In the interest of full disclosure, not because the .gov tells me to but because its only fair to those reading, I won the chance to attend this class for free. I have attempted to make sure that did not affect my opinion of the class.

Shawn Mahood's Utah CFP Class

I highly recommend this class for anyone interested in being able to exercise their rights in as many states as possible. I plan on doing some camping next summer and this will come in handy for those western states that don’t recognize my Washington CPL. Shawn’s company is also running a NRA Basic Pistol and WA Concealed Carry Basics classes in February. Check his website for details.

Once you have completed the class and received the stamp on your application you have 1 year to submit it to Utah along with a passport photo, a fingerprint card, copy of your driver’s license and $65.25. They are supposed to process them within 60 days, but because of the popularity they are running at about 65 days or longer. Once you have your permit you can then legally carry in states that recognize non-resident Utah permits. You can use sites like Carry Concealed as a guide to which states recognize your new permit — but you really need to verify directly with the state, as well as familiarize yourself with that state’s laws. Internet sites are not always up to date. For example Nevada no longer recognizes the Utah permit, but Nebraska now does.

I tried to find something about the class to complain about. The only thing I can come up with is that it would have been nice to have some extra time for more ad-hoc discussions. I’d like to thank Shawn for the chance to take his class. I encourage you to tell your friends and family about this excellent resource that we have available to us.

…and I speak as someone whose car was carjacked and whose house was broken into, with us in it, listening to his every stumble.

When my husband chased the robber down the street, the dutiful police officer advised us to install even more expensive security.

I can only hope that at some point our friends in England will realize the error of their ways and allow their subjects to arm and defend themselves as all people should be able to do.

H/T to John Lott

Back in March we packed the land use hearing, and on Monday there was a meeting (that I missed) of the County Commissioners to vote on selling the land to KRRC outright. All of our pressure worked! Because today we have this:

The Commissioners signed an agreement to sell the 72 acres that the club sits on to the club! No more lease hassles!

The quick summary of the situation is that the land KRRC is on is leased from the DNR, who wants to swap the land with Kitsap County for some other nearby land. The Lease would then be transferred to the County, which has a spotty track record with upholding leases.

There were lots of good questions for the State and County officials there. Questions like “why wasn’t KRRC told about this proposal until just this month?” and “why has shooting been left out of the county’s proposed land use plans”. The last one is especially telling, given that the club has been there since 1928 and by some accounts the area has been used for recreational shooting since the late 1870’s — before Washington even became a state.

The KRRC executive committee is standing their ground on their insistence that there be a legally binding contract ensuring the continued existence of the club before they will support the proposed land swap.

In other words we don’t trust our government, at the State or County level, to do the right thing, unless we have it as a legally binding document.

Scoutten’s reply was essentially that he doesn’t want to put those kinds of events on TV because it could alarm the anti-gunners!

Here’s my reply to him:

Scoutten: But our greater purpose is to do no harm to our gun rights, to put nothing on TV that could alarm the anti-gunners.

That, Jim, is the core of what is wrong with this country right now. Don’t alarm the other guys. Don’t do anything that might make them mad at us. Don’t publicly support anything that might make them dislike us. That kind of appeasement only leads to our side losing. We don’t have anything to hide! We are not second-class citizens! We do not have anything to apologize for, so why kowtow to them?

If you don’t already understand that the anti-gunners hate us and our gun sports then you will never get it. They have no reason behind their attitudes, it is all emotion. There is nothing we can do to convince the majority of them that being pro-gun is the right philosophy.

Who is your audience anyway? Is it the anti-gunners? I highly doubt that. Who buys all the products you advertise and review? Not the antis, that’s for sure!

Thanks for your show, but you are way off track in only covering events that the antis would approve of. I must say that I am very disappointed in you.

Maybe you should add a disclaimer at the start of the show ‘This show should be in no way construed as supporting guns, gun rights or gun sports that may alarm or challenge your sensibilities’.

Joe Huffman, SayUncle, Snowflakes in Hell, Random Nuclear Strikes also have something to say about this.

Salem, Oregon—Today, the Oregon War Veterans Association (OWVA) publicly announced its decision to file a lawsuit against Western Oregon University (WOU) for its violation of the Second Amendment right to carry a gun and its decision to expel veteran Marine, Jeff Maxwell. The university suspended Maxwell for a year upon discovering he carried a concealed handgun onto campus.

Read the rest of the story here on the OWVA blog

One should not be required to obtain a license or pass a government-administered test to exercise any constitutionally-protected civil right. If the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s taught us anything, it is that all civil rights are sacred, one is no less important than another, and all of them are worth defending because a threat to one puts all rights in peril.

Dave Workman is senior editor of Gun Week as well as an excellent holster maker.

The full news release is available from the doi.gov website. I think (IANAL) this becomes a law as soon as it is published in the Federal Register — which seems like a silly way to do things, but they are the Federal Government after all. They don’t have to make sense.

“The Department believes that in managing parks and refuges we should, as appropriate, make every effort to give the greatest respect to the democratic judgments of State legislatures with respect to concealed firearms,” said Laverty. “Federal agencies have a responsibility to recognize the expertise of the States in this area, and federal regulations should be developed and implemented in a manner that respects state prerogatives and authority.”

I can only hope that this isn’t the last victory before the Obama administration starts stripping away our rights again.

The NRA has an announcement on this, as does the CCRKBA.

I went to the range with a couple of friends yesterday. It was pouring down rain, but thanks to the cover at the Kitsap Rifle and Revolver Club we were dry. Lots of fun was had with the Ruger Mark III. The only problem there is that the 10 round mags are just too small. The AR-15 worked like it was supposed to, with the exception of a couple of rounds of Radway green that didn’t fire the first time.

Background by an original moderator

Mr. Lucibella says:

At no time was I aware that Derek was acting as anything but Oleg’s personal agent. Had I been aware that Derek was acting for his own benefit I would never have transferred the domain name to him. It is my position that Mr. Zeanah had fraudulently misrepresented himself to me. If he persists in publicly hiding behind my statements, taken out of context, I will have little choice but to join this legal fray, recover the domain name thru the courts and pursue Mr. Zeanah for my legal fees.

Here is Oleg’s request for support and an Update from Oleg where it appears that Derek Zeanah has also hijacked Oleg’s Armed Polite Society forum as well. At this time it is in maintenance mode and still pointing to the same server that hosts The High Road forum.

This Derek Zeanah guy gives IT people a black eye. His job is to host the site, not try and steal it from its rightful owner. He has a hosting company, wellbuiltnetworks.com, and if you are a customer of his or thinking about becoming a customer I’d look elsewhere. Unethical behavior like this is bound to carry over into the rest of his business dealings.