Special hell for that one.

Hat tip to Robert The K. and Mark T.

In case the article by A.T. Faust on arguing gunsense made you feel as if all arguments had been won. Here’s a man who posted a migraine inducing article on the same day. Perhaps he just needs to head over here to see more clearly.

The article is full of one- and two- liners that make guns, gun owners, and concealed carry sound terrifying. At the Bowling Green State University in Ohio there was an open carry walk. The article writer might be a medical doctor, since that is the only person in the entire city with the same name as the writer. The reason I point that out is that it is not a college student who wrote it.

Migraine inducing quotes below:

“Consider that Mr. Smith[, who led the open carry walk], is a “gun rights” activist and you will easily see that he is simply trying to convert you to his point of view. Mr. Smith and others like him “get off” on “packing heat” and don’t seem to care about the 100s and 1000s of innocent Americans who are executed and otherwise gunned down yearly because of widespread ownership of all sorts of firearms, vigorously promoted by the NRA and its followers.”

“With open carry, at least students have a chance to see the upcoming danger and get out of the way and call the police. With concealed carry, that chance is essentially gone.”

““Gun rights” activists will tell you that concealed carry is the only way that you can protect yourself against people who want to hurt you. If that is correct, then why do so many fully armed policemen/women die at the hands of shooters they never saw coming? Why are gun owners killed with their own weapons in their own homes?”

If you believe 100s and 1000s die because of widespread gun ownership, then check out some statistics. See that there about 10,000 to 14,000 firearm homicides each year if you look at CDC statistics. In 2013, 2,596,993 deaths of USA residents were recorded. 11,208 were firearm homicides. That means firearm homicides were .43% of the total deaths, and .0035% of the U.S.A. population. Ownership is about 101.1 guns per 100 people, according to Gun Policy. If it was the number of guns that dictated deaths, then charts like this wouldn’t exist.

The horizontal axis is guns per 100,000 and the vertical axis is murder per 100,000.

Graph source. Feel free to debate its accuracy. There are many other similar graphs such as the ones that ClockWorkGremlin pointed out below.

And the comment on open carry being okay because then students could see danger coming? This guy definitely just hates guns. Assuming gun owners are all dangerous is way off base.

And that last quote. Really? They were armed but still died, so why should you be able to carry a gun? That reasoning reminds me of the guy who told me that we don’t need semiautomatic rifles with more than 10 rounds.

Side story, I told him about the riots were gun owners stood ground on their stores with semiautomatic rifles in ’92. It wasn’t recent, so he wasn’t convinced. I told him about the Ferguson riots where the riots were allowed to happen for a while and there was a convenience store and a gun shop shared building and the owners awaited the riots. However, the riots did not reach their stores. So no store owners in those riots fired guns to defend their livelihood as far as I know. At this point, the guy I was talking to said that we don’t need “large” magazines because the stores that did burn down did not choose to protect their stores. If you don’t use it, you lose it. I was taken aback for someone to be so blunt about having people lose their rights.

Anyhow, back to saying that because some gun owners and police died even though they were armed means that you don’t need to carry a gun. Flawed logic here, let me demonstrate. Some people died in car wrecks even though they had air bags, so air bags are no good. See how that logic is flawed?

The article has a few other gems you can check out for yourself. The author seems to be angered by the peaceful open carry demonstration, and this is the only column by him. If you look below the column, you can see related columns where students are writing columns about the open carry demonstration in positive light.

Have a nice day, and lower your blood pressure by watching Demolition Ranch shoot a small safe to see how many shots it takes to open it.

As usual, we are only going with was on the paper and does not mean it was what happened

Bradden fired twice at the ground near Johnson’s feet, police in Arlington, Tex., said, one bullet burying into the ground and the second striking his wife’s leg. Johnson fled inside the store, she told the TV station, and told her coworkers to lock the doors.

Then came more gunshots.

Outside, Bradden had fled to his truck and climbed inside, police said. That’s when 35-year-old T.J. Antell, a father of three and CrossFit gym owner, decided to intervene. A concealed carry permit holder, Antell watched the marital dispute unfold, retrieved a gun from his vehicle and approached Bradden, police said.

Instead of abiding by Antell’s commands to stop, police said Bradden climbed out of his truck and fired his gun again. According to an arrest warrant, Bradden admitted to slapping Antell’s gun from his hand before shooting, reported the Dallas Morning News.

Woman says selfie provoked argument that led to fatal shooting at Texas Walgreens _ WaPo

“Most men, no matter how hard they lived, won’t throw down on another.”
Captain “Bucky” O’Neil from the mini series Rough Raiders. 1997.

If you made the decision to own and carry a firearm for self-defense, part of your mindset must deal with the fact that you might be called to legally use deadly force. To make it clear: You may end up killing somebody who was a reasonable threat.  You need to get used (not comfortable) with the idea and the consequences before anything may happen. At the time of a defensive use of a weapon, you do not have the time to sit down and ponder about it…I am wrong, you do have time… the rest of your life timed in seconds.

And although you know that 99% of the defensive uses of a firearm end up without having to pull the trigger, always think yours will be the exception. Don’t think that your gun is some sort of talisman that will correct the misbehaving of a miscreant 100% of the times. We cannot mentally train our minds for best case scenario or that we will even “win” but be ready when the vampire ignores the cross and comes after you which is what I think happened on the story above.

Think about it: The Good Samaritan approached what seemed to be a deadly force confrontation, he had his gun out, the Bad Guy got out of his truck, armed with his own gun, approached the Samaritan, slapped his gun away and shot him dead.  Somewhere in there we had a failure of mindset and probably the expectation of a movie ending.

