Mike "The Gun Guy" Weisser (courtesy YouTube)

I wish Mike “The Gun Guy” Weisser [above] had Internet access. How else can you explain his fact-free huffingtonpost.com column The Gun Lobby’s Own Publications Expose the Fantasy of the ‘Good Guy With a Gun’?  Mike’s latest diatribe attempts prove that defensive gun uses (DGUs) are a myth. The main problem: they aren’t. If Mike Googled “defensive gun use,” clicked on the first link (Wikipedia), then clicked on “frequency” he’d have read this . . .

Estimates over the number of defensive gun uses (DGU) vary, depending on the study’s population, criteria, time-period studied, and other factors. Higher end estimates by Kleck and Gertz show between 1 to 2.5 million DGUs in the United States each year. Low end estimates cited by Hemenway show approximately 55,000-80,000 such uses each year. Middle estimates have estimated approximately 1 million DGU incidents in the United States.

I’ve removed the citations, but they’re there. If Weisser doubts that Americans use firearms to defend life and limb at least of 55k times per year he could analyze the data for himself. As if. Mike’s a man on a mission, bound and determined to degrade and destroy Americans’ natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms. Facts be damned. Especially the ones he can’t avoid.

Last week the pro-gun gang received a shot in the arm from a story out of Detroit where a legally-armed private citizen yanked out a gun and shot a man who was running away from a bank with a pile of cash. Actually, the armed citizen shot the bank robber in both arms, as well as the leg, shooter and robber doing just fine; the latter in the hospital under arrest, the former no doubt on his way to Fairfax, VA to be congratulated by Wayne-o for reminding us all about the true value of our 2nd Amendment rights.

Question: why is MT Double G sharing a successful defensive gun use in an article written to debunk successful gun uses? Because his head is so far up his anti-gun position that he reckons that any story of anyone shooting anyone for any reason offends anyone who hates guns. Seriously. That’s all I got. But Mike’s full of it . . .

Granted I’m indulging in a bit of hyperbole, but you would think that since groups like Everytown and Brady post interviews with victims of gun violence on their websites, the NRA would want to run stories about citizen-defenders to promote their point of view. In fact, the NRA has been running such stories since 1978. It’s something called the Armed Citizen, which is a monthly collection of press reports about good guys stopping the bad guys; for the current month there are four reports, including the incident in Detroit, which is slightly less than the average 6-7 reports published each month.

Wait a minute! Hold the presses! In a country of 319 million people, in a country where civilians own more than 300 million guns, in a country in which at least 12 million good guys have concealed weapons permits, how in God’s name is it possible that only six or seven people use a gun each month to defend themselves or others from a crime?

Wait a minute! Hold the Internet! In a world where sane people understand that the NRA can’t chronicle 55k defensive gun uses per year (never mind a million), how in God’s name is it possible that an anti-gunner could credibly claim the NRA’s DGU tally is the total tally? In fact, and I warned you they were in short supply, this logic fail is so ridiculous it feels like Mike isn’t even trying.

To try to answer this vexing question, the first thing I did was turn to the Armed Citizen website, which bills itself as the place that “provides you with the news and resources you need to remain informed and active.” One of their latest examples of the work of an armed citizen has the following headline: “Car fleeing from police goes through park, nearly hits children.” So I guess this website collects stories about citizens armed with cars.

Apparently, the fact that thearmedcitizen.com published a story about a car chase discredits the hundreds of posts chronicling successful DGUs. This strange attempt at reductio ad absurdum is, itself, absurd.

. . .  I took a look at the latest DGU story out of my neighboring state of Connecticut, and here’s what the website [gunssavelives.net] says: “A woman in Waterbury, Connecticut had to grab a gun in order to capture a naked man who was allegedly raping the woman’s dog in her backyard.”

Here’s the bottom line: If the same bunch which assures us that guns are used to stop crimes “millions” of times each year tries to prove it by publishing stories about cars driving through playgrounds or man rapes dog, then the argument about good guys stopping bad guys bears no relationship to the truth. And maybe it’s time to stop advancing cogent, reasoned and researched arguments against gun fantasists like Gary Kleck and John Lott, and step back to take another look.

