In a recent interview on Gun Owners Radio we touched on an analogy I’ve had good luck with in explaining the purpose of defensive firearms…why gun registration would have no effect on convicted felons…the New York case pending now in the Supreme Court of the United States…and the current state of concealed carry laws.
The first couple of minutes were troubled by a bad phone connection, so you want to start at about 1.50.
Your thoughts, as always, are welcome here.
Great interview! I like the fire extinguisher analogy. I’ve heard the defensive firearm compared with a parachute. If you need one and don’t have one , you probably won’t need one again.
Thanks, Mas
A former blogger named John Longenecker wrote up (on his sadly now-defunct site) what he called “the CPR Corollary”.
Not long ago, like fire extinguishers, most people didn’t train or learn CPR or First-Aid (too many people still don’t, IMHO). Part of the reason was many “professionals”, up to and including doctors, feared the damage that could be done by a layman performing CPR or First-Aid incorrectly. They’re not entirely wrong, and that danger is still there, but the public slowly realized that with good training, the number of lives saved by citizens being their own first responders FAR outweighs any potential damage.
Now, CPR and First-Aid training are required for many careers and callings, from EMTs to daycare and foster care providers; it’s no longer the realm of the “professionals”.
So there’s another firearm/CCW analogy for your toolbox. For those who insist guns are “too dangerous” for non-professionals to have, we as a society used to say the exact thing about fire extinguishers and CPR/First-Aid training: “The potential risk outweighs any potential benefit.”
Long experience and many, many lives and homes saved by fire extinguishers, lives and limbs saved by CPR and First-Aid, and lives saved by the judicious use of privately-owned defensive firearms, show us differently. Used properly, the actual benefits outweigh the risks, and those benefits include saving lives.
What kind of person opposes saving lives?
Good point. We still use that one too.
Good interview, Mas.
It has been long known that the Worldwide Left controls most channels of communication, not only in America, but in the World. In America, they assumed control of the education system when the Federal Department of Education was established back during the Carter Administration. Control of all major media sources was consolidated in the 1960’s and is pretty much total today. It is almost irrelevant which channel you tune on your TV. All of the “Talking Heads” read from the same propaganda script. Rush Limbaugh use to regularly broadcast “montages” of dozens of “broadcasters” speaking nearly identical “soundbites” to prove the point.
Given the American Left’s almost universal control of all information channels and their very effective use of indoctrination, propaganda and disinformation, it is not really surprising that large segments of the population have been “brainwashed” into being “useful idiots” of the leftists.
The lies and disinformation have been so pervasive, nearly universal, that they cannot be hidden and most people are finally waking up to how deeply they are being manipulated. Even so, the “taint” of left-wing thinking, built up over decades of exposure to their propaganda and indoctrination, is not easily dismissed.
There is one bright spot in their sordid sea of lies, propaganda and disinformation, however. One notable area where their indoctrination has clearly failed. This “bright spot’ is in the area of firearm ownership and the 2nd Amendment.
Our 2nd Amendment Rights have been as viciously attacked, by the Left, as our 1st and 4th Amendment Rights. However, despite decades of attack, propaganda and indoctrination, our 2nd Amendment Rights are still strong. In fact, as Mas noted in the above broadcast, they have actually EXPANDED from where they were a few decades ago. We now have a court decision affirming that the 2nd Amendment is an individual Right (Heller). Constitutional carry, shall-issue and concealed-carry Rights have all expanded. Firearm ownership has grown and EXPANDED.
It is a major failure of the American and Worldwide Left. If they had been as successful at curtailing our Right to Arms as they have been with Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Assembly or our Rights to Privacy, then all Americans would (truly) now be wearing their chains. Their victory can never be complete, however, as long as the American Citizen has Arms in his or her hands. It is almost the last foundation stone still preventing the structure of the American Republic from falling.
It is a final line-of-defense that is still standing strong against the raving hordes of the insane left. I prey that the SCOTUS does deliver a decision that supports it rather than undermines it.
Typo Correction for the last sentence in my comment above. I “pray” that the SCOTUS will do the right thing. A bad decision would work against the American Citizen and render all gun-owners as “prey” for the power-hungry American Left!
If the “left” controls the media, how the heck did Trump get into office the first time? I don’t like Biden but the other guy was clearly not playing with a full deck.
@ Kilo – Trump being elected was a miscalculation by the Left. They knew that their candidate, Hillary Clinton, was not popular but the Left had to run her because of the power of the Clinton machine. So, what could they do?
