Again our eyes have chanced upon the Smallest Minority and once again we see a theme that catches our interest.
Kevin is once again discussing self-defense, and he quotes our old friend Tim Lambert's justification for gun control:
If the law disarms attackers, then it can make self defence possible where it would have been impossible if the attacker was armed.
Kevin then offers various alternatives and then lists examples of legally disarmed British victims who suffered at the hands of illegally armed attackers.
Even assuming that Lambert's goal could be achieved and guns be made so rare as to be effectively unobtainable by criminals, how would the individual fend off the many?
Many criminals work in groups. They need no weapons to impose their will upon solitary citizens.
Numbers matter, particularly in hand to hand combat.
We doubt Lambert would consider a gang of teenagers vs one man an "even" fight, yet that is exactly what disarmament brings.
Predators always have the option of choosing the time and setting for their attack. That is why they usually strike isolated victims when police are not present.
A quick examination of the daily news digests back up this contention. So while the discussion thus far has been hypothetical, we can find actual examples to support this theory.
Now what of armed victims? Does the possibility that their attackers might be armed offset the advantage gained by being armed themselves?
In theory, yes. Imagine one man defending against four attackers. With no weapons or improvised weapons (clubs, sticks, rocks) the one man has little hope of defending himself. Even a trained martial artist would not relish those odds.
If we alter our scenario still further and make our victim elderly or physically weak, there is clearly no advantage at all gained by universal disarmament.
Now let us posit that both the victim and attackers are armed with handguns.
Is there a benefit to the victim in this change? Absolutely.
Despite the greater numbers, there is now a position of equality. The defender can kill any one and potentially all of the attackers. Previously, only the attackers had this ability.
Thus the criminals have gone from a position of impunity to one of great vulnerability.
Does this work in practice?
Yes. A cursory glance at keepandbeararms.org reveals several situations where outnumbered victims triumphed over their attackers by virtue of their firearms.
For example, a 93-year-old man deterred an attack by two young men merely by brandishing his old service pistol.
Does anyone doubt that this retired cop with bad knees had any hope of resisting that attack without his gun? The fact that the criminal fled rather than fight also demonstrates a second point: Criminals detest equality.
Criminals prey upon the weak. Like all predators, they go for the easy kill. That is why they almost always attack at night, with numbers, or seek isolated victims.
Again, flipping through the police blotter we see lone store clerks fending off nocturnal robbers or sleeping homeowners forced to defend themselves from a dawn raid.
The criminals quite naturally try to pick off the strays. Disarming the victims can only increase their vulnerability.
This should be obvious to anyone with an ounce of common sense or intellectual integrity.
Unfortunately, gun control supporters often seem to lack both, which is why they persist in their campaigns of fear and lies.
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