Marion Robbery Foiled By Armed Citizen

Although local news doesn't always report positive gun uses, (see my post Iowa News Shows Its Anti-Gun Bias) in a case this week they did.


KCRG-TV9 reports:


MARION — A Burlington man was caught in the act of robbing two people in Marion by an armed citizen.


According to the Linn County attorney’s Office, 66-year-old John R. Barnett assaulted two people outside an apartment building in the 1400 block of Grand Avenue in Marion on Tuesday. An accomplice was with Barnett at the time of the assault, police said. A wallet was taken from one victim.


Authorities said that during the robbery, a witness intervened and held Barnett at gunpoint until officers arrived. The accomplice was able to flee with the victim’s wallet.


The Marion Police Department said if a person feels threatened, they have the right to use force. Barnett was arrested and has been charged with two counts of second-degree robbery.


You can watch a more in-depth news video HERE.

Iowa News Shows Its Anti-Gun Bias

What if some big city gangbangers lead police on a high speed chase until they crashed in a nearby small town and then fled on foot and the pursuing deputy got injured, so two country boys decided to pursue the five suspects themselves and captured the bad guys at gunpoint and turned them over to the police? That would be a pretty interesting story, right? Especially in Iowa where the big news usually involves the butter cow at the State Fair.


Well apparently not to most Iowa news reporters. The old adage in reporting is, "If it bleeds, it leads." Apparently the new maxim in reporting is: "If it casts gun owners in a positive light, bury it."


For those of you who don't have press cards stuck in the bands of your fedoras, here's the scoop. According to Cedar Rapids CBS2/FOX28 news (to my knowledge the ONLY mainstream news agency to include the armed civilian good guy aspect of this story):

Five men are in jail after a very scary car chase.
The Linn County Sheriff's office says it all started with a shots fired call in Cedar Rapids and ended with a car crashing into a child's playhouse.
Deputies say, around 7 Wednesday night, they tried to stop a vehicle that matched the description of a car involved in a shots fired call.
They say the driver of the car wouldn't stop so officers chased them all the way to solon.
The chase ended after the car crashed into someone's yard plowing through a child's play house.
That's when the five men got out of the car and took off running; two neighbors saw the commotion and decided to help.
Tim Moore and Scott Eastwood say the five men threw drugs and a gun down in his yard as they ran across the highway.
During the chase, the deputy who was chasing them fell so Tim and Scott got into a truck and continued to chase the men.
The men were eventually caught when the neighbors confronted them and held them there [at gunpoint] until back up arrived.

The video of the newscast is a little more in-depth and contains interviews with Scott Eastwood, the permit-to-carry holder, and his neighbor Tim Moore who apprehended the five suspects. The story focuses quite a bit on the armed good guy aspect of the story. I highly recommend that you watch news video to get a full feel for the story.


The important thing to note here is that if it wasn't for CBS2/FOX28 (who share a news room) we might not know at all that the suspected bad guys were apprehended by an armed civilian permit-to-carry holder. None of the other news outlets even mentioned it.


KWWL news (Waterloo) reported:  "Five occupants of the vehicle took off on foot, and was [sic] later arrested by police officers." KCCI news (Des Moines) stated simply: "The five males in the truck tried to run from the scene, but they were soon captured."


The "Iowa City Press-Citizen" wrote: "The occupants of the vehicle fled on foot and they were pursued by the Linn County deputy who initiated the chase," [Johnson Co. Sheriff's Office Capt. Gary] Kramer said. With the help of some Solon residents, who alerted officers to the suspects' location, the five individuals were arrested a short distance away on Sutliff Road, Kramer said." [Emphasis added.]


"The Gazette" of Cedar Rapids, which normally is so fascinated by permit-to-carry holders that it periodically publishes their names and addresses when they apply for or renew their permits, yawned from the page: "[F]ive people were apprehended near where the truck crashed after they tried to run from the scene."


We've seen this many times on the national scene, when school shootings or other shooting sprees are stopped by armed civilians. The national news media usually just report that bystanders "subdued" or "disarmed" the gunman, never mentioning that they did so by pointing their own weapons at him.


If an Iowa permit-to-carry holder someday overzealously pulls his pistol on an innocent person or accidentally shoots himself in the leg you can expect a lot of media attention on THAT gun owner. If you're a supporter of the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms just remember: No news is good news.

