This made my day:
A man practicing his open carry right was robbed of the gun he was openly carrying.
William Coleman III was robbed of his Walter- brand P22 just after 2:00 a.m. October 4 in Gresham by a young man who asked him for it — and flashed his own weapon as persuasion.
Coleman, 21, was talking to his cousin in the 17200 block of NE Glisan St., after purchasing the handgun earlier that day, when a young man asked him for a cigarette, police said.
The man then asked about the gun, pulled a gun from his own waistband and said “”I like your gun. Give it to me.”
Coleman handed over the gun and the man fled on foot.
The suspect is thin a black male, between 19 and 23 years old, clean cut with a small patch of facial hair on his chin, and short black wavy hair.
Just awesome.
Mark my words- this will not be the last we hear of Mr. Coleman, sadly. Thelesson he will “learn” is that he needs to be more aggressive while open carrying, not that open carry is moronic. Within a couple years we’ll hear about him involved in a shooting. In self defense, of course.
glocksman
That’s ‘Walther’, not ‘Walter’.
I’ve always said that open carry other than in the field while hunting is idiotic at best.
What a maroon..
Chris
“Place projectile weapon on the ground.”
“You can have my gun when you pry it from my cold dead fingers!”
“Your proposal is acceptable.”
Botsplainer
The person he shoots will be completely unarmed, but he will be sobbingly a’skeered for his laaahf.
Face
If only there was a good guy with a gun to offset the bad guy with a gun….wait…..nevermind.
Betty Cracker
What a fucking moron.
OzarkHillbilly
Stupid is as stupid does.
Also, all too many with CCW don’t seem to understand the plain meaning of the word “concealed”. Jus’ sayin’…
Botsplainer
@glocksman:
I was hiking around the Red River Gorge last weekend, and saw one couple with a dog up on one of the formations. She was a ponytailed blond cutie in exercise gear, smiley and happy. The ammosexual she was with was bitching about handling the dog (that particular trail section is not real dog friendly – lots of room for disaster of a falling kind). He was dressed in a black tshirt with some gay tactical message/saying printed, camo pants and a 9 mm or .40 cal in a holster on his belt. I stifled the urge to take it from him and beat him to death with it.
Ponytailed cutie won’t be chirpy or happy for long with an asshole like that.
Punchy
I bet Coleman got grilled during his police testimony. Story sounds fishy.
MomSense
I just can’t imagine being so afraid all the time that I would have to carry a weapon with me at all times. What are ebola infected muslim soshulists from mexico who hate us for our freedom lurking around every corner waiting to behead random white dudes?
Botsplainer
Another responsible gun owner:
http://www.newser.com/story/196946/doctor-kills-wife-self-hours-after-wedding.html
Upshot – Indiana doctor who is an ammosexual FFL holder gets mad at bride during his wedding reception. Guests leave. He does her, and then himself.
Wonder who returns the wedding gifts?
Botsplainer
@MomSense:
Yes.
ET
Guess that weapon didn’t protect after all – it only seems to have made him a target.
What the gun nuts don’t understand is that a weapon isn’t magical shield. A weapon is only going to “help” if you are honest about your abilities and willingness to use it. Too many of them think that merely having it and people knowing you have it, will scare people away because they, themselves would be scared away. The people they are protecting themselves from are like this kid who stole it – not scared of a weapon and more willing than the victim to threaten with it and use it.
Botsplainer
@ET:
I’m going to guess that he didn’t buy it from a licensee, so he’s got nothing showing a serial number and it was likely stolen when he bought it.
glocksman
@Botsplainer:
Was he a gun dealer?
An FFL is the Federal license you need to sell firearms as a business.
A CCW, or LTCH (License to carry handgun) as it’s known here in Indiana, is a license for a private citizen to carry either open or concealed in public.
You don’t need either one to legally keep a pistol at home.
Edit: yes he was an FFL holder, but that’s neither here nor there as the FFL merely allowed him to buy weapons at wholesale rather than pay retail.
If he passed the Federal checks for an FFL, he would have had zero problems passing a Brady check for retail purchases.
That’ll teach me to skim a story before commenting.
Thunderbird
@Botsplainer: Between that and the tasing incident in Hammond and the state trooper preaching to the woman he pulled over, I’m starting to wonder if my home state has finally gone around the bend. Sheesh.
Betty Cracker
@Botsplainer:
I understand the meaning of both “gay” and “tactical,” but I’m having trouble imagining how they would work together to modify “message.”
MomSense
@Botsplainer:
I was kidding but I just saw at LGF that Cotton actually thinks this is going to happen in Arkansas???
Gin & Tonic
@glocksman: Is it “neither here nor there”? I’m curious as to why an anesthesiologist also needs to hold an FFL, and I’m willing to bet it has some interesting part to play in the story.
chopper
this sounds like it’s supposed to be an anagram of something.
