A Couple Of Things

A month or so ago, I got an email from James at The Typical Shooter blog.  He wanted to know if he could do a write up on me and link to the story I wrote for Aaron at Weapon Blog.  I said yes and he did.  If you are interested you can go here.  The article itself does not offer anything new to my story, but he offers his perspective.  If nothing else head on over to check out his other articles.  He has really good stuff and it's an excellent resource for the new shooters in the groups.

I wanted to thank all of you for heading to She's a Garand Gal and offering your support.  As you can imagine this has not been easy on her. 

This morning I read over at Say Uncle that Josh Horwitz has a problem with guns and those who own them, even the legal ones. Here is part of that article...

Looman admits that he regularly "open carries" a firearm. Open Carry is not necessary for self-defense--just about every state that allows the practice also has liberal Concealed Carry laws. Open Carry is instead a political statement in the best tradition of John Wilkes Booth, Timothy McVeigh, Sharron Angle and Ted Nugent. The message is, "Voting is peachy, but if we can't get what we want through the ballot, we reserve the right to administer 'Second Amendment remedies.'" Such insurrectionist ideology has been spoon-fed to right wing Americans for years by the National Rifle Association (NRA) and its Executive Vice-President, Wayne LaPierre. 

I don't know enough about the laws or why every single person who open carries chooses to do so and I don't know enough about John Wilkes Booth, Timothy McVeigh or even the Nug to comment on what political statement they were or are trying to make, but I can comment on the completely insane idea that  legal gun owners go into a voting site or anywhere for that matter with the idea of strong arming others into doing what they want.  If Mr. Horwitz bothered to read a single book or blog or talking to any law abiding, legally licensed gun owner then he would know that not one of them is trying to force anyone into anything.  Actually he does know that.  He is patently aware of all the numbers and the motives of those who legally carry a firearm, but his point is not to inform, it is to scare.

Here is the deal, people who legally own guns are looking to protect themselves from the bad guy. You know the one who is trying to force himself on others.  And by force, I mean grabbing their arm and shoving them onto the pavement and then laying on top of them. I mean by taking out a knife and stabbing someone violently.  I mean busting into a woman's house after she barricaded the door.  I mean force. In addition, I don't know a single gun owner that is trying to make a law requiring all people to carry guns.  Sure a blogger or two might reminisce about a time in our country's history where men were required to carry guns and the people respected The Constitution, but they are not trying to force anything on anyone else. All they want is for the folks that are elected to uphold The Constitution actually do just that.

There is no force or threat by the mere presence of a gun.  If there were my daughter's bedroom would not be a pigsty right now.  My daughter is 13, she is well aware of the rules.  She knows I will not be pleased and that I am not a pushover and she is gonna have to clean it up.  She also knows I carry a gun and have no problem using it on a bad guy and she knows that no matter how annoyed I get with her constant teenage need to buck the system, I am not gonna use the gun on her.  She has zero fear that I or my husband or our 20 year old son or any of our friends are going to "administer our second amendment" rights as a "remedy" to the problem.  I serve on the PTA and everyone there knows I carry(not at the school) and many of them disagree with me, sometimes passionately and yet not one of them fears I will force my opinion on them by using my gun. The mere presence of my gun(if we are at my house or theirs or at a restaurant) does not intimidate any one of them to change their opinion.  None of them are afraid of me, at all and my gun is right there the whole time. The gun CAN NOT hurt anyone. The gun can not threaten them or force them into anything.  I would have to be the threat.  I would have to decide to use the gun in order to make any kind of force possible. 

The fear is not from the gun or even from Mr. Looman.  No one was afraid of Mr. Looman and no one there thought, not even for a second that they should change their vote because a man with a gun walked into the school.  They are not afraid at all.  Mr. Horwitz has all the facts.  These people like Josh Horwitz are looking for control.  They want to control all the money, all the jobs, all the weapons.  They want to tell you and me how much we are worth and lets be clear, they place very little value on us. These anti gun people want power in every possible way and they are  lying and using fear to get it.  In general if someone intentionally tries to scare me, it usually works.  These people scare the hell out of me and they should scare you too.  If someone lies to you for "your own good", you might want to think twice about giving them too much power over your money, your freedoms and most especially your safety.

Lastly, I don't write this post with any hope that Josh Horowitz is going to change his mind, evil rarely does, but I write it for you, the one who might still be on the fence.  If you are not convinced that the anti gun crowd will use any possible means to lie to you go here and read Weer'd's post.  As you do, think about this, I use what happened to me as a way to say "Hey, I made a mistake" and because I don't want anyone else to make that same mistake.  I don't want anyone to be able to hurt you and so I share my ugly mistake and say here are a few things I learned, perhaps they could help you.  You are in full control of whether you want to take those suggestions and nothing that I do is a lie or is used for my own benefit, nothing.  You should look at the people behind the tweets and blogs and see who they are and what they want before you decide to make yourself a sacrificial lamb for their cause.