Wednesday, August 19, 2009

I would buy a car from this guy in a heartbeat!



The CNN dame is dumb as a brick... "Duh... Why would you want God in your motto?"

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

A LITTLE GUN HISTORY

In 1929, the Soviet Union established gun control. From 1929 to 1953, about 20 million dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

In 1911, Turkey established gun control. From 1915 to 1917, 1.5 million Armenians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

Germany established gun control in 1938 and from 1939 to 1945, a total of 13 million Jews and others who were unable to defend themselves were rounded up and exterminated.

China established gun control in 1935. From 1948 to 1952, 20 million political dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

Guatemala established gun control in 1964. From 1964 to 1981, 100,000 Mayan Indians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

Uganda established gun control in 1970. From 1971 to 1979, 300,000 Christians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

Cambodia established gun control in 1956. From 1975 to 1977, one million educated people, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

Defenseless people rounded up and exterminated in the 20th Century because of gun control: 56 million.

Gun owners in Australia were forced by new law to surrender 640,381 personal firearms to be destroyed by their own government, a program costing Australia taxpayers more than $500 million dollars. The first year results are now in:

List of 7 items:

Australia-wide, homicides are up 3.2percent.

Australia-wide, assaults are up 8.6percent.

Australia-wide, armed robberies are up 44 percent (yes, 44 percent)!

In the state of Victoria alone, homicides with firearms are now up 300 percent.

Note that while the law-abiding citizens turned them in, the criminals did not, and criminals still possess their guns!

While figures over the previous 25 years showed a steady decrease in armed robbery with firearms, this has changed drastically upward in the past 12 months, since criminals now are guaranteed that their prey is unarmed.

There has also been a dramatic increase in break-ins and assaults of the ELDERLY.

Australian politicians are at a loss to explain how public safety has decreased, after such monumental effort, and expense was expended in successfully ridding Australian societyof guns. The Australian experience and the other historical facts above prove it.

You won't see this data on the US evening news, or hear politicians disseminating this information. Guns in the hands of honest citizens save lives and property and, yes, gun-control laws adversely affect only the law-abiding citizens. Take note my fellow Americans, before it's too late!

The next time someone talks in favor of gun control, please remind them of this history lesson. With guns, we are 'citizens'. Without them, we are 'subjects'.

During WWII the Japanese decided not to invade America because they knew most Americans were ARMED!

If you value your freedom, please spread this anti-gun control message to all of your friends.

The purpose of fighting is to win. There is no possible victory in defense. The sword is more important than the shield, and skill is more important than either. The final weapon is the brain. All else is supplemental.

SWITZERLAND ISSUES EVERY HOUSEHOLD A GUN! SWITZERLAND 'S GOVERNMENT TRAINS EVERY ADULT THEY ISSUE A RIFLE TO. SWITZERLAND HAS THE LOWEST GUN RELATED CRIME RATE OF ANY CIVILIZED COUNTRY IN THE WORLD!!!

IT'S A NO BRAINER! DON'T LET OUR GOVERNMENT WASTE MILLIONS OF OUR TAX DOLLARS IN AN EFFORT TO MAKE ALL LAW ABIDING CITIZENS AN EASY TARGET.

Sunday, March 8, 2009

WOW! Exceptional Service Is Appreciated!

Recently, I have been the recipient of extraordinary service from two different gun related industries and I want to recommend these businesses to everyone. As anyone who has tried to purchase anything weapon related in the last few months can tell you, businesses have been hammered, products are hard to find, and patience runs thin with many of the folks you have to deal with. These facts make these recommendations even more deserving.

I will begin with www.fobusholster.com and the incredible service I received from them. I was looking for paddle style holsters for concealed carry to be used with three different carry weapons that I use depending on the situation.

I already had a model I purchased, thinking it was for the Taurus PT-111, approximately 5 years ago. It was picked from the rack for me by a local gun shop worker but, unbeknown to me, it was the wrong model for my gun. Though it fit, sort of, I was never really satisfied with it and abandoned it into a drawer where it was forgotten until days ago.

The other day, because of the excellent website that Fobus has, I was able to figure out that the holster was the wrong model for my gun. I called Fobus to order the correct model, plus the other two holsters that I needed.

During the conversation with the very nice woman who answered from the sales department, I explained that I had purchased the wrong holster years ago and just figured it out that day. She said, "That is no problem, just send it back and we will send you the right one."

