Get a firearm

Law enforcement simply cannot ensure that all the people are alright all of the time. The solution? Buy yourself a gun

Two stories in the past few days have highlighted the need for self-defense preparation, one in South Carolina and the other in the Twin Cities, where I live. In the latter case, a man with a carry permit followed a robber who had allegedly beaten a woman in her 50s outside of a grocery store. The Samaritan demanded the return of the woman's purse. The alleged perpetrator, an ex-convict named Darren Evanovich, reportedly responded by pulling his gun, which prompted the permit holder to draw his own weapon and fire, fatally wounding Evanovich.

Minnesota has had a "shall-issue" permit law for several years. What exactly does that mean? There are "may issue" and "shall issue" laws. Under a "may issue" system, the local county sheriff has unlimited discretion to deny carry-permit applications. "Shall issue" laws mandate that sheriffs must issue permits to anyone who meets the requirements (including education and weapons certification from licensed instructors). Prior to the passage of the shall-issue law, Minnesotans received widely disparate treatment based on the county in which they lived — and the political outlook of each county sheriff. Some sheriffs issued permits readily to those who qualified, while a few refused to issue permits in almost any case.

A properly prepared citizen presents no special danger to his community, and an argument can be made that each law-abiding permit holder enhances security.

In 2003, at the time of the current law's passage, opponents predicted dire consequences, including a rapid increase in murders, duels in the street, and more fights that ended in shootings than in fisticuffs. Critics warned about vigilantes roaming the streets to deal rough justice to anyone who looked out of place.  

None of this materialized. Crime rates did not rise; in fact, they fell over an eight-year period, as the index of violent crime in 2002 went from 267.2 per 100,000 people to 236.0 in 2010. Murders dropped from 2.5 to 1.8, forcible rapes from 45.2 to 33.9, robberies from 78.4 to 63.9, and aggravated assaults from 141.4 to 136.4. Carry permits may or may not have impacted these declines, but they certainly did not push the crime rate upward.

But to critics of Minnesota's gun law, the Evanovich case provided the example of an out-of-control citizenry that they had long predicted — and the local media leaped to exploit it. Television news stations interviewed family members who attested to Evanovich's commitment to the community, while the local Star Tribune newspaper twice provided this misleading description of the events: "A man nearby saw the attack. He had a state permit to carry a pistol, and he had one with him. He chased the robber behind a restaurant and shot him dead."  The man did not "chase" Evanovich, and the newspaper failed to acknowledge that Evanovich drew his own weapon first. The Star Tribune's reporter went on to relate how Evanovich's sister Octavia Marberry was "with Evanovich the night he died," and "held him in her arms as he took his last breath."

The prose strains toward poetry, but it also fails to inform readers that Marberry was with Evanovich because she had been his accomplice in the alleged robbery and beating that had just taken place. In fact, police arrested her a few days later as a suspect in a string of armed robberies and assaults allegedly committed by Evanovich in the nine days before his demise. Marberry herself allegedly told one victim that she would "cut" her if the victim screamed and said, "We know where you live" to another. That was no idle threat, apparently, as Marberry faces fraud charges, likely linked to the use of credit cards that allegedly stolen in the robberies.

It's safe to assume that Evanovich and his sister weren't going to stop victimizing middle-aged women shopping alone in south Minneapolis, at least as long as they could presume that their intended victims couldn't defend themselves. One might imagine the media's surprise when the Hennepin County Attorney — a Democrat (DFL in Minnesota) — not only cleared the shooting as justifiable self-defense, but also commended the permit holder for trying to come to the aid of the real victim in this case. The decision reaffirmed the legal right to self-defense, and managed to undercut the notion that the man who allegedly pistol-whipped a defenseless woman and pulled a gun on another man was somehow the victim that needed lamenting.