Month: June 2010

Editorial Response

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

The Austin American Statesman published an editorial regarding the recent issue with the metal detectors and how CHL holders have special handling in that regard.

As you might expect, the editorial was full of incorrect information and hysterics.

Jerry Patterson, Texas Land Commissioner, wrote a response to that editorial. I don’t know if the AAS will publish it, but here’s his response.

Statesman Editorial Board staff,

I don’t know who wrote Sunday’s editorial but it is chock full of bad information and needs to be corrected lest the public again be misinformed by a hoplophobic journalist with a bias.

The most glaring error is the writers belief that the State Preservation Board has the authority to ban lawfully carried firearms at the capitol. They do not. While they do have the authority to place metal detectors, ONLY the Texas penal code regulates where and how firearms can be carried, and Article 1 Section 23 of the Texas Bill of Rights states that a Texan has the right to “Keep and Bear Arms in the lawful defense of himself or the state” and that “the legislature shall have power by law to regulate the wearing of arms with a view to prevent crime”. This legislative exclusivity is further backed up by statute which pre empts any government entity or agency from regulating firearms (of course this doesn’t apply to federal regulation on federal property).

When I passed the CHL law in 1995, certain prohibited locations were enumerated. These locations were fine tuned again in 1997. The capitol was specifically not included as a prohibited location in part because of the hypocrisy of passing a law and then excluding the capitol where those of us who voted for the law spend our time. There can be no other prohibited locations, other than on private property or on federal property.

The statement that “most courthouses and other government buildings around the state” are gun banned locations is also false. ALL courthouses are prohibited locations because the legislature chose to ban by statute carry at courthouses, and NO state or local government buildings are prohibited locations because the legislature chose not to make them so. It is permissible to ban firearms at a “meeting of a government entity” if “effective notice” is given. What constitutes “effective notice” is specifically spelled out in PC 46.035. What that means is a city council could ban only in the council chambers, and only while the meeting is in progress, or the Senate or House could ban in the chamber or the gallery when actually in session. You cannot ban lawful carry of a firearm at the capitol, or at city hall, or the portion of any other state or local government building (exception: school buildings, prisons etc.) that is open to public access. That doesn’t mean cities or counties haven’t placed signs banning carry, but signs do not make law, and anyone who defies such a sign can suffer no penalty. I routinely ignore these signs.

The statement “Why anyone needs to carry a concealed gun in the capitol is beyond us,” begs the question: where in the writers opinion does anyone need to carry a concealed gun? We’ve had a crazed shooter at the capitol, could that be a reason maybe? We’ve had two elected officials murdered at the capitol (albeit a very long time ago) might that be a reason? I carry at the capitol, and candidly I don’t think I need to do so. I also have a smoke detector at my house that I don’t think I’m going to need. If one carries a firearm, making decisions based on this venue or that venue as being a “need to carry” or “not need to carry” venue is actually kind of humorous. Can you imagine the thought process of “I think I’m going to be accosted in the mall parking lot tonight so I’ll pack my gun, but I don’t think I’m going to be robbed walking from capitol parking to the capitol tomorrow night so I won’t”? Carrying a gun is like fire insurance, you don’t just have a policy when you believe you’re going to have a fire.

The Violence Policy Center is just not credible, and candidly has lied on more than one occasion, so their “data” that 166 people have been killed by CHL holders is suspect. How many of those CHL holding shooters were convicted of a crime? Might that be an important bit of information? Could it be that some, if not most of the 166 dead were in the process of committing an assaultive offense against the CHL holder? Has a citizen ever been wrongfully shot and killed by a police officer? Should we take guns away from the police?

To paraphrase the writers closing statement in the editorial:

“We promise, editorial writer, we won’t think you are any less of a journalist for correcting your errors”

Jerry Patterson Texas Land Commissioner,

Going to the ground

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

You know what can happen if you end up on the ground in a fight?

You can get killed.

Colbert was charged Tuesday at 8:30 p.m. with two counts of murder, police said. He was arrested at his home Monday at 8 p.m. for being one of the individuals who kicked Albert several times in the head and torso after Albert was on the ground — ultimately causing his death, according to a police report.