I was floored. No one exchanges a product after that amount of time especially if it was customer error in the first place! But, Fobus does... all they needed was $3 to cover postage and the old holster. End of story! Now that is a true lifetime guarantee.

The other experience was with a company that I ordered through the Internet. The website is www.gunpartsguy.com and the service was awesome!

I found his site through a link from the TAPCO website. (I needed some TAPCO magazines for my SKS and, by the way, these mags rock!) The Gun Parts Guy carries the full line of TAPCO products and the first surprise was that he had what I needed - IN STOCK!

But, the real surprise was how fast I received my order. I ordered the parts at noon on Thursday, and received them via USPS at noon on Saturday! That is same-day service at its finest!

At this time of near chaos and craziness, it was a real pleasure to do business with these companies!

While I am at it, for all of you black powder enthusiasts, I found the most amazing website last night. It can be found at www.trackofthewolf.com and if it has to do with black powder sports or related activities, they have it. Check out their catalog, it is a work of art! (This site really made me miss my old mountaineering and Scouting buddy, MC).

Freedom Warrior

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

UPDATE: DA Drops charges BUT, WOU Student convicted by school tribunal

This is an update to the case that I posted about last week. Thank you to Keven Starrett and Oregon Firearms Federation for defending this innocent marine! Please log on to http://www.oregonfirearms.org/ and contribute to the Educational Fund to assist in the students defense.

02.10.09MARINE VETERAN KICKED OUT OF SCHOOL FOR POSSESSING FIREARMS. WOU STUDENT TRIED,CONVICTED AND SENTENCED.

The WOU student who was falsely arrested and charged with possession of a firearm in a public building, had all his criminal charges dropped by the Polk County DA tonight. The DA admitted no wrongdoing on his part, or on the part of the police who arrested Jeff Maxwell for a "crime" that does not exist.

In a statement released to OFF's attorney, the DA said, "I believe the Monmouth Police Department issued the citation in good faith and that there was an arguable violation. However, a careful reading of the statute and the facts led me to conclude the charge was not in the best interest of justice."

Not in the best interest of justice? There was NO CRIME. But it gets worse. Much worse.

The college still got to "try" Jeff Maxwell. And they did tonight.

The tribunal that tried Marine veteran Jeffery Maxwell laughed after suspending him from Western Oregon University and sentencing him to a "psychological evaluation stating he is not a threat to himself of others" and a "mandatory ten page paper, with references," citing, but not limited to:

  1. The importance of following the law, even through civil disobedience.
  2. The importance of accepting responsibility for one's actions.
  3. And recognizing the impact possession of weapons on college campuses has on others.

So, Maxwell has been told his lawful possession of a firearm on campus is evidence of mental illness and he must "confess his sins." Welcome to the new Politburo. Maxwell may as well been judged by the Hitler youth for his "thought crimes."

Jeffery Maxwell's "jury" were four unnamed students and one staff member of WOU. The "prosecutor" was Patrick Moser moserp@wou.edu , Acting Coordinator of Campus Judicial Affairs.

Maxwell asked to have his "trial" open to the public, which is his right, but was denied.

The tribunal was told repeatedly that they lacked the authority to impose a rule dealing with firearms. But the children who sat in judgment of the veteran were not interested in the law or the facts. They were only interested in attacking and embarrassing a man who had committed no crime but had chosen to exercise his right to protect himself and others.

The "trial" was a sham. No one present even seemed to know what the "charge" was.

When confronted by the fact that the school has no authority to make rules about firearms, they said that was "not relevant."

Then they said they were not charging Maxwell with having a firearm. When asked what they WERE charging him with, they seemed to not know.

They then said they were charging him with "having a knife and a rifle in his car." When told they had no authority to make rules about guns in his car, they said, THAT was "not relevant."

The children who sat on Maxwell's "jury" and their staff advisors seemed to have no idea what they were actually charging Maxwell with. But they had no problem sentencing him.

Gun owners, and all Americans should be outraged.

OFF is committed to continuing Maxwell's defense. We are shocked and disgusted by the treatment he received by the staff and the students of WOU. We ask your continued support of our legal battle for Jeff Maxwell.

We promised Jeff what he promised the men he served with - We will not leave him behind.

