Comments on Jonalyn Grace Fincher: When Women Carry . . . Handguns: Sergeant Kimberly...

Dale, I have read and considered your comments. T...

2009-12-05T00:00:08.090-08:00

Dale,

I have read and considered your comments. Thanks for posting them. I actually prepared a lengthy response, but have opted not to post it.

I think we agree that to counter a threat, the rule is always to use the least amount of force possible to accomplish that goal.

drafted, I hear you. If you're going to point a g...

2009-12-04T11:09:30.800-08:00

drafted, I hear you.

If you're going to point a gun at another person, it has to be with the intent of pulling the trigger on a threat. Otherwise the firearm should remain holstered and out of site.

I still hold to my position that the "intent" is to stop the threat, not to kill. I was taught this by a gun instructor who is a lobbyist in Colorado and works on gun laws in Colorado.

We must already be aware that the "potential" to kill is apparent when pulling a firearm (though most gunshots are not lethal). Yet "potential" is not "intent."

The "intent" is not to kill someone, let it "sound" like you are shooting with the intent to "murder" out of revenge or anger at the threat.

The "intent" to stop a threat rather than kill a threat will go much further, not only in political matters and gun rights causes, but in a court of law if you find yourself having to defend the right to self-defense.

"For self-defense, one should have neither the 'in...

2009-12-04T09:49:59.976-08:00

"For self-defense, one should have neither the 'intent' to shoot to wound nor to kill. The intent is to stop the threat."

Strictly speaking - yes.

I did not do a good job at all of contextualizing my friend's dictum. The context of her comment was the gravity of pointing a gun at another human being, and that once you do that you have crossed a line that may result in "just wounding" (which may or may not be sufficient in a given situation)but can quite potentially (whether with "intent" or not)result in killing.

She might say that either you fear for your life or you do not, and if you do not, then you shouldn't be pointing a gun at somebody. However, if you are pointing that gun at somebody, then you should be prepared for the potentiality of killing, and even intend it.

You may have enough time to figure out with precision how much and what kind of reasonable conversation or physical incapacitating or fleeing will stop the threat.

But that all comes before firing your weapon at another human being.

People pulling triggers should be absolutely intentional about THAT.

"No good citizen in self-defense has the intent to kill another."

I disagree.

No good citizen in self-defense has the intent to MURDER another.

If it is not your intentional goal to KILL with your gun, then don't point it and don't fire it at another human being.

Drafted, one comment on your comment. You said, "...

2009-12-04T07:40:24.830-08:00

Drafted, one comment on your comment. You said, "I have a good friend who is extremely adept with firearms. She has always said, 'If you point your gun, you point it with the intention to kill - not wound.'"

I think this is also part of the misnomer in the way we talk about firearms... so I want to clarify the term of "intent."

For self-defense, one should have neither the "intent" to shoot to wound nor to kill. The intent is to stop the threat. No good citizen in self-defense has the intent to kill another. However, when protecting oneself and one's family, the threat needs to be stopped that is provoking serious harm (endangering lives, kidnapping, etc).

The way to stop the threat is to aim at the biggest target, which is the center of mass. If they are wearing body armor (and more and more criminals are, though most obtain it illegally... again, bad guys don't care about laws), then above and below the center of mass will also work as secondary targets.

If the person is wounded or dead, neither was your "intent." Your "intent" was to stop the threat, get the bad guy arrested, hug your children who are thankfully still alive, and to talk to your attorney.

Good article and excellent writing.

2009-12-03T23:36:56.919-08:00

Good article and excellent writing.

Wow, Jonalyn, I'm inspired by your feminine awesom...

2009-11-23T07:34:49.357-08:00

Wow, Jonalyn, I'm inspired by your feminine awesomeness--pregnant (something uniquely feminine,except in that weird Arnold movie) and using a handgun like a pro! You make me proud to be a woman!

Your case for women carrying guns is a good one, and your retelling of the Sgt. Munley story is a good one. Yes, her heroics are amazing.

