“It is with great sadness that I stand here today to share with you that we experienced an unthinkable tragedy at our high school this morning.”
– Dr. Leigh Wall, Santa Fe ISD
To be fair, it is entirely possible that Dr. Wall did not mean “unthinkable” in the literal sense. Still, I think it is worth addressing the use of that word when it comes to mass murder in a school…or any other act of violence, for that matter. While violent crime is thankfully unfamiliar to the vast majority of America (386.3 offenses for every 100,000 people) , no one with access to a television, a radio, a computer, or smartphone should be in denial of the possibility.
Anyone who steps out their door in the morning truly believing “it can’t happen here” is a fool. Furthermore, if you are in some sort of position which entrusts you with responsibility for the lives of others and you still believe “it can’t happen here,” you are both negligent and morally bankrupt.
Although there were armed officers present today, and by all accounts they performed admirably, no law-abiding adult should be denied the right to defend themselves immediately from violence…right now. While prevention is certainly preferable, I know of no one who has a realistic proposal to guarantee that such violence can be prevented without fail. And once the killing begins, prevention is no longer an option. History has proven again and again that the longer it takes for an armed defender to arrive at the scene, the more people die.
If you are a leader…in a school system, a business, or any other organization…and you sit safe in your office while those in your charge are left vulnerable, you are wrong. It is one thing to opt for defenselessness for yourself, but to force others to be so is wrong. “Gun-free zones” are wrong. “Gun-free zones” kill.
Unthinkable, my ass. You had better think about it.
A recent article on Huffpost, by alleged hunters, is repeating the old narrative that the only guns which merit any protection are those which are deemed necessary for hunting. After all, they say, you just don’t need an AR-15 to hunt. Big mistake, Elmer.
Never mind that the 2nd Amendment has nothing to do with hunting, and never mind the obvious arguments against living in a society where you are only allowed to possess the things which you need (as decided by someone else). Let’s stick to the idea that you only need guns which are suitable for hunting, because there is a very specific problem with that position.
The problem is that once need becomes the linchpin of your position, you now open up the debate as to whether or not you really need to hunt at all. And you know what? You don’t.
There are very few people left in this country who require hunted game meat to feed themselves, if any. We hunt because we enjoy the activity, and because we like game meat, but we don’t need it any more than we need a new Xbox. And if you really want to argue the case that you and your family need hunted game meat in order to survive, I’ve got a solution for you…and you aren’t going to like it.
It involves means testing before being allowed to hunt for subsistence. If your income as reported to the IRS does not fall below the poverty line, then you do not qualify as a subsistence hunter. Remember, the only allowable guns are those suitable for hunting, and since your income level means you do not need to hunt, you may possess no firearms at all.
The next phase of the solution comes once all the non-subsistence hunters and their nasty old non-hunting guns are weeded out. Now we have a relatively small subset of impoverished gun owners who simply cannot afford to buy meat at the grocery to feed their families. It then becomes a simple matter to put them on government assistance (if they aren’t already) and bump their allowance enough to enable them to buy their meat at the supermarket like everybody else.
The supposed need to hunt has now been removed once and for all. Now, not only have the awful guns no one needed to hunt been eliminated, the so-called “good guns” are unnecessary as well. Once you put need into the equation, you are one government-issued EBT card away from no longer needing to hunt. There’ll be no tasty venison for you, but you won’t starve. And once you no longer need to hunt, you won’t need any of those guns at all, Elmer.
The party’s over…at least for me and the Sig Sauer P320RX Compact. I don’t typically do gun review stuff here, but I think this is worth sharing. I bought this gun about six months ago, looking to make the switch not just from iron sights to a red dot, but from a relatively low-capacity pistol to one with more ammunition on board.
After about a month of every day carry, I picked up the gun one morning and the red dot simply would not come on. Sig utilizes a technology they call MOTAC, which shuts down the reticle after two minutes of inactivity in order to preserve the battery. Then when the sight senses motion, the dot immediately reactivates. Of course, if you are carrying the pistol on your person for 10-12 hours per day (or more), the reticle remains on constantly, consuming power from the battery. I replaced the battery with a fresh one, and the sight came back to life with no problems. As I continued to carry and shoot the gun, I was finding that the dot was dying on me about once per month.