Copyright © 2000 - 2009, Oregon Firearms Federation. All Rights Reserved.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Dem's Use "Stimulus" as Cover for More Gun Control

A Message from:

Alan Gottlieb

Chairman

Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms

Dear Concerned Citizen,

The liberals are at it again. In a new bill introduced the first day of the present session of Congress, and with zero coverage from the MSM, H.R. 45 (Blair Holt's Firearm Licensing and Record of Sale Act of 2009) targets all gun owners in the U.S.A. While the media the world and everyone else is focused on the "phony plan" to spend tax dollars legislation is sneeking through the House and Senate for more gun control.

This nefarious bill seeks to strip us all of our Constitutional Rights to possess and bear firearms of any distinction. It requires, within the first two years, that all new guns be registered. The bill goes retroactive after two years. Meaning that two years after the passage of the bill, ALL FIREARMS in a citizen's possession must be registered, not just those purchased after the bill passes, and this apparently applies to antique firearms as well.

Every five years the firearm owner must go through a complete renewal process for each weapon owned. Failure to comply carries stiff penalties including confiscation of the firearms and jail time (penalties as high as ten years imprisonment in some cases). The bill also authorizes government searches without warrant, the creation of a federal bureaucracy to monitor firearm possession, etc.

The following is a summary of the bill as provided by the Congressional Research Service. If you read the whole bill, you'll find it will effectively preclude the ownership of any firearms by law-abiding people unless directly licensed by the Attorney General :

1/6/2009--Introduced. Blair Holt's Firearm Licensing and Record of Sale Act of 2009 - Amends the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act to prohibit a person from possessing a firearm unless that person has been issued a firearm license under this Act or a state system certified under this Act and such license has not been invalidated or revoked. Prescribes license application, issuance, and renewal requirements.

Prohibits transferring or receiving a qualifying firearm unless the recipient presents a valid firearms license, the license is verified, and the dealer records a tracking authorization number. Prescribes firearms transfer reporting and record keeping requirements. Directs the Attorney General to establish and maintain a federal record of sale system.

Prohibits:

  • Transferring a firearm to any person other than a licensee, unless the transfer is processed through a licensed dealer in accordance with national instant criminal background check system requirements, with exceptions;
  • Licensed manufacturer or dealer from failing to comply with reporting and record keeping requirements of this Act;
  • Failing to report the loss or theft of the firearm to the Attorney General within 72 hours;
  • Failing to report to the Attorney General an address change within 60 days;
  • Keeping a loaded firearm, or an unloaded firearm and ammunition for the firearm, knowingly or recklessly disregarding the risk that a child is capable of gaining access, if a child uses the firearm and causes death or serious bodily injury.

Prescribes criminal penalties for violations of firearms provisions covered by this Act. Directs the Attorney General to:

  • Establish and maintain a firearm injury information clearinghouse;
  • Conduct continuing studies and investigations of firearm-related deaths and injuries; and
    Collect and maintain current production and sales figures of each licensed manufacturer.
  • Authorizes the Attorney General to certify state firearm licensing or record of sale systems.

Like all other threats against our freedoms, we must rise and defeat this bill, slap it down hard.

In order to stop Schumer and Feinstein and there fellow gun-grabbers—we need to let the Congress know with thousands of faxes telling them to leave guns alone.

Americans like you who understand what our Founding Fathers envisioned for our nation...and who are willing to fight to defend our Constitution and for what it stands.

So please, help the Citizens Committee and me defeat those who wish to gut and trash the United States Constitution.

Help me flood the U.S. Senate and the House with the sea of CALLS big enough to drown each and every Senator and Representative willing to vote away the Second Amendment.

Keep calling your Senators today, toll free numbers include 1-877-851-6437 and 1-866-220-0044, or call toll 1-202-225-3121 AND REGISTER YOU'RE OUTRAGE at ongoing efforts to take guns away!

CALL PRESIDENT OBAMA, 202-456-1111 and 202-456-1414 expressing your disdain and ABSOLUTE REJECTION of all GUN BANS.

DO NOT BE SILENCED – MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD!

Together, we can preserve the Constitutional rights our Founding Fathers intended our people to have forever.

Thank you. I know I can count on you.

Saturday, February 7, 2009

These are the folks who are supossed to KNOW the law and protect us?

This is an article from the Western Oregon University Journal written last week about an arrest of a student named Jeffery Maxwell for a non-crime of being in possesion of a concealed weapon in a public building - which is perfectly legal in Oregon as per ORS 161 if you have a license to carry concealed, which he does! Pay particular attention to the statement that the University is ABOVE the law! OH REALLY!

