What’s Wrong With Armed, Self-Defense?
When I got into the gun business back in the 1960’s, if
you wanted to buy a handgun, you bought a Smith & Wesson, a Ruger or a
Colt. If you wanted a shotgun, you chose from Remington, Winchester, Mossberg
or maybe Ithaca Arms. And if you needed a rifle to go out after a white tail,
it was a Remington 700, a Winchester Model 70, a Savage, a Marlin or maybe you
went high end with a Browning or a Weatherby just for kicks.
That was then, this is now. And thanks to the invasion
of polymer into gun manufacturing, which completely obliterated the distinctive
finish and design of each brand, the only thing which determines what gun goes
across the counter in the dealer’s shop is price. If you walked around a gun
factory in the olden days, you saw a whole bunch of craft shops operating under
one roof. Now what you see is one guy sitting in front of a computer, locking a
trigger, hammer and barrel assembly into a frame, then carrying the gun from
the finishing room into the range where someone shoots it two or three times
and it’s good to go.
Yesterday I received the monthly sales sheet from one
of the national gun wholesalers, and I didn’t recognize the name of one company
producing a gun being sold to retailers by this distributor at a ‘bargain’
price. Ever hear of a gun company called
TriStar? How about an outfit called Canik? Maybe instead of a name-brand assault
rifle like Bushmaster you’d rather buy an AR receiver from Aero
Precision, Anderson Manufacturing or a company called Spike’s.
In all the hue and cry coming from Gun-control Nation,
I have never understood why guns are the only consumer products which somehow
escape being regulated both in terms of safety and use. Oh no, you say –
we can’t regulate the gun industry thanks to the PLCAA law the gun industry
received as a gift from George W. Bush in 2005. But as David Kopel has pointed
out (and Kopel is no friend of the gun grabbers), PLCCA does not shield the
gun industry from any liability if someone uses a gun in a ‘lawful’ way and
injures someone else. In other words, after I pull out my Glock and shoot you
in the head, I still have done nothing wrong if I can just convince the cops
that I was protecting myself from a threat.
This idea that we should all be carrying guns to
protect ourselves has a long and storied history
in the United States, going back to when we were still a bunch of colonies
operating under British Common Law. But Common Law doesn’t recognize the use of
violence to prevent violence unless you happen to be wearing a Crown on your
head. And the idea that ‘stand your ground’ laws reflect how White men stole
land away from indigenous tribes is total nonsense because White men stole
millions of square miles from indigenous peoples in Australia and South Africa
and neither country has ever promulgated a ‘stand your ground’ law.
I am still waiting for the very first attempt by all my
public-health researcher friends to explain how and why a majority of Americans
believe that keeping a gun around is the best way to defend themselves from
crime. As of last year, Gallup
says that 37% of American homes contain a gun. Meanwhile, a majority of Americans also told
Gallup they believed the country would be a safer place if more people were walking
around with guns. Think the NRA is the reason why even many non-gun
owners believe in armed, self-defense? It’s the other way around.
This country has a unique love affair with small arms,
and I’m in the process of writing a book that will attempt to explain it but
don’t hold your breath. I don’t even really understand why I’m a gun nut, so
how could I possibly figure out anyone else?