And there you have it: proof that Mike “The Gun Guy” Weisser’s lazy logic knows no bounds. He uses two stories from two websites to “prove” that DGUs are a myth.

By his own admission, rational thought evades him. “It’s time to stop advancing cogent, reasoned and researched arguments” against the advantage of widespread gun ownership – because there aren’t any. At least none that Mike can muster. (The study at the link defines defensive gun use as only incidents resulting in proven cases of “justifiable homicide.”)

Take a look, for example, at the marketing message of a company like Glock. Under personal defense products, the website shows a tough, executive-type strapping on his gun: “Defense is personal, and it should be, it’s about invading your space.” Then off he runs to catch the 7:15, armed with his G42 pistol and the Wall Street Journal to confront another harrowing day. Marketing isn’t reality; it’s about merging a product with a fantasy, in this case a lethal weapon which makes you feel that you’ll come out ahead. Sells guns, doesn’t it?

I was fully expecting Mike to finish with a anti-firearms flourish; perhaps an anecdote wherein a gun owner had her own gun used against her (these things happen). Instead M T Double G condemns GLOCK for promoting the idea that personal defense is personal. Huh?

Wait. I get it. Mike believes personal defense isn’t personal. Despite the Supreme Court’s Heller decision, Americans don’t have a personal or individual right to keep and bear arms. More precisely, society (Mike and Co.) has the right to deny or restrict that right for the good of the individual and society.

As long as gun control advocate use “arguments” like that one to make their case, such as it is, I feel pretty confident about gun rights advocates’ chances of extending and defending American gun rights. Carry on, Mike. You’re doing us a favor.

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44 COMMENTS

  1. Liars are going to lie. Just like criminals are going to break the law.

    Mike’s just another guy who peed his bed as a pre-teen and adolescent and today carries his “I’m a lover, not a fighter” attitudes to all things manly.

    Don’t give him any oxygen. And the Huff Post? It’s about a half-step away from a 9/11 Truther publication as it is.

    John

    • Just had to stray off topic and start with the totally unrelated 911 BS, get a grip on yourself, you have lost all credibility.

    • “I’m a lover. not a fighter” Pffffft…..
      Not a lover nor a fighter.
      Mike the “gun guy”
      Is one of HuffPo’s
      go after YOUR gun guys.

    • In actuality, The Huffington Post is about as far from a Truther organization as one can possibly get.

      • They’ve hired or featured articles by more than a few 9/11 truthers in their day, so I’m afraid that isn’t quite correct.

        • And with the same amount of irony we could say they support the 2nd amendment because they feature articles by “the gun guy”. The smear campaign against people seeking the truth about an event shrouded in giant question marks is hilarious. Can nobody see the same lack of logical thought with the anti gunners? Are some people with guns bad? Sure. Are some “truthers” crazy? Yes. Does either portion of each group make the argument less valid? Is seeking truth on something that has not been fully disclosed such a bad thing? If you just answered yes then you will fall for the tired exaggerations put out by anti gunners every time. Truth for 9\11 is crazy because you must think aliens did it=concealed carry is crazy because full auto pistols kill kids. Same amount of illogical smear by the fed run media-drops mic.

    • +1. Not clicking on anything with Mike the Early Alzheimer Faux Gun Guy attached to it.
      If PuffHo’s is down to commissioning fake articles from him, agitprop wise- then obvious they have lost the fight.

  4. Can’t forget the final argument though: Guns are for when you have to start America over. At such time, all bets are essentially off, and all protests to arms ownership, and all other authority claimed has pre-deceased such circumstances by at least a fortnight.

  6. Has NRA ever claimed that Armed Citizen is a definitive collection of all defensive gun uses everywhere in the country?

    No? I didn’t think so.

    Logical Fallacy FTL, Mikey.

  7. I get where he is trying to go – if you are praising DGUs and the best you can come up with is a crazed driver or dog-lover, you’re use of these admittedly goofy events suggests you don’t have a lot of meat to work with.