Mid-morning arrest startles students

Individual brings weapons on campus in violation of state law
By: Erin Huggins
Posted: 2/4/09

Last Wednesday morning at 11:16 a.m., Campus Public Safety (CPS) and Monmouth Police identified, detained and arrested Western student Jeffrey Maxwell in the downstairs student area of Werner University Center (WUC) for violation of ORS 166.370, Possession of a Firearm in a Public Building.

CPS had sent an e-mail on Tuesday, Jan. 27, alerting the campus community about an individual who had been seen loitering around the pool area and the residence halls.

Wednesday morning, CPS received a call reporting a person matching the description given in the e-mail who was carrying a knife on campus. Because weapons were involved, Assitant Director of CPS and CPS Officer Mike Hanson called Monmouth Police Department (MPD) for back-up. Sergeant Kim Dorn, Officer Matthew Olafson and a recruit officer from MPD, along with Hutchinson and Hanson, were unable to locate the individual upon an initial search of the campus.

However, shortly before 11 a.m., CPS received another call about the individual and the MPD officers returned to campus.

Maxwell, who was sitting at one of the study tables across from the Service and Career Learning Center, was approached from behind by Joe Hutchinson from Campus Public Safety and MPD officers. Hutchinson asked Maxwell if he had any weapons concealed on his person.

On first response, Maxwell answered he had a knife. Hutchinson then put Maxwell's hands above his head. The second time he was asked, Maxwell said he had a gun.
After the weapons were removed, officers took him into the Calapooia Room. A few minutes later, he was escorted into one of two police cars parked on Church Street outside of WUC.

Responding to why they did not evacuate WUC, Hutchinson said CPS did not know what weapons were involved and did not want to alert the suspect by a sudden flood of students leaving the building.

"If we had known he had a gun, the scenario would have been totally different," Hutchinson said.

Maxwell was initially approached because of his resemblance to the individual in CPS's e-mail, although Hutchinson said CPS has not confirmed whether or not Maxwell is the same person described in the e-mail.

Hutchinson said there have been no sightings of the person since the arrest last Wednesday.

Dorn said although Maxwell did have a loaded firearm on his person, he did not use it in a threatening way and was cooperative with the police.

Maxwell had a valid permit for possessing concealed weapons; however, the permit does not allow people to bring weapons inside public schools, private schools or courthouses.

"Even if you have a concealed weapons permit, you can't have a weapon concealed on your person if you're going to be in any buildings on campus." Dorn said. "In this instance, he just didn't know."

Hutchinson said Western firearm and munition policies are administrative and correspond to Oregon University System policies, which are not necessarily the same as state regulations.

"We go one step further and say, look, no weapons are allowed on campus, period,"Hutchinson said.

Hutchinson said he asked Maxwell why he had a gun on campus, to which Maxwell replied, "I was just scared after Virginia tech. I was just really worried about my safety."

Several students witnessed the arrest, including senior Alica Tresidder, who said she initially thought the event was a drill.

"I thought they were practicing," she said about officers involved. "They had it under control. I didn't feel threatened at all."

Sophomore Carrie Miller said she thought the suspect was being arrested for drug possession, "not such serious things as a loaded gun."

"I had a test I was down here [WUC] studying for. How am I supposed to concentrate for the next hour?" she questioned shortly after the arrest took place.

Senior Alecia St. Germaine said her first reaction to the situation was fear.

"My stomach started turning and I wanted to leave," she said.

In addition, knowing an armed person could just walk onto campus makes her feel a little uneasy.

"I have night class," she said. "Usually, I'm fine walking to my car. Now I'm going to second guess that."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
© Copyright 2009 Western Oregon Journal


In response to this arrest, Oregon Firearm Federation has been asked and has accepted the request to defend Maxwell against these bogus charges. This should prove to be a very valuable case for all concelaed license holders. I encourage all Americans concerned about the arbitrary infringement upon our Constitutional Rights (in the name of law enforcement), to contribute to this students defense fund (see post below). The following post is from the OFF website:

Legislators Join OFF In Defense Of Lawful Gun Owners.

Representatives Kim Thatcher and Bruce Hanna joined OFF and the Oregon Firearms Educational Foundation today in defense of a college student (and Marine Corp veteran) who was falsely arrested at Western Oregon University last week.

