I make the TFB Youtube Big Time

[BillSWPA]

Regardless of whether anyone likes this or not, people categorize things based on appearance. This is why I teach my kids that the way they dress is how they teach people to treat them. This is why I am dressed business casual in my office even though I have no appointments today. While I am not saying that this should dictate our choice of guns, we ignore this fact at our peril, and need to be prepared to address it.

Glenn's study is one of the things I discuss and cite when teaching about the legal issues of shooting and self-defense. Since that study, AR rifles have become much more common, but have also increasingly been the choice of mass shooters. Both factors will affect the jury's perception.

The Gary Fadden incident, discussed by Mas Ayoob in the March-April 2004 American Handgunner, is also worth considering. Gary used a full automatic rifle to defend himself in a clear case of self-defense. However, he had to spend much more time and money than would have otherwise been necessary because the prosecutor didn't like his use of a full auto rifle.

Lastly, years ago, Mesa, AZ police officer Philip Brailsford responded to a report of a man with a gun, which turned out to be a drunk individual showing an air rifle to a drunk guest in his hotel room, in front of the window. Brailsford was carrying his personally owned AR-15 type rifle. The rifle had “you’re f*****” printed inside the dust cover, becoming visible when the gun was fired. Although Brailsford was ultimately found not guilty, significant media attention was focused on the dust cover.

A video of the Brailsford shooting was posted on TPI. That video shows Brailsford very clearly acting like he is looking for an excuse to shoot someone. At the time of the shooting, the victim had followed Brailsford's instructions to get on his hands and knees and crawl towards him. The victim's pants were too loose, and the victim was shot while reaching towards them to pull them back up. No other officer perceived a threat at that point, and I would not have perceived a threat.

Considering all of the above, my suggestions are:

1. Act responsibly to avoid bad situations in the first place, and to stay within the laws of self-defense if a bad situation happens anyway. Avoiding going to stupid places, hanging out with stupid people, and doing stupid things mitigates the risk of being in a questionable situation. The principles of self defense are primarily what governs.

2. Consider how your choice of weapon will be perceived, and plan to deal with that perception. For example, “I selected an AR-15 type rifle because I knew that 5.56 mm. penetrates fewer walls than a 9mm, .45, or 12 gauge, posing less danger to innocent bystanders.” "I know that a miss endangers innocent people downrange, so I selected a weapon which helps ensure that I will not miss."

3. In my opinion, which appears to be supported by Glenn's posts above, the potential disadvantage in the appearance presented by an AR is not significant enough to avoid that choice in most circumstances, but cannot be dismissed entirely. However, NFA (class III) weapons, which are currently less commonly used, may hurt that perception more.

4. Remember that you are legally responsible for every bullet you fire, and a fully automatic weapon makes it more difficult to ensure that every bullet goes where it should.

5. Avoid skulls, monster or zombie decorations, vulgar or other potentially questionable slogans, or any decorations on a gun that could cause a bad perception of you or your actions.

I really like the idea proposed by Attorney James D. “Mitch” Vilos, who answered Glenn's question in the link above: file a motion in limine to address the issue of the gun's appearance in advance of trial. My best guess is that the motion will be denied but will cause the judge to be extra careful to prevent irrelevant, prejudicial material and statements from influencing the jury.

[Ed L]

Excellent analysis, Ed. The issue with TX law was not something we presented, as pointed out - we trying trying to isolate a generic gun effect. Thus when I talked to legal and law folks - we tried for a reasonable, ambiguous one, similar to used other studies. Of course, in the real world, your attorney should press the actual laws.

As far as my home, first to go the gun - yep, now it is a Glock as it was then. My training experiences indicated it is most, useful, all around gun for our house, given all the things one does. The long arms are hunker down guns or some zombie-ish multiple end of the world scenario - as compared to a sound in the night. The 19, though became a couple of 17s.

Another thing about the results, I said before - this wasn't an absolute principle. Many participants were in favor of the shooter. There wasn't a mock jury room and discussion, each made their own judgement. Now, some studies indicate that this methodology of a written description as compared to an actual mock trial has validity, so it was worth a try. Had to be at a major university with lots of bucks and grad students to do a full mock trial. If only.

I have to say that the original 28 page article that appeared in The Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 2009, 39 was quite a difficult read. It was an academic journal and the article was written in academiceese, and covered several individual studies based around the same thing. I read it and reread it, and kept referring back to it as I was composing my response.

