Gun Locks Are A Problem … Even For Monk
by John Lott
Well, even though Adrian Monk couldn’t get the gun out of the gun safe at least the safe itself could be used as a weapon. This is one of the very few TV shows that have made fun of gun locks. Monk’s line, “Don’t move there is a gun in here.” is classic. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that, unlike most of the biased media coverage on guns, this humor gets across the research that gun locks actually make it significantly more difficult for people to defend themselves against criminals.
Email this to a friend | Print |
Share on Facebook
| Tweet this
| 
Follow Us on Twitter
Subscribe via RSS
Tips & Feedback
53 Comments
When I went to concealed weapons training, I was quite surprised that the instructor, who was a very sharp police lieutenant, told us that a pistol was essentially worthless unless the safety was off, and there was a bullet in the chamber. He told us that if we carry a concealed pistol, it should be in this configuration, or we might as well not bother.
It doesn’t take much thinking to reason through that he’s right, but somehow I was surprised to hear someone teaching weapons safety simply come right out and state it flatly.
I’ve got a loaded .45 in the nightstand right next to me and a sub-compact forty cal in the console in my car. I don’t ever expect to use either one, but I don’t expect to use my life insurance either.
A pro gun statement in a contemporary TV show? Hell must have just frozen over.
BTW John, it isn’t just gun locks. The hoplophobes have been actively reducing the number of gun ranges in SoCal for years. The fewer people who are actually able to train with their guns means more accidents, less safety. Not to mention more people who are afraid of guns, because they’ve never had the opportunity of using one in a safe controlled environment.
Anyone who values liberty should be contributing to the NRA.
Ah, I knew I loved that man! Haven’t seen the episode yet, but now I’m really looking forward to it. Go Monk!
[...] The problem with gun locksWatching past seasons on DVD recently, Monk has become one of our favorite shows.» Church [...]
This brings to mind a 20/20 John Stossel report from many years ago. They took two groups of grade school children. One group was made up of kids that had taken the NRA gun safety class (but not recently). The other was your typical group of kids who had only been told guns are bad. The scenario was the kids came back to a classroom from recess and there was no adult present only a gun on the teacher’s desk. The NRA kids didn’t touch the gun and sent someone to get the teacher. The other group of kids? They were fascinated by the gun, took turns picking it up and pointing it at each other.
It’s not guns that hurt people, it’s people who don’t know what they are doing that cause the most accidents.
Every nightstand Both sides of the bed has a loaded weapon with a chambered round. I read on a chat net that,”an unloaded weapon is an expensive rock”. As the old adage goes,”i’d rather be judged by twelve than carried by six”. My children are successful adults who were raised around this setting.
When we are away, the weapons that are not carried are safely stashed.
MONK is a great show!
Despite taking place in a San Francisco, you have some good, traditional messages from the show.
-Monk’s assistant, Natalie Teeger, is the widow of a U.S. Navy pilot
-Monk was completely dedicated in traditional marriage bliss to a woman.
-Monk is STILL completely dedicated to that woman. How dedicated? He has trouble dating* because he feels that he is committing adultry.
-His assistant’s daughter from her marriage to the pilot abstains from sex, drugs, and the rest.
-His previous assistant mentions that she attends church.
-They stay out of politics (no mention of Prop 8!). They have kept from resorting to the “creepy Christians” and the “psychotic Iraq war veterans.” Unlike Law and Order.
-They made fun of liberals! The Captain (who is very likely a Republican) is married to an ultra-liberal, gun-hating wife. While they stay out of politics, they do mention that on the same weekend he went hunting, she went on an anti-gun rally. He also broke up a No-Nukes rally.
And most important:
-It is a good, clean fun.
How do the taxpayers in Chicago or D.C. that want a gun feel when they see they SS carrying guns to protect Obama. I bet they don’t keep locks on their guns driving him to the gym.
I attended high school in a small western military base town.
Many pickups in the school parking lot had gun racks often featuring a deer rifle, shotgun, .22, and a fishing rod.
The pickups were often left unlocked.
Most every young male in town had taken the NRA firearms safety course.
No one even remotely considered that those firearms would be used in anger, anywhere, least of all in the school.
After school during deer season, we could head into the hills and might bag a buck. During bird season, we could drive to the river valley for pheasant, chukkar, and ducks if we were lucky. If not, we could drop a line in the river and maybe bring home some trout.
In the spring, on the way home, we could stop and walk along irrigation canals and pick fresh asparagus.
.22’s were used to hunt jackrabbits that had become an epidemic destroying crops because their natural predators, coyotes mostly, had been killed off to prevent them from attacking livestock. The balance has happily been restored and jackrabbits are not a problem any longer.
