NRA's Personal Protection Class

It's been a hectic week. I spent some of it as part of a team teaching the National Rifle Association Personal Protection in the Home class to a dozen law-abiding citizens.

The purpose of the class is to teach people how to better defend themselves from violent attack. While the emphasis is on teaching students to shoot a pistol in a defensive situation such as a burglary while they are present in the home, the class also teaches how handguns work, ammunition selection, safe gunhandling and marksmanship, and there is also included a presentation from a law enforcement officer on Colorado statutes in regards to self-defense. Under state law, any person who passes a criminal background check, and who can provide a certificate from a recognized training organization (like the NRA) can apply for a permit to Carry a Concealed Weapon (CCW) which allows them to carry a handgun almost anywhere in the state.

About 48 of the 50 states currently allow some form of concealed carry. Some states have "may issue" laws, which means that applicants who meet their state's criteria (usually passing a background check and having a taken a suitable shooting class) may be issued a CCW at the discretion of the issuing law enforcement officer (usually a Chief of Police or a County Sheriff).

Other states have passed "shall issue" laws which say that if an idividual applicant satisfies the criminal background check, and the requirement for firearms training, then the issuing law enforcement officer "shall issue" a CCW permit to that person. This is a much more fair system, and is much more in accordance with the Second Amendment right to "Keep and Bear Arms."
The Second Amendment says that "The right of the the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." It does not say, ...not be infringed unless a cop decides to infringe.

NRA Certified Instructors teach classes in all fifty states. For more information, click here for the link to NRA's website.

Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood Live in Denver!

I'm standing in a restaurant in downtown Denver before the long-awaited gig from former Blind Faith band members Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood, wearing my 24-year old Clapton tee shirt, when this woman around forty years of age approaches me and gushes about what a big Winwood fan she is, and how she's so looking forward to seeing Clapton live for the first time. That's fine. I told her that I've been a Clapton fan since '74, but I've never seen Winwood live before. For a moment, it seemed like the seventies again; real Yin Yang. Cosmic, man.

So my wife and I get into the auditoreum and find our sixteenth row seats, and I look around, and I'm amazed at the diversity of the audience. Granted, most fans were like that lady in the restaurant, but there were quite a lot of kids in their teens and twenties, and--whoa! A veritable sea of grey hair! Seems that a lot of the original crowd who were in their twenties back when Eric was fronting for John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, Cream, and of course, Blind Faith, had also decided to show up live (the concert, not the crowd, well barely ... some of them) instead of just buying the Madison Square Garden concert DVD and curling up on the couch with the big screen TV and a glass of Chardonnay.

The performance kicked off with a crashing, pulsing rendition of Blind Faith's, Had To Cry Today, complete with some very good bright, pulsating stage lighting. It brought the audience to its feet, and that's where most of us stayed. It just kept rolling, and getting better and better for two hours. Steve Winwood, who is surely one of the most talented musicians to grace a stage for the past forty years is equally at home playing keyboards or electric guitar, but he also more than held up his end of an acoustic guitar duet with Clapton that featured Layla.


The band was tight. The other musicians, drums, bass, and two backup singers were more than qualified to be on stage and gave a great performanc. But there was one other giant on stage; Chris Stainton on keyboards. I think the first time I saw Chris playing with Clapton was in '79 or '80 on the Just One Night tour, that produced the double album of the same name. Stainton delivers. He's the guy who, just when you think the guitar solos can't get any better, pops up from behind the keyboard and delivers a blistering piano solo that just leaves the other band members as well as the audience, well, gobsmacked--as Eric would say. And Chris was certainly on form last night. The band was great: Cocaine, Voodoo Chile, Mr. Fantasy; Only two people should be allowed to play Georgia on My Mind in public: Ray Charles (who's dead) and Stevie Winwood.

Somewhere around the performance of Pearly Queen, I noticed how the stage lights were illuminating a lot of smoke in the theater. The atmosphere was starting to smell like someone set fire to the southern end of a north-bound mule. I looked ahead of me a couple of rows and watched two guys whose evident smoking and drinking had turned them from the graceful dancers that I'm sure they must be when they aren't smoking, to a pair of lobotomized chimps in concrete boots. I doubt they will remember much this morning about a truly professional, polished, and talent-laden concert. And at 150 bucks a seat, I guess that's why they call it Dope.

