Qwest upgrade

Qwest is upgrading their Internet service to fiber optic and also pushing us off the ChoiceTV we've had for the past several years. So Qwest calls me today. It's an announcer in a box with a "press 1 to speak with a representative." I've got a few minutes and I decide to talk with them. The call is only to schedule a service call to install the new gateway. My neighborhood is eligible for upgrading on January 26. But the scheduling tool that the poor girl on the phone is using only goes out to January 15. Being as how I count on my Internet connection (I work from home), I'm pretty leery of this change. I'm thinking I may be safer switching to Cox until they get this thing sorted out.

Meanwhile, they also want to push me to DirecTV. I'm told that DirecTV and Tivo don't play nicely together. I've written this entire post while that oh-so-friendly Qwest announcer assures me that they know my time is valuable. This is not off to a good start.

Get Ready to Party Like It's 1989

From my Firearms Coalition blog:

Remember the mass demonstrations of the late 1980's up to the time that Bill Clinton signed his (and Joe Biden's) infamous "assault weapon" ban? The largest demonstration was in Columbus, Ohio on May 30, 1989. Police estimated the crowd at 22,000. In Phoenix crowds were estimated at above 10,000, this on a mid-June day when the temperature would eventually rise to well above 105. It occurred to me that it would be a good idea to start gearing up for such demonstrations again. Hoping to provide some inspiration, I started digging around the Web for pictures. I am appalled to report that I could find no pictures of any pro-gun demonstration of the late 1980's. None. Zip. Nada. Google couldn't find an image, neither could Yahoo! It's as if Winston of 1984

It's time to get ready for a reprise.

I well remember how uncomfortable gun people seemed to be coming out and marching with signs. They were strangely quiet, for a demonstration. Certainly they were well-mannered. Parks where the demonstrations occurred tended to be cleaner after the demonstration than before. Frankly, demonstrating in the street is not something that gun people take to easily. So let's start preparing the ground.

If you have pictures from one of those demonstrations from the late 1980's and early 1990's, put them on the scanner. Don't have a scanner? Go to the nearest copy store or even to a drug store. Then post those photos to Flickr, Shutterfly, Picasa, PhotoBucket, or wherever you store your pictures, and send me a link. Send a link to every gun blogger you know. Send a link to me. It's time to kick off the Great Virtual March for Gun Rights of 2008.

Ta-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa

This is a copy of my latest blog entry on The Firearms Coalition

So brother Jeff has trod upon the toes of some would-be militia bloggers with his latest Knox Report posting. Good for him. He's right.

Some have gone so far as to insinuate that Jeff has betrayed his heritage. That's nonsense. Jeff's characterization of the militia — the armed populace — as being a deterrent, much like the nuclear deterrrent, comes straight from Dad. Chapter and verse, which also happens to be a book excerpt, follow.

There's no question, America is headed for a rough patch. The Republicans have for the past eight years presided over an expansion of government that would make LBJ blush, and now they're nationalizing the banks. This while accusing the Democrats of being socialists. Both sides like to "spread the wealth around."

But that doesn't mean that everything has gone down the tubes and the only thing left to do is to start killing people and breaking things.

Here's a piece that Neal Knox wrote in May of 1995. Historical context: NRA had lost on the Clinton gun ban, the 1994 so-called "assault weapons" ban. But they lost honorably. The ILA leadership, backed by a strong pro-Second Amendment Board, fought the ban tooth and nail, resisting tremendous pressure to "accept a compromise in order to head off worse." Consequently, the 103rd Congress and especially the Democrats paid dearly at the polls. A sitting Speaker of the House was turned out of office, something that had not happened since before the Civil War, and the House majority switched to the Republicans for the first time in forty years. The leading political analyst of the day, William Jefferson Clinton, declared that the NRA had made the difference (Cleveland Plain Dealer). Then, the unthinkable happened. On April 19, 1995, two years to the day after the Waco horror, a pair of psychopathic misfits blew up the Federal building in Oklahoma City. We are still dealing with the fallout of that bit of political theater a decade and a half later. Militia is now a dirty word in the media. So much for hastening the revolution.

A revolution is by definition a mass movement. Our militia blogging friends claim three percent of gun owners are with them. Well if you count loosely, maybe so. Can they get that three percent to the polls? Can they bring a fraction of that three percent, maybe a couple thousand of them of them, out on the streets on a hot day? It's been done. Can they do it? Show some mass action — peaceful mass action — and the militia movement will start gaining some credibility. In other words, let's see some real political action. Until then the three-percenters owe more to Walter Mitty than to Thomas Jefferson.

Mr. Jefferson On Militia

by Neal Knox

May 10, 1995

An armed people – sometimes called a militia – scares big government and the supporters of a big, powerful government.

Thomas Jefferson, George Mason and James Madison and the other architects of this great nation planned it that way.