I know MMA and BJJ is all the rage. I love watching UFC and WEC fights. I loved my study of Muay Thai. I enjoy joint locks and submission moves. I totally agree that you do yourself a favor by knowing how to handle yourself in grappling situations.

But in a true fight (i.e. not sport/competition), should going to the ground be your strategy? Well, every situation is different and who knows what your situation at the time may call for. But as a general rule, I would say no, you should not try to take it to the ground. If you end up on the ground (very possible), you should do your best to get up off the ground as quickly as possible. Why? Well, as the above story reads: guy’s going to have friends, and they’re going to stomp your head into the pavement. It takes no skill to stomp someone’s head into the pavement, just determination. And it doesn’t take much for you to get your bell rung… one good stomp to the head and your head meets the pavement could be all that’s needed to knock you out.

So again, don’t get me wrong, I think it’s good to have grappling skills. I think it’s good to know how to handle yourself on the ground. If you are training for pure self-defense, part of your ground skills should be knowing how to quickly get up off the ground, back on your feet, and back into the fight or escaping. Being on the ground is not where you want to be.

Austin’s gun buy-back

/ hsoi / 9 Comments

Yesterday there was a gun buy-back program in Austin.

Of course, it’s being hailed as a massive success.

“The line is very shocking to me. We had people in the parking lot at 7:30 a.m. waiting to turn their guns in, and the event did not start until 9 a.m,” APD’s Sgt. Ely Reyes said.

Department officials ran out of grocery vouchers after about two and a half hours.

APD asked the community to turn in any gun, no questions asked. In exchange, people got anywhere from $10 to $200 in grocery store gift cards.

The $200 went for “assault rifles”. You know what? If you have an AK or AR and only got $200 for it? You got ripped off. When new AR’s sell for over $1000, you could have sold that used AR and made a lot more money… and gotten cash instead of just grocery gift cards.

“People like me who don’t use them, haven’t taken them out of the case for 25 years. If my house was broken into and stolen then they could be used against somebody else or for a crime,” participant Laurie Delong said.

So they didn’t actually take any guns “off the street”, they just took some old guns out of people’s closets. Again, I bet most of those guns could have been sold to dealers or private citizens and you would have fetched a lot more for your money. And the same end result would have happened: out of your house and into the hands of law-abiding people where they wouldn’t have been used against someone else or for a crime.

So 320 guns were collected and it’s a massive success.

You know how it actually can be measured if it’s a success or not? If it makes any sort of measurable impact in crime reduction in Austin. These groups put these things on as some sort of street-corner proselytizing towards crime prevention. Makes for good headlines, makes for good photo-ops, and makes some people feel better about themselves like they’re “doing something”. But until we can see it actually doing what it’s supposed to do — reducing the incidents of violent crime — then it’s nothing but a meaningless song and dance.

A lovely morning

/ hsoi

Finally slept in this morning (you know, got up at 5 AM…. yes, that’s sleeping in for me). After the past week of waking up quite early, it was nice to get back to a normal sleep schedule.

Everyone else was asleep, but Daughter woke up. We hung out in my office, listened to music. Introduced her to UFO, Uriah Heep, Led Zeppelin, and more Lenny Kravitz. It’s showing what music was like before Auto-Tune (which she appreciates).

Go downstairs. Look out front and see one muscovy mother and her 4 growing ducklings. Put out some black-oil sunflower seeds for them.

Look out the back of the house. I see one of the local nesting cardinals catching a bug just outside the back door. His mate is with him and she’s flittering her wings and he’s offering her the bug. I watch their little ritual.

Then I look up from them and see one of the does in the greenbelt eating. She moves off a bit and then I see what we’ve been expecting to see — her fawn. We noticed this doe had full teets, so there had to be a baby somewhere; finally got to see it this morning white spots and all. Another doe was also nearby. There’s a third doe that comes around, much smaller than the other two. She’ll probably be by later.

Just something beautiful about the morning. 🙂

Sunday Metal – UFO

/ hsoi

Lately I’ve found myself listening to a lot of “early metal” from the 1970’s.

