#Concerned: "Meeting of the Concerned" Ultra-Pure Conservatives Have Strangely Hardcore Progressive Instincts on So Many Issues

"Radio Free" Tom Nichols, who decries a culture in which everyone thinks he's an expert and yet whose own expertise expands to encompass whatever he's ranting about on Twitter today, is especially fragrant today on the "irrational" belief that a law-abiding citizen carrying a gun can actually defend himself in a violent confrontation.

This puzzles me. The idea that only loser criminals -- generally people with poor executive function and hence a low tolerance for learning and practice -- are "good with guns," and meanwhile people who have their shit together (high executive function = greater capacity for practice and learning) just can't hit shit with a gun is strange.

Let's examine this. Idiots like Radio Free Tom make fun of "Murica's Gun Culture," but what are people in "Murica's Gun Culture" doing once a week (or even more)?

Why... they're shooting. Practicing. Getting comfortable with a gun. Turning shooting into muscle memory (and thus hyper-fast and automatic as far as brain function -- very practiced actions result in a neuron pathway that's sheathed by myelin, turning that action into a reflex that bypasses the very slow mental processes of deliberate conscious thought).

Most criminals -- I speak now of street-level criminals -- do not practice with guns very much. Even if they have a higher executive function and have the discipline to practice and learn, they can't do very much of it, because they're usually prohibited by law from even touching one so gun practice is a crime in itself they will generally limit.

Now, one advantage criminals do have, assuming they are habitual violent criminals, is that they're accustomed feeling the rush of adrenaline that comes from violent confrontations. Adrenaline boosts strength, but it demolishes fine-motor coordination. The "Fight or Flight" response supercharges gross physical movements like running or hitting. This system evolved when explosive muscle power, and not fine motor coordination and near-immobility, was the key to fighting your way out of danger.

People like our troops have to train an awful lot in simulated battle scenarios to get tolerant to this side-effect of adrenaline and dull the jitters.

So, edge to the criminals on not being as negatively affected by the rush of adrenaline than the law abiding citizen.

Citizens in "Murica's Gun Culture" will have some tolerance to the adverse side effects of adrenaline, just because they're practicing a lot and at least imagining a true adrenaline-rush situation, but still, I think, edge to the habitual violent criminal here.

But in the other area -- aim, discipline, comfort with the weapon -- the citizen has the edge.

What convinces these "Experts" with nigh-religious certitude that only "Bad People" are capable of effectively firing a gun in a stressful situation?

They seem to think that decency and morality are fundamentally incompatible with composure and accurate aim?

They must not think much of our military and police officers, eh?

#TrueConservatives -- the only conservatives with intellectual integrity enough to embrace every assumption and agenda item of the progressive movement, and the #Eliteness to give away their valuable #Expertise yammering away on Twitter like, you know, morons and lunatics.

Oh By The Way: You'd think that an #Expert who teaches at the Naval War College would know something rather elemental about shooting -- you don't have to hit your target to keep him from shooting effectively.

Just pumping bullets in his direction will cause him to scramble for cover, or flee, or start firing back ineffectually -- panic fire. He'll also be forced to shoot at you, rather than the crowd of unarmed civilians he's currently slaughtering. And you've probably had the good sense to get behind cover before shooting at him.

It's the idea of suppressive or covering fire. Not every shot needs to be a hit to be effective in combat.

But I guess #TheExpert doesn't know that. Unless it's a CNS or heart hit resulting in an instant incapacitation, it's pointless.

One More Thing: I saw a martial arts guy on YouTube demonstrating an unarmed defense against knives. The guy playing the "knife attacker" was using a red felt-tip pen as a "knife," so that each hit would be marked on the defender in red.

The martial arts guy had a lot of red on him post-demonstration. But most hits were to the arms and hips and such.

His conclusion was that even if you're trained, your odds of winning -- or at least not going to the hospital with a large number of wounds -- are low.

However, he pointed out something very important. What's the mindset of the knife blitz-attacker? The knife blitz-attacker is probably imagining he'll just cut people down as if wheat before a scythe.

What happens if a trained defender gets even one decent shot in at his face?

Suddenly that guy is not the situation he imagined -- just murdering unarmed, defenseless people -- but in a real fight in which the outcome is no longer certain, and he might just wind up getting killed himself.

That changes his behavior. Even making the knife attacker consider defense and only attacking in guarded, "safe" ways drastically reduces the number of attacks he can make.

This same logic obviously applies to mass shooters who are suddenly, and unexpectedly, getting shot at before their slaughter is complete. Pinning a guy down, limiting his field of fire, making him only pop his head out occasionally to fire, making him flee -- all of these things reduce or even end his rampage.

Let alone outright disabling or killing him. Which does in fact happen, contra the #Expert belief on the matter.

posted by Ace at 02:15 PM

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