Ex-Marine, XFit Owner, Ex-Good Guy With a Gun
It’s time to play everybody’s favorite game show, Good Guy With a Gun, starring ME, Tio Primo. Let’s go to our first round:
You come upon a couple fighting, and the man fires a gun twice into the ground, wounding his wife’s ankle, and then gets in his truck to leave. You are an ex-Marine who owns a crossfit gym named for a kill zone, “Crossfit Abattoir” (catchy!). Contestant 1: What do you do?
“Well, Tio Primo, I’d try to note his license plate, and call 911.”
Interesting, but moronic. Contestant 2, what would you do?
“Tio, I’d call 911 AND assist the woman writhing in pain grabbing her bleeding ankle.”
I’m sorry, you’re BOTH morons! The name of the game is “Good Guy With a Gun,” and neither of you used “gun” in your answer.
THAT’S a winner!
I swear, people, if you’ve heard me say it once, you’ve heard me say it 357 times: people who buy guns “for protection” just CANNOT WAIT to use them on somebody, especially someone with different melanin levels. I have trouble feeling sorry for either of them, and I’m glad they both won’t ever be packing again.
Update: fixed link – soooorry!
Owwwwch!!! Honey, tell it like it is!
1Hoist on his own petard.
2Cleaning out the gene pool one bullet at a time.
3” people who buy guns “for protection” just CANNOT WAIT to use them on somebody, especially someone with different melanin levels.”
There’s that, Primo. My general advice to those inquiring about a gun for ‘protection’ is don’t. Do not do it, unless you are prepared to kill someone. A gun does not protect you, unless you shoot first. Displaying a gun gets you killed. Illustration above ….
4I long ago got tired of reading stories about what would have been a bloody nose or black eye turning into at least one dead guy because some jackass had a gun. Couple of times a week in the news, not counting the incidents I don’t read about.
5The link to the story isn’t working for me…could someone post the actual link, please?
6Amen, brothers and sisters. The NRA propaganda machine is DEAD wrong about this and so many other issues.
7http://crooksandliars.com/2016/05/marine-vet-tries-be-good-guy-gun-gets
8Besides, if you keep a gun for protection, the crucial thing is, WHERE ARE THE DANG BULLETS? I KNOW I HAVE SOME HERE SOMEWHERE….I druther not have a gun, thank you.
9Never mind. Found a link. From the photos, our good-guy may be one of those who hadn’t come all the way back, so to speak. (And I wonder what his discharge said…) It was a stupid decision, which does not do credit to his training in the Corps.
10That’s kind of harsh, Primo.
11Question for the NRA:
Since the good guy with a gun entered the physical space of the bad guy with the gun, is the bad guy entitled to STAND HIS GROUND?
12Sorry as I am to have to say it, the vigilante cowboy method rarely works. It usually leads to more bloodshed, and in cases like this, a murder charge that wouldn’t have happened without the attempt at armed intervention.
I live in a state with heavy opened and concealed carry. I have NEVER heard of a case where anyone has successfully defended himself or anyone else off his own property, and have heard of way too many attempts to use a gun to intimidate someone in public.
13Rick, the shooter has a couple of good defenses. When the gun was pointed at him, his training “took over.” He disarmed and neutralized the threat.
Tragic for the wife and children of the good guy. He most probably was a good guy. He wasn’t about to sit for domestic violence. But as Elizabeth Moon indicated more was happening in his mind that he abandoned his training. Maybe his military experience or a flashback to domestic abuse in his childhood.
14Vickie, I hear you, but I don’t think it’s too harsh on the abuser who pulled a gun in a domestic dispute, nor on the guy who calls his business “abattoir” (Marine + abattoir=Haditha, immediate connection in my mind) which is what killing zones and Manson scenes are called. I read this guy loud and clear.
Nor would it be too harsh on the moronic parents who paused briefly on a family trip to Historic Hoover Dam in 2014 just long enough for their 9-year-old daughter to shoot an Uzi instructor in the head and kill him.
