Stretching the Definition of Self-Defense

The Menendez brothers are back. New evidence could get them released from prison.

Rosie O’Donnell supports them, so I’m sure if we look at the facts, we’ll see they deserve to stay where they are.

Let’s see.

In 1989, Erik and Lyle Menendez were big, strong, athletic men over 18 years of age. They lived with their dad and mom, Jose and Kitty, who were wealthy.

It appears likely that Jose molested both sons and at least one other boy. There is good evidence he was a serial homosexual pedophile.

The brothers say they had a conversation with their parents in their parents’ home, concerning the molestation. They say their mother sided with their dad, and they feared their parents would kill them to cover up their dad’s perversion. They grabbed two shotguns and shot both parents repeatedly. One of them shot their mother in the face.

They said they killed in self-defense because they were afraid of their parents.

Here is my take.

1. When you’re a big, strong man, and your dad is molesting you, you move out of his house, tell the police, and consider filing a civil suit. If you really feel strongly, you can give him a beating on the way out, and no one will blame you.

2. When you’re afraid someone will kill you days or weeks in the future, and, again, you’re a big, strong man, you tell the police and everyone else you know. You don’t shoot anyone. Ordinarily, you can’t just shoot someone because you think they might kill you in a few weeks.

3. The claim that a fat middle-aged woman was a serious threat to two big, strong sons is not credible, but a claim that they shot her because she let their dad molest them for years, and because she witnessed his murder, is very credible.

4. You don’t shoot your mother in the face because you’re afraid of her. It sounds more like a crime of rage.

I think Jose Menendez was scum, and I don’t feel sorry for him at all. I think someone should have shot him repeatedly with a shotgun long before his sons did. Before he molested them. But often, giving people what they deserve is a crime. I believe it was a crime in this case. Doesn’t seem like a close call.

I think Kitty Menendez was a weak parent who deserved to be confronted and exposed. It is possible she was an accomplice, in which case she should have been locked up. I don’t think there was any legal ground for shooting her.

Some people say the brothers should be released but not exonerated. They think the sentences (two life sentences each, it appears) should be reduced in view of the evidence that Jose Menendez was a gay rapist.

Maybe that’s reasonable. They’ve been in prison for around three decades.

Mark Geragos says that if the Menendezes were women, they would never have been tried. I doubt that. There are many female murderers in prison. Truthfully, I think homosexual rape, especially by a father, would upset jurors more than heterosexual rape.

It’s heresy to say it, but as bad as heterosexual rape is, homosexual rape is worse. It’s more damaging.

Law aside, I would like to see them released simply as a gesture of contempt for their father. And even though I think they’re murderers, if I had been a juror, and I had been told their dad raped them, I would have held out for acquittal. They weren’t going to kill anyone else. Their dad begged for what he got. Their mother let him do what he did, over and over. It’s not like acquitting some illegal who drags a coed behind a convenience store and rapes and kills her.

It doesn’t bother me that they got a lot of money. They apparently earned it with their suffering. And I think it’s gone, anyway.

So that’s my opinion. Wonder what will happen.

I’m putting off fixing the mower, so I’m writing about trivial things.

Today I saw a video by James Reeves. This is the guy from The Firearm Blog. He’s a popular Youtuber. He is also an attorney, although I can’t say whether he practices. He gives opinions about guns and the law, but I have never heard him refer to a case he was involved in. I’ve seen him say things I thought were not smart. For example, he thinks having a Punisher skull on your grips will land you in prison, but he can’t actually cite a case.

Don’t put a Punisher skull on your gun, though, seriously. Grow up. You could be the first guy to go down for it.

He hangs around with Clint Smith, a crusty old Marine who teaches people how to shoot. Smith is practically worshiped, like Massad Ayoob, but unlike Ayoob, he has actually done something other than write magazine articles and write parking tickets. I’m not a big fan, however. Profanity pours out of him like overrated cars out of Bavaria, which tells me he’s immature. He seems to know a lot, though.

Reeves likes Glocks, and he carries a 43X. This is a single-stack 9mm compact that holds 10 rounds in the magazine and one in the pipe. Seems like a great gun.