It did not happen.

Prepare yourself. Train, read, learn.

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This is an actual conversation I had with my family.  The names have been removed to protect the innocent.

I want to chime in a little bit on the North Carolina HB2 ‘bathroom bill’ issue.  My take on this is a little different than the ones I’ve seen espoused on the media and  I wanted to get my feelings on this off my chest.

Here is my problem with the entire situation: THE. LAW.

See, both sides of the HB2 debate have made good and legitimate points.

Anti HB2:

1. There is no epidemic of transgenders using public bathrooms to harass women or molest children.
2. Right now, there are transgender people using public bathrooms that are for the gender they identify with (no born as) and nobody has noticed or had a problem with it.
3. Sending some transgenders into the public bathrooms for the gender they are by birth will be more awkward for them since they made their transition.

Pro HB2:

1. There are documented cases of men abusing gender identity bathroom laws or policies to be perverts and peep or take pictures/video.
2. These men may have dressed as women but there is no evidence that they ever really identified as trans.
3. There is an expectation of decorum in public bathrooms.  Privacy is not the right word.  It is the idea that you should not be ‘perved at’ when in a public facility.
4. Having a person who is obviously of the opposite gender (a man) in a gender specific public bathroom (ladies’ room) will make other patrons (women) uncomfortable.
5. Why should a large number of people be put in a position that may make them uncomfortable to appease the needs of 0.3% of the population.

So how do you address these very valid but contradictory points?  Well, a law like HB2 is probably the worst way to do it.  Why?  The law is not a scalpel.  It does not parse things finely.  The law is a sledgehammer.  It crushes everything indelicately.

Let’s be honest.  If you look like Laverne Cox, RuPaul, or even Chaz Bono and you use the bathroom of the gender you identify with, no one will care because no one will notice.  You are – and SJW’s hate this term – passing.  No harm, no foul.

If you look like a one of the GAP GIRLS, guess what, you are going to make some women in the bathroom feel uncomfortable and possibly even threatened.

So how do write a law that says “you can use the bathroom you identify with as long as you pass and/or don’t scare the other patrons.”  You can’t.  The law can’t be that fine.  It is an all or nothing proposition.  But it is that gray area in between the all or nothing that all the protests are about.  When you see the anti-trans/pro-HB2 supporters, what they fear isn’t a Laverne Cox – because they’d never notice her anyway – what they fear is the 250 pound man in a dress with stubble and lipstick.

The gray area is where social convention should rule, because the law does so poorly a job at that.

Want another example?

Gay weddings and bakeries.  Should religious bakeries deny gay couples wedding cakes?  No, probably not.  But let’s say that they do.  Some baker is so offended by the idea of a gay wedding he wants no part of it on religious principles.  What should the gay couple do?  Find another bakery.  This is the type of situation that SHOULD be solved by social convention and not law.  Social convention says that in a free market system, if you don’t want to take my money, the only person you are hurting is yourself.  I can always find somebody else to take my money.  Using the law and civil courts means that somebody’s toes are going to get stomped on by the government.  It’s just a matter of whose.

Think about the absurdity of that for just a moment.

“Take my money or I will have you arrested and fined.”  What!?!

“ But what about the gay couple discriminated against?”

I’ll answer with a question “if you know somebody disproves of your lifestyle, why would you want to give them your money?”

Here is another wide gray area of potentially hurt feelings that could be better solved by the free market and a couple of f*ck yous.  Instead, some legislators wrote a law that ignited a firestorm of controversy, and caused more harm than good, because the law is a blunt tool.

Update: Based upon one comment, I wanted to clarify a position.  Allowing the free market to solve these types of issues is something I do believe in, with one exception: jobs that require professional license – e.g. doctors, nurses, pharmacists, lawyers, etc.  Most other jobs, even some that require a license (like a hair dresser) are easily filled by the free market.  A job that requires professional licence to practice, which requires years of study, advanced degrees, and passing exams, is much harder for the free market to fix quickly, as a licence is a form of government sponsored monopoly.  Anybody with a camera can photograph a wedding.  Not anybody with a saw can be an orthopedic surgeon.  If the government gives you permission to practice to protect the safety of the public (if your hair dresser makes a mistake, you don’t die in the chair), you cannot discriminate.  If you cannot abide by that, find a different career path.

This is the problem with trying to legislate behavior and the minutia of life.  One size fits all doesn’t, just ask any fat guy who has ever won a free t-shirt at a public event.  The more one tries to fix social issues like these with laws, the more consternation they cause.  This is the ultimate lesson that people who fall back on demanding that state power intervene learn.  Liberals are usually the first to run off to big nanny government to “make things fair.”  In North Carolina it was the other side that legislated their desires into law first, and now the liberals are protesting.  And of course the NC law was written in response to liberal transgender bathroom laws passed in other states.

Don’t invite the government in to meddle in personal matters.  It never ends will.  Like George Washington said: “Government Is Like Fire, a Dangerous Servant and a Fearful Master.”  Now people are getting burned.

P.S.  A message to Target stores.  My gun in my waistband is like Laverne Cox’s d*ck in a dress; if you don’t know it’s there, than it shouldn’t bother you at all.  If she can deep conceal in the ladies room of a Target without upsetting people, than so can I in the grocery aisle.

Just heard the news. No details yet other than it was a heart attack.

Another great instructor gone.

Too many people butthurt, moaning and bitching and others dancing like monkeys on a string. That has made me realize that we have lost the way and forgot we are the ones who, at the end, have the final word, not those we chose to govern.

I guess that makes me an insurrectionist after all.