They based their plan on the teachings of John Locke and Niccolò Machiavelli, implemented in the armed citizenry of Switzerland. (The Swiss experience is the topic of a forthcoming book by British friend Richard Munday, an Oxford man who for several years has been researching governments based on an armed citizenry. The book is aptly entitled Most Armed, Most Free.)

Thomas Jefferson wrote “The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms, is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against government tyranny.”

The beauty of the Founding Fathers plan is that an armed people is an insurance policy against tyranny. So long as the right exists, it is never needed.

That is the same reason we build B-1 bombers which we pray will never bomb.

That’s why an armed people – for defense of self, family and the nation – is guaranteed by the Second Amendment and codified by the laws of most states. Also, Section 311 of Title 10, U.S. Code, the rewritten Militia Act of 1792, describes both the organized and unorganized militia, and – by 1903 amend­ment – a third type of militia, the National Guard.

A militia isn’t necessarily a bunch of overage and overweight folks wheezing through the woods in camouflage. It’s you and me with rifles, shotguns and handguns owned primarily for recreation or personal protection.

Under the laws of most states and Federal law, there is a right to organize a militia, but a citizen gains no additional rights by doing so. We already are the militia – even including some of our anti-gun fellow citizens who have never touched a gun.

As George Mason said, the militia is “the whole people, except for a few public officials.”

Glenn Harlan Reynolds, a law professor at the University of Tennessee and a strong supporter of the Second Amendment, wrote an incisive article about the militia movement in the January 30 Chicago Tribune.

He wrote that although many militia groups are quite knowledgeable about the Second Amendment, and are correct that it was intended to preserve an individual right as a protection against tyranny, many don’t understand the Founding Fathers’ careful definition of tyranny – mainly laid out in the Declaration of Independence.

“A government that taxed its citizens without representation was thus no better than an outlaw,” Prof. Reynolds wrote, “But revolting against taxation with­out representation is not the same thing as revolting against taxation.”

People who have the means of changing government through the ballot box, as was admirably demonstrated last fall, but who engage in armed con­flict with government, would be considered mere rebels and insur­rectionists by Thomas Jefferson.

Mr. Jefferson would have been outraged by the bombing in Oklahoma City – particularly if it was intended as a cowardly political statement.

This evening a reporter told me he didn’t understand how Oklahoma City had swung around to have something to do with “gun control.” I do.

The disciples of big government are furious about the role of the NRA in last fall’s elections, and fearful about what will happen in 1996.

And that’s why NRA is so hated and reviled, because NRA is so feared.

It’s not because of our guns, and not because of the lawful ways we use our guns, or even because of the unlawful way that they claim NRA members – or militia members who are also gun owners – might misuse guns.

It’s because of the NRA’s determination that all of the Bill of Rights shall be upheld, and that citizens shall remain free – and not the feeders and subjects of an all-powerful government.

Front Sight Diary - Day One

Day One - Introductions
We stumbled out of bed early the next morning allowing plenty of time to make the twenty-minute drive from the hotel to Front Sight. A guard in a grey and black uniform signed us in at the gate. We would soon recognize the uniform as belonging to the instructors. We were to holster up in the parking lot with our slides open and magazines out and move to a check-in table. Shotgun and rifle courses were running as well, and had their own check-in tables. As we made our way into the check-in more cars streamed in behind us. By mid-morning I guessed there were upward of 150, maybe 200 cars in the long dirt lot, and two or three people per car.

At the check-in table the instructors checked our names against a registration list, asked us to write our first names on two pieces of duct tape which we stuck to our chests and back. The instructors inspected guns and ammunition (jacketed factory ammo only – no reloads, no lead or copper-washed bullets). They also inspected and repositioned holster rigs. Finally they wrote a number in black Sharpie marker on the back each student’s hand. It was the range number we would go to after the initial classroom session. A little degrading perhaps, along with the name tag, but certainly efficient. No one asked where they should be after the classroom lecture.

The process was at least as efficient as gear hand-out in Army Basic Training, and far friendlier. I braced myself for a really friendly and efficient sales pitch to come. I would be surprised.

Next we moved to a large classroom where a video of Front Sight appearances in the news ran as the class filled. An instructor called the class to order and made quick work some legal paper. Front Sight indemnified and held harmless to its lawyers’ satisfaction, the instructors lined up and each stepped forward in turn. At a perfect military Parade Rest, each gave his background and credentials (all mentioning that they were Front Sight “First Family Members). The credentials were impressive. Among there instructors were veterans of Army Special Forces, Marine Scout Sniper, “U.S. government operations,” metropolitan law enforcement, and even firefighters. Many of the instructors are part-time holding day jobs and teach on the weekends.

We found our assigned range and looked around at our classmates. Part of the class assignment task is to keep buddies/spouses together, and to segregate the classes by level of training. Our group mostly consisted of guys like Jeff, Danny and me — considerable experience with guns and shooting, but with less formal education.

Other classes contained people who had been through the course several times, and first-time shooters. The numbers are a real advantage. It allows Front Sight to put students at a similar level together into learning groups that can feed each other.

