On Our Knees*

UPDATED

It’s one of Robert’s Rules, and one of the saddest, that Facts Pursue Narratives - Narratives Flee From Facts. Perhaps it has always been this way, but we see the Rule writ especially large in an era of 24-hour, multi-channel blather, where every agenda has its ardent proponents, all of whom are far more quick and ready to push their party line than the reporters in the field are quick and able to dig up and disseminate actual information. So literally before the bodies in Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church had begun to cool, you could find commentators, politicians and shills of every stripe using those murdered believers as a fulcrum to raise this or that particular agenda just that bit higher.

The coming hours and days will doubtless produce more facts, and they’ll doubtless be slipped into and hammered onto and wedged under the narratives we all have come to expect -- however fast those narratives flee from facts that don't suit. But instead of speculating on what those facts may prove to be, I want to talk about what we knew before that first shot was fired yesterday, what is true in the harsh light of morning, and what will be true no matter what facts we learn in days to come.

+ + +

Before the first shot we knew that Emanuel AME was some variety of persistent miracle. To begin, the church was founded in 1816. Let that date sit with you a moment, because that’s 47 years before a presidential order that finally said that black human beings like those who founded that church could no longer be owned by other human beings. In the two tempestuous centuries since its founding, Emanuel AME has survived upheaval, violence, persecution, prejudice and even –  in South Carolina? –  an earthquake. A man named Denmark Vesey, was – just six years after helping to found the church – tried in secret by a kangaroo court and hanged for his role in a planned revolt of human beings who wished no longer to be owned by other human beings.

Thus we knew Wednesday that the believers of Emanuel AME had survived great horrors before and had prospered and grown and loved their church to the glory of God even so. After the last echo of the last shot has passed, I think we know that they will do the same. We know that with the prayers and love and shared tears of believers and people of good will, Emanuel AME will persevere as it has persevered. We know that if this killer thought to strike down this church –  let alone the Church – he has already failed, as even worse men have failed, as even the Gates of Hell must fail.

I knew Wednesday, and I know today, and nothing to come will make me doubt that God does not abandon His people. I knew Wednesday, and I know today, that only He can lift and comfort those who mourn. I knew Wednesday, and I know today, that people of Emanuel AME are my brothers and sisters in Christ and that He hears my prayers for them.

+ + +

But there's something else I knew Wednesday, and still know today.

Before the first shot, I knew that the black folks I talk to were feeling more insecure than at any time since we all became adults. And let’s be clear, the black folks I talk to are mostly people of means and position – even of power. They own and run businesses and law firms; they direct the doings of governments; they carry badges and stethoscopes and resumes filled with degrees. But I knew Wednesday that despite all these friends have accomplished; despite all the influence, recognition and prosperity they have earned; despite – not for nothing – the presence of a black man in the White House, they are troubled and angry and, yes, afraid, like I have not seen before. I know that today those doubts and fears can only be worse.

What I did not know Wednesday and do not know today is how definitively to fix that. But I refuse to be paralyzed by that, to let the absence of the perfect be the death of the good.  I did and do know that, at the very least, we have to talk to each other. We have to talk in frankest possible terms, about the most difficult things, in fearlessness and love. We have to be robust. We have to be slow to take offense and quick to forgive the inadvertent slight. We have to examine ourselves and let our hearts of hearts be examined. 

Two hundred years after those brave believers founded Emanuel AME, human beings are dying in America because of the color of their skin. I don't know if the nine at Emanuel AME were among them –  that seems likely, but we don't know yet. [# Update below] (Perhaps they died because they were Christians. Thousands do nowadays, despite the echoing media silence about that.) But even if, by some chance, these nine didn't die because of their color, too many of our countrymen, of our fellow human beings, do. And –  God forgive us –  200 years from now, unless we now take on that fact with brutal honesty and powerful love, that will still be so.

+ + +

And, despite the thundering din of the Narratives fleeing the facts as fast as they can, there's something else we knew on Wednesday, that hasn't changed this morning –   however efficiently America’s great cynical hoplophobic industrial complex churns out its lies, slickly tailored to capitalize on the deaths of people about whom it cares not one jot.

Before the first shot, we knew – if we were honest with ourselves – that there exists no piece of gun legislation we can craft that would matter to or deter a man who is otherwise willing to take the lives of nine or dozen a other human beings. Before the first shot, we knew that when men so inclined decide to match action to inclination, they almost always seek a place where they know their intended victims will be unarmed.** I knew Wednesday – as did many of my co-coreligionists – that if the flock is going to be protected on a Sunday morning or a Wednesday evening, then some of the shepherds, and some sheepdogs, have to stand ready to put down the wolves. 

  

* Note that you get on your knees only to pray – or possibly for gardening. Roberts Rules for Armed Robbery and Hostage Taking are explicit:

• Never let them put you on your knees.
• Never let them put you in another room.
• Never let them put you in a car.