In a fantastic IWB holster from JM Custom Kydex
This bothered me, because it seemed a bit too frequent for a carry pistol, and I wanted more information on battery life. This is obviously a critical consideration in a carry pistol, since you need to be 100% comfortable that the gun will function in the event that it is needed in a defensive situation. And although the P320RX does have backup iron sights…well, I already had an iron-sighted carry gun, and I didn’t buy a gun with an optic in order to keep shooting with irons. Since I still really didn’t have a good feel for what sort of battery life I should expect, I did not have the confidence I thought I should. So when I went to the NRA Annual Meeting in Dallas, I sought out a representative of Sig Sauer who was knowledgeable on the Romeo 1 red dot, and asked him what his recommendation was regarding battery life in a daily carry gun.
Unfortunately, his answer didn’t inspire the confidence I was seeking. When I explained my concerns to him, and asked for a recommended battery change interval, he advised that for a daily carry gun the battery should be changed every 2-3 weeks. That’s 26 batteries per year based on the bi-weekly replacement schedule, and while the 1632 battery that the Romeo 1 isn’t terribly expensive if bought in bulk, I just don’t think I want to fool with that.
Don’t get me wrong. I like the gun itself, and although I was still getting used to shooting an optic-sighted pistol, I did like having the dot. If you don’t mind keeping track of bi-weekly battery changes, maybe this won’t be an issue for you. But for me…for now…I have to conclude that the Sig Sauer P320RX and its Romeo 1 optic are too high maintenance, and not quite ready for primetime. Maybe someday Sig will come out with an improved version with better battery life; maybe someday I’ll buy a replacement slide with iron sights and use that. I will probably keep shooting the gun in USPSA Carry Optics for the rest of this season, but as a concealed carry gun, I don’t think it works for me right now. Time to turn out the lights…
It isn’t me. It isn’t you. The last American hasn’t been born yet.
Down? Perhaps. But never out.
It is certainly easy to get down on the future of the nation known as the United States of America, and there is plenty to worry about. We live in a time of weaponized government agencies and regulators, seemingly more interested in putting citizens in their place…underneath the boot of the ruling class…than fulfilling their Constitutional duty to preserve the rights and freedoms of those citizens. Political opponents use the machinery of a massive federal government to investigate each other and leverage the justice system as a tool of overthrow to subvert the will of the people.
I have only been alive for 55 years…a blink in the timeline of the United States…and yet in my lifetime I have seen Americans gradually but steadily turned from citizens into subjects. Serfs destined to do no more than to pay taxes in service of the Deep State, with no apparent way out. There seems to be no realistic way to turn the tide back towards the free nation that the Founders envisioned and made real.
It was a Great Experiment, the greatest the world had ever seen. And it still is, even as it declines. You see, America was founded as the first nation in history which was constituted on an idea that men could…and should…rule themselves. An idea that men could…and should…live free, as God intended. An idea that men could…and should…form consensual governments to preserve those freedoms.
An idea.
But from this, we should take heart. Because no matter how dark things may appear, the truth is that America has always existed. Long before 1781, there was an America. Since the beginning of the human race, there has been an America. Heck, ten thousand years ago, there was a caveman squatting by the fire with the idea, “Why do we always have to do whatever Og says?” That was an American. Back in the 70’s, there was an inmate in a Soviet gulag with the idea, “This is not how it’s supposed to be.” That was an American. Right now, there is a prisoner in a North Korean labor camp who knows…knows…with every fiber of his being, that he is meant to be free. That’s an American.
An American is anyone who believes in the idea that this nation was built upon. They don’t even have to live within our borders, as long as they hold that idea. Live that idea. Love that idea.
I try to remember this whenever I become discouraged. When the news of the day makes me fear for my country, I draw strength from the reality that America can never die. Never. Because America is not a place…it is an idea. And as long as there is a single individual on this planet who holds to the idea of America…then America lives on.
We may be down, but we are not out. Throughout the course of human history, there has always been at least one individual clinging to an idea of liberty. There has always been…and always will be…someone who holds to an idea that one man was not meant to bow to another. There will always be one more individual who believes in that idea, and that one individual, that last individual…that last American…has not been born yet.
