Paranoia and guns are a volatile, toxic mixture
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Guns
Columnist Mike Williams asks whether recent shootings suggest it's time for America to break off it's love affair with guns.Ajury ruled Tahliek Taliaferro's slaying accidental. Protesters are calling it premeditated murder.
What's undeniable is that a night of bad blood and bad judgment would have resulted in little more than a fistfight without the weapons at Ethan Parrish's disposal.
A gun in the wrong hands at the wrong time has a way of turning a quarrel into a tragedy.
On the night of their fateful encounter with Taliaferro in Powhatan County, Ethan Parrish and his younger cousin, Joey Parrish, were rolling in an SUV with three weapons after a day spent drinking rum, smoking pot and taking LSD.
Ethan Parrish loaded an assault rifle with an 83-round drum clip and squeezed off six shots in the direction of the vehicle Taliaferro was riding in. Two bullets hit the ground, and four struck the car, killing Taliaferro and wounding another passenger.
And to think it all started with talk of a fistfight.
I thought of events in Powhatan while reading Sunday's article in the Richmond Times-Dispatch about the explosion of gun sales since Barack Obama was elected president. To hear gun dealers describe it, ammo is virtually flying off the shelves. A spokesman for a Missouri-based bullet manufacturer said demand was up more than 50 percent since late last year.
Said Lonnie Maurer, the owner of an Ohio-based ammunition dealership: "I've never seen this level of paranoia . . . out of what I would call normal people."
Paranoia and guns -- like alcohol, drugs and guns -- are a volatile and toxic cocktail.
Ethan Parrish testified that he was scared the night he killed Taliaferro, though other testimony suggests that Parrish and his cousin triggered the confrontation.
Gun enthusiasts say they're scared of their constitutional rights being eroded, or of civil unrest and increased crime because of the poor economy.
They're afraid that lawenforcement officers will try to take their guns. And they're afraid that the Democratic-controlled Congress will riddle the Second Amendment with bullet holes.
Me? I'm afraid of all these guns out here.
Perhaps I've read too few heartwarming tales in which the law-abiding citizen gets the drop on the bad guy. Too often, police seem overwhelmed by firepower -- see the recent slaying of four officers by a parolee in Oakland.
A man walks into a Carthage, N.C., nursing home and kills seven sick and elderly people and a nurse? An armed and mentally unhinged student massacres 32 people at Virginia Tech? For gun-rights advocates, these tragedies are merely proof that if more folks had guns, we'd all be better off.
In the Cold War, the idea that we'd be safer by matching the Soviet Union bomb for bomb was called mutually assured destruction.
The stockpiling of handguns and assault weapons will create no such standoff. There aren't enough guns to make us safer.
Contact Michael Paul Williams at (804) 649-6815 or
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Reader Reactions
RoyB you are I apologize for the gross mistake on United Flight 93. History doesn’t recount the names of people who stand by and just let things happen. We talk about people who have stood up to fight what is wrong no matter what the cost may be to them. Not only do we know the actual flight number they were on but their names as well. No matter how many times you tell the story, names will get forgotten when the victim just lets it happen because they don’t attempt to fight back. However we remember their name when a person fights back.
I generally agree with “mmcclure79”‘s comments, but a decent respect for the truth compels me to correct one statement: “Take United 93 for example. They fought back and took control of the airplane back from the hijackers and guess what, they are alive today to tell the story.“
Sorry, but while the passengers of United Flight 93 did indeed fight back, they are NOT “alive today”. They all died when the plane nose-dived into the Pennsylvania field.
This does not diminish their heroism, nor the excellent results of it. Because they were willing to resist—as each of us should do to evil—the hijackers were not able to murder more hundreds or thousands of people. The passengers resisted evil, even knowing that their own lives were almost certainly forfeit, and thereby saved the lives of many others. This is heroism.
Those of us who carry concealed weapons—at least some of us—know that we may well be no match for a dedicated and trained terrorist, but we also know that we will not willingly stand by helplessly while others are murdered in our presence. Resistance may be futile (spare me ‘Borg” references) but it is far better than passive acceptance.
