Safe Places Don’t Exist

Safe Places Don’t Exist – There was an article (if you can call it that) that talked specifically about the tragedy in Buffalo, and a few other places that the media has seemed to forget. In a shooting in a church in California, 40 people were shot in Chicago over the weekend and made the argument that nowhere is safe anymore. It listed off a bunch of places like nail salons, places of worship, and supermarkets that should be safe.

I am here to say it, there is no such thing as a safe place – ever

Unless you are in a bunker by yourself and no one knows. Why is that? Did we as a public change and become more violent? Are guns the problem? Don’t laws and gun-free zones work? I want to address each of these.

First and foremost, I think that we as a public have changed, as we have become more accustomed to violence as a solution versus the last option. Too often verbal disagreements become kinetic over trivial matters of politics, sports teams, or other causes that should not involve the taking of human life. We have a large part of our population who have not been to war and thus know the cost of taking a life, with their only frame of reference video games and the nightly news. We have lost the middle ground, the agree to disagree and I think this is showing.

Are guns the problem? No, I don’t think so. Ted Nugent had an interview years ago where he pointed out his loaded fully automatic M-16 that had been on his mantle for 19 years and never killed someone. Firearms are a tool, and like all tools, they can be used for good or bad, it is the user that determines the use. Unfortunately, if the user is one of the above-mentioned folks who choose that tool to do violence, it is up to people that are likewise armed to protect to counter-balance. Imagine if in the supermarket there was a concealed carrier, how different would the outcome have been? It doesn’t even need to have an altercation to go to actual firing, just knowing that there might be a stiff defense is a deterrent, and in my experience when I had to draw it ended the violent altercation instantly because the firearm articulated my resolve.

Laws are usually well-intentioned, but unfortunately, people who are going to shoot others are breaking the law anyway. In a famous testimony, the daughter of two people murdered at Luby’s in Texas blasted the state hearing on her inability for her and her dad to carry in a restaurant when a shooter came in ignoring the law. Columbine, Sandy Hook, Aurora, and San Bernadino all share something in common, they all occurred in gun-free zones, where only someone breaking the law would have a weapon in response.

Buffalo in New York has some of the strictest CHL permit applications and because of that has neutered their population’s ability to have rapid self-defense capabilities. For a time I lived in El Paso, Texas which was a simple hop away from the most dangerous city in the Northern Hemisphere, Juarez, Mexico. I had never carried before but after living there for two weeks and seeing a dead body on I-10 hanging from a billboard and hearing 3 shots coming from across the border, I started because the police are only there after I become room temperature.

I wish I had a better holster like the one I use exclusively now, the Original, and I had a little bit of training, but I had something just in case. Since that time, I have drawn my handgun twice in altercations where violence and risk of life were a possibility. I am glad I did, as both of those incidents resolved quickly because I was able to defend myself.

There is no safe space. As you have seen from the videos I have analyzed, it can happen in your house, your front yard, a church, a school, or a supermarket. Take the time to be your own defensive option, get a good holster from us here at JM4 Tactical, and get training because you may be the only thing stopping the next shooting.

Author: Ian Bolser