Much to my surprise, and pleasure, I read that there are actually some towns in the U.S. that require homeowners to have a firearm in the house if they are legally able to. The proposed plan is called the Civil Emergencies Ordinance, and basically requires among other things that homeowners own a firearm to deter crime. Granted the small town in Idaho where this plan is being proposed doesn’t have a lot of crime now, I can guarantee you that their crime rate will drop drastically.It will be interesting to see the actual results a few years down the road. If it has a significant impact on crime, I wonder if it will change the minds of the liberal politicians who want to take away our right to bear arms.

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Check out the article here: http://www.nraila.org/News/Read/Releases.aspx?ID=7879

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A few months ago I was having a conversation with a few guys from a gun club I belong to. The conversation started off about hunting. I had just gone spring turkey hunting that morning, and I was telling them about the hunt. Well, since you asked, the hunt wasn’t successful for me, but my Father and his business partner each got one. I still had a good time though.Anyways, the conversation turned into a conversation about self-reliance, and situations where we couldn’t rely on the government, or anyone else to provide us with the essentials. For example, a situation was brought up that mirrored the big August 2003 New York power outage. The situation went like this: what if the power outage wasn’t an accident, but rather a simultaneous terrorist attack on the nation’s power supply and main supply routes to heavily populated areas (i.e. bridges, tunnels, etc.)? How would people in this situation survive more than a few days or a week? Think about the amount of food in your house right now. Now take out all the perishable items, such as milk, frozen goods and anything else that needs to be kept cold (they would go bad rather quickly). There’s probably not a whole lot left is there? So you say to yourself, well I’ll just go down to the store and pick up some more food. Well don’t think that you’re the first person to come up with that brain child. The stores will be empty by the end of day one, and the main supply routes are shut off – meaning no food is coming in.

The only way you’re going to continue to get food for the short term is by doing what our ancestors did before the days of Super Stop & Shops. You’d have to go out and get it yourself. Hunting and gathering is what you’d have to get used to. Let’s face it; the government isn’t going to be anywhere near as prepared as they were for Hurricane Katrina. There won’t be any shelters set up or food flown in before this attack.

This lack of food and supplies also means that there will be looting, just like in New Orleans. Although this time they won’t be stealing a 52″ plasma TV, they’ll be going house to house looking for food (remember the stores are already wiped out). This will make it crucial for all the locals to have a way to protect themselves. New Orleans saw gangs of looters, rapists and thugs breaking into anywhere that had anything of value. The few law abiding citizens who stayed behind decided that something had to be done. Several neighborhoods set up civilian patrols to protect their homes and those of their neighbors. These patrols effectively deterred the gangs, sending them to more unprotected areas – unprotected because of the inability of the government to protect.

The astonishing part about all of this though is that when it came time for the forced evacuation of the city, police were confiscating all firearms, even if they were legally owned. Think about it. The police were evacuating the city in the name of safety, but at the same time they were taking away the most crucial tool to preserve life. They weren’t helping these people, and as a matter of fact they could have been signing their death warrants.

The bottom line is this. We have to learn to be self-reliant, including knowing how to hunt, fish, build a fire, and the hundreds of other things that your everyday American wouldn’t have a clue how to do. This means that we shouldn’t expect Uncle Sam (or in this case Mayor Nagin) to hold our hands when we come across hard times.

When talking about Hurricane Katrina and the incident in New Orleans, Wayne LaPierre said “The lesson of New Orleans is that citizens must be able to rely on their own ability to survive. The answer once and for all to politicians, who say Americans don’t need the Second Amendment, because government will protect you, can be summed up by saying ‘New Orleans.’”

Remember this the next time you talk to a person who is anti-hunting/guns, and tell them that they better not come knocking on your door when they need food or protection.

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The choice of whether or not to carry a firearm for self-defense is a highly personal one. There are many factors to take into consideration when making this choice. Your knowledge of the firearm you choose to carry, your own individual skills, your temperament and ability to keep a firearm concealed are just a few of the critical questions you must ask yourself before making the decision to carry a gun.Now assuming that you’ve decided to carry, you still have a few questions that you’ll have to ask yourself. When should I carry my gun? Should I carry it only when I’m going into a “dangerous neighborhood”, or should I carry it at all times? What size gun should I carry? Where should I carry my gun so that I can keep it concealed as well as have easy access to it should I need it? There is no single answer to any of these questions, as each one requires a personal choice. Unfortunately, some of these answers are not easy to come by for many individuals and some ultimately choose to not carry at all.

When deciding when I should carry, I made the decision that I will carry whenever I legally and practically can. That may not be the best choice for everyone, but that is the choice I have made for myself, because in my mind there is no such thing as a “safe area”. Even in “safe neighborhoods”, bad things can happen. After all, if you could predict when and where bad things were going to happen, wouldn’t you try to just avoid them altogether? Unfortunately, due to other states’ lacking reciprocity laws, we must also take into consideration whether or not you’ll be leaving your home state, and where the final destination will be. (Note, the NRA’s website shows a state by state breakdown of gun laws, including reciprocity laws: http://www.nraila.org/recmap/usrecmap.htm).

