Firearms Coalition

Discomfort with the Comfort of Skill at Arms

Friday, March 12th, 2010 at 1:26 pm

Discomfort with the Comfort of Skill at Arms
By Jeff Knox

FirearmsCoalition.org

Manassas, VA - -(AmmoLand.com)- Dr. Ignatius Piazza, founder of Front Sight Firearms Training Institute, is fond of talking about “the comfort of skill at arms.”

It’s not only a part of his sales pitch it’s also an integral part of the overall philosophy taught at the school. It is an important concept because having full confidence in your own ability to handle almost any serious encounter that might arise is a very comfortable feeling. Of course that comfort must never be allowed to slip into complacency or cockiness and that too is emphasized in Front Sight training. The comfort of skill at arms removes anxiety and makes the world a much more inviting, less threatening place.

There is a downside to the comfort of skill at arms though and that is the intensified discomfort of being disarmed.

I have carried a gun on an irregular basis over the past 25 years, I think I was like most concealed carry permit holders in that I didn’t carry all of the time, just those times when I was stretching my comfort zone a little: Road trips, visits to unfamiliar areas, walks in the wilderness or the wilds of an urban setting… It wasn’t so much that I was carrying only when I expected I might need it, but more that I didn’t carry in situations where I was comfortably confident that I would not need it.

It has only been in the past few years that I began carrying virtually all of the time. Again, this was not due to a fear that something might happen, but rather as a way to increase my comfort and familiarity with the gun on my hip. I realized that if I was carrying only when I was “uncomfortable” that meant that in that uncomfortable situation I had the added discomfort of a gun behind my belt that was not as comfortable as it should be.

Widely accepted training doctrine holds that in a serious, life-threatening encounter you can expect to function at about 50% of the skill level you demonstrated in your most recent practice session (assuming frequent practice sessions.) Think about how that 50% skill degradation is impacted by different clothing, different physical positions, and not having the luxury of adjusting your holster position right before the draw. You need to know exactly where your gun is riding so you can get a good grip leading into a smooth draw from any position. The gun on your belt should be as normal to you as the billfold or keys in your pocket and the only way to achieve that level of comfort is to make carry your regular routine – a habit.

Once I began carrying all of the time, I discovered a number of things I had not realized before. I became much more familiar with ways that my gun tends to shift and ride differently with different belts and different pants. I developed subtle ways of checking and adjusting the position of the gun with my elbow and realized that I needed more practice with a wider variety of concealment garments. I also became much more aware of the many roadblocks thrown up by hoplophobic politicians to discourage citizen carry.

I found that, even in gun-friendly Virginia, it is impossible to obey the law all of the time and still retain a reasonable level of basic safety, not to mention security.

It’s outrageous that politicians who have never handled guns dictate where I may and where I must not carry a gun and that they do so with no consideration of what happens to the gun while I am not carrying it, much less the inherent dangers of handling a loaded gun in public and in some cases having to unload it in order to remain in compliance with their ignorant rules.

After all of the work and concentration developing the comfort of skill at arms, it is decidedly uncomfortable to be disarmed.

I don’t carry a gun because I’m looking for trouble. Because I carry a gun I keep a more wary eye out for trouble so I can better avoid it.
I don’t carry a gun because I am fearful. What do I have to be afraid of, I’ve got a gun.
I don’t carry a gun as my first response to trouble. I carry it as a last resort.

The real discomfort is knowing that in a worst-case situation when lives are in danger, if I have been disarmed, it is more likely that whatever remains as my last resort might not be good enough to effectively protect my family. That is a very discomforting feeling.

To receive The Firearms Coalition’s bi-monthly newsletter, The Knox Hard Corps Report, write to PO Box 3313, Manassas, VA 20108.

Copyright © 2010 Neal Knox Associates – The most trusted name in the rights movement.

