Avatar, cultural imperialism, and gun rights

Posted on January 24, 2010 by John Pierce

James Cameron’s special-effects extravaganza Avatar appears destined to take its place in the record books and in the cultural consciousness of America. For those who have not yet seen the movie the storyline is the same timeless tale of the clash of cultures that you see in such movies as Pocahontas or Dances With Wolves.

And while the movie has been criticized by a variety of groups who claim that it is insidiously racist in its infantilization of the native Navi people, I found the story to be both inspiring and heartwarming in a formulaic sort of way. In fact, I must admit to having watched it twice already, once in 3D and once at a family matinee. All told, my wife and I, with children and their friends in tow, have added well over $100 to James Cameron’s gross for this film.

And then I saw the BigHollywood report on Cameron’s description of the heartless miners in the film. As verified from several sources, in his complete script, in a scene cut from the final film, Cameron describes the issuance of weapons as:

TROOPERS issue automatic weapons and magazines to a long line of mine workers. The miners lock and load like the redblooded redneck NRA supporters they are.

I was floored. I was sickened. I had (indirectly) given money to this man. I had recommended the film to my friends. And here he was denigrating gun owners and NRA members as heartless, almost sub-human, murderers. Suffice it to say that projected DVD sales of Avatar to the Pierce household dropped from “several” to “absolute zero.”

But as the initial disappointment began to ebb, I thought about how ironic his comment was considering the symbolism inherent in the Avatar story. I was reminded of Joseph Campbell’s analysis of the mythological perspective present in Star Wars where he noted that ‘It shows the State as a machine and asks, “Is the machine going to crush humanity or serve humanity?”’

The myth in Avatar is much the same. But what Cameron failed to perceive is that law-abiding gun owners are not represented by the mercenaries. Instead, we are the Navi (‘the People’); whose history, tradition and culture are under fire. The anti gunners, who would have the machine-like, all-powerful State control every aspect of life, are the heartless mercenaries who would obediently bulldoze the Tree of Liberty in their blind quest for a mythological and unobtainable state controlled utopia.

We need to remember just how important and powerful symbolism is in shaping public perception. ‘We The People’ need to work through our personal lives and through the media to shape the ‘story’ of gun ownership instead of allowing bigots such as Cameron to do so.

Posted in Media Views on The Second Amendment, Movies, Popular Culture | Leave a comment

You don’t hide apple pie

Posted on November 6, 2009 by John Pierce

In last week’s article “With friends like this”, I took renowned historian and gun rights activist Clayton Cramer to task for criticizing both open carry and the gay community in his Shotgun News column. That article was primarily focused on pointing out that the gun rights community is engaged in a civil rights battle and we do great harm to the cause when we divide ourselves.

Subsequently, Cramer wrote an article entitled “Openly Carrying Guns Can Be Unwise, Even When It’s Legal” addressing some of the feedback he received from his Shotgun News column. Even though he noted that the response from gun owners was strong, he then proceeded to further attack open carry with some truly outlandish literary imagery. He starts off by calling open carry “offensive” and “disturbing” to our neighbors.

He then makes the statement that “Just because something is legal, even constitutionally protected, doesn’t mean that it is wise.” To illustrate his point, he describes a group of open carriers who visited an Idaho zoo. He notes that while open carry is a constitutional right in Idaho, Idaho also has “a very reasonable concealed weapon permit law” and implies that those who wish to carry should not do so as is their state constitutional right but rather via a state granted (and revocable) privilege. That’s right … let’s trade our rights for privileges.

He justifies this logic by pointing out that others might have negative emotional reactions to open carry. It is at this point that I wanted to cry out “But that is the point … We have to address those negative reactions, not hide from them!”

Our motto at OpenCarry.org is “A right unexercised is a right lost” and I cannot think of a better way to say it. If we allow the prejudice of others to dictate the free exercise of our rights, then we have already lost the battle.

You must remember that we are bombarded, almost daily, by a variety of subtle and not-so-subtle anti-gun media messages. It is amazing how effective this bombardment is, even for those of us with deeply held pro-gun beliefs. It is a dangerous mistake to assume that societal influences do not make an impact. They do! Mr. Cramer is a prime example of the fact that even gun owners can be influenced to treat firearms as somehow unwholesome and morally equivalent to waving around our “excretory organs.” (His words not mine!)

At the risk of sounding like a sociology professor, what we are dealing with is a general populace that has had their perceptions about firearms turned into prejudices by societal pressures. Most people are not anti-gun in the traditional sense of the word, but they can be counted upon to swallow whatever drivel is presented by the true anti-gun movement because the media is complicit in presenting firearms as negative objects rather than positive instruments of liberty.

Make no mistake about it; if we do nothing to counter these negative stereotypes, then our rights will be slowly taken away. Open carry is a very easy way to begin to counter these stereotypes.

To put it simply, open carry forces those you meet, be they friends, relatives or neighbors, to reconcile their preconceived notions and prejudices regarding firearms with the fact that you are exercising this right in a safe and responsible manner.

Anthropologist Charles Springwood of Illinois Wesleyan University sums it up nicely when he commented that open carriers are trying to “naturalize the presence of guns, which means that guns become ordinary, omnipresent, and expected. Over time, the gun becomes a symbol of ordinary personhood.”

