New converts to the shooting sports

I took my Sister-in-law & a couple of her boys to the local gun range yesterday to shoot my AR-15 while we're up in Washington for Christmas. None of them had ever shot one before, and in fact, my Sister-in-law had never shot anything before. We all had a lot of fun, and she even commented that she is thinking of saving up to get one herself sometime. Her boys can't wait.

Watch the videos from the NRA Celebration of American Values

I just realized I had not posted this link. For anyone interested, you can view the archived videos from the Sep 21-22nd 2007 NRA Celebration of American Values, which took place in Washington DC.

NICS improvement bill improved

Say Uncle, Sebastian, Of Arms and the Law, The NSSF, and the NRA have all covered quite nicely the NICS improvement bill which fixes a lot of problems in the existing NICS legislation. The VPC folks are now calling it a pro-gun Trojan Horse because it improves gun rights which is a direction the VPC does not want to go (The VPC would be more aptly named "Center for the Banning of all weapons"). What better endorsement could we ask for than the Violence Policy Center Folks saying it is bad?

. . . if you start looking at the details of the bill--especially after NRA-backed changes made by Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn--it becomes clear that the measure is nothing less than a pro-gun Trojan Horse. That's why my organization, the Violence Policy Center, and other national gun control groups, have voiced their strong concerns about the version of the bill that was passed by Congress . . .

Firsthand account of the Von Maur shooting

Firsthand account of the Von Maur shooting

. . . Honestly, and as God [is] my witness, when I saw him shooting and as [I] watched for a few seconds trying to figure out what he was going to do and what I should do, the thought that [went] through my mind was, “If I had a gun, I have a perfect shot.”

Yes, a perfect shot. I had a full side profile, I was close, and no one was visible behind him execept a wall. I had a clear shot during the second round of fire. I told this to every cop I came in contact with. The interviewer agreed.

When I realized that I had no gun, fear instantly struck me, along with anger, and severe panic.

I ran hard. . . .

I am very angry at the city of Omaha and the mall for their stupid laws that nearly cost me my life. The laws protected no one, and in my opinion, caused people to die.
. . .

The Ultimate Jew on Gun Control

Thanks Say Uncle for reminding me about The Ultimate Jew. Jackie Mason has some great things to say about gun control in his video blog.

Gun Control Spoof

Spoof on gun control & those who wish to take our guns away. Personally I believe I can handle my own gun control without any government involvement. It requires only adherence to the fundamental gun safety rules, and a steady aim at the target.

If someone misuses any tool (regardless of whether that tool be an automobile, a baseball bat, or a gun) for illegal purposes such as robbery, murder, or rape, that person should go to jail. For that matter even if a criminal uses nothing other than his or her own bare fists to commit a crime he or she should still go to jail. However, our government should adhere to the 2nd Amendment of our Bill of Rights, & leave the rest of us alone. Our government should not infringe on our rights for the false promise of offering a mystical safety net that is nothing more than a worthless mirage that does not even exist anywhere in the real world. As the famous quote by either Benjamin Franklin or Richard Jackson says: "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

Gun Free Zone Spoof

An oldie but goody:

Media bias? What media bias?

Check out this hilarious spoof on media bias.

SAF Press Release on Gun Free Zones & Westroads Mall Tragedy

The Second Amendment Foundation has issued the following Press release:

Omaha shooting another failure of ‘gun free zones’

Shopping malls should be as safe as public schools and university campuses, and the outrage that unfolded at the Westroads mall in Omaha, Nebraska proves they are, thanks to the monumentally stupid proliferation of so-called “gun free zones.”

These victim disarmament zones are the handiwork of extremist gun control fanatics and their soulmates in state legislatures who created these loopholes in right-to-carry statutes across the country. Instead of providing areas of presumed safety where nobody is supposed to have a firearm, gun free zones are nothing more than risk-free environments where every criminal and lunatic with an axe to grind or a desire to become famous can stack up a quick body count with little concern about resistance from an armed citizen.

