The Colorado State University Board of Governors voted unanimously Tuesday to place students at both of its campuses in harm’s way with a sweeping weapons ban law-abiding citizens will obey and criminals will ignore.
Larimer County Sheriff James Alderden, outraged by the ban, told The Gazette’s opinion department he will undermine it in the interest of student safety.
CSU-Fort Collins Police Chief Wendy Rich-Goldsmith, a relative newcomer to the campus, supports the ban.
“I have told the CSU police chief I will not support this in any way,” Sheriff Alderden told The Gazette. “If anyone with one of my permits gets arrested for concealed carry at CSU, I will refuse to book that person into my jail. Furthermore, I will show up at court and testify on that person’s behalf, and I will do whatever I can to discourage a conviction. I will not be a party to this very poor decision.” [emphasis added]
Though each CSU campus has its own police department, Alderden issues all cops on the Fort Collins campus a deputy sheriff’s commission card. He also runs the county’s jail, which campus police use after making arrests.
Alderden said ban advocates have been unable to cite a single study or statistic to show that students will be safer as a result of a weapons ban. He’s convinced they will be much less safe as a result of the ban, which will leave most students defenseless. The ban establishes the campuses as “soft targets,” meaning armed criminals will have a reasonable expectation their intended victims aren’t armed. ...
The region's county sheriff, Jim Alderden, says if the CSU policy is put into place, he will not jail anyone found guilty of violating it.
"What CSU is trying to pass is a policy," Alderden says. "And their position is that the university policy trumps state law and the U.S. Constitution."
A householder is attacked by a violent burglar every 30 minutes.
The shocking statistic exposes for the first time the epidemic of terrifying intruder confrontations taking place in Britain.
It will intensify demands for householders to be given greater protection if they use force to protect themselves and their family against a burglar.
In the wake of the case of Munir Hussain, who was jailed and later freed for beating a raider, ministers insisted it was extremely rare for a person to find themselves in trouble with the police for fighting back against a burglar.
But with householders suffering violence on 23,000 occasions last year, campaigners say the case for a change to the law is growing ever stronger. ...
Morgana, six, the youngest of the eight children, is as comfortable with a lethal .22 calibre rifle as she is with a Barbie doll.
Her sister Raven, nine, has her own .22 as well, bought for her when she was seven. It is in baby pink.
She explains proudly: "My dad says I'm becoming quite a good shot."
(Family day out ... relaxing with weapons. Photo: Chris Bott / Barcroft)
Dad is Lee Miracle, of Sterling Heights, Michigan. After the events of 9/11 Lee, his wife Katerina, 43, and their children aged from six to 17 are preparing for attacks from foreign invaders. They believe such readiness - including a house full of 25 FIREARMS - is their civic duty. [emphasis in original]
Top dog at the South East Michigan Volunteer Militia, 42-year-old Lee has schooled his military brood in advanced firearm training and also Ray Mears-style outdoors survival techniques.
The couple and their brood - Morgana, Raven, Elijah, ten, Caleb, 11, Cameron and Megan, both 13, Emily, 15, and 17-year-old Christian - meet hundreds of like-minded souls once a month on a farm to hone their skills against outside threats. ...
Some people ask why a man who stands 6-foot-4, weighs 215 pounds and doesn't have an ounce of fat on him needs to carry a gun.
But Gilbert Arenas is not an anonymous physical specimen. He's a player for the NBA's Washington Wizards. And statistics show that the point guard's fame and recognition make him much more likely than the average man on the street to become the victim of a violent crime.
Arenas, who has no previous criminal record, was indefinitely suspended without pay Wednesday by NBA Commissioner David Stern for bringing unloaded guns into his team's locker room. Federal and local authorities are looking into criminal charges, particularly possible violations of the District of Columbia's strict gun laws.
...
For some observers, it is hard to comprehend why professional athletes carry guns. The massive size and strength of NBA players would appear to make them unlikely crime victims. But Gary Kleck, a criminology Professor at Florida State University and co-author of "The Great American Gun Debate," says that's hardly the case.
"Athletes in some respects constitute more attractive targets," Kleck says. "They have a high public profile and are known to have wealth and items that can easily be stolen, such as jewelry."
Statistics support Kleck's case. Five NBA players were robbed during the four years from 2005 to 2008 — a rate of 280 per 100,000 people, compared to 145 per 100,000 for the rest of the U.S. population. In other words, the rate that NBA players are robbed was about twice the rate for the rest of the country. ...
The motto of the Canadian Mounties is that they always get their man. The motto of the British police is that they always get you. Frankly, it's a lot easier:The TV presenter and Marks & Spencer model Myleene Klass has been warned by police for waving a knife at teenagers who were peering into a window of her house late at night.
