My Month with a Gun, A Response to Heidi Yewman

[Brian Pfleuger]

What will follow in this thread will be my description of (as a response to Heidi Yewman's piece) one month carrying a gun and having it prepared for home-defense and my thoughts and feelings related thereto.

I will use my god-like powers as staff to keep this thread locked until the month is up and my experiences are all journaled, at which point I will open it for public comment.

The background:

I have carried a handgun daily for about 5 years. I say daily but technically I carry most (90+% of) days but not all.

New York does not have a state-wide training requirement in order to be issued a handgun permit but my county (Broome) does have a requirement. The class (that I took) amounts to a safety lecture (The 4 Rules), an Assistant DA telling everyone not to bother carrying because Broome County isn't dangerous, and then firing 10 rounds at a target that is scarcely 5 feet away to "qualify". The accuracy requirement is "Don't do something dangerous.", in other words, there isn't one.

What follows is my daily journal, beginning July 23, 2013.

 

[Brian Pfleuger]

Day 1, 7/23/2013

Today was the first day in quite some time that I've thought much, specifically, about my gun while I was carrying it.

In some ways, it gives me some appreciation for the way Ms. Yewman felt embarking on her "adventure", as she describes thinking about her gun nearly constantly while she was carrying it.

Now, Ms. Yewman, being the head of the Washington State Million Mom March/Brady Campaign and on the Board of Directors of the National Gun Victims Action Council, certainly did not start out to write an unbiased, intellectually honest or fair journal. Her dice have been cast and she is firmly Anti-gun.

Still though, I recall the early days of my carrying a gun and I did think of it, a lot. That's me being a "gun guy". It didn't inspire fear or paranoia in me but I did think of it quite often. So, today, I was imagining what it must have been like for Ms. Yewman who has clearly, based on her own words, anthropomorphized firearms. She believes that their very presence is evil and dangerous. I can imagine that she would have a very hard time thinking of anything else.

I don't intend this to be, going forward, a journal about my thoughts on Ms. Yewman and I will endeavor to provide my own experiences and thoughts while I am carrying, as they concern my gun. However, there is in some ways a bit of a circular thought process. I realize that I will be writing this journal and so I'm thinking about the journal. The journal is about my experiences carrying a firearm and so I think about my firearm. One can see the dilemma of Ms. Yewman. She despises firearms anyway, she's never even owned one, carrying one is certainly entirely new to her, which tends to make one think about it AND she's planning to write of her experiences, which naturally inclines her to thinking about the gun even more. Further, I doubt that she went out of her way to acquire a comfortable holster and belt, which further leads to noticing and thinking about a gun when a person might otherwise forget about it.

It's not terribly fair of me to point of Ms. Yewman's bias without also discussing my own. Yes. I am biased. Obviously, I'm a staff member on The Firing Line forum. My dice have been cast. I am "Pro-gun". However, bias need not equate to an inability to be intellectually honest or fair. I can describe my experiences without spinning or exaggerating and without seeking out positive experiences to bolster my opinions.

So, going forward, I will endeavor to faithfully spell out my feelings and experiences about carrying my gun. I will continue to mention Ms. Yewman but I will try to do so in the context that something that she mentions in her writings correlates to my experiences that day and how my feelings and experiences on the matter differ from hers.

For the record, I carry a Glock 33 chambered in 357Sig. It is carried in an excellent, comfortable and durable Crossbreed Supertuck holster and held up by an equally excellent and durable Crossbreed belt, both of which have lasted the entire five years that I have carried and show no signs of failure or fatigue.

Ok. Enough blathering, I suppose. On to the point!

-------------------------------------------------
I carried my gun at work today, in my pizza shop. It's hot in there and even a very comfortable holster is sometimes annoying. Sometimes I take the gun and holster off, as I did today, and place them on a high shelf within reach of me at most times but out of sight of everyone and out of reach of children. Obviously, the location that I put the gun when it's out of my direct and sole control had, at some point, required some thought. I don't think it was really "special", gun thought though. It goes in a place similar to other things with which my kids could hurt themselves, be it knives, chainsaws, chemicals or Tylenol.

