First response to my little campus protest

In case some of ya'll have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm the guy who started this thread - http://mdshooters.com/showthread.php?t=5385 a few months ago to explain an idea I had to protest the prohibition on CCW on college campuses. I've been wearing it to school every day that it's been cold enough to, but so far I haven't gotten many questions about it.

Until yesterday, during a break in class (I'm a Culinary student at HCC) when I was outside with a few classmates and our Chef Instructor while they were catching a smoke. We were talking about class, and I had turned around to see if friend from class was behind me, and Chef asked me what the stuff on the back of my hoodie said.

I explained to him the best I could what and who MSI was, and what they were involved in as far as fighting for CCW rights in Maryland. I explained how unless you're a business owner transporting lots of cash, a connected politico type, or just extremely lucky, you basically have no ability to CCW in MD under the current laws. At that point, one of the other students who was outside smoking as well chimed in with "That's (expletive deleted)! So if I'm walking to my car after work (he works at a bar in the city, so gets out really late) and somebody jacks me, I have to fist-fight the (expletive deleted)? I told him yea, he's pretty much right.

Chef mentioned that he didn't understand why CCW was disallowed, since you can carry, as long as it's visible. My repsonse was "Yeah, if you live in Virginia." He was insistent that you could OC here, but when I (politely) informed him that I had researched the matter pretty carefully and he was wrong, he believed me. ("Why do I sometimes see people walking around with guns on their hips then?" "Uh, they're probably just cops, Chef. Cops do wear civilian clothes sometimes, ya know.") The conversation pretty much ended at that point, but Chef did mention that he supported CCW in general, as long as you're legal to own a gun in the first place.

Actually, the last part of the conversation, as we were heading back inside, went pretty much like this: Me: "So you understand where I'm coming from, right Chef? I don't want to shoot or kill anyone, I just think that if I'm going to have a gun used against me by a criminal, I should have the right to use one back." Chef: "Dude, (yes, he says dude. seriously) I completely understand. Do you know how many people I've fired in my life? (he's an executive Chef in the area) There are tons of people who would LOVE to come after me." Me: "Haha. I can dig it. Do you own a gun, or have you ever done any shooting?" Chef: "I don't own any guns, but I've shot some when I was younger. But I wouldn't use a gun anyway, I don't really like 'em that much to tell the truth." Me: (confused) What? I thought you said you supported CCW and all that stuff?" Chef: I do. I'm just better with knives!"

So there ya go. Sorry for such a long entry, but I was glad that I finally got to talk about the issue with someone on campus - especially a faculty member. Having some classmates there to listen in (and discuss, if you can call what my one classmate had to say "discussion", lol) was great, because ultimately, it's them that I hope to have the most influence over.

And...that's about it! Just wanted to fill ya'll in on how things were going with my little experiment.

Good job!

This is exactly the type of outreach that we need to be doing.

Honestly, we've gone as far as we can on the current path. We've got our friends working for us in the general assembly, but for the most part they are the ones that are far removed from the power structure.

Until we can change sentiment in MoCo, PG and Howard Counties, we are farting in the wind.

Again, good work and keep it up.

Norton said:

Good job!
We've got our friends working for us in the general assembly, but for the most part they are the ones that are far removed from the power structure.

Until we can change sentiment in MoCo, PG and Howard Counties, we are farting in the wind.

Again, good work and keep it up.

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I'm not sure we need to change public sentiment in MoCo, PG & Howard if we could just get the right good strong ally chairing a key committee or in the leadership. I think that until we can pull that off we will continue to be blocked by Vallario and his ilk. Bloody frustrating.

I agree, though, that Kingpin008 has done some commendable missionary work here. Well done, grasshopper!

No doubt that Vallario and Frosh are a huge stumbling block, but i really think that's another fight altogether.

We've had members of the House committee tell us repeatedly that if we want this thing to successfully advance, they need to be hearing from the people in their districts. The one in particular is a PG County delegate and that will constituency will be a tough nut to crack.

I think we've gone about as far as we can with what we've been doing, which is basically motivating the more "hard core" self-defense advocates. we need to reach outward to the next circle and bring in people who may be fence sitters or maybe have become so accustomed to the "there will never be shall issue legislation in MD so why bother" mentality that we need to give them something to hope for.

Kingpin's efforts are the sort that will expand our outreach which will only strengthen the things that we are already doing.

As for the two chairmen, well....Vallario isn't a young man there's always the hope of bird flu for Frosh.

