Allow me to quote myself from the previous entry:

She goes on to quote Mayor Manny Diaz and Police Chief John “I drive a free SUV” Timoney crying about the increase of murders and how easy is now for the gangs to obtain the Evil Black Rifles. However crime numbers from the FDLE website reveal that after Chief John Timoney took office in January of 2003, crime shot up in Miami Dade and the Assault Weapons Ban did not expire until September of 2004. So it seems more a question of ineffective Police leadership that guns after all. Maybe the true mass murderers are not those of us with Evil Black Rifles but the Major and the Police Chief with the tactical support of Journalistic Whores.

So what really do we have here? Is it really that assault weapons are widespread and mowing down innocent people or something else entirely? The sad truth is that Chief Timoney has been a failure curbing crime in the county and more specifically in Liberty City and Brownsville where these attacks happened. These are black impoverished areas under the control of local drug gangs that pretty much do whatever they want to do with little opposition from the Police. The rank and file cops, who want nothing more than to take on the criminals on the street are ticked out of their minds (a study done in 2007 shows that almost 70% of the officers under Timoney have serious complaints about his tenure), but the powers that be have not done enough to bring confidence the community and this has created a huge vacuum between the community and Law Enforcement where criminals thrive. Maybe it is too hard to commit resources to what them might consider a lost zone or lost group of people. Maybe Chief Timoney is too busy traveling abroad in conferences and junkets to be paying attention to dopers shooting each other and their communities or just plain racism.

People in these communities are double hostages: First of the criminal element doing plying its deadly trade and also hostages of a Mayorship and a Police Chief caught in their own web of political correctness but incapable of doing the right thing for fear of catching hell… or maybe afraid to break a sweat. It is much easier to blame inanimate objects that face the reality of their failures so the Evil Black Rifles get blamed for the tribulations of the poor Black Neighborhoods. Not the useless Mayor, not the corrupt Chief of Police, not even the Black Leaders that place the race card but do not have the testicles to tell the community the hard truth of being responsible for their lives and doing the right thing. It is my AK the one at fault for the collapse of cheap Social Engineering.

Rubbish!

For the last couple, three years and thanks to the impositions at work, I had my shooting skills lapse somewhat. Not that I was any good from the beginning (far from it) but they were at such a low that I was actually embarrassed to shoot at my local IDPA matches. I am back to standard in my mediocre pistol skills but I had not shot rifle in a long long time till last Tuesday when I had the chance to attend a South Florida Defensive Carbine Club match. SFDCC is the bastard child of Rob Sloyer of TacticalYellowVisor, curmudgeon extraordinaire and a new writer for SWAT Magazine.  SFDCC is basically a group of South Floridians gathering to practice and run matches with Evil Black Rifles. The gamut of participants run from the very lousy (yours truly) to some very gifted and trained individuals shooting from AK Klones to tactically pimped ARs .

During the SFDCC match, I was an absolute mess. I forgot about holdover costing me two failure to neutralize targets on just one simple vanilla stage. The fact that I wanted to be fast and slick also added to the clusterfuck and eventually general piss poor attitude when I reached the next stage.  This stage (a handgun to rifle transition)  was shot better and slower although one of the steels was set to be knocked down by a S&W 500 only so my 9mm couldn’t knock it down and I gathered another Failure To Neutralize. The last stage was a rifle to pistol transition which again I took slowly and managed to shoot clean although you could have timed me with an hourglass.

What were the lessons learned? Lack of practice will screw you up. Shooting is a perishable skill that requires practice and more practice to keep fresh. In a situation, you do not have time to stop and think what you are doing wrong and carefully deduct what you must correct. You either do it right from the start or you will end up with assorted new holes that were not there the day you came into this world. So lots of dry fire are in my future. Also I will need to get some sort of reliable mag pouches but the pickings for AK mags are slim still. I was using a modified soviet block 2 magazine belt pouch, but the crappy canvas material gives too easy and made for a lousy reload. The craze nowadays is chest rigs but I am not very fond of them. I see them as clumsy unless you have a flat stomach or are slim which I am neither. I must also look for a new sling or figure out a better way to use the Specter Gear AK CQB sling since it gets in the way of my reloads. 

Very few in our culture will disagree with the title of this thread. We know what the Second Amendment stands for, why it was recognized in our Bill of Rights and what purpose it serves. Those of us who have sat down and poured over the historical documents and studied the Framers’ intention can quote verse and chapter from the Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers, plus 18th Century grammar and a bag of other themes that relate to the Second Amendment.