The student was charged with "possession of a firearm in a public building." The college has barred him from classes and the state has charged him with the same crime. The student was involved in no unlawful activities nor was he engaged in any actions that would discredit a responsible gun owner. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

There is one small problem. The student has a valid Oregon concealed handgun license. He is statutorily exempt from the prohibitions on gun possession in public buildings.

Apparently neither the college nor the Monmouth Police are acquainted with the law.

The student contacted us last week and we agreed to defend him against these charges, brought by people who seem incapable of reading.

The student is going to face a "hearing" at the college early next week and OFF and our attorney will be there. Our foundation has promised to defend the student and provide whatever legal assistance he requires.

This is an important case. Our foundation filed a lawsuit against the Oregon University System several years ago for the same attack on gun rights, but the court found that since the plaintiff had not been arrested or expelled, they would not consider the case.

This case is different. The WOU student was singled out and arrested in spite of the fact that he had committed no crime.

He has been trespassed off the school property and had his academic career damaged for a "crime " that does not exist. We are committed to defending him.

It is ironic that at a time when when universities are begging for armed guards, some are also demanding that trained gun owners be disarmed.

No matter how this battle goes, it will be expensive. If you would like to make a tax deductible donation to our legal foundation to help us cover the costs of the student's defense, we would be grateful for your help. You can donate at http://oregonfirearms.org/ofef/index.html

Please be sure to note that your donation is for OFEF so you receive a receipt for tax purposes.


Copyright © 2000 - 2009, Oregon Firearms Federation. All Rights Reserved

Thursday, February 5, 2009

The Constitutional Right and Social Obligation to Carry a Gun
Robert H. Boatman

Carrying A Gun Is An Absolute Right

The framers of the Constitution were under no pressure from the NRA when they wrote "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

In the same spare sentence, they reaffirmed their historical preference for a "militia" over a standing army, and indicated that this militia should be composed of armed citizens -- citizens of a "free state" whose right to keep and bear arms must never be infringed. Anti-freedom zealots, including academic invalids and the hypocrites of the mis-named American Civil Liberties Union, have stood on their pointy heads in tortured attempts to misinterpret this sentence ever since. Those of us who know how to read the English language have no trouble at all.


The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE to keep and bear arms shall NOT be infringed. The right of the people TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS shall NOT be infringed. The right of the people to keep and bear arms SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED. What part of NOT do the illiterates out to subvert the Constitution NOT understand?

The Constitution of the state of Pennsylvania (adopted September 28, 1776) allocated more words to make the point even more unmistakable: "XIII. That the people have a right to bear arms for the defense of themselves and the state; and as standing armies in the time of peace are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be kept up; and that the military should be kept under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power."

Indeed, the individual right to keep and bear arms for personal defense is based on exactly the same principle as civilian control of the military. One wonders if the ACLU would argue with that.

The Second Amendment, like most other articles in the Bill of Rights, was adopted from the English Bill of Rights of 1689 which, in turn, was based on centuries of English Common Law. English jurist Sir William Blackstone observed that the English Bill of Rights clearly meant that Englishmen possessed "the right of having and using arms for self-preservation and defense" and that "having arms suitable for their defense" was one of the five auxiliary rights people possessed "to protect and maintain inviolate the three great and primary rights," the first of which is "personal security."

Unfortunately for the English people, they have been persuaded by their own far-left government and insidious anti-gun activists to allow the English Bill of Rights to be, as they might say, shat upon. Today, the English do not have the right to keep and bear arms for self-preservation and defense. As a direct result, they live in a crime-ridden society that grows worse with each passing day.

The recent 2000 International Crime Victims Survey published by the Dutch Ministry of Justice, a highly respected and accurate measurement of the percentage of people by nation who are victims of violent crimes, ranked England far ahead of the United States (which ranked 8th), and second only to Australia (where English-style anti-gun laws are also in effect) as the most violent nation. A recently disarmed England now has twice as much violent crime as the United States.

The English Home Office, which cooperated in the survey, has refused to publish these findings in England. It's better not to remind the gullible subjects how empty were the promises of safety and security for which they so eagerly traded away their very real and priceless freedoms and responsibilities. The great Roman philosopher and senator, Cicero, immortalized armed self-defense as an "inalienable right" more than 2,000 years before the U.S. Constitution did so. Cicero said: There exists a law, not written down anywhere but inborn in our hearts; a law which comes to us not by training or custom or reading but by derivation and absorption and adoption from nature itself; a law which has come to us not from theory but from practice, not by instruction but by natural intuition. I refer to the law which lays it down that, if our lives are endangered by plots or violence or armed robbers or enemies, any and every method of protecting ourselves is morally right.

