A common question we get regarding home defense is should the home owner use a rifle or a pistol. For about 90% of the population our advise seems counter intuitive; but hands down it is the pistol.

via Realities of a Defensive Rifle.  Jeff Gonzales

I am of the idea that any household should have the Triumvirate of handgun-shotgun-rifle. But I also believe that for inside work, the pistol is the better option.

Ha tip to TacticalYellowVisor.net

Soviet Army WWII, Third Shock Army snipers with Mosin-Nagants.

775 confirmed kills. 

So Professor Hampikian pen an opinion piece picked up by the NYT full of “See How Cool I Write And Make Fun If Rednecks” expressing his passive-agressive opposition to an Idaho bill that would allow Campus Carry.Let’s check it out

My comments in bold.

When May I Shoot a Student?
By GREG HAMPIKIAN FEB. 27, 2014
TO the chief counsel of the Idaho State Legislature:

In light of the bill permitting guns on our state’s college and university campuses, which is likely to be approved by the state House of Representatives (It was approved yesterday) in the coming days, I have a matter of practical concern that I hope you can help with: When may I shoot a student?

I know you are just being an intellectual asshole but the answer can be found in that marvel of technology called The Internet. If you are uncomfortable with such advanced technology, pick up the frigging phone and call somebody from the Department of Criminal Justice which you are member of and find out.

I am a biology professor, not a lawyer, and I had never considered bringing a gun to work until now. But since many of my students are likely to be armed, I thought it would be a good idea to even the playing field.

Many of your students? Did you poll them? Oh yes, you are being snide. Carry on.

I have had encounters with disgruntled students over the years, some of whom seemed quite upset, but I always assumed that when they reached into their backpacks they were going for a pencil. Since I carry a pen to lecture, I did not feel outgunned; and because there are no working sharpeners in the lecture hall, the most they could get off is a single point. But now that we’ll all be packing heat, I would like legal instruction in the rules of classroom engagement.

You have to love the ignorance shown here. This is a guy who is involved with Idaho Innocence Project so he has had contact with convicts serving hard time and must know that even a pencil can be used as a deadly weapon. Of course he deals with students so in his mind they are all a bunch of stupid little shits incapable of dong nothing but getting high/drunk and chase each other naked around campus.

At present, the harshest penalty available here at Boise State is expulsion, used only for the most heinous crimes, like cheating on Scantron exams. But now that lethal force is an option, I need to know which infractions may be treated as de facto capital crimes.

So, the nastiest crime at Boise State is cheating on a test? Of course! He does not access the internet or he would have at his disposition the campus security Crime Log.  Checking on the log for 2013, I see a variety of major crimes including burglary, theft, assault, assault with deadly weapon, arrest warrants, battery, stalking (always a favorite for female students), arson, bomb threat, strangulation and a boatload of drug offenses that leads me to believe you have some serious drug trafficking problem with the obvious drug dealers on campus.

I assume that if a student shoots first, I am allowed to empty my clip; but given the velocity of firearms, and my aging reflexes, I’d like to be proactive. For example, if I am working out a long equation on the board and several students try to correct me using their laser sights, am I allowed to fire a warning shot?

He is so funny! A warning shot! That would mean that you were not in fear of your life and you are in violation of the law on several felony counts of assault with a deadly weapon. You’d be on your way to jail with the mysteries of  how to shower without bending over and sharing close quarters with other felons will be discovered.

If two armed students are arguing over who should be served next at the coffee bar and I sense escalating hostility, should I aim for the legs and remind them of the campus Shared-Values Statement (which reads, in part, “Boise State strives to provide a culture of civility and success where all feel safe and free from discrimination, harassment, threats or intimidation”)?

Dear Professor? Do I detect a certain (lots) of repressed and unsolved hostility inside your soul? It seems that if you were to posses a gun, your preferred method of conflict resolution would be to shoot at anything and anybody. Are you having problems at home? Feel unappreciated by fellow coworkers and the administration? Should we fear that you’ll pull a Charles Withman from top of The Towers Dormitory? I think you should seek help.