A few other thoughts:

1. After reading this article and participating in this thread, I've come to the conclusion that Glenn may sometimes post things that are not his actual opinion in order to promote discussion and thinking. I think this is the professor in him coming out.

2. I am seriously tempted to buy a Mini-14 just to see exactly what type of reliability it offers with realistic training for defense. This thread led me to go down the Mini-14 wormhole. From what I have read here and elsewhere, the Mini-14 does best with the original Ruger 5 round and 20 round magazines, and firing .223 ammo (as opposed to 5.56mm). If this were back in my days writing for SWAT Magazine I would do an article on it and get the gun, magazines, and ammo provided. But otherwise, I have too many guns that don't get shot enough, and I can't think of an excuse to give myself for buying something that might turn into a major project.

[Ed L]

Regardless of whether anyone likes this or not, people categorize things based on appearance. This is why I teach my kids that the way they dress is how they teach people to treat them. This is why I am dressed business casual in my office even though I have no appointments today. While I am not saying that this should dictate our choice of guns, we ignore this fact at our peril, and need to be prepared to address it.

Glenn's study is one of the things I discuss and cite when teaching about the legal issues of shooting and self-defense. Since that study, AR rifles have become much more common, but have also increasingly been the choice of mass shooters. Both factors will affect the jury's perception.

The Gary Fadden incident, discussed by Mas Ayoob in the March-April 2004 American Handgunner, is also worth considering. Gary used a full automatic rifle to defend himself in a clear case of self-defense. However, he had to spend much more time and money than would have otherwise been necessary because the prosecutor didn't like his use of a full auto rifle.

Keep in mind that this shooting took place 39 years ago when high capacity semi autos were far less commonplace. Also, from reading the description that both cars had exchanged insults and gestures, it sounds like a road rage incident where Fadden was a participant. Still, Fadden tried to get away from the other car and it followed him to his workplace. This makes the other car to be a huge aggressor. Why else would the other car follow him?

Lastly, years ago, Mesa, AZ police officer Philip Brailsford responded to a report of a man with a gun, which turned out to be a drunk individual showing an air rifle to a drunk guest in his hotel room, in front of the window. Brailsford was carrying his personally owned AR-15 type rifle. The rifle had “you’re f*****” printed inside the dust cover, becoming visible when the gun was fired. Although Brailsford was ultimately found not guilty, significant media attention was focused on the dust cover.

A video of the Brailsford shooting was posted on TPI. That video shows Brailsford very clearly acting like he is looking for an excuse to shoot someone. At the time of the shooting, the victim had followed Brailsford's instructions to get on his hands and knees and crawl towards him. The victim's pants were too loose, and the victim was shot while reaching towards them to pull them back up. No other officer perceived a threat at that point, and I would not have perceived a threat.

Given the circumstances of the above shooting, the cop would have been in trouble even if he had used a double barreled shotgun with a Vote For Biden Sticker on it.

Still, there are reasons why I don't use this as my home defense longarm:

[BillSWPA]

Keep in mind that this shooting took place 39 years ago when high capacity semi autos were far less commonplace. Also, from reading the description that both cars had exchanged insults and gestures, it sounds like a road rage incident where Fadden was a participant. Still, Fadden tried to get away from the other car and it followed him to his workplace. This makes the other car to be a huge aggressor. Why else would the other car follow him?



Given the circumstances of the above shooting, the cop would have been in trouble even if he had used a double barreled shotgun with a Vote For Biden Sticker on it.

Still, there are reasons why I don't use this as my home defense longarm:

The Brailsford shooting also shows why one should not 1) get drunk, 2) invite drunk strangers to one's hotel room, 3) show drunk strangers your airgun while also drunk, and 4) show the drunk stranger that airgun right in front of the hotel window where passerby can see it. The victim contributed to his own harm by his own stupidity.

After watching that video, the dust cover had far less impact than anything else on my impression of the shooting. I certainly did not need the dust cover to find the shooting unreasonable. It did, however, result in significant negative news coverage, which could affect the jury pool. It would also potentially impact my opinion of the next idiot who puts such a dust cover, a Punisher skull sticker, etc. on their rifle.

[Ed L]

The Brailsford shooting also shows why one should not 1) get drunk, 2) invite drunk strangers to one's hotel room, 3) show drunk strangers your airgun while also drunk, and 4) show the drunk stranger that airgun right in front of the hotel window where passerby can see it. The victim contributed to his own harm by his own stupidity.