But I digress. Remember that 24-year old tee shirt that I bought in Chicago at the Behind The Sun Tour? I only wear it for Clapton concerts. It's almost as good today as it was back then. Clapton and Winwood, on the other hand, are much better.

Obama Takes Swift, Decisive Action

A CNBC news clip shows the President taking swift and decisive action the other day. He saw a threat, evaluated his options, and carefully and surgically used deadly force to solve the problem. Almost sounds like Spec Ops, doesn't it?

During a taped interview, a fly buzzed around the president and landed on the back of his hand. He immediately killed it with a single swat. "Got the sucker," he confirmed, before continuing with the interview.

This did not sit well with the folks at People for The Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) who don't like the idea that the president killed a living thing. They sent him a fly trap that is designed to humanely catch a fly without harming it so that it can later be released.

I think the president's actions were correct. I just wish he'd apply the same policy to terrorists. As for PETA's catch and release policy on flies, it's hard to argue with them on that issue when it is the same policy that the Obama administration uses for Guantanamo Bay terrorists.

Now if the president had caught the fly in the PETA trap, he could have had it flown to Bermuda and released there--just like that small group of GITMO terrorists were a couple of weeks ago. On the other hand, perhaps we should continue to treat terrorists like the president handles house flies and swat 'em dead at the first opportunity.

Dude, Where's My Constitution? Are You Sick of Big Government?

Fox News pundit Glenn Beck read a letter on the air today from a woman who says she's been a lifelong Democrat and is frustrated with the headlong rush to socialism that the current administration is taking us.

Here's part of what she wrote: "The fact is I no longer feel any political party or representative in Washington represents my views or works to pursue the issues important to me. There must be someone. Please tell me who you are. Please stand up and tell me that you are there and that you're willing to fight for our Constitution as it was written."

As I listened to the text of the letter, I had to agree with her. Here are a few of the things that she's angry and frustrated about and what she wants done about them:

"One, illegal immigration. I want you to stop coddling illegal immigrants and secure our borders..."

"Two, the TARP bill, I want it repealed and I want no further funding supplied to it. "

"Three: Czars, I want the circumvention of our checks and balances stopped immediately. Fire the czars. No more czars. "

"Four, cap and trade. The debate on global warming is not over. There is more to say. "

"Six, growing government control. I want states rights and sovereignty fully restored. I want less government in my life, not more."

"Seven, ACORN. I do not want ACORN and its affiliates in charge of our 2010 census. I want them investigated."

"Eight, redistribution of wealth. No, no, no. I work for my money. It is mine. "

"Nine, charitable contributions ... Charity belongs in our local communities ... Butt out, please. We want to do it ourselves."

"Ten, corporate bailouts. Knock it off. Sink or swim like the rest of us."

"Eleven, transparency and accountability. How about it? No, really, how about it? "

"Twelve, unprecedented quick spending. Stop it now. "

"Take a breath. Listen to the people. Let's just slow down and get some input from some nonpoliticians on the subject. Stop making everything an emergency. Stop speed reading our bills into law. I am not an activist. I am not a community organizer. Nor am I a terrorist, a militant or a violent person. I am a parent and a grandparent. I work. I'm busy. I'm busy. I am busy, and I am tired. I thought we elected competent people to take care of the business of government so that we could work, raise our families, pay our bills, have a little recreation, complain about taxes, endure our hardships, pursue our personal goals, cut our lawn, wash our cars on the weekends and be responsible contributing members of society and teach our children to be the same all while living in the home of the free and land of the brave."

You can read the full text of her letter at GlennBeck.com just click here. If you agree with her sentiments, you can sign the petition on the same page. I managed to sign it just before the website overloaded from the number of people trying to access it. That speaks volumes about how ordinary people feel about our country and how we are being screwed over by politicians from both parties.

David Letterman's Apologies to The Palins

So. David Letterman has apologized for a second time to Sarah Palin and her two daughters for his joke in which he claimed that Yankees baseball player Alex Rodriguez impregnated Palin's underage daughter while she was watching the game.

I'm not going to get into the discussion about whether or not he meant it, whether of not he should apologize, or if the incident is enough to force Letterman to resign from his talk show, "Late Night" on CBS.

But in true Letterman style, I'll give you the top ten reasons why I think he should resign from his spot as a talk show host:

10. He's dull.
9. He's boring.
8. He's narcissistic.
7. He should make way for someone with fresh material.
6. I miss Johnny Carson
5. Is Arsenio Hall still available?
4. I don't think he understands why people found the joke offensive.
3. The Palin joke was simply in bad taste.
2. He isn't funny.