Resistance Is NOT Futile!

"Resistance is futile," the evil Borg would warn enemies that they intended to assimilate into their collective on Star Trek: The Next Generation. It seems like we hear that exhortation from all types of progressive "experts" these days when it comes defending ourselves from those who would prey upon us.

While Colorado was passing its recent gun bans (including banning licensed concealed carry on college campuses), for instance, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs advised its students to vomit or urinate on themselves to repel a rapist. Active resistance could get the girl harmed, don't you know? This despite the fact that research going all the way back to the Jimmy Carter administration shows that of attempted rapes 32% were actually committed, but when a woman was armed with a gun or knife, only 3% of the attempted rapes were actually successful.

Rape isn't the only crime that armed defense has proven effective in resisting. After the Newton shootings President Obama called for a review of existing research on gun violence. The results he got probably weren't what he was looking for. The assessment from the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council concludes that crime victims who use guns in self-defense have lower injury rates than other victims.

One 2006 Florida State University study cited in the assessment found that "self-protection in general, both forceful and nonforceful, reduced the likelihood of property loss and injury, compared to nonresistance." It found that using a gun in self-defense reduced the risk of property loss as well minor or serious injury to the victim. In clinical language, it concludes: "Combined with the fact that injuries following resistance are almost always relatively minor, victim resistance appears to be generally a wise course of action." In other words, "Resist, damn it!"

You can see the macro-effects of individual armed resistance on our crime rates as well. Since violent crime peaked in 1991, twenty-four more states have enacted "shall issue" laws giving citizens a lawful means to carry the most effective tool of resistance. Researchers found that "when state concealed handgun laws went into effect[,] murders fell by 8.5 percent, and rapes and aggravated assaults fell by 5 and 7 percent.” In our nation we now see that gun ownership is at an all-time high while the nation's murder rate is at all-time lows. (Despite this, 56% of Americans think gun crime is worse than 20 years ago. Thank you mainstream media!)

Of course our Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms wasn't meant just to give us the means to resist muggers, murderers and rapists. It also gives us a defense "against sudden foreign invasions, domestic insurrections, and domestic usurpations of power by rulers" (in the words of jurist and Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story).

Although 65% of Americans believe the 2nd Amendment exists as a hedge against tyranny, I've heard this idea pooh-poohed by modern intelligentsia who believe that common citizens armed with light weapons would no longer be able to stand up to a foreign invader or domestic tyrant armed with heavy weapons and even nuclear weapons. ("Resistance is futile.")

However, there are numerous examples of primitive indigenous forces wreaking havoc on more-advanced foreign occupiers. The Afghans, for instance, were able to fight the Soviets for nearly a decade, eventually expelling them, and they have kept us hemorrhaging blood and treasure and unable to declare victory for over twelve years now.

Whether the tyrannical oppressor is foreign or domestic, in his book The War of the Flea, Robert Taber makes a convincing case that as long a guerrilla force retains the support and good will of the general populace it is very nearly unbeatable. An American resistance movement fighting honorably against despotism would no doubt retain a great deal of popular support from the American people.

Even if it were to fail, would it not be better to try? Better to stand against tyranny? Is not better to die on your feet than live on your knees? In The Gulag Archipelago,  Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's book about the Soviet forced labor camp system, it is  recounted how the victims of Communist brutality regretted not standing up against their oppressors early on:

"During an arrest, you think since you are not guilty, how can they arrest you? Why should you run away? And how can you resist right then? After all, you’ll only make your situation worse; you will make it more difficult for them to sort out the mistake.

"And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say goodbye to his family?

"Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?

"The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! We did not love freedom enough. Every man always has handy a dozen glib little reasons why he is right not to sacrifice himself."

No wonder that our Founding Fathers wrote in several of their state Bills of Rights that, "The doctrine of nonresistance against arbitrary power, and oppression, is absurd, slavish, and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind." Whether it be against the petty crimes of street criminals or the high crimes of tyrants: Stand and resist!

Cedar Rapids Police Chief Pushes More Ineffective Gun Control

In mid-August "Organizing for Action," a nonprofit group which mobilizes support for President Obama's legislative and political agenda, organized the "Gun Violence Prevention Rally" in Cedar Rapids Iowa. According to a Gazette story only about 30 people wandered into the event.