Long and bitter experience has proven that each of these is a prelude to murder. At that point, whatever the odds, fight like one already dead.

** Among other things, the shootings in Aurora, Fort Hood and Sandy Hook all had this in common.

# UPDATED: Given the reported words of the killer -- whose name will gain no fame here -- and given what has been learned about him in the past 24 hours, there now seems to be no doubt that he was acting out of racial hatred.

Holding out for a hero

Let’s start with this: I love me some Charles Ramsey. The fellow is a master of the language, equally skilled in long- and short-form story-telling. In a media landscape where every sinkhole victim, scandal participant and “other woman” manages to secure a publicist and the legal services of the loathsome Gloria Allred by the time the evening news is aired, Ramsey – instantly and all by himself – oozes concentrated authenticity. I can only hope that McDonalds Corporation has noted Ramsey’s frequent and earnest product placements on its behalf and has dispatched a multi-million-dollar endorsement contract via corporate jet.

Not just that. I trust that Jimmy and David and Jay will put Ramsey up in the finest hotels when they fly him first class to come and speak to them. I pray the auto-tune guys are kind in their treatment. Ramsey has already “trended” and will soon deservedly become a “meme.” Indeed, there’s every likelihood that Ramsey is about to become, however briefly, a cultural icon. To all of this I say, “Good on you, Charles Ramsey.” As is demonstrated every time the Kardashians steal another hour of airtime, this nation could do a lot worse.

What may keep him in the limelight for more than the standard number of news cycles is the fact that this guy seems to have nearly perfect comedic timing, an unflinching regard for the truth, a perceptive understanding of the impact of race in American society, and a moral compass capable of finding North.* But for all that Charles Ramsey is, for all that the star-maker machinery of popular culture is about to make him, there’s one thing Charles Ramsey is not, one thing that neither the glittering Chryons under his image, nor the nattering news anchors** can make him.

Charles Ramsey is not a hero.

I trouble to point this out not because I oppose Ramsey’s fleeting or superficial glory, or merely out of general cussedness. No. I think the matter is far graver than that.

I’ve written before about narratives, about how no event is reported or discussed in its own context anymore. Instead, it is seized upon by commentators and politicians and other scoundrels to support whatever narrative that serves their ends. Any fact or event not capable of such manipulation – and few are the facts composed of sturdy enough stuff to hold their shape under such a hammering – is ignored. Any proponent of such information is similarly dismissed or, more usually, demonized.

So a fellow who did what Ramsey did is unrelentingly called a hero in service to a narrative that I have labeled the Unified Field Theory of Dependency. It is the notion that the average man or woman lacks the wherewithal to defend himself, or to save herself in an emergency, or to help those around them in similar circumstances. It is the insidious, statist contention that defense of life or the deterrence of evil are skills so esoteric and so generally unattainable that they belong only to an elite praetorian class. And – conveniently for would-be rulers of other men – since no one can manage these daunting tasks on his own, no one has need of the tools or liberty or autonomy with which to accomplish them.

Only in that narrative, only in the reductionist world of the lord and the peasant is the act of answering the door to a screaming woman and then dialing 911 heroic.

The UFToD is the narrative of a world view in which the state is entitled to a monopoly on violence and where a federal officer is the only one in the room “professional enough” to handle a simple firearm – even if he does manage to shoot himself in the process.*** That narrative is the tool of tyrants, because a people convinced of its truth need not be made to submit to oppression. They will willingly, even happily submit, since they have been made to believe not just that they are trading liberty for security, but that they haven't any other choice.

* From AC360:

COOPER:  Has the FBI said anything about a reward or anything?  Because there was that - there was a reward for finding her.

RAMSEY:  I tell you what you do, give it to them.  Because if folks been following this case since last night, you been following me since last night, you know I got a job anyway.  Just went picked it up, paycheck.  What that address say?  That say?

COOPER:  I don't have my glasses.  I'm blind as a bat.

RAMSEY:  2203 Seymour [Ramsey’s address]. Where are them girls living?  Right next door to this paycheck.  So yes, take that reward and give it to - that little girl came out the house and she was crying.  

  

** Besides not being able to afford spectacle for Cooper, has CNN lost the lease on its studios? I have to ask, because its anchors seem to spend every minute of airtime standing outside these days. I get it – evidently having an a talking head stand on a street in the same city as, but five blocks away from, the police line demarcating the crime scene is supposed to convey to us the overwhelming sense verisimilitude and urgency. I just hope these poor “news” people are being supplied with comfy shoes, or maybe those cushy rubber mats restaurants have for their line chefs.

 *** I confess it: I will never get tired of watching that.

  

Getting your mind right

I'm recycling a New Year's post from a couple of years ago. It is especially apt on the eve of a year in which our statist overlords sound more than usually inclined to ignore actual facts* and to do all they can to deprive us of as many useful tools for self-defense as they can. It is apt because the right and duty to defend yourself and your loved ones won't cease if these scoundrels succeed. And fortunately, at least for the moment, they have not managed to think of way to ban the most important tool of all.