Since my shop is in the same building as my home, I see my wife and children frequently during the day. While I was wearing the gun today, my wife and kids decided to go for a bike ride. They all came in and gave me a hug. The kids, whose faces are about waist high, have long since learned to hug daddy on the "non-gun" side, lest they bonk their heads on the gun. I don't think it really makes any of us think about the gun. They never mention it in that context, even though we talk openly and often about guns in general. I wouldn't have thought about it either, except for the circular thought described above, knowing that I'd be writing this journal.

Otherwise, today was like most days. The gun just hung there on my waist and I ignored it.

Being home now and with the children in bed, I temporarily place the gun and holster on top of the refrigerator, where it will stay until I go to bed. Save the unlikely event of a violent situation manifesting, it will get no more thought between now and then than the refrigerator itself. Probably less, since I'm hungry.

 

[Brian Pfleuger]

Day 2, 7/24/2013

I realize today that I may have to take a page from Ms. Yewman's book and write of my experiences on a weekly basis rather than daily. I'm not sure yet, but there's not a lot for me to talk about concerning my gun on a daily basis.

As I described yesterday, most of my "gun thoughts" orient around the knowledge that I will be writing this journal. Thinking about the journal makes me think of Ms Yewman's journal and then I read hers again. It somewhat forces me to compare my perspective with hers.

In direct relation to my gun, the only lasting thought process today was when I was first getting dressed, I put on the holster and opened the safe to get the gun.

My thoughts were about my children but not the fear and dread described by Ms. Yewman. No, my thoughts were pride. A few days ago, the kids were in my bedroom when I was getting the gun out for the day. They are a 7 year old boy and a 5 year old girl. As they often do when they see my gun, they wanted to talk about it, especially the girl. You know what they talked about? Safety. She told me what she'd do if she saw a gun and I wasn't there, in the excruciating detail that only a 5 year old girl can do. She told me how she'd leave, eye-mid-E-et-lee D) and find an adult she trusts and tell them where the gun is and how she'd do that too if she was at her friend Teegan's house or some other friend's house, like Kiley or Madison or... well, you get the idea. Excruciating detail. Even if they wanted to touch it. She'd tell them not to and go find an adult.

I mention that memory because it stands in stark contrast to Ms. Yewman's fear and dread that her 15 year old son might find her gun and accidentally shoot himself or someone else with it. She opines that she had "...just straddled the fine line between being a responsible gun owner and an irresponsible idiot..."

I won't call you names, Ms. Yewman, but you weren't straddling any line. That situation was certainly irresponsible. Though perhaps not in the way that you might imagine. 15 years old and he doesn't know how to handle, more specifically NOT handle, a gun? You've never owned a gun before, I understand that, but you live your life dedicated to removing them from private ownership. You live your life trying to use the tragedies of the misuse of firearms in order to get them banned and it never occurred to you to teach your own child what to do or not to do should he ever find himself in a potentially hazardous situation with one? The irresponsible action was not the fact that you left the gun in your purse. It was leaving your child without benefit of the knowledge of what to do should he encounter one.

 

[Brian Pfleuger]

Day 3, 7/25/2013

Well, today was a tough one.

Something scary happened?! No... nothing did. I wore the gun all day and it hardly crossed my mind.

That's not a lot to write about but it's pretty... normal... isn't it? I mean, it's completely under my control and has no mind of it's own. It doesn't make me afraid or paranoid or even suddenly aware. I was aware, became aware, BEFORE... that's why I carry the gun.

Today was a very ordinary day. I never thought that anyone that came into the shop was about to attack me (not even the guy who was mad that I was out of peppers).

There was one thing the gun made me though... more ready. It doesn't make me ready. Readiness doesn't come from a gun but it does make me more ready... and that's not paranoia or fear, it's responsibility and reality. I could NOT carry a gun but it wouldn't make me less paranoid or less fearful. It would make me less ready.

 

[Brian Pfleuger]

Day 7, 07/28/13

I took a few days off from posting on this because...well... nothing of consequence happened. I carried my gun every day except Saturday, because I finished building a set of stairs that day and it was hot out.

I thought I should post today because it was somewhat unique in that I carried my gun to church. That in itself is not unique, I do that every week but at least it gives me something new to talk about.

Some folks might be surprised to learn (I'm sure Ms Yewman among them) that a "startling" number of folks carry guns in my church. We have a security team. On any given Sunday, there might be as many as a dozen guns in each of our church services. Certainly at least 5 or 6 every time. Even our pastor carries.