Back in November 2017, my patient co-host Michael J. Woodland, interviewed St. Louis, MO firearms trainer and holistic community activist Kevin Dixie. I apologize in advance for the lateness and the quality of the show. I just got a chance to process the audio and present it this week for the Black Man With A Gun Show Podcast. (For the record don’t use a Bluetooth device for an interview) And there are some sounds I couldn’t get rid of when a little girl does a drive by but please stick with it. I did the best I could…
Founder of NOC firearms training, NoOtherChoice.net, Kevin Dixie is awesome. He is not talking to the choir for more FaceTime. He is the real deal. The audio starts off a little rough but try to stay with it because it is gold. Aiming for the Truth conference coming. He explains it.
He is doing this for sure not for show!
Family first, how to talk to people about the Second Amendment, empowering, law abiding, attacking misconceptions, for fatherhood. A mentor in the community. Former LEO. A good guy with a gun. A Black Man With A Gun.
Andrew Branca with a VA case in the Law of Self Defense feature at the end. The show is almost 60 minutes this week.
Don’t forget we have a free app in IOS and Android for this podcast.
The facts about children and guns. Michael J. Woodland interviews April Cayce of @Rebound911, The Law of Self Defense with Andrew Branca, Admonition to parents.
First I want to tip my hat to those successful baby boomers that are now the gray haired group in their seventies.
This generation that survived the Civil Rights era, bussing, political upheavals, World War II, the Nazi Holocaust, fear of the H-Bomb, Korea, Viet Nam, the Cuban Missile Crisis, Watergate, have raised children that have invented the internet, social media, drones, video games, remote control vehicles, cell phones and all the stuff we take for granted that the millennial can’t live without.
Somehow unfortunately my generation has forgotten that being a parent sis a full time job. We “collectively” hopefully not you my firmed, have not learned some important things from the old folks. Are you still with me?
The first lesson is that love is sacrificial. True love, real love, is not an emotion. It is not a passing feeling, or equal to I heart you!
Love is expressed more that it was said in my parent’s generation. Who remembers the Encyclopedia Britannica, the World Book and maybe even the Bible Stories series of books our parents “invested” in so we would have chance to go to college or get good grades so we could get a job and get out on our own? Those books were our Google. Remember the dictionary? My parents worked two jobs so that we had a house, clothes to wear and expensive breakfast cereal to eat on Saturday mornings. Named brand cereal too, like Capt Crunch, Sugar Pops, Rice Kris pies….
They made payments on the encyclopedia. When someone got a new car in the neighborhood or family it was a big deal Folks celebrated with you.
Oh and by the way, there where guns and live ammunition in the house. There were military arms brought home from the wars they served in or bought at pawn shops to protect the home. My maternal grandmother, mother of the church, deaconess, preparer of Holy Communion on second Sundays, kept a loaded single barrel Sears and Roebuck shotgun behind the kitchen woodstove, all my life. Nobody touched it. Nobody died from it being there, unsecured. My paternal grandmother was a little rough around the edges, she kept a loaded Belgium Browning A5 shotgun in her bedroom over the door and a concealed weapon, and an Italian handled switchblade knife in her bra.
Loaded guns, oh yeah, then there was my stepfathers family in Spotsylvania, VA. They were avid hunters and gun owners. They competed in turkey shoots, hunted on private lands. They hunted, and ate raccoon, opossum, groundhogs, squirrels, white tail deer, and muskrat. They kept rifles and shotguns in the hallways of their homes; pistols were hidden but shared when the men gathered in the garage to talk football, baseball or boxing. I couldn’t wait till I was old enough to be let in to the group where they cussed, smoked and drank alcohol. Lots of drinking.
Was the Greatest Generation any different from us? Not really, all the negative of humanity still existed. They smoked, drank, excessively, it was culturally acceptable like being gay is now. They were racist, homophobic and everything in between but one of the key things I remember that is different is responsibility.’
Responsibility – the state or fact of being accountable or to blame for something.
Most adults accepted their responsibility back in the day. The ones that didn’t waked away.