Some folks like a triad. You will also hear lots of discussion about three-legged stools. Others prefer to slice a pie into four pieces.  Some would rather disassemble the device into components. Whatever your favored metaphor, the simple notion of “self defense” implicates many considerations.

 You have to have tools that work, every time, and are suited to you. You have to be able to use those tools effectively, so that means adequate marksmanship and competent, reflexive gun-handling. To achieve those, you have to train, and the training has to be realistic and relevant. Then you have to practice often and effectually – recognizing that training and practice are not the same thing. Your ancillary gear has to be suited to your particular use of it, and as reliable as your primary tools.

But while all of these are necessary, none of them is sufficient. All of these considerations matter, but there is one thing that is lord of them all: Mindset.

Robert's Rule is that "Mindset Matters Most." Fighting mindset determines outcomes. Mindset implicates the largest questions: How do you believe you came to occupy the universe? Mindset invades the smallest of moments: Will you keep fighting for this next second?

Not only will the better mindset prevail “all things being equal,” but the man with the better mindset can prevail over an adversary who is better equipped or trained or both, while a poor mindset renders expertise irrelevant. This is not a new notion. Sun Tzu** said 2500 years ago that every battle is won or lost before it is fought.

Proper mindset drives you toward the satisfaction of all the other necessary elements: You are determined to expend the time and sweat and money to train realistically and practice effectively. You have done the research and trials necessary to know what weapons and gear will work best for you, and you have not stinted on buying the best you can afford.  But mindset stands apart from and above all these other factors.

Proper mindset means that you have decided that you are a human being and that human beings have the right to defend their lives and wellbeing, and the lives and wellbeing of those in their care or charge. You have decided that you concur with the Founders' belief that your right to life is natural and inalienable. You have decided that the image of an armed woman standing over the bleeding body of a would-be rapist is morally superior to the image of a battered woman lying on the ground, watching as her rapist flees.

To have a proper mindset is to be utterly ready for that which you earnestly pray will not occur. Proper mindset means that you can walk away from any insult or offense that does not warrant a fight, no matter the injury to your ego. But proper mindset means that you are ready to fight when it is time to fight, because you have decided you will fight long before the fight. Proper mindset is what spares you the paralysis of “this can’t be happening,” so that you can get into the fight when it will do you the most good. It is proper mindset that will keep you in the fight – when you are afraid or exhausted or shot – until you prevail or die.

Proper mindset means you have thought about what this kind of fight really looks like, even if you have never engaged in or witnessed one. You know that you are willing to do great harm to a determined assailant, to wet your hands with his blood, if that’s what it takes to end his aggression. More than this, you know if you are capable of ending the life of another human being if need be. Proper mindset means that you have examined your heart of hearts with unflinching honesty. If you are a person of faith, proper mindset means you have reconciled these issues with that faith before the moment arises.

Mindset is not magic; it is not an incantation or a prayer or a mantra. It is neither esoteric nor theoretical; it is, instead, the most practical thing there is. Mindset is a set of decisions, considered with greatest care, resolved to a moral certainty and then followed through, come what may. Proper fighting mindset may come easy or hard for you, but the having or lack of it is not a matter of luck or heredity, nor is it the exclusive province of any particular profession. Mindset can be learned.

I respectfully submit that's something worth considering when you formulate your New Year’s resolutions this week.



* Those facts really are very simple and boil down to this -- fewer weapons in the hands of law-abiding citizens equals more crimes committed against them by criminals unconcerned with silly things like gun laws.

** I will leave it for others to debate the question of whether Sun Tzu actually existed as a single historical figure.

No good deed.

Julius Caesar contended that "cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once."* At the biggest corporation in the world, that philosophy is slightly revised. There, cowards may die many times before their deaths, but the valiant get terminated.

Just ask Layton, Utah, Walmart employees Gabriel Stewart, Shawn Ray, Lori Poulsen and Justin Richins.

You can read the news story and the police report. In short summary, loss prevention workers Poulsen, Ray and Richins caught a fellow stealing a computer. They stopped him at the door, took him to the loss prevention office and were joined by assistant manager Stewart. Once everyone had crowded into the small room, the shoplifter -- a convicted felon named Trent Allen Longton -- drew a pistol, put it to Stewart's back and demanded to be released.

No one was able to shoot Longton to the ground, since Walmart policy disarms its employees.** So the workers took the thief's gun away from him and sat on him until the police showed up. In terms we've used here before, they acted violently enough soon enough for long enough to end the threat.