And the number one reason I think Letterman should resign: He isn't entertaining.

President Bush's Birthday Parachute Jump

Not only have President Bush and I both jumped with the U.S. Army's Golden Knights parachute display team, but we've both jumped with the same guy -- Tandem Team Leader Sergeant First Class Mike Elliot.

This photo is of Mike and me about 8,000 feet above Wyoming. President Bush's first jump was during World war II into the Pacific ocean as a navy pilot when he was shot down. He has jumped with the Golden Knights on his 75th, 80th, and now his 85th birthday.

Here's the article I wrote shortly after my jump in 2005. Thank you, Golden Knights. And Happy Birthday Mr. President!


"You can tell when the jumpers are leaving the aircraft. They make a swoosh sound that I can hear up in the cockpit,” pilot Alan Aber told me, “When the new guys are trying out for the team, they aren’t used to jumping out of something that goes 105 knots. There’s a blast shield that folds over the rear doors when they are locked back in the open position. Sometimes they don’t push off far enough and they really smack into that blast shield. But generally it’s more embarrassing than anything else,” Aber chuckled. I chuckled too, thankful that I had not collided with anything when I made my skydiving debut the previous day out of Aber’s plane, a Fokker F27, used by the U.S. Army’s Golden Knights Parachute Display team to introduce lucky individuals like me to the sport of parachuting, and to promote the Army’s ongoing public relations campaign. My jump took place over Cheyenne, Wyoming, where I was strapped to Sergeant First Class Mike Elliot, an Airborne Infantryman and tandem instructor on the Golden Knights Gold Demonstration Team to literally hitch a ride on his parachute. Like many people, I have an irrational fear of heights; Standing on the observation floor of the Sears Tower in Chicago, the Eiffel Tower in Paris, and the Royal Gorge Bridge in Colorado have all triggered sweaty palms and the feeling that the great void around and below me would somehow reach up and drag me down into it. I had already decided not to dwell on putting my life in the hands of a stranger while jumping out of a perfectly good aircraft. At least by jumping with the Army I knew I was beginning my skydiving career at the top--no pun intended. Mike and I began by examining the tandem parachute: a 370 square foot elliptical nylon canopy and container which together weigh approximately 60lbs. Next, we reviewed the method by which we would leave the aircraft. “You’re going to look like this in freefall,” Mike explained as he slid belly down, arms and legs extended, onto a convenient coffee table in the Regional Airport building in Cheyenne. He played a short video showing Golden Knights jumpers freefalling in complicated geometric shapes with other team members, popping smoke, and generally having fun while on a collision course with planet Earth at 120 mph, all to the sound of some good rockin’ music designed to get your adrenaline level up. By the end of the film I was not only eager to jump, I wanted to invade a foreign country just for the fun of it! And maybe that’s the point of all this. At a time when many of our soldiers are deployed overseas, the Golden Knights don’t hide the fact that their mission is to promote the Army to the public. It’s called advertising, and these soldiers are wonderful ambassadors both for the sport of parachuting and for the Army.


Our third jumper was Staff Sergeant Joe Jones, who would jump with Mike and me and film our descent for the personalized video tape that all guest jumpers receive; capturing the rare privilege of wearing the Knight’s famed yellow and black jump suit. Joe’s parachute is a 120 square foot elliptical nylon canopy and container weighing approximately 20lbs.


In addition to display jumps at events like Cheyenne’s annual Frontier Days festival, the Golden Knights also field Style and Accuracy teams for both inter-service and civilian (inter)national competitions. In the Accuracy event, the team must touch down as close as possible to a target that is only a few centimeters wide. In the Style competition, the team jumps at 7500 feet and is judged by the number of different formations they can make, requiring that they separate and rejoin for each successful maneuver. Based at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, the Golden Knights unit is comprised of only 86 members: jumpers, parachute technicians, aircrew and support personnel. There are two demonstration teams: Black Team and Gold Team. I made my jump with Gold Team. I asked Mike Elliot the age of his oldest jumping partner: “A ninety-two year old lady,” Mike replied, “and President Bush senior has also jumped with us.”