Nailing one of those critters on the run was almost impossible but some of us could do it fairly regularly.
When we hiked back into bear country at least one of us carried a large caliber pistol or big game rifle, 30.06 usually. The old trappers and prospectors who still populated the region did so and we townies figured they knew a thing or two about surviving where bears and mountain lions were not uncommon.
Point is, firearms were a part of daily life, often out of necessity to put food on the table and to protect oneself from man-eating predators.
There is nothing wrong with the so called “gun culture,” especially out there in real America where we still cling to our guns and do so responsibly.
It’s also interesting to note that in some states you do not have to take the concealed carry course to get a permit as long as you have a DD-214 (military discharge certificate) and an honorable discharge.
I’m grateful for being allowed to experience the real world of firearms in America and in doing so was innoculated against the fevered rantings of the anti-gun crowd, many of whom I suspect have never fired one.
When I bought a pistol a few weeks ago it came with a gun lock which I promptly through into the trash. I won’t use it anyway, so why keep it.
TEST: I’m not being allowed to post.
Trigger locks make legislators feel as if they are protecting the children.
Trigger locks make trigger lock makers wealthy.
Trigger locks are dangerous.
Safeties on guns are nothing new. The famous (and highly collectable) Smith and Wesson “Lemon Squeezer” was marketed to women, mostly, around the turn of the century, (that’s the 1900’s not 2000’s) in response to a crime wave and urban violence.
Women wanted to carry them on their persons or purses, casually, without bulky holsters. They didn’t want the gun to go off, either, while they carried it (a constant problem).
It seems that either the 1911 system (several safeties including the grip safety) or the good old reliable double action revolver seem the best mechanical compromise between being quick into action and more safe to carry on your person. Most of the old-line TV cops (like Jack Webb) carried revolvers in their shows because that is what their technical advisors carried. Interestingly, real life former cop Dennis Farina had his character carry a revolver during his Law and Disorder stint, as did Ed O’Neil in his turn playing the lead in “LA Dragnet” some years ago. Yeah, that Ed O’Neil.
I am getting the message that I am posting comments too quickly. This is an error folks, this is the first comment here in about 8 hours. The site’s technical back end still needs work.
Speaking of guns, is it just me or has anyone noticed a marked increase over the past month or two in news and media coverage of gun crimes?
Seems like the media political machine is priming the public for the impending new regimes retooling the laws on American citizens owning weapons.
Love this site!!!!!!!
They did a similar joke in My Name Is Earl.
I hope I’m allowed to post and that they don’t get eaten.
My grandfather was one of those people who hunted to put food on the table. His father (rather improvident) wasn’t all that reliable, so my grandpa and his brother would go hunting almost every day. They became crack shots – he once killed 2 wild turkey’s with one shot. And he respected guns and taught his children and grandchildren to respect them too.
Being a hunter, an avid pro-second amendment Conservative, and a member of the NRA (which every pro-gun American should become), I loved this bit on Monk, and it has a good republican lean on the show, amazingly since it is based in San Francisco, I love the show and its good clean fun and adventure.
Gun locks are idiotic, they probably kill more then save more.
Great site.
Funny stuff. But as to ‘research.’ Doesn’t research show that your gun is more likely to injure someone you love than a home invader?
“The oft cited Kellermann paper found a homeowner’s gun was 43 times more likely to kill a family member, friend, or acquaintence, than it was used to kill someone in self-defense. Kellermann stated, “for every case of self-protection homicide involving a firearm kept in the home, there were 1.3 accidental deaths, 4.6 criminal homicides, and 37 suicides involving firearms.” Florida State University professor Gary Kleck appropriately terms these ratios “nonsensical.” (Targeting Guns: Firearms and Their Control, pp. 177-179, 1997)”
http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcdgaga.html
Is that silly “injure someone you love” stat sufficiently debunked?
Nope. Harley you need to stop reading the lies and exaggerations put out by the Brady campaign. It’s all nonsense. When did we, as a nation, reach the point where a woman, lying raped and murdered in an alley, is considered somehow more “moral” than another woman, standing in that same alley explaining to the police how that rapist got a hole in his chest?
Hollywood is very pro gun and have been for at least four decades. This is an example. Some believe that Hollywood is not but clearly guns and their use are quite well represented on the the airwaves and at your local theater. It makes good drama. Anyway a gun lock is not a hindrance if you don’t want it to be. Just don’t buy one. But if others want to then let them. It’s their life.
Many of these studies include illegal guns owned by criminals in the stats. Since your criminal spouse/lover/friends is likely to shoot you given sufficient provocation it makes legal gun ownership look dangerous by including people who are the reason many of us need guns in the first place.