“thin, a black male” == uh…”name a thick ball”? “think a ball came!”<–eew
Botsplainer
@Thunderbird:
The candyass derp has gotten out of hand. There had always been a sort of steadiness that I appreciated from the genuinely productive agricultural areas and the suburbs to the north of Louisville, but now a deliberately pig ignorant coalition of Indy/Ft Wayne insurance paper shufflers, Indy exurb dwellers and Hoosier National Forest area Klan activists seem to be driving the bus.
Gin & Tonic
As to the story in the OP, the suspect “fled on foot” but was described as wearing sweats and flip-flops. How fast can you run in flip flops?
Slim Patch
Asking questions are really nice thing if you are not understanding
anything totally, however this paragraph offers fastidious understanding yet.
Thunderbird
@Botsplainer: Agreed. And I have a front row seat here in Naptown.
Betty Cracker
@Gin & Tonic: I guess you’ve never seen me fleeing a snake.
glocksman
@Gin & Tonic:
I consider it neither ‘here nor there’ because he’d have been legally able to purchase the gun at retail and get an Indiana carry permit with no problems.
The fact that the held a Federal dealer’s license means that he could buy at wholesale.
Maybe he operated a side business of selling guns, as there are a lot of FFL holders who sell guns as a side business and not their primary source of income.
Now if he got it just to buy for himself at wholesale, that’s not quite what an FFL is for.
Botsplainer
@Thunderbird:
I never thought I’d see a day when Kentucky government would seem sane by comparison.
Still, it could be worse. You could be stuck in Evansville and have to eat those nasty brain sandwiches.
balconesfault
Half a million guns a year are stolen each year in America.
Which means that all those “responsible” gun owners are responsible for transferring half a million guns a year to criminals.
boatboy_srq
@Betty Cracker: Thank you. Beat me to it.
boatboy_srq
@Gin & Tonic: Sounds to me like his patients fall in the 1% of anaesthetizations that aren’t recoverable.
Citizen_X
@Botsplainer:
Repeat, with local variations, fifty times and you have modern-day America.
boatboy_srq
@Citizen_X: Kuala Lumpur looks better every year.
MattF
Obviously, the problem was that his weapon wasn’t big enough.
Botsplainer
@glocksman:
When CCW permits first became available here in Kentucky, even though I was kind of a wingnut I noted that the people who most breathlessly and emotionally called to demand the expungement of old convictions that were blocking issuance (generally domestic violence) were the people I would be the least likely to want to see with any firearm. Not only were they jumpy, they didn’t have jobs or hobbies where such things would ever be needed. Most weren’t even hunters.
Shakezula
And who doesn’t look at pictures of clammy-handed poseurs walking through grocery stores with a rifle on their backs and think a well-swung baseball bat could deprive Mr. Shrimpdick of his gun and knock some sense into his head?
Maybe that’s just me.
FlipYrWhig
@MomSense: Cotton is a Rhodes Scholar. He doesn’t think it will actually happen. He just knows that fears that Obama made strong things weak will get him elected. Just like Ted Cruz, he’s a gaping asshole who thinks everyone else is beneath him, and that manipulating weak-minded people with lies is how Special People Make History.
Thunderbird
@Botsplainer: *shudders* Oh, Evansville. My dad’s from there, and it seemed like the weekend we’d go to visit his mother was ALWAYS the hottest and humidest weekend of the year. Can’t blame my old man for getting the hell outta there as soon as possible.
glocksman
@Botsplainer:
You forgot the Vanderburgh county right to life activists.
PS: I hate brain sandwiches, but they’re not the only food available at the Fall Festival.
Amir Khalid
@boatboy_srq:
It sure does, if you can see it. The haze today was very dense, enough to obscure the skyline and sting the eyes; we haven’t had rain in a few days.
Citizen_X
@Betty Cracker:
That’s what gets me about Botsplainer’s story of the guy hiking with the popgun farther up. What’s he carrying it for? Bears? It’s useless. To shoot coyotes, Rick Perry style? Who the fuck gets attacked by a coyote?
The only dangerous animal that a pistol could protect you against is a snake–and nobody on earth with two working legs is going to pull a weapon and fire it at a snake faster than they can run away. Anyone gets bit by a rattler because they were standing their ground and shooting at it, I’m gonna laugh at ’em.
Mustang Bobby
@Botsplainer: I spent two years in Evanspatch teaching school. Couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
MomSense
@FlipYrWhig:
So you are saying that Cotton is smart enough to know he is lying and peddling fear to literally scare up votes? Nice. Is he getting any push back from our trustey media?
rea
@Botsplainer: He was dressed in a black tshirt with some gay tactical message/saying printed,
“Okay, I’ll distract him while you sneak up on him from behind”? Don’t know how effective printing our tactical messages on t-shirts is, though . . .
