Thursday, June 28, 2007

Criminal Profiling Topic of the Day: Are all Gun Owners Dangerous to Women?

Wasn’t it just a few months ago that I got wailed on by the left during the Virginia Tech massacre for suggesting kids should carry guns to school to protect themselves? Sometime during the many interviews I did that week I said something to the effect that if we allowed concealed carry on campuses maybe someone would have taken Cho out. I am a big fan of concealed carry because I know criminals carry concealed weapons all the time and I would like to even the field with some honest citizens carrying a few themselves so criminals don’t think no one will shoot back. I think of how many lives would be saved if only someone in the school or company could defend against mass murderers and keep these killers from mowing down a bunch of sitting ducks who desperately try to hide behind furniture to save their lives.

Now, after doing interviews on the Jessie Davis murder, those from the right are taking one statement out of context and going nuts about it. It seems they think that I believe any man who owns a gun is a danger to women. If I thought that, I guess I would be talking about my own father and my own son. They have guns for personal protection. For that matter, my daughter has guns for personal protection and I also own firearms for personal protection. I am all for gun ownership for personal protection. Clearly, I was not saying a man with a gun is a psychopath.

Nor was I saying a man who might have a collection of guns is a psychopath. I know many of these men as well. They are hunters or lovers of antiques or do a lot of target shooting. What I was talking about during the Paula Zahn Show was the combination of psychopathic behavior and an obsession with weaponry as psychopaths love weapons because it gives them a feeling of power and control. Psychopaths do indeed have a fascination with guns and knives and just because the rest of us might happen to own weapons or even have a number of them as a hobby doesn’t eliminate the fact that psychopaths may also be shopping at the gun store with us.

Women must learn to differentiate between psychologically healthy men and men who are not psychologically healthy if they want to keep from getting into a dangerous life threatening situation. No one trait will be proof that an individual is a psychopath, but add a bunch of traits together and this is a warning. A kind, honorable, honest man with a gun collection is not a psychopath or a danger to anyone but a lying, manipulative, arrogant creep who has a cache of twenty weapons is someone a woman wants to get the hell away from. A man who teaches history at the local junior high school and happens to have a collection of Asian swords is not someone a woman should be frightened of but a man who obsessively watches ninja flicks, brags about how he used to be in the CIA, can’t keep a job, calls women sluts and whores, and owns a huge collection of swords and daggers, now there is a guy a woman wants should avoid like the plague.

Anyone who watched the actual Paula Zahn Show and paid attention to the whole conversation and intent would clearly know I was not labeling gun owners psychopaths. Unfortunately, when words are taken out of context and printed on the Internet, often the meaning of those words get misunderstood. I apologize to any gun owners (who aren’t psychopaths) who thought they were the target of my statements. I respect your constitutional rights to own firearms and would never want to see those taken away. I, like you, want to be sure I can protect myself and my family. I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Criminal Profiler Pat Brown

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Pat,

I read your response on the Michael Bane Blog and I appreciate you taking the time to respond.

I had not heard of you before (sorry) and did not know that you are a 2A proponent.

Thanks for clearing the air.

Anonymous said...

Hi Pat,
I, too, posted the video of your words. I have updated my blog with a link to this piece.

Good on ya!
Xavier

alan said...

Hi Pat,

I saw your post and understood your intent. You can see my analysis of the Paula Zahn segment over at grapplingwithguns.com. Paula was trying to blame guns when in fact a person was at fault in the crime. Thanks for your post here. I say, let's invite Paula to the range to do a segment on learning about firearms, firearms safety and personal defense.

Pat Brown said...

Thanks to all of you for your more than fair responses. I didn't really blame anyone for the take they had from my television appearance. It happens all the time: part of the blame lies in the medium, part on the problem of clips and printed words that distort context, and part of the blame lies with the interviewee (me in this case) when under the pressure of speaking only for a few seconds, one does not get out a clearer statement. I really wish for PBS style programming many times when this happens, where we would have a long block to discuss and explain and not be just tossing out quick responses.

Format is a killer! I posted another bit about guns on the blog and now the search engine picked up the last two sentences and, boy, it looks inflammatory! I went back and changed them but the search engine now has the original stuck! Sometimes you just can't win.

Anyway, thanks all. Yes, it would be wonderful to get Paula Zahn to have a meaningful discussion of this but, heh, programming choices follow news not issues. This is why I TRY to get some important ideas in when I speak because I only have so much time to make an impact. Most of the time I achieve this (all though this time not quite with the results I wanted!). The problem here was only a few seconds to teach women to recognize violent psychopaths. Nothing like a sound bite to cause trouble!

Criminal Profiler Pat Brown

Levi said...

Pat, I agree with you about how long they stay on the topic and how long the guests get to speak.

The Nancy Grace show which I watch all the time, spends a while to get the full picture on the topic, but the show is piled full of guests and guests only get a few seconds to say what they want.