The chairman of the Florida Sheriffs Association’s (FSA) legislative committee is quoted in some recent news reports with erroneous claims regarding the proposed open carry bill in Florida (SB 300) by Sen. Don Gaetz and (HB 163) by Rep. Matt Gaetz.The public deserves to know the truth. Below are some of those claims and our responses.

Source: Guest commentary: Truth about Florida’s open carry bill and states with open carry

Not only go read the piece by Marion Hammer, but keep it handy in case you happen to find some uninformed person repeating the crap flying around.

Found in Reddit: a tombstone that says it all.

I saw your interview with Seth Meyers, where you talked about gun control.  In it, you discussed the need for “common sense gun control” and to close several “loopholes.”  At first, it was obvious to me that you really don’t know what you are talking about.

1. The gun show loophole.  You mean the ability for individuals to sell a limited number of personal firearms in a year in face-to-face transfers?  Because FFL dealers must have buyers fill out Form 4473’s and perform NICS checks at guns shows.  Gun Shows are not gun law free bazaars.
2. The online loophole.  You mean were anybody can sell a gun online… and then have to ship it to an FFL to do a Form 4473 and NICS check on the buyer.  Of course an online seller can to an in-state face-to-face transfer in a state where it is legal, but most don’t.  This used to be called the “classified ad loophole” back when people still read newspapers.
3. The Charleston loophole.  Where if a NICS check doesn’t come back  with a “deny” in three days, the sale can proceed.  That one is necessary to keep politicians (like you, potentially) from enacting a gun ban, by just holding off all NICS checks indefinitely.
4. Universal background checks.  The idea that the guy who is fencing stolen guns to criminals can be persuaded to perform background checks on them.  Or the idea there is no such thing as Straw Purchases.  Really, universal background checks are just a potential annoyance for the law abiding shooter whose shooting buddy want to make him a better offer than the local gun store on a trade in.

Had you stopped there, I would have just let your interview go, recognizing the usual Liberal Democrat, know-nothing, anti-gun, bullshit talking points.

But you had to go one further and “repeal the immunity from all liability that gun makers and gun sellers have.”  You called for the repeal of the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act.  First of all, Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act doesn’t provide complete immunity against liability.  It protects gun makers from being sued when criminals commit crimes with guns if the guns were sold by the company legally to law abiding distributors.

On a side note: When CNN calls you out for being wrong, you know you fucked up.

I, like most of the gun community, knows what you are trying to pull.  Gun control is not a winning position to take in America.  Your husband learned that in 1994 after getting the Brady Bill passed.  The Republicans took 54 seats in the House and 8 in the Senate which was due heavily to campaigning by the NRA.

So you want to go after the gun companies with lawfare.   Again, this was something your husband tried, and was somewhat victorious with.  He got Smith and Wesson to acquiesce on backing gun control by agreeing to settle on some lawsuits.  The CSGV went after the ammo retailer Lucky Gunner after Sandy Hook, and got their asses handed to them with a dismissal and $203,000 in legal fees.  The CSGV made it clear that wanted to put Lucky Gunner out of business.

It’s clear you want to pave the way for individuals, probably with the backing of the DOJ, to sue gun makers out of existence.  If you can’t ban guns, shut down the gun makers.

Logically, your position makes no sense.  If a drunk driver runs over a little kid, the parents can’t sue Ford for making the car.  Even Bernie Sanders has enough decency and common sense to understand that “If somebody has a gun and it falls into the hands of a murderer and the murderer kills somebody with a gun, do you hold the gun manufacturer responsible? Not any more than you would hold a hammer company responsible if somebody beats somebody over the head with a hammer.”

The thing is, you are hitting just a little too close to home for me.  I am part of the firearms industry.  You are taking about taking away my livelihood.  I have a wife, a baby, a couple of dogs, a car payment, a mortgage, and student loans.  I go to work, to a job I love.  I work with wonderful people who also love their jobs. We sell guns for people just like us: hunters, sportsmen, target shooters, people who want to ability to defend themselves.  We are a strong part of the local economy.  We are the middle class that you claim to want to help.

You are not just threatening my guns, you are threatening my home, my career, my ability to put food on my table.

I can only hope the other people, working in other industries understand what you are.  How easy it is for you to want to put tens of thousands of people out of work, and cost the economy millions and billions of dollars because you don’t like the products we sell.  This isn’t about saving lives.  This isn’t about preventing the next terrorist attack or mass shooting.  This is about hurting your enemies.

This I will not abide.

From the bottom of my heart, and with the deepest sincerity, FUCK YOU!