Nineteen-year-old gunman Robert A. Hawkins had no intention of surviving his bloody rampage. Despite what the gun control camp will argue, there is no way to prevent a person from committing a violent act when he is willing to die in the process. Hawkins, who had a criminal record, could not legally possess a firearm but he evidently stole the murder weapon, a semi-automatic rifle, from his stepfather.

If there is a true outrage in this incident, it is the prohibition of legally concealed firearms at Westroads Mall. One hell of a lot of good that prohibition did for Hawkins’ eight victims. Undoubtedly such bans make anti-gunners – who fought bitterly and hysterically against passage of a concealed carry law in Nebraska – feel good about themselves, but the reality is that such prohibitions cost lives.

In our new book, America Fights Back: Armed Self-Defense in a Violent Age, we detail the failures of gun-free zones, and how their only “contribution” has been to raise homicide statistics that gun control proponents can use in their ceaseless campaign to deprive law-abiding citizens of their gun rights.

Recall the Trolley Square shooting in Salt Lake City earlier this year, or the 2005 shooting at the mall in Tacoma, Washington. The shooters in both of those incidents were stopped by people with guns. In Salt Lake City, an off-duty policeman from another jurisdiction happened to be in the mall with his wife, essentially as a private citizen. Fortunately, officer Kenneth Hammond ignored the “no guns” signs at Trolley Square and had his pistol. He traded shots with Sulejman Talovic, sending the gunman running for cover until uniformed officers arrived and killed Talovic.

In Tacoma, gunman Dominick Maldonado was confronted by a courageous armed citizen named Brendon McKown. Although Maldonado seriously wounded McKown, he quickly stopped shooting and ultimately surrendered to police. The Tacoma Mall also prohibits firearms.

Remember Luke Woodham, who shot up Mississippi’s Pearl High School in 1997? His rampage was stopped by Assistant Principal Joel Myrick, who had rushed to his car to retrieve a .45-caliber pistol. Myrick aimed the gun at Woodham’s head and held him until police arrived.

In January 2002, gunman Peter Odighizuwa, who had just murdered three people on the campus of the Appalachian School of Law in Grundy, Virginia was confronted by two armed students who had rushed to their cars to retrieve handguns. He dropped his gun and was wrestled to the ground.

Unfortunately, at Virginia Tech this year, there were no armed students or teachers to interrupt Seung-Hui Cho before he killed 32 defenseless people. Sadly, nobody ignored the ridiculous prohibition at Westroads Mall in Omaha.

The strategy of gun control extremists is to rob people of their right of self-defense by stripping them of the tools to defend themselves. They alone are responsible for the gun free zone loophole that leaves us all vulnerable to this kind of senseless attack, and it is time that America tell these fools that we’ve had enough.

Alan Gottlieb is founder of the Second Amendment Foundation (www.saf.org) and Dave Workman is senior editor of Gun Week (www.gunweek.com). They are authors of America Fights Back: Armed Self-defense in a Violent Age, published by Merril Press.

Hero Jeanne Assam Honored with the SAF Eleanor Roosevelt Award

The Second Amendment Foundation has honored hero Jeanne Assam with the Eleanor Roosevelt Award. Well deserved too. She truly is a hero who saved hundreds of lives this past Sunday. May God's blessings continue to rest upon her.

SAF HONORS COLORADO’S JEANNE ASSAM WITH ELEANOR ROOSEVELT AWARD
For Immediate Release: 12/12/2007

BELLEVUE, WA – For her remarkable display of heroism and courage under fire, the Second Amendment Foundation announced today that it will recognize Jeanne Assam, who confronted a gunman on Dec. 9 at the New Life Church shooting in Colorado Springs, with the Eleanor Roosevelt Award.

The Roosevelt award was created by SAF founder Alan Gottlieb, co-author of America Fights Back: Armed Self-Defense in a Violent Age. The award honors exceptional women who use firearms in self-defense and the defense of others. The award is named in memory of former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who frequently carried a revolver for personal protection, even while she lived in the White House, and during the times that she campaigned in the South for civil rights.

