Friend Of The Blog, Tam, over at View From The Porch, had a post up with a link to this post about how the best fight is the one you never get into. Or, in other words, “The best defense is still not being there.” (Whcih, by the way, is my number one rule for surviving a disaster.)
The post basically says what I’ve said all along: that bullet parties are the exception rather than the rule, and that statistically your chance of needing to shoot someone is ‘not zero’ but fairly close.
But I take tremendous issue with this line: “First, (and I know some people are really going to be disappointed about this), you are most likely not going to be in a gunfight tomorrow. I can say this with some confidence, because statistically very few people ever need to fire their gun in anger.”
Can you spot the issue in that statement? It’s the use of the word ‘anger’. As a law-abiding, peaceful, I-won’t-bother-you-if-you-won’t-bother-me citizen there is never a need to fire a gun in anger. We don’t shoot people because we’re angry…thats what bad guys do. I can’t really think of a time when you’re justified in shooting someone because you’re angry, I can only think of times when you’re justified shooting someone because you’re scared.
The correct construction of that argument should be that “…statistically very few people ever need to fire their gun in fear.”
Crom forefend that you ever have to shoot anyone for any reason, but if it happens I believe that “I fired in anger” will not help your case nearly as much as “I fired in fear”. It is inculcated the minute we start looking into self-defense that you only shoot “in the gravest extreme”, as one author says. No one should be firing their gun in anger.
Am I being nitpicky about the use of words in the OP’s post? Maybe ‘fire their gun in anger’ was just an expression. Perhaps. I’m a bit sensitive on the subject, and I’ve always been a stickler for precision in language. But, I think that, for me, the only reason to shoot someone, heck..or even point a gun at someone, is out of genuine heartfelt fear for my own safety…not out of anger. Be angry after the incident for the bad guy forcing you to do something that, I assume, you did not want to do. Be angry at him for the way he’s now changed your life and your assumptions about. Be angry at a lot of things. But righteous self-defense comes from a place of fear, not anger.
“Shots fired in anger” is a well-established euphemism in the English language.
You might as well lambaste people for talking about “social” guns, because there’s noting social about them!
Mild disagree, heres why. There are two sentences – “First, (and I know some people are really going to be disappointed about this), you are most likely not going to be in a gunfight tomorrow. I can say this with some confidence, because statistically very few people ever need to fire their gun in anger.” The first sentence says that you will not be in a gunfight tomorrow and the second sentence supports the reason. According to the second sentence, you have a statistically small need to fire a gun in anger. This means that the gunfight referred to in the first sentence, if it happens, will be predicated on anger rather than on the more acceptable premise of fear.
I get that ‘shots fired in anger’ is an expression, but the author then goes on to state “Take it from someone who crafts words for a living: we use words for the pictures they put in people’s minds. The image produced is intentional, to lead them to a specific conclusion. ” So he is quite aware of what words mean and the images they convey. The image that he’s painting then is one of someone engaging in a ‘gunfight’ out of anger, not fear. His use of ‘shots fired in anger’ is intentional and as a writer I’m pretty sure he knows what anger means. He could have said ‘fire a gun in self defense’, which is what his post is about, nominally. Or he could have said “fire a gun in a crisis”. But as someone who self-describes as a person whose word choice is intentional, I have to wonder.
Am I being a literalist in interpreting what he said? Maybe. But as I said, I’m a stickler for words meaning what they mean. But even if I’m being a pedantic PITA, the underlying reasoning is still sound – you don’t pew pew the humans out of anger.
I didn’t mean to offend, by the way. It’s just that, to me, the use of ‘fire a gun in anger’ seemed out of place and maybe a not-great choice of words. But…it’s subjective.
Best wishes with using “euphemisms” as an explanation in open court. 😉
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PZonyefBW4
Anger has become stigmatized. I’ve been within a few millimeters/milligrams of dropping the hammer (striker, etc) on people before, and I was for damn-sure angry with them at that point, for having placed me in that situation by their stupid and criminal antics.
I think there’s a Clint Eastwood quote even, about anger?
Friend was involved in a shooting in the early 90’s. Statement to detective involved the euphemism “I’ve never fired in anger before”.
That mis-statement was taken and ran with by various parties and caused much excess court time and liability costs.
Word matter, they really matter. When the Police interview folks about the “incident under investigation” a self-defense shooting was “in fear of my life”.
Even the police have that pounded into their heads for the correct response when they get debriefed from shooting your dog or such.
Euphemisms can and will be used against you in a court of law.
As will ANY of your Social Media posts they can dig up to determine “intent to DO SOMETHING”. Ask Rittenhouse about that.