Klass was in the kitchen with her daughter upstairs when she spotted the youths in her garden just after midnight on Friday. She grabbed a knife and banged the windows before they ran away.
Hertfordshire police warned her she should not have used a knife to scare off the youths because carrying an "offensive weapon", even in her own home, was illegal. [emphasis added]
Klass's spokesman, Jonathan Shalit, said the former Hear'Say singer was "utterly terrified" by the intruders and "aghast" at the police warning. "All she did was scream loudly and wave the knife to try and frighten them off," he told the Sunday Telegraph.
Is screaming loudly still legal? Or is that in breach of Health & Safety regulations? ...
Does a modern Christian have a right to self defense? With every right there is a correlative responsibility. The ancient right to bear arms has been described in antiquity as the obligation to bear arms in defense of your community. In those ancient times if you would not arm yourself to defend your community you were often shunned if not run out of town all together.
Chuck Baldwin in and article published by NewsWithViews.com quoted the statistic that “as of 2004, 50% of the adults in the United States own one or more firearms.” My first reaction was, why so few? As someone who once wore a badge and a gun to protect the property and lives of citizens I can testify that my biggest disappointment was the apathy and even cowardice of the people I was often expected to protect.
To refuse to come to the aid of others has been considered a crime and good Samaritan laws have prosecuted citizens who failed to assist and aid people in need of assistance or protection.
Yet, I have heard many people say they would not own a gun or they did not believe in guns. On further inquiry everyone of these purveyors of pseudo-pacifism confirmed that if someone was breaking into their house they would call the police, who will come with guns. The truth is they do believe in guns, but they are either to lazy, to cheap, to cowardly, or just to irresponsible to own one.
One of the last things Christ said to His apostles before His crucifixion was to go and buy a sword, even if they had to sell their garment to do so. ...
I AM a math teacher at Brockton High School, the site of a school shooting earlier this month.
Current school security procedures lock down school populations in the event of armed assault. Some advocate abandoning this practice as it holds everyone in place, allowing a shooter easily to find victims.
An alternative to lockdown is immediate exodus via announcement. Although this removes potential hostages and makes it nearly impossible for the shooter to acquire preselected targets, it unfairly rewards resourceful children who move to safety off-site more shrewdly and efficiently than others.
Schools should level playing fields, not intrinsically reward those more resourceful. A level barrel is fair to all fish.
Some propose overturning laws that made schools gun-free zones even for teachers who may be licensed to securely carry concealed firearms elsewhere. They argue that barring licensed-carry only ensures a defenseless, target-rich environment.
But as a progressive, I would sooner lay my child to rest than succumb to the belief that the use of a gun for self-defense is somehow not in itself a gun crime.
DOUG VAN GORDER
Quincy
[emphasis added]
Somali pirates attacked the Maersk Alabama on Wednesday for the second time in seven months and were thwarted by private guards on board the U.S.-flagged ship who fired off guns and a high-decibel noise device.
A U.S. surveillance plane was monitoring the ship as it continued to its destination on the Kenyan coast, while a pirate said that the captain of a ship hijacked Monday with 28 North Korean crew members on board had died of wounds.
Pirates hijacked the Maersk Alabama last April and took ship captain Richard Phillips hostage, holding him at gunpoint in a lifeboat for five days. Navy SEAL sharpshooters freed Phillips while killing three pirates in a daring nighttime attack.
Four suspected pirates in a skiff attacked the ship again on Wednesday around 6:30 a.m. local time, firing on the ship with automatic weapons from about 300 yards (meters) away, a statement from the U.S. Fifth Fleet in Bahrain said.
An on-board security team repelled the attack by using evasive maneuvers, small-arms fire and a Long Range Acoustic Device, which can beam earsplitting alarm tones, the fleet said.
Vice Adm. Bill Gortney of the U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, said the Maersk Alabama had followed the maritime industry's "best practices" in having a security team on board.
"This is a great example of how merchant mariners can take proactive action to prevent being attacked and why we recommend that ships follow industry best practices if they're in high-risk areas," Gortney said in a statement. ...
However, Roger Middleton, a piracy expert at the London-based think tank Chatham House, said the international maritime community was still "solidly against" armed guards aboard vessels at sea, but that American ships have taken a different line than the rest of the international community.
"Shipping companies are still pretty much overwhelmingly opposed to the idea of armed guards," Middleton said. "Lots of private security companies employee people who don't have maritime experience. Also, there's the idea that it's the responsibility of states and navies to provide security. I would think it's a step backward if we start privatizing security of the shipping trade."
