Now first, I’m in no way impeaching the character of Col Jack Jacobs. He is a national hero, and I thank him for his service, as well as respect him as a Medal of Honor Recipient.
What I will discuss is his understanding of guns and self defense.
The Colonel is arguing from a position of pure fallacy, and Dr. Lott does a good job at pointing these out. Still let’s pull it apart.
–It is impossible to physically secure a large post like Ft. Hood. I hope this isn’t true, its a damn MILITARY base and you need to cross checkpoints to enter it. Now logistically he is 100% correct, you simply cannot pat-down every person, and completely search every bag and vehicle that enters without grinding the facility to a halt. That being said, putting up “No Personal Weapons” signs becomes an act of stupidity, because the good people are likely to follow that order, and the bad people will not. Further bad people WILL note that sign when making nefarious plans.
–Arming EVERYONE!!!11!! This is a mainstay fallacy of the anti-gun people. When somebody notes that a gun-free zone shouldn’t exist and there should be means to arm good people there, they immediately talk about ARMING EVERYBODY. A similar fallacy is the one where it is noted that the gun control laws only effect the law abiding so restrictions should be repealed. The anti-gun response is “So you want ALL LAWS REPEALED?????”. Further he seems to be implying that his opposition would arm people who are unqualified to be armed like wives and dependents. Now I have no issue with a wife (or husband for that matter) who carries off post to carry on post, but simply handing a gun to a person who is unfamiliar with it, and has no interest in it is just stupid. What’s more stupid is his fallacy to “Arm Dependents”, now maybe in the Obama-Care Era children up to the age of 26 might be CONSIDERED dependents, but I would assume he’s talking minor children living on base. Yeah, he should be ashamed of himself thinking ANYBODY is making that argument!
It just isn’t true. The best solution is an elective one. Let people CHOOSE to be armed or not. I’m even willing at this point to compromise in say allowing service members to go through additional training and screening to get an on-base type CCW permit allowing them to carry either a personal weapon or an issued one while on post. This is no different than some of the “Enhanced Permits” being issued to people to carry on college campuses or public schools. If you don’t want to go armed, you don’t have to, but I do see a problem with these gun free zones when many of the people WANT to be armed and simply cannot be.
–Lawfully armed people responding to an active shooter will result in MORE deaths. This is pure fantasy. I would dare ANYBODY to find a SINGLE case where something like this happened. Even if there were one or two cases I haven’t heard about, that makes this unintended consequence of self defense extremely rare to the point of statistical non-existance. This is nothing more than a “Blood in the Streets” scare tactic, and has no root in reality. Further since we’re talking about a military base filled with soldiers, why is it solders in combat don’t shoot each other? Well technically friendly fire DOES happen, and it is thankfully rare, but is this a reason to simply disband the military? So even if it WAS true, the Colonel doesn’t even support his own point!
–Military Life in a Civilian Post isn’t like Combat I’m sure to some degree this is true, still we aren’t talking about setting up claymores, machine gun nests, and mounting Mk 19 grenade launchers on post. So even at its most basic level this is a fallacy. Really what we’re talking about is at its simplest form is letting the soldiers who carry off-post, or carry in their home states to carry their own personal weapons while on post. If we want to step up and let troops carry their issued M9s and M4s around, I don’t see an issue with that either, but we haven’t really gotten to that point yet in this discussion.
Still, do you want to tell ALL the people who have now taken hostile gunfire at Ft. Hood in the two separate mass shootings that this isn’t remotely like combat? Yeah….
–Mass Shooters don’t care if other people are armed This one he proves himself wrong right at the start. The shooter killed himself as soon as he was confronted by Armed MPs. He didn’t try to shoot his way out of the situation, he didn’t try to surrender, he didn’t try to somehow disguise himself so he could escape. This is true for almost all mass shooters. The moment good guys with guns arrive on scene, this is their end-game, and the shooter goes into the rampage knowing they will kill themselves as soon as they run out of soft targets to shoot at. I don’t know about this case, but all the mass shootings I’ve read about the shooter had plenty of ammunition to spare, they just stopped shooting good guys as soon as the “Game” was over. And I call this a “game” intentionally, I really think they see it as a timed game. Kill as many people before you encounter armed resistance. This leads me to WHY these shootings happen at gun free zones, they offer the longest response time from when the shooting starts to when police arrive.
Also the fact that the shooter takes their own life (or in the case of the Aurora Colorado shooting, stop shooting and surrender) the MOMENT police or armed civilians arrive on scene really shows WHY they select these places, and I 100% agree with Dr. Lott that simply removing the signs and punishment for being armed for self-protection would likely scratch these locations off the list of the shooters, or even make them choose a different “Cry for help”.
Now I’ll close on the headline getter. I’m not going to make a judgement call on the Colonel telling Dr. Lott to be quiet. These are not formal debates, so there are no rules. The Colonel was making a statement, and Dr. Lott was attempting to correct him in his misstatement. It is debatable if Dr. Lott was being rude to the Colonel, as is the Colonel chiding Dr. Lott like a child might be considered rude as well. There are no formal guidelines for appropriate conduct so its all up to the personal feelings of each man at what is acceptable.
I WILL note that once the Colonel allowed Dr. Lott to make his statement, he wholly ignored it, and closed with the very fallacy Dr. Lott shredded. Now THAT shows a HIGH level of disrespect, Dr. Lott corrected a hyperbolic statement, and the Colonel stuffed the hyperbole right into Dr. Lott’s mouth.
That shows a level of arrogance that is highly unbecoming.
