December 19, 2002
From the desk of Jane Galt:Guns don't kill people, idiots do.
Rob Lyman writes a compelling piece on newbie shooters, arguing persuasively that the problem is not the guns, but the fact that people who are forbidden to have guns tend to act like jerks when they finally get their hands on one.
Which, unsurprisingly, reminds me of a story.
I used to be a pretty decent rifle shot when I was at camp. So my last year there, because there were so many kids who wanted to shoot, I got to be one of the deputy instructors who reviewed the rules of range safety and demonstrated the basics of loading and firing the rifles.
We had there a kid we'll call James. James was actually my age, but didn't act it. He saw that the .22's he'd been given to shoot were much less powerful than the guns the more experienced shots were using; I, for example, was trying to master the kick of a .30-06. (Don't laugh at me; in high school I was 6'2 and weighed 115. It was a miracle I could hold a .22 still, 'kay?) James wanted to shoot a more powerful gun. He whined and whined until the instructor, who should have known better, told me to give him my .30-06. I confess I was glad to do it; my shoulder and arms felt like someone had taken a truncheon to them.
Did I mention it was loaded? I did to James, several times. "It's loaded," I told him, when I handed it to him. "Don't forget, it's loaded," I told him again, when he started to toy with it. "Careful, it's loaded," I said, when the instructor was called over to deal with a problem down the line and told everyone to put their guns down.
To round out the story, James had a friend named Alex, who was learning to use a .22 bolt action like everyone else. They were bored, waiting there on the firing platforms for the instructor to come back. They started chucking rocks at prairie dogs, which we called "pickup hens".
I think you can see where this is going. Just one more detail: while the firing range was set up so that there was about a five-mile clear run beyond the target area to the next human habitation, we weren't all that far from the buildings; they were maybe a hundred yards or so off to our right.
Have you ever seen something happen too late to stop it, but not too late to appreciate the horror of what is about to take place? I saw James and Alex pick up their guns, but didn't even have time to shout "No!" before James had swung his gun up. He didn't jam it against his shoulder, but held it loosely in general shoulder area while he aimed at a prairie dog and fired in the direction of the buildings a hundred yards away.
The non-shooters among you may not be sufficiently horrified by that. It's like. . . a non-Catholic taking communion at the Vatican. Making a bonfire out of Old Masters. Selling your own child to white slavers. It's unthinkable. Unless you are a soldier, you never, ever fire a rifle in the direction of a large group of people. Any rifle fired at a distance that short can easily kill someone.
Luckily, his didn't. But of course we didn't know that, yet, and the instructor, a fellow with sufficient power and temper that I once saw him punch a horse we were having difficulty breaking to saddle -- and the horse went down. He made a beeline for James, swearing at the top of his lungs, his face a color purple that made me genuinely fear for James' life. He stopped short, however, when we saw that there was no need to punish James, because James had taken care of that for us. In neglecting to put the stock firmly against his shoulder, James had given the gun's recoil permission to send that stock in any direction it pleased. Which direction had put it directly in the path of James' nose. It was streaming blood and cocked at an angle that told everyone watching it was broken.
Did I mention that we were two and a half hours from the nearest town with a hospital, almost all of that over pitted gravel roads?
James didn't improve with age; I've seen him several times since, and he remains a twit. But one likes to think that if he'd encountered guns at an age before impulse and defiance join to make boys very, very dangerous, he might not have been a twit who could have killed someone.
Posted by Jane Galt at December 19, 2002 11:34 AM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound linksWe have a relatively safe local environment that has allowed more unfit to live but, Darwin rules. The evolutionary pressure to reduce the numbers of the unfit are building.
A telling tale, Megan.
Growing up with my grandparents, my grandfather kept a gun case in his study. Gorgeous wood, built into the wall with built-in bookcases on either side.
And no glass, no door, no lock to protect them. The ammo was all in an unlocked drawer below the weapons.
I say all this in praise of him.
Being raised around and with firearms, I knew to touch those rifles was to get my ears boxed -- at best. The worst punishment didn't bear thinking about.
My rifles and pistols are kept locked away. But you'd better believe that my kids will fear me a lot more than they'll fear the little lock on the gun cabinet door.
And they'll be pretty damn good shots, too.
The Rochester Youth Study, an organization that follows specific kids for years, found that there's a correlation between who teaches a kid to shoot and whether or not said kid uses guns criminally.