The Republican party had a bunch of people seeking the nomination. So, the Left looked at the list and then told their media servants to support the one candidate that they thought would be even more unpopular than Hillary. That was Donald Trump. During the nomination process, they pumped Trump up with $2 billion of free media attention. See this link:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-2-billion-free-media_n_56e83410e4b065e2e3d75935
Their plan, of course, was to get Trump nominated and then switch gears and chop him up during the General Election. Well, they did their job too well. With the help of their early free media support, Trump became popular. Also, they underestimated how deeply Hillary was hated.
They tried hard to take Trump down during the general election. That was the origin of the whole “Russia Hoax” plan. However, Hillary had her own problems with her illegal email server scandal plus other issues.
The bottom line, despite their total media control and their slick plan to first build Trump up and then chop him down, Trump got in front of them and won the election in their despite. They underestimated Trump in addition to underestimating how deeply Hillary was hated.
They did not make the same mistakes in 2020. They went after Trump the entire duration of his first term. They unleashed Covid-19 and stacked the deck six way from Sunday! They made damn sure to take him down the next time!
Trump is an egomaniac and proved too trusting when it came to appointing people to positions of responsibility. He underestimated the depth of the swamp in Washington, D.C. However, I disagree with your characterization that Trump was “not playing with a full deck”. His Administration was a positive one and did good things for the American People. He was a better President than Biden by a factor of at least 10!
People don’t give Trump the credit that he is due because the media constantly attacked him and too many people do not see the media for the total liars that they are. You should not shape your view of the Trump Administration based upon media propaganda. Trump never, never, never received even an ounce of fair coverage from the biased, Anti-American media once they switched gears and truly started going after him.
Kilo,
I believe TN_MAN answered your question about why Trump won in 2016 very well. I just want to add my theory, which I cannot prove. I simply have a hunch from observing things for a long time.
Two things I have observed were George Soros openly claimed he spent $5 million in 2004 trying to block George Bush the Younger from getting a second term. During 2020, it was reported that Mark Zuckerberg spent $410 million trying to get Biden elected. Rudolph Giuliani, Mike Lindell and Sydney Powell believe the 2020 election was rigged and stolen. The things I typed in this paragraph are facts that were commonly and openly reported.
Here is my hunch. In 2016, George Soros, and I don’t know who else, tried to manipulate the election so Hillary would win by a small margin. Remember that both Hillary and Donald were unpopular candidates. Hillary winning by a small margin would give the appearance of a fair election. No one would contest it. The manipulators miscalculated. They didn’t cheat enough to help Hillary win, so Trump won. As TN_MAN wrote, they would not let that happen again, so they cheated enough for Biden to win in 2020.
I am such a pessimist that I expect Hillary to win in 2024. I believe the “machine” or whatever you want to call the cheaters, will rig the election so that she wins. Sigh. : (
Roger:
Hillary will easily win in 2024 if she runs. It’s not her popularity that will propel her to a huge victory, but that she’s so drop dead gorgeous, the vast majority of voters, especially lesbians and horny men, will eagerly cast their ballots for the future Empress of America. Long live the Queen!
Excellent analogy, excellent video.
When you were talking about first responders, I was reminded of Todd Beamer and United Airlines Flight 93’s counter-attack to the terrorists on 9/11/2001. They were the first responders, they were the only responders. I read one report that said their counter-attack accomplished nothing because they never breached the cockpit door. The plane crashed because the hijackers were incompetent pilots. I don’t know the truth. It doesn’t matter, because a vicious, explosive counter-attack was the right thing to do. Jeff Cooper teaches this in his book, “Principles of Self Defense.” Fighting against evil is a good way to die. It makes one a hero in my eyes.
The fighting people in Ukraine are heroes in my eyes, whether they win against Putin or lose. Evil needs to be resisted.
Roger Willco, Sir, one of the tactics that made the German Army in WWII very tough was the policy of ALWAYS counterattacking immediately as possible after losing a position, especially after they lost a hill. The persistent German counterattacks were possibly the main reason that the British Army lost many hills to the Germans soon after the American Army turned conquered hills over to the Brits to hold. Many American soldiers often wondered aloud why they had to retake the same hills after giving them to the British. Anybody, though, might have lost hills to furious German counterattacks.
Excellent interview. Thanks for staying out there on the offensive.
Interesting. I use the Ayoob analogy in many classes for home defense. When using the comparisons, I’ll ask the parents in the class if they have planned for a fire in the house, and what to do in such a case? Astoundingly, many never considered it. *seriously*?
Fire drill and home invasion drills should go hand in hand. Hopefully the newly advised students will follow through on their quest to best defend from fire or a two legged animal that is just as deadly.