“Papa was a rolling stone”
Luckily more stayed than ran away so we survived. What helped is that there were enough surrogates that took up the slack.
Someone protected us. Someone fed us. Someone was there for you. We as kids did not raise ourselves. We respected authority. We respected ourselves. We respected adults. We understood that sometimes you had to wait till your mother or father came home. Sometimes you have to wait till you were old enough, tall enough, and strong enough. Our parents and adults said NO to us.
And NO worked. Do you know that you can delegate authority but not responsibility? I learned that in the Marine Corps.
Your big sister could pick you up from school but it was still your parent’s responsibility.
Today, we have kids assaulting adults, playing the Knock Out Game.
Today we have kids calling protective services on their parents for disciplining them.
Kids telling their parents what to do
Today we have kids joining criminal gang empires
Today we have kid prostituting other kids
Kids raping other kids
Kids selling dope
Kids killing other kids in schools and we are blaming the gun.
What the hell is going on with these parents?
If you love your children, then you sacrifice your time, your career, your TV Shows to teach them, train them, explain to them the truths of life.
A child that grows up alone is raised by YouTube, The Real, the Cartoon network or some horrible but popular reality TV show that is not real.
I can’t stand all the fake protesting going on for every damn thing.
The kids want to be civil rights heroes really bad. They are not. That starbucks protest is so asinine. Protest Gang Violence and the murders in Chicago. Protest opium addiction, vaping, and smoking potpourri, protect the murder of women, protest the sex trade, sex slavery, or something real.
Parents need to be parents again. Gun don’t murder. There is no such thing as gun violence, its just violence.
It’s our responsibility to educate our children to love our families again, to protect our family and to save our family
We grew up in a house of hard working blue-collar people, mixed in there were hustlers and hunters that partied like in was New Years Eve every Friday and Saturday night. And nobody touched a gun that was in the house. It’s was and is never the gun.
I know its hard to counter the repeated lies about gun control assault weapons and AR15 to a growing group of people that take NO responsibility for anything but try.
You don’t drown if you fall in water, only if you stay there.
Thank you for listening.
GunFacts
Myth: 13 children are killed each day by guns
Fact:Adults included– This “statistic” includes “children” up to age 19 or 24, depending on the source. 1Since most violent crime is committed by males ages 16-24, the “13 children” number includes adult gang members dying during criminal activity. The proper definition of ‘child’ is a person between birth and puberty (typically 13-14 years old) and in 2013 only 1 child was killed on an average day nationwide, or about 0.02 children per state per day.
Fact: 411 children (age 14 and under) died from gunfire in all of 2012 or slightly more than one per day. This includes homicides, accidents, and suicides combined. 2
Fact:Criminals are included– According to the CDC, over half of all homicides of victims aged 15-19 are gang-related. The same study found that gang-related homicides are more likely to involve firearms than those that are not (95% versus 69%). 3
Fact: Suicides are included– 26% of child firearm deaths are suicides. Hence, the “13 children” statistic includes these suicides. 4
Fact: For contrast:
1,446 children die per year in transportation accidents. 5
Parental neglect and abuse account for 80% of all child deaths (1,274) which dwarfs gun deaths. 6
1,917 children die each day from malaria 7 around the world and 15 men, women, and children per day are murdered by a convicted felon in government supervised parole/probation programs in the U.S. 8
Shooting with Iron sights is a bit like driving with a manual transmission. It’s always great to learn how to drive a manual but automatics the United States have become overwhelmingly common and few people ever learn to drive both.
For the same reasons you teach a new driver to drive an automatic,you should teach a new shooter to shoot with some sort of optic. It’s always weird how shooters demand new comers to learn with iron sights even though they are more complicated and can cause problems inthe range.
Here, we’re going to dispel a few myths about the purpose of the scope and what they actually do for shooters and give a few reasons as to why new shooter should always be taught with some sort of magnified optic or red Dot sight before they are taught with iron sights.
Purpose of a Scope
Scopes can do a lot for a shooter. They can be used to predict the ballistic performance of around and bring range estimation capabilities to the very forefront of your consciousness why your shooting but the two main things they do is simplify the aiming process and add magnification.