That said, to see that are those in the Second Amendment Culture that openly express the violation of the actual laws on a Magilla Gorilla Chest bumping cry for revolution is leading me to think that our first goal has changed from educating those who are not in our culture to those who have a narrow understanding of the average people in general.

Since 1934 with the passing of the National Firearms Act, the Second Amendment has been eroding slowly. Not until the last decade, firm and concerted efforts have started to bear fruit for the rescue of our Bill of Rights but we are still facing 74 years of the changing of People’s perceptions towards guns. When once was a normal thing for any American to own the gun of his and her choosing without a neighbor or a police officer raising an eyebrow, we now live in a world were the mere fact of trying to defend ourselves from a criminal is seen by a lot of people as vigilantism or blood thirstiness. This perception is hammered every day by a complicit media in support of those politicians that would like to see our Country descend into the level of many others: A Country not of independent and self assured Citizens but a Country of faithful and obedient members of a communal society.

Your average non-gun owner is subjected to a barrage of one sided news and opinion which it is hard to counter. They have been programmed to fear guns, fear gun owners and relay on Washington, their state capital and their local officials for protection while forgetting their liberties. And many of them have sadly accepted those terms and vote accordingly. It is not unknown to any of us people like that, people that when asked about guns will recite the same old tired (for us) answers and express the unfounded fears that they hear day in and day out. Even then, these are people that still believe in the Law because we are a Nation of Laws. Let me repeat and enhance that. There might be Good Laws and Bad Laws but We Are A Nation of Laws.

If a Law is bad, unjust and unfair we just do not decide to break it for the heck of it or because our unchecked egos tell us to do it. We fight it through all possible legal means and make the life of our legislators impossible until they do the job they were hired to do. We Do Not Break The Law. The standard we are held to is much higher because, every violation by one of us will be used without remorse by the opposition against us and it will help them cement their points with the Non-Gun owners. Even the macho chest-bumping talk of breaking the law for whatever reason is fodder for the Opposition who can lie, cheat and libel at their discretion in order to further their plans. We are not playing a level field or under fair rules. Life Sucks, get used to it and do something worthwhile instead of Macho Internet Posturing.

And yes, I call it Posturing since I am willing to bet that many of those who talk tall and engage in an verbal diarrhea about what they will do when the gummint comes, will probably run & hide at the sight of a Police or Military Tactical team breaching their homes looking for weapons in the best of cases or looking for them in the worse.

We saw what an unchecked Government can do during Katrina and they literally stepped in their genitalia losing amazing amounts of ground on their quest. It was a Public Relations Nightmare that woke up many people but not enough since it was promptly buried and forgotten by the Media. Still we garnished enough to get rid of legislation that infringed in our rights and obtained legislation that restricted some of the power of the Government. Was it enough? No. We need more? Yes. Will it happen before the next commercial break? (Oprah is quite good today) No, it will take many many years.

So knowing the scope of time and effort we must face against those who oppose us, why in God’s Green Earth are you willing to behave like a child and support with your actions the other side? Because when you spout that ego-driven drivel, you are doing just so.

We are in a Battle for Hearts and Minds. Let’s win it the smart way.

UPDATE: LimaTunes has a great article touching some of what I say here with the added value of a female perspective.

Continued from Be Safe In A Hotel.

• If you have a gun for self-defense, keep it to yourself. Most hotel chains are anti-self defense. They do not like guns in their property and will not allow their employees to provide their means for self defense. They even forbid less-than-lethal articles such as pepper spray and stun guns. Pocket knives will send you to Human Resources to pick up your last check and a trip home although I am still amazed that they allow kitchen personnel to have those very long and sharp chef’s knives. As a guest legally carrying a weapon, your best bet is to shut the heck up and keep it from prying eyes. Also, try to keep anything gun related such as shooting accessories or even gun magazines from plain view of the housekeeping workers that come to clean your room. They will call security concerned that a gun nut ready to cause mayhem might be in the room and you will be bothered by managers trying gauge your intentions while one keystroke away from calling 911.