They did not panic and decide that they were helpless victims. Nor did they allow this armed criminal to flee into the crowded store it was their job to protect, there to threaten or harm or abduct someone else. That the circumstances seem not to have given them any other real options -- as one employee describes it, there really wasn't anywhere for the four to flee even if they had wished to -- makes their actions no less valiant or correct. Many are those who might not have reacted so well. Not that these four need me to validate them, but given the available descriptions, I'd say their actions were tactically and morally perfect.

And so, you reasonably ask, what was Walmart's reward to these heroic folks? Are they even now being whisked to the Bentonville headquarters via private jet,*** there to be honored for their service, perhaps to be awarded the Sam Walton Medal for Valor?**** Will they get a lifetime membership to Sam's Club? Would you believe a free chewy pretzel?

No, none of this. Instead, Walmart gave all four employees some time off. Well, more accurately, they gave all four employees forever off. Walmart fired them all. Walmart shill, er, spokesman Dan Fogelman put it this way:

We appreciate the intentions demonstrated by our associates in this situation, but the actions taken put their safety -- and potentially the safety of our customers and other associates -- in jeopardy. In their roles within the store, they were aware of our expectations regarding safety and, unfortunately, their actions have led to them no longer working for the company.

The first sentence contains a lie. It has to be a lie because no human being capable of speech could be that dumb. The employees' actions didn't increase the danger to the others in the store. Once Langton produced the gun, and given the options available to them,  the loss prevention people were right to defend themselves, disarm the bad guy and contain him away from others he might have attacked.

But a lie from a fellow in Fogelman's position is no big deal. What's really foul is that last unctuous, passively evil clause: "[U]nfortunately, their actions have led to them no longer working for the company."

Bad enough that cowardice is evidently Walmart corporate policy. Worse that Walmart "associates" -- even the ones who exchange heroism for minimum wage -- are disposable. What stinks worst of all is that Walmart's cowardice is so complete that it cannot even take responsibility for its own actions in firing these people. Don't blame the company, it's just "unfortunate" that these employees' actions somehow "led to them no longer working for the company."

The fact is that Walmart expects its loss prevention people to use "reasonable force" to detain shoplifters, unless and until the shoplifter produces a weapon, at which point the employees are supposed to "disengage." Although that policy is desperately flawed on about three obvious bases, let's let it lie for now. Because the policy isn't the problem this time. The problem is Walmart's mechanical application of the policy and its struthious disregard of the circumstances -- and of the effect on the lives of four people. That's management by cowardice, plain and simple.

Still, I have to believe that Stewart, Ray, Poulsen and Richins won't be long out of work. Surely Layton, Utah must be home to at least one employer who values something more than low prices.



 *Julius Caesar, Act 2, Scene II, Wm. Shakespeare. 

** Repeat Robert's Rule with me now: "Gun-free zones aren't"

*** Walmart's private fleet is the largest of any company.


**** No such medal exists, although Sam was the recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Bush 41 in 1992.

I believe.

As of this morning, I have now been called both a “die hard liberal” and a reactionary in the same week. I confess that, on a certain level where my inner Mencken dwells, this rather pleases me.

But I also recognize that it is a signifier of a core weakness in the current public discourse – the widely held notion that by knowing any single belief a person holds, you can accurately predict his position on every other possible issue of human consideration. I call it “The Theory of Ubiquitous Polarity,” a system under which an observer believes that all beliefs must necessarily be aligned in whatever manner the observer himself aligns them.

Now, Ubiquitous Polarity is about as valid and useful a construct as phlogiston, but its proponents are equally as committed to it as any alchemist was to his own world view. So an intellectual conflict -- sort of a second hand cognitive dissonance -- arises in the breast of an adherent of Ubiquitous Polarity when he encounters someone who holds a belief with which the observer concurs and, simultaneously, a belief with which the observer disagrees. What follows is usually a resort to ad hominem attacks in which the person with "inconsistent" views is denounced as “a politician,” or one who seeks "to please everyone” or “to be all things to all people.” This exercise not only relieves the observer's cognitive dissonance, it spares him the exertion of actually considering another's opinions, or of even examining his own beliefs one at a time.

So, with a mischievous eye toward increasing such dissonance, without offering here the underpinnings of any of these contentions, and in the spirit of Walt Whitman,* let me set forth the following non-exhaustive list:

I believe that Jesus of Nazareth was God incarnate; God born fully a man to live a perfect life and die an atoning death, that sinful man might be reconciled to righteous God, and that this reconciliation occurs in each person by Grace alone through Faith alone in Christ alone.

I believe this faith is no accomplishment of mine, nothing for which I deserve credit, but rather a gift of a gracious God.

I believe there is nothing wrong with an occasional drink of whiskey, or an occasional cigar.

I believe there is no essential or meaningful difference between Glenn Beck and Keith Olbermann.

I believe that human life begins at conception.

I believe the Earth is several billion years old and that the evolutionary process was pleasing to God, the creator of the universe.