I think this is one of the reasons why I like Eowyn from LORD OF THE RINGS--a fierce woman with a sword who defends her [crazy] uncle. Or Rogue from X-Men--she can kick any guy's butt, yet if she touches him without her protective gloves--watch out!

Eowyn is still vulnerable and lonely (more in the movie depiction than in the book) and Rogue cannot feel human touch. I believe they are distinctively feminine, too.

Thanks for another wonderful post!

Just one more thought: It was almost exactly two ...

2009-11-22T12:59:45.141-08:00

Just one more thought:

It was almost exactly two (2) years ago when a shooter killed two (2) young people at a YWAM center, and then drove 12 hours to a church in Colorado for the sole purpose of continuing his murderous rampage. Like the Fort Hood murderer,this guy was also "taken out" by a female with a gun. See the story here: http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/14808321/detail.html

At the time, I was on a devotional mailing list written by a Christian pastor out of Florida. He was a passionate, insightful and usually profound thinker. He wrote about the Colorado church shooting, and his premise was that, entirely despite the fact that the female (a professed Christian) stopped the rampage and saved many others from harm by drawing her sidearm, confronting the gunman,returning fire and killing him, she had been misguided - she had sinned - because she had "failed to turn the other cheek."

But that's not the real kicker.

Aside from pastoring a church in Florida, this guy was also employed as an ARMED PRISON GUARD. When I wrote to ask him if his employer and fellow guards were aware that his own stated religious convictions (at least as they applied to the sinner/heroine in Colorado)would prevent him from firing his weapon on aggressing and/or escaping prisoners, he never answered my question. I was simply dropped from his mailing list.

I surmised that he did not want his "real" job and HIS way of life jeopardized by his publicly stated theology.

While his widely-distributed chastisement of the Colorado Christian heroine surely afforded him the joy of having many readers congratulate him for his "clearly more scriptural" and superior piety, what it left a valid question was unanswered.

For all the rest of us.

The NRA piece was enlightening. Thanks for posting...

2009-11-21T22:15:38.345-08:00

The NRA piece was enlightening. Thanks for posting the link.

This thread has caused me to think of several issues, one being the .357 Ruger on my bookshelf...

A few other thoughts:

I have a good friend who is extremely adept with firearms. She has always said, "If you point your gun, you point it with the intention to kill - not wound." I keep harrassing her to comment on this thread.

I used to work for one of the premier police departments in the country. Given that law enforcement in this country is increasingly para-military in nature, I would NOT suggest that anyone simply presume A.) that police are always or even primarily "for the common people," or B.) that police necessarily believe that "common people" should be allowed to own and defensively use firearms. There is a certain thrilling power, after all, in exclusivity - and frankly, many police enjoy that power and would be hard-pressed to want to give any of it up. Police departments want more weaponry and power for them, not for you. That's one direction this thread could go.

In an earlier post, I used a life experience of mine as an example of having to wrestle the issue of when to "fight" - if ever - and for whom, and on what basis, and with what weapons. I wanted to clarify that the point of that was not my experience, but simply the example.

The fact is, the issues raised in this thread aren't for just Bonhoeffers in Nazi Germanys, and the issues certainly are not just about guns. To all of us at some time, and in potentially a million different ways, will come questions for us about what we believe, and why, and what it means in "real" life. While we may never have to decide whether or not to draw a sidearm, we will all have to decide whether or not to use our tongues, for ourself or for someone else, for blessing or for cursing. Different circumstances, different weapons, same principles, same high stakes.

The way of a great teacher is to sneak you in to places you never dreamed were even connected. Who'd have guessed that a thread on guns - guns! - would lead to James 3? Excellent work, Jonalyn.

Copying and pasting the link to the NRA article fr...

2009-11-21T06:55:44.065-08:00

Copying and pasting the link to the NRA article from your post doesn't work, because for some odd reason "spaces" are added in the link line. Try it again here:

http://www.nrapublications.org/a1f/AFFlead.html

or simply go to:

www.nrapublications.org, click on "America's 1st Freedom" and then on the article "Who is the Armed Citizen?"

A clarification regarding the better-quality YouTu...