I say this because it reminds me of the whole point that Ms Yewman was apparently trying to make in her article... how dangerous it is for untrained people to be carrying guns.

She considers (at least) two dangers, apparently. One being "day to day" danger, meaning that the very presence of the gun will influence folks to do dumb, unsafe things and someone will get shot and, two, the danger of an actual incident happening and the good guy guns accidentally killing other good guys or unarmed bystanders. I was considering both of these (supposed) dangers today.

The first is easy to address. In the several years now that I've been carrying a gun (and our security team began about the same time as I got my permit, coincidentally), I have yet to see a single person play with or remove their firearm from it's holster at church, while other folks were around. It should be obvious then, that absolutely nothing is going to happen. Unhandled guns are safe guns.These folks are (almost all) untrained, with the exception of a couple of State Police and Sheriff's Deputies. Yet, nothing happens and none of them play with their guns.

The second issue, well, that's more complex. We have to make some assumptions and every one's assumptions will be a little different. On the one extreme, is the movie fueled, action hero, mall-ninja. They imagine a Rambo-like scenario where the bad guys always miss, the good guys never do and the hero saves the fair maiden just in the nick of time. The other extreme imagines that the perceived bad guy maybe doesn't even have a gun, or maybe he's just there to commit suicide or kill one specific person but every one else there with a gun thinks of themselves as the Rambo from the first scenario and, well, the bullets start flying. Every good guy with a gun misses the bad guy and shoots at least a few innocent bystanders. By the time it's all said and done, everybody is dead except the bad guy who has no idea what just went on and there stand a bunch of do-gooders who just shot everybody else in the room, probably even some of them shot each other.

Unfortunately for both fantasies, reality intrudes with some facts.

On the first imagined scenario, we all (with any sense) understand that the real world is never that clean and wonderful. We know (God firbid any such thing happens in our presence) there's a good chance that innocents will get hurt and maybe from a good guy's bullets (though this is exceedingly rare). We know that the bad guy won't always miss and the good guys won't always hit. We know that bullets aren't magic and won't blow the bad guy through a wall and he might keep fighting even after he takes several rounds... and we know that so might we, must we, if we have any choice at all.

We also know that the good guys aren't going to fill the air with bullets and shoot all the innocent bystanders, because...

There's other things we also know about the second scenario, you see, this idea of carrying a gun isn't new. Sometimes the folks over at Violence Prevention and similar such places seem to have the idea that we've come up with this new fangled concept about carrying guns and it's just nuts. Like, totally nuts, and only a bunch of loons would ever try it and we have no idea what might happen. The reality is that law-abiding citizens of the United States (and many other countries) have been legally carrying firearms (both concealed and open) for literally centuries. Some states today have (and have had for some time) no permit system at all. Any person not convicted of serious prohibitive crimes can buy a handgun through an FFL or private sales and carry it, depending on the state, open or concealed. At this moment, all 50 states have some sort of permit system (or allow carry/purchase without a permit) and at least 39 of the 50 (last I counted) were "Shall Issue" or no permit needed (Constitutional Carry) states. There are various estimates, and let's face it no one knows the exact number, that there are between 1,400,000 and 2,500,000 Defensive Gun Uses in the United States in a given year.

Put those numbers up against the "fantasies" of the anti-gun crowd. 1.4 MILLION (conservatively) defensive uses of a firearm every. single. year. Permits are issued to some extent in all 50 states (and now D.C.) and unlimited issue in at least 39 states.

Where is the blood running in the streets from legal firearms? There isn't any. Drug dealers and gangs continue to kill each other just like they always have and law-abiding citizens continue to NOT kill each other, intentionally or by accident, just like they never have before.

More specifically, where are the individual incidents where a would-be hero shoots up the innocents, thinking he's going to save the day?

You won't find those either, training requirements or no, it just doesn't happen. It's simply another construct of the same imagination, so well described by Ms Yewman, that makes firearms evil and deadly, absent any human intervention to make them act.

In a moment of more honest and deliberate reflection, we might consider the horror of a place like Newtown, Connecticut. We might imagine, what if? What if there HAD been a good guy with a gun there? Not "there", like in Columbine where the good guys were outside and stayed outside for the entire event, but really there. What if one (or two) of those ladies in the office had been armed? What if one (or all) of the teachers in one of those rooms had been armed? What might have happened?