• Take the time to reconnoiter the all the hotel and surrounding areas. Learn from the very basic of knowing where your nearest fire exit is located to asking about the crime rate in the area. Not only check where your fire exit is located, but also you may want to take the stairs all the way down and make sure it gives you a good access to safety in case of evacuation. Check for well illuminated stairs, easy to open doors from floor to floor, make sure that there are no abandoned items that may slow down or interrupt an evacuation or wet surfaces that may cause a slip and fall. Same applies for common areas of the hotel such as bars, restaurants, business center, stores, etc. Look around, see where you would go in case fecal matter hits the cooling apparatus or at least where to get behind hard cover if some nutjob decides to replicate another Mumbai attack. Check for cell phone coverage and make sure to note where the dead spots are located and where you have to go in case you need to dial 911. Ask about crime in the area and be ready to be lied to. Hotels will say that their place and neighborhood and crime free which is absolute bull but you may find one or two employees that will rather see you alive and will inform you of the potential dangers around than seeing you hurt. Under no circumstance believe Concierges and Bell Staff about safe places to eat or visit outside the hotel since they all have deals where they get kickbacks from these establishments. Use online resources to check for crime in the area you will be visiting. Lots of local police & sheriff departments will have a zip code by zip code crime statistic breakdown in their websites. And even if everything checks as safe, you are the only one responsible for your safety so do not let your guard down.
• You are alone, trust your gut. Hotels, outside the lobby and a couple of common areas and during check in and checkout times are desolated places. You may see a hotel worker from time to time in the hallways and maybe another guest, but that will be rare. That means that when you walk from or to your room, the possibility of an ambush is there and you should be very aware of your surroundings. Most hotel rooms nowadays have peepholes in the doors so use them before you step out and make sure nobody suspicious is in the immediate vicinity of your door.  After you open the door, take a couple of seconds and scan the hallway for more any suspicious activity or individuals. Keep an eye on doors not properly closed, specially closets since they are perfect ambush lairs for criminals. It is not widely publicized but rapist and other criminals will look for places to hide and wait for an unsuspecting victim to walk by. If you see something that bothers you, retreat back to your room, call the Front Desk and have them send somebody to check for a suspicious individual. However, the most dangerous part of empty hallways is going back to the room. People are usually tired or distracted or even tipsy after a night of party and they just want to go in the room and lay down. Awareness is less than stellar and all of the sudden you have a gun pointed at your face commanding you to go inside the room where you will be stripped of your goods, your dignity and even your life. If something is amiss, get in a house phone and demand a security escort to your room in a loud and clear voice so anybody in earshot can hear you. Get away safely if you can or look for a fighting position that offers good cover and is defensible.  Again, trust your gut, if something looks dangerous, use your head and your training.

Question: You are home with your children and someone breaks in and threatens harm. You should:

1. Retrieve your firearm and defend your family.
2. Call 911 and wait for instructions while analyzing the situation, see if you may actually be in danger and comply with the attacker’s desires.

If you choose number 2, you are doing the right thing according to “expert” Kathy Olevsky. And I would recommend that you should have your local mortuary & insurance agent in your phone’s speed dial while you are at it because you will probably will need one of them in a hurry. Ms. Olevsky then continues her advice with the use of “you could use to assist yourself in your defense. An ordinary household object gives women more power. If you can pick up a lamp, a broom, a baseball bat, or a fireplace utensil, any of these items can be used to help you out.” Can you spot the obvious missing item? Yep, no guns in the list.

Ms. Olevsky is a  is a sixth-degree black belt in Karate and God Bless her for her achievement and dedication, but traditional Martial Arts are tough to learn, even tougher to master and, unfortunately no match for somebody with a gun with an intent to cause harm. In my younger years I was one of those kids who never missed an episode of Kung Fu, and watched in amazement Bruce Lee on the Green Hornet making mincemeat out of the Bad Guys. I was small in stature in those days and easy pickings for bullies at school who thought that it was fun to beat me once a day between Math class and Geography class. So, like many kids of my generation I begged, pleaded and cajoled to my parents about allowing me to join some dojo. My mother did not want his baby to be battered and bruised so she refused time and time again but I knew  I was making headway so I kept at it. And when I knew I was close to success, something happened that changed my young mind about martial arts and dumped the idea altogether. Back then in Venezuela, the top martial arts school was run by two brothers: The Plancharts. They were on TV weekly in sport shows demonstrating their abilities (and they were good) and people were lining around the block to register in a class. One weekend one of the Planchart brothers got accosted by a couple of miscreants and, unlike a Hollywood Happy Ending, Mr. Planchart tried to defend himself with his arts obtaining as result a bullet in his thigh and a very fast trip to the closest hospital.That was the end of my desire to learn Martial Arts.

To quote Tom Clancy in his book Clear and Present Danger: “Armed combat beats unarmed combat every day.” Guns have always been the great equalizer when a less physical or less prepared individual is forced to fight against a superior opponent. And also the amount of training time required is much less than with unarmed combat plus the fact that while somebody with a handicap would be hard pressed to apply difficult katas for self-defense, firearms manipulation is a rather simple mechanical enterprise.