Nor is it too harsh on the formerly-moronic-now-dead Uzi instructor whose whole business model was based on handing out Uzis to nine-year-old girls.
WHY DO NINE-YEAR-OLD-GIRLS NEED UZIS? I don’t know, but now she needs therapy, so, there’s that. Can I be too harsh on those adults?
I’m sorry because I know that my tone can sometimes come across as to callous or uncaring, but this is a serious problem that kills many innocents every year, and has turned our police forces into jumpy shootists, and examples MUST be made of these people in order to try, somehow, desperately to encourage change, not just in the laws, but in people’s hearts and minds.
GUNS ARE NOT THE SOLUTION – GUNS ARE THE PROBLEM
Sometimes, you gotta be cruel to be kind.
15Amen to this statement, Primo, daChip and your other aliases:
“GUNS ARE NOT THE SOLUTION – GUNS ARE THE PROBLEM
16Sometimes, you gotta be cruel to be kind.”
2 more down…
17It seems that some gun owners just can’t get those TV and movie scenes out of their heads. You know, the scenes where the hero/heroine uses his/her gun to bring peace, and law and order to a tense situation involving guns! I’m a gun owner, but there’s no way I’d use it to try to resolve a conflict involving other people and their guns. I’d be like you, Primo, I’d dial 911, wait on law enforcement to arrive and handle the situation which would leave me alive and able to spend more time with my family. This guy died in front of his wife and left two kids behind and all because he couldn’t pass up an opportunity to play hero.
18Primo is right that “People who buy guns for protection…”–people who think they are the good guy, the about-to-be hero, who feel braver with a gun in hand, are also the ones who a) need to have it handy always, b) need to have it loaded always, and c) need to shoot it because in their minds that’s what you do. See bad guy, shoot bad guy.
Many of them are ill-trained in their so-called gun safety classes for their concealed carry permit. So ill-trained that on the way home, they have to stop the car/truck and fondle the thing to remind themselves they have it (and shoot themselves “by accident” [stupidity] in the car), who shove it into a pocket or purse insufficiently stablized so it falls out and “goes off” injuring themselves or someone else, who treat ever rise in their own adrenaline as proof of mortal danger justifying shooting someone.
There are reasons to own firearms not based on the current hysteria. If you live in a rural area, a firearm can be an appropriate tool if you a) have the training and b) have the character to use it appropriately and only appropriately. (Obviously diseased animals, loose aggressive dogs that can be scared off by a shot into the ground, legal wildlife or your own livestock that you intend to eat, injured livestock that will die painfully of their injury–for example, a cow with a broken leg.)
I do know of someone who scared off an intruder who broke into their house at night by firing down the hall. (Missed the intruder but intruder left.) (about 10 years ago) My own mother scared off an intruder when home alone in the country as a teenager by firing down from the second story. Again, missed the intruder but he left rapidly (sound of running footsteps.)
Nonetheless, and though she owned firearms throughout my childhood, we lived in town and she never used hers for anything but target practice out in the boonies. My training from her emphasized the danger of guns, the safety issues with owning, with target shooting, with hunting, and her own choice not to use a gun to protect herself. (Hers were stored disassembled, unloaded.) My training in the Marines emphasized absolute responsibility for one’s weapon–from cleanliness to access to discharge–exactly replicating my mother’s.
So I disagree with those who can see nothing in guns but evil intent, and I disagree with those who glorify guns and gun ownership. Guns are not the solution to living in peace with one’s neighbors. Guns are not the solution to a “crime wave.” Guns are, in the country, a useful tool, dangerous like a chain-saw is dangerous, but useful. (A chain saw won’t kill someone a half mile away, but it will sure kill the careless user.)