Take for example, UFO’s “Rock Bottom” and this live performance from 1975

I reckon it’s reactionary. I’m so tired of listening to perfect music… not that I’m listening to perfect music by choice, you just can’t help but by inundated with it (especially having children and being exposed to things like Hannah Montana). Auto-Tune has a place but it’s become overused, abused, and is the norm. There’s no room for mistakes, there’s not even a need to have talent because you can just fix it all with technology.

That’s not music.

Sure you try to make the album solid and as close to “perfect” as you can, but even the best albums have some little flubs here and there. It’s not 100% perfect.

Listen to Schenker’s playing in the above. How many times was there something messed up? He may not have hit the strings just right, or bent that note all the way. There’s flubs, there are mistakes. But it’s pure raw talent and energy there. There’s nothing manufactured. It works hard. It’s emotion. It’s energy. It’s talent. It strives to be the best it can be, but ultimately it cannot be perfect. It’s flawed. It’s human.

And it’s in that, where we find the beauty.

CHL Instructor class

/ hsoi / 5 Comments

As of now, I am certified in the State of Texas to teach the concealed handgun licensing course.

I spent the past 4 days taking the class, and wanted to share some details about the experience.

I took the abbreviated class because I already have teaching experience (NRA Certified Instructor and my work at KR Training). The course was 3 days in the classroom and 1 on the range. The topics run the gamut of all things required for a CHL from legal issues to accommodating people with disabilities, how to deal with all the paperwork, and so on.

One thing I like to do in any firearms class I take is look at demographics. Why? It’s interesting, especially in working to dispel the notion of “gun owners are old white male rednecks”. Of the hundred or so people in the class, most were white men probably over the age of 50. There were some younger folk, there were a handful of women, and a larger handful of non-white folk. Take that for whatever it’s worth. One interesting thing was at least half the class were current or former law enforcement officers.

The three classroom days covered a range of topics. Matters such as use of force, relevant Texas laws, how to handle all the paperwork, the course of fire, non-violent dispute resolution, and so on. I’ve heard horror stories from old-timers, but it seems they’re really improving things. The course flowed well, lots of useful information. Even the information I already knew and had heard many times before was always good to hear again. The only downside was the hotel: the conference room chairs were painful to sit in, no tables so we could more easily write and take notes, and a few other issues.

The range day went pretty quickly. The course of fire for instructors is the same as for students, but it must be passed with a 90% or better score. Furthermore, instructors must qualify with both a revolver and a semi-automatic. I did take a bit of pride in being one of the few snub-shooters on the line (you should have seen some of the hand-cannons people pulled out).

The DPS facility is really nice, and that it’s just a couple of miles from Dawson Precision meant I had to stop in. Never been there before, they gave me a tour of the place. Oh man… what a setup they have there! Quite nice. I had to force myself to leave, else my wallet would have been lighter and an STI would have been with me.

A long week, but a good week. I’ve much work ahead of me. I do want to give credit and thanks to Sergeant Stuart Bamsch of the Texas DPS for all the hard work he and his staff did to put this week together. It sounds like he is working to make a lot of positive changes that will benefit his group in DPS as well as all CHL Instructors and CHL holders.

If you would like to come to me for CHL Instruction, please contact me through my company website, Hsoi Enterprises. I’m not quite ready to start doing CHL work, got some ducks to get in a row. But anything I do in that regard will be discussed on the Hsoi Enterprises company website (likely not here, since this is a personal blog).

Rangemaster June 2010 Newsletter

/ hsoi

Rangemaster’s June 2010 newsletter is now posted.

While other topics are covered, the article of most interest to me is a debrief of their 52nd student-involved self-defense shooting. This is something worth reading.

One thing that may come as a surprise to folks is that the incident was on a Sunday afternoon, broad daylight, in a “good part of town”. Many would say such an incident would be unpossible under such circumstances. Folks, you don’t get to choose when bad things are going to happen to you. But you can choose whether or not you’ll be prepared for when those bad things happen.

There are a host of lessons to be learned from that incident, apart from the analysis by Tom Givens (which you can get by reading the article). Many things to think about and discuss.

You can’t remain silent to remain silent

/ hsoi / 9 Comments

SCOTUS just ruled that, essentially, if you want the right to remain silent you have to speak up and explicitly invoke that right.

