Fear And Loathing And Commentary On Gun Buying
From Jay Caruso writing The Monday Notice on Substack, is the increase in people buying guns and seeking training with weapons driven by fear, the “tactical bros,” or really just about protection?
For context he’s responding to Christine Emba of the Washington Post piece “Why do Americans want guns? It comes down to one word.”
Enba then delves into what gets my hackles up about firearms reporting and commentary. There is a level of condescension, and then a degree of judgment, as if there must be something wrong with all these people buying firearms. She first writes:
How would they use their guns in a crisis? Their confidence in their own abilities seemed inflated. This manifested in the constant invocation of the word “tactical” — a gun-industry buzzword used to suggest that buyers of weapons, body armor and shooting courses will be able to engage with enemies like trained soldiers. In other words, a fantasy.
“Seemed inflated.” How would Enba know? Then comes the condescending portion where she first conflates “tactical” with military and claims people are engaging in a “fantasy.”
Are they? She mentions “shooting courses.” Isn’t training something gun control people stress when they complain about permitless carry laws? Believe it or not, training is a big deal within the gun owner community. There is a high degree of responsibility when it comes to gun ownership. Shooting a gun accurately is like any other craft or skill. It takes practice and, in most cases, it helps to have a professional correct your mistakes early so that you don’t pick up bad habits.
Go to any gun range that has the option to sign up for classes and watch how quickly those classes fill up. Particularly, classes specifically geared towards home defense and concealed carry. Why? Not because people have a “fantasy” they will “engage with the enemy” but for preparation. To learn. To increase their skills so that they don’t have a tragic situation like randomly shooting at a car that mistakenly turns into your driveway.
As for the word tactical, it means, “adroit in planning or maneuvering to accomplish a purpose.”
Therein lies the reason people take defensive shooting classes. To learn. To better prepare. Yes, it is likely most of the people doing it will never face such a situation. It is also likely that your house will not burn down in a fire, but you want to make sure your policy covers it, right?
Mark my words: at some point, someone will write a “think piece” about the cottage industry that “exploits” peoples’ “fears” for profit with all of these “tactical” classes taught at various shooting ranges. There are forms of it already attacking the firearms manufacturers and their marketing, but it all rests on the same incorrect assumptions that Enba makes in that it’s all catering to irrational people. Speaking of which, Enba goes there:
But the paranoia that fuels gun-buying has come to seem like a mental health issue in its own right.
See the shift? She moves from “fear” which is a rational emotion, to calling it “paranoia” which is irrational, and suggesting the purchase of a firearm for protection is in and of itself, a sign of a mental health issue. Right there is where you lose people — when you suggest there must be something wrong with them for taking an action you don’t. I give Enba credit for going to the gun show. Still, that’s not enough on-the-ground reporting to justify what she wrote.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve written about this before and, yes, there are people so invested in gun culture that it does more harm than good to the gun ownership community. My friend Steve (a gun owner and veteran) refers to the “tactical bros” who, without any military or law enforcement background, do the dance of experts while dressing up in all the gear, pretending they are skilled enough to turn someone into a special forces soldier. I get it.
But it strikes me as odd that people will raise an eyebrow at those acquiring more training and skill for handling a deadly weapon. That’s worth celebrating — not reducing it to nefarious motives based on irrational behavior.
The old insults no longer apply — that people get guns to compensate for having small penises, and it’s primarily driven by white males with feelings of inadequacy. Sales are driven more these days by women and minorities, so the shift is towards “paranoia” and “fear.”
Maybe one day they’ll get it right.
Over the last few years, we have had some *SERIOUS* failures on the part of police.
Failures that include “doing things that they shouldn’t do” and “not doing things that they should do”.
The narrative that you can’t trust the police on the one side and that you can’t rely on police on the other.
It absolutely makes sense that “I have to take care of myself” is one of the conclusions that people reach after enough of that. “That involves having a gun, just in case” is not a crazy outcome of thinking “I have to take care of myself”.Report
Well, when the law AFFIRMS, as it has countless times, they cops have no legal obligation to individuals, you are, as they say, on your own.Report
I think that that wasn’t common knowledge, though.
I’m just guessing here but I think that most folks out there had a baseline assumption that cops do have something of an obligation to “protect” and/or “serve”.
You call the cops, they’re supposed to help.
The recent failures of Uvalde and Floyd are *VERY* recent and *VERY* high profile.
This info got to people who otherwise wouldn’t have encountered it.
Note: Something not being common knowledge shouldn’t be interpreted as me saying “therefore there were no communities unaware of this knowledge”.Report
Then most folks haven’t been paying attention to the news I guess. I’d have to spend some time, but I’m sure I could go back, at least to the 80s and provide examples of this being in the news. Now, my experience could be different. I only read a sunday newspaper for 20 years, and the WSJ daily for a decade, but I’d wager that any reasonably educated middle class person or higher has been exposed to this fact at least once in their life.Report
Well, there’s “pay attention to the news” and walk away saying “there was a shooting at a high school” and there’s “pay attention to the news” and walk away saying “the deputy refused to go in and kept other cops from going in? WHILE THE SHOOTING WAS STILL HAPPENING?!?”
