…but that the school was unwilling to allow any pro gun rights speaker to come speak to her class, out of concern for how the parents would react.
Did you ever think parents might react negatively to presenting lop-sided arguments? to providing anything less than an actual education to their children? This of course assumes the parents spending their money to send the children to this school care about such things.
One promising thing is the exchange with the teacher… the teacher seems to understand the value of things, and it sounds like the students might actually be thinking — more than can be said for the school administrators. Hopefully the kids will learn a little extra from the whole experience… a “teachable moment” if you will.
We live in a society that strives to put women and men on equal footing, and there’s certainly a lot of merit in that as there are many situations and context where gender and gender-based differences don’t matter. On the flip side, we cannot ignore that there are differences between men and women. When it comes to matters of self-protection, many things are gender-neutral, but there’s no question some things are gender-specific. Kellene articulates some of these quite well. I especially love her final reason:
I carry a firearm because as a woman I have the privilege of giving life. That’s right. I don’t carry a gun to take life, but to ensure that it’s fully given to those who choose live.
While I can understand the open carry folks being upset about this, I think it’s reasonable. There’s a lot of other related legislation working its way through, and there is a high risk of confusion and misunderstanding which could lead to more things failing than succeeding. Long term, we want success, and if it takes a little more time to get there, I think patience is a good thing. Let’s take the wins we can get, one step at a time. Meantime, if you want to see open carry in Texas, continue to work positively, lobby, write your State Representative and Senator, and build momentum and understanding throughout the community and State. Don’t be a sore loser, that will only hurt your cause.
It’s a particularly good issue, with articles talking about: “The 3 C’s”, The 24th Amendment to the US Constitution, and a good article about handgun selection for women.
Getting in the car with the children. It’s dark. They struggle to put their seat belts on in the dark. “Dad, wait… I don’t have my seat belt on… I can’t see the thing the buckle goes into!” My response? “Feel for it.”
I’ve been teaching my kids the importance of doing things by feel. You don’t always need to use your eyes, as you can accomplish many things by just feeling. In fact, sometimes it’s better to use your sense of touch, leaving your sense of sight to perform other duties.
For instance, the reason I opted to write this blog entry is because I was just doing dry-fire practice with my handgun. I was working on malfunction drills and reloads. Everything I did, I was doing by feel. Why? Because I’m practicing on keeping my eyes on the threat. I can’t use any other sense to mind the threat (maybe hearing) so I really want my eyes to be focused on that task. If I have to avert my eyes and focus to the malfunction/reload process for even a second, that takes my eyes off the threat and who knows what they might do the moment my eyes are averted. Thus I need to use my sense of touch to manage the reloading. Sure, there’s a small bit of peripheral vision being used for the reload, but for the most part, it’s touch. In fact, you can get to a point where you could do a reload with your eyes closed, because our body does like to naturally bring its hand together.
This also raises the importance of index: that something is placed in a manner that naturally aids your ability to find and complete a sequence of actions. and in this case, by sense of touch. For example, my reload magazine is positioned with the tip of the top bullet “facing front” so when my left hand grabs the magazine the tip of my index (!) finger is on the point of the bullet, which ensures the magazine is naturally aligned for the reload (no flipping the magazine around in my hand), and my hands and fingers all naturally come together and go to the magazine well at the bottom of the gun for a fast reload. It may be difficult to see in the picture to the left, but it’s there. You’re able to keep you gun’s muzzle between you and the threat, your eyes are up there on the threat, so the gun is in your peripheral vision, you feel for the magazine release with your right/shooting hand, drop the empty or problematic magazine to the ground, meantime your left/other hand is going for the fresh magazine, magazine grabbed and properly indexed, eyes still on the target, magazine brought up and seated, left/other hand racks the slide (no, you don’t use the slide lock as a slide release), and off you go. A bit of vision involved, but it’s all mostly feel, aided by proper indexing.
Another illustration of indexing is if you wear a folding knife clipped inside your pants pocket. Where do you want the knife to be? You want it as far back, as close to the “end” of the pocket as possible. Why? This is a known, established spot. You can hook your thumb anywhere inside the pocket, slide it towards the back of the pocket, and you’ll find the knife. If the knife was clipped anywhere else in the pocket, you slam your thumb into the pocket and then what? Where is the knife relative to your thumb? Do you know? Can you know? Is the time spent finding the knife time well-spent, or precious time wasted? Again, this is indexing. You can place your thumb in the pocket at any point, slide to the rear, and allow yourself to index to that spot where the knife is and off you go. The need for a knife doesn’t always involve the luxury of seeing where your knife is or even an ability to use two hands. And this isn’t just defensive use of a knife. Just mundane things like cutting open a box can go faster and smoother if you can keep your eyes on the task and let your sense of touch, with indexing, help you acquire your tools.