“Jeanne Assam, an armed private citizen who volunteered to provide security at the New Life Church, was suddenly faced with a deadly emergency and without hesitation, disregarding her own safety, she rose to that challenge,” Gottlieb said. “By confronting a killer, Assam undoubtedly saved many lives.

“The news media, perhaps to try diminishing Ms. Assam’s bravery and the significance of her intervention, have revealed her dismissal as a Minneapolis police officer several years ago,” he added. “We concur with church Senior Pastor Brady Boyd, who observed that all of us have past experiences we may regret, and that she should not be ‘convicted or crucified for being a heroine.’ Today, the entire nation should be proud of Jeanne Assam, and grateful that her life’s path led from Minneapolis to Colorado Springs.

“Jeanne Assam did an incredibly brave thing under circumstances that could easily be described as above and beyond the call,” Gottlieb stated. “Every day in this country, armed private citizens defend themselves or others, frequently preventing or stopping crimes. Their actions go largely unrecognized and more frequently ignored by the press and public officials who would rather suppress the notion that Americans can fight back.

“We created the Eleanor Roosevelt Award to recognize the efforts of armed women who practice personal safety,” Gottlieb concluded. “In Jeanne Assam’s case, we are honoring a truly remarkable woman who placed herself in harm’s way for the safety of others. We are humbled by her good and noble deed.”

The Second Amendment Foundation (www.saf.org) is the nations oldest and largest tax-exempt education, research, publishing and legal action group focusing on the Constitutional right and heritage to privately own and possess firearms. Founded in 1974, The Foundation has grown to more than 600,000 members and supporters and conducts many programs designed to better inform the public about the consequences of gun control. SAF has previously funded successful firearms-related suits against the cities of Los Angeles; New Haven, CT; and San Francisco on behalf of American gun owners, a lawsuit against the cities suing gun makers and an amicus brief and fund for the Emerson case holding the Second Amendment as an individual right.

The common denominator of mass shootings - Gun Free Zones

No one here can shoot back.

One citizen with a gun can make a big difference

The opposite of a "gun free zone" is a location that does not ban weapons. An attempt at yet another mass shooting this past Sunday at New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado was stopped short by Jeanne Assam, a CCW licensed armed member of the congregation that was legally carrying a concealed weapon when she pulled out her gun & shot the deranged maniac who had one thing on his mind - killing as many innocent victims as possible. He was armed with 2 handguns, a rifle, over 1,000 rounds of ammunition, and was working his way towards a large congregation in the church when she brought his shooting rampage to an early end.

He had made one fatal mistake (besides the obvious mistake of going off the deep end with plans to murder as many people as he could) - he forgot to go to a gun free zone. Instead he went to a freedom of choice zone where citizens were free to choose for themselves to be armed or not to be armed. Lucky for the hundreds of potential victims in the building, it was not a gun free zone, and at least three members of the congregation had exercised their choice to be armed.

See further details & links from Say Uncle, Call me Ahab, Of Arms & the Law, Instapundit, Front Sight, Press, massbackwards, The War on Guns, Ted Nugent, John R. Lott, Xavier Thoughts, Good for the Country, Jerry Ahern, and Snowflakes.

Santa's gift - safety for our children in schools

Above image used with permission of John M. Snyder. Details are in the following press release:

Snyder sent copies of the post card to the President, Supreme Court justices, members of Congress and other public officials.

"See Santa who just in time defends," proclaims an accompanying verse, "classmates, teachers and their friends, gun-right carry laws should extend into our classrooms, we contend!"

Snyder distributed the Christmas message "to highlight the importance of maintaining an armed citizenry as a deterrent to violent crime and to underscore the insanity of so-called 'gun free zones.' The only freedom provided by these gun free zones is freedom for criminals to prey upon innocent people who can't legally defend themselves.

"That's what was behind the murder of eight innocent people last week at the Westroads Mall in Omaha, Nebraska. At the mall, posted signs inform people, including those with state-issued permits to carry concealed firearms (CCW), that they cannot carry guns legally on the property. That leaves them defenseless in the face of these violent criminals."