The most prominent of the several community leaders to speak was Cedar Rapids Police Chief Wayne Jerman. Chief Jerman has been trying to organize a gun "buyback" program since early this summer yet has only received $1,000 in donations from the community for that program.

At the gun control rally, Jerman said he supports background checks for all gun sales, restricting gun magazines to 10 rounds and banning so-called "assault weapons." His support for these measures not only puts him out of touch with what has proven effective but also out of step with the vast majority of rank and file police officers who care more about catching bad guys than giving speeches.

Jerman's support for "universal background checks," while setting the framework for registration of lawful guns and law-abiding owners, would do little to reduce crime. A 2001 Bureau of Justice Statistics survey of prison inmates convicted of gun crimes found that 79 percent acquired their firearms from off the books sources. Simply put, crack dealers buying guns on the black market will NOT be undergoing "universal background checks."

Perhaps that's why in a recent comprehensive survey of police officers, fully 79.7% of responding cops said that "a federal law prohibiting private, non-dealer transfers of firearms between individuals" would NOT reduce violent crime.

Restricting gun magazines to 10 rounds would be ineffective also. A 2004 Department of Justice report found "that assailants fire less than four shots on average, a number well within the 10-round magazine limit" making it irrelevant in most street crimes. Even in the more newsworthy yet rare mass shootings the arbitrary 10 round limit is mostly irrelevant. The Virginia Tech shooter and one of the Columbine shooters used 10 round magazines and were able to rack up massive body counts against their unarmed victims anyway.

An overwhelming 95.7 % of police officers said that a ban on magazines that hold more than 10 rounds would NOT reduce violent crime.

Jerman's support for banning "assault weapons" is equally unwarranted. Firstly, such a ban cuts to the heart of the Second Amendment giving a legislature a blank check to ban any and all firearms since "assault weapon" is a meaningless political term that can only be defined by the ban itself. Assault weapons affected by the previous federal ban were not fully-automatic "machine-guns" nor were they more powerful than traditional weapons.

So-called "assault weapons" were only used in a tiny percentage of crimes to begin with. Crime continued to fall after the federal assault weapons ban expired in 2004 and has continued to fall as previously banned weapons have sold by the million. Even the radical anti-gun group, Violence Policy Center, said “You can’t argue with a straight face that the [assault weapon] ban has been effective.”

71% of cops said that an ban on so-called "assault weapons" would have no effect on violent crime. Another 20.5% of police officers said that such a ban would actually INCREASE violent crime!

Oh, as for Jerman's gun "buyback" program that the community has not embraced, a recent CDC report stated simply that "gun turn-in programs are ineffective." 81.5% of police officers agree with that assessment.

Jerman's home state of Maryland ("There's yer problem!") has magazine capacity restrictions, bans on "assault pistols," and prohibitions on private sales of "regulated firearms," similar to the laws he is stumping for. Maryland also has a murder rate of 6.8 per 100,000 (in 2011) compared to Iowa's rate of 1.5 per 100,000. Sounds like those gun laws are really helping out there and we need to import them so we too can become a crime free Utopia like Maryland. (Yes, that was sarcasm.)

The taxpayers of Cedar Rapids need to decide if they are paying their police chief to serve and protect their community and ensure that beat cops have the resources they need to do their jobs or if they're paying him to be a political shill for the anti-freedom agenda of the Obama administration.

10 Questions with Corey D. Roberts (Part 1)

Corey D. Roberts is the founder of Tactical Insights L.L.C. in Monticello, Iowa, which provides "Christ-Centered Emergency Response Training" for churches and faith based organizations as well as tactical training for law enforcement and private citizens.

Roberts is currently a full-time patrol police officer with the Monticello P.D. and also serves on the multi-jurisdictional Jones County Emergency Response Team as Tactical Commander. He also serves in the Iowa Army National Guard (having served as an enlisted man, NCO and officer) and has been deployed several times.

Officer Roberts agreed to answer a few questions for me about guns, crime and freedom. The views expressed are those of Roberts and not necessarily those of any organization he may be affiliated with.

