January 7, 2013
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Trigger Happy
I read yesterday on MSN that a "trigger happy mom" in Atlanta took a .38 caliber revolver and shot an intruder five times. She put the bad guy in the hospital while protecting her two kids.
When I was in college, I took a class in editorial techniques. One thing that the instructor emphasized was that when writing a story, the reader should not be able to tell what your political biases are. When reporting on issues, the reader should read the story and be able to decide the matter without being told what to think. He told the class that he used to make people mad. Not the readers, but the people he interviewed for the story were always upset with him. He was able to set aside his own bias and as fairly as possible present both sides of the issue. Objectivity is something to strive for, regardless of our personal biases.
The reporting I find on Yahoo News and MSN is not very good. I should never read about "trigger happy moms" shooting people. From what I have read, the mother and her two kids were hiding in fear of a home intruder. When he found her, she fired six bullets at the intruder, and hit him five out of six times. The intruder survived being shot five times in the head and neck. This tells me that she was not "trigger happy." It tells me that she was scared. Her system was loaded with adrenaline. No one under attack is "trigger happy." No one is happy at all.
Combat Handguns magazine was one of my favorite publications back in the 1980s. One of the more popular writers was Massad Ayoob, a police officer and a director of Lethal Force Institute. He would analyze self-defense shootings, taking readers step by step through the scenario where someone was in a position to where a gun had to be used in self-defense. Among the common factors I can remember were the way time slowed down as a person sees a weapon being drawn and the reaction of adrenaline being pumped into the system, giving the defender a boost in pulling his own weapon out. Then comes the very brief amount of time one has in properly aligning the sights, then pulling the trigger. When a person is in harms way and has a gun pointing back at it, no one is happy. Someone is going to get hurt. Someone just might die.
The sensationalistic way that MSN reported the story reveals a lot about the character of their writers. I do not appreciate the way that they managed to trivialize the shooting or they way in which they described the mother with the gun. I have no use for such sloppy journalism.
I used to own a number of guns back in the 1980s. Among them were a Smith and Wesson 469 9mm semi-automatic pistol, a Taurus M85 .38 Special revolver, a Cobray M-11 9mm semi-automatic pistol, and a Charter Arms Bulldog Pug in .44 Special, among others. The times I went target shooting, there was no laughter when shooting paper. However, watching the reaction to aluminum pop cans spinning around when hit was very funny. I can say I had fun shooting guns. There is a lot to be said about kicking brass and taking names. It can also be a stress reliever. In high school psychology class, the idea of "displaced aggression" was shared with us. A person gets angry, but has to keep it under control until a safe time comes around to properly and safely vent it. Instead of venting on the one who makes you angry, you take it out on an inanimate object or maybe a person who doesn't deserve to experience your wrath. If you can't hit your boss, you can always take your boss' picture and put it on a dart board and hope to score a lot of 20s. Or you can put it 25 yards downrange and shoot all the holes into it that you want. The anger is vented, the boss lives, and everyone is more or less happy to see another day.
If you have not taken time on YouTube to watch any of the videos produced by Kyle, then you are missing out on one of the better demonstrations of what "trigger happy" is all about. Kyle is an American who lives in Georgia, USA, not Georgia the former Soviet state. He takes on the persona of "Dmitri," a professional Russian on the FPSRussia channel. He picked up his Russian accent from a former co-worker while selling used cars. In his videos, "Dmitri" demonstrates a number of guns and explosives and other equipment, including a couple of tanks, one of which he drove to a burger drive through. I can say I have found it educational, and humorous, and disturbing at times.
Personally, there are times when I think the videos are funny, but I find myself disturbed with myself in that I find them funny. Hosing a keg of beer with fully automatic gunfire is way too cool, and yet, I have to be practical, knowing that somewhere because of political or ideological reasons, or just plain stupidity on the part of someone, a gun is being used to kill or injure another human being. The shooter may be a mother defending her kids. The shooter may be a cop shooting at a bad guy and hitting innocent bystanders by mistake. The shooter could be a terrorist. The shooter could be shooting a terrorist. The gun range is a good place to blow off steam, to make jokes, to have "a good time." Its okay to be trigger happy when the shooting is part of good, clean fun.
But in real life, the good guy with the gun hopes that he or she never has to draw that weapon. I was perfectly happy with the gun safely in my holster. Unfortunately, the bad guy doesn't think or feel that way. The only time the bad guy has a trigger happy finger is when he or she is inflicting harm on others. Bad guys don't care about the law. Bad guys don't care about you. Bad guys don't care about your kids. (Sounds like a lot of politicians I hear about in the news.) When the chips are down and the die is cast, there is no room for trigger happy people in the life and death struggle of a gun fight.
Comments (13)
My father had guns, and taught me how to shoot them. He used them to hunt, which I never had any wish to do, but I could make a coke can do all kinds of flips. He said never point it at anything you did not intend to harm/kill, even cans. I learned at about age 5 that guns were not toys, and by about 9 or 10 I was quite accurate with anything he had in his closet, but never dreamed that one might shoot a person with one. My ex husband was a military policeman, who then became a state cop. His instructions as far as a gun were simple. Don't point it at anything alive unless you're willing/able and intend to use it to kill them, and once you've decided that you're going to have to use it, shoot till the 'enemy' stops attacking/threatening you, even if you have to empty it. That's the advice that's served me well for more than a half a century. People in our generation learned things they just don't teach today...and that's bad. Maybe she was taught the 'use it till they stop attacking you' idea. Or not. Either way, I don't think the phrase 'trigger happy' applies at all there.
