Vice President Joe Biden latest controversial statement has produced some interesting criticism. Biden was asked recently if the ban on certain guns would put people at risk. He responded by encouraging people to buy shotguns and fire them out the window. It was pretty dim-witted advice since that would be illegal, but is it sexist as well as stupid?
A women at a Parents Magazine town hall as Biden “Do you believe that banning certain weapons and high capacity magazines will mean that law-abiding citizens will then become more of a target to criminals as we will have no way to sufficiently protect ourselves?”
Biden immediately did what he does best: put his foot in his mouth and then shoot himself in the foot. Biden chuckled and responded: “As I told my wife — we live in an area that’s wooded and somewhat secluded — I said, ‘Jill, if there’s ever a problem, just walk out on the balcony, put that double-barrel shotgun and fire two blasts outside the house,’” Biden said. “I promise you whoseever [sic] coming in is not gonna — you don’t need an AR-15. It’s harder to aim, it’s harder to use, and in fact you don’t need 30 rounds to protect yourself. Buy a shotgun.”
Kate Ernest later went on Fox and said that Biden sounded sexist: “I think it was poor advice and it comes off a little sexist. Like, ‘let me tell you what you need’ versus, you know, ‘arm yourself or protect yourself in a way that you feel necessary.” Really. You ask Biden for advice on guns. He gives you advice on guns and then you say it was sexist to “tell you what you need.”
No it was not sexist, Ms. Ernest, just stupid.
As a torts professor and criminal defense attorney, I can assure you that firing a shotgun out your window or porch is both illegal and negligent. State laws and regulations strongly reinforce the need to have a clear target or view in shooting a weapon and do not countenance shooting blindly out of window, even on private property or in rural areas. Yes, you may to scare off a prowler as well as gun down your neighbor. If his wife were to follow Biden’s sage advice, she would be looking at possible criminal charges for aggravated menacing, reckless endangerment, and other crimes in Delaware and other states. She would also be subject to tort liability for negligence, assault, and possible battery or wrongful death. It is not generally considered reasonable mistaken self-defense to fire a weapon out a window to scare off the neighbors. Indeed, not long ago, a prosecutor was arrested for such a warning shot.
Now, the Ms. Biden’s possible defense is strengthened by the fact that he described his home as being “wooded and somewhat secluded.” Moreover a shotgun pellet has a shorter trajectory than a bullet. However, we have people hit every year by folks who think they can harmless fire guns in rural areas or in the air. This includes police officers, mail carriers, and others who lawfully come on to property as well as common trespassers in rural areas who cut across land like the recent tragic case in Oregon.
Source: ABA Journal and TPM
Bob Kauten:
Abortion is the one true religion in this country.
No amount of reasoning can talk people out of their religion. It’s not reasonable, its not rational.
Killing unborn humans is collateral damage of the one true religion.
Give me a break.
I dont think reason has anything to do with what you have written. It is out there for all to see and you now try to pull it back when called on it by saying we are unreasonable when you are the one who had the adolescent fantasies?
I guess since you are nutty, you figure everyone else is too. It is funny, you ask a good person what they think of people and they say most are good, the large majority of humanity is good and decent. You ask a bad person and they will tell you the opposite.
The problem with our country is people who think humanity is bad and needs to be controlled. It doesnt say much for the people who rule us or would like to.
Religion or politics, its all the same, the belief in the original sin of mankind.
Porkchop, Jason, OS,
I said what I have said. It’s crystal clear. If you wish to deliberately “misunderstand” what I’ve said, feel free.
GunNutism is the one true religion in this country.
No amount of reasoning can talk people out of their religion. It’s not reasonable, it’s not rational.
Murder is collateral damage of the one true religion.
OS:
interesting subject.
As a layman, I think drugs should only be given in extreme cases. I think people have the ability to heal themselves with the help of a good therapist acting as a guide.
Bron,
Insurance such as Medicare does pay, but they don’t pay much. Every managed care plan I know about rations visits to mental health care providers. It was only recently that mental health diagnosis and treatment got parity with other medical providers. Before that, they paid a maximum of 50% of the fee rate, and that was based on a fee scale about fifty percent the regular hourly rate. In other words, reimbursement 25-35% the regular fee, then still limited the number of visits per year. Insurance companies have been allowing a fee comparable to a visit to your family doctor for a regular office visit, but want the psychiatrist or psychologist to spend a minimum of 45-50 minutes with the patient. That is why most psychiatrists in private practice quit taking any kind of insurance. The mental health center gets grant money and their psychiatrists are on salary.
There has been a movement to get clinical psychologists prescribing privileges with some additional training. Organized psychiatry has fought prescribing psychologist (RxP) legislation tooth and nail. There are a few states where RxP has passed, but they are very few. I remember reading of one state where there were only sixteen psychiatrists outside the two or three major metro areas in the state. There were hundreds of thousands of residents without any access to a psychiatrist at all. The American Psychological Association managed to make a convincing case to that state legislature, and now psychologists have limited prescribing privileges. That means a psychologist can prescribe psychiatric medications, but not meds for other conditions. As an occupational group, psychologists tend to do a better job of following patients on a regular basis and charge less than the average psychiatrist. Of course, like any other profession, there are bad apples and incompetents. I know several psychologists who should not be allowed in the same room with a prescription pad.
