yes, this was a case where the armed citizen was a hero, and prevented the deaths of a lot of innocent people. I agree this was a "success". However, from this, you draw what I believe are a lot of unwarranted conclusions.
* You consider the case of the armed rampager and the armed citizen vs. armed rampager and no armed citizen. Important, but it's not the only option. For example, if no AR-15 were available in this (or any other scenario), the "lives saved" count would be different.
* You state that "If you are a rational person...and compare Uvalde to Greenwood...the best alternative is ubiquitous citizen concealed carry. This is indisputable." It's not clear how that would have helped in the case of Uvalde. Are you thinking the children would be carrying? The teachers (more on that below)? If the problem "was due to chicken shit cops", an alternative would be to NOT allow the average person to get their hands on weaponry that outguns police. (No, I don't think bullet proof vests and AR15s are the only things standing between us and the cops.)
* You criticize CNN for glorifying rampage killers. I agree that the balance of reports is notable, and that glorifying killers leads to copycats, although I'm sure you'll find FOX news covering Uvalde just as voraciously. Your solution is to glorify the guy that stopped the killer in Greenwood Park Mall. It might lead to more copycat citizens carrying... be careful what you wish for:
- The number of people that die annually due to rampage shootings is relatively low (under 200/yr avg since 2009) compared to other types of firearm deaths, as proponents of these weapons like to point out.
- The number of deaths related to firearm accidents is at least twice that (over 400/year), about a quarter of which is related just to children getting their hands on one and playing with it.
- If you have your way, with "ubiquitous citizen concealed carry", I'll accept the premise that the number related to rampage killings will go down, however, the number of accidental deaths is bound to rise (including the number of kids that might get their hands on the gun of a teacher), and I would contend it would be a LOT higher than the number saved.
- You're a proponent of glorifying Elisjsha Dicken, which I imagine would lead to copycats. You praise him for having "an 80% hit rate from forty yards with a double stack nine millimeter handgun", which you call "A Tom Brady Moment". I think it's safe to assume that the more there are copycats, the more results will vary, and given that this is such an astounding feat, we can assume it will tend towards "less good". While this event "proves" the benefits of concealed carry, it's only a matter of time until someone wanting to be "just like Dicken" accidentally shoots a child they're trying to save, or shoots the wrong person, "disproving" it. The copycats will be messier, with guns.
- One might argue that part of the point of "ubiquitous citizen concealed carry" is to disincentivize rampage shootings. However, that would ignore the motivations behind such an act. Self-preservation is generally not high on the list of priorities; killing is. The more successful citizens with guns, the more that will be factored into the planning: picking of targets, weapons and defenses will be factored in. Perhaps the result will be more sniper shootings; more use of body armor; perhaps it will be places with more density or unarmed targets (children).
While more concealed carry seems the obvious solution to you, to me it means more chances for things to go wrong. I have personally been in a situation where someone chased thieves and shot at them in a populated street. You give weight to the rational desire for people afraid of rampage shooting, and/or renegade police, to have guns for protection. I have a rational fear, based on experience, of undisciplined people carrying guns. What must I conclude? That more guns means more deadly mistakes. If every carrier were like Dicken, and every armed encounter were like this, I'd have less to worry about. I'm in favor of legislation that raises these standards and requires you to earn your right to carry. This was a picture-perfect event, one to remember, but not one to imitate.
You're obviously an intelligent person, and your well thought out response deserves a response in kind. I think you are smart, vested, and mostly just ill informed. I hope you'll take my response to you with the grace in which I hope to give it.
"if no AR-15 were available"
The most successful school shooting in history was the VT one, and he used two handguns. Handguns are better at this stuff in every way than AR-15s except for one specific engagement, Vegas. Outside of that all the shootings with AR-15s were people larping and using the wrong weapon. Handguns are concealable. The guy could have rampaged the whole mall with a handgun. We need to hope that these shooter nitwits keep using unconcealable rifles so they keep giving themselves away. Your first bullet point is a function of your media giving you givens that aren't true, and since you seem logical, I hope you'll apply logic to this new piece of information.