There is this stupid sense of superiority that somebody is morally better if he or she goes through life’s challenges completely unarmed and should solve the problem of a violent offender by placing some good karate chops on him like we see in the movies. Unfortunately life thrives on reality where the Bad Guy will cheat to win and you need every resource to beat him at his game. There is no moral victory in laying dead on a morgue table, just sadness.

So, get your gun, practice, take defensive classes which will train you not only to shoot but to develop the proper mental stance not only to survive an encounter but also how to avoid them altogether. Forget about kimonos and tatamis and bowing to your opponent as means for self preservation, you wanna live at the end of the fight.

In defense Ms. Olevsky I have to add that she did point out something important and I quote: “Do this today, don’t wait until you could be attacked. Be prepared, not scared.”

I have no idea why, but and old memory found me this morning. Back in the early 90’s when I was living in certain South American country now under the firm grasp of a Socialist, massive riots and looting occurred. It was long four days of absolute collapse of the government basic services and control which I lived awake in coffee, cigarettes with a single shot shotgun and a Walther PPK on my waist. Thankfully our property was not affected by rioters since I already had a reputation for being somewhat crazy in Sheepland I was seen in more than one occasion experimenting with home made napalm) and an assiduous patrol kept miscreants pretty much away.

On the second day I was witness to a mob attacking a two story bodega about a two blocks away from my house. As typical of many bodegas in the country, it was owned and operated by one owner and his family and they had their living quarters on the upper floor.  It had no side or rear doors, just the front store gated entrance and side stairs connecting the second floor to the ground level.  I have no idea why the bodega was attacked but looters usually do not need one. When I noticed the attack it was already in progress and I fielded a pair of binoculars from the roof of my house to get a clearer picture. I was upset I what I saw since the looters were people that lived in the area, people that bought from that store and even got credit to purchase items from the owner when they did not have ways to pay for them, yet they thought it was OK to destroy his means of living.

The looters breached the store’s gates and proceeded inside. Seconds later they came out holding on the liquor and cigarettes while whooping their victory. After the booze and smokes were depleted, looters came back pretty much for the rest but this time I heard a firearm discharged sending everybody out running while dropping whatever items they had in their hand. The Bodega owner appeared with a big frame revolver in one hand, surveyed the damage and alongside his family recovered what little they could and proceeded for the next hour or so to secure the store entrance with whatever means they had available. Once they finished, they went inside and I returned to my patrol.

I’d say that about an hour later I checked the bodega again and I saw a large crowd in front. Their demeanor appeared angry and they were looking up at a window on the second story facing the front of the store. Through the barred window I saw a hand come out making go-away gestures but the crowd did not heed. Some in the mob once more attacked the store entrance, but I am guessing the reinforcement was much sturdier because they could not breach it this time. I kept watching the impasse silently congratulating the store owner for his stand when I saw something that chilled me: some idiot looter appeared suddenly with a Molotov cocktail and launched it towards the second story window. Thankfully it missed and hit the wall creating a fireball of little damage against a cement block structure.

It dawned on me that this was now not a bunch of idiots trying to score some freebies from the neighborhood merchant but a full fledged lynching mob intent on murder and nothing could be done to stop them. Police was nowhere to be seen and those not in the mob were like me trying to protect their households or cowering inside them praying to be spared from the wolves roaming the streets. I saw another looter with yet another Molotov cocktail but this time carefully preparing himself for a perfect pitch. He never did. The hand came through the barred second story window but this time holding the revolver and shooting it. One looter down and a Molotov cocktail rolled off his hand harmlessly.

Another looter, incensed by the shooting of his colleague picked up the firebomb and tried to toss it. The revolver went off again and another looter fell to the ground. This one I could see was dead on the spot. My binoculars allowed me to see the head exploding with perfect detail and the body just switching off to a mass of uncoordinated muscles and bones.  I lost track of the Molotov cocktail but I guess it did not go off again because I did not see a fireball, but a couple more appeared in the hands of other looters. More detonations came out the second story window sending two more looters scurrying and at least one of them leaving blood behind him.

This sequence kept repeating itself for another couple of hours. Mob attacking the gate, failing, mob trying to firebomb the upstairs apartment and getting shot for their efforts. I counted at least four dead on the ground and some 8 wounded taken away when the mob finally decided that it was getting to steep a price to pay for their obstinacy and withdrew to seek easier targets. Some 45 minutes later, the store owner and his family came out, loaded their old pick up truck (amazingly left untouched by the mob) with whatever belongings they could pack and abandoned the store. That night the looters came back and set the whole place on fire destroying the only grocery shop in a mile radius forcing the neighborhood to go farther away for their supplies from now on.