J.Kb. (Registered Voter)

I used to like The Daily Show.  I know the Jon Stewart was a liberal and his show had a Left leaning bias, but so is pretty much every other news show on TV.  What Jon Steward had going for him was that he was genuinely funny, and he dished it out to the left as well, calling out liberals on their incompetence and hypocrisy.

Trevor Noah, the new anchor of The Daily Show is no Jon Steward.  With him at the helm, The Daily Show has become a mean spirited hatchet-job against the Right.  On Friday, The Daily Show did a bit on concealed carry and active shooters.  They went out to mock the idea that what it takes to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun and shill for gun control.  What they created was so bad it will actually make you dumber watching it.

So brace yourselves…

The only statement made that was completely honest and accurate is that the correspondent, Jordan Kelpper, is an “idiot with a gun.”  I know The Daily Show is a comedy show, but the behavior of the correspondent in the range was down right embarrassing.  Honestly, I wouldn’t have tossed him from my class.  Guns are serious.  Fun, but serious.

First and foremost, the continuous lie pushed by antis and now The Daily Show is that “it’s so easy for people to get CCW permits, that any idiot can get a permit and we’ll end up with a whole bunch of idiots carrying guns in public.”  This is usually followed by argument “these untrained idiots will only make any situation worse.”

Let me start with my credentials on this issue.  I have CCW permits from UT, AZ, FL, IL, and AL, and I used to have permits from SD and IN, but those states don’t allow for non-residents permits.  I have been a CCW permit instructor.

Virtually every person I have sat through a CCW class with or have taught was a shooter before applying for their permit.  In my experience, people who get their carry permits regularly practice with their carry guns.  Concealed carry is a right in most states, a permit, and more importantly a mindset and a lifestyle.  That is what never gets touched on and The Daily Show went out of its way to ignore.  What I never see is the pubic discussion about permit holders who shoot weekly or monthly, maintaining their skill at personal expense.

The reason, I believe, that this never gets addressed is that there is no way for those who advocate for bigger and more overbearing government to slap their magic seal of government approval on individual practice or readiness.  An NYPD officer shooting 50 rounds every 6 months, is what qualifies as a “professional” in the mind of an anti.  A civilian with a CCW permit shooting several hundred rounds every few months more more… well.. that just doesn’t count.

With his CCW in hand, the correspondent heads over to The Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training program and gets shot to pieces with Simunitions.  Proving that The Daily Show really doesn’t get it.

It is the duty of police to run towards the gunfire.  They are first responders.  Call 911 and they should show up.

CCW permit holders are not first reposonders.  It’s not our job to run towards the gunfire.  When an emergency happens near me, 911 doesn’t connect to my cell phone.  In an active shooter scenario, I’m not going to advance on a shooter.  Let the men with rifles and hard armor do that.

Ultimately, The Daily Show, after making fun of millions Americans with CCW permits, doesn’t give an alternative solution.

“Could we just figure out a way to just not put a gun in this asshole’s [pointing at the mock active shooter] hands?”

GREAT!  Except:

1. Even Liberals were forced to acknowledge that all the gun laws they have passed in places like California, failed to stop mass shootings like in San Bernardino, Oregon, or elsewhere.  Especially when guns are obtained through illegal straw purchases or stolen.  They have yet to propose new gun control laws that can guarantee no more mass shootings.
2. If you find yourself in an active shooter situation, what do you do?  Just sit there and wait for death?  The FBI has acknowledge that sometimes you have no choice but to fight, if running or hiding aren’t options.

It’s easy to criticize, it’s hard to propose meaningful solutions; which is The Daily Show’s modus operandi.  In this case, the mockery does real damage.  Reducing concealed carry is not going to make anybody safer in an active shooter scenario, and will probably make things a whole lot worse.

You want to figure out how to keep guns out of the hands of potential mass shooters WITHOUT infringing on the rights of law abiding citizens, I’m all ears.  But I haven’t heard one proposal that would do that.

I’d much rather the police take on an active shooter.  But they can’t be everywhere all the time, and even some police are recognizing the effect armed citizens can have in preventing mass shooters.

But calling CCW permit holders idiots with guns because we’ve (by and large) never been to a LEO training academy is ridiculous.

I don’t carry because I go looking for trouble.  I carry just in case trouble finds me.

That should do it.

Dear President Obama and Members of the Untied States Congress,

I have heard a lot of talk about the desire for universal background checks.  As I understand it, the desire (mainly by the Left) is to make it such that every gun transfer, gift and sale, in the US must involve a background check of the recipient.  The idea is that this will prevent criminals from using individual gun sales to get guns they could not buy in stores.  The reality is that most criminals get guns from people they know, mostly other criminals, and when they do come from stores, they are straw purchased.  Activities rendering the NICS system irrelevant.