Now that I think of it, “Monk” also aired the best takedown of the porn industry and its exploitation of women that I’ve ever seen on TV, in the episode “Mr. Monk and the Playboy.”
(Mr. Gillespie, if you read this, no need to get your knickers in a twist. It wasn’t preachy in the least.
)
Thanks John. Indeed a refresher to see someone poking fun of “childproofing” methods. I am surprised to see some anti 2nd amendment people on this blog.
In regards to safeties, yes you should carry your gun loaded. But you should always have the safety on until you are ready to fire. Practice pulling from your holster (support hand on the torso), safety off as the muzzle is pointed at your target. If you have a 1911, always check that safety as you get into and out of your automobile.
If there is one thing I have learned, it is that police are often poor shots, and if they are training people this way, it is wrong and not surprising.
And yes, gun law authors typically do not know anything about firearms other than what they want to take away from us.
Join the NRA, if you have beef with the NRA, join Gun Owners of America.
Mattl:
Anyway a gun lock is not a hindrance if you don’t want it to be.
Huh? I’m confused. Do you mean a hindrance to protecting yourself or a hindrance to shooting yourself?
Just don’t buy one. But if others want to then let them. It’s their life.
I don’t have that option in California, but I don’t want trigger locks on my guns. Should I move? And I agree: it is my life.
The only time I have ever had gun locks on my arsenal is when we were moving. Thats it. It was because we were afraid we would get into trouble. The firearms were also broken down. Lets see if I am moving and I have my fire arms in four seperate hard cases, broken down into different cases and yet I still feel the “need” to have gun locks on them what is wrong with this picture?
Good pickup, John, on the gun lock scene in this week’s Monk.
As Kit points out above, Monk is a program with some occasional strains to its storytelling. Plus, during a decade of much humorless pessimism and grotesque imagery in prime time, Monk has maintained a light tone. It’s one program which hasn’t taken itself too seriously.
In terms of its structure, however, Monk needs to aim a little higher than mere shtick. The crime, the setting, and the puzzle solution are often top grade, but plot hasn’t been stepped out very well lately. You get five to ten minute segments of “insert infantile shtick here” between meaningful plot beats.
The producers might consider using the program’s San Francisco setting to send up some of the signature flaws of that city’s people in this era.
Harley, no one will dispute that there have been, and will continue to be, accidential shootings by “untrained” gun owners. But if you’re going to talk about research, how about also addressing the number of lives which have been saved by people who have had to use their gun in self-defense to protect themselves and the lives of their family from home invaders? I’d say that is a pretty relevant statistic, don’t you?
JIMKEARNEY,
I doubt they will mock Frisco too much, considering they sometimes shoot there.
And we know how tolerant those San Franciscans are of mockery!
The San Francisco there is more like the San Francisco in the 1950s. (There was one jab, however, when the Captain told Monk “Its San Francisco, there are weirdos everywhere!”)
If by schtick, you mean Monk slicing a pancake into a squarfe, then they are going to keep that. That is what makes the show MONK. It is, after all, about a man who has an often crippling OCD.
Kit – Monk’s business, like the pancake bit, usually works. In “Other Brother” most of the tiresome would-be comedy came in the scenes with Jack Monk, Jr. Unlike John Turturro’s wonderful Ambrose Monk, Steve was an overdrawn caricature in the tradition of the (welcomely absent in this episode) cartoonish Randy Disher. The silliness extended to the preposterous assumption that the warden and prison guard wouldn’t recognize escapee JM,JR simply just because he cut his beard.
I think adult prime time comedy is most effective when it sends up the “flaws of the day.” I’d like to see more of the crime in the series set into motion by forms of human frailty native to the program’s setting.
In San Francisco there are hordes of people still stuck in 1968, not just politicos but stoners, granolas, and the heavily indoctrinated offspring thereof. The city is also rife with politically correct schools, progressive takes on family life, and a peculiar mix of anti-traditional-religious bigotry living alongside easy acceptance of Wiccans, psychics, and astrologers. The city’s legendary embrace of all things sexual is yet another rich repository of potential banter, farce, and jest.
Maybe Monk’s producers aren’t the ones to mine this rich comedic lode, but the extremes of culture residing there should be good for more than just Bill O’Reilly’s vitriolic wrath. (Note to Bill O: if you wish to opine about a fat target, don’t be “vitriolic” v-i-t-r-i-o-l-i-c …)
I always say a gun without ammo is about as useless as a car without gas.
