A recent white paper from Cato Institute has some good info for those who keep guns at home, or legally carry them in public, for personal protection.  Link for the document: “Tough Targets”

They’ve done their homework.

The co-authors bring good credentials to the issue.  Clayton Cramer has long been a highly respected researcher in this field, and David Burnett serves Students for Concealed Carry as PR director.
Learn how a national news magazine’s supposedly impartial roundup of “facts” in the gun control  wound up understating the frequency of justifiable homicides in defense of self or others by more than half.

Read account after documented account of law-abiding men and women and even responsible kids who, in life-threatening emergencies, picked up loaded guns and used them successfully to save the lives of themselves, of loved ones, and even of total strangers who had come under violent criminal or animal attack.

Have a read.

Get back and let us know what you think about it here at Backwoods Home Blog.

True accounts of your own experiences in this vein, or documentable experiences of others you know, are invited as well.

Oh, and don’t forget a Valentine’s Day visit to Starbucks to support that company’s refusal to ban lawfully armed citizen customers.  A $2 bill in the baristas’ tip jar signifies “Second Amendment support.”

1 COMMENT

  1. Since the passage of Wisconsin’s “mommy-may-I” concealed pistol licenses (the NRA’s favorite flavor of Gun Control), the first recognized defensive use of a concealed firearm occurred two weeks ago.

    http://www.jsonline.com/news/crime/aldi-customer-wont-be-charged-in-shooting-sk42et0-138688529.html

    Man and his family stop at the grocery store; two thugs with shotguns rob the place. The man draws from concealed, motions to another customer to get out of the way, then defends himself and his family. He sends one robber fleeing, another to the hospital.

    The local twist is that Aldi’s (the grocery chain) had a posted “no weapons” sign, which the Defender honestly didn’t notice. The police (after the events) had to point out the sign to the Defender. (And the goblins ignored it, even if they could see the sign.) I too found the Aldi’s signs are difficult to see and unlawul. Gunowners-rights groups in Wisconsin notified the grocery chain more than a month ago that the signs posted do not meet the state’s criteria for lawful posting. “Corporate Policy” yadda yadda.

    There was a bit of pucker-factor too after the fact to see if the Defender would be charged with Trespassing for carrying-concealed within the Magical Bubble created by the aura of a tiny “No Weapons” sign. The DA declined to charge the Good Guy. All’s well that ends well.

  2. Why do virtually all police officers carry off-duty? Could it be that they are admitting that the police just cannot protect individuals from violent crime – but only pick up the pieces afterwards?

  3. Great article, saved a copy for future reference as well. Glad to see more unbiased research showing what a lot of us already know.

    The whole age thing gets me. Thankfully my parents ignored California’s “safe storage” laws. By 12 I had regular and immediate access to a loaded firearm. It was awfully comforting to have that when I was home alone as a kid.

    Had one incident a few years ago when a drunk tried to break in and I went to orange/red. XD45 was chambered and my thumb was ready to sweep the manual safety off. I was covering the doorway and my fiance was on the phone with dispatch. Police responded in about 5 minutes and got the guy. Don’t think I got the full adrenaline dump but I definitely got a good taste of it and having a gun in a situation like that was certainly comforting.

    I know a handful of good folks out in California who would love to carry in California but can’t legally. Got to love some of the CCW application in California. “Self-defense is not a valid reason for obtaining a weapon permit” but sometimes “victim of violent crime” will get you a permit….

  4. I got through about 12 pages and will read the rest as I have time. It was interesting to see the argument that “they will just take it (your gun) away from you. My wife gave me a wall sign for my birthday that says “you can have my gun when I run out of bullets”.

    Tomorrow its Starbucks for St. Valentine’s Day!

  6. Rude lesson in what happens to the UNARMED today. Supreme Court Justice Breyer – who voted against letting the “ordinary” American own a gun for self-protection from crime – himself got held up in his vacation home by a machete-wielding robber!

  7. I don’t have the best eye for these things, but are those 9mm rounds laying next to a 38 spl revolver on the cover of that report?  That’d be funny. 

  8. I read this when it came out at CATO.org and immediately passed it along. The premise is exactly right, when the crap hits the fan, it’s just you and the crap, there are no police in sight.

    That it happens so frequently, as the study says, and is both un-reported and under-reported tells me two things. First, that the individual considered the situation under control and no longer threatening; move along, nothing to see here. Second, that the media complex and it’s institutional bias against the civilian use of firearms in self defense aims to minimize the obvious effect of an individual that protects not only himself but his fellow human being; move along, nothing to see here.