That’s what the Kansas Supreme Court just held, interpreting Kansas Stats. § 21–3211. The statute reads,
(a) A person is justified in the use of force against another when and to the extent it appears to such person and such person reasonably believes that such force is necessary to defend such person or a third person against such other’s imminent use of unlawful force.
(b) A person is justified in the use of deadly force under circumstances described in subsection (a) if such person reasonably believes deadly force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to such person or a third person.
(c) Nothing in this section shall require a person to retreat if such person is using force to protect such person or a third person.
And the court concluded that while this allows self-defense that involves an actual attack on the attacker — for instance, hitting, shooting, or stabbing the attacker — it does not allow self-defense that merely involves a threat of violence against the attacker.
I think the dissent is right to say that “force” can reasonably be read as including “constructive force” such as threats, especially in light of the substantial American legal tradition of reading force this broadly (and despite the fact that other Kansas statutes generally do say “force or threat” or some such). And this is especially so because, as the dissent points out, the result is absurd: Restraint in the use of defensive violence is rewarded by criminal punishment. I believe courts should generally read statutes as written, but the should also read their terms against the backdrop of the legal rules that help define these terms, and principles such as the rule of lenity, and the presumption against readings that produce absurd results. ...
Lynchburg, VA - Supporters of the Second Amendment gathered Friday afternoon at the Liberty University (web) School of Law for a gun rights symposium.
The discussion of current legal cases turned into a cry for help from students at Virginia Tech. Some Virginia Tech students even skipped class to do it.
Alyson Boyce with VT Students for Concealed Carry President said, "Two and a half years ago, if you would have asked me anything about gun rights, I would not have been able to tell you a thing."
Now, Boyce is the president of the Hokie Chapter of Students for Concealed Carry Rights.
"I lost a very good friend of mine named Mike Pohle on April 16th and after that, it really opened my eyes to the discussion," Boyce said.
VT Students for Concealed Carry Founder Ken Stanton said he wants to be a college professor. He founded the student group after the massacre because he doesn't believe he should have to choose between education or self defense. ...
The Kentucky pastor who drew notice earlier this year for hosting a God-and-guns event at his church is giving up his flock for his Glock.
Pastor Ken Pagano resigned his post last month at the New Bethel Church in Louisville, Ky., after nearly 30 years in the ministry, saying he wants to focus on Second Amendment and church-security issues.
"Thirty years was a good, long run, but it's time for a change," Mr. Pagano said in an interview with The Washington Times. "If I can write my own ticket, I want to get involved more in Second Amendment issues as they affect the church, and I can do more from outside the pulpit than from behind it."
...
Mr. Pagano said he was considering a career change even before the event, but the ripple effect led him to Rabbi Gary Moskowitz of New York, who has long worked with synagogues on protection from terrorist threats.
Mr. Pagano and Mr. Moskowitz have since teamed up to form the International Security Coalition of Clergy, an organization dedicated to "making the vulnerable less vulnerable," according to their mission statement.
"Churches are very soft targets and very vulnerable to attack from terrorists and other homegrown, disgruntled individuals," Mr. Pagano said. "Unfortunately, most religious leaders are living in denial." ...
Slightly built with gray hair and kind eyes, Kay Curtis makes candy and stained glass, and has a genteel politeness rarely seen outside old movies.
The Lenexa grandmother makes her living with guns and self-defense training.
She wants women to have power.
So does her husband, Bob, a soft-spoken soul who has spent much of his life as a Presbyterian minister. Today Bob and Kay, a former lawyer, are a pistol-packing pair with a federal firearms license who make and sell their own ammo, train people how to drop a bad guy at 30 feet, and teach women how to fight. ...
YALA, Thailand, Sep 18 (IPS) - With an insurgency threatening to worsen, Thailand’s military is turning to civilians like Nipa Waya to return fire in the three southern provinces close to the Malaysian border.
Nipa, a single mother, maintains a vigil through the night armed with a shotgun at the entrance to a Buddhist village on the outskirts of this southern city. With her, on a recent night, were 15 other men and women, similarly armed, who are part of a civilian-defence force.
"We move around to other checkpoints through the night," says the 43-year-old Nipa, holding a weapon that is almost as tall as her. "I want to help the people from being attacked by the insurgents."
"I feel brave with this gun," adds Nipa, who, till she started this nightshift near an abandoned building two years ago, had neither held nor used a gun. "We got seven days training where we learnt to shoot. We also had physical training, like jumping from towers."
Nipa, a Thai Buddhist, welcomes the move by the Thai military to recruit civilians to combat the shadowy network of Malay Muslim insurgents responsible for the violence that has erupted since early 2004 in the southern provinces of Yala, Narathiwat and Pattani.