I keep a loaded 12 gauge, five in the mag, chamber empty, safety on. The very *distinctive* sound of a shotgun loading a round in the chamber is enough to SCARE THE CRAP out of any burglar.
Dear HARLEY:
Actually, the answer to your question is “no.” Here is a discussion of this point from Chapter 2 of my book, More Guns, Less Crime.
Thanks for the info, and I certainly didn’t mean to start a brushfire re guns, gun locks, etc. And just for the record, I have no problem with anyone owning and keeping a gun in their home, I grew up in a home full of them. (Dad kept a WWII Luger in his bedside table top drawer. No gun lock.) I would however suggest that it would hardly be unnecessarily onerous to expect a gun owner to get a license much in the way that he/she does in order to drive a car. If only to show they know how to handle a dangerous weapon (car or gun).
And no, I’m not interested in debating the various interpretations of the Second Amendment re the latter suggestion. I’d hope none of us have *that* much spare time.
A few years age former MARYLAND governor PARIS GLENDENNING held a news confrence in which he tried to show how easy it was to disingage a trigger lock he ended up getting humilated when he couldnt get it to come off REDICULOUS SILLY DEMACRTAIC DOOFUS DUFF
My “license” to own and carry a gun is the U.S. Constitution and I keep a copy of it with me at all times–whether carrying a gun or not. I do NOT believe that I need permission from some State government to exercise that right, either. On the other hand, one does NOT need a license to own or operate an automobile on one’s own property. It’s only when using the States’ property (roads and highways) that one must be licensed. Neither is owning and operating an automobile an enumerated right in the Constitution, so the two activities cannot be analogous.
Harley, if you still have that gun I’ll give you $500 for it!
There is no “car driving” amendment to the Constitution. Licensing gun owners would be tantamount to requiring a license to attend church or a special license required to prevent the police from searching you without probable cause.
Harley, don’t mean to beat ya up, man, but I fail to see how licensing would help. Nearly all the drivers on the road are licensed, yet incredibly stupid acts are perpetrated every few miles by these licensed drivers who – presumably – KNOW better! It would be quite interesting to know who has a better safety record; licensed drivers or UNlicensed gun owners…
Dear Harley:
Having a license similar to a driver’s license would actually be deregulation from what we currently have. You don’t need a license to drive a car on your own property, only if you were to drive it off the property. Once you have a license you are allowed to drive the car anyplace in the country. A driver’s license is similar to a concealed handgun license. You don’t need a permit to carry a gun on your own property. Unfortunately, a concealed handgun permit doesn’t let you carry a gun with you anyplace in the US, so making it like a driver’s license would actually be an improvement.
John, you are correct. In the short term licensing gun owners like car drivers are licensed would actually INCREASE our liberties.
However in the long run, if you license gun owners then you get to pull this “Your licensed right is actually just a privileged” shtick that has happened with driving. Once upon a time it was assumed that freely traveling the countryside was a basic human right but as more and more bureaucracy was piled onto the drivers license system, driving has become just a privilege, which means basically it can be revoked at any time.
Dear ZUNDFOLGE:
My point was actually a different one. And that is you could simply expand the rights of concealed carry permit holders and that would get what you have with driver’s licensing.
Point well taken John. BTW, Thank you for the hours you have invested in your research and in the cause of defending our Liberties.
“Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add “within the limits of the law” because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.” — Thomas Jefferson in a letter to Isaac H. Tiffany (1819).
That police officer who said a handgun needed to be carried with a round chambered and the safety off needs to be receiving some correctional training himself before he does a Barney Fife. (also a good show about guns) People assume because the state issues them a gun they must be experts. But as an old firearms instructor once said, “Most police care more about a good pen and pencil set than a firearm.” I believe the national average firearms training for police is something like 8 hours. And contrary to TV where every cop has at least one shootout a week, most never fire their guns except at qualifications. I notice Monk also avoids that error, at least better than most. I have trained officers and competed against them. The ones who love shooting can be real masters—because they love shooting, not because they were issued a uniform.
Oh by the way John–excellent point about the hospitals. I work in one. Of course, as you know, hospitals DO kill. Quite regularly in fact. Which actually makes it an even better comparison. People coming to the hospital already have a problem. Sometimes the hospital screws up and makes it worse. Sometimes we do it right and save them. Sometimes it really makes no difference. People who resort to a gun for defense already have a problem. Sometimes the gun makes things worse. Sometimes it saves them. Sometimes it makes no difference. The evidence is that both hospitals and guns do more good than harm.