When I had to decide what gun was to be my primary carry weapon, I decided on two guns, the Kel-Tec P32 and the Glock 23 with an internal LaserMax sight. I did this so that I can allow myself to carry a more potent gun (the Glock) when conditions permit, while not leaving myself totally disarmed when conditions require a smaller, more concealable weapon (the P32). Again, this was a personal decision. Someone else may make the same decision to carry and choose two totally different guns; it’s all about what’s best for you.

I mentioned the LaserMax sight for my Glock. Another thing to take into consideration is your ability to aim during low light situations. There are a variety of laser sights on the market that can be fitted to most guns, which serve two purposes. One you are given options, in that your attacker will likely be frightened by the laser pointed at his chest and will hesitate to continue with the attack and two you are now able to aim without necessarily bringing the gun up to eye level, allowing you to observe other threats.

The bottom line is this: The decision to carry a gun is a personal one, which needs to take into consideration many different factors. You should not carry a particular gun just because your buddy told you that’s what he thinks you should carry. The examples of what I carry and where I carry were just examples, and in no way should it imply that I think everyone should carry the same gun as I do (although I am a little biased towards that laser sight – it’s just so cool!). Come up with your own criteria for the type of gun you would like to carry as well as where you will carry your gun. And do yourself a favor, don’t go out and buy the biggest and baddest gun on the market as your first carry gun; because I can guarantee that if it is too big and uncomfortable to carry, it will wind up locked in your safe, never to see the light of day again after just two weeks of trying to carry it everyday.

If you already are one who has made the decision to carry, share this article with your friends, relatives, neighbors, etc. who may be on the fence about concealed carry. Don’t pressure them into making a decision; just offer the article as friendly advice. Hopefully this will help them make their decision.

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Back in February, Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.) introduced the “50 Caliber Sniper Rifle Reduction Act” into Congress. Section 2 of this bill notes “Congress finds that -
(1) certain firearms originally designed and built for use as long-range 50 caliber military sniper weapons are increasingly sold in the domestic civilian market, and there are fewer legal restrictions on their possession or transfer than there are on handguns;
(2) the intended use of these long-range firearms, and an increasing number of models derived directly from them, is the taking of human life and the destruction of materiel, including armored vehicles and such components of the national critical infrastructure as radars and microwave transmission devices, in addition 50 caliber sniper weapons pose a significant threat to civil aviation in that they are capable of destroying or disabling jet aircraft;
(3) these firearms are neither designed nor used in any significant number for legitimate sporting or hunting purposes and are clearly distinguishable from rifles intended for sporting and hunting use;
(4) extraordinarily destructive ammunition for these weapons, including armor-piercing and armor-piercing incendiary ammunition, is freely sold in interstate commerce; and
(5) the virtually unrestricted availability of these firearms and ammunition, given the uses intended in their design and manufacture, present a serious and substantial threat to the national security.”So what this bill seems to boil down to is national security, which is a valid concern these days, with the recent passing of the 10th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, and 9/11 still in the back of everybody’s minds. But they’re going about it all wrong.

First, I would like to address the point made towards the end of the second finding above. Specifically “50 caliber sniper weapons pose a significant threat to civil aviation in that they are capable of destroying or disabling jet aircraft.”

According to Boeing’s website, their largest production commercial aircraft is the 747-400, based on overall length and wingspan. It’s maximum speed is around 680 m.p.h., while it cruises at 35,000 ft. at around 567 m.p.h. Now if you have ever shot a rifle, handgun, or any type of gun, you’ll know that hitting your intended target isn’t always as easy as Hollywood makes it seem. And you’ll also know that hitting a target that’s far away is much harder than hitting one that is several feet away. So getting back to the 747 example. Someone who wished to take down a 747 at it’s cruising altitude of 35,000 feet (or about 6.6 miles) would obviously need some practice, because you know just as well as I do that an airplane flying overhead looks just about as big as a grain of rice – in other words, it’s a tough target to hit. So this person would have to find an empty field that spans a little more than six and a half miles, and would have to set up a target that is 232 feet in length, with a smaller section for the wingspan of about 212 feet. Then they would have to repeatedly shoot a very loud gun at this enormous target – something that is very likely to be noticed. But let’s just say that they get the near-impossible shot down. They still have no practice hitting the target as it is moving over 560 m.p.h.

I know this all seems a little crazy, but just think about it. As big as a 747 is, it is still a very difficult target to hit at over 6.6 miles and traveling over 560 m.p.h. But let’s just say it does get hit by a pretty luck shot. A .50 caliber bullet is only 1/2 of an inch in diameter. One of them is not very likely to take down an airplane, unless it happens to go into the cockpit and kill the pilot, in which case the co-pilot would take over, or if it hit one of the engines, in which case there’s still another one to make sure it can make an emergency landing.

What this “.50 caliber ban” is really all about, is a ban starting from the top and working its way down the list, until all of our guns are confiscated. It happened in England with their handguns. When their ban first went into effect, citizens were allowed to keep only .22 caliber and smaller handguns, locked in government-certified clubs. This made it extremely easy for the government to confiscate all of the law abiding citizen’s handguns, because they knew where all of them were.

If this .50 cal. ban passes, I can see an end to all sorts of hunting and target shooting approaching the United States in the near future. We can’t let this bill pass, and our representatives in Washington must know that no freedom loving American would want it to pass.

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