A typical jump is made from one of the two Fokker F27 twin turboprop aircraft that the team purchased in 1985. Built in Holland, these aircraft were customized with an oversize door on each side of the fuselage, just forward of the tail, and were originally destined for delivery to the parachute regiment of an African army. But when the deal fell through, the aircraft were sold instead to the Golden Knights. “We had to fly them back from Holland in stages,” Alan Aber recalls. “We added fuel tanks inside the fuselage and hopped from Holland, to Ireland, to Greenland, and finally to the East Coast. We had a couple of factory pilots with us, but it still amounted to on-the-job training to get used to them.” The F27 meets some important criteria for the team: It is of the correct size to transport a team and all their gear from one jump location to the next, while being small enough to operate from short runways and fly slow enough (105 knots) for parachutists to exit the aircraft and stay together in formation.


Cheyenne, Wyoming, where I made my tandem jump is 6,000 feet above sea level. We jumped at 14,000 feet above sea level. As the airplane spiraled upwards in the thinning air, we passed around an oxygen bottle. At one point, I found myself getting light headed and took a few extra lungs-full. I had to sit on Mike’s lap in order to get his harness hooked to mine, and then we stood up and duck-walked down the aisle to the rear of the aircraft. As we approached the open door, with the green light above it, I hooked my thumbs into the harness. I looked out of the door and then it finally hit me that I was about to throw myself into the same nothingness that surrounds the Sears Tower. Oh well, too late to back out now. Pride took over and we stood in the door. As instructed, I lifted my feet, hanging in my harness, legs slid backwards in between Mike’s knees, my heels pointed up. I rested my head back against his left shoulder so that he had an uninterrupted view of the ground, and raised my hands in a surrender position. “Ready?” Mike asked.“Yes, I’m-“ Before I could take a breath, we were gone. Whoa! I wasn’t prepared for such fast acceleration. Our combined weight would cause us to accelerate to 170mph if Mike did not release the small drogue parachute immediately after we left the aircraft. The drogue is designed to keep the speed down to a maximum of 120mph. As we fell to earth in the classic horizontal, arms and legs extended position, two other Golden Knights jumpers swooped down and linked hands with me. For a few precious seconds I was part of one of the finest display teams in the world. I was literally jolted back to reality as Mike deployed the parachute. The sudden deceleration gave me the impression we were shooting upwards, rather than down. And then we were floating silently, gliding in a series of lazy figure eights as Mike steered us to land on the airport grass, scant feet from where we had taken off. What a rush. Forget my fear of heights. I’d do this again in a heartbeat.

Another Murder at Virginia Tech

I'm sure we all remember the mass shooting at Virginia Tech in which a student from China went on a rampage. Remember the big debate about whether or not students who have a state-issued permit to carry a concealed handgun should be allowed by the university to do so on campus?

Of course, like many universities, Virginia Tech does not allow students to be responsible for their own security, preferring to rely on campus security to keep the peace. Well here's a story that I don't think made many ripples in the national media. At the end of May, another student from China, Haiyan Zhu attacked a female chinese student, Xin Yang in the cafeteria and cut off her head.

How can this possibly happen on a campus that has already dealt with violent crime, and, presumably either improved it's security, or was already confident that the security was adequate? Well, to be fair to the university, no amount of security guards can respond instantly to every incident on campus.

The news report indicates that the couple were not alone in the cafeteria. There were other people present at the time of the attack. One onlooker said, "...he had just returned from a break at his job at Au Bon Pan in Tech's Graduate Life Center on Jan. 21 when he heard growling and screaming. He looked up to see Haiyan Zhu attacking Xin Yang."

The onlooker went on to say that,"...he dove behind the counter and called 911 while customers and his manager ran from the coffee shop. "

Why did these people run away? How can you witness a savage attack and do nothing? These are not bad people, they are not stupid people. I think the reason is that they have not been conditioned to belive that they can act against violence and prevail. They have likely been conditioned by the nanny state to give in to violence--"if I don't fight back, he won't hurt me".

How many times have you heard the victim of a mugging say, "there was nothing I could do."

The fact is that we don't know what we can do until we try. Self defense is not primarily about how big we are, how strong we are, or how well armed we are. Self defense is about having the correct mindset. It is about having that fighting spirit that says, "You will not do that to me! Even if I get hurt, or die, I will fight you until you stop being a threat to me."

Our society is teaching each generation that all violence is bad. Tell that to the bad guys because it seems they didn't get the message. We need to teach every generation that there are times when it's morally acceptable to physically hurt a person who is committing a criminal act of violence.