I agree that paranoia like alcohol and drugs is a bad mix with guns, however law abiding citizens are not a danger owning guns. It’s when those who have no regard for the law or are under the influence have guns that they become a danger. To say that it guns that are bad when mixed with say alcohol is akin to saying cars are bad when mixed with drunks. It’s not the car it’s the drunk driver. There are a few towns in America that have passed legislation requiring those who are able to own a gun to own a gun. Take Kennesaw for example. In 2007 Police Lt Craig Graydon was quoted saying there was a substantial drop in crime when the law was passed in 1982. They have maintained a really low crime rate since then despite the rise in population. In fact their 2005 per capita crime rate was actually lower than it was in 1981 the year before the law was passed. To say that we should get away from our “love affair” with guns as Michael puts it is just insane. To take away legal gun ownership leave cops and criminals the only ones with guns. Now tell me who are the ones causing all the harm and damage with guns between those two? Criminals will break the law regardless because they are criminals. They have guns regardless if it’s legal or not while law abiding citizens will not. I would dare to say that most robberies and assaults happen because there is a good chance the victim has no way of defending themselves. If there was a good chance that the attacker may get shot, I believe they would think twice about actually committing the crime in the first place. When people learn that they are responsible for their safety until the authorities arrive (usually after the fact) they will be better off. Take United 93 for example. They fought back and took control of the airplane back from the hijackers and guess what, they are alive today to tell the story. All because they wouldn’t go down without a fight. Look at your history. Guns have allowed the common man to defend himself not only from the common criminals, but also from reckless government as well. Countries who have banned gun ownership by the people have quickly fallen to despotic regimes. Banning gun ownership in this country is not the answer, enforcing legal ownership and getting them out of criminals is the answer.
According to the Florida State University Dept. of Criminology, about 6000 times each day (2.5 million times per year), an American citizen uses a firearm to prevent a crime from occurring or to stop a crime in progress. However, in 99.9% of cases, the firearm is not fired. Merely brandishing the gun is enough to make the attacker cease, usually by running quickly away. Unfortunately for the truth, journalists rarely cover these stories, and in fairness to them, many times there isn’t even a police report made. Just two months ago, for example, I stopped a man who was trying to break into my car by brandishing a handgun and telling him to leave. He did—quickly. But I didn’t make a report of it to the police.
When the only thing you understand about guns is what you see on the evening news, you’re getting a distorted version of the truth. Guns are like black men, in that respect. If the only thing I knew about black men was what I saw on the evening news, I might well think they were all bloodthirsty, violent criminals. And some are. But the vast majority are not, and it would be wrong for me to judge the majority because of what a minority of them do. Likewise, there are 220,000,000 guns in this country, and about 9000 of them each year are used to murder someone. That’s 4 thousandths of one percent. In other words, 219,991,000 guns in the US last year WEREN’T used to murder anyone. The vast majority of gun owners in this country are good, decent, responsible citizens, and contrary to prior comments, they DO use those guns to stop crime. So while the press screamed and yelled about this guy who shot up the nursing home, they didn’t even mention the 6000 or so events that occurred that day—some, perhaps, right there in the same town as the nursing home—in which a gun was used to stop another crime. Oh, and what finally stopped the nursing home shooter? A cop. With a gun.
The police can’t be there because they are at the bars trying to stop all that dancing!
My guns make me feel safer. As a woman, I am physically no match for a man. Yes, my first option/priority is to get away from an attacker.. that is the smartest thing to do and. If that is not possible, I will use my gun and shoot. The fact that bad people have done bad things with a gun does not mean that they would not have figured out how to do bad things by other means. A vehicle for example, or a knife or a home-made bomb. Don’t blame the object for a person’s wrong. If you disarm the good.. the only people who will be armed are the bad.
Says MPW: “Perhaps I’ve read too few heartwarming tales in which the law-abiding citizen gets the drop on the bad guy.“
You are not the only one! Recently, a longtime family friend suffered a surprise home invasion—this crime was on the evening TV news here. Well, our friend is a legal gun owner, for the sole purpose of protecting of herself & longtime home. So what did she do when the invasion occured?
Ran outside and yelled for neighbors to call 911!
And so 3 months later, despite a very good description of invader (and also her neighbors providing an excellent description of getaway vehicle) the perpetrator(s) have still not been caught by police.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not criticizing our friend personally, nor am I knocking her reasons/right to have a loaded gun. I just wish legal gun owners would use them for the purposes claimed—popping dangerous criminals when the police can’t be there. If they did it would make their case a whole lot stronger!
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