I proposed once that we should conduct an NRA style safety training program circa 5th grade, and upon successful completion, issue an ID card that is a valid ID card for when one is needed, but is also a permit to carry/buy a firearm. This ID card would be required to be surrendered (and recorded as surrendered) upon a felony conviction, but if someone didn’t want to own a firearm, there is no requirement to do so, but a firearm could not be purchased without presenting it. Laws as to age would still apply, naturally. In this manner, every child in America would know gun safety, and since every person in America would have this ID card, there would be no possibility of using the ID card to confiscate firearms.
I have a question, I live in Florida where I am licensed to carry a concealed firearm. I often drive to Virginia to visit family. Can anyone tell me why some states require me to declare I have a weapon on my person to law enforcement officers during a traffic stop?
Harley, keep learning lady! :0) It’s important to learn why these rights are not to be infringed. Questions are good if asked in the right frame!
I grew up out west with all the anti-gun talk of Seattleand the hunting history of Utah and my grandfathers WW2 vets. Married a midwest Navy guy. Who took the time to educate me on our countries history and why it is vital to keep our country and personal safety. That no one can tell you when you can or can not protect yourself. Recently I studied “the shot heard around the world”. History or the British diarming the colonies. They told them it would be for a time and that people who registered and turned in (for safe keeping) their guns could leave their surrounded town free with all possesions. They predetermined to keep all arms and conquer the colonies uprisings for Britian. Well worth a review of actual accounts fron the event, not the watered down history version taught today.
Wow did that bring it home! We have a similliar family back ground it sounds like, but there comes a time you have to search things out for yourself and not take everyones word for it. sounds like that’s where you are at. Good for you!Go after it and arm yourself with knowledge!
I am now a mother of 3 who went deer hunting for the first time this year and is a very good shot, if I do say so.
My children have been taught that guns are made to kill and are to be respected. They also practice when ever we get a chance to shoot. they are under 10 years all of them. The first item they learned was not to touch without permission and supervision, then to handle responsibly. I have tested this on many occations with heartwarming results, theirs nothing like knowing your children can take care of themselves. But reguardless of our training on gun handling. We have taught then a respect for life, all life. Which is the starting point of any proper, honorable self defense it is what keeps any person from crossing that line of defense to violence.
I live in a a top liberal state, but I have the right to protect myself and my family not just because of the 2nd ammendment, but because that ammendment was written because of the founding fathers respect and following of the good old King James Bible. Which is where our principle of all rights come from our creator and are inalienable originated. That is my own personal journey and stand on self protection.That is why I am American, not just because my family came over on the 2nd ship from England with William Penn, which they did. that “right” does not change by where I go or what I am doing it is the same as God ever is. Unmovable.Unchangable. Go for it learn from the sources themselves and no one can lie to you about your personal rights.
I’m not a big Tv fan, but way to go Monk!
GK–I believe the answer is that one of the ways the anti-gunners tried to resist letting people have guns in their cars was by claiming it would endanger cops. They wouldn’t know who might have a gun and who wouldn’t. As if that were not already the case, like plenty of people, good and bad, don’t have guns in their car regardless of the law. Then there was the related claim that a cop might spot your gun and panic and shoot you thinking you were a bad guy. Also goofy since such people shouldn’t BE cops. But this rule was put in place to answer those sorts of objections. That being said–regardless of the law, if you are reaching into the glove box for your license and registration and there is a gun in there also, you had better tell the officer before he sees it and thinks you are going for the gun. Not because of any law–just your safety cause cops are humans who make tragic mistakes.
I have a ccw for the state of Ohio. I ask the officer that did the paper work on my permit how they could tell if you had a ccw. He said it is attached to my car lincense plate. If I am stopped by the police, and they run my tags it shows up that I have a ccw. Yes do as the say if you are stopped. Turn you interier lights on,keep both hands on the wheel till the office is at your window and tell him you do have a ccw and if your weapon is in the car and let him know the location of it. I also plan to ask (if I am ever stopped) if the officer would like to take control of my weapon untill after he is finished.
I want to say thank you, very much to MOMOF3 and Terry Stage for the insight you both included in you comments. It is refreshing to read this kind of input from Americans who seem to know the difference between right and wtrong, and personal responsibility. Again, thank you.
[...] recently noted that the TV show Monk had a great episode where Monk was unable to use a gun defensively because it was locked in a gun safe, but the very [...]
Gun locks are bad.
Gun safes ARE NOT.
You can get a cheap ($50) gun vault that will give you five-second access to a LOADED handgun.
If you’re single and live alone, keep a loaded gun in the dresser.
If you have kids in the house, a gun vault is invaluable.
And cops are some of the LAST people I’d take firearms advice from.
A full 5% probably know what they’re doing, but the remaining 95% rely on the badge for their “expertise”.
You must be logged in to post a comment.