    Problem is, crime is crime. The outlandish stories are those that make the news. We don’t see stories about the youth of Chicago killing each other because it isn’t new or unique. It’s just another day. That doesn’t make those deaths any less important than others, or any less illegal than making sweet love to a border collie.

  8. At some point I have to wonder if people like Mike are actually on our side and working undercover for us. The “arguments” that some gun-grabbers put forth do a pretty good job of convincing people to see the light.

  9. Here is a link to the Waterbury, CT incident from the local TV channel. The one Mike the “GG” ridicules.

    http://wtnh.com/2014/10/24/mentally-ill-man-rapes-pit-bull/
    Full video interview with owner of sexaully assaulted pit bull
    http://wtnh.com/2014/10/24/news-8s-bob-wilsons-full-interview-with-alice-woodruff-owner-of-allegedly-raped-pit-bull/

    The story is disturbing on many levels, one being how profoundly mentally disturbed the man in the incident was, and second the lengthy police response time.

  10. Oh-for a second I thought we could hurl invectives at ole’ mikey on TTAG without reprisal. Is there a companion link on FB? NOT that I have THAT in mind…btw jwm I HAVE seen mikey on Yahoo(FWIW)…

  11. Mr Farago, after reading this i couldn’t help but shake my head and sum it up like this…ufc fighter vrs a watermelon…..just no contest and one hell of a mess.

  12. Mikethegunguy is still less than willing to admit that he founded a little gunguy support group. He calls it the ‘National Medical Council On Gun Violence’. It still seems to have gained little momentum, but his ‘advisory board’ is chock full of names like Hemenway, Miller, Cook, etc.
    The guy is a POS

    • And since DGU’s are not newsworthy to MSM on a national level, only local outlets cover them if at all, that’s quite hard to data-mine.

  15. Ah I see everyone’s confusion. You are all forgetting in order to class as a DGU the bullet has to leave the barrel, enter and exit the aggressor, swing around, tend to the aggressors wounds, call 911, help put aggressor in the ambulance, walk the defender home and stroke his/her head until they fall asleep. If the defender experiences a nightmare rather than a nice dream all the above is for nothing.

    Goalposts people, goalposts.

  17. “gun fantasists like Gary Kleck “

    From the same wiki page…

    “Marvin Wolfgang, who was acknowledged in 1994 by the British Journal of Criminology as ″the most influential criminologist in the English-speaking world″, commented on Kleck’s research concerning defensive gun use: “I am as strong a gun-control advocate as can be found among the criminologists in this country. […] The Kleck and Gertz study impresses me for the caution the authors exercise and the elaborate nuances they examine methodologically. I do not like their conclusions that having a gun can be useful, but I cannot fault their methodology. They have tried earnestly to meet all objections in advance and have done exceedingly well.””

    So, Mike, is Wolfgang a fantasist also? Is that the convenient label for anyone that strikes a position, or presents data, contrary to your own prejudices?

    Sounds familiar, actually. ***cough*** AGW ‘consensus’ ***cough***

    Vilify your detractors, even when they are right…or at least, not “wrong.” That’s what passes for “scientific” or “reasoned” debate in the modern age. Thanks, Progressives, ya bunch of liars.

  19. I suppose it is time to remind people about a fairly simple and reliable way to estimate the minimum number of annual defensive gun uses. Here is the annual data readily available from multiple sources … note that the data even sounds completely realistic to boot:
    (a) Victims shot and killed about 500 criminals in justifiable homicides.
    (b) About 1 in 4 shootings are fatal.
    (c) Victims shoot and hit their attacker in about 1 in 3 attacks.
    (d) Victims only fire shots in about 1 in 10 attacks. (Victims merely brandish a firearm to repel the remaining 9 in 10 attacks and never fire a shot.)

