Gun Control has become a constant in today’s social conversation. Self-Defense has become anathema to those who profess a solution to gun violence. Both subjects are among the most confused and misunderstood actions in a social dilemma that has been so politicized to the extent that government has been seen by half the population as over-reaching and by the other half as the solutional overseer of all problems economic, racial, religious, and societal.

1. Gun control self defense stories
It was a situation unlike any other. An Iraq Army vet out for an evening stroll on the
streets of mid-America inconspicuously came across a protest rally, one of those
Occupy This or That adventures that just a couple of years ago had riled up Wall Street
investment bankers and the general economic calm of cities from coast to coast.
He had lost friends in the Middle East wars, had recovered from his own wounds but felt
proud to have represented the United States military. A gun owner with a conceal carry
permit and the owner of a strong patriotic stripe in his psyche, he shouldered his way
through the crowded park simply trying to make his way to the other side.
He mostly ignored the shouts by the young crowd at cops who were standing guard in
hopes of keeping the peace and only shook his head with apathy towards the sign-
holders who were showering anyone within earshot with a fusillade of expletives. But
then he came across a situation that made him stop in his tracks and started his
emotions rising to boiling point level: sloppily dressed young adults were walking and
stomping on…the American flag, the same flag for which he fought and watched friends
die so park people like this could maintain the freedom of self-expression guaranteed
them by the Constitution.
He waded into the small crowd of flag stompers pushing and shoving his way to the
core. Being pushed back several times and shouted down, someone from behind
smashed him in the head with something that felt like a ping pong paddle. Instinctively,
he reached inside his light jacket for his gun. When seen by some in the crowd who
began shouting “Gun! Gun! He’s got a gun!” he recoiled slightly, expecting nearby cops
to tackle him, or worse, draw their own weapons.
That’s when he did the most sensible thing he could realize. He took his hand off his
gun, raised his left arm high towards the sky, put his right hand on his heart and began
singing, “Oh say can you see, by the dawn’s early light. What so proudly we hail’d at the
twilight’s last gleaming…”
The crowd was suddenly stunned. Then, one by one, police began echoing the song’s
lyrics and even with some mild resistance, others in the crowd began joining in.

2. Flag fracas at Valdosta State Apr. 17, 2015
The lesson learned by many that evening was simple: Gun defense gave way to not
only self-control but crowd control. As people began to disperse, many, realizing by his
stance, and even his haircut that he had been over “there” and “done that.”
When to Use A Gun, and When Not To
Gun Control has become a constant in today’s social conversation. Self-Defense has
become anathema to those who profess a solution to gun violence. Both subjects are
among the most confused and misunderstood actions in a social dilemma that has been
so politicized to the extent that government has been seen by half the population as
over-reaching and by the other half as the solutional overseer of all problems economic,
racial, religious, and societal.
It’s easy to conclude that our post-9/11 world is increasingly dangerous. While self-
defense is seen by gun owners as inherent to daily life, gun control is the mantra of
others who are abhorred by even the sight or the talk of guns. To simply say that a gun
society is a safe society doesn’t consider that those over the age of 50, when guns were
merely a tool for hunting or even target shooting, did not see guns as a threat other than
in terms of war or crime.
The dawning of the 21st Century brought with it the real life scenario that far too many
people from teen to half a hundred years were now not as secure as their elders.
Technologically smarter, for sure, but nowhere near as practical or as physically
enlabored.
Yet, generations have all found their times for military service and that’s where those
enlisted may have handled a gun for the first time. And, as such, they had their first
lesson in gun control; not political gun control, but real gun control. Those who
eventually were deployed to foreign lands learned that gun control was how and where
you pointed the thing. Self-defense was a way to keep from getting shot by the enemy.
The inevitable result was, upon return to civilian life, and life in the 21st Century, self-
preservation, especially in urban areas, would come with not on the knowledge but the
necessity of defending oneself with a gun. The downside was the reliance on guns as
the means of carrying out mass shootings, nearly unheard of a few decades ago but

3. almost commonplace in a new society. That made gun control a priority to those who
lost lives in school attacks, in shopping malls, even in churches.
To gun control activists, lessons in political theory eventually a move towards something
that sounded less compulsory on gun owners but, rather, offered as a solution to
something to which any contemporary American could agree, a goal to reduce and
eventually defeat gun violence. Thus, “gun control” became “gun violence” or “gun
safety” to the politically laundered minions.
The counter to that, of course, became not gun privilege but gun rights because the
Constitution in 1791 proclaimed the Second Amendment as part of the Bill of Rights.
Intrinsically, when a gun is drawn into potential use by a civilian with a concealed carry
permit or, in some states where carrying a gun either concealed or openly is
constitutional, the lawful user must consider a variety of things related to his or her own
self-defense. Most important is the ability to read the situation. Is a potential target
threatening or just inquisitive? Where does the situation occur; in a store, a bank, a
theater, a restaurant? Any place where there is a crowd that could become
endangered?
Is the target alone or could he/she have accomplices on the scene? If a decision is
made to engage the target, how should the legal gun owner allow for innocent
bystanders? And, when police arrive, how should the self-defender react to avoid being
mistaken as the perpetrator by the police. And, last, if there is confusion in identifying
oneself as a concealed carrier attempting to stop a threat, will there be legal
consequences?
Gun control thus becomes a matter of self-control, while self-protection becomes a
matter of defending one’s legal right to own and to use a gun to stop a threat against
yourself or others.