Snyder said that's also what was behind the massacre at Virginia Tech last April. "The university allowed the killing spree to occur when it prohibited those with CCW permits from carrying firearms on campus for self-defense," he stated. "State and federal legislators should slash public funding of schools and other entities that prohibit CCW permit holders from carrying firearms. After all, when law-abiding armed individuals are able to act, as happened at Appalachian Law School five years ago, they can prevent murderous activity from escalating into a massacre."

The Christmas card urges recipients to "allow individuals who have state- issued concealed firearm carry permits to bring their handguns onto school grounds. Prevent massacres. For the sake of self-defense, abolish gun free zones! Best wishes for a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!"

A former NRA magazine editor, Snyder is Public Affairs Director of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.

CONTACT: John Snyder of Telum Associates, LL.C., 703-212-9863

Telum Associates, LL.C.

63 year old lady thrown in jail for bearing a weapon

I bet the citizens of Florida slept easier this past Sunday night knowing that a 63 year old senior citizen was safely behind bars. Mary Ann Richardson, a US Citizen & a resident of Pennsylvania, was thrown in Jail in Florida while she was visiting there as a tourist. What was her crime? Bearing concealed weapons (a small handgun, a pocket knife, and a pair of scissors) without a CCW permit. She is currently out on $2,000 bail while she awaits her trial.

Wait, what about the 2nd Amendment. Does it not include "the right of the people to keep & bear arms shall not be infringed?"

I guess that particular constitutionally protected right doesn't apply to 63 year old senior citizens who bear arms to protect themselves from actual dangerous criminals but neglect to apply for a CCW permit.

To be fair to Florida, it is not the only State that requires a permit to bear a concealed weapon, and at least Florida does recognize CCW permits from other states, in addition to allowing residents from other States to apply for one if they wish. In that sense Florida is far ahead of States like California & Oregon which do not recognize CCW permits from US citizens visiting from any other state. Florida is light years ahead of States like Wisconsin & Illionios that not only don't recognize CCW permits from other states nor the 2nd Amendment right to bear arms, but those States are the only two that don't even issue CCW permits to their very own residents, not even to "well connected" residents like the "May Issue" States often do.

There are only 2 States that recognize the 2nd Amendment right to bear arms in its full glory - Alaska & Vermont - both of which fully recognize the right of individual US Citizens to keep & bear arms without any special State issued government permission in the form of a CCW permit. Now that is true freedom. Truly a good model for all States to follow. The only requirement in Alaska & Vermont is that you may not have a weapon while committing a felony which seems fair enough to me. I mean, it's already illegal to commit a felony, so it does not concern me at all that they also decided that it is illegal to commit a felony while bearing a weapon whether that weapon be a gun or a baseball bat. I would even go one step further and say that it should also be considered a crime to commit a felony while wearing a baseball cap. Felons should get an extra 10 years for that. Anything to keep the felons off the streets & guns in the hands of citizens who wish to exercise their 2nd Amendment rights makes me happy.

Update: There are some excellent comments relating to this story on keepandbeararms.

Excellent gun free zone article by Duane Lester

Below are a few excerpts from an excellent gun free zone article by Duane Lester:

The shooting last week at Westroads Mall in Omaha joins a list of shootings with a common denominator. . . .

The common denominator is all these shootings took place in a gun free zone. The shooters made the safe assumption that their evil plans had a probability of succeeding because the majority, if not all of the citizens there, would be unarmed. They were sitting ducks. . . .

Instead of limiting people’s ability to protect themselves from heavily armed psycho mass murderer, or posting signs that say “Sitting Ducks Here,” we should be telling those criminals that we are armed, dangerous and we are not going to be hung out to dry by some gun grabbing liberal nit wit. Remember the words of Thomas Jefferson, who understood the importance of an armed citizen:

“Laws that forbid the carrying of arms . . . disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes . . . Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.”

