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Quote of the Day: Home Defense Edition
I don’t own a gun, but I keep a bag of baseballs near our bed. If someone breaks in they better be wearing a batting helmet because I am going to throw at their head. – Randy Johnson, Major League Baseball pitcher
Considering Johnson threw a 90mph fastball during his major league career, I’d consider that a credible defense strategy. He is supposed to have said this while he was with the Seattle Mariners in the 1990s, but even today, at age 60, I’ll bet he still has enough heat left to strike out a home invader or two. I will also bet this home defense strategy served him well during stints in gun-averse New York and San Francisco. Someone might get in trouble for being in possession of a handgun in those cities, but deny a MLB pitcher possession of hardballs? It would get laughed out of court.
As satisfactory as this home defense solution is for a ten-times All-Star, five-times Cy Young Award pitcher, most of us lack the ability to hurl a ball with that amount of kinetic energy. But as the old saying goes, “God created men, Col. Colt made them equal.” For the rest of us a handgun, responsibly used, is a satisfactory home defense or personal defense strategy.
That goes a long way towards explaining New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s spectacular flame-out with her unconstitutional ban on carrying weapons. Slapped down by even her own party and a Biden-appointed federal judge (!) she had been reduced to pouting and shrilling like Housman’s Queen of Air and Darkness. Self-defense is a basic human right. Even Democrats have to concede that. (Lujan Grisham even lost Ted Lieu and David Hogg.)
Meanwhile, if baseballs work for you Mr. Johnson, good for you.
Published in Group Writing
It is too bad that this controversy happened September 2023 rather than September 2024.
This whole situation is weird. All the lefties slamming the NM gov and no one supporting her doesn’t compute.
That was pretty wild.
She’s still be around in September 2024 muttering “I’ll get you my pretty. And your little dog, too!” Her reaction to the restraining order has been hilarious. She=’s doubling-down, issuing another unconstitutional restraining order. Like herpes, she’s the gift that keeps on giving.
The lefties are willing to betray their deeply held values in the pursuit of power.
Yep. They always have a finger in the wind to see which way it is blowing.
I agree. There’s something else going on here. No idea what it is, but there’s something.
Like Roseanne Rosanadanna said, “It just goes to show you; it’s always something.”
Umps called it a no pitch. Apparently the rules said nothing about what to do when a pitch strikes an animal.
Time to hire a consultant from PETA.
And Smith & Wesson made the Equalizer.
I think it was a test run. Albeit a clumsy, ham-handed one, but a test run to see if she could get away with it in the post-Covid shutdown and mask era. While she has not succeeded, that is but for now.
When the same thing is tried in D.C., it’ll be interesting to watch how the rabid leftists of the D.C. District Court react. Look at Judge Chutkin presiding over “Mr. Trump”‘s J6 trial (that’s “President Trump” to everyone else)– one could not find a more openly biased trial judge but it appears to be business as usual in D.C.
I am relieved for the residents in New Mexico but doubt this kind of thing is going away. If government power expands in emergencies, then government power-seekers will create emergencies wherever possible.
For those that are culturally challenged
With the exception of power and the belief that government=good the left has no principles.
I am only guessing, but I would bet that hitting a home invader with a baseball and merely wounding him would more likely end up in the home owner being sued. Shooting them center mass might remove that possibility. Just saying.
People die from head hits with hardballs. Especially when thrown by someone capable of throwing at 9omph. Plus, many home invaders who get shot survive. Almost none sue, especially if the injury takes place inside a house.
The problem is it’s hard to get much of a windup in a bedroom. So accuracy and velocity are greatly diminished. If I was going with the baseball form of defense I’d just grab a Louisville Slugger any weight and length should do, and you don’t have to go for the home run, a line drive single should work. If you’re going with the firearm option, forget the hand gun, a tactical shot gun has a much higher probability of hitting it’s target.
Call me a cynic, but I think in this case about getting votes. Gov. Grisham’s order was so outrageous and likely to anger normal people that the politicians on the left realized that they could get some crossover votes by coming across as reasonable.
Indeed. They do all apparently want guns banned, but… not THIS way, or something? Bizarre.
Likely, but how do they explain flip-flopping back again later? Short attention spans? That’s getting harder to pull off these days.
Given the normal reaction time to a situation like the one described of a home invader, a multi-shot pistol would be preferable. Home invasions are frequently made by more than one person. Additionally, one of the usual justifications for a Glock or other pistol with a large capacity, not to mention a AR-15 with the normal 30 round magazine, is that situations of this kind may involve having to fire multiple rounds. How many baseballs does this particular person keep by his bed, and how many could he get off before he was overwhelmed by a second intruder? I have no doubt about the effectiveness of a hardball thrown at high velocity hitting any part of the body. Hitting someone in the head is a somewhat dicey matter, even for a professional pitcher. The reason police officers are taught to shoot for center mass is that in the kind of situation where that kind of action is required, stress can have an enormous effect on your ability to respond in the manner you think you will when thinking about this kind of situation. That is why spending hours at the range shooting into paper targets that are static is considered lousy preparation for an actual home invasion or other self defense situation where you may be called upon to fire your gun at an attacker. The psychological difference between shooting paper and shooting another human being is enormous. If you doubt my word on this I suggest reading Dave Grossman’s On Killing.
So, I continue to contend, as I originally said, that as convincing as that quote might seem, it is, likely, poorly anchored in the real world.
There are options. For example, my brother recently bought a compact shotgun that holds I think 6 “normal” shells, but there are shorter shells available, still fine for home defense, and his gun will hold at least 10 of those.
Shotguns are very acceptable options. Baseballs aren’t. Bringing a baseball to a gunfight just doesn’t cut it.
Perhaps a Shockwave? If so, please don’t call it a shotgun. It’s a firearm. The classification of guns under federal law is a wonder to behold.
Why would you say something like a Shockwave is not a shotgun? I’m not sure if that’s what my brother has, but I know it’s Pump-action. It takes the “full size” shells, 3″ or so, but there’s other sizes available including something like 1 3/4″ shells. And they all go in the tube magazine. You can get almost double the number of 1 3/4″ shells vs 3″.
For home defense you also don’t want a very long barrel or stock. It needs to be able to move around rather quickly without hitting things. “Bullpup” is one popular option, another is a “youth sport” model designed for younger – and smaller – people.
It doesn’t need to be 12-gauge either. For home defense, 16 or 20 is plenty. You’re not trying to hit “clay pigeons” at 50 yards or something.
https://www.walkertaylorlaw.com/mossberg-is-making-a-wave-legality-and-classification-of-the-590-shockwave/#:~:text=The%20590%20Shockwave%20is%20not,shotgun%20under%20the%20federal%20definition.
Well, with very few exceptions I can think of – like maybe the revolver my brother has, a “Judge” or something like that, which can shoot .410 shotgun shells – anything that takes shotgun shells is a shotgun.
The Shockwave is one of those exceptions. It fires shotgun shells but is not designed to be fired from the shoulder. Thus, it doesn’t meet the federal definition of “shotgun”. If it were a shotgun and had a barrel of under 18 inches (like the Shockwave’s 14 inches) it would be illegal to possess without much pain and expense.
I’m less than not at all interested in most federal definitions. What I bought from Walmart that’s in my fridge that says “Vlasic Pickles” might not meet a federal definition of “pickle” either. But I don’t care.