Esquire Magazine—Pro-gun article

[DeadCalm]

Many years ago, Esquire magazine published a feature article by a "liberal" journalist, written in the first person, about his views on guns. Included was his shooting of a potential mugger. It came off as a very pro-gun stance, shocking no doubt to the magazine's regular readers. Do you know how to get a reprint of the article, short of asking Esquire? This thing is old, maybe late '70s or early '80s.
Thanks for any help you can provide.
Ross

 

[entropy]

I remeber that one, too. IIRC, the author's name was Chip Elliot.

 

[lee n. field]

I remember that article. I may have a photocopy around here somewhere (assuming it survived some semi-catastropic moves).

OH, with a bit of Google-ing I find this by Mr. Elliot.

 

[Khornet]

It was called

"The Case For Guns". I may have a copy at home.

 

[abaddon]

That link Lee n. Field posted is AMAZING! Everyone should have multiple printed copies to give to fence-sitters. I've never read anything on this issue that was so well argued and relevant. If this isn't the article that you're talking about DeadCalm, then I want to find the other one.

 

[0007]

Bought and still have that issue of the mag somewhere...

 

[Henry Bowman]

"Bah! That was written 25 years ago. Things are different now. I don't live in a dangerous city like L.A. I live in a nice neighborhood. There's no "street crime" around me. That's all in the "bad" neighborhoods and between rival drug dealers."


My point is that the article is not useful to the fence-sitters that I know. They will have to learn the hard way, or at least see the lesson closer to home. Sad, really.

 

[lee n. field]

"Bah! That was written 25 years ago. Things are different now. I don't live in a dangerous city like L.A. I live in a nice neighborhood. There's no "street crime" around me. That's all in the "bad" neighborhoods and between rival drug dealers."

OK, Hypothetical Fence Sitter. If a Katrina-equivalent came to your city, would some of your neighbors loot and pillage? It wouldn't surprise me if mine did.

 

[TonkinTwentyMil]

Yes!

Kudos to lee n. field for digging up this great essay by Chip Elliot. I've lost my cherished copy of it. It's a classic.

I remember this article very well. It really hit home because I also lived in the L.A./Venice/Santa Monica beach area and experienced similar "radicalizing experiences" (i.e., Close Encounters With Dirtbags) in the exact same time frame.

One of my own memorable California case studies:

My wife and I frequently went for evening walks in the beautiful Palisades Park overlooking the ocean by Santa Monica's famous Pier. This was a "nice" area, with pricey condos/apts./restaurants nearby, but it also attracted occasional sub-lifes (including Jane Fonda and her merry band of urban liberal pacifist artistes and assorted hygenically-challenged street-cretins).

One night, we were approached by two **self-esteem-challenged/culturally-disadvantaged** hyper-muscular youths brandishing knives... and demanding an involuntary contribution to their chemical welfare fund.

I told 'em to Get Lost.

They hesitated, and drew closer -- and I douched 'em with CS teargas (the strongest available circa 1980), square in the face. One guy ran away, howling in pain. The other guy blinked. Laughed. Then moved in for blood, slashing the air with his Buck 5-inch folder.

At which point I shoved a .38 snubbie in his face.

He backed off fast, screaming "not fair," and proceded to rip off his shirt and dare me to shoot him as he circled us... shouting, taunting, lunging. A couple of nearby strollers just ducked behind some palm trees, apparently praying for Divine Intervention by the Tooth Fairy. No one came to our aid. Jane Fonda never showed up, either. After a few minutes, the CS finally began to shut the big punk's eyes down. And we got the hell outta there.

He -- like 70% of criminals -- was "on something" at the time of his attack. Probably why the CS had marginal effect. My .38's Glasers might have done the job, but maybe not. We were lucky.

Like author Chip Elliot, I'd just decided -- after prior "learning experiences" -- NOT to be a victim. With or without a permit-to-carry. Period.

My lawyer told me I would have been justified in shooting him, but, given the town's politics, it would have cost me 25 K + in legal fees, plus another chunk of political payola to get off... maybe with just a justifiable homicide rap...or maybe a lesser-felony on my record.

I've upgraded my armament and training a bit since then. And I've also had a few more "Radicalizing Encounters" along the way -- even after moving to another state to get away from the urban sewer. I once saved a new neighbor and his family one cold winter night when -- long before the cops could respond to his desperate calls -- some escaped-felons in a stolen Porsche broke into his big house.