HeartlandLiberal
I am licensed for concealed carry in Indiana. I would NOT wear my gun showing for any reason. Why should I make anyone around me feel threatened? Open carry is simply nonsense. It is for those whose ego structures are so fragile they have to try and pretend they have personal power. And to be honest about it, how the Hell are we supposed to know the difference between the good guys and the bad guys in public? If I am in a bank and see a bunch of guys walk in the door carrying automatic rifles, what am I supposed to think? I will assume they are there to rob the bank.
Open carry should NOT be an option, anywhere, for any reason, unless you are a duly sworn member of an official police organization. And there is just no acceptable reason civilian should be carrying auto or semi-auto assault rifles around in public. Or a rifle or shotgun of any sort. Period. To suggest otherwise is just bat sh*t crazy.
And I say that as one who owns two hand guns, and keeps one in the console of my car at all times.
glocksman
@HeartlandLiberal:
Exactly.
The only times I ever carried a gun regularly was when I bartended at Meadow Lanes on the weekends and didn’t leave work until 2AM and when I worked 3rd shift at Thorntons.
Other than that, I rarely carried.
Now, other than a .22 rifle I don’t own any guns.
ericblair
@Shakezula:
Obviously, you need a large and expensive gun collection to protect your large and expensive gun collection.
Joey Maloney
@Thunderbird: Gay marriage, man. It’s the end times.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Punchy: My first thought as well. A P22 is not exactly a defensive, carry type weapon (if you’re going to carry a .22, it’s going to be something a lot smaller). It’s pretty much a target pistol.
And I will never understand anybody who open carries. Just stupid beyond belief. If I’ve got one I’m sure as fuck not going to advertise it.
Shakezula
@HeartlandLiberal:
Skin color. Or so the thinking goes among the people who are really into open carry. There are lots of jokes about Black Panthers parading their pieces, but it’s true. The sight of a lot of non-white people toting guns and rifles would prompt a rethinking of the law.
d58826
OT but Justice Kennedy has blocked the 9th curcuit ruling overturning Idaho’s ban on gay marriage. Does anyone on SCOTUS know what they are doing or do they just kinda wing it depending of the number of clouds they can count from their office window
Amir Khalid
@glocksman:
Do a lot of zombies attend the festival?
Mike in NC
Idiot walking around with a handgun gets mugged at 2 AM? Who could have possibly imagined that could happen?
OzarkHillbilly
@Citizen_X:
All depends on the handgun and it’s caliber.
Mike in NC
@d58826: Depends on the shape of the clouds, of course. Is that cloud a fish or a horse?
Betty Cracker
@HeartlandLiberal: I go back and forth on this issue. There seems some advantage for us NON-PACKING folks to know who is carrying.
In my state, open carry is illegal under most circumstances, but more than a million people have CCW permits. If I walk into a store and see half a dozen guns on customers, I’m turning around and leaving.
As it is, I’m probably passing pistol-packing nitwits on every other aisle. Maybe ignorance is bliss. I can’t decide.
Kolohe
Ah, so this is a case where victim blaming is ok. Good to know.
trollhattan
@balconesfault:
Agreed–liability should be portable with the gun. Of course, the makers are exempt, as God and the Founders[tm] intended.
glocksman
@Shakezula:
It did in California while Reagan was governor.
He’s the one that signed the law forbidding open carry when the Black Panthers started parading around with M1 Carbines.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Shakezula: Would that be before or after all the sacrificial non-whites get massacred by the locals and/or the fine local police department?
@Kolohe: Hey, now you can truly say “both sides do it”. Feel better?
trollhattan
@Shakezula:
And thus, po-leece departments accumulate surplus military armor.
glocksman
@Amir Khalid:
Only meth zombies.
I permanently swore off brain sandwiches during the BSE scare a few years back.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Botsplainer: Pigs deserve much more respect, sir. They’re not only smarter than the folks you’ve described, they are much more charming.
Of course the fearful gun owners/carriers are at risk of losing the weapon to the very people they fear. They are also the single biggest group of traffickers in illegally obtained firearms. primarily on the provision end – since the fear keeps them from storing the weapons properly.
Please count me among those who want to hear a more detailed description of the gay tactical message. It’s bound to be hilarious to people with functional brain cells in numbers beyond double digits.
gbear
@ET:
Well at least the guy who had his gun stolen was honest about his abilities and willingness to use it. He knew that, even though he got himself into the situaltion by openly carrying his brand-spankin’-new gun, he wasn’t smart enough to get himself out of it by using the brand-spankin’ new gun, so he gave it to the thief.
Nobody got hurt during the incident, but now the idiot gun ex-owner gets to wonder if his gun will be used to hurt or kill someone else. He gets to live with the fact that he gave his gun to the bad guys.
Belafon
@Kolohe: We’re not blaming him for being robbed, we’re mocking him – and everyone like him – for thinking that waving a gun around will magically protect you from being, in this case, robbed.
OzarkHillbilly
@Shakezula: An open carry group protested the police shooting of John Crawford at the Wal-Mart store where he was killed. So, with at least one group, not so much.