John Lott's Website: Follow up coverage on the Gun Free Zone Multiple Victim Public Shootings

John Lott's Website: Follow up coverage on the Gun Free Zone Multiple Victim Public Shootings

Links to additional info on the Gun Free Zone issue. Although the mainstream media is still ignoring this very important point, the bloggers have definitely picked up on it.

Red's Trading Post: Idaho Attorney General joins other AG's to defend the Second Amendment

Red's Trading Post: Idaho Attorney General joins other AG's to defend the Second Amendment

Excellent news - Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden has signed on in support of the individual rights view of the 2nd Amendment.

Yet another Gun Free Zone tragedy

My heart goes out to the families of the disarmed victims of the Westroads Omaha Nebraska Mall that were shot on December 5th by a madman. The experiment called a "Gun Free Zone" is well past due to come to an end. It is a terrible experiment that continues to use human beings as the mice & the body count continues to mount as the experiment proves over & over again that "Gun Free Zones" simply do not work.

What does a Gun Free Zone really accomplish? Simply to disarm the law abiding citizens who choose to go into them. It is already illegal to shoot people, having a rule that criminals can't bring their guns into a gun free zone does not add any deterrent for them.

It is also interesting to note that with all of the reporters surrounding that Mall to cover the story, not one single reporter bothered to mention the no guns allowed sign posted at all of the Mall entrances. John R. Lott Jr has written a very nice opinion piece with the below observation.

A Google news search using the phrase "Omaha Mall Shooting" finds an incredible 2,794 news stories worldwide for the last day. From India and Taiwan to Britain and Austria, there are probably few people in the world who haven’t heard about this tragedy.

But despite the massive news coverage, none of the media coverage, at least by 10 a.m. Thursday, mentioned this central fact: Yet another attack occurred in a gun-free zone.

CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb released a press release today with his viewpoint:

“What happened at the Westroads Mall can happen anywhere that political hysteria results in victim disarmament,” Gottlieb stated. “Blaming firearms for this crime is like blaming cars for drunk driving. The argument doesn’t wash

Who's to say whether any of the victims or even any of the other shoppers within earshot of the shooting were forced to leave their gun in their vehicle to obey the Gun Free Zone rule. We'll probably never know. But you can't argue with the fact that if any of the victims or citizens nearby normally carried a gun & had not been disarmed at the door, they would have had a much better chance of defending themselves and ending the shooting much earlier than the shooter had planned.

Since it was a Gun Free Zone the shooter had all the time in the world to continue his rampage while waiting for Police to arrive. Only because he decided to go ahead & take his own life did it end as quickly as it did.

The anti gun folks are already using this tragedy to call for additional gun bans. Can someone please tell me how a criminal willing to steal a gun he is legally not even allowed to touch due to his criminal history, and willing to shoot people when it's already against the law to murder, would really care about breaking one more gun law?

Even if we ignore that obvious fact, how exactly would he have been less effective using any of a multitude of popular & far more powerful semi-automatic hunting rifles than the semi-automatic weapon that the criminal used in this tragedy? It's the criminals that need to be banned, not the guns. Who was it anyway that decided it is a good idea to let criminals back out on the streets as an experiment to see if they will behave or fall back into crime?

Private businesses that disarm their visitors should be held responsible for their safety. Even the Mall security were unarmed. It is highly likely that the most they had at their disposal was a can of pepper spray. Knowing that they would not have a very good chance of stopping an armed criminal with a can of pepper spray they wisely waited for the Police to arrive.

It's time to take our heads out of the sand. As Robert A. Heinlein said: "An armed society is a polite society" which is why we never had any of these mass shootings before gun free zones were invented. A disarmed society is a barrel full of helpless fish that criminals simply can't resist shooting into.

The Ideal Self-Defense Weapon

Excelent article written by Charley Reese on The Ideal Self-Defense Weapon. Very well written. Below are a selection of my favorite quotes from his article:

A friend of mine, a South Korean tae kwon do master and a former member of South Korean intelligence, was laughing one day about kung fu schools, which teach students the use of the broadsword and the halberd.

"Who is going to walk around carrying a broadsword?" he said. "Besides, if your life is in danger, use a gun."

