Osler's Razor

Gun Incidents:

When we first moved to California in 1967, we naively moved into an apartment in a semi-rough neighborhood. There was actually a gang of hoodlums who were living there and were very intimidating. One afternoon following an especially crazy night in which the leader of the bad guys had busted down a door and beat another man in the building, my dad (in his late twenties at the time, seven years removed from his USMC service, and just months removed from his Texas residence), stuck a .357 in his belt and knocked on the door of the hoodlum and informed him and his "gang" that there would be a price to be paid for any harassment of his family. We moved fairly soon after that incident--but the men gave my dad and us a fairly wide berth in the meantime.

NOTE: I do recall the police coming out fairly often to our building prior to my dad's action--but to very little effect.

In re the second list, I have been around guns and gun people all my life. And I have heard numerous horror stories (cautionary tales) of people mishandling guns and inflicting harm to themselves or loved ones--but, praise the Lord, knock on wood, with all humility, I can happily report that I have no entries for this second group restricting my list to only real people that I have actually known.
 

To clarify, WF-- it sounds like you do have some stories for the second list. It doesn't have to be a fatal shooting; "inflicting harm to themselves or loved ones" certainly counts.
 

By stories I mean the story about the guy who knew the guy who had a neighbor who had one in the chamber and killed himself while cleaning his gun. Or the guy who had a coworker who knew a guy who knew his gun wasn't loaded and killed his friend horsing around.

I don't know any names. I cannot even say for sure that these aren't urban legends. These are stories gun people tell one another to constantly reinforce the obvious fact that they are handling VERY dangerous weapons.


So, by that same standard, I could also offer plenty of Clint Eastwood, "go ahead and make my day" stories as well. But it does not seem like those meet the criterion in terms of real people I have known rather than incidents I have read or heard about.
 

Mark, first, I do think that last person said "He had heard numerous horror stories" might have been referring to things from people he doesn't know, and so wouldn't count...correct?

In the first list, other than my dad being a gun owner putting some holy fear into some boyfriends of mine, can't count anything. Well, that and we've had friends who have hunted deer and duck and killed it for food--and I think that does belong on the first list, because that's food for the family (and free range healthy food at that--probably better for you than the meat at the supermarket)....and a good use of a gun in my opinion.

In the second list...
A friend of a little boy in our apartment found the boy's dad's gun and thought it was a toy, and shot the little boy and killed him. The dad ended up going to jail for a while (not sure what good that does---I'm sure loosing his son was enough and his family needed him then).

A relative of a relative was shot and killed by their wife (on purpose).




 

Oh, and more for the second list...

All the actors my dad told me about who accidentally shot someone with a gun that was supposed to hold blanks. He worked in the movie industry as a grip, so these are real stories...but they kind of merged in my mind so not sure how many or how many were people my dad knew personally.
 

WF-- Got it. Thanks for the clarification; you are right that stories heard 3rd-hand are too far afield.
 

1.The father of one of my brother's friends was shot and killed during a fight with a cabbie over a fare. This might actually fall into the first category, unfortunately. Apparently the man we knew was very drunk and threatening, and the cabbie shot him in self-defense.

2. A boy in my brother's class shot and killed himself in his garage.

3. There was a fight, over a girl, in the convenience store down the road from my house where two young men were shot. One died.

4. Not sure if this applies, but it's certainly gun-related. When he was a senior in highschool, my brother accidently brought a musket (issued to him by the school, for Civil War reenactments) to school and left it locked in his car in the parking lot. A security guard spotted it, and he was arrested and walked across the street to the police station in handcuffs. He was also suspended from school and the Civil War Reenactment club was cancelled. Even though the charges were later, mercifully, dropped, he never felt comfortable at the school again, and dropped out.
 

First category- People I know personally who have protected themselves or others with a gun: none.

Second category - People I know personally who have been harmed by guns:

1) A high school friend committed suicide with a handgun the family kept in the home.
2) A high school friend who was addicted to drugs murdered someone with a handgun while trying to obtain methamphetamine.
3) While hunting (when I was 13), another older teenager who was hunting with our group, pressed the point of his rifle against my chest and said, "I'm going to shoot you." He then pulled the rifle up and fired off a shot that went over my shoulder and past my ear, before laughing and walking away. This young man later spent a significant amount of time in prison for various violent crimes.
4) My sister was robbed twice at gunpoint while working in financial institutions.
5) My wife was robbed at gunpoint while working in a pizza restaurant when she was a young adult.
6) My wife's best friend was killed with a gun by her fiancé.
7) The father of a childhood friend of mine was killed, along with another man, during a robbery of a bar in our neighborhood.

These are the incidents I can remember right now without spending too much time thinking about this question. I have not mentioned the countless lives that have been destroyed by gunfire in the capital cases I have worked on for the past 20 years. Most of my life I have lived in states where people have great affinity for their guns. It seems to me that, on balance, guns overwhelmingly cause unnecessary pain and destruction.
 

1. A family we know well had guns in the home when the children (now people in their fifties and sixties) found the guns, when they were supposed to be locked up without ammunition. One son accidentally shot another son, permanently paralyzing him from the waist down for life. The family dysfunction that followed would exceed your character limit.

2. Another member of the same extended family owned guns and kept them at home. A teenager (known to the family) broke into the home, stole the guns, killed the man and his elderly mother, all for the opportunity to steal <$500.

The family I mention remains the most pro-gun people I know. These incidents happened in a rural area with hunting guns. I'm not sure that matters, but I think there's this idea out there that gun violence only happens in urban areas with handguns.
 