But in the wake of a number of high profile shootings, you feel like you have to do something.  So allow me to propose a universal background check compromise.  I lived in Illinois, which had a universal background check law, so I’m going to model this off that, plus some extra.  Keep in mind, that compromise means “you give up something to get something.”  Furthermore, this is not comprehensive, more details will need to be hashed out.

The Law

Here is what you get for universal background checks:

The PERMANENT transfer of a firearm, between two private parties, as a gift, sale, or inheritance must be accompanied by a NICS background check on the recipient.

This is null between immediate family members (parents, children, grandparents, siblings)

Private transfers must be conducted face-to-face.

A website will be created that allows the recipient to fill out a Form 4473 online, and the transferer to have access to the FBI NICS system.  Neither party has to go to a dealer (FFL) to have a face-to-face transfer processed.  No fee will be levied for access to the NICS website.

Private individuals cannot conduct third party transfers or receive firearms by mail.  Private parties cannot act as a stand-ins for dealers (FFLs).

___________________

Here is what you give up to get it:

Interstate purchase of handguns through dealers.  If you can pass a NICS check for a handgun in your home state, you can pass it in any of the other 49 states, anywhere you can pass a NICS check you can buy a gun.

Short barrel rifles (SBR), short barrel shotguns (SBS), and suppressors are no longer NFA items.  Transfer can be conducted through a normal NICS check.  You can assemble one yourself at home – e.g., if you passed the NICS check for the AR lower, you can stick any upper you want on it, no problem.

The Hughes Amendment of the FOPA is repealed.

___________________

Here is what I’d like to try to get you give up to get it:

A foundation for 50 state, national wide, concealed carry.

Allow gun owners whose “Safe Passage” protection in FOPA was violate to bring suit against the municipality or agency that violated the “Safe Passage” protection in federal court.

___________________

If you want to add some onus to the right of gun ownership for law abiding citizens, you are going to have to take away some other onus.  There is no free lunch.

Yesterday I was on the phone with a dear old friend that just came out of back surgery. Like me, he turned the half century a while back and all the shit we did and youngins is coming due for payment, with interest.

The running joke is that the parts for our repair have been discontinued long ago and although the models might not be that old, we put some serious amount of miles through some even nastier roads. Wear and tear are a bitch.

We were the No Pain, No Gain Generation. The shit we did would scare the crap out of any X-t\Treme sportsman out there…and we were not doing for sport either, we were just simply being incredibly stupid and lucky not to died in the process. Yes, jumping and flipping on your cute mountain bike is cool, but I dare you to flip the finger in the face of a south american cop and live to tell about it (car chase included and we won.) Poking at a snake and trying to remember if slit eyes indicate poisonous or safe?  Wrangling a pissed off python because it snuck into your classroom on finals and you want to go home for the holidays. Going off-roading up a mountain at 2 in the morning, corralling your drunken friends (all 5 of them) shove them in the Landcruiser and go back down in the middle of a tropical thunderstorm (major pucker on that one.) Surviving collisions in cars, motorcycles, trucks. getting into a duct-tape-covered Cessna 172 with your friend who just got his license and wants to take you up as his first passenger. Telling a friend watching a military coup from his roof that the little particles of metal that just landed next to him are called shrapnel and they are designed to maim or kill your ass. We raced our cars past the 150 mph limit on tires designed for 80 mph without seat belts on vinyl-upholstered seats. And just for shit’s sake, we really got in the ocean to see if the rip current was really there or was it just BS from the authorities (Fell for that one three times.) You may ask why we did this (and more stuff I will not reveal) and the answer is simply, why not? We were invincible back then.

So we abused our bodies, took chances that were almost suicidal, got cut, broke shit, duct-taped it & carried on. We sang, we drank the wine (and rum both cheap and a lot) we loved & danced like fools, pledging our love to girls while fathers shot at us…with reason; it is a tad impolite to knock on the door a three am and sing an off-key and very much off-color serenade.

So now our bodies are saying “fuck you. time to pay the piper” and we find ourselves sedentary, enjoying watching other do things they categorize as dangerous with more protection than an Abrams tank and we naturally smirk. And if you ask us if we miss the old times and wish we could still do some adventurous stuff, we will say yes…

…but we regret nothing.

PS: Nope, that does not even begin to cover 1% of the crap we did. Some will never surface (we hope) and will take to our graves. Somehow we must give an image of respectability to the younger generations

And yes, cat does taste like chicken, so does python..