1. What is Tactical Insights L.L.C. and what inspired you to start it?

            In 2010, I was deployed to Afghanistan and I tell you that to tell you this; the one thing war movies never show adequately is the sheer, mind-numbing boredom that accompanies service in a war zone.  While we love to talk about the firefights and explosions, the hours of boredom seldom are mentioned.  During a soldier’s “down time” there is very little to do.  Running down to the store or going out with your friends is not an option, so soldiers find other ways to keep themselves occupied.  While deployed, there was a lot going on at home that we were able to catch glimpses of on Armed Forces Network television.  One of the things that was big news was the Union fights going on in Wisconsin. 

            Since several of the other soldiers I was deployed with were fellow Police Officers, this of course became a topic of conversation.  During our conversations, we discussed what we viewed as some of the problems with Law Enforcement today based on the issues that we were seeing in Wisconsin.  I had been writing some articles for a website called PoliceCrunch.com and chose to write an article on police leadership titled The Pack Mentality and the Leadership Lessons of Ike.  I found that this writing became my escape and my simple article became my first book.  When I finished the first book I began another titled Be a Man, for God’s Sake which is still unpublished.

While writing this second book I was writing a chapter called, “Be a Man at Church” and was working on a section called “A real man knows how to serve others”.  The Bible verse that I chose to use was:

 1 Peter 4:10 As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace:.

I was waxing eloquent about our duty as men to serve others using the gifts that God has given us.  The focus I used was that God has not called all of us to feed the poor in India, or to be the pastor of a mega-church, instead, what He has called us to do is use the gifts that He has given each of us.  If a man is a great electrician, use it for Him.  If a man is a great speaker, use it for Him.

As I was feeling pretty good about myself I began to search my own heart and the question came to me, “What am I doing with my gifts?”  Of course I told myself that I was a soldier and a police officer so I was doing pretty well, but that answer was not enough.  I shared this with my wife on one of our Skype conversations and we began to pray for direction for our lives.  

It would seem to be an easy task to find one’s gifts and simply apply them to His kingdom, but what does one do when his gifts are a Tactical Mind, and the ability to hurt other people?

At this time, I had been a member of our church for close to 10 years and had been on our church’s security team for several of those years.  During that time, I spoke to and trained the security team on requested topics in which I had knowledge, including Active Shooter Response.  Through prayer, I felt the calling of God very strongly to use this acquired knowledge and to offer this type of training to other churches and ministries as well. 

Tactical Insights L.L.C. was built out of a desire to follow His leading and we currently offer a complete training seminar to churches and ministries at no cost.  We feel that our responsibility is to ensure that the local church is prepared to respond to emergency situations ranging from natural disasters to threats from man.  Our churches should be a haven of hope to a hurting world and must be a place of safety for our communities. 

We have grown quickly as we have found other avenues in which my skill set can be used, such as Firearms training and self-defense training, but our primary focus remains on the security of our churches and ministries.

2. As a police officer, what do you believe is the biggest criminal threat to the safety of Iowans today?

            I struggled with this question as I could think of crime after crime that impacts our lives, even if we don’t see the direct effects.  I believe that the biggest criminal threats to the safety of Iowans are not the crimes themselves but the root of them.

1.  Apathy.  One of Webster’s definitions of apathy is indifference, lack of feeling of emotion or lack of interest.  Our society has become so involved in their own interests that the only thing that will pry them away from the television for 2 minute is a tragedy.  And even when a tragedy occurs, we really only care if it impacts us directly.  We see images of murder, rape, assaults, drug use, child abuse and all the evil that man can do to one another and we shrug our shoulders and change the channel.  When a tragedy finally impacts us and we miss the finale of American Idol because someone stole our television, we demand that something be done immediately.  When it is the neighbor’s house, we shrug our shoulders. 

2.  Sense of Entitlement.  If we combine the apathy of our society with an ingrained sense of entitlement, we have the recipe for disaster.  Our children are taught that everyone wins, everyone gets a trophy and anyone who has more than you is evil.  We have raised a generation who believe that all of their needs have become rights and those “rights” must be met.  We see examples of this all around us.  From the Occupy Wall Street movement who demanded that they get more free stuff, to those who steal from businesses and justify their actions because the business is “the man” and an “evil corporation”.  When we begin to define our “needs” as “rights”, we should not be surprised that a certain segment of our population will be willing to break the laws to ensure that they get what they believe they deserve.  This leads to my last point:

3.  No defined right or wrong.  The first thing I hear is; “But Corey, we do have defined right and wrong in our society”.  But, do we?  We have developed a set of laws that govern how we live in our society.  We have hired people to “enforce” these laws.  Every citizen of this state violates some “law” almost every day.  Our law books have become so large and complex that it would be impossible for anyone to even understand all the laws, let alone ensure that they don’t break one.  So our response is that we as citizens pick and choose which laws WE believe are relevant.  “I only smoke pot, it’s not like I’m killing people,” and “I only drive 5 mph over the limit.” 