I believe that enterprise, innovation, useful risk and hard work should be rewarded – for their own sake and because they are good for society as a whole – and that a free market economy is the best system for ensuring such rewards.

I believe that no one has the right – in pursuing such rewards – to jeopardize the health or well being of another, or to spoil the environment shared by all.

I believe that a civilized society can afford and ought to provide health care, education through high school, food security, and basic housing to every one of its members, as a human right.

I believe, with Thomas Paine, that that government is best which governs least.

I believe that, while taxes are not theft, the imposition of a dollar more than is necessary, or the waste or misdirection of a penny, is a crime against the people.

I believe that if you like your steak well-done and your coffee decaffeinated, you don't really like steak or coffee.

I believe the rights to life, to liberty and to pursue happiness and dignity come from God and belong to each individual who,  accordingly, has the right to defend those rights – even by force of arms – against anyone – any criminal, any institution, and even any government – that proposes to take them.

I believe the curve where a woman’s bottom meets her thigh is the most beautiful structure in nature.

I believe, with Robert Heinlein, that kids should be kept long on hugs and short on pocket money.

I believe our adversarial system of justice – while it can be brutal, flawed, indifferent and dangerous – works awfully well when the men and women engaged in it operate in good faith.

I believe in condign punishment for the guilty and that some crimes deserve death.

I believe it is better for a guilty man to go free than for the state to take the liberty of an innocent man.

I believe that “Casablanca” is a nearly perfect movie.

I believe in marriage, and that the fifth chapter of the Book of Ephesians offers a good manual for a successful one.

I believe God is perfectly sovereign, but that I am responsible for all my actions, and thus in desperate need of Grace.

I believe, with the ad writers, that life is too short to drink cheap beer.

I believe the best immigration policy is “high fences and wide gates,” wherein we vigorously protect our borders and sovereignty, but in which legal immigration – that brought everyone in my family here – is easy and attainable.

I believe that sometimes war is the answer, as it certainly was when my Dad went, and the question on the table was: “World slavery, yes or no?”

I believe we were right to go to war in Afghanistan and that we were wrong to go to war in Iraq.

I believe that has nothing whatsoever to do with the honor of the Soldiers, Marines, Sailors, Airmen and Coast Guardsmen who have fought there.

I believe, with Samuel Johnson, that every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, or not having been at sea.

I believe the designated hitter is bad for baseball, and that what’s bad for baseball is bad for America.


*     Do I contradict myself?
       Very well then I contradict myself,
       (I am large, I contain multitudes.)
 
                           Walt Whitman, "Song of Myself"

Resolved.

Some folks like a triad. You will also hear lots of discussion about three-legged stools. Others prefer to slice a pie into four pieces.  Some would rather disassemble the device into components. Whatever your favored metaphor, the simple notion of “self defense” implicates many considerations.

 You have to have tools that work, every time, and are suited to you. You have to be able to use those tools effectively, so that means adequate marksmanship and competent, reflexive gun-handling. To achieve those, you have to train, and the training has to be realistic and relevant. Then you have to practice often and effectually – recognizing that training and practice are not the same thing. Your ancillary gear has to be suited to your particular use of it, and as reliable as your primary tools.

But while all of these are necessary, none of them is sufficient. All of these considerations matter, but there is one thing that is lord of them all: Mindset.

Robert's Rule is that "Mindset Matters Most." Fighting mindset determines outcomes. Mindset implicates the largest questions: How do you believe you came to occupy the universe? Mindset invades the smallest of moments: Will you keep fighting for this next second?

Not only will the better mindset prevail “all things being equal,” but the man with the better mindset can prevail over an adversary who is better equipped or trained or both, while a poor mindset renders expertise irrelevant. This is not a new notion. Sun Tzu* said 2500 years ago that every battle is won or lost before it is fought.

Proper mindset drives you toward the satisfaction of all the other necessary elements: You are determined to expend the time and sweat and money to train realistically and practice effectively. You have done the research and trials necessary to know what weapons and gear will work best for you, and you have not stinted on buying the best you can afford.  But mindset stands apart from and above all these other factors.

Proper mindset means that you have decided that you are a human being and that human beings have the right to defend their lives and wellbeing, and the lives and wellbeing of those in their care or charge. You have decided that you concur with the Founders' belief that your right to life is natural and inalienable. You have decided that the image of an armed woman standing over the bleeding body of a would-be rapist is morally superior to the image of a battered woman lying on the ground, watching as her rapist flees. 

To have a proper mindset is to be utterly ready for that which you earnestly pray will not occur. Proper mindset means that you can walk away from any insult or offense that does not warrant a fight, no matter the injury to your ego. But proper mindset means that you are ready to fight when it is time to fight, because you have decided you will fight long before the fight. Proper mindset is what spares you the paralysis of “this can’t be happening,” so that you can get into the fight when it will do you the most good. It is proper mindset that will keep you in the fight – when you are afraid or exhausted or shot – until you prevail or die.

