Thursday, November 30, 2006

Burt Constable Replies

I just received the following email in response to this post:
Dear David Codrea,

Thanks for the link. I love the theory that I am sexually inadequate as a male and that is why I want to take away your gun. I'm just curious. What size gun did you determine that you need?

Sincerely,

Burt Constable
My reply:

Dear Burt Constable,

That's really a function of what I intend to use it for. For concealed carry, my pistol of choice is actually quite small. The largest handgun I own has a 7 ½"” barrel--not the best choice for concealment, but invaluable as an open-holstered sidearm in wilderness areas. And, incidentally, I had to brandish it, once, almost 20 years ago. I credit that action with probably saving my life and that of my family, and everything was resolved peaceably, that is, with multiple aggressors fleeing and without a shot being fired. Credible, peer-reviewed studies, particularly by Kleck, but also by the US DoJ, prove that such defensive gun uses with such outcomes are not that rare an occurrence.

Anyway, it'’s not my theory, just one I found interesting--—and incidentally--—the Julia Gorin essay said nothing about size, so that'’s your fixation. My theory is that you'’re just another in a long line of boringly unoriginal, subversive and childish hacks who don't understand their subject matter, but insist on making public spectacles of themselves anyway. Your reading public deserves better than that, particularly since it is their rights you so smugly and ignorantly disparage.

If you're interested in challenging your own prejudices and preconceptions, I suggest starting here:
http://waronguns.blogspot.com/2006/09/can-gun-control-reduce-violence.html

Not that I think you will.

Sincerely,

David Codrea

PS: I will repro this letter and your initial reply (and any subsequent replies) on my blog. You might be interested in the original post:
http://waronguns.blogspot.com/2006/11/kathryn-johnstons-gun-to-blame-for-her.html

12 comments:

Kurt '45superman' Hofmann said...

I got exactly the same reply--and here I was thinking I was special enough for an individual email (although in fairness, I have gotten another one since then, that clearly was an individual resply to my response).

David Codrea said...

Yes, he apparently thought he came up with a clever response and figured it was good enough to use on all of us.


Point of correction----the dgu I mentioned was more like 14 years ago, not "almost 20."

Anonymous said...

I'm always interested in self-defense with gun stories, David. Can you elaborate, or do you wish to not talk about it?

E. David Quammen said...

In consideration of the perverse implication used by constable, (lower case intentional, out of lack of respect). It just goes to show that we are dealing with a perverse and subversive being.

He sounds so much like the other excrement that needs flushed out of this country. They are a disease....

Anonymous said...

RJ, I can relate a few in my lifetime if you are interested. Well, tell you what, I would tell you one where the gun saved a bad situation, with no one being hurt, and another where I had one with me but the incident shows that we are not eager to use them, though some people did get hurt, not badly.

Anonymous said...

He clearly did not read and comprehend "The Anti-Gun Male" article.

But it is clear he is the consumate subject of the treatise.

Imagine how threatened he must have been by the concept of an armed old woman actually resisting an armed home invasion in a bad neighborhood...thus the vitriol with which he attacks the dead in his own opinion.

Genetic waste.

Anonymous said...

Well, SA, I'll hear a couple if you will. Mind you, I'm not hoping for a gunfight of my own; none of us look for trouble.

me said...

http://www.thewbalchannel.com/news/10422880/detail.html

David Codrea said...

R.J.--gotta let it stand without details. Except it must have happened in Vermont--yeah, that's it, Vermont.

Anonymous said...

'S cool, David. I understand.

Anonymous said...

Ok RJ, here goes.

I was in heavy industrial construction for most of three decades, ergo, I spent a lot of time away from home and not always in the best neighborhoods.

On my home one night through Iowa, I got caught in a blizzard. I kept pushing on, even after I was pushing snow. I was traveling pretty slowly and after awhile I was no longer even seeing any evidence of any other vehicles being out. The world was one deep fluffy white blanket with the marks only I put in it.

I eventually came to an interstate highway and came to a rest area, which I desperately needed for some serious fluid relief. Knew if I stopped beside the road I might slide off, or not be able to get going again, so with a rest stop that had heat if I couldn't get rolling again, at least I would have water and heat.

This rest stop was about 15 miles south of Council Bluffs, there were no cars in it, no tracks of any cars, no footprints leading to the building. I should have been alone.

For some reason, as I got out of the car, something told me I needed my .357. It was a premonition.

When I entered the building five large young men gravitated to me at high speed and surrounded me. I pulled back the front of my coat, put my hands on the butt of my S&W and said "Guys, the ricochets will kill us all." They backed away and grumbled amongst themselves, but I did my business and left. They eyed me really hard, but i didn't have to shoot anybody. There is not one doubt in my mind that absent the pistol, I would be dead in Iowa, my car would have been taken, and wherever their accomplices were they would be in on the split. And my family would have been without me now for many years.

That is one I can talk about.

Anonymous said...

Here's a time when I had my pistol with me and could have justified using it, but didn't. Nobody sane wants to kill anybody.

I had just left a pizza parlor in Longview, Wa. and was headed home across the river when a car with three young men and a young woman pulled up beside me and pointed at my right front tire as though there was something wrong with it.

Now, admittedly, I should have known better, because two construction workers I knew personally, and one I didn't, had already been ambushed and beaten. I didn't know these guys and should have been more wary, but I had been drinking, was in love with the world and far less cautious, in fact, I think I may have been approaching "bullet-proof".

Anyway I pulled into a parking lot of a closed supermarket and got out to look at my tire. When I did the three young guys jumped out of their car and the really big one kicked me in the huevos. The other two had me bracketed, but I don't think these poor bastards had ever met anybody really tough before, because they never moved when I ran between them after the kicker. He screamed like a girl, no kidding!

Anyway, I just whipped their asses. When it was over I just pulled out my browning .380 and said "You stupid bastards are going to end up dead, the next guy might not have a sense of humor."

One of the guy's, whom, as strange as this sounds, I learned to like for his courage, if not his good sense, eyes got about as big around as a full moon. Turns out the really big guy was the instigator. Anyway, I got in my car and went home, with my swollen ear and other parts. Oddly, when I looked up after reading to them from the book, there had been a cop setting up the street and watched the whole thing.

I would have used the gun, I think, if he had tried to roust me after seeing what happened and who started it. Anyway, there were no more attacks on guys off the job. I figure it was the same guys in all four ambushes.