  9. Mas,
    About 15 yrs ago I had someone kick in my back door Grabbed my Mossberg 500 and slowly went to check it out. It was my brother who had been drinking and taking xanxas. He was pretty messed up. He started cussing thats when I raised the Mossberg and placed the bead upper center mass. He really got mad and started telling me he would kill me. I pussed the saftey off and told him to leave. My wife and daughter were in our bedroom scared to death. I told my wife to call 911 he was still ranting and raving. I’m 510′ and weighted about 215 at the time. My brother is 6’5″ and weighted about 350 at the time. I wasn’t going to let it get into a fist fight with my family there with me. Don’t know what he would have done to my wife and child if he won. He never advandced. I would have shot him probably killing him because the 12ga was loaded with 3″magnum buckshot. The deputys finally arrived but they didn’t won’t to do anything. I told them he did not live there broken in and I wanted him taken off my property. The said no. I am friends with the Magistrate here. Had my wife call him and explain what was going on. He told them to take him to jail. He had not been in jail 30 minutes and he was calling treating to come back with a gun and kill me. He bonded out within an hour. Didn’t see him for a long time after that. I think when he sobered up he new he would have died that night if he had pushed any further.

  10. Jeff — looks that way, doesn’t it?

    Don’t blame the authors: I can tell you from personal experience, the cover art is sometimes out of the writers’ hands.

    best,
    Mas

  11. Jeff,

    Yep, they do look a lot like 9mm rounds on that cover. However, believe it or not there are some revolvers chambered in 9x19mm. Taurus and S&W made some, probably along with other makes. Long before those, there were also revolvers chambered in .45 ACP, too- some I see still being used in competitions today.

    The trick is that you need a half-moon clip so those rounds will rest properly in the cylinder instead of falling through the chamber, but they do indeed work. The “un-clipped” rounds shown on the book cover are of course useless then, if they’re 9mm.

  12. It’s a great read.

    Unfortunately, it’s yet another compilation of truths that will be universally ignored by all those who desperately need to read and absorb its content.

    It’s preaching to the choir, but those of us in the choir thank you for sharing it with us.

    🙂

  13. To be fair, is there any chance we could argue that the revolver is the SW 9mm wheelgun they made for awhile? I’d be curious to see how a 9mm J Frame would handle…

    PS- went to a local Starbucks this afternoon and didn’t see any commotion or anything. Fairly busy, no anti-gun or pro-gun folks. Unfortunately I didn’t have any 2 dollar bills so I just paid with plastic. I’ll have to get some 2 dollar bills and make another visit.

  14. Mas, had a guy break in at 0300. I lived out in nowheresville. Had wife call 911 and back me up with Mossberg 12 ga. while I checked ground floor; we and then 2 boys on 2nd floor, kids asleep. Turned out to be a drunk who’d kicked in the door to “get help”; took him three escalating yells to get face down. 3-hour response time. The only deputy was at death-at-scene MVA and couldn’t leave; Stae of Illinois dispatched a guy who had bee knocking on doors for 2 hours trying to find us. By the time he did the drunk and I were old friends, though he was zip-tied, screw the law on that; I held his smokes for him. I asked that he be charged with home invasion, B&E, etc. He was of a large tax-paying farm family; got nada. Told him to be glad I had been home; my wife would have cut him down on the stairs to protect the kids. Nothing in the paper, nothing from the law (no charges for me, thankfully), but sad statement.

  15. Great read!!I have great respect for LEO’s. I have two relatives who are LEO’s in Massachusetts. Honestly they are a reactionary force with manpower numbers dropping every year due to the economy. What gets cut when the money gets tight at the local levels? Not the schools, Johnny has to learn regardless of the economy! Our taxes are high because of all the wasted funds, majority of taxes go to the schools.

    Look at Newbury Mass PD. Cuts, cuts and more cuts! You need to protect yourself. Lets utilize the Sheriff’s Department in Massachusetts beside prisoner control and street details.

  16. micko77,

    That is exactly the point of my post above. You took care of the situation (zip ties work every time, screw the law in that case) and thankfully there were no bodies to collect. Homeowner defends home, no one hurt, no news. It doesn’t bleed so it won’t lead.

    I don’t live in Illinois but if the current anti-gun climate is the same as when your situation happened, the last thing the state would want to highlight is the successful application of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

  17. micko77, question about the “zip ties” comment. It’s illegal to restrain somebody who forceably enters your home? Is that a state law–if so for what state?