Even people to whom armed self-defense is but a remote abstraction often endorse, without even realizing it, the unquestionable principles underlying the right to carry a gun. Jaron Lanier, writing in Discover Magazine (Feb. 2001) said in reference to new copyright-protection technology -- "In a democracy, citizens are supposed to act as partners in enforcing laws. Those forced to follow rules without being trusted even for a moment are, in fact, slaves."

It is perfectly obvious that we have a natural right to arm ourselves and to kill any criminal or other force that threatens us just as surely as an elephant has a right to kill an attacking lion and a mother bear has a right to kill a wolf grinning suspiciously at her cubs. Animal-rights extremists extend the animals' right to the killing of humans under such circumstances.

Even the Dalai Lama, Nobel Peace Prize and all, said in May of 2001 during a speech about "nonviolent resolutions to conflict" to 7,600 Oregon and Washington high-school students -- "But if someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun." So said the Dalai Lama. There are criminals among us who are both homicidal and incorrigible. Their parents took a shot at civilizing them and failed. Their school teachers took a shot at them and failed. The odds are overwhelming that government welfare programs and penal institutions took a shot at them and failed. If it ever becomes your turn to take a shot at them, don't fail. Carrying a Gun Has Always Been Both a Right And a Duty

There have been many societies in which not carrying a weapon was a serious and severely punishable crime. This was true in Greece, Rome, Europe, Britain and, though seldom enforced, is still true in certain places in America today. This is as it should be. A citizen who shirks his duty to contribute to the security of his community is little better than the criminal who threatens it, and is better off living in a society that places lesser demands on his capacity to accept responsibility.

Armed Citizens Of The 21st Century

In 1987, a year after Glocks were introduced to the U.S., Florida enacted a pioneering "shall-issue" right-to-carry law that has served as the model for the rest of the country. The Florida law affirmed the right of a private citizen to carry a concealed gun and eliminated the abuses so typical of "discretionary" right-to-carry laws that resulted in gun permits being awarded arbitrarily to the political cronies of petty officials, limousine liberals, movie actors, athletes and various other celebrity representatives of the rich and famous crowd, but denied to so-called "ordinary" citizens. The Florida law made it crystal clear that any citizen with basic firearms training and a felony-free record would be issued a concealed-carry permit upon request, period.

Florida's landmark right-to-carry law was supported by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Florida Sheriffs Association, Florida Police Chiefs Association and other law enforcement groups. And it was supported by Florida voters.

The media, however, was predictably vociferous in its opposition to the exercise of Constitutionally guaranteed rights, and in its total submission to the party line of radical anti-freedom, anti-self-defense and anti-gun forces. Headlines predicted vigilante justice and wild-west shootouts on every corner. "Florida will become the "Gunshine State." "A pistol-packing citizenry will mean itchier trigger fingers." "Florida's climate of smoldering fear will flash like napalm when every stranger totes a piece." "Every mental snap in traffic could lead to the crack of gunfire."

Such dire and colorful predictions, of course, proved totally false. Nevertheless, that same hysterical fear-mongering and bald-faced lying are used even today every time a new state gets ready to pass an enlightened right-to-carry law. In actual fact, the only notable thing that happened for the first five years after Florida passed its right-to-carry law was that, as homicide rates in the U.S. soared, Florida's homicide rate fell a dramatic 23 percent. A few of the opponents of concealed carry actually had the courage to admit they were wrong.

Thanks to the intensive lobbying efforts of the NRA, along with the tireless grassroots work of politically aware gun owners, 33 states now have Florida-style laws which require the prompt issuance to their citizens of legal permits to carry concealed weapons. Well over half of the U.S. population, more than 60 percent of all handgun owners, live in these free states, yet no more than one to five percent ever apply for such licenses.

Notwithstanding the fact that most people do not carry guns, the mere possibility that an intended victim could be armed with a handgun eliminates millions of crimes every year.

According to the FBI, states with "shall-issue" right-to-carry laws have a 26 percent lower total violent crime rate, a 20 percent lower homicide rate, a 39 percent lower robbery rate and a 22 percent lower aggravated assault rate than those states that do not allow their citizens to legally carry guns.

Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Florida State University, Gary Kleck, in Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America (Aldine de Gruyter Publishers, 1991) found that "robbery and assault victims who used a gun to resist were less likely to be attacked or to suffer an injury than those who used any other methods of self-protection or those who did not resist at all."