Omnes Omnibus
@d58826: It is a procedural thing. Idaho requested it so that it could request an en banc hearing and/or appeal to the Supreme Court. Kennedy is responsible for emergency filings from the 9th Cir. I think any of the Justices would have done the same thing.
Craig
Several years ago a local coin + gun store was robbed at gunpoint. There were at least 3 employees on duty at the time, each of them had a firearm on his hip with a round in the chamber. The robbers still got the drop on them. A gun is not a magical talisman. The bad guy always has the initiative and the first move, and most of the time it’s too late to act.
Frankensteinbeck
@MomSense:
Part of it is fear. I think mostly they’re just bullies with fantasies of killing someone.
Villago Delenda Est
@Botsplainer: The dude is in Oregon. We do not play the fucked up SYG game in this state.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Belafon: Speak for yourself, please. I, quite specifically, am blaming him.
OzarkHillbilly
Black teen in white foster home pepper-sprayed by police who mistook him for burglar
Gotta love this post racial society we live in.
Amir Khalid
@Omnes Omnibus:
I suspected as much.
Belafon
@CONGRATULATIONS!: OK. I’m speaking for myself.
@OzarkHillbilly:
The sooner everyone stops thinking we’re post racial, the sooner we can fix things (I’m pretty sure you’re being sarcastic). All we’ve done is moved the refrigerator so we can see the cockroaches.
chopper
@Craig:
“well, if i was there my fat ass would have dived for the ground, and while tucking-and-rolling, smoothly pulled my sidearm from its holster and ended in a defensive position behind the cash register where i would have blah, blah blah.”
that’s just about the generic ‘gun nut on the internet’ response, right?
Amir Khalid
What kind of “drug cops” make a mistake like this?
Mike in NC
@gbear:
Idiot also now feels he must go out and buy another gun. Win-win situation for the firearms industry.
elmo
@Citizen_X: I’m not familiar at all with Red River Gorge, so take this for what it’s worth – but there are some dangers on a remote hike that a handgun might be useful against.
Dog packs
Big cats
Even black bears, if you run into an ornery one who doesn’t try his best to avoid you. A 9mm or .40 would be useless against a grizzly, I think, but not against a black bear.
Not that I ever considered carrying when I used to hike. Damn things are heavy and awkward, and I’ve usually got enough to carry what with snacks, Gatorade, fishing gear, camera…
Belafon
@Amir Khalid: The kind that assume a black teen in a white home is a burglar.
beth
@OzarkHillbilly: Hey at least the police didn’t shoot him – they’re learning!
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Craig:
We understand that, but the people like the Oregon fool do not (as he demonstrated). It’s an example of how to those folks, a gun is literally a fetish, in the original sense of the word, as you noted. I doubt they will ever grasp that the bad guy is always going to get the drop, since s/he starts the action. The bad guy also knows how many other bad guys are around – and who they are – as demonstrated by the late well-meaning man in a Nevada Walmart. While he believed he was standing up to the (only) bad guy with his own weapon, he was shot by the bad guy’s female partner.
elmo
@OzarkHillbilly: That kid is very, very lucky to be alive.
OzarkHillbilly
@Belafon: Sarcasm is my default mode.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Amir Khalid: Georgia ones? That cracked me up when I read it. Though I’m all for confiscating okra.
MomSense
@Frankensteinbeck: I think guns have become the means for these bullies to reclaim the status and position they have lost. They can compensate for the loss of power and rectify any perceived slight or wrong.
Craig
@chopper:
You’re right — everyone is Rambo when the gun isn’t in their face. I knew the shop — all of their employees are well-trained with pistols, but the best move was to give up. Guns give people a false sense of security, which is why some gun owners go stalking black kids in the middle of the night, or walk up to a car of teenagers to tell them to turned down their god-damned music or else.
d58826
@Omnes Omnibus: ah! thanks. Just on the surface seemed like a conflict with Monday’s non-decision decision
gbear
@Mike in NC:
Unfortunately, yep. Maybe he’ll carry two so that if one gets robbed he can still shoot the robber with the other one.
Bubblegum Tate
@Shakezula:
I like to use this photo of Dipset to make the point. They’re just patriotic Americans enjoying their 2A rights, Mr. Wingnut. Why so scared?
OzarkHillbilly
@beth: It is an improvement.
Paul in KY
@OzarkHillbilly: I hope they get a picture of him up on the mantelpiece.
glocksman
@Bubblegum Tate:
Well, the guy on the far left is holding a short barreled rifle under the National Firearms Act of 1934*, which is a restricted weapon that’s illegal to possess without paying the ATF $200, passing their background check, and a character reference from the local chief of police or Sheriff.
I hope he’s either legal or it’s a prop non functional weapon.
If not, ten years on weapons charges is no fun.
That said, at least all of them have their fingers off of the triggers.