19RE Useful tool argument
I have tried 40+ years to make the useful tool argument in a compelling way. I have met abject failure. Like hammers, screwdrivers and crowbars, handguns, rifles and shotguns are each useful in their domains but are not interchangeable. For example you *could* hammer a screw into two pieces of wood but using a screwdriver is way easier and ultimately better. Likewise all are dangerous used carelessly or with malicious intent. Also true is hammer, screwdriver or crowbar “won’t kill someone a half mile away,” but it will sure harm a careless user or bystander.
20I have a vintage branding iron affixed to the wall of my bedroom. A display piece of no great intrinsic value, it beats a Louisville Slugger for close-in defense. It is lighter, shorter, and easily wielded if the user is trained. Shore Patrol school in 1976 took care of that. A truncheon would work as well, but it’s not very decorative.
Remember: within 7 feet, a knife beats a gun.
21Useful tool is what Donald Trump calls everyone in Donald Trump’s orbit not named Donald Trump.
22Gotta call out NRA on this: they want you to kill whenever you pull the trigger. Not disarm, that’s way too sissy. For them, dead is way better. Thats why I don’t have a gun. Odd how they never post anywhere the number of shootings, fatal or otherwise, done by very young children who get their hands on the household gun bought for protection.
23Edged weapons are my friend. Renaissance style fencer, preferring rapier and dagger to other combos. Suitable, though, only for people whose natural or very-well-trained combat style is more attack than defense. A knife beats a gun in speed only if you strike at once.
However, I would rather depend on deadbolt locks, strong doors, and so much junk on the floors that anyone unfamiliar with the place and trying to maneuver it in the dark will trip or slip and fall down, allowing me time to use the old cast-iron frying pan. Which usually has some bacon grease in it, so if it doesn’t break the skin, it’ll break the skull and the bacon grease running through their hair will make them think they’re bleeding to death. I probably should not mention the oak-hafted spear by one door, but that, too, is a useful weapon for someone who approaches with a knife. There was a video from somewhere in N. Texas where someone in the SCA chased an intruder out of his trailer with such a spear. SCA members, which I’m not (found it too late) have dispatched armed intruders with various period weapons–a mace, a sword, that spear.
24that is a bullshit way to end your post, primo. tragic outcome, but there was a “good guy” and a bad guy, and to lump them together with the comment “…i have trouble feeling sorry for either of them……” really shows a side of you i don’t like.
it certainly could and should have been handled differently in hindsight. having been in the shoot-no shoot predicament more than once i can say that , as an outsider you don’t have much appreciation for the effect of prior training and the marine corps ethos of protecting your brother…even at the risk of your own well-being.
i don’t know the background of the marine who was killed, but i do know that his motives to intervene were unquestionable. what is questionable is the course of action he took, but without being there and in his skin, i wouldn’t try to double guess his options.
i really enjoy reading your political commentary. your observations about owning a firearm and the incentive to use it when another avenue is available is hard to argue against. you’ve strayed a bit here from your area of expertise in my opinion.
bill
usmc grunt 1958-1983
25Point taken, and I might be over my skis a bit here and if I am, I apologize. On the other hand, I may have my man down cold here. But I’ve been wrong before. I’m sure it will be covered in some depth.
26My relationship with guns is nearly identical to Elizabeth’s. I grew up on a farm and we never even imagined pointing a gun at a human. There was no need to discuss that because it was simply inconceivable.
27To Elizabeth Moon’s “people who think they are the good guy, the about-to-be hero, who feel braver with a gun in hand, are also the ones who a) need to have it handy always, b) need to have it loaded always, and c) need to shoot it because in their minds that’s what you do. See bad guy, shoot bad guy.”
I can add only:
If you’re holding a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
28If he had survived, the “good guy” would likely have faced charges as well as the “bad guy.”
Legally, the only time deadly force is justified is when there is danger of imminent harm — the operative word being, “imminent.”
The situation was deescalating when he took action. Harm was not imminent.