Surely the right to self-defense is the most basic right of all living things.

Do You Want to Know What the Economy is Really Like?

I'm not an economist, and, frankly, I struggle to understand some of the financial and economic information that is presented on the nightly news. But lately, I've been reading John Williams' website, Shadow Government Statistics: http://www.shadowstats.com/

I haven't explored all of it yet, but it's packed with information that not only explains how the government (often incorrectly) analyzes and presents economic information, but comments on the pitfalls of long term financial policies. His essay on the hyperinflation that he predicts is going to hit the U.S. economy in the near future is not only educational, but chilling, to say the least.

I've also added it to my blog list so that you can check it from time to time.

The Pakistan Hotel Bombing - Who's Next?

Yesterday's terrorist bombing of the Peshawar Pearl Continental Hotel in Peshawar, Pakistan is not something that we in the West should ignore.

According to a Fox News report from the site of the explosion, the homicide bomber attack breached the hardened checkpoint at the entrance to the hotel, and then the vehicle containing about a half ton of explosives was driven to a pre-arranged position in the hotel where the driver detonated the bomb. So far, eighteen people are reported dead. Damage to the hotel is pretty heavy. The bomb left a crater about six feet deep and about twelve feet wide, according to a Fox News reporter who was standing in it.

It sort of reminds you of the Oklahoma City bombing doesn't it? An explosive-laden vehicle causes massive damage to a large, concrete building. This was not a small explosion. The motive behind the Peshawar bombing is obvious: retaliation for the Pakistani government's military campaign against Al Quaeda in the Swat Valley. But what is also interesting, is that the hotel was under consideration by the United States government as a possible location for a U.S. Consulate. Either way, the bombing demonstrates that Al Quaeda is capable of attacking soft targets in response to military or diplomatic actions that it perceives as a threat.

As Al Quaeda seems to be regrouping and becoming bolder, I think it is certainly possible they could again stage similar attacks in western countries. Terrorist organizations need two things to flourish: money and active supporters. The way for Al Quaeda to continue its campaign of murder and terror is to appear to its supporters to be proactive and successful. And that is accomplished by attacks like the one in Peshawar. At some point, the terrorists will once again turn their attention to western Europe. Illegal immigrants from Afghanistan have already proved that once they gain access to one of the European Union member states, they can travel freely throughout the continent, and even into the UK. It isn't hard to imagine that terrorists can do the same.

Al Quada must surely be loooking to pull off another high profile bombing such as the ones in England in July, 2005, and in Spain in March, 2004. Free and open societies are vulnerable to these attacks. The question is, who's next?

We have to be vigilant. Terrorist attacks against civilian targets are not always prevented by the authorities. As individuals, we have to take care of our own personal security. And that begins with being constantly aware of our surroundings. If you are not already living in Condition Yellow, I suggest you read my essay, "What is Condition Yellow and Why Should We Care?" on this blog site.

Where's Al Gore?

Let me see if I've got this right: Two journalists who work for Al Gore's Current TV channel were arrested by North Korean guards near the Chinese border. They have been tried and convicted of "grave crimes" and sentenced to 12 years in a North Korean labor camp.

People over here are speaking out. Hillary Clinton in her role as Secretary of State, has spoken against the trial. The U.S. Government has expressed concern. There has even been talk of former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson negotiating a release, which he has done before with the North Koreans.

But Al Gore has remained silent. Newsmax reports that, "Gore had no comment."

I don't expect Mr. Global Warming to just drop what he's doing and go sailing off to north Korea to negotiate the release of two people who work for him. The Nobel Peace Prize winner is far too busy saving the planet. Right? But how long would it take for him to issue a simple statement like, "Hey, Kim Jomg Il! Let my people go, or we will take your carbon credits away."

But seriously, am I the only one who thinks that even a simple public statement from Mr. Pulitzer, condemning the trial, would at least be the decent thing to do for people who work for him?

Hmmm. Okay, maybe Bill Richardson would be more effective.

D Day + 1

photo: GIs train for the invasion at Slapton Sands, south coast of England, 1944. [photo courtesy U.S. Army Center of Military History]

While we're on the subject of the invasion of Normandy, it's appropriate to remember that the invasion didn't just happen. The planning and preparations literally took years. One of the biggest feats was to assemble the necessary manpower and equipment, and train the troops, to be able to pull off the largest invasion in history. And they would likely only get one chance to do it.