2009-11-21T06:37:52.826-08:00

A clarification regarding the better-quality YouTube link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1u0Byq5Qis :

About the last 1/3 of this version is commentary by a third party, and it CONTAINS A MOMENT OR TWO OF OFFENSIVE LANGUAGE towards the end.

Here's a much better-quality video of the YouTube ...

2009-11-21T06:23:28.178-08:00

Here's a much better-quality video of the YouTube video regarding the Luby's massacre and the "duck hunting" comment. Absolutely worth a viewing! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1u0Byq5Qis

I've been reading an article that I believe will h...

2009-11-18T17:28:07.307-08:00

I've been reading an article that I believe will help extend this conversation with some real statistics about who carries and uses guns.

I found these eye-opening insights

1- Guns are used by people for DEFENSIVE used (that would be to protect others or self against predators) between 800,000 and 2.5 million each year. These statistics are not getting out much. I was very surprised and interested as we don't think of civilians playing such a dominant role in self and home-defense. We often think only police or military should handle outside predators.

2- "Despite research, discussion with someone who has never fired, or even held, a gun, or who has never been in a potentially violent situation, is generally framed in abstract terms due to a lack of knowledge or experience." Perhaps the best solution is to take a gun-safety class, or to accompany a friend to the firing range to become familiar through first person knowledge with the instrument that can save lives.

3- Gun awareness and training can put civilians in the same skill set as a trained police officer. "In confrontational shootings, studies show police hit their targets between 13 percent and 25 percent of the time. Of the incidents analyzed in this study, civilians hit their targets 84 percent of the time. This gives us a statistical basis to refute claims that only police should have firearms or that civilian shooters are largely ineffective in emergencies."

4- There is no safe place where a criminally minded person will leave you alone. The story at the beginning of this article of the elderly woman who was burglared and beaten, nearly two times, in her own home (after her phone line was cut, her barred windows dismantled and her house broken into) provides an illuminating case in point. Shooting her gun may have saved her from death.

5- The most frequently reported crime is a home invasion. About 1/4 of these reported (a number reaching 1067) thwarted the invader through the use of their own firearm.

6- Of all instances when a permit holding gun carrier had to pull out their firearm, 12% never fired (though were prepared to) and despite mythology about gun shootings, not all criminals were killed. Only about half, 52%, of the criminals died from gun wounds.

7- Civilians who reach for their gun to defend themselves or others are by and far male. Only 11% are women. This is something that bothers me. Of all people women should be more prepared, after all, we are weaker.

Read the entire article: http://www.nrapublications.org /a1f/AFFlead.html

Drafted.Rough, p.s. EXCELLENT distinction between ...

2009-11-18T14:27:23.385-08:00

Drafted.Rough,
p.s. EXCELLENT distinction between turning OUR cheek and protecting OTHERS.

Drafted.Rough, I appreciate your comments especia...

2009-11-18T14:26:45.868-08:00

Drafted.Rough,

I appreciate your comments especially as they come from a life of both turning the other cheek for yourself and standing up for others.
Thank you for your vulnerability!

RB,
This is a great link, though the visuals are sketching, the audio is terrific--a great example of how guns do not hurt people, their mis-use does. I appreciate how she notes that the 2nd amendment is not about duck hunting, but about protecting ourselves. I recommend everyone following this post click here and listen in: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ye5Y-1vYcgc

I agree that Bonhoeffer is a crucial part of any C...

2009-11-16T04:20:06.238-08:00

I agree that Bonhoeffer is a crucial part of any Christian discussion of ethics, perhaps most particularly as such discussions pertain to "self-defense" and "peacemaking" versus spiritual or actual violence. In fact, Bonhoeffer burns his way into us quite viscerally by making us face some appallingly difficult nuances of "You have heard it said...but I say unto you..."

For example, it was as if Bonhoeffer said to the German Christians, "Yes, you have heard it said that we are to be peacemakers, but I say unto you that you might want to reconsider your idea of 'peacemaking' when it 'saves' you but savagely and unjustly murders hundreds of thousands of other people." There is something terribly wrong, he might have screamed, with a "peace" that serves you first, and serves you only.