What I find most ironic about this scholarly debate that Cramer and I are conducting via our writings is the fact that in his latest book entitled “Armed America: The Remarkable Story of How and Why Guns Became as American as Apple Pie”, he actually documents the fact that the decline of the visibility of the firearm in modern life has coincided with the rise of gun control. And yet here he is, asking us to stay in the closet and sit in the back of the bus.

Come on Clayton … you don’t hide apple pie.

Posted in Open Carry | Leave a comment

With friends like this

Posted on October 26, 2009 by John Pierce

Up until now, if you had asked me to suggest pro-liberty authors, my list would certainly have included Clayton Cramer. After all, Cramer has a list of pro-Second Amendment accomplishments that is truly enviable.

He has written several influential books on American gun rights, was cited in the key gun rights case of United States v. Emerson, has a regular column in Shotgun News and his work was instrumental in exposing the misinformation put forward by Michael A. Bellesiles in his book “Arming America.”

In short, Clayton Cramer has historically done a great deal to support gun rights and was someone I looked up to. But no longer …

In his latest (and very aptly named) Shotgun News column, entitled “How To Lose Friends”, Cramer addressed the recent spate of open carry incidents at presidential events. Fair enough … I too have addressed the issue including the negative aspects of the trend.

But Cramer did not stop there. Oh no. He went on to conflate open carry at presidential events with open carry generally, decreeing that open carry in any city is “dumb” and makes us look “crazy.” I find this to be ludicrous, but his rant gets worse … much worse!

Cramer then equates open carry with open displays of affection between gay couples. Now … I have nothing against this analogy. As a matter of fact, it is one that I use quite often. But not the way that Cramer used it!

And this is where Cramer went completely off track …

It has been over a week since I first read the column and I still cannot believe that Shotgun News allowed Cramer to use his column as a forum to discuss his dislike of homosexuality and public displays of affection between same sex couples. The words “shocked” and “disgusted” were used. The phrase “strongly disapproving” made an appearance. He made a point of stating that having to view such public displays had made him no longer “open minded” about the issue.

I was floored! But as a heterosexual who has never had to suffer from bigotry, I cannot imagine just how upset that gay and lesbian gun owners were to see such an assault on the pages of their Shotgun News subscription.

And the very worst part of all is that Cramer seemed to believe that by couching the argument in anti-gay terms, it would appeal to today’s gun owners. But he needs to understand that nothing could be further from the truth. Contrary to the stereotype promoted by the anti-gun movement, today’s gun owners are as diverse as America. And they share a common dedication to civil liberties that is unprecedented in modern politics.

Those of us in the gun rights community have had great success prosecuting the gun rights movement as a civil rights issue rather than one of Conservative vs Liberal. This has allowed us to successfully reach out to entirely new constituencies. After all, the millions and millions of proud gun owners across America come from every social, ethnic, religious and lifestyle group and we need to support the rights of every single one of them!

I believe that when Cramer titled his article, he was thinking that he personally would lose some readers because of his dislike of open carry. And perhaps that would have been true if he had stopped at a simple attack on open carry. But that didn’t happen and he is not the one who lost. It is the gun rights movement who got a black eye from his column and it is the gun rights movement that will lose disenfranchised gay and lesbian gun owners who will see that the stereotype of gun owners as old, grumpy, and closed-minded is still at least a little bit accurate.

Posted in General Civil Rights, Open Carry | Leave a comment

Incorporation 101: The Second Amendment is no good here

Posted on September 30, 2009 by John Pierce

The hot breaking news today is that the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case of McDonald v Chicago.

This is an incredibly important event because McDonald is the first Second Amendment incorporation case to be heard by the Supreme Court since the rise of the Incorporation Doctrine allowed the Court to begin selectively incorporating the protections embodied in the Bill of Rights against the states and offers the possibility of ending the draconian gun laws of states such as Illinois and New York forever!

“But wait” I hear you cry. “What do you mean by ‘incorporating against the states’? Aren’t the states already bound by the Bill of Rights?” I am so glad you asked. This is one of the least understood concepts in American constitutional law and this lack of understanding has lead to an incredible amount of frustration for gun rights activists over the years.

Although I cannot remember the specific case, I can remember vividly how upset I personally was when, about a decade ago, I was reading the transcript of an Illinois firearms possession case wherein a pro-se defendant was attempted to plead the Second Amendment as a defense only to be scolded by the judge that “The Second Amendment does not apply in this court.”

At the time, I was furious, certain that the judge was overstepping his bounds and applying a personal ideology to the case. Now, while I cannot dismiss the possibility of the latter, I can assure you that his statement was completely accurate! At this time, the Second Amendment offers you no protection whatsoever from state gun laws!

The entire concept of incorporation is based upon this shocking fact. The Bill of Rights, as amended to the original United States Constitution DOES NOT protect citizens from the actions of the states, ONLY the federal government. This was decided in the landmark 1833 case of Barron v. Baltimore and has never been overturned.

When the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868, it was widely felt that the Privileges or Immunities Clause in Section 1 of that Amendment would finally ‘incorporate’ the entire Bill of Rights against the states, forcing all states to use the Bill of Rights as a minimum standard for the civil rights protections they need grant their citizens.

