Esquire’s Dave Holmes is the latest to try to poke holes in what he sees as the good guy with a gun “fantasy.” You idiots think you could have done something about Sandy Hook if you’d been there? Parkland? YouTube? It’s delusional! 

This happens like clockwork now. The NRA, well within the time frame wherein we are not supposed to politicize a tragedy, goes out and suggests that the only answer is more guns. They will fall back on the absurd notion that only a good guy with a gun could stop a bad guy with a gun. They will find a person who, in the heat of the moment, is entertaining their own childish hero fantasy; they will build a whole policy argument around it, and then they will tell you to stop being so emotional.

The time period in which we’re not supposed to politicize a tragedy? While we missed the memo announcing the prescribed, respectful number of days before commenting, Holmes is apparently unaware of his fellow civilian disarmament honks who jump on news of a shooting like Michael Moore on a ham sandwich.

Check the time stamp. That was only a couple of hours after the shooting was reported. There were still hundreds of cops at YouTube HQ stepping around pools of blood.

The NRA has learned from experience that sitting back a “respectful” amount of time gets them nothing. Worse, it allows the enemies of Second Amendment rights to seize the narrative in their attempt to drum up support for ever more gun control legislation. Wayne LaPierre waited almost a week after Sandy Hook to make a statement and was pilloried for it.

Looking back on a mass shooting and wishing you’d had a gun is natural. It is the life or death version of the French idea of l’esprit de l’escalier, the wit of the staircase, the one devastating conversational clapback you think of five minutes after it would have been useful. We long to recast negative experiences as positive ones with ourselves as the hero. It’s human. It’s also really fucking stupid, and the fact that it’s influencing policy is an embarrassment .

Mr. Holmes apparently isn’t aware that according to even the CDC’s conservative analysis (at the request of President Obama), there are at least 500,000 defensive gun uses (and probably a lot more) in this country every year. So yes, people with guns do stop crimes like rape, robbery and murder every single day.

But laws shouldn’t reflect passion. Laws should reflect reason. Data shows very clearly that where there are more guns, there are more gun deaths. On the other hand, we have this emotion, this childish fantasy borne out of trauma and impotence. Right now, they’re running about even.

No more. NRA, for once, fuck your feelings.

Sorry. That thud you just heard was the sound of my jaw hitting the keyboard. Because emotion is the anti-gun crowd’s primary weapon of mass distraction against the right to keep and bear arms. If they gave that up, there’d literally be nothing left in their quiver.

Emotion and the heat of the moment (never let a crisis go to waste) is precisely how states like Connecticut, New York and Maryland slammed through even more restrictive laws, including “assault weapons” bans after Sandy Hook. Acting in the heat of the moment is why you saw a Republican governor like Rick Scott, in a famously pro-gun state like Florida, sign a gun control bill into law in the middle of a Senate run.

Actual application of reason, as Holmes says he desires, reveals that literally none of the measures Scott has signed into law would have done a single thing to stop a Nikolas Cruz. Or an Adam Lanza. Or a Dylan Roof. They were able to commit their hideous crimes due to social and institutional failures by multiple parties that let them slip through the cracks for years before they eventually snapped.

But try telling that to someone like a Dave Holmes. My guess is you won’t get very far. Because as he sees it, enough is enough. It’s time to do something about guns. Never mind how ineffective or burdensome the something is for millions of law-abiding Americans. Hey, that seems suspiciously like an emotions-driven response rather an application of reason or intellect.

The point is, Holmes isn’t unique. He and his fellow anti-gun travelers are expert at projection; accusing their opponents of the very actions they themselves are famous for. Do they just not see it? Or is that just SOP?

 

 

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64 COMMENTS

  1. A coworker just spotted the TQ’s I carry everyday and flipped out.
    Nonsense like “Is that legal?” and “why do you expect something to happen here?” followed by no desire to hear or learn.

    If it weren’t for a wealthy first world environment some people simply wouldn’t exist. These are those people.

    • I was coming here to say that. The question is backwards. The lack of awareness came first, and in more primitive times, they would not have had the luxury of controlling other people, they would have never gotten off the farm. People who are aware of reality and their place in it don’t waste their time on such inane pursuits, they go out and get stuff done.

      Bloomberg and Soros are just control freaks. They are fully aware of how hypocritical they are. I doubt they have secret meetings where they chortle to each other about how easy the rubes are to fool, but I am sure they know that and think it and take advantage of it.