The center left guy would probably feel pretty stupid if he blasted a hole in each foot. :)
*it could be full auto as well, which also falls under NFA regulations.
dave
@Craig: Yup unless you actually want to live in a state of paranoid hyper-vigilance, tip kids it’s not fun, and even then 90% of the time initiative goes to the ,well, initiator of force. Combat works the same way; a heavily armed patrol with everyone on edge is still often ambushed and if the attacker isn’t dumb or unlucky they can usually get away clean if they aren’t trying to develop the engagement. That’s when we killed most of our attackers. A few brief engagements and they push the envelope and then they die. Often for being teenagers with a sense of invincibility and a lack of judgement. Your typical open carry LARPER (sorry to LARPER’s for putting those guys in with you) doesn’t understand this. Same with dumbass tactical message guy that was mentioned earlier at that point you are carrying a dangerous security blanket.
dave
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): This is very true. It’s glaringly obvious that guns have become fetish objects, magical talismans, for a significant portion of these idiots.
kc
I know it’s wrong of me to laugh at that, but laugh I did.
kc
@Gin & Tonic:
Who’s gonna chase somebody toting two guns?
glocksman
@dave:
I’m sure most of them think that they’ll run across the guy who brought a knife to a gunfight.
When I carried, I damn well knew that against an already drawn gun that my chances weren’t good if I resisted.
When I worked at the local ‘stop-n-rob’ on third shift, if all the robber wanted was cash, gas, and smokes, he’d never know I had a gun because I’d fully cooperate and let him leave unmolested.
If he ordered me into the back room or the cooler, at least the gun on my hip under the smock would give me an option to fight back.
All too many robberies of convenience stores locally where the clerk complies with an order to the back room or cooler wound up him/her being shot dead.
It may not be much of a chance, but it at least offered the hope of fighting back.
Scamp Dog
@Shakezula:
Nope. You’d be able to get the gun, but knocking sense into him is likely impossible.
dave
I’m not against that. It’s rational at certain times and places (especially the third shift of a convenience store in a high crime area etc) and you don’t sound like you were living an action movie fantasy in your head. I’m not actually anti-gun but it’s become pretty clear to me that if people are actually going to be radicalized against guns it’s the gun fetishists that treat going to the Starbucks in their local town that has almost zero violent crime that isn’t domestic who are going to achieve that. And the false machismo you have to have a plan for all situations otherwise you are just a victim waiting to happen gets to me on a personal level since I’ve been dealing with those issues for the last few years and many of these peoples cool little fear driven fantasy lives are not fun to live for real… I like shooting though I’m wary of going with anyone I don’t really trust because that is one area where the NCO will come out. I don’t feel the need to own a firearm I lived with a suicidal person that decided to get rid of hers when she realized how close she had come. So my comment was unduly harsh and treated everyone that has ever carried as a monolith because it’s tied into some fairly strong emotional areas.
Paul in KY
@glocksman: I think the short barreled AK looking rifle might be legal. The barrel only has to be 18.5 inches long (and that starts from inside the receiver). The man holding it could be a large individual (making weapon appear smaller).
All of them had their fingers off the trigger, which is a good idea when you are holding them in that manner.
glocksman
@dave:
IMHO, it’s the open carry idiots that will reverse the trend of more permissive gun laws.
Them and the idiots in states that don’t permit open carry who ‘flash’ the gun because they want to be Billy Badass.
mai naem mobile
The Dallas ebola patient died. Wonder if the family can sue the hospital for sending him home initially.
Mnemosyne
@Belafon:
Be forewarned, I am totally stealing this metaphor.
SatanicPanic
@glocksman:
Wouldn’t common sense tell these guys that by advertising their gun they’ve already weeded out all the people who aren’t holding guns?
glocksman
@SatanicPanic:
I never said those people were terribly bright.
Punchy
@OzarkHillbilly: The best (worst?) part of that linked article was at the bottom, where it says “no charges were filed against him”. Because he’s sitting in his own house, minding his own business. And yet the article had to make it clear that merely being in one’s home, doing home shit might–but not in this case–get one arrested.
I’m surprised one of the neighbors didn’t grab a gun and go Barney Fife on the “perp” himself, surely winding up with either a dead kid or epically pummeled neighbor.
Cervantes
@boatboy_srq: Not literally, though.
Felanius Kootea
Well I guess the Dallas DA will have to prosecute a corpse.
JPL
@mai naem mobile: I sure the family will receive bills for the treatment. It’s unfortunate that he didn’t receive proper care though.
glocksman
@Paul in KY:
On this page are pics of a legal ‘Krinkov’ rifle.
Krinkov legal clones.
If I had to guess, I’d say the SBR/full auto weapon is a rental weapon and they posed at a range that rents NFA weapons for use at the range.
Cervantes
@Betty Cracker: Well, at least he didn’t opt for a shoot-out.
Mnemosyne
@glocksman:
I don’t think anyone says that there’s no reason for anyone to ever have a gun. My aunt’s second husband was a taxi driver who was murdered in a robbery, so it would make sense to me for a taxi driver who works at night to decide to carry a gun.