So, why do we need so many laws?  We have thrown away our common moral compass and traded it for what makes us “feel good.”  The only way that a free society can operate is with a common moral understanding of right and wrong.  If we cannot live under this common moral compass, the society will need to be controlled by laws, enforced by men and women with the power to force compliance.  Welcome to America today.

Our nation was founded on Biblical principles of right and wrong which were understood by all, whether religious or not.  God’s laws were very simple and easily understood.  We as a society decided that God’s laws were old fashioned and irrelevant and replaced them with what made us feel good.  For example: homosexuality is not “wrong”, it’s a lifestyle choice.  Abortion is not “wrong”, it’s a choice.  Pedophilia is not “wrong”, it’s a sexual orientation. Looting is not “wrong”, it’s people showing frustration. Adultery is not “wrong”, it’s a natural choice. 

So why are we surprised when a crazy person enters an elementary school and shoots children?  We Christians have been told that we are not allowed to “judge” anyone for any reason.  How about now?  Can we say he was wrong, or was this just his “choice” and we need to respect his decisions?   

3. Since that monster committed the atrocity at Sandy Hook Elementary, school security has been in the forefront of many Americans minds (especially those of us with children in school). You are a member of the tactical response team that would be called into a school shooting in your county. You recently attended an Active Shooter Response Instructor Course. Based on your knowledge of active shooter scenarios, what are our schools doing wrong and what are they doing right to keep our kids safe?

            As a member of a Tactical Team, I can first tell you that the cops aren’t coming.  I know that this statement raises eyebrows and it certainly is not what people want to hear, but it is the truth.  Law Enforcement will respond and they will do the best they can, but it will not be enough.  The average active shooter scenario lasts 8 ½ minutes.  The most recent numbers for the national average response time to a 911 call is 8.7 minutes.  I cannot verify this number and I am still working to verify the data, but I can say from experience that it is fairly accurate.  The shooter at Virginia Tech was able to kill 30 people and wound 17.  What most people don’t know is that there was a SWAT team ready to deploy, 800 meters away from the building when the shooting started in the classrooms.  From 800 meters away, the SWAT team was unable to stop the shooting in time.  What about your school?  How far away is your local SWAT team and how long will it take them to get ready to respond?  It took the SWAT team at Virginia Tech over 15 minutes to get into the building from 800 meters away and in that time the shooter killed 30 and wounded 17.

This takes us back to personal responsibility. I recently wrote an article titled “We are killing our own kids” and I think the information must be shared with parents, school administrators and students alike.

The schools are really considering 3 things when they look at the issues of active shooters and develop safety plans: Survivability, Accountability, and Liability. But which of these are we putting first? 

Liability is always looking to avoid being sued...guess what, you are going to get sued. Sandy Hook elementary already has a $100 Million lawsuit. Deal with that now. 

Accountability is really there to address liability. "If we don't know where the kids are then we increase our liability." But is this really true?

Survivability is here to keep our kids and staff alive.

So which of these 3 are our schools and businesses putting first? Which of these is most important to you???  In ANY situation that we MANDATE a single response to a critical incident WE INCREASE LIABILITY and DECREASE SURVIVABILITY, all for the sake of accountability. If your child's school was on fire and your child was in the classroom but his or her planned escape route went directly through the fire...would you agree that they MUST follow the MANDATED response? What if the mandated response was that they hide under their desks?