However, in 1873, in the consolidated block appeal known as The Slaughter-House Cases, the Supreme Court held that the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment only protected rights granted by the federal government against state invasion and since the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights were all fundamental rights that pre-existed the Constitution, they were not thus protected.

And it was against this backdrop that the Supreme Court heard the three cases most prominently quoted by gun-control advocates and Second Amendment deniers; Cruikshank, Presser, and Miller. Given little choice by precedent, the Court held in all three cases that the Second Amendment did not convey any protection against state laws.

And I should add that the same was held true for other enumerated rights during this time as well. But all of this began to change in the early 1900s. Inspired by the expansive and libertarian rulings that were the hallmark of the “Lochner Era”, the Court began to perceive that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment protected against both standard “procedural” due process as well as “substantive due process“. They further reasoned that rights which are “fundamental” cannot be infringed without denying to the aggrieved party some substantive due process element. And thus was born the Incorporation Doctrine. Starting with Gitlow in 1925, the Court slowly began to selectively incorporate the enumerated rights in the first eight amendments case by case.

Today, the Second Amendment remains one of the few enumerated rights to not enjoy incorporated status. But now, thanks to the brilliant legal strategy of lead counsel Alan Gura and the support of the Second Amendment Foundation, the Illinois State Rifle Association, and those brave defendants from Chicago, we may finally see the Second Amendment take its rightful place as a protection for ALL Americans!

Posted in Incorporation, McDonald v. Chicago, Second Amendment Case Law | Leave a comment

It’s a Setup

Posted on September 11, 2009 by John Pierce

I imagine that we all have seen a movie or television show where the bad guy is being led away in handcuffs while loudly proclaiming to anyone who will listen; “I was framed!” In most cases, this scene is presented to provide a sense of closure and slight comedic relief. We know the acts of the bad guy were his own and we recognize his pleas as what they are; a last desperate attempt to avoid responsibility for his actions.

In the real world, claims of being framed are far rarer. The more common defense often raised by attorneys is that their client was “entrapped.” As Wikipedia so aptly states, “Entrapment is the act of a law enforcement agent inducing a person to commit an offense which would be illegal and the person would otherwise have been unlikely to commit.” The important portion of that definition is “and the person would otherwise have been unlikely to commit.” It does a defendant no good to claim that they were entrapped if they had already taken steps toward accomplishing the illegal act before any inducement was offered.

But can law enforcement themselves be entrapped? That seems to be the extraordinary claim of the Racine, Wisconsin police department in the case of an open carrier who was arrested for obstructing justice after he apparently refused to identify himself when officers began questioning him for open carrying on the porch of his own home.

The facts are still emerging, but reports seem to agree that officers were in the neighborhood where Frank Rock lives on Wednesday night investigating the shooting of one or more raccoons. While in the neighborhood, officers noticed that Rock, sitting peacefully on his front porch, was openly wearing a holstered handgun, which is legal in Wisconsin, and began questioning him. When Rock refused to identify himself or answer their questions, officers arrested him, charging him under Wisconsin statute 946.41(1) which reads:

Whoever knowingly resists or obstructs an officer while such officer is doing any act in an official capacity and with lawful authority, is guilty of a Class A misdemeanor.

The issue then becomes a twofold inquiry. First we must ask whether the officers were acting under “lawful authority” when they questioned Rock about his legal activity on his own property and secondly, whether his refusal to answer their questions rises to the level of resistance or obstruction required by the statute.

Luckily, we have clear legislative and judicial guidance on both issues. On the first issue, the Supreme Court held in Terry v. Ohio that investigative stops are justified (and therefore lawful authority) only when the officer has reasonable and articulable suspicion that a crime is being or will be committed. In the December 2005 issue of Police Chiefs Magazine, this specific topic was covered by Massachusetts attorney John M. Collins in an article entitled “Responding to Gun Possession Reports.” In his article he makes two things very clear. First, he states that “Where simply carrying a handgun is not in itself illegal and does not constitute probable cause to arrest, it follows that carrying a handgun, in and of itself, does not furnish reasonable suspicion justifying a Terry stop.” He follows this by giving officers options on how to proceed in such an event, starting with seeking voluntary compliance by the citizen. However, he notes that “If the person … refuses to answer, and the officer does not otherwise have (legally sufficient) reasonable suspicion of criminal activity, the officer must allow the person to continue on his or her way.”

Uh Oh … It appears that the Racine Police Department has a problem already doesn’t it? But we should not consider this analysis dispositive. So let’s move on to the second issue of whether Rock’s refusal to answer the officer’s question was sufficient to constitute resistance or obstruction.

Under Wisconsin statute 968.24, which effectively codifies the United States Supreme Court ruling in Terry, an officer, “after having identified himself or herself as a law enforcement officer, may stop a person in a public place for a reasonable period of time when the officer reasonably suspects that such person is committing, is about to commit or has committed a crime, and may demand the name and address of the person and an explanation of the person’s conduct.”