Jesus refused Peter's sword as a defense for HIMSELF, and that's a key point. To "make peace" by refusing to fight on your own behalf or be fought for by another is one thing, but Bonhoeffer raises the question of whether or not refusing to defend others is Christ-like also or is merely self-serving cowardice - which is a very different thing.

"Self-serving" is the point that turns everything on its head.

The officer at Fort Hood could have maintained her pseudo "peacemaker righteousness" with God by standing idly by with her own cheek "turned," but how "loving" would that have been to the hundreds of others whose cheeks were in harm's way?

Yes, we are commanded to "turn the other cheek." But that's OUR cheek, not the cheek of every other person in harm's way.

And please note: The command was to turn YOUR cheek to YOUR enemy, not close your eyes to the defenseless around you.

I think that was Bonhoeffer's rebuke of the German churches.

It is his echoing rebuke to us, too. A few years ago, I lost my career after enduring years of severe, malicious, chronic bullying. I spent years turning my own cheek, just as I was commanded to do. I do not regret that. However, what I could not do in good conscience was leave exposed to the same evil and abuse every other "cheek" like mine that would come behind me. I could turn my cheeks, but I refused to close my eyes. So, I fought. Turned over a few tables while my cheeks dripped blood. But not for me. It was too late for me, and beside the point.

The peace will be for those who follow - precisely because I did not "turn my cheek" for them, but FOUGHT for them. In fact, you could make a case that the fight cost me my life. But it spared many others the same severe and unjust suffering.

For those like me who follow, it was my fight, and not my presumptuous turning of their collective cheeks to follow, that will allow them peace.

Did I sin?

And if I sinned, what did those do who stood idly and knowingly by, saying and doing nothing - "keeping peace" - solely to save their own selves and their own jobs? What loving thing did they do for the people like me with distinct vulnerabilities who will follow me?

They did nothing. Nothing except self-servingly, passively and "peacefully" protect themselves, and only themselves, in the face of blatant evil, wrongdoing and the unjust destruction of the one they knew to be innocent.

Bonhoeffer watched the German Christians do exponentially exactly the same thing, and it was his calling (one doesn't sign-up for such things)to have to ask if that's what Jesus really had in mind.

They closed their eyes for "peace" and lost something of their souls.

I kept my eyes open, got grotesquely bloodied cheeks, and lost a love of my life for a far away peace that will never touch me. It will touch those who come behind.

One does regret, as Bonhoeffer did, having to die. But better to die physically or socially or politically or ecclesiastically or professionally for the right reasons, than to die in soul for the wrong.

There's Bonhoeffer's haunting whisper.

So, carry that gun. Somebody else's cheeks might need you.

Dale here's the link for the woman at the Luby's m...

2009-11-15T21:33:08.699-08:00

Dale here's the link for the woman at the Luby's massacre. My initials were at the end of the post and probably got pasted into the browser thing-y.RB http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ye5Y-1vYcgc

Mandy, A few thoughts for you. I was a bit puzzle...

2009-11-12T16:26:57.434-08:00

Mandy,

A few thoughts for you. I was a bit puzzled when you wrote, "It is hard to say if someone had had a gun if that would have helped. We will never know. But for every story where a gun might have helped, we have at least one story of when a gun has harmed."

I wonder why you think we will never know. If I pull out a gun and the evil man backs out of my house and no one is killed, isn't this a way of knowing that the gun aided the peace of the situation?

I don't think we have clear statistics of a gun in the hands of a responsible person hurting people. I have trouble when you right about guns without their operators. The gun, in my mind, is not a problem, it is the operators who are the problem or solution.

I tend to like to compare gun rights with sexual rights. For instance, the sexual pleasure and fulfilmment between a husband and wife has enormous power for good (unity, recreation, procreation, sacramental metaphor), and enormous power for evil (rape, manipulation, violence, identity abasement). To talk about sex is actually nothing, sexual persons is everything, for they are the ones who choose to use sex for good or ill.

