Originally published on this website August 1, 2000
Letters to the Editor
The Connection
1600 Scotts Crossing Road
McLean, VA 22102
Re: July 20th HCI letter entitled "Gun Permits Without
Training?"
To the Editor:
Killeen, Texas 1991- While enjoying a lunch with her parents, State
Representative Suzanna Gratia Hupp�s lawful life is interrupted by a mentally
deranged man who crashes his truck through the front window, and proceeds to
shoot several patrons, including both of her parents. Although Ms. Hupp legally
possesses a sidearm and is well trained in it�s use, in obedience to 1991
Texas State law, it is locked ineffectively in her glove compartment where it
remains while Ms. Hupp�s parents and 21 other innocent diners are
exterminated. It would have been ILLEGAL for Ms. Hupp to be able to save 23
lives that day, despite the fact that she was in a position from which she could
have stopped the gunman.
Pearl, Mississippi - October 1, 1997 - After murdering his mother that
morning, Luke Woodham attempts to duplicate the Columbine shooting. He �succeeds�
in killing two female students with his rifle before Assistant Principal Joel
Myrick ILLEGALLY holds the deranged child at gun point for police rather than
allowing him to continue killing his classmates. Mr. Myrick is not forced to
fire to stop the assault.
While Ms. Hupp�s ordeal made more news and eventually led to more
reasonable Concealed Carry laws in Texas, very few people ever heard of the
shooting in Pearl. Of the comparatively few who have heard of it, even fewer
people seem to ask WHY the Assistant Principal had to carry a firearm illegally
in order to stop that assault on the children entrusted under his care. Instead,
time and again, I am told how people like myself, those who put up with the
already cumbersome and expensive requirements for Carry of a Concealed Weapon
(CCW), are STILL really, at heart, evil no-good cretins who leave their sidearms
lying around for untrained kids to obtain and abuse.
I�m tired of being told to �ride in the back of the bus� or that I am a
second-class citizen for guarding not only my family�s life, but the lives of
the complete strangers around me. Further, I am truly insulted and disheartened
when on July 20th, an otherwise respectable paper publishes, in direct denial of
their own disclaimer, Handgun Control Inc.�s Ms. Filler-Corn�s filibuster
cram-packed with all the factual untruths and inanity one can pack into seven
short columns. As is sadly standard operating procedure for HCI�s agents, Ms.
Filler-Corn filibusters with apparently no real knowledge of what she writes
about in her letter titled "Gun Permits without Training?" As I am
merely an ordinary citizen without corporate funding behind me, I hope that The
Connection will indulge me with as much venue as HCI�s corporate prepared
bigotry, and publish this response in full.
The truth is concealed carry (CCW) permits often require MORE training with
firearms than the local police receive. This is the LAW. As someone who recently
renewed my CCW permit, I can tell you that Form SP-248, "Application for a
Concealed Handgun Permit" clearly states not only the obvious prohibition
on permits for the mentally unstable or incompetent, drug abusers, and convicted
criminals, but also states that you must prove competence with a concealed
weapon before a permit will be issued. Competence is most often proven by a ten
to twelve hour, hands-on, live-fire, certificate issuing course (that means
"TRAINING"). In fact, when my wife applied for her CCW, ostensibly due
to her previous formal training being three years ago, the reviewing judge
required her to take ANOTHER twelve hour course, at considerable additional
expense. But like the majority of firearm owners, her response was "Another
ten hours can�t hurt."
In flagrant factual contradiction to Ms. Filler-Corn, there IS a legal
requirement for HEAVY training with EVERY CCW permit issued. Even without such a
LEGAL REQUIREMENT FOR TRAINING, most people who seek to carry a crisis
intervention device also enjoy shooting as a sport. Unlike many police whose
only shots are fired (hopefully) to "qualify" a few times a year, many
CCW holders compete in high-skill competitions. That kind of accuracy requires
(say it with me, kids!) MORE TRAINING. But wait, that�s not all! Most people
who carry a life preserver want it to not only be safe, but also to be effective
in the situation in which they would NEED it, typically a dark street or hallway
with two seconds notice before a possible real life "shoot or be shot"
situation. How do you learn to shoot in impaired light, under stress, drawing
from possibly awkward concealed carry? Lets hear a loud joyful cry, kiddies :
YET MORE TRAINING. Talk to a real live CCW permit holder, and you will soon
realize that this person probably LOVES TO PRACTICE. Yes, shooting is FUN. Until
twenty years ago, only the most ignorant of gun- haters didn�t know that. Come
to think of it, little has changed.
Talk to staunch anti-freedom activists like Rosie O�Donnell or HCI�s
minions, and you will be told how firearms autonomously leap off tables, and
MAKE people do bad things, just like pencils force us to make spelling mistakes.
Firearms are FACTUALLY documented to STOP THREE TO EIGHT MILLION CRIMES PER
YEAR. However, such legitimate statistics are ignored. In an attempt to
understand this huge number as a reality, please pause for a moment, and imagine
the REALITY of someone just like your wife NOT being raped, someone like your
daughter NOT being killed -- and now recognize that such AN INNOCENT LIFE IS
SAVED BY A FIREARM EVERY FOUR SECONDS IN THE UNITED STATES.
Immediately following the "no training" falsehood, Ms. Filler-Corn
states "Every person is at risk from a citizen carrying guns in malls,
movie theaters, restaurants and on highways. And soon bars and
restaurants?" First, CCW has nothing to do with carry -- you can CARRY a
sidearm in Virginia without a permit as long as you DON�T conceal it. That�s
the law. Under Project Exile (an NRA supported production, incidentally), you
get five years mandatory prison time if you conceal without a permit. Even with
a CCW permit, you get the same sentence if you conceal in a bar, restaurant,
church, school, court, etc (not so coincidentally, where you are likely to need
your sidearm more, according to recent news reports). As a result of this legal
whimsy, the only legal alternative to concealed carry may create a TRUE lack of
safety -- when I dine with my wife, I have to OVERTLY slap my life preserver on
the table in full view -- remember, while discretion is illegal, it IS legal to
carry openly.