Simplifying the aiming process is one of the main reasons you should start a new shooter with an optic. Instead of having to align three things, the front sight, rear sight, and target, you only need to up two things, a reference point, andthe target. This allows you to deliver your fundamentals of marksmanship much easier, which is great for new shooters.
Telescopic sights also have the distinction of adding magnification. This is important because it optically brings the target closer to your eye and allows for finer adjustments of the site picture. In layman’s terms, it makes the target appear bigger, so you have an easier time lining up the crosshairs of the scope. In older people or just nervous people, magnified optics can help them see much better and allow for more fun time at the range.
Magnification does not help you shoot better, it helps you see better. Many people lose sight of this and they purchase scopes that are way too big thinking is going to make them better shooters. If you don’t have the fundamentals of marksmanship before you bought the scope, if you jerk your trigger or don’t fall through you’re going to have the same problems once you spend all the money getting your scope mounted up and dialed in. Make sure you know how to shoot before you start buying things to make you a better shooter. Start with simple optics and work your way up.
Why You Should Learn with a Scope First?
It’s Easier
The primary reason to learn with a scope on the rifle first is thatit’s easier. Yes, this is the exact reason many people site is the reason why you should learn with iron sights first but in the grand scheme of things you are more likely to be using an optic that iron sights and with the beginning shooter it is much easier to get them moving and enjoying shooting with a scope that is with iron sights.
It Reduces Anxiety
Because scopes and optics are much easier to use than iron sights they reduce anxiety with new shooters that are afraid. Many people have a deer in the headlights look the first time they go shooting. With safety being the paramount lesson to be learned early on, and proper handling of a firearm being next marksmanship and proficiency with iron sights are far down the line. Throwing all of these concepts at a new shooter at once is a recipe for disaster. Every effort should be made to reduce anxiety and simplify new shooters experience at the range. This means using tools like low magnification optics and red dot gun sights.
It’s More Fun
Anyone who’s ever shot with a red dot optic at close range or on the move, or used a highly magnified scope to shoot targets at long-range will never forget it. Using optics is just plain fun. Telescopic scopes and optical gun sights at another depth to shooting that makes using firearms more enjoyable and making shooting more enjoyable for new shooters is the single best way to make sure they continue shooting.
It Adds Weight to Reduce Recoil
If you are shooting a medium to large war centerfire rifle for the first time, a heavy, high-powered optic can go a long way to attaining recoil and smoothing out the impulse. New shooters especially have a hard time managing recoil and a lightweight .308 hunting rifle the scope can be as much is a third of the overall poundage. Removing this wage can add significantly to the perceived recoil and is a bad idea for training a new shooter with a large rifle than they would normally be used too.
How & When to Transition to Iron Sights
Simply put, usually transitioned iron sights when you want to. Modern electronic a magnified optics are reliable enough that even on a home defense gun you can reasonably expect them to do their job and not rely on backup iron sights. That being said, every shooter at some point should become familiar with iron sights and be able to use them within at least 50 yards.
Batteries do die, and things do break but iron sights have been the standard for well over 200 years and there’s no telling how long in the future we will rely on them for aiming reference out to several hundred yards.
Men in the old West could shoot well out past 1000 yards with big bore buffalo guns and nothing but sliding iron sights. Nowadays were lucky if we get to shoot past 100 yards and many people never get the opportunity to range out with iron sights.
Do your best as a shooter to progress at your own pace and really learn how to safely handle a weapon. Iron sights are part of marksmanship, but scopes and other gun sights have become the norm and should form the bedrock of your marksmanship in the future they provide an enormously important tool for teaching new shooters.
Author BIO
McKinley Downing is an avid shooter & firearms instructor. He shoots, hunts and is a patriot in the sense that he enjoys pissing off gun grabbers and an anti-hunters. He has worked with and around firearms for several years, and enjoys talking to anyone interested in learning more about firearms and their 2nd Amendment rights. He currently writes for several online outlets on the use of guns and ammunition, you can find more articles from him on Outdoor Pursuit.