In a narrowly split decision, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority expanded its limits on the famous Miranda rights for criminal suspects on Tuesday – over the dissent of new Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who said the ruling turned Americans’ rights of protection from police abuse “upside down.”

Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wrote the majority opinion, said a suspect who goes ahead and talks to police after being informed he doesn’t have to has waived his right to remain silent. Elena Kagan, who has been nominated by President Barack Obama to join the court, sided with the police as U.S. solicitor general when the case came before the court. She would replace Justice John Paul Stevens, one of the dissenters.

A right to remain silent and a right to a lawyer are at the top of the warnings that police recite to suspects during arrests and interrogations. But Tuesday’s majority said that suspects must break their silence and tell police they are going to remain quiet to stop an interrogation, just as they must tell police that they want a lawyer.

(h/t to EveryDayNoDaysOff for the link) Now, on the surface this looks rather twisted. It also looks like I might be agreeing with the Wise Latina® Justice:

“Criminal suspects must now unambiguously invoke their right to remain silent – which counterintuitively requires them to speak,” she said. “At the same time, suspects will be legally presumed to have waived their rights even if they have given no clear expression of their intent to do so. Those results, in my view, find no basis in Miranda or our subsequent cases and are inconsistent with the fair-trial principles on which those precedents are grounded.”

And to an extent, I am because yes, it doesn’t seem very logical that you must speak in order to remain silent.

But as with all things, the devil is in the details. I’m arm-chair quarterbacking here, and I am not a lawyer… I admit I don’t have the time to read the entire case, just going on what the Washington Post relays. But even in that, there is some important detail if you dig down.

The ruling comes in a case in which a suspect, Van Chester Thompkins, remained mostly silent for a three-hour police interrogation before implicating himself in a Jan. 10, 2000, murder in Southfield, Mich. He appealed his conviction, saying he had invoked his Miranda right to remain silent by remaining silent.

[…]

The officers in the room said Thompkins said little during the interrogation, occasionally answering “yes,” “no,” “I don’t know,” nodding his head and making eye contact as his responses. But when one of the officers asked him if he prayed for forgiveness for “shooting that boy down,” Thompkins said, “Yes.”

He was convicted, but on appeal he wanted that statement thrown out because he said he had invoked his Miranda rights by being uncommunicative with the interrogating officers.

Ah! There’s the details. You can’t pick and choose folks. You either stay silent or you talk — they are mutually exclusive states. This guy talked, thus by definition he’s not remaining silent. Maye he didn’t talk a lot, maybe he didn’t answer every question, but he still talked. I would believe a reasonable person would agree that if someone is talking, they’re not silent. If he’s cherry picking when he exercises his right, how is the questioner supposed to interpret that silence? As exercising of the right to remain silent? As just taking a few minutes to collect your thoughts before answering? That silence is your answer? It’s too ambiguous, and law isn’t a realm for ambiguity.

As far as I can tell, this ruling doesn’t appear to be as horrible as some wish to make it out to be. In this case, Thompkins evidently waived his right to remain silent by well… not remaining silent. Interspersing moments of silence amongst your lack of silence cannot be assumed to be an invocation of the Miranda right.

Put it this way, ever send an email to someone but you don’t get a reply? If you’re not expecting a reply that’s one thing, but let’s say in that email you asked the recipient a question. If you don’t get a reply to your emailed question, what do you assume? That lack of reply is silence, but what does that silence mean? Maybe the email never made it (e.g. mail server problems). Maybe the email got intercepted by anti-spam filtering. Maybe the recipient is out of the office and not checking email until their return next week. Maybe they’re researching the answer to your question. Maybe they’re slacking off. Maybe they don’t like you and don’t want to respond to you, ever. Maybe they just haven’t gotten around to it. Who knows what the reason could be for the lack of reply, for that silence. Should you take that silence to mean some particular thing? Well, you know what they say about “when you assume”. We do much better when there is explicit response, even if it’s to say “Hey man, not going to answer your question, stop emailing me.” because then at least you know instead of hanging in ambiguity. I would think the same applies to this Thompkins case, even tho on the surface yes, it seems odd to have to speak up to remain silent.