In his video, he lists the only three Glock accessories you NEED. I think the video is useless.

Right off the bat, he says you don’t need “a titanium guide rod.” WRONG. What a bad start. It’s like he knows nothing at all about Glocks.

A Glock has a plastic guide rod you can probably break with your teeth. I have had two fail on me, and I’ll bet I have put fewer than 5000 rounds through Glocks. The rod’s ends come off. Sometimes it happens when the guns are holstered. It’s a major flaw. When the rod fails, the gun becomes completely useless until you replace it, and that takes maybe 30 seconds, which is a long time when you need to shoot somebody.

I buy Wolff products to replace my Glock rods and springs. They’re made of an amazing new invention called metal.

Glocks are famous for reliability, but the guide rods are just no good, so why wouldn’t you replace yours? I’ll tell you what; I was really shocked the first time one failed on me. I was at the range, the gun stopped firing, and the rod was hanging out of the front end. I thought I had misassembled the pistol. That gun was done for the day. It was done until I got new parts.

In the video, Reeves doesn’t recommend replacing the guide rod, but he suggests replacing a part that is absolutely wonderful just as it comes from the factory: the trigger. Glock has come up with a new Gucci trigger with a lighter pull.

A gun you actually use for defense does not need a lighter pull you can defeat accidentally because your hands are shaking. It needs a reasonably light, consistent pull which is, above all, reliable.

If a factory Glock trigger has ever failed anywhere, I have never heard about it.

Reeves went to Austria to try the new trigger. No conflict there. I’m sure they made him pay for his trip, and I’m positive he flew coach.

They put him in a range and had him shoot a 9mm at 33 feet. He fired maybe once every 1.5 seconds, so he had some time to aim.

His shots were all over the place. Two shots were off the paper. Every shot was to the left of center. Ignoring the worst shot, I would say his group was around 9″ across. I would expect 2″ here at the farm, and I would never tell anyone I could compete with a real pro.

A nine-inch group is cop-level shooting. If you ever go to a range and see cops shoot, this is probably what you will see. They’re usually not very good, and I think it’s because of their egos. A lot of men would rather shoot badly than ask for lessons.

His shooting was poor, and it looks much worse if you think about what he does for a living. He can deduct the cost of guns and ammunition on his taxes. He should be shooting at least a thousand rounds a week.

If I shot a thousand rounds of my caliber, 10mm, every week, with a factory-trigger compact Glock and Rural King ammo, I’d almost never be outside of 1.5″ at 33 feet.

Still, he shot more than well enough to kill a burglar in a hallway.

They gave him the new trigger, which I’m sure he paid for, and, neglecting the worst flyer, his group shrunk to about 4″. He stopped pulling everything to the left, too. That’s very good, but it’s not great. No one will ever stand behind you at a range and say, “Wow! Four-inch group!”

He said he was going to put the new trigger in all his Glocks.

So now he has a bunch of Glocks with very light triggers, and he still can’t shoot as well as he should. How is that helpful? He failed to improve his skills, and he equipped himself with guns that are less safe.

A self-defense pistol is not for winning medals. It’s for emergency use in places like stores and parking lots, where assailants a foot and a half wide will generally have to be within 20 feet before you can shoot them and claim you had no choice. You need a trigger that will fire every time, only when you want it to, with sufficient accuracy to put a criminal down. That’s a factory Glock trigger.

Now he has an excuse for never learning to shoot.

Why would a gun expert not learn how to shoot? That’s bizarre. It’s what he does for a living. It’s not that hard. Anyone can do it. It doesn’t require superpowers. Just humility and practice.

In the video, he used a gun with some kind of huge laser/flashlight on it. Please explain this to me.

He carries a tiny Glock with a limited capacity. If that’s your choice, it has to be because you want a small gun you can conceal easily. There is, literally, no other explanation, because apart from easy concealment, a small gun is inferior in every way.

So you buy your 43X, and then you screw on a light the size of a C battery. Now you have something the size of a Glock 17, with much less capacity and a short sight radius.