List one:

-I have an uncle who was able to scare off an armed burglar who had broken into his house using a rear window. Three children were in the house at the time.

-In high school I worked at a feed store that shared a wall with a convenience store/restaurant (all owned by the same man). One night a man walked into the convenience store with a revolver and demanded cash. The owner was able to disarm the man with a shotgun and detain him until police arrived.

-Five or six years ago, a man on PCP was running (completely naked) through my family's neighborhood. He had been tazed several times by police without effect when he ran off the road and began smashing a hose bib (which he had ripped from an exterior wall) against the back door of a neighbor's home. The owner stood inside the door with a gun and yelled at the man to leave (which he did, although that may have had nothing to do with the gun). The home was occupied by three people. The man was later captured in a fight that left two police injured and broke the man's leg.

-An immediate family member was attacked and raped in her apartment by a man with a knife. The same man, who had long evaded police, later attempted to break into the apartment of another young woman but was shot in the leg by the woman's boyfriend and captured at the hospital by police.

List two:

-After a rough divorce, the father of a childhood friend committed suicide with a handgun.

-My uncle's (not the same uncle as above) ex-wife, a woman with a history of mental illness, shot herself in the head with a shotgun with her young daughter in the next room.

-A law school friend of mine was robbed at gunpoint about two weeks ago in West Philadelphia.

I have never known anyone who was accidentally injured by a gun and for that I consider myself blessed.

 

1. none

2. none

I knew one little kid who was killed "playing with matches" (that's what my parents said), another who was killed crossing a busy road and I knew a guy who crashed his car on a country road going 90 mph when I was in high school. And although I have lost friends and classmates to death, those are the only three violent ones I can think of. Not bad for someone my age.
 

those incidents where a gun was used to repel or in response to a crime:

When the United States used guns to defeat the NAZIs. Boom. Argument over.
 

It's good of you to have people tell these stories. They're so much stronger, more vivid than the statistics I cite (like this one: you are 22 times more likely to be injured with your own gun than to ever use it against an attacker). So, thank you!

My lists:

List one: none

List two:

1. When I was little, a friend was playing with our babysitter's young son. The friend accidentally shot him between the eyes, disabling him for life.

2. My landlord in college was shot and killed by the men he was with on a hunting trip.

3. The four-year-old son of one of my clients found his father's gun under a bed and shot himself to death.

4. My sister Nancy, her husband Richard and their unborn baby were shot and killed in their home by a teenager who lived nearby.
 

RRL-- I think that one falls under the "military service" exception.

Unless you mean the Illinois Nazis. Man, I hate Illinois Nazis.
 

1.None
2.None
From reading through the other lists I see a recurring theme: ineffective police. Perhaps lobbying to have that corrected would eliminate the need to take the law into one’s own hands or rather, guns.
 

shouldn't number 4 in the original list be in the first category. That is, a neighbor shot and killed a drunk intruder into his house?

I've worked on many a case where a store owner or home owner used a gun in self-defense successfully. And obviously, the flip-side, where we prosecuted others for using guns in crimes.

but as for my personal inventory. Both are "none"

I will say I don't like people against guns using suicide as some sort of thing that will be eliminated if we just get rid of guns. Those people with problems will find other ways to do the deed, there is no stopping someone like that. In fact, suicide rates in other parts of the world don't go down when the numbers of guns goes down. In fact, other methods of suicide have gone up as time passes even in the most gun-free states.
 

Like IPLawGuy, I don't have any personal experiences of either type of gun encounter.

I do recall, when I was about ten years old, seeing a pistol lying in a messy closet in my grandparents' house. I was scared, told my parents, and there was a sudden nervous flurry of activity as my grandfather did something with that gun. I never saw it again, and it's probably why I'm terrified of them.

The Newtown shootings seem like a "perfect," if you'll pardon the word, case in point to show how guns someone bought to protect herself (Nancy Lanza) were turned against her in a particularly sad and awful way, by her own son.

 

1. My brother and I with the two loaded shotguns kept behind doors at all times ran off two men threatening (pushing the door open) to come in and harm my grandmother. We were 12 and 10 at the time. The police later apprehended them breaking into another house. Her response was 'Should have let you kids shoot them and saved the police the trouble'.

My grandmother while running two cafes during WWII shot two men trying to rob her at gunpoint, one in her garage and one who jumped on her running board. The police chief had recommended that business owners carry guns for protection. At 85 she could still shoot gourds off a canyon wall with her .45 semiautomatic pistol.

Myself to run off three drunks who tried to steal my car while my husband was changing the tire. We had our small children with us.

My brother who held two burglars at gunpoint for the police. They were trying to burglarize his neighbor's house.

My Father who shot one man and missed the other. They hit him from behind with a board and nail, but he was wearing a heavy hat at the time. He was really irked - said if he wasn't old, (58), fat and slow he would have gotten them both.

There have been many other times, both in my immediate family and close friends.

2. Gregg Abbott, our Texas Attorney general, paralyzed in a hunting accident - he is still a strong gun rights advocate and still hunts.

One classmate who hung himself - his family didn't 'believe' in guns.


Many more friends and relatives injured and killed in car wrecks, some by drunken drivers. Let's ban booze and cars.

Growing up, many of us had guns in our cars and trucks in the high school parking lot, especially during hunting seasons. We all carried pocket knives. We even had Western Days where we dressed up and brought our antique pistols and rifles and carried them to class all day. The teachers and coaches just checked them all to be sure they were'nt loaded. For Gangster Day, same thing - one boy brought his father's Thompson submachine gun in a violin case. We grew up knowing that guns were tools, and only idiots misused them. We were taught gun safety.

Lee