      • Farm?? A sabertooth tiger (or bunny rabbit) use would have eaten them. Pharaoh or other overlord would have subjugated/protected them. Modern medicine and feminism have really weakened the gene pool

      • A tourniquet. Yknow? To stop severe bleeding and probably save someone’s life? “Is that legal?”… good Lord, some people just need to be slapped… repeatedly.

        • A co-worker saw a band-aid in my wallet. Just before fainting, he had me arrested and killed.

          True story.

    • He asked you if tourniquets were legal? Are you shitting me? Sweet Christ, the first world might have evolved its self out of usefulness. Insulated for so long in the norms and complacency of society and urbanized living might have made humans ill adapted to anything but. This is why people should go camping at least once in awhile. Not even hardcore survival stuff, just regular car camping at a place without plumbing or running water.

      • I swear this is true: Several years ago I was taking a group of people, with little to no experience, backpacking. I was supplying backpacks and tents and such to people who needed them and, since a lot of stuff they had brought needed to be repacked, I suggested that we all get all our gear out and go through it to determine what was and was not sensible to carry.
        One girl started to unpack her duffle bag and in it was a hair dryer. Yup, a hair dryer –
        I asked her if she planned to plug it in to a rock or a tree.

    • A lot of PA residents are going to be surprised when they wake up Tuesday with banned stuff in their homes. I wonder if voting for more spending and taxes was worth it, because that’s what Tom Wolf promised and delivered. He also delivered anti gun AG and now this.

  3. Anyone who can’t understand these simple four words, ‘Shall not be infringed’ is either incredibly stupid or disingenuous. Either way you won’t find much evidence of self awareness.

    For once I’d like to hear a shooting survivor go in front of the press and say, ‘While I was hiding in a closet all I could think of was – I sure hope the cops don’t show up, because that’s the last thing we need in this situation, more guns!

    • Of course they lack introspection… bigots hate the person they see in the mirror and assume the rest of us are just as nasty.
      🤠

    • Exactly. The fact is, everyone agrees that stopping a bad guy with a gun requires a good guy with a gun. The disagreement is we want private citizens, who may be there from the first instant, to be included in that category. The anti-gun side wants only government authorities to be included. The problem, of course, is they may intervene minutes or hours later, if at all.

      • This is why I always laugh whenever the left disparages the good guy with a gun statement.

        “Just call the cops!”

        WTF you think the cops are, wizards? They’re gonna show up with guns and shoot the killer. Same shit the regular joe is gonna try and do, but before there’s 5-30 mins of rising body count.

        “but but but, training”

        America is filled with hunters, veterans, ex-cops, competition shooters, and just plain-ole people who practice shooting. Most of the people who actually carry their CC everyday can shoot minute of bad gay at least to typical defensive handgun ranges.

        • ““Just call the cops!””

          And as we know, that’s what they did in Coward County.

          Of course my father’s family did the same thing during the 1919 Chicago race riot. We’re still waiting for the cops to come…

  4. And to think that I used to like Florida. Have to rethink that. As for Shannon Watts , she should apologize for her ignorance. Go squawk somewhere people actually give a shit. Shame on those that would use a tragedy to support their agenda. As for utube. Shame on them. Whatever happened to freedom of speech ?

    • Shannon Watts is not ignorant. She a professional P.R. hack hired by Michael Bloomberg or someone in his organization to push for gun grabbing.

  5. “You idiots think you could have done something about Sandy Hook if you’d been there? Parkland? YouTube? It’s delusional!” I have stopped domestic violence because I had a gun. There wasn’t even a need to brandish it. Others have stopped school shootings with guns.

    Just because David only comes up with great retorts after the conversation is over doesn’t mean everyone else is so slow.

    “at the request of President Obama.” Wasn’t that at the order of Obama? … google … google … Yes, it was ordered by Obama. “Therefore, by the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, I hereby direct the following:

    Section 1. Research. The Secretary of Health and Human Services (Secretary), through the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other scientific agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services, shall conduct or sponsor research into the causes of gun violence and the ways to prevent it.” https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2013/01/16/presidential-memorandum-engaging-public-health-research-causes-and-preve

    “Data shows very clearly that where there are more guns, there are more gun deaths.” I’m sure that’s true. It’s like saying where people have more access to healthcare, there are more healthcare deaths. That doesn’t mean more access to healthcare is a net negative.

    Do you know what else is true? Studies that measure the costs and benefits of gun control either find no correlation or a positive correlation with crime. That means that, at best, gun control imposes costs (limits on freedom, for example) without any reduction in crime.

    While emotion shouldn’t run the debate, neither should vulgar stupidity (and emotion).

    “No more. [David], for once, fuck you[].”