"It's not clear how that would have helped in the case of Uvalde. Are you thinking the children would be carrying?"
Some adult other than a cop. Or the cops could have simply let those individuals into the building. Fewer people would have died in Uvalde if the cops literally didn't exist at all. This is a true statement that is true.
"Your solution is to glorify the guy that stopped the killer in Greenwood Park Mall. It might lead to more copycat citizens carrying... be careful what you wish for:"
I am very careful of what I wish for, let's continue.
"The number of people that die annually due to rampage shootings is relatively low (under 200/yr avg since 2009) compared to other types of firearm deaths, as proponents of these weapons like to point out."
I'm one of those and have a deep list of articles saying this. I'm also on record multiple times saying the solution to rampage killings is to turn your smartphone off.
"The number of deaths related to firearm accidents is at least twice that (over 400/year), about a quarter of which is related just to children getting their hands on one and playing with it."
Almost every one of those is when a kid who grew up in a no-gun house visits a kid in a gun-house and the no-gun kid with no education about guns starts fucking with the gun. There are some other notable cases otherwise. I think a country with 400 million guns who doesn't educate their children about guns is about as stupid as Australia not educating their kids about snakes. Read this, which is a piece I wrote about talking to kids about guns.
https://opensourcedefense.org/blog/talk-to-your-kids-about-guns
But again, 100 kids per year is a miniscule number in a country with over 300 million people. We should be thankful and amazed that the rate is so miniscule. It shows that we are a responsible country.
"f you have your way, with "ubiquitous citizen concealed carry", I'll accept the premise that the number related to rampage killings will go down, however, the number of accidental deaths is bound to rise (including the number of kids that might get their hands on the gun of a teacher), and I would contend it would be a LOT higher than the number saved."
I'm willing to engage a mathematical analysis on this.
First off, I didn't say to arm the teachers. In my opinion growing up in an inner city school I saw enough wild ass shit transpire in the hallways that I don't want to run the risk of a teacher getting disarmed. I think a few rifles in a safe in the principal's office and a huge sign out front that says "we have rifles, go shoot some other gun free zone up" would eliminate that school from ever having a rampage shooting at it, because rampage shooters are pussies. That's literally why they shoot kids.
It's possible that the number of accidental deaths related to an increase in concealed carry may overbalance the number of deaths saved in mass shootings. To prove that case you'd need to tally the number of accidental deaths (400?) and classify how many of them happened from a concealed carry weapon while it was currently being concealed. That number is assuredly tiny. Even when Plaxico Burress shot his own leg in a club while being an idiot CCWing, it didn't kill him. So when you do your analysis, it's going to be "the battle of tiny numbers."
"I think it's safe to assume that the more there are copycats, the more results will vary, and given that this is such an astounding feat, we can assume it will tend towards "less good". "
This is an entirely reasonable point. The question is twofold. One is how big a drop off in talent on average there would be if, say, the number of CCWs doubled. You may think a lot, I may think a little, and I think I'm more right than you are but these are matters of opinion. The second question is the more important one - if the number of CCWs doubled, what would that do to the rate of rampage shooters? If every rampage shooter knew that most rampage shooters ended up getting shot by the people they're rampaging against, perhaps with less skill than Dicken but still shot, how many rampage shooters would still go on a rampage shooting?
At the base level, the most important element isn't the effectiveness of the response, it's the mental deterrent.
"One might argue that part of the point of "ubiquitous citizen concealed carry" is to disincentivize rampage shootings. However, that would ignore the motivations behind such an act. Self-preservation is generally not high on the list of priorities; killing is. "
This speaks to a fundamental misunderstanding of the reasons for rampage shootings, psychologically speaking. They typically don't "hate everyone in that fucking food court," they typically want attention through glory. A warped kind of glory, but glory nonetheless. If every rampage shooter knew going into it that they were going to get plugged by some chubby faced Chad eating a burrito before their kill count got above three, they'd direct their psychosis elsewhere because the juice isn't worth the squeeze.
"While more concealed carry seems the obvious solution to you, to me it means more chances for things to go wrong."