If you’re not using to using your sense of touch, if you’re not used to indexing, take the time to learn. Yes it’s a little uncomfortable to give up reliance upon your eyes, but if you force yourself to do it and allow yourself to go slow and learn and get better with consistent practice, AND if you allow yourself to trust your other senses, you’ll eventually get quite fluent. Being able to spin off other tasks like this to secondary threads (yeah, got my programmer-speak going here) can be a huge help towards more efficient processing and accomplishment of tasks.
Updated:Karl Rehn, wrote me a response to this correcting some stuff. I’m happy to be corrected, and let me share with you what Karl wrote. The words are Karl’s, I just retyped for formatting.
>> Because I’m practicing on keeping my eyes on the threat.
Danger Will Robinson. I have seen more people go down this wrong road with regard to reloads.
Learn to do the reload with the gun held up at nipple level, and look as little as necessary — but nobody that is good at reloading the pistol does it purely by “feel”.
Google “Travis Tomasie reload” and watch the video of his reload, which is the fastest ever recorded. He looks at the gun just enough.
It’s a risk analysis problem. The risk of blowing the reload (empty gun, mag on the ground, lost time) is very high. The risk of getting shot because you took an extra 0.1 sec to look at the mag being seated is not going to be decreased by not looking. Why? Because you are only reloading for one of two reasons: (1) You believe there is a lull in the fight that provides you sufficient time to replace a partially spent mag with a full one. If this is the case you don’t believe you are about to shoot, thus you have to look. (2) Your gun is not capable of shooting because it’s out of ammo or has malfunctioned. In this case you are defenseless until you get the mag in the gun, and what’s critical to you in that situation is time, not awareness. If the gun isn’t shootable and a threat pops up, there is nothing you can do about it until you get the gun loaded. You should already be using the best cover available so it’s not like you are going to stop loading and duck behind cover, since you should have ducked behind cover first before starting to reload.
Looking back at what I wrote, I did give too much impression of doing things totally by feel and involving the eyes as little as possible. My mistake. I am using my eyes, but I will admit I was trying to use them as little as possible so that my eyes were being focused elsewhere. But Karl is right. Depending on the situation your focus ought to shift to the reload itself so that you can ensure a successful reload, or the problem is big enough (e.g. malfunction) it will be what requires your focus and attention. The shift of focus may be quick (that 0.1 seconds to ensure the mag is seated), but still there’s a shift.
The Wall Street Journal has an article on new calls for the “assault-gun ban.” And they seem to get a few things right, but much of it is the same old misconceptions. But you know, I can understand this. Recall, I used to be in the camp of the ignorant so I can understand where all this comes from.
…assault weapons, or guns that can fire rounds more quickly than standard weapons
Oh, so that is what an assault weapon is. So pray tell me, what exactly is a standard weapon? I’d go out on a limb and guess they’d say revolvers would be such a thing, but then you get guys like Jerry Miculik:
So I guess revolvers would be “assault weapons” too. Maybe a standard weapon is your arm throwing a rock?
In November [2008], a record 1,529,635 background checks were performed on firearms sales, up 42% from the same period a year earlier, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. A 24% year-over-year increase followed in December [2008], with similar increases so far this year [2009].
Background checks are considered a measure of sales because they are required during any sale of a new weapon from a federally licensed retailer, or if a weapon is sold or reclaimed from a pawn shop.
I admit I don’t know how it works in other states (tho I reason it’s the same since the 4473 is a Federal form), but I know here in Texas if you have a concealed handgun license you can just show your license and they skip the background check. Why? Because if you have a valid concealed handgun license you’ve been background checked far more extensively and thoroughly than the “insta-check” does, and that you still have the license means you’re still in good standing. So I would reason while the above numbers are certainly a good indicator, I wouldn’t use them as absolutes because with the millions of concealed handgun license holders in this country, I’m sure a few of them bought at least one firearm in the past few months so the real numbers are likely higher.
“Democrats have finally gotten it,” said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. “The message they’ve gotten is if they become gun-control advocates, they are going to suffer at the polls.”
Uh huh. Note that while people love to paint gun-owners as knuckle-dragging Republicans, there are a lot of Democrats that own guns too. Whether their knuckles drag or not remains in question.