The fire extinguisher analogy took me back to my Boy Scout when I completed the requriements for the “Firemanship Merit Badge. that was some six decades back, and those principles are still with me every day. We had to understand well what it takes to MAKE a fire, thus we then understood how to STOP one. Fiuel Heat Air. Remove any one, no more fire. I have personally put out at least eight fires, all of them long before the Fire dEpartment arrived, most times before they were even called. I have used fire extingjishers only twice, both times on car fires. Other times? Sometimes a garden hose, the logging boots I had on my feet, an old but usable coat that became no longer usable, but stopped the fire, a pan lid, a quart of tap water in a sauce pan well placed has kept at least three houses from burning down.
Yes I carryt my battered ugly ancient but VERY functional BHP wherever I can. But sometimes it can’t or doesn’t come along for the ride. Never yet NEEDED it (nor have I ever NEEDED my seatbelt in the car, but I clip it every time) but I’m often imagining in various given situations, what options I have right now that could be pressed into service. Sometimes the half full sauce pan of water is all I’ll have. HOW can I press that into service and save the day?
I really appreciated the discussion on early gun control and its roots. Few even consider this. Then you got to the bit about how right after formal slavery was ended, many expected a season of “settling the score” and thus enacted those nasty discriminative laws. But still the “payback” never came at least not broadly. Even as the San Diego County SHeriff was “may (not” issue” and stacking up oppositioin agaisnt himself, once he changed his mind and now is happy to issue the Mother May I Cards to all who were not felons or nutcases. I well remember instances where a man was simply walking down a street in Pacific Beach with an openly carried handgun on his hip. It was fully legal in the State at that time, yet he got violenty arrested, charged, booked, and had to post bail ,, his gun confiscated… and he was NOT a felon. He won his case, and I have since wondered if perhaps the judge mightn’t have had a few wprds in private with the then-Sheriff. (might be the same one as now, wasn’t that long ago) Now we are at I think it is 26 Vermont Carry states and the blood STILL is not flowing in the parking lots on a daily basis, nor are cars spinning out of control on I 5 because the driver just got shot “driving while breathing”… and in fact we see more and more accounts of “everyday Joes” using their own lawfully carried handguns to save the lives of LE Officers who, for whatever reason, are in too deep and under threat of death. I DO wish THESE stories would get even half the press that incidents like Houston’s used to be officer Goines get.
Yes we have overall made tremendous progress. But then the monkeys in Washington State’s Marble Zoo just got finished doing Bloomburg’s will and have sacked us with a mag cap ban, effective in a few months. Might have to become a plaintiff in an action at law on that one. FLOODED with “vote noe, do not do this to us” communications, they ignored us all.
FPC’s actively looking for plaintiffs to get an action together.
This is the kind of fear mongering, lies and half-truths that the Anti-American media prints whenever Constitutional Carry Bills come up for consideration. See the link below:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/states-move-to-roll-back-firearm-permits-over-police-objections/ar-AAUMXmx?ocid=BingHp01
As Mas notes in his interview (above), it includes the usual “Blood-Will-Run-in-the-Streets” fear-fest with, in this case, a bit of “Support-Your-Local-Sheriff” thrown in for seasoning.
Isn’t it amazing that the folks who love “Defunding the Police” and the “Elimination of Bail” suddenly turn out to also simply LOVE anyone in law-enforcement who will play the anti-gun sock puppet for them?
Yet, you know that there are weak-minded fools, in the masses, who will eat this propaganda right up and believe that every word, of this horse-manure, is just and true!
TN_MAN,
Yes, our side can come up with good arguments, and we do. These arguments convince and convert some people. As you wrote above, the Second Amendment is the one solid rock in America’s foundation that the enemy just can’t seem to move out of the way. The recognition of the Second Amendment right has actually expanded since the early twentieth century. HALLELUJAH!
But, sadly, we can never convince everyone. Not even with solid arguments. My guess is that some people have an emotional reaction whenever they think about guns. They associate guns with bad things. Something like this; guns—-violence—-harm—–blood—–bad guys——–death——pain.
We probably think something along these lines; guns—–fun——-power——mechanical workings——safety——-peace of mind——hunting——good times with family and friends——-The Long Arm of the Law——Military defenders and heroes——-ballistics——the metric system (9mm).
If emotional people never give guns a chance, it might be hard to convert them. Then, of course, there is our evil enemy, who simply wants to take guns from us, so he can rule over us. He is not against guns. He is against US having guns, because guns = power, including the power to resist tyrants.
When questioned about why I carry a gun by people who are thinking about it or are on the fence, I have used the analogy I believe came from one of your books or classes: who do you trust with your life or the lives of your children? Do you trust your spouse, your parents, your surgeon? Do you trust the career criminal, junkie, or sociopath that is assaulting you? If you don’t have the means to defend yourself then you are putting your life into the hands of someone who sees you only as a resource to exploit.
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