It’s amazing how well your neighbors “remember” your “Angry outbursts” against the victim on the floor.
That’s why I shake my head every time I see a poster saying they will DO This or DO that If… The internet never forgets and posting as anonymously doesn’t really help IF they really want to do the research.
Every bullet and angry word seems to have a lawyer chasing it.
A lot of training holds that you shoot to “stop the threat” – fear is a threat response first and foremost as in “fight or flight” when threated. Even if the anger phrase is used in writing for the drama or as a euphemism it has no place in reporting on real life events where you have to use deadly force. Law enforcement training for report writing will also follow the rule of dry, logical and factual reporting without any literary flare. The Commander is right – such language is inappropriate and will cause you a lot of grief.
Use such writing all you want to describe an event you are creating for an article, book, movie or such but never for reporting or legal issues.
Words had GD Meaning.
Most dont use them correctly..just to express there “feelings”
Including Me.
imo
Personally, if you scare me enough, my anger at your efforts may inspire me to shoot you. Call it emotional self-defense. Corner me once, shame on you. Corner me twice, shame on me.
I think we can agree racing drivers aren’t out to harm anyone on track, but it’s a common euphemism in their world to describe ‘hot’ or ‘push’ laps as “the car is being driven in anger.” It’s meant as ‘purposeful’.
Obviously when firearms and human injury and lawyers are involved, the precision matters, no quibble with you there. Just wanted to offer a side note.
I agree 100% with your assessment of the use of the word anger! I am not familiar with the website or author, but only a person who has no experience with guns or self defense would use it in that context. Sounds like it came from someone on the left side of things and is likely anti 2nd amendment.
Legitimately LOL’ed at this.
Shoot a gun at someone? Statistically a very small likelihood.
Point a gun at someone? YUUUUUGGGGGEEEEEELY likely.
John Lott’s “Two MILLION defensive firearm uses per year” takes no-bullets-fired incidents well into account, and is probably an understatement of the true number, which is ultimately unknowable.
I try to live as Clark Kent, not Superman, nor Rambo.
My family, likewise.
Dear departed mom? Shot at people on a couple of occasions (she was always murky on the details, but close family confirmed the basic facts). Last time she pulled on someone? 80 years old. Random punk was trying to break in through her screen door on a hot night. Until he saw Mom in a firing stance over the barrel of a 2″ Smith. He left skidmarks out of there, and burglaries in her neighborhood dwindled to nothing shortly afterwards.
Baby Brother? Ignoring a year as a cop and line-of-duty incidents, has pulled multiple times as a plain old civilian, and got on the scoreboard in then-W. Germany as a twenty-something on peacetime guard mount one night, which then got him not only authorized, but under CO’s orders, to carry a piece the entire rest of his Euro tour anytime he left the barracks, on pain of court martial if he was caught unarmed. He’s still got his Bn CO’s letter to that effect.
And that’s just the incidents he’s shared with me.
Moi? Three times, stopping one attempted rape, one attempted armed robbery, and one douchecanoe who kept cutting fences to get to his homeless dope den.
The rape attempt would have been absolutely 100% justified if I’d squeezed, but it was a 12 ga coach gun with buckshot, and I was sincerely concerned about both the backstop, and collateral damage. The speed of the target’s departure after full appreciation of the situation almost made up for it. And those were in All-American whitebread suburbia, not violent ‘hoods in South Central.
Then there was as a non-rooftop non-Korean, during the Rodney King Free TVs and Nikes Festival in L.A. in the ’90s.
Oh, and about 200-300 times on the southern border, catching private property trespassers and cartel guides, and holding them for Border Patrol at gunpoint, and three of us and one lone CBP officer standing off a couple of dozen cartel drug smugglers cutting through the steel border fence with an acetylene rig in broad daylight, with a six–car convoy of dope five feet from the U.S.A. and ready to rock, until Dubbya got pissed off enough with our AAR videos showing up on Lou Dobbs, that he built us 10 miles of everything-proof fence. If you want to call those last incidents “looking for trouble”, so be it, but the 70-year-old land owner and his wife who were having 50,000-100,000 visitors come past his house every year appreciated the gesture in the extreme.
And considering at each of those incidents I had the drop on the bad guys, I have no problem saying that any shots I fired would not have been in fear.
I wasn’t afraid of the potential for great bodily harm, I was certain of it, had I not been armed, and not acted as I did.
Anger? Maybe.
Disappointment and resignation to do what had to be done: to a metaphysical certainty.
Hesitation, had we gone from orange to red? None whatsoever.
I’m not disappointed to not have had to shoot anyone – yet – despite that amount of armed encounters. No one needs the aggro, if it can be avoided.
