On Monday, I wrote about a veteran facing murder charges in Maryland after he shot a gangbanger attacking him with a busted chair. Undoubtedly, some will think that’s excessive. After all, they argue, it was just a piece of wood. That doesn’t warrant being shot, at least in their minds.

The problem is that blunt objects kill more people every year than rifles–not just AR-15s, mind you, but rifles in general–and a chair, or even part of it, is a blunt object.

Yet a lot of people aren’t big on statistics. They need examples. They need stories.

Well, how about a man being beaten unconscious with a chair in New York City?

Police are trying to track down a gang of thugs who attacked a 33-year-old man, beat him with a chair and knocked him out in a violent beating in Brooklyn, New York City.

The attackers ran after the victim along 1910 Coney Island Avenue at around 4.20pm December 11.

One of the group threw the victim to the ground as seen in video released by the New York Police Department.

The gang kicked and punched the man and one person even battered him with a chair until he was unconscious.

Some of his possessions were taken before the assailants fled.

Emergency services took the victim to Coney Island Hospital for injuries including cuts to his head and face.

And here’s something to remember: blunt force trauma sufficient enough to knock you out is often pretty close to that which is needed to kill you.

What we see here is a vicious attack in a city where the victim was legally prevented from carrying a firearm.

Now, in fairness, there are differences between this and Maryland. This was a gang who jumped the victim and in Maryland, it was just a guy facing a gang member.

But the damage one can receive with a blunt object isn’t any different. In fact, in Maryland, the fact that the chair had been busted likely made it easier to wield, maximizing the amount of damage possible.

As for the victim in New York, it looks like he was fortunate the damage wasn’t more severe. It easily could have been. I could be writing about a vicious murder that took place on the streets of the Big Apple.

And, as noted already, this is a city where the victim was legally unable to carry a firearm. He couldn’t even get a permit because he had no good reason to carry one.

Of course, we now know that he actually did have a good reason. That’s kind of the problem with the whole requirement for a good reason to carry. The truth is that some people have what would be considered a good reason but will never need it, while others will need it and don’t meet someone’s definition of having such a reason.

It’s not like this victim could have applied and said, “I’ll be beaten unmercifully with a chair on the streets of New York.” I somehow doubt it would be issued in such a case.

Yet here we are.

Anything can become a weapon. A rock, a chair, or anything else you care to name, all are weapons in the hand of someone who wishes to harm another. Like guns, those can be good or bad hands. The problem is that these weapons favor the strong.

The gun serves as an equalizer, as we saw in Maryland.