Our kids will have one of 3 natural responses to fear: FIGHT-FLIGHT-or FREEZE. Which of these three responses is almost guaranteed to get them killed in an active school shooter response? Which one of these 3 are our schools and businesses MANDATING we do? If you haven't figured it out...it's FREEZE.  If you ask MY kids today what they should do if a crazy person comes into their school they would tell you RUN-HIDE-FIGHT!!!  They know to RUN if they can, out a window, out a door, and they even know where to go. I and my girls have driven to their Rally Points (a few blocks away at a safe location). Your schools are already MANDATED to have Rally Points...find out where they are and make sure your kids know them.  If they can't RUN, because the shooter is in the way or it's too late, they know to HIDE. Now within hide is barricade the doors, etc. or in what I teach businesses and churches "disrupt".

When all else fails they know that they have to FIGHT. My girls know how to use distractions in order to provide themselves an opportunity to go back to RUN.  They know to FIGHT until they can’t fight anymore.  My kids will not "hide under a desk" and wait for the cops WHO WILL NEVER GET THERE IN TIME!!! My kids are taught to survive and lead others to safety. Start talking to your kids today!! RUN-HIDE-FIGHT!!!!!!  Does this sound radical to you? Why? What do we teach our kids about Stranger Danger??? Do we tell them to turn off the lights and hide under the desk? I didn't think so.

I have always been an advocate of ALLOWING teachers, administrators and staff to be armed in our schools.  The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun (or knife, or machete, or baseball bat) is for someone to stop them with force.  Stopping a bad guy with a gun practically requires a good guy with a gun.  That’s why we give guns to cops.  A good example of this is one of my staff members who I will not name, but works fulltime in the schools.  He is a shooter, well trained, highly skilled and tactically minded.  He carries a firearm for self-defense at all times and I feel safer when he is around.  He is not allowed by law to carry within the schools.  Were there to be a shooter, he would be as defenseless as the rest.  Why is he not allowed to be armed?  I do not believe that we should REQUIRE teachers to be armed, but refusing to give our teachers the ability to defend themselves and our children is insanity at its core.

I do not advocate “a cop in every school”.  It is impractical, expensive and again is an example of us placing the responsibility of our own security in the hands of the government.  There are very few problems in our country that will be solved with more government.  Columbine had a School Resource Officer at the school on the day of the shooting.

Gun free zones don’t work and anyone who believes they do is naïve at best.  There is a reason that the crazed gunmen choose these areas. 

4. While on duty have you had any problems with civilians with permits to carry weapons?

            I am a supporter of the right to carry and as such I have had no issues.  I conducted a traffic stop recently where a man had his legal firearm on the passenger seat of his vehicle.  He was much more nervous than I.  As I approached the vehicle, he had both of his hands on the steering wheel and informed me right away that he had a permit for the handgun and that he had taken it out of the holster because it was digging into his back.  I told him I understood and just asked that he not reach for it.  We concluded our business and I told him to drive safely.  I believe that he was surprised by my reaction.  I believe that the citizen who is carrying his or her firearm legally is more likely to be of help to me than a threat. 

With that being said, there is a certain group who purposely carry firearms openly and entice Law Enforcement to approach them.  This is done in an attempt to “catch” officers violating their rights.  These individuals are trying to make a political point and fail to understand some very basic information.  I will take a minute and hopefully help them.  First, carrying your firearm openly is tactically the worst possible thing you can do.  This is not high noon and you are not a quick draw artist.  I recently stood behind a man in the Wal-Mart checkout line who was carrying a Glock 17 in an open carry holster.  I know it was a Glock 17 because at one point I actually reached down and put my finger on the weapon and took a picture of my hand on his firearm.  Had I chosen to I could have easily disarmed him and used his own weapon on him.  I did not take that opportunity to embarrass him but I easily could have.  He had absolutely no business carrying a firearm openly, legal or not, he did not have the situational awareness needed.  The first time I want a bad guy to know I am armed is when everything goes black, period.

Second, the officers that you are trying to “catch” are more than likely on your side.  The vast majority of police officers believe in your rights and have dedicated their lives to defending them.  Yes, there are some who believe differently, but “picking a fight” with the police to prove a point is making the wrong point, unless the point you are trying to make is that you want your ten minutes of fame.

5. Some people say that citizens getting a PTC should have to pass a shooting test to the same standards as active duty police. Do you think this is necessary?

            Active duty police officers are required to pass a formal qualification annually that is designed around the most likely police firefight scenarios.  This qualification requires shooting from 25 yards to 7 yards and requires multiple magazine exchanges and several different positions.  While I believe strongly that for a citizen who decides to carry a firearm for self-defense, it is vital that they have a certain level of competence with said firearm, I don’t believe that the standard is the same.