I understand your position, and I think if I had the same overall media feed and life experiences you had I might be of the same opinion. I also commend you on a very well reasoned response, and I think you should be proud of it. I think you and I should have a beer sometime if you're in Atlanta. I think something you might consider chewing on this evening before you go to bed is this:
FIVE PERCENT of the United States of America has a concealed carry weapon permit.
Five percent.
Not all of these carry daily, but all could be carrying at any time. So let's pretend you're at the grocery store. There's one person in that store with a carry permit for every twenty total people in the store. If only half of people with carry permits actually carry (in truth this ratio is larger) then there's one gun in the grocery store for every 50 people in it.
How many times have you been in a grocery store with 50 people in it?
How many total people have you ever been in a grocery store with in your life? Thousands? Tens of thousands? Let's say 10,000 and that's probably low depending on your age. You've been in the grocery store with 500 guns, and you didn't even know it.
Did anything bad happen with those guns?
Your Zen Koan for the evening, should you choose to accept it, is to try and tally up the total number of people you've encountered on a street, store, or public place, over the entire course of your life, multiply that number by 0.05, and reconsider the opinion that your opinion about the "chances things might go wrong" may be overestimated.
Hi! Thanks for the thorough and well-reasoned response. I'm sorry I didn't respond earlier - it's been a really busy several weeks, and responding has been in the back of my mind all the while.
I don't have the time, nor honestly the knowledge, to dive even deeper. I think there are a number of points that we both admit are opinions, principally in the realm of counterfactuals, and future impact of any change. I wouldn't say I've moved much on my position, but it stands pretty firmly right now at neither a complete ban on concealed carry, nor complete disregulation. I'd be willing to accept a slight increase, but I'd want regulation that is at a minimum MUCH stricter than what's required for a driver's license. I understand wanting potential rampagers to be thinking "what if someone's packing?", but I don't want that to expand to interactions between average citizens - "this guy is really crossing the line, but I'd better keep my mouth shut in case they're packing" - that would lead to what I consider to be an unhealthy chilling effect on society.
I will respond quickly to one comment:
"I think a few rifles in a safe in the principal's office and a huge sign out front that says "we have rifles, go shoot some other gun free zone up" would eliminate that school from ever having a rampage shooting at it, because rampage shooters are pussies. That's literally why they shoot kids."
I think that ignores the reason for many school rampages: not so much glory, as revenge killings. I don't think a few rifles in a closet is going to deter them. It might reduce their success, or they might already know about the rifles in the closet, and plan around them. Planning around things is a general adaptation we'd see, as mentioned before. The change in numbers would, we both seem to agree, be miniscule in the big picture, but potentially reach a significant % relatively speaking.
Regarding your Zen Koan, I do in fact consider gun control to be overstated in terms of importance in politics - more important than the CRT freakoutery, but still not worth a national conversation every 30 minutes. However, a change to the status quo might tip the scales for me.
Shooters will not ever be deterred by laws. They are broken people and their human morality has been lost; they are damaged souls. We might be able to do something about the society that nurtured them by placing morality in the public square. That actually might help many other people who would never become shooters as well. In our modern world we abandon religious instruction as a belief in some myth yet we replace it with nihilism or worse? Can there be beneficial egregores? I am intrigued by Sheldrake's morphic fields that suggest a connectivity surrounding us. Not that I have any idea how it affects us or we affect it.
Hmm... I'm not sure I agree with the contention that lack of religion is to blame, nor that atheism replaces religion with "nihilism or worse". Statistically, the most atheist nations in the world, Sweden and China, don't have the same rampage shooter problem. It would be interesting to look at the pattern of rampage shooters with regards to religion, but I'm guessing you wouldn't see a correlation with atheism, at least not to the same degree that you see with factors like bullying and others. I do agree that it's apparent there is a kind of sickness specific to the U.S. that leads to us being such an outlier, but I don't think it's a given that more religion is the best solution.