Sex existing by itself is a misunderstanding as sex does not exist without sexual persons. The same, in my mind, with guns. Guns do not exist as a moral good or evil, only people's USE of them as good or evil.

It's amazing to me that I'm arguing this case, on one front, because 3 years ago I would have sat alongside you and Fiona with arguments about the danger of guns. However, I was deeply uneducated (I do not want to assume you are the same as me, just sharing my background) and afraid of guns' power. I thought gun owners had a secret vengeance or lust for power and were not not not to be trusted. I had never taken a gun safety class, didn't know anything about how a gun operated and was frankly disgusted with that much power in my possession. I had only fired a pistol once and had an overall feeling that guns were best left to the experienced and trained.

I had no idea that nothing truly separates me from a police or military officer, except the will to learn and the willingness to accept more responsibility for my own safety.

That knowledge has changed me.

I liked Dale's point about peace. I wonder if you would equate peace with pacifism? I think I would tend to equate peace with shalom, the Jewish concept of wholeness, orderliness and rightness with the world, God and others.

Fiona, Thanks for writing again. I also appreciat...

2009-11-12T16:10:56.960-08:00

Fiona,

Thanks for writing again. I also appreciate the chance to think about these and the freedom to not agree. Glad you are willing to engage in debate without unkindness. I like that about you!

What do you make of the passages in the Old Testament where God advocates violence against the violent, like the Noahic covenant?

Genesis 9:6 "Whoever sheds human blood, by human beings shall their blood be shed; for in the image of God
has God made humankind."

Or when his people take up arms against the enemy and their courage saves Israel? For instance, do you think Jaal was a hero for killing Sisera by driving a tent peg through his temple (Judges 4:17)? Or would you say she was inappropriate?

Thinking of the Judges time period, I feel it reminds me a lot of the rampant violence today.

What about the times that the Holy Spirit gives people power to murder their enemies? I think of Samson and the donkey's jawbone in Judges 15:14-20.

To think that this is the same God who came in flesh as Jesus, I must reconcile these passages with love your enemies. How do you do this?

I do this by training myself to use a gun as well as a police officer, so I am an extension of the law and capable of defending the life of those I love. To me this is loving, both for the sake of my family and for the sake of the evil men and women in this world, who can be stopped when their force is matched with force. Having a gun, knowing how to use it and being willing to use it can actually save 2 lives: my own and theirs.

Anon, I also noted that, but as Mandy said, Bonhoe...

2009-11-12T11:23:46.197-08:00

Anon, I also noted that, but as Mandy said, Bonhoeffer struggled with that decision and may have even regretted it.

For some posters, "Bonhoeffer advocated Hitler's a...

2009-11-11T22:45:05.206-08:00

For some posters, "Bonhoeffer advocated Hitler's assassination..."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietrich_Bonhoeffer#Double_agent_of_Abwehr

GREAT discussion here. Of course, being in Texas,...

2009-11-11T13:53:56.261-08:00

GREAT discussion here. Of course, being in Texas, Mary Jo and I more than likely skew the discussion somewhat.........it's a given that most people carry here. Texas is wonderful for responsible individuals to rightly protect against fallen man.

Roger Sharp
Making a Defense of Defense
OR
An Apologia of Apologia :)

Anon, much of what you have written is actually th...

2009-11-11T08:49:11.004-08:00

Anon, much of what you have written is actually the opposite of public information.

Conceal carry IS legal in all states with a permit. And no permit is required in Vermont and Alaska. And the majority of states have reciprocity for permit holders. Your statement sounds like it's illegal to conceal carry in most places, which this is not the case at all.

Some info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concealed_carry_in_the_United_States

Conceal carry does deter violence and it is highly recommended NOT to display a weapon as a deterrent. The deterrence is usually stopping the bad guy, not scaring him.

Any firearm instructor will tell you that brandishing a weapon without using it escalates violence.

This does not considered a form of deterrent and is usually considered a threat or assault. Anytime you pull a weapon it is for the purpose of using it. If you're not ready to use it, you don't show it. You can square off and free up your shooting hand to be ready if someone is approaching you as you give them the verbal command, loudly, "Get away from me! Stop! Step away!"

