I was browsing through some screed by the VPC about civilian “sniper rifles” and it made mention of how ours law allows civilians to own the same equipment as law enforcement and the military. This is essentially true but the wording is a little misleading.
It would be more correct to say that the people allow law enforcement and the military to use the same equipment as civilians.
Via email from Daniel Crocker:
I don’t know if you have seen anything about this, but the number of colleges allowing concealed carry on campus has more than doubled this week. Especially as this has not received any media coverage, I feel that this is a substantial news issue that should be covered and would be of interest to your readers. I’ve gone into more detail about this below, but feel free to email or call me at the address below for any additional information.
Prior to this week, only twelve colleges in the entire nation explicitly allowed carry of a firearm: The ten public colleges of Utah, Blue Ridge Community College in Virginia and Colorado State University. Following a substantial ruling to remove the ban at the University of Colorado, the fourteen colleges in the Colorado Community College System (CCCS) voted to rescind their current ban and allow any licensed adult with a concealed carry permit to exercise that right while on campus. While I cannot find any direct news articles about it, you may link to the revised policy at:
http://www.cccs.edu/SBCCOE/Policies/SP/PDF/SP19-10.pdf
This action alone more than doubles the number of universities and colleges allowing concealed carry from twelve to twenty-six.
In addition, one of the two community colleges in Colorado not part of the CCCS, Aims Community College, has scheduled a meeting to make the same changes in their policies. You may view an article about this at:
http://www.greeleytribune.com/article/20100511/NEWS/100519933/1007
This dramatic shift follows in the wake of a ruling against a similar policy at the University of Colorado. Members of Students of Concealed Carry on Campus (Concealedcampus.org) and the Rocky Mountain Gun Owners (Rmgo.org) originally filed suit against the University of Colorado claiming that state law preempted any governmental entity, including the Board of Governors, from banning concealed carry license holders from possessing a firearm on campus. While the initial ruling went against the firearms activists, it was reversed on appeal:
http://www.thedenverdailynews.com/article.php?aID=8082
The Colorado State University (CSU) Board of Governors originally voted to reverse the long standing policy of allowing students with state-issues concealed carry permits to possess firearms on campus shortly after the initial ruling:
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_14454241
Over the last seven years while the policy had been in place, crime had rapidly decreased and not a single instance of gun misuse by a licensee has been reported. The new ban was opposed by CSU’s student government, the county sheriff, the editorial boards of both the campus newspaper and the Colorado Springs Gazette, as well as more than 1,000 students who signed a petition against the ban in just a few short days. Larimer County Sheriff Jim Aberdeen, was so outraged by its passage that he told local media that he intended to undermine it by refusing to book violators of the ban into his jail, which the CSU police department utilizes for arrests. In the wake of the recent ruling however, Colorado State University has reversed it’s ban on firearms.
http://www.denverpost.com/headlines/ci_15027249
This issue will likely continue to be fought in court. For the time being however, it appears that some Colorado students and faculty will be allowed an option for self defense and that some criminals will no longer have a governmental guarantee that their potential victims will be unarmed.
Regards,
Daniel Crocker
Southwest Regional Director,
Students for Concealed Carry on Campus
Daniel.Crocker@concealedcampus.org
(205) 370-9126
I am have more than the usual interest in this topic because I have two daughters and a niece in college. Two of them have concealed carry licenses and are prohibited from using the most effective defensive tools should they be attacked.
So how do you measure a “potential terrorist”?
NRA ballcap or decal.
JadeGold
May 6, 2010
In the comments to Bloomberg on the “Terror Gap”.
[And when 80,000 “potential terrorists” get together this weekend just think of the havoc they will create. And it happens every year. It’s time people realized we can’t be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans to legitimately have freedom of association…
Oh, that’s right, the people at a NRA convention are extremely well behaved. It’s when a dozen or more leftists get together that they frequently riot and/or destroy property. The leftist terrorist organizations (FALN, ALF, ELF, anarchists, revolutionary socialists, etc.) commit far more crimes in this country than all the conservative, right-wing (National Alliance, WCOTC, Aryan Nation), and libertarian (have there any been libertarian terrorist organizations?) organizations combined.