I wasn't addressing atheism in that is a religion all it's own. It has its own moral code and requires a lot of effort. Having no belief at all in the notion of something outside of one's self is my target. Most of us would agree that the Golden Rule might be a good basis for society. Yet these shooters have no empathy for others. Notice that Sweden and China are mono cultures which may be a factor. We have many fewer cultural norms as a result but once were united in agreement about "right and wrong".
I don't agree that atheism is a religion. There is no common moral code (for one thing) amongst atheists, beyond what is common in society in general. The only commonality is a belief in the non-existence of god. Also, I don't think having a common, or stronger, or more consistent moral code is the problem. I think you hit on a key point there with your word "empathy". If American society had more empathy in general, more acceptance, and less alienation, that might help. However, shooters like the one in Buffalo show that the lack of empathy can extend beyond empathy towards individuals to lack of empathy and "othering" of specific groups.
The logic is clear. Whether that matters in the fringes is unclear. Some of my friends always carry and I respect them greatly. I suspect they are more than cautious in having that responsibility and concern,
All the hypotheticals that are even rarer than a rampage shooter are enough to drive you nuts.
I ignored the media coverage of this even expecting you'd have something to say about it. So thank you!
Overall a great article, but it does ignore the most compelling argument people make against CCW; the risk of people getting caught in the crossfire.
To be fair, even though it's their most compelling argument I still think it's a pretty weak one. While people getting caught in the crossfire is definitely a possibility, especially if you're not as good a shot as Dicken was, (hell, I did 20 years in the Marine Corps and still go to the range at least once every couple months or so, albeit not as often as I should, and I'm pretty sure *I* couldn't have made all the shots he did) when you've got an attacker whose entire goal is to literally kill every person he can, adding a couple bullets to the mix won't change very much; unless you get away or he is stopped, you're dead anyway.
But weak argument or no, it's the strongest one they have, and should probably be addressed.
Personally, I'd rather take my chances on crossfire than **directed** fire from an active shooter who **hasn't** had his plans upset by the fact that his shooting range is suddenly and unexpectedly bidirectional.
If there's someone shooting **back** I can probably just drop and crawl, and the guy trying to shoot up the mall is likely to ignore me in favor of the lady slinging lead back in his direction. If he's unopposed, I have to try and **run**, and, well, I'm probably better off trying to find things to **throw** at the pigfucker than trying to run away. I had bad knees and hips back in high school. They have not *improved* in the intervening 30 years.
That argument applies just as, if not more strongly to armed police, who have been shown to be much more likely to hit an innocent than a self-defender in any exchange of gunfire.
There, I think I just addressed it. It's not a problem compared to badges doing the same.
For those of us who aren't running CNN the solution is simple: stop clicking on articles about mass shootings that aren't stopped by civilians. If the clicks shift, the coverage will shift. CNN and the others of its ilk are slaves to the clicks.
I mean, it's a lovely thought, but the .01% of the population that isn't clickbait-driven won't make enough of a difference, I'm thinking. :'(
That, and not enough people even know about the problem to know that they *should* stop clicking those articles because they haven't the foggiest idea that there's any connection between them clicking on 37 articles about a given shooting and the probability of the next one occurring.
Generally when a smart, principled 0.1% starts doing something in a way that is sticky, they talk about it, then people change minds, then it snowballs...
Many of the cultural beliefs we take for granted today were started by fewer. Abolition of slavery, gay rights, drug legalization... All those needles moved because of the work of a dedicated tiny minority of people who were committed.
I absolutely believe that social media in general, and click farming as well, are huge threats that we can't wait for the pols to ham-handedly "fix"; people need to vote with their feet, immediately. It'll grow.
I read your prepper math article years ago. It made a strong impression on me and a month ago it came to mind and I wanted to share it with a friend. I'm glad I found this substack during that search. This is a well reasoned article and I enjoyed reading it. I too would love to see responsible gun ownership normalized again.
@sam Fortunately we don't have to design some theoretical model to test the hypothesis. By my count, 42 U.S. states already allow Constitutional carry, encompassing approximately 80% of the population. I'm not aware of any research showing a dramatic increase in gun violence in those areas. From what I understand, some studies show a marginal increase, some a marginal decrease. Maybe BJ can chime in with more info on this?