The added deterrent is reports of women defending themselves against bad guys so that bad guys think twice about harming innocent people (there are plenty of stories of this every year... 200,000 women a year deter crime against them with a firearm...).

That it leads to more violence is not shown. See the links above that I posted.

That a woman could be convicted of murder is unlikely if the scenario was clear and called for lethal action (laws allow for this).

From the sound of it, you're saying that it's better to be murdered than to defend yourself because some jury somewhere MAY not agree with your action. That's why we need to be educated on the laws of our state and how to properly stop a threat. Education, education, education.

I'm baffled why many point fingers at innocent citizens instead at at those perpetrating horribleness of rape, murder, molestation, kidnapping that bad people do that are often prventable if people took their constitutional rights seriously and got some training. Something is horribly backwards that we allow the perpetrators to sound like victims and the victims turned into evil mobsters.

Note the Supreme Court in 2005 said it is our obligation to protect ourselves and not to count on the police. The precedent has been set. The Supreme Court of our land is telling us it's up to us to be smart and that firearms, used properly, can prevent social chaos and injury.

Carrying a "concealed" weapon is not legal in most...

2009-11-11T05:37:12.258-08:00

Carrying a "concealed" weapon is not legal in most of the US. Besides, if it were concealed, this would not be any kind of preventative the act of violence. It would only increase the chance of a fatality occurring during such an encounter. Surely that only makes the situation worse. For women to display a weapon as a deterrent, perhaps. For a woman to shoot anyone who is going to subject her to violence, that will only lead to more unneccessary death and not decrease the rate of these offences. Plus, if you have insufficient evidence, the woman could still be convicted for murder under federal laws even if her situation had been severe at the time.

Mandy, I can certainly agree that in all but the m...

2009-11-10T21:27:50.426-08:00

Mandy, I can certainly agree that in all but the most extreme cases, lethal force must not be used. Some think Nazis are extreme... others thing any bad guy threatening children is Nazi-like behavior, etc.

And while it is a constitutional right to bear arms (implying a moral obligation of self-defense that citizenry need the ability to fulfill, at least from the view of the founders), the time the Constitution was written was among a culture of many well versed in the use of arms. Today is not that way. Most shy away from guns, are not encouraged to get to know them, refuse training, and are often afraid of them because of mystery rather than knowledge. I'd like to see firearm education and financial education taught right alongside sex education in our schools. We need people as trained as police officers when it comes to awareness of a weapon. While I don't want to remove the right of granny to use whatever self-defense she needs to, I also want to see the opportunity and responsibility for granny to be trained instead of telling granny she cannot defend herself in the most extreme cases.

In fact, I'd like to see police officers better trained. From the chatter from law enforcement officers online, most mandatory practice is very minimal for them to sharpen their skills. I'd like to see more of it. The Supreme Court said in 2005 that police officers are not to be depended on for our protection (see Gonzales vs. Castle Rock) and that we are responsible for ourselves.

Interesting thoughts on Bonhoeffer's regrets. While I don't think he's the standard on what is considered just war and just self-defense, his thoughts must be wrestled with for any reasonable conclusion.

Thanks for the discussion, Mandy. As always, it's great to hear from you!

Thanks for your thoughts on this. Police officer...

2009-11-10T20:54:53.838-08:00

Thanks for your thoughts on this.

Police officers are specially trained, undergoing months of training, to know how and when to use arms against another. This is one good reason for leaving this to them.

Bonhoeffer was a proponent of nonviolence, though he admitted straying from his nonviolence convictions. He attempted violence because of the extreme severity of the Nazi regime. Bonhoeffer actually was tormented with guilt for his attempted violence, which he admitted didn't accomplish what he wanted it to. It seems implicit in his writings that if the threat was less serious than what was occurring in Nazi Germany, the appropriate response would be peace and love, and not violence.

I wish I had time to dig up the references; I'm sorry I can't be more informative. But I'm thankful to you for challenging my convictions. Blessings to you both!