I’ve known Tom McHale for years as a gun expert, student, writer, analyst and (total disclosure) one of my editors. Here’s an excellent piece he wrote on debate strategy for Ammoland.com

Take it to heart.

11 COMMENTS

  1. Excellent article by Tom McHale. He’s right, getting emotional and shouting won’t win others to our side. By constantly stating facts, eventually, those people who are persuadable, will finally realize human nature is the problem, not guns. Some people will never be persuaded. He’s right also that European countries have fewer problems with guns, not because of guns, but because of demographics.

  2. I have gotten a fairly good look at quite a number of recent migrant arrivals coming to and through Arizona. My feeling is that many of them will be OK as neighbors. Some of the migrants do make me think that they will take any opportunity, however, to perpetrate anything that they feel they can get away with. A run on inexpensive, fixed-blade knives with short blades, usually of three inches, with a not-bad Cordura-style sheath, has occurred lately at a local Walmart. I like the knives, and bought one. Kind of a short Bowie with a clip point and choil on a drop blade, very sharp. A great carry knife for general utility and seat belt cutting, for example. No delay in opening like a clasp knife. What I do not want to see is an increase in knife-based crime among desperate people. Hopefully we are helping people lean toward ethics and away from desperation. I wish that peace officers would be encouraged these days to CARRY short-barreled 12-gauges, though, with folding stocks and slings, dependably usable as recognizably perp-stopping tools loaded with buck shot. Police handguns seem to be taking too long to complete POI’s. I would like to see more officers be the intact survivors of encounters with desperadoes. I am also a big fan of hickory walking sticks that will painfully paralyze an assailant’s arm if necessary without killing anybody. The trend away from saps and other heavy tools for police use seems questionable to me. The more that we make peace officers vulnerable to criminals, the more POI’s I would expect.

    • Strategic Steve,

      I really like your recommendations for police officers’ weapons. As for migrants, if I could, I would let no one immigrate to this country. We have the third largest population in the world, after China and India. It’s easier just to say, “no one gets in,” than to try to pick who we should welcome, and who we should reject. It is time for people to stay home and improve their own nations. I know I sound harsh, and I know I will never get my way. I just dream. I must admit, I am glad we let Tesla and Einstein immigrate here.

      I have two ideas I want to mention about illegal aliens. Sending them back across the border does no good, because they will simply re-enter.

      Kat Timpf knows how to solve the border problem without spending any money. When illegals come here, GIVE THEM NOTHING.

      • Esteemed Roger Willco, giving illegal immigrants nothing is possibly an effective economic solution to the politico-economic problems. That the migrant people have a practical means of return to their original seat of extradition is necessary to keep them from being trapped here in the USA. Given our Manchurian-Candidate-Fu-Manchu-puppet-at-the-pulpit Howdy Doody and his Scot-free crank operator son Hoodie, though, the puppet master Buffalo ‘Bama will continue to implement plans of the diabolical, sore-assed national-socialist financier who is really behind this chaotic invasion.

  3. Not related to this article:
    Mas:
    Here’s a damn scary one I had some years ago. Clinton was coming to town campaigning for his last run. Me being anti Clinton to the max. Asked what his route thru town was. Reply was opposite of truth!

    I was taking a shortcut to avoid them. Was stopped by a cop standing in the street. Me being front vehicle on the way to gunsmiths with uncased rifle muzzle down on seat next to me. Here came the motorcade within 50 feet of me! Traffic behind so I couldn’t move. Cop never looked in cab. My shorts were close to filling up!
    George

    • Holy stromboli! I never take an uncased gun out of the house, and it goes in the trunk. My ammo is in a padlocked ammo can. Of course, the gun is unloaded. We are big on safety in NJ, because we have to be.

  4. Looking at the US vs UK murder “correlation” … it should be noted there are more Americans involved in American murders … yeah, “Duh” but it’s a much more “credible” correlation. ~~ sarcasm intended

    • CBT,

      Maybe there are fewer murders per capita in the United Kingdom, because the bad blokes are intimidated by those big Bobbies.

  5. In re numbers of homicides: I’m not sure what the population is in the UK, but you could drop the whole shebang into a number of US states and still have surplus US land. Ditto with Europe. Heck, even the FBI pointed out that due to population growth, while the aggregate number of homicides/other violent crime may have gone up, the rate per 100,000 wasn’t remarkable.

    The active listening and verbal judo are very effective suggestions.

    • Should have added about causation/correlation. Waaay back when the mods & the rockers were rioting in the UK and the demands for Government to “do something”, a noted statistician punctured their arguments with a study with a near perfect 1.0 correlation between violence and the sale of oranges in the UK.

      Courtesy of a college statistics prof who delighted in blowing up “studies”.

      The proposed “common sense” are always anything but.

  6. “People don’t change their minds to your point of view in the middle of an argument.”

    Caveat: The people you are debating (I try to avoid “arguing.”) probably won’t immediately change their minds. However, if you debate quietly and follow Tom McHale’s principals, the bystanders listening in just might.

    I had a discussion with an anti-gun lady at a party once, and after we agreed to disagree three other people approached me about taking classes.

Comments are closed.