I guess it must be the mental problems of JadeGold causing them to engage in projection.–Joe]
Today I went to my hair appointment before I left Idaho and drove to the Seattle area bunker. The lady who was just finishing up in the chair next to me turned and said, “Hello Barbara Scott.”
We had a pleasant short conversation about Dixie where she is trying to sell a bar and house — a remote and beautiful part of Idaho. We briefly talked about Boomershoot and another long distance shooter she had read about in the Lewiston Tribune. After she left a man in expensive “casual” dress sat down.
While he was getting his silver grey hair cut, he started talking about his former student who he had seen working at Tri-State. Apparently this was a typical “Idaho boy” — his words — who was poorly motivated, not very smart, married by the time he was twenty, etc. My ears perked up.
“A typical Idaho boy?”, I said.
He said, “Oh, yes. A typical Idaho boy.”
“Well tell me about this, I am very interested”
He said, “Of course this is an East coast point of view.”
And he told me all about it repeating the “this is an East coast point of view” line several times.
I said, “That is fascinating! I’m just a physical therapist and I can’t wait to tell my husband and son who both work for Microsoft all about it. They’d like to hear about a “typical Idaho boy.”
He muttered again, “It’s just an East coast point of view.”
About that time his hair dresser who is another Idaho boy chimed in, “Well, I’ve got all my teeth.”
I congratulated him and said something like, “We just got our first indoor toilet last year and really like it!”
The conversation died. The man looked kind of truculent.
I was having fun with the conversation and was really disappointed because there was a great deal I hadn’t got to say. Like my son graduated Suma cume laude from college and he was a National Merit Scholar. My husband is an Idaho boy who has been written about in Newsweek, Outside Magazine, Idaho Magazine, Motorcyclist magazine, and has been on television and radio several times. And my brother is a professor at Loyola in Chicago and I would have liked to have mentioned all the savvy men who like to work in lower stress jobs in the Idaho paradise where they can spend their off time hunting and fishing instead of spending hours commuting to work. But that’s just an Idaho point of view.
The only difference between today’s slavery and the slavery of the old South is that at least the plantation owners paid for the chains.
Alan Keyes
Presidential Candidate
At a speech in Orem Utah in approximately ~2000.
Via Richard Mack and From My Cold Dead Fingers–Why America Needs Guns, Third Edition (“Final Chapter”), page 197.
[Most people in this country don’t seem to realize they are slaves. A typical attempt at refutation might go something like, “Life is good! And if the government would just give us [fill in the blank] life would be even better. We aren’t slaves!” I’m almost at a loss for words in such a conversation. Their own words refute their claim. When you have to beg your superiors to give you what you want with no opportunity to escape you are their slave. I have heard slavery defined as when more than “X” percent of your work output is taken by force and only the remainder is used for your food, housing, and other individual needs. IIRC “X” was in the neighborhood of 25%. Our taxes far exceed exceed 25% of our work output. I have no meaningful escape to freedom from the oppression of my “master”. I, in many ways, am a slave.–Joe]
Or perhaps, as Peter Zatloukal has said, an entire symphony of sarcasm:
After hearing the news that consideration was being given to National Guard troops being dispatched to the city of Chicago to quell violence, I wanted to take the opportunity to thank Mayor Daley and Governor Quinn.
Mayor, Governor, congratulations. Your pathological efforts to disarm the honest law-abiding citizens of the state of Illinois have finally paid off in a most graphic way. By making Illinois one of only two states in the United States that denies its citizens the rights granted under the Second Amendment, you have succeeded in turning the city of Chicago into a war zone. Since the beginning of 2010, there have been more Americans killed in Chicago than in Afghanistan and Iraq combined. Congratulations, great job, I hope you’re proud.