As I’ve said before, I wouldn’t have a problem if our laws determined how many guns you could have based on population density. Live in a dense urban area? At best you should be allowed one gun (maybe two, if you want a rifle/shotgun and a handgun). If you live way out in a rural area where it would take the sheriff 30 minutes to get to you in an emergency and you have to drive for an hour to get to the local Wal-Mart? I don’t care if you keep a frickin’ Howitzer on your front lawn.
ETA: And I mean rural, not exurban. If you can see your neighbor’s house from your house, you’re not in a rural area.
Mnemosyne
@Punchy:
To be fair, standing in his own kitchen got Henry Louis Gates Jr. arrested and taken down to the station, though the charges were ultimately dropped.
HR Progressive
Much as some may not want to hear it, but in this scenario, I think the guy who was doing the robbing should have been shot.
I hate open carrying. I don’t open carry except when going to the range, because legally, it is the only option I have. I don’t have any carrying cases, and I don’t have my concealed permit yet, so it has to be in the open here in Virginia.
But if the scenario is:
Me with gun in open
1 guy comes up to me and demands my weapon, and “flashes” his own weapon as intimidation.
I am fairly certain I am within my rights, especially here in “Gold Star for Open Carry” Virginia to not relinquish my weapon, but instead discharge it into him. I mean, man with weapon demands my weapon, and if I give him my weapon, he has two weapons to use against me. If that’s not a textbook definition of “Self Defense” I’m not sure what else would be.
Would I “Like” to be in such a situation? Fuck no. And again, I would almost certainly not be standing on the street with a shiny new firearm on display for all to see.
But yeah. Assuming this story is true, it’s not a “Moment of Zen”. It’s asinine to suggest as such.
Gun fetishists are allowed to be mocked. Simply owning a firearm does not make one a gun fetishist.
burnspbesq
OT:
We beat on Justice Alito on a regular basis here, and with good reason.
However, according to Lyle Denniston’s account of yesterday’s oral argument in the Arkansas prison-beard case, Holt vs. Hobbs, not only did Alito expertly fillet the state’s arguments, he got off a genuinely funny piece of snark in the process.
http://www.scotusblog.com/2014/10/argument-report-trouble-at-the-lectern/
boatboy_srq
@Cervantes: Near enough. Between the Jeebus shouters, the work/pay and work/play imbalances, and the various other constraints that come with life in the US, Malaysia is becoming an awfully attractive place to live and work. I may not be all that happy with some of the legal requirements, and the SO will have a BLEEP of a time moving there with me, but if I’m going to be subject to all the various
slave-labor work environments and Xtian bigotryfree-market employment conditions and religious liberty impositions, I may as well do it where those things are clear in the public record and where I really am in the minority. @Amir Khalid: any thoughts here?Belafon
@HR Progressive: So, your preference in a situation where the other guy is in a better situation to shoot you than the other way around is for you to attempt to shoot the guy anyway rather than giving the gun up? The reason the guy gave up the gun was that there was no way he was going to be able to get a shot off without being shot. As much fun as it is to mock him – and gun owners – he actually did the responsible thing rather than the Rambo thing.
Belafon
I don’t want to click on the Newmax link at work, but this title is awesome:
glocksman
@Mnemosyne:
Well, I used to collect guns.
Specifically WW2 era ones.
I had a nice set of Russian Mosin-Nagant bolt actions that were my pride and joy.
I also lived in a urban area and none of them were kept loaded.
The only gun I kept ‘ready to fire’ was either my Glock 19 or the .38 Centennial at the time.
Only a fucking idiot would use a rifle* for home defense in an urban area.
Shotguns with a 16 inch barrel and loaded with birdshot are the urban apartment dweller’s best choice.
At very close range, a shotgun with birdshot has tons of stopping power, but due to the low mass of each pellet they lose power quickly.
*.22 rifles may be the sole exception.
Violet
I love this. It’s so basic. There’s no pretense or weasel words. No pretending its other than what it is. I want what you have. Give it to me.
Now if the 99% were doing that more to the 1% things might be a bit different.
Jerry
There is a military doctrine called “The supremacy of the offense.” Basically this means that an attacker makes his move at a time and in a manner of his own choosing, without warning, and only if he sees an opportunity for success, while the defender has to defend a 100% of the time against a whole range of possibilities. This gives an enormous advantage to the attacker.
Seriously, would any of these open-carry ammosexuals have a prayer against someone who was determined to take them down?
burnspbesq
@HR Progressive:
Maybe so, but on the facts as stated the attacker has a decisive advantage: his weapon is out and pointed at the victim, and the victim’s is not. In that situation, unless the victim is even faster than Quick Draw McGraw or the Waco Kid, if he attempts to defend himself he is overwhelmingly likely to get shot before he can get a shot off.
Now maybe your definition of “open carry” is “in hand, with a round in the chamber, the safety off, and situational awareness fully engaged.” But I’m guessing it’s not, and that points to the fundamental absurdity of open-carry laws: all the weapons in the world won’t protect you if you don’t have the proper training and experience, and the overwhelming majority of people who carry openly are just tragedies waiting to happen.