I expect that most walked away with the former.
Few walked away with the latter.
Until Uvalde.Report
I think that, even among those who knew the law, there’s been a change in expectations of how frequently the cops might not step in. That’s not an observation about whether the expectation is correct, just that it’s changed.Report
Yeah, the conflating of fear with paranoia is disingenuous. Still, I’m with the author, the more training folks get, the better.
And a funny thing happens with training, when you take it seriously, and you get some under your belt, you start to realize that that fantasy you may have had is just that. A little training is a great way to dispel misconceptions about how good you think you will be, and set firm the notion that you need a lot more training before you get there.Report
I have no problem with sane, law-abiding, responsible people owning some kinds of guns suitable for civilian use, getting training, and keeping in practice. (The paperwork can be annoying, but it’s really not much different from the paperwork involved in owning a car.) I’ve done it myself.
But unless you’re going to commit to getting good, you’re probably not helping yourself in real-world dangerous situations and you risk picking up some toxic attitudes too prevalent in the gun culture that will get you into trouble.Report
I think you think we disagree. I don’t think we do.Report
Every class I have been to has reiterated some variation of the following points:
-you aren’t ever as good as you think you are.
-if you are ever tempted to voluntarily put yourself in a situation where self defense may be necessary, don’t.
-if you are ever in a situation where it appears self defense may become necessary, and you can leave, leave.
-even a lawful shooting will totally f*ck up your life.Report
Your point 3, the common law duty to retreat, has become less and less a thing of late. https://wisevoter.com/state-rankings/stand-your-ground-states/
It would be interesting to see when SYG laws became prevalent.Report
I think it’s the whole “Why should *I* have to retreat? He’s the guy who’s attacking me! Why don’t you pass some laws saying that *HE* should do something different?” issue.Report
There already are laws saying the guy who’s attacking you should do something different. He isn’t obeying them. So the question is what the laws should be governing your response. You can have either a duty to retreat, if feasible, and avoid further trouble, or a right to get in the guy’s face and risk further trouble. That’s the issue.Report
They have become moreso over the last 30ish years. I think they are pretty misguided and don’t support them.Report
The view of a gun as akin to a seatbelt doesn’t work because it doesn’t take into account the increased risk a gun brings.
A seatbelt doesn’t increase the risk of an accident, or make an accident more deadly.
But a gun does make the risk of a deadly confrontation higher, and make the outcome of a confrontation more deadly.Report
And training tends to alleviate a lot of that risk, since you don’t start with the bad habits that largely drive that risk, and your trainer will try to disabuse you of the notion that you will be the next local action hero.Report
What I was pointing out is that the analogy to seatbelts or insurance is flawed logic.
The premise is that buying a gun is a “better safe than sorry” preventative measure, when in fact that, statistically, buying a gun makes your family less safe rather than more as it has the tendency to create the very problem it was meant to solve.
Training can alleviate that risk, but there aren’t enough people doing enough training to make the overall risk level lower. And as we’ve seen with countless videos of police shooting people for no reason, training can’t overcome a bad mindset. If people buy a gun because they think the world is falling apart and the cops can’t protect you, that mindset will make all the training in the world irrelevant.Report
Another example of the gun reflex on the right. Any sort of critique, however right or wrong, must be countered with as much derision as possible.Report
I’ve been to the gun show that the WaPo writer attended many, many times. One of my relatives regularly has a table at it. I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t some pretty stupid right wing paraphernalia available for sale. But her take deserves derision. That show is about as anodyne and professionally run as they get. She’s the one who went in with a predetermined opinion, already intent on finding a way to paint it in a negative light, as opposed to having an open mind.Report
No doubt the story was written in her head before she even set foot on the grounds. A more thoughtful reporter might have asked attendees if they could explain the basis for their fears.
I have relatives who are armed to the teeth for just such a reason. They live in virtually crime free areas, in which even non-gun owning citizens go unmolested. If pressed on the point, they’ve been unable to justify the fear.Report
I think the kind of answer you’d get is some variation of ‘better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.’ YMMV as to whether or not you find that convincing but I think the principle of charity ought to be applied pretty liberally to voluntary ‘man on the street’ interviews of regular people. It isn’t like you can’t find plenty of instances of people in the gun control movement making less than coherent statements or who are unable to explain their positions in ways that are convincing to an open minded skeptic.Report
Would you also say that the Post article followed the “gun reflex of the left”, treating the gun-buyers with as much derision as possible?Report
Yep, it’s all reflexive right now.Report
As for the word tactical, it means, “adroit in planning or maneuvering to accomplish a purpose.”
Sure, here’s an adroit in planning or maneuvering to accomplish a purpose shirt.
https://www.grainger.com/product/49YC57?gucid=N:N:PS:Paid:GGL:CSM-2295:4P7A1P:20501231&gclid=Cj0KCQjwk96lBhDHARIsAEKO4xYZitkjffZFti-3kTsTlqjf8Le5FDQUidp26_L-hB5PWjWCn6QFPlUaAlzmEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.dsReport