About:
The Firearms Coalition is a loose-knit coalition of individual Second Amendment activists, clubs and civil rights organizations. Founded by Neal Knox in 1984, the organization provides support to grassroots activists in the form of education, analysis of current issues, and with a historical perspective of the gun rights movement. The Firearms Coalition is a project of Neal Knox Associates, Manassas, VA. Visit: www.FirearmsCoalition.org

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Deciphering the Court Deciphering Your Rights

Friday, March 5th, 2010 at 12:13 pm

Deciphering the Court Deciphering Your Rights
It had to be frustrating, especially since Gura was planning all along to include Due Process in his arguments.
By Jeff Knox

FirearmsCoalition.org

Washington, DC - -(AmmoLand.com)- Oral arguments in the Supreme Court case of McDonald v. Chicago were an interesting show on March 2.

Most of the Justices made their positions on applying the Second Amendment to the states – and what mechanism to use to do it – fairly clear from the outset. Most observers agree that the Court will declare that states must recognize a fundamental right to keep and bear arms.

A secondary issue in this case is not just whether the Second Amendment should apply to the states, but also how it should get there. The 14th Amendment was written and ratified specifically for the purpose of, among other things, clarifying who is a citizen of the US and to make the rights of US citizenship applicable and enforceable in the states.

That intent was thwarted however by a Supreme Court dominated by Justices with a strong state autonomy philosophy. In a ruling known as the Slaughterhouse cases, the Court interpreted, “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States,” to be limited in scope to only such rights or privileges as were bestowed by the Constitution, not those which pre-existed and were merely reiterated in that document.

In the 140 years since that egregious decision no Court has been willing to reverse their esteemed predecessors and open the Pandora’s Box of “unenumerated rights”. mentioned in the Constitution. Instead they created a novel construct around another clause of the 14th which says, “nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” They have used this clause to somehow selectively “incorporate” virtually all of the Bill of Rights. Now they are poised to do the same with the Second Amendment.

This controversy leads to much speculation about how the Court will split on this question. Roberts and Scalia very clearly want to incorporate under Due Process.

Kennedy, Alito, and Thomas are likely to join them, but some of them could come out with a partial dissent favoring application of the right by means of the Privileges or Immunities clause rather than the Due Process clause of the 14th Amendment. Breyer, Ginsburg, and Sotomayor seemed resigned to the fact that incorporation is inevitable, but would clearly prefer to selectively apply some limited version of the Second Amendment with lots of room for restrictions. Stevens might be the lone holdout dissenting on the grounds that applying the Second Amendment in cities like Chicago will cost lives – as if guns are only used for crime.

After losing in the 7th Circuit and being granted a review by the SCOTUS, Alan Gura, attorney for Otis McDonald and the Second Amendment Foundation, decided to use the opportunity to try and restore the Privileges or Immunities clause to its proper place in constitutional law. Some didn’t like that idea and so the NRA elbowed their way into the case to have their attorney, former Solicitor General Paul Clement, argue for the more traditional Due Process incorporation.

During the oral arguments Gura and James Feldman, Special Counsel for Chicago were both rigorously questioned, almost badgered, by the Justices to the point that neither ever got more than a few words out before being interrupted again. The contrast between this and how the Justices handled Clement, was simply startling. Clement was able to breeze through his talking points with only a few, very cordial interruptions for polite, agreeable questions.

It was very clear that the Justices – at least the vocal ones – were downright hostile to the idea of overturning Slaughterhouse and most were equally hostile to the idea of not applying the Second to the states. It was also clear that these justices were predisposed to buy what Clement was selling. That had to be tough on Gura. This was his case from the beginning and he was very unhappy when NRA forced their way in and took one third of his argument time. Then to have their lawyer come out the heroes of the day while Gura’s arguments remained largely unuttered… It had to be frustrating, especially since Gura was planning all along to include Due Process in his arguments.

Since Clement came in, Gura had little choice but to concentrate virtually all of his time on the Privileges or Immunities argument.

In the end, it doesn’t matter how the right to arms is applied to the states so long as it is applied. Of course, winning this case is only the beginning. There will be multiple lawsuits over many years costing millions of dollars, and still the citizens of Chicago will probably have a difficult – if not impossible – time acquiring and maintaining legal handguns for self-defense in their homes – much less out in the wilds of the city streets.

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