The correlation was that kids who learn[1] about guns from parents and similar authority figures don't use them criminally while kids who learn "on the street" do.
The study did not find any relationship between where kids learned about guns and other criminal activity.
[1] That's useful learning, including how to shoot. "Guns are bad" wasn't at all valuable - the kids who learned on the street were taught the "guns are bad" lesson by parents and authority figures to no avail.
They found
I'm leaving in less than 15 minutes to take a new shooter to the range for the very first time. I'm pretty sure my heart just stopped while reading that story. If I didn't want the break from finals then I would probably consider cancelling.
An excellent post.
I too was brought up in a family with weapons. Rifles, Pistols, and Ammo were all locked up, however, I had keys to all of them since the age of ten or so.
My father knew that he had taught me well, and trusted me not to load up and go mow down the schoolyard bully.
Guns don't kill people, idiots do. Exactly right.
I was five or six when my dad took me to the field behind my uncle's house to allow me to fire a rifle. I was all excited -- until the recoil severely bruised my shoulder, despite specific instructions. Let me tell you that I gained a huge amount of respect for guns right then and there, especially when my cousin showed me what was left of the target (using buckshot).
Said rifle was kept in the closet throughout my youth, and I never touched it. Today, I automatically check the safety of any gun I'm given, even the toy ones. I go by the motto "if you point a gun at someone, make damn sure you kill them."
My kids will be taught to shoot at an early age.
Excellent story. Reminds me of one of my own, though mine demonstrates a slightly lesser degree of stupidity. Slightly.
As many of the posters above, I was was raised in a house where the presence of guns was normal. My dad taught me how to shoot from the time I was 5 or 6. I had my own BB gun by the time I was 7 and a .22 by the time I was 10.
Well, long about the time I turned 8 my dad and I were out target shooting with a couple of .22's he had, a rifle and a pistol. Dad also had a 12 gauge pump shotgun with him because it was dove season. He could fulfill his fatherly duty of teaching junior how to not kill himself or anyone else and pop off at any dove unfortunate enough to cross over that field. If we were lucky, he'd bag enough for us to have roasted dove for lunch.
Me being the inquisitive child that I was and showing the trait of being easily bored that has come to define my adult life, I became tired of plinking away with the .22's and enamored of big 12 gauge with the booming voice. So I nagged my dad to try it. He wisely said no, I wasn't big enough. Did I say OK dad, you know best? Psshaw, right. I nagged and nagged and begged and pleaded.
Now, my dad is someone who firmly believes that life is the best teacher. Ya'll see what's coming?
He relented, loaded up one shell in that old pump and handed it to me. Pointed me in the direction of an old coffee can and told me to fire when ready.
Dad caught the pump before it hit the ground and just a split second before my 8 year old ass did. I couldn't throw a ball straight for a week after that my shoulder hurt so bad. And I didn't pick up a 12 guage again 'til I was 12.
The moral of this story? Listen to your dad kiddoes, for much of the time he really does know best.
GB
The Rochester Youth Study, an organization that follows specific kids for years, found that there's a correlation between who teaches a kid to shoot and whether or not said kid uses guns criminally.
Well, yeah. Most criminals don't come from families that engage in recreational gun use as a matter of demographics.
"Darwin Rules". Sho 'nuff.
Even after the "very dangerous" period joined by impulse and defiance, boys can nonetheless survive to a cursory semblance of men, and the danger can become downright spectacular.
This is in the NTSB archives, from about 1986, I think. I'd have to go look it up. One guy managed to con an FBO ("fixed-base operator") into renting him a Cessna 172 on the premise of faked logbooks. ("Sure! I'm a pilot, alright, why, lookit this!") He and three of his pals loaded up the airplane with beers and shotguns.
I'd bet nobody here (who hasn't read this story already) can see this one coming, yet.
They were found piled-up in the desert, in a wrecked airplane full of empty beer cans and expended 12-gauge shells. Three dead. The fourth one lived just long enough to explain to the state police that they had been chasing a hawk and shooting at it out the windows, when one of them blew a hole in the wing and panicked the pilot, who promptly drove the airplane into the ground.
Airplanes, beer, and shotguns.
I don't know how it could get much worse than that, but it doesn't last long.
oh my lord. "twit?" anyone over the age of five who treats a firearm like a toy deserves a better label than that. i can offer a few if you're short.
excellent post.