I teach the National Rifle Association Basic Pistol Shooting Course for individuals who wish to acquire a permit to carry weapons.  In my course, the students are required to display the ability to handle their firearm and to hit what they are aiming at.  My qualification standard is based on the most likely self-defense firefight scenario.  The idea that a citizen will be taking a self-defense shot from 25 yards is impractical at best and legally problematic at worst.  I encourage my students to shoot from those distances, but for a different reason.  The basic shooting fundamentals do not change as distance increases, but the mistakes made in the fundamentals become more critical at further distances.  Shooting a little high at 10 yards can cause some serious problems at 25 yards.

I believe that your self-defense is your personal responsibility and if you choose to carry a firearm, you should feel strongly about ensuring that you have the proper skills, confidence and attitude.  I don’t believe that it would be practical or prudent to require citizens to meet the same requirements as active law enforcement.  I do believe that those who choose to carry should work to ensure that they are adequately prepared to meet the challenges of self-defense.  One of the ways I encourage this is to teach a Tactical Shooting for the Private Citizen course in which we teach students to move from target shooting to practical firearm use such as positional shooting, shooting on the move etc.

Continued HERE.

Always Remember

Repeal Gun-Free School Zones

I was at work when I heard about the murder of the innocents in Newton, Connecticut. I remember hearing the President on the radio. "The majority of those who died today were children — beautiful, little kids between the ages of 5 and 10 years old," Obama said with great emotion. "They had their entire lives ahead of them — birthdays, graduations, weddings, kids of their own."

These were children the same age as my own. Like many Americans, like many parents, I felt saddened, outraged and violated by the actions of this madman who committed these despicable acts. Emotionally this felt like the most traumatic attack since 9/11.

Two days later President Obama spoke at the prayer vigil for the victims and hinted about efforts to prevent future tragedies. "We can’t tolerate this anymore. These tragedies must end," said Obama. "And to end them, we must change." But I wonder how much Obama and his allies are willing to change in response to tragedies like these.

It seems that the more of an abysmal failure a government measure is the more vehemently it will be defended by statists. In regard to school shootings the glaring failure is the federal Gun-Free School Zone Act (and its state and local clones). This law basically forbids the possession of a firearm in a school zone. Will Obama and his cohorts be willing to travel outside their own ideological comfort zone and listen to arguments that just maybe this measure does more harm than good? I'll give them two reasons why the GFSZA should be repealed.

First, it's unconstitutional. I realize that most politicians, like most of my countrymen, don't care a fig about whether or not a law complies with the U.S. Constitution. But, since I once swore an oath to kill or die in defense of that document, I'll include it here for nostalgia's sake if nothing else. In this case you don't have to just take the word of some blogger in his pajamas pounding a keyboard. The U.S. Supreme Court agreed with me and already stuck the law down once.

The federal GFSZA was originally passed in 1990, but the Supreme Court ruled it to be an unconstitutional abuse of Congressional authority under the Constitution's commerce clause in U.S.v Lopez (1995). To uphold the law, the court concluded, "would require us to conclude that the Constitution's enumeration of powers does not presuppose something not enumerated, and that there never will be a distinction between what is truly national and what is truly local. This we are unwilling to do." In other words toting a gun in a local school is none of the federal governments damned business.

Congress responded by adding a few words to the original GFSZA and passing it again. Bill Clinton signed it again and it's been the law ever since. Although it's been challenged in lower courts, it hasn't made it back to the Supreme Court to be re-reviewed. Perhaps someday it will and perhaps the court will have the right mixture of political appointees to uphold it. Regardless of what the Supreme Court has said or will say about it, it is anathema to the intent of the framers of the Constitution.

The second, and I think more practical, reason to repeal the GFSZA is that it doesn't work. In 2000 Professors John R. Lott Jr. and William M. Landes released an exhaustive study of "Multiple Victim Public Shootings." Some key findings from that study:

• "Right-to-carry laws reduce the number of people killed or wounded from multiple victim public shootings as many attackers are either deterred from attacking or when attacks do occur they are stopped before the police can arrive."
• "Given that half the attackers in these multiple victim public shootings have had formal diagnoses of mental illness, the fact that some results indicate concealed handgun laws reduce these attacks by almost 70 percent is remarkable."
• "Not only does the passage of a right-to-carry law have a significant impact on multiple shootings but it is the only gun law that appears to have a significant impact."
• "[S]tates with the fewest gun free zones have the greatest reductions [in] killings, injuries, and attacks."[Emphasis added.]