We are talking effective communication for the new gun rights activist. The struggle is real and you can win this thing if you are properly prepared to do battle. The opportunity to make a difference can come at any time and I want to share some stuff I have learned over the years about communicating. The USCCA is having a three day expo next week and I got a chance to snag my friend Tim Schmidt for an interview. http://uscca.blackmanwithagun.com to join up. Michael J. Woodland has a commentary about the attack on the Second Amendment. Atty. Andrew Branca is back with a Law of Self Defense tip and story of the week.
Fight on!
Pro-rights people are under attack every day. We are demonized, vilified, and maligned by people that get their point across more effectively than we do. Communicating effectively is more important than talking. The facts can get lost in the presentation. I want to share with you how to say the right thing at the right time. Communicating is secret sauce of life.
There are a lot of smart people that are not great communicators. If you can communicate with others, the opposite sex, other folks in our community or when you get the opportunity to speak against gun control, effectively it makes a difference. The newest tool of the anti-gun movement has been children. The only thing more precious might be your pets.
So what do you do? For many of us it is to counter-protest. The media will be selective and chose someone from our side that they can ridicule or discredit if possible. You won’t get chosen to speak if you are wearing a suit, clean shaven and not wearing a baseball hat. If they don’t have a choice they may still give you some camera time but edit what you say. You speak for 30 minutes and they put .30 seconds of that on the air.
I’ve been doing this since 1991 and would like to give you some tips. In addition to that I just so happened to get a copy of the anti-gunner playbook that I will gladly share with you if you ask. It’s an 80 page PDF I’ll exchange for a working email address from you. I am trying to grow an email list of leaders in our community so if you want a free copy, click here
Context is king for communication.
It’s not where you take things from, it’s where you take them to. — Jean-Luc Godard
Context helps you listen. Think of context as anticipating your reader’s questions, and answering them. Get into their heads and hearts: You need to really understand how and when your messages are going to be in front of your audience and what they are thinking and feeling in that moment. Every word you use or visual you include is filtered through their state of mind at that moment. Some of you call that “emotion.” Don’t ever ignore the context of how, where and when your communication will fall into the audience’s day.
A Consistent Message
It’s where, how, when, and to whom, and how often you say it. For the pro-gun community, we have facts on our side but often lack the power of persuasion. We need to be as relentless as our opponents. If your message actually matters, then surely the time, place and tone you say it will matter equally.
Correct Facts
Your communication requires a high level of accuracy in reporting information. Characteristics of effective interviews in media include clear dates, facts, resources and schedules that should be double-checked for completeness and clarity. Effective messages are also free of jargon, and slang.
For example, the reporter says: What is your response to the fact that more children are shot and killed in the US than anywhere in the industrialized world?
YOU say passionately that I heard that too but I know it’s not true, did you know that criminals are included? Yeah according to the CDC, over half of all homicides of victims aged 15-19 are gang-related. The same study found that gang-related homicides are more likely to involve firearms than those that are not (95% versus 69%).
Clear Purpose
Effective messages include a clear purpose to inform, persuade or collaborate with the intended audience. The message should be designed according to the audience’s level of understanding, potential reaction and relationship with the composer. Generally, it’s best to include only one main idea in each message, unless there are closely related issues that must be addressed together. Having a clear purpose in mind for this communication will also help determine the medium used to deliver the message.
Complete Messages
Prepare at least three solid points for when the reporter sticks a microphone into your face or attaches you a lapel mic. Knowing that you will be edited, keep your message succinct, know that the camera is rolling if you are in their presence. Nothing is off camera for you. If the question is off base deliver your points, regardless of what was asked. If they want to use your sound byte give them the complete message of what you prepared. For example, the reporter says,
Thank you for agreeing to speak with us. What do you have to say in response to the uniquely destructive role that the NRA plays in America?
You respond with a smile, and say, I’m not sure where you get your facts but as a good neighbor, an active recreational and competition shooter I know that though the number of firearms owned by private citizens has been increasing steadily since 1970, and that the overall rate of homicides and suicides has not risen.
Creative Characters
The most effective messages are short, engaging and to the point. Figure out how to provide infotainment. Don’t deliver or respond to the sound bite the same dry, I know more than you, you are an idiot look. Look at Wayne LaPierre, don’t be him. There is only one Wayne. You be you. To be effective your communication should include a bit of creativity but not buffoonery.