The British Army lost most of its equipment when it evacuated from the French beaches at Dunkirk in 1940 as Hitler's armies advanced across France. Starting around 1942, massive amounts of arms, munitions and other equipment were shipped to Britain from America. Without these supplies, the Brits would not have been able to continue the war. In addition, thousands of American and Canadian troops also arrived--a total of 1.5 million ground troops, and an additional 500,000 airmen and sailors. Thousands of men and women who had escaped from Nazi-occupied Europe also managed to reach Britain with the intention of fighting to free their homelands: French, Poles, Czechs, Dutch, Belgians, and Norwegians all gravitated to Britain to fight the war.

Huge bases were set up in England to house and train the invasion troops. Farm land was acquired to build airfields for British and American bomber and fighter aircraft, so that they could conduct raids into occupied Europe and Germany. A lot of the civilian population in England were required to give up their houses, farms and villages to make way for the bases. American forces were assigned to the counties of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset and Somerset on the southwest peninsula of England where there was space for them to train.

Sure, there was some friction between the locals and the tourists, but overall, it was an incredible example of people pulling together and making sacrifices for the common good. I came across this message that was posted on a church in south Devon, where the local population had to leave in order to make way for the U.S. Army:

"TO OUR ALLIES OF THE USA: This church has stood here for several hundred years. Around it has grown a community, which has lived in these houses and tilled these fields ever since there was a church. This church, this churchyard in which their loved ones lie at rest, these homes, these fields are as dear to those who have left them as are the homes and graves and fields which you, our Allies, have left behind you. They hope to return one day, as you hope to return to yours, to find them waiting to welcome them home. They entrust them to your care meanwhile, and pray that God's blessing may rest upon us all." signed, Charles, Bishop of Exeter.

[extract from "The Normandy Landings" by Derek Blizard 1993, Reed International Books, ISBN 0-600-57905-0]

D-Day in Europe

photo: The first view that many soldiers had of France was from the deck of a landing craft like this one. In many cases, incoming fire from German machine guns also made it the last view they had.


Today is the sixty-fifth anniversary of the allied landings in Normandy, France; the largest one-day invasion in history. The invasion force consisted primarily of American, British, and Canadian troops, but also included soldiers from most commonwealth countries and european soldiers who had escaped from their own occupied countries to fight on the side of the allies (sorry if I left anybody out).

A successful allied invasion of Europe was essential to support the previous invasion in the Mediterranian sea by allied forces landing in Italy. Without it, the war with Nazi Germany could have dragged on for years, and the way that the world looks today would have been vastly different. The Americans who took part in World war Two, young service people from every state in America, people who worked in factories building tanks, aircraft, and ships, have been appropriately named "The greatest generation." Without them, and their counterparts in allied countries, it's conceivable that the entire world may be living today under the rule of German fascism.

The landings by sea were conducted across five Normandy beaches; Two for the American forces, codenamed "Utah" and "Omaha", and two for the British forces: "Gold" and "Sword", and one beach, "Juno" for the Canadians. In addition, American and Commonwealth airborne troops landed by parachute and glider.

The logistics and preparations involved in mounting such an operation took years. I remember my mother, who was driver in the British Army at the time, telling me how she and the other female drivers in her unit spent months in the lead up to the invasion hauling naval shells from the factory to the south coast of England.

The surviving veterans are now all in their eighties, or older. They are dying at a rate of about 300,000 each year.

So if you know one, today may be a good time to ask them if they would like to talk a little bit about their experiences sixty-five years ago. Many of them don't want to remember, but at the very least, you might take the time to say thanks. The world war two generation made history and shaped the future.



The U.S. cemetery in Cambridge, England, contains the remains of 3,812 of American war dead from World War II.

A New Aspect of Domestic Terrorism

The Muslim convert who shot two U.S. Army soldiers in Little Rock, Arkansas on June 1st may herald the beginning of a type of terrorism that is relatively new to the United States, but is very familiar to Israelis, Iraqis, the Irish, and other nationalities.

We in the USA have seen criminal attacks by lone gunmen before: Charles Whitman, who killed 14 people at the University of Texas, mostly from atop a tower, in 1966; Patrick Purdy - the Stockton, California school shootings in 1989, for example. But in other parts of the world, similar attacks have been carried out for political reasons: U.S. Army Colonel Nick Rowe was assigned to provide counter-insurgency training to the Armed Forces of the Phillipines. In 1989, on his way to work one morning, Colonel Rowe's vehicle was ambushed and he was shot dead by two Filipinos.