Cervantes
@boatboy_srq:
You will do what you have to do, but bear in mind that the level of corruption is staggering; there is plenty of racial and religious animosity; and that, by law, not all citizens are treated alike. It’s not apartheid — but once you’ve said that you’ve said a lot.
Life as an expatriate may be enjoyable — the food is certainly heavenly — but there will be a fair number of things you’ll have to ignore every day in order to enjoy yourself. You may be the type of person who can do that; many are not.
JPL
@Mnemosyne: Technically, they asked him to step outside which he did. Then they arrested him.
redbeardjim
@HR Progressive: If your gun is still in its holster and the other guy’s is out and pointed at you, most likely *you’re* the one who’s going to get shot if you try anything.
Cervantes
@Belafon: If you like that one, you’ll love this:
Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Revolution
Bruce Bartlett wrote it, in 2006.
Amir Khalid
@HR Progressive:
If an armed person is trying to rob you of your own firearm, you might indeed have the right to shoot him in self-defence. But given that he’s already got the drop on you, would you be able to exercise that right? Would anyone? The realistic answer seems to be no. I think John Cole’s point here is that the new gun William Coleman was flaunting turned out to be of no help to him — indeed, it got taken from him precisely because he was flaunting it.
Amir Khalid
@Cervantes:
Seconded.
Chris
@Cervantes:
I love the fact that it’s exactly what teabaggers started saying just two years later to distance themselves from the disasters of the Bush era (“Bush was a liberal! and McCain is a RINO!”) – but despite this, Bruce Bartlett STILL hasn’t been restored into their good graces, because he committed the cardinal sin of having been right two years BEFORE The Movement said it was okay. An unforgivable sin in their context.
gbear
@HR Progressive:
Great plan. We’ll tell your widow that you were totally in the right.
SatanicPanic
@glocksman: Yeah, that was one of those questions I realized I had already answered the moment I hit submit.
SatanicPanic
Open carry is just accessorizing anyway. Wingnut fashion. I mean, sure, he should know better than to wander around with an item that’s worth hundreds of dollars, is easily transportable and easily re-sellable outside his clothes where everyone can see it. But it’s a fashion accessory. No one would be on his case if he’d been robbed of a fancy watch.
Ok, yeah, I’m kind of trolling.
Cervantes
@Mnemosyne:
The time will come.
Will the last human being want a gun?
Gian
@Betty Cracker:
I’m picturing the old U of Hawaii football team the “rainbow warriors”
Helmut Monotreme
@Cervantes: That really depends why they are the last person alive. If he or she is the last survivor of a world ending war, he or she might very well want a gun. If on the other hand, he or she was just turning off the lights before following the rest of the human race in ascending to a higher plane of existence, well, maybe not.
Paul in KY
@glocksman: If it is one of those Krinkovs, the barrel does look shorter than 18.5 (compared to the pictures at link). Probably was at a range.
Paul in KY
@HR Progressive: I think it is implied that the guy had the drop on him (was pointing gun at him when his was still in holster). If he could have gotten his gun out first, then I think he could have legally shot the robber.
Mike E
@SatanicPanic:
It’s a B-J tradition! That, and Johnson comparisons… I come for the recipes personally. :-)
Paul in KY
@gbear: Great response!
Jebediah, RBG
@Shakezula:
definitely not just you… and kudos for “clammy-handed poseurs” – nice!
YellowDog
I enjoy the irony, but the details make me suspicious about the “perpetrator.” How do you carry a gun in the waistband of sweatpants? You would be pulling the gun out of your socks. But he wasn’t wearing socks; he was wearing flip-flops, and “fled on foot.” No one flees in flip-flops. And he was described as having wavy hair. If it was a 360 wave, why wasn’t he wearing his doo-rag? If you are going with the stereotype of the young black male perpetrator, it’s all about the details.
Cervantes
@Helmut Monotreme: So true — a moment of Zen in itself.
Jack the Second
@glocksman:
Five words: Breaded deep-fryed pork tenderloin sandwich.
They’re nearly impossible to get once you leave the pork states.
Gin & Tonic
@Helmut Monotreme: That really depends why they are the last person alive.
Have you ever read David Markson’s Wittgenstein’s Mistress?
Cervantes
@Chris:
To the extent that real people (as opposed to money-men) are involved in it, the Tea Party is a large group of stupid folk being led around by their prejudices. Bartlett is no Einstein, either — but the contumely now heaped upon him is mildly amusing. (1) He is a military historian by training, not an economist; he became a “supply-side” devotee after working for the likes of Jack Kemp and Ron Paul; and should never have had any credibility in economics. If there is a joke to be had, that joke is on people who ever sincerely believed in his “economic expertise.” (2) As we can guess from the title of his book, written in 2006, he still has not faced the damage that “supply-side economics” did; and given half a chance he would shill for it all over again. For these and other reasons, I find the Tea Party’s animus towards him amusing.
boatboy_srq
@Amir Khalid: @Cervantes: For the past ten years I’ve lived in Florida and Virginia. Most of what you’re describing is practiced in both of those places as well – not necessarily legally, but certainly day-to-day amongst the populace: sexism, racism, classism, anti-Otherism, religious bigotry and sectarianism, and all beaten to a frothy Newscorp lather and smothered in Limbaugh-sauce. I fail to see the everyday distinction between what’s codified and what’s merely habitual.