Frank Ladonne
Buffalo Grove
Kevin points out that the other side lies, extensively, even when actual numbers are easy to come by and their lies are easily exposed.
He asks why do they do that. That is actually an easy question to answer.
As I have demonstrated before they are incapable of determining truth from falsity. They cannot distinguish their fantasy world from reality. This is part of the reason they can be so convincing with their lies. They actually believe them. The other reason they can be very convincing is that many of their audience want to believe them. They want to believe there are solutions as simple as congress flipping a switch and making the Boogie Monster under the bed go away.
They are frequently pathetic creatures for whom the light switch on the wall is, in a very real sense, magical. They have no concept of how things actually work. How else do you explain their belief that some collection of people could write down set of rules on a piece of paper and evil people, who fail to obey existing rules against violence crime, will suddenly obey still another rule to turn in or destroy their tools which enable them to pursue their chosen evil ways?
Of course do not underestimate our opponents. As Sean likes to point out, not all of them are so simple minded.
In my post last night I outlined some of the work the staff does for Boomershoot after the main event is over. I said the sound in the video doesn’t do it justice.
In Jason’s video the sound is a much better but it still doesn’t capture the THUMP that you feel throughout your body but it does hint a little better at it and give you some more clues as to what it means for Rolf to be Entertainingly Close:
Police have a difficult and thankless job. They put their lives on the line every day in a world affected by drugs and violence and social decay. May each of us in this noble profession, as we pursue the guilty among us, never be guilty ourselves of the greater crime: violating our oath in God’s name to defend the constitutional rights of the people for whom we work.
Sheriff Richard I. Mack
From My Cold Dead Fingers–Why America Needs Guns, Third Edition (“Final Chapter”), page 217.
[I have an autographed, and addressed to me, copy of this book. I found it in the garage when cleaning this weekend. I don’t remember buying it. I remember it laying around, but I don’t remember when or where I bought it. Probably at a gun show someplace. I haven’t read it yet. I just scanned it a some.
There are lots and lots of great quotes in it. You’ll be hearing more from this book.–Joe]
After the main event is over and most of the participants have left there is still work to be done. There is trash to be picked up, trash cans to be emptied, caution tape and signs to be taken down, stakes to be pulled and put away, and the left over targets have to be burned or detonated. I drive the ATV back and forth from the field to the Taj carrying trailer loads of stuff to be put away. The staff with ATF approval to handle explosives take care of the left over and damaged targets. The ones damaged too much to be moved are detonated in place.
No sound system we have tried can really capture the experience but Barron has the rest of the story and the video from this year. At about 3:00 minutes in Rolf demonstrates his .357 and Entertainingly Close.
I went out to the Boomershoot site today. There was some trash on the hillside that needed to be collected. Several of the signs at the nearby intersections needed to be picked up and some tools and other stuff were in our garage in Moscow which I needed to take back to the site.
It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining and it was 69 F:
I picked up the trash and got back in the car to drive to the Taj Mahal. I had walked the entire length of the hillside and the ground was dry and I didn’t expect any trouble driving across the field. I didn’t even bother to walk part way out to check it out. I slowly drove across the field enjoying the fresh air and sunshine with my window down and barely paying attention to where I was going.
I felt the car sink, slow down and heard the engine slow as the front wheels cut deep into soft ground and water barely hidden by the grass splashed. I gave it as much gas as I could without spinning the wheels out of sight in the mud as I desperately tried to pick up some speed to get through the even softer ground directly ahead that I knew I could not avoid. To stop would have been the end of it. I had to get through it to the other side and maybe turn around on the other side. I kept the wheels spinning at about 125% of my actual ground speed and the car slowed and slowed. I rolled up the window to avoid getting mud inside the car as the front wheel drive threw mud and grass into the air.