When AG Eric Holder stuck his foot in his mouth earlier about bringing back the “assault weapons” ban other top Democrats, like Pelosi and Reid were quick to distance themselves from him. They know they’ll be looking for a new job if they breech the matter. The whole matter of giving Washington D.C. a vote and how that bill has gun rights squarely as an issue within it… the Democrats know how they proceed on this matter will greatly affect their future re-election efforts because how they proceed in it will tell exactly how they feel on the matter. It’s wonderful to watch them squirm. I mean, they love to scream about “rights” and now when something comes along that improves rights that they don’t necessarily care for… oh, how amusing it is.
The weapons used in the Alabama shootings “are military-bred firearms developed for the specific purpose of killing human beings quickly and efficiently,” wrote a coalition of groups, including the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, in a joint release on Wednesday. “Today we call on the U.S. Congress to pass a federal assault weapons ban.”
Of course… the Brady’s. They seem to love to dance on the still-warm graves when they can use it to further their agenda.
But still, tell me… how will banning any sort of gun serve to stop people from going crazy? Look at the UK. Guns are more or less banned; people still go crazy and commit horrible acts. Banning objects does not stop people from going crazy and doing stupid and/or terrible things.
And let’s also ignore something else. Consider the millions of “assault weapons” owned in this country by private citizens. Have we gone crazy? Have we all instantly turned into blood-thirsty maniacs hell-bent on destruction? How many people today didn’t go on a killing spree? We tend to focus on the one that did bad and ignore the millions that do good. Consider this yourself when you’re driving around town. There are hundreds or thousands of other cars on the road all around you. You pay them no mind because they are going about their own business and never tread on you. But then there’s that one asshole that cuts you off and nearly runs you off the road, and that’s the asshole that you focus on and ruins your whole day. Thus because that asshole was driving one of those evil SUV’s (probably painted black at that), we must call for a ban on all SUV’s because of that one asshole that ruins it for the rest of us, right? Is that a logical train of thought?
Under current federal law, anyone over 18 years old can buy a semiautomatic assault rifle from a licensed gun dealer as long as the buyer passes a background check verifying that he or she isn’t a convicted felon or mentally ill, among other things. Unlicensed dealers, such as those at gun shows, may sell semiautomatic assault rifles to anyone of any age without conducting a background check.
So are you saying there’s a problem with current federal law? If you don’t like where the line is drawn, pray tell me where do you want the line to be drawn? Well, we already know that answer… you don’t want a line at all because if there are no guns there’s no line to draw in the first place, right? So if we have no guns, then that means no guns period. Not even for the police, not even for the military. No wait you say? Those people should have guns! Ah, so you see some merit in people having guns. So what sets those particular people apart from the rest of us citizens? A uniform? That the State grants them authoritiy? Ah, a dangerous road we’re heading down.
And those unlicensed dealers? They’re private citizens performing private transactions. If they don’t do it at gun shows, they’ll do it in their homes or at other locations. It doesn’t matter. So you say, ban this too… any/all private sales. So, a father can’t sell or transfer a gun to his son now? But note… no matter what laws you wish to institute, it’s only going to stop the Good Guys, the law-abiding. Once again we must remember that a criminal — by definition — doesn’t obey they law. They will still sell, or more likely steal, whatever guns they want. The laws we have don’t stop criminals from doing bad things, so more laws won’t stop them. You say it’ll make it harder for them to get at things, but anyone with enough determination in this world can get and/or do whatever they want to. You only truly make it harder on the Good Guys. Why would you want to do that?
Hrm… this went on longer than I expected. But it’s the same old things. Folks, it is terrible when someone does a horrible thing like a mass killing. If they chose to use a car and rammed it through a crowded farmers market killing many people, we wouldn’t be calling for a ban on cars. When someone used airplanes and flew them into buildings killing thousands, we didn’t call for a ban on airplanes. But when someone uses a gun, we call for a ban on guns. Why? In any of these cases the object the crazy person used didn’t cause the destruction, it was the crazy person.
Perpetuating lies and misconceptions about firearms does little good. Like any lie, eventually it will be exposed and the credibility of the liar will be damaged, and then your cause will be hurt even more. If you don’t like guns that’s fine, but learn the truth about them. Truth will only serve you better in the long run.
Thank you for contacting me about federal firearms laws. I appreciate having the benefit of your comments on this matter.
It is essential to safeguard the law-abiding citizen’s constitutional right to own and use firearms designed for legitimate purposes such as hunting, target shooting, collecting, and self-protection. Restricting this right runs counter to the intent of our Founding Fathers, who expressly guaranteed that citizens would retain the right to keep and bear arms.