The violence in the south, which has seen over 3,400 deaths during the past five and a half years, is testing the limits of the relationship between Thai Buddhists, who are the majority in this country, and the country’s largest minority, the Malay Muslims, who are the dominant community in the three insurgency-torn provinces.
It is from this pool of Thai Buddhists and Malay Muslims that the army is recruiting civilians to be part of a network of an armed civilian force. The groups that they belong to have names like ‘Village Protection Volunteers’ and ‘Iron Lady Unit’.
Researchers estimate that over 30,000 civilians have been trained to shoot to help the armed forces, whose current troop strength, according to unofficial estimates, is close to 60,000 in the south. The Volunteer Defence Corps, for instance, is armed with the U.S.-made M-16 and the German-made HK-33 assault rifles. ...
... Unlike most tools, the primary use of a gun is to prevent itself from having to be used, at all. In fact, guns are in full use while they’re not being fired. Infrequent use proves, rather than disproves, their necessity.
If you think only tools that are used frequently are necessary then stop wearing your seat belt, cancel your home, car and health insurance and put a sign on your front lawn announcing you live in a gun-free house!
After much thought on the subject I’ve come to the conclusion that the simple act of having a gun is its own best use (Reason #1).
Like a battleship parked off the coast its mere presence changes the dynamic of the situation without having to fire a single shot. By "dynamic" I mean that predators tend to behave themselves and move on to an easier "unarmed" prey. By having a gun you become too dangerous to your predators. Criminals interviewed in jail say they don’t want anything to do with an armed civilian. That change in my human predators is exactly what I want to accomplish.
At best, guns keep honest and polite people honest and polite. Kind of like the masterlock I use on my gym locker. It’s never been touched, except by me, and yet it is used fully every time I work out.
Final Note and Reasons
Before you reach the end of your life perhaps my 76 reasons for having a gun will help you decide whether this power tool should be in Your Optimal Toolkit:
1. The simple act of having a gun is its own best use. Like a battleship parked off the coast its mere presence changes the dynamic of the situation without having to fire a single shot. By having a gun you become too dangerous to your predators. Criminals interviewed in jail say they don’t want anything to do with an armed civilian. That change in my human predators is exactly what I want to accomplish.
2. A right exercised is a right retained.
3. It's the best single tool for protecting your life and the lives of your loved ones. (JFPO)
4. You detest American gun laws based on 1938 Nazi weapons laws. (JFPO)
5. Armed societies are polite societies. (Switzerland).
6. Switzerland is armed to the teeth with virtually no crime (Stephen Holbrook).
7. Because of the patience and discipline you acquire while learning about the tool.
8. So you can de-bunk Hollywood gun myths for your kids. ...
It's high noon for the high holidays.
Fearing jihadists will attack synagogues during Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, a group of badass rabbis has developed a program to turn your average shul-goer into a lean, mean fighting machine.
The group, which calls itself the International Security Coalition of Clergy, was founded by Rabbi Gary Moscowitz, who boasts a black belt in karate, teaches martial arts and was an NYPD cop for nine years.
He's teaching others basic and advanced fighting moves -- how to take down a terrorist by the neck, how to use a table as cover from gunfire and how to execute a nifty running somersault while drawing a gun -- that he says can be used by Jews if they're attacked by terrorists during prayer. ...
For Soldotna fishing guide Greg Brush, the rare and precious finally arrived -- a summer day off between king and silver salmon seasons.
It was Aug. 2, a little after 11 a.m., when he headed down Dirks Lake Road, a quarter-mile from his home, taking three dogs for some exercise in preparation for hunting season. Brush talked to his animals as they walked past homes on one- to five-acre lots.
The slightest noise -- a twig snapping -- prompted Brush to glance over his shoulder. Less than 20 yards away, a brown bear was charging, "ears back, head low and motorin' full speed.
"Came with zero warning," Brush said. "No woof, no popping of the teeth, no standing up, nothing like what you think."
Brush said he wears a pistol on his walks because bears have chased his dogs in the past.
He drew a Ruger .454 Casull revolver. There was no time to aim, barely time to squeeze the trigger. He's not sure whether he got off two shots or three, but one proved fatal.
"Total luck shot," he said.
"It doesn't get any closer. He slid by me on his chin when I shot him," Brush said. "I was backpedaling as fast as I could. I wasn't even aiming. I tripped over my own feet as I pulled the trigger."
He estimated that the animal weighed 900-plus pounds, and was 15 to 20 years old. It had grass packed in its molars and little fat on its bones.
"It was starving to death and saw an opportunity," Brush said....
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