Proper mindset means you have thought about what this kind of fight really looks like, even if you have never engaged in or witnessed one. You know that you are willing to do great harm to a determined assailant, to wet your hands with his blood, if that’s what it takes to end his aggression. More than this, you know if you are capable of ending the life of another human being if need be. Proper mindset means that you have examined your heart of hearts with unflinching honesty. If you are a person of faith, proper mindset means you have reconciled these issues with that faith before the moment arises.
 
Mindset is not magic; it is not an incantation or a prayer or a mantra. It is neither esoteric nor theoretical; it is, instead, the most practical thing there is. Mindset is a set of decisions, considered with greatest care, resolved to a moral certainty and then followed through, come what may. Proper fighting mindset may come easy or hard for you, but the having or lack of it is not a matter of luck or heredity, nor is it the exclusive province of any particular profession. Mindset can be learned.

I respectfully submit that's something worth considering when you formulate your New Year’s resolutions this week.




* I will leave it for others to debate the question of whether Sun Tzu actually existed as a single historical figure.

You've got to be carefully taught.

UPDATED below.

Clay Duke has lessons to teach us. He didn't come to school to teach. Instead he came to die, and quite possibly to kill. But that only makes the lessons more important.

Here is Clay Duke's instructional video. An alternative view can be found here.

Clay Duke, a paroled felon with mental health issues and angry over his wife’s termination, left a suicide note on Facebook on Wednesday and went to a meeting of the Bay County School Board toting a can of spray paint and a pistol and planning violence. Stepping to the public comment podium he sprayed a symbol from the graphic novel “V for Vendetta” on the wall, shooed the audience out of the room, drew the pistol and held the board members hostage for about six minutes.

Here are just three lessons from an incident brimming with them.

Lesson One: Act violently enough, soon enough, for long enough to end the threat. This incident turned out as well as it was ever going to – bad guy dead, no one else hurt. The security officer who took the shooter down is of course to be commended. But it’s only thanks to the Clay Duke’s lousy shooting that innocent people didn’t die before he did. Because the security officer waited until after the gunman had fired a shot to begin shooting himself. That was far too long to wait.

The time to shoot Clay Duke was when he first produced the handgun. Or when he first started ordering people around with it. Or when he first told the board members to stay put at point of the gun. Or when he raised the weapon and pointed it at a board member for several seconds before pulling the trigger. Or any time before he started shooting.

Lesson Two: Gun free zones aren’t. Anywhere in the U.S., it’s illegal for a felon to possess a firearm. In Florida, it’s illegal to bring a gun onto school board property. It’s illegal to bring a gun to a government meeting. It’s illegal to conceal a weapon without a permit. Not for nothing, it’s illegal to threaten people with a gun, to hold them hostage or to shoot at them, too. Little surprise, though, that Clay Duke – mentally ill, despondent and intent upon his own death – did not heed these laws. I don't know, but will presume he walked right past a "no guns" sign on his way into the meeting hall.

The “gun free zone” in which the school board met was, like all gun free zones (including those the size of a city), only free of lawfully possessed guns in the hands of law abiding citizens, who were thus deprived of the ablity to defend themselves.

No prohibition or statute or sign or board policy was going to discourage Clay Duke or protect those board members.* What might have protected them, however, was the wherewithal to lay down a cross fire of sufficient volume.

Consider the little old lady with the enormous purse who takes a swing at Clay Duke early in the incident. Her actions – while admirable in a sort of vaguely comical way – were utterly and inevitably futile. But imagine if that enormous bag had held a pistol. She had the drop on Clay Duke, who clearly didn't see her. Suffice to say a bullet in Clay Duke’s brainstem would have made for a shorter video.** Even if you are squeamish about engaging in this exercise, you still have to answer this question: Which do you consider the morally superior picture – Ginger Littleton (the little old lady) standing over the dead body of Clay Duke, a smoking pistol in her hand; or Clay Duke standing over the dead body of Bill Husfelt (the superintendent who bravely offered himself if the gunman would let his colleagues go)?

Lesson Three: Handguns are lousy man-stoppers. Watch the video closely. You can see Clay Duke fire his first shot, then he lowers the pistol and unintentionally discharges another round, obviously inadvertently,*** into the floor. He’s then hit from behind with the officer’s first two shots. Nevertheless he is able to advance on the dais and fire two more shots at close range, before he is hit a third time as he goes to the ground. Although shot to the ground, Clay Duke is still able to fire his weapon. In a portion of the video obscured by CNN, he shoots himself in the head. He might just as easily have rolled toward the security officer and sent rounds that way.