> Well, yeah. Most criminals don't come from families that engage in recreational gun use as a matter of demographics.
Actually, no.
They had groups that were demographically similar except for whether the parents taught the kids about guns. Within those groups, the amount of criminality was not affected by where the kid learned about guns. The only thing related to where the kid learned was criminal gun use.
It is also true that different economic status is associated with different levels of kid criminality and that gun ownership goes up with income, but that's separable. (BTW - A parent's gun ownership doesn't mean that the parent will teach the kid about guns.)
You said, "The non-shooters among you..." tho' even as a non-shooter I was adequately horrified.
...This several days after hearing from a friend just out the Navy who mentioned that during his range training one of the guys in his company thought it would be a neat idea to ensure that his weapon was clear by looking down its barrel.
Darwin, indeed.
'S like this: my father is in almost all respects a liberal. He's an American History professor at a four year school in Southern California and an expert in the history (mostly but not entirely post-Columbian) of West Coast tribes. He earned tenure in the heyday of early-Clinton-era Political Correctness, which fact speaks for a lot.
However, his liberalism stops at the right to keep and bear arms. Part of it is tradition and memory; his best memories of Grandpa Bill (in an otherwise stormy relationship) are from the hunting and fishing trips they took before Dad came into his teens.
The rest, well, the man was a journalist before he was an historian. So he's seen more than his share of the-wake-of-violent-death. Between that and his expertise as an academic...
I figure that if the Second Amendment is good enough for him, it's good enough for me.
Probably for the rest of us, too.
[Insert vague references to Black Marias here.]
Too bad we can't all have common sense, though.
Bozhe moi.
I deeply appreciate the stories that have been shared here.
While I am a strong backer of the 2nd Amendment, I have never owned or shot a firearm other than a BB gun (insert for the standard Red Rider ....). However, as the father of children 13, 11, and 8, I am looking for a gun safety class for my children. One specifically designed for the children of non-gun owners. My goal is for them to understand the nature of guns, learn the basics of gun safety (especially the early identification and avoidance of morons with guns), and gain some experience in firing them. I consider this a fundamental life skill.
These shared stories have confirmed my belief and have motivated me to get off my butt and track down an appropriate program.
You want the Eddie Eagle program, which is sponsored by the NRA. It might be a little basic for the older one, but if you contact your local NRA office, they'll put you in touch with something.
The Rochester Youth Study, an organization that follows specific kids for years, found that there's a correlation between who teaches a kid to shoot and whether or not said kid uses guns criminally.
They had groups that were demographically similar except for whether the parents taught the kids about guns. Within those groups, the amount of criminality was not affected by where the kid learned about guns. The only thing related to where the kid learned was criminal gun use.
Andy, I don't think those two statements are supported by this summary of the study.
The study examined several aspects of adolescent involvement with
guns, including gun ownership and gun carrying. Boys who owned guns for sporting purposes tended to own rifles and long guns and
were no more delinquent than boys who did not own guns. Boys who owned guns for “protection” owned pistols, sawed-off rifles, and sawed-off shotguns and were much more likely to engage in a
wide array of criminal behaviors. Although a noticeable percentage of adolescent boys carried guns (6–10 percent, depending on age),
most illegal gun carrying was transient. Illegal gun carrying was associated with peers who own illegal guns, gang membership (for younger boys), and drug selling.
I don't see how you can conclude that the cause of these correlation is "recreational gun usage makes kids less likely to commit crimes." It could just as easily go the other way. Not that I'm particularly concerned either way, but the statistics don't support the theory.
I don't see how the mechanism is supposed to work, either; what in the process of learning about guns would make someone switch from being a criminal, to not?
When I was at Ft. Jackson in 1970, the ammunition officer said we fired off a million rounds a week.
That's rifle, pistol, mortar, recoiless rifle, machine gun. And from range points and running up the squad reaction course in the dark.
Nobody got killed.
Two reasons: One was gradual familiarization and the other was close supervision.
Leaving those morons (boys that age are all morons when in possession of anything more lethal than a handful of air) with a loaded gun was absolutely inexcusable.
No doubt the instructor knew it.
Also, giving in to whining is bad practice.
I learned Marksmanship in high school; you weren't allowed to do a damn thing on the range until you learned three things:
1.) how to behave on the line
2.) all the commands
3.) how to properly care for the gun
Only after that were you entrusted with learning the rest...