While our city police chief has expressed grave concerns about allowing guns on campus, I would point out that he already has one. I’m glad that you were not intimidated by him, and did not allow him to speak at the public hearing on the bill (though I really enjoyed the 40 minutes you gave to the National Rifle Association spokesman).

I am glad you liked it. We are here to help.

Knee-jerk reactions from law enforcement officials and university presidents are best set aside. Ignore, for example, the lame argument that some drunken frat boys will fire their weapons in violation of best practices. This view is based on stereotypical depictions of drunken frat boys, a group whose dignity no one seems willing to defend.

Other than the issue that only those with an enhanced concealed carry permit would be allowed to carry, which means over 21 years of age, that means seniors and Post graduate students, administration personnel, assorted adult workers & visitors and even faculty (not you with all your apparent emotional problems), basically people that are past the binge drinking age and are a wee bit more mature that your fresh-from-high school Freshman.

The problem, of course, is not that drunken frat boys will be armed; it is that they are drunken frat boys. Arming them is clearly not the issue. They would cause damage with or without guns. I would point out that urinating against a building or firing a few rounds into a sorority house are both violations of the same honor code.

We covered your ignorance of Campus Crime earlier. Let’s go on.

In terms of the campus murder rate — zero at present — I think that we can all agree that guns don’t kill people, people with guns do. Which is why encouraging guns on campus makes so much sense. Bad guys go where there are no guns, so by adding guns to campus more bad guys will spend their year abroad in London. Britain has incredibly restrictive laws — their cops don’t even have guns! — and gun deaths there are a tiny fraction of what they are in America. It’s a perfect place for bad guys.

I am so glad that in his academic honesty, the professor makes sure to mash the most law-abiding group of US Citizens with the lowest of the criminal element just because we carry guns…of course that means that anybody that carries a gun like a cop or a soldier or even campus security are equally criminals in the eyes of the professor. Good to know, that should make him popular. By the way, the England thing? you are safer in downtown Boise after midnight that in London at high noon. You may want to do some research on that.

Some of my colleagues are concerned that you are encouraging firearms within a densely packed concentration of young people who are away from home for the first time, and are coincidentally the age associated with alcohol and drug experimentation, and the commission of felonies.

Remember that part when i said over 21? Seniors? You didn’t even read the bill, have you? You are just flying by the seat of your own self-imposed ignorance. 

And wait one second. You are now admitting that felonies occur on campus? 

Once again, this reflects outdated thinking about students. My current students have grown up learning responsible weapon use through virtual training available on the Xbox and PlayStation. Far from being enamored of violence, many studies have shown, they are numb to it. These creative young minds will certainly be stimulated by access to more technology at the university, items like autoloaders, silencers and hollow points. I am sure that it has not escaped your attention that the library would make an excellent shooting range, and the bookstore could do with fewer books and more ammo choices.

By now I am wondering why does Prof. Hampkian have such a low opinion of his students?  It seems that he treats them like a bothersome bumps on the road or First Graders incapable of having a coherent thought. I wonder what the students think about him:
“he talks about his outside projects a lot”
“he’s sometimes gone a lot for trials he works on so that made it a little tough.”
“class project is pretty easy and tests are mult. choice. some essay quizzes are graded pretty easy.”
“made us teach class ourselves for a project.”
” You have to read the book before going to class and teach yourself most of the material.”
“His work is incredibly interesting and sometimes he’ll talk about it more than what you’re studying”

He gets very good ratings which is par for an easy teacher who apparently does not teach but lets you “do it yourself.” Imagine if Firearms Instructors did it that way, he’d defecate building pre-fab materials. If you are a parent shelling up to $33,000 a year for tuition, you would expect that a teacher would actually be in class and teach.. and you be wrong.

I want to applaud the Legislature’s courage. On a final note: I hope its members will consider my amendment for bulletproof office windows and faculty body armor in Boise State blue and orange.
via When May I Shoot a Student? – NYTimes.com.

Well, since apparently and according to your students, you do not spend much time on campus, the Legislature may feel that any expense on you would be a waste of taxpayers’ money. 