Convicted felons reveal in surveys that they are more afraid of armed citizens than they are of the police. And well they should be. Armed citizens kill 2,000 to 3,000 criminals each year, three times the number killed by the police. And only two percent of civilian shootings involve an innocent person mistakenly identified as a criminal, whereas the error rate for the police is more than five times that high.

Kleck's research shows that private citizens use firearms to protect themselves and thwart crime about 2.5 million times a year. Citizens use firearms to prevent mass killings, bank robberies, gang attacks, carjackings, rapes, kidnappings and hostage-takings. They use them to help capture prison escapees and murderers, to come to the aid of outnumbered or ambushed law enforcement officers. Yet only a handful of these 2.5 million life-saving uses of firearms are ever reported in the mainstream press.

If a lot more people carried guns, what kind of a society would we have? Certainly not the kind predicted by anti-gun fanatics. Those hysterical doomsayers have been proven absolutely wrong one hundred percent of the time. Would we have a crime-free society? Certainly not. Criminals are as natural and immune to total eradication as fruit flies. But a better-armed society would severely limit the violent damage criminals wreak before they are stopped. Criminals are naturally self-destructive. The reasons they are so doesn't matter. To assist them in their self-destructiveness is the polite and civilized thing to do. Thus another ageless axiom: An Armed Society Is A Polite Society.

In 1998, John R. Lott, Jr., senior research scholar in the School of Law at Yale University, authored the most comprehensive and exhaustive study of crime and gun control laws ever conceived, based on the largest data set on crime ever assembled. His landmark book, More Guns, Less Crime (The University of Chicago Press, 1998, 2000), now available in an updated second edition, includes thorough analyses of more than 54,000 observations and hundreds of variable factors across more than 3,000 counties in all 50 states for 18 years.


The assiduously researched conclusions reached by Lott immediately set off a wave of panic among anti-gun fanatics and drew organized, systematic personal attacks of the most vicious and dishonest nature, including death threats leveled at Lott and his wife and children. Yet not a single serious academic challenge of Lott's research, his methodology or his incontrovertible conclusions has ever been successfully mounted. In fact, Lott's conclusions have reluctantly been called "bulletproof" even by the liberal mainstream press.

Bottom line, in keeping with the title of his work, the more guns there are in society and the more these guns are carried by private citizens, the less crime there is.

These are some of the reasons why police, who fight crime for a living and are well aware of the realities of street criminals, support right-to-carry laws for private citizens by an overwhelming three-to-one margin. This is an even higher margin of support for right-to-carry than the strong support voiced by the civilian population.

Policemen are nobody's personal bodyguards. Their jobs are to find and arrest people who have committed crimes, not to prevent such potential crimes from happening in the first place. Clearly, the responsibility for victim-prevention lies with the victim-to-be.

The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals (Bowers v. DeVito, 1982) did not mince words when it ruled, "There is no Constitutional right to be protected by the state against being murdered by criminals or madmen."

What It Means To Carry A Gun

That loaded pistol in your holster is a powerful expression of your Constitutionally guaranteed liberty as an American citizen, your recognition of the solemn duty you have to your fellow man, and your willingness to accept the full weight of a life-and-death responsibility.

When you are prepared to defend yourself, you are equally prepared to defend all of society and all of its guiding principles. Your responsibilities are therefore many -- moral, legal and tactical. That is why most people, including lifelong gun owners, experienced hunters and competitive shooters, even in states that freely issue concealed carry permits, do not choose to carry a gun.

Your moral responsibilities are to fire your gun into another human being only when the line of necessity has clearly been reached, and then to fire without hesitation and to full effect. Remember the words of Cicero.

Your legal responsibilities are to justify your actions to those who would call you a criminal at the drop of a hat, and quite possibly to a jury of your peers, most of whom have neither the competence nor the courage to carry a gun in their own defense. Read the findings of the Citizens' Self-Defense Act of 2001.

Your tactical responsibilities are to carry your gun with confidence, to be well trained in your ability to operate it effectively, and to have instilled in yourself an iron will to use deadly force to prevent or end violence committed against yourself or others. Most of this book is dedicated to your tactical responsibilities, because that's what will save your life.