Maybe "James" would have gotten bored with everything if he had to learn the shitwork first...Then again, you usually learn the best lessons the hard way. Hopefully he learned...
The "James" that Megan mentions in her post is not me!
Megan, tell them it wasn't me! I just happen to have the same first name.
Those of us who are named James aren't all moronic twits.
James
His real name wasn't James, so you're safe. I like the description of range training I saw in a novel somewhere:
"By the time you're finished disassembling it, reassembling it, cleaning it, memorizing the names for all its parts, reciting the rules of range safety, and lugging it from taxk to task, you wouldn't be interested in playing with your gun if it dispensed ice-cold beer."
> It could just as easily go the other way.
While that's certainly true of much of the supposed statistical support for gun control, you don't see McCullough making that argument. (For example, high crime rates could easily cause gun ownership for defensive purposes, as is conceded by the "you don't need a gun, you're at no risk for crime" argument.)
In this case, however, does McCullough really want to argue that parents predicted that their kid wasn't going to commit gun crimes (regardless of whether he was going to commit other crimes) and so they decided to teach him about guns?
> Not that I'm particularly concerned either way, but the statistics don't support the theory.
Not concerned either way with what? McCullough certainly does have a position on gun control and it is expressed in the positions that he takes.
> I don't see how the mechanism is supposed to work, either; what in the process of learning about guns would make someone switch from being a criminal, to not?
The correlation isn't with learning or competence, it is with experience in a specific context. And, the correlation isn't with crime, it's with gun crime.
For example, one can learn about sex by engaging in gang-rape. However, learning about sex in a different environment might well be associated with different post-education behaviors wrt sex behaviors.
I find it interesting that McCullough thinks that guns are magic.
When I was in college, I was working at a business where a supposed customer had attempted to use a stolen credit card, and we had convincingly stalled until the police arrived and arrested him. The credit card criminal had parked his car in our lot, and parking space being scarce, the call was made to tow it away. One of my fellow co-workers decided that he had liscense to ransack the car (it was unlocked) before it was towed, and went out to do so. He returned a couple minutes later with an expensive pair of sunglasses on, and a .38 Special in his hand. As I looked up from the counter (the store was now empty), this imbecile pointed the weapon directly between my eyes, from a distance of about three feet, and made some remark (as my blood froze, I think my ears lost function) about hold-ups. I told him to put the revolver down, and he responded with another unremembered remark, while grinning idiotically (that, I will never forget). I told him again, and this time something in my face or tone of voice cut through the idiocy, and he placed the weapon on the counter. The two other employees in the store then had to pull me off him, for I was now possessed of such a white-hot rage, and I had wrapped my hands around his windpipe and was about to do a Tony Soprano on him. I can remember being more scared, when people with evil intent were trying to inflict upon me bodily harm, but I can never remember being more angry than when a grinning idiot forced me to stare down the barrel of a firearm . Sometimes I think the power of evil has nothing on the power of stupidity.
Perhaps it was not virility, but knowledge, that allowed the shooting instructor to deck the horse. You, too, could probably drop an unsuspecting equine. I have not tried it myself, but understand from my father (a rider from the age of 5) that horses don't stand up very well to a punch directly in their velvety soft noses. Makes 'em fall down and then look around stupidly. Worth remembering, though, that horses don't tolerate us as well as dogs do - vengence is not a purely human endeavor.
Chris et.al.,
I think one of the best places to have kids learn about guns is through a hunter safety course even if you or your kids have no interest in hunting.
Fred
"His real name wasn't James, so you're safe."
Me and Mr. Lileks thank you.
James
To anyone who wants to teach kids to shoot:
I've always said that nothing teaches gun safety like an apple and some hollow-point ammo. Seeing a piece of fruit explode has a sobering effect on the dumbest of teenagers.
The last time I ever punched someone in the face was when the idiot pointed a highly realistic looking replica gun at me and pulled the trigger. I would've pistol whipped him with it if I hadn't been pulled off. I am emphatically not a violent person (although I play one on TV). But I nearly had to change my underwear and that pissed me off.
A buddy of mine in the UK (pre gun ban) had a newbie point a Ruger Mk II .22 at his belly during firearms induction and familiarisation and pull the trigger several times while saying, "it doesn't work.' Turns out the clueless fool had failed to completely disengage the safety catch. Next thing we know said fool is being physically expelled (i.e. dragged by the hair by my friend) from the range with the admonition that if he ever came back he would be shot.
