azdesertrhino
02-02-2006, 08:14 PM
February 2006
Stand Your Ground
David Codrea
Gonna stand my ground. And I won’t back down — Tom Petty
Back in 1993, Florida had a problem. Tourists were being killed and the media was screaming bloody murder. Tourism being a mainstay of their economy, the state was desperate to turn things around.
Travelers were easy marks. Rental car decals and license plate designations made visitors to the Sunshine State stick out from the locals. Predators were quick to learn this, and quick to realize the likelihood of a tourist being armed was nil.
This is exactly what gun-rights defenders have proven time and again. Predators prefer low-risk prey. Being creatures of opportunity, they will attack any time, in any place.
You can’t effectively defend yourself unless you have the means to do so everywhere you are. The anti-defense crowd doesn’t like this obvious truth, and has fought laws that encourage concealed carry with hysterical warnings of “Dodge City” gunfights that never materialize.
Here’s another obvious truth: You can’t always avoid trouble. You can’t always run away. Sometimes, the most dangerous thing you can do when confronted by a predator is to turn your back on it and flee. That’s what prey does, and that’s what triggers the chase instinct.
So Florida took another progressive step to encourage peaceable people to defend themselves against real-world threats—they passed the Self-Protection Act, a “no duty to retreat/stand your ground” law. And with that, the rights-grabbers came unglued.
The Brady Campaign took out ads. They put out press releases. They dispatched zealots to Miami International Airport to pass out fliers warning tourists not to argue with Floridians lest they trigger a murderous response.
They asked people to “Imagine, if you will, the times in your life when you’ve been afraid of another human being … Now imagine that you killed all those people. Imagine that everyone killed all the people that ever gave them a nervous adrenalin rush.”
There’s no way such paranoia can be dealt with. The best response when confronted with such pathology is avoidance. But when neurotic distrust is codified into disarmament laws, we aren’t given that option. We aren’t allowed to just back away.
It’s not surprising that — when we hear about gun issue activists causing trouble — it invariably seems to come from the side that doesn’t believe in trust and self-control. We hear about one Million Mom March activist shooting an innocent man she believed killed her son. We hear about another getting busted for illegal drugs and a handgun.
Yet somehow — despite the fact there are 4 million of them, we never seem to read about NRA members getting in trouble like this. Does anyone really think the establishment media wouldn’t love such a story if they could find one?
It’s not our fault anti-defense misfits don’t trust themselves and transfer their self-loathing to the rest of us. Their hysterics don’t entitle them to impose their will on the rest of us under force of law. Just as we must sometimes turn and repel someone attacking our person, so must we defend against any who would attack our rights.
Stand your ground. And don’t back down.
Stand Your Ground
David Codrea
Gonna stand my ground. And I won’t back down — Tom Petty
Back in 1993, Florida had a problem. Tourists were being killed and the media was screaming bloody murder. Tourism being a mainstay of their economy, the state was desperate to turn things around.
Travelers were easy marks. Rental car decals and license plate designations made visitors to the Sunshine State stick out from the locals. Predators were quick to learn this, and quick to realize the likelihood of a tourist being armed was nil.
This is exactly what gun-rights defenders have proven time and again. Predators prefer low-risk prey. Being creatures of opportunity, they will attack any time, in any place.
You can’t effectively defend yourself unless you have the means to do so everywhere you are. The anti-defense crowd doesn’t like this obvious truth, and has fought laws that encourage concealed carry with hysterical warnings of “Dodge City” gunfights that never materialize.
Here’s another obvious truth: You can’t always avoid trouble. You can’t always run away. Sometimes, the most dangerous thing you can do when confronted by a predator is to turn your back on it and flee. That’s what prey does, and that’s what triggers the chase instinct.
So Florida took another progressive step to encourage peaceable people to defend themselves against real-world threats—they passed the Self-Protection Act, a “no duty to retreat/stand your ground” law. And with that, the rights-grabbers came unglued.
The Brady Campaign took out ads. They put out press releases. They dispatched zealots to Miami International Airport to pass out fliers warning tourists not to argue with Floridians lest they trigger a murderous response.
They asked people to “Imagine, if you will, the times in your life when you’ve been afraid of another human being … Now imagine that you killed all those people. Imagine that everyone killed all the people that ever gave them a nervous adrenalin rush.”
There’s no way such paranoia can be dealt with. The best response when confronted with such pathology is avoidance. But when neurotic distrust is codified into disarmament laws, we aren’t given that option. We aren’t allowed to just back away.
It’s not surprising that — when we hear about gun issue activists causing trouble — it invariably seems to come from the side that doesn’t believe in trust and self-control. We hear about one Million Mom March activist shooting an innocent man she believed killed her son. We hear about another getting busted for illegal drugs and a handgun.
Yet somehow — despite the fact there are 4 million of them, we never seem to read about NRA members getting in trouble like this. Does anyone really think the establishment media wouldn’t love such a story if they could find one?
It’s not our fault anti-defense misfits don’t trust themselves and transfer their self-loathing to the rest of us. Their hysterics don’t entitle them to impose their will on the rest of us under force of law. Just as we must sometimes turn and repel someone attacking our person, so must we defend against any who would attack our rights.
Stand your ground. And don’t back down.