Another statistic to give pause. Despite the opposition to RxP, 90% of psychiatric medications are prescribed by family practice physicians. Needless to say, those patients get no psychotherapy at all.
Research shows that a combination of intensive psychotherapy and medications work better than either alone. Another advantage of follow-up therapy is the therapist can monitor the psychiatric medications if they quit working or have adverse side effects. Also, medication compliance is improved.
Did I mention the mental health system in this country is badly broken? As for the local “mental health center,” that is a contradiction in terms; an oxymoron.
OS:
I am in agreement with you. I was not aware that insurance did not cover psychiatry for the mentally ill.
Mental illness is terrible and causes much human misery. We dont seem to have progressed much since the times when they just threw them into a prison and forgot about them.
Bron,
Psychiatric drugs are much improved over what they were just ten or fifteen years ago. The real problem is not the medications but the fact they are usually not monitored very closely for the reasons I gave above. It is the exceptional psychiatrist who gives a patient the full fifty minute hour of face to face therapy in a addition to medications. Even if the patient can find a therapist who will give a full hour of psychotherapy on a regular basis, insurance will not pay, as I described above. If you go to any large state hospital and walk up and down the roadway near the hospital, you are likely to find dozens of pill bottles in the ditch next to the road. They are given medications to take home, but all too many mentally ill patients pronounce themselves well and toss the meds.
Persons such as that grandmother, or Andrea Yates, need close and frequent monitoring. Another thing. Determination of potential dangerousness is a specialized skill in both psychiatry and psychology. In my state, there are about four psychologists who are truly heavy hitters in that sub-specialty, although I suspect way too many psychologists THINK they know how to do it.
working man:
wasnt she on psycho-active drugs? Maybe she would have just drowned them like some women do with their children.
A gun killed those children like a pencil wrote the Gettysburg Address.
When I was a kid some dorks were drunk and smashing beer bottles on our pickup truck at the end of the driveway about fifty yards from the front door at midnight. Pa went out on the porch with the 12 guage, aimed her in the air and let loose a shot. The jerks fled. It was a statement. No birds got shot down. No neighbors drowned. Wouldnt none of them people cared.
Biden was speaking to events such as this. Walk out on the balcony. Outside. Not inside and through the window. The article is distorting the VP ‘s statements and calling him stupid. Sometimes Biden is flippant and funny. But he is a real guy and this article goes off on a tangent that is off base.
OS,
Your statements to Working Man is the absolute truth. Psychotrist are nothing more than legalized pill pushers today. Society/States do not want the extra expense so they just incarcerate them instead of getting them the help that is needed. I’m singing in the choir on this one….
Bob Kauten-
“When I was young and stupid, I owned lots of firearms, legal and illegal.”
Someone who admits to owning illegal guns is giving advice to gun owners who take the law seriously. Great.
“I carried ‘em. I fantasized about how exciting life was, how I had to be always ready to kill bad guys, be the hero. I know the adolescent fantasy syndrome.”
Self-awareness is a good trait to have. Fortunately, I know that the act of shooting someone would be a life-altering ordeal that would likely leave psychological scars. The thought of ending a life, even if 100% justified, makes me sick to my stomach. I have a decent understanding of probability, I know the likelihood of me ever using my gun on anything but paper is incredibly low and I’m thankful for it.
“The only thing I learned is how dangerous it is to have firearms lying about.”
Good thing I and most sane, responsible gun owners don’t leave them “lying about”.
“I almost blew out someone’s brains.”
I gather it wasn’t intentional. So to sum up, gun ownership is bad, so says the illegal gun owner who left guns lying around and couldn’t be bothered to take five minutes to learn the Four Rules resulting in nearly killing someone.
“That would’ve change my life, forever. It certainly would’ve changed his.
It’s adolescent fantasy. What happened? I GREW UP!
Feel free to emulate.”
I’m glad you “grew up”. It sounds like you should have never been allowed in the same county as a gun, never mind own one. What that has to do with me or other people who can rub two neurons together when it comes to this subject, I don’t know.
“I do not endorse keeping a weapon in your house, that, if discharged, the bullet will go through walls until it kills your neighbors.”
Wait, I thought you endorsed shotguns. Buck shot will go through walls more readily than .223/5.56. That’s one of the many reasons that people are taking ARs seriously as home defense guns.
“I also don’t endorse manufacture or ownership of a weapon whose only feasible use, would be to attack another person’s house, and murder everyone inside.”
There are approximately 5 million ARs in private hands. In a given year, well under 400 will be used to kill a person. It seems obvious that there are other feasible uses.
Working Man,
From all I can find out about that incident, the grandmother was seriously mentally ill. If she had not had a gun, she would have used another means. Andrea Yates drowned her kids.