In a July 2012 New York Daily News op-ed piece, John R. Lott points out a salient fact from his continued research that should be required reading for everyone on both sides of this debate: "With a single exception, every multiple-victim public shooting in the U.S. in which more than three people have been killed since at least 1950 has taken place where citizens are not allowed to carry their own firearms." That fact alone is shocking and points out the failure of "gun-free zones" of any kind in this country.

So who in America will "change" to help reduce tragedies such as the Sandy Hook slayings? Will Obama and his friends be willing to change their worldview enough to accept anything other than more restrictions on private gun ownership as a potential aid to the problem? Will the only real change be more loss of freedom, as has happened after so many tragedies in our nations history? I hope not. 

Our nation is already a little darker with the 20 little beacons of hope extinguished prematurely at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Let's not make it darker still by making all the other children grow up in a land less free.

Iowa 2011 Crime Rates- A Sneak Peek

The FBI has issued its Preliminary Annual Uniform Crime Report for 2011.  That was Iowa's first year as a "shall issue" weapons permits state.  The number of nonprofessional carry permits increased from 39,397 in 2010 to 94,516 through November 2011.  Advocates and opponents of the new law will want to know if their predictions came true.

“I don’t see how this could do any good," stated one police officer last year.  “There are going to be some shootings because of this,” said another officer speaking to Dean Close of the Vinton newspaper.  One letter-writer warned, "A gun in hand [...] messes with the head and mind, just as a muscle car does. Possibilities and actions are enhanced, and restraints on anger and all else that is upsetting are dwarfed and become ineffective."  Predictions of "wild west shootouts" by lawfully armed yokels were rampant.

Calmer heads predicted: "A year or two from now, when the sky doesn't fall and the bodies aren't stacked in the streets like cordwood, most Iowans can go back to not remembering that we have a carry law."

Who was closer to being right?  Unfortunately the FBI report won't answer everything because it is just the abbreviated preliminary report, and we shouldn't ascribe too much significance to any one year uptick or downtick anyway.

The report indicates that violent crime dropped by 4% nationwide in 2011, it's fifth consecutive yearly drop.  Murder dropped by 1.9% nationally.  Violent crime dropped by 4.9% in the "Midwest Region," while murder actually rose by 0.6% in the Midwest.  Some experts are predicting that while national crime rates are at historic lows, they may have bottomed out, as evidenced by an upward spike late in 2011.

The only Iowa-specific data I could find was in the report's "Table 4," listing crime rates for cities with populations over 100,000.  It listed Cedar Rapids, Davenport and Des Moines.

Murder remained the same in Cedar Rapids with 2 in both 2010 and 2011. In Davenport murders rose from 2 in 2010 to 5 in 2011. In Des Moines murders rose from 5 to 8. Thankfully those numbers remain relatively low and the uptick apparently occurred all across the Midwest. Opponents of the new law will have a hard time laying this statistical blip at the feet of the shall issue law since none of the murders were committed by permit holders. (If a permit holder ever did commit murder it would be the lead news story for a week and probably make the national news.)

All three cities saw a decrease in total violent crime from 2010 to 2011.  Cedar Rapids dropped from 386 in 2010 to 358 total violent crimes in 2011.  Des Moines had a negligible drop from 1,084 to 1,069 total violent crimes.  Davenport saw a significant drop from 868 to 652 violent crimes.

I don't think these three will be isolated examples when the FBI's complete report comes out later on. I know that the Waterloo P.D. reported that city's "violent and property crime" was down by 12% in 2011 and that county's sheriff reported rural crime was down as well.  I would imagine there are similar reports elsewhere in the state.  Anecdotally, I know that I don't have to execute three to five second rushes across my local Walmart parking lot to avoid bursts of gunfire from all the weapons permit holders.

At the very least, the shall issue law definitely has not led to the "blood in the streets" predictions of its harshest critics.  At best, it may have helped to push Iowa's already low crime rates a little lower.  We'll have to wait for the full report to see for sure.