However, this statute does not extend so far as to impose a penalty for failure to respond to such a demand. Such a penalty was the subject of a 2004 Supreme Court refinement of Terry in the case of Hiibel v Nevada and the penalty was held to be constitutional, however Hiibel is irrelevant in this case because Wisconsin has enacted no such penalty. In fact, in the July-August 2004 newsletter of the Wisconsin Chiefs of Police Association, this very topic was discussed and Wisconsin officers were cautioned to “Beware of misplaced reliance on Hiibel” because “a person may only be arrested for refusing to identify himself if some statute or ordinance makes it unlawful to so refuse under the circumstances” and Wisconsin has no such statute or ordinance.

As a matter of fact, the Wisconsin Supreme Court has ruled on this very issue in the case of Henes v. Morrissey and held that “No law allows officers to arrest for obstruction on a person’s refusal to give his or her name. Mere silence is insufficient to constitute obstruction.”

Wow … It sure seems that the officers overstepped their bounds in this case. And it appears that they know it; because their first reaction when questioned was to claim that it appears they were “set up … to see how they would react to open carry.”

Are they actually claiming that they were entrapped into making an improper arrest? That is an astonishing claim and one that seems to have little purpose other than possibly setting the stage for a defense should Mr. Rock pursue civil rights claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for false arrest.

As both an open carry advocate and a supporter of the very difficult job done by our nation’s law enforcement officers, I do not take pleasure in seeing such a lawsuit filed. It means that we have not yet accomplished our primary goal of educating both citizens and law enforcement about the legality of open carry so that law abiding citizens who choose to exercise their rights may do so without fear of these types of encounters.

However, I am not the one who spent 9 hours of his life bereft of liberty and being treated like a common criminal. If Mr. Rock decides to pursue such a course of action, I think he has a very compelling legal story to present to the court. And with the recent release of the memo by Wisconsin Attorney General Van Hollen noting that open carry is legal in Wisconsin, coupled with the clear notification in multiple law enforcement publications and Wisconsin Supreme Court rulings, it seems doubtful that the officers would pass the reasonableness test necessary to enjoy qualified immunity.

It is a sad state of affairs for all concerned. But what it does not appear to have been is a setup.

Posted in Open Carry, Stop and ID Statutes | Leave a comment

The tyranny of the bigoted

Posted on August 12, 2009 by John Pierce

“An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so.” – Mahatma Gandhi

As Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. recently discovered, one of the greatest threats to the free exercise of civil rights in America is the promulgation of catch-all offenses such as “disturbing the peace” or “disorderly conduct.”

With no clear definition of what constitutes behavior that is “disturbing” or “disorderly”, many in law enforcement use such laws as a way to control and punish citizens for otherwise legal and constitutionally protected behavior.

In Professor Gates’ case, the charges were quickly dropped, but the story doesn’t end there. Hundreds or even thousands of less-prominent citizens, lacking the resources and media presence to fight the charges, allow their rights to be infringed and their behavior to be extra-legally restricted out of fear of repeated prosecution.

And while many law enforcement agencies across the country have taken steps to insure that their officers understand the proper limits of such charges in the wake of the Gates arrest, not everyone has benefited from what the media deemed a “teachable moment.”

The Madison Wisconsin Police Department appears to be one such agency that just doesn’t “get it.” On Saturday, August 8th, Madison police received a call from a “concerned citizen” who reported a “man walking … with a holstered gun on his hip.”

Police responded to find 28 year-old UW-Madison graduate student Travis F. Yates legally and peacefully wearing a properly holstered sidearm. After Yates stated that he was wearing the sidearm as a political statement in support of the open carry and self defense rights recently documented in an advisory opinion by Wisconsin Attorney General Van Hollen, Yates was informed that he was being cited for disorderly conduct because “his actions disturbed other citizens.”

Never mind the fact that this is EXACTLY the type of open carry that Attorney General Van Hollen stated was constitutionally protected and NOT grounds for a disorderly conduct charge.

In his advisory opinion, he stated “The state constitutional right to bear arms extends to openly carrying a handgun for lawful purposes [and t]he Wisconsin Department of Justice believes that the mere open carrying of a firearm by a person, absent additional facts and circumstances, should not result in a disorderly conduct charge from a prosecutor.”

Attorney General Van Hollen went on to provide strong guidance to law enforcement as to what additional facts and circumstances would need to be present to justify a disorderly conduct charge against an open carrier. He stated that the totality of the circumstance would need to be such that the actions of the open carrier were “likely to produce a clear and present danger of a serious substantive evil that rises far above public inconvenience, annoyance, or unrest.”

Attorney General Van Hollen has done an excellent job of summarizing just how disruptive a person’s behavior needs to be before the public good outweighs the significant interest of a constitutional right. Applied to this incident, the test shows that the Madison Police Department clearly over-stepped their bounds. In fact, given the recent release and significant media coverage of the Van Hollen opinion, this arrest seems to be a willful act of defiance. I expect that should Mr Yates choose to pursue a federal civil rights action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, this will be an argument raised by his counsel.

But wait. Maybe we are getting ahead of ourselves in our criticism. Could it be that this is an isolated incident based upon a single officer making a misstep?

