Gun Nuts Media

The news says Ted Kennedy will be buried at Arlington. I am personally offended and repulsed by this, as I do not believe that a lifelong enemy of the Constitution has any right to share the soils with our nation’s greatest heroes.

Our heroes, our warriors, our sons, brothers, parents, wives, and daughters who gave their lives to defend the ideals of our nation hold that ground. In his life Ted Kennedy wasn’t worthy of the blood those men and women shed, and in death to inter him in the same soil is an offront to the memories of those who fought and died for America. May Arlington’s ghosts reject you, Ted.

I concur.

I was watching ESPN this morning while doing Crossfit, and during the course of the workout they showed a few clips from an interview with Plaxico Burress, former NY Giants wide receiver.  For those not up to speed, Plaxico was convicted on Monday of felony firearms charges stemming from a negligent discharge he had in an NYC nightclub last year.  I think that it’s valuable for us as gun owners to revisit the incident and see what lessons can be gleaned from Plaxico’s experience.

1. Don’t carry illegally: Plaxico did not have a New York carry permit for his pistol, and as such was in violation of the law by carrying his gun.  Seriously, don’t carry firearms illegally.
2. Use a holster: during the interview I saw, Plaxico described the circumstances of his ND.  He said he was ascending a flight of stairs, and felt the gun slipping down his pants and sliding towards the ground.  He grabbed at the gun to keep it from hitting the ground, and got his finger into the trigger guard resulting in the “bang”.  Get a good holster and a good belt.
3. Don’t try to catch a dropped gun: most modern firearms, such as Plaxico’s Glock are “drop safe”, meaning they can be dropped on a hard surface and not discharge.  If you drop your Glock/XD/Beretta, don’t do something dumb and try to catch it.  That leads to NDs.  Of course, if you carry a gun that isn’t drop safe, like a some com-bloc import Makarov or something, you should still NOT try and catch your gun, just pray a little harder as it heads to the ground.
4. Seriously, get a good holster.

All illegalities of the situation aside for a moment (I assume we’re all smart enough to not carry illegally) the holster/belt issue is probably the best lesson to bring home out of this.  In the interview, Plaxico said he had the gun in his waistband, which we’d call Mexican-style carry, and as mentioned above it started slipping when he went up the stairs.

In IDPA, we have what’s called “the jump test” for holsters and ammo carriers.  Wearing your gun, you should be able to jump 3 inches in the air (toes off the ground) and land without your firearm getting dislodged by the movement.  If your carry rig doesn’t keep the firearm stable during this kind of extremely LIGHT psychical movement, then it’s not going to retain the gun properly if you have to run, jump, or perform strenuous movement often associated with fighting for your life. Get a good holster, and get a proper belt to wear it on.

Recently at my dear old Purdue, there was a student involved shooting that tragically ended the life of a young man.  I say tragically because this was an entirely preventable incident – it wasn’t a violent crime, it was an act of negligence on the part of the shooter.

Lynch, a Purdue junior, told police the shooting in his campus apartment was an accident. West Lafayette Police Sgt. Jason Philhower said Lynch and his roommate, William Calderon, 22, of Fort Wayne, were playing a joke on Siela when a semi-automatic handgun discharged and the bullet struck Siela in the neck.

…

Lynch and Calderon, also a Purdue junior, pointed handguns at Siela when he left the bathroom. They thought both guns were unloaded but Lynch’s gun fired a shot.

Now, both Lynch and Calderon were legally intoxicated at the time of the incident as well, which demonstrates my additional point of “guns and drinking don’t mix”; but even more so than that, “guns and being an irresponsible idiot don’t mix”. Obviously, this story has violations of 3 out of 4 of the rules of gun safety: 1) all guns are always loaded, 2) Don’t point guns at stuff you don’t want to see full of holes, and 3) keep your snot-hook off the bang-switch. Just a little bit of common sense would have prevented this tragedy from occurring.

The sad thing is that the kid who pulled the trigger probably would have killed someone even if he didn’t own guns. Someone who is willing to be irresponsible and dangerous with a firearm is going to be irresponsible and dangerous behind the wheel of a car, or while doing any number of activities that society trusts people to do that cause common peril. The lesson here is of course fundamental for gun owners: don’t point guns at people. It’s not funny, and it’s not an appropriate “joke”.

The only other comment about the story is the reporter’s creative weasel-word insertion here:

One gun was legally registered to Calderon but police were unsure who owned the other gun.

That’s some kind of magic trick there, since we don’t have a handgun registry in Indiana. Perhaps he meant “the police were able to verify that Calderon was the original purchaser of the gun”, but then that wouldn’t make it sound like we already have a registry. Why would you want people to think we have a gun registry? Because if a reasonable person believes that we have a handgun registry, anti-gunners can paint people opposed to such a registry as being “crazy”.

It’s a nice effort, John Tuohy, but it’s not going to fly. Stick to reporting the facts, and leave the editorializing to guys who know what they’re talking about.