According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, “Seniors Head to Gun Ranges,” (3/30/16) an increasing number of seniors are buying guns, getting trained on how to use them, and applying for concealed carry permits. They’re worried about crime, terrorism, and general societal breakdown. However, a Harvard professor thinks they’re misguided.
…David Hemenway, a professor of health policy at Harvard University, said “the evidence is pretty strong that [owning a gun] isn’t going to help you.” Having a gun at home increases the risks for suicide and accidental shootings, he said, and it is hard to shoot an intruder or assailant: “Your heart starts beating like crazy,” he said. “If they’re running at you, have half a second or something.”
So what can worried seniors do? “Get a dog, get a good lock, get good neighbors, get a cellphone,” Prof. Hemenway said.
This genius undoubtedly has tenure. Bad guys will be stopped cold by a good lock, and if they’re not, sic Fido on them, and if Fido goes down, you’ve got that half a second to make a cellphone call to your good neighbors or the police, and they’ll be there, magically and instantaneously. Trust the public health policy expert. The last thing you want when a crazed killer comes after you in your own home, or anywhere else, is a gun.
“The last thing you want when a crazed killer comes after you in your own home, or anywhere else, is a gun.”
He might commit suicide and it would be YOUR FAULT.
“Ohhh…my little rabbit heart was beating so fast. “
Indeed! Speaking for myself and most of my friends, the first thing I want when needing to defend my home is the advice of a “Professor of Health Policy at Harvard.”
He will offer to enlighten my ignorance with a class on why common sense has become so uncommon, with endless examples of himself in support of his thesis.
Dave
Check out “Self Defense is a Human Right” website… great photos… I like the one where the woman is holding a gun on an attacker, and the caption is “he looked surprised”.
http://www.a-human-right.com/introduction.html
Check out the website “Self defense is a human right”.
http://www.a-human-right.com/introduction.html
I like the photos, especially the one where it shows a woman holding a gun on her attacker, and the caption is “he looked surprised”.
Buckley once wrote that he’d rather be ruled by the first 10 people in the phone book than 10 Harvard professors. I suspect that if one were in a lifeboat with Harvard professors, the safest thing to do would be to toss them all in the water with the sharks.
According to the Dark Enlightenment, Harvard is basically the Theological Seminary of the Progressivist cult that rules the West now (its roots extend to the Protestant Reformation.) It is at Harvard (and its ilk) that the equalitarian dogmas of today were formulated, much like Islamic scholars pore over the Koran to discern proper Muslim doctrine. It is here our grandparents and parents were first reliably informed that all people are equal…not just in the eyes of God but in everything but professional sports. It is where notions like women can be men (including combat infantrymen), group differences in education attainment, family wealth and such are impossible absent bigotry, racism, sexism and homophobia, and that the dualism of sex determination is a social construct that is as malleable as a man simply stating, “I’m a woman.” It is here we are told that a man could throw open his home to all comers and somehow not first have his refrigerator emptied, his house trashed, his daughters defiled, his sons beaten, and then (once the newcomers attain sufficient numbers) eventually be thrown off his own property.
For a professor at Harvard to inveigh against private gun ownership (and by definition support the rule of “gun experts,” i.e., the armed agents of the state) is just another brick in this wall. Truly these are the men of anti-wisdom, people whose folly is so profound as to defy description.
A neighbor who moved away years ago said it best to his gun-hating coworkers: “Run down gun ownership all you want; I already GOT mine. What are you going to do if some day you decide you need one and can’t get one?”
Always, on this subject Jeff Snyder’s “A Nation of Cowards” from 1993 is a timeless reminder of truth.
http://jim.com/cowards.htm
Hemenway is a lifelong anti-gun zealot who’s published anti-gun/pro-gun control “studies” have been discredited/debunked for the horsepucky that they were multiple times.