That is what I had hoped when I first learned of this incident.  But no …

As reported by WKOW TV, Madison Police Captain Victor Wahl wrote about the issue in a department newsletter in which he stated that despite the clear guidance in Van Hollen’s opinion, Madison police procedure will likely not change. He went on to describe the considerations HE wanted his officers to use when considering a disorderly conduct charge: “To support a disorderly conduct charge it will be necessary to show that the carrying of the firearm — under those particular circumstances — was the type of behavior that caused, or tends to cause, a disturbance. The location of the incident, the behavior of the suspect and the reactions of witnesses will all be relevant (sic) to this determination.”

“Tends to cause a disturbance” is very different than “likely to produce a clear and present danger of a serious substantive evil that rises far above public inconvenience, annoyance, or unrest.” Additionally, by including the “reactions of witnesses” Captain Wahl has insured that any anti-gun person who sees someone exercising their right to self-defense can have that open carrier arrested by simply reacting in a frightened manner.

Clearly, the Madison police are willing to press disorderly conduct charges against a person exercising constitutionally protected rights based upon the unreasonable fear or bigotry of just one witness. As Mr Yates noted in his WKOW interview, this reduces the Wisconsin constitutional right to defend oneself to nothing more than a theoretical right which can never be exercised.

One complaint and otherwise legal behavior becomes “disorderly conduct.” Welcome to the tyranny of the bigoted.

Posted in Abuse of Discretion | 1 Comment

The road to Damascus

Posted on August 7, 2009 by John Pierce

Where gun rights are concerned, a “Road to Damascus” moment occurs when a formerly anti-gun or gun-shy person decides to become a gun owner.

For some, this comes after careful consideration of the issue. For others, it comes after a traumatic event illustrates to them just how critical self-defense is to a law-abiding citizen. In either case, being able to help such a new gun owner is one of the most rewarding things that an instructor gets to do.

I was lucky enough to spend most of my free time last week introducing a once gun-shy family to their rights and responsibilities as new gun owners.

It all started about three weeks ago on a Sunday afternoon. I was taking my family on a drive when my cell phone rang. The caller ID said “Randy”. When I saw who it was, my blood ran cold. It was the owner of a Pennsylvania company where I do software development and a call on the weekend could only mean one thing … “server down!”

Literally snatching up the phone, I answered it with fear in my heart. The serious tone of his voice did nothing to reassure me and I slowed my vehicle and pulled to the side of the road in anticipation of making a u-turn and heading for my home office at flank speed.

But the tale he had to tell had nothing to do with servers. He was calling because he was extremely concerned about his family’s security and had decided it was time he became a gun owner. This was a huge surprise. After all, while he had never been what you would call anti-gun, he had always declined my offers to take him shooting and had stated emphatically on more than one occasion that he did not need a gun for protection or want one in the house.

But a sobering dose of reality had changed his viewpoint. As he talked, a picture emerged. His affluent neighborhood, in the rural suburbs north of Philly, was seemingly under attack. Within a week, there had been three criminal incidents in sight of his home, which sits at the end of a long cul-de-sac and backs up to woodland.

In one incident, four thieves were apprehended late at night as they methodically broke into the cars parked along the road. In another, an unoccupied home was burglarized. However, the event that had truly frightened him was an attempted burglary of one of his neighbors in which a female accomplice brazenly walked up to the front door and knocked while her accomplices systematically checked the doors and windows along the rear of the house for any unsecured access. The homeowner was not home, but it was all captured by the security cameras he had recently installed.

In speaking with his neighbors, Randy was utterly astonished to find that he was practically the only homeowner in the entire neighborhood who did not possess a firearm for self defense. He had assumed that his “guns in the home are dangerous” mindset was shared by most of his friends and neighbors. But as he quickly found out, nothing could have been further from the truth. It dawned on him then that he would be completely helpless in the face of an armed attacker and the thought chilled him to the bone.

I assured him that I would be on a flight to Pennsylvania the next Sunday and that we would get him started on the path to a lifetime of safe firearms ownership. I promised that I would instruct him on the basics of home firearm safety, assist him in selecting a suitable firearm, and take him to the range to introduce him to his new firearm and to the mechanics and etiquette of safe shooting.

His biggest concern at that point was the fact that it would be a week before I could get there. Having made the decision to take responsibility for his own safety, the thought of waiting another week seemed daunting. But being the responsible and safety conscious person that he is, he agreed to wait.

Fast forward to last week

With an introduction to home firearm safety behind us, we were off to help Randy buy his first gun. I had engaged the help of my friend Brad and we were all looking at the impressive selection of firearms at Cabelas in Hamburg, Pennsylvania. After looking at a number of firearms that Brad and I had suggested he consider, Randy had decided upon the Beretta 92FS. He liked the feel of the full-sized frame and the external safety was a feature that he definitely wanted on his first firearm.

Brad and I wandered through the aisles while he completed the background check paperwork. When he joined us, he jokingly commented that he hadn’t filled out so much paperwork since he refinanced his house. He had bought into the media’s portrayal of the “easy availability” of guns. What they hadn’t mentioned was the fact that firearms are only “easily available” to those who pass a rigorous background check. As someone who had previously been concerned about the lack of a waiting period, he was now very happy indeed that he could take his firearm home with him that same afternoon.

While we waited for his background check to be completed, we went in search of a safe for his new Beretta. He wanted to be able to safely secure the pistol while keeping it instantly accessible for home defense purposes. His wife was not with us to gasp at the price-tag, he said money was no object, and I knew just what he needed.