Handguns are not magical talismans; they do shoot a death beam like a Star Trek phaser. Hollywood may have you convinced that the impact of a handgun round will blow the bad guy off of his feet and  through the conveniently placed plate glass window. Certainly no television news report ever refers to any handgun used in a crime as anything but “powerful” or "large-caliber."  But the truth is that the only time handgun rounds are terminally effective is when they are placed very well. You can only count on a handgun to end a bad guy’s aggression by either disconnecting his central nervous system, or by breaking apart the structures that hold him up and allow him to act, or by causing him enough blood loss that he loses consciousness.

So, be prepared to act. Be equipped to act (not only with a weapon, but with the knowledge and will to use it). And keep shooting until the threat is neutralized.

UPDATE: From an interview with security officer Mike Jones, we learn that he had to go to his car to retrieve the weapon he used (sigh) and he hesitated to shoot Clay Duke, because his shots were going to hit the gunman in the back and he was worried about being charged with a crime (double sigh). So we have these additional lessons: There is no use in good intentions or wishful thinking. The only firearm you can use to protect yourself and others is  one you actually have. And: Life is not a 1950s movie Western. If you are justified in using lethal force, then you are justified in using lethal force. Trying to ensure a fair fight is a good way to die or get others killed.


*Which it makes it nearly certain, in the aftermath of this incident, that some politician somewhere will propose a new law to "prevent this from happening again." As if any law could.

** She’d have needed to watch her angle of fire to ensure she didn’t endanger the other board members. “Know your target and what’s beyond it,” as Col. Cooper taught us. That was likely the challenge for the security officer as well, who appears to have had the school board members directly in line with his target as well.

 *** Col. Cooper also taught "Keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on the target."

Can only flee from evil.*

Kilgore College in Kilgore, Texas is the home of the Rangerettes, the self described first women’s precision drill team in the world. The group was founded in 1939 with two goals in mind: To attract more young women to college, and to keep fans in the stands during halftime, lest they slip away for an unapproved beverage.

What this has meant in practice, lo these 70 years, is rows of young women in startlingly brief cowgirl costumes, showing off their – um – precision high-kicking skills across the playing fields and parades of Kilgore and the nation, strobing the crowd with brilliant white smiles and even more brilliant red panties. (For the record, I am by no means opposed to this behavior.)

Kilgore’s football team went 4-6 this year in the South Western junior College Football Conference, but Coach J.J. Eckert’s job is in no jeopardy. The utter superfluity of the game – or “that nonsense between Rangerette routines,” as the alumni call it – is understood.  As important as football is in Texas, it is girls drill team that find its greatest expression there, and the Rangerettes are both the source waters and the sine qua non of the drill team ethos. Rangerettes have a reverence for their traditions and prerogatives that rivals the United States Marine Corps.  Just as there are no “former Marines,” there are no former Rangerettes; they are instead called “Forevers.”  They have a museum.  All active Rangerettes – even local girls – are required to live on campus, in a dormitory named for the founding  director of the group. And, in the service of what appears to be a perfect, patriotism-catalyzed combination of the salacious and the wholesome, they are expected to maintain good grades, shapely figures, better deportment and perfect integrity.

I mention the Rangerettes not so that I can have cause to dwell on rows of young women in startlingly brief cowgirl costumes (well, not merely that), but so that I might also introduce you, in context, to Dr. Bill Holda, president of Kilgore College.

Dr. Holda, as it happens, opposes the notion that his adult students who already have a license to carry a firearm ought to be permitted to carry that weapon when they walk on campus. The movement to allow campus carry, on simmer over the past 15 years as more and more states allowed lawful carry in general, came to a boil and stayed there after the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre, the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. It seems mass murderers like Seung-Hui Cho fare better where disarmed citizens – or “victims,” as rational folk call them — are deprived of the tools to defend themselves by adherence to the gun-free policies which, quelle surprise, those intent on mass murder are themselves disinclined to heed. Thanks to the efforts of groups like Students for Concealed Carry, Cho’s would be imitators will find rougher going on 70 campuses, with more to come.

Dr. Holda is not swayed, however. No weight of common sense arguments will convince him to revise the present Kilgore College choice between getting an education and forfeiting a natural right. Still, Dr. Holda wouldn’t be worth mentioning if all he did was recite the usual litany of emotional arguments opponents favor. But Dr. Holda is a doctor – of something or another – and a university president, too, and he’s made himself worth mentioning because he has employed a far more scholarly rhetorical device than mere emotion: He favors pure fabrication.

Dr. Holda cited to the second largest mass shooting in U.S. history, the Luby’s Restaurant shooting in 1991 in Killeen, Texas, a couple of hundred miles away – or “down the road a piece,” as Texans call it. What lesson did Dr. Holda find for us in that tragedy? Well you see, Dr. Holda pointed out, the trouble at Luby’s was “that you had multiple shooters, and innocent people were killed by other people who had concealed, licensed handguns, because they weren’t sure who was the shooter and who was a defender.” [Listen to the video at about 1:20.]