In the instructor's defense:
As I recollect, the emergency that called him away was a newbie with a hangfire who was trying to open the breech to see why it wasn't working -- not a situation where you want to wait around to watch your students unload.
And I saw him drop that horse -- by punching it behind the shoulder. He wasn't a big man. But he was tough. The only guy I've ever known who can start his chainsaw on the first pull every time.
While that's certainly true of much of the supposed statistical support for gun control, you don't see McCullough making that argument.
Correct, because I don't see evidence for either. I was providing an alternate explanation that's not supported by the data either.
McCullough certainly does have a position on gun control
You're right: I don't give a damn about it. Possibly a handgun ban would be constitutional and/or desirable, but there's no grounds for banning rifles, and no need.
The correlation isn't with learning or competence, it is with experience in a specific context. And, the correlation isn't with crime, it's with gun crime.
For example, one can learn about sex by engaging in gang-rape. However, learning about sex in a different environment might well be associated with different post-education behaviors wrt sex behaviors.
I'm still not following. Gun training should teaches you proper handling, usage, etc., etc., and how guns are not to be handled lightly, they're not a toy, and so on.
How do you get from that to "people with gun training, if they commit crimes, are less likely to use guns to commit those crimes?" Wouldn't knowledge of exactly how powerful guns are make it more likely they'd be used? Why would they not use the best tool they have available?
> I'm still not following. Gun training should teaches you proper handling, usage, etc., etc., and how guns are not to be handled lightly, they're not a toy, and so on.
Yet, it can be "hey, let's pop some caps".
> How do you get from that to "people with gun training, if they commit crimes, are less likely to use guns to commit those crimes?" Wouldn't knowledge of exactly how powerful guns are make it more likely they'd be used? Why would they not use the best tool they have available?
In other words, we shouldn't believe the observations because McCullough prefers a theory that is inconsistent with said observations.
Curious.
> You're right: I don't give a damn about it. Possibly a handgun ban
Someone who actually doesn't "give a damn" about gun control doesn't suggest that banning handguns would be a good idea.
'Someone who actually doesn't "give a damn" about gun control doesn't suggest that banning handguns would be a good idea.'
You're right: I don't give a damn whether handguns are banned or not. I do give a damn whether rifles are banned or not (they shouldn't be).
In other words, we shouldn't believe the observations because McCullough prefers a theory that is inconsistent with said observations.
Curious.
Ignoring your slander of my motivations: what's wrong with my argument that better understanding of a gun's power should make a criminal more likely to use it in a situation where they're attempting to use force on others?
Jason--
The issue is the socialization of gun use, not training per se. A kid who learns gun handling "on the street" may learn all the safety rules and marksmanship tips, but he's learning them from thugs who are teaching him to commit murder.
A kid who learns gun safety from his parents may get identical training, but in the context of responsible, legal use. Parents teaching children to shoot communicate moral lessons along with mechanical (usually).
Merely telling children "Don't do this, or someone might get hurt" is enough to differentiate parents from the thug who says "Do this to cap a punk you don't like," even if the literal mechanical lesson is the same.
Parents teaching children to shoot communicate moral lessons along with mechanical (usually).
Well, yeah, but I'd say this is because of the parents actually giving shit about their kids, not because of the transmission mechanism of a shooting hobby. I find it hard to believe its anything to do with the gun training itself; you'd imagine a bad parent that trained his child in proper gun usage would have no effect on his likelihood to commit a crime.
Jane, this must have been some time back. Today, little Jamie's father would probably file suit against the rangemaster for bruising his pweshuss widdo boy's ego, or some such.
>> Ignoring your slander of my motivations: what's wrong with my argument that better understanding of a gun's power should make a criminal more likely to use it in a situation where they're attempting to use force on others?
Because it's inconsistent with the available data.
When the understanding is delivered in certain contexts, it doesn't seem to have that effect.
McCullough wants to argue about bad parents, but I note that the parents who had the "good experience" wrt criminal gun use did NOT have that experience wrt other criminal behavior by their offspring. It's unclear how they can be "good" in one case yet "bad" in the others.
I note that McCullough continues to duck my sex example. So, I'll ask again - does the context in which someone learns about sex matter?
And who said gunloonery wasn't a religion?
You'd think gun oil cured acne.
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