The GunVault Biometric Safe has been on my wish list for some time. It features a guide-mold which allows you to quickly slide your hand into position in absolute darkness, can store up to 30 fingerprints, and opens in less than a second. It was perfect!

By the time he was called back to the firearms counter to complete his purchase, we had rounded out his shopping cart with ammo and cleaning supplies. He was now a gun owner!

The next night, Brad and I met Randy and his wife at the local indoor pistol range. They were both very nervous which was understandable since neither had ever fired a handgun before. But they both paid close attention as Brad and I reviewed the features and functioning of the Beretta and neither made any of the muzzle-control or handling mistakes that are common to new shooters.

As they tentatively took their turns shooting, the hand-eye coordination from years of playing tennis gave both of them a good start in shooting accurately. By the time we left the range, they were emotionally and physically drained but confident that they could use the firearm if they needed to.

Epilogue

I will be going back in September to take Randy shooting again. He understands that he is just beginning to understand the skills that are needed to be a safe and effective gun owner. But he has made a great start and is now a gun owner with all that entails. He understands the self-defense benefits that safely owning a firearm provides his family and he will be wary of any efforts to curtail his right to provide that security for his family.

That means that he will pay more attention to the position of politicians on gun rights when he votes, and speak out from a more pro-gun position when talking to friends and acquaintances. He will also begin to see how misleading the claims of the anti-gun movement are. In short, he will start the journey toward becoming an activist.

I have always jokingly said that my motto was “Arming America, one person at a time.” But the truth is that every new gun owner adds great strength to the fight to protect and enhance our rights.

If every gun owner would take the time to introduce just one new person to shooting, imagine what that would do to the political landscape.

Posted in Firearms Training, New Gun Owners | Leave a comment

Lies, damn lies, and VPC statistics

Posted on July 21, 2009 by John Pierce

“Torture numbers, and they’ll confess to anything.” – Gregg Easterbrook

I have always felt that the Violence Policy Center (VPC) was very aptly named. After all, they do advocate for public policy positions that would certainly result in violence against law abiding citizens if implemented.

Thankfully, their increasingly shrill cries for American citizens to abandon freedom for the nurturing bosom of a totalitarian regime have been generally ignored by one and all.

However, I must give them credit for dogged determination in the face of overwhelming reality. You have to remember that, when they were formed in 1988, there were 15 states where obtaining a concealed carry permit was legally impossible and 25 “may-issue” states where obtaining a permit was uncertain at best.

But now, after 21 years of diligent hand-wringing by the VPC and their ilk, there are only 2 states remaining which do not allow concealed carry and 39 states have passed “shall-issue” laws which require that all citizens who meet the statutory requirements be issued a permit without the nepotism, elitism and cronyism that are the hallmarks of the “may-issue” process.

Talk about a stark image of failure …

But the VPC soldiers on, not allowing two decades of abysmal, abject failure to discourage them from their insidious mission. Their latest attack on the fundamental right of self-defense comes as Senators Thune and Vitter have introduced an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (S. 1390) which would allow an individual who has met the requirements for a carry permit in his home state, or who is otherwise allowed by his home state’s law to carry a firearm, to carry a firearm for protection in any other state that issues such permits so long as the laws of the state in which the firearm is carried are observed.

As states such as Maryland, New York, and New Jersey panic over the idea of losing the ability to provide disarmed herds of victims for their criminals, the VPC has sprung to the rescue like a well paid mob lawyer and has released the results of a poorly concocted “study” claiming to illustrate the evils of concealed carry permits.

I use the word “study” loosely in order to not offend the sensibilities of any true statistician who might be reading this article. Their methodology appears to have been to assign a slightly inebriated intern to do a Google news search for “permit holder” and “charged with”.

These results were apparently then pasted into notepad and ultimately compiled into a state by state list by the VPC’s crack technical staff. The resulting PDF file (the creation of which I imagine was a matter of some pride) was dubbed Law Enforcement and Private Citizens Killed by Concealed Handgun Permit Holders: An Analysis of News Reports, May 2007 to April 2009.

On a more serious note

The “study” purports to show that during the strangely arbitrary period from May 2007 until April 2009, permit holders were responsible for the deaths of 7 police officers and 44 citizens.

Now … the loss of a single innocent life is a tragedy that cannot be taken too seriously. And as an ardent supporter of our nation’s law enforcement officers, who are overwhelmingly our brothers and sisters in our struggle to protect and enhance our rights as gun owners, I mourn the loss of these 7 brave officers deeply.

But does this “study” hold water as it attempts to capitalize on these deaths politically? Ted Deeds, Chief Operating Officer of the Law Enforcement Alliance of America (LEAA) doesn’t think so.

“I’ve only just started looking at it and, no surprise, I think there will be lots of holes in it. As always, one cop injured or killed, one good guy injured or killed is too many. But I suspect that there are A LOT more significant mechanisms of injury/death than what this so-called ‘report’ hopes to conclude.”

Let’s examine the many, many flaws that render their data virtually meaningless and reduces their “study” to nothing more than the ideological propaganda that is the normal grist of the VPC mill.

Flaw #1: How did they identify permit holders?