That’s not just a lie. That is a damned lie. There’s no dispute: no one else in Luby’s fired a shot that day, and everyone killed or wounded was shot by George Hennard. In fact, the Luby’s massacre led directly to the Texas Legislature making Texas a “shall issue” state for concealed carry. One survivor that day was Suzanna Hupp, whose parents died unprotected because then current laws, which she obeyed, required her to leave her pistol in her car. She went on to become a legislator after that and is a leading proponent of lawful carry.

Sadly for Hupp and the other Luby's survivors, they have no defense against Dr. Holda’s vile slander of their loved ones.

I don’t know how Dr. Holda would look in a startlingly brief cowgirl costume, but he could learn a thing or two from the Rangerettes when it comes to deportment and integrity. And I don’t know if he can get his leg straight up in the air, but he can clearly get his head all the way up his ass.


* “An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it.” Col. Jeff Cooper.

Are you talking to me?

Years ago I was at a grocery store with my older son. He’s a much better driver today, but he was only about eight then and he ran the nose of the shopping cart into the heel of another shopper.

No one enjoys that, and the fellow was in his rights to turn and shout “hey!” just as he did. I’ll even grant him the angry “watch it!” that followed, although seeing that the offending driver was just a kid, a better man would have smiled instead.

But he wasn’t done, and he took the opportunity to share some emphatic child-rearing advice with me. I put myself between my boy and the offended shopper as I apologized for the accident, and I began moving us toward another aisle. He shifted from telling me how to raise my son to suggesting all sorts of deficiencies in my own character and ancestry. (If he only knew.) Although others in the store had little choice but to pay him attention, I was ignoring what he said and watching his hands as we moved away. The shopper didn’t appreciate being ignored, so he asked, in an obvious bow to classic movies of the 1940s, if I wanted to step outside. I held my tongue, kept watching his hands, and moved us on.

My decision to act as I did is, I trust, such an obvious one that it doesn’t bear much explaining. Really it boils down to the old schoolyard incantation about the orthopedic limitations of sticks and stones. Nothing particularly interesting there; no lessons to learn.

More interesting by far is to consider these events from the perspective of the lightly bruised, fully inflamed shopper.

I’d put the angry fellow’s age at 60, give or take a year. He was five-feet, six-inches tall and weighed maybe 140 pounds. I can accurately assess his weight because his attire – tank top, Lycra biking shorts and flip-flops – left far less to the imagination than one would wish.* Furthermore, this getup made it obvious – to an anatomically explicit degree no outfit regularly found outside a ballet studio ever could – that he was almost certainly unarmed.

I, in contrast, was some 20 years his junior. I’m over six-feet tall and weighed near to two of him. My clothing that day – cargo slacks and an un-tucked camp shirt – made it impossible for the fellow to know whether I was armed with, just as an example, a 9mm pistol, a spare magazine, a hefty folding knife and pepper spray. I hope it's clear that my point here isn't that I'm some sort of high-speed, low-drag badass. But rather that it was surprising that, given just the facts available to him, this man's default position was to try to engage me in combat.

So, the questions arise: Just exactly what did this diminutive little ball of outrage have in mind? How exactly did he see this turning out? What about the tiny, inadvertent insult he suffered was worth the risk he was taking in acting as he did? Was he so caught up in his own self-generated rage that he couldn’t master himself?

Of course, I confess that I don't know what I don't know, either. There’s a chance he was a secret ninja warrior of the eighth degree. Maybe his ear concealed a tiny CAS radio uplink and he was poised to call in an air strike. Perhaps – despite all the evidence his behavior provided to the contrary – he was the product of decades of Tier One military expertise. Maybe my first step outside with him would have been my last.

But I rather doubt it. I suspect he was just what he appeared to be: a scrawny, aging yuppie with bad impulse control, who led such an insulated life of privilege that the possibility of real violence – any violence, let alone the lethal variety – seemed impossibly remote to him there in that fluorescent oasis of civilized, upscale consumption.** I’d wager he’d made similar threats before, with similar outcomes. Maybe he went home and told his wife another tale about how he told off some fat, middle-class, cowardly asshole at the store.

But he violated one of Robert’s Rules: “Never depend upon the other guy’s better nature. He probably does not have one.”  He could safely violate that rule with me because I’m a civilized guy; because my impulse control is as powerful as his is poor; because I didn't assess him as a threat; and, most of all,  because he was never the least threat to my child.

But it’s the nature of Robert’s Rules that you ignore them at your peril. The next guy he tries may be more inclined to teach him that by way of an object lesson.





*Although a purely sartorial discussion is beyond the scope of this post, I know there are those who would suggest that this outfit, worn anywhere but while actually riding a bicycle, is sufficient justification for mayhem. I would not argue with them.

** Our scene was set in the Whole Foods Market in Pinecrest which, for those familiar with the place, is all that needs saying.