Gun Grabbers Advocating for the Right of Some to Take From Others...Including Those Others Lives

Scott Morefield today, over at Townhall.com makes the case that Defensive Gun Uses Far Outnumber Firearm Homicides, But Gun Grabbers Still Want You Defenseless.

When a drug dealer turned irate customer stormed into the kitchen of a Milwaukee George Webb restaurant last month and cold-cocked a waitress who had apparently fallen short of his lofty service expectations in some way, he was driven away by a quick-acting co-worker who immediately pulled her conceal-carry pistol out of her pocket. Liberals, of course, hate this story and will avoid it at all costs. There’s a reason.

The study by Kleck et al found around 2 million gun uses per year. That same number has been confirmed by the CDC, who buried their own study because it didn't fit with the narrative. WaPo cited fewer cases, but the fact remains that defensive gun uses far outweigh criminal assaults with a gun.  The reason the numbers seem so high is that most defensive uses of a gun do not result in a shooting, or anyone being killed. If a concealed carrier takes a firing grip on his pistol, but does not draw the weapon from the holster, and the criminal breaks off his attack as a result, that is a defensive use of the gun.  It will probably not be reported to the police. 

Even if this were not the case, if the utilitarian argument was the other way around, the moral case for citizens having the right to defend themselves with the most effective means possible would still hold. We all have a right to life (which is not abrogated by the fact that a criminal who assaults another deliberately risks losing his life by his own actions.) If a governmental law says we may not have the means to defend ourselves, that immediately places the burden on the government. The fact that they do not provide that protection, and indeed deem themselves not responsible, is an indictment of that government every time a citizen is killed by a criminal.

Similarly, if a law does not restrict a citizen from having the means to defend themselves, but an employer does, that employer then takes responsibility rather than the government. That employer should provide security to protect the people working there who are defenseless:

First of all, kudos not only go out to the hero co-worker who had her pistol ready to protect herself and others, but to the ownership of Milwaukee’s George Webb restaurant who reportedly allowed its employees to conceal carry in the first place. In today’s age of feckless, spineless corporate leadership to whom political correctness seems far more important than saving employee lives, their courage should not be unemphasized.

I am glad all turned out well for the waitresses working at George Webb restaurant.  But I wish gun grabbers could see it from the position of those of us who have faced such attacks.  It is not our responsibility to die so the other guy can take our stuff.  But that is the proposition for which they are advocating.