Schneier on Security

Doug Coulter • June 11, 2008 7:55 PM

Sounds like we have enough people here alone to start a nice religion ourselves. Perhaps we should. I know I feel much safer when I’m packing. Except when I discover I’ve forgotten I am and have somehow gotten to the “wrong” side of the metal detector, obviously set for a low false alarm rate, numb enough to miss my tiny titanium alloy gun.

One wonders whether to admit the mistake and go through who knows what, or just sneak back out?
I’ve taken the latter course, of course.

Let’s call the new religion “self reliance”. Or “personal responsibility” or even “survival of the fittest”. Perhaps simply “be prepared”. Yes, I know the above have been co-opted by organizations and religions many admire, who just didn’t quite put it all together.

Or simply “the ready”. Having a gun (or knife or piece of string — or simple situational awareness and physical skill) doesn’t automatically make one the victor or even a survivor in a bad situation, but they can surely help.
I am considered armed, for instance, even while naked — black belt. How would they search for >that<?

I too have had a knife “misfire” by being too sharp, cutting through its sheath, and then me. So sharp I didn’t feel it until I tried to figure out where all the red paint was coming from — oops! But in general tools just sit there until used by someone —

And just because I have many tools that could be used badly, doesn’t mean I will. I’ll happily accord most others the same respect.

All we’d need is a wealthy benefactor willing to push it all through the court system in test cases until either the authorities tire of it, or everyone else begins to see the light and the pols go with the flow — an armed society is a polite society, and it is far safer when it is the norm to be armed than when only the nut cases are.

I am the weapon, the gun is just one of my tools.

(disclamer — just back from my private firing range where I practiced armed self defense this afternoon, to the detriment of a bunch of innocent paper targets. Not because I believe I’m likely to need the skill, but hey, it’s fun to be good at things.)

You can’t carry your M2 because it’s too heavy and too large! Takes a team for that one.
And impractical for most close in work anyway.
I suggest a FiveSeven, or maybe a Carbon15.

I agree — having an armed Sikh or anyone else obviously not a nut case around makes me feel better, not worse. If every crowd had only a few — there’d be a quick end to these ignorant mass killings. I know rather a lot of people who feel that way, and who would go in harms way to protect their fellow citizens without a second thought.

Perhaps that’s why nearly all mass slaughters happen in “weapon free” zones — which are respected only by the sane and law abiding. Psychopaths choose not to read the signs? Security theater at it’s worst — those zones make things more dangerous, not less.

Doug Coulter • June 14, 2008 1:25 PM

@jas

Sure, if it takes 500 yrs, we’d better get going soon!

Actually, we got going around the American revolution, at the very latest — the right to keep and bear arms is long standing, only recently abridged with disastrous results in most places it has happened. And we have a LOT more than 26 million in this country alone.

The total number of guns and yearly ammo sales prove that guns are just about the safest tool there is. The fraction of either compared to what exists used wrongly is the lowest of any tool extant. Millions of guns (over 100 million last I checked, maybe twice that) and billions of rounds of ammo, all expended with no harm except to targets and hunting. Far better record than say, automobiles.

People who have studied law and consequences will know that the police etc have NO responsibility to protect you ahead of “the event” — only to try and catch the bad guy later. Plenty of legal precedent in that case. As in rejecting suits from people who called the police frantically in known bad situations, and the police did not respond until after the death of an innocent. Too late, sorry.

And we should actually be glad of this — else police would sit outside the bars and liquor store and preemptively arrest people who are assumed about to be drunk, for example. There are many others — our laws are conveniently flexibly enforced in most cases.
In my state alone, certain normal sex acts with one’s legal spouse are felonies, for example.

Personally, though I have some Class III permits (hey, this stuff is fun!), I find machine guns (full auto) not to be the tool of choice in virtually every situation, even the Army set the current auto infantry weapons to limit to 3 shot bursts. I get far more points on paper targets per second on semi-auto myself, and so do most others. Mostly I shoot revolvers and bolt rifles, in competition. Not as remunerative as say, the PGA (if you’re Tiger Woods) but it more than pays for itself, fun not counted as an extra bonus.

Please explain why someone who cares about saving their own life, and possibly bystanders, when no one else is interested or capable, is an idiot. I’d really like to hear something lucid, but I tend to be disappointed.