    • And more deaths due to automobiles now that in 1870. And WAY more deaths due to airbag deployment than before the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT mandated the things.

      • Exactly. If you have more of a thing, both the positive and negative consequences of that thing are likely to increase.

        Now, there is a point of diminishing returns. I don’t get much out of getting another handgun or rifle. I don’t need another one. I can get the job done with everything I have, but the question is can I get the job done better with a new gun? Yes, because there are so many different jobs.

        The only cost of another gun for me is space and money. If any of my guns are going to be used to cause harm, another gun isn’t going to increase that risk.

      • Pretty darn close to zero aligator related deaths in Nebraska. Florida, on the other hand…

  6. Southerland Springs?!? Oh wait a “good guy with a gun” DID stop the church shooter from further killing. Let’s not forget most mass shooters are looking for “gun-free zones” and EZ targets. Puzzies all…

  8. I have no idea if I could or couldn’t stop a mass shooter. It would depend on the gun/guns the shooter has and that I have and the level of training between the two of us. But the gun is like a fire extinguisher. It doesn’t guarantee anything, it gives a fighting chance however.

    Also, why do people like this guy assume that the gun-carrying citizen will prove totally inept but the mass shooter will be an unstoppable commando? That again depends on the person. But that is how these folks think. They are the types who tell you that if a thug breaks into your home, you should not confront the thug with a gun because the thug will get mad and take the gun away from you.

  9. Self awareness and common sense usually go hand in hand.

    And you need both to acheieve:

    Personal responsibility
    Personal accountability

  10. The most avid anti-gunners have concealed carry licenses and most of them do carry.
    The rest of the “sheeplike crowd” are happy to die victims of mugging, home invasions, rapes, abductions and what not, because they hate guns as the means of life defense.
    Perhaps they deeply rely on their ability to make “emotional” pleads and hope their killers would change their minds once they see this deeply emotionally disturbed person…

  11. A young lady once asked me at a public shooting range, if my .338 Win Mag was legal ?

    • By no means. A permission slip from our oppressors is irrelevant. The key is to have a gun, and the skill/will to use it appropriately. That is all. I carry a gun every day, all the time. I have serious training and experience to back that up. I have never had a gun “license” of any kind, and never will.

      • Fact is I don’t love CC fee’s an requirements either but if you actually have to slot someone or even drawn on someone, you’re going to prison unless it happens in your home or your state laws allow no permit carry. Most of us can’t afford prison time, attorney fee’s to avoid it, or states that respect freedom enough to allow permitless CC. For the love of Christ don’t tell people to carry unlicensed, if you want to risk it that’s your business.

      • Yeah, but only because Wyoming. I agree about not ever letting your rights be dependent upon some permission slip like we’re all 6 years old, and I will never ask permission either, but then I don’t need to. In Montana to be concealed it must be “on your person”, so if you carry off-body it isn’t a concealed weapon. That’s a good legal feature that one can take advantage of, but in many States such is not possible. Would you be so adamant about never accepting a permission slip if you lived in, say, Miami or Dallas?
        I don’t know if I would. Where no such feature exists to make any other type of carry practical, and the predators are everywhere, it seems to me that one would need balance the idiocy of one’s society with the necessity of protecting oneself in some way or another.
        OFC, if I lived in such a State, I wouldn’t be there for long… but if I was born there???

  13. Do I want it to happen? No.
    Do I seek it out? No.

    But if I was to come to be in a situation where an active shooter was in my workplace, school, church, or shopping mall would I rather be in that situation armed instead of being there with my gun locked in my safe at home? Hell yes.

  14. They don’t want to be aware of anything, just coddled and micro-managed by the state entirely from cradle to grave

  15. lacking in self confidence too. They’re really big on the “even if you had a gun you couldn’t have used it to stop the bad guy.” Mentality. With things like “you’ll freeze up!” Or “you’ll miss” or “you’ll kill someone innocent!” It’s all a serious lack of self confidence if you ask me.

  16. “Why Do Anti-Gunners Lack Self-Awareness?”

    Because they’re @$$h0le$.

    Yeah, it’s that simple.

  17. It was sorta hilarious when YouTube banned gun vids and then the crazy Iranian vegan peta lady brought her gun to THEM!

  18. Data shows very clearly that where there are more guns, there are more gun deaths. — Dave Holmes

    First of all, Mr. Holmes it focusing on the WRONG metric. The proper metric that our society should be striving to minimize is ALL criminal homicides and ALL non-lethal violent assaults, regardless of the instrument (if any) that caused the death of the victim. When the goal is reducing ALL criminal violent attacks, firearms become a critical component in REDUCING ALL violent attacks.