The report makes it clear that they have no idea whether or not they are accurately identifying these parties as permit holders. In the study, they admit as much, “Because of the secretive nature of concealed handgun permit laws, the VPC relied primarily on news accounts.”

Wait … what? The very premise upon which the “study” is based is the fact that these shooters are permit holders. And this key, threshold issue was determined by relying upon news reports? I cannot remember the last time that I read a news report involving a firearm that did not contain a serious mistake of fact that was glaringly evident to anyone with even a modicum of firearms knowledge.

But wait … surely this lack of verifiable facts can be remedied. After all, the presence or absence of a carry permit would be entered into evidence in the trial and thus available to the VPC for verification.

Except … this leads us to flaw #2.

Flaw #2: Charged with a crime does not equal conviction

Many of the alleged permit holders noted in this report are described as having been charged with a crime but no further information is provided as to the disposition of the charge. This is an important and glaring attempt to cloud the issue.

In many states and jurisdictions, a citizen who properly and legally defends themselves from an attack may well expect to be initially charged with a crime. The charges may later be dropped or may be no-true-billed at the grand jury level. A charge does NOT equal a conviction and yet the VPC, an organization that promotes itself as a public policy think-tank on legal and constitutional issues, treats them as synonymous.

It should come as no surprise that the VPC does not support the concepts of “due process” or “innocent until proven guilty” any more than they do the right to defend one’s self or one’s family.

Perhaps I could suggest a new VPC motto. “Individual rights are like potato chips, you can’t destroy just one!”

Flaw #3: Does my permit allow me to carry a strangling cord?

Another blatant attempt to pad the data was brought to my attention by Mr. Deeds.  It comes in the form of several data points involving non-handgun related killings by “permit holders” (see Flaw #1).

Carry permits allow a person to carry a handgun for personal protection. In cases where rifles or other weapons are used to commit a crime, the fact that the person may or may not have been a permit holder is a moot point and not germane to the issue at hand.

Flaw #4: Who is more dangerous?

The VPC concludes their report by stating that these examples illustrate clearly that concealed carry laws are not good public policy because permit holders are dangerous. Furthermore, there is a clear implication that they are more dangerous than the general public.

Let’s take a closer look at the statistics to refute this wild inaccuracy. According to the FBI Uniform Crime Report, across the general public in the United States, there are an average of .042802 murders per 1,000 citizens per year.

Now … even if we concede all 51 deaths detailed in the VPC report as wrongful deaths, averaging them across the over 6 MILLION permit holders in the United States and taking into account the two year timeframe, we get an average of .00425 per 1,000 per year.

In other words, even if they are 100% correct in their wildly flawed report, they have simply proven that permit holders commit murders at a rate that is 1/10th of the general public.

The VPC report also makes much of the fact that 7 of the victims in these news reports were police officers. They go out of their way to imply that as concealed carry has swept across the nation, law enforcement deaths have risen alarmingly. The only problem with this? It, like so much else that comes from the VPC, is blatantly untrue.

In a report released last week, the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund released data that soundly refutes this claim. Chairman of the Memorial Fund, Craig Floyd said it best, “There are three-times more officers on our streets than in the 1970s, and we have half the number of fatalities.”

As a matter of fact, since this is supposed to be a debate over statistics, let’s map the killing of officers with firearms against the rise in shall issue states. The data for officer deaths comes from the FBI Uniform Crime Reports and the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (See VPC … that is what we call citing to actual authority).

Wow … it sure seems to me that the rise in shall-issue has been accompanied by a sharp decline in officer deaths by firearms. How could the VPC have missed such a key point? Perhaps the intern had to leave early to make it to his second job?

In closing I should say that I have had great fun at the expense of the VPC while writing this article but what they hope to accomplish is no laughing matter. They are working diligently day and night to restrict and ultimately eliminate the very rights that made America the great nation that it is.

Make no mistake about it. If you and I and every other law-abiding gun owner do not make our voices heard, they will take back every inch of progress we have made and keep going until the days of armed citizens will be only a dim memory.

See the Take Action section below for how to help refute this report and support the Thune-Vitter Amendment. Spread this article far and wide and let’s make sure that pro-gun Democrats and Republicans know that this is a vote that will be remembered at the ballot box!

Let’s roll!

Take Action

It is vital that your Senators hear from you NOW!

Contact the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and leave a message for your senator.

In ADDITION, you may find email and other contact information by using the tools provided by the NRA.

Posted in Myths & Misconceptions, VPC | 1 Comment

It takes a gun to stop a gunman

Posted on July 15, 2009 by John Pierce

“Be not afraid of any man, No matter what his size. When danger threatens, call on me. And I will equalize.” – Inscription on a Colt Peacemaker

“Bring a gun” – The first rule of gunfighting

Last Saturday night, Richmond Virginia storeowner Mustapha Kassou met an angel. But he had to get shot first.

This particular angel, a shadowy hero whose name has not been released, was carrying what witnesses described as a western style six-shooter carried openly on his hip. And like the sword of fire which angels of old were reputed to carry, this six-shooter was used as a force-for-good to smite the wicked.