Thanks guys. I have to admit, I wasn't able to explain as well as I'd like to, but I think the general idea got across. It's tough, to encompass the entire argument in a concise package when the people you're talking to (generally) aren't gunnies. There's alot of little nuances that I want to tell them to inform other parts of the discussion, but it's hard to keep from going off on a tangent, lol.

But I agree with Norton, in that the fight now has to be brought to non-shooters, and the general populace. If we can at least inform people about what a ridiculous system we have in place here, I think that most reasonable people would see the need for some type of change. I think that a lot of the problem is that people have no concrete idea how many hoops good people must jump through to defend themselves. But when you explain the "good and substantial reason" clause, and explain exactly what that means and how arbirtarily the final "yes or no" decision is, most people are actually pretty shocked at how foolish and dangerous it is. The more we expose the truth of the law, and how crippling it is to the pursuit of lawful self-defense in this state, the better off we are.

And FWIW, once it gets a little warmer, my fiancee and I will be taking two of our friends who have never shot before to Hap Baker to introduce them to shooting. Proper instruction in the Four Rules will be given beforehand, of course!

I think we've gone about as far as we can with what we've been doing, which is basically motivating the more "hard core" self-defense advocates. we need to reach outward to the next circle and bring in people who may be fence sitters or maybe have become so accustomed to the "there will never be shall issue legislation in MD so why bother" mentality that we need to give them something to hope for.

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Agreed, we can only accomplish so much by preaching to the choir, well done kingpin, glad to see you posting here.

Thanks man. I'm trying to be more active lately. You coming to the Happy Hour on the 12th?

Well done

Gracias! Shot through that ammo yet?

Thanks man. I'm trying to be more active lately. You coming to the Happy Hour on the 12th?

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can't make it saturday hopefully the next one. We never did get to meet up at Hap baker, being buisy all the time sucks, hopefully one day

Kingpin008 said:

Gracias! Shot through that ammo yet?

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no not all of it, only about 75 or so rounds of it, but plenty to go. Thanks again.

Alucard - Yea, we'll hang out at some point. It's all good.

Sbarber7973 - Good deal. I have to get up to On Target sometime soon to get a replacement membership card - I'll let ya know when I'm heading up, maybe we can shoot a little bit.

ok let me know, Ill head up there with ya

Will do.

I feel undercover, working in the howard county public school system with my mdshooter sticker on my car in the faculty lot. i get asked occasionally and try to tactfully present our side within our schools as best i can. i've already got just about an entire first grade team interested in giving shooting a try and many related arts teammembers up on ccw information and it's effect on crime. i was actually asked by a county higher-up what my best response would be in my honest opinion if a shooter came into the school and started shooting and responded "my best theoretical response and the only real response that's been proven at the appalacian law school and recently in israel to reduce casualties in that situation would be if i could carry concealed and shoot back to defend my students lives" after some discussion on statistics and weird looks i had to expand that "the response i have available currently is to enter a lock-down mode, lock the doors, turn off the lights, sit the students down quietly in a corner away from doors and windows and wait for further directions...or the shooter to break in and kill us all". there's not much influence i can make tactfully(especially until tenure takes effect) but any time i can put my friendly face and some good healthy mind-opening discourse towards the way colleagues view guns i try to. keep up the good work kingpin, the only way people will expand their paradigms and view guns as we do is if we all do our part.

Smokey - that'd be great, if you could take some of your colleagues shooting. It would be a great way to explain to them some of the advantages of firearms, and why being able to carry them can be a huge deterrent to nutcases who go looking for glory and end up shooting up a school. If they care about the kids they teach (which I would assume all of ya'll do, or you wouldn't be teachers) they ought to be able to understand that in a bad situation, they may be the children's first and most capable line of defense. And if that were to happen, having a gun (even if you don't end up having to use it) is a damn sight better than herding the kids into a corner or hiding them under a desk and hoping that the pyscho who's invaded the school doesn't happen to look in the classroom.

Seriously, I really do think that if we can get the public to understand just how bad an idea it is to actively advertise these "gun free" victim zones, we can start to make people understand how much sense CCW makes. If one of the biggest reasons that "gun free" zones are consistently chosen by psychos is because they KNOW there will be no active resistance, then the opposite must be true - if they know that there are no free targets at any specific location - that any of their potential victims may turn out to not be so easy to victimize - I think that we'd see a HUGE reduction in these types of events.

smokey,

If you get to that point where you are actually going to take them out shooting, let me know and I'll join you. Maybe having another teacher around can add some extra persuasion and assurance to the outing.