We had several instructors, but the lead, holding the title Rangemaster, was Craig Bishop. Craig is a retired Army Special Forces Master Sergeant. He is a fit sixtyish, barrel-chested and erect with a booming voice that caused my electronic ear muffs to cut out when he was twenty feet away from me. It wouldn't be hard to picture him as every Basic Training recruit's worst nightmare. But that's not the persona MSG Bishop wore today. Make no mistake, we were on his range and clearly things would run his way, but we were welcome guests. There were other instructors including former Marine Scout Sniper Ben Stairs, China Moon, Terry Meinzer, and others whose name I didn't record, including at least two women.

The class was divided into two relays with the non-shooting relay encouraged to coach the shooters. Shooting started from the five-yard line -- ridiculously close. Which is the distance of most gun fights. It's a social distance. Conversational distance. Naturally, with my extensive firearms background, long-time gun ownership, experience with competition in a dozen different shooting disciplines, I had to shoot well. In other words, I was a wreck. Naturally, I flinched. My first rounds landed way low. I took scant comfort that they would have unmanned the assailant. I knew better and concentrated on my front sight and trigger control. Rounds started printing where I intended.

At the ceasefire, the instructors came down the line. These were our first shots and they wanted to know a) whether our guns could hit anything, and b) whether we could hit anything.
"What's that?" Sergeant Bishop asked gesturing to the low hits. "That's a flinch," I replied. "Well, don't worry, we'll fix that."

For the rest of the day we worked on the process of drawing — excuse me presenting the gun from the holster, pointing in, firing, after action drill, and re-holstering. There's a lot to the process. Far more than most of us think about as we walk to the line at an IPSC match.

Front Sight Diary - Day Zero

Front Sight Diary

Okay, I confess. I’ve been skeptical of Front Sight and its dapper, square-jawed proprietor, Ignatius Piazza. The slick advertising always set my B.S. detectors off before I got too close. Last year when brother Jeff suggested participating in a scheme to pad their site’s search engine rankings by posting a set of links to a blog in return for a class(as previously noted on The Firearms Coalition web site), I posted the links, but I didn’t feel a hundred percent good about it. The promised certificate for a class arrived in due time and I set it aside. Jeff, who had also attended their free machine gun course several years ago, was more sold on the idea. He suggested we set a time in September to dovetail with his trip out for the Gun Rights Policy Conference to be held here in Phoenix and take our course either the week before or the week after the GRPC. Still less than enthusiastic, I made my part of the arrangements (which mostly consisted of registering for the Four Day Defensive Pistol Class, and storing three thousand rounds of .45 ACP hardball as the course requirements suggested). Having large quantities of ammunition on hand always makes me feel better. If I’d be shooting 800-plus rounds of .45 over four days, it couldn’t be all bad.

Day Zero – Travel and lodging
Late Thursday afternoon we made the two hour drive north to Bagdad, Arizona to pick up Jeff’s Army buddy Danny Tope, and then on another five hours to Pahrump, Nevada, some 40 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Arriving at the hotel, which gave us a discount through Front Sight, we took some pause when we were asked to sign a statement that we would “not possess” firearms in the hotel lobby or parking lot. “What’s that mean?” I asked, perhaps a little suspiciously. Basically they didn’t want to see our guns and they especially didn’t want other guests to see them. The hotel management knew why we were there, being as how they had given us the Front Sight discount and provided uw with some nice discount coupons with the Front Sight logo for breakfast. But the other guests didn’t know why we were there.

We also received a polite request to keep gun safety at the front of our minds when handling guns on the hotel property. The girl was so circumspect, I asked whether something bad had happened. Sure enough, there had been at least one serious incident – what Front Sight doctrine quite correctly terms a negligent discharge – in a Front Sight student’s room. The round penetrated a couple of interior hotel walls and a bed, and caused a minor wound to another guest. Undoubtedly a bad day for all involved.

In the room we considered the fact that since we were surrounded on three sides and below by potentially occupied rooms and with a walkway out front, there was no consistently safe direction. We took the warning to heart. We didn’t do a lot of dry practice in the hotel room. In fact, we barely handled the guns in the room except to strip and clean.

The spoils of link whoredom

I started this blog with the notion that I'd use it to talk about stuff other than guns - things like my day job (IT Architecture), politics outside of firearms, arts, literature, the meaning of life and everything. But then came an opportunity to trade links for training at Front Sight (http://www.frontsight.com/). I decided to place the links here rather than on our site (http://www.firearmscoalition.org/) because the idea was to give Front Sight maximum exposure on the Web. Brother Jeff had already posted his links at our site and I figured that if I was going to spam the links, I should at least preserve some sense of integrity and post it under a different URL than ours.

So my off-topic blog is still about guns. Probably fits. With me, everything eventually comes down to guns.

I didn't actually blog from Front Sight. The hotel, hoping to keep its guests in the casinos where they belong, had no Internet connection. But I took some scattered notes and will re-create something like a diary here. Stay tuned.