Felons apprehended. No shots fired. Armed citizen saves the day. And -- no newspaper story. I guess it just wasn't "newsworthy."

And my neighbor never thanked me.

After all, he had "Ban Handguns" and "Mondale For President" bumper stickers on his little 50 MPG granola-mobile. Had never concealed his hatred for guys like me, either. And that's the honest-to-god truth.

There's a huge fraternity of Chip Elliots out there. I'm one of them. We saw the light -- and rejected the bull$h!t cultural conditioning to play nice-nice. And, we survived.

It does not "Take A Village" to stop evil in its tracks. It takes Street Sense. And THAT is for the **Common Good**.

 

[Hawken50]

i especially like this line-

no matter what you think, from your current vantage point, with a cellarful of good vintage wines and a wallful of Wittgenstein, if you lived there and the Soviets came trucking in with tanks and occupational forces, I am willing to bet you would hock your house, your automobile your Baume & Mercier watch, or your ass on the street for a good gun and the bullets to put in it.

 

[No_Brakes23]

Excellent article, dated, to be sure, but still very relevant.

Oh except for the ease of getting a permit in LA, and the period of time to buy. It is 11 days to wait, but 31 days between handgun purchases. So 42 days for a young couple to have protection, (Buy a 12ga in the mean time, I guess.)

Great read, though.

 

[TonkinTwentyMil]

A follow-up...

I also recall that, a couple months after Esquire ran this riveting front-cover article, their editor wrote a commentary indicating it was THE most reader-mail begetting (i.e., controversial) article they'd ever published in the history of that respected magazine!

And THAT is a testiment to the article's potency.

Thanks, again, to lee n. and the Keep & Bear Arms folks for generating this. I URGE all High Roaders to read this -- and get it in the hands of your friends... and enemies. It's a timeless, hard-hitting classic.

 

[Aguila Blanca]

An excellent read. I especially liked the following:

And it will stay a fact of life until our fellow countrymen get it out of their heads that they can do as they please, that there is no such thing as social responsibility, that they have a right not to behave. Because the way we see it, if they have the right to mug us, we have the right to shoot them.

I would like to see impossibly tight gun registration laws, but I secretly scoff. Anyone who's honest can get through any registration process we can come up with. Anyone, who's not honest won't bother. The way guns get into the criminal underworld is that they are stolen. That makes registration a useless exercise.

 

[Colt]

"Bah! That was written 25 years ago. Things are different now. I don't live in a dangerous city like L.A. I live in a nice neighborhood. There's no "street crime" around me. That's all in the "bad" neighborhoods and between rival drug dealers."

I'm about 40 minutes outside Philadelphia. Over the past 9 months, I've "converted" 2 of my neighbors to recreational handgun users, and a third into a trap-shooter. Amazing what a little time at the range will do to pique the interest of skeptics.

But I could never convince any of them that CCW was something they ought to consider. (especially in a state like PA, which is shall-issue)

3 days after the NO looting made the news, we were sitting around discussing what-ifs about comparable disasters/emergencies in our area. I asked what they thought would happen if a dirty nuke, biological, or chem bomb was detonated in Philly. How many and what type of refugees did they think would come flooding into our peaceful little neighborhood? Would they respect our property? Our families, or the provisions we'd set aside?

The 2 handgunners applied for their CCW permits within a week of NO, and the shotgun lover asked for some handgun lessons and buying advice. I recommended a training class first, then to try a few different rentals at the local indoor range. (they give a discount on the rentals if you end up buying a gun in their shop) The first 2 rec shooters are also going to take the course, which covers confrontation de-escalation, and legal use of deadly force, etc...

Not surprisingly, the biggest barrier in making the decision to get a handgun was that the wives "didn't want a dangerous gun in the house." The NO argument and training classes went a long way towards getting past their fear/ignorance.

 

[TonkinTwentyMil]

Colt:

Good post. Your work in converting some non-believers is highly commendable -- and a good model for all High Roaders. I particularly recommend handing out this (above) Esquire magazine article to anti-gun friends.

In addition, you can use the "Search" function here to access several prior threads re gun-hostile women/wives/girlfriends. THAT subject (regrettably) seems to come up all the time -- a testiment to the vulnerability of women, in particular -- to the power of society's Naive Idealist-Pacifist (i.e., Michael Moore/Cindy Sheehan et al) cultural conditioning forces.

Welcome aboard.