I thought I was lost as the car slowed and slowed until it was barely moving but it kept moving and it slowly crawled through and out the other side of the soft spot and onto firmer ground on the other side with another soft spot directly ahead. I was afraid to stop even where I was and turned down the hill and tried to turn completely around and hit another soft spot. I threw more mud and grass in the air and got it turned around and hit the first soft spot a littler faster and in a different place than before. The second time through was better than the first because of the additional speed and I made it through without quite the scare of the first time.
I made it back to the parking area by the road and decided I could walk and carry all the stuff to the Taj. It would take longer but not as long as it would if I got stuck and had to get help from someone.
Instead of walking to work tomorrow I’m tempted to drive and park my beat up and muddied Chevy Aveo, grass still clinging to the side mirrors, next to one of the Lamborghini’s or Ferrari’s in the parking garage. For some reason the thought of that amuses me greatly.
I haven’t read it but I like what I see here:
The philosophical idea of liberty and Capitalism reached its peak at the time our Founding Fathers were authoring the U.S. Constitution and its enumerated Bill of Rights. Standing repeatedly in the way of progress and human dignity, then and now, are the nihilistic philosophies of radical economic Socialism and its myopic mystical counterpart, violent religious fanaticism. Today, these two binary ideological forces are embodied by irrational terrorism on the part of Islamic fanatics in the Middle East (e.g. Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, etc.), and radical secular extremists posing as intellectuals in the socialist wing of the Democratic Party, the U.S. Congress and the White House. Together they form a political and ideological date-rape drug for liberty and Capitalism. The present work advocates amending Federal treason law to include the definition of Socialism as a traitorous act of intellectual terrorism, and prosecuting the legislative acts of Socialism by the elected enemies within the American government who would destroy Capitalism, end private property, expropriate the means of all production and manufacturing; ultimately destroying our American right to “…Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.
I surprises me that as much history as we have in this country on blacklisting people exercising a specific enumerated right that people have not learned the appropriate lessons. We need to make sure the people advocating for blacklisting of people who wish to exercise their Second Amendment rights get the same treatment by history as those who infringed upon people’s First Amendment rights 60 years ago.
Why, yes, that party’s office-holders do generally appear to be worse than their Republican counterparts, in just exactly the same way that being half-hanged, drawn and quartered is worse than a lethal injection; but the end result is the same.
I will support (or at least vote for) the occasional Republican, sometimes for entirely pragmatic reasons. Don’t confuse that with being a member of the party.
Roberta X
May 8, 2010
Primaries, Devisited
[Yeah. That is pretty much how I think and feel about the topic as well.–Joe]
There are ads on this blog. I make a few pennies each day from them. Some (Blog Ads) I get individual control of. Others (Google and Microsoft ads) I don’t (or at least don’t care enough to look into it).
Just because you see an ad here does not necessarily mean I like their product. Nor does it mean I believe their message that Rapture will occur on May 21, 2011.
I just means that they bought me lunch to obtain the privilege of presenting their story to you via my blog. It’s up to you to decide if they are worthy of your attention or not.
From the editorial The Gun Lobby’s Long Shadow in the NY Times:
Senator John McCain and other members of the gun lobby’s cohort are pressing for legislation to strip local taxpayers in Washington of such basic gun controls as owner registration and a ban on semiautomatic battlefield rifles — laws already upheld by the courts.
First off, the owner registration and “ban on semiautomatic battlefield rifles” was not upheld in the Supreme Court. My presumption is that they are talking about the Heller decision which merely said registration and bans on certain types of guns were not at issue in the decision.
Second, it is very telling the way the writer words things, “strip local taxpayers in Washington of such basic gun controls…” It has not been proposed the taxpayers be stripped of anything other than “chains”. It has been proposed the local government be stripped of a claimed power than infringes on a specific enumerated right. The wording used is analogous to someone whining about proposed legislation that would eliminate registration of blacks and prohibitions against them being in public after dark after the 13th Amendment was passed.