Overall, and more important than the truth here is getting your message across. The other side knows this. That is why they are pimping kid victims and indoctrinating them with the PDF I want to share with you.
Socialist youth are made not born. – Kenn Blanchard
Draw attention to their ridiculousness of their claims. Illustrate it, tell a story, everyone, even the ignorant care about personal safety. Frame your response so you don’t look like a smarty pants, know it all but a concerned responsible father, brother, mother, sister. Be self-deprecating if possible, appeal to the audience not the reporter or speaker. Be as emotional as you have to be to be true to you. You know this stuff matters. You know the truth. I am not saying you have to go for it like a Pentecostal preacher but …
“You may all go to hell, and I will go to Texas.” – Davy Crockett
Although I try to keep a lid on the salty language in this column, sometimes it is really tempting. As a law abiding gun owner, it sure has been difficult lately not to give some people some directions to a…much warmer location. Especially since the gun controllers have been feeling their oats following the Parkland school shooting, and the hundred-or-so million of us who have done nothing wrong have been feeling the heat.
It is really easy to get discouraged with the relentless attack on one-third of the American population and the accusations of complicity in the murder of children. The mass media amplification of the minority voice which favors massive control can certainly make us feel isolated and alone in our support of the 2nd Amendment.
But it is a false narrative, and I can prove it to you. Come see me…and over 80,000 kindred spirits…at the 147th NRA Annual Meetings and Exhibits in Dallas, Texas. If you are a law-abiding gun owner who understands and values the right to keep and bear arms as enshrined in the Constitution of the United States, you owe it to yourself to join us in Dallas the first weekend in May.
While Michael Bloomberg, George Clooney, and other elitists organized and funded the so-called March For Our Lives (a protest against civil rights), the NRAAM is a display of true grassroots. How many would have attended the March For Our Lives if they had had to pay their own way? We’ll never know. But in one month we will see over 80,000 individuals celebrate liberty in Dallas, and they’ll do it on their own dime.
The stakes could not be higher. The forces which wish to eradicate gun rights in this country are feeling brave right now. The mask is off, and they feel safe in their contempt for us and our liberty. But they are wrong. We are the good guys (and gals). We are going to gather in Dallas and show them who we are.
We are people who say “please” and “thank you” and “excuse me.” We recognize the responsibility that goes hand-in-hand with the exercise our right to keep and bear arms, and are exceedingly law abiding and safe gun owners. We do not have blood on our hands. No matter how the antis try to portray us, we are not the problem.
So if the constant stream of vilification from the anti-gun rights has you down, I can think of no better cure than to gather with the good people of the National Rifle Association in Dallas. Let the haters go…well, you know. I am going to Texas. Hope to see you there.
As a podcaster that has been a gun rights activist since 1991 and podcasting since 2007 I had the opportunity to meet Tim Schmidt, the founder of the United States Concealed Carry Association back in 2010. Tim helped with the one and only Second Amendment March that happened in Washington DC on the Mall. The USCCA today is a membership organization that provides education, training and the insurance-backed Self-Defense SHIELD to responsibly armed Americans like us..
Since its inception in 2003, and together with its flagship publication Concealed Carry Magazine, the USCCA has proudly supported a community of hundreds of thousands of patriots from all around the country. It’s our mission to arm our loyal members with the tools they need to safely and confidently protect themselves and their loved ones with the utmost peace of mind.
Do you want some peace of mind when you carry your firearm legally that you won’t be alone if you have to defend yourself in court after you save your life? Join them and protect your family knowing the USCCA Has Your Back Before, During, And After A Deadly Force Incident. Members get access to classes, training and resources to help you sharpen your skills.
If you think you want to do this, please consider using my link as I have an affiliate deal with them so if you decide that this is what you are looking for I get the credit for hooking you up.
Doing the right thing shouldn’t cost you everything…
You and I both know we have a gun to protect our family…but at the same time we pray to God we never have to use it.
But if you ARE ever forced to pull the trigger, I want to make sure you’re 100% prepared for what comes AFTER the smoke clears…