It was almost 11:00 PM and the robber who rushed into Kassou’s Jefferson Davis Highway store was surprised to find eight people inside. Surprise apparently turned to anger and the robber ordered the patrons to the floor and then opened fire on Kassou striking him twice. Kassou fell to the floor behind the cash register and waited for the gunman to finish him.

And that was when the angel revealed himself. Unnoticed by the robber, one of the patrons in the store was openly armed. Reacting quickly, the patron drew his sidearm and ordered the robber to drop his gun. When the robber refused, the patron fired once wounding the robber and then disarmed him.

Kassou, who immigrated to the United States some 20 years ago from his native Morocco and has since become a proud American Citizen, believes that God sent the patron there. “He saved a lot of lives,” Kassou said. “He was like an angel who came to save everybody.”

But Kassou is understandably traumatized by the attack and has openly discussed whether to re-open the store. If he decides to re-open the store, he says he will be armed when he does so.

Kassou’s ordeal illustrates a simple, logical fact that no amount of gun control propaganda can refute … “It takes a gun to stop a gunman!”

Posted in Self Defense, Tales of Self Defense | Leave a comment

A modest proposal about alcohol and guns

Posted on July 14, 2009 by John Pierce

A change in Tennessee law to allow handgun carry permit holders to bring their firearms into restaurants that serve alcohol went into effect today despite the feverish efforts of gun control advocates to stop it by seeking an emergency temporary injunction from a Tennessee judge.

While the judge did not grant the injunction, she did order a hearing within 90 days to discuss what gun control advocates claim is the lack of clarity in the law regarding the definition of a bar vs a restaurant.

As usual, the gun control crowd resorted to the same tired rhetoric, claiming that tourists would shun Tennessee because of the fear of “Wild West” shootouts in Nashville’s honky-tonk bars.



What they failed to mention however is that, in the vast majority of states, it is already legal for carry permit holders or legal open carriers to bring their firearms into restaurants that are licensed to serve alcohol and in these states, none of these ludicrous scenarios have come to pass.

Furthermore, their dire predictions of blood running in the street seem particularly hypocritical coming from legislators who consistently support the alcohol-fueled restaurant and hospitality industry in a state which has an alcohol-related traffic fatality rate far exceeding the national average.

As a matter of fact, statistically speaking, during the day yesterday, while guns were being painted as a threat to tourism, 1.3 Tennesseans died in alcohol-related automobile accidents. I wonder if any of them were caused by a driver who had just left one of Tennessee’s prized “tourist attractions”?

Sarcasm Ahead

You know, in 2008, Virginia was considering a similar change to their concealed carry law and I pointed out the fact that alcohol deserves far more regulation than guns given the terrible impact that alcohol has on our society. I put forward a satirical “modest proposal” of sorts to the restaurant and hospitality industry and I think that a rehashing of those entertaining ideas might be in order for their counterparts in Tennessee.

After all, in their pleas for an injunction to stop this new law they have repeatedly pointed out the dangers of alcohol and how they feared that adding guns to the mix could exacerbate these dangers. I am surprised but encouraged to see that Tennessee’s restaurant owners clearly understand the threat to their communities that is posed by the easy availability of alcohol in restaurants.

Why … even those who are prohibited by law from purchasing alcohol (minors) are easily able to procure it by simply having an older friend order it for them in what I am told is called a “straw purchase“.

Consumption of alcohol is a threat that costs hundreds of innocent lives every year in Tennessee, many of them children. We must stop giving in to the alcohol lobby and enact reasonable restrictions on the sale of alcohol for outside the home consumption!

As you are no doubt aware, there are many Tennesseans who would never dream of being seen in a honky tonk. However, the hospitality industry has found a way to peddle their poison to these people as well by licensing so called “family” restaurants to serve alcohol. What better way to indoctrinate children into the cycle of alcohol dependence than to see mommy and daddy knocking back a few Long Island Iced Teas on a night out with the kids. But don’t forget dads … “Just because you are really buzzed, it doesn’t mean that little Timmy can drive you home.” This travesty is known as the deadly “restaurant loophole”.

In data released by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, a full 37% of all traffic crashes in Tennessee in 2006 were alcohol related and this is down from a high of 63% in years past!  And yet, at restaurants all over the state, with the parking lot full of Automatic Assault Weapons (also known as cars), waiters and waitresses are allowed to serve alcohol to the operators of these vehicles while they are in possession of “concealed car keys”.

Now, I am not suggesting that we ban alcohol. I support the sporting uses of alcohol in the home where a person is no danger to the innocents on our roads and highways (so long as alcohol is stored in such a way as to be inaccessible to children). But I think that reasonable people can agree that to allow a person to consume alcohol, knowing that they have to drive home, is irresponsible in the extreme.

Seeing these numbers and the very real impact their businesses have on the lives of innocent Tennesseans and knowing how the owners of these restaurants feel about their duty to their communities, I have no doubt that they will be glad to support legislation banning alcohol sales in restaurants. After all, this is not the “Wild West”.  We do not need saloons on every corner.

As a survivor of “alcohol violence” myself, I ask this of the Governor, the legislature and of the owners of Tennessee’s many fine restaurants. If only one life can be saved, then will it not be worth it? Do this for Tennessee’s families! Do this for the children!

Posted in Guns & Alcohol, Tennessee | Leave a comment