Such basic controls are just common sense, right? It was foolish to pass the 13th Amendment but even if we accept it at face value surely no one can believe that it can mean that the people will be stripped of basic common sense Jim Crow laws. Can they?
Bigotry is an ugly thing. No matter where it is found.
Pictures of daughter Xenia and me as seen by a fish (eye lens).
I’m sure the Administration’s position that “Thou shalt have no position on guns,” drives Holder nuttier than a fruitcake. It’s a joy to watch.
Sebastian
May 7, 2010
You Can Tell it Just Drives Him Nuts
[One might argue Holder was already “nuttier than a fruitcake” but that is just being nit-picky. It is definitely a joy to watch.–Joe]
According to the annual Freedom House survey of democracy and liberty around the globe, there was almost no increase in freedom during Carter’s presidency. Instead, both Iran and Nicaragua, principal targets of Carter’s human rights policy, became human rights disasters; the Soviets cracked down on human rights activists Anatoly Scharansky and Aleksandr Ginzburg; and Carter’s foreign policy weakness encouraged the Soviets to invade Afghanistan. The aftershocks of Carter’s foreign policy failures reverberated most powerfully in the Islamic fundamentalist terrorism we have today. It was the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan that created the mujahadeen, who revived the idea of jihad. More important, the fall of the shah in Iran gave Islamic fundamentalist radicalism an enormous state sponsor and inspiration and made being an American ally in the Middle East seem more dangerous than being an American foe. Carter’s idealism failed in confronting communism during his presidency and later in confronting communist North Korea. Carter idealism–if it can be called that–in the Middle East would have us side with the terrorist PLO rather than the democratic Israel, and would have us on a perpetual merry-go-round of talks aimed at appeasing Arab dictators rather than toppling them or challenging them to reform and cease sponsoring terrorism.
Steven F. Hayward
The Real Jimmy Carter, page 230.
[One can claim, with reasonable ability to defend the thesis, that Carter was a “nice guy” and had “good intentions”. But the results of his policy are just like the “nice guys” who have “good intentions” and want infringe our specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms. They fail. They fail because they are naive. “Bad guys” exist. Bad guys take advantage of the weak. It is, as George Orwell said, “People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”
Guns in the hands of the common person allow them to sleep peaceably in your bed at night because they can do their own violence when it becomes necessary to defend themselves and other innocent life. It is hopelessly naive to believe removing the power to do violence from the innocent will ever make the world a better place. At every level from the individual through city, state, and national level the means and the will to defend the innocent will always be a requirement for a safe and just society.
H/T to Davidwhitewolf who donated the author signed copy of The Real Jimmy Carter to the Boomershoot raffle. The inscription reads “Dear Boomershooter, Thanks for supporting the 2nd Amendment, Boomershoot 2010, and Project Valor-IT, [signed] Steven F. Hayward. I put many raffle tickets in the bucker for this book but someone else got it. They brought it to me afterward and asked me to blow it up for them. “Huh? Didn’t you read the find print on the jacket cover? It says, ‘How our worst ex-president undermines American foreign policy, coddles dictators, and created the party of Clinton and Kerry’?” Nope. They hadn’t read the fine print. I said that I would be glad to take the book and even blow it up for them if they really wanted that. But I would rather read it and use it as a source of quotes. They agreed and gave it to me.–Joe]
TSA is nothing but A Security Theater and a huge waste of money. Unfortunately most people won’t protest much about that.
But this might get more people a little riled up:
A US airport security screener allegedly beat up his colleague for poking fun at the size of his penis during testing of full-body image scanners.
Rolando Negrin was arrested after attacking a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) worker at the parking lot of Miami International Airport, The Miami Herald reported yesterday.
Negrin had been the butt of his colleagues’ jokes for a year after the security scanners – which are used to detect foreign objects hidden under a person’s clothes, but also show a person’s private parts – revealed he had a small penis.