I heard later that the Store owner and his family moved to another city. The store was sold for a pittance but the new owner transformed it into a bike repair shop that went bankrupt soon afterward. Last I heard was that the building was abandoned and became a den of druggies and cheap hookers. Nobody was prosecuted for the attacks to the store and thankfully neither was the store owner for defending himself and his family.

So what can one armed man do? When the Shit Hit The Fan, a store owner saved himself and his family against a crowd and bought himself enough time to escape to safety. This was the leasson I learned that day and I hope you may save this little story in your brain’s memory bank for whenever somebody tries to convince you guns are not the solution.

Are you done crying and slobbering? Need a hanky?

The die was cast and we lost. Obama is here for Four Years whether we like it or not. John McCain fought like a Gentleman and lost like a Loser. He imposed on himself and his followers asinine Rules of Engagement while the opposition did not bother with such niceties. It is the same stupid concept that hogties our troops in the battlefield and puts them at deadly risk. Make no mistake that McCain rules will end up costing our way of life if we don’t correct the damage inflicted during this campaign.

About The Only Good News, they did not get super majority in Congress. Still they do have the majority and they will try to ramrod as much legislation as they can down our throats without regards for the Constitution. With that in mind let’s put aside briefly what happened and concentrate what we must do for the Congressional elections in 2010.

1) We get rid of the RINOs (Republicans In Name Only) and bring out true conservatives to fill the seats in Congress. NOT ONE PENNY TO ANY POLITICIAN WHO CRAPS OVER THE CONSTITUTION. And no more “terse” letters which make us sound like beggars. We demand that our rights are to be respected and untouched or they will find themselves without jobs and under lots of scorn.  We must get involved in the process! Emails and phone calls are always good, but presence always beats everything else. Drop by your local representative’s office and ask to speak to him or her to voice your opinion. Yes, more likely you will not get him or her, but an aide will meet you and believe me, it will make an impression when they get 10 or 20 personal visits about the same subject. And no “We need contributions to accept your point” but “You make the point and we MAY support you with contributions…if you behave correctly & constantly or we will only not contribute, we will actively make sure you do not get any money for your campaign.” We do not need to make big or impressive speeches, just be direct, polite and stubborn about your cause and hurt them in the pocket when needed it.

2) And then we have the Media.  Newspapers are right now in a very precarious situation. Most of all the big names are hurting bad and cutting jobs to save pennies due to poor circulation. Any rag that promotes and celebrates the restrictions to our freedoms must suffer. If you have a subscription to a paper like that, cancel it. By the same token, if a paper is in favor of all constitutional rights, specially a new struggling one, get not one but two subscriptions, help them out. The Miami Herald lost a customer this morning I am proud to say. I am waiting for them to call me so they can have an idea why I am canceling and I promise you, they won’t like them.

Broadcast News Media (TV) are Right now they are where papers were 10 years ago, starting to slide down but still ignoring the danger. It seems their ratings somehow suffered during the coverage of the campaign contrary to what they expected and it is not news (pardon the pun) that they are losing viewers to the new Cable Media outlets like FoxNews. How do we get them? Ratings of course. If you are a Nielsen family, switch your TV to any other station but broadcast news when they come on. DirecTV and DISH Networks are much easier because your box keeps track of what you watch and provides ratings. Just program your set to jump to another channel (FoxNews if you really want to rub it) at the time of Broadcast news or turn the thing off. If you go to bed or out and do not turn off the box, make sure it is not tuned to a channel that carries ABC, CBS or NBC. Again leave it tuned to FoxNews, Home and Garden TV your favorite outdoor channel.

Our pal Schummer is already having orgasmic fits thinking he will be able to re instate the Fairness Doctrine and he does indeed have a good chance to do so. If he has his druthers, the Fairness Doctrine will be applied to all media possible not in control of the liberals and that includes the Internet. Here I am thinking we simply inundate all media outlets before the Fairness Doctrine gets approved, that we will demand every day equal time or that we will demand that the proper authorities take action on such blatant violation of the law. Perhaps the Big Media honchos will put enough pressure on Schummer and Co. as to drop the idea altogether. And it goes without saying that we lean heavy on our Senators and Congrespeople until they develop the backbone to stand up against it.

These are just some thing from the top of my head. Add what you think is necessary, but for the Love of God, STOP WHINING!