Democrats in Missouri introduced startling anti-gun legislation that would require gun owners to hand over their legally purchased so-called “assault weapons”  to “the appropriate law enforcement agency for destruction” within 90 days.

via Missouri Dems Introduce Alarming Gun Confiscation Bill Giving Law-Abiding Gun Owners 90 Days to Turn in Certain Firearms or Become Felons | TheBlaze.com.

As we were expecting, the front is now in the local states at a legislature level. At the Federal level they know that the House will probably remain firmly in Republican hands (and some hands might even be Tea Party backed… gasp!) and they fear that the Senate may also end up in the other side.  If you see Dem Senators suddenly reversing the Majority Rules, you know we are heading GOP in the chair count.

Go check your state’s legislature website and peruse the laws on the different tables. If you see something you don’t like, contact your State Gun Rights organization and ask them if they are aware of it and what do they think about it. And help them with a small donation or volunteering.

Last night before calling it quits, I ran into this post from Moms Demand:
A quilting project? Don’t get me wrong, being married to the South, I love quilts and understand the work behind it but…Gun Control Stitching?

It made me sit back and think about the many projects that Moms has had since it began a little over a year ago:

They started simply: Some  chalk art on a wall or sidewalk, some gouache paint on paper or a bed-sheet, but soon it started to evolve into more “complex” crafts:

“Across the USA…How do you wear your heart?” was hear-shaped cut outs with some cardiac-wrenching message and make sure to include the kids since we are doing this for them while they were still 1 Million Moms Against something or other:

With cute hearts come, of course, Valentine’s day and they marched on D.C. to present the hearts to selected members of congress:

Then, once they had morphed into Moms Demand Action, the campaign was renamed Have a Heart and went heavy with the use of kids doing their little paper hearts telling people (with a smile on their faces) that they were scared…huh?

This is the time we are starting to see the use of babies in carriages. The All Ohio Rally brought us this image:

We will see this amplified later.

Next it was the “Paper Dolls, Steel Resolve.” More work with rounded point scissors and that had some has-been celebrities:

and the usual gun control politician like Maryland’s governor Martin O’Malley:
 And of course kids because we are doing it for the Children!

No Joke, Moms Vote tapped int o the Street Artist vein by using chalk in what otherwise they themselves would call vandalism but it doesn’t apply to them ’cause the cause is righteous:

Stroller Jam was the next field exercise. Go=et your baby in a carriage with kid’s made signs and go bother a congrescritter at his/her office:

This one did not last long. Too much hassle to be trying to deliver their message, change & feed the baby and keep young Hillary quiet as she kept asking “Can we go home now?” over and over again.

For father’s day we were regaled with “Your Dad Has Gun Sense!” in which presented people (not just dads) with a paper cut-out of a tie. Really? A tie for Father’s Day? Cliche the hell much? I guess trying to make a cut out of an Old Spice bottle was too much.

And at least one upset Dad that did not get what he wanted:

And then, we reach my favorite Moms Campaign: Moms Demand Action Lemonade Stands Across the Country. Nothing shows your resolve more than erecting  Lemonade Stands Against Gun Violence in the safest places you can find:

Some of the stand were ….skimpy?

And you can tell the kids were all excited to be doing political crap rather than enjoying a summer of games:

And even an Old School Stand was found…sans lemonade:

For the anniversary of Sandy Hook, they came up with Moms Will Not Be Silent with cute cut out bells.

And the kids…never fails:

It is kin of funny and sad at the same time that a Liberal group uses and “perpetuates” images and actions that they would generally eschew for being too conservative. If anything it tell us that they know they can’t use what they really think and feel because they are in the very small minority of the population and so off the charts nobody would pay attention to them even with the support of their new political husbands, Illegal Majors Against Guns A.K.A Mayors Against Illegal Guns.

It is my perception (although I could be wrong) that Moms Demand are not getting the traction they were getting just six months ago.  They will still get choice spots in the Six O’Clock news, but now only if the latest Hollywood scandal is not taking up much needed broadcast airwaves & ratings bonanza.

Moms Demand was never mainstream and if its members actually thought so, they were smelling way too much Elmer’s glue.

While we are at it, somebody please remove their safety scissors before they poke an eye out and somebody gets sued. or really, really upset.