If you want to get serious about this issue, let’s make it about mental health care. Mental health treatment is a disaster in this country and getting worse. There is not a psychiatrist in our immediate area who takes insurance of any kind. Cash at the door. The only psychiatrists who take insurance are at the mental health center. Getting in to see one is next to impossible because they just supervise nurses who write prescriptions. If you get what they call “psychotherapy,” it will be a twenty minute visit with a case worker who may or may not have a Master’s degree in psychology or social work. Many managed care plans limit psychotherapy to six visits per year. Some policies limit visits to six visits per lifetime.
It is not the guns in cases like this, it is lack of mental health care for people who are walking time bombs. Guns are one means among many. How about the granny who bashed in the kid’s heads with a cast iron skillet? Or the granny who chased the kids around the house with a big butcher knife? The young police officer who responded to the call had to shoot and kill her when she charged at him with the knife as he was getting out of his car. Her family had been trying to get her into a hospital, but they would not take her because some social worker determined she was not dangerous.
If I sound pissed off, it is because I am. I have been writing and preaching on this subject since managed care was imposed on us about 1992, and patients no longer could get care. It was bad before 1992, but once managed care took over, effective mental health care virtually disappeared.
How about the call I got from a psychiatrist who said he needed help because he had a suicidal patient with a cocaine habit? The insurance company bean-counter gave the patient a 23 hour admission to the psychiatric hospital. They told the doctor he ought to be able to cure a major depression with suicidal tendencies, as well as the patient’s coke habit in one day. I heard the guy killed himself shortly after being released.
That psychiatric hospital has now gone out of business and closed its doors. Most unruly psychiatric patients are now taken to the county jail and locked up. No medications, and no counseling. Yeah, I am pissed.
Funny. All these stories about guns and home invasions. But not a word about the grandma who today killed herself and her two grandsons. One was 2 and the other just months old. Gee. I wonder if she would have used a bat if a gun had not been available…
To he** with all you idiots and your “life saving” guns.
Bron,
They have pillows?
OS:
I guess they dont put mints on the pillow at that B&B.
Bron,
The guy whose friends did that is now a guest of another bed and breakfast inn. It is run by the Texas Department of Corrections. His BFFs really did not want me to testify in his trial.
Porkchop,
There are stories, apocryphal of course, about homeowners grabbing one from over the mantel and doing serious damage to bad guys. As for me, I am not sure we have many places in our house where you could take a full swing with one. Almost five feet long, and eleven inches across the quillons.
The basket hilt is really good for disemboweling, as you might have noticed if you saw Liam Neeson wield one in Rob Roy.
Genteel, that’s me.
OS,
Well, you ARE a bad person, but at least you are not involved in the GUN CULTURE like the really, really bad people are. The sword culture is more genteel.
If you have room to swing it, I bet that claymore could really do a number on an unwary home invader, though. Beheading does not involve the risk of shooting through walls, either. so it’s all good.
OS:
“Ever go out to your car to find a black rose taped to your antenna?”
They give those out at Holiday Inn?
“I also don’t endorse manufacture or ownership of a weapon whose only feasible use, would be to attack another person’s house, and murder everyone inside.”
************************************
In my gun cabinet, I also have four swords and a compound bow. One of the swords is th claidheamh mòr, better known as the two-handed Claymore or “great highland broadsword.” Its sole purpose was killing. It is enormous and can take a man’s head off…..even if he sitting on a horse. One of my other swords is a claidheamh beag, or basket hilt sword of the type used at the battle of Culloden Moor. I will not bother you with a discussion of my several sgian-dubhs, or Biodag (dirk), neither of which were exactly designed for peeling potatoes, although I suppose you could.
I suppose I am a bad person for keeping that stuff around.
On the other hand, did you know seventeen Olympic events involve shooting? That does not include archery. Or the javelin, which is a fancy name for spear throwing. Killing is the sole purpose, eh?
I think I forgot to mention fencing.
“I also don’t endorse manufacture or ownership of a weapon whose only feasible use, would be to attack another person’s house, and murder everyone inside.”
I am always greatly amused by people who say things like ‘I am ok with the second amendment, or I am ok with guns for hunting, it is just those guns designed for killing people that I oppose.’
Does any one really suppose that the second amendment is about hunting, or target shooting, or gun collecting. Does any one want to seriously argue that hunting rises to the level of a right? I think not.
There are two main views of the second amendment. The first is that the amendment is about the right of states to raise an army, the militia. The second is that the amendment is about the right of individuals to defend themselves.
In either case, how could the amendment be about anything other than weapons designed for the purpose of killing human beings.
Whether the second amendment is about power of states of rights of individuals it clearly is about assuring access to weapons designed for the specific purpose of killing human beings.
Bob K.,
In my forty or so years working closely with law enforcement, and some of the baddest dudes you never hope to encounter, I have had far more things happen in my life than you could imagine in your worst nightmares. Home invasion, no. But one of my co-workers did. She was fearless and defended her home and kids. That is all I care to say about that.
Ever go out to your car to find a black rose taped to your antenna?
My wife went to court with me once. Once. I was testifying for the prosecution in a particularly brutal rape case. She made the mistake of sitting directly behind the defense table, where she could hear the defendant making remarks. She never went with me to court again, and insisted we get a German Shepherd. She named him Trooper.