The gun is the ideal self-defense weapon. It can be wielded by a woman, a child, an elderly person or even an invalid. There was an old saying in the American West: "God created men, but Sam Colt made them equal."

San Francisco gun buyback - more money & time wasted!

As you'll recall from my last gun buyback posting, gun buybacks are a complete waste of Police manpower & city tax revenue.

Jason Rantz posted an excellent editorial about the recent San Francisco gun buyback event:

Peter Buxtun, a 70-year-old gun advocate, turned in two pistols Saturday that he said were worthless. He collected $300 in gift cards.

"You can buy junk guns for $10 and then use the gift cards to buy new guns," he said. "I saw a half-dozen uniformed SF police officers taken off the street to sit for hours in a City Hall photo-op, instead of patrolling certain drug-ridden and gang-infested neighborhoods."

Fox 10 Phoenix News gets it wrong . . .

What a LOAD of baloney (My apologies in advance to all the fine makers of the meat product called Baloney for associating their good name with such poor reporting). I could hardly believe my own ears when I watched the news last night & heard the Monday night Dec 3rd 9pm Fox 10 Phoenix newscast make the following statement while reporting a story on a group of semi-automatic rifles confiscated in 5 ATF seizures that occurred in Arizona during the past week:

"Many of these guns including the dozens of semi automatic rifles are the same guns used by soldiers serving in Iraq"

I think it is safe to say that most everyone other than perhaps Fox 10 Phoenix knows that Soldiers use fully automatic machine guns, NOT semi-automatic rifles. Shame on Fox 10 Phoenix for stating such a misleading lie. I've contacted Fox 10 Phoenix myself & have called on them to correct their story in a future newscast in addition to issuing an apology to the citizens of Arizona for the confusion they have caused. With as much confusion as there already is in the general public about what a fully automatic assault rifle is as used by the military (such as an M16) & what a semi-automatic rifle is such as an AR15, we don't need the local news media to be adding to the confusion by broadcasting lies. I would expect such lies from the likes of CBS or CNN, but normally I expect just a little bit more honesty from Fox.

I do have to commend Fox for getting one thing in particular correct - they did correctly call the seized guns semi-automatic rifles which is one thing that the majority of the mainstream news media usually messes up.

Update: My Fox Phoenix responded to my e-mail & they say that although they may not have time to actually respond to my e-mail, they will eventually read it with care! Probably just before they hit the delete key. :)

Thank you for your e-mail to Myfoxphoenix.com. Due to the high number of e-mails we receive, we may not be able to personally respond to your questions. However, be assured we have read your e-mail carefully, and we appreciate your time.

Have you checked out our message boards? Your question or concern may have already been answered in the Frequently Asked Questions section.
Go to http://community.myfoxphoenix.com/boards for more information.

Would Clinton actually go fight the terrorists with his so-called "Assault Weapon"?

Yesterday my boys & I went to a local gun range to do some shooting. Along with shooting our own guns we also used our yearly free rental of an MP5 submachine gun and all took turns shooting it which as always was a lot of fun. On our way home from the gun range we discussed politics as well as the differences between a true fully automatic assault rifle like an M16 used by military forces and the fake definition of a so-called "assault weapon" used in the now expired Clinton gun ban which is a term that continues to be misused by the media.

We also talked about how Bill Clinton had scaled back the military & closed quite a few military bases while he was President. One of my boys was so disgusted that he suggested that because Bill Clinton took away some of our freedoms & cut back our military he should go over to Iraq to fight some terrorists all by himself, and another went on to suggest that the only weapon he should be allowed to use would be a semi-automatic rifle with 2 or more of the defined "evil looking" features like a pistol grip as defined in his own expired assault weapons ban. We got quite a chuckle with the visualization of him being armed with a semi-automatic rifle trying to fight off a small group of terrorists armed with true fully automatic assault rifles. Perhaps if nothing else he would finally realize that there really is a difference between a semi-automatic rifle with a couple of "evil looking" features & a true fully automatic assault rifle.