As a former Texas Supreme Court Justice and Attorney General, I have firsthand knowledge of crime-fighting policies that work, and I believe that citizens’ Second Amendment rights should not be restricted because of the actions of criminals. Rather, we must respect the rights of law-abiding citizens and focus our attention on the source of violent crime: criminals who use firearms to commit crimes. I believe that strictly enforcing the law and meting out longer sentences for career criminals and those who use firearms when committing crimes will reduce crime more effectively than gun or equipment bans, which primarily serve to take firearms away from law-abiding citizens.
I appreciate the opportunity to represent Texans in the United States Senate, and you may be certain that I will continue working with my colleagues to protect our Second Amendment rights. Thank you for taking the time to contact me.
Sincerely,
JOHN CORNYN
United States Senator
517 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Tel: (202) 224-2934
Fax: (202) 228-2856 http://www.cornyn.senate.gov
Eventually the woman’s daughter and son-in-law arrived and were able to hold the intruder at gunpoint. Finally 911 gets through. Police are dispatched and arrive 13 minutes later… 13… minutes… later.
According to the article:
[Capt. Mike Morgan of the Parker County sheriff’s office] said he understands the family’s frustration. But he said records show that when 911 dispatchers answered the calls, the family had hung up.
Morgan said cellphone calls can take up to 30 seconds to connect in the dispatch center.
Cellphone technology is great, but it still has problems. When you’re in a situation like this, 30 seconds is going to seem like an eternity. Even still, how much evil can happen in 30 seconds time? And then, 13 minutes to respond.
As the saying goes, when seconds count, police are only minutes away.
While it’s nice to know there are other people in this world that are willing to keep you safe from harm, in the end the only person you can count on being around when you’re being attacked is you. You’re in the best position to preserve yourself. Ms. Hokett now knows that:
Hokett said she hopes she never needs 911 again. But just in case, she said her daughter bought her a shotgun that she has places near her bed.
Greil then called Public Safety at 11:24 p.m. and spoke with them for 13 minutes, according to her phone records.
Within one minute of Greil’s call, Public Safety had contacted Borough Police, Cliatt said. Minutes later, Public Safety and Borough Police officers were canvassing the area. The officers had already begun their patrol at 11:29 p.m. when Public Safety received a second call with a similar report.
So basically, call goes in and it takes about 5 minutes before formalized law enforcement shows up on scene to start working. If we look at the Virginia Tech data, every minute Cho killed at least 3 people and shot a total of 4. So in 5 minutes of response time, a little math shows us that 20 people would be shot, at least 15 killed. Now, it took 80 minutes before the campus alert system notified the students. Go ahead, do some math.
The article continues:
At 12:40 a.m., when the threat was found to be credible, the University sent out the first warning messages via the Princeton Telephone and E-mail Notification System (PTENS). Students told the ‘Prince’ that they received the message between 12:45 and 12:48 a.m.
So it took 76 minutes for them to determine the threat was credible. Then it took an additional 5-8 minutes before students received word. Go ahead, do the math.
The article continues:
Executive Vice President Mark Burstein said he was “extremely satisfied” with the emergency response. “Both our Public Safety department and the Borough Police reacted quickly. The speed with which they responded was very reassuring,” Burstein said in an interview at around 2:30 a.m. Saturday. “Our notification systems worked well.”
Well, I guess the system functioned correctly, but even then 5-8 minutes is a very long time. Again, do the math.
The article continues:
Cliatt also praised the University’s response, adding that she did not believe the 80-minute gap between the first report and the notification of the campus community was unnecessarily long.
“The things that took place in that time period obviously took 80 minutes,” she said, noting that all “action steps” taken during this period were necessary. “Canvassing the area, getting access to prox information to see if various dorms had been accessed, convening the task force, putting together the alert message, all those things take time,” she explained.
All those things take time. Killing at least 3 people and shooting a total of 4 every minute… that takes time too.
The article continues:
Cliatt also emphasized that the University considers the fear and anxiety caused by emergency alerts when deciding whether a threat is sufficiently credible to merit issuing an alert. “The safety of our community is our top priority, and that includes both the physical and the emotional safety of our campus,” she said.
Ah, the emotional scarring of our children. Because fear and anxiety of the sheeple is more concerning and emotionally scarring than seeing your friend die in your arms, or a parent dealing with the loss of their child.
Thankfully in this situation it was just someone exercising poor judgement and I hope they are dealt with accordingly. But it still demonstrates failure of these systems to truly keep people safe.