    Using these numbers, we can get a reliable estimate of the minimum number of times in a year that good people use a firearm to defend themselves:
    500 = 1/4 x 1/3 x 1/10 x number of annual defensive gun uses
    Therefore, annual defensive gun uses = 500 x 4 x 3 x 10 == 60,000

    That’s right. Victims of violent attacks use firearms to defend themselves at least 60,000 times annually. This has to be the minimum number based on the hard data of justifiable homicides. (Law enforcement agencies are unable to ignore dead bodies.) To argue that the annual number of defensive gun uses is way, WAY lower requires that armed victims almost always shoot their attacker, almost always hit their attacker, and almost always kill their attacker. And yet we KNOW that is not the case. Therefore, the annual number of defensive gun uses has to be MUCH higher than the 500 or so annual justifiable homicides.

    Important note:
    There is a very high probability that the true annual number of justifiable homicides is actually much higher. Here is why. Every year, people shoot and kill something like 8,000 people. How many of those dead bodies were violent attackers whose victims prevailed? In other words, how many of those 8,000 deaths were also justifiable homicides but not recognized as such? Remember, there are a lot of reasons why a victim who was legally justified to shoot and kill their attacker would not report the event to police. Heck, the victim may not even know that they hit their attacker much less killed their attacker. And how many violent attackers who die from their victim’s gunshot wounds are never discovered?

    So what does this mean? If just 500 of those 8,000 annual “murders” were actually justifiable homicides, the number of annual defensive gun uses would be 120,000. And if 1,000 of those 8,000 annual “murders” — that is 1 in 8 — were actually justifiable homicides, the number of annual defensive gun uses would be 180,000.

    Any way you slice it, defensive gun uses are in the ballpark of 50,000 to 200,000+ annually based on justifiable homicide data alone.

  21. Apparently, Mr. Weisser is impervious to facts. Which leads me to an observation about the illusion of mankind existing as a wholly civilized being:

    “Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.”
    ― Robert E. Howard

  22. The guy better watch that obesity. Pretty soon, that second chin is going to sag clear down to his man boobs.

    Oh dear. I went and said something insensitive. I hope everyone can find it within themselves to forgive me and to look past my occasional indiscretions.

  24. Well, you have to give the guy some credit… Ole’ Mike “The Gun Guy” Weisser is doing ok for himself. Failed business and no marketable skills or experience. But I bet he’s doing alright on the liberal gravy train. Get’s paid for blogging, I assume, that contains nothing of substance, thus requires no research or real work. No doubt gets free drinks whenever he shows up at their cocktail parties. You know they all love to have him in the room, what with him righteously validating their collective superiority. And I bet he even gets laid sometimes from it by some drunk hostess whispering in his ear to talk “guns” to her.

    What a life. No soul, much less integrity, mind you, but if you’ve got no other options… there you are.

  25. Some of the disarmed people murdered by the governments of the world, Christians Rome, Jews Nazi Germany, Aztecs Spanish, Maori of NZ and Aboriginals Australia, Scottish William Wallace, the Irish, Welsh by English and the Native America by the US government. THIS is why we need guns to protect ourselves from those who would subject us to their whim and if this is not enough just google dictators.
    There are over 400 gun laws on the books and they have done nothing to stop the violence. Because of the winey few we are chastised for wanting to protect ourselves. We NEED guns to protect ourselves from criminals in and out of the government. I deserve the right to protect myself and if you don’t like it tough $hit.
    The 2nd Amendment was put into the Constitution so the people could protect themselves from a corrupt government. That is why it says “shall not infringe” so we can have what the government has to prevent a Holocaust. I believe the people should have what the government has including machine guns. The only gun control law there should be is that criminals can’t have any firearms. No double standards put the DC politicians on Obamacare and SS.Thanks for your vote.Pass the word. mrpresident2016.com

  26. Mike the GG. Why is he not Mike the anti-GG? Until he uses an accurate moniker I deny his existence.

    I sure hope Mike the AGG doesn’t have a gun. You just know some bad person will just take it and shoot him with it. We should make that illegal.

  27. “Actually, the armed citizen shot the bank robber in both arms, as well as the leg, shooter and robber doing just fine; the latter in the hospital under arrest…”

    You have bullet holes in both arms and a leg. On top of that your looking at an armed bank robbery charge. How the f*** does that qualify as “doing just fine?”

    Thats also one BAD photoshop he uses.

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