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Concealed carry permit holder uses legal firearm to defend police officer

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Dylan Deboard received the Citizens Award of Valor on July 25, 2016
Dylan Deboard received the Citizens Award of Valor on July 25, 2016 for assisting police officer

This story is from The Blaze.

Excerpt:

An Ohio man with a concealed carry permit was presented Monday with a Citizens Award of Valor for coming to the aid of police officer under attack last year.

Cpl. Michael Wheeler of Ohio’s Mount Vernon Police Department told Inside Edition that he owes his life to Dylan DeBoard, the man who saved him.

“Every time I see him, I let him know how much I appreciate what he did,” he said.

According to Wheeler, he was attacked last year by a homeless man who later admitted to being high on crystal meth. While he was attempting to subdue his attacker, the man knocked Wheeler to his back and straddled him. He ripped away his microphone and reached for his gun.

Wheeler said that in his 14-year career he’s “never been in that situation before.”

“I’ve always been able to take control of a situation,” he said.

According to Wheeler, all of a sudden, the man stopped struggling with him. He looked up to see a man with a gun.

“I didn’t know if he was pointing at me or [the attacker],” Wheeler said.

Then the man with the gun — DeBoard — announced that he was a concealed carry holder. Wheeler was then able to use his attacker’s hesitation to flip him over and handcuff him.

The officer said he is thankful for the opportunity to honor DeBoard for his actions. “I wish a lot more of society would do what he did,” he added. “There were people standing around, but they were just watching. I kept wondering why people didn’t do anything.”

I think the reason why the other bystanders were not doing anything is because they were not armed, they were not trained to use a firearm, and they did not have moral clarity. We have lost moral clarity because we surround ourselves with nonsense on television where celebrity is more important than heroic character.

First, let’s talk about the training factor. To get a concealed carry permit in Ohio, you have to complete a course on handgun safety, pass a written test and you also have to pass a marksmanship test. This is because the evaluators do not want you to bring disrepute on legal firearm ownership because you aren’t qualified to use the tool you are carrying responsibly. The safety and accuracy test is quite difficult, depending on the state – you might be asked to hit 4″ targets at 5, 10 and 15 yards, for example, with 20 out of 25 rounds fired. That’s not easy!

Previously, I blogged about a report that showed that concealed-carry permit holders commit crimes at a lower rate than police officers. This is because the people who get these permits are careful not to do anything to lose them. They want to be safe, but they are also there to watch out for others. It is very important that we recognize that there are some people in our society who make poor choices (e.g. – drug use), and that we need the ability to defend ourselves and others from them.

Podcasts

What does the Bible say on the issue of self-defense vs gun control?

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Theology that hits the spot
Theology that hits the spot

Reformed Baptist theologian Wayne Grudem speaks on the Bible and the right of self-defense.

About Wayne Grudem:

Grudem holds a BA from Harvard University, a Master of Divinity from Westminster Theological Seminary, and a PhD from the University of Cambridge. In 2001, Grudem became Research Professor of Bible and Theology at Phoenix Seminary. Prior to that, he had taught for 20 years at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, where he was chairman of the department of Biblical and Systematic Theology.

Grudem served on the committee overseeing the English Standard Version translation of the Bible, and in 1999 he was the president of the Evangelical Theological Society. He is a co-founder and past president of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. He is the author of, among other books, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine, which advocates a Calvinistic soteriology, the verbal plenary inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible, the body-soul dichotomy in the nature of man, and the complementarian (rather than egalitarian) view of gender equality.

The MP3 file is here.

The PDF outline is here.

Topics:

  • what about turning the other cheek? doesn’t that undermine self-defense?
  • what does Jesus say about the right to self-defense in the New Testament
  • did Jesus’ disciples carry swords for protection during his ministry?
  • why did Jesus tell his disciples to sell their cloaks and buy swords?
  • what about Jesus stopping Peter from using force during Jesus’ arrest?
  • shouldn’t we rely on police instead of our own personal weapons?
  • what about brandishing a handgun vs actually trying to shoot someone?
  • what are violent crime rates in pro-gun USA and in the anti-gun UK?
  • does outlawing guns cause violent crime to increase or decrease?
  • do academic studies show that gun control decreases crime?
  • do academic studies show that concealed carry laws decreases crime?
  • what do academic studies show about defensive handgun usage?
  • do many children die from guns in the home compared to other causes?
  • doesn’t the US Constitution limit the usage of guns to the army and police?
  • what did the Founding Fathers believe about lawful ownership of firearms?
  • What should be the goal of someone who uses a weapon in self-defense?

This is a good example of applying the Bible to real life. We need more of that!

Commentary

Census data: more firearm ownership is not associated with higher rate of suicide

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I have a key that will unlock a puzzling mystery
I have a key that will unlock a puzzling mystery

As famous evangelical theologian Wayne Grudem has discussed, the Bible provides strong support for self-defense.

Grudem looked at the following questions, before turning to the secular data to confirm the Bible:

  • what about turning the other cheek? doesn’t that undermine self-defense?
  • what does Jesus say about the right to self-defense in the New Testament?
  • did Jesus’ disciples carry swords for protection during his ministry?
  • why did Jesus tell his disciples to sell their cloaks and buy swords?
  • what about Jesus stopping Peter from using force during Jesus’ arrest?

Dr. Grudem concludes that the Bible does teach that self-defense is moral.

Unfortunately, that view is not often not popular in the culture as a whole. There is a large portion of the society that does not want law-abiding citizens to be able to defend themselves from criminals. Not only that, but there seems to be a lot of suspicion about law enforcement, now. We even seem to be losing the ability to see criminals as responsible for what they do, and wanting to protect innocent people from criminals. There are two cultural trends behind this – 1) the push for compassion and non-judgment, and 2) the tendency to turn evildoers into victims.

So, sometimes when the teachings of the Bible, e.g. – self-defense,  fall out of respect in a society, it makes sense to defend what the Bible teaches using ordinary evidence from respected secular sources. And that’s what I’ve done on this blog on so many issues where the secular culture disagrees with the Bible.

Regarding self-defense, I previously wrote about how the gun ban in Australia did not reduce suicide rates, because people who wanted to commit suicide simply found another way to commit suicide. On the broader issue of self-defense, I blogged about a recent study from Harvard University, and in that same post, I also linked books from Harvard University Press and Chicago University Press showing that banning guns raises rates of violent crime, and enacting concealed carry lowers rates of violent crime.

Today, though, I have another point about guns and suicide rates from the Daily Caller.

Excerpt:

According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data, which cover years 1981 through 2013—incidentally, a period in which Americans acquired an additional 195 million firearms—the firearm suicide rate (the number of suicides per 100,000 population) decreased five percent, while the non-firearm suicide rate increased 27 percent.

Although more law-abiding people got guns, the crime rates have been declining.  We are now down to 1970s levels of violent crime. Part of that is due to tougher sentencing and more imprisonment of criminals, but part of that is due to more law-abiding citizens defending themselves from criminals. And if we want fewer prisons, a good way to achieve that cost-effectively would be to encourage more law-abiding people to own firearms, not less.

So, if the gun control crowd tries to make the case that more guns are causing more people to commit suicide, then we should be ready to answer with some data. Hope this data helps you to make your case.