Opinion
Simply if you thought you’d heard all of it: warning—studying the teachings of Grand Rapids Mayor David LaGrand, who simply delivered the comedy gold of 2026 at his “Mayor Monday” discussion board, might trigger you to expertise dizziness, confusion, and an uncontrollable urge to purchase one other gun simply to spite this stage of nonsense. Void of widespread sense, after a selfdefense police capturing of yet one more illegally armed felon, the mayor decides the disaster calls for… shaming lawful gun homeowners.
LaGrand said, “I believe as a group we have to begin having some shaming round gun possession.” LaGrand continued, “I believe when you’ve obtained a gun try to be ashamed of your self. I actually do.” He then blesses us together with his profound perception that weapons are “for killing human beings,” and argues there may be “a lot extra hurt than profit,” all whereas barely whispering “Second Modification” prefer it’s an embarrassing household secret.
NEW: The video of Grand Rapids Mayor David LaGrand blasting gun homeowners has surfaced.
When requested if legislation enforcement ought to be disarmed following an officer-involved capturing, he said: “I believe when you’ve obtained a gun try to be ashamed of your self. I actually do.”
Estimates present… pic.twitter.com/K3NkXhJDus
— Grand Rapids Businessman (@GR_businessman) February 24, 2026
Exceptional. Historic. A residing reminder which you could attain a excessive workplace with out ever as soon as touchdown on a coherent thought.
However let’s play alongside together with his little disgrace recreation for a second. If proudly owning a gun is so shameful, Mr. Mayor, then clarify why the “good man with a gun” retains displaying up within the knowledge as a serious examine on the very violence you’re pretending to care about.
Defensive gun makes use of (DGUs) will not be a fringe fantasy. They’re a relentless actuality, and the numbers make LaGrand’s sizzling take seem like a hallucination. Even the low-end estimates from authorities victimization surveys land round tens of 1000’s per yr, whereas different credible work places defensive makes use of far larger.
Economist John Lott has spent a long time digging into this, and his work factors in precisely the other way of the mayor’s emotions. In Extra Weapons, Much less Crime and later analyses, Lott factors to survey knowledge indicating someplace between roughly 760,000 and three.6 million defensive makes use of per yr, with most of them ending the second a gun is proven, not fired. His article and later congressional testimony on DGUs lay out 18 separate surveys with a mean close to the two million mark.
Need extra, Mr. Mayor? Gary Kleck’s assessment of the CDC’s personal buried survey work exhibits that after they quietly requested individuals about utilizing weapons defensively within the Nineteen Nineties, the outcomes implied nicely over 1,000,000 defensive makes use of per yr, numbers so inconvenient the company stopped speaking about them.
Add within the 2021 Nationwide Firearms Survey, which estimates about 1.67 million defensive gun makes use of yearly, with weapons used to cease assaults, robberies, dwelling invasions, and extra, and a transparent image emerges.
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Throughout a number of surveys, a number of a long time, and a number of researchers, the defensive use figures routinely vary from tons of of 1000’s to a few million incidents a yr. At that time, pretending the “good man with a gun” doesn’t exist isn’t simply ignorance, it’s its personal bizarre little conspiracy principle.
The “good man with a gun” just isn’t a bumper sticker slogan; it’s a statistical actuality that saves lives each single day.
Zoom in on Michigan, and the image will get much more inconvenient for the mayor’s narrative. Michigan’s shift to “shall situation” hid carry didn’t produce the massacre opponents predicted. One abstract of state knowledge, together with before-and-after traits, could be seen right here.
Over the last decade after the legislation was liberalized, firearm homicides in Michigan really declined in comparison with the last decade earlier than, even because the variety of residents holding hid pistol licenses exploded. Different analyses of allow holders’ habits persistently present that hid pistol license holders are dramatically much less more likely to be concerned in crime than the overall inhabitants, offending at a tiny fraction of the overall charge.
So, who precisely deserves “disgrace,“ the law-abiding citizen who deters crime at a charge far out of proportion to their tiny share of offenders, or the violent felon who ignores each legislation on the books?
LaGrand desires to disgrace the very individuals who quietly deter crime and not using a badge or a paycheck, whereas the precise criminals, the felony-prohibited possessors, maintain arming up illegally. Blame the accountable residents who cease violence, ignore the prohibited felons launched again onto the streets who trigger it. That’s not coverage; that’s political theater, that’s madness.
His cigarette analogy is equally absurd. Cigarettes kill passively and supply no protecting profit to the harmless. Firearms in lawful arms actively stop hurt, defend the susceptible girls dealing with stalkers, the aged in high-crime areas, minorities bored with being straightforward targets, and accomplish that on a scale that, by many estimates, dwarfs legal makes use of. Once more, see the self-defense statistics and survey discussions above for the ranges and methodologies.
After which there’s that pesky Structure. The Supreme Court docket in District of Columbia v. Heller and New York State Rifle & Pistol Affiliation v. Bruen has made it abundantly clear: the Second Modification protects a person proper to maintain and bear arms for self-defense. That isn’t a suggestion, and it’s not contingent on whether or not a mayor in Michigan occurs to “really feel” try to be ashamed. It’s a acknowledged, elementary proper.
To each accountable gun proprietor in Grand Rapids and past: maintain doing what you’re doing. You aren’t the issue. You’re a part of the answer the mayor refuses to acknowledge as a result of it doesn’t match his narrative, and the proof backs you up.
Mayor LaGrand ought to sit down and ask himself why he’s attacking individuals who obey the legislation as an alternative of the thugs who terrorize his metropolis. The true shame isn’t gun homeowners; it’s a mayor so out of contact he thinks shaming residents for exercising a constitutional proper counts as coverage. Keep on, of us. The nice guys are nonetheless successful the day, whether or not the mayor likes it or not.
Legislation-abiding People shouldn’t cling their heads as a result of a grandstanding mayor sneers at their rights; they need to do precisely what the Founders anticipated of a free individuals: keep armed, keep skilled, and be able to defend themselves and their neighbors when evil exhibits up.
The boys who insisted on writing the Second Modification into the material of our Structure did it exactly in order that abnormal residents, not simply kings, bureaucrats, or mayors, would maintain the final word duty for their very own security and their very own liberty. To honor the rights they secured and the blood that has been shed to protect them, we have now an obligation to face agency towards petty politicians just like the mayor of Grand Rapids, who would strip away the very freedoms our Founders engraved into America’s founding paperwork 250 years in the past and entrusted us to defend.
While you carry a firearm lawfully, you’re not simply defending your loved ones in a darkish parking zone, you’re carrying ahead a 250-year-old promise that this nation would by no means be a spot the place solely the federal government has weapons. That’s not one thing to be ashamed of, that’s one thing to stay as much as and to struggle for so long as the Republic stands.
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About Sean Maloney
Sean Maloney is a legal protection legal professional, co-founder of Second Name Protection, and an NRA-certified firearms teacher. He’s a nationally acknowledged speaker on vital subjects, together with the Second Modification, self-defense, the usage of deadly pressure, and hid carry. Sean has labored on quite a few use-of-force and self-defense circumstances and has personally skilled tons of of civilians to reply safely and legally to life-threatening conditions. He’s a passionate advocate for restoring the cultural legitimacy of the Second Modification and selling private duty in self-defense.
