Response to an anti-gunner

I ran across a curious rant recently as a comment to a blog post. For those interested in the full details, the source is Here.

Since I found this rant to be somewhat coherent, albeit lacking in knowledge, I thought it would be good to address some of the points. I edited this slightly for readability, as the original writer was addressing specific people on a specific TV show.

Point number one: the suppressor.[*] It's there to make the direction of fire less obvious... Its relevance when facing a sniper attempting to massacre civilians is one I will not repeat here because I know damn well you're aware of it.

The overwhelmingly most important use for a suppressor is to enable the use of carbines for home defense (HD)*. As I've detailed before, the modern semi-automatic carbine is considered the best HD gun by the great majority of men who train extensively in this area (many choose handguns for their primary, but often have a carbine close by). The muzzle blast of a carbine (AR15 or AK47), especially a short-barreled one, is no trivial matter and is often the greatest hurdle to effectively using a carbine indoors. (Electronic hearing protection is another option.)

Are their other uses for sound suppressors that aren't relevant to most people today? Sure. The problem is that some people like to only point out “bad” uses. What would be your reaction if I said that the only use of a minivan was so that you could get drunk and run over a lot of pedestrians at high speed? Hopefully you would think I was stupid, crazy, or was trying to push some anti-minivan agenda. People knowledgeable about guns (and suppressors) feel the same way.

*Note - upon further investigation it appears that the commenter was referring to a flash suppressor and not a sound suppressor.  The analysis is much the same, however a flash suppressor is designed to reduce the flash of the muzzle blast and not the sound.  As many HD scenarios occur in low light conditions, it should be obvious what utility these have.  Also, in jurisdictions that restrict flash suppressors, they are usually replaced with muzzle breaks.  I f@#&ing hate muzzle breaks on carbines, and anyone who has taken a class with people who have these, hate them too.  (Their utility is on much more powerful weapons, or on fully-automatic weapons.  They serve no useful purpose on semi-auto carbines.)

Point number two: the barrel shroud. It's there to stop you from burning yourself. Why would you? because you're engaged in extremely sustained fire. The interest in making things harder for massacre shooters should again not need to be spelled out here, but, yeah: you don't need a barrel shroud for target shooting, hunting, or self defense, this is not a 'cosmetic' issue and the dishonesty in pretending gun manufacturers have been slapping this thing on the barrel for giggles is a bit much.

There seems to be this sense that all you have to do is go to a range, fire five or six rounds, and then you are sufficiently prepared to defend yourself. This is silly. If you went to a martial arts studio and hit the heavy-bag six times, would you expect to be awarded a black-belt? It's not uncommon to fire 500+ rounds a day in a class. Guns get hot. They get hot quickly. To anyone with firsthand knowledge, this is obvious. I can't remember the number times I've burned myself during a class. (Ever wonder why guys often wear gloves in high-intensity classes?)

Point number three: people get in sustained firefights in a self defense scenario virtually never... The points ... regarding wanting more bullets are relevant only in a military scenario, or if you are a lone shooter facing lots of 'bad guys' (cops). In the Giffords murders, the shooter was tackled while reloading. And in many other shootings... Making massacre shooters (who often obtain legally or illegally, their weapons from other non black market sources - friends, family, etc and hence must select their arsenals from what is LEGALLY AVAILABLE) reload more often is a good thing, and extended magazines are of no use or relevance in hunting or target shooting, and very limited to no use in almost all self defense scenarios.

There are a few separate points in there... First of all, capacity is a good thing as any competent instructor will tell you. I've known of many “firefights” that might not have seemed that unusual where entire magazines were spent. I remember many years ago there was a saying that most gunfights followed the rule of three – 3 shots, in 3 seconds, at less than 3 yards. I'm not sure exactly where this data came from (I think it was old FBI data), but it's pretty clear this harkens back to the days when most officers carried revolvers. Saying that “more bullets are relevant only in a military scenario” is something that only an untrained person could claim.

The point about mass shooters being tackled when they reload, and therefore the size of magazines should be limited is also something only an untrained person could say. Have you ever loaded a 33 round Glock magazine under pressure? It is very much more difficult for an untrained person to do this (and just about all mass shooters have been untrained) than to load a standard capacity magazine. It's ironic, but knowing the details of the Giffords shooting makes me seriously consider that it was the fact that he used such ungainly magazines that enabled him to be stopped as soon as he was. Again – something that someone who has never trained wouldn't appreciate or understand.

As for the fact that most mass shooters obtain their weapons legally, this hits at the core issue. Let's make all the scary guns illegal, so that no one will be able to get them legally. Ummmm – it's hard to know how to respond to that. Most cars that are involved in drunk-driving fatalities were obtained legally – so would making them illegal make sense? The comeback that's often heard, but makes no sense, is that “cars have a use, but these weapons have no legitimate use”. This is just absurd. The guns that are most often mentioned for banning constitute the best defensive guns commonly available in America today.

Point number four: if pistol grips made 'no difference whatsoever' then why are they ubiquitous in all military assault rifles designed since the last century? And why does anyone have any objection at all to removing something that 'causes no difference whatsoever' to the function of the firearm? Oh, wait: because it does. Not in any way that would affect recreational or hunting use terribly (hence the fact that they haven't been part of those designs), but for combat use the maneuverability a pistol grip affords is of undeniable utility...

Pistol grips are a fairly minor issue. They do make some long guns easier to maneuver, but the effect is not huge. The extreme emotional reaction that this “feature” seems to elicit is wildly out of proportion to its actual utility. Why do knowledgeable, trained people object to having our tools modified to appease the emotional reactions of people wholly lacking in knowledge and perspective? Yeah, that's pretty much how we see it.

I'll give em the adjustable stock. But I won't give them a pass on the insulting everyone's intelligence for the previous six and some change minutes.

The “insulting everyone's intelligence” thing goes both ways. When I see all the claims that anti-gun people make, and I know from firsthand experience that they are false... and I further see that the people making all these claims almost universally have no direct experience or knowledge about what they're talking about... Yeah, I'm insulted.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again and again - in more than thirty years of being involved in various aspects of guns, shooting, and martial arts, including the last five years as a firearms and tactics instructor - that the people who favor gun control know almost nothing about guns or the dynamics of violent encounters. Conversely, those who are very knowledgeable in these areas very strongly oppose gun control - almost without exception. Also, when the government is talking about banning AR15s (misrepresented as assault weapons) and normal capacity magazines, they are not talking about banning some esoteric gun with no useful purpose. They are talking about banning the best defensive weapons available to most Americans.