The research indicates that of the three sets of carry law, shall-issue has the most gun homicide, and may-issue and constitutional carry both have equivalent lower rates than shall-issue.
https://opensourcedefense.org/blog/gun-policy-needs-a-decision-support-system
I've see that particular claim but I always assumed -- because it doesn't really make sense -- that it was probably not based on very solid research. Like, it's more likely to be an artifact of the particular cultures in which each of those options arise rather than a causal link to the particular policy.
Michael Siegel, who did the research, is probably the most talented gun policy researcher in the world in my opinion and he does not approach his research with a particular political bend in either direction. He is ethically and mathematically sound.
I think the result makes a kind of sense. In constitutional carry states the number of potential concealed carriers is high, which dampens crime. In may issue states the government regulations are so onerous they are allowed to do things like Stop and Frisk, which also dampens crime, if in a very racist way. So they both have different modes for dampening crime that shall issue states don't have.
Always keep in mind that most of these "studies" are after-the-fact correlational studies. Causality cannot be inferred. States where citizens perceive (or in reality face) more violent crime may be more inclined to insist upon and possess weapons for concealed carry. Said another way: Is it that Shall Issue laws cause higher crime or is it that high crime causes more citizens to insist on Shall Issue Laws? Or, are the two actually not directly causally linked?
Every time my flag waves vigorously, my lawn fills with leaves. I was frustrated to discover that taking down the flag did not cure the leaf problem.
That said, I'm with HWFO and John Lott on this issue: More guns in the hands of responsible citizens = less crime. Teachers who want to be armed and get training should be allowed to go armed. With more responsible people gong armed, gun homicides might go up, but probably not, since good guys generally just want to stop the attack--their goal is not to kill bad guys--that's just the unfortunate consequence some of the time. More often, the bad guy is stopped without a shot being fired. And when shots are fired from a handgun, there's an 80% survival rate. And when we talk about firearm deaths, if one doesn't separate out suicides and justifiable homicides (bad guys who suffered an acute failure of their victim selection process), one is not being intellectually honest. Every death is a tragedy, but the death of a violent criminal seems a bit less tragic to me than the death of an innocent person.
P.S. I'll probably have to explore this on my own but one of my interests is traffic injuries and fatalities mostly in the context of bicycling.
The media and academia cover these, in my mind, as poorly as they cover gun issues. Both the identity politics wokies (look up "mobility justice" for example) and the climate change is the end of the world wokies have also taken hold of this domain too.
There's also this fantasy called Vision Zero, which reminds me a lot of the fantasy to get rid of all guns. Vision Zero seeks to completely eliminate all traffic fatalities whether it be motor-vehicle occupants, bicyclists, or pedestrians. But it too would need a magic wand and far more money or trade-offs than most people are willing to pay.
Good post, though I think you should acknowledge the one scenario that gun free zones might defend against. A legal carrier enters the area not planning to shoot anyone, but changes plans within the zone. Maybe they get into an argument, maybe the voices in their head overwhelm them.
That is the only scenario where a gun free zone could make a difference. If someone is already planning to shoot someone they are not going to disarm themselves because of the gun free zone. The gun free zone may even present a more attractive target because the odds of armed resistance are lower.
My intuition is that unplanned offensive gunfire is rare. Arguments very rarely escalate to gunfire outside of gun free zones. Maybe gun free zones could make sense in bars and nightclubs where people have lowered inhibitions and poor judgment, but even then they tilt the advantage in favor of planned attackers.
It would be interesting to see a "gun homicides in bars" analysis that grouped unplanned shootings and planned shootings separately, so Pulse for instance would be a planned shooting.
It would take some legwork, but would be worth looking at.
It might be an interesting analysis, but don't forget that in every state I'm aware of, (even Constitutional Carry states, though I'm not familiar with the specifics of all the new laws, so this could be out of date) drinking while carrying a gun is still illegal, and in many states bars are prohibited places, regardless of whether you're drinking. So I'm not sure if bars are a very good source for this data. Road rage incidents might provide a clearer picture.