SO: If someone does have bad intentions while I am eating, not only have I
pre-announced whom the criminal should logically shoot first, but I have made
the diners around me somewhat nervous as to why I need to shoot my filet mignon
before eating it. This is the ONLY thing the currently proposed laws Ms. Filler-
Corn refers to would change -- I wouldn�t have to scare my fellow diners or go
to jail should I ever forget to HOLD MY SIDEARM IN OPEN VIEW WHILE I WALK
THROUGH THE FOOD COURT AT TYSONS. You want to talk about making a scene?
Next, HCI�s Ms. Filler-Corn refers to drunk DEA agents abusing THEIR
Government issued weapons as a means of stereotyping citizen CCW holders. Let�s
just ignore the fact that drinking while carrying a sidearm is ALREADY extremely
illegal on several accounts for everyone. While we are at it, let�s join Ms.
Filler-Corn in trying to ignore the other obvious fact that DEA agents are often
less trained than, and most pertinently ARE LITERALLY NOT THE SAME AS, legal CCW
holders. Like police, they simply need to "qualify." With all due
respect, comparing crazed DEA agents and citizens with CCWs is not even remotely
logical, and, as I said above, it is improper stereotyping.
As Hitler demonstrated, people aren�t motivated nearly as much by facts as
they are by having someone to hate. In the 1940s, Jews were the target; in the
50's it was Communists; in the 60's Blacks; in the 70's Hippies; and in the 80s,
gays were the target of choice. Now that we have laws to protect all of them,
Fascists have to pick a new social class to hate, and any facts are still
ignored with glee. The "N*gger" of the new Millennium is a white
collar professional with a CCW. Nazi�s used the Jew�s self-defense as an
indicator of their "violent and lower moral fitness," and now Handgun
Control Inc. is using the EXACT SAME TACTIC to convince you, Dear Reader, that I
am Satan Himself, despite my peaceful manner and LEGAL compliance. Just how
bigoted are these gun-lynching anti-freedom activists? Ms. Filler-Corn put it in
writing : To quote her letter, "I do not want my children in a restaurant
where guns are [legally] present." Sounds a dishearteningly enormous lot to
me like "I do not want my children in a restaurant where COLORED FOLKS are
present" or "Jews are not fit to own restaurants" or "Women
belong in the kitchen." Racism and bigotry are just as ugly as ever, Ms.
Filler-Corn, and I am calling you on it. My rights are not yours to grant, nor
yours to abridge.
While Ms. Filler-Corn is poisoning her children�s minds against legal gun
owners, I am talking almost daily to rape victims, parents who lost their
children, and other victims of crimes too horrible to put here, and time and
time again I am told "I wish I trained my kids/wife/loved one how to shoot
and protect themselves." Much more happily, sometimes I receive a
testimonial from one of the FIVE THOUSAND women who stopped their rapist last
year. Unlike Handgun Control Inc., I don�t NEED to make any of this up or
stretch statistics -- even without corporate backing, REAL PEOPLE are more than
partial to keeping their lives, and the respectable ones don�t try to disarm
their neighbors based on their own groundless paranoia.
Ms. Filler-Corn says "we have reached a point where pediatricians
recommend teaching our children what to do when they come across a gun at a
friend�s house." Does she need her doctor to tell her to cover the
electrical outlets, remove lethal household cleaning chemicals from reach or,
later on, need her doctor to tell her that drug abuse might not be the best life
choice for her children? When the NRA started the Eddie Eagle program, teaching
EXACTLY THE SAME "STOP, DON�T TOUCH, TELL AN ADULT" SAFETY
INSTRUCTIONS, HCI accused the NRA of "trying to subvert the minds of
children." As someone who was repeatedly literally spit on by the
15,000-actual-count "Million" Moms two months ago, I think it is
already apparent who the subverters and bigots are in this lineup. When, with
HCI�s formal blessing, the family doctor recommends the same things as the
NRA, it is suddenly divine wisdom? Aside from the obvious fact that UNtrained
children (and adults) really SHOULDN�T have access to the steel life
preservers at your friend�s house, I WOULD teach children the standard
"Stop, don�t touch, tell an adult" mantra � that�s just common
sense along with "Don�t touch the stove" and "Don�t juggle
chainsaws."
Ms Filler-Corn is shocked to have to ask about firearms as if it were akin to
asking "You don�t build pipe bombs and rape the elderly for sport, do
you?" Personal Defense is a normal and sane response to modern life, and so
is asking about the general safety of where you let your kids play. Responsible
parents DO watch their kids. As someone who HAS been asked about the emergency
hardware in my own house, I don�t take that as an insult, or even anything
unusual, and parents are usually grateful that not only are my other life
preservers safely secured, but their kids are that much more protected by the
one on my hip. Thankfully, not all parents are as factually and emotionally
uninformed as Ms. Filler-Corn.
In closing, let me echo Ms. Filler Corn in one regard : DO contact your
legislators, but tell them that you are not paranoid of legal firearm owners,
and you ARE tired of explaining why the nice man has to wave his sidearm BY LAW
when entering a restaurant. Tell Governor Allen that you are tired of bigoted
fanatics claiming to speak for you, and that you ARE an educated person capable
of reading the law before writing a factually distorted Letter to the Editor.
Respectfully,
Keith Manne
Fairfax Station