So, what has been happening around the world for decades has come to America; the deliberate assassination of individuals for political or religious motives. The shooting of the two soldiers, and the subsequent discovery on the assassin's computer of other targets indicates the possibility that this was more than just one lunatic's plan to get even with the world. At best, he alone intended to target other individuals. At worst he is part of a conspiracy--a terrorist group--to attack americans on our own soil. If the history of other nations is anything to go by, sooner or later, politically motivated assassinations of targeted individuals will occur here. We may very well have already seen the first. The big advantage an attacker has is that he blends in with the locals right up to the point where he begins his attack. Mao said that a terrorist is a fish in a sea of humanity, and he was right.

The question is, how do we handle such attacks? As a nation, we can no longer expect our military to be the first and only line of defense as we have done up to now with wars overseas such as Iraq and Afghanistan. Likewise, we cannot expect our police, from the FBI at the federal level to individual state, county, and city departments, to prevent attacks or stop them once they are under way. The cops cannot be everywhere, and it's likely that they would be unable to respond to such an attack in time.

The answer lies with us, as civilians. Fortunately, we live in a country where some form of concealed or open carry of a firearm is allowed in about 48 of the fifty states. Somewhere there is a statistic that says that armed, law-abiding civilians shoot (in self-defense) about the same number of violent criminals each year as the police do. That means that there is at least a chance in many parts of the country that if a terrorist attack similar to the one in Little Rock happens, an armed citizen or two might be on hand to deal with it.

We have only to look at what types of attacks occur in other countries to see what we might be up against here; shootings and bombings. The Israelis have lots of experience in dealing with both. When a terrorist has shot up a restaurant or some other public place, Israeli civilians have defended themselves and those around them, and in many cases they have prevailed. Defense against a terrorist wearing an explosive vest--a homicide bomber--is tougher because these people have no intention of living through the attack. But nonetheless, a well placed round or two in the brain box may prevent an explosion, or at least stop the attacker before he enters a building.

There are no easy solutions to the problem of people who look like the rest of us right up until the point where they launch their attack on civilians. The goal of people in this country should be to ensure that we are not helpless or hapless civilians. Concealed carry is an essential tool, but so is constant vigilance, which we strive for by living in Condition Yellow--being constantly aware of our surroundings. We can learn the easy way from the lessons of other countries now, or we can learn the hard way from attacks here later.

Free NRA Membership

The NRA is offering a free, one-year trial membership. Now, even in these tough economic times, there is really no excuse for any gunowner, or anyone who values the freedoms bestowed upon us in the Bill of Rights to not join the gun lobby's nine-hundred pound gorilla.

Just go to: https://www.nrahq.org/nrabonus/accept-membership.asp

If ever there was a time since the Clinton administration for gunowners to unite to defend the Second Amendment, this is it! The assault weapons ban is hanging around out there, and so is Congressman Bobby Rush's bill H.R.45 that would put severe restrictions on handgun ownership.

But Ben Franklin said it best: "We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately."

Why Socialists Don't See Illegal Immigration as a Threat to National Security and Sovereignty

This evening I had one of those rare (for me) forehead-slapping why-didn't-I-think-of-this-before? moments.

The TV news channel, World Focus aired a report from Greece about the number of immigrants from Afghanistan (mostly young men) that are illegally entering the country as a way to get into Europe, and then ultimately to Britain.

This is nothing new for the Brits. For a decade or more, the British government, first under Prime Minister Tony Blair, and now under Gordon Brown, has ignored the flood of illegals from north Africa, middle eastern countries, and elsewhere and simply labeled them as asylum seekers.

Watching this similar situation in Greece, it occurred to me that socialists like Blair, Brown and most of the ruling Labour party that has been in power in Britain since 1997, have an agenda to make their socialist policies global. And if that's the case, why would they care where anyone of any nationality lives?

As a legal immigrant myself, I sympathize with individuals who do whatever they have to in order to live in a country other than the one in which they were born. But sympathizing with an individual's plight doesn't make their actions right or lawful. I believe in the rule of law, and the importance of each nation's individual sovereignty.

In Blair, Brown, and other socialist politician's vision, there would only be two classes: The socialist ruling class, and the rest of us. No national governments or national borders and boundaries. So what would it matter to them where a person was born and where they decided to live?