Ask Kyle Rittenhouse or George Zimmerman. Let alone their dance partners.
But the complacency that one will never need to pull a trigger in a lifetime, and the misimpression that the appointment can be avoided perpetually, anywhere, has probably killed more cops and ordinary citizens than smallpox.
And more of those bona fide shootings recorded in the pages of American Rifleman happen in Bugtussle and Hooterville than in Detroit or Chicongo. Think on that.
Safety is an illusion.
Preparedness is a certainty.
Come to TX and try that statement……in the case of a shooting, you WILL be charged and will likely LOSE.
Legally, we can only shoot in self-defense (or in defense of property or 3rd-party)
https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/docs/PE/htm/PE.9.htm
“…very few people ever need to fire their gun defensively.”
As Dan Bongino points out. ” Rule #1. Don’t get dead”.
I agree that the best thing is if there is a choice. Do not engage. Many times the BG will back off at the appearance of a firearm in the hands of a GG. Truthfully most BG are cowards. We all heard a perp claim they shot somebody because they didn’t respect them. That’s Ghetto for ” I shot him because he didn’t fear me”. The appearance of the GG with a gun removes the incentive by introducing the extreme likelihood that the perp will get his ass shot. And getting shot hurts.
I agree with CZ here. In most cases there is only one reason to shoot and that is ‘…I was in fear for my life…’ or the life of another person. If i shot everyone I was ever pissed off at then the body count would be in the thousands.
I wonder how many LEO’s are sitting in prison right now because they shot someone that made them angry.
Well there are the defensive use of fire arms, where we reasonably fear “death or grevious bodily injury”.
And then there is the killing of the enemy, which we will do because we hate, and thus are angry, with the Communinst that currently live among us. And I agree with Tam, we likely will not have start killing communist tomorrow. But (Hat Tip to CW), it is certainly too late to work within the system, but we are drawing nigh on it being time to shoot the bastards.
JT
More on the phrase “fired in anger.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/radio/specials/1837_aae/page22.shtml
Sounds like CZ has a point.
How angry would you be if your child or wife was being threatened?
But presumably you’re not shooting the person because you’re angry at them, you’re shooting them because you fear what they’re about to do.
Following. Many good contributions here, but too many folks are stuck in a rut mentally that if they are a self described good guy and believe they are in the right to take it all the way, the authorities will pat them on the back and bring donuts and coffee in to the after action debriefing down at the station house. If folks haven’t been schooled by now about the entire LEO, district attorney, court and juries, media, and public flash mobbing that can be arrayed out there against you as a hapless trigger puller then one won’t stand a chance. A fellow would be better off being very low key and threat avoidance to the max. Always thinking in multiple contingency and best legalities assessments. Shot timer speed and B-27 target scores are useless if a shoot can be “construed” to be unlawful and the shooter’s verbal statements along with lead up behaviors and actions add supporting evidentiary weight to an investigation. Remus always said “avoid crowds”. Sage advice, be a hermit, stay home, past a certain age and life experiences there is nothing else really out there. Stay frosty and out of the handcuffs.
Right up there with:
“(I am requesting to speak to a) Lawyer”
and
“:I have nothing to say”
is
“I reasonably feared that my life was in imminent physical danger”
As others have said, “Words have meaning”.
In court, they have very, very, very specific meanings.
Using the wrong could be very bad
Well, Tam has spoken:
We’re all idiots and boobs, who don’t know we’re idiots and boobs, having the unmitigated gall and temerity to argue with The Greatness.
https://booksbikesboomsticks.blogspot.com/2023/07/the-first-rule-of-dunning-kruger-club.html
Guess she told us how it really is.
But, as another famous commenter noted on the way out of his interview by The Experts,
“Eppur si muove.”
Well, to be fair, I think the original post got muddied. My issue wasn’t with the message, but rather with a choice of words. Other people spun that out into something else.
Understood, which original point was, I think, well-taken here, and that’s as may be, but in that case, the comments and commentariat in question weren’t here, but probably over at the OP.
Links mean things, just like words do.
To be fair.
A cavalier “I will snarkily dismiss any objections from the lumpenproletariat that denigrate my Demigod” is a poor riposte. And probably lousy aim in the bargain, which is the cruelest irony of all.
Words mean things.
I am backpacking with my daughter next weekend, both bear spray and a firearm are included. There will be no shots “fired in anger” I assure you. The beauty of the written word… it requires more thought!
My only recommendation would be this – put yourself in.as many adreneline inducing situations as possible when using a firearm. It is amazing what you have to overcome within youself to be affective!