Oh, wait. I am thinking of a different shooting where it involved police shooting a homeless person in outdoors in Arizona in what looked like the desert.

I absolutely agree about avoiding doing the stupid things in stupid places with stupid people. All it really takes is one of them, but the guy in that shooting doubled down on two of them and managed to make a normally not stupid place become a stupid place because of his actions.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

Now, I'm getting motivated to take my Mini-14 to the range. It doesn't get shot that much as folks don't run carbine matches around near me. The local match venues seem just to be locked into the games by the rules (USPSA and IDPA) with handguns and some PCC.

As far as postings, I like p-f as we have a crowd that can discuss complex issues. If I see something interesting to us, I might post it. There may be a finding that might be legit scientifically but lead to a policy I would disagree with. For example, it seems (if it holds up), that higher cap mags lead to more causalities in rampages. However, I would disagree with bans on such as the purpose of the RKBA trumps a mag limit. Some freedoms come with risks.

I plead guilty to being an academic. I would assign controversial issues such as the intersection of evolutionarly based moral principles vs. modern views of behavior and have kids write an opinion given the principles we studied.

Today, I probably would get yelled at. I'm glad I got out before the complete PC and Covid waves hit. Got enough crap about being known as an RKBA advocate. For those who hate tenure, it protected me.

However, lots of student were progun in OR and TX. I might have mentioned that in OR, I took my advanced stat class to the range for our end of semester shoot and pizza jamboree. Got a nice big story in the school newspaper. Me with a B-27. Wonder how that would go over today?

[Ed L]

As far as postings, I like p-f as we have a crowd that can discuss complex issues. If I see something interesting to us, I might post it. There may be a finding that might be legit scientifically but lead to a policy I would disagree with. For example, it seems (if it holds up), that higher cap mags lead to more causalities in rampages. However, I would disagree with bans on such as the purpose of the RKBA trumps a mag limit. Some freedoms come with risks.

I plead guilty to being an academic. I would assign controversial issues such as the intersection of evolutionarly based moral principles vs. modern views of behavior and have kids write an opinion given the principles we studied.

P-F does have a very bright crowd for discussing a wide variety things and issues beyond firearms. I think the firearms related discussions tend to be some of the best on the Internet.

I enjoy your participation and have no issues with you being an academic. I enjoyed reading over your paper, analyzing it, and arriving at the answers to my questions. I think I gained a much deeper understanding than I would have gotten if you had simply answered my questions. I was previously critical of the study as it was presented in online summaries. It sounded like you were saying that anyone who uses an AR or similar firearm to defend themselves from a home invasion would wind up n jail. This is not reflected in reality, and I took strong exception to it. Without reading your original article I did not realize that you did not account for Texas' Castle Doctrine as either background information or part of the defense attorney's presentation; and were using the scenarios as a means of trying to isolate how a firearms' appearance might affect potential juror's views. If you encounter objections to your study online you might consider explaining this fact.

More to come later today or tomorrow.

[Crazy Dane]

Also, there has been community negative reactions to AR as being a tool of a militarized state.

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Glenn, I don't think many realize just how strong the perception is (maybe not the right words). My case in point,

I have 10,000 acres of public wildlife management hunting area out my front door and many times I have walked the public road with a hunting rifle and a revolver strapped on my hip, I did it yesterday morning. Normal reactions to passing motorist ranges from a wave to stopping to ask if I had gotten anything/how's the hunting. The one time I walked to the mailbox with an AR slung across my back, the law got called about " a man with a gun", it was during hunting season. I had been out shooting and the mail lady dropped a package at the box and not wanting to leave a firearm unattended I slung it and walked the 100 yards to the end of the drive. While I was retrieving the package and taking time to open it at the box, several cars passed. Before I was able to make it back to the house, my wife (she is a deputy inside the jail) called and said deputies are on the way up there to a report of a man with a gun call. I put my rifle on the porch and waited for the first deputy to arrive. When he got there, I told him I was most likely the suspect he was looking for and explained why, He told me that I did meet the description but would make a pass to confirm. End of story because I never heard anything else on the matter.

I know I am an example of one, but I have seen many other hunters along the road without a manhunt ensuing. So was this perception or was this a case of someone new to the area and would have called about any type of firearm? I lean to the former.