If alcohol and guns don’t go together, why is there a bureau of alcohol, tobacco, and firearms? I always thought it meant they should be used together.
There are states where entering a bar with a gun is illegal, regardless of whether you drink alcohol or not. There are states where you can enter a bar or a restaurant with a gun, but you cannot drink alcohol. There are states where it is legal to drink and carry, so long as you do not exceed the same BAC set for driving. In all states, it is wise to either abstain or "drink responsibly"; and if you are drinking at all, don't handle guns. Certainly, if you are going out with the intent of "having a few drinks", leave your gun at home. If you decide it's wise to take an Uber, leave the gun at home.
Does anyone know how police officers handle this when their department requires/encourages off-duty carry, as a number of departments do? What do they do when out with family & friends and they have a beer with their pizza? I think I know the answer for some officers...they just don't have two or three beers. But that's speculation on my part.
I feel like this is even more of a unicorn scenario. A legal carrier snapping in a GFZ seems several to many times more unlikely than an illegal carrier doing the same.
I do not have any links at hand right now but I've seen multiple credible sources in the past saying that ccw permit holders as a group are among the least likely to commit any crime at all.
Based on this observation, the chances that one of them will randomly turn into a spree killer seems fantastical.
Selection bias enters in, of course, as anyone who is qualified to obtain a ccw permit is already someone peaceful or crafty enough to have avoided attracting the attention of the legal system. Also with constitutional carry becoming reality over most of the country (and being particularly relevant here), that selection bias is going to be diluted.
However, random unplanned spree killings of unrelated innocents by weapons carriers who previously never planned to use that weapon for anything but self defense is a unicorn of a situation and irrelevant to any discussion of the aggregate issue.
I am in the UK and the Uvalde shooting was all over our news for days.
In comparison I had not heard about this Greenwood shooting at all.
Also, if I'm ever in the Atlanta area, I'll take you up on that offer!
Additionally, the armed citizen's attorney, Guy Relford, released a statement noting that the citizen does indeed possess an Indiana Lifetime License to Carry. It's referenced in this NRA article - https://www.nraila.org/articles/20220725/another-good-guy-with-a-gun-stops-the-bad-guy - and I've seen the license pic Relford posted (with the sensitive info redacted). So, this particular incident isn't the poster child for constitutional-carry it was thought to be in the first day or 2.
NYT quoted an eyewitness seeing Dicken immediately after at 25-30 FEET. Didn't claim distance for shots, maybe he advanced after. Maybe witness doesn't know foot from yard.
Kind of a minor point all in all, but the 40 yard claim is so hard to swallow given circumstances. And the bias of the outcome leans toward the pro gun folk narrative wanting that to be true and really only pro gun media talking about this case. Was the distance verified unequivocally video/sheriff, etc. or is 40 yards all echo chamber?
(Cuz 50%, on a pizza platter, at 12 yards, from the bench, is a challenge to some folks I've watched at the range.)
You covered the more CC less CC pretty well on risk reward for the low frequency crazed mass shooter. But regarding intentional gun crime/violence:
Do cops in permitless
constitutional carry have fewer tools to investigate whether random gun is illegally possessed than a DC cop?
Suicide rate is hard to lower and far less threat to public at large, since it's an inward act. Whereas criminal gun violence is an outward act with more imperative for public safety. It's the lower hanging fruit in reducing gun death which both sides claim to want.
Long wind up to a perhaps more relevant question. Does permitless carry give cover to illegal possession and the gun violence that goes with it?
I had a hard time swallowing the 40 yard comment as well until the police said they confirmed the range via camera.
I heard from someone with closer knowledge of the case that only the first few shots were from 40 yards, then Mr. Dicken closed the distance significantly for the additional shots and he stopped shooting when the perp dropped his gun and crawled into the bathroom.
An event/investigation with two months of reporting had 25 times more media coverage than an event with three days of reporting?
If you'll notice, CNN was basically done reporting on the mall shooting as of around 7 days ago.
Very well written. Thank you.