Violence happens either at random, or directed toward the obviously vulnerable, or toward someone in particular for a reason. You can rest assured it will not happen at the shooting range when you are all suited up in your speed rig with a plan of action worked out for the coming run-and-gun stage. It will happen when you are home sleeping in your bed, shopping at the grocery store, walking out to get the mail, mowing the grass, at dinner, at church, at the theater.

The most dangerous places in the world are those called "gun-free safety zones" by their ignorant political creators and known by criminals and psychopaths as "safe-to-kill zones." Even an adolescent school kid can figure out that an advertised killing field where no one is allowed to shoot back is the safest location in the world to carry out a mass shooting. Don't even consider going to a place like that unarmed, whether it's your kid's school or a national park. If you can't handle breaking the law, don't go.

The assistant principal of a high school in Pearl, Mississippi, broke the law. He kept a .45 in his car parked on the school grounds. When a deranged student opened fire, Joel Myrick ran for his gun. Two students were killed because Myrick had to retrieve his gun from his car instead of his holster. But the .45 eventually prevailed, and Myrick stopped the massacre long before police arrived on the scene. God only knows how many lives he saved. But assistant principal Joel Myrick wasn't awarded any medals. Of the several hundred newspaper and television stories about the incident, only a few even mentioned his name. Almost none revealed the fact that he used a gun to stop the killings.

When you bodyguard someone for a while, or when you just live a normal life with your eyes wide open, you realize how vulnerable we all are to becoming another tidbit-of-opportunity in the relentless food chain that sustains the life of this unpredictable world. It's a realization not of paranoia but of reality. That's the way it is, always has been, always will be. You can ignore it out of faint-heartedness, deny it out of lunacy, submit to it out of a fatalistic contempt for your own life and the lives of others, or you can face it with courage and intelligence and prepare yourself to deal with capricious reality's predisposition toward danger.

Most of those dangers can be met with nothing more than a strong I'm-not-a-victim mindset and body language. Many others may shrivel with the demonstration of superior verbal skills. Still others may require a fundamental knowledge of martial arts, a container of pepper spray, a makeshift club, the presence of a well-wielded knife or the sight of a firearm. A few, perhaps one in a lifetime, will not be affected by any kind of less-than-lethal response and will not end until you churn your attacker's dreams and determination into a chunky red stew and spew it all over the street with a couple of big-bore hollow points. The trouble is, you never know when or where that last one is coming.

If you ever find yourself under attack by an armed criminal, you will be on the defensive and he will be on the offensive. In other words, he will have a strong advantage going in. And, though he will not have trained himself to shoot nearly as well as you have trained, he will be far more experienced in the art of killing. The odds are, any criminal who is intent on killing you has probably killed men before, knows how to do it, knows how it feels and likes it. You're not going to talk him out of it, scare him out of it, or wound him out of it. You're going to have to kill him.

Studies show that simply brandishing a weapon saves many lives, but I am personally against the idea of waving a gun around while your adversary thinks. The way to overcome his offensive advantage is to strike without warning. Once you make the decision to free your Glock from its holster the entire situation should be over and done with in a second or two. The most important component in practicing your draw is firing the instant you have a sight picture on your target, and continuing to fire until your assailant no longer exists.

More than a century of military and police research tells us that most people, including up to 85 percent of trained soldiers and cops, are psychologically unable to use deadly force in a life-or-death situation no matter how compelling the circumstances may be. If you can't kill, there is no reason for you to carry a lethal weapon.

Carrying a loaded gun with the ability and will to use it is not a casual fling meant to bring some excitement into your boring life. It is an all-embracing lifestyle and must take precedence over your respect for law, your fear of social criticism, your love of humanity, your wardrobe and your drinking habits. You can never be unaware of the weight you carry on your hip or under your arm. You can never forget your responsibilities. You must wear your Glock with the same allegiance as your wedding ring. If you're not married, your Glock is your wedding ring. Wear it for life. Don't even think about leaving home without it. Be prepared to use it at a moment's notice. Carry it all the time. And shoot to kill.

"Liberty or death," the meaning of which is clear and absolute, is but a trivial phrase if you do not carry a gun. For freedom-loving Americans, the five most important words in the English language are, and always have been -- from my cold dead hands.

This article was reprinted with permission and condensed from a chapter in Robert Boatman's Book Living with GLOCKS. Mr. Boatman can be reached at: interboat@aol.com

This book is available from www.boatmanbooks.com

View more of Robert Boatman's 2nd Amendment writing at: www.ironwordranch.com

Also, view www.customizeyourglock.com for their Glock manual.