In fact, if he’d kept his hands in his pockets no more harm would have come to anyone on the scene. None. The woman with the shot ankle was in a Walgreen’s parking lot. What does Walgreen’s sell? First Aid kits. And, if she didn’t have a phone in her purse to call 911 with, the store certainly did.
It’s a shame he was killed but it’s a Very Good Thing that no toddler strayed into the line of fire which very well could have happened in the heat of the moment. Then there would have been a real victim here. Not that the NRA would have cared, of course – because freedumb.
No. That was a joke. I made it up on the spur of the moment. Not freedom OR even freedumb, ftm. Profits in gun manufacturer’s pockets. That’s the whole and only point.
29@ Marge Wood:
I’m with you sister.
Long ago, I came to a realization. If someone entered my home without my consent and I had a gun in my nightstand, I might pull it. And then I would hesitate. So the Bad Guy, if he hadn’t arrived with a gun, would suddenly find himself in possession of one AND he would be p-o’d at me for having pulled it on him. I would be far worse off than I would be if no gun were present.
No thank you.
30Well said, Primo. The “Good Guy With A Gun” myth propels the sick gun culture in this country, more than any other factor.
31This is a comedy of tragic proportions made worse by the NRA and its shills who swear you are safe with a gun and even safer with more guns. A gun can make you feel bulletproof-like the courage you get from alcohol. It also impairs judgement, imho.
Too late the hero.
32Didn’t hero Waldo MacDork shoot Liberty Valance in the back in the movie? Never watched the movie because I hate John Wayne. The song recorded by Gene Pitney was fabulous and no the song actually had nothing to do with the movie.
33@EPO
Are you kidding me??????? That was one of the greatest movies of all time. If anybody in history needed killing, it was the villain Liberty Valance. And eventually he was. But rent the movie it is worth a watch.
And yes the song was pretty good as well. The lyrics do foreshadow the movie plot in an oblique way, Im<ho.
34Micr is dead on!
“This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes the fact, print the legend.” This quintessential indictment of complicit media (and also American history writers) is one of the best lines in the history of cinema – worth the watch just for that.
epo, picture this: a Senator returns to the site of his origin story for a funeral, and must face up to that origin story, which just happens to be a John Ford western starring John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart.
Oh, see it!
35@ MICR- I put my way through college with the GI Bill and a 32 oz. Estwing hammer building post-frame agricultural buildings( what most people call pole barns. We commonly drove the lag screws which held various bits of hardware in place. The threads are for taking them out.Generally speaking I agree with your basic premise and sympathize with your inability to make the “useful tool” argument. In reply to those ammosexuals who point out that more people are killed annually by hammers ( or swimming pools) than by guns I often challenge them to bring me evidence of a drive by hammering or swimming pooling or to show me where some deranged nutcase has smuggled a hammer or swimming pool into an elementary or school movie theater or and dispatched numerous children(people of any age) with it.
36They can’t show proof but they will contend good guys with guns scared swimming pools away and tell you to prove they did not scare swimming pools away.
37@l’angelomisterioso
Good on ya! But I didn’t pull the hammer vignette from my errrr imagination. I have banged in a few screws with my Craftsman framing hammer. But with the 20-20 hindsight that is my 60s I realize some of those bang it in with a hammer decisions weren’t my best ones.
I will use your drive by hammerings and poolings because I think they make sense within the argument that I envision. Maybe I should just slip that old Craftsman in my belt and walk aboot with it. After all it is JUSt a hammer!
38That’s why I have throwing axes at my bed. I have to be sure of the target and then let loose. I also have a couple of bows and 2 swords. I don’t need no stinkin’ guns!!!
39Too bad more people don’t…imagine….Sorry officer but my ax accidentally got thrown …. really!!! Or try shooting yourself in the chest with a bow, yes you can do it but no way it is an accident!!! And the nice thing about the ax is that even if the blade does not hit you, you still get a concussion or broken ribs!!