You can’t put it in your pocket unless you’re Captain Kangaroo. Put it on your belt, and it will make you look like a camel. What good is it?

He didn’t get into the topic of lasers much, but I will. I have a Crimson Trace on my carry pistol. It takes up nearly no room. It lights up automatically when I pick up the gun. It’s bright enough to see indoors 50 feet away. The bullet WILL go where the dot is, regardless of how bad my form is.

I can put the gun in my pocket, and no one will know it’s there. I carry it that way every day. I walk right by the cops. It takes less than a second to draw. The gun is still compact.

Once the gun is out, is a Crimson Trace as good as Reeves’s 737-landing flashlight? Not in certain situations I am extremely unlikely to encounter. Only in the other 95%.

I don’t get it. Is the video aimed at militia nuts who play FPS games all day and think they can clear Hezbollah hideouts with pistols? Is he trying to make a little Glock do an AK-47’s job?

A pistol is for emergencies that happen in places where you can’t carry a rifle. Period. If you can get to a rifle, you put the pistol away, unless you’re stupid. If you find yourself clearing a house with a pistol, you have probably already done about 20 things wrong.

You should have called the cops. You should have hidden yourself. You should have grabbed a rifle.

In the video, he also pushes red dot sights for carry pieces.

I am not kidding.

Imagine yourself at Publix with your James Reeves special. You have 11 rounds of puny 9mm because you went small. You have a huge spotlight hanging off the front. You have a hair trigger. But wait! There’s more! You also have an enormous unnecessary sight that looks like the hood scoop on an old Mustang, preventing you from removing your gun from concealment. Except it’s not concealed, because everyone sees the hump in your shirt.

Some people would say you don’t need a red dot if you already have a laser, but let’s go with it.

What is a red dot for? It’s for shooting people a long way off, in a hurry. Why are you doing that? The prosecutor will want to know. It’s usually murder.

It’s helpful if multiple assailants enter your yard. No doubt about it. In that situation, why aren’t you holding a rifle? Even if you hit a criminal 6 times with 9mm, he may keep coming. An AK or a shotgun will tear his organs to pieces, and you won’t need a red dot to hit him. Plus you’ll be able to shoot him through cinderblocks.

Here’s what I say, although I am not a guru and could be wrong:

1. You may not want a Glock, because just about everyone now makes a plastic gun which is as good or better, like the M&P Shield with the built-in laser, but get yourself some kind of nice plastic pistol.

2. Keep it small. Do not mount a spotlight, a red dot, a huge extended magazine, a compensator, a blender, a toaster, or anything else on it that sticks out and gets in the way.

3. Buy a Crimson Trace laser and zero it. Keep the batteries fresh.

4. Keep the stock Glock barrel, because it loves garbage ammo.

5. Use good ammunition, and don’t worry about the idiots who say you’ll get the chair for using hollowpoints. It doesn’t happen in real life, and it’s better to be alive in the defendant’s chair than dead in front of T.G.I. Friday’s.

6. Keep the stock trigger and learn to shoot. You don’t need special talent. You just have to listen.

7. Get night sights. Probably won’t help, but won’t hurt.

8. Keep your gun in your front pocket, using a pocket holster. It can be very hard to get a gun into or out of a belt holster. Ask the big girls who failed to protect Donald Trump.

9. Do not ever, ever, ever use a pistol when you can get to a rifle. I don’t care if the cops do it. It’s stupid. You will miss. If you don’t miss, the perp will probably keep coming. Get…a…real…gun.

10. Always call the cops and hide if you can. Let them face the physical and legal risk. No one ever got arrested because he was in the closet while a cop shot a burglar. You can even come out of the closet and dance around the body in your Punisher jammies, yelling, “THAT’S WHAT YOU GET!”

You should also carry the biggest gun you’re comfortable with. I’m not dedicated enough to carry a full-size Glock in town. Maybe you are.

If you can make yourself carry extra magazines, do it. No one in a gunfight ever said, “I wish I didn’t have all this ammo.”

I doubt anyone will ever put me in a self-defense situation. I sure hope it doesn’t happen. But it’s an interesting subject, and I enjoy shooting, so I think about it a lot.