    Second of all, Mr. Holmes statement is FLAT OUT WRONG.
    — People in the U.S. have about twice as many firearms today as they did in the early 1990s and yet today’s murder rate (where the attacker uses a firearm) is less than half the murder rate back in the early 1990s.
    — People in Mexico, Brazil, and South Africa have very few firearms and yet their murder rate (with and without firearms) is MUCH higher than the murder rate in the U.S.
    — The people of Europe in the 1930s and 1940s — especially Jews and Gypsies — had pretty much no firearms and the murder rate of the Jewish and Gypsy populations approached 100%.

  19. When anti gunners have made almost every square inch of public space democrat gun free zones, it is amazing that there are as many civilians stopping mass shootings as there are. They create democrat gun free zones, making it illegal for law abiding gun owners to carry guns in those locations, then, when those locations are attacked by mass shooters, they say “see….there wasn’t a good guy there to stop the mass shooting.” The dishonesty and vileness of anti gunners knows no limits…..

  23. Riddle me this: if the good guy with a gun is a myth at best and ineffective at worst, then why do we have a military, police, SWAT teams, armed guards, private security, or body guards?

  24. My pistol has in fact prevented crime. The five young men who set the ambush decided there was somewhere else they needed to be and left in a rather large hurry, all the while trying not to appear threatening.

  25. “Why Do Anti-Gunners Lack” balls? Thus no testosterone.

    These twits went to college as young skulls full of mush and the 1st horny broad they met was a progtard feminazi. Incorrectly concluded that the key to meeting more ugly horny women was to mirror them and become a pansy lib. They have been proceeding on that path since. As most (not all) young college women today lean libtard (until they GROW UP) these prog nancyboys didn’t ever meet attractive normal women.

    Train your sons AND your daughters.

  26. “Why do anti-gunners lack self-awareness?”

    They’re selected for lack of self-awareness, or they wouldn’t be anti-gunners.

  27. Oh my the irony is just dripping from that guy’s article and the left in general lol.

    MOLTAR’S TOP 10 LEFTY CONTRADICTIONS

    1. Just call the police / police are racist killers.

    2. Freedom of Speech is our greatest right / Silences any right wing speech.

    3. We don’t want to take your guns / Confiscate all guns.

    4. We don’t want to repeal the 2nd Amendment / Repeal the 2nd Amendment.

    5. Our colleges should be open to the free exchange of ideas / Riots for a week just because a Republican speaker was invited.

    6. You should be free to live as whatever you choose / Unless it’s a republican.

    7. Racial privilege is real / we need even more programs to help out minority races.

    8. Legalize weed man so many people buy and use it anyway. / Ban guns.

    9. Good guys with guns don’t stop crime / Call police (WITH GUNS) to save you.

    10. Everyone deserves to be free / Let’s do exactly what the Nazis and Stalin did in their countries, it’ll totally work here!!!

    Really y’all live in the greatest country in the world and yet you yearn to transform it into a slightly updated version of East Berlin circa 1956 because you don’t want to work or because you think that power was equally shared amongst the workers under communism. Sadly, the people who are paid to teach you better than to believe that are themselves communist worshippers, so it is a lesson that went untaught.

  28. “Why Do Anti-Gunners Lack Self-Awareness?”

    It’s because these ideologically inferior creatures and self-professed “experts” on everything are only concerned with what WE are doing not what THEY are doing, there is no “self-reflection” and/or “introspection” among THAT community, they consider themselves “our betters” plus in their deranged minds they are “infallible” like the Catholic Church (we saw how well that worked out with the child molesters though those numbers were inflated to demonize the faith just like the Left does with gun owners).

    A textbook example of what i am referring to is HIV/AIDS, it is well documented that the virus kills (even with treatment) yet those that oppose us continually proclaim that sexual experimentation and “unnatural” lifestyles are not only “normal” but “healthy” despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, they do the same with drugs “legal” (Rxs) and “illegal” and abortion which by themselves are responsible for far, far, more deaths in our country than firearms ever will be.

    There is NO reasoning with our opponents, to them “white” is “black”, “up” is “down”, “left” is “right”, their objective is to make so that the “counter-culture” becomes the “norm” and they mean to do it as they say “By ANY Means Necessary”, over our dead bodies if required because as long as we exist so do our ideas and ideals, we are a lethal threat to them as we can (and do) influence those ignorant (including children) of the “rights” we champion as facts and statistics favorable to us are of course as we are “their ‘enemy'” thus we must be destroyed for we are the only obstacle preventing them from achieving total victory.

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