StringOnAStick
We encountered two women on horseback on a hike last weekend in a fairly remote area. They were both obviously skilled horsepeople, and the horses were fine trail horses; they didn’t have a fit over the unleashed dog that was barking at their heels and not under voice command by it’s owner. The dog is lucky a well-placed kick didn’t give it a flying lesson, but the women were not angry about it.
Later as we watched them put their horse back in their trailer, we realized one of the ladies was wearing a sidearm; looked like something on the larger size, so certainly not a 22 or 9mm. My husband the city boy thought it was weird, but as someone who grew up in the semi-rural west, it made sense to me. It’s possible she was carrying it only as something she might potentially need to be merciful if her horse broke a leg. I could make rational sense out of it in my head, but the rest of me has now become so sensitized to thinking every open carry person I see is a Limbaugh-listening, drooling idiot thanks to how open carry has become a tribal signifier. In truly rural areas I can see the potential need, but I have to agree with what someone wrote up above – wearing a gun in most cases is now a wingnut fashion accessory.
Cervantes
@boatboy_srq: A popular philosopher once said that the grass is always greener over the septic tank.
Be that as it may, if you’re miserable where you are, maybe a move is the right thing to contemplate. And why not to Malaysia? There are worse places.
Tree With Water
I’m a huge fan of Westerns. In a lifetime of watching them I can’t recall a single scene* in which a cowboy was robbed of his gun, but it must have happened and pretty much the same way that yahoo was robbed.
* Maybe The Westerner, when Gary Cooper swiped Walter Brennan’s gun out from under his nose. But that wasn’t a proper robbery.
dmbeaster
A shooting of a black man, who he “reasonably” thought was trying to take his gun.
Zifnab
@balconesfault: Faster and Furiouser: Private Sector Paloga
bobbo
“Within a couple years we’ll hear about him involved in a shooting. In self defense, of course.”
And he will be found not guilty, of course, because the victim will have given him reasonable fear of bodily harm by being black.
Butch
@Scamp Dog: Not unless your baseball bat was the legendary “clue by four”.
opiejeanne
@YellowDog: Sounded like Billy D as Lando Calrissian.
opiejeanne
@Cervantes: Erma Bombeck.
JR in WV
I feel sure that the horsewoman was carrying for multiple reasons. First, a horse with a broken leg needs badly to be put down humanely. Second, sometimes women in back country run across men who think that being in back country means that common decency and rule of law is no longer necessary.
Lastly, sometimes people out in back country are stalked as prey by large carnivores like mountain lions. More rarely by a bear, perhaps.
Nothing is as instantly attitude readjusting as realizing that you are NOT the top of the food chain at the moment. I have graduated from a .40 to a .45 after just such a moment as prey. Lions are big and scary, even, or especially if you know it is there but can’t see it at all.
I think that in real western mountain back country it makes real sense to be armed with a real weapon. Very recently I read of a small child taken by a lion from a group of adults and children, and they had to try to frighten the lion into releasing the 6YO child. Which worked, thankfully, but an armed adult would have been a good thing, what if the lion didn’t scare worth a damm?
Jebediah, RBG
@JR in WV:
Yes, it can really be unsettling! Several years ago I was being followed by three (that I could see) coyotes on a solo mountain bike ride at dusk (should have been home by dusk, a damaged trail threw off my timetable) and a few times I told them, as confidently as I could manage to sound, “Fuck off! Top of the food chain coming through!”
Not too surprisingly, it seemed to have zero effect on their behavior. (Or maybe it did – they never did attack me, and I appear to have survived the encounter.)
Cervantes
@opiejeanne: Indeed.
evodevo
@Betty Cracker: A friend of ours once got a garter snake caught in her flip-flop when she was gardening. Her boyfriend regaled us with the hilarious (Not for the snake or her !!) narration of the resulting acrobatics that involved a lot of high jumping, kicking, grand jetes, screaming, etc. Finally the snake shook loose and hightailed it out of the yard. We were rofloao at the story…. she was not so amused.
glocksman
@opiejeanne:
That’s who I was trying to remember.
I read that book when I was 11 (1978), but I don’t remember anything about it except the title.
mclaren
If he’d had a flamethrower, he wouldn’t have had that problem. LEGALIZE OPEN CARRY FOR FLAMETHROWERS!
And pre-emptive roasting. Folks need to be able to light suspected burglars up just in case.