Would they have stopped the lunatic killer? It's certainly not hard to imagine that they might have stopped him. We can't say for sure, assumptions again. Honest and deliberate reflection though... would it have been worse? The lunatic who perpetrated that horror wasn't stopped by anyone but himself. What mechanism could have made it worse? What if one of those ladies in that office had fired 6 rounds and killed that lunatic before he got to the children and what if 5 of those rounds from her gun had killed children? A horror, yes? Honestly, worse? He killed 26. If someone had intervened and stopped him but killed 5 children, it would have been horrible but it would have been less horrible. We would have never known what his plans were and if that intervention had cost 5 children's lives we would think it was awful and we would still grieve as a nation and I have no doubt, none, that VPC and all their ilk would be screaming... but it would have been better.

At my church, if it ever happens (God forbid), it will be better, because of a bunch of untrained but good guys (and a few gals) with guns.

 

[Brian Pfleuger]

Well, as you can see, I decided to skip last weeks entry as... frankly, there's just not much to talk about, which is kind of my point in this whole exercise but it doesn't leave a lot to talk about.

In any case, I'd thought I'd make a new entry today, address a few of my remaining concerns about Ms. Yeman's original piece and then open this up for comment.

I'll start with my own experiences from the last two weeks. I carried my gun every day since my last entry. I do more or less the same thing every day. None of it revolves around thoughts or fears associated with my gun. I work in my pizzeria, even had a cop come in for some food. He didn't seem to notice the gun under my shirt and I wasn't scared that he might or what he'd do if he did (which would probably be to ask me what ammo I used and how I like the gun.). I carried to church last week and today. I picked up my security team radio and looked around to see where the other security team members were sitting so I could take any remaining "strategic" seat. I wasn't scared the whole time or imagining that someone was coming in to shoot the place up every time the door opened. Interestingly enough, having the gun doesn't seem to make me paranoid or scared, as I'm already aware of the possibility of danger, it makes me relaxed. I know that, at the very least, I am prepared to make some sort of reasonable effort to defend myself, my family, my church family. I may not be successful. I may die or get hurt badly trying to help but, and this is the part that I find most fascinating about Ms Yewman's experiences, how could I possibly feel better if I knew I would be defenseless if the worst were to happen?

In my final critique about Ms. Yewman's piece, I want to start with her claim that a firearm is 43 times more likely to kill someone who lives in the home than it is to be used against an intruder. I suppose I could just leave it at one simple fact... the link that Ms. Yewman used to "prove" her point is actually an article written to DISprove her point, so you can just read there. You can also read here and here. I really can't add anything further to that argument, except to ask how seriously I might be expected to take someone's opinion when their supposed "proofs" are actually direct rebuttals of their claims?

Secondly, Ms. Yemman brings up suicide by gun and the supposed epidemic in this country. This is a straw-man argument.
The United States of America has, by far, the most firearms in civilian hands of any nation in the world. Not only the highest number but even with our many and varied (and asinine) gun control laws, we have the freest access to legal firearms of any nation on earth, aside from nations with little or no functional government or police force. So, we have the most and the most easily accessible.
How does our suicide rate compare to other "First World" nations? The US ranks somewhere between 13th and 32nd (Examples:Link 1 Link 2) for suicides per 100,000, which is the standard measure. Countries like Russia, China, Japan, Finland, France, Austria, South Korea, even Greenland, all have higher suicide rates than does the US. Sometimes as much as double or more.
Therefore, the correlation between firearms and suicide does not equal causality, a fact too often lost on too many people, including Ms. Yewman. In fact, study after study shows that the chosen methods for committing suicide are cultural. That is, a persons choice of a method of suicide is based on what is an "acceptable" way to die in their culture. The choice is not made because a method is available and quick, it is made because it is socially acceptable. The same studies indicate that when firearms suddenly become unavailable, the suicide rates do not drop, the METHODS simply shift. Access to firearms does not cause suicides to increase and the lack of available firearms does not appreciably effect the rate of suicides.

 

[Art Eatman]

I can't help but feel sorry for Mrs. Yewman's son. I and my friends began learning about .22 rifles and BB guns at age six or seven. We had cap pistols, also--and easily knew the difference between them. The result was that we took guns for granted and to us they were just no big deal.