All I can say is I agree with you.
Sadly, I agree.
I've read two versions of the same news story before and the actual source article which gave rise to the other ones.
Guess which articles had the most hits/traffic as comments?
Prior to changing my major to journalism, I majored in law enforcement. I took a lot of the lower level classes offered at a community college, including the Introduction to Firearms class, which was taught by a Kentucky State Police trooper. Learned differences between the 'cup and saucer' stance of using a pistol and the Weaver stance that provided a more stable method of controling the gun's recoil. I changed my major to journalism in 1989. My first job after that was as a security guard for a mall. Later I worked as campus security for my university, and then after graduation got a job as a security guard for a company in Arlington, Texas. The school I am at now has me doing some security work now. In a different location computer equipment was stolen. They want to prevent that from happening again. Guess I have four years experience in security work.
The gun issue is not going to go away anytime soon. It is an issue of freedom and liberty that is at stake. Unfortunately, the more fearful and insecure one feels, the easier it is to divide the group. It is important to understand why the People need to have access to the same weapons used by the military and police. The People, when it comes down to it, are a line of defense for our country and need access to these weapons so they can bolster the ranks of the police or the military during times of crisis.
I am a believer in the potential effectiveness of the police auxiliary. Volunteer officers are given enough law enforcement training to where they can serve and protect, but with limited powers as they are not professional police officers. These volunteer officers using plain clothes would be authorized for CCW and using personal vehicles can easily guard school buildings far more effectively than a uniformed officer. The children would also not feel intimidated by the police officer in uniform, but would feel more comfortable with the friendly face of the auxiliary in plain clothes. Cities can save money on law enforcement, schools can become a much safer environment, and children can learn to respect the police because of the (hopefully) positive experience they have with them. Obviously, they would become role models in the community.
That is just one idea. Would it work? Maybe. But it is something that has not been tried. Some communities should try it out and see how effective it is.
I agree the gun issue isn't going away anytime soon. My hubby has said forever there are very subtle biases in the media. It really frustrates him.
She was terrorfied of course. It seems it turns out well that she had a gun. She did the right thing to make sure the kids were asfe and stay with them. She had to shoot or take chances the intruder would be a nice guy... I'd do exactly what she did if I had a gun.
@VallejoGirl -
The subtle biases are gone. The journalist of today believes that the role that must be played is that as journalist-activist. They editorialize their stories now, often with a spin gone crazy. "Oh, the humanity" worked when the Hindenberg crashed in 1938, but it is a sad cliche when it is forced into every story about gun violence, overweight kids, poverty, poor education, and every other social issue out there. It makes me glad that I dont work for the NYT and the other major news organizations out there.
@Hunt4Truth -
The intruder had no right being in her house. It is a double shame that because of him she will have nightmares about this. The good guys will always second guess their decision on whether or not they should have pulled the trigger. They will relive it, looking for options, anything so that they don't have to use their weapon. They will learn to live with it in time. The bad guy just doesnt care and will repeat their bad behavior. No nightmares, no bad dreams, no victims haunting them because they have no conscience.
we can recognize the bad guys because they always wear "bad guy" t-shirts I suppose. The man who shot and killed unarmed seventeen-year-old Trayvon was known to be respectful, religious, and helpful to others. It is not just plausible, but likely, that George Zimmerman is a fundamentally decent, law-abiding, caring citizen who joined his Sanford, Fla. neighborhood watch group out of noble motives. But that's the point. In the real world of interpersonal confrontation, neither actor may be a bad guy -- or maybe both are.
@we_deny_everything - there was a lot of stuff that no one wanted to talk about regarding Trayvon after that incident went down. everyone was angry that it happened, and turning Zimmerman into a scape goat was the fastest, easiest way out. there was also a lot of journalism that was done that wasn't very professional in nature.
realistically speaking, we will never know the good guy and the bad guy based on the hats they wear. however, you can tell by their actions if one is on your side or not. its a shame that moral character development is no longer part of growing up.
Bingo. This is precisely why we have five hundred years of jurisprudence to distinguish the good guys from the bad guys. It is no longer up to some half baked vigilante with a gun. I guess this is why you keep getting unfriended haha
@we_deny_everything - I didnt know I got unfriended by anyone.
Anyway, I don't know if people still do the 'vigilante' routine. The Western staples are gone, except in fiction. The sherrif has a SWAT team to fill in the gap that would have been taken by citizens sworn in temporarily for a posse. The bounty hunter is replaced by bail enforcement agent who wants them in alive. We want our cops to be professional, kind, caring, but not decked out in tactical gear when writing a ticket for jaywalking. It seems like the vigilante died out sometime after the last Death Wish movie starring Charles Bronson. I do not believe we are any more civilized as those who came before us. Call them barbarians or gangsters or whatever name the lawless are going by today. As long as there are people willing to go along to get along, who seek to live in peace and abide by the law of the land, there will be a need for weapons to keep the people safe.
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