Carry? Five nights a week at my folk-music night club, for two years. A few of the staff knew, and didn't ever mention it. None of the audience ever knew, and I did the Emcee duties. Never a problem of any sort.

 

[Frank Ettin]

A very important thread with some needed insights.

Furthermore, by your thoughtful and measured comments supported with reference to reliable sources you are a useful and much needed role model.

 

[Pilot]

I love it. A responsible citizen, properly trained, and with a proper outlook carries a gun without incident, exercising his 2A rights. How quaint!

Nice job.

 

[Skans]

I love it. A responsible citizen, properly trained, and with a proper outlook carries a gun without incident, exercising his 2A rights. How quaint!

Hey, I'm probably less responsible than Brian and have less training, and I still manage to carry a gun without incident!

 

[leprechaun50]

Brian, you must be doing it all wrong. No blood running in the streets? No family members maimed? You didn't shoot the gas tank in your car? You didn't leave a trail of bodies at the local Starbucks when you bought coffee? You must need some serious training,

 

[Closing The Gap]

When you're ready to get relieve yourself of the burden of having and dispose of your guns inbox me. I know exactly what you can do with them.

 

[pax]

Brian, this was an excellent series. Thank you for posting it. Although there aren't a lot of people talking in response, I think it's because we have so little to say about this ordinary behavior and our normal lives.

Are there entire discussion boards dedicated to choosing a wallet, and how to put it in your pocket every morning?

pax

 

[LewSchiller]

Need Help Choosing a Wallet for my Wife

Couldn't resist

Actually I did find the series informative - but mainly for the stat links and summaries. As Kathy said - to us it's business as usual.

 

[twins]

Nothing surprising to me with Ms. Yewman's piece and Brian's response. Both sides have their views and I fall right in the middle of both views. Neither side is 100% right to me.

 

[Jen-from-IL]

Something we all have to remember. Brian has a biased opinion regarding gun ownership too. He is FOR it!!! . Sorry every lady, just wanted to throw a little humor out there.

While I'm still very new to firearms and have yet to purchase my first one, I agree with what Brian presented in his postings. He is not an irrational person dreaming up even more irrational fears about what a gun will do. Shame the 'antis' can't seem to understand that the gun isn't responsible, but the person holding it.

 

[spacecoast]

Both sides have their views and I fall right in the middle of both views

It's hard to see how that's even possible.

 

[Pilot]

Nothing surprising to me with Ms. Yewman's piece and Brian's response. Both sides have their views and I fall right in the middle of both views. Neither side is 100% right to me.

Care to elaborate on which of Ms. Yewman's views have merit?

 

[twins]

Care to elaborate on which of Ms. Yewman's views have merit?

From Ms. Yewman's article:
"Responsible gun owners will seek out training. But what worries me—and what should worry everyone—is the irresponsible owners possessing some of the more than 200 million guns in the U.S. today."

This is one of my concern with our gun laws. There is no training required to purchase a gun. Age and a clean police record shouldn't be the only prerequisite. Therefore, I do not feel safer when I'm at a public range (no RSOs), nor in a public area where it is legal to open-carry (or conceal carry without attending a course). This is a huge topic on its own but since you ask, that's one of Yewman's view I agree with.

 

[spacecoast]

But what worries me—and what should worry everyone—is the irresponsible owners possessing some of the more than 200 million guns in the U.S. today.

Of course there are irresponsible gun owners, some of whom are criminals, gang bangers, etc. But that is is the price we pay for what we call "freedom" and a justice system where you are "innocent until proven guilty"... or at least that's the way it's supposed to be. Once someone commits a felony, they are likely to lose certain rights, including the right to own firearms.

There are plenty of other potentially destructive tools that require no specific training and no background check... knives, chain saws, hammers, mauls, gasoline, bleach, torches of various kinds, etc. And, despite the fact that they at one time passed a driving test, how many millions of irresponsible, unsafe drivers do we have on the road wielding machines capable of mass destruction?

Of course we would like to keep irresponsibility to a minimum, but not at the cost of freedom for the overwhelming majority who purchase and use their firearms in a responsible, safe manner. Ms. Yewman's citing of apple pie, motherhood and Chevrolet do not make her otherwise radical views acceptable.